Time to Stop Blaming the 90s

Australia is not happy with the FPA Russia blog.

The University of Sydney’s Philipp Ivanov wrote that my “arguments and the way they’re presented extremely narrow-minded, seriously lacking in depth and…biased”, leaving him “very disappointed that such a credible source of commentary as FPA fails to present a balanced and well-researched view on developments, issues and problems in Russia”.

Philipp’s beef? That I’ve been too harsh on Russia. (Did you hear that, Catherine?)

But his argument touched on a very important dilemma for ‘neo-perestroika liberal’ Russia bloggers: how to criticise Putin’s Russia without turning into the very mainstream Russia critics we hate.

Allow me to respond:

Dear Philipp,

I’m sorry that you feel disappointed by some of my analysis, because we actually share many views in common. The thing I most agree with you about is on the necessity to counter the mainstream ‘Western’ narrative about Russia, which is built largely on false premises, self serving clichés and convenient simplifications, viz:

1)    The Communist era was ‘all-bad’: an immoral, illegitimate hell-hole of despair, misery, darkness, military aggression and oppression from which Russia became ‘liberated’ in 1991 when the ‘good guys’ won the Cold War, but to which she is in danger of sliding back any minute.

2)    The Yeltsin years were a pre-lapsarian state of freedom and democracy, however flawed, chaotic and violent.

3)    Putin is a dictator who rolled back the Yeltsin paradise and whose power is predicated on brute force, geopolitical bullying, and the suppression of the political opposition.

4)    That the West is somehow morally superior to Russia.

I am sure that we agree about the absurdity and hypocrisy of these claims, and I have written much to discredit them, including here, here, here, here, here, here, here and elsewhere.  In doing so, I was attacked for being exactly the kind of Russia apologist you think I am opposing.

However, much as I dislike the shallow criticisms of knee-jerk ‘Western liberals’, I also take issue with an opposing, ‘pro-Russia’ narrative that has grown more assertive in recent years.

This simplistic and nationalist-flavoured view holds that the Yeltsin years were so terrible that basically anything that is the opposite of them is good.

For a while, and in a limited way, that made sense. Take Khodorkovsky: I hated how the West turned a crooked billionaire into some sort of dissident icon while ignoring the unspeakable hardships endured by ordinary people at the time that he was lining his pockets.

I also hate how the Western media suddenly woke up to all the problems that had been facing Russia since 1991 the minute ‘bad guy’ Putin became president, after spending the past decade studiously ignoring them under Yeltsin, because ‘Yeltsin was a democrat’.

For example, what about all the journalists killed and intimidated in the 1990s? Same goes for Chechnya, which has become branded as ‘Putin’s war’ despite the fact that Yeltsin had killed far more civilians in 1994-1996 with the tacit blessings of the US. Or take elections: everyone talks as if Putin is the first to rig an election, when we all now admit that 1996 was basically bought and staged, with the full backing of the Western community. Or the environment, or labour conditions – the list goes on and on.

So I totally understand the anger of many people who say: when Russia was weak, when it was hungry, criminalized, falling apart, humiliated, you in the West liked Russia and let Yeltsin do anything he wanted. But the minute Russia begins to stand up, heal, grow and finally leave its terrible past behind, it becomes an enemy again and Putin is branded a tyrant. Looking at it that way, it’s hard not to suspect that what the West really wants is a weak, poor and dependent Russia.

I understand these feelings, and applaud the ways in which Russia has avoided collapse moved forward in the first half of Putin’s term: it was a tremendous achievement.

But I worry that the misery and humiliations of the 1990s are being used as an excuse to promote national chauvinism and crony capitalism and discredit the very concepts of pluralism and democracy.

True, Russia under Yeltsin was no democracy. But it does not follow that Russia under Putin should therefore not strive to become a real democracy.

Russia under Yeltsin was corrupt and authoritarian and the West had no problem with that, but it similarly does not follow that one should quietly put up with the corruption and authoritarianism of Putin, or that pointing it out makes you somehow a Western tool.

And despite how weak, chaotic and beaten down Russia was under Yeltsin, I am deeply uncomfortable about the current opposite impulse towards nationalism, Law n’ Order, and celebrating even the most unsavoury elements of modern Russian life (racism, sexism, intolerance, materialism, anti-intellectualism etc) on pain of being labeled an unpatriotic Western-sympathiser.

It’s been 10 years since Yeltsin left and it’s now too late to blame Russia’s problems on the 1990s, or on the Gaidar liberals or the West or whatever. You could do it in 2005, but not today. Time to move on and take some responsibility.

Moreover, for all the 1990s scapegoating, I’m finding it harder and harder to make meaningful distinctions between the Putin and Yeltsin regimes. Let’s face it, Putin has not moved away from capitalism, nor did he really ‘go after the oligarchs’ – he just put his own people in charge of capitalism, and replaced oligarchs he didn’t like with those he does. Politically, Yeltsin didn’t care about democracy, personal and press freedoms, and neither does Putin.

Yeltsin was a right winger, and so is Putin. And just like Yeltsin used the Communist bogey man to blackmail the West for support, so now Putin uses the Yeltsin/1990s bogeyman to blackmail his own population.

Most worrying, despite concentrating so much power in his hands, what has Putin actually done with it? After a decade in power, he hasn’t brought corruption under control, he hasn’t fixed healthcare or the welfare state, he hasn’t made peace in the Caucasus, he hasn’t fixed the police, he hasn’t fought the socio-economic iniquities that Yeltsin created (instead, he increased them!).

Ten year on, and he hasn’t even got rid of Chubais!

Finally, the socio-political culture under Putin worries me. It is just as brash, unreflective and money-centric as it was in the 1990s, but may actually have become even more forceful and uncompassionate.

I am appalled by how the poor, women, gays, immigrants, the homeless and other vulnerable groups have now become legitimate targets of exploitation, ridicule and discrimination.

Sure, Yeltsin created much of Russia’s poverty and social problems themselves, but Putin, with his faux-folksy rhetoric, his hatred of diversity and self-awareness, and his tough guy bullshit, is at least in part to blame for this macho climate of intolerance.

People are becoming fed up.

Russia has survived. It has clawed its way out of the 90s shithole, thanks to the strength of its people and partly to the leadership of Putin. It is now a strong and rich country in no more danger of political, economic or social collapse, or military defeat.

What’s the excuse now for denying its people pluralism, equality, democracy, civil liberties, transparency and a fair economic system?

Best wishes,

Vadim

PS. As for the post you mention: you say that “it is hardly a discovery for anyone looking back to the 80s and early 90s and comment on disparity between the capital and the regions”. But it certainly seemed to be a discovery for the author of the NY Times article that I was critiquing. Don’t blame me: blame the state of Russia journalism in the US.