A meeting of the minds!
Yesterday Anatoly Karlin of Sublime Oblivion interviewed me for his new series, “Watching the Russia Watchers.” Here’s an excerpt:
ANATOLY KARLIN: As I understand, you are not the biggest fan of the Russian liberal opposition. You believe their leaders kowtow to the West and couldn’t care less about the everyday concerns of ordinary Russians. But consider the case of a patriotic Russian who detests the corruption and proizvol (arbitrariness) of state institutions and genuinely wants to improve human rights – not just those of Khodorkovsky, but of prison inmates, conscripts, minorities, etc. What can she realistically do about it, apart from ranting about the return of neo-Soviet totalitarianism in front of foreign TV cameras?
A GOOD TREATY: People “do” all kinds of things. Thirty-six parents and teachers in Ulyanovsk went on a week-long group hunger strike to successfully protest the closure of several local schools. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a group of youths in the Far East, fed up with local law enforcement and inspired by a particularly trigger-happy version of nationalism, decided to arm itself and start attacking police officers. Some people make it their profession to work in the line of danger — people like Natalia Estemirova and Sergey Magnitsky. Others lead scholarly human rights organizations like Oleg Orlov of Memorial, dedicated to unearthing a Soviet past they believe is forgotten at Russia’s peril.
All of these people are patriots in their own heads, and who am I to disagree?
I don’t begrudge the liberal opposition for ranting hyperbolisms in front of foreign TV cameras. This is half the business of being in the Russian liberal opposition, after all: (a) they need to provoke/tempt the authorities into cracking down on their rallies, otherwise nobody would ever care, and (b) they need to attract the attention of the West — for financial aid, for international connections, and for status. The liberal literati are frequent visitors to the United States — even the younger, student-”employed’ members like Ilya Yashin (who recently concluded a cross-country tour of the U.S.) and Oleg Kozlovsky (who’s been Stateside for weeks and is currently attending some kind of not-at-all-propagandistic-sounding democracy workshop at Stanford University).
These boys are more than welcome to globetrot wherever they like, but I personally can’t help but see them as a bunch of spoiled brats, partying to their own celebrity and hopelessly out of touch with the needs of ordinary Russians. (I’ve made it a point on AGT to focus on their endless infighting in order to highlight how self-centered and oblivious they really are.)
For the whole thing, visit Karlin’s site here или здесь на русском языке.
Good interview, glad to see your perspective gain some more exposure! One issue I wanted to clear up: what’s your take on whether the average Russian lives better right now than in the USSR? In the interview, you seem to suggest that living conditions are better now overall, but my impression is that, in regard to both consumer goods and social services, ordinary people had a significantly better life in the USSR, say in the late 1970s.
I can see how social services might be comparable, though Soviet benefits fell into a pretty sorry state by the end of the USSR, but how do you figure people had better access to consumer goods under communism? Maybe hyperinflation and economic collapse during the 1990s put more trinkets out of the reach of most Russians for a spell, but could that possibly still be true?
Sure, by the perestroika years, both social and consumer goods supply fell substantially, that’s why I’m referring to the 1970s: after all, nostalgia for the USSR most often refers to the Brezhnev years as the Golden Era. In the Brezhnev years, social services for the population were quite high, significantly better than today: health care, education, leisure, services for the elderly, even transport. I would also postulate that more people in Russia had access to more consumer goods, on the average, than do now. Of course, social elites in the 1970s had less access to the diversity of consumption goods available today, but ordinary people, even working-class, could afford to purchase many of the goods that they struggle to buy today – electronics, appliances, clothing, etc. I would be curious to see comparisons of what a basket of goods cost back then, compared to what it costs now. Also, the availability of diversity is a factor: I wonder if the choices available now, combined with so much being out of reach of the ordinary consumer, makes the non-elites of today feel poorer than they would have in the 1970s, when elite consumption was not so conspicuous.
This whole “the Brezhnev era ruled” stuff is just standard issue nostalgia: the typical, and typically stupid, human urge to view the past with rose-tinted glasses.
I won’t speak specifically to consumer goods because they aren’t my area of expertise (though Soviet-built consumer goods were legendary for the shoddieness of their worksmanship and the danger they presented to their users: think exploding televisions) but it’s just factually inaccurate to say that medical services were better under Brezhnev. The reason that people think things were better is that the quantity indicators were better: there were more hospitals, more clinics, and more beds. But the problem, like with the Soviet economy wrought large, was that NONE OF IT WORKED. The Soviets built hundreds of “hospitals” that lacked heat or running water, and crammed thousands of extra “hospital beds” into hallways and closets all in order to meet the demands of the latest plan. It was madness.
Now I encountered similar sentiments from a number of Russians I’ve spoken to, but I was able to find not a single serious academic researcher (literally no one, American, Russian, British, whatever) who agreed. Does medical care in Russia still suck comapred to the West? Sure. But during Brezhnev’s rule the Soviets were rapidly losing ground to Westerners in every health indicator worth mentioning: deaths from cancer and heart disease were going up while they were collapsing in the developed world. Putin’s Russia is at catching up and making positive progress (albeit at a glacial pace).
Mark, thanks very much for weighing in here. When talk turned to late-Soviet-era social benefits, I immediately wished you’d bring your healthcare knowledge to bear.
I am not disappoint.
I must strongly disagree with Mark here about Soviet consumer goods; they were well made, robust and sturdy.
Exploding tellies is not an urban legend, like many believe, but a fact of cathode tube life everywhere.
Mark, I’m not an expert on health either, but according to generally-accepted data, life expectancy in the Brezhnev years was better than in the Yeltsin or the early Putin years, despite the rapid advances in medical technology from the 1970s to the 1990s. Only now is Russia reaching the level of the late 1970s and early 1980s. I wouldn’t be too sure that the level of health service provision to the population was worse in the RSFSR than in current Russian conditions. Moreover, the other points still stand: education – at all levels, leisure provision such as vacations and state-sponsored amateur arts and sport activities, substantial support for the elderly, etc. Your bashing of Soviet consumer goods is also problematic: research shows that many people had access to a significant amount of consumer goods.
Soviet life expectancy peaked in the 1960′s, bro (1964 if my memory serves). It steadily decliend throughout the 1970′s and 1980′s until Gorby banned vodka sales
Mark, I’m not disputing that it peaked in the early 1960s – if you note, I said that “life expectancy in the Brezhnev years was better than in the Yeltsin or the early Putin years, despite the rapid advances in medical technology from the 1970s to the 1990s. Only now is Russia reaching the level of the late 1970s and early 1980s.” Here is the relevant chart:
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:RUS&dl=en&hl=en&q=russia+life+expectancy
As you will see, in contrast to your statement above, life expectancy did not “steadily decline” in the 1970s and early 1980s. Also, Russia only now reached the life expectancy of the last year of Brezhnev’s reign, 67.8 years.
I’ve been of the impression that the USSR socioeconomically peaked in the early 1960s, as it made definite foreign policy gains into the 1970s and improvements in organized sports results into the 1980s.
When making socioeconomic comparisons, the more accurate gauge is one comparing the early 1960s USSR with other counties of that period, over a comparison which deals exclusively with the USSR of the early 1960s and late 1970s.
Consider that there continues to be technology improvements which are evident in a good number of poor countries.
I’m suddenly reminded of the before the revolution mantra I periodically come across. I knew the USSR was changing when in the late 1980s, I heard a Soviet economist take issue with his German counterpart, who pointedly belittled Russia’s economic stature prior to 1917.
Pardon the digression.
I’m interested in authoritatively well researched studies on the subject of determining when the USSR socioeconomically peaked.
I’m not particularly well vesed on this topic.
Russian Studies involves numerous issues, in a way that it makes it especially tough to lead the league in every category.
I love armchair professorship as much as the next guy, but let’s see some citations to this “research” showing that pre-1991 Russians had more/better consumer goods than today’s motley crew, which — best as I can tell — is drowning in a sea of advertisements and doodads.
Whatever the answer is, I think it’s a fairly irrelevant question. Certain people will remember the Soviet era as a time of material bounty and others will think of it as a wasteland of fewer or lousier products. Eventually, nobody will be alive who remembers living with Soviet consumer goods or social benefits, and all that will remain is perception, which I’d argue is already the most important factor in this debate (a debate, frankly, I don’t find to be terribly useful.).
AllanH,
If Soviet consumer goods had actually been “well made, robust, and sturdy” they would not have rapidly wilted in the face of Western competition.
Like I said, no solid research has been conducted on comparing current Russian consumption to the situation in the RSFSR in the 1970s, as far as I know – I’d like to see some, too. But there has been some work done showing that the RSFSR in the 1970s had a surprising solid and increasing living standard. For example, see James Millar’s contribution to Terry L. Thompson and Richard Sheldon edited, Soviet Society and Culture Essays in Honor of Vera S Dunham.
@Mark
I suppose it was easy when domestic industry was driven to oblivion by political decisions, which are murky as ever but largely forgotten.
Here’s my proof of Soviet quality:
My friend is taking artsy photographs with a vintage Soviet-made camera, one third of price for Hasselblad.
And when I was in military, we followed 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics on Soviet-made portable telly, the only tv you could actually watch inside APC!
I declare your 1984 Olympics anecdote to have won the day.
Well, I’ve decided to migrate here. My old master Adomanis turned out to be weak, as he was so easily overthrown by a powerful entity, known as “True/Slant owners”. The invisible hand of the market has weighted him, has measured him, and has found him unworthy. I’m just glad I’ve managed to complete my transition before Yury’s day. I hope my new master will be not as harsh as Adomanis was! So I guess some boot licking is in order.
A Good Treaty,
I find your blog to be very interesting and your opinions to be reasonable and weighted. I’m really looking forward to the prospect of cooperation between you and Mark. Meanwhile, I’ll try to bring in my opinion on various matters and I hope that some of you will find it useful enough.
@Gleb,
1. From what I understand (Adomanis can confirm – or refute), this is essentially what happened:
A) 1945-1965: Russia’s introduction of basic primary care ran its course (i.e. what happened in the US c.1920-50), i.e. basic obstetrics, vaccinations, etc, that massively lowered infant mortality from Third Word levels and accounted for the increase in life expectancy from around 45 in the 1930′s to 70 by 1964. After that, it stagnated. Infant mortality rates actually rose slightly during the 1970′s. So did death rates from industrial era ailments like CVD’s and cancer, because the USSR preferred to spend limited resources on the military than build the expensive advanced medical infrastructure seen in the West.
B) The accelerating alcohol consumption worked in another direction to raise death rates, esp. amongst middle aged men. By the early 1980′s, these were almost as bad as they would become during the transition era.
C) The transition era was defined primarily by the residue of public health trends that had been building up under the Soviet system, and it is only relatively recently, the last 5 years, that they have shown signs of starting to move in a fundamentally different (and positive) direction.
2. Don’t agree with you on consumer goods either. Relative to the 1990′s, the late Soviet years were good. Today – not at all, by almost any indicator (affordability of food; car ownership; etc) that one cares to measure. True, a few items – e.g. books, pianos, – were more affordable. But others available today it is hard to imagine even existing in a Brezhnivite political system (e.g. 40% Internet penetration).
3. I’m agreed with the nostalgia. In many ways Soviet society was undoubtedly more equal and fairer (in some ways) than today’s. “Sobornost” was probably higher. On the other hand, perhaps not? We don’t have opinion polling data from the period, just rosy-tinged reminiscences. One survey of happiness indicated that Russians rated themselves much “happier” in 2009 and even 1998 (!) than in 1990-1992. So even here things aren’t entirely clear cut.
4. I do disagree with one point raised by Mark, however. Soviet goods weren’t shoddy. Or rather, they were shoddy in a different way from Western goods.
Soviet goods broke easily and unpredictably, but the idea was that they would keep on being repaired with fairly minimal resources.
In the Western capitalist system, the material culture is “throwaway” – goods are guaranteed to last for a certain (short) period of time, then they begin to rapidly break down, forcing you to buy a new product. Perpetuating consumerism and energy consumption / pollution.
I’m not saying the Soviet system is better than the Western one, of course. For instance, whatever it produced in sturdiness was more than cancelled out by its inefficiency. But overall, neither industrial model is sustainable in a world of energetic and environmental limits to growth.
Sublime Oblivion,
I agree with you regarding Soviet consumer goods. The main problem of all Soviet goods was the extremely slow rate of innovations. While in military production analysts could compare technical qualities of new prototypes with their Western analogues, and the upkeep of military parity was a top priority, nobody bothered to do so with consumer goods. On the contrary, they were produced in the way to be as much durable as possible. For example, each TV set was supplied with an electrical schematic, so it could be repaired forever (more precisely, until its kinescope went off. My grandfather had a TV set which had worked for 25 years! Every suggestion about innovation was rigorously considered by Gosplan, the executive committee of the Party and so on. It’s no wonder that so many of them never saw the light of day. So, if to describe Soviet consumer goods: “quality”, “very durable”, “repairable”, “backward”, “cost-ineffective”, “unfashionable” are the words I would use. It is exactly the reason why they were ousted so quickly
.
Sublime Oblivion, What the hell is Sobornost you’re talking about? Isn’t that a retarded Slavophile term?
@Sublime Oblivion
1) From what I understand, the early-mid 1990s featured, in many ways, the undermining of the Soviet mass health care system, with improvement in health care provision for the elites, but a significant drop-off in service for the masses. Lately, as you correctly noted, there has been an improvement in health care provision, though.
2) I’d love to see some statistics/research on this one.
3) We do have some opinion polling of former Soviet refugees in Israel: James Millar did a study in the early 1980s which showed quite high levels of satisfaction with social service provision, and decent levels of satisfaction with consumer goods. See his edited volume, Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the USSR: A Survey of Former Soviet Citizens.
4) My points about social service provision in education, leisure, social services for the elderly etc. still stand. These are important for the ways that people determine their living conditions.
Overall, though, I’m in agreement with you and A Good Treaty on nostalgia: it was less important how conditions actually were than how people remember them.
The few Russian-made goods I’ve personally owned (a Vostok .22 caliber rifle, years ago, and a Komondorsky wristwatch) were practically indestructible in their ruggedness, and gave years of reliable service. I noticed on my more recent visits to the Russian Far East, though, that you’d have to really search to find something Russian-made; practically all the electronics and appliances on offer in Spektr, for example, were LG or Samsung. LG is huge in the Far East. Russian-made durable goods seem now more in the nature of a souvenir, although I don’t doubt you can find them if you really look. But much of the Soviet manufacturing sector existed to provide employment, not to deliver a product of competitive quality. That’s evolved into an unproductive habit that needs breaking.
Russia needs to throw off this perception (largely true) that it is a supplier of raw materials only, and lacks the ability to make anything sophisticated itself. Russia pioneered laser eye surgery, remember, and they’re still the best at it even though a lot of their equipment now seems antiquated. Russians are perfectly capable of making sophisticated, clever and beautiful things when they put their minds to it – but there must be incentive to win and hold market share.
Russia would be less hesitant, in my own opinion, to ask for help if their extended hand wasn’t spat in as it has been so many times in the past. They’re a proud people, and you can only snatch away the football when they go to kick it so many times before they stop trying.
This interview was an excellent example of how you can criticize Russia’s very real faults without being Russophobic, and offer concrete, sensible suggestions on how they can be put right. Very enjoyable and enlightening.