‘A distortion of history’

Russian political actors and historians on Team Navalny’s new film about Yeltsin’s role in Putin’s rise to power

On April 16, Alexey Navalny’s team, spearheaded by Anti-Corruption Foundation Chairwoman Maria Pevchikh, released the first episode of their new YouTube series Traitors, which delves into the role Boris Yeltsin and his associates played in Vladimir Putin’s rise to power. Reactions to the film have been mixed, with numerous negative reviews from individuals who were firsthand witnesses to the events of the 1990s, as well as from those who’ve studied this period of Russian history. Meduza shares some of the commentary, along with Maria Pevchikh’s responses to the criticisms raised.

These statements have been lightly abridged and edited for clarity.

Andrey Malgin

Journalist

Maria Pevchikh released a film about the 90s on Alexey Navalny’s YouTube channel, as if on his behalf. She sits there speaking about events authoritatively as if she were a firsthand witness and the ultimate authority (despite being in kindergarten in Zelenograd at the time). I’ve followed all the FBK [Anti-Corruption Foundation] investigations with great interest and sympathy, but this left me dumbfounded. This is an embarrassment. It’s simply infuriating.

The first half of the film harps on the theme “Yeltsin was corrupt” (this is a direct quote). The second half pushes the narrative that “[oligarch Boris] Berezovsky was the Kremlin’s master” (this is also a quote). [She] doesn’t prove either claim. It would be impossible to prove; I know for a fact that [this version of events] is a lie and manipulation. Material possessions were the last thing [Yeltsin] thought about, and Berezovsky wasn’t close to him — Yeltsin didn’t listen to him at all.

The film opens with the infamous house on Osennyaya Street [where then-President Boris Yeltsin lived in the 1990s]. It’s given a whole scene. An uninformed viewer would get the impression that it’s some kind of Putin-type palace. To lend credibility, Maria shocks us with floor plans, a list of tenants, a photo of the fence. But damn, I was there. It’s a miserable brick building à la CPSU Central Committee. With shabby apartments. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of such nomenklatura Soviet buildings in Moscow. The difference is that the buildings [for Soviet officials] were erected in the very center of Moscow, on Arbat Street and Patriarshiy Lane, and this “Yeltsin building” is in the sticks, near Moscow’s Ring Road. The only thing it has going for it is the Kremlin hospital across the street, the Central Clinical Hospital.

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They employ an old, hackneyed technique: Maria shows us some communal apartment with a row of gas stoves in the kitchen, according to the number of families living there (“this is how ordinary people lived”). In her youth, Maria never stepped foot in [officials’] apartments, let alone the “writers’” or “composers’” residences from the Brezhnev era. They were no worse.

One of Yeltsin’s flaws is that he was real, 100 percent nomenklatura (Maria, go read Voslensky’s book Nomenklatura) and never saw any form of government other than the nomenklatura one. This was the life of a party official in the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee, and later in the Moscow City Committee — and so it all carried over to the administration of democratic Russia. All these cars with drivers and flashing lights, government-owned dachas, exclusive cafeterias… It’s a vast, intriguing topic. But it’s not corruption; it’s a different type of phenomenon — this is a manifestation of a class-based state. The Soviet Union was like this, and post-Soviet Russia remained the same.

[…]

Even a simple Google search would have provided Maria Pevchikh with more information about the subjects she describes. All these “crimes of the 90s,” including the notorious Yeltsin book fee, have been extensively covered in the media, and from all sides, including in communist media (and at some point, in Luzhkov’s, which was hostile toward Yeltsin). But Maria Pevchikh has a different agenda: she’s crafting an alternative history. Now we have yet another alternative history, alongside Putin’s. It’s also populist and it’s also about “the big deception.”

Kirill Rogov

Political scientist

I understand completely that Maria Pevchikh’s film about the 90s serves as an outlet for the pain that she and other close associates, as well as distant ones (like me), feel after the death of Alexey Navalny. It’s a pain that’s still there and that wants revenge. And Maria is undeniably an incredibly strong person; she couldn’t have approached this any other way than with full force and conviction.

However, even purely in terms of its tone, this film seems like some kind of clone of [state-controlled television channel] NTV films about the opposition. It’s a blatant, party-line distortion of history, a propagandistic narrative with no room for skepticism or dissent. And this is bad.

It’s bad for two reasons, in my opinion. Firstly, because it marginalizes the Russian opposition, which, strangely enough, does exist. Without comparable resources to disseminate propaganda, there’s no point in imitating it stylistically. We need to come up with ways to tell our truth and develop our own style, the originality of which will compensate for the lack of resources. That’s how these battles are won.

Secondly, it’s bad because Alexey Navalny’s death is akin to a biblical story in which we’re all contemporaries and participants. Putin orders Navalny’s murder, but this plan fails, as written in the Book of Judges. “But at least he’d never return to a place where I can always kill him,” thinks Putin. Yet, Navalny returns and pushes Putin into a corner. He has to kill Navalny because if he doesn’t, then he’s not a “tough guy.” But if he kills Navalny, then he also ends up looking weak because he’s killed someone who wasn’t afraid of him, even though he couldn’t defend himself. And this turns Putin from a “fighter” into a brute and scumbag.

Navalny won, and we all have to prove it. And [Yeltsin’s son-in-law and former chief of staff Valentin] Yumashev, Berezovsky, and [oligarch Petr] Aven have nothing to do with it.

Sergey Parkhomenko

Journalist

Critics say that this is propaganda, not an investigation. For example, Kirill Rogov writes: “…even purely in terms of its tone, this film seems like some kind of clone of NTV films about the opposition. It’s a blatant, party-line distortion of history, a propagandistic narrative with no room for skepticism or dissent. And this is bad.” And he’s absolutely correct.

In response, critics are asked (with varying degrees of acerbity): “Well, okay, then show us what Pevchikh and the FBK are lying about. What did they falsify in their investigation?”

They didn’t falsify anything. They flattened it. What they show is entirely flat and one-dimensional. It completely lacks an understanding (or at least it doesn’t give one to the viewer) of the full depth of the events and the phenomena discussed — their roots, their origins, the causes and consequences that lie in their historical and political foundation.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Politician, former head of Yukos

I watched the new FBK film. I have to admit that I skipped through it a bit. I consider them to be colleagues and allies, so I’m responding.

I’ll be able to draw my final conclusion after the second episode. For now, I’m a bit confused. Why urgently bring up issues now that have no practical relevance in the fight against Putin and the war, but just serve to divide the opposition?

If the FBK sees itself not as a political organization but as independent media or an investigative group, then that’s okay (independent media are here to address issues irrespective of the circumstances and individuals involved). But independent media have other constraints: there are completely different requirements for verifying the accuracy of the material (double independent confirmation) and for journalistic standards, including the need to request and include comments.

But that’s if it’s independent media. And if it’s a political group, then the question is: why?

Mikhail Fishman

Journalist, author

I didn’t really care for the film. [...] It’s not just about Yeltsin stealing a building, a 360-square-meter [3,900-square-foot] apartment, and also giving out apartments… That’s not all there is to the beginning. There’s a fairly big chunk, an introduction, where they claim that Yeltsin was basically a thief and a hypocrite: he’d go to a regular clinic but actually availed himself of every amenity, he advocated for the people but actually lived in some swanky apartment somewhere on Tverskaya-Yamskaya, and so forth. And frankly, this doesn’t describe Yeltsin at all; it’s simply untrue. Yeltsin wasn’t a thief, and he wasn’t a hypocrite. At least not during his rise in the late 80s, early 90s. And this prologue serves an important purpose by ideologically suggesting that they all, starting with Yeltsin, from the very beginning, regardless of what happened later, were always lying to you, always deceiving you, and always stealing from you. That’s not the reality. […]

Today, when the country is in such dire straits, it’s appropriate and necessary to revisit the 90s. I disagree with the notion that “we shouldn’t delve into that now. Look at what’s happening around us; it’s not Yeltsin, Yumashev, or [Anatoly] Chubais bombing Kharkiv.” I disagree with this approach; it makes sense to do it now. And in this regard, one can only say thank you to Maria Pevchikh. […]

It’s fitting for us to revisit that time, but I have serious doubts about the way we’re [approaching it]. When they claim that Boris Berezovsky looted all of Russia and became the tsar, that’s also inaccurate. Of course, Berezovsky is far from a straightforward figure and is, from my perspective, much more dubious than Yeltsin, who can also be criticized on various fronts. But [Berezovsky] was never the central figure in Russia, and his whole life wasn’t devoted to stealing. Berezovsky was a politician; he thought about the state. It’s possible to discuss what he thought about it, and it’s right to do so. But simply writing him off as “he took, he stole, he just wanted to line his pockets, and that’s how they all were” doesn’t correspond to reality. This fails to take into account the circumstances in which they lived and built the Russia that has descended into utter ruin and is not only drowning itself but also destroying Ukraine. […]

Showing the blueprints for the house on Osennyaya Street and showing the blueprints for Putin’s palace, as Navalny and Maria Pevchikh did earlier, are completely different things. Yeltsin was the head of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee, the head of the Moscow Regional Committee, and a candidate member of the Politburo; then, he was exiled to the State Committee for Construction before triumphantly returning through elections. He became the chairman of the Supreme Soviet and then the president of the country — and he had a 360-square-meter apartment. Are we really discussing this? Instead of what was going on around it?

Demyan Kudryavtsev

Media manager, managed Boris Berezovsky’s assets

Is what they say true? Yes. Is it the whole truth? No. And is that important in this case? I think it’s crucial. Not just because there’s some other part of the truth that would prompt or enable people to look at things in a more multifaceted way. I’m an advocate of nuanced perspectives; it seems to me that politics are never straightforward or linear. [It’s also crucial] because the simplistic narrative that’s presented in the film doesn’t, I think, serve the urgent political objective — essentially, the fight against Putinism and opposition to the occupation of Ukraine. Or if it does, then I don’t understand how, and it’s not articulated in the film itself. […]

The fundamental issue with this film and many other FBK investigations is that the motivations of the characters and events are depicted solely as greed, thirst for power, and money. And this is the only motivation, as shown by the filmmakers, that influences this political plot, this political era. This is certainly not accurate. People who just want power and money don’t argue with a dictator and go to jail for 10 years, like [Alexander] Lebedev and [Mikhail] Khodorkovsky did. They don’t spend tens of millions and, essentially, their lives and those of their friends on fighting this regime, as Berezovsky did. […]

There’s this notion that Soviet and post-Soviet assets belonged to the people and somehow served their interests, but then thugs and traitors came in the form of oligarchs and the officials associated with them or hired by them (primarily Yeltsin’s guys and, basically, only the ones mentioned [in the film]), and that they somehow plundered everything and took it for themselves. I see it differently. It wasn’t like that. Nothing belonged to the people. Assets were unequivocally owned by the state, but they were exploited by those overseeing them. By people like “red directors,” state officials, and regional criminal factions who sat on these companies and egregiously pillaged them. […]

Yes, the next generation of owners — taking advantage of imperfect legislation, corruption, or what have you — took formal ownership. But because of this, people started getting paid salaries at these companies (rather than a barter system); people started earning decent money by regional standards. They began to receive some form of security, some social protection […] I’m not saying this justifies this type of privatization. It almost certainly doesn’t. The truth likely isn’t binary; it’s not simply one way or the other. There could have been some other compassionate solution, some other approach that Russia didn’t use, didn’t pursue. And you simply can’t make excuses for people who did it badly in one way instead of doing it badly in another way. That’s not my intention. But it’s strange to not understand this or expound on it. To not know this, given the number of living and accessible people who remember this and fully share the FBK’s ideological approach. Well, they could have given more depth to this issue.

Georgy Satarov

Political scientist, former assistant to Boris Yeltsin

Is this journalism? Not even close. It’s not a journalistic investigation or a successful exposé because here, it blends bits of facts with interpretation, not distinguishing one from the other as journalists are supposed to do. It has nothing to do with history or historical research.

Dmitry Travin

Journalist, economist, author

During the “tumultuous nineties,” there were moments when I also felt like we were being betrayed. Perhaps the first time was in December 1992, when Yeltsin replaced [Yegor] Gaidar with [Viktor] Chernomyrdin, who couldn’t distinguish the market from the bazaar. The second time was in July 1993, when they implemented a stupid monetary reform that damaged the credibility of the already unpopular economic reforms. And the third time, of course, was in December 1994, when the [First] Chechen War began.

Since then, a lot of time has passed. I’ve stopped categorizing politicians as “ours” and “theirs.” I’ve also stopped using the word “betrayal” to explain political processes. So naturally, I don’t see Maria Pevchikh’s recently screened film as being about betrayal. While watching it, something a foreign scholar once said kept ringing in my head: “history for lazy people.” That’s how he described history where everything’s simplified, easily digestible, and you can label everything as either black or white and get the psychological comfort of feeling like someone who has a good grasp of everything. Another “history for lazy people” was recently written by [Russian presidential aide] Vladimir Medinsky. Interestingly, the assessments of the 90s in these narratives are almost identical, although Pevchikh is labeled a foreign agent, and Medinsky works as an assistant to the president. These are all stories about bad individuals, not about the systemic issues we need to address within our social institutions.

Stanislav Belkovsky

Political strategist, friend of Boris Berezovsky

Boris Yeltsin, of course, wasn’t corrupt. Like any high-ranking CPSU official of that era, he lived under communism, guided by the slogan: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” He simply didn’t need money because all his needs (albeit not the most extravagant) were fully provided for by the state for many years. Since the 1970s. He didn’t understand or value money. Maybe that’s why he was so easily sold on the concept of free privatization of state assets.

Boris Berezovsky wasn’t “the Kremlin’s master.” He (essentially) had no direct access to Yeltsin. His influence on state decisions was channeled through people who were actually close to the Russian Federation’s first president. Initially, this was [Alexander] Korzhakov and [Viktor] Ilyushin, and then [Yeltsin’s] family (Tatyana Dyachenko and Valentin Yumashev). As a creator and political and media strategist, he undoubtedly played a significant role from 1995 to 1999. But when the family wanted to get rid of him (the decision was made at the end of 1999 and implemented in 2000), there was nothing he could do about it.

Well, and there’s something else that’s not so relevant now. The main message of the film, as far as one can tell from the first part, is more accurate than not. The Putin era stands on the shoulders of the Yeltsin era. Putinism is built on the foundation laid in the 1990s.

Maria Pevchikh on the criticism

Response to Mikhail Fishman

I was looking forward to a review from Mikhail Fishman, whose book about the 90s I really admire. Mikhail says that you can’t analyze the plans for an apartment on Osennyaya Street in the same way we analyze Putin’s palace or the apartments of other United Russia members. That it’s not the same thing.

But I fail to see why not. Small corruption breeds moderate corruption, moderate corruption breeds significant corruption, and significant corruption breeds massive corruption. Corruption that robs, kills, poisons with Novichok, and starts wars. Systemic impunity and the absence of any consequences, just because “well, it’s only a little house.” It sets a solid foundation for much worse things.

Response to Sergey Parkhomenko

Wow, great review. Mr. Parkhomenko chastises me, but he does it in an intriguing manner. He writes that I’m good at filming and investigating palaces and duck houses, but not Yeltsin. Yeltsin requires context, nuance, and a special insight that only those who were there can possess.

That’s precisely it. That’s the difference between us (and apparently our generations).

Whether it’s Medvedev or Yeltsin, if I see corruption, theft, and sabotage — I call it what it is. They don’t get immunity just because they wanted to make things better. Sorry.

Addressing the criticism in an interview with TV Rain

I’m by no means saying that Yeltsin himself was driven solely by materialistic values and the desire for enrichment. I’ll need to double-check the script, but I’m almost sure I never called him a thief. I believe that what he engaged in was still a form of corruption. And it’s hard for me to understand why, when we talk about someone like [Russian National Guard Director Viktor] Zolotov, the focus of our popular investigation, when he does the same thing, when he transfers state-owned dachas into his ownership, when his apartments and houses start popping up on Rublevka… Why do we label that as corruption, but when Yeltsin and his circle do the same thing, it’s not considered corruption?

[…]

I suggest approaching everything impartially, evaluating it against the same standards — whether it's Zolotov, [former] Prosecutor General [Yury] Chaika, Yeltsin, Yumashev, Chubais, or anyone else. I don't understand why they’re entitled to some special treatment, why their corruption is seen as slightly more justifiable due to extenuating circumstances. As far as I’m concerned, corruption is never justified.