Said Gafurov

Governmental service

Under the Yevgeniy Primakov government, Gafurov served at a position of the Director of Department of State property of Finance, Credit, Insurance and Foreign Trade organizations of the Ministry of State Property of Russia. Later on, he served as a Counselor for Russian Inter-budget relations in the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation.

Since 2011 Gafurov worked as a Deputy Chief Editor responsible for economic issues of the Russian monthly journal "VVP" ("Gross Domestic Product") known for active support of Vladimir Putin. Under his guidenance "VVP" has changed to be one of the most significant bastions of champions of neo-Keynesian and Marxist anti-neo-liberal economic policy in Russia regardless of pro-liberal policy of Putin's Administration.

Under orders of different Russian Economic Ministries, Gafurov wrote several monographs on Russian foreign economic relations: "The WTO mechanisms and non-discriminatory operations of Russian oil and gas companies in the European Energy markets" M. 2014; "The initiative "Partnership for Modernization" and the Russian national interests" M. 2013; "The Intergovernmental Commissions and the modernization of the Russian economy" M.2011, etc.

Anti-crisis Policy

Based on expireince of the criseses of 1998-1999 (Gafurov then was in the Government), 2008-2009 and 2014 - nowadays, Gafurov elaborated a concept of Mismatch ("Рассогласование") or Disbalance ("Разбалансировка") of Credit-Monetary and Fiscal-Budget policies as the main reason of inefficiency of anti-crisis policy. Both the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance rejected the conclusions of Gafurov based on absence of such mismatch. However, many meaningful points of the Gafurov concept remained unanswered.

Political economy, Theory of Property

Gafurov is the author of an empiric research monography "Essay on Experience of Comparative Analysis of Privatization and Formation of Corporate Securities Markets in Developing and Post-socialist Countries in 1991—1996" (Moscow State University. "Dialog", Moscow, 2000) and a few works on theory and practice of political economy of property.

Since 2013 Gafurov started his activity in the field of reorganisation of international political-economic network guided by Prof. Alexander Buzgalin. Gafurov regularly spoke on the international political-economic Congresses stressing high-scale social demand for political-economic research from the State and business.

In his Anti-crisis Policy concept Gafurov followed the Keynesean approach. He creates a new model of interrelations between the Credit-Monetary and Fiscal-Budget (and Anti-Monopoly) policies based on institutional differences between the governmental bodies.

Equity Research

In late 90s Gafurov in several articles in Russian journal "Rynok cennyh bumag" ("Securities market") elaborated an original approach to Equity research based on mathematical concept of Ergodic theory. The so-called "Gafurov theorem" states that statistical methods can be used in Equity research if only the time series of securities prices are subject to Ergodicity principles. The practical significance of the Theorem is in the first Сorollary of the Theorem (Gafurov calls it "Lemma") based on the Bayesian approach. When forecasting the market on the basis of the experience gained, the forecast error increases in accordance with the size of the (future, not yet known) changes of the market. This means that during the time of crisises decisions could not be taken on the basis of the forecasted level of market decline, as it is unpredictable in principle. Decisions on entry and exit from the market should be taken not on the basis of forecasts, but based on other principles of portfolio management. The compedium of Gafurov's ideas on Equity research and Securities Analysis was published in the monograph (based on Seria of articles) "The philiosophy of Equity research".

Orientalism

Gafurov is an author of a short article on philosophical ideas of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, translated to some European, Arabic and African languages. The most interesting point is that Gafurov proves that ideas of Gaddafi are similar to those of anarchists. It was kind of a scandal during the war!

In addition, he is an author of a number of works on economy, privatization and development of economies, privatization and securities markets of the Arabic, Asiatic and African countries.

Gafurov also works on the problems of Islamic sects: ismailism, druzes, and alawisms. He, in particular, supposed that all distinctions between flows in Islam (sunnizm and different directions of shiizm) were actually taken to the questions of implementation of law, but not dogmatic or personal reasons, because in an order to be a Muslim it is necessary and enough to make public acceptance of credo of faith, consisting only of two propositions: (1) that there is only one god (taukhid) and (2) that Muhammed is one of his prophets.

He supposed that registration of separate flow is a problem of codification and creation of a separate, independent "mazkhab" a legal school and norms of laws, distinguishing this flow from other directions in Islam.

Gafurov defended memory of Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah – an assassinated Fatimid caliph who was later claimed insane by ismailities, Christians and sunnites and deified by the druzes as well as defence of Syrian and Turkish alawites.

Marxist studies and Political Philosophy

Gafurov is a known Russian Marxist thinker though his Marxist works are of little importance. He belongs to school of prominent Russian Marxist thinker Alexander Buzgalin, and prof. Buzgalin was a supervisor of his Ph.D. thesis. Nevertheless, Gafurov's ideas are close to Marxist positivism and he moved far away from dialectical metaphysics of Buzgalin. Gafurov rejects concepts of Asiatic mode of production and State capitalism nature of the Soviet Union (based on analysis of role of credit relations in the USSR and State Capitalist countries). In practical politics he defends an awkward idea of reconciliation of Stalinist, Trotskist and Maoist tendencies based on a wrong idea that the differences have only historical significance. Anyhow nobody listens to Gafurov.

Since the first term of president Putin Gafurov has elaborated the concept of Russian Bonapartism and attempts of bourgeoisie for Liberal Revenge.

He champions the Quantitative theory of Imperialism which means that any stronger imperialism is worse than any weaker. That certainly contradicts to the Leninist defeatist position. In practical meaning Gafurov's position allows tactical alliances with weaker imperialism like Russian or Iranian imperialism. Gafurov rejects existence of Chinese imperialism though his position on it is also controversial since he supports Vietnam in conflict on the Paracel islands and supports China in all other conflicts in the South China Sea.

Psycholinguistics

By 2012, Gafurov has developed the hypothesis that the hypocrisy and duplicity of the Anglo-Saxon peoples has very deep roots and are associated with the grammar of the English language. Referring to the great tradition starting with St. Augustin Gafurov stressed that the past is an integral part of current existence. The present is all just a fleeting, elusive moment. A human is his past, no more and no less, and a nation - is its history.

"However in the grammatical system of the English language the past is clearly divided into at least two varieties - the one related to the present (what in textbooks is referred to as Present Perfect) and the variety that has nothing to do with current existence (Simple Past). The decision on what kind of verb form should be used depends on the speaker. You can link the present to the Chalcedon council, saying "our era", and it is possible to break the integral continuity between what happened fifteen minutes ago to the present (saying "last hour"). This can not help rising to the that kind of duplicity, hypocrisy and the double standards, aimed to cover their own crimes and stress any mistake of others, that any unbiased Asian and Eurasian see in the Anglo-Saxons".

Stressing that no nation other than the US has ever used nuclear weapons against cities, Gafurov explained his idea that the Americans simply do not understand the hypocrisy of their position on nuclear non-proliferation because for nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima they use the simple past tense (Past Indefinite). So it's all in the past in the eyes of the Americans while all the Humanity has the feeling of inseparable chain of history.

General views

Gafurov disapproves NATO, neo-colonialism and neo-racism and is sharply critical against current EU policy in Africa and in Europe.

He writes: "The heartless machine of German and French capital constantly needs the process of EU expansion. When expanding the European Union, the German-French capital destroys productions on newly acquired territories and captures new markets at the same time. At first, Germany and France (as well as small countries of the "old" EU) destroyed production in Southern Europe. Spain still has Seat and Italy has Fiat, but there is practically no machine-building in these countries, nor are there shipyards in Greece). Afterwards, having seized and digested the economy and production sector of those countries, the German capital turned to Eastern Europe and the Baltic States. The EU needs to constantly expand by destroying productions in new territories and conquering new markets. Otherwise, the EU will simply disappear in competition with Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, and even Russian and American producers. The European competition will not be able to stand fair competition. Ukraine is the most recent victim of the German-French capital. The German capital has not been able to fully digest it, but the destruction of the Ukrainian national economy is only a matter of time, and the capital will need to expand further. Turkey appears to be next on the line. It is important to understand here that capital is not malevolent or insidious. It destroys the Ukrainian economy not because Germany wants the Ukrainians to live worse and worse. On the contrary, German masters of life want the Ukrainian "untermenschen" to live well under the German "ordnung", gradually turning them into law-abiding and obedient Europeans... Simply put, capital is indifferent to everything except its profit. It needs to capture new markets and destroy their production.

Gafurov is one of known leaders of the Russian Social Forum movements. Gafurov participated in writing of program documents of the Russian Movement in defence of Labour (which was sharply criticised for its position in support of Putin in his struggle against restoration of neo-liberalism).

Political science

In 2016 - 2017 he in a number of television programs in Russian TV formulated the so-called "Gafurov postulate" of political science. According to this hypothesis, in any election "from the United States to the DPRK, from India to Russia, from Switzerland to the People's China, from Germany to Syria," the number of illegal, "thrown in" votes is approximately the same, in case of one or two candidates ranging from 5% to 10% Of votes (for the US Gafurov accepts the presence of only two candidates - from the Democratic and Republican parties). Gafurov assumes the existence of a stable mathematical expectation of this figure in the presence of a sufficiently large number of polling stations and a large number of elections. "Gafurov Political Science Hypothesis" is used to calculate the budgets of election campaigns in Russia. Gafurov had struggled for support of Syrian government, however after direct involvement of Russian forces in Syrian conflict he started to speak rather in contradiction with the main line of Russian propaganda. Nevertheless, his views are accepted by Kremlin.

Syria

Since 2011 Gafurov has actively supported Syian government in Russian media including Russian media in foreign languages. Gafurov has been a Deputy Chairman of the Russian Committee for Solidarity with peoples of Libya and Syria since its foundation. In addition Gafurov defended the Syrian government during the uprising in Deraa pointing that it was a struggle for arable land between druzes and bedouins.

Libya

In 2011 during the popular uprising in Libya Gafurov became one of the most prominent ideologists of pro-Gaddafi forces in Russia, though Gafurov himself pointed out that he did not take sides:

"Any barricade has only two sides. And if there are your enemies on both it simply means that this is not your barricade".

However, in practice Gafurov's articles defended Kaddasfi's side based on

1. Gafurov's thesis that the uprisal is a tribal reaction to Gaddafi's attempts to modernise Libya

2. That the insurgents were led by former Minister of Justice in the Gaddafi's government.

3. Economic interests of Russian oil and gas sector.

Gafourov's article that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was cheated by US vice-president Biden who promised to send US Minister of Defense Gates to Russia before implementation of the UN Revolution 1973 caused a main scandal in the Russian political circles and was widely distributed especially when it was followed by public exchange of opinions between Russian President Medvedev and Prime-Minister Putin.

The Ukraine

In February 2014 Gafurov declared

the 3 principles of Ukrainian settlement

1) Down with fascist self-proclaimed government in Kiev and its IMF-inspired economiс program!

2) No annexation of Crimea by Russia!

3) Federalisation of the Ukraine so that the Regions of the Ukraine have right for self-determination to choose between (a) euro-integration (b) free-trade zone with the Custom Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus (c) independence of both - EU and CU.

Later on Gafurov has changed his position on Crimea based on the fact that economic politics of the Ukrainian Oligarchy putchists since 2014 coup d'état had destroyed the economy of the Ukraine and the Crimean people (including the Crimean Tatars) would not agree to return to the misery and poverty of the post-democratic dictatorship of the Ukraine regardless of senseless but rich Russian Bureaucracy regime. In February 2017 Gafurov in his political TV-show on the Pravda.ru channel publicly promised that he would start a campaign for returning Crimea to the Ukraine the next day after the USA return Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona to Mexico.

"Of course the Americans could not be that hypocritical to demand returning Crimea to the Ukraine without returning Texas to Mexico. I believe that they are gentlemen".

Because of his public statements Gafurov is suspected to be one of the organisers of a secret channel to transfer refugees - mainly members of the Communist party of the Ukraine and other leftist organisations, who were persecuted and tortured at Maidan and some other regions in the Ukraine to Russia.

Africa

In 2016 Gafurov twice spoke at the Congresses of the POLISARIO in Algeria as a guest.

Gafurov supported Côte d'Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo against another Côte d'Ivoire President Alassane Ouattara.

Views on aesthetics

In 2012 Gafurov, being dissatisfied with the level of Russian opera criticism, started as an opera critic in Russian media including "Literaturnaya gazeta", Pravda.ru, "Svobodnaya pressa", due to the sharp rise in the level of Russian opera since the beginning of the millennium. He has concentrated around social aspects of theatrical side of opera and less on the musical side. Gafurov's critics on cinema are of little importance. Gafurov awkwardly believes that opera should be the working class art.

Russian criticism on Gafurov

S.Z. Gafurov is the author of a number of works on philosophy and psychology. They are secondary to Western sources, and are not of great interest or importance, although Gafurov introduces in the Russian science some interesting material on the stock market philosophy and psychology, as well as a number of mathematical concepts that are not enough common among Russian specialists in the humanities. S.Z. Gafurov was criticized for the "dilettantism" in his psychological and philosophical works, but these charges were dropped by his opponents, usually as a result of the scientific discussions.

It is generally accepted that Gafurov works are characterised not by dilettantism, but rather rigorism, unduly restricting the subject of psychology and philosophy in order to ensure the misunderstood formal scientific consistency.

His epistemological views can be described as extreme nominalism. He stressed: "philosophy of the twentieth century says, in the real world no abstraction exist, there are only the real, concrete objects. Abstractions exist only in human languages and are convenient to use for data reduction in communication between people. However, such an understanding of abstract terms ... imposes additional restrictions on the concept. For successful communication between people terms shall have a number of stringent properties - consistency, reproducibility. Different people on the basis of the same information should come to the same abstractions. It is a robustness or independency of the sample."

In ontology the "existence", as Gafurov understands, is no more no less, but simply "the ability to provide any object three spatial and one temporal coordinates." In general, the epistemological views of Gafurov are close to Marxist positivism.

In the field of aesthetics Gafurov's views are characterised by snobbery, arrogance, mechanistics. Thus, he denies any aesthetic value of modern popular music, considering the music as "a set of ordered acoustic vibrations, which can be compared with each other"... Comparing in terms of the elementary theory of music popular music and classical music, Gafurov shows that popular music is a "primitive step back, an expression of the class will of the bourgeoisie to the stupefaction of the working people." Gafurov categorically opposed to the idea that classical music and popular music are "incomparable". Gafurov has consistently pursued the idea that a "absence of taste" and "bad taste" - are fundamentally different things. Bad taste on Gafurov - is "love for Haydn and nor love for Brahms". Absence of taste is to be "more likely to listen to popular singers than good symphonic orchestra."

Gafurov understands Ethics only narrative, "positive, rather than normative": "... Ethics and behavior are subject to the same laws. If you think about it, the ethics - is a function of expediency. ... Ethics are feasibility of changing the external conditions ", - says Gafurov. Peremptory norms of ethics simply do not exist for him.

In the field of psychology Gafurov reduces the subject of psychology to the analysis of experimental psychological data. Psychology out of experiment "does not exist" for Gafurov. The subject of psychology, he said, is "the higher nervous activity." Gafurov is characterized by the reduction of mass psychology (although he denies the very existence of the subject of study in "Social Psychology") in rational behavior and the subject of research, he sees in the analysis of the hidden rationality in irrational at first glance, behavior of the masses. Gafurov's researches are in stark contrast to his own methodological orientations. Either there is a hidden rationality, but then the subject of psychology is not only the analysis of experiments, or vice versa.

Interesting facts

Gafurov is generally believed to be the prototype of the main hero of Darya Mitina sets of humoristic short stories - "The highest level of relations" and "Talks in bed". He is depicted as a simple-minded, naive henpecked husband who pretends to be ultra male chauvinistic and always get in funny situations because of it.

Gafurov is a frontman at Russian Internet-TV weekly shows at www.pravda.ru : "Point of view: Orient", "Point of view: Economy", "Point of view: Behind the Ocean".

Gafurov is fluent in Arabic and often speaks on different Arabic-language TV-channels.

Some texts by Gafurov