Russia at the Crossroads

Leonid Gordon

Russia at the Crossroadst

THE CURRENT CRISIS IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY HAS BEEN THE SUBJECT of all manner of scholarly investigations, essays and editorials. But the clear economic reverses, distinctly felt by all, have caused analysis to focus almost exclusively on this aspect of the crisis. A more constructive approach to the problem might be to examine it as a process, as an objective result of all aspects of the country's development and contemporary civilization as a whole.

This approach presupposes that the rejection of socialism in Russia and Eastern Europe, the major reforms in China and Vietnam, and the dead-end situation in Cuba are not chance, but form a pattern. In each case, the crisis is a function of the transition from one social system to another. This transitional crisis is all-encompassing; its economic component is no more important than the political, social, ethical, cultural, or that of daily life. A transitional crisis is the harbinger of a Time of Troubles" when all of society - not just isolated elements - is thrown into turmoil.

THE END OF STATE SOCIALISM

The acuteness and the depth of the crisis have to do with the fact that Russia, unlike countries in the West, long ignored the problems that faced the world as early as the 1940s and 1950s. Having exhausted the possibilities of the industrial age, humanity entered a new age, that of the scientific-industrial society. This period is variously referred to as the post-industrial or technotron era, or the Scientific Technical Revolution. In any case, the transition to this new society meant the replacement of industrial production by scientific-industrial

This is the text of the 1994 Government and Opposition/LeonardSchafiro lecture.

* A reference to the civil and dynastic wars in Russia in the years 1605-13, known Because of the sudden death of the author's wife it could not be delivered.

as the Time of Troubles. (ed.).

4 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION

and informational production based on an entirely different source of energy, raw materials and technology. This new society required a new worker: a more demanding but also a better educated one, capable of far greater independence. Scientific-industrial production and the worker who can run it are incompatible with the command system of state socialism.’

The single command centre - even if it comprised the nation’s best and brightest elites (more often it was composed of medio- crities) - is physically incapable of running a modern economy, requiring as it does independent operative decisions at millions of points. To date, humanity has yet to find a better way of managing this organism than the democratic market system.

Besides, the new age has shown that if humanity is to survive, the confrontation between the two superpowers, the contest between capitalism and socialism must cease. The world community must cooperate in working to preserve peace, contain terrorist regimes, protect the environment.

In the 1950s and 1960s, one more circumstance emerged which, in essence, predetermined the depth of the current crisis and the extent of the hardship: replacing the state-socialist system with a democratic-market system implies overcoming extraordinary difficulties, incomparably greater than those, for example, associated with the Western revolutions and reformations. To ensure a relatively peaceful reform, a more or less smooth dismantling of state socialism is particularly necessary.

The smooth dismantling of state socialism is hindered by the excessive solidity of this political construction. In the history of the world, there may never have been a society so entirely, so totally run by the state. The state-socialist system is virtually devoid of the autonomous social subsystems (economic, political, ideological, etc.) which exist in other societies (at least in modern times). Consequently, in all societies save state- socialist ones, one can institute serious political change, raise or lower the level of democracy, say, without hurting the economy. And, conversely, the economy can change radically, inflation can rise and fall, without shaking the political institutions or social subsystems (ideology, culture, etc.).

For a more detailed description by the author of scientific-industrial production and its incompatibility with state socialism, see L. A. Gordon and E. V. Klopov, ‘Stalinizm i poststalinizm’ in Osmyslit kult Stalina, Moscow, 1989; L. A. Gordon and A. K. Nazimova, Rabochii klass SSSR: tendentsii i perspektiy sotsialno-ekonomicheskogo razuitiya, Moscow, 1985.

RUSSIA AT THE CROSSROADS 5

Every component of the state-socialist system is knit together with every other. The political system and Party apparatus are part and parcel of the economy, while ideology and culture are the principal spheres of state regulation. In one of his last speeches as head of the Soviet government, Nikolai Ryzhkov exclaimed that, because of the destruction of ideology, ‘our economy’ is falling apart.* And Ryzhkov was right. That economy could not exist without that ideology and those politics. Thus any attempt to alter one part of the state-socialist system reflects immediately on all the others.

Those who undertook the first tentative attempts at reform in the 1950s and 1960s encountered all the afore-mentioned obstacles. The experience of Hungary and of Poland showed that the entire state-socialist system was threatened by the start of reforms. The Brezhnev leadership, and the leadership of most ‘fraternal’ countries, rejected fundamental change most probably because of an awareness (intuitive sense, perhaps) of the danger of reformist efforts. This is why the prevailing policy in the 1960s and 1970s was to encourage only those processes where industrialization was still making progress. But where a qualitative shift in approach was required - towards scientific- industrial production, democracy, flexible economic self- regulation (market relations) - the leadership confined itself to futile, cosmetic ‘corrections’ of the system, incorporating separate elements which worked well in other conditions, but were unworkable within the framework of state socialism. Meanwhile the bases of the system remained untouched. The repeated failures prompted part of society to the gradual realization that one could not limit oneself to a simple repair job of state socialism, that radical reforms were in order and that their delay would only make the process more burdensome. At the same time, the failures engendered a growing conviction in more orthodox circles both ‘above’ and ‘below’ about the dangers of ‘deforming changes’, about the need to return to classic state-socialist models, to a sort of gentler Stalinism.

This was the mood in the USSR on the eve of 1985 when the overwhelming majority of the elites and counter-elites - ruling, opposition, dissident - distinctly sensed the impossibility of preserving the status quo and seemed prepared for change. The reformers dreamed of democratic principles

See ‘Chetvertyy S‘ezd Narodnykh Deputatov SSSR in Byulleten No. 5, 19 December 1990, p. 24.


Democratic communist development (restoration of

’ 1917 utopia, democracy

~ without market)

and the market; the ‘revisionists’ hoped for a transition to democratic socialism; and the ‘orthodox’, believers in state socialism, simply wanted to purge the system of the ‘harmful’ Khrushchev-Brezhnev strata. Thanks to the general trend toward change, such opposites as Aleksandr Yakovlev and Yegor Ligachev were able to work together in the Politburo. Only later would their profound differences concerning the substance and goals of the reforms emerge.

The aspirations of the most varied social groups in the latter half of the 1980s appear in Figure 1’s coordinates of logical space, within the bounds of which it is easy to systematize the viable historical choices of the first years of perestroika (restr~cturing).~ Here we see four ‘poles’ of possible aspirations.

Figure 1

I MARKET ECONOMY I

Liberal and social democracy. Federalism, internationalism, rapprochement with the West

Democratic postcommunist development (democratic and market modernization)

I

I11 -

Antidemocratic postcommunist development (authoritarian modernization, market without democracy)

I1

IV A

Antidemocratic communist development (restoration of state socialism, national- Bolshevism, neither market, nor democracy)

I PLANNED ECONOMY I

Authoritarian regime. Social paternalism, unitary state, nationalism and opposition to the West

$The basis for this diagram appears in L. A. Gordon and A. K. Nazimova, ‘Perestroika: kakiye varianty vozmozhny’ in Obshchestvo v raznykh izmereniyakh, Moscow, 1990; L. A. Gordon and A. K. Nazimova, ‘Perestroika in Historical Perspective: Possible Scenarios’ in Government and Opfiosition, Vol. 25, No. 1, Winter 1990, pp. 16-29.


The vertical lines indicate economic preferences - market or planned economy; the horizontal lines describe socio-political orientation - either liberal democracy and social democracy, federalism, internationalism and a rapprochement with the West; or an authoritarian regime, social paternalism, nationalism and opposition to the West. Correspondingly, Figure 1 shows the four possible reform strategies of that time.

Attempts at reform showed that such steps were attended by grave dangers. They also showed that the risk varied depending on specific conditions and the sphere in which reforms began. Reforms beginning in the political sphere were the riskiest. But there was also a better experience: the reforms in Hungary and China.

Of most interest for us are the lessons of China’s reforms which also began with the economy. To this day, many see them as a model. But in evaluating the positive aspects of the Chinese approach, one cannot but note the high cost, including human, as in the 1989 massacre in Peking and subsequent mass arrests.

Russia in 1985 could no longer afford to delay reforms and the leadership felt this fairly strongly. But it lacked sufficient forces and resources to compel the enormous Party-State apparatus to cooperate. It is clear (and the Chinese experience confirms this) that to implement major economic reforms successfully without affecting the regime’s political and ideological foundations, the state-socialist system must not have reached decay, or the stage known in the USSR as ‘stagnation’. Such reforms are feasible so long as the nomenklatura has not fused into a class, realized its special interests, and won the independence necessary to resist orders ‘from above’; so long as the strictly centralized leadership has not turned the economy into a ‘rubber-stamp economy’, into a ‘bureaucratic market’; so long as the social changes associated with transforming an agrarian country into an industrial one are not overwhelming.

In this connection, it is more correct to compare China in the late 1970s, before the reforms, to the USSR of the 1950s. Hypothetically speaking, the USSR could have adopted an approach similar to China’s if, say, Stalin or his immediate successors had chosen such an approach after the war and had used their power of decree to start reforms. But, in the USSR the shift toward fundamental change began only in the 1980s.

a GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION

Figure 2

I MARKET ECONOMY 1 Possibly Gorbachev’s aim 1986-87

I \ r Democracy, internationalism, rapprochement I with the West

Possibly Andropov’s aim

\ China in 1993

China in 1989 (Tiananmen Square) $ \ l i

I

\U&R in 1985 * \USSR in 1983

USSR ? in mid-1950s

Authoritarianism, nationalism, confrontation with the West

China 0 in mid-1970s

PLANNED ECONOMY I I


ECONOMIC ADVANCE WITHOUT POLITICAL CHANGE

Today, the small likelihood of a ‘temporary’ split between economic and political reforms in Russia is comparatively obvious. Ten years ago, however, it was not obvious at all. And other strategies for change (see Figure 1) did not inspire much hope of success.

The least realistic of the possible reformist strategies would clearly be the attempt to begin with political or social democratization without economic reforms, i.e. a non-market democracy or non-market social equality (see Figure 2). The utopianism of this strategy was borne out by China’s ‘cultural revolution’. But the inertia of ideological traditions and official ideals made attempts to move in this direction entirely probable. In the USSR Andropov’s measures, at least, suggest a desire to return to earlier Soviet utopias of social democracy without a market. But those measures were too short-lived for any firm conclusions to be drawn.

Most likely, the Soviet leadership saw restoration - ‘purging’ classic state socialism of more recent modifications - as unworkable and undesirable. In the 1980s, only peripheral members of the nomenklatura and marginal segments of society as a whole favoured a return to Stalinism (even if a milder variety). But now that the memory of life under state socialism has faded, while the burdens of life today are thrown into sharp relief, the case seems somewhat different. Today, restoration is more likely than it was in the 1980s.

In essence, only two of the four logically possible alternatives seemed feasible in the 1980s. First, the strategy of instituting economic and political reforms simultaneously (i.e., democratic modernization, symbolized by quadrant I in Figures 1 and 2). Secondly, the strategy of market changes without democratization, i.e., authoritarian modernization, symbolized by quadrant I1 in Figures 1 and 2. When perestroika began, authoritarian modernization (the direct transition to which turned out to be unfeasible) might have been the most realistic and preferable line. The leaders of perestroika easily guessed (and even exaggerated) the complexities and catastrophic dangers of democratic modernization, but they did not realize how slim were their chances of being able to control the nomenklatura (which is what made the Chinese approach unworkable in Russia).

By 1987-88, however, it was clear that the Chinese logic was


not practicable in the USSR. The Soviet political centre no longer had the authority nor, perhaps, the resolve to force the nomenklatura to implement reforms. The changes were announced and directives were adopted at the highest level, but virtually never carried out. One has only to compare resolutions adopted by the Central Committee Plenum in the summer of 1987 with subsequent instructions concerning their implementation to see how emasculated those resolutions were at the hands of the apparatus whose job it was to implement them.4 The history of the Khrushchev-Brezhnev reforms in the 1960s was repeating itself almost literally.

In short, within the framework of the Soviet system in the 1980s, a relatively smooth continuation of economic changes only, according to the Chinese model, turned out to be impossible. Political support for reforms had to be increased in order to crush the resistance of unthinking and thinking conservatives. The usual way to increase support under state socialism would have been to repress those resisting the changes. But in the late 1980s, this was hardly a possibility. Especially given the fact that to curb the nomenklatura, after a quarter of a century of ‘liberal’ ways, would have required repressions on a massive and ruthless Stalinist scale. The leaders of perestroika could not have done that even had they wanted to.

The strategy adopted by Gorbachev - for which democrats must be grateful - consisted in promoting processes of democratization and ideological pluralism, paving the way for a bloodless triumph over the reactionary nomenklatura. The move toward principles of democratization was bolstered by the 19th Party Conference in 1988; by the flood of glasnost (openness); and by the tearing-down of the party-state ideological monolith.

Whether or not the Soviet political leadership realized the importance of the 1988 about-face is hard to say. According to later statements by Gorbachev, the sense that ‘economic reforms were not getting anywhere’ raised the question ‘what to do next?’. Gorbachev came to the ‘firm conclusion that political reform is necessary. The Central Committee Plenum voted to hold the 19th Party Conference for purposes of deciding fundamental questions, without the decision of which political reform could not begin and be

‘ See 1987-88 documents published in Spravochnik partiinogo mbotnika, Issue 28, Moscow, 1988, and Issue 29, Moscow, 1989.


carried out, nor could further reforms in the ~ountry’.~ Whatever the leaders’ own intentions, then, concerning a

‘revolution from above’, Soviet society’s form of development changed objectively in 1988. Until then, there had been attempts to implement market reforms without radical changes in the political system - to make economic and political advances by turns, i.e., to do what was and is being done in China. After 1988, economic and political changes were implemented simultaneously. The strategy of authoritarian modernization was supplanted for a time by that of democratic or anti-totalitarian modernization.

POSITIVE RESULTS OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM OF STATE SOCIALISM

The development of the USSR since 1988, and especially since the August 1991 coup, reveals patently democratic aspects. The broadening of glasnost has established real freedom of speech. Today we also have freedom of assembly and independence for virtually any group (excessive freedom, of course, for so early a stage of democratization since it favours extremist, antidemocratic, quasi-fascist groups). Democratic institutions - parties; unions; social, cultural and consumer organizations and movements - are taking root in civil society.

Of still greater significance, perhaps, is the fact that democratic ideals - the belief that society should be based on self-government, freedom, legality - are becoming part of the mass consciousness and psychology. Alas, these beliefs are still essentially abstract: not everyone thinks freedom and democratic self-organization are right for Russia today, and not everyone conducts himself in daily life in accordance with the principles of social democracy and legality. Indeed, Russia cannot instantly switch to full democracy (and we will come back to this point). But consensus about limiting democracy appears increasingly in the mass consciousness not as an ideal, but as an admission of the necessity - for whatever reason, for whatever period of time - of retreating from the ideal.

Needless to say, the new positive elements of democracy and civil society are growing up in Russia much more slowly

M. S . Gorbachev, ‘Net inogo vykhoda, kak pornenyat vlast’ in Rossiyskaya gareta, 19 August 1993.


than the old bases of the former state-socialist order are going down. In this sense, perhaps, it would be more correct to designate the changes which occurred after the watersheds of late 1980s and the early 1990s not so much market-democratic as anti-totalitarian. But then again the destruction, the uprooting of totalitarian ways and thinking, is a sine-qua-non for the development of democracy in the strict sense. Had it not been for this destruction, the events of August 1991 and October 1993 would soon have caused our country to revert to state socialism or some even more frightening, national-socialist brand of totalitarianism.

This is not the place to discuss whether the political possibilities for achieving socio-economic reforms were put to the best use.6 But even if one is critical of the post-1988 Soviet leadership and the post-1991 Russian leadership, it seems clear that but for the switch from purely economic reforms to simultaneous economic and ideo-political changes, state socialism could not have been beaten.

Gorbachev and Yeltsin realized (or perhaps sensed subconsciously) that impossibility and decided - in 1988-89 and 1991-93, respectively - to smash the political system of state socialism. Today, the Gorbachev and Yeltsin camps are at loggerheads but, in the long run, their differences will seem secondary. Objectively speaking, their conflict results from the fact that after launching reforms - first economic, then political - Gorbachev and his circle became an obstacle to them, while Yeltsin and his supporters removed the obstacle. The removal of Gorbachev in 1991 meant the continuation of the changes begun by him, in the late 1980s and early 1990s (at least until autumn 1994).’

If one believes (as does the present writer) that Russia today must rid itself of state socialism, that this will bring about the greatest good for the country, then one cannot but see the destruction of the party-state, the political basis of state socialism, as a profoundly positive process which, however, has a tragic principle. For, as we mentioned earlier, when

S e e Ekonomika sodszcrhestva nezavisimykh goszularstv v 1993. Kratkiy spravochnik, Moscow, Statkomitet SNG, 1994. ’ In a conversation with reporters in 1994, A. N. Yakovlev stressed the general

ideological basis of the reformers’ policy before and after 1991. ‘The stage announced by the revolution of 1991’, he noted, ‘has not produced a single new idea’. K. Vladina, ‘Ded epokhi’ in Nezavisimaya gareta, 10 August 1994.


smashing the ideo-political foundations of state socialism occurs before or at the same time as economic changes (rather than after), the state system and the social order are almost always enormously weakened. The nature of totalitarian socialism is such that in the later stages there is no good way out. State socialism is bad but the cure can be almost worse.

In multi-ethnic, quasi-federal states, the state system is further threatened by splits within the country. But generally speaking, the excessive weakening of the state system does not affect a country’s borders or authority abroad. The territorial integrity of a state is not the same as the state system, as social order. In certain cases, a country’s weakened authority abroad may make for a more stable state system and solid social order at home, as for instance in West Germany after the war.

The collapse of the Soviet Union had more negative than positive consequences. But even so, the collapse was not the worst manifestation of the state system’s destruction. It may be that the collapse could have been avoided altogether. On the other hand, judging by what is being done in other ex- Soviet republics, Russia may cope best with the difficulties of the transition to the market. Our principal problem is not our borders but the fact that basic components of the state system and social order have been considerably weakened by the necessary switch to political and ideological reforms before changes in economic and social relations had been completed (or had even begun in earnest).

The destruction of the power and the authority of the party- state apparatus when the economy is still non-market and when institutions supporting social order cannot function properly threatens vital systems throughout the social organism. The weakening and eventual disappearance of party organs - the essential goal of political reforms - created a vacuum. The normal functioning of the social organism was disrupted at all levels - not only in the centre, but in the provinces, in districts, settlements, enterprises. State discipline broke down, top-level resolutions were ignored, corruption and crime increased, taxes ceased to be paid.

Thus in Russia in the early 199Os, the principal manifestation of the weakened state system was the collapse not of the Soviet Union, but of social order: regional authorities arbitrarily confiscated freight crossing their territory, e.g. in Russia’s Far East in 1993-94, shock troops and special forces like ‘Alfa’


and ‘Vimpel’ virtually refused to go into action during revolts in Moscow.*

Also symptomatic is the rise in crime. Criminal activity has begun to replace the state, as the primary means of forming market relations. The criminalization of the market is a natural reaction on the part of the organism in the absence of state intervention. Racketeers rather than the police ‘protect’ merchants; a businessman looking to recover debts turns for assistance to the criminal world rather than to the courts. In other words, criminal groups are beginning to do for society what the state cannot. Certainly, this is no normal social order.g

The state system has weakened gradually; it did not reach the danger point as soon as reforms of party-state institutions began. The Party apparatus, too, did not collapse overnight. But it is becoming evident that any attempt to stop the demolition before it saps the foundations of the old political system is ultimately an attempt to stop reforms per se. This is the historical meaning of the 1991 putsch, and the significance of its rout lies in the fact that it allowed the demolition of state socialism to proceed and pick up pace. Yet August 1991 was not a watershed. The crisis of the state system would have come about even without the aborted coup, though it might have taken a slightly different form.

One truly new element, a result of these political changes, is the dramatic acceleration of market reforms - the freeing of prices, privatization, and the attempts to curb inflation using market-monetary methods. Despite these attempts, Russia is still a nation in crisis with inflation going up and production going down. Yet Russia’s economy has made significant strides toward market capitalism, and in this respect has outstripped all the former Soviet republics which did not adopt measures similar to Russia’s after 1991. And so far, Russia has avoided real social catastrophe and all-out civil war. Complaints about the drop in the standard of living are justified only in

* B. Yeltsin, Zapiskipraidenta, Moscow, 1994, pp. 11-12; ‘Oktyabrskiy putch: tochka zreniya spetssluzhby’ (Izuesciya correspondents talk to the administrative head of Moscow’s Security Ministry, Ye. Savostyanov) in Izuestiya, 2 November 1993; V. Yakov, ‘Kuda ukhodit “Vympel” ’ in Izuestiya, 18 May 1994.

Official findings on the state of organized crime are cited in Stat. press-byulleten, Moscow 1994, No. 4, p. 87. See also ‘Akula v rybei stae’ in Obshchaya gazeta, 1994, N o . 29; and ‘Stranoy upravlyaet ne stolko pravitelstvo, skolko klany organizovannykh prestupnikov’ in Zzvestiya, 18 May 1994.


comparison to the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. If one compares the situation today with that of the first two decades after 1917, one sees that the transition from state socialism to capitalism or postcapitalism has so far meant many fewer sacrifices than did the transition from capitalism (or precapitalism) to state socialism.1° No transition from one social system to another can be crisis-free. In Russia today, this crisis is exacerbated because its organic element has inevitably become an excessive weakening (quasidestruction) of the state system.” This has aggravated all other aspects of the transitional crisis, including national-economic. The point is not so much the presence of a Yeltsin, Gaidar, or Chernomyrdin (for all their mistakes and weaknesses), as the absence of the state.

THE NEED TO RESTORE T H E STATE SYSTEM AND THE PROBLEM OF AUTHORITARIANISM

The solution to this situation, in our opinion, lies primarily in restoring the state system and social order. Today, as opposed to the late 1980s and early 199Os, this restoration does not conflict with ongoing social change. So long as the state remained welded to the nomenklatura, so long as it was not a state but a party-state, there was no way to sever one from the other. But now that the old nomenklatura has disappeared or been assimilated into the new political system, those organs

lo The author’s estimate of the cost of the transformation in the 1920s and 1930s is cited in L. A. Gordon and E. V. Klopov, Chto eto bylo? Razmyshbniya opredposylkakh i itogakh togo, chto slwhilos s nami v 30-409 gody, Moscow, 1989. For an analysis of the social burdens of the current transitional crisis, see T. I. Zaslavskaya, ‘Dokhody rabotayushchego naseleniya’ in Ekonomicheskiye i sotsialniye peremeny, Moscow, 1994, Nos. 1, 2; L. G. Zubova, N. W. Kovaleva and L. A. Khakhulina, ‘Bednost v novykh ekonomicheskikh usloviyakh’, ibid., 1994, No. 4.

” Yeltsin underlined this aspect of the matter with great expression in his memoirs: ‘Caidar’s reform secured macroeconomic change, namely, the destruction of the old economy. It was a wildly painful break, surgically crude, with the rusty grinding sound of pieces of old parts and mechanisms being ripped out together with the flesh, but the break occurred. Most likely, it simply could not have happened any other way. We had virtually nothing to work with aside from Stalin’s industry, Stalin’s economy, adapted to the present day. And its make-up dictated precisely that sort of a break over the knee. The system was destroyed the same way that it was created.’ (B. Yeltsin, op. cit., p. 300.)


which the Soviet state turned into a party-state have been destroyed. They are no longer an obstacle to the country’s development. On the contrary, the obstacle now is the excessive weakening of healthy state mechanisms, severely damaged in the process of cutting out the malignancies of the state-socialist system. The restoration of a normal state system - not of the old ways, but of state institutions maintaining law and order in a market society - is both possible and necessary. What is more, the restoration of a non-totalitarian state system is the key to solving virtually all our problems, including economic problems.

Formally the state’s key role is now more or less universally recognized.’2 But profound and dangerous contradictions associated with restoring the state system and social order are not always considered. To strengthen social order, for instance, one must strengthen authoritarian elements of the political system, one must place certain restrictions on freedom.

Full democracy has always been a product of protracted changes, passing through interim degrees of property, class, educational qualifications. In place of the complete absence of democracy, its rudiments emerge, then it becomes more widespread, and finally it envelops the entire socio-political system. In Western Europe this process occupied no less than 100 to 150 years, dating from the time of the French Revolution. Today, total democracy can, evidently, come about faster. But still it will be a matter of decades and generations.

In this sense, political scientists Andranik Migranyan and Igor Klyamkin were right when they asserted, at the beginning of perestroika, that Russia would go from being a totalitarian state to an authoritarian one, and only then to a democracy.13 Of course, in real life, the movement towards democracy is not a succession of stages or a steadily growing curve. Advance and retreat alternate. The ebb-and-f low nature of political development is especially clear in revolutions and revolutionary reformations. Revolutionary changes in non-democratic social systems - feudal, fascist-dictatorial, state socialist - always begin with demands and attempts to install total democracy immediately. This sort of euphoria is only natural.

Revolution explodes only when both a popular majority and

I P ‘Ob ukrepleniye Rossiyskaya gosudarstva. Poslaniye Prezidenta Rossiyskoy

InA. Migranyan, ‘Dolgii put k evropeiskomu domu. 0 modeli perekhoda ot Federatsii Federalnomu Sobraniyu’ in Rossiyskaya gareta, 25 February 1994.

avtoritarizma k demokratii’ in Novzy mzr, No. 7, 1989.


a significant segment of the elite cannot and will not tolerate the old ways. The mass rejection of the existing regime creates the illusion of rapid movement towards total freedom and all aspects of a mature democracy. But the ideal is not directly attainable: in some cases, because of its utopian nature; in other cases, because its realization requires a long time.

Nevertheless, at the outset of revolutions and revolutionary reformations, faith in the rapid attainability of the ideal is widespread. Running ahead - trying to do quickly what can only be done gradually (or what cannot be done at all) - is a law of revolution and revolutionary reforms. At this point, one can move ahead within possible limits only if attempts are made to go beyond the limits of the historically possible. With time, the calamities of destruction push society (its leading groups) to an awareness of the danger of running ahead, of trying to achieve total democracy instantly, instead of gradually moving toward it. Then comes the final stage of revolution - the stage of stabilization, of restoring the ‘norm’. At this stage, the general population agrees to step back - to relinquish those ‘excessive’ democratic gains and freedoms for which an immature society is unfit - for the sake of restoring order. If this recoil embraces all of the democratic gains, the revolution breaks down and the old political system is reinstated; if the recoil is only partial, the revolution ends ‘normally’ - victorious in principle. And gradual, evolutionary democratization proceeds. In any case, the final stages of revolution and revolutionary reformations are associated with a definite retreat from the political gains (or proclamations) of the preceding stages.

The events in Russia in the late 1980s and early 1990s fit quite well into the given picture. The switch to political changes before the completion of economic reforms naturally took the form of an attempt to attain full democracy quickly. Without this tendency to ‘run ahead’ toward the democratic ideal, the political changes that brought down the party-state in the late 1980s and early 1990s would never have come about. Though correct in the abstract, the idea of moving from totalitarianism to authoritarianism and only then to democracy could not have been recognized as valid at that time.

But in the years following, society’s main demand became not the destruction of the party-state, but the restoration of the state system and order. The galvanizing, if reckless and unrealistic, leap into democracy lost all sense. The dangers


associated with democratic institutions for which Russia was not yet ready became clearer and clearer.

To restore order and the state system, the executive branch must be given the leading role and broader powers. For now, Russia cannot allow (as does the United States or England) the freedoms of speech, assembly, and the press to be extended unconditionally to fascists and other advocates of political violence. Given the situation today, Russia cannot fight crime effectively without resorting at times to emergency measures. In short, Russia must retreat to a less than full democracy compatible with the need to strengthen the state system. Especially since less than full democratization corresponds to the realities of Russia today, to the current state of our political and moral culture (whereas full democratization, the proclaimed goal in 1991-93, will correspond to the realities of Russia tomorrow). But herein lies a danger. The partial retreat from democracy may turn into a complete rejection of it. The natural retreat at the end of a revolution to a semi- democratic semi-authoritarian order may easily turn into a return to total authoritarianism which, in turn, would generate attempts to restore the old or create a new totalitarian regime.

In Russia, this danger is especially great. Neither the elite nor the general population has any democratic experience. In the popular consciousness, the current chaos is often identified with democracy, as opposed to an authoritarian, paternalistic social system. There is virtually no concept of interim, semi- democratic semi-authoritarian systems. Thus a healthy desire to give the government limited additional powers to restore the state system and order can easily turn into an agreement to give unlimited powers and reject democracy altogether. Take, for example, the fact that a quarter of the vote in the December 1993 elections went to a pro-fascist party,14 or take the activity of fascists and neo-nationalists during and after the October 1993 revolt.15

Now, in 1993-94, Russian society stood at a new crossroads. Like that of 1988-91, it contained a terrible historical trap. The former trap consisted in the fact that starting the necessary political reforms in the absence of the economic, ideological

" 'Rezultaty vyborov deputatov Gosudarstvennoy Dumy PO obshchefederalnomu izbiratelnomu okrugu' in Byulleten Tsentralnoy izbiratelnoy komissii Rossiyskoy Federatsii, Moscow, 1994, No. 1 (12).

l5 This article was written before the outbreak of war in Chechnya.


and cultural prerequisites risked bringing down the state system. The latter trap consists in the risk of giving the government more than the minimum additional powers it needs, of switching not to a semi-democracy, not to a limited, partial democracy, but to non-democracy, if you will. The clearer the awareness of this risk, the greater will be the hope of finding an effective preventive strategy.

POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES

Before looking at the alternatives for the future one must first state what is impossible: it is not possible either a) to continue with radical political transformation and economic reform at the same time (democratic utopia); or b) to achieve full social democracy without marketization (communist utopia). The focus should then be not on the differences between the possible and the impossible, but on the distinctions between the possible alternatives. As we attempted to show earlier, every workable alternative hinges on overcoming the chaos, and restoring the state system and social order.

These problems must be solved before one can deal effectively with the rest - the economy, social relations, culture. State-political stabilization is essential, regardless of what form the economy and society take. And to achieve this stabilization, as always at the end of revolution’s destructive stages, one must curb the level of chaotic freedom somewhat. Progress in this direction is a feature of any realistic alternative for the development of modern Russia.

However, the community must stay within certain boundaries. How far one moves toward authoritarianism, the intensity so to speak, can vary greatly. In some cases, the authoritarian system will appear as the ideal social order towards which one should strive and which should be preserved forever. In other cases, the strengthening of authoritarian elements is seen as a necessary evil at a given stage, and one which contradicts the ideal of social progress. Here, the authoritarian elements are kept to a minimum and kept in check so that they may be replaced in future (after stabilization) by democratic ones.

Although the restoration of strict order is necessary, the nature of this restoration depends also on its socio-economic and ideo-cultural orientation. The results of increased


authoritarianism vary not only with its intensity and duration, but also depending on whether i t is accompanied by a movement toward a free market or toward a command economy, toward more private property or state property; on whether the desire is to be part of the community of democratic nations or to reject the West and international democracy in general. The combination of all these circumstances allows one to distinguish in schematic form three possible alternatives for the near future.

Some very possible alternatives include those calling for a sharply increased authoritarianism in domestic policy, e.g. state- supervised production, nationalism as a vital element of state ideology, military-imperial or isolationist foreign policy. These alternatives differ in their basic attitude toward state socialism.

In one alternative, intensively authoritarian and state- nationalist development would be combined with a rejection of, or strict restrictions on the market, and efforts gradually to restore the other ideo-political components of Soviet state socialism - a state party and a party-state, Five Year Plans, the monopoly of vulgar communist ideology, and so on. As opposed to the unworkable idea of joining democracy to the nationalization of the economy’s key sectors, the combination of authoritarianism, a state-run economy, nationalism and primitive communism is communist realism. Although the likelihood of such a course is , for reasons mentioned earlier, slim, the temporary restoration of something approaching nationalist state socialism is still possible. The activity of the Communist Workers’ Party of Russia, the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (the party of Nina Andreyeva), of many groups within the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, as well as organizations like Working Russia demonstrates the presence of forces in favour of restoring state (or rather nationalist-state) socialism.

Still more probable is another highly authoritarian alternative - a nationalist-authoritarian evolution of society, so to speak, in its pure form. In this case, the country would gravitate toward a strong authoritarian power, it would not aim especially to restore state socialist ways. It could include certain elements of the market and private-property relations. The presence of such non-socialist elements, and the absence of ideology and symbols of the former communist regime make this strong, non-communist authoritarianism a perfectly probable alternative. The appeal of oversimplified demagog-


uery, in the case of a pure nationalistic authoritarianism, is stronger because it, unlike state-socialist authoritarianism, does not oppose the unconscious revulsion against the Soviet past. The success of Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party in the December 1993 elections attests to the potential effectiveness of this sort of appeal.

The possibility of mass support for a nationalistic authoritarianism is additionally dangerous because of the good chances of its turning into a fascist, pro-fascist, or fascist-like system. The sharp increase of authoritarian ideas and extremist nationalism in the mass consciousness - unchecked even by the residual formal recognition of international values, as occurs in the case of communist authoritarianism - makes the fascist threat quite real.

And the combination of nationalist and authoritarian orientations, even unconnected to communist ideology, invites widespread state interference in the economy. From this point of view, non-socialist, nationalistic authoritarian evolution gravitates toward a sort of state capitalism. This creates the economic basis for regimes of the fascist type. Thus the fascist aspects of most social movements supporting non-socialist, nationalistic authoritarianism - such as the Liberal Democratic Party, Russian Council, National Unity, part of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Russia - can hardly be considered coincidence.

Though there are differences between the state-socialist and statecapitalist (pro-fascist) brands of intensive authoritarianism, they should not be exaggerated. Their common ‘deification’ of the state and extreme nationalism under certain circumstances can outweigh any contradictions in world outlook. It is possible that the collaboration of fascists, extreme nationalists, religious fanatics and communist extremists, so typical of many political &marches in recent years, will ultimately lead to an organic union of all varieties of nationalistic authoritarianism. At the same time, so long as this has not happened, any resistance to fascism (including communist) deserves the sympathy and support of democrats.

The close resemblance of the two basic scenarios for intensive authoritarianism underscores their lack of resemblance to a third scenario - for moderate authoritarianism, a sort of semi- authoritarian semi-democratic evolution. Given this kind of evolution, the restoration of the state system and social order will not be accompanied by a quick transition to full, classic


democracy. At best, only limited, partial democracy can take hold in today’s Russia. Semi-democracy is democratic realism today. It is realism, as opposed to the utopia of restoring order without retreating from full democracy. And it is democratic, as opposed to nationalistic authoritarianism.

How the semi-democratic semi-authoritarian model will be constructed, what concessions democracy will have to make to the process of restoring social order will depend on the course of events, on the alignment of political forces, on the state of the economy, on the popular mood, and so on. Today, for example, it seems clear that crime in Russia - gangsterism, organized crime - cannot be stopped without the use of emergency measures - local states of emergency, curfews. It may be necessary to adopt emergency legislation stipulating special legal procedures, giving the law enforcement organs broader powers, permitting preventive detention of mafia bosses, etc.16

Such retreats from the classic doctrine of individual civil rights will not necessarily lead to the total elimination of democratic freedoms. On the contrary, emergency means in the fight against crime will be more effective if they are based not on arbitrary rule but on law. Similarly, restrictions on some individual freedoms, given critical levels of crime, can and must be accompanied by continued glasnost of the broadest kind. Of course, glasnost in the war against crime will not extend to police operations, to the Procurator, or the special services. But as applied to the results of crime-fighting activity, glasnost is insurance against the threat of arbitrary rule and lawlessness, always a possibility given the introduction of emergency measures.

Another sphere in which semi-democratic, semi-authoritarian procedures are feasible is that of the separation of powers. Recent experience has shown that Russia is as yet unable to endorse a political system based on the full equality of the executive, legislative and judicial branches. The attempt to make the branches of government equal through the system of ‘checks and balances’ engenders rivalry, as it did in 1992-93, -first a dual power, than anarchy, then rebellion and fratricide.

The use of measures of this sort is envisaged hy the Presidential Decree of 14 June 1994, ‘0 neotlozhnykh merakh PO zashchite naseleniya ot banditizma i inykh proyavlenii organizovannoy prestupnosti.’ (But according to statements in the press, certain conditions of this Decree need to be amended.)


To maintain a stable order and ensure the normal functioning of the state in contemporary Russia, one needs a cruder, simpler mechanism. A mechanism which rules out any dangerous rivalry between the branches of government implies that the powers of one substantially exceeds the powers of the others.

To extend the powers of, say, the executive branch is far from the democratic ideal. But this system does not have to turn into the boundless anarchy of an authoritarian dictatorship. Although the danger always exists, Russia’s recent history and the history of other countries (e.g. Mexico or Turkey in the 1930s- 1950s) demonstrate the possibility, in principle, of holding some middle line. Given this line, elements of an authoritarian single power, as expressed in a greater-thanequal executive branch, coexist with elements of the separation of powers. Both the legislative and judicial branches continue here (unlike under total authoritarianism) to exercise a certain, albeit curtailed independence. More important still, the principle is preserved, the ideal of a complete separation of powers towards which society moves by degrees, as it is able to overcome the chaos and devastation, to restore the state system, and to develop a political culture.

The difference between authoritarian repression and semi- authoritarian restrictions is hard to express in formal terms. And indeed, it can transform itself into something else. But in life terms, the difference is strikingly clear. In 1933, the Nazis instigated the burning of the German Reichstag, then used the arson to disband parliament. In 1993, Russia’s executive branch stormed the White House to put down a revolt in which the Supreme Soviet turned out to be virtual fascist nationalist extremist chaff. One result of the October violence was the adoption of a Constitution giving the executive branch far broader powers than before. Increased authoritarianism is the price Russia has had to pay for the explosion of anarchy, caused by adherence to the ideal principle of the separation of powers in a society not yet ready for it.

Nevertheless, Russia’s executive branch has not used its extended powers to eliminate the legislative branch (as German and Italian fascists did in the past and as Russian fascists and nationalists would like to do in future). On the contrary, elections were held, elections no less free than those which brought the now defunct Supreme Soviet to power. On the basis of these elections, a legislative power was created, not


equal to the executive power, but still independent and capable of influencing the way in which society is governed. The fire in the Reichstag and the fire in the White House engendered opposite results. And they show the profound and significant difference between rejecting the separation of powers altogether and simply restricting it, between total authoritarianism and semi-authoritarianism.

CULTURE, NATIONALISM, FOREIGN POLICY

The ideological education and cultural development of the people is of vital importance. If the Russian community, particularly the intelligentsia, can formulate a suitable system of democratic principles, if it can convince the popular majority that the road to the national good and prosperity means adopting human values, legal ideals, the culture of cooperation and compromise, rather than remaining isolated from and opposed to the rest of the world, then a relatively smooth evolution from semi-democracy to full democracy will be possible. Peaceful, non-destructive pressure on the semi- authoritarian government will also be possible. Otherwise, authoritarianism will triumph, most likely irreversibly.

Hence, incidentally, the particular role of foreign policy. Beyond its ordinary functions - to defend the national interests and improve the world community where possible - foreign policy is becoming a powerful factor in ideo-cultural development. Cooperation with democratic countries, increased contact at the state and individual levels, support for international law and cooperation: all this strengthens the principles of democracy, humanism, and lawfulness in the popular consciousness, whereas isolation from the centres of world democracy and closeness to dictatorial and pro-fascist regimes strengthens the paternalistic authoritarian side of our culture. In this sense, active and voluntary overtures by the West combined with a refusal to use our temporary weakness against us could help prevent democratic modernization in Russia from breaking down - as it did at the beginning of this century.

Here the interests of the community of democratic nations entirely coincide with the interests of Russia. The revolutionary transformation taking place in our country could be one of the few such shocks to unfold in a sympathetic, if not friendly


environment, rather than a hostile one. This possibility, like the ability of Russian society to cope with the destruction of its social order and the collapse of its empire without widespread civil war (a hot civil war at least), shows that the hope for a semidemocratic semi-authoritarian evolution is not at all unfounded.

The alternatives presented here for the development of Russian society are an outline of our understanding of the basic tendencies, not a forecast. Semi-democratic evolution, state-capitalist and state-socialist authoritarianism: these are only points of reference along the fan of real possibilities. The course toward immediate realization of full democracy combined with the market, and the course toward full social democracy combined with social ownership define the line between the possible and the impossible.

But even those alternatives which we considered as possible will hardly be realized in their pure form. The real course of development will probably involve some combination of possible alternatives lying between semi-democracy and total authoritarianism of the capitalist or state-socialist type. It is no accident that today the consistent exponents of classic alternatives for the evolution of Russia comprise relatively weak, marginal groups. The principal social groups, although they favour one alternative over another, occupy mostly interim positions overall. This said, the choice of an alternative depends to a large degree on how society understands what is possible and impossible in today’s Russia. For those who believe in our democratic prospects, the clarity of the popular mind is crucial. For, in the final analysis, democrats are trusting in nothing so much as the common sense and competence of the popular majority.

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Russia at the Crossroads