ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606170010
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: HARVEY R. JAHN
RUSSIA IS still a world-class power because of its nuclear arsenal, but it is an economically shrunken state where much pain has been inflicted in the name of Western-style market reforms and a form of democracy.
Reform of Russia's economy and society has been tried six times in the past 300 years, each time turning to the West. The current attempt started by Boris Yeltsin in 1991, with origins to 1989 with the ending of the Cold War, is at a turning point.
Russia has gone from being our enemy during the Cold War, to our ally in seeking a New World Order in 1990, to our dependent in 1991 with the coup and overthrow of Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991 and disintegration of the Soviet Union, to an unpredictible unknown for about the past three years, following the first parliamentary elections in Russia in December 1993.
During the Cold War, it was communism vs. the Free World, until Gorbachev came to power in May 1985 and instituted his perestroika and democratization program of economic and political reforms. Prior to then, people were to serve the state in accordance with the dictates of Marxism-Leninism.
In 1988, Gorbachev spoke to the United Nations regarding the need to protect the sovereignty and borders of all states; in 1989 supported the reunification of Germany; and in 1990 did not oppose Bush's coalition against Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and subsequent U.S. engagement in the Persian Gulf War. This was pursuant to U.S.-Russian agreement on their superpower defense in tandem of the so-called ``New World Order,'' which subscribed to all nations' sovereignty and inviolability of borders through the avoidance of armed intervention.
When the Berlin Wall came down in December 1989 for a new, democratic Central Europe, it meant coming on line with the West. Today, a steadily rising number of East Europeans are happy under the free market and political pluralism, whereas in Russia about half the people remain skeptical and think things were better in the past.
In August 1991 (Soviet coup No. 1), one of the two superpowers became superpowerless ... and dependent on the United States and the West, as Russia struggled toward a type of free market and democracy. The resulting relaxation of authoritarian Soviet controls unleashed long-suppressed ethnic hatreds. Meanwhile, industrial powerhouses in Europe and Asia, no longer dependent on America's nuclear hand for protection against the Russians, stood up to the United States more assertively.
With the Soviet bear finally locked in its cage, even more serious challenges to America were seen to be here at home. The New World Order seemed to degenerate into The New World Disorder by the fall of 1992.
We moved to a New New World Order, acknowledging that armed nonintervention does not work whether in Sarajevo or Somalia or Chechnya, because ethnic and nationalist passions sometimes must be controlled. So, we must have international military intervention in the New New World Order. Since people and human rights are more important than sovereignty and borders, international military intervention became requisite. Whereas in the Cold War it was the Free World vs. the communists, under this New New World Order it is the settled vs. the chaotic world, with a recognition of the worth of people as the highest good.
But being in the ``people business'' while seeking reform is not easy. Historical undertows continue to vie with the pounding currents of reforms. Some degree of continuity accompanies change - a reality borne out by my own experience in Russia following the October 1993 attempted coup against Boris Yeltsin (Soviet coup No. 2).
Toward the end of a 1993-94 sabbatical, I encountered the old KGB in the new Russia, when my sponsors slipped me past the sentry in a "closed city" housing a nuclear plant near Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia. After a lecture to the school system's faculty and staff, which ended with a request that I return the next day, the authorities told my hostess that I was to be out of town within the hour. I was hustled away, only to be waylaid by the KGB, who stopped our vehicle and removed my hostess for an interrogation lasting the better part of an hour. I never saw this closed city again, and generally was confined to educational facilities in Krasnoyarsk for the rest of my stay.
I later referred to this encounter as a reality check. A Russophile like myself can come to like the Russian people so well that we forget the repressive aspects of a changing system. Since the purpose of my sabbatical was to assess post-Soviet progress toward democracy, and its impact on the educational process, for me the bloom on democracy suddenly faded.
The Russian pendulum continues to swing. The Communist Party's strong showing in parliamentary elections this past December has invited speculation about today's presidential election. Along with calls in Russia for further democratic and free-market reforms exists nostalgia for a selectively remembered Soviet past: steady jobs, safe streets and cheap sausages - but without gulags and long queues.
Should no candidate receive 50 percent of the votes cast, a likely possibility, the two top finishers will go into a runoff in July. Where then will the pendulum stop?
Just as the West cannot credit itself for the collapse of the Soviet Union, neither can we blame ourselves for Russian disaffection with our brand of economics and democracy that Russia never really resembled. Russia's course remains unpredictable regardless of who wins the July runoff, because no ideology has surfaced to replace the Soviet-style Marxism that allowed for little or no deviation. We knew our opponent then and usually what to expect.
Tasting only partly the fruits of democracy and free-market capitalism blurred the focus on true reform in Russia. Corruption, nationalism, nostalgia and ethnic conflict are not the ingredients of stability.
Hence, the Sputnik orbit continues. Unlike the U.S. Eagle in 1968, it has not landed, but continues to circle. Tension will continue, perhaps even increase, as the West tries to figure out what Russia itself cannot target in an era where eocnomics, not the military, is the sine qua non of global power.
Harvey R. Jahn is a professor at Radford University's College of Education and Human Development.
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Drawing of bear by BOB NEWMAN/Newsday.by CNB