Alfred B. Evans

Putin's Legacy and Russia's Identity

AS A NUMBER OF SCHOLARS HAVE POINTED OUT, POST-SOVIET RUSSIA faces an identity crisis (Tsygankov 2006a, 2007; Suny 2007). The Soviet regime had promoted its conception of Russia’s role in a multinational community of people, but after the break-up of the USSR that interpretation became outdated. With new urgency Russian intellectuals addressed the question of the identity of their country, as implicitly all Russians might wonder, ‘Who are we?’ and ‘Where is Russia going?’ Different groups of Russian intellectuals and politicians offered competing answers to these questions, presenting alternative definitions of Russia’s identity (Tolz 1998, p. 995, 2001; Hopf 2006, p. 700; Legvold 2007). The issues that were debated concerned not only the choice of strategy for domestic and foreign policy, but also the essential character and values of the national community and a view of that nation’s place in the world.

Developed Socialism and the New Programme of the CPSU

Throughout the history of the Soviet state, Marxist-Leninist ideology has attempted to define the current stage of development of Soviet society and show the relationship between trends of change in the current stage and the attainment of the higher phase of communism. Lenin came to view the prolonged institutionalisation and stabilisation of socialist relations as a necessary prerequisite for progress toward communism. In the early years of Stalin’s rule it was assumed that the Soviet Union was at such a rudimentary state of economic development as to make the goal of communism highly remote. However, in 1952 Stalin asserted that the USSR had begun a new, higher stage of development, and authored the notion that socialism would pass to communism through a series of distinct stages. Khrushchev departed from Soviet tradition by announcing at the end of the 1950s that the Soviet Union had entered the stage of direct transition to communism, and left the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with a Programme elaborating on this conception of the full-scale construction of communism. By introducing the concept of developed socialism, Brezhnev repudiated the argument that Soviet society was in a transitional stage and initiated a reassessment of the nature of the entire phase of socialism. Brezhnev also launched plans for the preparation of a new Party Programme describing developed socialist society. Since Brezhnev’s death, Soviet leaders have honoured his pledge to adopt a new Programme for the CPSU, but have advocated a more realistic interpretation of the process of improvement and perfection of developed socialism.

Problems of conflict management in Russian politics

For attempting to identify the conditions for the institutionalized regulation of conflicts among group interests, and to assess the degree of fulfilment of those conditions in post‐Soviet Russia, the criteria for successful conflict management offered by Ralf Dahrendorf are useful. Marxist‐Leninist ideology traditionally blocked the recognition of the legitimacy of conflicts among the interests of groups in Soviet society. In the decades after Stalins death there was a gradual tendency within the official ideology towards the acknowledgement of legitimate conflicts, and that tendency reached its culmination under Gorbachev with the acceptance of the ideal of ‘socialist pluralism’. However, political changes stimulated by Gorbachev encouraged the opening of channels for the expression of competing interests while failing to institutionalize adequate mechanisms for the management of conflicts among those interests. The legacy of Gorbachevs attempt to carry out limited democratization while preserving the...

The Crisis of Marxism—Leninism

One of the paradoxes of Mikhail Gorbachev’s leadership was that, while his expressions of dissatisfaction with the performance of the Soviet system had a pragmatic character, he consistently argued that successful reform of that system required a thorough reexamination of the tenets of the official ideology. Another paradox is that, though after becoming the head of the Soviet Communist Party he set out to revitalise the ideology of Marxism—Leninism, the questioning of formerly orthodox assumptions subsequently brought on a crisis of the belief system to which several generations of Soviet leaders had paid homage. That crisis left the ranks of the Soviet Communist Party in disillusionment, confusion and disarray over questions of theory as well as practice, and left few defenders of ideological premises that had long been taken for granted. With the fragmentation of the consensus previously imposed on Soviet society, a spectrum of varied political viewpoints has appeared. Nevertheless most political activists and citizens in the former USSR (and many outside, such as Fukuyama, 1992) now agree on the lack of credibility of the ideological synthesis whose dominance was unchallenged from the 1930s to the early 1980s; and the few who argue for the restoration of the Marxist—Leninist orthodoxy of the past appear to have a very narrow base of support within Russia, or the Commonwealth of Independent States more generally.

Rethinking Soviet Socialism

The Soviet political regime traces its origins to the revolution of October 1917, under the leadership of Lenin, which brought the Bolshevik wing of Marxism to power in Russia. That regime bases its legitimacy on the claim that it directs Soviet society in accordance with the principles of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who in turn considered themselves followers of the ideas of Marx and Engels. Thus to an unusual degree the Soviet regime is justified by and identified with a distinctive and comprehensive set of ideas — the ideology referred to as Marxism-Leninism. By presenting themselves as the interpreters of that world-view, Soviet leaders stress the notion of a direct continuity of intellectual heritage from the Marxist classics through Lenin and the October revolution to the present day. Since 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev has embarked upon the most sweeping revision of Soviet Marxism-Leninism since the 1920s. But paradoxically, the questioning of many previously established tenets of the ideology has intensified the need for the reaffirmation of faithfulness to its original sources. Gorbachev continues to assert that correct Marxist-Leninist theory must be the source of guidance for the policies of the Soviet state. Therefore, contemporary Soviet reformers are engaged in the search for a new model of socialism which can combine the most valuable principles of Lenin’s thought with features adapted to contemporary conditions.