Compare aspects of non-democratic rule in Russia and the Soviet Union
Understand features of monarchy, communist party rule, and illiberal regimes in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
Introduction
Russia has undergone many transitions over the past many centuries of its existence, from czarist rule to center of a communist party-led federation known as the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR). At the end of the twentieth century, this federation collapsed and Russia emerged as an illiberal democracy with stubbornly authoritarian tendencies but also a vibrant and sophisticated civil society.
For centuries, Russia was a key node in the trade routes that wound throughout Afro-Eurasia. Russian explorers traded furs and other animal products for the goods available along these ancient routes: gold, people, and spices. Political consolidation gained momentum during the sixteenth century under Ivan the Terrible, who claimed the title of czar and ruled from 1547 to 1584. He joined with the powerful House of Romanov by marriage and this began a three-century period of czarist rule that would last until revolution in the twentieth century.
During this czarist period, Russia was organized as a feudal state in which power was consolidated in the czar but local power also existed in noble houses. Ivan the Terrible consolidated the czar’s power in Moscow through the creation of standing armies and noble councils. The Orthodox Church provided the religious foundation for political power and state legitimacy. Ivan expanded the territorial reach of Russian rule after defeating khanates in what is now modern-day Russia, along the northwestern shores of the Caspian Sea at the mouth of the Volga River. Subsequent czars, such as Peter the Great (r. 1682-1725) initiated reforms to modernize Russia with military upgrades and the building of a navy, construction of public buildings in European architectural styles, and support for industrialization.
Throughout these centuries of czarist rule, Russia struggled with forging its own path on a vast continent. To the west, new ideas were bubbling up during the Enlightenment, and industrialization and modernization were taking off. To the east, empires of Asia were economically dynamic and some, such as Japan, were also rapidly modernizing. In comparison to European counterparts, Russia was slow to industrialize.
Yet Russian society was not immune to modern ideas, and the abolishment of serfdom in 1861 presented a break with the past. This was not enough to contain growing mass discontent with a brittle political system of czars and noble houses, and revolution broke out in the early years of the twentieth century.
As with much of the world, the twentieth century was a decisive time of change for Russia. In 1905, mass protests broke out in the cities and resulted in Czar Nicholas II creating a legislature. Unrest continued, and this period presented a moment for republican revolution and unprecedented transformation in Russia. The moment passed, however, with the revolution of 1917. This revolution was led by Vladimir Lenin and political parties that adhered to socialism and communism as the path forward for Russia. A vicious civil war ensued, with the Bolsheviks emerging triumphant. Lenin took the mantle as Russia’s paramount political leader and forged a federation under single-party rule.
Single Party Rule, 1922-1991
Organized as a multi-ethnic and multi-national federation, the USSR became the largest sovereign country on the planet, stretching from the Baltics to the eastern shores of Siberia. The USSR’s first leader, Vladimir Lenin, carried out radical wholescale reorganization of the state and society. State-led modernization and industrialization became the watchwords of this time; the countryside was squeezed for the products that would feed urban industrial centers.
In this single-party system, led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the state was pervasive in all aspects of life. Economically, free markets were abolished and replaced by centralized economic planning: production would proceed according to five-year plans set by a vast planning bureaucracy. The countryside was organized into communes, with production quotas and set prices. The state owned all “commanding heights” of industry, from energy production to steel foundries. Again, production and prices were set, and workers were assigned to workplaces. In this world, there was no inflation and no unemployment – but there existed scarcity and supply-side distortions.
Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\):Production quotas were set by the state in the USSR. This included the cotton harvest in Armenia, which was part of the USSR. This photo was taken in the 1930s and sought to demonstrate the abundance of the Soviet system. (Source: Cotton picker from Armenian SSR viaWikipedia is licensed underPublic Domain)
Socially and culturally, the CPSU controlled all aspects of life. The media was entirely state-run, across all communication technologies such as radio, print, and television. The party organized youth groups, women’s federations, and provided for leisure spaces. While the party was officially atheist, it permitted state-sanctioned places of worship. There was no independent organized social life for Soviet citizens.
Politically, the party maintained control through a competitive selection process for party membership; the most desirable offices in the party and state bureaucracies were open only to party members. Appointments were carefully controlled through party personnel bureaucracies, which maintained classified files on all citizens. To enforce party rule through force, Lenin created a secret police known as the Cheka, which was the forerunner to the KGB. While there existed paramount leaders within the CPSU, beginning with Lenin and then the disastrous totalitarianism of Stalin, leadership was also collective in some ways. Major party decisions were made through bodies such as the Politburo and disseminated throughout the party and state apparatus.
Communist party rule lasted for seven decades. Internal weaknesses festered, from ethnic resentments to economic distortions to political stagnation. By the 1980s, reform-minded leaders such as Mikhail Gorbachev attempted small steps toward loosening economic and social controls. By then, it was too late. The 1980s were a restive time throughout the USSR, in the Baltics and the Caucasus, Ukraine and Moldova. In 1989, a string of revolutions in client states of the USSR led to the overthrow of communist parties in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Romania, among others. In 1990, there was an attempted coup in Moscow. Through a cascade of shocking events in 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved: one after another, republics seceded from the federation and declared themselves independent. On December 25, 1991, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin and the Russian flag replaced it.
Illiberal Regime, 1991-Present
In the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, institutions created by the CPSU were dismantled. Central planning, state-owned industry, and communes went into the dustbin of history. Russia and many of the fourteen other post-Soviet republics adopted liberal market economies, to varying degrees, and multi-party political systems. The transition was rocky in every case.
The Russia that emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union had many assets. It possessed great energy reserves and mineral wealth and a highly educated population base, along with thousands of nuclear weapons and a sophisticated military-industrial complex. All of this was leveraged to maintain Russia’s status as a regional power. Today Russia is a major energy provider to the European Union, and it has maintained client states in Eurasia such as Belarus and Syria.
While there was hope that Russia would join the liberal European fold in the early 1990s, those hopes have since been dashed. Since the breakup of single party rule under the CPSU, Russia has maintained an illiberal regime. Elections are neither free nor fair according to election observers. Non-state organizations are allowed to exist, but they are subject to harassment by state security agencies if they promote rights considered taboo by conservative Russian leaders and the Orthodox Church. While there are some media freedoms in the country, it remains a dangerous, and even deadly, place for investigative reporters. The courts are not independent, nor does it appear that presidents such as Vladimir Putin are subject to the rule of law.
There appears to be an expansionary imperative to this illiberal Russian state. In 2014 and 2022, Russian military assets were used to annex Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and invade Ukraine in its entirety, respectively. One powerful rationale was to consolidate the Russian nation -- despite popular Ukrainian assertions of a distinct Ukrainian identity -- and Russia's future as a disruptive, undemocratic force remains problematic for the region and beyond.
In summary, Russia has experienced centuries of non-democratic rule, and “varieties of non-democracy” are evident in tracing the history. There were moments when it appeared that republicanism might prevail, such as early in the twentieth century and at the end of that same century, but those moments were fleeting. Each non-democratic regime established institutions to maintain social order and economic and political control; each succeeded for varying lengths of time. Feudal rule under czars persisted for centuries, and Russia’s modernization lagged as a result. Single-party rule by the CPSU created a totalitarian system of large-scale economic tragedies and political repression. Today, there are comparatively more spaces for freedom in illiberal Russia, but they remain highly circumscribed.
