Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
Peter, you insist on carrying on with your optimistic, and in my opinion unrealistic, notion that Russia may someday soon join the West. But take a look at this Pew Global Attitudes survey conducted earlier this year (click to enlarge).
Though the survey confirms your thesis that no, Russians aren't happy with the direction their country is headed under Putin, fully half of all respondents consider it to be "a great misfortune that the Soviet Union no longer exists," while well over 50 percent believe that life on many dimensions was superior prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Russians surveyed aren't interested in Democratic government, but would rather have a strong leader who will ensure that no one is in need.
I grant you that the protests over the rigged parliamentary election of the last few days have revealed a crack in Putin's regime, and that they perhaps signal that Russia is soon headed for big change. But when over half the population would, when presented with a choice between Putin's Russia and the Soviet Union, choose to return to the Soviet era, I just don't see a whole lot of grounds for optimism.
(A tip of the hat to Ben Domenech's fabulous Transom digest, and to the Economist whence the graphic comes)
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Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
This is an instructive graph and I'm glad you linked it. It's troublesome too, an indication of how quickly people forget.
Sep '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
I feel like I'm in an episode of Star Trek where all the roles are reversed: next you'll tell me Peter has grown a full beard. In the typical scenario, aren't curmudgeonly oldsters like Peter and I see supposed to be the dour cynics and you young folk the cheery, unrealistic optimists?
Dec '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
Equality trumps liberty in their minds. Sounds a lot like San Francisco, Seattle, LA, Chicago, New York, etc...
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
Yes. But in this case, I've met quite a few young Russians who are awfully pessimistic about their country and their own futures. They don't believe they can improve their lot in life, they're determined not to have big families, they're cynical of democracy and feel it's all a sham, and they're not interested in activism. It's a very different breed of thought than I've encountered anywhere else.
Also, suffering is the hallmark of the Russian soul.
Sep '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Yes. But in this case, I've met quite a few young Russians who are awfully pessimistic about their country and their own futures. They don't believe they can improve their lot in life, they're determined not to have big families, they're cynical of democracy and feel it's all a sham, and they're not interested in activism. It's a very different breed of thought than I've encountered anywhere else.
Also, suffering is the hallmark of the Russian soul. · Dec 13 at 12:05pm
Well, I have never studied Russian to the extent you have but have imbibed enough of its literature that I completely agree with you. It pains me to disagree with the man who wrote the Brandenburg Gate speech, and I'd love to be wrong.
May '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
The hallmarks of great civilizations begin with a question: What does it mean to be _____?
Liberals are well on their way in destroying Americans ability to answer that. I suspect that the ability of Russians to answer their question was destroyed long ago. Communism replaced the Russian identity with the identity of the political state.
Dec '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
This phenomenon is nothing new:
Dec '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
Give them another 20 years in the wilderness, until the old ones who remember the Soviet Union fondly are themselves only a memory.
Edited on Dec 13, 2011 at 12:41pmDec '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
I don't despair, as I have known many Soviets/Russians; they somehow embody both glumness and aspiration, but that aspirational side wanes among the better educated. Those, and the elderly, are probably the only ones that pine for Putin to don his KGB rags. Many millions of the others don't give a rat's patoutie who is in Moscow, as well they shouldn't.
After all, we in the U.S. are suppposedly democratically sophisticated, but justifiably glum at the prospects "democracy" offers us. Currently, we have a menu that runs the entire gamut from Barack, to Mitt, to Newt. Hooray?
However, I do yelp a fervent Hooray! at the new posting format that eliminates the clunky paths for following a post! Yay!
Jun '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
When your empire is gone, you can't just steal other nation's stuff anymore. Bummer.
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
I'll add--from Paris--that I just went out for a pizza with my family. Not once, in six years living in Turkey, have I heard the kind of menacing anti-Americanism I heard from the three drunken Russians sitting at the table behind us. Not even close.
Aug '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
I don't believe that Peter ever said he expected Russia to "soon join the West".
Aug '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
I'd also like to see the results of a poll of the American public, with identical questions, (except, you know, changing "USA" for "Russia", and eliminating the "are you sorry the USSR no longer exists" question), for comparison.
Edited on Dec 13, 2011 at 1:09pmMay '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
I wonder how many Americans would agree it's a great misfortune that the Soviet Union no longer exists--whether because they loved it, or because it served as a common enemy.
Also, I think the last two questions, about decentralized government and liberty/welfare, actually put Russians in the same camp as Europeans, nowadays. So maybe they are joining the West to an extent, but in a way that American conservatives wouldn't like.
Sep '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
Did they have equality in the Soviet Union? I had the impression that party officials occupied more or less the same place then as the current kleptocrats do, if they are not in fact the same people altogether.
My guess is that it's the prestige and power of the Soviet Union, the sense of national pride, that Russians look back fondly on, rather than their individual well-being.
Dec '11
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
Millions upon millions of Russians lost secure jobs and secure pensions with the fall of the Soviet Union.
During the brief period of "democracy", they watched as the apparatchiks and their cronies stole the nation's vast mineral wealth.
Now, they huddle in their under-heated homes and, if they're lucky, raise vegetables in the tiny gardens of their dachas, while kleptocrats swan around in convoys of armored SUV's and purchase super-lavish Western real-estate, humungous yachts and American sports teams.
Sneer at the average Russian if you wish, but their lives have gotten worse. And they have no history that tells them life will get better.
Sep '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
Nobody's Perfect: Millions upon millions of Russians lost secure jobs and secure pensions with the fall of the Soviet Union.
During the brief period of "democracy", they watched as the apparatchiks and their cronies stole the nation's vast mineral wealth.
Now, they huddle in their under-heated homes and, if they're lucky, raise vegetables in the tiny gardens of their dachas, while kleptocrats swan around in convoys of armored SUV's and purchase super-lavish Western real-estate, humungous yachts and American sports teams.
Sneer at the average Russian if you wish, but their lives have gotten worse. And they have no history that tells them life will get better. · Dec 13 at 2:36pm
I'm not sure anybody's sneering at the average Russian. But I'd like to know more about the quality of life for the average person in the Soviet Union. How well were they doing with those secure jobs and pensions?
May '11
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
Bruce in Marin makes a good point. The limited commentary I read from time to time from Russia never sounds authentic. Ricochet has a Claire in Turkey and a Judith in Israel, we need a Ricoteer from Russia.
Jun '10
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
Mark Wilson
Also, I think the last two questions, about decentralized government and liberty/welfare, actually put Russians in the same camp as Europeans, nowadays. So maybe they are joining the West to an extent, but in a way that American conservatives wouldn't like.
I was wondering the same thing: how many Americans would say that the "state ensuring no one in need" is more important than "freedom from state interference?"
On second thought, I'm not sure I want to know. I fear the results would depress me.
Apr '11
Re: Russians Pine for Good Old Days of the Soviet Union
Bruce in Marin
My guess is that it's the prestige and power of the Soviet Union, the sense of national pride, that Russians look back fondly on, rather than their individual well-being.
Could be. After all, it was the Russian Empire long before it was the Soviet Union.