Big Picture Thinking and Democracy in Russia

Gareth S. Seltzer, CEO, TWS Private Management Inc., and Past President, The Empire Club of Canada; Adrian Poon, Senior Student, North Toronto Collegiate Institute; Grant Kerr, Pastoral Assistant, St. Paul's United Church, Brampton; Pascal Charbonneau, Chess Grandmaster, Two-Times Canadian Chess Champion, and Equities Trader, Belzberg Technologies Inc.; Marina T. Dessiatkina, Trade Commissioner, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia); Sidney Belzberg, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Belzberg Technologies Inc.; Daria Kasparov, Spouse of Garry Kasparo; Vadym Kozub, Regional Director-Toronto Chapter, Canada Eurasia Russia Business Association (CERBA); Doug Morris, President, Humidity Solutions and Morris Glass, and Director, The Empire Club of Canada; Roman Pelts, Founder, Chess Academy of Canada; Michael W. Lipp, Vice-President, The Staubach Company; James Small, Vice-President, Government Affairs, Dundee Precious Metals Inc.; Richard Rooney, President, Burgundy Asset Management; and Alicia Belzberg, Co-Founder and Executive Vice-President, Belzberg Technologies Inc.

Introduction by John Niles

Past Presidents, Rev. Sir, honoured guests, Directors, members and guests of the Empire Club of Canada:

It was Abraham Lincoln who said, "I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong."

These words could just as easily have been said today by Garry Kasparov as once they were said by Lincoln.

Mr. Kasparov was once known as the Grand Chess Master--the youngest world chess champion ever, at 22, when he took the title in 1985 and held it for 15 years, which was the longest in history.

He was known for beating the titans of the chess world year after year and lost to IBM's "Deep Blue," yet he fought back to beat the supercomputer, after which he retired from the chess world and began his rise in politics.

After his retirement, he created the United Civil Front, a social movement whose main goal is to "work to preserve electoral democracy."

Now Garry Kasparov has taken his game to the streets as a high-profile political dissident. He is up against Vladimir Putin at a time when Russia is cracking down on dissent. This is a dangerous game.

Having begun this political chess match he said during an interview, "I believe my country is in trouble. ... My country is on the wrong path. ... The Russian political life needs to be fixed."

He has conquered in the past because he knew the rules and won because of that. Now the problem is, as he said during that interview, "If it's a game, there's always a chance of winning if you know the rules. But in Russian politics, there are no rules."

Again, it was Abraham Lincoln who said, "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing."

Please greet with me Mr. Kasparov.

Garry Kasparov

Good afternoon and thanks to the Empire Club for inviting me here today. My thanks also to Sid and Alicia Belzberg and Belzberg Technologies for doing their utmost to make it happen. It is an honour to speak where two great anti-Communist leaders, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, have spoken, as well as every Canadian prime minister. I have no doubt what Reagan and Thatcher would say about the latest developments against democracy and individual freedoms in Russia.

Perhaps because the game of chess is strongly associated with intelligence, all my life I have been asked questions about how I succeeded. When I became the youngest world champion ever at the age of 22 there were many stories about me. That I had a photographic memory, that I spoke eight languages, that I ate special "brain foods," and that I saw dozens of moves ahead during a game. All myths, unfortunately. My memory is probably better than most, but my wife Dasha will tell you I am still capable of forgetting appointments and birthdays. As for foods, I don't think the world is yet ready for a "Kasparov Diet Book."

As is usually the case, my secret was no secret at all. All success is based on a combination of things. Often these are opposite pairs that must work in harmony. Talent requires hard work. Calculation requires evaluation. Good strategy requires good tactics to succeed. When we combine these things in the right balance we develop what is most important--our intuition. It is with that extra sense we can look beyond what is in front of us and find hidden connections, see into the future, and look at the big picture.

I recently wrote a book, but not a diet book. Its title is "How Life Imitates Chess." It is not a recommendation to learn chess, although the game has much to offer. The book is about the tools that chess gave me, and what I learned about decision making during my chess career. I spent my life thinking about thinking. I believe everyone in every field, at work and in their personal lives, can benefit from careful consideration of their own mind and their own results and, most importantly, how they reached those results.

On March 10, 2005, I played my last game of competitive chess after three decades as a professional chessplayer. The announcement of my retirement was a bit theatrical, delivered without warning at the closing press conference of the Spanish tournament I had just won for the ninth time. In one day I went from the top of the chess world to a role in the struggling pro-democracy movement against the increasingly authoritarian regime of President Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, the opposition forces were in total disarray and needed the help of anyone who could help. Currently my job is one of moderator and organizer for a broad, non-ideological coalition of opposition groups called "The Other Russia." It sounds tranquil enough, but in Russia today being a political activist requires fighting spirit as much as strategic judgment.

Apart from my natural desire to fight on the side of human rights and democracy, there was a more personal impetus behind my decision to enter politics. I grew up under the methodical oppression of the USSR, coping and fighting inside and outside the system for much of my life. The thought of my children not growing up in a free country still sends chills down my spine.

Last year I spoke at the centenary celebration to honour the great Austrian mathematician Kurt Gšdel in Vienna. Gšdel was as crucial and revolutionary for mathematics in the 20th century as Einstein was for physics. Several of his important theories have relevance outside mathematics. One states that every system will contain a problem that cannot be solved from within the system itself. When known methods cannot provide solutions we must examine our methods and look outside the system, to rise above it. In turn, this creates a new, larger system in which we can tackle these new challenges. This new system, however, eventually reaches its own limitations. And the process continues.

We can look to current events for a case study. The Bush administration thought that removing Saddam Hussein would solve many problems at the same time. Perhaps that was true back in 1991, but in a post-9/11 world it was a na•ve belief. We have bigger enemies now, and we cannot fight them with outdated methods. It is difficult to realize in time that a new framework is required and even harder to have the guts to make the change.

After WW II, the retired Winston Churchill gave a speech about the future. The great wartime leader had quickly been voted out by the British people. Sixty years ago in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946, in his renowned "Iron Curtain" speech, Churchill spoke about the new dangers to freedom, this time from Communism. It is almost forgotten that he also warned how the newly formed United Nations could lead to corruption and gridlock. Today we are stuck with an outdated Cold War organization that was developed after WW II to prevent a nuclear clash between superpowers. It and its mission became obsolete after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Instead of an entity that excels at freezing conflict, we need one that can offer viable solutions.

Looking back through history, great changes in the framework between nations have been necessary after a period of great conflict. After the First World War we had the Versailles Treaty and the creation of the League of Nations. The league was a failure and the unwillingness to accept this fact led to World War Two. After the Second World War we had the United Nations. Now, after the Cold War, we again need fresh ideas, new organizations that are based on new global dividing lines of the value of human life and democracy. We need a new consensus based on common morality and common goals. The old stalemate diplomacy of the Cold War will not help us against suicide bombers.

Having mentioned Einstein, he once made a statement that echoes this concept of the need for new frameworks. He said, "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them."

Together with new organizations we need to recognize our enemies and their weapons. And I'm not talking about the famous WMD, wherever they are. We don't want to face the fact that much of the money that is spent on Middle Eastern oil goes to support terror and suppress democracy around the world. In 1919, Lenin and Trotsky launched the Comintern (Communist International). Today we have "Oilintern" and "Gasintern" that are just as menacing. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Algeria, Venezuela, and, unfortunately, a key player on this oily political field, Putin's Russia.

A few days after hostilities broke out between Israel and Lebanon last year, the Putin administration released its list of recognized national and international terrorist groups. This was the first time the list had been made public. Strikingly, both Hamas and Hezbollah were missing.

Seeing the bigger picture means realizing everything is connected. Consider what is happening in my own country and how it affects Canada and Mexico, where I spoke just last week. Putin badly needs oil revenues to sustain his grip on power in Russia. Russia sells nuclear technology to Iran and missiles to the Middle East. Global security tensions rise, and the price of oil rises at the same time. Here in Canada, as in Mexico, that high oil price is a benefit. But there are also consequences. Most Islamic terrorist groups are funded by Middle East oil money and can launch more attacks. That security issue creates fear in the United States. Then Washington D.C. passes tough immigration bills and other security restrictions, affecting America's neighbours.

The Iraq debate has been reduced to black and white, which should be left for the chessboard. All we hear is "Do we stay?" or "Do we go?" But troop withdrawal should be considered only one small part of an overall strategy, and from what we can see, there is no overall strategy coming from the Bush administration so far. Staying or going must be part of a greater policy, of, as Einstein said, a level of thinking greater than what led to the problem. It's not just troops. It's not just Iraq. They must decide in the context of action of restoring trans-Atlantic solidarity, standing up to Iran, dealing with Hamas, Saudi support of Wahabi extremism, Syria's funding of terrorism, and the list goes on.

This is not a generic political case study in strategy. These things have real-world consequences for all of us. Globalization means sharing in both profits and losses around the world. In chess we know that a subtle move on one side of the board can have a decisive effect on the other side of the board.

Russia is perhaps the leading example of this slide into the past. Let us examine what is happening behind Putin's 21st century Iron Curtain. When Putin spoke here in 2000, he made a very revealing comment. He said, "Today the co-operation of all of the branches of power in Russia is highly productive..." His next seven years in office continued that trend, leading to the current super-presidency with a puppet parliament and judiciary.

The regime established by Putin and his gang has revived many of the Soviet ways and means: control of the media, a puppet judiciary, stage-managed elections. The glimmer of democracy during the Yeltsin years, however messy, was being entirely extinguished. The epic corruption of those years has now been surpassed by a government in which the politicians, the oligarchs, and the crooks are one and the same. Aristotle himself couldn't find a better definition of "oligarchy" than what we have in the Kremlin today. Top Putin administration members chair some of the largest corporations in the country, such as Gazprom, Rosneft, and Transneft. You might even wonder if there's a Russian term for "conflict of interest." That business circles still push the conjecture, "Is Putin corrupt?" reminds me of how "Did Stalin know?" was for decades a serious question in leftist circles around the world.

I was told that several Canadian entrepreneurs declined to come here today for fear of harming their potential to do business in Russia. That's quite instructive. It illustrates who is in charge of the business environment in Russia, and how well they have succeeded in their intimidation campaign. Well, when you fight against Putin you quickly find out who your friends are! It's also a shame, because they would have been interested in the news I received yesterday. The Marriott-owned Renaissance Hotel in Moscow has refused to host the Other Russia conference scheduled for July 7-8. Last year the state security forces harassed our delegates and activists outside the hotel, arresting several of them on the spurious charges we are now used to. This year the Marriott Group has decided to reject our money and leave the space open during low season instead of resisting these Kremlin intimidation tactics.

Even the largest foreign companies and investors are not immune, as Shell found out when the Kremlin pushed them out of the Sakhalin 2 gas fields at the end of last year. If you want to invest in "KGB Incorporated," you must remember that they are very, very active shareholders. Also remember that with great profit comes great risk. It's not just corrupt--the corruption IS the system. It's like a bizarre combination of Adam Smith and Karl Marx. State profits are privatized while expenses are nationalized.

Some will tell you that Putin's assault on democracy is a big shift from the Boris Yeltsin days, but unfortunately it's a very logical progression. Yeltsin, while he established a few fragile democratic institutions, never uprooted the nomenclatura, the appointed bureaucrats who run the State. This corrupt patronage system proved immune to democratic reform. For a limited time this old system lived alongside new elections and basic democratic rights. But this unnatural situation couldn't last for long. Yeltsin's successor had to choose one or the other--the veiled power of the bureaucracy or the transparency of democracy. It was obvious which would be chosen by a man of Putin's KGB background.

During the dark days of the USSR, the world understood that people like Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, and Natan Sharansky were heroes for their non-violent resistance. The modern Putin style of totalitarian oppression is different. It has many advocates in the West, most of them defending it by saying how much better things are now in the USSR. Last year I appeared on a panel discussion on BBC television, on a show recorded in Moscow. A British viewer wrote in amazement at how freely we said things that, he said, would have led to our execution not long ago. This perception--that Russians are better off now and shouldn't complain--has been very harmful to the democratic cause. Things are getting worse NOW, and that is what matters.

In 1991 we couldn't have imagined where we are today in Russia. The statue of secret police founder Felix Dzerzhinsky was removed from Lubyanka Square in August 1991 when the Communist rule collapsed. Dzerzhinsky's name is synonymous with the KGB and the mass murders of the Soviet regime. His statue in central Moscow was pulled down by a jubilant crowd. There are amazing photos of ordinary citizens taking photos of each other with their feet on Dzerzhinsky's bronze head. If you had suggested in 1991 that a KGB lieutenant-colonel would soon be the president we would have laughed in your face. And yet on November 8, 2005, a bust of Dzerzhinsky was put back up in a public courtyard in front of the KGB headquarters, against the protests of human rights activists. It is not as large or as prominently placed as the original, which makes it the perfect symbol of Putin's low-profile police state.

Putin has learned that if things are done in small steps, the West will say little and do nothing. This is the way it is being done, in steady increments. Last summer Putin signed a new law on extremism that gives the government total impunity to crush political dissent. Extremism is now whatever they say it is. He signed this law right before sitting down at the table with the leaders of the G-7, and they accepted him without question.

In April I spent four hours in a KGB interrogation room thanks to this law, although now they call it the FSB. I am being investigated for possible extremism because of a radio interview in which I called on people to attend a peaceful march. There were two portraits at the FSB offices where I was questioned of Vladimir Putin and Felix Dzerzhinsky. After our April 14th March of Dissent this year in Moscow, parliament quickly updated the extremism law. Any statement critical of a government official, as determined by a prosecutor, not even a court, can lead to criminal charges and up to 15 years in prison. It is classic Orwellian language. Opposition equals extremism. We have not yet arrived in the dark ages, but the next station on this train is Minsk and our speed is increasing. They call Belarus's Lukashenko the last dictator of Europe, but the current application of Russian law is creating a similar atmosphere.

Even in the capital cities they have responded to our peaceful marches with violence and an overwhelming security presence designed to intimidate anyone thinking of voicing opposition. In the words of Blaise Pascal, who was born on this very day, June 19, in 1623, "Not being able to fortify justice, they have justified force." And since we are in Canada, saying this quote in its original tongue is mandatory! Ne pouvant fortifier la justice, on a justifié la force.

And yet I constantly hear about Vladimir Putin's popularity in the western media. To understand this you first have to stop making comparisons about opinion polls between Russia and other countries. In a country with no free media, polls cannot be reliable. The current propaganda war is much more sophisticated than that of the old Soviet days. Instead of one state news source we get the illusion of choice, the illusion of freedom. But every television station and every major media outlet is under the direct control of the Kremlin or Putin's closest cronies. If the White House had total media control and a pervasive security force, I'm sure Bush and Cheney would also enjoy 70-per-cent approval ratings!

In Putin's Russia, journalists and dissenters are fired, intimidated, harassed, and sometimes much worse. The names of Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko are now well known around the world. Two of Putin's harshest critics, viciously murdered just weeks apart. For some reason it is always the journalists disliked by the authorities who die in Russia. Over a dozen have been assassinated since the start of 2006. There is little to be gained from speculating about who exactly ordered these murders. The system that encouraged the crimes, the logic that made them politically expedient for some of those in power, is the true face of Mr. Putin's Russia. I do not know the names of the people who killed Politkovskaya and Litvinenko. But I do know the address of those who gave the orders. In a country where one man and his gang have total control, where can they be but in the Kremlin?

When you ask questions about the economy, crime, health care, or how Russians feel about the future of the country, you get a very different picture. This also illustrates the fallacy of using macro-economic metrics like GDP to evaluate the health of a nation. Only a small minority of Russians are enjoying the benefits of the energy boom while the rest watch their standard of living decline. Yesterday I saw on the CBC that for the second year in a row, Moscow was named the most expensive city in the world for foreigners. (Toronto is 82nd.) The other cities in the top five are London, Seoul, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. All cities from nations with two or three times the Russian per-capita GDP, which is wildly inflated by the high energy prices. Such inequality inevitably leads to ruin.

Russia today is a police state masquerading as a democracy, a mask worn for the international community. Putin needs the help of the free world to maintain this illusion. In Putin's Russia today, we have no civil society, no human rights, no rule of law. And yet two weeks ago the leaders of the free world sat down in Germany and treated Vladimir Putin as an equal. That's what they have been doing for the past seven years, causing great damage to the cause of real Russian democracy. The state-controlled media is quick to ask, "If Putin is accepted among the G7, why is the opposition criticizing his democratic record?"

We do not ask for help. We ask that the leaders of the free world stop providing Putin with democratic credentials. We ask for an end to the hypocrisy and for the rebirth of real leadership. Do not tell us that democracy is worth fighting for only in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The fight we have ahead of us is not an easy one. In the spirit of Reagan and Thatcher, we are sending out a moral challenge to Putin and to the world. We say that human life is worth fighting for. Democracy is worth fighting for. We say these rights are just as important to defend in Russia as anywhere else in the world.

The instruments the western world has relied on for decades are useless in these new battles. Twenty years age, on June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan said his immortal, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," in Berlin. We must demand new institutions and new strategies to protect our lives and our liberties. This cannot be done by rebuilding higher walls and raising barriers. What must be higher are our moral standards. What must be raised are our voices. Thank you.

The appreciation of the meeting was expressed by Doug Morris, President, Humidity Solutions and Morris Glass, and Director, The Empire Club of Canada.