#13 - JRL 9001 - JRL Home
From: "Arthur Adams" <janadams@columbus.rr.com>
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004
Subject: CAN RUSSIA BE HELPED BY NAY-SAYERS?

CAN RUSSIA BE HELPED BY NAY-SAYERS?
By Arthur E. Adams
(professor of history emeritus, Ohio State University)

“If you can’t say something nasty about Russia, don’t bother to write at all.” This appears to be the doctrine of many commentators and writers who report on Russia these days. There are, of course, many sound and useful studies by serious Russia-watchers, but our numerous nay-sayers seem to dip their pens in nitric acid and bile. They gleefully rush to describe Russia’s latest crises and catastrophes. They hate Russia, are contemptuous of it, and broadcast every shred of evidence they can misinterpret that foretells the end of this bear they so love to bait.

This barrage of negative commentary in the United States distorts reality, making it practically impossible to obtain a reasonably accurate comprehension of Russia’s complex and complicated situation. Because it is dangerous for our nation (and those it influences) to bend the truth, preserve dead biases, and twist the analysis of every event to intensify antagonism, it is well worth an effort to identify some of the most probable causes of this phenomenon and suggest alternative approaches that might be more rewarding.

It might even be possible to persuade our nay-sayers to help Russia solve some of its most difficult problems, using their skills to diminish the irrational bitterness of anti-Russian hostility that prevents our society and policy makers from understanding the Russian reality.

A host of historical causes forms at least one important source of the hostility of America’s nay-sayers. To go no further back than the Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent establishment and rule of the soviets, we have in our national consciousness the memory of thick-bearded Bolsheviks who dedicated themselves to wiping out western capitalism. Lenin and his friends, Trotsky and Stalin, came to epitomize everything dangerous to us. Communists penetrated our society, plotting how to destroy us. Washington refused even to award diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union until 1933. After Russia’s heroic contribution to victory in WWII, we fecklessly watched as Stalin expanded his dominion over Eastern and Central Europe. Those ardent Bolsheviks continued right on down to Khrushchev who told us, “We will bury you.” Meanwhile, all through the Cold War we mounted monster programs to contain Russia by surrounding it with military posts. Khrushchev maintained Russia’s domination over the Eastern European countries and armed Cuba with missiles, although the delivery of his nuclear warheads was blocked. Doesn’t that prove that we must remain watchful? Of course.

And what about the present? Hundreds of Russian missiles stand at hair-trigger alert; thousands more are ready. The nation is improving the evasive capacity of its intercontinental missiles and the lift-off speed of its new submarine-based missiles, the Bulava-30, that is to be fitted into new submarines now under construction. Deliberate decision, accidental firing, or a stolen nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists could wipe us out.

Russia’s nuclear arsenal is a fact of life. The threat is no less terrible than before, but we must also cope with other facts about the Russian polity. The nation‘s internal situation must be considered. For example, in terms of population Russia’s population has fallen from 270 million in 1980 to about 145 million. Our distinguished demographer, Murray Feshbach, predicts that by 2020 it will shrink further, possibly to 100 million.

The government is a shambles, its military forces are poorly trained, badly paid. Economically, the country is prospering on the sale of natural resources that will not last forever. Health services are deplorable. Tuberculosis and AIDS are out of control, suicide rates are around three and a half times that of the United States. The air and water are poisonous. This is the fifth most corrupt nation in the world.

Is this a land we should hate and fear? Isn’t spewing hatred at it something like kicking a blind dog because it won’t hunt? Surely any reasonable evaluation must conclude that Russia needs every kind of help it can garner if it is to continue, and it must continue if only to avoid the world-wide consequences disintegration could produce.

The historical causes of our hostility are no longer valid, but our nay-sayers persist. Could they be suffering from an extreme form of xenophobia of the kind that provokes strange dogs to fight on sight? Or is it simply the fretful aggressiveness that builds up in all of us from time-to-time--the need to relieve the pressures of life by attacking someone, the need to have a scapegoat or whipping boy to feel superior to, preferably someone who can’t fight back?

For journalists and television commentators there are other powerful pressures to present news as sensation or scandal, something to wake up and worry about in the middle of the night. Journalists both reflect and form the societies we live in. Newspapers hold policies about various subjects which the individual journalist must conform to unless he wants a pink slip at the end of the month. Since newspaperS both form what the public believes and is compelled to buttress those beliefs, what’s a poor journalist to do? How easy it is to pick out a rotten spot in Russia’s political leadership, the economy, the society, health care, etc., and savage the victim.

A similar result is produced by the kind of group-think phenomenon that is particularly manifested in research centers that cluster in and around Washington. Their financial support comes from departments like the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies, and wealthy private donors intent on preserving the American way of life as seen back home. Few analysts working in an arch-conservative research center will pit themselves against the wealthy angels who “damned well already know the truth about Russia.”

Group-think functions with high effectiveness in NATO, the UN, the EU, in military, intelligence, and foreign affairs offices, yes, and in whole nations. People writing for these organizations work under the guidance of revealed truth engraved on their minds. We constantly meet the symbiotic relationship in which the powers that be or the general public, positive that they know the truth, demand that the experts strengthen their faith. At the level of congress, for example, we know that our legislators read the home town newspapers; they know what their constituents believe; and they manage to maintain the role of leadership at least partly by supporting the position expressed in the locally powerful Wahoo Gazette.

Some of us appear to criticize furiously out of sheer exasperation. We love Russiathe people, their open friendship, their beautiful steppes and churches, the books they have written. We remember the big war they did so much to win, the countless instances of courtesy and personal friendliness they have shown us, and we respond these days with exasperation. Why can’t Russia’s leaders and people do something halfway intelligent? Why can’t they fix their laws and administer them justly? Why don’t they establish effective, democratic institutions? Why can’t they understand the fundamental need for taxes, honest administrators, and some kind of system that blows away the corruption lying at the very heart of their society?

So we raise our voices . . . scream. We shout that Putin is an imperialist, a blind fool, or the leader of a self-seeking gang of siloviki. We know the worst problems are vastly complicated, difficult, almost impossible to solve, but we’re worried sick. We also know that if the Russians don’t get started their nation will go down the drain. So we try to drive them forward with our scolding, even while we’re aware it doesn’t help.

This quick and admittedly superficial survey brings us to the fundamental question: HOW CAN WE HELP IN WAYS THAT MAY MAKE A POSTIVE CONTRIBUTION? The following paragraphs offer a few suggestions.

All of us can easily list problems that need fixing. We need to look closely enough to learn why they exist and to suggest workable solutions until the Russians adopt, or adapt, or conclude that they have better ideas.

Each of us should apply our efforts where we feel most able to be useful.

Consider the following brief list. If improvements are achieved in these areas, Russians may gain some of the benefits we think they deserve. Patience and persistence should be our watchwords, for our sensational news will be announcements of major advances that may take years to complete. --- >Courts at all levels must be independent and protected. Judges must be free of external interference. Enforcement organizations must carry out their functions honestly and efficiently.

>Corruption at every level of the society and in all walks of life is a disastrous plague and must be attacked from many directions. The highest authorities of government cannot wipe out corruption alone. Effective action can be achieved only if an aroused citizenry teams with officials at all levels.

>Freedom of the press is essential for any society. Russia’s press, although hampered by government interference, is not as universally suppressed as the popular notion suggests. There is diversity among small independent presses and TV stations, but officialdom fears and resents and tries to suppress embarrassing criticism. Efforts to expand freedom of the press and the independence of the media must be effective and must establish fair rules that are permanent.

>The market economy must function under well-understood rules that win the confidence of business people and protect them from capricious governmental reprisals and unfair taxation. Innumerable issues must be settled concerning the rights of unions and individual workers such as the employment of women, incentive pay, etc. Ways to fix these problems that can be absorbed within Russia’s primitive business culture must be invented.

>The proper roles of Russia’s intellectuals, the middle class, and officials must be discussed and clarified. To define one kind of problem here, Russia’s intellectuals have long seen themselves as vastly superior to other people. Their criticisms are traditionally extremist and utopian or nihilistic analyses of their society that are more destructive than useful. These home-grown super-nay-sayers should be persuaded to give up their enfant terrible games and apply their excellent minds to devising practical ways to make Russia’s suffering society work better.

Development of a civil society. To paraphrase lines from the source cited below: “The fundamental challenge is to build a society in which there is vigorous interaction amongst a diversity of organizations. A civil society is a complex system of organizations that must be studied and understood.” Further: “Almost no effort has been made to define traditional patterns of collective organization natural to Russia and associated cultures and cultural patterns and to seek ways of enhancing them. More challenging is the exploration of ways to engender new forms of collective organization in harmony with the cultural patterns and of relevance to contemporary challenges. What forms of organizational innovation are appropriate? How is their encouragement to be dissociated from naively enthusiastic attempts to export (or import) inappropriate western forms?” Simplistic approaches may destroy the native culture. (1)

These problems are bound inseparably to one another. Significant changes in one will make improvements in the others more possible. Heroic struggles are being fought even now, and this is important news. It should be reported accurately without the biases that serve neither the Russian nation nor our own. ------

(1) “Interacting fruitfully with the un-civil society. The Dilemma for non-civil society organizations. Presentation to a World Bank Workshop on Civil Society. . . .”
Published in Transnational Associations, 49, 1997, 3, pp. 9-10. (I have shamelessly re-worded these passages to escape the awkward agricultural metaphors in this valuable paper.