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The Spectacle Blog
The Tragedy of Communism Lives on in Russia
Government and people fear volunteerism two decades after communism collapses
In the Soviet Union the government manifestly failed. It oppressed and murdered its own citizens while leaving the mass of people in poverty. However, since the illusion of success had to be maintained at all costs, volunteerism was discouraged. After all, there were no problems which required private action.
Today the Russian government fails its people. Not quite so dramatically as the old Soviet Union, but still, bad enough. Without totalitarian controls, people now are volunteering to help those in need. Which is wonderful. But it isn’t easy.
Reports the Washington Post:
The rapid emergence of volunteer efforts, fueled in large part by social media, coincides with the eruption of public political protest — and that’s not by happenstance. There is an overlap between the political opposition and those who have become fed up with a corrupt government that delivers little and who have decided to take matters into their own hands.
Legislation to regulate volunteers has been introduced in the State Duma, or lower house of parliament, by President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. Backers say it will ensure that volunteer activity conforms to the government’s priorities and doesn’t conflict with Kremlin policy.
Officials aren’t the only ones hostile to volunteerism. Russia’s Soviet past, when the government controlled all aspects of life, has left it with a population that is accustomed to the idea that the government should provide for its citizens and that is suspicious of volunteer organizations. A 2012 poll found that more than half the population disapproves of them, said Boris Dubin, a sociologist with the Levada Center in Moscow.
When communism collapsed hope for rapid reform and transformation of the Soviet empire was high. It turns out that it was harder than most of us imagined for people to make the admittedly huge jump from totalitarian communism to democratic capitalism. The Central and Eastern European states, which spent less time as part of the Evil Empire, recovered the most quickly, though Bulgaria and Romania continue to have difficulties even as members of the European Union.
However, the new countries which emerged from the U.S.S.R. suffered not only politically and economically, but culturally. Including the widespread assumptions that government is supposed to take care of all problems and that people are supposed to do what the government wants. The idea of people organizing to help one another remains foreign, more than two decades after the Soviet Union disappeared into oblivion.
The tragedy of Soviet communism continues.
View all comments (18) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Doug Bandow
http://spectator.org/blog/2013/02/03/the-tragedy-of-communism-lives
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Bob K| 2.3.13 @ 6:20PM
Just like the tradgedy of uncontrolled immigration will live long in the history of the USA!
Just change the words "U.S.S.R." and "Soviet Union" in the next to last paragraph of the article above to "USA" and see how well it fits.
mike 3/505| 2.3.13 @ 7:57PM
Look how this administration treats religious based charities. The government doesn't want the competition.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 2.3.13 @ 8:42PM
The Russian Orthodox Church and the Armenian Church should be the only acknowledged Christian churches in Russia. Russia does not want or need American Evangelical Evangelists. Orthodoxy is truth and has been for 2000 years. Russia does not need heresies dressed up as charities. The Russian Orthodox Church runs orphanages, it is present hospitals and in the military. Russia does not need Evangelicals or Mormons or Jehova's Witnesses or even Roman Catholic missionaries poaching from Holy Orthodox Russia.
Bob K| 2.3.13 @ 11:01PM
Russia doesn't need freedom. It has never had experience with it.
Sean| 2.4.13 @ 7:16AM
Wrong before the Russian Revolution they had representative government in areas where cossacks lived. Of course most of those people were murder by the communist or forced to flee after losing the war.
Bob K| 2.4.13 @ 9:53AM
Weren't Cossacks the same people who used to ride their horses through the Russian countryside cutting off the heads of serfs with their sabres?
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 2.4.13 @ 2:36PM
The Cossacks were vehemently anti-Bolshevik. They have a long history as marauders, colonists and Orthodox warriors. When the Bosnian war started some Cossacks volunteered to fight along their Serbian Orthodox brothers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cossacks
Sean| 2.4.13 @ 7:25PM
They are the ones that attacked Napolean's army and during his retreat and slowly destroyed it. They are also the ones that stuck up for the peasants in revolts against the Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth.
Jack in Wi| 2.4.13 @ 7:13AM
I think the Russians are sick of Neocon pretend charities trying to interfere in their national life.
Sean| 2.4.13 @ 7:20AM
Jack you must remember that a lot of these neocons ancestors where the ones who supported the communist take over of Russia in the first place.
Bob K| 2.4.13 @ 10:02AM
Actually most of their ancestors immigrated to the USA prior to the turn of the century when the Czar still ruled Russia. After WWI people escaped from Communist Russia.
Sean| 2.4.13 @ 7:22PM
Their ancestors were fans of the communists and supporters. Some of the biggest communist supporters didn't live in Russia at the time of the revolution.
Crassus| 2.4.13 @ 10:39AM
NEOCON! NEOCON! NEOCON!
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 2.3.13 @ 8:34PM
What a bunch of b.s....I guess any excuse to try to stick a finger in the eye of the Russians. The anti-Russian neo-con hawks and anti-Serb liberal interventionists are directly responsible for bad relations between Moscow and Washington D.C.. My grandfather (who was American) used to say "Do you know why everyone hates us?", I responded "why Grandpa" to which he would say "because we've got our nose up everyone's ass".
The state of Russian volunteerism and the Kremlin's stance on volunteerism (making sure that its in Russian interests and not the interest of foreign controlled NGO's) is none of America's business anymore than America's internal matters are Moscow's business.
Crassus| 2.4.13 @ 10:41AM
NEOCON! NEOCON! NEOCON!
JmsA| 2.3.13 @ 9:32PM
As if not enough they're easily picked up, bad habits also die hard.
Kitty | 2.4.13 @ 6:44AM
They say it takes just one day to transform democratic capitalism into a totalitarian state and at least one generation to go from a totalitarian state to democratic capitalism.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 2.4.13 @ 2:19PM
You think there is freedom in the United States? Thanks to the Patriot Act and previous federal anti-mafia, anti-narcotic and anti terrorist legislation the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution is worth about as much as roll of Charmin. Our government can tap our phones at will, read our emails at will and have instant records of any major financial transactions within the United States. America is becoming a surveillance/police state with technology that would be the envy of the KGB.