INDEPTH: RUSSIA
Garry Kasparov: Checking Vladimir Putin
CBC News Online | March 15, 2004
Reporter: Dan Bjarnason | Producer: Alex Shprintsen
Vladimir Putin is Russia's no-nonsense, ruthless strongman, ever eager to apply blunt force to any problem.
Garry Kasparov is the chess champion, whose quiet strength springs from careful manoeuvring and probing for weakness.
Putin and Kasparov are symbols of the two paths Russia could take, but the Russians, though masters of the subtleties of chess, usually select the option of crude power.
"We have to recognize that today Russia is, in effect, a police state. And the situation's getting worse," Kasparov says. "Russia is moving backward, or to a sideline. And it seems to me that within a few years, it will be fully authoritarian state with elections just being called for the sake of the rest of the world, just to show window of democracy, while the country will be under severe KGB control.
"I don't want my son to grow up in such atmosphere, and I believe that… and I believe it all the time, that there is a moment for a person, who has certain substance and importance and is known across the land, to take a stand. Or, just to leave the place."
If you think chess masters are tweedy, pipe-puffing academics, think again. Garry Kasparov always had a sharp political edge, ahead of the curve in the Soviet Union when he was growing up. His first world championship match two decades ago with a faithful Soviet servant, Anatoly Karpov, was highly politicized. By the time Kasparov was 22, he was world champion. Soon after, perestroika was in full swing.
Kasparov's drive to win had made him a fierce warrior at the chessboard, a zealot who hates to lose to humans or to computers. He is the greatest chess player ever; he's been the world's top-rated grandmaster for two decades and he's still only 40.
Now he's still finding new challenges.
"There is no pillar, democratic pillar in Russia that is safe from being changed in favour of Putin and his cronies," Kasparov says.
Chess is a highly personal duel between individuals but Kasparov's latest "game" is being fought on behalf of the Russian people. And across the board the opponent of a lifetime, the strongest man in the country, the king of Russia's politics: Vladimir Putin.
"My only quarrel with Putin, my only disagreement, and the reason I detest him and the KGB guys, they are stealing freedom from me and from my son, and from all the people of my country. And I don't approve it. And I believe it's wrong, and I believe I must fight," Kasparov says.
Putin is doubtless widely popular and about to be swept back into power in a landslide. But to Kasparov, since Putin was elected four years ago, he has been behaving like a czar in president's clothing – more in keeping with Putin the former secret police boss than with Putin the leader of a modern democracy.
Kasparov is alarmed as he sees Putin placing himself and his loyal underlings beyond the law, stomping out any whiff of opposition and strangling an independent media.
Soon after coming to power, Putin talked to CBC in a Moscow interview. That's when first hints of his intolerance began to surface.
"The same people who complain about restrictions, continue to criticize the president in a very strong way. I don't know if your colleagues in Canada do the same. I'm not sure, but here they do. This is the main indicator that nobody restricts the press. Everybody says what they feel like saying."
Kasparov says, "Now, we have no opposition views and the television is totally under control of the state. The main print media is also either under direct control of Kremlin, and oligarchs loyal to Putin, or [they are] trying to be very, very cautious not to give an extra reason for Kremlin to attack.
Once, there was an exciting air of freedom infecting Russian media. One major channel, NTV, took on Putin in the 2000 election. Then, soon after, NTV's owner Vladimir Gusinsky lost control of his own company and, fearing arrest, fled into exile. The word was out and criticism of Putin screeched to a halt. Then, many journalists moved to another channel and found that, as if by magic, that station, too, was closed down. Everyone got the message.
Even as popular and prestigious a figure as Kasparov has felt the heat from the Kremlin. This past January, he and a group of like-minded politicians, journalists and reformers called a news conference. They were announcing the formation of a committee to fight in the 2008 election.
The press non-turnout surprised no one.
"We saw at the press conference when the leading members of the committee held this conference in Moscow. We saw the mike from Channel 1. And we looked at the guys, and they said we must do it, you know, for the collection, but we can't show it. So everyone knows that main channels of Russian television will not give you the story that is contradicting the nice and clean image of Mr. Putin.
"If we are comparing, you know, the coverage of this election, and with previous days, I would say it's probably getting closer to Brezhnev's time than to Yeltsin's time."
A prominent fatality of the Putin mood was the popular political satire called Puppets. Putin didn't get the joke. Puppets was harassed and hounded and then finally cancelled.
"There is no network in Russia that could afford criticizing Putin," Kasparov says. "You can't get licence, you can't get permission, you can't get even funds. So any public activity in Russia aimed at Putin's records will be attacked and harassed by security forces."
It's this fearsome shadow of the security forces looming once more over Russian society that is a matter of great alarm to Kasparov.
Putin, the former KGB boss, has crammed key government posts with his old secret police pals, and like-minded souls from the military. They openly use their muscle not just against critical journalists but also against so-called oligarchs, tricky hi-flyers who became overnight millionaires.
This war of Putin "the people's president" on these oligarchs is very popular with ordinary Russians struggling to make ends meet.
"The oligarchs don't have the right to influence state policy-making other than through legitimate channels of decision making, like parliament," Putin told an interviewer.
One particular oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was recently tossed in jail for, among other so-called crimes, financing opposition parties and personalities.
"We are living in a society where nobody is safe if you have the opposite opinion," Kasparov says. "I mean, even if the richest man in the country, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is jailed, with a massive violation of any rights that [are] given in the Russian constitution by Russian law. Everybody understands it's a political revenge…a political attack on a potentially opposition figure, and he's still there, and no matter what, and nobody cares about it. So how can you guarantee the safety of anybody else who wants to express the opposite opinion?"
And here's the voice of Putin, the great democrat: "I assure you, there's no threat of dismantlement of democratic structures that have been built over the past 10 years," he says.
Kasparov fears that in this hamstringing of the press and the cowing of the opposition, the pillar of democracy – free elections – has already been dismantled. There is more than a whiff in all this of the elections of another era, where behind the trappings of democracy at work, there is only one real candidate and one well pleased with his press coverage.
"We know that this election shows that the entire state machinery, the state controlled press, is promoting Putin day and night," Kasparov says. "So there was a famous accident when the news program, half an hour news program, was replaced by the Putin's pre-election speech. And the Central Russian committee said that it was up to television to decide, but news program was totally replaced by Putin's pre-election speech. Which is strict violation of any law in Russia."
Kasparov's dilemma is that the Russians are largely deaf to his warnings. Putin, he concedes, will doubtless romp to victory in Sunday's voting. They like his tough-guy style. The shattered economy seems to have improved and there is stability. But, says Kasparov, it's all an illusion.
"Putin's popularity is a sort of enigma," Kasparov says. "How do we know he's popular or he's not popular? I mean the man never contested any fair elections. He never was a part of television debate. He never expressed his views. He was always presented as the head of the state, a czar, a president, whoever. A person that was not even part of our world, you know.
"It's an old Russia or communist position. So that's why the popularity is not being tested yet. And that's why you can hardly actually check whether people are for Putin or against Putin – they don't care, because they don't recognize that Putin's election or re-election or dismissal could influence their lives."
Even the Putin track record of tough and effective measures is a mirage.
"Maybe he's a tough guy, but, you know, what we could see that Russian military is deteriorating. We could see a total disaster in Chechnya," Kasparov says. "We could see brutality of Russian army that is being turned into the uncontrolled gang, where generals are doing whatever they want.
"Did we have any terrorist activities in Russia before Putin? When? No? Putin promised to end it up, very effectively. It's getting worse. If you look at the record, again look at the record Putin fighting terror. It's getting worse. I mean, there are more and more explosions. Could you imagine the political fate of President Bush if 9/11 was repeated in a year's time in America?
Garry Kasparov, recognized as a budding chess genius by the age of 12, today is a sophisticated man of the world. He is one of the most popular, and recognizable Russians anywhere. But he vitally needs – while there's still time left before the 2008 election – to shake his fellow Russians out of their complacency about democracy.
"I think that one of the reasons is that probably the influence of 75 years of communist slavery was heavily underestimated. You know, it probably had a genetic effect on the population," Kasparov says. "We going to work on education, because Russia had no traditions of democracy and people still do not recognize the close connection between their lives and the decision makers in Kremlin. So we are going to concentrate on spreading the message across the country, using modern technology, sending information."
In the battle on the chessboard, the key to victory is in planning several moves ahead, eventually forcing your opponent to expose his king.
In the battle for the Kremlin, grandmaster Kasparov is planning the match of his life. As he manoeuvres over the next four years to expose Russia's current king, Kasparov's gambling that the Russian people will hear his warnings that the emperor has no clothes.
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