Paul Goble
Staunton, April 29 – Russia’s regions and republics are so different in terms of their current social and political development that their modernization is certain to be different as well, possibly in ways that will mean that the development of some will interfere with the development of others, according to a leading Russian specialist on ethnicity.
At a roundtable in the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Emil Pain argues that if Russia does modernize, there will be “different modernizations for different parts of [Russia],” a point he makes by comparing the situation between Chechnya and the ethnic Russian regions of the country (www.nr2.ru/moskow/329988.html).
Chechen society, Pain says, retains many elements of both blood feud and communal organization. Thus, wearing knives is not just “a ritual” matter. Rather they “fulfill a real function in life,” potentially saving the life of the wearer or his family in cases of “force majeure.”
Russian society, in contrast, he suggests, long ago saw such “traditional-patriarchal institutions” disappear or be destroyed. As a result, “Russian society is the most de-traditionalized and the most split.” That opens the way for progress but only if traditional institutions are replaced by modern ones. Otherwise, degradation sets in.
Unfortunately, “in all post-communist countries” and “in Russia least of all,” the appearance of the kind of informal organizations on which modernity depends “is several times lower than on average in Europe,” an apparent reaction to the enforced collectivism of the past from which people are fleeing.
It is often held, Pain says, that “a low level of traditionalism in society is compensated by a high willingness to pursue innovations.” But for that to be true, there have to be people who want such innovations and who can work together to pursue them. In Russia, however, there are few such people.
Instead, “Russian initiative is anarchic and often immoral,” Pain continues, a pattern that is reflected by the fact that while the number of people going to church has increased over the past 20 years, the number of those who “in fact observe the commandments, respect the laws of God and so on has not changed” over that period.
And it is also reflected in polls that show that “in Russia, there is the lowest level of horizontal trust among 27 countries” in which that has been sampled. “This is practically a catastrophe,” Pain says. Without trust, people will not work together for the future, and pursuing any long-term goals is “utopian.”
In Chechnya, on the other hand, “modernization has the classical problems” with traditional norms “blocking the formation of new ones.” But “both varieties of society, both patriarchal and de-traditionalized create their own obstacles for modernization,” albeit different ones and thus modernization will be of a plural nature.
That in itself creates problems, Pain the ethno-sociologist says, because there is a very great probability that these various modernizations will interfere and contradict one another,” possibly putting all of them and the country itself at risk.
In other comments, Pain notes that “the mythology about the great power nature of the Russian people is very widely disseminated.” But he notes, “there also exists another form of this, imitation. Supreme power imitates democracy. Regioonal power imitates that it takes orders from the center but in fact does what it wants.”
“The population imitates love for the powers, but in fact it seeks to avoid being controlled by any power.” This leads to “complete alienation,” Pain says, and that means that “the problem of national consolidation is the central problem for all, not only for modernization but [indeed] for survival.”
“Certain parts of the Russian Federation, such as Chechnya,” Pain goes on to say, “have created a regime of the Saudi type,” and have for a long time not been part of the common Russian legal space. But they follow this imitation principle, according to the principle “’We did not voluntarily become part of Russia and voluntarily we will not leave it.”
What that means, Pain concluded, is that “there is a problem of the country and there is the problem of community. The community has already fallen apart. The country is still holding on.”
Other speakers at the roundtable expressed similar if even more dire concerns. Lev Gudkov of the Levada Center said that “one of the main problems of Russia is that its central institutions of power … have remained practically unchanged” from the distant past and that the main issue for Russia is overcoming the “deficit of legitimacy” of the powers that be.
But instead, the powers announce “plans and projects for the future which … they will never realize. The modern is something which has nothing in common with the present, and there is no real modernization here.” If Medvedev wanted “changes,” Gudkov said, “he would begin modernization with the independence of the courts, the separation of powers,” and so on.
As far as the Caucasus is concerned, the pollster continued, it “de facto has its own courts, its own legal system, and its own system of social relations.’ And while 90 percent of Russians won’t yield the Kuriles to Japan, “60 percent [of Russians are ready to separate [the North Caucasus] from the Russian Federation one way or another.”
And finally a third speaker, economist Sergey Magaril gave an even bleaker picture of the future. Russia, he said, is like the Titanic moving toward the iceberg, a situation in which he suggested he was not certain “we have the time to maneuver” to avoid a complete and total disaster.
For Russians he said, modernization is simply “an effort to escape from stagnation.” But there are “few chances” for that. “In front of our eyes, in Russia is being reproduced the same police state on an illegal basis as it was in the USSR and before that in tsarist Russia,” a kind of regime “incapable of guaranteeing national development and inevitably leading to oblivion.”
Indeed, Magaril said, “this is only a question of time.” But Russia is not using what time it has. Instead, the economist concluded, it is reproducing “the Gogolian type of Akaky Akakiyevich … a social isolate who can give rise only to an atomized society. Are there any mechanisms for the modernization of such consciousness?”
Friday, April 29, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Little Possibility of Social Explosions in Russia, Sociologist Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 29 – At the present time, Lev Gudkov, the head of the independent Levada Center polling agency says, there is “neither the possibility nor the potential” in the Russian Federation for the kind of social and political explosions which continue to occur throughout the Arab world.
In an article on the “Osobaya bukhva” portal yesterday, Gudkov says that “the Russian middle class, despite concerns about losing everything is loyal to the regime” and generally lacks any capacity for solidarity and action,, preferring “as before” to place its hopes in the state (www.specletter.com/obcshestvo/2011-04-28/print/osnovnaja-massa-naselenija-rossii-ochen-konservativna-depressivna-i-bedna.html).
And “the main mass of the population,” the sociologist continues, is not likely to rise in protest either because its members are “very conservative” and “depressed” -- even if they are also “poor” because like the middle class they fear losing what they have more than they hope to achieve something more.
According to the pollster, “about 80 percent of [the Russian] population considers that one should not trust people around them and that one must be very careful [even] in talking” about problems. Consequently, “they believe and are concerned only about those closest to them” rather than identifying with a larger group or class.
All this makes the situation in Russia very different from that in the Arab world, Gudkov argues. “There, the breakthrough has been achieved on the basis of the appearance, at least in Egypt, of educated people, [whom one could] conditionally call the middle class [and who] did not find a place for themselves or see a future for themselves under the ruling dictatorship.”
As a result, and precisely because of “modernization processes,” groups were formed which felt themselves without prospects and who thus decided to act to advance their own collective interests against those of the state. But the situation in Russia is “different,” and thus, Gudkov says, he “does not see” many chances for “mass uprisings and social explosions.”
And this is the case, he continues, even though there is “chronic dissatisfaction” among many groups. That is because while they are unhappy about this or that situation, most Russians are far more willing to put their trust in the state to solve their problems than they are to trust others in society and work together to improve conditions on their own.
Many in fact, “do not even imagine how a better life might be possible,” Gudkov says. “They understand Soviet life and Soviet forms of organization.” The ongoing degradation of social infrastructure angers them but what they want is for the state to solve their problems. As a result, their dissatisfaction “is not destructive for the regime.” Rather the reverse.
In principle, the pollster continues, what is called the middle class could be a source of change, “if it really understood the growing threat to its existence” – “instability, the absencxe of new institutions, independent courts, media freedom .. and access to political activity,” “all that Russians “today are deprived of.”
“But the risks [involved in seeking those things] are too great in the consciousness of this narrow stratum, [and] therefore opportunism arises,” an opportunism limited both by fear of losing one’s position and the possibility of leaving rather than changing the situation inside Russia itself.
Gudkov then focuses on what he calls “one really interesting problem” – the passivity of university students. On the one hand, he says, many of these people are getting many of the things they want; and on the other, many are opportunists, something that “paralyzes political solidarity and the political activity of this group.”
Were a protest to arise among them, the Levada Center leader says, it would “however strange this might seem take the form of conservative-nationalis[m].” Many students, “especially those from the provinces,” are filled with “nationalistic resentments” and envy” for “rich America and the Russian oligarchs.”
Moreover, he says, many of them suffer from “a complex of incompleteness caused by the collapse of the USSR, a sense of national incompleteness,” most strongly expressed outside of the capitals because people there have fewer prospects, their instructors are from soviet times, “and there are very few new people and new ideas.”
The Russian state is inclined to “support and provoke such attitudes through a system of propaganda and instruction,” offering “an eclectic mix of old prejudices, Orthodoxy, imitation fundamentalism, and ideological boilerplate of Soviet times” rather than promoting new ideas and new directions.
An instructive finding of polls in this regard, Gudkov says, is that 78 percent of the population of the Russian Federation considers themselves to be Orthodox, but only two to five percent go to church regularly and only about 27 percent believe in God, in salvation, and in eternal life.
Staunton, April 29 – At the present time, Lev Gudkov, the head of the independent Levada Center polling agency says, there is “neither the possibility nor the potential” in the Russian Federation for the kind of social and political explosions which continue to occur throughout the Arab world.
In an article on the “Osobaya bukhva” portal yesterday, Gudkov says that “the Russian middle class, despite concerns about losing everything is loyal to the regime” and generally lacks any capacity for solidarity and action,, preferring “as before” to place its hopes in the state (www.specletter.com/obcshestvo/2011-04-28/print/osnovnaja-massa-naselenija-rossii-ochen-konservativna-depressivna-i-bedna.html).
And “the main mass of the population,” the sociologist continues, is not likely to rise in protest either because its members are “very conservative” and “depressed” -- even if they are also “poor” because like the middle class they fear losing what they have more than they hope to achieve something more.
According to the pollster, “about 80 percent of [the Russian] population considers that one should not trust people around them and that one must be very careful [even] in talking” about problems. Consequently, “they believe and are concerned only about those closest to them” rather than identifying with a larger group or class.
All this makes the situation in Russia very different from that in the Arab world, Gudkov argues. “There, the breakthrough has been achieved on the basis of the appearance, at least in Egypt, of educated people, [whom one could] conditionally call the middle class [and who] did not find a place for themselves or see a future for themselves under the ruling dictatorship.”
As a result, and precisely because of “modernization processes,” groups were formed which felt themselves without prospects and who thus decided to act to advance their own collective interests against those of the state. But the situation in Russia is “different,” and thus, Gudkov says, he “does not see” many chances for “mass uprisings and social explosions.”
And this is the case, he continues, even though there is “chronic dissatisfaction” among many groups. That is because while they are unhappy about this or that situation, most Russians are far more willing to put their trust in the state to solve their problems than they are to trust others in society and work together to improve conditions on their own.
Many in fact, “do not even imagine how a better life might be possible,” Gudkov says. “They understand Soviet life and Soviet forms of organization.” The ongoing degradation of social infrastructure angers them but what they want is for the state to solve their problems. As a result, their dissatisfaction “is not destructive for the regime.” Rather the reverse.
In principle, the pollster continues, what is called the middle class could be a source of change, “if it really understood the growing threat to its existence” – “instability, the absencxe of new institutions, independent courts, media freedom .. and access to political activity,” “all that Russians “today are deprived of.”
“But the risks [involved in seeking those things] are too great in the consciousness of this narrow stratum, [and] therefore opportunism arises,” an opportunism limited both by fear of losing one’s position and the possibility of leaving rather than changing the situation inside Russia itself.
Gudkov then focuses on what he calls “one really interesting problem” – the passivity of university students. On the one hand, he says, many of these people are getting many of the things they want; and on the other, many are opportunists, something that “paralyzes political solidarity and the political activity of this group.”
Were a protest to arise among them, the Levada Center leader says, it would “however strange this might seem take the form of conservative-nationalis[m].” Many students, “especially those from the provinces,” are filled with “nationalistic resentments” and envy” for “rich America and the Russian oligarchs.”
Moreover, he says, many of them suffer from “a complex of incompleteness caused by the collapse of the USSR, a sense of national incompleteness,” most strongly expressed outside of the capitals because people there have fewer prospects, their instructors are from soviet times, “and there are very few new people and new ideas.”
The Russian state is inclined to “support and provoke such attitudes through a system of propaganda and instruction,” offering “an eclectic mix of old prejudices, Orthodoxy, imitation fundamentalism, and ideological boilerplate of Soviet times” rather than promoting new ideas and new directions.
An instructive finding of polls in this regard, Gudkov says, is that 78 percent of the population of the Russian Federation considers themselves to be Orthodox, but only two to five percent go to church regularly and only about 27 percent believe in God, in salvation, and in eternal life.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
