The article referenced in the heading appeared a couple of days ago in a leading American think tank publication which traces its ancestry back to the Richard Nixon pro-détente circles of the nation’s capital. Indeed, the personality at its apex, Dmitry Simes, was Nixon’s Sherpa for dealings with the Soviet Union during his final years.

This article is being promoted by Russian diplomacy as the country’s official word on the significance of World War II for the present generation of Russians and of people everywhere during this year of celebration of the 75^th anniversary of the war’s end.  In this connection, I was invited to offer my comments to the Russian online journal Sputnik, which came out with an article of commentary today:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/202006191079667491-putin-is-showing-restraint-why-russian-president-could-have-written-wwii-article-in-harsher-tone/

My analysis, which is generously cited by Sputnik, was set out in full in the following:

In his article, Vladimir Putin has adopted a statesmanlike rather than argumentative tone. He has avoided naming directly the points in the historical revisionism being practiced in the West with respect to causes of World War II. This revisionism first developed in its present malignant form in the Baltic States and Poland going back twenty-five years when they loudly denounced Soviet responsibility in the start of the war arising from the deal with Hitler at their expense known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. In these countries it served the purposes of nation-building.   The revisionism has in recent years been given further amplification in the United State where fits of Russophobia have suited the cause of   NATO expansion and propped up American hegemony on the Old Continent. In the United States, it is not so much blame for the start of World War II as the air brushing of the Soviet Union out of the fight against Hitler so that the liberation of Europe appears to have been purely the result of the heroic Allied landings in Normandy and the drive across France and the Low Countries towards Berlin.

Vladimir Putin has chosen to focus more attention on the Munich Betrayal, which shows up Western complicity in the Nazis overrunning Europe, starting from the Sudetenland.  This is understandable, because the notion of Appeasement as symbolized by Chamberlain’s return to the UK from his shameful deal with Hitler claiming ‘peace in our time’, is precisely how most of the Western populations view the run-up to WWII.    And then there is the one finger he points at Poland reminding everyone that the Poles were actively conspiring with Berlin to dismember Czechoslovakia. He makes a veiled hint that the aristocracy in certain Western countries were quite happy to deal with Hitler and did not heed the warnings of Moscow and its bid to create a united resistance to German aggression from the mid-1930s when it may have till been possible to stop the Germans in their tracks.

In fact, the hand of Mr Putin is much stronger than he has cared to set out in this article.  He is showing great restraint, and I would argue perhaps too much restraint given the fierce level of Information Wars against Russia that have been going on in the past decade.

It bears mention that Appeasement was a Western policy that proceeded almost from the signing of the Versailles Treaty. This argument was made very persuasively by Henry Kissinger in his master work “Diplomacy” in 1994. It was appeasement in allowing the Germans not to pay the crushing reparations that the Treaty required, by allowing them gradually to recreate their army and reoccupy their lands militarily in violation of the Treaty way before Mr. Chamberlain came on the scene. Munich was merely the culmination of a long process wherein the different interests of France and England in particular during the interwar years as regards their defense against Germany.  And let us dot the ‘I’s which Mr Putin has left blank: it was specifically the pro-fascist sympathies of English royalty and aristocracy that prevented collective action.  There was a strong streak in European political classes hoping to see the Hitlerites send their forces to the East and destroy Bolshevism.

Of course, had President Putin gone into these specifics, there would be bellowing from London, from Washington against the Kremlin.  Instead, he has spoken obliquely.  It is hard to say what effect his mild words will have.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

[If you found value in this article, you should be interested to read my latest collection of essays entitled A Belgian Perspective on International Affairs, published in November 2019 and available in e-book, paperback and hardbound formats from amazon, barnes & noble, bol.com, fnac, Waterstones and other online retailers. Use the “View Inside” tab on the book’s webpages to browse.]

 In my previous archival installments I mentioned that I am now preparing a book of memoirs dedicated to my experiences as an expatriate senior manager in Moscow during the 1990s when the foreign community there numbered some 100,000 families. To my knowledge there has been no narrative published on our Russia ‘from the ground up’ whereas books have been written by those who occupied the halls of power in Washington, in particular Strobe Talbott’s “Russia Hand” looking down on us all from the Olympian heights. The small gems I presented in this space so far were intended as teasers for that forthcoming book.

However, during my work in parallel transcribing into MS Word files my extensive archive of diaries, business and personal correspondence going back into the mid-1970s, I have reached the conclusion that the scope of the book should be expanded to embrace two focal periods in my business career that merit simultaneous examination because of the very similarities and the contrasts in the Russia I visited so intensively in the earlier period and lived in during the later period. Indeed even the words ‘traveled to’ and ‘lived in’ have very qualified meaning when you consider that my visits to the USSR in the 1970s from my New York base were monthly and my residing in Moscow in the 1990s was punctuated by monthly trips back to corporate headquarters in London with time off at my family base in Brussels. Moreover, eternal Russia and….eternal America come up in both periods in ways that demand such comparison.  For business and intergovernmental relations, each period began with hoopla, great expectations, and each ended in recriminations and aggressive U.S. measures to isolate Russia and treat it as a pariah.  But I leave the big picture for the writing of the book.  Here and now I wish to present one more ‘teaser’ drawn from my time in the USSR in the 1970s.

To understand what I was doing in the midst of the august company at the event,I must explain first that I had an inverted business career. I started out and made my way into high business circles as a consultant, reaching the very top of American executive circles as witnessed by the account I present here below at age 33. I eventually moved on, with some assistance from then President Carter and his security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who closed down my business area by imposing crippling trade sanctions on the USSR following their invasion of Afghanistan.  In my reconfigured career, I took employment with the world’s largest conglomerate at the time, with an office based in Brussels and took business responsibility for the safer pastures of Poland and Yugoslavia.  Several jobs later, I found myself the head of representation of major German, Canadian and finally UK corporations in Moscow.  A top boss locally, and an upper middle level manager corporate-wide.  This is precisely the opposite of normal business careers where consultancy marks the end of a long career not the start.

As a young man in his early 30s I was the co-founder and sole professional in a marketing company selling consultancy services at the Board level to major US corporations in food processing and consumer goods having the ambition to achieve big sales in the USSR by way of industrial projects. In this capacity I joined the US-USSR Trade and Economic Council and established close working relations with the major force for foreign investment, turnkey factory construction and technology transfer at the time, the State Committee for Science and Technology, which was headed by Prime Minister Kosygin’s son-in-law, Dzherman Gvishiani.  In a sense, this period was as close as I ever came to being a ‘Kremlin stooge’ as our anti-Russian claque of academics and media generalists would call it today.  In fact, if I was a ‘useful tool’ of the Kremlin by bringing into negotiation for technology transfer companies that otherwise would never have set foot in Russia, all of my interlocutors on the Soviet side were to the same degree ‘dupes of Washington’.  Our careers on both sides were hostage to good and improving US-Soviet political and commercial relations.  There was nothing sentimental or self-deceptive about this either way.

The Moscow event described below took place in the context of the annual meeting of the Trade Council, which was held in alternate years in Russia and in the USA.  Out of the 267 U.S. companies then members of the Council, perhaps half came to Moscow with one or more members, including a large number of CEOs of the most important American businesses. The US government was represented by Secretary of the Treasury Michael Blumenthal and Secretary of Commerce Juanita Krebs. A number of iconic American statesmen and businessmen, including Averell Harriman, Armand Hammer and David Rockefeller were in attendance.

All participants were aware of the likelihood that Communist Party Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev would hold a reception in the Kremlin for a limited number of Council members on Wednesday evening, December 6^th, which, as many understood, was Brezhnev’s birthday. Various companies were enlisted to help mark the event with gifts related to their businesses.  One of my corporate clients obliged by sending in airfreight 1,000 pounds of their dog food as a gift for the Chairman’s kennel.  That went without mention from the dais, though other dog-related presents are noted in my diary entry below.

In any case, the printed invitations to the event were distributed at our hotel just a couple of hours in advance and only two busloads of us received them.  My inclusion may be explained on the technicality that I was a ‘corporate president’ which was a prerequisite, but more generally attested to the appreciation of the powers that be for the companies I was bringing to the negotiating table.

At the hotel another pleasant surprise awaited me: George von Streeruwitz came over in a friendly manner and invited me to a reception in the apartment of the head of the Chase representative office, David Buckman, in honor of their chairman the next day at 8.30. It is entirely illustrative of the political atmosphere in Moscow at this time that when I went through the Customs line at Sheremetyevo airport on my departure several days later, the inspector stopped me upon finding the maps showing how to reach Buckman’s house, assuming by his ‘suspicious’ name that he must be a Jewish dissident. That was quickly clarified and I proceeded on my way

‘

The diary entry for 6 December 1978 set out below has been lightly edited. At the end I provide a key to the identity of speakers and fellow participants in the event who may not be widely known today.

 Evening Reception at the Kremlin, Грановитая Палата 7.15pm – 10.00pm

Anxious anticipation in the whole group – two bus loads, all men with two exceptions.

(curious: whereas Marshall Goldman has an invitation, Harold Berman is not among us – must be fuming)

Wives sent packing to the opera at this executive only event.  Only FMC’s McClellan has made arrangements for his spouse.

On entering through the Верховный Совет main doors, we ascend a glittering marble staircase into a series of rooms, opening onto the enormous ball-room sized St George’s hall, which has exquisite parquet floors, elegant marble walls with gilded regimental histories in-set. We all gather in a reception area part of George’s Hall to the left and down a set of steps.

My dear Chris goes off in a corner – very poor mixer, especially in large crowd where he knows very few people. Doesn’t like all those high-powered egos around. I take him by the arm to meet Minister Lein of the Food Ministry, who is just then exchanging small talk with Kendall through a Ministry of Foreign Trade official acting as interpreter. While Kendall takes a deep breath I interrupt with “Господин Министр!” and introduce Chris and then say how his chairman will be here on Monday. It is a very rushed delivery, because he is anxious to get back to Kendall, but we do invite him to the signing ceremony and say a written invitation will be available next; on this basis we can say to the Food Ministry that Lein has already been personally invited.

Brezhnev enters – broad lion’s head, conspicuously wearing a hearing aid, large yet bloated and frail looking. Next to him his slick interpreter Viktor. He enters with Blumenthal and with Krebs on one arm, takes her up to see the St George Hall. Shakes hands with Rockefeller, Hammer, Harriman. Holds back a moment and Kendall looks alarmed that Brezhnev won’t shake his hand, but Brezhnev moves forward and does. Then Brezhnev moves to the doors which open and beckons us to follow him to dinner.  We pass through a low vaulted entry with heavy gilding into a magnificent high chamber with central columns painted wall surfaces throughout in 18^th century Classical iconographic style, Old Church Slavonic script. Obviously much restoration work since it is in splendid condition. Long banquet tables are set rather simply with standard quality Russian porcelain and glass, stainless steel cutlery; it is a 6 glass dinner, however, with water glass, champagne, vodka, two wines and cognac.  Service is quiet and efficient, moving in quickly as we sit down from each toast to lay on the next course. The total number of us, including Soviets and officials at the head table, perhaps 300. The uncertainty surrounding the event itself and over the guest list, which lasted till 5pm today has raised anticipation and the great satisfaction of each attendee at having been selected for these great heights. Floral decoration is simple and restrained: separate modest bouquets of carnations and pink roses. All liquor is served by waiters – no bottles clutter the table, which is really quite formal though plain.

The round of toasts is begun by Brezhnev, who makes a 10 minute speech that goes over many of the same points we have heard repeatedly in the past few days. He remains statesmanlike and accommodating, high minded. Main single argument:  trade should not be turned on and off like a tap since it requires great mutual trust; we don’t have to love one another to respect each other and to establish normal, even good relations; we shall continue to trade with you even if no steps are taken by the US side to end discrimination against us, but such trade will not have a real basis and cannot expand.

Note that Brezhnev’s diction is seriously slurred, really as if he has had a stroke. However, no other obvious physical impairment; does wear a hearing aid prominently though. Very large head and wide frame on which clothes hang a bit loosely. Nonetheless, seems to be in firm control of himself and of the audience.  Blumenthal makes the first return toast and a 10 minute speech. Looking this speech over in written form, all seems quite unremarkable, moderate in tone; however, his delivery is very aggressive, in particular, as he underlines the phrase ‘we have given each other good advice in the past few days; let us now, each of us, try to follow that advice.’ Once again there is tension, sharpness in his voice, slightly smug sound. This type of presentation is reckoning more on the Americans present, to show Carter’s strength, than it is on Soviet hosts. Whereas Blumenthal sounded two years ago like a businessman in government, he now sounds like an Administration spokesman in business guise. It is slightly unpleasant to hear him presumptuously speak for all Americans present and continue to press the hard line on the Russians. Fails to recognize that this is a business gathering, that essentially we are the sellers and that as such we don’t make demands. Blumenthal offers a gift – a painting of a Newfoundland retriever.

“Krebs delivers a long toast as prologue to her prepared speech: it is to present the hunting dog puppy that she has named ‘Decoy’ together with a collar bearing a silly inscription “I belong to Leonid Brezhnev. If lost please return to the Kremlin.’  Then a long-drawn out and overly cute song and dance about the significance of the name ‘decoy’, to the effect that trade is not our real goal, it is a decoy that will bring us to the real target, which is better relations for world peace. This is belabored still more in her official toast, which is not for the success of the Council though that is important, not for the sake of trade though it is important, not for several other causes, but rather for the benefit and wellbeing of mankind.  A typical liberal; one feels she doesn’t give a damn about this session, and therefore invokes the meaningless cause of mankind. Her tone is irritation, seems to enjoy modulation of her own voice too much. There is something treacherous about Krebs. She sounds insincere. Amazing gaffe: appears to say ‘Hope you enjoy Decoy in the little time left to you’ – obviously meaning free time but that’s not what comes out. Even the interpreter Viktor is puzzled. Verity and Forrestal make short toasts.

The meal service itself is sensible – portions are delicate and well complementary.

In the midst of the evening, it is remarked that December 19^th [December 6^th Old Style] is Brezhnev’s birthday and so all 300 of us stand with glasses in hand and lustily sing “Happy Birthday to You.”  Incongruous!  A gathering of America’s top executives singing on cue to Mr. B.

My neighbors at the table: to one side, a partner in the New York law firm Lackenbach, Lilling and Siegel, patent and trademark lawyer who is here representing the US Chamber of Commerce; short, peppery man in his mid-50s; throws back his vodka with relish, talks loudly and merrily. Says Wella is among his clients and offers to pass my name along to them for areas outside hair spray, e.g., for dyes and tints.  When Brezhnev finally makes his departure, he jumps up to join the line and shake Brezhnev’s hand; returns to his seat overjoyed. Says, “I went to the White House and they didn’t even give me a cookie, whereas look at this reception.”  How easily we are bought off by flattery and attention.

Nearly opposite me is Gregorian, stout and sturdy Armenian who runs a California trading company. To the right, an Englishman working for the engineers and construction company Badger Inc., compares his experiences here with what he has seen in Peking; super-sophisticated, with snobbish tinge. At the end of the table, four or five seats down and across sits a Brigadier General, Brezhnev’s personal body guard from the days of WWII; genial looking old chap with close-shaven, pinkish cheeks and well pressed tunic; like his boss, he is in mid-70s. Next to him a rotund protocol chief.  Opposite me across the table is a Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs rep in his late 30s who has just returned from a tour of duty in Canada.

At 10.00 Brezhnev announces that he must leave, because early tomorrow he has to officiate at a diplomatic event. Bids us to stay on with his associates. He makes his way around our side of the room, shaking hands, then leaves. Within minutes, the reception closes and we leave on foot back to the hotel.

The talk around me is about Brezhnev’s tremendous stage presence and continuing mental acuity despite physical frailty. However, one fellow mentions having heard from medical authorities here that Brezhnev has kidney dialysis and regular blood transfusions because of some blood deficiency associated with the bone marrow.

Others curse Krebs, saying ‘that damned woman, just like Margaret Thatcher in England, just doesn’t know when to stop talking.’ Say she should have stayed at home. As continuation one says the real warfare in the coming 25 years will be between men and women, that we will find ourselves in the trenches.  To which another adds that he doesn’t mind so long as he can share a trench.

Although I had wondered why Brezhnev exposed himself to scrutiny of outsiders and their possibly vicious evaluation of his health, it is clear that most have been favorably impressed. Moreover, for him to live in full seclusion would only give rise to still more damaging speculation over the real state of his health.

Note: at the close of the evening, when Brezhnev filed by to shake hands, he reached Marshall Goldman, seated about 8 seats from me across the table. Goldman had a big smile as he pumped Brezhnev’s hand.

Names

Armand Hammer – chairman of Occidental Petroleum, one of the first Western businessmen to have done deals with the new Soviet state after the Revolution

Averell Harriman –  Franklin Roosevelt’s ambassador to Moscow in WWII, former governor of the State of New York, patrician statesman

Donald Kendall – chairman of Pepsico, recently stepped down as co-chair of the Trade Council, active pro-détente campaigner, had at this point a monopoly position on Soviet vodka and hard liquor exports

Viktor Sukhodrev –  Brezhnev’s very savvy long time interpreter who gave sense to the Secretary General’s speeches in his failing years

Marshall Goldman – expert on the Soviet economy, deputy director of Harvard’s Russian Research Center

Harold Berman – law professor at Harvard, leading American scholar on Soviet law at the time

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

[Memoirs of Russianist, Volume I: From the Ground Up in now in print and available on all national websites of Amazon.com, as well as from other leading online retailers including Barnes & Noble, and http://www.bol.com]

For a number of weeks in a row as coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths spiraled upwards exponentially, the broad population in Belgium and many other European countries came out at specified times in the evening to collectively celebrate the heroism of their medical cadres on the front lines of the pandemic.  For a while I joined in, but then as it became clear that Belgium has the world’s highest number of deaths per capita in the world, and that the explanations for this given by the authorities are utterly unconvincing, my feelings towards our medical profession changed from admiration to pity for their risking their lives only to produce miserable results. Clearly the foot soldiers had been let down by their generals.

As of today, more than 9,500 patients have died in this country of 11.5 million, half in hospital and half in old age and care homes. To put this in proper perspective, in the United States, where the chaotic response of the federal government under President Trump has been exposed to scathing ridicule both domestically and by observers abroad, today was marked with solemnity as the country crossed the threshold of 100,000 Covid -19 deaths.  If the official Belgian mortality rate per million were to be projected onto the United States, which is 28 times more populous, we should be marking 270,000 deaths there today.  Of course, given the unruly de-confinement now going in many U.S. states with the active encouragement of the White House, the numbers there may reach and exceed that level in the coming weeks. But they also may not.

If we use another yardstick which has been promoted by the Financial Times, namely the total excess deaths in a given country in 2020 during the months of the pandemic compared to the normal mortality in the same country in the same period over the past several years, Belgium once again comes out at the top of the list of shame, just behind the UK and Italy.

Most of the Covid-19 deaths in Belgium could have been spared had the right decisions been taken at the outset. And I do not mean earlier imposition of confinement. I will explain myself below. Many other unnecessary deaths have continued even up to the present day because of critical errors that are not being corrected due to pure incompetence, aided and abetted by a dysfunctional political system of power sharing, placing political ideology above pragmatism, and being penny wise and pound foolish in the spending to combat the epidemic. In this regard, it is relevant to note that the daily death toll in Belgium this past week has persistently exceeded that in neighboring France, a country with 5 times the population.

In this brief essay, I will ask some of the tough questions that our lame print media seem unable or unwilling to do during the thrice weekly press conferences held by officials of the federal health ministry.

As recently as a few days ago I hesitated to come out with accusations since I am not a health professional and can base my doubts only on the inconsistencies I have remarked between how the epidemic has been handled in other countries including South Korea and Russia where deaths per million are vastly lower, and what is being done and said from high offices in Belgium. However, the very sharp criticism reported on 26 May in the middle-of-the-road French language newspaper La Libre Belgique directed against the Sciensano institute at the center of the Government’s Covid 19 management has brought starkly into the open some of the weaknesses we in lay society had observed among ourselves in kitchen talk. A breach in the Government’s defenses of its policies has opened up and it is high time to march through.

* * * *

La Libre Belgique assigned to the article mentioned above a title sure to attract the attention it merits: “Coronavirus: the Royal Academies castigate the ‘opaque decisions of Sciensano’ which ‘put our country in danger.’”   The Royal Academy of Medicine and the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts denounce in particular the monopoly of power exercised by the Scientific Institute of Public Health (Sciensano) with respect to management of the health crisis and the way their own advice has not been taken into account. They call for ‘rethinking the strategy for developing the Belgian medical plan.’ They note that the oncoming pandemic provoked panic in the country. Decisions were taken precipitously and without any well thought out plan despite the fact that the viral outbreak had occurred in China already in December. They insist that Belgium must learn from its errors if it is to face up to the likely second wave of viral infections ahead.

The one specific charge the Royal Academies raise is over the flip-flop on public policy with respect to wearing masks. We are told that “They point their finger at the ‘denial of the interest in the population wearing masks to cover up the shortage [of masks] and a lack of foresight, as well as the ‘restrictions on use of diagnostic tests’ for the asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic cases of persons having been in contact with a contaminated person.’”

The net result of the démarche is the following: “The two Academies ask Sciensano to collaborate with them in order to ensure transparency, independence and coherence of the decisions taken. They emphasize that they are composed of ‘internationally recognized experts in numerous disciplines concerned by the problem at hand.’”

Finally we are told that the two Academies point to the mistrust which the population is showing with regard to the management of the health crisis, saying ‘’It is urgent that we reestablish confidence and credibility between the decision-making authorities and civil society.”

* * * *

For little Belgium, the open conflict among elites that we see in the article I have summarized above is quite remarkable. We read that the public has lost trust in the authorities, and we read that internationally recognized experts have been sidelined.

Neither phenomenon is particularly unusual in this country where the flip side of the advanced democratic solutions for holding the kingdom together, given the rivalries of the French-speaking and Dutch-speaking regions, is power sharing. This power sharing broadly equates to institutionalized corruption and incompetence. Ministers receive their portfolios by back-room deals among the parties forming the governing coalition of the day. The coronavirus is the sharp end that has driven these abuses out into the open for public scrutiny, particularly as regards the reviled minister of public health Maggie de Bock.

The remarks about government lies about the usefulness of masks when there were none for the hospitals let alone for the general public hit at the most talked about and grating abuses of the Minister of Health. Moreover, she had a year earlier overseen the destruction of millions of masks purchased for the feared ‘bird flu’ H5N1 ten years ago, thereby leaving the country totally exposed in case of some new viral epidemic. On these grounds alone, the Belgian doctors’ association had called for her to be stripped of her license to practice medicine. That may not seem more than a tap on the wrist, but the notion of hauling her into court for dereliction of duty was too improbable of success to be contemplated.

In the meantime, two months into the pandemic, Belgium has stocked up on masks and latex gloves. In my own commune of Ixelles, one of the boroughs in central Brussels, we received a knock on the door a couple of weeks ago, from a communal official delivering for me and my wife individually packaged double layer cloth masks. A very nice gesture, if somewhat late. In Brussels, it is now mandatory to wear masks on public transit and in stores.  However, the damage to public trust from the prevarication of the minister was substantial.

What we see in the allegations of the two Academies is that the rot goes much further than one incompetent minister. The Institute advising the ministry, Sciensano, is itself a concoction of political interests rather than a serious center of expertise. It serves two very different administrations: Public Health and Agriculture. Wikipedia tells us that “its core business is scientific research in the fields of public health, animal health and food safety.” The same source spells out the ideology which Sciensanto promotes: “that the areas of human health, animal health and the environment are inherently connected with each other.” Given this ‘green agenda,’ is it any wonder that early on in the pandemic we heard that the high levels of infection and mortality in Belgium might be explained by the high levels of industrial pollution in its cities. I would suggest that this irrelevancy blinded officials to the mortal threat posed by a vicious and uniquely contagious viral infection, full stop.

* * * *

There is no question but that lockdown everywhere has been effective in “flattening the curve” and bringing the daily admissions into hospital, and more particularly into Intensive Care Units, down to manageable levels and so avoiding the kind of pandemonium that we all saw to our horror hit Lombardy in early March.

It is also beyond dispute that imposition of draconian lockdown rules in democratic societies could come only after the existential threat to society was made plain by the kind of disaster that hit Italy.  During an interview with the BBC, Italian Prime Minister Conte said as much to justify his foot-dragging in the early days of the epidemic: “Had I imposed lockdown then, all the political classes would have said I was crazy.”

In this respect, we have to give credit to the government of Belgium, and to its Acting Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès for its breaking the political logjam and imposing lockdown in time to avoid the tragedy of Northern Italy. However, it also has to be said that this very rich country did not do what could have changed the game in favor of both saving lives and saving the economy:  it did not reach into its wallet to do what China had done so impressively, namely to urgently construct one or more large scale dedicated hospitals to isolate and treat Covid 19 patients. Removing the flow of patients from the normal hospital infrastructure could have maintained essential services to the public., so important to dialysis patients, oncology patients undergoing chemotherapy, those suffering from cardio-vascular events, and the like. Equally importantly, the concentration of fire power in a very few facilities would have helped to ensure proper training and availability of proper protective equipment for those dealing with the Covid-19 patients.  Instead, Belgium chose the cheap and dirty solution, distributing the daily influx of Covid-19 patients among more than 100 hospitals around the country, most of which were very poorly prepared for the daunting challenges ahead.

The second, very important strategic failure of the Belgian health profession was to advise all those who were reporting Covid-19 symptoms to remain at home as long as possible and merely consult with their ‘family physicians’ (which a great many people do not have) by remote.  The net result of this practice is that Belgian patients came to hospital by ambulance in advanced and often untreatable condition. Yes, they may have been placed on respirators in ICU’s. Indeed, Belgium never fell short of respirators.  We can have no doubt that failure by the health authorities to inform us about the fatality rate of those placed on respirators is simply that the figures are too shocking.

So what do other countries that have been more successful both in patient outcomes and in damage to the economy show us?  First, that those exhibiting or complaining of Covid-19 symptoms should be isolated by the authorities, not by self-quarantine, and that they should be observed closely and given drugs now known to inhibit the reproduction of the virus, among which we find the Gilead substance remdesivir.  This is what is being done with great effect in South Korea.  It is what is being done in Russia, where another virus-inhibitor discovered in China during the Wuhan treatments is now undergoing massive production in Moscow for widespread distribution to treat the virus. Russian authorities claim that the Chinese pills shorten the Covid-19 recovery time and lessen the damage from the infection by a factor of two compared to remdesivir.

As we all know, Western media have focused on the high incidence of Covid-19 infections in Russia, said to be third in the world after the United States and China, and the very low mortality, with death toll less than 4,000 at last count. The first fact results directly from the massive testing going on in Russia, far greater than in any other country now experiencing this plague.

The reasons for the relative benign outcomes in Russia are simple if you make an effort to understand what is being done. First, the Russians have copied directly the Chinese approach to urgent construction of dedicated Covid-19 field and permanent hospitals.  These are state of the art facilities with $60,000 allocated for each bed. Second, the Russians followed the draconian lockdown on the most vulnerable populations, namely those over age 65.  In Russia, seniors are directed, not merely advised to stay at home. No walking the dog, no visits to pharmacies or food stores. As regards the urban population, volunteers bring food and other essentials directly to the apartments of the seniors. This is precisely what the Chinese were doing in Wuhan for the entire population.

Unfortunately, in Belgium as in most of Western Europe and in the USA, China is today viewed only as the source of the Covid-19 pandemic. Yes, they are paid suppliers of our masks and other protective gear.  But we do not see in them solutions to medical management that are proving very effective in Russia and which have parallel, home developed solutions elsewhere in Asia.

Despite all the talk of globalization, the reality here in Belgium with respect to handling the Covid-19 pandemic has been insular and, quite plainly, ignorant.  Let us hope that now, when the first wave of the pandemic is receding, we will stop rallying around the interim government and start exercising our minds by challenging the authorities on the points above and many further points which I am sure our medical experts in the Academies are aware of.

Postscript, Friday, 29 May 2020

©Gilbert Doctorow,  2020

[If you found value in this article, you should be interested to read my latest collection of essays entitled A Belgian Perspective on International Affairs, published in November 2019 and available in e-book, paperback and hardbound formats from amazon, barnes & noble, bol.com, fnac, Waterstones and other online retailers. Use the “View Inside” tab on the book’s webpages to browse.]

The Tolstoy tradition of broad canvas novels dealing with epic events presented from the perspective of a given family has not died out, whatever else happens in literature of our day. The recently published Mosaic of My Life in English and its counterpart in Russian, Мозаика моей жизни belongs to precisely this genre.

The back cover sets out a concise argument for the book’s intrigue:

“The Mosaic of My Life is the author’s second novel. The original Russian language edition was published in 2019. The novel has been nominated for three national literary awards in Russia which will be adjudicated in the autumn of 2020.

The Mosaic of My Life covers a broad swathe of Russian history from the still ‘normal’ living conditions at the turn of the 20th century through World War I and the 1917 Revolution, the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War, to the New Economic Policy and semi-return to a market economy followed by the Great Terror, World War II and the immediate post war years. The story is based on reminiscences of people who lived through this complex historical period and, in their own words, explain their various decisions to stay or emigrate. The narrative takes the reader through several social strata from workers to high bourgeoisie, from inside the director’s box at the Bolshoi Theater to inside solitary confinement cells of political prisoners awaiting interrogation and likely execution.”

The Look Inside function on the amazon.com web page of the English edition allows for browsing, to sample the narrative style.

The novel is a fine demonstration of how and why some of our best histories are written by non-historians.  I know well. The author, Larisa Zalesova, happens to be my wife.

https://www.amazon.com/Mosaic-My-Life-Larisa-Zalesova/dp/1728361001/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=larisa+zalesova&qid=1590330912&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Mosaic-My-Life-Russian/dp/1728361028/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=larisa+zalesova&qid=1590331553&sr=8-2

The books in print format are also in stock from the Amazon global websites, from Barnes and Noble, as well as all other bookstores everywhere upon order.  An e-book version of the Russian edition can be purchased online from the publisher at www.authorhouse.com  (Bookstore: Лариса Залесова). An English e-book will be released shortly.

In the ‘fake news’ exchanges between China and the USA, the question of whose biological warfare lab may have developed and lost control over the coronavirus has figured prominently, although most intelligence agencies seem to agree that the virus had natural causes and was not manufactured by humans anywhere.

At the same time, it seems to me that no one is talking about how nations having cutting edge experience in biological warfare can apply that knowledge to combatting the virus.  In Western media there is one tiny exception that is not properly drawn out and explained: namely the mention that the US Army is contributing to efforts of private pharmaceutical concerns to develop a vaccine.

Meanwhile, the fact that the Russian military is being brought into action on the Covid19 front hardly figures in Western coverage, except as related to the Russian mercy mission to Lombardy, when giant Russian freight aircraft brought in equipment and military medics to assist the vastly overwhelmed Italian medical establishment to cope with the tide of infected, ailing and dying. At that point there were some snide comments to the effect that the Russians were in Italy on an intelligence gathering mission, not truly humanitarian in motivation.

It escaped mention in the media, though surely did not escape notice in our intelligence services that the Russian mission to Italy was a powerful demonstration of what Russia’s military has learned in the domain of biological warfare. Italian journalists expressed their amazement at the specialized motorized equipment that the Russians brought to disinfect the towns, from streets to building by building, often using for interior work not chemicals but oxygen as the sanitizing agent.

If Britain, for example, has any similar insights in combatting biological agents at its Porton Down facility (so well publicized by the Skripal case), then we have heard nothing about these capabilities being harnessed for combatting the ongoing pandemic.

I make the foregoing remarks about Russia’s very special knowledge in the realm of biologicals because it is a possible additional reason why the country so far has an astonishingly low mortality rate compared to most countries in Western Europe and the USA.  Perhaps from the same pool of knowledge, it would appear that the Russians are getting much better results with their use of ventilators to treat the worst affected cases of Covid19.

We have heard a lot about ventilators in the past two months everywhere in Europe and the USA.  They were said to be in grave shortage in New York as the epidemic approached its peak there.  What no one has talked much about is how capable our medical practitioners have been to achieve life-saving results with these devices. If I am not mistaken, there was mention several weeks ago that 88% of those put on ventilators in New York died.  Here in Belgium it appears to be more than 50% die.

Does it have to be that way, or is it the lack of know-how in using these sophisticated devices to treat Covid19 that explains these shocking results?  A very interesting program on Russian television several weeks ago indicated that they have been experimenting with the gas mixtures used in ventilators, in particular with the volume of helium versus oxygen to find the right balance whereby the oxygen is not blocked by the virus but in turn purges the virus from the lungs and allows the oxygen levels in the blood to return to levels sustaining life.  We do not hear a peep about these issues in the Belgian media, for example.

If I may sum up, when the crisis passes and our journalists and civic activists begin their assessment of what has gone wrong in Western Europe to allow the levels of mortality to reach the shocking levels we have seen, let us hope attention will be given to the questions I have raised here, as well as to the issue I discussed  yesterday:  why our national governments did not open their checkbooks and order the urgent construction of dedicated state of the art hospitals to treat coronavirus patients well apart from the normal hospital establishments which were overtaken by the virus and ceased to perform their essential services for the non-infected population in oncology, in cardio-vascular medicine and the like. The Russians and the Chinese have done precisely that.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

[If you found value in this article, you should be interested to read my latest collection of essays entitled A Belgian Perspective on International Affairs, published in November 2019 and available in e-book, paperback and hardbound formats from amazon, barnes & noble, bol.com, fnac, Waterstones and other online retailers. Use the “View Inside” tab on the book’s webpages to browse.]

This week started with a major presentation by President Putin of Russia’s plans for gradually lessening the strictures of lockdown, restarting the economy and restoring normal life as the epidemic in the country passes stabilization, which was just reached, and enters the ebb phase of contagion, hospitalization and death. The setting was a virtual conference with major players in the government responsible for managing the health crisis. However, since Putin’s lengthy speech which came to 17 typed pages was televised live by all Russian state channels, it could just as easily be called an address to the nation.  The main focus was on the economy and assistance to citizens and to business.

That speech has received little attention in the West and I will come back to it in a follow-up tomorrow, because it tells us a great deal about the guiding principles of Russian governance and its ‘social economy.’

In this essay I deal with the second major appearance by Putin this week dedicated to the coronavirus which took place this afternoon, Friday, 15 May. It also was carried live by all state television channels. It also was nominally remarks made within a virtual intragovernmental conference. And it also was a major policy statement that merits our greatest attention, not only for what it says about Russia, but more importantly for what is says about us, in the West, and how we are badly handling the challenges of the pandemic because of our stubborn and proud disparagement of China.

I listened closely to two of the reports to Putin from the ‘regions’, meaning territories outside Moscow on what is being done right now to handle the growing case load of coronavirus sufferers, and Putin’s comments which may be characterized as ‘programmatic’ insofar as they seek to use the ongoing experience in combatting the coronavirus to deliver, at long last, a substantial rebuilding of medical infrastructure across the country with the help of the military.

The regions reporting were St Petersburg, which is still relatively healthy compared to Moscow but has seen a growing number of infections and hospitalizations in the past few weeks, and Voronezh, which more typically represents the Russian provinces and till now has had a very low level of infection, but is preparing for the worst. In each case the governor read a report of what is being done to build dedicated hospitals for treatment of coronavirus cases both by the local administration and with the help of the Ministry of Defense, represented by the senior officer standing at their side who is overseeing construction of modular hospitals by military personnel and staffed by military doctors.

In Petersburg, which is Russia’s second largest city with a population of approximately 5 million, there are specialized hospitals for light cases with 1,000 beds being completed and specialized hospitals with Intensive Care Units in the size of 200 to 600 beds also reaching completion.  A similar approach is being implemented in Voronezh.

The involvement of the Armed Forces in building some of these hospitals is very significant, because they have developed modular solutions that can be applied uniformly across the vast continent that is Russia.

In a way, these projects are similar to what Moscow did as first mover when it opened the state of the art hospital at the city’s periphery in a district called Kommunarka.  The logic is to remove the coronavirus patients from the general hospital system. This leaves the general hospitals free to continue to serve their traditional ‘clientele,’ the community of those with other ailments. It focuses training, equipment, medicines in locations where maximum attention can be given to ensuring sanitary conditions that protect medical staff and encourage application of well-rehearsed solutions to the challenges of each patient.

Now where would the Russians have gotten this idea from?  It is not hard to imagine.  We need only think back at the response of the Chinese authorities following the recognition that the outbreak in Wuhan posed existential questions for the local population, indeed for the nation as a whole if it were not contained and wiped out. We all were stunned at the construction of the first specialized facility to deal with the epidemic in one week!

The Russians are less “Stakhanovite” these days, and the hospital projects mentioned above are being executed on a 6 week schedule.  But they are being implemented at the highest technical level. Putin gave the figure 5 million rubles as the cost of one hospital bed in the new units; that comes to $60,000 and in Russia’s price equivalency to the dollar probably represents a US cost double or triple the nominal ruble cost. So they are not skimping, not planning to put the incoming patients on matrasses on the floor as happened in Bergamo, Italy.

We also know from the day’s press, that the Russians are now entering into mass production of the few medicines which the Chinese told them proved to be effective in treating their coronavirus patients. Which ones Putin did not say.

And now I must ask, how does Russia’s borrowing from the Chinese playbook compare to what we see around us in Western Europe and the United States?  Here China comes up in the coronavirus story only as a punching bag, the people who ‘kept us in the dark’ about the dangers of this plague, not as providers of solutions and advice from their own first and successful experience snuffing it out.

The question I must pose is this:  are the Russians being especially clever, or are we being especially stupid?

The segregation of coronavirus patients from the general flows of the ailing contrasts dramatically with what has been going on in Belgium, for example.  Here about 100 hospitals around the country have been sharing the aggravated cases of coronavirus requiring hospitalization. This population reached about 5,000 at its peak with nearly one third in Intensive Care, of which to two thirds required ventilators. At the peak a couple of weeks ago, the number of patients in the last category came close to the national inventory of ventilators, a bit more than 1,000.  Thankfully, the numbers in the past ten days have come down sharply and there are now half the number of hospital beds taken by virus sufferers.

However, at the peak all of Belgium’s hospitals resembled war zones with ‘extraterrestrial’ suited medics at the entrances. Normal patients did not have to think twice to shun them. Accordingly, even non-elective surgery was being cancelled; chemotherapy patients were staying at home, etc.  This is one element of the mortality brought on by the coronavirus that no one has been recording.  Moreover, one has to ask about the quality of medical attention when 100 hospitals, mostly without any experience in epidemics, in virology, were being used to treat Covid19 patients. This had to be a contributor to the body bag count that went into official statistics.

Finally, in closing ,a word about body counts.

In the past several days there have been news reports in Western media accusing Russia of under-reporting deaths in the country due to the coronavirus epidemic.  In particular, I can point to articles in The New York Times and in the Financial Times.

With respect to the New York Times the piquant title given to one respective article pointing to a “Coronavirus Mystery” – is fully in line with the daily dose of anti-Russian propaganda that this most widely read American newspaper has been carrying on for years now.  A couple of weeks ago the same paper carried an article by one of its veteran science journalists accusing President Putin of using the coronavirus to undermine American science, and medicine in particular. That article was totally baseless, a collection of slanderous fake news.

With respect to the accusation of intentional underreporting of mortality figures in Russia, the New York Times was actually borrowing from the Financial Times, which stated that Russian deaths from the virus may be 70 per cent higher than the official numbers.  In both cases, even if the underreporting were true, and this is very debatable, it obscures the fact that both official and unofficial numbers are miniscule compared to the devastation wrought by the virus elsewhere in Europe (Italy, Spain and the UK) or in the USA, where the numbers continue to spike.  Russia has either a couple of thousand deaths or something closer to three thousand. Compare that to the official deaths ten times greater in the worst hit European countries having overall populations less than half or a third of Russia’s.  So the accusation of 72% underreporting in Russia is a debating point that can easily be shown to be deceptive if not irrelevant.

However, there is a missing element here: context.  The whole issue of underreporting Covid19 deaths has been reported on by the Financial Times for a good number of countries, not just Russia. Indeed, their first concern has been to show that the official numbers posted by the UK government, now in the range of 30,000 are a fraction of the actual deaths in the UK (more than 50,000) if one uses not the death certificates case by case but the overall excess of deaths in a given month in 2020 compared to the norm in the given country over the 3 preceding years.  The New York Times in its typical cherry picking approach to find what is worst to say about Russia ignores this background of FT reporting.

Why is there underreporting?  There are many possible reasons, the chief one is the varying methodology used by the various countries to allocate a given death to the virus.

By curious coincidence this very issue was addressed in today’s press conference on the pandemic by the Belgian Ministry of Public Health. As is widely reported, Belgium has one of the world’s highest rates of mortality from Covid19, very close to the figures in Spain and Italy. This has been reported in the local press and the Ministry today chose to respond.  As they noted, Belgium is one of the few countries to report ALL Covid-19 deaths, meaning both those in hospital and those in care homes (mostly old age homes). In Belgium, as in France, deaths have been equally split between these two sets of institutions. Almost no deaths have occurred at home or, as they say, ‘in the community.’ Moreover, deaths are attributed to Covid-19 if the symptoms were there even if no proper test was carried out to confirm this.

In total, Belgium death count today stands close to 9,000 for a general population of 11.8 million.  High, but still substantially lower than the mortality in New York, for example, whichever way you count.  And, to put the picture into a less dire context, it is reported that each winter Belgium experiences about 5,000 deaths attributable to the seasonal flu.  Of course, the flu does not lay waste to the medical establishment, and there you have the difference that makes the ongoing Russian approach to Covid19 so relevant.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

[If you found value in this article, you should be interested to read my latest collection of essays entitled A Belgian Perspective on International Affairs, published in November 2019 and available in e-book, paperback and hardbound formats from amazon, barnes & noble, bol.com, fnac, Waterstones and other online retailers. Use the “View Inside” tab on the book’s webpages to browse.]

In the days since publication of my essay entitled “Kremlinology 2.0” on 28 March, I have received fairly wide exposure in the alternative media as a ‘formerly’ reasonable observer of the Russian scene who has gone rogue.  I am said to have joined the Anglo-Saxon propagandists who are working nonstop to discredit President Putin and Russia more generally.

The signal for this stampede of the herd of Russia’s would-be defenders to trample my objectivity and credibility was given by The Saker originally in its English language portal, but then broadcast by its multifarious network in French, in Russian, in Greek and other languages. But whereas the couple of words directed at me by Andrei Raevsky were a hint rather than a full-blown denunciation of apostasy, the Comments sections of his blog and associated portals, were overrun by the usual claque of no-nothings keen to spill blood.

The same flood of ignorant commentary bordering on the obscene occurred on portals like www.anti-empire.com which merely re-posted (without permission, as usual) my 28 March essay. I responded there to a couple of the defamers and let it drop.  Here in this essay, I take up the gauntlet in a more public way because the issue is too important to go unremarked.

And what is that issue?  It is that, regrettably, the vicious and mindless propaganda of Russia-bashers who dominate mainstream and “own” America’s newspapers of record, The Washington Post and The New York Times (witness the utterly scandalous publication there on 13 April of a concocted and factually baseless article by William Broad entitled “Putin’s Long War Against American Science”) is matched in equal measure of vicious and mendacious propaganda among the more fervent defenders of the ‘Putin regime’ in the West.

I hasten to add that far too many of these defenders know absolutely nothing about Russia and care still less about the facts. Russia and Putin are of interest to them solely as a bludgeon against the American world order that they despise.  Indeed, they are entitled to their loathing for the USA, for capitalism, and the rest. They are not entitled to invent a Russia and a Kremlin leadership as a foil and to pick and choose factoids in support of their theses.

Both sides in the Info Wars are adept at smear techniques, using guilt by association and ad hominem argumentation to avoid entirely responding to the reasoning of those they are pillorying.  It is not what you are saying and proving factually that counts, but who publishes you and how what you are saying can be used by one’s enemies that matters. A supporting technique is to take separate phrases one might use out of context in order to misrepresent the target’s ideas as the inversion of what they are in context, and to ignore irony so as to construe it as the opposite, meaning the author’s avowal of what he is lampooning. I called out these abuses in my response to Comments on www.anti-empire.com.

Then there is the pure invention of a Curriculum Vitae for the purposes of discrediting today’s object of attack. In my case, as one example, a reader of my “Kremlinology 2.0” commented that I had a long record of “working for” anti-Russian propaganda publications, in particular for the Finnish-owned  Moscow Times.  In its obliviousness to the truth this allegation from would be Kremlin defenders matches perfectly the denunciations I received a couple of years ago from our overzealous Progressives and Liberals over my “working for” the anti-Semitic, pro-Kremlin news portal Russia Insider.

I state here flatly that I have never “worked for” or “written for” anyone.  My life as a political commentator specializing in Russia-related news began in 2010 as a post-business career avocation, acting as a “public intellectual” who neither expects nor receives compensation from anyone. All of my writings appear first on my own blog site and are copyrighted. They are reposted with or more usually without my permission because other portals appreciate their value to their reader communities. Period.

And specifically with respect to The Moscow Times, which published a total of a half-dozen of my analytical articles at the start of my re-invention of myself as political analyst, these articles got through the anti-Russian filter of the responsible editor for the Op-Ed page, the nominal journalist Michael Bohm, who made cuts and assigned titles at odds with my intent.  I put up with this mangling because theirs was the only game in town at the time when they still had a paper edition. But all of that is history. Bohm went on to become a highly paid talk show guest on all Russian state and commercial channels where his keen knowledge of Russian in all of its folk wisdom and his invariable regurgitation of CIA propaganda were a useful foil to the patriotic experts deployed by the shows’ hosts.  I went on to publishing online in my own blog site attached to a middle of the road Belgian newspaper, La Libre Belgique.

* * * *

So much for current Info Wars. Now I direct attention to the main contention of my article of 28 March, namely that ever since the roll-out of his planned constitutional reform during a state of the nation address on 15 January 2020, Putin seemed to have lost control of the political agenda. To be very specific, what Putin had suggested would be a re-balancing of powers at the federal level between Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, moving gently in the direction of parliamentarism, eventually, in the bill passed by both the State Duma and the Federation Council, turned out to be nothing more than a consecration in the Fundamental Law of the values of the Putin era, namely a social economy, protection of living standards for the broad population, patriotic defense of the Motherland and of its historical record, bouquets to motherhood and the family, etc. That and the incredible point reversing to zero the time Putin has served in the presidency so that under the two-term limit he will again be eligible to run when his present mandate expires in 2024.

All of these changes in what will be put to the electorate for ratification in a referendum indicated to me that the course of Russian politics was now being dictated not by Vladimir Putin, the key figure as arbitrator among Kremlin factions that he has been for the past 20 years, but by one of these factions which has overruled his preferences. Given the virtual disappearance of Duma opposition party spokesmen from Russian state television since the end of January,  it seemed to me that all of the opposition has been sidelined, made irrelevant and that United Russia has seized control of the political agenda in the hopes of retaining majority control of the legislature in the upcoming 2021 elections.

In my article, I also pointed out that Russia’s response to the oncoming coronavirus crisis revealed the same kind of infighting among elites that we have seen in virtually every one of the major countries in Western Europe and the United States.  There were too many contradictions in policy at that moment, not least of which was a promotional airfare being offered by Aeroflot to boost domestic traffic at the very moment when the government should have curtailed or ended such traffic to avoid spread of the infection.

Putin was obviously caught in the cross-fire between defenders of the economy and defenders of public health. And in the meantime, there was ongoing clan fighting over the just initiated oil and price war with Saudi Arabia.

Looking at these contests going on behind the scenes in the Kremlin, I made the simple argument that it was and is high time to resume Kremlinology, to look beyond the lynchpin of Russian politics, Mr. Putin, and to sketch out in detail what the interest groups are doing as they jockey for and perhaps seize control of Russian politics in one domain or another.  I stand by that reading today, undeterred by the slings and arrows that have come my way.

In the meantime, for the moment some consistency has been restored to Russian domestic policy as regards the coronavirus with a temporary victory of the defenders of public health and imposition of ever tighter shutdown in the hearth of the epidemic, Greater Moscow.

Moreover, the second shoe is about to drop.  At the start of anti-coronavirus measures, the Kremlin announced the cancellation of this year’s regular St Petersburg International Economic Forum scheduled for the first week in June. However, not a word was said about the fate of the still earlier May 9^th Victory Day celebrations marking the 75^th anniversary that would, if held normally, with mass public participation numbering in the millions, provide a splendid platform for propagation of the virus throughout the population and across the country.  It is only now that we hear that Veterans’ Organizations are petitioning the Kremlin to postpone the celebration.

What we see here is that just as Russia is following the multi-nation curve of infection rates to a peak and plateau, so Russia is following the near-universal laws on the political risks of taking on the corona virus by quarantine and other draconian measures.

This question was very aptly put in a recent Euronews interview with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. The journalist probed and probed again whether the Prime Minister felt any guilt for the government’s slow response to the oncoming pandemic which cost so many thousands of Italian lives.  In a carefully worded answer that was fully in line with his professional background as a law professor and intellectual, Conte said that he was ‘not so arrogant’ as to claim that no mistakes were made.  At the same time, he noted that had he introduced quarantine and lockdown at the outset he would have been universally condemned in Italian political circles as being ‘mad.’

Indeed this is the predicament facing political leaders in all countries today and name-calling  or guilt-attribution by the public in the midst of the crisis does not help.  It is also the predicament facing the Russian leadership which is divided the same way as in most countries.  These political realities merit investigation and discussion, not politically motivated silence.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

[If you found value in this article, you should be interested to read my latest collection of essays entitled A Belgian Perspective on International Affairs, published in November 2019 and available in e-book, paperback and hardbound formats from amazon, barnes & noble, bol.com, fnac, Waterstones and other online retailers. Use the “View Inside” tab on the book’s webpages to browse.]

This is not a question that figures in our Western commentary and analysis, since it is universally assumed that one man, Vladimir Putin, dominates Russian political life for a good reason: his unique ability to tame the contending factions at the center of power in Russia. He is the indispensable lynchpin.

However, I insist that this assumption may have become threadbare, and that there may well be a power struggle going on in the Kremlin today which Vladimir Vladimirovich no longer controls. Indeed, it appears he is receiving his script now from the stronger of the contenders around him and is not comfortable with his lines.

I hinted at this three days ago in my analysis of his address to the nation on the coronavirus, saying that perhaps “Putin’s command of the situation is faltering.”

Mary Dejevsky, a shrewd and experienced journalist who served as foreign correspondent in Moscow of The Guardian, the next day posted the following in her Comment on my article:

“Agree. especially on putin’s decline in authority – I thought his actual demeanour during nationwide broadcast looked less ‘in command’ than usual.”

In what follows, I describe a set of developments, some interrelated, some coming from unrelated contexts, but all pointing to Putin’s loss of control of the political agenda in Russia starting from his annual state of the nation address to the bicameral legislature on 15 January 2020.

* * * *

His state of nation speech was noteworthy for raising the question of amending the Russian constitution with an aim to rebalancing the powers accorded to the executive, legislative and judicial branches at the federal level, in effect reducing the imperial presidency put in place by Yeltsin in his 1993 constitution. This would introduce checks and balances that would reduce the possibility of some successor taking domestic or foreign policy in some wholly new direction. It would also make it easier for someone else of less stellar quality to fill Putin’s shoes at the presidency after he leaves office in 2024.

Exactly what would be conceded to the Duma was not clearly stated in Putin’s speech. Would the Duma actually name the cabinet. This was never stated explicitly but was implied by Putin’s saying that the president could not refuse them. His only hope would be to remove ministers after they took office and proved unable to implement the agreed policies.

This crucial nature of the proposed constitutional reform morphed into something quite different by the time it left the Duma and and was ready for presentation to the public in a referendum scheduled for 22 April. The reassignment of powers in the direction of parliamentary rule has disappeared. Instead the Constitution is being pitched to the Russian electorate as the embodiment of national values of a social economy, a country that upholds traditional family values, religion and patriotism, that provides employment with living wages, real inflation indexed pensions, universal free quality medical care and education. And into this “apple pie” recipe, at the very last moment before it was voted through by the parliament, an octogenarian deputy, first female astronaut, heroine from the 1960s who has hardly been heard from since, Valentina Tereshkova, added that missing element which explains and justifies the whole operation from the standpoint of the Kremlin: the ‘re-set ‘ of Putin’s service as president to zero so that he can enter the 2024 elections.

What happened to the Constitutional reform was, to anyone with any political experience, a sham, a staged process.  And it bore the fingerprints we have now seen on other key political developments, most recently when, on the day before Putin’s address on the coronavirus, Moscow mayor Sobyanin, was allowed to deride the official statistics on the infections in Russia and to announce on state television that Russia was facing a possible medical catastrophe similar to what is now going on in Italy or Spain, that has been widely reported on Russian media as if it had no relevance to Russia.  Sobyanin was now a play actor under the same stage direction as Tereshkova had been. He has no past role speaking on the national level. He has had great authority but at the municipal level only.

Meanwhile, in the period since Putin’s 15 January speech, there has progressively been a striking change in the programming of Russian state television. To be specific, the leaders of the opposition parties in the Duma and a great many other political celebrities have disappeared from view.

Note that immediately following that speech, these same leaders were interviewed by the television news and invited to comment on the prospect of greater role in shaping the cabinet. In anticipation of good things to come, they were quite upbeat.   However, as the weeks passed Sergei Mironov of Just Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky of the nationalist LDPR and Gennady Zyuganov of the Communists faded from view.  This disappearance was especially telling for Zhirinovsky who had been in the past a regular guest on the major political talk shows such as Evening with Vladimir Solovyov. No longer.

Instead, the only political leaders we see speaking on television regularly now aside from Vladimir Putin are Duma Chairman Volodin, Prime Minister Mishustin, Moscow mayor Sobyanin. Federation Council chairwoman Matviyenko is from time to time quoted. The long serving and well known Minister of Defense Shoigu, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lavrov, Minister of Finance Siluanov still appear in front of the cameras, but in vignettes, often silent.

Vyacheslav Volodin, former chief of Putin’s presidential administration, was until recently seen on television only on the dedicated once-weekly program devoted to parliamentary affairs.  Now he is a regular. Moreover, he is the one who so vigorously defended Tereshkova and her amendment giving Putin a free pass to rule until 2036 if he so wishes, more or less telling everyone else just to shut up.

Add to this Vladimir Putin’s answer to a question about his long term political plans put to him during one of his encounters with the general public. Does he intend to be president after 2024?  He said that he had no desire to stay president unless the people so mandated.  A bit too clever by half? Or the genuine admission by a man whose career path is now out of his hands.

* * * *

Twice in the past four years, spokesmen for the Russian government have asked who is in charge in Washington, the elected President or the Deep State. In Russian parlance, the Deep State means the intelligence services, the military, those who in Moscow are called the siloviki, or ‘power ministries.’

The first time when the Russians spoke publicly about their anxiety that the U.S. government was out of control came towards the close of Barack Obama’s second term, on 17 September 2016, to be precise, when under instructions from Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, U.S. fighter planes bombed the Syrian outpost in the southeast of the country at Deir ez-Zor, killing more than 70 Syrian soldiers and probably some Russian officers embedded with them. As was surely Carter’s intention, that attack sabotaged the just concluded Syrian ceasefire agreement negotiated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry under the approving eye of President Obama.

The second time the Russians aired their nervousness over who is calling the shots in Washington came less than six months ago, when FBI agents detained and interrogated Russian State Duma deputy Inga Yumasheva who had arrived to participate in a conference on improving bilateral relations hosted by the Fort Ross Dialogue. She alone from among the invited Russian delegation was subjected to questioning, because she alone had received a U.S. visa; all the others were denied visas and stayed at home in Moscow.  As Sergei Lavrov now remarked, this harassment under the nose of the State Department made a mockery of the Trump administration’s stated goal of improved relations. He asked rhetorically who in fact represents the United States?

Now, as I said at the outset, the shoe is on the other foot: we can ask the same about Russia: who is really in charge in the Kremlin.

The problem we face as we approach this question is that nearly all of our Russianists and other generalist commentators are unprepared. They have either never studied Kremlinology or forgot what they once learned.  They have not been looking into Kremlin factions for years, because as we all know Vladimir Putin has consummate skills as broker and could keep the rivals in check by being indispensable to them all. Moreover, as we all know, Putin is power mad. To understand any given development in Russian politics we need only consider how it serves his personal interests.   Constitutional reform, you say?  It only serves the purpose of extending his rule beyond 2024 to 2036. Contradiction between what he said the reform entails on 15 January and what is in the proposition being offered to the electorate for the referendum?  You need only examine his thought processes, to find how the changing calculus of the political landscape compelled the changes.

I submit that this approach is rubbish and that we have to look beyond Putin to understand what is afoot.

Is it important to know who is really pulling the strings today?  Only in that way can the United States, Europe and other powers understand what reactions to expect from Russia to any given policy stand they assume and to understand the respective risks of war. Are ultra-nationalists calling the shots?  Or is it the pro-Western Liberal contingent from the Medvedev wing? Or yet some other unidentified group?

At this point, my objective has been to set up the question. For answers we all have to wait a bit longer for more evidence to emerge. But I can share this preliminary speculation.  Moscow gossips speak of a power struggle between the premier Mishustin and the mayor of Moscow Sobyanin. Sobyanin it appears has been given extraordinary powers to deal with the coronavirus threat.  Otherwise it is also likely that in Russia there is the same struggle of interests going on now between defenders of the economy and defenders of public health in the face of the coronavirus tsunami as we see in the United States or in Western Europe.

Decisions on preventive measures have been incomplete and contradictory.  On the same day as Putin delivered his address on the coronavirus, Russian media were carrying news of promotional airfares at 30 percent discount being offered by Aeroflot for domestic flights. Today it appears the government is about to issue a shutdown of those flights. This is not a tight ship.

And in the background we are told there is a deep divide in opinion of Kremlin elites over the oil production and pricing war being waged against Saudi Arabia at the initiative of Rosneft boss, Putin ally Igor Sechin. Does this explain the fade-out from media coverage of both Gazprom’s Alexei Miller and Minister of Energy Alexander Novak?

In light of these troubles around him, is it any wonder that the body language of Vladimir Putin during his speech on the 25^th indicated to the Russian speaking analysts among us that he did not like the script he had been given to read and was possibly losing his grip.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

[If you found value in this article, you should be interested to read my latest collection of essays entitled A Belgian Perspective on International Affairs, published in November 2019 and available in e-book, paperback and hardbound formats from amazon, barnes & noble, bol.com, fnac, Waterstones and other online retailers. Use the “View Inside” tab on the book’s webpages to browse.]

As is his custom, this afternoon Vladimir Putin delivered a well-constructed speech to the nation in which, after expressing the nation’s gratitude to its medical cadres and other front-line personnel dealing with the coming epidemic, he spoke next about the issue that everyone knew was at the forefront of his concerns, the 22 April referendum on the Constitutional Reform. The referendum will now be postponed indefinitely, pending recommendations from health experts. As Mr. Putin reminded his audience the lives, health and security of the nation are the highest priority of his administration. In and of itself, this is a rather comforting message that contrasts with the confusion over serving the economy and serving the public health that we find in many Western countries, including the USA.

Then Mr. Putin set out an extensive list of immediate government measures intended to deal with the oncoming epidemic, which has in the past few days shown an exponential rise in the number of proven infections, generally in line with the experience of China and most recently of Europe.  The need to act, the need to see the corona virus as potentially as devastating in Russia as it has shown itself to be in Italy, Spain and France, indeed the need for this address was tipped off yesterday by the televised remarks of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

One may be certain that the Mayor was given the microphone to issue his stark warning precisely to set the context for today’s address. In previous weeks Russian media had pointed to the insignificant infection rate, while detailing the misery (Western) countries are now experiencing.  Sobyanin’s words were a transparently “corporate” maneuver. The same may be said of Putin’s donning a yellow space age anti-infectious disease suit and helmet with nano-filtration for his visit yesterday to the Kommunarka hospital treating corona virus patients. Corporate America should take off its hat to Vladimir Vladimirovich for this performance, worthy of the best top executives.

Among the key measures that President Putin mentioned in his speech this afternoon were the following:

1. A week-long stay at home order for the population beginning this weekend except for essential services
2. A substantial rise in unemployment insurance payments to those laid off due to the virus and its impact on the economy. These will rise from 8,000 rubles monthly to the legal minimum income (poverty level) of 19,000 rubles monthly (223 euros at today’s exchange rate)
3. Speeding up the allocations of new social benefits to families with children announced during his state of the nation address in mid-January as well as accelerated payment of bonuses to veterans of WWII
4. A moratorium on personal credit and mortgage credit repayments during this crisis
5. Credits to be made available to small and medium businesses
6. A temporary halt to bringing bankruptcy proceedings against businesses in default

Then, with special flourish, Mr. Putin used the impending crisis to fix several unpopular tax loopholes favoring the very rich, so that the proceeds of the new taxes may be used to offset some of the costs of the social protection measures now being introduced for the great majority of the working population, for families, etc.  To name one such abuse, he is calling for all remittances of dividends and the like by physical persons to offshore ‘tax havens’ where they go untaxed, now to be subjected to a 15% income tax in Russia. The double taxation treaties with those tax haven countries allowing this abuse will be amended accordingly.

Now let us consider what was missing from the speech.

First, and most importantly, there was not a word about the fate of the forthcoming May 9^th  celebrations marking the 75^th anniversary of the victory over fascist Germany.  Here we see that the Putin administration is taking the same head-in-the-sand position as the Abe government did over postponement of the Olympics that was finally agreed two days ago.

It is foolish to think that the same considerations of public health underlying the decision on the Constitutional referendum of April 22^nd are not applicable to May 9^th, when normally there would be the March of the Immortal Regiment bringing out a million or more civilians onto city streets in Moscow and in St Petersburg, and lesser but still very large public gatherings across the nation. If allowed to go ahead, these marches and the celebrations in restaurants that follow them will serve as a splendid platform for propagation of the corona virus.

There was also not a thought given to how the impending crisis might require a greater mobilization of society and greater creativity of approach than the technocratic Cabinet and the United Russia party majority in the Duma can muster.

I return here to my standing recommendation that the President move to create a government of national unity by bringing leading figures from the Duma opposition parties into the cabinet, starting with the position of Minister of Labor.

This is all the more relevant when we see that the latest legislative initiative of Duma Chairman Volodin to combat the corona virus is to establish criminal liability for those who violate the quarantine rules, thereby causing the infection and possible death of others.  The notion that this problem will be solved by putting quarantine violators in prison for five or seven years is foolhardy and will be totally ineffective. One might better ask why the Russian government and Aeroflot are doing so much to repatriate the 50,000 or so Russians stuck abroad on vacations which they took when the gravity of the global epidemic was already clear. These insouciant egoists are the greatest threat to Russian public health as they now return home at government expense.  Here is a flagrant violation of common sense.

In both the ‘corporate flair’ of the presidential administration and in the shortcomings of imagination at the Duma, we see that Putin’s command of the situation is faltering.  On the other side of the ledger, it is also true that Russia may be spared the “Italian scenario” for reasons very specific to its geography and to the extreme caution and prudence of its fiscal and monetary management over the past decade dealing with a sequence of ‘stress tests’ by which I mean sanctions.  The latter is self-evident. The geography related advantage requires a word of explanation.

Apart from Moscow, Europe’s most populous city, St Petersburg and Novosibirsk, Russian cities hover around one million and there are not many of them at that size.  An unusually large part of the population still lives in the countryside. Indeed, a still larger percentage of the elderly live precisely in the empty countryside, left behind when young males and other able-bodied folks went to town for jobs and contemporary life style. In this sense, the world’s largest country has intrinsic advantages compared to Western Europe, where population density is often very close to China’s.  We will see in a few weeks how this plays out

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

[If you found value in this article, you should be interested to read my latest collection of essays entitled A Belgian Perspective on International Affairs, published in November 2019 and available in e-book, paperback and hardbound formats from amazon, barnes & noble, bol.com, fnac, Waterstones and other online retailers. Use the “View Inside” tab on the book’s webpages to browse.]

I was delighted with the wide distribution given to my last essay on the ‘Tereshkova Amendment’ to the Russian Constitution which, when the reform of the Basic Law is approved by nationwide referendum, as widely anticipated, will set the presidential terms served up to now by Vladimir Putin back to zero so that he may run again in the elections of 2024 and 2030 if he so wishes.  My essay was reposted by several portals in the United States and links to the essay were published by still other outlets in Europe.

I was also pleased by the substantial number of reader comments, even though the great majority did not agree with my assertion that Putin was foolhardy to accept that amendment, subject to the Constitutional Court finding that it does not contradict the intent of the Fundamental Law. I had expressed the pious hope that Vladimir Vladimirovich would quietly direct the Court to do the decent thing and reject the amendment. However, by its decision of 16 March the Court has now approved the entire package of amendments. In light of this development, I feel free to move to the next level of discussion with my readers, responding to their objections and detailing why the very prospect of Putin in power to 2036 will undo his legacy of stable nation-building.  I will conclude by setting out an alternative scenario which is far more likely to ensure policy continuity after 2024 while moving Russia’s democracy to a new level of maturity. This path remains open to Mr. President if he rethinks the likely consequences of the Tereshkova Amendment and moves to correct his error well before the 2021 parliamentary elections, when the “regime” may suffer a humiliating defeat.

* * * *

The objections from readers to my stand on Putin’s running for the presidency again mostly came down to one point that had been raised by Tereshkova herself as justification for her initiative:  that the international arena is so volatile and poses so many threats to the country that Vladimir Vladimirovich’s proven experience and dedication to national welfare is and will be required and valued more than ever.  Some readers’ comments name the corona virus or the oil price war with Saudi Arabia, or the near war with Turkey over Syria as indicative of the pressing need for steady leadership by Putin into the distant future. Others point to the aggressive economic, military strategic and propaganda war against Russia being waged by the United States and its allies in Europe to justify the indefinite continuation in office of a leader who has so consistently and effectively foiled their ambitions to put Russia in its place under their heel and instead restored his country’s status as a great power.

All of the foregoing is true, of course.  We do live in extraordinary times and “revisionist” or “resurgent” Russia, to use the vocabulary of Foreign Affairs magazine, faces strong opposition from an “international community” intent on preserving the 1990s status quo when Russia was on its knees. However, the proposition that Russia has no one capable of taking over the baton from Vladimir Vladimirovich does not hold up to scrutiny.

It is all too easy to forget that when he took over from Boris Yeltsin just after New Year’s in 2000, Putin was a nonentity who had been chosen for his unquestioned loyalty to the family and who enjoyed the support of Boris Berezovsky and other oligarchs precisely because they believed he would be easy to manage. As for the nation at large, Putin’s only credit was his brutal conduct of the war in Chechnya which seemed to be bringing results and which proved his patriotism.  He had been an efficient assistant to the liberal mayor of St Petersburg Sobchak and did well with foreign, especially German business leaders behind closed doors. But he was an unimpressive public speaker and he badly failed his first exposure to the press when he answered reporters’ questions about what happened to the submarine Kursk with the flat statement: “It sank.”

From this weak start, Putin rose quickly and steadily to become finally the world’s leading statesman that he is today. A whole generation of administrators and political operatives has grown up in his shadow. I have no doubt that there are among them worthy successors if given the chance.

If I may invoke a bit of folk wisdom:  the cemeteries are filled with irreplaceable people.

* * * *

When he delivered his decision on the amendment, Putin added another line of argumentation in its favor, namely Russian traditions of governance. Some of my readers have taken that up and expanded upon it in their comments.  They look to Russian history, with its millennial tradition of autocratic rulers to justify keeping the incumbent tsar on his throne. Some place Putin in the ranks of Russia’s Greats:  Peter and Catherine in the 18^th century to plead his case.

My critics argue from exceptionalism, which is always risky, and second, they fail to appreciate the value of institutions over people in the life of nations.

On the subject of exceptionalism, Vladimir Putin himself has always been equivocal. On the one hand, he regularly denounces American exceptionalism of the variety first formulated by Madeleine Albright in her description of the nation that stands taller and sees farther than others, all of which was later hand delivered to the Kremlin by Barack Obama when he sought to explain to Vladimir what was what.

On the other hand, Putin has always defended the special traditions of each nation and the right of each nation to preserve its uniqueness without interference from others. Yet, Putin has also acknowledged certain universal rules of political science, in particular the value of alternation in power of competing political forces. So it only comes down to when that can be implemented.  To this, I respond: there is never a good time, there are always mitigating circumstances one can claim against applying the rule.  And for this very reason, the rule of alternation should trump all other considerations without discussion.

I will not take the reader’s time belaboring the obvious:  an unlimited time in power means institutionalized corruption.  “The bums” are never given the boot. And, what is less commonly seen, incompetence is the reverse side of the corruption coin. This is a non-negotiable issue.

* * * *

Looking beyond my own readers and considering more broadly the analysis which so many Western commentators have published these past few days regarding Putin’s decision on 2024, I find a certain commonality of approach which is entirely consistent with how our Russianists have been writing and lecturing for decades now:  all focus on Putin, the man as if he were the alpha and omega of Russia, the country and its polity. That is to say, these commentators apply to Russia the same personalization of politics which they use at home in the United States, where identity has long replaced policy on the ballot. We vote by gender, by race, by ethnicity and not by pro- or anti-labor positions, by redistributive or wealth-protecting policies. They vote for good or bad autocrats.

In the same spirit, instead of considering what this decision on terms in office means for those Russians who believe in rule of law, or in the commitments of their leader not to hang onto power into his dotage repeated many times in the past and as recently as on 16 January 2020, our commentators try to delve into Putin’s thought processes and to explain the flip-flop on 10 March.  Since no one has yet placed a microphone under the pillow of the Russian President, all of the commentary we read is pure and idle speculation, whereas the views of Russians on the decision taken can be sampled, as I will do in what follows.

I have a residential base in St Petersburg and in normal times I am there for two weeks out of each couple of months. My wife and I have many contacts among Russians at all levels, from our regular taxi driver to our neighbor and fix-it man at our country dacha, to intellectuals and professionals in both Petersburg and Moscow. To a man, or woman, our friends and acquaintances are all Russian patriots. Several have served their country in the performing arts, in journalism, in design of launch vehicles for space missions and in other ways. They have all been pro-Putin, until now…

The trigger for the change of heart of many is deep disappointment over the deception, the fraudulent nature of the upcoming referendum on amendments to the Constitution now that the whole exercise seems to have only one purpose: to extend Putin’s time in power. To be sure, this rabbit was pulled out of a hat once before, when Vladimir Putin and Dimitri Medvedev switched roles in 2012. But that trick conformed to the letter of the law, even if it was, shall we say, sneaky.  The decision to set Putin’s time in office back to zero now is an insult to the intelligence and so doubly offensive.

That the maneuver is unseemly is supported by the obnoxious way in which it has been defended, something which none of our Western commentators seems to have picked up.

After coming under attack from various political activists and even from her own home town where she had a street named after her for her achievements in outer space, Tereshkova defended herself and her amendment, saying that she has been getting letters of support from “simple people” all around Russia. In the same vein, Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin declared that “those who are against Tereshkova are against Russia.”  But then this former head of the presidential administration is the same man who said previously that “if there is no Putin, there is no Russia.”  I think it is fair to call this type of argumentation from both Tereshkova and Volodin unashamedly Stalinist in nature.

And that is exactly what one my close friends has written to me using colorful terminology that mines the treasures of the Russian language in the same manner as Putin himself so often does.  I offer here a free translation.

“Like you, we are not delighted by the presidential terms of Putin being turned back to zero. Society is tired, people are tired of this. It looks like he has decided to beat Stalin’s record. But the main thing is that this is being done in a clumsy way, in the spirit of Soviet propaganda – ‘upon the request of the workers.’  Tereshkova tells us that every day she is receiving packs of letters expressing gratitude for her initiative. This is propagandistic Soviet primitivism.

For the moment, we don’t know if we will take part in the voting. But if we do go to the polls, of course, we will vote against the amendments and the reset on terms in office.”

It is widely assumed in the West that there is no opposition to Putin and Putinism in the State Duma, only in the so-called non-systemic opposition of people like Alexei Navalny and Ksenia Sobchak who never made it past the 5% minimum level of support to enter the Duma. And, I must concede that when the Tereshkova amendment came up for a vote, two of the Duma parties which have regularly put up candidates to run against Putin in the presidential elections, Sergei Mironov’s A Just Russia and Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s LDPR spoke in its favor.  However, what is largely overlooked by our Russianists is that one party, Gennady Zyuganov’s Communists, had the courage and persistence to speak against the amendment. These are the same Communists who have traditionally been the fiercest competitor of United Russia and of its centrist predecessors; the same Communists who narrowly lost to Yeltsin in 1996 because of flagrant electoral fraud assisted by U.S. agents over fears for democracy in Russia. And yet today, ironically, the centrist parties have defended a Stalinist vision of Russia’s presidency while the Communists were backers of full-blooded democracy, meaning alternation in power.

That is not all.

On 10 March, when Tereshkova introduced her amendment on resetting the terms in office of the sitting president, another deputy introduced a bill calling for early Duma elections. Though this was rejected out of hand by Vladimir Putin when he spoke to the chamber a couple of hours later, it is this bill which better deserved his backing. Early elections were supported by one party alone, again the Communists, who said they had nothing to fear. Such elections were likely put an end to the majority position of United Russia, which has lost substantial support in the population ever since the retirement age was raised a year or so ago. This is why they said no. However, their loss of a majority is precisely what could trigger a new balance of power and the scenario for political consolidation that I am recommending.

* * * *

When he spoke about his intended changes to the Russian Constitution during his annual “state of the nation” address to the bicameral legislature on 15 January, Vladimir Putin suggested that his intention was to re-adjust the balance of power among the three branches of government by raising the rights and prerogatives of the legislature. By trimming slightly the powers of the President in this process he would, in effect, make it easier to find someone to fill his shoes. Moreover by bringing the Duma into greater consultation in formation of the cabinet, he would be raising their commitment to the system in exchange for greater responsibility.

At the time, Putin mentioned specifically his impression from regular meetings with the leaders of the Duma parties that are all patriots. The logic from this was that when the Medvedev cabinet peremptorily resigned following the presidential address, some of the leading parliamentarians from outside United Russia should have been invited to take up ministerial portfolios. That did not happen. Instead the cabinet itself was de-politicized and filled with technocrats.

Assuming that Putin wishes to ensure that the broad lines of his policies continue after he leaves office, whatever that date may be, I believe that the recent missed opportunity should be revisited and preparations made for forming a government of national unity that distributes ministerial portfolios to all of the Duma parties.  By their service in the intervening years, this would provide the best indications of who will deserve to run in the presidential election of 2024 in which Putin will choose not to take part.  It will remove the present cynicism and disappointment of many patriotic Russians over the way high politics is evolving and provide a renewed interest in elections with optimism for the future.

Over the long term, coalition governments or ‘power sharing’ have their down sides, I know only too well from the experience of the Kingdom of Belgium, or in neighboring Germany. These include  inconsistencies in the various domestic and foreign policies implemented and possible incompetence of individual ministers and their teams.  However, in the short term it is worth taking the risk to avert mass demonstrations when the 2021 Duma elections come, not to mention the presidential elections of 2024.  This is a crucial step in Russia’s march towards mature democracy that should not be ignored.

* * * *

Post Script:    The view that no worthy successor to Putin exists is founded on unwarranted pessimism about the distribution of talent and leadership capacity in the political elites.

People shape events and events shape people. For anyone who doubts the wisdom of this observation, I direct their attention to what the corona virus crisis has done for us in the Kingdom of Belgium these last two weeks.

This country has not had a properly installed Government ever since the last cabinet resigned in December 2018 over internal disagreement about Europe’s immigration policy.  The parliamentary elections of May 2019 produced deadlock, with leading parties in the North and South of the country, on the right and left of the political spectrum unable to hobble together a majority coalition in parliament.

Accordingly, by all normal reasoning, Belgium should have been in a woeful situation going into the stress test of the corona virus epidemic.  It was this very weakness in parliamentary government that Vladimir Putin highlighted in his public statements following the launch of his planned constitutional reforms in Russia, saying that Russia, given its size and complexity, could not allow such disarray at the federal level as months or years without a proper Government.

Fine for theory. The facts have proven quite the opposite as regards the alleged hopelessness of democracies.  The decisiveness and humane principles guiding what acting Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès  has proposed to her fellow cabinet members and leading politicians of the country won their backing for draconian confinement measures that are among Europe’s toughest, matched by measures of economic relief and by measures to bring order and compassion into the dispensation of intensive care services to the critically ill, which are being ramped up with all possible speed. All of this has aroused cries of ‘chapeau’ (hats off) from the media and from the general public.

Wilmès was a political non-entity until this challenge presented itself.  Now there is widespread belief that in six months she will be confirmed in her position as Prime Minister heading a minority government that will be supported by Opposition parties.

By the way, Wilmès is from the same Center Left party as the former Prime Minister Charles Michel who was moved to the European Institutions where he is now the president of the European Council, a fine sinecure for a talker, not a doer. Good riddance!

The same principles of hidden talent waiting to be tapped apply everywhere.  The Russians should take note.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

[If you found value in this article, you should be interested to read my latest collection of essays entitled A Belgian Perspective on International Affairs, published in November 2019 and available in e-book, paperback and hardbound formats from amazon, barnes & noble, bol.com, fnac, Waterstones and other online retailers. Use the “View Inside” tab on the book’s webpages to browse.]