25.1: Introduction

In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed. Like the proverbial sorcerer’s apprentice who unleashed an enchantment he cannot control, the Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev had begun a series of reforms that ultimately resulted in the dismantling of the Soviet state. In 1989, the communist regimes of the Eastern Bloc crumbled as it became clear that the USSR would not intervene militarily. Nationalist independence movements exploded, and the entire system fell apart to be replaced by sovereign nations. In 1991, Russia reemerged as a distinct country rather than just the most powerful part of a larger union.

In 1992, following the Soviet collapse, the U.S. political theorist Francis Fukuyama published a book entitled The End of History and the Last Man. It's central argument was that humanity was entering into a new stage in which the essential political and economic questions of the past had been resolved. Henceforth, market capitalism and liberal democracy would be conjoined in a symbiotic relationship. Human rights would be guaranteed by the political system that also provided the legal framework for a prosperous capitalist economy. All of the alternatives had already been tried and had failed, from the old order of monarchy and nobility to modern fascism and, as of 1991, Soviet communism. Thus, former dictatorships would (if they had not already) join the fold of U.S.-style democracy and capitalism soon.

As it turned out, Fukuyama’s predictions were true for some of the former members of the Eastern Bloc. East and West Germany were reunited The countries of Eastern Europe including Romania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic elected democratic governments and sought to join the capitalist western economies. Russia did initially. However, almost immediately, its economy foundered in the face of the “shock therapy” led by western advisors: the rapid imposition of a market economy and the dismantling of the social safety net that had been the one meaningful benefit of the former Soviet system for ordinary citizens.

In the long run, countries all over the globe were as likely to embrace an economic and political system unanticipated by Fukuyama in 1992: authoritarian capitalism. To the surprise of many people, there is nothing about market economics that requires a democratic government. So long as an authoritarian state was willing to oversee the legal framework, and occasional economic interventions, necessary for capitalism to function, a capitalist economy could thrive despite the absence of civil and political rights. This pattern remains true even of those states that remain nominally “communist,” such as the People’s Republic of China. Starting with the election of Vladimir Putin in 2000, Russia would also adopt the model of authoritarian capitalism, with a single political party controlling the state and exercising enormous influence, if not outright control, of the press.

Meanwhile, in the countries of central and western Europe, economics and politics had been resolved in favor of the democracy/capitalism hybrid. Yet, social and cultural problems developed by the 1970s remain largely unresolved today.