Once again, everyone wants to know. Where is Russia heading?
The trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the possible bankruptcy of his company Yukos, Russia's biggest company, have incited cries that President Vladimir Putin is returning the country to the bad old days of dictatorship.
But in assessing where Russia is heading, political and economic analysis are of little help.
It is Russia's social culture that is determining the country's fate. Russia's political system, indeed, is not what prevents the country from moving forward, and it never has been. Whether Russians live under monarchy, communism, former president Boris Yeltsin's cowboy market economy or Putin's supposed dictatorship of law, the result is always the same -- the system despises its citizens, eliciting an equal and opposite reaction of derision and distrust.
Russian capitalism hates the consumer as much as Russian communism did. Russia's people, whether they are waiters or waiting for service, are convinced that they will be ripped off and treated rudely, and so steel themselves with indifference.
Neither the system nor the people are to blame for this state of affairs. It arises partly from the fact that Russia is an "imitation" culture. Russia's first rulers were Nordic princes in the 860s, men invited to bring order to the country. Even then, or so it seems, Russians didn't trust themselves to rule themselves effectively. Sometimes, Russian imitation produces works of genius. After all, Pushkin and Gogol originally grew out of German and French models, although their sheer originality left the mimicry far behind.
But Russia is simply not as good at copying practical things like laws and economic models as it is at transforming cultural impulses into works of art with a Russian soul. Its practical borrowings are invariably stillborn, mostly because of the country's ingrained culture of contempt.
Consider Moscow, a highly seasoned imitator -- though nowhere in the league of St. Petersburg, that baroque Italianate city on the Neva, as an urban mimic. Moscow nowadays has all the trappings of high-end capitalism: Prada, Fouchon, Rolls Royce. Its Cafe des Artistes is as wonderful a French bistro as you will find. But something is missing, in the usual Russian way -- proper utensils. Ask a waiter for a steak knife and it's as if you've asked for a sword.
Some restaurants greet their customers with a guard who brusquely asks what they want, as if they came to buy stamps, not to have dinner. Of course, the guards know that their job is to ensure that everyone is safe and comfortable, but the Gulag notion of what a guard does is too embedded to be removed. Their real job is to be "against" -- and this time, it is the customers they are against.
The very existence of other people breeds suspicion in Russian guards, and who is to say that they are completely wrong? After all, contract killings and random shootings in restaurants are common affairs, and the idea of excessive protection from everyone goes back to Soviet days, when social contempt was cloaked in the guise of public safety.
Small wonder, then, that Russians always cut corners, jump over fences, and never follow a path designated for walking -- these paths were built not to make life easier for people, but to control them. Indeed, fences and barriers in Russia are usually built where there should be a footpath.
But perhaps the authorities are right to want to keep us in line. Anyone who has ever flown into Russia will know this scene: the moment the captain requests the passengers to remain seated until the plane comes to a complete stop, all the Russians on board will respond by immediately standing up and piling into the aisles as if it's their last chance to get out. They know in their bones that the system is out to get them, even if the system is represented by a commercial airliner from a foreign country.
The simplest things are complicated, and then destroyed, by this culture of suspicion and contempt.
I once went for lunch to a Swedish-style buffet in Moscow. The choice of food was great, a sort of postmodern typical Russian kasha: sushi, salad, borsht, meat and cabbage. But customers received only a small saucer for this feast, and the principle of the smorgasbord -- all you can eat -- was jettisoned. You were allowed to use the buffet only once. Customers -- who know what a smorgasbord is -- understandably try to stuff as much food as they can onto the tiny saucer, sushi on top of roast beef. If you dare to ask for a bigger plate or an extra helping, the waitress gives you that withering Soviet look -- you want too much.
Soviet socialism thought its citizens unworthy of any form of service altogether; Russian capitalism doubts that you can control your appetites, so it wants to control them for you. In the end, there is very little difference. And so Russia goes on, undertaking revolutionary changes and not changing at all. Incurable suspicion, mutual fear, ubiquitous contempt -- confirmed everyday in large and small ways -- are our immutable social condition.
Nina Khrushcheva teaches international affairs at the New School University in New York City.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on April 9 said that the first group of Indian workers could arrive as early as this year as part of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India and the India Taipei Association. Signed in February 2024, the MOU stipulates that Taipei would decide the number of migrant workers and which industries would employ them, while New Delhi would manage recruitment and training. Employment would be governed by the laws of both countries. Months after its signing, the two sides agreed that 1,000 migrant workers from India would
On March 31, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs released declassified diplomatic records from 1995 that drew wide domestic media attention. One revelation stood out: North Korea had once raised the possibility of diplomatic relations with Taiwan. In a meeting with visiting Chinese officials in May 1995, as then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) prepared for a visit to South Korea, North Korean officials objected to Beijing’s growing ties with Seoul and raised Taiwan directly. According to the newly released records, North Korean officials asked why Pyongyang should refrain from developing relations with Taiwan while China and South Korea were expanding high-level
Japan’s imminent easing of arms export rules has sparked strong interest from Warsaw to Manila, Reuters reporting found, as US President Donald Trump wavers on security commitments to allies, and the wars in Iran and Ukraine strain US weapons supplies. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s ruling party approved the changes this week as she tries to invigorate the pacifist country’s military industrial base. Her government would formally adopt the new rules as soon as this month, three Japanese government officials told Reuters. Despite largely isolating itself from global arms markets since World War II, Japan spends enough on its own
When 17,000 troops from the US, the Philippines, Australia, Japan, Canada, France and New Zealand spread across the Philippine archipelago for the Balikatan military exercise, running from tomorrow through May 8, the official language would be about interoperability, readiness and regional peace. However, the strategic subtext is becoming harder to ignore: The exercises are increasingly about the military geography around Taiwan. Balikatan has always carried political weight. This year, however, the exercise looks different in ways that matter not only to Manila and Washington, but also to Taipei. What began in 2023 as a shift toward a more serious deterrence posture
RSS