Actually existing privatization: an interview with Yurii Marenich - Russia - Interview

Monthly Review, March, 1992 by David Mandel

D.M. And what did the city's Mayor do during all this?

Yu.M. Popov came out in support of Zaslavskii, claiming that it was a struggle of conservatives against democrats.

D.M. But Zaslavskii was violating the law.

Yu.M. In our country today the concept of "revolutionary necessity" dominates. At the very start, in June 1990, just after the Russian Supreme Soviet and Boris Yeltsin, its chairman, had been elected, the combination of posts in government and private business was declared impermissible. But it turned out that that was meant only for functionaries of the old apparatus and not for the new "democratic" office-holders. So the rules apply selectively; that is, it is a lawless state, as before.

This is a conscious policy, in my view. For example, after we published a report on the goings-on in our district in Moscow News, Shakhrhai, the representative of the Supreme Soviet, declared that combining posts is immoral and that a law prohibiting it was being drafted. This declaration had absolutely no effect on Zaslavskii. And I can state categorically and show you documents that these practices are rampant, not only at the district level, but at the city level and higher. The chair of the city's executive committee, Luzhkov, is also the head of a private firm that deals directly with the city. Indeed, Zaslavskii and his colleagues defended themselves by citing the city government: "Why should we not have the same rights?"

D.M. Are you saying this is going on everywhere?

Yu.M. I don't have documents from other districts. But I am positive that since the interest and the possibility of acting on it exist, this is happening everywhere. This is a key factor in the current disintegration of the country into feudal-type princedoms. Those who hold power in a district, city, region, or republic hold power over its property and want to fence this power off from outside interference. The power-holders at higher levels, of course, oppose this, since they lose a part of the property that they could appropriate.

It sometimes reaches the absurd point where individual villages declare their sovereignty. But this is quite understandable. The chairman of the village soviet stands to become the owner of all the property on its territory. Why should he share it with those in the district government? He tries to defend his property, sets up boundary markers, posts guards. In order to gain popular support for what is really a struggle for property among office-holders, they try to give it a national, religious, or some other coloring.

D.M. What happened to Zaslavskii after you got rid of him as chairman of your district soviet?

Yu.M. He was immediately given a job in the mayor's administration. Then he became co-chairman of the city's Democratic Russia organization; that is, he took on a post analogous to that previously held by Yu. Prokofiev, former first secretary of the Moscow city committee of the now defunct Communist Party. And now Popov is lobbying hard for Zaslavskii's appointment as chief prosecutor of Moscow.