Which Direction? The New Russia in the Absence of Marx and Lenin

One argument that could be found in such a book as Dmitri Shalin’s is the argument for whether, in light of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the massive influx of western culture, Russia remains an eastern country or whether it has become a western one. Obviously Russia is an eastern country in a geological sense but the question as to whether it has become westernized can be spawned from the many cultural changes in post-Soviet Russia and the act of “finding Russia” is not as “straightforward” (Franklin and Widdis, Pg. 9) as people believe. For instance, in the article “Notes from the Underground,” the author discusses the recent introduction of rock music into Russia and within the emerging rock culture of Russian musicians, these musicians are adopting the western rock style of music but still have to inject their own culture into the music. They are torn between “resisting (the) accommodation to political and economic institutions,” (Democracy Pg. 136) of the Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation and still staying true to the Russian element of their music that is not defined by regimes or politics. It is just another case of identity crisis that Russians are going through in the new age of post-communist consciousness.

Furthermore, a different and equally important argument that could appear in such a book as “Russian Culture at the Crossroads” would be whether or not democracy is the right path for Russia to follow in the aftermath of the communist regime. Despite the popular beliefs of democracy as the best form of government based on observations of the prosperity of the United States and similar democratic countries, the argument against democracy would be based on points such as the one in the article “The Quality of Russian Democracy,” which is that “liberal democracies are stable regimes almost by definition because they rarely collapse.” Based on this point it would be unquestionable that Russia is not ready for a democratic government due to its centuries of regime changes such as the October Revolution of 1917 and the more recent August coup of 1991. A counterpoint could be made that despite the history of turmoil in Russian politics, the new democratic processes put into place have allowed the population untold access to a broader spectrum of media and culture and that this will allow them to finally break free of the never ending regime change in Russian government.

References

Dragunskii, Denis, “The Sign of our Times; Democracy, Authoritarianism, or…”

(I trust this source because it is an article provided to the students by the professor)

Unknown Author, “The Quality of Russian Democracy”

(I trust this source because it is an article provided to the students by the professor)

Azadovskii, Konstantin, “Russia’s Silver Age”

(I trust this source because it is an article provided to the students by the professor)

Bova, Russell, “Russia and Western Civilization”

(I trust this source because it is an article provided to the students by the professor)

Franklin, Simon, and Emma Widdis. National Identity in Russian Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004.

(I trust this source because it came from a reputable library and had much in common with the book whose title I am analyzing)

Billington, James H. Russia: in Search of Itself. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center P, 2004.

(I trust this source because of the fact that its title and contents are very similar to that of the book I am analyzing for this essay).