[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 119 (Thursday, September 10, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10222-S10223]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SITUATION IN RUSSIA

  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, 7 years ago last month, hard-line and 
aging Communist bosses in the Soviet Union made a clumsy attempt at a 
coup d'etat against then President Gorbachev. The coup accelerated the 
slow-motion implosion of the Soviet empire. By December of that year, 
our old nemesis had collapsed in an overwhelming, decisive and total 
victory for the United States. This ended 50 years of cold war that had 
exacted a tremendous toll in blood, sweat and treasure from our Nation. 
Our emotions ran the gamut from pride to relief--relief especially that 
the dark cloud of nuclear annihilation seemed to have passed and, in a 
more subtle way, relief that the heavy burden of leading the world in a 
battle for freedom against communism had been lifted from our 
shoulders. We clamored for a peace dividend. We reveled in our newfound 
ability to focus the Nation's energy on domestic affairs.
  But the last few weeks of events in Russia have been a rude wake-up 
call, a convincing demonstration that neither the danger nor the burden 
have been lifted. If anything, Mr. President, they are greater. 
Russia's economy and currency have been stressed to the point of 
breaking. President Yeltsin's government is in grave crisis. The men 
and women who tend Russia's nuclear arsenal--the one remaining threat 
on this planet to the instantaneous extinction of the United States--
have not been paid, by some reports, inasmuch as a year.
  The danger is still great, Mr. President, but so is the burden, and 
it is that burden I want to discuss this evening.
  We may react to these developments with a tinge of surprise. It is an 
axiom of the American tradition--an axiom, incidentally, in which I 
firmly believe--that democracies do not behave this way. When last most 
of us tuned in to the Russian saga, they had held democratic elections. 
They had abandoned central planning and other tenets of Communist 
ideology and embraced basic precepts of capitalism. They had agreed to 
swallow the magic elixir that we all assumed would cure the disease and 
now--just when we thought it might be safe to retreat from our global 
responsibilities--they are sick again. And once again, the burden of 
global leadership is thrust upon us.
  What happened?
  Let me stipulate, first of all, that I don't believe capitalism and 
democracy are magic elixirs that cure all diseases in a single dose. 
But I do believe that, taken as a rigorous regimen of treatment, they 
are about as good a cure for a whole variety of ills as we will ever 
find.
  What we are learning, Mr. President, isn't that democracy and free 
markets are bad medicine, but that it is tough medicine that works as 
part of a sustained regimen. We are learning that democracy does not 
exist simply because the first election was called, and that capitalism 
does not exist the moment after the central planners are fired. 
Infrastructure must be built to sustain and manage these systems in a 
lawful manner. I believe the true test of the success of Russia will be 
determined by our ability to help the Russian people build this 
infrastructure.
  The first institution that must undergird capitalism and democracy is 
the rule of law. The importance of that institution is illustrated by 
one of this century's great inventions, the airplane. Five years passed 
from the first successful flight at Kitty Hawk to the first public 
demonstration of the ``Wright Model A'' in France. The reason is that 
the Wright brothers were busy litigating a patent. It was that 
protection--the protection of law for their invention--that unleashed 
the ingenuity of the air age. Without the knowledge that the law 
protected their right to earn a living off their own ingenuity, the air 
age might never have been born.

  It is exactly this sort of simple institution of law that makes 
capitalism possible. Such institutions do not yet exist in Russia.
  There is a joke that in America, when two businessmen agree on 
something, put their agreement down on a piece of paper and sign their 
names to it, they have a contract. In Russia, all they have is a piece 
of paper. Without the rule of law, the simple act of opening a 
business, marketing a new idea or so much as buying a house becomes 
foolish and risky.
  What we have learned, and what the Russian people are learning, is 
that democracy is also hard work, and our challenge now is to help the 
Russian people build the institutions that enable freedom to succeed. 
That Russia is still struggling to make democracy work should come as 
no surprise to us. For 222 years, we have been struggling with the same 
questions. On this day we are debating a bill whose goal is to fine-
tune our own democracy. We helped the Russian people become free; now 
we must help them do the much harder work of being free. Mr. President, 
the true test of the success of Russia will be determined by our 
ability to help the Russian people build this infrastructure.
  Despite these tall hurdles, the Russian people deserve credit for the 
long distance they have traveled.
  They have created a democratic environment with the guarantee of 
essential freedoms like speech and press.
  They have a functioning democratic electoral system. Boris Yeltsin is 
the democratically elected President of Russia. In turn, there is a 
democratically elected Duma controlled by an opposition party. As a 
result, Russia has learned the lesson that we in this body know all too 
well--democratic politics sometimes means gridlock.
  Here as I see them are the areas in which Russia has fallen short:
  Simply put, they have not done enough to establish the rule of law.
  Because the style of capitalism they have implemented does not rest 
on the solid base of the rule of law, economic interactions have become 
distorted and unstable.
  The government has not lived up to its responsibilities, and by 
failing to collect taxes and pay pensions, back wages and so forth, the 
government has lost the faith of the people. Corrupt privatization of 
state-owned enterprises and the failure to implement reforms, such as 
the protection of private property, have given the people a distorted 
vision of capitalism.
  Take just the collection of taxes. We all know in this body that we 
just reformed the laws governing our Internal Revenue Service and 
reformed them because a significant percentage of Americans no longer 
trusted the tax collector.
  But what we failed to acknowledge is, as bad as our system is, and as 
much as it can be improved--and I hope this legislation will improve 
it--a well functioning tax collector is a critical part, and a trusted 
tax collector is a critical part, of a functioning free market 
democratic form of Government.
  As a result, the Russian people have become discouraged by ``cowboy 
capitalism'' and do not realize a true market economy should have the 
checks and balances of the rule of law.
  Mr. President, we cannot be content to treat these simply as Russia's 
problems. And I submit there are three reasons why we cannot.
  First, Russia's problems are our problems. Our own economy is not 
closely entwined with theirs, but it is not insulated either. 
Furthermore, the

[[Page S10223]]

potential consequence of allowing this economic crisis to spread 
throughout the world poses too great a threat to our own economic 
security to stand idly by and watch the total collapse of the Russian 
political and economic system. Much more ominously, political 
instability and nuclear weapons are a dangerous mix.
  Second, the Russian people are human beings who are suffering. Our 
hearts and hands of assistance should go out to them.
  Third, and most important, the United States of America is the 
firstborn child of democracy in the modern age. We are the oldest and 
most successful, and when democracy is being born, history has called 
us to the duty of being its midwife, not a disinterested observer in 
the waiting room. We may wish this burden had been not cast on us, but 
it has. This is our duty.
  Mr. President, what can we do?
  First of all, I believe we must look at Russian democracy in terms of 
decades, not just years. The future is still very bright for them. It 
is a great nation blessed with vast resources and talented people. I 
remain confident that the transition to democracy will be successful. 
Nothing will cool their ardor for democratic reforms more than if we 
become pessimistic about the possibility of their democracy surviving.
  We know it is tough. We know it is difficult. All of us have faced 
difficult moments in a democracy where we have wondered whether or not 
our system itself could work, but we always rise to the task. We always 
manage to rise to the challenge, to do that little more that is 
necessary to make our system work. We simply have to say to the Russian 
people over and over: ``Do not be discouraged. It's far better than 
what you had before. The rule of law and the opportunity to govern 
yourself will be frustrating, it will produce disappointments, but do 
not stop persevering. Your children and your grandchildren will reward 
you with praise if you do.''
  Secondly, Mr. President, we have to continue to engage Russia as a 
partner. Not only is it desirable for us to do so as a consequence of 
their need, but it is desirable for us to do so as a consequence of 
ours. They are a permanent member of the Security Council. They are 
actively involved in many of the most important world issues that we 
face. And it is imperative that we continue to treat them as a full 
partner.
  Third, we must continue to support the International Monetary Fund. 
While imperfect, and certainly demanding reform itself to become more 
open to our observation to know what they are doing and the decisions 
that they are making, it is still the only institution that pools the 
world's resources to address large-scale financial crises. I am pleased 
that the Senate has once again passed legislation to provide $18 
billion to replenish the IMF's capital base.
  Next, we must continue to work with the Russians on arms control and 
security issues. Instability in Russia is still the greatest foreign 
threat to our safety. Working to reduce nuclear and conventional arms 
will help Russia financially and improve the safety of the American 
people.
  I do not mean to imply by that that arms control all by itself will 
solve this problem. We have lived through the tragedy of disarmament 
from the Second World War. We watched what happened when this Nation 
said in the 1920s: There are no threats out there, and therefore we are 
going to disarm. We have an obligation, based upon that memory, to keep 
our military and Armed Forces as strong as necessary, not just to meet 
today's threats but to meet tomorrow's threats. Still, it is true that 
the great amount of effort to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons 
will produce tremendous benefits not just to the people of the United 
States but to the people of all of this world.
  Our most important long-term challenge, though, is working with 
Russia to develop the rule of law. This has to be a hands-on process of 
teaching. I believe the most important effort is likely to be the least 
expensive, and that is just long-term exchange programs, giving their 
people a chance to come here to see how democracy works, to understand 
the importance of having that law there to protect you not only so you 
can speak but so that you can start your business and enjoy the 
benefits that come as a consequence of the reward that we provide 
people in the market system--and it simply isn't there--to show them 
that we have also faced in the past problems with Government officials 
who are corrupted, but again the rule of law is there to protect the 
people, that they cannot tolerate corruption and they need not tolerate 
corruption in order to have a market system, and that they should not 
be discouraged as a consequence of the failures and the problems that 
they experience in the birthing years of their democracy and their 
market system.
  We need to tell them, Mr. President, as we no doubt can, that we 
experience similar problems, that it is a long voyage, that we on the 
Fourth of July, we on Memorial Day, and we on Veterans Day, and we in 
great moments in our history stand and pay tribute not to ourselves but 
to our forefathers for the sacrifice of blood, for the sacrifice of 
treasury, for putting themselves on the line for our freedom.
  We need to say that the burden on freedom is a great burden, that 
freedom is not free, that in wartime we must do as John Miller in 
``Saving Private Ryan'' did--put down our chalk and give up our careers 
as teachers and put our lives on the line at the beaches of Normandy.
  But in peacetime the burden is, we have to put our own selves on the 
line to fight to make our laws give people the protection and the 
freedom that they deserve, to come together and argue, to come together 
with our ideas, as we do here, day after day after day.
  We have, I think, an opportunity, through exchange programs, through 
very small hands-on efforts, an opportunity to show the people of 
Russia that their great character that enabled them to turn back 
Napoleon, that enabled them to turn back Adolph Hitler, that enabled 
them to survive so much that it is almost unimaginable that they were 
able to get the job done, that a people that can do that can make 
democracy and free markets work not just for them but for their 
futures.
  Mr. President, I hope and believe indeed there is reason to have 
optimism, that this Congress will not, on behalf of the American 
people, shirk our responsibilities and our duties to work with the 
people of Russia to make this experiment in democracy in their country 
as big a success as it has been for us.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________