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Yesterday, Today and Always: Adding a Few Strokes to the Portrait of Galina Zheltikova
by Tatiana Kalinina
In ancient China the most fearsome curse one could pronounce on someone was "May you live in a time of great change." And to be responsible for these changes was considered nothing less than divine retribution. Because even with the wisest measures, someone comes out the winner and someone the loser, who is simply not able to adjust to the new circumstances. And then heavenly thunder is called down upon the head of the change-maker. Consider this a preamble to a discussion, an invitation to take an objective look at events taking place now. Perhaps, of course, it is too early to have an intelligent perspective on such things, as we are still in the middle of such changes. Maybe it will be up to our descendents to judge whether they were for the better or for the worse. As the poet once said, "We see what is big only from a distance."
Today's conversation with Galina Aleksandrovna Zheltikova is actually a continuation of one we started some years ago, when she was chairing the regional committee for the management of government properties. Galina was at the very source of privatization, the mention of which these days is usually accompanied by strong eptithets, but which was at that point called reform. It was a time when the economy was approaching collapse while the industrial and Communist Party leadership looked after itself. The system of government power and management in the country was brought to absurdity [in the last years of communism], and without cardinal measures to change it, that is to say, without property reform, everything might have collapsed.
And then, lo and behold, in marching order the reforms began; a kamikaze team was called up with Gaidar at its head. Professional economists were called in when there was no longer any choice. It was at that point, at the beginning of 1992, that Galina Aleksandrovna joined the regional committee for the management of government properties. Few were really eager to take on this duty. A lot of people were saying, "Privatization is something new, the laws are contradictory, and the situation is constantly changing. God save us, we'll probably be trying to clean up this mess the rest of our lives." And they were right. A barrage of complaints and words of judgment poured down on the heads of those who undertook property reform...
More than once, Galina talked about the shock she experienced when she first went abroad in the nineties. Just remember the empty shelves in our stores and then imagine the abundance of goods overflowing in "their" stores. That was when Galina made a decision: "I'm going to do everything possible and impossible to make sure that even in our country children can walk into stores like these."
"Only now," she says, "have we forgotten that it's possible to have money and nothing to spend it on. Of course, many of us have different problems these days: where do we find the money. But these are problems that anyone with a head and a will to work can solve."
And this is made possible thanks to those who, like Galina Zheltikova, cast their votes seven years ago in favor of transformation.
"People blame liberal reformers for the economic failure," says Galina Aleksandrovna, "but they simply changed the economic space, which formerly was completely dominated by the government and was lived in by a "new generation of Soviet citizens" who had no idea what it meant to live on what you earn and where the so-called "free" benefits of socialism came from.
Reformers did away with price controls, and for the first time money became the universal means of settling accounts. Domestic and international trade was reformed, and at last it was possible to spend money at one's own discrection. Enterprises no longer had to work on government command, and then they were privatized. The opportunities arose to work and earn money, to sustain oneself and the economy, and no longer to receive grovellingly only what the powers that be considered necessary. ...
If the middle class is ever going to be considered a class, it is time for its members to become politicians. Drowning Russians must come to understand that not only their ruin, but also their salvation lies in their own hands.
A lot has changed over the last decade, affecting the fate of the country and of the individual, such that we have grown not just by a few years, but by a whole epoch.
Galina, too, has gone through a lot in these last years. In her personal life she is now bringing up a two-year-old son, and in her public life she become an active member of the public organization "Women of the Nineties. And everything that this relatively new but already well-known organization of women leaders does is touched in some way by the work of Galina Aleksandrovna.
"I enjoy interacting with the leaders involved in this organization," says Galina. "It makes me glad to see women who have become masters of their own destiny, who have chosen as their guiding principle the motto 'To live is to act!' They manage to combine a healthy practicality with feminine intuition. When you talk with these women, it becomes clear that our country has a bright future, if Russia makes use of such leadership skills.
Many of the women involved in the organization have gone through things that you would not wish on your own enemy. They have not just survived, they have preserved their optimism and not become bitter; on the contrary, they relate to those around them with kindness and goodwill.
Galina Zheltikova is one of those who can hardly complain of a lack of such experiences. She bore the brunt of forces that most men would not have been able to withstand. ________________________ _______________________________________________ But she believes that in time everything will fall into place. And indeed, a politician can consider himself initiated only once he has engaged in battle. In this respect Galina Aleksandrovna is a most mature politician. While she herself assures me, "I'm no politician," in the words of Jules Renard, the famous French writer, "To say, 'I'm not involved in politics' is the same as saying, 'I'm not involved in life.' "
It is true that these days Galina is more involved in the economy than in politics, but what is a politician if not a specialized economist? Zheltikova continues to shape the new economic space, addresses problems on how to incorporate these changes into the organization and management of businesses -- services which Russian enterprises increasingly require. In collaboration with like-minded colleagues she has established a consulting group and is ready to lend a hand to anyone in need of professional advice. Women like Galina Zheltikova can look into the future with assurance because professionalism and understanding of economics were needed yesterday, and today like never before, and of course these skills will always be in demand. ...........