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Add to FavoritesThe collapse of the Soviet Union left a very large vacuum of power that no one in Russia was really prepared for. The government of the Soviet Union and the governments within all of the socialist republics- including Russia- effectively ceased to exist. This is not to say that the ruling party of the government, the Communist Party, ceased to exist, but any form of real government in Russia and the former Soviet republics evaporated. What was left was a series of tenders beginning with Gorbachev and, possibly, ending with Putin. These tenders were not true wielders of government authority; they were merely buffers against complete anarchy engulfing what was left of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
It is no doubt that the people of the Soviet Union were elated to be free of the decades old tyranny of oppressive rule, but the absence of any of the protections that tangible government affords left a sense of foreboding and fear. The people were not ready to govern themselves, for they had no experience. For the people in all of the former republics of the Soviet Union, there was no transition, no preparation for governing themselves. What they were left with was a vacuum.
The people went from absolute tyranny to almost nothing, with democracy attempting to fill that void. The infrastructure of democratic government that Americans have enjoyed has been in place for over two-hundred and fifty years. Even during colonial times, there was a kind of transitional period of over one-hundred years between British rule and American democracy that the people of the thirteen colonies were given to prepare a new government and to establish the infrastructure of government. The people of Russia were not given that transitional chance. They had the infrastructure of government, but that infrastructure was created for a government which no longer existed.
Suddenly all of the former republics were given independence or at least the absence of a strong central authority to bind them into a cohesive whole. But they too were left with a vacuum, in which what was left of central authority in the capital republic of Russia jealously attempted to hold onto. Chechnya tried to sever the jealous hand of Russia, as did Georgia, but what occurred was armed conflict punctuated by terrorist attacks. Terrorist attacks are a double-edged sword. Not only do such attacks terrorize the target of the terrorists, they terrorize the populace which terrorists claim to support and fight for. The only real aspect of terrorism is terror, and terror knows no political or social boundaries.
When faced with attacks which claimed hundreds of lives; especially the hostage crises in a Moscow theater, which claimed the lives of 129 civilians, and in a Beslan school in which 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children; people scrambled to the only entity which afforded them protection in the past, the government. Unfortunately the government itself was not only reeling from terrorist attacks, but the prospect of governance during crises which began immediately after the fall of the Soviet system.
The channels of communication which are supposed to allow the people of a democratic society to voice their concern, the parliament, were facing its own problems as well. The Duma was beset by strife from both within and without, which eroded its effectiveness even further than before. The only real entity that had shown any semblance of ability to govern was a democratically elected president with predispositions toward authoritarianism, Vladimir Putin.
Before Putin became president, Boris Yeltsin's actions in January 1992 further eroded the possibility of democracy establishing itself. Yeltsin circumvented both the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People's Deputies, which were popularly elected in June 1991, and by doing so the democratic process of parliamentary debate was bypassed. Yeltsin's actions also prevented anyone from discussing what course Russia should take in the future. It seemed that Yeltsin's overriding intension was not to create a democracy, but to rip down the Soviet system.
The existance of Russian democracy was given a further setback in December 1993 when a new constitution was adopted which created a very strong presidency. By giving Russia a system overbalanced towards the presidency, the powers of the other branches of government, including the power of the people, were reduced. This effectively paved the way for Putin's autocracy.
After years of armed conflict between the former republics and Russia, and random terrorist attacks, it seemed that only Vladimir Putin could wield a strong guiding hand and establish any form of tangible government. Unfortunately, Putin at heart was authoritarian, perhaps not at the level of Stalin or Khrushchev but he preferred to wield power as he saw fit, free from the checks and balances that an established democracy provides.
It is very telling of the erosion of democracy in Russia that even while Putin enacted more and more authoritarian measures, which were met with hostility and protest from those within the government and the people themselves, general public welfare and overall feelings of security increased, as Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss pointed out in their article "The Myth of the Authoritarian Model." Not only that, but according to a survey by the research agency Eurasian Monitor, most Russians during Putin's term came to regret the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Vladimir Putin used such public dissatisfaction while campaigning in 2004. According to the article "World Order, Failed States, and Terrorism" by Henry C.K. Liu of Asia Times, Putin stated, "I think that ordinary citizens of the former Soviet Union and the post-Soviet space gained nothing from [the collapse of the Soviet Union]... people have faced a huge number of problems."
What has happened within the former Soviet Republics should be viewed as an object lesson in nation building for American forces, diplomats, and politicians trying to establish democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Marina Ottaway explains in the article, "Nation Building," the goal of nation building is not to build a nation from scratch, but to reestablish failed nations. What has happened in Russia is the building of a democratic nation where none had existed before. This was not the reestablishment of a broken autocratic nation with democratic tendencies, but an entirely new form of government built upon the rubble of the old government. From this perspective, it is little wonder that attempts to establish democracy in Russia has largely failed.
Another obstacle to democracy establishing firm footing in Russia is the concept of civil society. As Thomas Carothers explains in his article, "Civil Society," all groups are included within a civil society, from religious outreach groups aimed at helping the poor and environmental organization trying to halt environmental degradation to the Russian mafia and drug gangs. The Soviet system was largely successful at containing the criminal groups, but with its collapse the law enforcement organizations established under the Soviet system lost much of their effectiveness, as the article "The Myth of the Authoritarian Model" indicated. This increased public fear and led to rampant displeasure that the new government was not able to keep such groups under control. In fact, many Russians hearkened back to the effectiveness of the Soviet system's ability to limit widespread criminal operations.
However successful Vladimir Putin was at attempting to establish the rule of law within Russia, he met with serious problems as a result of his measures. Putin's autocracy eliminated most independent media outlets and severely reduced the power of regional governments and Russia's parliament, the Duma. Political freedom was also eroded as most parties not aligned with the Kremlin lost much power and autonomy. Civil rights, including citizen organizations (NGOs) and civil assembly was either constrained or eliminated.
However, there is hope that Russian democracy will get a chance. Some of Putin's measures have already been reversed under the new Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev. It is hoped that with the reversal of many of Putin's measures that the autocracy that he tried to establish will prove to be transitional. It is also hoped that this is only a path to the establishment of true Russian democracy with an effectively functioning government.
Maybe the biggest departure from the increasing trend of authoritarian rule came during speeches in 2008 when President Medvedev planned to enact reforms which would separate the judicial and legislative branches from the executive branch, according to an article in the St. Petersburg Times entitled "Medvedev to Tackle Corruption, Red Tape" by Miriam Elder. This would curtail the powers of the presidency that Putin increased and institute a system of checks and balances on governmental power, a hallmark of a democracy.
Putin's programs were further limited when Medvedev's expressed a strong desire against the placement of state officials on the boards of major corporations. "I think there is no reason for the majority of state officials to sit on the boards of those firms," Medvedev said, in reference to Putin's move to eliminate private business by bringing them under state control. This move began with the dissolving of the petroleum company Yukos and the show trial of its main shareholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, according to an article published by The Weekly Standard entitled "Democracy in Russia" by Bruce Jackson.
With all of the reversals of former President Vladimir Putin's attempts to fully establish authoritarian rule, there is a very good chance that democracy will return to Russia. It is hoped that as the political situation further stabilizes not only under President Dmitry Medvedev but under his successors, as well, Russia will finally be able to experience the freedoms afforded by democracy.
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No
A stable democracy is something of an oxymoron. The stable U.S. democracy exists by heavy foreign borrowing-should Russia emulate that?
External political forces especially of globalism present challenges for Russian democratic stability. Capitalism globally is a destabilizing economic fact in several ways; it seeks to reallocate profits, work and investments in areas that will produce the highest rate of return for the concentration of wealth in the rich regardless of nation al boundaries or environmental consequences, and it also has been corrupted by global corporatism that is apolitical power aswell as an inter-corporate share owning class seeking dominance over national governments. Russia has many other external challenges such as global socialism, autocracy, fascism or fascism united as corporatism with business and of course the twin towers of 1.5 billion Muslims and 1.4 billion Chinese with ethnic and atheist or pagan commonalities-neithe r is their growing Christian Church a priesthood of believers but is instead a hierarchical priesthood so easliy manipulated for political purposes by sympathizers to theocracy nor global, anti-Christ economic power.
The United States shares many of the problems of globalism, the Muslim anti-jewish criterionwith it's desire for a 'final solution' in the mid-east and Chinese economic, cultural and millitary power. The Chinese aren't bad people-there are just too many for the United States to treat them as just another business opportunity. In order for American Democracy-or Russian, to survive in a world half Mohammedan and Chinese it will need to promote national securtity and self-development in economic and environmental areas as prioritiy political items. American globalists like Dick Cheney were too willing to sell out the nation for oil profits, and the Chinese economy is the reciprocol of the loss of quality jobs in the United States-with corporations loyal to the China market too far American interests are set aside. Russian in the international realm has been treated with a propaganda approach by the past two adminnistrations that were simultanteously screwling the American public with lessons not learned till the recent financial collapse. U.S. prescriptions for Russian democratic development were hollow to a certain extent for the U.S. economy and its democratic control were paralyzed by the nerve agents of corporatist investment in China, import of Chinese goods, flimsy bank lending practices and corporate owned media prtopaganda saying the American economy was booming-at least they were cooncerned about inflation above all else for good reason-banks make more profit in lending with low inflation.
Russia cannot form a stable democracy if one judges by looking at the large existing democracies of the world; democracy is inherently unstable. Corporatists will call anything a democracy if the masses vote from column A or column B regardless that the people may stay broke for life and experience government oppression, and political power over the economy and government is set by broadcast media owning trans-national corporations concentrating wealth for plutocracies with feet on many continents. Fortunately history has stability implicitly within complex movements of nations and societies based upon incidental factors such as geography, circumstances, personnel and external challenges or the lack thereof. Russia as a nation may develop democratic institutions within as a result of some help from political pressures and catalysis applied from without. The Byzantine Empire may have experienced the iconoclasm movement as a result of external Muslim pressures, and today external democratic pressures in democratic nations surrounding Russia may encourage a Russian democratic populism while the internal dynamics of Russian society in the post cold war decades seems to support a simple powerful central authority over chaos. Russia first of all, for geographic and cultural reasons requires a real central governing power and it does so within a centrifugal force outward naturally tending toward chaos.
The United States has a history of expansion across the continent of North America and occasional foreign wars-even having a colony in the Philippines for twenty years! The Government in Washington D.C. is traditional neo-plutocracy. I cannot imagine there has ever been a poor man elected to the U.S. Senate, and definitely not one that arrived middle class and didn't leave rich.
Today the United States has a flood of illegal alien immigrants that have added more than 20 or 30 million people plus their offspring that become citizens to the population of the United States-that isn't stable. The business people of the United States have become globalists and invest overseas becoming trans-nationalist that descry their own nation's economic interest as protectionist if measures are taken to liberate it from corporatist-globalis t power.
England does have a lengthy history of parliamentary government yet that is fundamentally one-party rule under the authority of the rich. When a general election is held the winning party forms a cabinet and selects a prime minister. There is no separation of the executive and legislative branches of government in England and that means one party rule until the next election.
England also is a government that depends on globalism to input wealth to sustain its standard of living. Unlike Japan, England's industrial era has largely been surpassed by financial services and foreign investments. Both England and the United States have tremendous public debt dumped by bad corporatism and neo-con synthetic infections of domestic economic priorities.
The Obama administration has hired the Rasputin like economist from the Clinton years that made home mortgages liquid assets tradeable as commodities that established the bunk extension of the unnatural post cold war economic surge to be their prime economic planner. That is not a recipe for stability but a search for a method to extend unecological economic instability.
Plainly autocratic forms of government are stable while democracy is unstable. Elite classes enjoying the subjugation of the masses for millenia never want anything to change-they are on a golden pond of power that in some cases can only be overthrown by outside forces of invasion. How long might Pharonic rule have persisted in Egypt without the troublesome presence of invading Hyksos that brought the first invasion and abeyance of the aboriginal power in the inevitable yet slow decline of the stable absolute monarch? If not for the problems created by the west might not the rule of the tsars have continued for another 500 years? What about imperial China? Except for the bloody dynastic change battle, rape and pillaging of the populous by the new administration taking charge and establishing authority China was a stable middle kingdom for several thousand years aggregating neighboring states and ruling powers as it clustered it was slowly toward a new communist autocracy and eventual merging sidle-up with global corporate powers?
Democracies form when the prevailing autocratic power has been eliminated and more or less equal powers join together to govern themselves equally. Democracy tends to have much competition in free enterprises striving to provide better goods and services for others to sell. Democracy tends to minimize organizational powers that repress individual liberty such as may exist at times in socialist and corporatist contexts. Democracy has an unstable equilibrium continually seeking readjustment and renormalize from extremes created by evil hegemony over the government through the influence of special interests.
India is a large democracy yet it is poor compared to England and America. That poverty restricts its ability to let its people be defrauded by clever globalist financiers for a while. Democracy is implicitly unstable and used as a vehicle for the exploitation of whatever human or material resources are available in the modern world. democracy requires a supremacy of individual economic and political interests over organizations and in the Internet and telecommunications era of corporatism that is a significant challenge especially as politicians are bought and paid for by corporations.
The prospects for a stable Russian democracy are not better than those of England and the United States. Democracy was not intended to be a way to fairly reapportion political and economic interests individually when the prevailing social environment is a class stratified mass social zeitgeist. Unfair reallocation's of political and economic resources in a top-down approach to democracy are normal, and in the more desirable bottom up method of delivering democracy through rugged pioneer individualism with plenty for those willing to work for oneself (in a totalized society social position is primary at securing wealth and personal ability irrelevant without a right social role) populist self-determination through democracy is filtered out through controlling powers through the technical problems associated with governance of so many. The stock market and capitalism is corrupted through the similar issue of technical profiting on the real capital of others production capabilities.
Russia has a difficult location to grow a democracy; the world today is beset with trans-national organizations seeking total global market power. The trans-national organization fundamentally subvert the individualist egalitarian that is a necessary component for practical democratic government that ensures that all citizens have a fair opportunity that cannot be denied under any circumstance to construct their own life materially and spiritually at a satisfactory level.
Trans-nationalists may seek to make of post-cold war Russia a technical democracy such as existed in the Ireland after 1800 when the agreement of Union was written. Absentee landlords of vast estates with concentrated wealth made of made of many Irish, landless beggars paying rent. The first anti-vagrancy laws in 19th century Britain were actually anti-Irish begging laws that had existed for 400 years.
When Henry II set to conquer Ireland he set in to play a dispossession of nationality and peace movement that compelled the Irish to move to industrial Britain to work for the lowest wages in order to try to survive. It is not impossible that global corporatism too will seek to impoverish yet own Russia and reallocate its resource values to elite global corporatists just as is developing in the United States today to a limited extent following the fraud based financial-Wall Street economic expansion of concentrating wealth during the 1990's and through the Bush II administration.
Russia will need to form a powerful republic as a transitional step to guard democratic growth. It must have a concept of fairness for all citizens and protect it national security from the worst excesses of foreign invasion and outsourcing of jobs that can be implemented by oligarchy seeking power wielders in corporate organizations. Russia should set limits upon personal income allowed at so meting like 1000% of the average annual wage in order to guard against the corruption of oligarchic concentrated wealth, and set create inheritance taxes that will permit not more than 100 times the annual average income to be passed on.
Globalism has created a small worlds network/advantaged organization phenomenon in communications, business and governance that will lead to the conclusion of global autocracy and the struggle to overthrow it.
Massification of society that eradicates the boundaries of individualism is a desirable trend for sellers of goods globally and for communist designs for an unchanging utopia of plenty for the masses. Unfortunately it is instability in thermodynamic changes of form that is the nature of the world and of the present economic system.
President Obama's primary economic adviser hasn't a concept of what ecological economics is about, or of how to approach and construction for non-expansive in quantity ecological economic policy need for a stable democracy, if it can be made to exist anywhere - it would be a worthwhile experimental object.
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