ON THE PROSPECTS OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA

Will To Socialism. A General Observation.

They say, “it takes all sorts to make a world,” and it is equally true that it takes all sorts to make a nation, any nation. There are rebels and conformists, individualists and collectivists, dreamers and schemers, living all of them in our immediate neighborhood, to say nothing of our city, or province, or country. “Socialism” and “capitalism” of human nature are not separated by barbed wire or by any other type of physical borders. To say it in one word, they coexist.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many capitalistically-minded individuals in Russia: among ethnic Russians as well as among other ethnic groups. It is however the dominant social attitude, which determines whether an entire nation can be called capitalistically or socialistically-minded, and Russia happens to be most certainly of the latter variety.

I believe that the more nationalistic and close-knit the nation is, the more socialistically-minded it becomes. It was the Grossdeutsches nationalist elation of “Einig, Einig, Einig!!!” that impelled the Germans en-masse to relish the sweet socialist coating of Hitler’s national-socialist poison pill. Earlier, it wasn’t Karl Marx per se, with his proletarian internationalism, but the great socialist idea, nationalistically internalized, and given an unmistakable chauvinistic push by its grand internationalist dimension, that swept Russia off her feet into a turbulent love affair with Lenin’s Bolshevism settling down in a marriage to the institutionalized socialism of Comrade Stalin.

The basic criterion for socialist mentality is whether the rich of the nation tend to identify themselves more with the poor of their own nation than with the rich of the world. If they do, the national will to the domestic redistribution of wealth inside that particular national family grows strong enough for socialism to thrive. In case the rich become anti-nationalist, unwilling to share their wealth through higher taxation and other such means, a social revolution will undoubtedly occur, as long as the poor are united and determined to achieve their goals by a common effort... But the latter is by no means always the case.

The biggest enemy of socialism is dissimilationist multiculturalism, which is currently plaguing the richest nations of Europe. The poorest strata of their native populations become hostile to socialism, seeing enemy in the foreigners who come to their countries to feed off their wealth without the accompanying desire to be a part of the family that feeds them. If socialism is what attracts these foreigners, then to hell with socialism! This attitude, however, does not result in a retreat of institutional socialism, but brings out social unrest and political instability, which are impossible to control without radical changes in the immigration policies.

Ironically, such political unrest has no place in the United States, and the chances of socialism here are slim, and getting slimmer. I attribute this to the fact that American multiculturalism has already eroded the social fabric of American society to the point where it has become a "virtual" society, so much fragmented that there seem to be a number of different groups, alien to each other, living under one geographical “roof,” somehow still covering the fifty states of the Union. Lamentably, I say, authentic American nationalism is increasingly becoming an artificial notion, and under such conditions the nation cannot have a will to socialism, but it is getting rather dangerously stressed along the fault lines of mutual ethnic animosities, aggravated by an utter loss of faith, by now, in the basic government institutions.

Despite many troubling occurrences, I do not see a similar danger threatening Russia. I think that the nation has learned how to deal with its own problems of multiculturalism, where intercultural animosities are more of an aberration than a systemic disorder or an omen of things to come. Separatist extremism is undoubtedly a serious problem, but there is enough national cohesion and a strong national will to withstand its challenge and persevere. The role of the Russian Orthodox Church in it, as a unifying and stabilizing factor, cannot be overestimated. By the same token, The Russian Church remains a bastion of Christian socialism in its social outlook, and through the Church this social outlook is maintained and continually reinforced in the Russian national psyche. Thus, in spite of all challenges to it, and maybe partly because of them, socialist mentality is alive and well in Russia, while capitalism remains largely a foreign body that can never become internalized.

On The Prospects Of Capitalism In Russia, In More Specific Terms.

The main point of my previous posting (Crisis Of Socialism In Russia) was that, despite the ambiguity of the current political and economic situation in Russia, it is safe to say that Russian socialism, still in a state of crisis, although not as acute as during the Yeltsin years, may have retreated since the collapse of the USSR, but has hardly yielded its legitimately held status as Russia’s dominant economic and social ideology to the rudely intruding bastard of capitalism. So, what are the viable possibilities, if any, of some sort of capitalism still taking root in Russian soil?

“…The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends, the Russian centers all the authority of society in a single arm.” What Tocqueville so brilliantly observed nearly two centuries ago still holds true today. In today’s Russia, only a tiny minority wants freedom, whereas an overwhelming majority demands security, both in terms of a strong powerful state and in terms of socialist welfare principles at the foundation of society. What Russia had in the 1990’s was an aberration, "capitalism from above," leading to gross excesses, corruption, crime, and a violent shock to the traditional Russian concept of nationhood. The nation is now returning from the exception to the rule, which, in economic terms, means socialism on the local human level, and on the larger scale state capitalism, perhaps. as run by the state-controlled class of wealthy, but politically powerless “entrepreneurs,” or rather more accurately “managers,” whose personal wealth is also controlled by the government, in the sense of how these people ought to be spending their “own money,” whether on the return of Russian treasures from abroad, or on the revitalization of Russia’s sports, or on providing financial infusions into arts and sciences, on the rehabilitation of underdeveloped regions and provinces, and, most conspicuously, on buying strategically valuable Western companies and properties, and otherwise engaging in key international business activities, disingenuously maintaining the convenient façade of a private enterprise, but at all times having the Kremlin giant pulling the strings as the “silent partner.” (In this sense that government is pulling corporate strings, I should not single out Russia, as if all other great powers are exempt, particularly when economic enterprise goes international or touches upon the military and national security departments, where national governments normally demand, and get, submission of private economic interests to what they see as political and national security interests.)

Russia of Christian Orthodox faith and pure socialist morality, symbolized by the baptismal cross, proudly displayed on Vladimir Putin’s bare chest. Such is the country which America has been stubbornly trying to convert into her ultra-capitalist Pax-American religion, in the delusional hope of achieving success. Surely, the best she is getting out of this deal is Russia’s reciprocation with hypocrisy and cynical manipulation. All the rest is more toxic smoke and crooked mirrors.

As a matter of fundamental principle, I have repeatedly asserted that Russia is a nation that is both culturally and ideologically incompatible with capitalism, and, contrary to the prevailing opinion of those American scholars, who have been trying to shape this country’s Russian policy under the preponderant and obsessive idea of cultivating pro-Western entrepreneurs into positions of political prominence in Russia, I have gone on record time and again to warn whomsoever it may concern that Russia will under no circumstances allow herself to be governed by money, and, should America persist in thinking in that direction and foolishly keep acting out this fallacious assumption in her foreign policy, she is surely in for a big disappointment.

Washington’s disastrous support of Khodorkovsky is just one such case in point. I wish my voice had been heard decades ago by this country’s policy-makers, or at least allowed to be considered as one of several, in an honest competition of opposing opinions, where, I am sure, mine would have made a difference, if not prevailed. Now, while they were recklessly thinking that they were building up “their man” Khodorkovsky, they were in fact only empowering Russia to become a global energy broker, and, in the process, have been enormously successful in fueling Russia’s anti-American prejudice.

But, I guess, my pill has been too bitter to swallow for Washington politicians. If they prefer to listen to that other opinion, however, of those “Russians” who are paid heftily in US dollars to provide it, just do me this favor: remember the story of the so-called Iraqi National Congress and of a certain Ahmed Chalabi, whose credibility was about the same as that of Washington’s "Russian advisers," only in Russia’s case, the mistakes seemed less apparent for a while, but they will surely prove much costlier in the long run.