Russian Middle Class

p1akuw47h5r3it

Hey everyone

I have to do a project on the Russian Middle class however I am finding it fairly difficult to find information about the Russian middle class.

I was just wondering if anyone could oint me in the right direction I guess as I dont't even lnow where to start haha.

Thanks fr the help,
DanDan

Rasmus

Reading English blogs and newspaper articles is probably a good place to start. You could look for leads on www.themoscowtimes.com www.rt.com (Russia today)
Good blogs: Robert Amsterdam, Siberian Light, and Paul Goble's column in the Guardian is good.

Maybe a stupid question, but did you google it? When I looked up the search term 'Russian middle class' there was numerous articles on BBC, Reuters, Russian sites, forums, survey articles and financial opinion pieces.

survivor2

It's a pity, middle class in Russia does not exist

One quote from 2004 (Google translated)

"Middle class" in Russia

According to official statistics, cash income than half of Russians do not exceed $ 100-125 per month, while the average salary per employee in May 2004 was approximately $ 227. Statistics of real earnings of the population have never existed and does not exist.It's useless to ask people about themselves: one will be out of habit, "cry the blues," while others, conversely, to try to "stretch" their income on average: a shame to know that you're in something worse than others.

If, however, apply the selection criteria of the middle class in accordance with international standards, the main features belonging to it are:

* A certain level of income
* Possession of movable and immovable property,
* Professional qualifications,
* Level of education,
* Successful behavior in a market economy.

Of course, among these criteria is considered a core level of income - it must allow sufficient lead a comfortable lifestyle. Quantitative assessment of the extent of the middle class in Russia vary significantly. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, considering all five of the above symptoms, then the middle class may include no more than 2.5% of families with four features - 8-12%, with three - 20-25%.

Conventionally assumed that the middle class in Russia is about 10-12% of the population, 10.8% are "wealthy" and about 80% - "poor". It is noted that the boundaries between these groups are blurred.

Middle can be called such income, which not only allows us to solve basic survival issues, i.e. to provide food, clothes and shoes, pay the rent and utilities, but also provides opportunities for diverse recreational activities. From this perspective, the notion of "middle income" differs significantly by region of our country. For example, in the "dear" Moscow on an average monthly income families can be considered as income in the amount of $ 500 to $ 1 K,but family income, not per person. For a small provincial town where the real basket of goods is significantly cheaper, the average can be considered family income, and $ 200-300.
Source:
M2

Comments

In fact, in a small provincial town
Wrote: Natalia

In fact, in a small provincial town of almost everything: food, household chemicals, clothing, utensils, etc., costs the same amount as in the declared as "dear" to Moscow, and some categories ...



Would you try to survive
Wrote: An - April 19, 2007 - 23:42

Would you try to survive on an average income of $ 200 a family of 3 persons, if charges for utility services for 2 bedroom apartment is about $ 100



I hope everything will be much better
Wrote: Julie - September 30, 2008 - 18:17

The source http://www.statsdata.ru/content/view/11-21.html

I respect Robert Amsterdam and his colleagues but it's better to use an appropriate Russian links

An interesting relevant and fresh enough discussion is here (in Russian)
http://www.e-xecutive.ru/knowledge/worldtoplist/1285491

And you can read ready Russian student works here(in Russian) and make your own project.Cheers!
http://otherreferats.allbest.ru/sociology/00007227.html

p1akuw47h5r3it

Rasmus wrote: »

Reading English blogs and newspaper articles is probably a good place to start. You could look for leads on www.themoscowtimes.com www.rt.com (Russia today)
Good blogs: Robert Amsterdam, Siberian Light, and Paul Goble's column in the Guardian is good.

Maybe a stupid question, but did you google it? When I looked up the search term 'Russian middle class' there was numerous articles on BBC, Reuters, Russian sites, forums, survey articles and financial opinion pieces.

hey thanks for the reply. ye i did Google it however there was another student doing the project and i was asked to make mine "different" so was just looking for different articles in order to take a different approAch. The google articles only gave so much info and as I can't yet fluently speak Russian the Russian articles only helped so much. The blogs etc. were exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks for the link to the MT and RT they were a great help as were the blogs.:)

p1akuw47h5r3it

survivor2 wrote: »

It's a pity, middle class in Russia does not exist

RL]

hey Survivor thanks as always

robindch

DanDan6592 wrote: »

I have to do a project on the Russian Middle class however I am finding it fairly difficult to find information about the Russian middle class.

Wikileaks to the rescue. Here's the US Embassy in Moscow on the Russian middle class:

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/04/09MOSCOW821.html

US Embassy wrote:

SUMMARY

¶1. (C) Leading Russian sociologists concur the GOR missed the chance to invest in the middle class during the economic boom. As a result, the middle class remains only approximately 20 percent of the population. That said, experts assert that the small middle class is nonetheless well positioned to weather the current crisis owing to its savings and human capital. Moreover, they see the middle class less as a revolutionary class than an inert mass, inclined to support the administration. Neither sociologists nor the administration consider the middle class a threat to the regime, even in the throes of an economic downturn. As such, the government has decided to focus its anti-crisis resources on blue-collar workers instead of providing the support and institutional reform needed for middle class development -- and ultimately the innovation economy that Medvedev and Putin advocate. End Summary.

MIDDLE CLASS SURVIVING, BUT NOT THRIVING

¶2. (U) During last month's annual conference on the sociopolitical challenges of the 21st century, sponsored by the Independent Institute for Social Politics (ISP), panels of sociologists and economists, many of whom advise President Medvedev, said the Russian middle class would survive the economic crisis but would not thrive. Igor Yurgens, of the Institute for Modern Development, opened the conference by underscoring the GOR's neglect of investment in the public and social institutions necessary to nurture the middle class during the eight year economic boom that coincided with Prime Minister Putin's presidency. The opportunities provided by massive petrodollar inflows were now gone, he stated. Owing to the government's failure to capitalize on these opportunities and the reversal in Russia's economic fortunes, the vertical impetus for social mobility had stopped functioning.

¶3. (C) XXXXXXXXXXXX, further stressed the lack of quantitative middle class growth in spite of Russia's economic prosperity. She used studies from 2000 and 2007 to demonstrate that the size of the middle class remained relatively constant, at anywhere from 12 to 20 percent of the population. By her estimate, the core of the middle class was between 5-7 percent of the population, although by lowering the income standards and the standard set for social and professional status, the middle class would then range between 12-20 percent of the population. In her calculations, the middle class was made up primarily of managers of large companies, bank directors, financial specialists, business owners (restaurants, retail trade), part of the intelligentsia, and middle to high-level bureaucrats. The latter category had grown during the crisis (owing to the slowdown in the private sector), and she said, now comprised about a quarter of the middle class.

GETTING THROUGH THE CRISIS

¶4. (C) During a separate meeting with us, XXXXXXXXXXXX claimed that the fall in real incomes, not job losses, was now the biggest threat to middle class prosperity. XXXXXXXXXXXX estimated that middle class incomes would shrink this year by 10 to 15 percent with a negative GDP growth rate of 3.5 percent. (In comparison middle class incomes dropped by 25 percent during the 1998 crisis). She added that the "core" of the middle class had actually contracted slightly, from 6.9 to 5.3 percent, which she said was probably due to the fact that a number of white collar workers (bankers, managers, as well as small and medium sized entrepreneurs) had fallen out of the middle class since the beginning of the crisis. She contended, however, that the employment situation with the middle class had for the most part stabilized.

¶5. (C) XXXXXXXXXXXX commented that the middle class had certain "cushions" which gave it an advantage over the blue collar, or poorer classes during the crisis. First of all, many of the middle class had accumulated savings during the boom years (comprising between seven to 10 percent of their total incomes, or the equivalent of four or five monthly salaries). Between October 2008 and February 2009, they tended to take advantage of the GOR's gradual devaluation to purchase foreign exchange, trade it for rubles, and then purchase large consumer items and durables, such as automobiles and refrigerators, which were priced in rubles. She said as of February, however, the middle class "consumer binge" had pretty much run its course owing to the decline in real incomes, depletion of personal savings, and persistent inflation.

NOT REVOLUTIONARY

¶6. (C) Despite claims by political activists like Garry Kasparov that the middle class will create "problems" for the administration when job cuts start and salaries freeze, most sociologists here portray the middle class as a conservative force rather than a potentially disgruntled constituency eager to defend its interests. XXXXXXXXXXXX argued the number of "entrepreneurs" within the middle class had not grown during the Putin years. He claimed virtually all of the growth had come instead from the rise of government bureaucrats who benefited from impressive pay increases under Putin. As a result, the mentality of the middle class has shifted considerably away from the more independent and market-oriented conceptions of the Yeltsin-era (in which entrepreneurial types dominated).

¶7. (C) During the Putin era, Russia has developed what XXXXXXXXXXXX termed a "third world" middle class with a conservative mentality, shaped by hierarchical thinking, and largely risk averse. Indeed, according to his research, the core of the middle class has now absorbed much of the bureaucratic worldview of the majority. This explains the broad support for Putin and Medvedev across society, the power of social conservative values, and a reluctance to challenge authority.

¶8. (C) Paradoxically, Russia's youthful middle class is more Western in its lifestyle, but still very anti-Western in its politics, according to XXXXXXXXXXXX. She sees Russia's young "social innovators" (her company eschews the term "middle class" as too controversial) as characterized by a more Western lifestyle, including the willingness to take bank loans, use the internet, pay for fitness centers, etc. Their better education makes them mentally more flexible but does not make them more politically liberal. Far from afraid of the economic downturn, most are confident that their abilities allow them to re-invent themselves and adapt to challenges.

¶9. (C) XXXXXXXXXXXX commented to us that today's youth are firmly indoctrinated in a "patriotic" mindset that blames the US and the West for much of Russia's ills. They remain largely apolitical, but more attuned to the interests of the state, rather than the rights and opportunities of the individual. As such, he sees Russia's youth as more inclined to rally in defense of the state than to agitate for revolutionary change.

MIDDLE CLASS WELL POSITIONED, BUT LACKS SUPPORT

¶10. (C) That said, XXXXXXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXXXXXX told us in separate meetings that the middle class still had the best chance of stimulating Russia's development in the post-crisis world. It had invested more in its own human capital (education and training) during the high growth years; whereas the lower socio-economic strata used most of their new-found cash to purchase basic consumer items. In addition, the middle class had acquired work experience and professional skills enabling them to adapt to shifts in labor market demand. Blue-collar households, in contrast, were suffering disproportionately from inflation, down-sizing, and salary reductions. XXXXXXXXXXXX concluded the middle class would be the best candidate for supporting collaboration between the state, society, and private sector to address Russia's economic problems.

¶11. (U) However, these analysts pointed out that the GOR's focus on blue-collar workers in its anti-crisis measures had deprived the middle class of resources and opportunities to stimulate growth or reform. According to Tambovtsev, the main hope for middle class to play a transitional role in society lay in small business entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, the absence of secure property and contract rights, a biased judiciary, and administrative barriers impeded SME growth. Falling consumption was also hurting SME's, which tended to orient themselves toward household consumers. Without the resources and institutional reforms necessary to improve their productivity, middle class entrepreneurs were unlikely to serve as a strong countermeasure to current economic trends.

COMMENT

¶12. (C) While not dead, the Russian middle class does not show signs of rapid growth in the near term, nor does it seem likely to be the engine of democratic change in Russia. Better equipped to deal with the downturn than the working classes but politically inert, the middle class poses little threat to political and social stability. Moreover, despite the administration's emphasis on preparing for post-crisis development through innovation and small/medium businesses, the most likely candidate to help the government achieve those aims -- the middle class -- has largely been ignored by the state. We expect this process to continue: budget constraints will leave minimal resources for cultivating the human capital of the middle class. End Comment.

BTW, there are quite a few interesting dispatches from the Moscow Embassy on Wikileaks. They're certainly worth a read:

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/origin/29_0.html

p1akuw47h5r3it

Very interesting to read, also the document about Chechnya.

Thanks

Moomoo1

I am probably as upper-middle class as it gets. My grandfather was a sculptor who made many important statues in Russian cities, including the statue of Tchaikovsky in his home town. Recently he was given the award of People's Artist of Russia. My grandmother was a daughter of a wealthy (before 1917) Russian jeweller. My mother attended Moscow State and my father worked in a university until 1991.

What do you want to know about the Russian middle class? These people in the early 90's lost everything - jobs, savings, pensions, you name it. Went from being both respected and wealthy to being useless and pennyless. No one respects a teacher or a scientist nowdays, every kid wants to be a businessman or a pop-star.

Then, just as they got up on their feet, their savings were wiped out a second time - in 1998. My parents-in-law know a lot of respectable people - engineers, teachers by profession - who even now scrape together a living doing a cleaning job. This in spite of being well over the pensionable age.

During Putin's time this class split. Some people did really well for themselves - got comfortable jobs (not in their original profession: eg one of our friends is an old English scholar but has to work in a Moscow newspaper instead), comfortable lives. Those people, of course support Putin: they see him as a welcome change from the anarchy of the 90's. Truth is, that for Russia the free market experiment was a disaster, and they associate liberalism with that. Putin is the 'strong hand' that stopped the chaos, and in addition this chaos is associated with the West, as Western advisers were behind the suicadal economic measures of the early 90's.

Some people didn't do so well. They still work like slaves to make ends meet. But even for them things are slightly better than in the 90's. At least in some areas of the country (wealthier ones) pensions are higher and there is some work available. Many of them would still vote Communist. Eg my grandfather was almost totally out of work in the 90's, and struggling financially, but in the 00's his sculpture faculty rebranded itself as an art and design one (teaching rich kids), and so up to now he had a decent paying job as a professor there (he retired last summer, at the age of 86).

Of course, that's a very crude division: there are many exceptions to the rule (heavily religious people, intellegentsia, people who went into business and survived/did well etc) but I don't really have time to go into that. But I think the key feeling for people initially was shock: shock of being plunged (after 1991) from a comfortable and respectable existence on admittedly limited means into total obscurity and poverty. Some have recovered from this shock and rebranded themselves: others haven't.

EDIT: you may also want to mention that bad as the problems of the middle class have been, they are nothing compared to that of the working class - both peasants and factory workers. _They_ really have been screwed with a big one. Not paid wages, left without medical help, thrown out of work, falling into things like prostitution, drugs and the biggest one of all, alcoholism...

survivor2

That's truth. But it seems to me that you left the country for about 10 years ago. The situation getting worse than in 90's.
Your quote

nowadays, every kid wants to be a businessman or a pop-star.

Many sources say that nowadays every kid wants to be an official which has the ability to take bribes and to steal money from state budget.And this is not my joke or any kind of sarcasm.

Official statistics show that most successful class today is the class of officials.

survivor2

How do you think why 1 km of a new road costs in Russia four times more expensive than in the US ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07pe4QIJw-I&feature=player_embedded

Moomoo1

survivor2 wrote: »

That's truth. But it seems to me that you left the country for about 10 years ago. The situation getting worse than in 90's.
Your quote


Many sources say that nowadays every kid wants to be an official which has the ability to take bribes and to steal money from state budget.And this is not my joke or any kind of sarcasm.

Official statistics show that most successful class today is the class of officials.

most kids we know (I guess) won't be so aware as to realise this sort of corruption

but otherwise I agree with you

and I left in 1993, but I come back from time to time. But in what way is the situation getting worse? From what I remember, the 90's were a total wreck, and so anything different had to be an improvement.

p1akuw47h5r3it

Survivor do u mean that the situation now is worse than the 90's?

and would people really rather communism than what Russia has now?

Also I don't believe Russia is a liberal state either. I'm a liberal and as far as I can see Russia doesn't really have a free market.

survivor2

Google translated quote

Businessmen in 2010 withdraw their capitals from Russia more actively than before. They send their children abroad too. Experts explain what is happening due to unfavorable business and investment climate in the country. In their view, the majority of the Russian holders of money do not believe in the prospects for stable development of domestic economy. In addition, businessmen are not satisfied with the growing tax burden. All this forces them to build up reserves abroad...

http://www.ng.ru/economics/2010-11-08/1_capital.html

Today,the pervasive corruption destroys the economy.

Common people live in bad conditions and they lost even their microscopic guarantees and welfares they had during Communism period.

survivor2

Russian tycoon Mr.Prokhorov is going to force Russians to work at least 60 hours a week instead of 40 hours like before(in communism time or in 90's).He explains that it is good for them. http://rt.com/news/prime-time/60-hours-workweek-russia/

Moomoo1

DanDan6592 wrote: »

Survivor do u mean that the situation now is worse than the 90's?

politically it's worse, as in if you speak out against the government you risk being murdered. Economically, for many middle class people, it's much better. Many middle class people have a lifestyle that is as good as that in Europe (but then there are millions of people of both working and middle classes who very much don't).

DanDan6592 wrote: »

and would people really rather communism than what Russia has now?

again, politically the situation was worse, in that there was less freedom of speech. Economically it was much better: yes, you couldn't have a european standard lifestyle, but the state would feed you and give you a roof over your head, all the bare essentials. Now we have some people who live very well, and some who are living in what is essentially the third world. Especially in the countryside: to give an example my former classmate from school went to the countryside and found a guy both of whose children died from treatable illnesses because the hospital couldn't be bothered to send an ambulance http://www.izvestia.ru/comment/article3143403/. This wouldn't have happened so often under the USSR.

They did an internet poll a few years ago, and it was about 50-50 between respondents who said life was better under the USSR and those who preferred the present.

The two main middle class groups who are anti-USSR are the 'prosperous middle classes' who I mention above (they have now things available to them that they couldn't have dreamt of under communism), and religious people (for obvious reasons). Also, many people are either ignorant or apathetic: there is also a lot of government misinformation about what life was really like 20+ years ago, with negatives being focused on over positives (interestingly, the gov't propaganda really ridicules Lenin, but is deliberately ambiguous about Stalin). Communism mainly appeals to older people for whom life was much better back then.

DanDan6592 wrote: »

Also I don't believe Russia is a liberal state either. I'm a liberal and as far as I can see Russia doesn't really have a free market.

it's not liberal now, but in the 90's they tried to make it liberal and free market, and this resulted in a disaster. That's why people shudder when they think of what they call 'wild capitalism' of the 90's. To me, Russia is a great example of why the free market ideology is not viable in real life.

robindch

Moomoo1 wrote: »

it's not liberal now, but in the 90's they tried to make it liberal and free market

The problem in the 90's was that the attempt at liberalization was hijacked by criminals who were able to prey upon a weak state, a naive population, an untried legal framework and a corrupt judiciary.

Markets work fine, but -- the ravings of libertarians aside - they do need certain other things in place to be able to work efficiently and fairly.

survivor2

Free market ideology is absent in Russia as now as it was just a fake slogan in 90's.

Nowadays more and more experts describe Russia as a feudal state.

Russian newspaper Vedomosty recently published an editorial entitled

"Russia is feudal state"

Ideologues and the neophytes of the new theory take only beneficial to them part of a noble ideology - the privileges.
***
Characteristic of the feudal class inequality manifests itself in many areas of daily life. The obvious benefits - flashing lights on their cars, blocking streets, which go high-ranking officials and oligarchs - a bright detail of the the division of Russians into the higher and lower castes. More important is the inequality of common man in disputes, even with a small head clerk in court or at a meeting with "new nobleman" on the road. Volume of officials privilege sometimes has a bad joke: the officials are confident that on their side is not only justice but also the laws of physics.

http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article/245904/feodalnaya_rossiya

Moomoo1

robindch wrote: »

The problem in the 90's was that the attempt at liberalization was hijacked by criminals who were able to prey upon a weak state, a naive population, an untried legal framework and a corrupt judiciary.

I would claim that all of these - except for the naive population - were consequences, not causes, of the failure of the 'capitalism experiment'. Eg the judiciary wasn't corrupt to start with (law and order in the USSR was actually quite well enforced), but the climate of the 90's made them corrupt. The state wasn't weak, but it shot itself in the foot. And so on.

robindch wrote: »

Markets work fine, but -- the ravings of libertarians aside - they do need certain other things in place to be able to work efficiently and fairly.

they (free markets) are like medicine - ok in small quantities.

survivor2

There's a theory that a part of the communist elite has decided in 80's to relieve unnecessary restrictions for themselves and organized the Perestroika to gain new privileges.

p1akuw47h5r3it

It seems to me that the Goverment doesn't do enough to help the "smaller" regions of Russia i.e not St. Petersburg or Moscow. The world cup in 2018 may help this though as other areas of Russia will now be required to be built up and bettered.

Also with regards the Liberalism (liberalism and Capitilism are two different things) I don't believe Russia ever practiced it properly. For example the lack of free media, the selling off of state bodies which resulted in the rise of the oligarchs was all wrong etc.

Also the de-militarization of Russia resulted in huge job losses which may have yet to be replaced.

There are posts saying that owners of small family businesses tend to live fairly well, well why can't more of the poorer people set up businesses and create jobs etc.*

* I don't want to sound condescending when i ask that, I understand not everyone is in a position to. But if you consider only 20% (if even) of the population are middle class, surely the working class can do more to reach middle class status.

p1akuw47h5r3it

survivor2 wrote: »

Google translated quote

http://www.ng.ru/economics/2010-11-08/1_capital.html

Today,the pervasive corruption destroys the economy.

Common people live in bad conditions and they lost even their microscopic guarantees and welfares they had during Communism period.

This is why I believe in liberalism as it promotes business activity and prevents what was quoted from the article.

survivor2 wrote: »

Russian tycoon Mr.Prokhorov is going to force Russians to work at least 60 hours a week instead of 40 hours like before(in communism time or in 90's).He explains that it is good for them. http://rt.com/news/prime-time/60-hours-workweek-russia/

A ridiculous idea, if this is passed which I believe it won't Russians should hold nationwide strikes!

Moomoo1

survivor2 wrote: »

I've read,there's a theory that a part of the communist elite has decided in 80's to relieve unnecessary restrictions for themselves and organized the Perestroika to gain new privileges.

I don't buy that theory. I do think Gorbachev meant well, but he lost control.

It is true though that the elite hasn't changed. The people who run our country now are still the same sort of people who ran it in the 1980's. It's just that they changed the colour of their beliefs.

It's very funny to see Putin, Medvedev and co going to churches and praying. Not so long ago those same people shouted Marxist slogans, including 'down with religion'.

Moomoo1

DanDan6592 wrote: »

It seems to me that the Goverment doesn't do enough to help the "smaller" regions of Russia i.e not St. Petersburg or Moscow. The world cup in 2018 may help this though as other areas of Russia will now be required to be built up and bettered.

Also with regards the Liberalism (liberalism and Capitilism are two different things) I don't believe Russia ever practiced it properly. For example the lack of free media, the selling off of state bodies which resulted in the rise of the oligarchs was all wrong etc.

there was free media in the 90's. The rise of the oligarchs came later in 1996. What happened was that after 5 years of 'wild capitalism', the Communist party was leading in the polls before the '96 election. So Yeltsin, to stay in power, gave massive money and massive resources to people to keep himself in power. Those - Berezovsky, Gusinsky, possibly even Abramovich - became 'the Oligarchs'. They ran his electoral campaign for him - popstars toured Russia with concerts telling people to vote for Yeltsin, all sorts of electoral tricks were committed, and Yeltsin won, and the oligarchs became billionaries. A few days after Yeltsin's victory, people were seen carrying a large number of photocopier boxes out of Kremlin. There is little doubt what this was: money. The Kremlin was paying the people who kept Yeltsin in power.

WC2018 is just an excuse to put more state money into the pockets of criminals. It will do next to nothing for the population.

Also the de-militarization of Russia resulted in huge job losses which may have yet to be replaced.

Wasn't just demilitarisation. The whole Russian industry stopped. All that Stalin built up - at such tremendous human cost - the massive industrial machine that eventually crushed the Nazis - was abandoned to rot. Also, the massive number of people employed in education - teachers, librarians, professors - are paid a pittance, and cannot subsist on that. So all those millions of jobs just vanished and nothing replaced them.

At the same time living costs have increased. With the new capitalist mindset the government has slowly started raising utility prices, getting rid of freebies for pensioners and children, caps on food prices...

There are posts saying that owners of small family businesses tend to live fairly well, well why can't more of the poorer people set up businesses and create jobs etc.*

* I don't want to sound condescending when i ask that, I understand not everyone is in a position to. But if you consider only 20% (if even) of the population are middle class, surely the working class can do more to reach middle class status.

Yes, I said that some middle class people live fairly well, as well as in any european country. Owners of small businesses come under the category. But %-wise that's a small number. There are only so many small business owners that a country can sustain.

As for your question, the simple answer is 'because the opportunities aren't there'. Because agriculture has been left to rot, and industry has been mostly abandoned. Free market capitalism decided that these weren't competetive and consigned them to the scrapheap, with little heed for people. Under the Soviets there was a good deal of social mobility : eg my wife's grandparents came from Belorussian villages where people hardly spoke Russian: and yet they were able to better and improve themselves, and become middle class. Because there were jobs available, things to do, etc. Now those openings simply aren't there. Free market capitalists care about profit, not about job creation.

I don't know if you've read George Orwell's 'Road to Wigan Pier', but he addresses all the same issues there: explaining things like unemployment and poverty in the working class. Of course, 30's England isn't the same as 90's Russia, but similarities are there.

survivor2

Good post.

p1akuw47h5r3it

So basically things were better under the communist regime?

or is it just that you believe Putin, Medvedev etc. (I cant spell his name sorry!) are simple doing an awful job

and can I ask you if you had the choice would you rather that Communism had never left Russia?

I ask this to survivor too if she wants to answer

Great post by the way:)

Moomoo1

DanDan6592 wrote: »

So basically things were better under the communist regime?

or is it just that you believe Putin, Medvedev etc. (I cant spell his name sorry!) are simple doing an awful job

and can I ask you if you had the choice would you rather that Communism had never left Russia?

I ask this to survivor too if she wants to answer

Great post by the way:)

as I've said, opinion on your first question is split approximately 50:50 according to a recent internet poll. I can't find that poll, but I've found an american(?) poll that says roughly the same http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1396/european-opinion-two-decades-after-berlin-wall-fall-communism*.

and generally if you ask a diverse group of (well-informed) people about this the answers will differ. Most will tell you that some things were better then and some now. The best way to describe it would be that the Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin-Medvedev regimes were/are all repulsive in their unique, and very different, ways. It would take far too long to describe exactly how.

I, as you can guess, think that the loss of USSR was a bad thing, and indeed my political views on capitalism and socialism (that you can maybe see in my other posts on those forums) are a direct result of what I watched happen in the 90's.

*It would be interesting to see how much state propaganda affects this. It _is_ a double-edged sword here, villifying Lenin but treating Stalin with a degree of respect. Me, I would say that it biases opinion in favour of the present regime, but that's me...

p1akuw47h5r3it

I'm by know means an expert on this topic (as I'm sure u have guessed ha!) but after reading your posts it seems to me that the previous/current goverments don't invest enough in the poor to improve their standard of living. This in my opinion isn't a fault of capitalism but of the current goverment.

Also I don't think it's fair to base your opinions on socialism/capitalism on Russia alone. I think to get a balanced few you have to look at how other countries have faired since the loss of communism i.e. east germany etc.

Whether your opinion changes is a different matter, I just don't think Russia should be your only comparison between the two ideologies

See with communism I just don't see how people can improve their lives, yes people may just have the basics but it's near impossible to better that. With capitalism (if done right) you always have the opportunity to better yourself.

survivor2

DanDan6592 wrote: »

With capitalism (if done right) you always have the opportunity to better yourself.

May I ask you, what will you do if you'll live inside the strange mixed feudalism-communism regime?

survivor2

I can explain. A lot of people in modern Russia work almost for free(communism),the gap in incomes of "working beggars" and the new nobility now is more than 23 times(feudalism).http://www.rg.ru/2010/01/11/analiz.html
Is it capitalism?

Moomoo1

survivor2 wrote: »

I can explain. A lot of people in modern Russia work almost for free(communism),the gap in incomes of "working beggars" and the new nobility now is more than 23 times(feudalism).http://www.rg.ru/2010/01/11/analiz.html
Is it capitalism?

I think it _is_ a version of capitalism. Consider how things are in the 3rd world, where most people slave away for tiny wages whilst a few have limos and helicopters.

On some basic level that's similar to what you are describing. Except that we haven't sunk to the level of Swaziland or Haiti. Yet.

p1akuw47h5r3it

survivor2 wrote: »

May I ask you, what will you do if you'll live inside the strange mixed feudalism-communism regime?

Do you mean what will i do when I live in Petersburg yes??

Well I will just go about my life. I'm going there because I study Russian in university, not to change anything about the country

p1akuw47h5r3it

survivor2 wrote: »

I can explain. A lot of people in modern Russia work almost for free(communism),the gap in incomes of "working beggars" and the new nobility now is more than 23 times(feudalism).http://www.rg.ru/2010/01/11/analiz.html
Is it capitalism?

I don't know is it?

If you consider the whole western (or develped world) they are all based around Capitalism to various degrees, some more so than others.

In communist countries everyone tends to be poor, bar the people who run the country i.e Goverment

In a more capitalized country this isn't the case i.e the majority of the population are not poor and have a good standard of living.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that within societies there will always be poor people.

It is also important to note that Russia is an emerging economy, similar to Ireland in the early 1990's

robindch

survivor2 wrote: »

Is it capitalism?

"Captalism" just means that people and corporations can acquire money and use it to trade for resources and other money. In this sense, every country in the world is "capitalist" (even the DPRK).

Some of the dispatches from the American Embassy in Moscow suggest that Russia is a pseudo-democratic kleptocracy.

robindch

DanDan6592 wrote: »

It is also important to note that Russia is an emerging economy, similar to Ireland in the early 1990's

Not at all. Unlike Ireland 20 years back, Russia now is doing little or nothing to encourage the development of a well-regulated market economy. Also -- despite a few well-meaning speeches by Medvedev to the contrary -- it is doing nothing to wean itself off its almost total reliance on the exploitation of natural resources as a means to prop up the rest of its creaking economy.

Moomoo1

DanDan6592 wrote: »

I'm by know means an expert on this topic (as I'm sure u have guessed ha!) but after reading your posts it seems to me that the previous/current goverments don't invest enough in the poor to improve their standard of living. This in my opinion isn't a fault of capitalism but of the current goverment.

Also I don't think it's fair to base your opinions on socialism/capitalism on Russia alone. I think to get a balanced few you have to look at how other countries have faired since the loss of communism i.e. east germany etc.

Whether your opinion changes is a different matter, I just don't think Russia should be your only comparison between the two ideologies

See with communism I just don't see how people can improve their lives, yes people may just have the basics but it's near impossible to better that. With capitalism (if done right) you always have the opportunity to better yourself.

it's far too complicated a topic to tackle here, but no, my views aren't based just on Russia, but also on other soviet republics and also Western Europe. Russia was just the starting point. Eg now I live in Scotland and watching in horror how free market ideology is ruining UK higher education...

what I really dislike is this 'free market ideology'. The sort that early 90's Russia embraced (read up about the Harvard Group sometime). Which implies very little state control (and in Russia we went from total state control of the economy to zero, and the result is evident) and very little state-organised redistribution (=investing into the poor). I have nothing against scandinavian-style socialist capitalism, when the markets are allowed to do their job within tight boundaries and the rich-poor gap is a few %. In fact, most Socialists would love that sort of setup.

you say people couldn't improve their lives under soviet communism. That's an extremely disputable claim (what's improving your life anyway? material goods? education? community? society values?: also if the overall quality of life in the country improves with time does this count?), but how many can realistically improve their lives under a capitalist system that doesn't have the Socialist limiting measures (that the rich are constantly trying to dismantle at the moment), and for how many does life get worse?

Moomoo1

DanDan6592 wrote: »

In communist countries everyone tends to be poor, bar the people who run the country i.e Goverment

In a more capitalized country this isn't the case i.e the majority of the population are not poor and have a good standard of living.

You are comparing a well-developed capitalist country with somewhere like the USSR there?

because if you are comparing the USSR with post soviet Russia then 'everyone' became much poorer after 1991 and 'the Government' became much richer.

if you are comparing the USSR with say the US, is that a fair comparison? The US was economically way ahead of Russia in 1917. And it didn't have the country devastated by wars twice over. Didn't have most of its men killed or cippled. Didn't have a trade embargo imposed by countries desperate to crush it. Didn't have a succession of crazy leaders who didn't understand basic facts about agriculture and science.

yes, massive reserves of oil helped. But then, in many oil-rich countries the poor live far worse than they did in the USSR...

survivor2

May I ask you, what will you do if you'll live inside the strange mixed feudalism-communism regime?

DanDan6592 wrote: »

Do you mean what will i do when I live in Petersburg yes??

Well I will just go about my life. I'm going there because I study Russian in university, not to change anything about the country

DanDan, that was just rhetorical question. Nothing personal

p1akuw47h5r3it

Ok the Ireland comparison was silly!:p

Again with Regards the whole capitalist Russia question i think it's more the fault of the goverment as opposed to the ideology itself.

And can i ask you what you think is wrong with the UK education system (I'm just generally interested thats all)

By standard of living I mean the real income per person, poverty rate, standard of health care (which I know is still awful in Russia) etc.
This is a link outlining the poor standard of living: http://www.cepr.org/meets/wkcn/7/753/papers/brainerd.pdf

In other words, the high GNP growth rates achieved in the Soviet
Union in this period failed to translate into improved well-being for the population as a whole,
and in fact by many measures the standard of living worsened significantly in the later decades
of this period. In light of the growing body of evidence that serious adult morbidities such as
stroke and heart disease develop in infancy and early childhood (Barker 1989, 1995, 1997,
1998), it is likely that the deteriorating living conditions of the USSR of the 1970s sowed the
seeds for the extraordinarily high mortality rates experienced in Russia and other countries of
the former Soviet Union in the 1990s

As regards to the current Russian goverment not helping the creation of business again thats the fault of the Goverment, not any particular ideology. However certain things have been done, for example, the lowering of the the corporation tax by 4% and deregulation in certain areas. This is besides the point anyway as I'm not trying to defend the Russian goverment and don't know whether if I was a Russian I would support Medvedev's Goverment or not.

I mean basically to some up I just don't think the free market was ever properly installed in Russia and maybe Russian people where better off under the communist regime however I don't necessarily believe this shows communism or socialism to be better than capitalism or liberalism

p1akuw47h5r3it

survivor2 wrote: »

DanDan, that was just rhetorical question. Nothing personal

haha ok sorry I guess humor is just hard to put across on the internet.

p1akuw47h5r3it

Moomoo1 wrote: »

You are comparing a well-developed capitalist country with somewhere like the USSR there?

because if you are comparing the USSR with post soviet Russia then 'everyone' became much poorer after 1991 and 'the Government' became much richer.

if you are comparing the USSR with say the US, is that a fair comparison? The US was economically way ahead of Russia in 1917. And it didn't have the country devastated by wars twice over. Didn't have most of its men killed or cippled. Didn't have a trade embargo imposed by countries desperate to crush it. Didn't have a succession of crazy leaders who didn't understand basic facts about agriculture and science.

yes, massive reserves of oil helped. But then, in many oil-rich countries the poor live far worse than they did in the USSR...

Yes fair point.

survivor2

DanDan6592 wrote: »

I don't necessarily believe this shows communism or socialism to be better than capitalism or liberalism

I feel my Russian opponents can confirm that there's no ANY ideology in Russia now and no any national idea in Russia.


As for me, I see many features of a socialist society in Ireland: respect for senior citizens, the promotion of large families, the financial incentives of productive labor. After 1991, it all disappeared in Russia. Hopefully not forever.

Moomoo1

survivor2 wrote: »

I feel my Russian opponents can confirm that there's no ANY ideology in Russia now and no any national idea in Russia.


As for me, I see many features of a socialist society in Ireland: respect for senior citizens, the promotion of large families, the financial incentives of productive labor. After 1991, it all disappeared in Russia. Hopefully not forever.

agreed.

except that there is now this hooray-patriotism of 'rossiya vpered' kind.

p1akuw47h5r3it

What does vpered mean??:o

p1akuw47h5r3it

What does vpered mean??:o

robindch

survivor2 wrote: »

I feel my Russian opponents can confirm that there's no ANY ideology in Russia now and no any national idea in Russia.

The dominant idea within Russia today, or at least the idea that the Russian state spends much time and energy promoting, is the idea of Russia itself and how "different" it is from other places, and the fact that it needs a "strong" leader who's able to "defend" the country from "attack" from abroad. This is obviously a belief that's beneficial to the guys at the top, and some people have suggested that is, in fact, the reason why the Kremlin promotes these ideas through its almost total control of the media, its political wing, United Russia, and at arm's length, more odious outfits like Nashi.

But it's odd you should mention the idea of a "national idea", since it's something that, these days, is almost exclusively Russian -- other than North Korea, I can't think of any State which has a national idea, or in this case, worries publicly that it doesn't. It's a case of Plato's notion of a Noble Lie and, frankly, it's a distraction, though a useful one. In the west, many people believe that the State is there to make the life of its citizens easier -- schools, roads, hospitals and so on. In Russia, the function of the State is seen as the "defender" of, well, something or other. And that something or other is defined by the people who directly benefit from its defense.

From this point of view, there are at least a few things which have remained unchanged from Tsarist, through Communist and into present times. The tradition of authoritarianism and authoritarian thinking is pretty hard to break, especially when people like Putin have no intention of allowing it to happen.

robindch

DanDan6592 wrote: »

What does vpered mean??:o

"Forward", as in "Россия, вперёд!":

http://www.kremlin.ru/news/5413

Somehow, I can't help but be reminded of black and white films showing wheat blowing gracefully in the breeze, squadrons of combine harvesters driving in close formation in the background, while in the foreground, smooth-skinned, blonde-haired soviet lasses in flower-print dresses grin and hold up handfuls of the stuff to the sun.

Moomoo1

DanDan6592 wrote: »

Ok the Ireland comparison was silly!:p

Again with Regards the whole capitalist Russia question i think it's more the fault of the goverment as opposed to the ideology itself.

And can i ask you what you think is wrong with the UK education system (I'm just generally interested thats all)

By standard of living I mean the real income per person, poverty rate, standard of health care (which I know is still awful in Russia) etc.
This is a link outlining the poor standard of living: http://www.cepr.org/meets/wkcn/7/753/papers/brainerd.pdf

thanks, I'll read that to the end when I have time. I find this a bit strange: everyone always talked about how children were getting taller and taller when I was small (acceleration it was called), so to hear that the children of 1960's were taller than those of 1970's or 1980's is strange. Many of my friends - born around 1980 - are over 6 feet tall. But then of course this was in Moscow. But Russians don't strike one as a short nation compared to eg the Americans.

Soviet healthcare was actually quite highly praised. Often even held as an example to other countries. I think that if the nation was unhealthy it wasn't because of that: it was because of lack of nutrition (in some places you saw an orange once every few years) and industrial/military accidents (like Chernobyl) which polluted large parts of the country. Also alcoholism was always a massive problem.

I am not saying that life in the USSR was comparable to that in the Western countries. But it's wrong to say that quality of life could not be improved if one wished it to be, it very much could. Just not to as high a level as in the West. In general, the western stereotype of 'everyone poor, government rich' was wrong - there was also a sizeable middle class, and the 'poor' varied as well. The way most people lived, in my opinion, couldn't fairly be described as 'poor'. The main complaint people had wasn't poverty: it was the lack of freedom of speech (including the secrecy surrounding many Soviet disasters), the lack of Western goods and the overpowering, all-powerful bureaucracy.

Whether capitalism or bad gov't decisions are responsible for what happened in the 90's - I still maintain it's a bit of both. After all, american free market liberals were advising the Russian gov't of the early 90's, and this could have helped create the climate in which everything just went to pot.

regarding the UK unis, they are trying to make them behave like businesses trying to attract students (=paying customers). As a result, courses are being dumbed down to attract students, everyone is getting good marks irrespective of performance, to attract students, no one ever gets kicked out... the problem is that under this system the places that do the best are not the ones that give the best education but the ones that let you drink for x years and still get a good degree...

DanDan6592 wrote: »

As regards to the current Russian goverment not helping the creation of business again thats the fault of the Goverment, not any particular ideology. However certain things have been done, for example, the lowering of the the corporation tax by 4% and deregulation in certain areas. This is besides the point anyway as I'm not trying to defend the Russian goverment and don't know whether if I was a Russian I would support Medvedev's Goverment or not.

I mean basically to some up I just don't think the free market was ever properly installed in Russia and maybe Russian people where better off under the communist regime however I don't necessarily believe this shows communism or socialism to be better than capitalism or liberalism

the word 'deregulation' sounds funny in this context. It's makes it sound as if anything has been regulated previously...

what they _are_ constantly doing is cutting the support for the poor and vulnerable. Pensioners, and mothers, and the like.

survivor2

Moomoo1
what they _are_ constantly doing is cutting the support for the poor and vulnerable. Pensioners, and mothers, and the like.

Official propaganda insists on increasing the social care of the state of these categories of citizens, but in reality things are quite deplorable.

Population of the country continues to steadily decline.

p1akuw47h5r3it

Moomoo1 wrote: »

thanks, I'll read that to the end when I have time. I find this a bit strange: everyone always talked about how children were getting taller and taller when I was small (acceleration it was called), so to hear that the children of 1960's were taller than those of 1970's or 1980's is strange. Many of my friends - born around 1980 - are over 6 feet tall. But then of course this was in Moscow. But Russians don't strike one as a short nation compared to eg the Americans.

Soviet healthcare was actually quite highly praised. Often even held as an example to other countries. I think that if the nation was unhealthy it wasn't because of that: it was because of lack of nutrition (in some places you saw an orange once every few years) and industrial/military accidents (like Chernobyl) which polluted large parts of the country. Also alcoholism was always a massive problem.

I am not saying that life in the USSR was comparable to that in the Western countries. But it's wrong to say that quality of life could not be improved if one wished it to be, it very much could. Just not to as high a level as in the West. In general, the western stereotype of 'everyone poor, government rich' was wrong - there was also a sizeable middle class, and the 'poor' varied as well. The way most people lived, in my opinion, couldn't fairly be described as 'poor'. The main complaint people had wasn't poverty: it was the lack of freedom of speech (including the secrecy surrounding many Soviet disasters), the lack of Western goods and the overpowering, all-powerful bureaucracy.

Whether capitalism or bad gov't decisions are responsible for what happened in the 90's - I still maintain it's a bit of both. After all, american free market liberals were advising the Russian gov't of the early 90's, and this could have helped create the climate in which everything just went to pot.

regarding the UK unis, they are trying to make them behave like businesses trying to attract students (=paying customers). As a result, courses are being dumbed down to attract students, everyone is getting good marks irrespective of performance, to attract students, no one ever gets kicked out... the problem is that under this system the places that do the best are not the ones that give the best education but the ones that let you drink for x years and still get a good degree...



the word 'deregulation' sounds funny in this context. It's makes it sound as if anything has been regulated previously...

what they _are_ constantly doing is cutting the support for the poor and vulnerable. Pensioners, and mothers, and the like.

With regards the Uni's again i would argue that this isn't as a result of Uni's being treated as businesses, they are in America and america has the best Uni's in the world. However I don't thin k this is a point worth debating on in the Russian forum

As regards the wild capitalism of the 90's it's something i will have to look into more, i thought I knew more than I actually did!

As a liberal I believe that it's the nations duty to protect it's citizens and with regards the poor i think the Russian goverment isn't doin enough in this regard

I didn't know the healthcare system was held so high, I knew the education system was supposedly excellent though. the alcoholism point is made in the article as far as I can remeber.

this is why i find studying Russia so interesting because there is so much bias in the West towards Russia thats it's nice to see what is through and what isn't, I didn't know there was a middle-class in Communist Russia

survivor2

There's an interesting article regarding to your question

"Middle Class as a symbol of the deteriorating Russia"
http://www.apn.ru/publications/article21823.htm

"Middle Class" - a concept well-established in Western sociologists, but for Russia is new and undeveloped.In the USSR was no such thing. Marxist sociology was not tolerated, had not studied it.During tsar times that sociology was preferring simple, everyone understands the word "inhabitants".

In the Literaturnaya Gazeta № 8 (6212) for the year 2009 in the article by Dmitry Karalisa titled" Who's time to change the profession " it sounds very important, timely, and clearly expressed the thought:" The crisis of 90's , called "market reforms" have caused us irreparable harm. Engineers, designers, scientists, military officers, teachers trained in the best universities of the country against their will dramatically changed the professions ... whether the country will survive without the experts and specialists of the business? After the end the crisis we will look around and see - some security guards, porters, janitors, and grown old television comedians. The author asks why the "first violin in our society play big bankers, not engineers, scientists, workers, teachers, peasants - those who actually makes the ground of the Russian society ?". However, Karalis looked at the autopsy of the problem from the viewpoint of an economist and moralist. That must be why he has not risen above the question. Obviously the answer lies in a completely different field: the political...

p1akuw47h5r3it

survivor2 wrote: »

There's an interesting article regarding to your question

"Middle Class as a symbol of the deteriorating Russia"
http://www.apn.ru/publications/article21823.htm

cool i'll giv it a read when i have a bit more time