The Third Colloquium
The Russian Academy of Sciences Institute for World Economy and International
Relations, Moscow, Russia
Friday, December 3, 1999
Russia and the World
3. How do Russians define themselves in terms of the international community? How should Western countries and the international community define them?
4. How valid or useful are any of the following terms for describing the cultural-historical place of Russia in the broader context of world civilization: "a land of European culture," "a European state," "a third world country with nuclear weapons," "a unique country, whose recent experience contains 'some important lessons' for mankind"?
Baranovsky: Even though we didn't exhaust the possibilities of the first two questions, half of our time is gone, so we should go on to the next set, which concern Russia and the world. But first I would like to welcome the American Ambassador, James Collins. We are getting to a more provocative topic this afternoon, how the theme of our identity gets played out against the context of relations with other countries and in international associations, and how Russia is perceived and how it perceives other nations.
Kara-Murza: We've talked about internal identity, self-identity (samoidentichnost') and ways in which Russia has not completely worked this out. Now we are talking about external identity (vneshniaia identichnost'), Russia on the outside (Rossiia vovne), how the country positions itself in the international sphere. The conflicting, mutually exclusive conceptions of how to describe the present situation belong to three basic groups.
(1) The first idea is that Russia is Europe, that it is genetically descended from Christian civilization, albeit in its Eastern variant, so it's Eastern Europe. Variants of this idea see Russia as a Europe that is underdeveloped (nedorazvitaia), sick (bol'naia), failed (neudavshaiasia), or just-born-but-already-corrupted (tol'ko nachavshaiasia rozhdat'sia no uzhe isporchennaia). There is also the belief that Russia is the best Europe (luchshaia Evropa), to use an expression coined by Georgii Fedotov ..., the idea that Russia is Europe is the one that I agree with.
(2) The second idea is that Russia is Eurasia, and in this sense, a Eurasia in opposition to Europe. Lev Gumilev believed that in a certain sense the Russian and Turkic peoples complemented each other, that the Russians were simultaneously Slavic and Turkic. From this you get neo-Eurasians, the interest in Chingiz Khan as part of the Russian genetic constitution (genotip), the opposition of Eurasia and Europe. In this conception, Christianity doesn't play much of a role. . . .
(3) The third idea is one that comes from the early Slavophiles and can be traced from there to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Russia is neither West nor East, Russia is the North, the idea of the northernness (severianstvo) of Russia. Russia is not Europe, but it also has no relationship of any kind to Asia. Russia is the North, it is Orthodox, directly in opposition to Europeanness with its Latin confession, and to Islam.
These are three powerful conceptions, existing in opposition to each other, with little in common. While there are moments in history when they were brought together by (za schet) the imperial idea, they could only be united through force (nasil'stvennym sposobom). . . . How could you harmonize these identities in a non-coercive way? I completely agree with Professor Aksiuchits that this country is Christian at its base (po genotipu), but in the 20th century there are massive problems of a culturological nature. Judging by the classic theoretical works, civilizations are formed on the basis of one religion (tsivilizatsii konstatiruiutsia bazovoi religiei), which some call the sacred vertical (sakral'nyi vertikal).
. . . Russia is a country with a dual identity (dual'naia identichnost') in its culture, civilization, and geopolitics. In the sense of culture and civilization it is undeniably European. It is the Eastern Orthodox variant, standing in contrast, even in opposition, to Catholic Western Europe, but this is still all within the European context.
Geopolitically, we are Eurasia. This gets confused all the time. The intelligentsia likes to say that we are completely European, and whatever they can't fit into that picture is deemed unnecessary. This is a dangerous delusion (zabluzhdenie) of the intelligentsia consciousness. The contradiction between cultural and geopolitical identities matches to a large extent the difference between the intelligentsia and the regime. . . . They want to be civilized, like Europe. I wouldn't say we have a geopolitical mission, but we find ourselves on a geopolitical landscape. Russia has a mission to hold onto that expanse and protect it from chaos. But to expand this geopolitical idea to the cultural realm is wrong. Not only did the intelligentsia try to substitute their own idea of culture for conceptions of power, but the geopolitical imperatives, the holding on to power and land, often expanded to the idea of culture, suppressing it. That's why the Western-oriented intelligentsia so often was cut down (vyrezalas') during the cruel totalitarian years, both in the tsarist and Soviet eras. The search for harmony between the European cultural and Eurasian geopolitical identities is one of the most complex tasks that faces a Russia in search of unity. An analysis, a diagnosis, is the first step. . . .
Baranovsky: Does anyone else have thoughts on the idea of a dual identity?
Kuvaldin: . . . .I think that Russia is Europe, although far from the heart of Europe. . . . The West lost its historical chance in connection with Gorbachev's economic policy. . . . I remember how I felt on January 7, 1992, just a week after the end of the Soviet Union. As part of Gorbachev's political team I was at a dinner with the then-advisor to the ambassador, now Ambassador Collins. It was both a friendly (teplaia) and a sad meeting, because I had a feeling that a chance had slipped away. . . . This historical chance to bring Russia more firmly (prochno) into the family of European nations and civilization, not only spiritually but also politically and geopolitically, was allowed to slip away. Why this happened is more for our American colleagues to answer, whether this had to do with some aspects of the 20th century legacy, or whether it was due to excessive pragmatism on the part of American politicians reluctant to embark on another Marshall-type plan. It is now a question for history.
. . . The more important question is: did this train leave forever (ushel li etot poezd navsegda) in the sense of attitudes of Russia and the West towards each other? I don't think so. I've done a lot of work on a practical level outside Moscow, for instance, in connection with the election campaign, and I've had a lot of contact with people as we conducted opinion polls. Despite all the stages of humiliation (unizhenie) that Russian society went through, I don't see extreme national feeling. Of course there were moments of strong emotion, for instance about Yugoslavia, the war in Chechnya, and the apartment building bombs. Anti-Semitism has been reduced to almost nothing (do nulia), about 1%. The feelings against people from the Caucasus are minimal, only 7%. When people were asked whom they blamed for Russia's troubles, 50% blamed Yeltsin, 25% Gorbachev, with smaller percentages for Russians themselves-only 7% blamed the West. So I don't think that the train has left the station yet, and the door has not yet closed (dver' eshche ne zakryta).21
If you ask people, you will find that democracy has taken deeper root in Russia than it might appear. In contrast to ten years ago, the only legitimate power is one that is voted into office (legitimna tol'ko vybornaia vlast'). I think it's an incredibly important development when people say that they will recognize no power that they haven't chosen themselves. . . . I'm not ready to agree with the anxieties expressed by Aksiuchits about a possible return to totalitarianism and the accompanying oppression. I think that there are too many forces working against that happening.
What's most important is the relationship with world markets and the market economy. Everyone knows that our market is essentially a synonym for robbing the country (razgrablenie strany). A very small group of people closely connected with the powers that be robbed one of the richest countries in the world in the blink of an eye (v dva scheta). But no one talks about the possibility of a return to a command economy. People talk about the regulation of the economy, and that seems like a very sensible strategy. Despite the basic layer of European principles that have taken hold, the country hasn't been substantially dislodged (strana ne sdvinuta) from its old structures. . . . Nevertheless, Russia is more European in its basic characteristics-its mentality, its economic and political circumstances-than it was ten or fifteen years ago.
What could cut off this process? Right now, the greatest danger comes from politics, especially international politics. If Russia doesn't find a way to integrate with the rest of the European land mass, there is the chance of a sharp reversal. . . . It seems to me that the people making foreign policy in the West are not looking ahead to the 21st century, even though they've had ten years to get used to the fact that we are living in a new world, and that globalization is advancing. . . . What's going on isn't an attempt to isolate Russia so much as not taking the changes in Russia into consideration when looking at the world. I think that Russia is a part of Europe and that there are enough healthy forces around to make sure that Russia remains a part of Europe. The final paradox is that Russia is a country that has moved towards the East, but with its head always turned back the other way [towards the West]. And that's pretty important.
Baranovsky: How do the rest of you feel about what's been said? Despite all the reservations, I think that the last two statements were generally optimistic.
Chubais: In determining whether Russia is Europe or Asia, a lot depends on the methodology used. If we say that the basis (osnova) of Russian (rossiiskii) identity is ethnically Russian (russkii), then we will get one type of answer. If we see religion as the foundation, then we will arrive at a different solution. As we look at geopolitical space, we'll get a third variant. So the methodology, and what we choose as our fundamental element, are all-important. . . . This identity question is something that will be decided by society and not by the political elite, which will make a mistake if it doesn't listen to what society wants. On the question of determining Russia's place in the world-as European, Asian, or Eurasian, or some other variant-the Europe/Asia dilemma is too narrowly stated and doesn't work (ne srabatyvaet)-the result is always a state of vague disagreement. The question is broader than that and needs to be looked at less theoretically and more practically. Russia can and must feel at home (svoi) in Europe, and can come to an understanding of its position in Asia-that is what our forefathers did as they moved on from here to Alaska.
Professor Kuvaldin has said that democracy is taking root (ukoreniaetsia) here, and that our society will only accept as legitimate a power structure that is elected. I think that things are a bit more complicated and that the current situation has caused most political terms to be discredited. When we hear "socialism," we don't think of Willy Brandt, but of Stalin. Democracy has also been discredited, and if this continues, there will be a rejection of the electoral process, because at present it is a form of socio-political sublimation or distraction from problems, rather than a way of solving them. As long as people think they are deciding something when they drop their ballot in the box, they won't head for the barricades. If it becomes clear that nothing will ever come of this, then there will be some kind of reaction on their part, beginning with a reduction in participation, and then a rejection of the electoral process.
. . . Russia's chief objective (kliuchevaia tsel') is . . .political friendship with all its neighbors, which will help the reform process in those countries as well. I think that it is possible to come to an agreement with NATO and with China, to be clever enough to get along with everybody and not get involved in any quarrels. . . . At the end of the 20th century, what you have is not so much the case of one nation threatening another, but of a conflict taking place within a given country: the Basques in Spain, [Northern] Ireland in Great Britain, Chechnya in Russia-these factors alter our conceptions of internal consolidation, and we can't ignore them.
Chugrov: I happen to disagree with Igor Chubais about elections. In a country like Russia, we have no other way to quiet internal contradictions, to put out these fires, other than through honest, democratic elections. To turn from elections to some more aggressive way of solving problems would be a great mistake.
Chubais: But that isn't what I said.
Chugrov: You expressed doubt in the value of elections.
Chubais: . . . .I was talking about the kind of elections we have now. The amount of money that is being spent just discredits the whole process. . . .
Chugrov: We have to find a balance. In the Russian mentality there is a sense of inner conflict and contradiction. I fully agree with those who call Russia a torn country (razorvannaia strana). If we choose to talk about identity as a subjective and dynamic category, then we have to ask people how they feel and how they want to feel in the future, what kind of life they want for Russia. More than 90% say they want it to be like it is in the West. Russians don't want to live in a place like Iran or Pakistan, or-despite our better relations with these countries-like people in China or India.
. . . Russia is Europe in its self-consciousness, but with its own original profile. But this can give rise to serious conflict. The West, seeing itself as a model for Russia, relates to it like a sister, not as if it is a foreign element . . . but like a person acts towards a relative. And we know that you make more demands of a relative than of a stranger to whom you can smile politely-that is the basis of the criticism that the West makes of Russia. A culturally closer Russia irritates the West more than a distant China or India, and Russia ought to understand this. For decades, the West feared a nuclear attack, and this left its psychological traces. When this danger passed and the situation changed completely, first there were benevolent feelings and then disillusionment, more or less as we felt towards them. . . . The West's fear of Russia is a legacy of the Communist past.
How should Russia act? I don't think that Russia should choose an orientation either towards the West or towards the East. We should act in an ad hoc way in each situation, according to our national interests and the internal problems we are trying to solve. We should have close, friendly relations with the United States, but not try to please (ponravit'sia) or charm the West. If Russia acts according to this principle, I think that in a couple of decades it will once again be a great power (velikaia derzhava), and it won't have been achieved artificially, but in a natural way.
Aksiuchits:. . . .I still don't hear any convincing argument to counter the idea that the most universal factor is Russian Orthodox civilization, which covers (pokryvaet) all the other elements that have been mentioned: Europe, Eurasia, the North, the sacred vertical, and a dual European cultural and Eurasian geopolitical identity. Russia's spiritually collective nature has allowed it to integrate all these conflicting elements in its grand, multinational cosmos-all these different parts coexist in what remains an organic whole (tseloe).
We're discussing what was one-sixth of the earth's surface, and we need to use our terms a little differently. We shouldn't try so hard to determine whether Russia is Europe or Asia, because in essence, this weakens national distinctiveness (samobytnost'). It's as if the space occupied by Russian Orthodox civilization is transformed into a black hole (chernaia dyra). The world will be better off not trying to integrate or assimilate Russia. A revived Russia, with its own identity, can offer an alternative paradigm to the technological civilization that is spreading around the world but which is reaching a dead end of its own creation. . . .
When I talk about national identity, I don't have anything anti-, like anti-Semitism, in mind. There is proof that Russian identity is reviving (prosypaetsia) in healthy, non-chauvinistic ways, and thank God for that.
Billington: What do you think about the question that you just touched on briefly: is Russia a unique civilization whose recent historical experience can teach mankind an important lesson? What do you think of this as a characteristic of Russia? This is often said in literature, or at least there are suggestions (nameki) to that effect. As a historian, I'm very interested in this because it seems to me that Russia's experiences (perezhivaniia) in this century were unique (unikal'nye) in the history of mankind. Maybe there is some special lesson that should become part of Russian identity.
Chubais: I can mention two lessons. The 20th century has shown the tragic and dramatic dead-end of regimes built on lies and coercion. For a positive lesson we have to go deeper than that historically. If the West and Europe used law as the great regulating force and built law-based states, for Russia the governing force was morality. A united European civilization of the kind we might have in the future should combine both these concepts, recognizing the value of law and the value of morality.
Baranovsky: It's too bad that Panarin was unable to take part in our discussion because he has written on this subject, but I will say a few words about his point of view. Western civilization is in a state of crisis because of economic inequality, overdeveloped individualism, and environmental stresses, among other factors. Russia's problem is in being insufficiently developed, according to the standards of the West. This is, of course, a simplification, but it is a view that we have discussed at this institute. Russia may be able to avoid some aspects of the crisis to the extent that it is not westernized. As the world enters into a post-economic, post-industrial, post-modernist phase, Russia might be in a favorable position not only to avoid problems, but to offer some positive example.
I remember the discussion about national identity that took place three years ago at various levels, including in the [Russian] Security Council. The image of a caravan was used: we are in the position of the camel at the very end of the procession, going slower than the others and carrying a heavier burden. But if you just turn the caravan around, we could wind up being the first to get out of this crisis. There is a positive service that Russia can offer the world in the sense of moral considerations in our relations with other countries. . . . The U.S. today is acting like a world policeman, trying to bring order wherever necessary. We can in turn function as a defender of justice and objectivity, with Russia acting as a champion of moral truth (pravdoliubets), a role that I think is natural (organichen) for the Russian national character, not something we are inventing on the spot. That was what we tried to do in the case of Kosovo, which led to a greater solidarity on the part of the Russian population with those who are subject to immense force, and this was more important than any solidarity with fellow Orthodox Slavs. . . . Yeltsin spoke during an early phase of the conflict and said that we act from a position of greater morality. Even though he said it in a somewhat sarcastic tone, and it is not completely true . . . it expresses something significant about our national character in international relations.
Chubais: But those words came from the wrong lips (ne s tekh ust prozvuchalo).
Kara-Murza: There aren't any others.
Baranovsky: It reflected the mood of a large segment of the population. We identify with and feel sympathy for the weaker party when there is a great disparity in the strength of the two sides. Many critics in the West said that the war against Yugoslavia was not legitimately based on international law, but was fought on moral imperatives, due to feelings of solidarity with the Albanian people as victims of violence from the Milosevic regime. So there was a kind of parallelism between our position and that of the West, and we were both acting from moral imperatives, although our objectives were different.
Amb. Collins: How do you reconcile this side of the Russian national character with attitudes towards Chechnya?
Baranovsky: I will defer to my colleague Sergei Chugrov, who spoke about this during the first part of our discussion, when he analyzed some of the fundamental aspects of our national identity, which include contradictory behavior, a failure to carry through, constant searching, and dashing from one side to the other (protivorechivost', neposledovatel'nost', poisk, i sharakhanie iz storony v storonu), which leads us to take what seem to be antithetical positions. I may be exaggerating, but I can say that what happened in Kosovo has a lot to do with what is now happening in Chechnya. Without one, there wouldn't have been the other, there wouldn't have been a second Chechnya.
Chugrov: The first war in Chechnya was seen as unjust in Russia, while this one is seen as basically just, and that's where the support comes from, that's the main criterion, not any legalities.
Kuvaldin: I'd like to return to something James Billington said earlier, when he asked for our reactions to Chaadaev's formula that Russia can serve as an example for other nations of what not to do.
Chubais: At the time Chaadaev said this, no one agreed with him.
Billington: That Russia is a lesson to others may be true without the second part of Chaadaev's formula automatically following [that Russia is an example of what not to do].
Kuvaldin: One lesson falls within the framework of European civilization. Chaadaev saw Russia operating on the very fringes of Europe, but while his criticism was justified at the time, this is no longer the case. If we remain within the framework of European civilization, if this is our fundamental conception of Russia . . . then the development model we followed until the end of the 20th century turned out to be one that we haven't been able to activate here. . . . But that doesn't mean that we should cast this model aside completely. . . .
Billington: But where exactly is the lesson in all of this?
Kuvaldin: The lesson is that Russia's experience can be judged within the framework of European civilization, so that if you apply a model not based on European or American experience, then you will run up against historical barriers.
Baranovsky: Then we shouldn't be looking for different models?
Kuvaldin: Right, even though there is no guarantee we will be able to make this one work any time soon. The second lesson is that the West and the United States are to some extent giving up on Russia, because they misjudged the scope of the situation here and now feel obliged to sharply change their positions. The process of transformation and modernization in Russia turned out to be much more complex, difficult, and slower than we had anticipated in tsarist times or at the beginning of perestroika. A lot depends on the extent to which the U.S. objectively fulfills its leadership role during the next couple of years, even though there is a desire on the part of some for greater isolationism.
The third point is that I am not as optimistically oriented as Vladimir Georgievich Baranovsky. I spoke at the very beginning about the burden of Russian-Eurasian space, in the sense of the social-political development of the country, and its ability to live normally. . . . This is a much more fragmented country than 10-15 years ago. It's harder for people to move from region to region, for one region to work with another, because transportation and communication are harder. This brings back the historical problems connected with the idea of expansion that we couldn't solve in the past, not due to a fanatical (izuverskii) imperial impulse. I have been talking about the charm of expansion, and that explains a lot, including the kind of problem we inherited in Chechnya. All of this is a brake on development.
Kara-Murza: Both pre-revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union have offered negative lessons to the world-what not to do. After the Revolution of 1917, German intellectuals gathered together and asked each other what must be done so that the same thing doesn't happen to Germany. And Germany suffered from totalitarianism for twelve years, as opposed to more than seventy years for Russia. Russia gives these kinds of lessons.
There is a second lesson that follows from something Chaadaev wrote, not in the "Letter" but in a work that followed, "The Apology of a Madman." The fact that we are behind means that we can do it better than Europe. Herzen in his later years said something like this as well, seeing in Europe a new barbarism. My friend Aleksandr Sergeevich Panarin, who couldn't be here today, offers an exaggerated version of this: a Russian peasant sits on a log, smoking a cigarette and playing his accordion (garmoshka). A technology-centered society doesn't need him, but when we reach a post-industrial, culture-centered society, then this singer may prove useful. I don't agree with this at all. History shows that you can fall a little behind, and if you're cleverer than the ones who have gotten ahead of you, and you look around to see what they're doing, you can make up the difference. Intelligence is cumulative. It comes from a mind in motion, not standing still (um narabatyvaetsia v protsesse nekotorogo dvizheniia).
One of the heroes of my new book is a right socialist émigré named Ivanovich, who doesn't fall into the common émigré trap of thinking that the worse things get in the Soviet Union, the better for Russia. He wrote in 1932 that the more Soviet society rots, the harder it will be for Russia to make a normal democratic post-Communist transformation. Why is this the case? From nothing you get nothing, while strength accumulates (iz nichego, nichego ne byvaet, sily nakaplivaiutsia). For the majority, prison is a positive lesson. Lev Gumilev came up with his theories of the etnos while lying on his bunk in the camps and people above him were playing cards. He said that winding up in the Gulag was a bit of luck because it gave him lots of free time. We see this in Solzhenitsyn as well. But mostly the whole country left the Gulag in a broken condition (pokalechennye). In a letter from the Gorbachev period, Joseph Brodsky wrote that Russians ought to be strong and united because of their training in the Gulag, while in the West no one has pressed hard on people so their muscles won't work as well. We ought to have come out of this experience purer and stronger . . . but that isn't the way it worked out. Mostly people came out crippled.
Billington: Could we finish this section by briefly talking about what you see happening in the next twenty years, your predictions-without any moral judgments-of what differences there will be between Russia as it is now and Russia twenty years from now, Russia's place in the world, and where all these lessons will lead Russia. It isn't on the list of questions, but I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on the subject. I know they will only be guesses, but they will be very intelligent guesses.
. . . Chubais: . . . I see the following possibilities: Russia as a new Soviet Union, Russia having cast off its past and copied the West, or Russian connecting with its past and reviving its historical identity. If Russia follows a course of intensive, high-quality development and not expansion, it will become very attractive to all its neighbors. Then the kind of integration we see today in Western Europe will without fail happen here as well. . . .
Aksiuchits: I think that in twenty years the Russian state will have come to a closer arrangement with some of the former Soviet territories-in the form of a federation or a confederation-with Belarus', with all of Kazakhstan or at least the northern, Russian part; with Ukraine except for the western parts that [between the mid-13th and mid-17th centuries] fell under the influence of another civilization. The government structure will be either a strong presidential republic, or perhaps one of the presidents will turn the country into a constitutional monarchy. In a cultural sense, a talented new generation that is now growing up in freedom will do more than we were able to do to reconnect with the past.
Kuvaldin: The state will begin to fall apart but this will end with the rebirth of some fundamental part of the former USSR. The transformation of the country will happen slowly, and with difficulty, at the same time that a market economy is taking root.
Chugrov: I see a powerful state in twenty years, but our contradictions won't be disappearing. We will still suffer from our duality and inner conflicts. Russia will come closer to the West and its values, but will never become an organic part of the West. I see a federative structure with the Slavic countries, but the Muslim world will never rejoin Russia, although there will of course be economic ties. I do not doubt in the least that Russia will regain its health (budet vyzdoravlivat').
Kara-Murza: Just last month I had a book come out on this very question.
Chubais: How many books have you written?
Kara-Murza: I wrote this one with Gelman, Dragunsky, and Kabakov. We looked at all the possible variants of what Russia might be like in 2015. Some things will be decided in twenty years, some over the next six months. You see this is the first time that a leader is due to leave office peacefully, and alive. [Someone asks: "But is he really going to leave office?"] And the fight over what policies there will be under the next president is another problem we're facing for the first time. In the next century there will be greater social stratification, as people will be earning a lot more privately than the could in government service, and the economy will diversify. And there will be a differentiation according to degrees of national feeling. The playwright Gelman has come up with a future vision based on the fairy tale about lost time (skazka o poteriannom vremeni), where the characters try to keep a new period of stagnation from falling apart, patching up things as best they can.
Then there is the question of a Russian renaissance, which amounts to a civilized good neighborliness, but there is an aggressive nationalist variant of this. The democratic mechanism will continue to evolve and become ordinary. . . . We are trying out a mass of different strategies (proiti massu melkikh razvilok), and we don't need utopias and radiant futures-they're very dangerous things. It's like a pupil who wants to read the solution at the end of the book right away and find out who was the murderer. We need to read precisely, seriously, thoughtfully (akkuratno, vdumchivo, gramotno), and every day make decisions on routine problems and make small choices (melkie vybory)-a variety of these small decisions will lead us along a positive developmental path. The theme of choice (tema vybora) is key here. We don't want to narrow our choices, but choose our own future. In twenty years, a new generation will make these choices.
. . . Chubais: . . . .I remember what the writer Kornei Chukovsky said, that you have to live in Russia a long time to get to see something change (v Rossii nado zhit' dolgo-dolgo, togda do vsego dozhivesh'). Russia has fantastic possibilities, but up till now they have not been realized. And these possibilities remain gigantic. The most important thing is the choice of correct strategies, not ones that will lead us into dead ends.
Baranovsky: We're trying to figure out what will Russia's place in the world be in twenty years. The economic position will not be an enviable one, and we will have to work hard not to slip further back than we are now. Even if we pick such a wonderful strategy that we could all agree on it, we will need very favorable conditions over this period of twenty years for this all to work out. We've only just begun to strengthen our economic position in the world.
Chubais: In twenty years we will have spirit, morality, values-who needs money (Chto tam den'gi)?
Baranovsky: . . . A lot depends on how the world system changes, and where Russia will fit into any new international structures, where China will fit, and what role the Muslim world will play. . . .
Chugrov: Even if our GNP grows at the rate of 8% a year, we're not going to be an economic world leader, but in fifteen years, the annual personal income may rise to the level of a country like Spain or Portugal. Spirit is of interest only to Russians. There are scenarios of a more nightmarish quality, and ones that look more desirable, but there will probably be a lot of what has been called muddling through.
Aksiuchits: Twenty years ago very few Sovietologists and Soviet political analysts understood the degree to which the Soviet Union had rotted from within. Then it all collapsed. The level of economic development everywhere, but especially in Russia, depends to a large extent on the revival of national spirit.
Amb. Collins: Before I leave, I have two questions about the future. One has to do with competitiveness in this world system. I agree that a lot will be determined by what happens outside Russia, but Russia's place in this system will also depend on choices made within this country. My other question concerns the level of power in this federal structure, and how the distribution of power will be decided. When I visit various regions, I see how they are making a go of it, and of course a lot is happening in Moscow. Who will be making the choices about Russia's future economic development-that's a crucial question. Thank you for a very interesting discussion.
There is a short break, and when the colloquium resumes Vladimir Baranovsky asks John Brown for his reactions to what has been said. Brown offers some observations from his first year as Cultural Attaché in Moscow.
How do Americans look at Russia today? It is not as much on the radar screen as it was during the days of the Evil Empire. Russia is increasingly seen as a normal country, and this creates the problem of keeping Americans interested. . . . Dr. Billington is one of the people who has done the most to keep American attention focused on Russia. . . . The one thing I do feel quite strongly about is that the old concept of two superpowers is completely gone. Trying to see the US-Russian relationship in terms of the old Soviet-American relationship just doesn't work any more. To find the right new framework for comparing these two countries is a great and challenging intellectual problem.
. . . My sense is that the Soviet system for seventy years created the kind of environment where people were told who they were and therefore did not struggle as much as Russians do today with the problem of identity. You were a Soviet person-you may not have liked it, but you were told what you were and many people accepted it. And now, I think, with the collapse of the Soviet system, Russians are facing what is the ultimate problem of modernity, their identity. . . . In the United States, there is the notion that identity is defined by change more than by tradition, and I think that is the key distinction. When we try to find out who we are, we look to the future, while from the discussion here I see the search for a post-Soviet identity looking more to the past. . . .
Baranovsky: Aksiuchits has raised the question several times: who is the agent of identity as it changes?
Chubais: Everyone.
Aksiuchits: There is the identity of the unique individual, his substance, that remains the same throughout a lifetime, but there is also the functional identity of a person or a nation, and that can change as well. I can understand that kind of change-I was a businessman, and briefly a millionaire, before I got into politics.
Chubais: A millionaire in rubles or in dollars?
Aksiuchits: In rubles, but it was in 1988, so it was worth a lot in dollars as well.
Baranovsky: But you didn't enjoy it?
Aksiuchits: In America's cosmopolitan, consumer-oriented (potrebitel'skii) civilization, the accent is on the search for a functional identity. We are at the other end of the spectrum.
Chubais: That's an important difference. Here, a person who changes his identity-to use your terminology-is often a person without principles. Yesterday I was a Communist, today I'm a democrat, tomorrow a monarchist, the day after tomorrow something else. . . . From what I understand, political identity is rather stable [in America]. You may change your career, but a politician doesn't become a member of the Ku Klux Klan one year and then a different group the next year.
. . . Aksiuchits: The extreme form of the search for functional identity can lead to paranoia, as the search for individual identity can lead to a loss of one's sense of self, where all you are is your function.
Billington: The majority of Americans don't know much about Russia, coming primarily from European countries, and most of the people who came to us from Russia weren't ethnic Russian, but were from the minorities in the Empire: Armenians, Jews, Lithuanians, Ukrainians. Most had experienced the period of Russification in the empire. They may have liked Russian culture, but they opposed Russia as a political entity.
But, on the other hand, Russia was a Christian country, so we never sent missionaries as we did to China and India. Americans knew and understood China better because so many missionaries had gone there, and there was also more trade. The third reason for our lack of knowledge is that we never fought against Russia, although that seems a little ironic, but there was never a war between our countries. So the usual reasons that would lead us to know about a place so far away didn't exist between our two countries.
I don't have a Slavic background, but I got interested through the culture. During World War II, when I was a schoolboy living near Philadelphia, I wanted to know why the Russians were defending their land against the Germans so vigorously after other countries, like France, had given up at the sight of the first tank. So I asked this question in school. I found a Russian émigré, a very strong-willed old woman, and she said: "Young man, you have to read Tolstoy's War and Peace." Sometimes in your life, a person comes up to you and issues an order (zakaz). So I read War and Peace, and I found that it was easier to understand the present through a novel about the past than from reading the latest newspapers.
Although I was never much of a fan of the theory of convergence during the Cold War, I sensed that something was happening that resembled convergence. We think of Russians as being much more spiritual and religiously oriented than Americans, but the very foundation of the American experiment involved the coming together of two tendencies. On the one hand, there was the Enlightenment through Jefferson and others, with its ideas of reason and progress. On the other hand were America's religious roots. . . .
At the Library of Congress we recently organized the first exhibit about the religious roots of the American experiment. This subject has been absent lately from our public culture. Among the advanced countries, Americans are a more religious people than, for example, the English, French, or Swedes. That's simply a fact. So that one side of the American experiment is not well represented in the current literature. On the Internet, where we receive four million hits (transaktsii) a day, this has been the most popular of all our exhibits, and the responses came from all over America. It's interesting that The New York Times didn't write about this exhibit. Our curator had found all kinds of materials in the archives, for example, about government buildings being used for services by a number of different religions in the nineteenth century. . . . There's a whole side of America that never gets talked about, so it's very difficult to get a complete picture of the country.
We have a culture today that emphasizes the significance of freedom and human rights, but freedom without responsibility and rights without obligations is only half of life. You also spoke about rights and morality here. When you look at our founding fathers, you'll find that Washington, for example, was a very religious person. He gave a wonderful speech at the end of the war for independence, his farewell to the troops, saying that we were together during the war, we fought together and I was your leader. But now that the war is over, we have a country to build; and he suggested that God, not a general, is now your leader. Washington also said that our system wouldn't work without a moral people, because it's a very delicately balanced, and morality wouldn't survive a generation without religion.
Last summer the U.S. Congress funded a program through the Library for emerging Russian leaders. . . . We had 2,000 people come over from virtually all corners of the Russian Federation. They lived in the houses of middle Americans, so, it wasn't a tour of the nomenklatura to big cities, staying in hotels. It made a tremendous impression on the Americans, because they didn't know much about Russians other than what was said during the Cold War. They hadn't believed all of that, and now there was a new approach. The basic problem is that Americans have very little first-hand knowledge about Russia, and Russians know little about America because our cultural products don't represent us very well, don't show the country as it really is, because of the clash of cultures, the culture wars. You read only about one side of our life.
What was interesting last summer with all these Russians visiting America, was that the Russians and Americans sensed that they have a lot in common. . . . There were different understandings of elemental and civic freedom, but in both countries there is a common sense of great expanses and of religiosity or spirituality. In both Russia and America now the process of comparison, enlightenment, and cultural exchange is playing a very important role. The largest library system in the world after ours is in Russia; even if some of it is in a very poor state, still it exists. It seems to me that convergence is possible, especially as the federal idea develops here.
Kuvaldin: The 1990s in Russia have been a great experiment. On the surface, there is the move to democracy and a market economy. But what was really going on was the apotheosis of amorality and lawlessness. All the moral norms and legal limitations had been cast aside. . . . Towards the end of the Communist era, Soviet society had reworked (pererabotalo) Bolshevism and had reached a new understanding of rights and laws. But now we have no morality, no law, no normal kind of democracy, or economy, or organization of society. It's all turning into something wildly repulsive (diko ottalkivaiushchie).
There are two possibilities for the future. Aksiuchits spoke of the possibility of Russia getting its values and its identity from another country, but such a choice by a very small group of people would be rejected by the rest of the population. . . . When Yeltsin leaves office, will we see what has been going on for the last decade as the norm, or will people turn away from that and seek something different? When freedom is taken too far, it turns into a destructive Russian kind of unregulated free will and anarchy.
