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Communism’s collapse was greeted, broadly speaking, with relief and jubilation across Eastern Europe and most post-Soviet states. In Russia, however, it resonated differently. For Russians, the shock of market liberalization was not cushioned by the sort of optimistic national narrative that buoyed populations elsewhere in the region. As Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes have written: “What was initially celebrated [elsewhere] as liberation and independence… was mourned in Russia as a loss of territory, population, and global stature.”
While many have speculated that the unbuffered economic pain and dislocation of the early 1990s left Russians with an abiding distaste for the liberal beliefs and values that animated the transition from communism, the actual evidence of a lasting effect is rather sparse.
This memo summarizes recently published and ongoing research of mine and coauthors that connects Russia’s difficult exit from communism to the illiberal and revanchist state we observe today. At least two noteworthy features of Russians’ Putin-era worldview can be traced back to the early post-Soviet period: their “blind and militant” patriotism and their weak support for democratic governance and norms. With respect to the latter, the evidence points directly to the economic pain and dislocation of the early 1990s as a key contributing factor.
A ‘Blind and Militant’ Patriotism
Every month for the past quarter century, the Levada Center, Russia’s leading independent polling agency, has asked a representative sample of the Russian population whether the country is headed in the right direction. Since Vladimir Putin first became president, this indicator’s two biggest month-to-month upward spikes occurred in February–March 2014 and February–March 2022. That these two instances coincided with Russian forces invading Ukraine is hard to read as a coincidence. Little seems to boost Russians’ sense of their country’s trajectory as much as military aggression in their so-called “near abroad.”
Since at least World War II, commentators have contrasted a more benign patriotism—a simple pride in one’s country—with an attitude that embraces external aggression and unquestioning national devotion. Although it might be hard not to see the latter, more malign strain at work in the Levada polling results, one might ask whether Russians are somehow unusual in their embrace of a “blind and militant” patriotism and, if so, inquire as to its roots.
By focusing on national attachment from a variety of angles, the National Identity module of the International Social Survey Program can be used to address both questions. In a recently published article, Michael Alexeev and I drew on the module’s three waves—1995, 2003, and 2013—to trace Russians’ responses over time and compare them with those of citizens from fourteen other middle- and high-income states. The answers to three questions from the survey describe respondents’ simple love for and pride in their country (e.g., “How close do you feel to [your country]?”). Two additional questions elicit their predilection to view the world in an antagonistic, “us-versus-them” manner: (1) “To what extent do you agree that [your country] should follow its own interests, even if this leads to conflict with other nations?”; and (2) “To what extent do you agree that people should support their country even if it is in the wrong?” Whereas the first group aligns with the more benign type of patriotism, we interpret the latter as capturing the “blind and militant” strain.
Although Russians’ responses placed them in the middle of the pack with respect to benign patriotism, their answers to the other two questions consistently distinguished them from respondents elsewhere. From the mid-1990s, through the early 2000s, up to the year preceding the annexation of Crimea, Russia’s embrace of “blind and militant” patriotic values far and away exceeded that of every other country.
Although an explanation for why Russians differ in this respect cannot be easily gleaned from the survey data, Putin-era indoctrination efforts are unlikely to have been the main culprit, since the nature of Russian patriotism, so measured, appears remarkably stable between the Yeltsin and Putin years. One explanation consistent with the data is lingering resentment associated with the country’s loss of status after 1991. Indeed, already in 1994, Levada Center polling showed that 75 percent of Russians thought that the disintegration of the Soviet Union had brought more harm than good, with only 8 percent thinking the opposite. Laying out the ramifications of this shortly before his death in 2009, Yegor Gaidar wrote colorfully and perhaps presciently:
The identification of state grandeur with being an empire makes the adaptation to the loss of status of superpower a difficult task for the national consciousness of the former metropolis. The exploitation of the post-imperial syndrome is an effective way of obtaining political support. The concept of empire as a powerful state that dominates other nations is an easy-sell product, like Coca-Cola or Pampers. It does not take intellectual effort to advertise it.
Weak Support for Democratic Governance and Norms
The comparative data attesting to Russians’ weak support for democratic governance is striking. In a 2006 survey sponsored by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Russians, much more than the population of any of the other two dozen former communist states surveyed, disagreed with the proposition that “Democracy is preferable to any other form of political system.” Perhaps of even greater note, several years earlier, the World Values Survey (WVS) and the European Values Study (EVS) asked representative samples of respondents from almost 80 countries whether “having a democratic system” is a “very” or “fairly good” “way of governing [your] country.” In more than half of the countries, over 90 percent of respondents answered in the affirmative, and more than two thirds of respondents answered “yes” in all countries but one—Russia.
Since support for democratic governance generally rises with average income, the fact that both surveys included large numbers of countries poorer than Russia only adds to the puzzle of Russians’ weak support for democracy. Although deep historical forces cannot be discounted as an explanation, the country’s wrenching exit from communism is a plausible candidate as well.
The early-1990s economic pain, without cushioning from the emotive high of national liberation experienced elsewhere in the region, may have become associated with the new democratic freedoms in a manner that left an unusually deep imprint on the Russian mind. If so, we could reasonably expect that Russians who suffered the most during those years would, years later, offer weaker support for democratic governance and norms.
The 2006 EBRD survey that asked respondents about their support for democracy also asked them about important life events going back to 1989, including their experiences with labor market hardships such as wage cuts, arrears, and job loss. In an article published several years ago, I showed that Russians who suffered labor market hardships in the years around the Soviet Union’s collapse, even after controlling for their economic circumstances at the time of the survey, were less likely to support democracy a decade and a half later. There was no such relationship in 2006 among those who had experienced similar hardships after the early 1990s. Only difficult life circumstances during the initial exit from communism seemed to affect support for democracy in this way. And only in Russia, not in the other former communist states.
In ongoing research with Michael Alexeev and Jiaan Wang, we build on this result by drawing on a wider array of surveys, including some conducted more recently than the EBRD’s. First, using a question asked consistently across multiple waves of the WVS and EVS, we show that between 1990 and 1995, Russia experienced a decline in the demand for democratic freedoms relative to other former communist countries. The resulting values gap that opened between Russia and its neighbors, moreover, persisted through at least the most recent wave of the WVS in 2017. Exploiting geographic markers available in this 2017 wave, we go on to show that the weakest demand for democratic freedoms is observed in Russia’s regions whose Soviet economic inheritance left them most vulnerable to the 1992 shocks of price and trade liberalization. We further confirm the same pattern in a large, regionally representative survey conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation in 2010.
The causal chain our results highlight connects a region’s Soviet economic structure to the change in its embrace of liberal values between 1991 and 1996 (as measured by the change in its electoral support for Boris Yeltsin) and, ultimately, to its support for democratic norms and freedoms decades later. Where the economy was more exposed to the downside of market liberalization, attitudes shifted quickly and enduringly. Where, due to economics, support for the transition’s liberal project declined most precipitously, the demand for democracy remained weakest well into the Putin era. The economic pain and dislocation that Russia suffered in the early 1990s, in short, diminished its overall demand for democracy not just in the short run, but for at least a generation.
Conclusion
It is not necessarily self-evident that what happened in Russia after the Soviet collapse would continue to shape the beliefs and values of the citizenry decades later. In terms of eras that might exercise influence over Russians’ beliefs and values, the early 1990s compete against the more immediate past, which has been characterized by centralized state control over the educational and media landscapes.
One sophisticated take, expressed eloquently by Gulnaz Sharafutdinova in her book Red Mirror, stresses how, in the 21st century, political and cultural elites have regularly exploited the 1990s as a kind of foil, rendering it synonymous with social disorder and economic collapse for the purpose of making Russian society more comfortable with Putin’s illiberal turn. The research summarized above stands in agreement with this perspective to the extent that we both point to the enduring importance of the 1990s. Where we might part ways, however, is the centrality of Putin-era elites: Sharafutdinova and others attach greater significance to their efforts to keep the Yeltsin years salient in the Russian mind. I am less certain.
If the nature of Russians’ attachment to their country were shaped exclusively by patriotic education, politicians’ rhetoric, and media messaging in the 21st century, we would not expect to see—as we do—a consistency of beliefs traceable back to at least the mid-1990s. And if Russians’ weak support for democratic governance and norms were solely the result of relatively recent propaganda efforts, we would not expect to see—as we do—such a strong connection between those attitudes and developments in the early 1990s.
Uncovering connections between developments in the early post-Soviet years and the beliefs and values Russians espouse well into Putin’s tenure serves multiple purposes. It enriches our understanding of the country Putin came to lead a quarter century ago; it contextualizes the illiberal and revanchist tendencies he has embraced in office; and it clarifies the sort of society that he will ultimately leave to his successor. To point out that the origins of Russians’ malign patriotism and their skepticism of democratic governance predate his presidency is not to absolve Putin of the responsibility for the country’s authoritarian turn or its military aggression. Although we cannot know for sure, neither may have happened if Yeltsin’s successor had been somebody else. What I feel can be concluded with some confidence, however, is that the nature of Russian society, traumatized as it was by its exit from communism, has lowered the cost for Putin to do those things. Over the years, no doubt, hundreds of thousands of Russians have courageously stood up and protested the authoritarian and revanchist society over which Putin has presided. But Russia is a country of tens of millions, and history’s hand is heavy.
William Pyle is the Frederick C. Dirks Professor of International Economics at Middlebury College.
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