Russians Choose Utopias over Freedom and Get Neither, Mezhuritsky Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 31 – Russian can be a free country, Pyotr Mezhuritsky says. It was free between February and October in 1917 after the Russian Empire collapsed and free again between 1991 and 1993, from the collapse of the Soviet Empire to the suppression of the Russian Supreme Soviet and the invasion of Chechnya. 

            But in both cases, Russians chose to pursue utopias rather than the messier and more difficult and outwardly more boring path of freedom and ended with neither freedom nor utopia, the Russian commentator says, something they appear still willing to do despite their experiences (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5E0CF6EF85CA6).

            In 1917 with the Russian Empire having collapsed, Russia appeared to be on its way to becoming a European country. But then Vladimir Lenin appeared and “proposed not going along the boring European path as just one of many but to become the leader of humanity, embodying a certain utopian program in the course of which Russia could again become a great power.

            “In the end, the people made their choice in favor of utopia,” Mezhuritsky says, with all the horrors of “the Stalinist anti-utopia” as a result.

            Finally came “the collapse of the Soviet utopia of the very same empire. And again, the people stood before a choice, indeed the very same choice as before: whether to become one of the European countries with their boring bourgeois savings … or to appear to the world in the latest guise as a god-bearing people embodying a certain utopian project.” 

            Once again, the choice was made “in favor of an empire” based on military strength rather than human development. The former has meant that Russia is again feared, but the absence of the latter means that it is anything but respected – thus repeating the vicious cycle over again.

            What remains unclear, Mezhuritsky says, is “whether anyone will be able when Russia again inevitably becomes a free country will convince the people to turn away from the idea of seeking to realize the latest utopia and sacrificing freedom for this.”  Otherwise in the pursuit of utopia, Russians will gain neither utopia nor freedom but another anti-utopian tragedy.