TRYING TO UNDERSTAND RUSSIA
China is clearly wants to become the largest
economy in the world, trying to push the United States influence back to Hawaii
while still trading with us and developing the “Silk Road” through to Europe.
Russia attempts to rebuild
its sphere of dominance, with a population of 143 million, predicted to drop to
135 million in 30 years, a pale shadow of the former Soviet Union and 1/10th
the population of China and a failed economy partially based on oil. There are
at least 120 ethnic groups, speaking forty languages.
Winston Churchill regarded
the Soviet Union as “an enigma” and even now, most of us poorly understand what
is going on. Some background may be useful:
HISTORY:
Evidence of humans began about 40,000 years ago, and the last of the
Neanderthal people lasted until about 29,000 years ago. Greeks mention a series
of contacts with various tribes in what is now eastern Russia, with the
emergence of early Slavs before 900 AD. The
traditional beginning of Russian history
is 862 A.D. the first united Slavic state, founded in 882. The state adopted Christianity from the
Byzantine Empire in 988,
beginning with the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures for the next
millennium. Swedish Vikings invaded in the 900’s, to govern, but mainly to
trade. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as a state because of Mongol
invasions in 1237–1240 and the deaths of about half the population of Rus'.
After the 13th century, Moscow became a cultural center and by the 18th
century, the Tsardom had become a huge Empire stretching from the Polish border
eastward to the Pacific Ocean. Expansion in the western direction sharpened
Russia's awareness of its separation from much of the rest of Europe and led to
international connections and importation of knowledge after visits by Peter
the Great. Successive regimes of the 19th century responded to peasant revolts
with fierce suppression. Serfdom was ended in 1861, but peasants still fared
poorly. In following decades there were efforts to reform, with the State Duma
and Constitution of 1906, which attempted to open and liberalize the economy
and political system, but the tsars refused to relinquish autocratic rule or
share their power.
The
1917 Revolution was triggered by a combination of economic breakdown,
war-weariness, and discontent with the autocratic system of government, and it
first brought a coalition of liberals and moderate socialists to power, but
their failed policies led to seizure of power by the Bolsheviks on 25 October
1917. Between 1922 and 1991, the history of Russia is really an ideologically
based state like the old Russian Empire. The approach to the building of socialism,
however, varied over different periods in Soviet history, from the mixed
economy and diverse society and culture of the 1920s to the command economy and
repressions, including starvation of 5 million peasants under Joseph Stalin, followed by 20 million dead during World War II. From its first years,
government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the
Communists, as the Bolsheviks called themselves, beginning in March 1918.
By the mid-1980s, with the weaknesses
of its economic and political structures becoming acute, Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on major reforms, which led to the overthrow of the Communist
party and the breakup of the USSR, leaving Russia again on its own and marking
the start of the Russian Federation begun in January 1992 as the legal
successor to the USSR. Russia retained its nuclear arsenal but lost its superpower
status. Scrapping socialist central planning and state ownership of property of
the socialist era, new leaders, led by President Vladimir Putin, took political
and economic power after 2000. This led to a perverse form of capitalism which
created very wealthy Oligarchs and Mafia power. Putin engaged in an energetic
foreign policy, seizing Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, which led to severe
economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union, and
repercussions of spying and internet attacks.
Present-day Russia seethes under the
shadow of losing almost all of its satellite republics, some of which have
joined NATO, the threat of Islam for more than a thousand years, and a feeling
of being humiliated as a nation, like the Chinese. While there are occasional
protests, anyone countering Putin is most likely to end up in jail, exiled, or
dead. As high as 80% of the population feels like “We need STRONG leader,” as I
heard many times. With no history or experience of citizen-based governance and
democracy which arose in Britain and Scandinavia after the middle ages, average
Russians hope to live under disciplined rule, which might be stable and
consistent. Somehow, most citizens must realize they are existing in a hollow
empire, but the same love of “Mother Russia” which got them through World War
II is deeply built into their souls.
Russia has a well-developed art, music, literature and scientific
history, excelling in some sectors and failing in others. Ironically, the US
must depend on Russia for space launches, and with some suspicion on each side,
we still find ways to cooperate against common enemies, such as Islamic jihad,
with Chechins as the worst, blowing up schools and theaters, and planning
attacks here and in Russia.
Assignments into the Soviet Union
before the fall of Communism and afterwards into Russian, including Siberia,
the Eastern Bloc and Central Asia give me some glimpses of what we are facing:
-Such as: “living in Soviet Union was like being in the Army all your life, we were
told where to live, we pretended to work, they pretended to pay us, and we
stood in line for every service and a little bit of food or supplies for life.”
As communism fell apart, there was a
rush to loot whatever anyone could grab. Managers and party members grabbed
cars, trucks, machinery and goods, while well placed friends of high officials
seized what we would call corporate assets, quickly becoming billionaires,
unless they fell out of grace and lost everything. While the collective farm
managers made off with the newest combines, trucks and tractors, the poorest
stable hands ended up with an old manure fork and a five dollar a month
pension. We worked in the ensuing chaos to try to teach business planning,
which would get the combine owner, tractor driver, grain drill owner and farm
supply sergeant sitting on barrels of aging diesel fuel, to put a working farm
back together again. Land cannot be bought, and can only be leased with
favorable bribes to some three-piece suit (still a Communist) bureaucrat in the
land office. Progress halted, and as we saw rusty cranes and unfinished
buildings, even Russians couldn’t tell if it was a structure going up or being
torn down.
Being the first, (and probably only)
American to get onto Russian Army bases, it was a revelation to see bored,
cynical draftees in moldy barracks, surrounded by litter and inoperable
equipment and subsisting on gruel, tea, vegetables and horse meat. The defeat
in Afghanistan and conflicts in Chechnya left a PSTD cloud, with some military
still strong and other parts a hollow shell. The pushback in Ukraine and Baltic
states, adventures in Syria and attitude toward China are all part of an effort
to re-assert former Soviet power and respect from the world. Corruption has
been part of the system forever, with jealousy, under-the-table dealing,
favoritism and a semi-criminal economy meaning that rules change, there is
little consistency and a gloomy attitude about each person’s future. Where we
often leave our homes unlocked, Russian village gates, farm and garage doors
are locked, even going from bedroom to kitchen entails constant locking and
unlocking. Anything left outside could
be like a car we saw parked at the curb, and later, when leaving the theater
,saw it flat on the cobblestones, with tires, mirrors and engine gone.
Shipments of any kind require an armed guard in the boxcar or warehouse, or
there is nothing left.
When working with a farmer who was
trying to open a vegetable market in Sverdlofsk, the first visitors were Mafia
“heavies”, who looked around, and asked: “You like your children come home from
school alive?”. The farmer nodded. “You like your store not be fire-bombed?”,
he nodded again. “We take care of it for first 15% of all your sales.” These
are the same toughs who get first service at a restaurant and leave without
paying. But the layers of bureaucrats who issue permits also require a bribe at
each level.
With leadership and rule centered on
Putin, as with Kim Jong Un in North Korea, there is little the world can do, except
keep watch to see who shows up, and a new direction when the present dictators
are gone.
