‘Russia Slowly Moving toward Liberalism Even If It Seems to Be Going in the Opposite Direction,’ Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 13 – The past year has seen the growth of civic activity across the country, the exhaustion of the people’s patience with existing arrangements, and the development of professional solidarity, Vladimir Pastukhov says. And there have appeared “new heroes and martyrs” such as Yegor Zhukov who will be “the gravediggers of the current regime.”

            And consequently, while the system appears to be moving in an illiberal direction at the moment, it not only seeing the rise of forces that will complete a liberal revolution but unintentionally helping them along, according to the London-based scholar (znak.com/2019-12-13/politolog_vladimir_pastuhov_kogda_i_kak_sovershitsya_liberalnaya_revolyuciya_v_rossii).

            He argues that in Russia, belonging to a particular generation is especially important, and that some generations like those of the 60s and the one emerging now are fated to play a significant role. Some of those in between like his own, Pastukhov says, are the latest version of the superfluous men of the 19^th century. 

            At the same time, however, the analyst continues, within each generation there are both romantics and pragmatists, between those who want to see radical change and those who want to go along. Kirill Rogov has pointed out that the relative size of these components doesn’t change much over time.

            The romantics gain the upper hand when economic problems affect both the masses and the elites who may carry out change.  That can be seen in the demise of the USSR. It collapsed for “non-economic reasons.”  Had Gorbachev and his team not launched the changes they did, the Soviet Union might have limped along for another generation. 

            Gorbachev made those changes because he “was the product of two trends – the growth of spontaneous humanism (this was the contribution of the dissidents and the human rights movement which spread its marginal humanist philosophy) and the general growth of consumerism” beyond a small group to most of the population.

            “When this deviant behavior became massive,” Pastukhov argues, the country entered a revolutionary period, one out of which it could not but emerge radically changed. And “the revolutionization of society occurred practically all at once, over only three years, from 1986 to 1989,” doing in that time what it took others 50 to 60 years. “That led to the collapse.”

            The worsening of economic conditions “was only a trigger, not a cause.”  And the same is the case now.  But for really significant changes to occur, “a minimum of one or two generational steps” will be needed. The idea that a country can change overnight is something out of a fairy tale, however much Russians believe in it.

            But there are signs that Russia is moving in that liberal direction despite the current repression.  “Conditions of life in Russia are changing rapidly” and the country is being Europeanized with ideas coming in “via the internet, goods, financial technologies, and so on,” Pastukhov argues.

            “But the main thing,” he says, is that private property is revolutionizing social relations. This is the genie which was released from the bottle by Gorbachev and Yeltsin. It is spreading through the country and won’t rest until it achieves its goals.”

            In the 2020s and 2030s, the scholar says, “the generation of the 2000s, the generation of Yegor Zhukov which has completely dispensed with Soviet complexes will begin to rule. And then nothing will help the regime: this generation will become its gravedigger.” Thus, “the main fifth column consists of our children.”

            Russians need to stop thinking that they are either at the very head of the line among the countries of the world or at the very end. In fact, they are at the end of the line of 30 to 35 countries which have adopted the European paradigm and moved away from the medieval patriarchal world.

            Unfortunately, Pastukhov continues, “our internal view of ourselves does not correspond to our present, and by the way completely honorable objective position. We always consider ourselves part of the leading group even when we are part of it only as a result of military criteria.”

            But instead of accepting that we are among the leading group but not at its very top, “we constantly aspire to the spiritual leadership of all humanity and for us any place less that first is viewed as humiliating.”  If one adopts a longer view, one can see how much progress Russia has made; but it isn’t where most Russians think it is.

            Some people think that Russia would have proceeded in a different and more positive direction if the West had embraced it more tightly and taken it into its key institutions in the 1990s, but Pastukhov argues that “this is part of a big Russian myth” and would have proven counterproductive, generating anti-liberal ideas even sooner than they emerged.

            Russian constitutionalism, he continues, must develop on its own. Outside involvement would also be counterproductive and for the same reasons.  That doesn’t mean that Western models aren’t useful, but they must be accepted and processed by Russians to make them their own – and that may take a long time.

            “Western propaganda of course influenced the political elites but one must not overrate its influence: No one would have listened to the Voice of America if there had not been a domestic intention to think in that direction,” Pastukhov concludes.