Abstract
On the basis of a study of Russian liberals’ retrospective accounts of the failure of perestroika, this chapter outlines some important tendencies in the evolution of the liberal ideological field in Russia between 1995 and 2005, when it experienced a severe crisis. Persistent disagreements regarding the lessons of perestroika illustrate the conflict between rival liberal currents, and also offer an indirect insight into their shared assumptions. The chapter argues that Russian liberalism evolved throughout this period in three important ways. First, economic liberalism moved to the core of the Russian liberal ideological field. Second, in the pursuit of political stability, Russian liberals embraced situational conservatism: a general celebration of evolution over revolution. Finally, while Russian liberals retained a commitment to the idea that the establishment of liberal order requires substantial moral prerequisites, they nevertheless generally eschewed moral restoration as a central objective in itself.
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Notes
- 1.
Mikhail Gershenzon, “Preface to the First Edition”, in Nikolai Berdiaev, Sergei Bulgakov, Mikhail Gershenzon, A.S. Izgoev, Bogdan Kostiakovskii, Petr Struve, Semen Frank, Vekhi. Landmarks (Armonk, London: M.E. Sharpe, 1994), p. xxxvii.
- 2.
Reinhart Koselleck, “Mutation de l’expérience et changement de méthode. Esquisse historico-anthropologique”, in L’expérience de l’histoire (Paris: Seuil, 1997), p. 239.
- 3.
This study is based on printed material—books, articles—published by authoritative intellectual figures from the liberal ideological field who have been active during perestroika and thus have a highly reflexive point of view on its outcome. Some of them are post-Soviet politicians (Yegor Gaidar, Grigory Yavlinsky), others are retired Soviet leaders (Mikhail Gorbachev, Aleksandr Yakovlev) and others still are former or active political advisers (Andranik Migranian, Vadim Medvedev, Vadim Mezhuev, Aleksandr Tsipko). This list of authors, of course, could have been extended almost indefinitely. We readily acknowledge that it does not—and cannot possibly—give a full account of all the nuances expressed by Russian liberals with regard to perestroika. The time frame of this study is delimited by two moments when perestroika was largely discussed: its tenth and twentieth anniversaries, in 1995 and 2005 respectively. As discussed below, this interval corresponds to liberalism’s first grave crisis in the era of post-Soviet Russia.
- 4.
Igor Timofeyev, “The Development of Russian Liberal Thought since 1985”, in Archie Brown (ed.) The Demise of Marxism-Leninism in Russia (Basingtoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), pp. 51–118; Marcia Weigle, Russia’s Liberal Project. State-Society Relations in the Transition from Communism (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999); Robert English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000).
- 5.
For a morphological definition of ideology, see Michael Freeden, Ideology. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 51.
- 6.
For an overview of these debates, see Duncan Bell, “What is Liberalism?”, Political Theory 42, no. 6, 2004, pp. 682–715.
- 7.
Jerzy Szacki, Liberalism after communism (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1995).
- 8.
David White, The Russian democratic party Yabloko: opposition in a managed democracy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006).
- 9.
Ol’ga Malinova, Liberalizm v politicheskom spektre Rossii (na primere partii “Demokraticheskii vybor Rossii” i obshchestvennogo ob”edineniia “Yabloko” (Moskva: Pamiatniki istoricheskoi mysli, 1998), p. 44.
- 10.
In some instances, this logic of distinction went as far as to reject liberalism—as it was commonly understood in Russia—while defending liberal ideas as such. This is notably the case for Aleksandr Tsipko, whose arguments will be discussed below.
- 11.
Timothy Colton and Michael McFaul, “The liberals”, in Popular choice and managed democracy: the Russian elections of 1999 and 2000 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), pp. 139–170; Vladimir Krotkov, Genezis i osobennosti liberal′noi ideologii v postsovetskoi Rossii (Moskva: Sputnik +, 2008).
- 12.
Viktor Sheynis, “Reforma i kontrreforma na rubezhe vekov”, Svobodnaia mysl’, 5 October 2005 (http://polit.ru/article/2005/10/05/sheinis/).
- 13.
Perestroika was launched in April 1985 and ended in with the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991.
- 14.
Steven Fish, “The Predicament of Russian Liberalism. Evidence from the December 1995 Parliamentary Elections”, Europe-Asia Studies 49, no. 2, 1997, pp. 191–220; Mikhail Khodorkovsky, “Krizis liberalizma v Rossii”, Vedomosti, 29 March 2004; Vladimir Ryzhkov, “The Liberal Debacle”, Journal of Democracy 15, no. 3, 2004, pp. 52–58.
- 15.
Yegor Gaidar, Gosudarstvo i evoliutsia (Moskva: Evrazia, 1995).
- 16.
Grigory Yavlinsky, Krizis v Rossii: konets sistemy? Nachalo puti? (Moskva: EPItsentr, 1999); Grigory Yavlinsky, Periferiinyi kapitalizm (Moskva: Integral-Inform, 2003); Grigory Yavlinsky, “Reformy 1990–kh i ekonomicheskaya sistema sovremennoy Rossii: genezis ‘periferiinogo kapitalizma’”, Ekonomicheskii zhurnal Vysshei shkoly ekonomiki 9, no. 1, 2005, pp. 82–86.
- 17.
Grigory Yavlinsky, “Eto bylo osoboe vremia”, in O rossiiskoi politike (Moskva: EPItsentr, 1999), pp. 38–47.
- 18.
Yurii Latov, “Knigi Yegora Gaidara i Evgeniia Iasina kak zerkalo rossiiskogo liberalizma”, Neprikosnovennyi zapas 5, no. 43, 2005, pp. 122–126.
- 19.
Yegor Gaidar, “Anomalii ekonomicheskogo rosta”, Voprosy ekonomiki 12, 1996, pp. 20–39.
- 20.
Yegor Gaidar, Gibel’ imperii (Moskva: Delo, 2006), p. 244. The same argument can be found in Yegor Gaidar, Dolgoe vremia. Rossiia v mire: ocherki ekonomicheskoi istorii. T. 2 (Moskva: Delo, 2005), pp. 336–360.
- 21.
Pekka Sutela, Economic Thought and Economic Reform in the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1991), pp. 130–167.
- 22.
Joachim Zweynert, “Economic Ideas and Institutional Change: Evidence from Soviet Economic Discourse, 1987–1991”, Europe-Asia Studies 58, no. 2, 2006, pp. 169–192; Joachim Zweynert, “Conflicting Patterns of Thought in the Russian Debate on Transition: 2003–2007”, Europe-Asia Studies 62, no. 1, 2010, pp. 547–569.
- 23.
Mikhail Gorbachev, “Mesto perestroiki v istorii”, in Poniat′ perestroiku: pochemu eto vazhno seichas, (Moskva: Al’pina Biznes, 2006), pp. 365–376.
- 24.
For the sake of brevity, we will focus here on the political lessons regarding democratization, thus setting aside the issue of nationalities. On this topic, see Gail Lapidus, Victor Zaslavsky and Philip Goldman (eds.), From union to commonwealth: Nationalism and separatism in the Soviet republics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Mark Beissinger, Nationalist mobilization and the collapse of the Soviet State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
- 25.
See for example Andranik Migranian, “Dolgii put′ k evropeiskomu domu”, Novyi mir 7, 1989, pp. 166–184; Andranik Migranian, Igor’ Kliamkin, and Georgi Tselms, “Nuzhna li zheleznaia ruka”, Literaturnaia gazeta 39, 16 August 1989, p. 10; Andranik Migranian, “Avtoritarnyi rezhim v rossii: kakovy perspektivy?”, Nezavisimaia gazeta 211, 4 November 1993, p. 1.
- 26.
These elections were semi-democratic because a third of the deputies were not directly elected by the population but selected on a corporative basis by established social organizations including the Communist party and the Komsomol.
- 27.
Andranik Migranian, “Perestroika kak popytka transformatsii totalitarnoy imperii”, in Aleksandr Yakovlev, El’giz Pozdnyakov, and Andranik Migranian, Perestroika: zamysly i rezul’taty (Rostov-na-Donu: Rostovskii universitet, 1995), pp. 113–172.
- 28.
For a critical comparative analysis of this argument often put forward by authoritarian regimes, see Thomas Carothers, “The ‘Sequencing’ Fallacy”, Journal of Democracy 18, no. 1, 2007, pp. 12–27.
- 29.
Viktor Kuvaldin, “Tri razvilki gorbachevskoi perestroiki”, in Viktor Kuvaldin (ed.), Perestroika: Proryv k svobode (Moskva: Al’pina biznes buk, 2005), pp. 88–110.
- 30.
Mikhail Gorbachev in Valentin Tol’tsykh (ed.), Perestroika. Desiat’ let spustia (Moskva: Aprel’, 1995), p. 77.
- 31.
Ibid., p. 16.
- 32.
Aleksandr Yakovlev, “Perestroika i perspektivy demokratii v Rossii”, in Yakovlev, Pozdniakov, Migranian, Perestroika: zamysly i rezul’taty, pp. 13–51; Vadim Medvedev, “U perestroiki byl svoi shans”. in Kuvaldin (ed.), Perestroika: Proryv k svobode, pp. 8–24.
- 33.
See for example Gorbachev’s discourse on the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution, on November 2, 1987: Mikhail Gorbachev, “Oktiabr′ i perestroika: revoliutsiia prodolzhaetsia” in Izbrannye rechi i stat′i. T.5 (Moskva: Politizdat, 1988), pp. 386–436.
- 34.
As illustrated by the title of Gaidar’s above-mentioned book, State and Evolution that ironically recalls the 1917 Lenin’s work State and Revolution.
- 35.
Viacheslav Igrunov, former campaign organizer of Yabloko, quoted in Timothy Colton and Michael McFaul, “The liberals”, p.150. This argument was also put forward by economists close to Gaidar: Vladimir Mau, “Perestroika skvoz′ prizmu dvukh desiatiletii”, Rossiia v global′noi politike 2, 2005 (http://www.globalaffairs.ru/number/n_4823); Evgenii Yasin, Prizhivetsia li demokratiia v Rossii (Moskva: Novoe izdatel’stvo, 2005), pp. 77–102.
- 36.
On this situational conservative turn, see Sergei Prozorov, “Russian conservatism in the Putin Presidency: The dispersion of a hegemonic discourse”, Journal of Political Ideologies 10, no. 2, 2005, pp. 121–143. This situational conservative turn should not be confused with the substantive conservative turn that took place a few years later in Russia, in favor of the restoration of traditional values.
- 37.
The liberal party Union of Right Forces supported Putin’s candidacy during the 2000 presidential elections. On Putin’s liberal conservative project, see Richard Sakwa, Putin: Russia’s choice (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 37–69.
- 38.
This argument underlies the numerous studies on the relative diffusion of liberal values in Russia. See for example Igor’ Kliamkin and Boris Kapustin, “Liberal′nye tsennosti v soznanii rossiian”, Polis 1, 1994, pp. 58–64.
- 39.
Guillaume Sauvé, “The Apogee of Soviet Political Romanticism: Projects for Moral Renewal in Early Perestroika (1985–1989)”, Europe-Asia Studies, 70, no. 9, 2018, pp. 1407–1432.
- 40.
The word derives from the Marxist notion of Lumpenproletariat—outcast and degenerated elements of the working class who lack any social consciousness. The word lumpen is widely used in Russian liberal discourse to stigmatize popular attitudes that show attachment to the egalitarian and collectivist principles proclaimed by the Soviet regime. On the use of this concept in post-Soviet Russia, see Alexis Berelowitch and Michel Wieviorka, Les Russes d’en bas (Paris: Seuil, 1996), pp. 77–78.
- 41.
Yakovlev , “Perestroika i perspektivy demokratii v Rossii”.
- 42.
Aleksandr Iakovlev, Sumerki (Moskva: Materik, 2005), pp. 567–597.
- 43.
For a collection of articles on this topic, see Yuri Levada, Sochineniia: problema cheloveka (Moskva: Karpov E.V., 2011).
- 44.
These intellectuals would rather call themselves “democrats” than “liberals”, for the reasons mentioned before.
- 45.
Aleksandr Tsipko, “Ne vozvodite khulu na perestroiku!”, in Kuvaldin, “Perestroika: Proryv k svobode”, pp. 334–343; Vadim Mezhuev in Tolstykh, “Perestroika. Desiat’ let spustia”, pp. 112–117; Vadim Mezhuev, “Perestroika, kak ona viditsia segodnia”, in Kuvaldin, “Perestroika: Proryv k svobode”, pp. 309–316.
- 46.
Aleksandr Tsipko, “Razmyshleniia o prirode i prichinakh krakha postsovetskogo liberalizma”, Vestnik analitiki 3, 2004, pp. 4–24; Vadim Mezhuev, “Pravda i lozh′ russkogo zapadnichestva”, in Mezhdu proshlym i budushchim. Izbrannaia sotsial′no-filosofskaia publitsistika (Moskva: IFRAN, 1996), pp. 47–59.
- 47.
Mezhuev and Tsipko, however, diverged considerably in their appreciation of socialism. Mezhuev, like Gorbachev, considered that liberalization should build upon the egalitarian ideals associated with socialism and commonly shared by the population. Tsipko, in contrast, dismissed socialist ideals as foreign notions that had contributed to the violent uprooting of pre-revolutionary Russian liberalism. Moreover, he considered contemporary Russian liberals to have drawn their revolutionary radicalism from their Marxist upbringing. Similarly, the political scientist Alexander Lukin identified Marxism-Leninism as the main source of the political culture of liberal activists during perestroika: Alexander Lukin, The Political Culture of Russian “Democrats” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
- 48.
This development has also been observed in Poland. See Jerzy Szacki, Liberalism after communism (Budapest-London: Central European University Press, 1995).
- 49.
For this observation concerning pre-Soviet liberals, see George Fischer, Russian liberalism: from gentry to intelligentsia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958).
- 50.
See for example Aleksei Kara-Murza, “O sud’be liberalizma v Rossii” in Istoriia uchit. Pis′ma o grazhdanskom prosveshchenii i obrazovanii (Moskva: Moskovskaia shkola politicheskikh issledovanii, 2013), pp. 102–113. For an analysis very favorable to this tendency, see Elena Chebankova, “Contemporary Russian liberalism”, Post-Soviet Affairs 30, no. 5, 2014, pp. 341–369.
- 51.
On the stigmatization of liberalism in the ideological struggles after 2005, see Sergei Fediunin “Liberaly 2.0: Osazhdennoe men′shinstvo” in Galina Nikiporets-Takigava and Èmil′ Pain (eds.), Internet i ideologicheskie dvizheniia v Rossii (Moskva: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2016), pp. 98–132; Ol′ga Malinova, “Konstruirovanie ‘liberalizma’ v postsovetskoi Rossii. Nasledie 1990–kh v ideologicheskikh bitvakh 2000–x”, Politiia 1, no. 84, 2017, pp. 6–28.
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Sauvé, G. (2019). The Lessons from Perestroika and the Evolution of Russian Liberalism (1995–2005). In: Cucciolla, R.M. (eds) Dimensions and Challenges of Russian Liberalism. Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05784-8_10
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