But in Moscow these days, the voice of Director Pikulya is a minor chord. The dominant mood is… it’s not easy for Russians to say this, not wise to tempt fate, but it’s… almost optimistic. The sky hasn’t fallen. The politicians are quiet for a change. The official statistics say that production has contracted by 29 percent in the past year. That’s probably good news: “The state enterprises are producing less of what no one wants to buy,” says Swedish economist Anders Aslund. More important, the rest of the economy appears to be growing. Moscow, at least, has been overtaken by a fierce, feral entrepreneurial energy. Call it primal enterprise-an economy dominated by predators, the old alliance of mafiosi and nomenklatura that controlled the black market, now basking in semi-propriety. The Western fears that accompanied the fall of communism -that Russians wouldn’t quite get how a free economy works-have proven groundless. They get it. It isn’t pretty, but neither was the California gold rush. Today’s nomen-mafiaklatura may well be the Russian Rockefellers and Vanderbilts of the next century. Their prosperity seeps slowly, and spottily, to the masses.
Which raises some questions about the U.S. aid effort here. It hasn’t quite been a disaster. The basic idea, to let expansion of market economy," according to Agency for International Development official Carol Lancaster, seemed wise. And despite some conspicuous embarrassments (stupid television commercials made by American media consultants touting privatization), much of the assistance given-technical advice on basic financial systems, accounting methods and so forth-has been good. But one has to wonder whether the Russians, in their furious pursuit of enterprise, wouldn’t have found their own way to (and paid good money for) this sort of expertise. And one also has to wonder whether the American firms providing the advice-who are the heart of the U.S. aid effort-might have paid for their own $300-per-night hotel rooms in order to get in on the ground floor of a huge new market.
As it happened, the “expansion of the market economy” didn’t need all that much promotion in Russia. What does need promotion is the expansion of a civil society. The real potential for instability comes from those who have been left behind, people like the families Vera Samuelovna sees at Children’s Polyclinic #92, but their problems are nearly impossible for outsiders to fix. In the past, a social safety net was provided, in large part, by the state enterprises: every tractor factory and collective farm had its own schools, health clinics, daycare centers, housing blocks. Those enterprises are privatizing or collapsing now; no one knows how their social services will be sustained. There’s been some halfhearted talk of a World Bank effort to help the government ease the transition, but this is one area where the Russians, quite pointedly, have not wanted Western assistance. There is pride and practicality involved. Russian pride, of course. Western practicality: large grants of humanitarian aid would be stolen or squandered (“like sand through your fingers,” Vera Samuelovna says). Also, how could Bill Clinton fund health clinics in Russia when he can’t pass a bill to do the same at home?
In fact-and despite the usual American messianism-there was never the money, or opportunity, for much more than a symbolic effort here. The current AID program isn’t even symbolic-it is well intentioned, but largely invisible. Most Russians think America has talked big and done nothing (and some of the more cynical cognoscenti suspect AID is, ultimately, providing only logistical support to the mafia-ridden corporate sector). A better idea might be to help some of the victims of primal enterprise. Instead of funding a network of business centers (as both AID and the Peace Corps are), we might consider “Friendship Centers” for the impoverished veterans of World War II, with food and camaraderie provided by their brethren in the American Legion or VFW (through U.S. government grants, of course). Vera Samuelovna suggested another idea: the old Soviet “Young Pioneer” camps have either closed or been privatized. “The children here are falling out of trees, getting run over by cars or turning to crime,” she says. “They have nothing to do this summer.” Perhaps the Boy Scouts or YMCA could help reopen some of the old camps-again, with money indirectly supplied by the U.S. government. Make no mistake: these would be band-aids. But we haven’t the ability to do much more, and Russia, ultimately, must do the big things itself. Anyway, there is much to be said for band-aids: they soothe, and ease the pain-and they are visible.
