Living in a Post-Soviet World: Implications that Cross Borders

By Miriam Rabkin
Contributor to Tolerance.ca®

Certain dates are more significant than others. November 7th, 2007 marked the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. This did not seem to be noted in the Canadian press. Yet, it is an event that is not one to be forgotten. I was recently surprised when a friend told me that some of his university students did not know what the Cold War was. Has the divide between East and West been forgotten? Has it been relegated to some distant past that no longer plays a role in our daily lives? To our mainstream media, this appears to be the case. And yet, the Russian Revolution was a pivotal point in recent history. It not only left an imprint on the 20th century, but continues to affect us today – and on more levels than we think.

Despite being partly of Russian origin, I had not given this topic much thought until I attended a day-long conference organized by the Department of History at the Université de Montréal entitled The Revolution 90 Years Later: Its Impact on the World. The day was spent in vivid and informed debate, scholarly yet accessible. The topics broached were of a broad variety – the effect on Western health delivery systems to African conflicts to the role of the United States today. There was surprisingly little discussion about Russia itself. Well-known historians, political scientists, sociologists, and economists took part in the event.

When the Cold War ended, many thought that the nuclear threat was over and that democracy had won. A euphoria set in: conflicts would be dealt with within a multilateral system; the end of the bipolar world would bring peace; security for all would become a reality. With hindsight it seems simplistic to think that world conflicts would come to an end. The world we live in appears less stable and more violent, a far cry from these expectations – yet too few of us look back to wonder why.

“The end of the East-West divide did not bring an end to the arms race or conflicts; on the contrary, violence and inequalities are starker now than they were then.” This was spelled out by Pascal Boniface, Director of the Paris-based Institut de recherches internationales et stratégiques, the only overseas speaker at the conference. He explains that the wars in Iraq and the Balkans happened precisely because the Cold War balance of power had ended. There was also the hope that democracy would become contagious, and that globalization would narrow the gap between poor and rich. Not only have wealth discrepancies grown, but the very concept of democracy has lost much of its luster in many countries. This sentiment, expressed on the bumper sticker of a car that said: “Be nice to Americans, otherwise they’ll bring democracy to your country,” was quoted by Professor Yakov Rabkin of the Université de Montréal, who organized and chaired the event.

But the question is why? Why did we end up in a world where conflicts and nuclear arms proliferate, and human rights are violated “legally” in more than one democratic country? Extraordinary renditions and waterboard torture are routinely practiced by traditionally democratic regimes. Boniface explains that this is partly because the world did not become multilateral, but rather the United States assumed the role of the preponderant and sole superpower. Post-Soviet Russia, instead of surging ahead, leaving behind the shackles of communism, lost much of its economic and military power. The hitherto cohesive European Union lost its direction as a result of massive expansion into countries with very different political realities. While Poland and Estonia were sending troops to Iraq, Germany and France actively opposed American intervention. Contrary to popular opinion, the transition to unilateralism happened with Bill Clinton as President, and not George W. Bush, just as the pro-U.S. shift in Canada began under Paul Martin, and not Stephen Harper.

To paint a bleak picture, however, is unfair. Jacques Lévesque, political science professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) and member of the Order of Canada for his work on the post-Communist world, emphasizes that Russia today is freer and more democratic than at any other period in the thousand years of its history. This point, entirely ignored in the media, is crucial in understanding the development of Russia today. As Austrian-born philosopher Karl Popper once said: “It is more difficult to pass from totalitarianism to a democracy, than from a democracy to totalitarianism.” According to Boniface, the negative image of Russia in the West may have more to do with her resurgence as an independent regional power than with its democratic performance.

Peter Leuprecht, UQÀM professor and former UN Special Representative for Human Rights in Cambodia, notes that “the collapse [of the Soviet Union] did not transform the ex-Communist states into earthly paradises. There has been a rise in nationalism and xenophobia in these countries, while social apathy and low civic engagement have returned… And though the fall of communism has helped unify Europe -- it is unlikely that there will be a war on its territory in the foreseeable future -- some ex-Communist states have blocked human rights reforms in European institutions.” Moreover, the phenomenon of women-trafficking, almost non-existent under communism, has blossomed into a major commercial activity. Yet Leuprecht points out that international criminal justice (for example for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda) did not exist during the Cold War, and adds that the United Nations, which during the Cold War had a chronically divided Security Council, now manages to agree on some issues.

The Soviet Union and its demise affected areas other than international relations. The conference The Revolution 90 Years Later: Its Impact on the World spent considerable time discussing the influence of the Soviet Union, directly and indirectly, on health delivery systems and labour rights world-wide, most particularly in Western countries. It is obvious that the anniversary of the Russian Revolution plays a role in our world. According to Vaclav Havel, first President of the Czech Republic, the collapse of Communism can be compared to the end of the Roman Empire. We can only hope that what follows will not one day be remembered as the “Dark Ages”.

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