Why Russia?

2 PERSPECTIVES ON COMMUNISM

Communism as a global systemic phenomenon – a product of, and a challenge to,

global capitalism

Communism as a regional and civilizational phenomenon -

a phase in the historical development of some countries, starting with Russia

Global System Perspective

Internationale. International socialist anthem Words by Eugène Pottier (1871) music by Pierre Degeyter (1888) State anthem of the Soviet Union (1918-1943)

CapitalismA social system based on private ownership of the means of production,

in which the main goal of economic activity is the maximization of profitThe main mechanism of social coordination is the marketGuided by the “unseen hand” of the market, individuals buy and sell

labour, land, goods, services, stocks, information The capitalist system began to form about 500 years ago when the

following developments converged:Formation of the capitalist class (the bourgeoisie - literally, the

word means “the city dwellers”): first, merchants and bankers, later, industrialists – people whose main source of power is money derived from the workings of the market economy

Creation of nation-statesExpansion of international trade and conquest of coloniesNew technologies made human labour more productiveThe rise of new ideas – social change, progress, democracy

The notion of “revolution”

With or without command

4 basic methods of social control and coordination in any society*:- 1. Directed coordination, or authority (somebody plans for the group,

gives commands, others obey)- 2. Mutual adjustment, or exchange (everyone does his/her thing,

nobody plans, nobody commands, coordination takes place through the web of interactions between gain-seeking individuals)

Capitalism expands the realm of mutual adjustment – the rise of the market system, the power of self-interest

But directed coordination – exercise of authority, the power of command –does not disappear. Quite the opposite: it becomes more effective

No society can rely only on market-type interactionsMany important social tasks can only be performed through the use of

authority

*See, for instance, Charles Lindblom, The Market System, Yale University Press, 2002, also Charles Lindblom, Politics and Markets, Yale university Press, 1976

Control through the mind

The 2 other methods have to do with what we think and believe:

3. Persuasion: Getting people to act (or no to act) by persuading them that they need it, that it is in their own interests, etc.

4. Moral codes: The power of belief, tradition, and ethics

In actual human practice, all these methods interact in a lot of complex ways

Every social system is based on a specific combination of these (and probably other) methods

Some combinations are more effective than others

Authority structures under capitalism

The family The workplace (obey the boss, be disciplined, work hard)The state (whether democratic or authoritarian)

Liberal democracy is a way of combining the power of command with the power of self-interest, putting a strong emphasis on self-interest.

The state derives its authority to command from a market-type deal between the citizen and the politician:

I’ll give you my vote and my taxes, if you work to deliver the public goods I need (for example, “peace, order, good government”)

Liberal democracy can be regarded as the perfect political form for capitalism

It accommodates the constant process of change that capitalism fosters

Including social change

Yet, at the same time, democracy and capitalism

are in conflict

In the market economy, people are formally equal free agents, each after his/her own interests

But in reality, they have vastly different amounts of social power

The market system, in and by itself, does not reduce those differences. On the contrary, it increases existing inequalities – both within societies and between societies.

The inequality of social power and the control over means of production through the institution of private ownership gives the bourgeoisie power over the workers

Capitalism as a revolutionary systemHow capitalism undermines its own foundations

1. Market forces, not subject to effective control by society, can turn against man:

-- inadequacy of the profit motive to meet many human needs

-- the destructive power of the market (creative or not)

2. Capitalism, through increasing inequality of social power, creates its own enemies in society – the dispossessed, the exploited, which become breeding grounds for movements for radical change

3. Liberal democracy enables radicals to struggle for power. Whether the radical impulses can be tamed through reforms is always an open question

The rise of socialism (19th-20th centuries)Follow the link: The Socialist International

Socialist movements accompany the development of capitalism They follow on the steps of capitalist development Most socialists start out as radical democrats, disappointed with the

failures and limitations of liberal democracy The socialist movement emerges as a product of the age of liberal

revolutions, triggered off by the American War of Independence and the Great French Revolution of 1789-93

1848: After an unsuccessful wave of democratic revolutions swept through Europe, a group of German radical democrats led by journalist Karl Marx and industrialist Friedrich Engels founded “The League of Communists”

Their founding document was “The Communist Manifesto” THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO

Marx and Engels in London, 1867

Regional-civilizational perspective

Europe’s East and WestThe stereotype: the West is advanced, the East is backward.

It hasn’t always been this way.

The divisions of Europe

1. East vs. West (the Greek-Persian wars, Alexander’s synthesis)

2. South vs. North (Rome vs. Barbarians)

3. East vs. West (2 parts of the Roman Empire)

4. East vs. West (Orthodox Christianity vs. Roman Catholicism)

5. East vs. West (nomadic invasions of Europe)

6. West vs. East (Western modernization, Eastern stagnation)

7. East vs. West (the Communist challenge from Russia and China)

8. East vs. West (“new Europe” vs. “old Europe”)

Europe’s Eastern frontier The belt between the Baltic and the Adriatic East European state-forming nations:

Greeks Germans Slavs

• Eastern: Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians• Western: Poles, Czechs, Slovaks• Southern: Serbs, Croatians, Slovenians, Macedonians,

Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Bulgarians Hungarians (Magyars) Finns Balts (Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians) Romanians (19th-century name) Albanians Turks TatarsALL, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF FINNS, GREEKS AND TURKS, LIVED

UNDER COMMUNIST REGIMES IN THE 20TH CENTURY

EVOLUTION OF THE EUROPEAN STATE SYSTEM

EUROPE 0001

EUROPE 1000

EUROPE 1600

EUROPE 1900

EUROPE 1914

A 3-way conflict of civilizations for control of Eastern Europe. Objects of the struggle: Resources Trade routes Security

THE CONTINENTAL EMPIRES: Western Christian (German) – “successors” to the Western

Roman Empire and “Holy Roman Empire”: the Habsburg Empire (Austria-Hungary) and the Hohenzollern Empire (Germany)

Orthodox Christian (Russian) – “successor” to Eastern Roman Empire (The Romanov Empire)

Muslim (Turkish) – “successor” to the Arab Caliphate (The Ottoman Empire)

How the East fell behind the West Western Europe begins modernization (16th –17th centuries) Eastern Europe as the West’s defence barrier Eastern Europe as the West’s agricultural base The West:

Industrializing Global trade Capitalism Nation-state

The East: Farming (with pockets of industry) Regional trade Feudalism Empire

\MODERNIZATION CHALLENGES

TO EASTERN EUROPE Political Independence: building modern nation-states Industrialization The agrarian question: turning peasants into farmers,

developing modern agriculture Social development Building civil societies

POLITICAL OPTIONS Western liberalism Socialism of various types Conservative nationalism or (later) fascism

19th century in Eastern Europe: turmoil National liberation struggles against empires

(Turkish, Russian, Habsburg) – A few nations become independent

Democratic revolutions, led by middle classes – Unsuccessful

The rise of socialist movements, led by intellectuals, supported by workers and peasants - Suppressed

Reforms from above - Inadequate

Repression (including foreign intervention) – Breeding new discontent and radicalization

As a result of World War I, all four empires which had dominated Eastern Europe – Russian, Turkish, Austro-Hungarian, and German –

DISINTEGRATED

The region was up for massive upheavals, violent struggles for power, attempts at radical change

Russia

Russia is 1,200 years old It has existed in 6 historical forms:

Kiev Rus (9th-13th centuries) Domain of the Tatar-Mongol empire (13th-15th

centuries) Moscovy (15th-17th centuries) The Russian Empire (18th century-1917) The Soviet Union (1917-1991) The Russian Federation (1991- today)

Each stage was a product of interactions between European and Asian influences

Kiev Rus before 1054

The empire of Chengiz Khan and his successors

Chengiz Khan

The rise of the Moscow state

Tsar Peter the Great, Founder of the Russian Empire

In the Modern Age, Russia expanded to take control of most of the Eurasian Heartland

Gradually, it filled much of the space first integrated by the Mongols

Expansion was driven by: Struggle for independence and security Struggle for control of resources and trade routes Human settlement Imperial inertia

Coat-of-arms of the Russian Empire

                                                                                                                                                         

The State Emblem of the Russian Federation

Moscow KremlinMoscow Kremlin

The Church of Ivan the Great, Moscow Kremlin

Tsar Peter the Great, Founder of the Russian Empire

Monument to Peter the Great, St. Petersburg

The Winter Palace of Russian Emperors, St. Petersburg

The question of civilization Where does Russia belong?

“A civilization … is the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species. It is defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people. People have levels of identity: a resident of Rome may define himself with varying degrees of intensity as a Roman, an Italian, a Catholic, a Christian, a European, a Westerner. The civilization to which he belongs is the broadest level of identification with which he strongly identifies. Civilizations are the biggest “we” within which we feel culturally at home as distinguished from all the other “thems” out there.”*

*Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Touchstone Books, 1997, p.43

“A civilization… is neither a given economy nor a given society, but something which can persist through a series of economies and societies, barely susceptible to gradual change. A civilization can be approached, therefore, only in the long term, taking hold of a constantly unwinding thread – something that a group of people have conserved and passed on as their most precious heritage from generation to generation, throughout and despite the storms and tumults of history.”

Fernand Braudel, A History of Civilizations, translated by Richard Mayne. Pengui Books, 1993, p.35

Civilizations emerge in the course of history under the combined impact of various factors:*

Geographic – different types of interactions between man and the natural environment

Sociological – different types of societies (rural or urban, degrees of inequality, etc.)

Economic – what technologies are used, how productive is human labour, how wealth is distributed, etc.

Mental – different ways of thought and belief

*See Braudel, pp.9-23

Braudel again:“In every period, a certain view of the world, a collective mentality, dominates the whole mass of society. Dictating a society’s attitudes, guiding its choices, confirming its prejudices and directing its actions, this is very much a fact of civilization. Far more than the accidents or the historical and social circumstances of a period, it derives from the distant past, from ancient beliefs, fears and anxieties which are almost unconscious – an immense contamination whose germs are lost to memory but transmitted from generation to generation. A society’s reactions to the events of the day, to the pressure upon it, to the decisions it must face, are less a matter of logic or even self-interest than the response to and unexpressed and often unexpressible compulsion arising from the collective unconscious…

These basic values, these psychological structures, are assuredly the features that civilizations can least easily communicate one to another. They are what isolate and differentiate them most sharply. And such habits of mind survive the passage of time. They change little, and change slowly, after a long incubation which itself is largely unconscious, too.

Here religion is the strongest feature of civilizations, at the heart of both their present and their past. And in the first place, of course, in civilizations outside Europe.” *

*Braudel, p.22

The Russian Civilization Geographic

Harsh climate Insularity Forests, rivers and steppe (grasslands)

Sociological Peasant Communitarian Egalitarian State-society relations:

The state as an alien force vs. The state’s “battle order”

Economic Low productivity Underdeveloped market economy Property relations The dominance of the state The state is both a retarding factor and an engine of

progress Mental

Religion Justice Morality and law Universalism and messianism Patience and rebelliousness

The Russian civilization emerged at the crossroads of civilizations Civilizations interact in many ways Axes of interaction, tension and conflict

West-Islam (otherness) West-Russia (otherness of a different kind)

HISTORY Russia appears on world stage as a European country (9th-13th

centuries) Then it falls under Asian control (13th century)

Which changes it profoundly Then it fights to:

Regain its independence, own role and place Catch up with the West (for development and security)

But the West has gone its own way already And Russia discovers that it is different

It creates an empire which embraces: The original Slavic lands The steppe which was always a key challenge Siberia and the Far East Caucasus and Central Asia

KEY STRUGGLE: Balkans and the Black Sea The empire as a superstate

Requires a huge army, a centralized bureaucracy, an ideology, etc. THE LOGIC OF A STATE

The empire as a living organism Mass base, popular support, integration of diverse societies

The issue of identity What is Russia? RUSSKIE and ROSSIYANE The state of the ethnic Russians? Or the state built on the basis of the Russian nationality,

which integrated other nationalities, too? Nation-state or empire? Depends on the ability of Russians to act as the magnet,

integrate, build a larger and more inclusive state In which other nationalities may be better off than on their

own

So, Russia’s quest has always been twofold: Assert its own identity as a Russian state which includes a chunk

of Asia and a lot of non-Russians Assert its affinity with the West

Can it do both? VERY DIFFICULT, BUT NECESSARY A STRUGGLE WITHIN THE RUSSIAN MIND, NOT BETWEEN

RUSSIA AND THE WEST Slavophiles and Westernizers

Eurasianists What about interactions with others? China, India, Japan, Islam? Always a sense of otherness Which makes for a simpler mode of relations (without the

complicating impact of culture)

When did the conflict reach its apexes? 1. The West’s offensives

Germans (since 13th century) Poles (17th century) Swedes (18th century) Napoleon (19th century) Germans (WWI and II)

2. The West containing Russia The Crimean War (1844-46), Russo-Turkish War (1877-88) WWI WWII Cold War

In each case, the West was divided Cases of Russia’s triumph:

1721 1815 1945 In both cases, Russia affirmed its Westernness

Russian historian I.B.Orlova on the contrast between Western and Eurasian civilizations)

Western The classical heritage Western Christianity Roman and German language families Division between spiritual and secular authorities Rule of law Social and political pluralism and civil society Representative government Individualism and rationalism

Eurasian Civilization The Byzantian heritage: a Eurasian Orthodox state Ethnic tolerance Religious tolerance Spirituality, dominance of:

Heart over mind Contemplation over analysis Conscience over pragmatism Free will over compulsion

Collectivism The Russian language The Russian base

THE RUSSIAN SYSTEM:

The state was huge, costly, militarized Society (especially the peasantry) was heavily exploited

and tightly controlled by the state The political system was autocratic-patrimonial, with the

monarch being the sole source of sovereignty The church was subservient to the state Individual rights and liberties were severely curbed Market economy had very limited potential for development When reforms became overdue, the state acted as the

main agent of change, usually with limited effect Society had no legal means of influencing government

policies – the people had an impact on the state either by obedience to it or by resistance to it (passive or active)

What kept the system going was its

“battle order”:

NO CITIZENS – JUST SOLDIERS, OFFICERS, AND WORKERS WHO FED THE ARMY

The system was designed primarily for war.

Successful wars kept it going.

Failed wars undermined it.

Grain production in Russia, late 19th century*:

1/3 of the German level 1/7 of the British level ½ of the French and Austrian levels*Richard Pipes, Russia Under the old Regime. Penquin Books, 1974, p.8

The issue of the surplus.

The costs of security and development

RUSSIA’S DECEPTIVE APPEARANCE

The image of stability vs.

The potential for revolution

Lenin’s conversation with a police investigator:

“Yes, it is a wall, but it is all rotten: just push it, and it will fall down”

RUSSIA’S REBELS Cossack uprisings of 17th and 18th centuries (Razin, Bolotnikov, Pugachev)

19th century: The Decembrists (Ryleev, Pestel) The Revolutionary Democrats (Chernyshevsky, Herzen) The Populists (Herzen, Bakunin, Lavrov) The Anarchists (Kropotkin, Bakunin) The Social Democrats (Plekhanov, Lenin)

Russia’s 19th century: The apex of expansion – and the lag behind the West The pressures for change The reforms of Alexander II Development of capitalism

vs. Political modernization

Capitalism was creating new classes, new issues, new conflicts – and the state was expected to evolve to be able to deal with them.

But the Russian state was not up to the task.

It was not part of the solution, it was the source of additional problems

By the end of the 19th century, the flaws of the Russian system become manifest

The gap between Europe and Russia widens fast, the Russian system is too inefficient, too rigid, resistant to reform

The 1904-05 war with Japan and then World War I exhaust the Russian state and expose its flaws

1905-1917: 12 YEARS OF UPHEAVAL WHICH DESTROYED THE RUSSIAN AUTOCRACY AND EMPIRE