MOSCOW — Immediately after Media-MOST head Vladimir Gusinsky was arrested, protests began.
Particularly vocal were people who only a little earlier had been rushing to nominate Vladimir Putin for president, who had extolled his promised "dictatorship of the law" and gone into raptures at his hints that he would deal ruthlessly with criminals. And indeed, it is one thing when the authorities bomb Chechen villages or fire on workers in Vyborg (that is in the general run of things), but quite another when a respected individual, a millionaire, is arrested, and moreover, put in Butyrka Prison in a cell with 80 criminals (that is something to arouse real horror).
The arrest of Gusinsky has not aroused mass discontent. A misfortune that befalls an oligarch is hardly going to evoke sympathy among people who are having trouble surviving on average wages. The general mood on the streets, in the bars and in kitchens can be summed up: keep Gusinsky in jail, and put rival oligarch Boris Berezovsky in there with him.
If Putin were to follow the example of Tsar Peter the Great and make short work of his scheming noblemen, he would gain the rapturous approval of the people, whatever motivated his vengeance. Everyone here is sick of the oligarchs. But, alas, the hopes of the masses are to be dashed once again. (Although it can hardly be said that anyone holds out serious hopes; everyone understands that there will be no struggle against corruption or the oligarchs, just a struggle within the corrupt oligarchy.)
Amid the shrieks about the "threat to freedom" that accompanied Gusinsky's arrest, the main point was somehow forgotten: that there is a difference between oligarchs and journalists. Or perhaps it has not been forgotten; when opposition journalist Andrey Babitsky was exchanged in Chechnya, many of the people who are now waxing indignant supported the authorities, or pretended that nothing had happened.
This was the case especially in the West. Well-known German specialist on Russia Herr Rahr lamented: we so wanted to forget Chechnya, and here is this story with Gusinsky. Ten thousand or so peaceful civilians killed, villages burned to the ground — all this should be forgotten as quickly as possible. The persecution of Babitsky is not worth recalling. But the arrest of an oligarch! To forget or forgive this is impossible.
Freedom of speech
All the same, freedom of speech in Russia is under threat. Not because Gusinsky is the embodiment of freedom, with only a few million in his bank account, but because virtually all the national electronic media and a substantial part of the newspapers are in the hands of the oligarchs. Under such conditions, the authorities are not obliged to put pressure on journalists. It is enough to come to an understanding with the oligarchs (which is not hard, since the oligarchs and the authorities are essentially the same people).
If agreement is not reached, pressure can be put on one of the oligarchs. He will then apply pressure to "his" journalists in such a way that there is little outward sign. Everything is within the framework of the law and private initiative.
The state does not issue edicts to journalists. And if publishers tell their employees what to write and how, that is the sacred right of private property. If the journalists don't like it, they can look for another newspaper. Or another country. Or another planet.
The reprisal visited on Gusinsky is not just a move to restore order in the field of information. As early as the spring of 1999, when many people still had not even heard of Putin, it became obvious that a re-division of property was in the offing.
Oligarchs would be expropriated, not by the revolutionary proletariat and not even by state functionaries, but by other oligarchs. Food supplies were running low so some predators were devouring others.
The strong were surviving at the expense of the weak and Gusinsky was weak. First, he had built his empire almost exclusively on information, failing to insure himself with oilfields and aluminium production (in Russia, specialisation leads to catastrophe).
Secondly, Gusinsky last autumn made an ill-judged political gamble, placing his stake on Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov to become Russia's next president. If Luzhkov had won, quite different people would be occupying Gusinsky's place in Butyrka Prison. The liberal intelligentsia would be indignant for very similar reasons, but they would not be defending Gusinsky, but Berezovsky.
Non-opposition
The revenge on Gusinsky will end if the Kremlin plotters manage to carry out their plan, not to suppress free speech directly, but to carve up of Media-MOST. Freedom of speech will die a natural death and Gusinsky's television company, NTV, will have played no small role in accelerating the process.
There is an historical irony in the fact that it is Gusinsky on whom the authorities are wreaking such revenge. The truth is that NTV has not been an opposition television station. It supported Boris Yeltsin in 1996 and Gusinsky worked to bring about a massive rise in the president's ratings.
In reporting the second Chechen war, NTV journalists said almost nothing that contradicted the official version of events. They repeated the army's news summaries in straight-faced fashion, including the reports that had the Russian forces suffering no losses while killing thousands of Chechen fighters.
NTV depicted Putin in totally loyal fashion. I remember how NTV journalists regularly filmed the campaign for a boycott of the presidential elections and interviewed boycott activists, but none of that material ever went to air. In this instance, even the state television channel, RTR, allowed itself more liberties.
I also recall how one NTV journalist explained all this: "We are an independent company and therefore we cannot let ourselves come into conflict with the authorities".
An opposition stance does not consist of minor critical comments aimed at particular bureaucrats, but presents an alternative that addresses questions of the state, the economy and the social structure.
OAbout the Moscow events of 1993, NTV's view was: it's all right to shell the parliament if the stupid population elects the wrong deputies; that's how things are in a democratic republic. But when security guards stop energetic people carrying cardboard boxes full of slush-fund dollars out of the main government office building, as happened during the 1996 presidential election campaign, that's said to be a coup d'etat!
In essence, the only difference between the "official" and "independent" television has been that the latter has observed certain niceties, and has worked more professionally. It has served the same interests, but has done so more correctly, in less blatant fashion.
This is what Gusinsky is being punished for. The authorities in Russia cannot abide professionals, even when those professionals are on the authorities' own side. The system that is taking its revenge on Gusinsky is that which he helped create over almost 10 years, which made him what he is and which he served faithfully.
The "new Russians" have served only themselves, and they have been perfectly happy with the fact that the creation of gigantic hoards of capital has been accompanied by the impoverishment of millions of people.
Money, however, cannot do everything. Fortunes that have arisen out of thin air have the unpleasant habit of disappearing in the same fashion. Convicted felons in Russia became millionaires, now the reverse is happening. This is perfectly logical.
All the same, the Kremlin has in this case gone too far for many of its supporters. A precedent has been created.
Before, the oligarchs were untouchable. Not even political rivals could be thrown into jail for corruption, since it was too obvious that all the members of the elite could, and should, be jailed on these grounds, including the ones who were themselves jailing others (these were the ones who should be jailed first).
People who have taken up strategic positions in glass houses are now being showered with stones from right and left. The situation is flying out of control.
Or perhaps things are quite different. Might the authorities be setting out to provoke an artificial, manageable crisis before a genuine, full-scale one arises?
We shall very soon find out.
BY BORIS KAGARLITSKY