Someone up there my grandfather Abraham Ravinsky, who fled Russia around the time of the last Russian Revolution for the freedom of the United States, is looking down with a huge smile…as Russia’s Vladmir Putin frowns.
The NEW Russian Revolution is spreading so fast Putin may have to call the CDC — the Center for Dictatorship Control. Reports the Christian Science Monitor (TMV’s alma mater and still one of the country’s best and underrated newspapers):
BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN – The shock waves from Kyrgyzstan’s lightning revolution are spreading around the former Soviet Union – and into the heart of Russia – leading analysts to wonder which regimes might be next to face the peoples’ wrath.
Recent days have seen a spate of copycat protests launched by opposition groups that were perhaps hoping their own local authorities might fold and flee under pressure, as did Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev when demonstrators stormed his Bishkek complex last week.
Why is this happening?
A variety of forces seem to be at work in the 21st Century: the weakening of old power structures, the interconnection of countries, the spread of other political and cultural ideas via the media — and indeed this the infusion of all-pervasive information technology is one of the biggest. Internet (tightly controlled in some countries), television images, etc. instantaneously spreads the word of what’s happening in other countries, lowering the tolerance level for the old regimes. If one country sees a neighbor boot out a corrupt, elitist dictator, people — particularly younger people — say “why can’t we so the same thing, too?” More:
About 1,000 people rallied last Friday in the capital of Belarus, where President Alexander Lukashenko runs the last Soviet-style dictatorship in Europe, to demand his resignation. Police quickly dispersed the crowd and dispatched the ringleaders to prison.
Two Russian ethnic republics, Ingushetia and Bashkortostan, have seen mass street demonstrations this week directed against Kremlin-installed leaders. Even in remote Mongolia, the former USSR’s Asian satellite, hundreds of protesters gathered last week to “congratulate our Kyrgyz brothers” and demand a rerun of last June’s disputed parliamentary polls.
Some experts see a common thread among these upheavals that began 17 months ago when Georgians overthrew Eduard Shevardnadze in a peaceful revolt and continued with Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” late last year.
“Every situation is different, but a single process is unfolding,” says Valentin Bogatyrov, a former Akayev adviser and director of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in Bishkek. “Kyrgyzstan is a kind of trigger that will spread this unrest to our neighbors, and beyond. We are witnessing the second breakup of the Soviet Union.”
Allegedly fraudulent elections sparked the uprisings in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. Among the post-Soviet states that face elections in the next two years are Azerbaijan later this year, plus Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan in 2006. Common features of the regimes potentially under siege include systemic corruption, nepotism, and political appointments based on personal fealty rather than professionalism.
Kyrgyz experts say the Akayev family ran the country like a private estate, extorting bribes and selling government jobs to the highest bidder. “We estimate Akayev amassed a personal fortune of around $800 million,” a staggering amount in a country with an annual budget is half that, says Edil Baisalov, president of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, a Kyrgyz nongovernmental organization (NGO) partly funded by the US.
In an interview Tuesday, Akayev refused to resign, saying he was “the only elected and legitimate president,” but admitted to making mistakes. “There were many mistakes. But we remain on the right path,” he told the independent radio station Ekho Moskvyi.
As he alienated supporters, Akayev’s base narrowed, which may explain why his regime evaporated when demonstrators barged into the presidential office last week..Similar tales of corruption have emerged from several post-Soviet countries…
Ironically, the post-Soviet countries that have so far been rocked by revolution have been among the most liberal and relatively democratic in an admittedly tough region…..
But there is a danger, too:
The danger, he says, is that other Central Asian leaders may see Akayev’s concessions to democracy as the Achilles’ heel of his regime. “The lesson they may draw is that the permissive, or semi-repressive environment Akayev created is antithetical to maintaining the status quo.”
Neighboring Kazakhstan could be next in line for upheaval, some experts say. Former Soviet politbureau member Nursultan Nazarbayev has built a similar crony-centered, semi-democratic and, reportedly, deeply corrupt regime similar to Akayev’s government…..Uzbekistan, where another old Communist Party chief, Islam Karimov, rules with an iron fist, is a more worrisome case….
Some argue that it’s only a matter of time before the revolutionary tide sweeps over Russia. Several of the country’s 20 ethnic republics have a similar political profile to Kyrgyzstan, with a long-time ruler monopolizing power and often extending corrupt tentacles into business.
Prediction: Putin won’t go with the flow. In subtle or non-subtle ways he’ll circle the wagon trains — but there are some teeny-weenie problems with circular firing squads…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.