<OT: Former Soviet Union, Capitalism, and Democracy>
What would be your time frame for the former Soviet Union to successfully absorb democracy and capitalism?
Excellent question, George. I wish I could give a definite answer to it. But I'll try to sum up some of my thoughts on the question, as concisely as I can.
For the moment, let us separate out the "democracy" part from the "capitalism" part.
1) Democracy. In the days of "perestroika", I used to object to the argument that since the Russians (and other peoples of the former Soviet Union, with the exception of the Balts) had "never known" democracy, and hence could never "absorb" it, or at the very best would be able to absorb it only with great difficulty, and over a long time.
History, of course, is full of "what ifs". It could be, and has been, argued that Russia had already begun constructing democratic institutions (e.g., the State Duma) in the early 20th century, and that IF there had been no World War, and IF there had been no Bolshevik coup, Russia might have proceeded along the democratic road in a normal, evolutionary fashion...(But since there WAS a war, it seems unlikely that a non-Bolshevik Russia would have escaped the wave of fascism that swept over continental Europe in the twenties and thirties.)
In any event, to say that a people without much democratic experience in the past could not "absorb" democracy in the future seemed to me to be unduly elitist, unduly pessimistic, and unduly deterministic. It is an ahistorical view, for one thing. I always like to say that History teaches us only one thing for sure: and that is, that everything changes.
Developments since "perestroika", and the actual collapse of the Soviet Union, have caused me to modify this view, for several reasons, including:
a) The former Soviet republics have evolved into 15 very different countries, with very different cultural traditions. Some of them are far less "democratic" today than they were as Soviet republics in the late Gorbachev days. So I have less hope for democracy in Turkmenistan, for example, than in the Russian Republic.
b) The lack of a "civil society." We sometimes forget that "democracy" is not just a political system, but a social system as well. In other words, democracies are marked not just by the fact that they have freely elected representatives, from different parties, at all levels of government. They also have a civil society -- a network of associations, organizations, religious institutions, non-profit groups supporting one cause or another, etc., etc. -- that do much of society's work, and stand between the state and the citizen. The former Soviet republics have been slow to develop such a network. Some have not developed one at all. So there is little standing between the state and the citizen.
c) Next, there is what is perhaps the most serious problem of all: the very word "democrat" has become a term of abuse, especially in Russia. That is because so many of the leaders calling themselves
"democrats" (from Yeltsin on down), have not behaved like democrats. Not surprisingly, that has brought the term itself into disrepute. (May I suggest that the same thing may have happened in this country, with the term "liberal"?)
d) Democracy and the "West" are associated in the minds of the citizens of the former Soviet Union. At first, when the West was still widely admired, and regarded as a model to be emulated, democracy was regarded positively. But when the attitude towards the West turns negative (as it has, to a certain degree, in Russia), that is likely to carry over to the very concept of democracy as well.
However, I still remain moderately optimistic. Citizens of many (not all) of the countries of the former Soviet Union have gotten so used to speaking their minds, so used to the relative freedoms they now enjoy (along with the hardships!), so less submissive to authority, that I do not think it will be possible to reverse the long-term trend towards democracy.
Well, so much for being concise! And there are so many other considerations I never even got to!
Sorry to be so long-winded. My "thoughts", such as they are, on the "capitalism" part of the question had better be deferred to a future post.
jbe
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