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Thank you very much for according me
this incredible opportunity to speak to such a distinguished
audience in central Europe. Really, I feel deeply honoured
to receive such a prize, while still alive. I am very
grateful.
After listening to the speech by Mr President
Champ, I would like to say that I felt as if my life were
coming to an end, because it is very hard to listen such
a speech about one’s accomplishments. Now, I can understand
how those people no longer with us must feel, when we
continue to speak about their positive features and note
what they did during their lives.
I am also extremely grateful for the
opportunity to speak in Prague. Prague and the Czech Republic
is special to me. In 1972 it was the first foreign country
I had ever visited in my life. I was here as a student.
As you can imagine in 1972, it was a very special time
after 1968. I had a very heated debate with other students
about the Soviet Union, about events here, about all those
events. And that certainly had consequences. I would like
to say that on my return to Moscow I had my first confrontation
with the Soviet political system. I was accused by some
individuals - students and colleagues who were with me
in Prague - I was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda for
staying in Czechoslovakia.
So that was the beginning. That is why
it is so important for me to be on stage now in the middle
of the city and make this contribution to the liberal
world and to freedom. I was so very pleased, as I think
it is a very good tradition that such a central European
country as the Czech Republic is going to develop the
tradition of awarding a prize for liberal thinking, liberal
practice, of fighting for freedom and the rule of law.
It is especially important that neither the largest country
in the world or the strongest country militarily will
be the centre where such people as Milton Friedman can
receive a prize. This constitutes real evidence of the
changes in your country, in Europe, and in the world over
the past ten years. And with these words, I would like
to congratulate the Czech civic society for such a serious
performance and for all the important things that you
are doing for your country and for the world.
I would like to stress that my achievements
are certainly incomparable with those of Milton Friedman
or Gary Becker. But I want to thank you on behalf of all
the people living in Russia and who have been fighting
for freedom for many decades and maybe centuries, as I
perceive here today your acceptance of the efforts of
millions and millions of people in my country in trying
to establish democracy, open society, freedom and the
market economy. I am very grateful to everybody who perceives
the role of Russia in the world civilization first of
all in culture, science and development of mankind’s values.
I am very grateful to everybody who understands the role,
the real role of Russia in Europe.
Today I have come here to talk to you
about my vision of the most recent developments in Russia,
Europe and maybe the world. Last century showed us that
one of the main priorities and imperatives and one of
the main goals of humanity of the past century was and
remains the creation of a new society which is based -
and would be based - on human values, freedom and law.
Liberal society has undoubtedly already won its fight
against totalitarianism. It won twice this century. It
won in an overt military battle during the Second World
War. And then secondly, it won not so long ago, when it
revealed that the open free world is much stronger than
the Soviet totalitarian system.
Liberal society showed its benefits,
even at a time when Stalin's and Hitler's regimes were
not so obvious to everybody in the world. It would be
wrong to say that at the very beginning and at the beginning
of this century or even in the middle of the century it
was well known or it was widely accepted that the liberal
paradigm, the paradigm and concept of human rights would
be the strongest and most constructive paradigm this century.
Liberal society, the society of human rights and freedom,
showed without a doubt, from my point of view, that this
type of organisational society is much more flexible,
productive and constructive, and that the rules adopted
by this society are much better adjusted to a normal human
life than any other system that people have tried to implement.
This type of system also revealed that it can be tough,
self-regulated, and has one main advantage: it can improve
itself and is evolutionary. No one other system in the
world can do this.
Only a society built on human rights and
freedom in the long run, has demonstrated to the world
a real balance between stability and the ability to modernize
itself. Over the past 50-100 years, only a liberal system,
which is really democratic, which I would link with an
open society, has demonstrated its ability to resolve
the problems that nobody could decide a hundred years
ago. It resolved the contradiction between wealth and
poverty, the contradiction between illiteracy and education.
It showed the whole world how to handle the so-called
worker's problem or worker's issue, woman’s question and
social question, all of the main problems of humanity
in the last century. This approach indicated a way to
resolve them.
At the end of the day, we can say with
confidence that such basic concepts, which are well-known
in the world today - such as the right to be elected and
take part in the elections and strong trade unions which
can protect the people - are deeply rooted in the concept
of human rights and freedom. Today, I am also going to
explain how I view the main problems that we have in Russia
at the moment. I want to share our vision with you. How
the main problems of our country can be resolved on the
way to liberalism and freedom.
But I think that my first question is
the most important: why were the ten years of reforms
in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and other central
European countries successful - maybe not very successful,
but your situation is much better than ours - and if compared
to Russian reforms tremendously successful both economically
and also politically? And why wasn’t the same reform successful
in Russia? This is perhaps the main question of the last
ten years.
Let me offer my answer to this question.
I think the reason is that a democratic revolution happened
in Poland, in your country, in Hungary and other European
countries ten years ago. And in Russia, ten years ago,
a nomenklatura revolution happened: what Gorbachev called
Perestroika was real, but what we have at the moment is
not a real revolution, which changes the people, priorities,
and values. At the same time when Perestroika changed
the world, the higher class of the former communist party
of the Soviet Union perished, changed their jackets and
symbols. At the end of the 1980s these people were talking
widely about Lenin, socialism, and the five-year plan.
Now, ten years later they are repeating the words, reform,
democracy and market. This is the order: some of the most
learned even learned these words in English. It was a
very special period of time that brought Russia to a new
crossroads, but we learned some very important lessons.
Firstly, only real political change,
and not simply a recreation of the previous communist
elite, can change the country. And we also learned that
the party nomenklatura were transformed through the changes
in the economy into the criminal nomenklatura. This is
the reason why Russia at the moment has such a high level
of criminality. But we also learned another very important
economic lesson. Maybe you remember the words of a famous
author about open society, who wrote a book called Enemies
to an Open Society. Carl Harper was saying that an open
society has at least two enemies, fascism and communism.
Russian experience over the past ten years showed that
capitalism, which is not limited by law, capitalism which
is based simply on huge monopolies and private property
rights for a limited number of people, capitalism in a
country where you have no justice, where you have no civic
society, where you have no independent judicial system,
where you have no system of laws, where you have no civic
institutions, you have no political parties, is also a
wild animal which is fighting open society.
Here the reforms over 10 years made on
behalf of Russia’s first so-called democratic President
and young liberal reformers and bring the country two
wars in ten years. One involved bombing the Parliament,
one hyperinflation, and two defaults, I would say it is
a big advantage that at the end of the day the Russian
people are still prepared to take part in democratic elections
and that millions and millions of these people still voted
for democracy, freedom, private property and market economy.
It is very hard to convince the people at the moment that
all the developments in Russia over the past ten years
are attributable not to democrats or liberals, but to
the poor Soviet way of thinking and inadequate Soviet
way of development.
Based on such an understanding I want
to start a short brief explanation, as I hope that you
will ask me questions. I would say that I am even more
interested in your questions than in my answers. And I
am going to explain what interests me most, but I still
want to say several things about the economic reforms
needed in Russia today. First of all, I want to say that
I'm absolutely convinced now that a workable market economy
must be based on a real workable concept of human rights
in the country. The country’s policy must be based on
a clear understanding of human rights, where private property
rights is one of the key elements: without protecting
such fundamental rights, you cannot establish a workable
market economy.
Secondly, after such a basic statement,
my next common may seem a little strange. I think that
every human being in Russia at the moment has a clear
vision of what needs to be done in the economy. Including
children and students, both men and women: this is very
simple: low taxes, privatisation of land, a transparent
and workable banking system, de-monopolization, protection
of investors, an independent judicial system, etc. There
is no question any more about the programme that Russia
needs. The question is: who has the political will to
implement such a programme? Who will dare start fighting
the oligarchs, whose interests are perpendicular to those
goals that the Russian economy needs. This is the key
question of the Russian economy.
Certainly, we can discuss the policy of
the IMF towards Russia. There is a political aspect to
the assertion that it would much better for every country,
including Russia, if we would come to the IMF with our
programme, explaining to the IMF what Russia needs and
convincing the IMF of our needs and then asking them if
they want to help. If not we are going to continue our
reforms, as they are in our vital interest and in the
interests of our people we are not going to make...and
I am not considering the theoretical aspect of the question:
that the economy of such a country was not damaged by
central planning, whereas the economies of Poland, Hungary,
your country and Eastern Germany were damaged by central
planning. The Russian economy was created by central planning
and therefore a different species. And this species needs
a different policy.
That is why I think that institutional
change is the main priority in the Russian economy. And
macro-economic stabilization can only occur as an irreversible
item, only as a final stage of serious institutional changes
- implementing private property, competition, and all
the main market institutions. It is a very important -
maybe debatable, maybe questionable - point and I'm ready
to protect and defend it. But the key issue anyhow is
who would be politically prepared to implement such a
reform in Russia. As you see the level of taxes and competition,
de-monopolization, and private property rights are the
main basic values of liberalism and open society and would
be the key issue of all debates in Russian economic policy
from now for the next ten, twenty years. But I am absolutely
convinced that they represent the only serious way forward
for Russian economic reform.
The second issue is political. It concerns
the war in the Northern Caucasus. I want to say first
of all that the Northern Caucasus may well be one of the
most dangerous and unstable regions in the world. And
it is necessary to state openly and seriously that there
is a real threat of terrorism, slavery, the disappearance
of people and terrorist attacks. I want to stress that
is not only the case in the Northern Caucasus. I would
suggest that anyone who is interested in politics and
in international politics should look more carefully at
developments in Central Asia and the former Soviet Union
republics
Extremists, terrorists, fundamentalists
and extreme fundamentalists are developing their ideas
openly and very, very seriously and this is a real problem.
This is a problem that Russia faces and I would not recommend
anybody to underestimate this problem. At the same time,
I have to say with great sorrow that the methods used
by the Russian government to confront this threat were
completely wrong in my view. I want to repeat in Prague
once again that it is not and has not been an anti-terrorist
operation since November last year: it is a full-scale
war against the people in the Northern Caucasus. This
is a full-scale war that has no future and will never
yield positive results. There is a lot of blood, it is
a tragedy for the people, it involves 300,000 refugee,
thousands and dozens of thousands of people are killed.
The methods used by the Russian government to try to overcome
the problem of terrorism in the Northern Caucasus is completely
wrong, There is only one way forward - it is a one-way
road - starting political negotiations. What are the conditions
for these political negotiations? Political negotiations
must be organized on three basic principles. First of
all, with those on the Chechen side who are ready to accept
the Russian Constitution and the current situation in
Russian laws. And secondly, with those who personally
were not involved in slavery, killing people, disappearances
and terrorist actions.
And thirdly, with those on the Chechen
side who were elected in 1997 under the control of international
organizations. This is the answer to the questions of
people who repeatedly say that there is no way to hold
negotiations, there is no way of adopting a political
approach. We need to stop the military conflict in the
Northern Caucasus from being transformed into complete
genocide. These negotiations must start as soon as possible.
My party and I have been making this demand since the
first days of November when the full-scale war started.
Certainly, it would be a very difficult
and a very long way forward, but there is no alternative.
Now I want to share with you some ideas about Russia and
Europe. This is one of the key issues, which I find most
interesting. I think it is interesting, because when I
see the future of Russia, I believe that Russia must be
a European country 20, 25 years from now. But not in the
sense of bureaucrats in Brussels, in the sense of values,
the rule of law, type of economy, human relations, level
of understanding, criteria, security assistance that is
the main way for Russia to move forward.
The alternative would be isolation, extreme
internal conflicts, instability and unpredictable development.
That is why relations with Europe are so important. But
I want to share with you some of my views about what needs
to be done here. I think that the approach of Western
politicians, who focused on Russian political personalities,
such as Yeltsin for example, was utterly wrong. This approach
needs to be changed. The meeting with the new Russian
president is certainly a positive sign, but it is far
from being enough. And it is always necessary to make
sure that the meeting between Russian and Western leaders
is not transformed into something similar to the Yalta
negotiations. Consequently actions and priorities must
be changed.
The main priorities must be relations
with the people, between professionals, between citizens,
between the different political parties, non-governmental
organizations, between students, between cities: these
are the key issues that should govern the future development
of Russian European relations. If such relations were
to develop - and this would not simply involve meetings
and visits of the leaders of the states - I believe that
this would mark a new step in the development of democracy,
of an open society and human rights.
I would also like to underline here that
there are some extremely important things for Russian
citizens, such as the exchange of information-media. Let
me provide one small example: now we receive European
news in almost all languages, even languages of people
who are not members of the European Union. The language
is not even European, but there is not one single world-wide
television program in Russian, which makes up for about
three hundred-fifty million people.
The ability of the Russian people in Siberia
to watch the Euro news in Russian would be an extremely
important step. This would contribute to Russia’s future,
Russian democracy, Russian stability much more than two
or three visits by the President of the United States
to Russia, who asks: "Mr Yeltsin, how are you doing?"."I'm
doing well Mr. Clinton. How are you?"."I'm fine. What
are you doing here?". "I'm doing reforms.""What kind of
reforms?" "Radical.""Oh, congratulations!"Kisses, hugs,
shaking hands: this is not beneficial. It would be much
better for Russia to read European newspapers in Russian,
to watch the television in Russian, and then the debates
about NATO would be at a different level and many things
would proceed at a different level.
Certainly, they are not just talking
about the major European countries at the moment. The
visa issue is a very strange issue in Russia. To obtain
a visa, Russian citizens have to queue for weeks: let
me assure you that no criminals stand in this queue. The
leaders of the Russian Mafia are not standing in queues
at foreign embassies. I don't know how they obtain visas,
but they obtain them without staying in line. In this
line you observe people who have vacations for 20 days
and, twelve of those days standing in a queue. They come
from all Russia to live on the street in Moscow to obtain
a visa. But how can we develop democracy? How can we expect
more votes if people have never seen how people live in
Europe?
They have never seen this life: they have
only heard something about democracy. But they've never
seen that. To promote this cause, to make people understand
the new way of life, they should see how another people
can live. How life can be organized in a different way.
And that would be the strongest, the strongest incentive
that is absolutely necessary -roads, telecommunications,
information, newspapers, independent information coming
from Europe to Russia, sources of independent information
which completely changes the situation sooner or later.
I am talking about first steps: I'm saying that it is
not so important whether Putin is good or bad. Let us
give him a chance; but relations with the people, this
is the key issue. The leaders would go away, but the people
would stay. Most importantly, people always ask me what
the West should do for Russia. For a long time, it was
a very difficult question for me, because - as I said
before - I think that we are making our reforms to cater
for the interests of the Russian people and are not favouring
anybody. But now I know what to say. Looking at the West,
I would say, what we need most of all, we need you to
make your policy clear, consistent, open, democratic and
honest. Your own policy. Not about us. About yourself,
about Europe, about whatever.
At the moment we can see two different
directions in one policy. One is based on human rights,
while the other is based on so-called real politik. Two
different directions in one head is a pretty dangerous
state of mind. We saw that on the vote in the European
Parliament, just about the Chechen war: the next day Ministers
of the European Union said "sorry, we want to provide
an excuse for our Parliament.
They were tough on you." This is based
on human rights and here is the real politick. Try to
make the policy consistent, open, clear, liberal, whatever,
but at the end of the day be honest. Finally consider
the approach to Russia, saying that Russians need only
a strong leader. This kind of comment comes from a person
who does not understand democracy. They don't understand
the market. They need simply a strong leader and we need
to be friends with this strong leader and that will be
enough for them. This approach would never make any progress
or developments. We have different histories, Russia and
France, Russia and Germany, Russia and the United States,
Russia and Eastern Europe.
It is true that we have different histories,
but we are one civilization. In the next century, it will
be the century of civilizations. That's why I insist on
making all-world politics, especially the politics of
my country clear, and in a politics of equals I want you
to criticize us and to say real things, to say them in
black and white, in a clear and comprehensible manner.
This is absolutely necessary.
Then we would have the right to say for
example that the bombing in Kosovo was a complete disaster.
And the Chechen conflict is in many ways a result of the
bombing in Kosovo. This was the clear catastrophe of Western
democracy, because the solution was not on a television
show. Not in Belgrade, as the solution was in Moscow.
And the Western countries obtained this solution, but
too late in May. It was necessary to come to Moscow and
push Moscow to cease relations with Milosevic. To stop
supporting Milosevic: that represented the solution to
this conflict, and not bombing. So that is why I think
that we need to discuss more current political and economic
problems, as we also have doubts about the single currency
in Europe and many other issues. These are all disputable
issues, which should in my opinion be discussed sooner
or later. However, to finish, I would like to say that
this prize is a big honour for me.
And this prize does not entirely belong
to me, this prize belongs at least to the many, many millions
of my voters. I was third in the last Presidential elections
and I can say that 15 years ago no one could even imagine
or dream that the man expressing such ideas as myself
today would be able to come third in a Presidential election
and say the same things in Prague, and in every Siberian
village. So, this prize is for the Russian people.
Thank you very much.
See also:
Discussion after Mr. Yavlinsky’s speech on receiving award from the Liberal Institute of the Czech Republic
"For contributing to the dissemination of liberal ideas and implementation of the ideas of freedom, private property,
competition and the rule of law"
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