"Weimar and Russia" forum Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley: Currents

Andrei Melville "The basic assumption of a correlation between market-oriented, laissez-faire reform and demcratic stabilization needs to be proved. Weimar Germany teaches us that the market is not an antidote to fascism, and creation of a free market probably cannot be considered the main goal for democratic transformation."

Professor Andrei Melville is Chair of the Department of Political Science at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations. Professor Melville has a Ph.D. in philosophy and was one of the youngest full professors in philosophy and the social sciences in Soviet history. He is author of numerous books on the United States, conservatism in American history, and the ideology and evolution of conservatism. Recently, his interests have turned to the Russian domestic scene, and he has become a specialist on elite and mass opinion in Russia today. He has conducted massive survey research projects on public opinion as well as on the perspectives of different elites within the establishment, and has written memoranda for the Russian government on the basis of his opinion research.

m starting to think that maybe even after this public forum, we will not know whether there is a Weimar-Russia analogy or not. Probably it would be better to leave the answer to historians and comparativists. But as a political scientist, I would argue that irrespective of whether there is an analogy or whether there is no analogy, a real problem exists behind what we call the Weimar-Russia analogy. It is a problem for Russia and for the outside world, and it has at least two aspects: domestic and international.

n the first place, domestically, we may ask ourselves how to promote democratic stability and peaceful transformation in a situation of economic collapse, inflation, imperial disintegration, a very fragile and only embryonic democracy, wounded national sentiments, and existing revanchist tendencies. The international aspect of this problem is the following: what should be the attitudes and policies of other nations of the world towards a country that is experiencing these domestic upheavals?

think that the Weimar lessons, whatever they are, are particularly relevant for today's events in Russia, since they draw attention to a very specific context in which transformations in Russia differ fundamentally from those in Latin America, in Eastern Europe, or in Southern Europe. Of extreme importance is the fact that in Weimar Germany and in post-Soviet, post-communist Russia, we are dealing with a postimperial context. The Weimar Republic emerged out of the rubble of the Wilhelmian empire through the defeat and imposition of the humiliating Treaty of Versailles. The Weimar Republic, as we learned from Professor Feldman, was industrially viable and rather market oriented, and seemingly stable political institutions lasted for several years. But in the final analysis, the Weimarian democracy proved to be very fragile and vulnerable.

he main lesson for Russia is that transformation of a collapsed or crippled empire cannot be equated with the creation of a market economy. There is no universal unilinear transition from totalitarianism via authoritarianism to democracy and a market economy. That is what distinguishes fundamentally the Russian case from Chile, Spain, Poland, or Hungary. None of these countries knew imperial traditions, none of these countries suffered from wounded national pride, and none of these countries faced domestically a serious revanchist opposition.

fter the Soviet collapse, a rather strong public perception emerged in Russia that Russians had "lost" while others had "gained." This is aggravated by the public perception of a divided nation, a nation where Russians who live in the heartland are divided from the 25 million who live outside. This is aggravated further by the profound fundamental spiritual crisis, a crisis of values, an ideological vacuum which is very easily filled by nationalism as the only idea which is left from the communist and Soviet rubble.

t would probably be an exaggeration to argue that Russians feel today that the West is imposing on Russia a version of the Treaty of Versailles, but there is a very strong perception in Russia that other countries do treat Russia as a defeated "Evil Empire" which should go through a period of redemption and only then will be admitted to the international community as just one of the fifteen splinter states of the former Soviet Union. I think today in the West there are signs of insensitivity and a lack of empathy to the national psychological, political, and cultural context in which Russians have found themselves after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and this is at best. At worst, some Western politicians simply exhibit a blatant anti-Russian bias. For example, a recent article by Zbigniew Brzezinski proposes a model for the West and the United States in particular to treat Russia as a defeated adversary that should be counterbalanced by the other fourteen splinter states of the former Soviet Union. This seems to me to be a very direct and maybe a very short road to the "Weimarization" of Russia.

o the first lesson is the following: the transformation that Russia faces today encompasses more fundamental challenges than the classical cases of transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy. The agenda that Russia faces today is not simply to create a market economy and stable democratic institutions, but also to find a way out of the crisis of identity and to discover how to cope with the disintegration of the empire and the search for a new identity.

nother lesson relates to the extremely difficult problem of the proper balance between economic reform, which in the Russian case is often equated with laissez-faire marketization, and democratic stabilization. Market-oriented economic reforms and an existing fragile and weak democracy endanger each other. On the one hand, a fragile democracy creates an obstacle for economic reform but on the other hand, only successful economic reform can lead to consolidation and stabilization of democracy by creating its social base, a middle class, etc.

he usual assumption in Russia and in the West of both the transition theory and practical politics is that economic market-oriented reform should be regarded as a number one priority, since democracy depends on the market. As a corollary, it is claimed that it could be necessary to tolerate, temporarily, an enlightened authoritarian regime in Russia in order to create the social basis for stable democratic institutions. Some in Russia and outside of Russia would even argue that economic reform should come at the expense of democratization--reform by any means possible. The magic spell of the word "reform" sometimes conceals the rigid way that it is often interpreted by Russian "reformers." In a way, what passes for reform among Russian "radicals" is the ideal goal of the right-wing politicians in the West. This is a laissez-faire version of reforms, and "radicals" in Moscow seem to be more Catholic than the pope in trying to implement the Chicago School models.

think that this basic assumption of a correlation between the market-oriented, laissez-faire reform and democratic stabilization needs to be proved. At least some results of economic reforms in Latin America are mixed, contradictory, and confusing. Weimar Germany teaches us another lesson: fascism can emerge on the basis of a market-oriented economy. The market is not an antidote to fascism, and creation of a free market probably cannot be considered as the main goal for democratic transformation. Bangladesh or Somalia, which are market-oriented economies, are good examples. The West probably has more interests in the creation of democratic institutions and democratic traditions in Russia than in the creation of a free market there by any means.

hat makes us think that laissez-faire, Chicago School-type reforms are a condition sine qua non for successful Russian transformation? I think that the result of the December 1993 elections tell us something about it. Russians have rejected not reforms per se, but a particular type of reform which could not even be called laissez-faire in the strict sense of the word. The notorious "shock therapy" in Russia, unlike in Poland, lasted eighteen days. We need to realize that. It lasted only until Yeltsin signed his first decree on the new subsidies to the stagnating and bankrupt industries. What goes for liberalization of the economy in Russia probably should not be called liberalization of the economy per se. It is a very specific liberalization: liberalization of the Soviet economy, which structurally remains largely untouched, liberalization which is monopolistic and which leads to incredible corruption.

hat are the implications of the December 1993 elections in Russia? Should we compare them with the Iranian model--that is, when society rejects reforms completely and exhibits a very strong anti-Western fundamentalist reaction--or should we compare them with the Polish model, when election results simply indicate a shift of public attitudes to the left towards social democracy, social democratic ideas, and a consequent modification of economic reforms? In the Russian case, one might make three observations: First, the general direction of reforms is not going to be reversed. Public consensus and a consensus within the elite support reforms in general. Second, structural modification of reforms is inevitable. And third, the sphere of freedom for any reasonable economic action in the existing political context in Russia is very limited.

onetheless, there are reasons for cautious optimism. The first reason has to do with so-called civil society, a concept that has been mentioned today several times. There is no doubt that civil society has been unleashed in Russia and the genie is out of the bottle, though it is still a very embryonic and deformed civil society. It is embryonic in the sense that its elements exist without internal structure, and deformed because of the seventy years of Soviet rule and because of previous Russian traditions, but also because of the brutal and corrupt nature of current economic upheavals.

ow, here is the problem: is the glass half-full or half-empty? I believe it is half-full. Yes, there is tremendous inflation, there is economic misery and downward mobility and impoverishment of the population, and one may argue that this creates a powerful social base for resentment, for a search for scapegoats, for revanchism, extremism, and nationalism. The profound social strata of the déclassé and the lumpen proletariat has been deepened by a new social type, the lumpen middle class, since the embryonic middle class which had emerged in the Soviet Union in the sixties and seventies fell as the first victim of the current economic crisis and reform. Nonetheless, I believe there is another Russia which is not covered by official statistics. There are amazing signs of vitality and entrepreneurialism on the part of various social groups, all of those "old" and "new" Russians who are contributing to the creation of the new economy and a new society.

inally, just a couple of words about the danger of fascism in Russia. We tend to concentrate on the phenomenon of Zhirinovsky, which in my view is an artifact created by the mass media and, indirectly, by "democrats" themselves. Yes, there are fascist parties and fascist political forces in Russia today. In the heart of their ideology is the idea of the Bolshevik-Jewish conspiracy, racism, etc. But Zhirinovsky in my view is more of a "fascist-zoid" rather than a fascist; more of a populist demagogue who is very able to create massive political militant mobilization around one particular leader and very primitive slogans and promises. There are some racist motives in the rhetoric of Zhirinovsky, but it seems to me that this crucial element of fascism is missing. He is, rather, a geopolitical imperialist, not a racist.

his is not to say that we should not be fearful of semi-fascist or authoritarian forces and traditions in Russia. I think we may see them in different political segments and not only in Zhirinovsky's camp. These are traditions of extremism, traditions of collective submission, traditions of authoritarianism, while the traditions of compromise, of moderation, and of tolerance are missing.

Presentation by Gerald Feldman | Presentation by Harold James | Summary by George Breslauer

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