| The battle over the fate of Russia's largest
non-governmental media
conglomerate Media-Most-which was created and
controlled by the former business "oligarch" Vladimir
Gusinsky, who has been
in Spain since last autumn-reached its climax in
the first half of April.
At an impromptu meeting on April 3, the stockholders of NTV television
changed
the station's management and selected a new
general director. The gathering was initiated by the company "Gazprom-Media,"
headed by Alfred Kokh, on behalf of the energy
giant Gazprom, and took place in Gazprom's central Moscow offices.
Behind the
decisions one can clearly see the hand of the
Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin personally, who used Gazprom-the
largest
stockholder in Media-Most after Gusinsky-to
place the TV channel under their de-facto control.
The new NTV general director is one Boris Jordan. He was born
in the United
States, came to Russia a few years ago and
established the investment bank Renaissance-Capital in 1995. Jordan
is known
for his ties to some former "oligarchs" and for his
successful speculation on the Russian financial market in the
mid-1990s. Up to
now he has headed the financial-industrial group
Sputnik, which owns the well-known radio station Evropa-Plus and
periodicals
such as the magazine Afisha.
NTV journalists organised a mass protest meeting in Moscow's
central Pushkin
Square on March 31 and another, attended by
thousands, on April 7 in front of the "Ostankino" television
station. But, in
the end, most accepted the shareholder decisions. Led
by Yevgeny Kiseliov, a group of approximately 300 television journalists
joined either the TNT station, which is also part of the
Media-Most holding, or the TV6 station, controlled by Gusinsky's
rival, Boris
Berezovsky.
On the night of April 7, Jordan sent guards to seize the NTV
offices and the
new general director took formal control of the
company. Simultaneously the news emerged that Kiseliov had been
offered the
leadership of the editorial board of the TV-6
television station. He accepted the offer and it seems that a
large section of
the NTV editorial board will join TV-6.
The formal pretext for replacing the old NTV management was the
parlous
financial situation of the Media-Most conglomerate.
According to company spokesmen, Gazprom, whose management is under
tight state
control, had invested about one billion dollars
into Media-Most and the media conglomerate was unable to pay back
some of
these debts.
In November 2000, in return for a loan of $211 million, Gazprom
received a 25
percent share in the Media-Most conglomerate and
a 16 percent share in NTV, bringing its holdings in NTV to 46
percent of the
total. At the same time, Gazprom obtained, as a
surety, 19 percent of the shares from Gusinsky's personal holdings.
As a
result of a judicial decision, Gusinsky was prevented from
using this 19 percent in any shareholder vote and thereby lost
control of the
company.
The pivotal role in the move against NTV was played by a company
called
Capital Research, a junior foreign partner, which had
held a 4.5 percent share of NTV stock since early 2000 and previously
sided
with Gusinsky. At the stockholder meeting, Capital
Research gave de-facto support to the proposals presented by Gazprom-Media
thus providing them with an aura of legitimacy.
(According to Gazprom, the decisions were passed with the support
of 50.5
percent of the "aboveboard" shares in NTV.)
Just two weeks before, Alfred Kokh gained control of the publishing
house,
Seven Days, also part of the Media-Most
conglomerate, using a similar method. He made a deal with Capital
Research,
consolidated a controlling share in the company and
replaced the former management with his own.
The last hope for the NTV team lay in negotiations with a consortium
of
foreign investors headed by the US media mogul and
CNN chief Ted Turner, who offered to purchase all of Gusinsky's
shares (30
percent plus the 19 percent) for $225 million.
Following the Gazprom takeover, Turner's ability to get control
of NTV and to
obtain Putin's approval are both in doubt and he
appears unlikely to proceed with the deal.
Freedom of the press
The coup d'etat at NTV has resonated throughout the Russian and
foreign mass
media and has become the major event in Russian
political life. The new management insists that the only issues
are commercial
ones. According to the new director Jordan, "The
problems facing NTV are not freedom of the press, but the actual
financial
collapse and default of NTV". Kokh commented that
"NTV needs crisis management requiring managers of a completely
different
character".
However, many Russian politicians and public figures have criticized
the
takeover. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev,
who is also the chairman of NTV's public advisory council, commented:
"The way
they are breaking apart the television channel,
the way they are behaving with respect to the journalists at NTV,
it is an
insult to our society, it is demeaning to all Russian
citizens. The change of leadership at NTV is not a juridical question,
it is a
completely political decision, that is an obvious fact."
Leader of the Yabloko faction, Gregory Yavlinsky, said: "The
events concerning
NTV resemble the August 1991 coup, but with
foreign participation. ... I would once again like to underline
that this is a
vitally important question. We are discussing the possibility
of all Russia's political figures and [State Duma] Deputies expressing
their
points of view on issues arising before the nation." The
further unfolding of these processes, Yavlinsky said, would mean
"a
contraction of civil rights and liberties of Russia's citizens.
This
would lead to a collapse of the Russian economy, the further impoverishment
of
the population and the loss of any perspectives by
the nation".
Journalists' Union head Vsevolod Bogdanov warned: "The regime
is attempting to
turn all the mass media, all the journalists and all
social institutions into 'its own'. The society is beginning to
lose any faith
that the mass media can be independent of the regime. It
is only those mass media, which are supported by the regime, that
are able to
survive. NTV is just one example, but there are
many more such channels around the country. Media outlets get
shut down,
people who do not get along with the power structures
are fired."
Over the last few years, NTV has been the only major oppositional
TV channel
of national stature, which has sharply criticized the
policy of the Kremlin in Chechnya, telling its viewers about the
barbaric
behavior of the Russian army there, and presented
exposes over issues such as the sinking of the nuclear submarine
Kursk.
But while assuming an oppositional stance, NTV did not refrain
from resorting,
albeit on a smaller scale, to the methods of slander
against its political opponents, which have become the staple
of recent
Russian political life. As the London-based Times noted:
"Vladimir Gusinsky had used NTV during his own political,
and at times, dirty
campaigns". NTV's record allowed Gleb Pavlovsky,
one of the main "political technologists" in Putin's
circle, to exclaim: "This
channel assembles and trades in crises".
Nevertheless it cannot be denied that NTV has now become the
victim of a
campaign of crude state pressure, involving various
special police services, prosecutors and other judicial organs.
In the course
of the campaign against NTV, which began last May,
the anti-democratic character of the Russian state, as it has
developed in the
ten years since the start of "democratic" reforms, has
been clearly exposed.
The Kremlin is using all means at its disposal to shut down and
silence any
oppositional media that has influence over public
opinion, and it has largely succeeded. The takeover of NTV is
primarily a
political, not a financial issue, and constitute a major blow
to freedom of speech and other democratic rights in Russia. That
is why the
silencing of NTV must be decisively condemned.
However, NTV's actual role in Russia should not be forgotten.
Until very
recently it has been a symbol of the "new Russia" and
for many years enjoyed the Kremlin's support. NTV contributed
much to the
direction of the political course along which the
country has traveled following the collapse of the USSR, and it
had never
before doubted its historical justification.
NTV was one of the elite institutions, both in the ideological
and economic
sense, of capitalist Russia, and it has played a colossal
role in reinforcing the ideological and political prestige of
the new ruling
regime, in re-electing Yeltsin in 1996, and in confirming
Putin as Yeltsin's successor.
While condemning the Kremlin's attack on NTV, class conscious
workers should
not extend uncritical support to the defense
campaign waged by the TV channel's managers and their political
allies. Their
defensive steps have been strictly limited and based
on a profoundly reactionary political outlook.
Those in charge of the defence campaign deny that the attack
on the TV station
demonstrates that democracy and freedom of
speech are incompatible with the regime's promotion of private
enterprise. In
fact, the old NTV management insists that the
opposite is the case: that Russia needs even more direct and "consistent"
measures in the direction of market reforms.
Democracy and private enterprise
The "money" question and the market have, however,
undoubtedly played a major
role in these events. Were Media-Most not
actually bankrupt, it could not have been deprived of its independence.
Media-Most was set up and organized in the Yeltsin years when
privatization
led to the brazen pilfering of state resources and
budgetary funds. The company expanded rapidly but was never able
to turn
itself into a genuinely profitable company. The huge
investments, which Gusinsky, with the government's help, was able
to mobilize
for grandiose projects such as NTV Plus and his
own space satellite, were premised on the early emergence of a
significant and
numerous middle class. The August 1998 financial
crisis in Russia shattered these hopes and brought Media-Most
to the edge of
bankruptcy, which it was only able to avoid with
state assistance.
The relationship between the state and the various oligarchic
business clans
changed under Putin and these changes deprived many
of these groups of their previous infusions of governmental funds.
As far as
NTV was concerned, the situation was exacerbated
by the fact that the Kremlin displayed ever more authoritarian
and
antidemocratic tendencies. Putin viewed with hostility any
criticism of his policies, whether over the war in Chechnya or
the sinking of
the submarine Kursk. Now the state has simply
stopped propping up NTV and imposed its will on the company.
In a sense, a whole period of Russian post-Soviet history is
ending.
Previously, the issues of freedom of speech and democracy
were posed primarily in two ways: firstly, in a reaction to the
totalitarian
legacy of the Stalinist regime, which claimed to be
communist, and secondly, in the illusion that the non-governmental
media
corporations were interested in providing objective, honest
and truthful information to citizens. Actual experience is showing
us that
journalism in the service of private profit plays just as
odious a role as the propaganda machine of the privileged bureaucratic
caste.
After ten years of capitalist reforms, Russia has not achieved
democracy,
personal freedom and a growth of a large population of
materially secure individuals. Rather, the results have been the
diametrical
opposite: a widening gulf between wealth and poverty,
the exacerbation of social tensions, growing dangers of internal
and
international military conflicts and the severe restriction of
democratic rights.
The smothering of NTV is only one part of this dangerous tendency
and is
connected to deeper social issues. Even a few
representatives of official political establishment have begun
to voice some
quite unexpected conclusions. One of the deputies from
the Yabloko faction in the State Duma recently commented that
"in his opinion,
freedom of speech stands above private property".
During a televised debate over NTV, the general director of TV-6,
E.Salagayev,
stated: "The natural resources of the country are
in public domain and everyone who develops them should utilize
them in the
interests of the whole society, not for personal gain".
Although directed at a Gazprom representative, his comments call
into question
the basis of the current regime and its market
reforms, which, up until now, have been taken for granted, at
least, among the
representatives of the Russian elite.
According to a recent poll of 1,600 people by the National Center
for the
Analysis of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), there are growing
fears over the erosion of democratic rights and freedom of speech.
In July
2000, 25 percent of those polled thought that the
Russian government was attacking freedom of speech and restricting
the
independent media. In September 2000, the figure grew
to 30 percent, and in February 2001, to 39 percent. At the same
time the
number who believe the regime does not threaten
democratic freedoms shrunk from 57 percent in July 2000, to 46
percent in
September 2000 and 44 percent in February 2001.
Some conclusions must be drawn from the takeover of NTV. Freedom
of speech and
democratic principles constitute a vital factor
in determining the future of the country in which the repressive
Stalinist
regime left such a terrible legacy. Yet the course of events
in recent weeks demonstrates the incompatibility of these principles
with the
unlimited power of private property, which is served
by the present Kremlin regime headed by Putin.
Democratic freedoms cannot be defended other than through the
independent and
conscious action of the working class itself, and
this struggle, in the final analysis, is tied to the struggle
for the
construction of a society based on social equality.
See also:
NTV case
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