AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

PUTINISM AT HOME AND ABROAD:
A CONVERSATION WITH VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA

INTRODUCTION AND MODERATOR:
LEON ARON, AEI

DISCUSSION:
VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA,
OPEN RUSSIA

9:30 AM – 11:00 AM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015

EVENT PAGE: http://www.aei.org/events/putinism-at-home-and-abroad-a- conversation-with-vladimir-kara-murza/

TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED BY
DC TRANSCRIPTION – WWW.DCTMR.COM

LEON ARON: Welcome. Vladimir’s vita was part of the invitation and you also

saw it and I saw some of you picked it up at the registration. So I will not go through it.

He’s very well known. Let me mention only that he’s deputy leader of the Party of Russian Freedom, better known by the Russian acronym of PARNAS. He’s the resident coordinator of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia. He’s a resident because Vladimir actually moved. He lives in Russia now, or rather he’s recuperating and then he will move there, and we’ll get to that in a moment.

He’s also a Cambridge trained historian and author of several monographs, one of

which I hope to be able to discuss here. And he is, of course, a prolific and most enjoyable and insightful commentator on Russian domestic and foreign policies with publications in all leading Western and Russian media.

So thank you very much, Volodya, for coming over. We’re honored to have you.

VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: Thank you very much, Leon. And thank you to the
American Enterprise Institute for organizing and hosting our meeting today.

MR. ARON: Volodya, we were all very saddened and disturbed by the news about your mysterious near fatal illness in the last week of May. Then, you were in a coma for quite a while. So what happened exactly?

MR. KARA-MURZA: Well, before I answer your question, I just want to say that today is October the 9th. And today is the birthday of Boris Nemtsov. He would have been 56 and it’s the first birthday without him. And there is – there is a Russian saying, as you know – (speaks Russian) – there are no irreplaceable people. But that saying is not true because Boris was irreplaceable as a political leader, as a human being, and as a friend. And he inspired so many people with his courage, his vision, and his commitment to always do the right thing, regardless of the price. And in the end, he paid the ultimate price in his struggle for a free and democratic Russia. And we shall never forget. And we now have to carry on the work without him and we will carry on, but it will be so much more difficult.

Now, to your question, as you said, it was the last week of May, May 26, I’ve just

come back from one of my many trips around Russian regions. I was in a meeting in Moscow and I was suddenly taken ill with an acute intoxication of unidentified origins. I went into a coma. All my major organs started failing, just shutting down one after another, the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, all of them. And in fact, doctors told my wife

that I had a 5 percent chance of making out alive. So I’m very grateful to be here today and I’m very grateful for the concern and the support and the prayers of so many people

in Russia, in this country, and elsewhere.
And I just want to take this opportunity to thank everybody. It really means a great deal. And we still do not know the cause. The poison, toxin that caused the

poisoning was not identified. The tests were inconclusive. So I guess we’ll never know the exact poison. But of course, to state the obvious, I’m certain that this was not an

accident. This was not natural. And this was somehow connected with my public activities inside Russia.

MR. ARON: And I should add, of course, that in addition to being the deputy

leader of PARNAS, you’re also the resident coordinator of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s

Open Russia.
MR. KARA-MURZA: Right, the Open Russia movement, exactly.

MR. ARON: Well, Volodya, as I’ve mentioned, among many hats that you wear,

perhaps the largest is – well, one of the largest is that of a Russia expert. So let me start with one issue that this town is mostly concerned about these days, Syria. Why do you think Putin decided to go there and what is his objective or objectives?

MR. KARA-MURZA: Well, I think as was all foreign policy adventures of the current regime, the origins are domestic. And everything this Kremlin has been doing in the last several years, especially since 2011-2012, when we saw the biggest prodemocracy protests on the streets of Moscow, during the whole time of Putin –

(inaudible) – especially since then, everything they’ve been doing was dedicated to one

chief goal, the preservation of their power. Thank you so much.

And that’s why, I think, for example, that Putin’s aggression against Ukraine was

not primarily about geopolitics or spheres of influence. What he disliked the most was the precedent of a corrupt authoritarian ruler fleeing as popular protests were breaking out in

the capital city. He didn’t enjoy those pictures of Mr. Yanukovych boarding the

helicopter. And what he was afraid the most, and I think rightly, is that a successful democratic Ukraine would be a contagious bad, in his view, example for Russian society.

And I think he was right in that. And that’s why he had to do everything he could to try to

prevent the success.
And so with this latest adventure in Syria, I think the regime needed, frankly, new ammunition for his propaganda machine, which is the main essential pillar, support pillar

for the Putin regime. And now Ukraine’s become a quagmire, the Novorossiya project

has clearly failed. The economy is in a free fall. They need something, you know, to oil the propaganda machine. And they chose this. And now, if you look at the Russian state

TV news, Ukraine’s almost completely gone. It’s all about Syria, Syria, Syria, you know, how we’re a super power across the other side of the world doing what we want without

asking anybody, and so on and so forth.
Of course, an added bonus to this for Mr. Putin is to help a fellow dictator stay in power. As we know the informal international club of dictators is a loyal one. And Mr.

Putin does not like to see fellow despots lose their position. He’s seen too many in recent

years, you know, from Gaddafi to Yanukovych. And so we are seeing now that the main targets for Russian airstrikes are not in fact ISIS areas, but the anti-Assad opposition.

We’ve all seen the maps, you know, Homs and so forth, which is not an ISIS area.

But I think there is a potentially very big problem for the Kremlin here, the problem being that Syria could possibly become for Putin what Afghanistan became for the late Soviet regime. You know, and – a draining and unpopular foreign military

adventure that helped hasten the system’s demise in the end. And there’re already

warnings being sounded to this effect. And in fact, there was a new poll by the Levada Center yesterday, which showed that despite all the barrage of the bravado and the propaganda that we see today almost half of Russians, almost half respondents are afraid already today that Syria could become what Afghanistan became for the late Soviet

Union. So I think, you know, for all the hype that’s being put up today, I think that’s a

potentially big problem for the regime.
MR. ARON: Volodya, presidential primaries are starting in this country. You and

I talked about that. And unlike Russians, we don’t know who the next president will be.

(Laughter.) So with that uncertainty comes, you know, some intellectual work. What would be your advice to the presidential hopefuls of both parties? Let me narrow this a bit. What would you say be three, four, five things they must keep in mind as they shape and project the Russia portion of their foreign policy message?

MR. KARA-MURZA: I think they’re all informed and intelligent people, so I wouldn’t presume to tell them something they don’t know. But I would –

MR. ARON: Don’t presume. (Laughter.)

MR. KARA-MURZA: But I will would say this. I think many political leaders in the West, including in this country, too many, fall into one of the two extremes when it comes to the approach to the current Kremlin regime. Either they want to make friends with it, or the other opposite is they blame the entire Russian nation for the actions of this

unelected authoritarian system. And I think it’s the most important thing for

policymakers, presidential candidates, is to recognize the situation as it is. And the fact is that Russia today is ruled by an unaccountable, unelected, dictatorial regime. And if

history teaches us anything it’s that making friends with such regimes and closing eyes

on their abuses is not a sound long-term strategy.

And unfortunately we’ve seen administrations of both parties in this town tried to do this. You know, remember President Bush famously looking into Putin’s eyes and

seeing his soul. We remember the reset policy of the current president, Barack Obama. So I think if values, if principles on which this nation was founded still mean something for political leaders, it’s those values that should inform the attitude towards a regime that routinely abuses the rights of its own citizens and now also the borders and sovereignty of other nations. And short-term deals with such regimes at the expense of fundamental values I don’t think are the answer.
I think the answer ultimately lies in democracy and rule of law in Russia itself.
And the fact is that Russia deserves better than what we have today. And the fact is that Russia is not destined to remain under this system forever. And I think it’s very important for policymakers to have this understanding and to recognize this above all when they shape the policy.

MR. ARON: Thank you very much. Now, let me broaden this issue a little bit. No matter who the next president will be, one thing I think we can be sure of, and you alluded to it, like all U.S. presidents, from both parties, pretty much since the establishment of the diplomatic relations between the United States and Soviet Union in 1933, she or he would wish two things for Russia: to be prosperous and to be free. What can the United States do to further the emergence of such a Russia?

MR. KARA-MURZA: Well, I think first of all, I’d like to say that it’s our job to bring democratic changes to our country, no one else’s. And I don’t think that can be done from outside. I don’t think it should be done from the outside. It’s for us to do. But

if the U.S. wants to show solidarity with those people in Russia who want a future based on democracy and rule of law, I think the main thing you could do is to standby and abide by its own fundamental principles. To speak openly and frankly about the abuses of the Kremlin regime, not to close their eyes on it, not to pretend that the corrupt dictator in the Kremlin is a partner.

At the same time, differentiate and emphasize this differentiation between the
Kremlin regime and Russia and maintain lines of communication with the civil society in Russia, with the democratic movement in Russia. And very importantly, keep up the

prospect of a future democratic Russia being an equal partner on the world stage. That’s a

very important prospect to have and to put out.
But I think most importantly is practice the principles you preach, frankly, and there is – I’ll give one example. There is a law on the books in the United States, the Magnitsky Act, which was passed nearly three years ago, passed with unseen or rarely seen bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, signed by President Obama, in December 2012. I think one of the most principled and honorable pieces of legislation ever passed in any foreign parliament.

It’s, as you know of course, it’s designed to end the impunity for those who

continue to abuse the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens and steal the money of Russian taxpayers by denying them the privilege of traveling to and owing assets in this country, a privilege, I should add, they so greatly enjoy. For all the many similarities we can discuss with the Soviet regime, there is one major difference with this one.

You know, Brezhnev, Suslov, and Andropov did not buy yachts, hold bank accounts, or send their kids to study in the democratic West. This bunch do. And so I think ending this double standard is a very important way for the U.S. to show solidarity with those in Russia who struggle for a democratic future.
Frankly, almost three years after this law has been passed and signed,

implementation remains pretty timid. And so far, we’ve seen only low-level abuses targeted. So I think it’s important for the U.S. to step up and be more bold and more

forthcoming and target some more prominent and influential people.
And one idea that former Prime Minister Kasyanov and I suggested earlier this year, when we came to this town and met with congressional leaders, was to include the officials from the state propaganda machine for their public incitement against the late Boris Nemtsov before his – in the month leading up to his murder, you know, the incitement that created this atmosphere that made it possible to murder the leader of the opposition 200 yards away from the Kremlin.

And I should add that this law and these personal targeted sanctions on abusers and corrupt officials are very popular with the Russian people. Despite all of its propaganda possibilities, the regime has failed to present this, the Magnitsky process as, quote, “sanctions against Russia.” People understand that, you know, targeting those who

abuse their rights and steal their money is not sanctions against Russia. That’s a pro-

Russian measure.
And so even despite the situation today, these measures are very popular with the

citizens of Russia and I think it’d be really important if the U.S. and hopefully also the

European Union afterwards would follow up and be more bold in its implementation.

MR. ARON: Volodya, let’s talk a little bit about a subject you know so well,

intimately I would say, the domestic politics and the policies of the regime. Local elections were held last month. Your party, PARNAS, was the only one, the only

opposition party – and I’m not counting the ones in the rubber stamp – it was the only

party that was allowed to participate, but then only, ultimately, in one region of Russia,

Kostroma, one of Russia’s 85 regions.

So on the one hand, I guess congratulations are in order. On the other hand, given that, you know, it was only one region and that your candidate got less than 2 percent of the vote, that seems like another sign of the consolidation of the Putin dictatorship. Now, at the same time, though, your recent interview with Moscovsky Komsomolets was very interesting because, among other things, you said that these restrictions are the regime of

– I’m sorry, the evidence of regime’s weakness and fear. Could you explain to us what

happened exactly and why do you think the regime is in that position?

MR. KARA-MURZA: Sure, thanks for the question. And I think it’s important to

always remember, as you rightly pointed out, that in the vast majority of cases Russian citizens do not get a real choice with the ballot box, do not get a real alternative. In the rare cases when they do, the opposition often scores very significant results, such as when Alexei Navalny got nearly 30 percent of the vote in Moscow, two years ago. Or when Boris Nemtsov was elected as a head of the PARNAS ticket in Yaroslavl also two years ago.
But in most cases, Russian voters are stuck with a pre-selected pool of pro-
Kremlin parties, the rubber stamp parties, as you call them. And then these recent local and municipal elections that were held in September, our party, PARNAS, was prevented from running in the Novosibirsk region, in the Kaluga region, the Magadan region for the city Nizhny Novgorod. So this is the usual pattern of behavior for this regime. They bar genuine opposition from the ballot. They harass independent election monitors. They ban or disperse opposition rallies, and generally try to stifle and prevent and block any

manifestation of independent civic activity, anything that doesn’t, you know, conform to

their goals.

For example, as you mentioned, I’m the coordinator of the Open Russia

movement and one of my main tasks is to organize public events around Russia, much as

this one. You know, discussions, seminars, lectures. We’re trying to recreate the space for public discussion, for free and unfettered public discussion that’s been so limited by this

regime. And almost every time that we hold such events, you know, we get police seizing the building, we get, you know, being announced that the building is bombed. The electricity goes out, all the rest of it. Every time they try to do something to prevent our events from happening. Every time they try to do something to stop us from going ahead.

And in this election, Kostroma, that you mentioned, Open Russia has a big – pretty big vote monitoring operation. We sent a vote-monitoring mission to Kostroma.

This was a pilot project for us. We’re going to hopefully expand on this for the next year’s State Duma election, and do it nationwide. But this was kind of the pilot version.

And on voting day itself, we had an armed police squad block our headquarters. You know, extensively they were looking for a dead body inside our vote-monitoring mission.

Of course, they didn’t find a dead body, but what they did was detaining, questioning our

coordinators, our monitors, and basically sabotage the mission.
Now, in my mind, this is not the behavior of a strong, popular, and self-confident government. This is the behavior of people who are afraid of every challenge, any challenge to their position. And I think, frankly, you know, from – especially given the

historical lessons, I think they have every right to be afraid. But that’s what – that’s not a

behavior of a strong, powerful, and self-confident government, getting off your opponents if you are.

MR. ARON: Speaking of historical lessons, change your hat to that of a
Cambridge-trained historian. Let me ask you something that has been on my mind for quite a while. There is a widely shared opinion, a stereotype basically, that Russians long

for a strong arm – that their backs are aching for a whip. And with Putin’s popularity

ratings such as they are – and I want you to address that issue as well – this cliché is back in force. And yet, when you look at the history, in those rare instances when the Russian people were given a more or less free choice, a more or less imperfect choice, however

imperfect, a more or less informed choice, the story’s quite different.

And I would like to bring up this excellent book of yours that I always consult –

(speaks Russian) – “Reforms of the Revolution,” by Vladimir, it’s about the elections to

the first Russian Duma, the first Russian, more or less, freely elected parliament, in 1906. And as you tracked it, with all kinds of fascinating details, of course, the plurality of deputies, the party with most deputies in the Duma was the openly liberal pro-western

party of constitutional democrats, Kadets. And then, of course, we’ve seen this again and

again. Over eight decades passed before the Russians could vote again more or less

freely. And we saw the results in ’89 in Moscow. We saw the results in 1990, ’91. We saw the referendum of ’93, where people voted to continue the reform against the leftist populist Supreme Soviet. And of course, in December, ’93, again contrary to the

Zhirinovsky stereotype, when you count the deputies elected both on the party list and on the single mandate list, it was the, again, sort of the Kadets Party. Ninety years later, it

was Yegor Gaidar’s Russia’s Choice.

So how would the – what should we make out of all of this, especially given

what’s happening now?

MR. KARA-MURZA: Well, I think first of all, you know, as far as the, you

know, opinion polls and Putin’s so-called high support goes, I think it’s completely

meaningless to talk about opinion polls in a system where every single major television channel is controlled by the state propaganda, where we have now dozens of political prisoners, where we have – not mass, but targeted, very acute political repressions, where

we don’t have free elections. You know, when you sit at your house and you get a phone

call and some person on the other line asks you, do you support Putin, I think most people would just say yes to be on the safe side and put the phone down.

So I think it’s, frankly, meaningless to talk about these so-called 84 percent that, you know, people talk about. But on your deeper question, on the stereotype, yeah,

there’s this very popular myth, this urban legend, you know, that Russians are somehow uniquely among other Eastern European nations and it’s certainly not borne out by the

facts. You mentioned the 1906 election, when indeed the Kadets won a plurality of seats and supporters of absolute monarchy did not win a single seat in the State Duma, not one.

MR. ARON: Right. MR. KARA-MURZA: Also, we could mention the 1917 election to the
Constituent Assembly, which was held after the Bolsheviks already seized power in the coup d'état, but the people rejected them in favor of the SRs, the pro-democracy center-

left party. And of course, ’91, when Boris Yeltsin the democratic opposition candidate beat the official Soviet establishment’s candidate Nikolai Ryzhkov by 57 percent to 17, a

whooping landslide.
So the, you know, the simple fact is that we are no better and no worse than other
Eastern European nations, including Slavic, including Orthodox Christian nations who once lived under totalitarian dictatorships and now have functioning democracies. And there will come a day when Russia too will have a functioning democracy.

And I think what’s important to note is that this myth that Russians are somehow unsuited for democracy, not ready for democracy, and all the rest of it, it’s being implicitly used by that Kremlin’s propaganda machine to imply that any alternative to

Putin would be worse –
MR. ARON: Or after Putin. MR. KARA-MURZA: – what comes after Putin would be worse, precisely. So I

think that it’s crucial that informed and well-meaning people do not fall for this

propaganda ruse.

MR. ARON: Well, Volodya, we’re doing so well and your answers are so