Monday, November 3, 2014

Window on Eurasia: Russians Want Hyphenated ‘Russian’ Democracy Not the Real Thing, “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” Says


Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, November 3 – Russians, even those who know foreign languages and have travelled abroad, say they do not want what they refer to as “Western democracy” but rather prefer to have a distinctly Russian version of governance which has little in common with definition of democracy that has existed since classical times.

 

            This reflects, the editors of “Nezavisimaya gazeta” say, the specific features of Russian society, the statements of Vladimir Putin, and the fact that Moscow’s propaganda machine has now made it a matter of good form for most Russians to reject anything “western” in favor of something “Russian” or even “Soviet” (ng.ru/editorial/2014-10-31/2_red.html).

 

            According to the paper, a new Levada Center poll finds that 62 percent of Russians say that their country needs democracy, with 55 percent specifying that they are referring to “’a completely special form of democracy which corresponds to the national traditions and specific features of Russia.’”

 

            Only 13 percent say they favor the Western model of democracy, while 16 percent say that Russia needs the kind of democracy “as existed in the Soviet Union.”  And what is striking is that those who have travelled abroad and who know foreign languages say this almost exactly as often as do those who have never been abroad and know only Russian.

 

            As the paper points out, this pattern raises at a minimum three additional questions: “What do Russians understand by democracy? What aspects of a democratic system do they find in the Soviet system? [And] finally, what do they understand under the completely special form of democracy adapted to Russian conditions?”

 

            The editors note that “sociological research frequently shows that on issues of politics, economics and social organizations, Russian frequently lack systematic thought and elementary knowledge.” That makes them open to declarative language by Vladimir Putin and others which does not define its terms.

 

            In 2012, for example, Putin said that “Russian democratic is the power of the Russian people with its own traditions of popular self-administration and in no way is the realization of standards imposed on us from outside.”  But neither then nor later did he specify precisely what this “Russian democracy” would consist of.

 

            The universal democratic model is “quite simple,” “Nezavisimaya gazeta” says. In it, there is one law for all and an independent judiciary, there is a competitive marketplace of people and ideas for political leadership that the citizenry can select among. “The state is a hired worker,” and citizens control it. The media are free so that they can know what the state is doing.

 

            The specific features of Russia include “in particular” “a country with a predominantly dependent electorate with leftist and extreme leftist convictions, a low level of civic initiative, and a tradition of delegating responsibility to an all-embracing and all-powerful state” – all things at odds with the definition of democracy.

 

            Thus, “Russian democracy” is a kind of “’democracy’ in which the state fulfills the leftist demands of citizens who do not show initiative,” and “the extent of power in the hands of the ruling elite increases the level of dependence of citizens on the state.”  And that leads to a situation in which if the state doesn’t fulfill what the citizens want, they reduce their demands.

 

            That is what makes the Soviet period such “a golden age” in the minds of many Russians, the paper says, and that is why those who were surveyed by the Levada Center “reject Western democracy because now it is considered correct to reject everything Western.”  But there is an even deeper problem.

 

            And it is this, the paper says: for Russians “any distribution will be considered more just (and consequently more democratic)” than the pursuit of one’s own goals “in a competitive struggle,” which of course is exactly what Russians now identify as something “Western” and reject out of hand.

 

 

 

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