Ten years have passed since the demise of that other superpower, the Soviet Union. In December 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet Premier, resigned from his office and handed the nuclear launch controls over to Boris Yeltsin, President of an independent Russia. In those heady days, it seemed like a bright new future was finally to descend on the long-suffering Russian people. They had been the principal victims of two world wars, and a communist induced mass famine and terror camps. Now, a new birth of freedom would set them on the path of becoming a prosperous, normal, decent country.
Alas, it has not turned out to be. Instead, Russia has slid into deeper and deeper dysfunction and irrelevancy. While most of the former communist countries of Eastern Europe have done rather well, Russia has been a pathetic figure. The only countries to do worse are the other breakaway republics of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine and Belarus. Contrast that with Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, which have all joined NATO, successfully reformed their economies, and are on the short list to enter the European Union.
From a purely military standpoint, Russia has suffered one humiliation after another. A ragtag band of Chechen rebels beat the Russian army in the first Chechen war in 1994-1995. Russia reinvaded and conquered Chechnya last year, but remains mired in a guerilla war while its army is accused of horrendous war crimes. The loss of the Kursk submarine last year in an accident is an emblem of how decrepit the Russian military is. Russia lacks the resources even to maintain its present aging nuclear arsenal, which is why it so strongly opposes the Bush plan for an American missile shield.
Socially, the country is on a downward trend. Crime has soared since 1991, but even worse has been a surge in alcoholism. This has accelerated the death rate so much that Russia’s population is actually declining at about a million people a year. With such a poor social situation, the birthrate has also plunged, reducing the number of births per woman to levels far below even replacement of the current generation. Poor public health measures have increased AIDS prevalence, and the Russian prison system is now a reservoir for strains of tuberculosis that are resistant to all antibiotic therapy.
The basic problem that all this rot stems from is the overwhelming corruption of the entire political and economic system. In Soviet times, there was no virtue in honesty and doing a good job, so there was no public ethic for society to rely on once communism ended. A crook was a hero. To steal from the state was a natural thing, and that is what happened on a huge scale once Russia gained independence and started to privatize. All of Russia’s wealthy elite got that way by stealing or manipulating state assets through their connections with the government. This corruption created a class of wealthy elite known as the mafiozy. Among the young, one survey showed that the professions most aspired to were “contract-killer” and “hard-currency prostitute”.
The legal system is so messed up that it is impossible to run a business and be in compliance with all the laws, as they often contradict each other. This gives power to the bureaucrats who then can shake down businesses with threats of audits and fines. The mafia are able to take a cut of even legitimate activity by extortion, which is widespread in Russia. A businessman who refuses to pay faces beatings, kidnapping, bombings, or even the murder of close relatives. The Russian economy has failed to create a middle class of small business.
What little Russia does produce of value now is mostly natural resources it can sell to the West like oil and gas. A narrow Russian elite, completely corrupted, controls and benefits from this, while the rest of Russia slides downhill. Vladimir Putin, the current Russian President, still acts like he is running a great power. But he is running off the accumulated reserves of the last 20 years. In reality, the military and the economic power of Russia are dwindling rapidly. Currently, Russia’s economy is less than 5% of the American economy, and its share is not going to rise for a long time. All the foreign aid sent to Russia over the last 10 years has been wasted, with much of it ending up in the bank accounts of the elite mafiozy. Russia’s collapse is a cautionary tale. Money alone does not solve the problem of reforming a sick society. The problem is far more complex, and the values of honesty, playing by the rules, and rational government have an importance that is impossible to overestimate.