From Soviet to Russia

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From Soviet to Russia
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Russia Background

• Historical journey spans
• Monarchy (czars)
• Bolshevism (Lenin)
• Dictatorship (Stalin)
• De-Stalinization (Kruschev)
• Entrenched communism (Brezhnev)
• Internal struggles for control/direction
• Broad-based social/political/economic reforms
  (Gorbachev)
• Democratic struggles for power (Yeltsin)
• Consolidation of power in Presidency (Putin)

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Linkages

• Feudal Monarchy
• -- powerful czar, police apparatus, loyal
  bureaucracy
• Communism
• -- democratic centralism, vanguard party
• Stalinism
• -- Totalitarian rule
• Democracy
• -- Regime change, instability, uncertainty
• -- Limited experience

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Questions for the New Regime

• Will Putin be able to strengthen and stabilize
  the Russian state?
• Will the regime gain more legitimacy and become
  more democratic?
• Can Putin build stronger and more broadly
  accepted institutions if the economy founders?
• How will Russia adjust to its new international
  role (lingering military influence dwindling
  economic influence)?

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USSR
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Humor

• An economist ran a contest to name the new
  Democratic Republic among the finalists
• RELICS Republics Left in Total Chaos
• PITS Post-Imperial Total Shambles
• COMA Confederation of Mutual Antagonism (its
  people would be commies)
• UFFR Union of Fewer and Fewer Republics

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Back in the USSR