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Dear Colleagues: About a month ago I had the unusual experience of listening to a panel discussion on Russia's political future hosted by Radio Free Europe. For two hours or so, the Russian panelists ranged far and wide over the current political scene and offered their personal observations, assessments and predictions. And what was odd about the whole experience, as I recall, is that this discussion, however rich and informative, never ventured -- unless I am mistaken -- beyond the narrow confines of democratic options: The options for Russia's future were reduced to either a) The American Presidential democratic model or b) the English parliamentary model or c) the French Fifth Republic model. I suspect that few would deny that Russia's historical experience has been that of autocracy and totalitarianism, though perhaps in both cases imperfectly realized by a powerful and determined but far from omnipotent despot. But if autocracy is Russia's past, how can we avoid judging, evaluating its present and future by the standards and parameters unique to this autocratic model? How can we avoid judging the present and future by Russia's own unique autocratic model, a model that is deeply embedded in the culture, customs and psyche of Russia? And are we not taught from day one to evaluate Russia by its own cultural paradigms, standards and institutions? That is, not by what we would like to believe are its cultural models (e.g. "fledgling democracy") but what in fact, historically, these models really are. This autocratic model, according to Professor Satter in his THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN CRIMINAL STATE, a summary of which was recently published on Johnson's Russian List (JRL), has essentially coalesced with a new model based on the new upstart criminal oligarchy, creating a fluid new model that joins members of the old nomenklatura with the new criminal elite. According to Prof. Satter, this union was already taking place unofficialy under Gorbachev and has been in full swing officially since Yeltsin assumed power. This, of course, complicates the picture immensely. However, the question remains: what does this have to do with democratic (or capitalist] options for Russia? And yet, it appears that many Russians no less than Americans still harbor utopian, democratic illusions about Russia's future options. As someone married to a Russian woman, whose family and friends have suffered enormously, like all Russians, at the hands of Stalin and his successors, I feel personally nothing but trepidation as the gathering storms of Armageddon, either in the form of chaos or a new autocracy, loom over the horizon. Yet, it seems quite obvious that Russians, longing for a radical solution, will decide their own fate either by the ballot or the bullet. If so, then by what political and cultural model shall we judge them? And on what basis shall we choose to have relations with them? My question to the members of H-RUSSIA is as follows: Do historians take the autocratic option seriously as a MODEL for judging post-Soviet Russia. If autocracy was and is the reigning model for our understanding of Tsarist and Soviet Russia, is it not still a valid model for our understanding of the new post-Soviet Russia, even in its new complicated form of an autocratic criminal state? Just when does talk of a "fledgling democracy or fledgling free market " end and delusional thinking begin? And if the real options are to be found not in artificial democratic institutions imposed from above by, at best, an idealistic elite, or, at worst, a rapacious criminal, autocratic state (facing a potentially even more autocratic Communist or fascist coalition in the Duma, then is there any cause for optimism at all? Just what do these "fledgling democracy" options mean for Russia today, and did they in fact ever mean anything at all? Yours, Candide Benjamin Sher Sher's Russian Web and Index http://personal.msy.bellsouth.net/msy/s/h/sher07/
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