Don't let the recent public protests against Russian prime minister and presumptive president Vladimir Putin fool you: authoritarianism remains firmly entrenched in Russia 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and there's more to it than meets the eye. It's not communism that lingers, but rather Soviet nationalism, which has formed the basis of a new social contract between the state and its citizens.
Soviet nationalism in its most influential form goes back to World War II, when the Soviet Union's victory was made possible by a new brand of nationalism: Russian in that it fit within a thousand-year-old history of expansionism, but Soviet in that it was achieved via modern technology, bureaucratic organization, and civic-mindedness. This new ideology kept the USSR afloat after 1945. Outsiders always emphasized the brutality and coercive power of the Soviet system, but the reality was more insidious and complex. For Soviet citizens during the Cold War, the carrot was a vast Eurasian empire, global power, domestic order, and a rising standard of living; the stick was fear of foreign domination and the consequences of internal disarray.
In the end, the sclerotic Soviet economy wasn't able to satisfy citizens' demands. Mikhail Gorbachev had hoped to transform the Soviet Union into a modern socialist state "with a human face." Instead, he hastened its collapse, in large part by violating the post-war social contract amidst the chaos of glasnost and perestroika.
Read Full Article »