Radio Liberty - Programs - Time Difference

Author and presenter Vladimir Tolts

There is a 2 hour time difference between Moscow, where today's broadcast was recorded, and Prague, where you are hearing it from. Between the past, which will be discussed in this program, and today there are years, decades, or even centuries.

But the past, growing into our lives with unresolved problems and mysteries, the aroma of the irrevocable and the bitterness of today, for which many are inclined to blame yesterday, is a subject of constant interest for listeners, quite comparable to the passion for talking about politics, sports and sex.

The program “Time Difference” is dedicated to this living past in us, which will be aired twice a month.

The topic of today's conversation is "The 20th century: crises in Russia."

In the Moscow Freedom Studio, historians: Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences Yuri Nikolaevich Afanasyev ; specialist in sociocultural analysis of Russian history Alexander Samoilovich Akhiezer ; researcher of the all-Russian crisis of the beginning of the century, author of the monograph "Red Troubles" Vladimir Prokhorovich Buldakov ; on the Berlin communication line - Professor of the University of Berlin Michal Reiman

Crises are usually perceived as something extraordinary and anomalous. But if we look at the history of Russia in the twentieth century, then, in my opinion, this is a series of continuous crises: military, political, economic. Well, let's start from the beginning: - 1905 - the Japanese War, which ended in a humiliating defeat and the “first proletarian revolution”, which gave rise to numerous acts of urban violence. - 1914-17s - World War and the millions of human casualties associated with it and the ugly distortion of economic life.

- Next: October Revolution of 17th year.

- Then - the civil war of 1917-21, which claimed several more million human lives and literally devastated the country.

- And also the Soviet-Polish War of 19-20, which ended in the defeat of Russia.

- Well, and then, in the early 20s, the creation of the Gulag system and, as a consequence, at the same time, the destruction of the elite of pre-revolutionary society and the mass flight of its surviving representatives abroad.

- Then what seemed to be considered a takeoff - periods of industrialization, collectivization. But if you look at them differently, this is again the destruction of the peasantry in its traditional form, which in the early 30s turned into mass famine and again millions of deaths in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Isn't this a crisis?

- And the purges and “Great Terror” of the mid and late 30s with mass imprisonment in camps, executions and deaths were also a crisis.

- Then the war of 1941-45 - again multimillion-dollar military and civilian casualties, severe destruction in the economy.

- By the way, its post-war restoration in conjunction with a new expansion of the government’s terror against its own fellow citizens - is this not a crisis or something?

I am simply afraid of boring both our listeners and you, dear interlocutors, with this gloomy, protracted list. I will complete it, so to speak, with larger strokes. - 5 post-war decades: a ruinous arms race with the United States, ruin aggravated by attempts to impose communist power in the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Africa; - specifically Soviet forms of management - all this led to the final ruin of the country.

- Well, add to this the Afghan war.

- The collapse of the Soviet Union, finally, accompanied again by civil unrest, the subsequent impoverishment of the majority of the people, the Chechen bloodshed - this is also all from the same crisis clip.

And so, against the background of this list, those short, one might say, crisis-free, stagnant periods, years are rather an exception.

And naturally, I have a question addressed to you: maybe crises are the norm for Russia’s development in the twentieth century, and their absence is an anomaly?

Yuri Afanasyev:

It is possible, indeed, to look at the entire twentieth century in Russia as a series of crises that differ from one another, which are not immediately visible as arising from one another. This is one perspective: there are many crises, different crises.

But it seems to me that you can look at these same facts from a different position and choose a different approach: the entire 20th century of Russia as a permanent crisis, the cause of which is some previously unresolved problems, in the 19th, 18th centuries and further back into the centuries. Contradictions accumulate, intensify, and a true resolution, as in the Greek interpretation - crisis as an outcome, crisis as a solution - this is what does not happen.

It seems to me that this approach is more convenient for a historian, closer. I think that the twentieth century and the crises in Russia are something from the specific dynamics of socio-economic Russia, and in general from the specificity that stems from the geopolitical position of Russia between East and West, between Europe and Asia. It seems to me that in order to better understand the crises of the 20th century in Russia, we need to look a little further into the centuries, and then perhaps they will be better highlighted.

Vladimir Tolts:

This is a question for Alexander Samoilovich: I understand that with such a frequency, or something, of crises in Russia in our century, which is already ending, they have probably been systematized and typologized by highbrow theoretical science for a long time, and each has been given its own explanation, including one that goes back centuries...

How does the general theory of the historical process today look at all this?

Alexander Akhiezer:

The numerous crises that you have listed, which can be extended ad infinitum, require generalization; there are too many of them to simply judge each one individually.

The problem is how to find this common approach. As for the general theory, generally speaking, I do not know of any general theory of the historical process that could provide an approach to these phenomena that you are talking about, provide an approach to finding some kind of general solution to this issue. Obviously, here we need to start from some very distant premises in order to reach these problems. The concept of crisis often, in this case, does not have any rational definition.

Wars have always existed and were considered a very noble cause, allowing the spirit of youth to be developed. War itself is a common phenomenon in human history; it is, in fact, a new phenomenon when we begin to treat wars as something unusual. In themselves, wars and even the financial crisis are not some completely extraordinary phenomenon, but the general impression, when we take a look at the history of Russia in the twentieth century, and perhaps at longer periods, is that there are, obviously, some deep, essential reasons that lead to these - many of this kind - results that you named today.

But I think that, after all, everything you mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg.

Vladimir Tolts:

Now I have a question for Vladimir Prokhorovich: You are studying that era, that layer in the history of the Russian twentieth century, in which many of our listeners, many of the historians see both the source and the root cause of all subsequent crises. You are a researcher of the revolution; the revolution itself, if we talk about it as a crisis, has those very deep roots in previous history that Yuri Nikolaevich spoke about.

If we talk about this, in the general turning point in the history of the twentieth century for Russia, if we try to find a definition for crises, the absence of which Alexander Samoilovich spoke about, tell me: a revolution is undoubtedly a crisis?

Vladimir Buldakov:

The fact that the revolution is undoubtedly a crisis is beyond any doubt, in my opinion.

Another question is what crisis? And in general, speaking about crises, I think we must first make one very simple reservation: if we wish, of course, we can call any shock, any turmoil a crisis of one scale or another. A crisis is a common, fairly common form of any development.

As for Russia, there is no doubt that here we have a series of crises, just as there is no doubt that this is part of one general cultural process. That is, the birth of some kind of civilizational quality. But, in this series of crises, and not only the series of crises of the twentieth century, but in Russian history as a whole, I would especially highlight what I call “systemic crises of the empire.”

In my opinion, today we can speak with more or less certainty only about these three “systemic crises of the empire.”

Well, first of all, the so-called “Time of Troubles” of the beginning of the 17th century, the revolutionary crisis of the beginning of the 20th century, and, in general, I believe that it is quite legitimate to place the current crisis in this very series of “systemic crises of the empire.”

Vladimir Tolts:

Excuse me, Vladimir Prokhorovich, are you talking about the current financial and political crisis, which begins on August 17, 1998, or something more extensive?

Vladimir Buldakov:

No, of course I don’t mean the financial crisis, I mean the crisis that probably began in the mid-80s. This crisis is far from over. It is quite difficult to say that this crisis is connected by some kind of continuity with the crisis of the early twentieth century.

In this case, it is important to emphasize, it seems to me, another thing - every crisis, of course, has its reasons, of course has its prerequisites, but the crisis (if we are talking about a systemic crisis , and not just a financial one, as a particular manifestation of this very crisis), the crisis, in my opinion, is caused by one simple reason - the imbalance of the social-state organism, the imbalance of the system .

Imbalance can have a variety of sources. But if we take the history of Russia, here, firstly, we need to point out this: of course, every crisis in Russia, I mean these three systemic crises , has as its first motivation the desacralization of power. This may happen in the form of a violation of some kind of dynastic continuity or a break in dynastic continuity, but one way or another, when power ceases to be power, this, in my opinion, is the most serious reason for a major systemic crisis to then break out.

If in this light we look at the three crises that I spoke about, here, of course, this factor is evident. What does desocralization of power mean? The forms can be different, even to the point of being an unfit ruler. But there may be something else: the government, as such, cannot cope with the circumstances. If we imagine statehood - not the state, but Russian statehood - then all rulers needed to balance the space of the territory, the space of the population, the social space, and finally, some kind of mental or spiritual space. That is, organize all these spaces into a single space of power. When this balance was disturbed, in this case it does not matter due to some reasons - either foreign policy, or natural, or some kind of social - then this very collapse occurred and the country gradually plunged into a state of turmoil.

And if we talk about the crisis of the beginning of the 20th century, then this is what took place here, this very crisis of the Russian system as a whole.

Vladimir Tolts:

Before we go further in our discussion of today’s topic, I would like to include Professor Reiman, who is now in Berlin, in our conversation.

Professor Reiman, how do you imagine the subjects we are discussing today?

Michal Reiman:

It seems to me that what characterizes the 20th century and the Russian crises of the 20th century is connected with, firstly, an international factor. With the factor of Russia's international position - its position in the system of states, and this is the point at which one side of these crises appears. There is a crisis in the international situation in the sense that we are talking about the relationship between Russia and developed countries. This is one moment.

The second moment that cannot be forgotten in the 20th century, which, in my opinion, greatly influences further development, is the 17th year, when the traditional system in Russia as a whole collapses, because the political system is falling apart, the social system is falling apart, the system of economic and social relations is falling apart. And all this, of course, is a very deep social shock, which must somehow be overcome in a system of new and different relations. This is what largely determines the further development into a very sharp conflict.

It seems to me that what is very typical for Russia, for its development, is a peculiar combination of a country that, on the one hand, has been, say, since the time of Peter the Great, a great power, a great European power that is part of the entire system of relationships, and, on the other hand, a country that is lagging behind in its development, compared to the developed countries of Europe. And this creates a certain internal tension, which then greatly affects the development of Russia.

Great power here is some form of relationship with developed countries, some kind of impulse for internal modernization, which leads us to a topic that is well known - the two-layered nature of Russian life: European and internal. I think that this is the group of problems around which many conflicts of the 20th century later develop.

What seems absolutely clear to me, what the modern crisis reveals, is that the system of closed Russian development that we had in the 20th century, which manifested itself in the existence of the Soviet system, has collapsed.

It seems to me that the solution or plan for solving this main problem - Russia’s entry into the world around us, of course, cannot be solved on the path of some kind of self-sufficient development of Russia, that it must follow the path in which it has been going since the time of Peter the Great - the path of gradual inclusion of Russia (not only external, but also internal inclusion!) into the system of European or developed states.

Vladimir Tolts:

Despite all the multi-layered, or something, problems, in our conversation I manage to identify this, as a kind of common denominator: you all highlight as an obligatory, core, or something, moment of the systemic crisis of the empire (and, I think, this applies not only to Russia, but to the crisis of the large state system in general), such a core is the tension in the relationship between the government and the people.

What is happening in Russia along this line in the 20th century?

Yuri Afanasyev:

I think this is one of the key or nail issues: power and people or power and society. This question in itself has a long history, because certain configurations of this structure - power and society, they were formed in their final form somewhere by the era of Ivan the Third, that is, by the end of the so-called Tatar-Mongol yoke. A certain, very stable structure of the relationship between government and society has formed, which, changing, modifying, sometimes transforming beyond recognition, as happened, for example, in 1917, that is, there is no longer a monarchy, but a republic, and even a Bolshevik one, and so on.

And if you look at the root of this problem, it turns out that some permanent elements of this structure continue to live, and they live throughout the 20th century. That is, this relationship developed in such a way that the government began to dominate society very powerfully, to suppress and oppress it. Why it happened this way and what the Tatar and Mongol invasions have to do with it is a separate question. But that’s exactly it: a kind of stable pyramid has emerged that is trying to crush, crack and break society.

And in those cases when she succeeds in this more or less, as was the case, for example, in Stalin’s times, and very often before, a period of some kind of calm ensues. As soon as the balance is disrupted, and as soon as society, exhausted, tortured, oppressed, finally asserts itself, new relationships between government and society begin to form, as has been happening since the mid-80s, and these moments in the history of Russia acquire such a pronounced crisis character.

Vladimir Tolts:

Alexander Samoilovich, do you also think that throughout, say, the 20th century, this crisis tension in Russia has been constantly growing? What actually is then the point where it discharges?

Alexander Akhiezer:

It seems to me that Yuri Nikolaevich outlined the answer to this question. We are talking about some cycles in history.

In general, we are faced with some such logical contradiction: on the one hand, we seem to be convinced (and this is a fairly common point of view) that power dominates society.

But, on the other hand, as was said here, the government is unable to solve the problems that this society faces, unable to unite the country even territorially. This contradiction is probably the driving mechanism that leads to many strange, I would say, phenomena, from the point of view of the experience of world history.

The relationship between society and government in Russia is only on the one hand the power of the state over society, and on the other hand, the people periodically respond to this power with unrest. This means that none of the solutions, that is: the state is power over society and vice versa, society is a force that does not obey, does not recognize the state - this is wrong. Obviously, the answer lies in finding out in the process of development of historical science how two extremes could be combined in a single body of Russian society.

And so what appears on the surface as internal crises (we can even discard wars simply as wars, only in connection with how they related to the internal process), we will see an extremely complex, maybe even confusing picture. On one side of this process lies the state, which sometimes takes on the character of a terrorist organization that simply exterminates the people - Stalin's terror. But, on the other hand, we see a people who periodically, if we go beyond the 20th century, this is quite clearly visible, tries to exterminate the entire ruling stratum. It seems to me that fluctuations between these extremes provide the key to the analysis of these complex crisis phenomena that you spoke about.

Vladimir Tolts:

However, some of these crises resulted in the collapse of a large state system , and the crisis of 1917 is a typical example of this. How often does breaking down and creating something new happen?

Vladimir Buldakov:

I would caution against using such terms as “the final breakdown of the state machine” or “system.” We will say that the system is quite stable, and crises are indicators not only of its poor condition, but, to a certain extent, of its ability to develop.

I would try to illustrate with a very simple example, more familiar to me, what, say, happened at the beginning of the 20th century: the crisis rhythms of Russian world history overlapped. Since the mid-19th century, rapid population growth has been observed throughout Europe and throughout the world. Russia, by the way, was ahead of Europe in all these indicators of population growth. What does it mean? This means that the social space is changing, it means that the population is rejuvenating, it means that there is an accumulation of elements of youthful destructiveness in society. And under these conditions, these very rhythms are superimposed, that is, children break away from the power of their fathers. Children begin to misbehave, roughly speaking. But this does not mean that they will bring with them some kind of qualitatively new system. These same children are a product of the same system.

And if in Russia the majority of the population, over 80%, belonged to the peasant class, then it is clear that these same peasant children, having rebelled, then involuntarily began to revive the same system. That is, yes, the old state seems to be broken, although some of its blocks are being used. The ideology has changed, the rulers have changed, but as far as the system is concerned, the system remains. In one form or another, under new slogans, under a different sign, it is being revived.

And if we talk about Stalinism, then this is, in general, a revival of the previous system. Of course, with a certain kind of innovation and so on and so forth.

If we connect this with modernity, then, of course, the situation here is different. If we look at the structure of the population in terms of age parameters, this is already a new, qualitatively new phenomenon, and the outcome here may be completely different. But in any case, you need to keep in mind that when troubled times come, completely unknown factors begin to operate , chance begins to play a colossal role, and, in general, we enter a period of unpredictability. This is perhaps the most important thing. In any crisis era, of course, everything is decided at the grassroots level, everything is decided by a person’s ability to survive in extreme conditions.

Vladimir Tolts:

Now I would like to once again include Professor Reimann, who is in Berlin, in our conversation.

Michal Reiman:

When we talk about a systemic crisis, we must also say in relation to what such a systemic crisis is revealed, how it differs from another crisis, what is its content as a systemic crisis, why is this situation, what is happening in the 17th year, what is the crisis of the system, is it an internal crisis of this system or does it have some broader circumstances?

I think this discussion needs to go back to what I said at the beginning. This crisis is systemic, in my opinion, both today and then cannot be separated from the international circumstances of Russia’s development, from its entry into some system of states. Because if I go back to the year 1985 and to those moments that led to the crisis, to this modern crisis, then at the beginning there is the problem of lag, the problem of acceleration, the problem of adapting existing conditions to what is international, what characterizes the system of developed countries. And these problems play a very significant role - problems not only in clarifying the nature of the systemic crisis, but also in setting social goals. So, it seems to me that these moments, moments in the development of social crises, play a big role.

By the way, public mood - I think this is the problem of comparing Soviet reality with today's reality of developed countries, plays, of course, a huge role, even in what modern Russian society set at the beginning of the crisis as its goals.

Vladimir Tolts:

Concluding our conversation, I would like to talk about this: about the consequences of Russian crises for Russian society.

Usually, as if to the fore, in any crisis negative consequences jump out, they are obvious - we can talk about the crisis at the beginning of the century, we can talk about the latest crisis that is happening before our eyes. But I think that the bouquet itself, or perhaps the consequences, is more diverse, more colorful. And I would like each of the participants in our conversation to try to describe this diversity.

Yuri Afanasyev:

Well, it kind of hits the eye: on the one hand, impoverishment, poverty, misfortune, grief all around. It’s simple: here are the shops, here’s the salary or lack thereof - this is one side of the problem.

And at the same time, it would be a sin for us historians not to notice that along with this, some progress towards Russia’s inclusion in the rest of the modern civilized world is still happening. Now, let’s say, we criticize either the Duma or the executive power, but still we are beginning to have some kind of separation of powers, we have many parties, we have the opportunity to sit and talk like this in Moscow and talk about crises.

Well, besides this, again, sometimes we say: this is ugly private property, sometimes we say: parasitic private property and capital. But, nevertheless, in this sense, some shifts are taking place.

In my opinion, some result of the crisis, which begins, say, in the mid-80s, will be some greater degree, natural organic inclusion of Russia in the world community, meaning, of course, the Western European world community.

But what would also be important to say here is that there are still some depths to which in the course of all the transformations, which we are generally not happy with, we have not reached. So, I believe that the problems of private property or the private sector in general are of such depth.

Still, all the systemic crises in Russia rested, it seems to me, on this problem. True, we have many people in Russia, and not only in Russia, including among historians, who believe that this is our good, that we do not have private property and a private sector. But I’m talking about my own, I believe that the organic element of Russia’s normal entry into modernity will be precisely the resolution of the problem of private property and the formation of the private sector in Russia.

Alexander Akhiezer:

In principle, if the people raise troubles against the authorities, then for the most part they can only return to ancient, some archaic values. Much of what we have in the post-crisis situation is explained by this activation of the archaic mass, which at the first moment crushes everything it can, and then tries to return to some order, which, this new order, should somehow take into account the changes that have occurred. A classic such return was the Soviet system, which seemed to arose as a non-state system (it was, by the way, conceived by Lenin), but the system turned out to be non-functional, it immediately entered into a crisis, because to govern through the Soviets, these ancient archaic institutions that simply received a new name - we always like to call everything in a new way and thereby remove the problem of historical continuity...

Of course, after the next crisis, there may be a desire to move to new values, say, to create systems of some reforms, say, like market reform and so on. But crises - attempts to move to market reforms can cause a completely opposite trend.

I am afraid that what we are seeing now is precisely an attempt to turn back to some archaic values, which, in general, are psychologically justified by the fact that attempts at reform have not been successful, regardless of the reasons. This is another question - why? This attempt to return to the archaic today , to return to some extent to the Soviet system of natural economy on the scale of society, which has never happened in the history of mankind, there has been no attempt to build a natural economy on the scale of a giant industrial society - this is a completely unique phenomenon.

But this attempt, if it continues, will naturally give rise to a new crisis and new social catastrophes.

Michal Reiman:

In my opinion, there are significant changes in the current situation; they relate, in my eyes, to one very significant point: a change in the system of social values, a change in the nature of these social values ​​and how this manifests itself in the public life of modern Russia. This, in my opinion, is a positive guarantee for further development.

What scares me in Russian history of the 20th century is the catastrophic nature of the crises, the colossal sacrifices . They, however, are also characteristic of today, either human or material - these are colossal sacrifices.

It is very difficult, at least on a European scale, to find a comparison with such development processes.

And what also somewhat frightens me about modern development is its lack of organization in one sense, that this society still shows a relatively small ability to achieve consensual decisions, to achieve some kind of agreement. The process is very chaotic and with very frequent returns or with empty spaces where it is simply not clear why certain processes or where certain processes lead.

Vladimir Buldakov:

If we talk about the crises of the 20th century in Russia, then it should be noted that the first crisis and the subsequent ones, in general, carry within themselves such a curious component, what is called entry into world civilization .

Yes, indeed, despite all the archaism of what happened in 1717 and in subsequent years, it was an attempt to enter world civilization in its own way, in an original way, while at the same time changing this civilization. Well, we know how it ended - it ended in autarky.

As for the subsequent crisis, here everything was named quite definitely, and exactly the same phrase was used: “entry into world civilization.” But it must be said that since Russia is a zone of active cultural genesis, it is quite difficult for it to enter the world civilization, let’s call it that, which is more or less established and stable. That is, any attempt to enter may result in a very serious rollback.

Let's hope that in this case such a rollback will not happen; I think there is every reason to hope that this will be the case. If we talk about the internal consequences of the current turmoil, then I would highlight this point (Yuri Nikolaevich has already spoken about this, about private property ), but it seems to me that private property is part of a more general problem. It lies in the fact that, one way or another, we must create, develop, if you like, a new type of person , not in that communist propaganda sense, but a new type of person who no longer needs a guide, be it a landowner or be it a domestic state, but a person who relies on his own strength . He can work on his own, rely on his own strength, and so on and so forth. As Prince Kropotkin once said: “All our hope rests on people who feed themselves.”

If we manage to emerge from this crisis with a generation that knows how to do this, from beginning to end, it means that in the end we have won, despite all these trials. And personally, I hope so.