| It has become in vogue to say that the errors of the liberals
are the reasons for the emergence of a quasi-democracy in Russia, the authoritative
system whenre civil society institutions are managed out of one cabinet
, said Grigory Yavlinsky on Thursday
at a meeting of the Round Table Democracy in Russia which was conducted
during a conference devoted to the 10th anniversary of of the International
Carnegie Foundation in Russia. There has been no modern, serious, systematic
liberal approach to the Russian reforms for the past ten years, stated
Yavlinsky.
Yavlinsky also analysed the past ten years of Russian reforms marking
2,600% inflation, the refusal to discuss the methods of conducting the
reforms in 1992 and shooting of parliament, the war in Chechnya, the loans-for-shares
auctions, the construction of GKO financial pyramids that simultaneously
resulted in default and devaluation. I don’t understand why all
the reforms we had are described by such an inadequate term as liberal,
concluded Yavlinsky.
In view of the ongoing discussion in the country on the prospects of
liberalism in Russia Yavlinsky made an official statement, liberalism
and corruption, liberalism and crime of all the types, liberalism and
the shadow economy, liberalism and the war in Chechnya have nothing in
common, as they are absolutely different things. Thus people today reject
quasi-democracy, rather than liberalism, said Yavlinsky.
Russia has yet to face the beginning of an extremely difficult task
of creating a real liberal-democratic system, said Yavlinsky.
During the discussion of the role of the President in the democratization
of society, Yavlinsky noted that it was necessary to accept that our President
is not a democrat, and there is nothing frightening there. YABLOKO’s
leader also noted that the President conducted his election campaigns
in an absolutely transparent way, without concealing his views and obtained
the citizens mandate for the same policies that he has been carrying out
over the past four years.
Asked during the conference about his own choice between pessimism and
optimism, Yavlinsky said that proclamations to the effect that we have
already built a democracy, as heard in the mid-1990s, as well as claims
that everything has been wasted, are senseless and harmful.
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