I continued in the future to fight for the preservation and development of Russia’s education system, to see it properly funded, to prevent its commercialization and the division of education into separate provision for ‘the elite’ and ‘the rest’. Those in favour of universal access based on the best traditions of Russian education did succeed in wringing some concessions from the government and in at least slowing down destructive processes. In some years we succeeded in getting an increase in expenditure on education and improving teachers’ salaries. We were hoping for support from Putin, who had repeated on more than one occasion that he was in favour of universally accessible education, but it was not always forthcoming.
Today, the battle over educational issues continues. People have begun more actively to defend their interests and the interests of society. An illustration of this occurred quite recently, in 2013, when the government tried to push through an operation to ‘reform’, but in reality to eliminate, the Russian Academy of Sciences. The wave of indignation and protest was so great that they were forced to back down, but a law reforming the Academy of Sciences was ultimately passed. I do not believe we have heard the last of the issue.
I was disturbed at that time that no decisive measures were taken to combat corruption. Needless to say, it is not a problem that can be solved with a cavalry charge. Those who demanded arrests as the principal means of countering this scourge underestimated the complexity of the problem and just how deeply rooted it is in the state, government, economy and social life. The public wanted at least to see some results, and expected to see an end to toleration of corruption at every level of government. That did not happen. I am particularly concerned about the spread of corruption to the law-enforcement agencies.
In May 2001, I had a meeting with Vladimir Putin. I was initially intending to tell him about my trip to the United States, and had interesting information for him. I had met President George W. Bush in Washington, who had recently taken up his duties. It seemed to me he had said a number of things that should be conveyed to the president of Russia. Our conversation ranged much more widely than that, however. We got to talking about the structuring of Russian politics, and the view that political parties should reflect the whole spectrum of views and standpoints in society, left, right and centre. The president said he agreed with that.
I shared with Putin my concerns about government policy on health and education, and expressed the belief that the way to resolve the problems was not to expand ‘market relations’ into these areas, but to draw on the best experience of the Soviet era and, of course, the new opportunities and mechanisms. I felt this should be done in such a way as to ensure that basic education and healthcare were available to all citizens and that, most importantly, the old, who had worked hard all their lives only now to find life very hard, should not be disadvantaged.
Perhaps my approach seemed out-of-date to the president; I do not know. At all events, subsequent developments showed that the government’s plans to redesign the social sphere were not modified. My opinion of the good intentions of the president himself remained unchanged. I believed he was doing his best to develop policies in the interest of Russian citizens and to overcome the inertia of the Yeltsin era, when the government had shown no concern about the social cost of reforms. The group who had decisively influenced policy in the 1990s were increasingly moved away from the centres of decision-making, but at the same time it was obvious there was serious resistance, and no decisive changes in policy were forthcoming.
Would Putin manage to resolve the situation? In April 2002, I looked for the answer to this in the annual Message of the President to the Federal Assembly. I responded to it in Rossiyskaya Gazeta:
I consider it one of the president’s strengths that when he is preparing his speeches he does not forget he has a country standing behind him. Two-thirds of the Russian people are living on the poverty line. Where do we go from here? How many billions of roubles are exported out of the country every year? It is time that money was invested in our own economy.
In any case, where do these billions come from? I continue to insist that the country needs a systematic tax on natural resources. In Europe and the United States and other parts the world, I am constantly asked, ‘Why can’t you people just intelligently manage the wealth you have?’ Perhaps we should set up a Russian sovereign wealth fund for national development, like Norway, to accumulate proceeds from the sale of our mineral wealth. We have the revenue sources: all we need to do is manage them properly, for the good of our people.
The Yukos affair
The subject of natural resources, especially oil, was highly topical at that time. Prices were beginning to rise on world markets. Who would be the beneficiaries: the government, the owners of companies, or perhaps even the Russian people?
The subject came dramatically to the fore when, in 2003, the saga of the Yukos case began, which is still rumbling on today.
There are many issues mixed up in this case: the legacy of the 1990s, large-scale tax evasion, issues of ownership, the relationship between the government and the ‘oligarchs’. And, of course, the problem of the legal system, the impartiality of the courts and the extent to which citizens believed they could be trusted.
As the thunderclouds began to gather over Mikhail Khodorkovsky, there was a dearth of information about the exact nature of the charges, and when I was asked about my attitude to the case, I would reply, ‘I do not yet have enough hard facts to comment on its merits. The main thing is that action should be taken within the legal framework, that the rights of the individual should be respected, and there should be no damage to the Russian economy.’
Mikhail came over to me one day at an embassy reception: ‘Mikhail Sergeyevich, do you remember me?’ ‘I certainly do’, I replied. ‘But do you remember me?’
It seemed to me that Khodorkovsky was embarrassed by that turn of the conversation. How could I not remember one of Russia’s first entrepreneurs, who started his business during the years of Perestroika, made a spectacular career, become a wealthy man and made his company, Yukos, one of the leaders in its sector? Khodorkovsky and other so-called oligarchs did everything they could to ensure Yeltsin was re-elected in 1996, and Yeltsin was quick to repay the debt. The ‘loans-for-shares auctions’ of 1996–7 were an unprecedented act of giving away state property for a pittance to a select coterie of individuals.
The government and this clique co-presided over a share-out of Russia’s national assets, knowing full well that they would never be returned to state ownership. In this regard, in the past years, nothing has changed. Most of Russia’s citizens consider the privatization of the 1990s to have been iniquitous, and if a referendum were to be held on whether the property given away at that time should be re-nationalized, the result is not in any doubt. As my assistant was told by one of the European ambassadors, if the government decided to annul the results of the loans-for-shares auctions, everyone, including the West, would fully understand. Under Putin, the principle of the government and oligarchs keeping each other at arm’s length was declared, but the dependency of big business on the government is unchanged: businessmen can undertake nothing without getting the go-ahead from the government at one level or another.