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Report Card on Survival

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Report Card on Survival TOPIC 2 such elemental functions of govern- ment as raising revenue, enforcing the law among its own agencies as well as in society at large, controlling the mili- Russia: report card tary, policing the borders, suppressing internal rebellion, regulating monopo- lies and banks, etc. This is a cruel irony on survival in light of Russia’s historical struggle with overweening state authority. Yet the debility of post-Communist public In the 10 years since the collapse of communism, institutions means that for Russians to opportunists have plundered the country, leaving the have a chance at the development of the economy in worse shape than ever. Can this scandal be rule of law, the establishment of a rea- halted? How can the U.S. help? sonably strong state is as important as the emergence of a vital and democrati- cally committed civil society. In fact, Russian public life in the past by Allen Lynch decade has had less to do with the striv- ing of state and society for democratic accountability and the consolidation of a capitalist economy than with a re- markably successful effort by strategi- cally situated members of the old Soviet elites—economic, political and admin- istrative—to seize Russia’s wealth and REUTERS/ARCHIVE PHOTOS consolidate their position as the new rich, at the expense not only of the Rus- sian nation but also of the state itself. The nearly unimaginable plundering of economic assets by this post-Soviet up- per class has undermined Russia’s al- ready precarious chances for a viable post-Communist transition and called into question its ability to execute its in- ternational responsibilities. The outside world needs to view Rus- sia with a clear eye if it is to deal with a reality that is far indeed from the optimis- tic premise of democratic and capitalist “transition” that has governed U.S. policy toward Russia throughout the 1990s. A WOMAN HOLDS A FLAG bearing the face of Vladimir I. Lenin. Thousands of striking workers gathered in Red Square on November 7, 1998, to demand unpaid wages and to call for the resignation of Boris Yeltsin. Historical legacies Karl Marx famously observed that, HAT SORT OF A COUNTRY is foundation in the agencies and proce- while men make history, they do not do Russia, now entering the dures of representative government; a so in circumstances of their own choos- W21st century and completing sociopsychological foundation in the ing. Political, economic, social, cultural its first decade of post-Communist rule? tolerance and civic spirit of the citi- and other legacies decisively restrict the What are the dynamics driving the zenry; and a socioeconomic foundation choices available to leaders and societ- Russian political and economic systems in economic well-being and a large and ies. How has Russia’s distinctive expe- and Russia’s engagement with the out- secure middle class. By these standards, rience, and especially that of the Com- side world, including American-Rus- it is most unlikely that Russia can in any munist era—which lasted for three sian relations? foreseeable future become a liberal quarters of the 20th century—shaped It is commonly accepted that modern market democracy. Too many precon- the country’s post-Communist circum- democracy has a political-institutional ditions are absent: the rule of law, a stances? stable and secure middle class, a broad Consider that in 1913, the last full ALLEN LYNCH is an associate professor of commitment to individualism. Russia’s year of peacetime before the Revolution government and foreign affairs at the Uni- versity of Virginia and is the director of the primary political challenge instead is of 1917, Russia was at approximately university’s Center for Russian and East the establishment of a minimally com- the same level as Italy in such terms as European Studies. petent state, one that is able to perform life expectancy, infant mortality, lit- GREAT DECISIONS 2000 21 TOPIC 2 RUSSIA: A REPORT CARD DAVID LADA eracy, per capita income and rail the Baltic states, about the same as fully free up one of those hands for pro- service; both were among the most Finland’s in 1940, fell to one seventh of ductive economic activity, with results backward major states in Europe. By Finland’s by 1989; Czechoslovakia, that weigh heavily upon Russia’s the 1990s Italy was ranked among the which had competed successfully with chances for quick economic recovery. top five industrial-technological pow- Germany in selling high-precision tools Finally, one should consider the ers in the world, while early post-Com- and finished industrial goods on the enormous toll of violence on the munist Russia was ranked last among world market in the 1930s, had become Russian people throughout the 20th major economies (49th out of 49 in by the 1980s, in the words of its own century, which has exhausted them, 1996 and 59th out of 59 in 1999) in economists, a “museum of an industrial physically and psychologically. “Since international competitiveness. In other country.” the Thirty Years’ War, no people have words, the Communist years accom- What is unique to Russia is the ex- been more profoundly injured and plished much less than is commonly tent to which its militarized economic diminished than the Russian people by supposed. This is not simply a question structure, a legacy of the cold war, has the successive waves of violence of Russia failing to improve its position distorted the allocation of resources, brought to them by this past brutal vis à vis the Western powers, while making it difficult to see how Russia century,” the diplomat and Russian nevertheless achieving gains over its can compete in the global economy— scholar George F. Kennan said recently, previous condition. In some critical apart from a few natural-resource areas including two world wars, revolution areas, such as male life expectancy, the like oil and natural gas—in the foresee- and civil war. Add to this, he contin- Russian Federation is worse off than able future. ued, “the immense damages, social, was the Russian Empire at the end of A sense of the strain imposed by the spiritual, even genetic, inflicted upon the 1890s. Thus, a Russian male teen- military economy may be inferred from the Russian people by the Communist ager today has less chance of surviving the fact that, with a gross domestic regime itself. In this vast process of to age 60 than did his great-grandfather product (GDP) of at most one third that destruction, all the normal pillars on in 1900. Ian Blanchard, a distinguished of the U.S. in the 1980s, Russia had a which any reasonably successful British economic historian, has calcu- military machine that was comparable modern society has to rest—faith, hope, lated that, if the economy continues to to, and in some areas superior to, that of national self-confidence, balance of decline at current rates, by 2005 per the U.S. Nikita S. Khrushchev, First age groups, family structure…have capita income will sink to the levels of Secretary of the Soviet Communist been destroyed. The process took place the mid-19th century. party from 1953 to 1964, was once over most of an entire century. It Russia’s marginalization is not heard to say that the Americans built embraced three generations of Rus- unique: Many European Communist weapons with one hand and conducted sians. Such enormous losses and abuses countries found themselves in relatively business with the other, while the are not to be put to rights in a single worse economic shape after decades un- U.S.S.R. built weapons with both. decade, perhaps not even in a single der communism. Per capita income in Khrushchev and his successors failed to generation.” 22 GREAT DECISIONS 2000 TOPIC RUSSIA: A REPORT CARD 2 are dominated by the sale of oil and gas large extent, the political “transition,” Natural assets and are virtually nonexistent in other, which generally corresponds to post- To be sure, it is not as if Russia has no value-added sectors. (Following the 1945 North Atlantic forms, obscures the tools to use in shaping its economic and 1998 financial crash, which saw a 70% mechanisms and processes by which political future; these include a nation- devaluation of the ruble, the dollar value acquisition and distribution of public wide system of secondary and higher of Russia’s GDP was estimated to have (and private) resources are controlled. education—one positive product of the declined from $446 billion to $329 bil- Again, the chief force driving Russian Soviet era—as well as an impressive sci- lion. Russia’s foreign debts increased politics since the late 1980s has not entific establishment and potential in re- from 28% of its GDP in January 1998 to been a striving for democratic and mar- search and development. Moreover, an estimated 111% by December 1999 ket accountability but rather—spurred Russia has an enormous natural-re- and a projected 116% in the year 2000.) by the administrative chaos of the late source base, a highly educated, low- Politically, nearly a decade into Russia’s Gorbachev period—efforts by strategi- wage workforce, immense reservoirs of post-Communist “transition,” the coun- cally situated elements of the Soviet suppressed managerial skill and con- try is no closer to a genuinely responsive, elite to convert their previous adminis- sumer demand, and impressive accom- not to mention constitutional or demo- trative control over economic assets plishments in such fields as nuclear en- cratic political system, than it was at the into private ownership. In so doing, ergy, outer space exploration and steel end of the Gorbachev period in 1991.
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