Russia’s search for meaning under capitalist modernity

Towards the tail end of the USSR, nationalist sentiment saw a slow yet steady resurgence. It is precisely this growth of further ideological contradictions that caused disunity in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and is in part to blame for the later fragmentation of the USSR. Particularly the boomer generation of the Soviet Union, growing up in the late 60s and 70s, was quite susceptible to these particular ideological currents. In part, it may have been because they experienced their early childhood at the proverbial zenith of socialism, but quickly saw the coming of deficits and unrest in the 80s, causing disillusionment with the system. Equally, changes in education, and the increasing distance between the people, the ideology, and the party, played a large role. My grandfather, coming of age just after the Second World War, was required to study Marxist theory and take courses in dialectical materialism. With his own hands, he helped in the construction of socialism and personally witnessed much of the transformation from feudal backwater into a spacefaring superpower. My mother’s generation, on the other hand, had no such ideological grounding, and would grow up with the allure of foreign products and popular culture, while only experiencing stagnation followed by decline during the tail of their formative years. To some, the benefits of socialism, the guaranteed education, employment, and housing, were almost taken for granted, yet it left them wanting for something more, with all their base needs taken care of, they struggled to find greater meaning, self-actualisation, and turned to the idol of capital to help satisfy that growing need.

The upheaval of the 1980s, followed by the final collapse (or dissolution) of the USSR caused a great deal of trauma and a crisis of meaning and identity throughout the successor states. It was said that the socialist project had failed, the internationalist ideology proven wrong. What path should Russian take to continue the course of history? The Russian people were split among many different ideologies, from the naive neoliberal, to the liberal democrat (who is neither liberal, nor democratic), the old guard communist, and the nostalgic nationalist. All had their stint at trying to unify Russia once more. The regime of Yeltsin (1991-1999), inspired by the Chicago school of economics, deconstructed social provisions, introduced markets and widespread liberalisation, but quickly became unpopular. By 1993, Russia had erupted into a constitutional crisis, as the parliament tried to resist the imposition of further neoliberal reform. Yeltsin, who had tried to dissolve parliament, declared a state of emergency (with measures that the Constitutional Court deemed to be illegal), resulting in a dual power struggle between supporters of the President and the Parliament. This political struggle precipitated in an attempted counter-coup by pro-Parliamentary forces that was quickly crushed by the army. With tanks rolling across central Moscow, shelling the White House (the office of the legislature), any opposition was crushed – any radical communist and nationalist organisations were banned. To combat rising opposition against the Yeltsin regime, primarily from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (generally considered the left-leaning controlled opposition in Russia), Yeltsin resorted to asking the Americans to help fix his re-election (1996).