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August 18, 2011 Thursday
Twenty years on, nostalgia in Russia for the Soviet empire
by ULF MAUDER
Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union - a process
encapsulated in a failed hard-line communist coup on August 19, 1991 -
many Russians long for the return of the "Empire." The nostalgia has
risen as the 20th anniversary approaches, according to Moscow-based
pollsters Wziom.
A fifth of those surveyed would like to return to the superpower
status of the Soviet era, Wziom found. A decade ago, the figure was
just 16 percent. It appears that memories of life under the
totalitarian communist regime are fading. In August 1991, the world
was captivated by images of events in Moscow. The old Soviet
apparatchiks mounted a coup, arresting Soviet president Mikhail
Gorbachev while he was holidaying on the Crimean Peninsula. A state of
emergency prevailed in the capital, where enraged Russians confronted
tanks. It took days for the mood to turn. The military refused to obey
the coup leaders, who fled.
In the ensuing months, the Soviet Union fell apart. Two decades later,
longing is deep-seated for the old days of global might. Thus, Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin once called the demise of the Soviet Union
"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the (20th) century."
Putin has spoken clearly of a possible reunification with Belarus, and
recently pushed through a customs union between Russia, Belarus and
Kazakhstan. Talk is ongoing of other former Soviet republics joining
forces. But a return to the old empire status remains unlikely, either
in the form of the defunct Soviet Union, led by Moscow, or as a
counterpart to the European Union.
Democratic structures would be necessary for the latter, Moscow
historian Irina Shcherbakova of human rights organisation Memorial
told the German Press Agency dpa. Almost all former Soviet states are
far from that. The Soviet Union's main successor, the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS), is not a genuine political power. And 20
years on, old conflicts continue to plague the former Communist bloc.
Georgia, which aims for Nato and EU membership, withdrew from the CIS
after a war with Russia in 2008. The five-day conflict saw Russia
recognising the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia as independent states. In the Republic of Moldova, the
breakaway region of Transnistria has been under effective Russian
control for years in a kind of post-Soviet limbo. Presidential
elections are due there next month.
In the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of
Azerbaijan under international law, Armenia is in control following a
lengthy war that ended in 1994, as its protector Russia lurks in the
background. Talks on a resolution of the conflict have run into the
sand, despite numerous attempts to mediate by Russian President
Dimitry Medvedev.
The Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and
Turkmenistan face constant criticism for their human rights records,
their allegedly paternalistic policies and repression harking back to
Soviet days. The authoritarian rulers in these largely Muslim
countries increasingly seem to fear the kind of changes that have
swept the Arab world.
Gorbachev, who rose to power through the old Soviet system but is seen
by many of his compatriots as the "gravedigger of the Soviet Empire,"
recently criticised what he saw as authoritarian tendencies in his own
country. In March, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, the former
Soviet president rebuked Putin and Medvedev for creating a power
monopoly that did not leave room for other political forces.
"Gorbi," who is honoured in the West for his role in the Soviet
break-up, is calling for a revival of his policies of Glasnost and
Perestroika (Openness and Reconstruction) that augured the final years
of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Those ideas took hold in Moscow's
eastern European vassals, which gradually deposed their governments,
introduced democratic change, tore down their frontiers and joined
Nato and the EU, ending almost half a century of Cold War.
Shcherbakova believes Russia needs a new "democratic breakthrough"
like those under Gorbachev and Russia's first president Boris Yeltsin.
When Yeltsin stood on a tank by the parliamentary buildings in August
1991, he not only put paid to the hardline communists, but also gave
hope to Russians, tired of Gorbachev's inability to take decisions.
"Poverty had become unendurable in August 1991, with people queuing to
buy bread," Shcherbakova said. "Many still have the food vouchers at
home that they were unable to exchange for anything of value. It was a
wartime situation. The country was finished." Gorbachev secured the
confidence of the West. He pushed through disarmament and freedom of
the press. And he withdrew the Soviet troops from Afghanistan after a
long and pointless war.
"But he failed when it came to a new political system in the country,"
Shcherbakova said. He neglected to unite the reform-driven forces
within the party, for example by instituting social democracy, she
said. Historians have long accused Gorbachev of holding back economic
renewal in Russia by sticking to a socialist planned economy. Market
reforms were only introduced in 1992 under Yegor Gaidar, who was
acting prime minister for just six months. Today, there are new calls
for a wave of reforms among the ranks of the country's political
leadership. But, as analysts point out, there are no true modernises
in sight.
August 18, 2011 Thursday
Twenty years on, nostalgia in Russia for the Soviet empire
by ULF MAUDER
Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union - a process
encapsulated in a failed hard-line communist coup on August 19, 1991 -
many Russians long for the return of the "Empire." The nostalgia has
risen as the 20th anniversary approaches, according to Moscow-based
pollsters Wziom.
A fifth of those surveyed would like to return to the superpower
status of the Soviet era, Wziom found. A decade ago, the figure was
just 16 percent. It appears that memories of life under the
totalitarian communist regime are fading. In August 1991, the world
was captivated by images of events in Moscow. The old Soviet
apparatchiks mounted a coup, arresting Soviet president Mikhail
Gorbachev while he was holidaying on the Crimean Peninsula. A state of
emergency prevailed in the capital, where enraged Russians confronted
tanks. It took days for the mood to turn. The military refused to obey
the coup leaders, who fled.
In the ensuing months, the Soviet Union fell apart. Two decades later,
longing is deep-seated for the old days of global might. Thus, Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin once called the demise of the Soviet Union
"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the (20th) century."
Putin has spoken clearly of a possible reunification with Belarus, and
recently pushed through a customs union between Russia, Belarus and
Kazakhstan. Talk is ongoing of other former Soviet republics joining
forces. But a return to the old empire status remains unlikely, either
in the form of the defunct Soviet Union, led by Moscow, or as a
counterpart to the European Union.
Democratic structures would be necessary for the latter, Moscow
historian Irina Shcherbakova of human rights organisation Memorial
told the German Press Agency dpa. Almost all former Soviet states are
far from that. The Soviet Union's main successor, the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS), is not a genuine political power. And 20
years on, old conflicts continue to plague the former Communist bloc.
Georgia, which aims for Nato and EU membership, withdrew from the CIS
after a war with Russia in 2008. The five-day conflict saw Russia
recognising the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia as independent states. In the Republic of Moldova, the
breakaway region of Transnistria has been under effective Russian
control for years in a kind of post-Soviet limbo. Presidential
elections are due there next month.
In the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of
Azerbaijan under international law, Armenia is in control following a
lengthy war that ended in 1994, as its protector Russia lurks in the
background. Talks on a resolution of the conflict have run into the
sand, despite numerous attempts to mediate by Russian President
Dimitry Medvedev.
The Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and
Turkmenistan face constant criticism for their human rights records,
their allegedly paternalistic policies and repression harking back to
Soviet days. The authoritarian rulers in these largely Muslim
countries increasingly seem to fear the kind of changes that have
swept the Arab world.
Gorbachev, who rose to power through the old Soviet system but is seen
by many of his compatriots as the "gravedigger of the Soviet Empire,"
recently criticised what he saw as authoritarian tendencies in his own
country. In March, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, the former
Soviet president rebuked Putin and Medvedev for creating a power
monopoly that did not leave room for other political forces.
"Gorbi," who is honoured in the West for his role in the Soviet
break-up, is calling for a revival of his policies of Glasnost and
Perestroika (Openness and Reconstruction) that augured the final years
of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Those ideas took hold in Moscow's
eastern European vassals, which gradually deposed their governments,
introduced democratic change, tore down their frontiers and joined
Nato and the EU, ending almost half a century of Cold War.
Shcherbakova believes Russia needs a new "democratic breakthrough"
like those under Gorbachev and Russia's first president Boris Yeltsin.
When Yeltsin stood on a tank by the parliamentary buildings in August
1991, he not only put paid to the hardline communists, but also gave
hope to Russians, tired of Gorbachev's inability to take decisions.
"Poverty had become unendurable in August 1991, with people queuing to
buy bread," Shcherbakova said. "Many still have the food vouchers at
home that they were unable to exchange for anything of value. It was a
wartime situation. The country was finished." Gorbachev secured the
confidence of the West. He pushed through disarmament and freedom of
the press. And he withdrew the Soviet troops from Afghanistan after a
long and pointless war.
"But he failed when it came to a new political system in the country,"
Shcherbakova said. He neglected to unite the reform-driven forces
within the party, for example by instituting social democracy, she
said. Historians have long accused Gorbachev of holding back economic
renewal in Russia by sticking to a socialist planned economy. Market
reforms were only introduced in 1992 under Yegor Gaidar, who was
acting prime minister for just six months. Today, there are new calls
for a wave of reforms among the ranks of the country's political
leadership. But, as analysts point out, there are no true modernises
in sight.