VIEWSrnThe Burden of Russian Historyrnby W. Bruce LincolnrnPolitical visions gone awry cannot alone account for therncrises that threaten to engulf the Russians as they approachrnthe 21st century. As they once again grapple with therndilemmas of backwardness that have plagued them for sornlong, Russian policymakers must continue to struggle againstrna thousand years of history, almost all of which point away fromrndemocracy and offer little precedent for building a nationrnruled by law. Modern-day Russia’s defects are legion. Lookedrnat in historical perspective, they form a crushing burden that nornRussian leader has yet managed to overcome.rnThe corruption that cripples Russia from top to bottom todayrnhas antecedents dating back to at least the 15th century,rnwhen high officials “fed”—to use the old Russian term—uponrnthe people they governed in the czar’s name. When Russia developedrnmore Western forms of government 250 years later,rn”feeding” took on new and more modern forms that led one ofrnPeter the Great’s favorites to confess (at the beginning of thern18th century) that “we all steal, but some of us do so on a biggerrnscale than others.” That crude truth has run like a redrnthread through Russia’s history ever since. The Bolshevik Revolutionrnof 1917 merely gave some of the nation’s workers andrnpeasants access to the long-standing perquisites of their fallenrnrulers.rnNo matter how firmly Marxist-Leninist ideology insistedrnthat the People owned the means of production, Soviet citizensrndivided their everyday world into “them” and “us” and had norncompunctions about stealing from the former to satisfy theirrnneeds, wants, comforts, or greed. The quantities of meat soldrnout the back door of restaurants, merchandise stolen fromrnstore shelves, and spare parts pilfered from the workplace ledrnStephen Cohen in the mid-1980’s to estimate that at least 15rnpercent of the Soviet GNP was generated by the Black Market,rnW. Bruce Lincoln is Distinguished Research Professor ofrnRussian History at Northern lUinois University and author,rnmost recently, of The Conquest of a Continent: Siberiarnand the Russians (Random House).rnor, as the Russians say, na levo, “on the left.” The legalizationrnof small-scale private enterprise during the year or two beforernthe Soviet Union collapsed pushed that percentage muchrnhigher. In an economy where the demand for goods and servicesrnexceeded regular sources of supply, planners during thernlast days of the Gorbachev era could not allocate enough rawrnmaterials to satisfy the needs of this new private sector withoutrngutting the sources that supplied vital state industries. Whenrnsoaring demand exhausted the quantities of resources set asidernfor private enterprises, supplements pilfered from the workplacernbecame the main additional source of supply.rnThe pervasive unconcern of bureaucrats at all levels of nationalrnlife has stirred deep cvnicism throughout Russia’s modernrnhistory. “What will happen if the Soviet Union takes overrnthe Middle East?” one Russian asked—only half in jest—inrn1973. The answer in those days: “No one knows, but in 25rnyears there will be a shortage of sand!” During the Gorbachevrnera, latter-day Soviet humorists defined capitalism as “the exploitationrnof man by man.” “Under socialism,” they addedrnwith the same bitter cynicism, “the process is entirely thernother way around.”rnNowadays, such cynicism continues to isolate ordinary Russiansrnfrom their government and the infrastructure of therncommunities in which they live. Because national prestige andrnnational interest did not engage the attention of the averagernman or woman on the street during the Soviet era, most Russiansrndismissed their leaders’ actions in the international arenarnas politika, a process of which they did not feel a part and withrnwhich they had little concern.rnBecause rulers and officials have traditionally dominated thernnation’s political process, the Russians have also expectedrnthem to take responsibility for problems that are dealt with byrnlocal communities in more democratic societies. For centuriesrnRussia’s leaders and officials have seen the people, theirrnlives, and their property as a national resource for carrying outrnpolicies that have been decided upon far away from the peoplernand places to which they were destined to apply.rn16/CHRONICLESrnrnrn