Everything You Think You Know About the Collapse of the Soviet Union Is Wrong

[Valin]

Foreign Policy:

And why it matters today in a new age of revolution.
LEON ARON
JULY/AUGUST 2011

Every revolution is a surprise. Still, the latest Russian Revolution must be counted among the greatest of surprises. In the years leading up to 1991, virtually no Western expert, scholar, official, or politician foresaw the impending collapse of the Soviet Union, and with it one-party dictatorship, the state-owned economy, and the Kremlin's control over its domestic and Eastern European empires. Neither, with one exception, did Soviet dissidents nor, judging by their memoirs, future revolutionaries themselves. When Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party in March 1985, none of his contemporaries anticipated a revolutionary crisis. Although there were disagreements over the size and depth of the Soviet system's problems, no one thought them to be life-threatening, at least not anytime soon.
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(Snip)

To them, a moral resurrection was essential. This meant not merely an overhaul of the Soviet political and economic systems, not merely an upending of social norms, but a revolution on the individual level: a change in the personal character of the Russian subject. As Mikhail Antonov declared in a seminal 1987 essay, "So What Is Happening to Us?" in the magazine Oktyabr, the people had to be "saved" -- not from external dangers but "most of all from themselves, from the consequences of those demoralizing processes that kill the noblest human qualities." Saved how? By making the nascent liberalization fateful, irreversible -- not Khrushchev's short-lived "thaw," but a climate change. And what would guarantee this irreversibility? Above all, the appearance of a free man who would be "immune to the recurrences of spiritual slavery." The weekly magazine Ogoniok, a key publication of glasnost, wrote in February 1989 that only "man incapable of being a police informer, of betraying, and of lies, no matter in whose or what name, can save us from the re-emergence of a totalitarian state."

(Snip)

Of course, the magnificent moral impulse, the search for truth and goodness, is only a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the successful remaking of a country. It may be enough to bring down the ancien regime, but not to overcome, in one fell swoop, a deep-seated authoritarian national political culture. The roots of the democratic institutions spawned by morally charged revolutions may prove too shallow to sustain a functioning democracy in a society with precious little tradition of grassroots self-organization and self-rule. This is something that is likely to prove a huge obstacle to the carrying out of the promise of the Arab Spring -- as it has proved in Russia. The Russian moral renaissance was thwarted by the atomization and mistrust bred by 70 years of totalitarianism. And though Gorbachev and Yeltsin dismantled an empire, the legacy of imperial thinking for millions of Russians has since made them receptive to neo-authoritarian Putinism, with its propaganda leitmotifs of "hostile encirclement" and "Russia rising off its knees." Moreover, the enormous national tragedy (and national guilt) of Stalinism has never been fully explored and atoned for, corrupting the entire moral enterprise, just as the glasnost troubadours so passionately warned.

(Snip)

* The strange death of Soviet communism:A Postscript

[Sabre86]

And though Gorbachev and Yeltsin dismantled an empire, the legacy of imperial thinking for millions of Russians has since made them receptive to neo-authoritarian Putinism, with its propaganda leitmotifs of "hostile encirclement" and "Russia rising off its knees."

 

This has been the Russian mentality for centuries, not just after the Soviet Era. Since the time of the Tsars, they've always wanted a "strong, father figure" to lead Russia to greatness. They also have a very big victim mentality and inferiority complex due to their long history of often being conquered or at the very least defeated in many wars.

 

It wasn't until Napoleon's invasion of Russia did they score a significant victory and repel an invasion, mostly thanks to General Winter. Same is true for when the Nazis invaded.

[Casino67]

Something that I didn't know, or forgot, was the actual collapse of the 'wall' happened under Bush 41. Since Reagan gets all of the credit, I just associated the fall happening while he was in office.

[Argyle58]

And though Gorbachev and Yeltsin dismantled an empire, the legacy of imperial thinking for millions of Russians has since made them receptive to neo-authoritarian Putinism, with its propaganda leitmotifs of "hostile encirclement" and "Russia rising off its knees."

 

This has been the Russian mentality for centuries, not just after the Soviet Era. Since the time of the Tsars, they've always wanted a "strong, father figure" to lead Russia to greatness. They also have a very big victim mentality and inferiority complex due to their long history of often being conquered or at the very least defeated in many wars.

 

It wasn't until Napoleon's invasion of Russia did they score a significant victory and repel an invasion, mostly thanks to General Winter. Same is true for when the Nazis invaded.

 

Their inferiority complex goes back further than their poor record in regards to wars with foreign nations. The isolation that they experienced because of the very size of the Russian Empire made them seem rustic and backward to the European heads of state as far back as the 15th century. Even Ivan the Terrible was effected by the poor treatment he received from the European royalty.

[Sabre86]

Their inferiority complex goes back further than their poor record in regards to wars with foreign nations. The isolation that they experienced because of the very size of the Russian Empire made them seem rustic and backward to the European heads of state as far back as the 15th century. Even Ivan the Terrible was effected by the poor treatment he received from the European royalty.

It really got started with the Mongol conquest Rus and the other states which now make up Russia.

[righteousmomma]

The isolation that they experienced because of the very size of the Russian Empire made them seem rustic and backward to the European heads of state as far back as the 15th century.

 

They did not just seem rustic and backwards. They were rustic and backwards.

[Argyle58]

Their inferiority complex goes back further than their poor record in regards to wars with foreign nations. The isolation that they experienced because of the very size of the Russian Empire made them seem rustic and backward to the European heads of state as far back as the 15th century. Even Ivan the Terrible was effected by the poor treatment he received from the European royalty.

It really got started with the Mongol conquest Rus and the other states which now make up Russia.

 

The Russian Princes who were defeated by the Petchenings in the late 12th and early 13th centuries were descendants of Kievian Viking traders (known as the "Rus" for their red hair) who founded and settled the Kiev, not the Slavic royalty who became the masters of Russia.

 

The Russian national inferiority complex came into being when they tried to become international power players, a little later in their history.