RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The collapse of the Soviet Union in August 1991 ranks among the most dramatic events of the 20th century. What happened in 1991 was virtually unthinkable: A world power that had risen from the ashes in 1945 would simply dissolve overnight into 15 independent states.

In the celebration that followed, it was easy to forget that one of the new states emerging from the rubble would still be one of the strongest in the world: Russia. With half of the population of the former USSR, permanent member status in the Security Council, a member of the G-8 and its army still possessing the most nuclear weapons besides the US, Russia is still a force to be reckoned with.

Yet looking back at Russia's history, the comparisons to Russia of 1917 and today are startling. It's been said that every country is a prisoner of its past- and this is especially true of Russia.

Consider the similarities of 1917 Tsarist Russia and the Russia of today.

1. Economic backwardness- Russia at the turn of the 19th century was years behind the major European powers. To put it bluntly-Russia never had an industrial revolution and was one of the most unlikely places for a Marxist revolution to emerge. 90% of Russia's people lived in the countryside under 18th century conditions and most of the urban workers were illiterate.

Today Russia is suffering an economic meltdown. The government in the last year has seen the ruble go from 6.2 to the dollar to 15 rubles to the dollar. The banks in Russia have either been shut down or are now incapable of giving loans. There is now evidence that of the billions of dollars loaned to Russia through the IMF, most of it was laundered out of the country- sometimes using the same accounts. Russia's economy has suffered the biggest peace time drop ever (Russia's GNP has depreciated 60%- America's dropped 20% during the Depression, put another way- Russia has lost half of its national income in less than 9 years). Even though Russia was allowed to a G-8 nation, the fact of the matter is it has the economic power and size of the Netherlands.

2. Failed Reform- Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries adopted few of the democratic reforms that we saw France and Britain have. Although Alexander III and Nicholas II tried limited political reforms- too many people were left out of the loop politically and the end result was violent revolution. The biggest problem Russia faced then and now is inept leadership. Whether it was an out of touch Tsar living in St. Petersburg or a frail and drunken Boris Yeltsin-Russia has suffered tremendously for a lack of strong leadership at critical times in the 20th century. All the political and economic reforms implemented by Yeltsin in the early 1990's are in danger of failing if they haven't already. Democracy and capitalism, the catchwords of the post Soviet regime are now practically equated with corruption and robbery based upon the state of affairs in the last year.

A Weak State: Just like 1917 and now, the Russian state is on the brink of falling apart. The Russian Federation and Russian State are slowly collapsing to due to fighting and independence movements. The former republics within the USSR are now trying to get out (Chechnya; Dagestan;) and the ones still in the CIS are thinking of leaving it. When Russians look at a map today they don't see a big country- they see 53% of the land they lost when the USSR broke up in 1991. That's like everything west of the Mississippi going back to the Indians next year. This problem is most pronounced in foreign affairs. In 1904, in what it called a sure win, Russia attacked Japan, quickly losing a war that would lead to revolution. Any thought about Russia being a world power in World War One was lost as soon as German machine guns mowed down Russian soldiers on horseback. In the early 90's, Russia dismantled its Cold War army, turned their missiles away form the US and allowed three former communist countries to join NATO. The result ? Their army is a national joke, the US is dominating world affairs and Russia had to sit by and watch as NATO bombed Yugoslavia (their only European ally) using the 3 new NATO countries that recently joined it. The last time Europe witnessed a great Empire slowly dissolve like Russia is now was the Weimar Republic of Germany after World War One and we all know what happed after that.

3. Rise of Political Extremism: As the situation deteriorated in the early 1900's, all of the groups that had been exiled or put underground began to rise up at the very time that Czar Nicholas II was trying to reform the system. Communists, nationalists, democrats and others all vied for power- but it was Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks who eventually seized power. For a party that was outlawed in 1991 and humiliated by the fall of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party has made one of the more remarkable comebacks in Russian history. The Communist now, under Gennadi Zuyganov, control the Russian Parliament and have been the most organized and successful at expressing the frustration the whole country feels towards Boris Yeltsin and the West. Even more radical than the Communists are the ultra-nationalists Liberal Democrats, led by the one and only Vladimir Zhirnovsky who even makes Jean Marie Le Pen look moderate. Zhirinoskvy has called for the nuclear bombing of Japan, has blamed Jews for Russia's financial problems and has said that Russia's borders should extend all the way to the Indian Ocean. Anywhere you look- Russia's current political crisis and the lack of a strong successor to Yeltsin makes the threat of a nationalist or communist succession in Russia a real possibility. This is still a country where nearly a third of the people recently polled in Russia felt that Joseph Stalin should be remembered for leading the USSR to victory in WW2 rather than killing up to 20 million people.

To be fair to the Russians and to try and stay optimistic- one has to look at the past that Russia is emerging from. After 70 years of totalitarian rule, the Russian federation is attempting to make the uneasy transition from authoritarianism to democracy and from socialism to capitalism. In an analogy used by Russians- their country is only 8 years old- it is like a child that is trying to develop its personality and outlook on life. It must be give time- 10 to 15 years before one should make an accurate predication of its success or failure in the world. Russia today (at least it's economy)- should be compared to that of the US in the 1880's- and that era of political, economic corruption was 100 years after the founding of the United States.

The degree to which the Russian Federation succeeds in this transition will determine the course of world history well into the 21st century. A democratic and capitalist Russia could find a major ally with NATO countries and the US; an authoritarian Russia could create another cold war with the US.

Historical development: Tsarist Russia

The Russian tradition is vastly different than we have dealt with in either Britain or France, which were Western countries.

Russia emerges out of an eastern tradition- becoming the center of the Christian (Russian) Orthodox Church in the 15th century. There was no separation of church and state in imperialist Russia, and all of the tsars used religion to legitimize their authoritarian rule. By embracing Eastern orthodoxy, Russia also set itself apart from the west by not participating in the renaissance or the Protestant Reformation- two major events that helped create western European democracy.

The Russian Empire was built up through the 18th and 19th through the conquest of its neighbors- so much so, that by the end of the 19th century, Russians would find themselves a minority in their own empire.TSARIST RUSSIA

In 1917 two revolutions occurred in Russia. The March 1917 revolution threw out the czar (Nicholas) and installed a moderate government. In November, that government was overthrown by the Bolshevik Party- a faction of the Marxist Party that would eventually be known as the CPSU. This November Revolution marked a major turning point in the history of Russia. Instead of trying to imitate the West in terms of economic development, the Bolsheviks decided to make Marxist theory work in reality.

Remember that Marxism was an ideology created by Karl Marx 40 years earlier in Germany which called for the end of capitalism and for a violent revolution that would be led by the workers. Once this revolution had taken place, all class differences would cease to exist and pure communism would take effect. Marxism was an ideology that attempted to explain all of human history as being a struggle between classes (something Marx refereed to as the dialectic). This struggle has occurred from primitive man to slavery, feudalism, and capitalism and now was going to end with communism. Marx and his followers saw them as having THE answer to politics and history- they were scientists who were no guided by emotion but absolute truth.

The problem with Marxism was that it was completely unadoptable for the industrial world. Every country where Marx thought revolution would occur (Germany, England, France)-became even more capitalist- not communist.

So the fact that communism actually developed in Russia was something that Marx never would have dreamed about. First of all, the working class in Russia only accounted for 5% of the population and second- Russia didn't exactly have an oppressive capitalist system-it was totally underdeveloped-not overdeveloped as Marx thought it had to be. In fact, many Marxists living in Russia around the turn of the century- called Mensheviks) actually were the least revolutionary group of the bunch opposing the czar. They felt that Lenin and others needed to wait for capitalism to develop and then have their revolution.

So Vladimir Lenin- the father of the Russian Revolution was stuck with a problem. How does one justify this revolution in Russia as being compatible with Marxist theory? In his famous book, appropriately entitled, "What is to be done?" Lenin argued that the situation in Russia was so bad that the country could not wait around for capitalism to develop. Instead Marxists needed to adapt their philosophy to the reality of Russia.

First, Lenin would recruit professional revolutionaries to serve as the "vanguard" for the party. The vanguard would take the interests of the working into consideration and work for them, with out actually including them in the party at first. In other words, this was democracy "for the people not by the people". In time this type of democracy would be known as democratic centralism which would be used to rationalize all the decisions created by the CPSU. Inside the party, democratic centralism meant that once the higher ups made a decision about party policy- everyone had to follow that decision. This was partly due to the fact that the Bolsheviks were so paranoid about spies from the Tsar infiltrating their party as well as they wanted tight disciple.

So, from the start, Lenin and the Bolsheviks were not interested in establishing democracy- at least not the type practiced in the West. They were content with continuing the autocratic type of rule that went back to Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great.