What changes have taken place in Russian society?

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the issue of Russian system transformation has been concerned by domestic and foreign academic circles, but today, it is obviously necessary to re-examine the topic of Russian system transformation from a broader and deeper perspective. ?

The "Russian system transformation" mentioned here refers to the historical transformation from a highly centralized planned economy and a traditional system of one-party monopoly to a modern market economy and a democratic and legal society. Generally speaking, it has been 199 1 year since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in February. The practice of this 10 year has provided a certain accumulation, whether it is a horizontal comparison of social transformation problems or a vertical analysis extending from history. Ten years of historical precipitation has somewhat made people have a relatively calm mentality and made a more objective judgment on Russia's system transformation. ?

In recent years, both Russia itself and academic circles at home and abroad have published many important works and large-scale international academic seminars on this subject, which have provided rich ideological materials for studying the transformation problem. Secondly, as far as the Russian system transformation itself is concerned, it has special practical significance at present: as far as Russia itself is concerned, with President Putin in power, a process of reflecting on the past and repositioning the future is naturally unfolding in Russian politics; As far as the international community is concerned, it has been ten years since the disintegration of the cold war system marked by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the relations between major powers in the post-cold war period have reached a very critical moment. Almost all major countries, especially the United States, are engaged in a comprehensive foreign policy debate. When judging the future direction of US-Russia relations and other major powers' relations, it is inevitable to raise the issue of Russian system transformation, which requires correct judgment. Finally, the success of China's reform and opening up for more than 20 years doesn't mean that we don't need to look at the Russian system transformation in an all-round way, especially when China is facing a new round of opening up and deeply considering the political system reform. It is more important to rethink the occurrence, path and future direction of Russian social transformation. ?

First, the occurrence of Russian system transformation.

The problem of Russian system transformation includes the motivation, premise and starting mode of transformation. The motivation of the transformation is that there are a series of profound reasons for Russia's comprehensive transformation from traditional system to market economy and western-style democratic system from 1992. Another manifestation of this problem is why the Soviet Union disintegrated. The premise of conversion refers to the problem that the system conversion started by 1992 is based on what previous system. In another way, it is the question of what kind of society will end with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The way to start the transformation means that the social transformation in Russia in the early 1990s began with a major change in the system, so why did such a change happen in this way? Obviously, the above background largely determines the path choice of system transformation during Yeltsin's period. ?

First of all, let's look at the origin of the 1992 Yeltsin system, which is closely related to the reasons for the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Although there are countless writings on this issue, if we make a bird's-eye summary from a more objective perspective, we can probably see the following aspects: First, we regard the disintegration of the Soviet Union as the result of a series of important changes in the international community in the last decades of the 20th century, including the expansion of marketization and democratization, including the Soviet Union's loss of power in the arms race, including major international events such as the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany, as well as Soviet-style traditions. Second, the disintegration of the Soviet Union is regarded as the result of the Soviet Union's 70-year history, or as a natural process of the rise and fall of an empire in a longer process. From this point of view, it not only contains the logic of the rise and fall of the empire that "excessive expansion will inevitably lead to extinction", but also contains that under the background of the intersection of eastern and western civilizations, the uniqueness of Russian history has not yet found an institutionalized modern expression, so that it can stand in the forest of advanced nations. Third, the disintegration of the Soviet Union is regarded as a natural manifestation of a series of social transformations in the process of modernization. This positive statement mainly comes from western scholars, including: Gorbachev's reform is a natural continuation of Khrushchev's reform process after Stalin; It is a link that tends to western civilization and so on in a long historical period. Finally, it focuses on describing the disintegration of the Soviet Union from accidental events or from a certain aspect or element in the grand structure. For example, from the 199 1 8. 19 incident and even from Gorbachev's personality psychology; For example, the vested interest groups in the former Soviet Union hope to realize individual ownership through institutional changes to ensure the interests of individuals and groups, and so on to analyze the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Some people think that if these accidents are avoided, then perhaps the disintegration of the Soviet Union may completely occur in another way or at another time. ?

Perhaps ten years is not enough to make a comprehensive analysis of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, but it seems that none of the above four aspects can be the ultimate reason for the disintegration of the Soviet Union. A more realistic judgment is to draw a conclusion from the mutual blending and synthesis of these four aspects. It seems that the historical changes of any grand society can only be found in a more complex analytical framework. ?

Another issue closely related to the Russian system transformation in the 1990s is the premise of the transformation, that is, how to determine the social form before the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Taken together, we can at least observe it from the following angles. The first way is to divide the traditional ideology, that is, to identify the social form of the Soviet Union before the disintegration as socialism. This recognition is not only stipulated in the constitutional legal system of the former Soviet Union, but also generally recognized by western academic circles. The question is, in the last few decades of the former Soviet Union, can a country that favors the privileged class in the division of interests, gives absolute priority to military heavy industry in the allocation of resources, is ideologically rigid and lags behind the development of the times, and at the same time takes expansion and hegemony as its policy principles in foreign relations simply be regarded as "socialism"? Perhaps people never forget that China called the former Soviet Union "social imperialism". The reason why Comrade Deng Xiaoping proposed to study "what is socialism" included doubts about the Soviet Union. In short, the disintegration of the former Soviet Union cannot simply be equated with the just, progressive, prosperous and peaceful socialist social system that people yearn for. The disintegration of the Soviet Union is not and should not be regarded as the end of the world socialist movement. The second way is to judge the social pattern of the former Soviet Union from the perspective of politics. Russian scholars have conducted in-depth discussions on this. A common view is that the transition from the former Soviet Union system to the post-capitalist system began very early, and can be traced back to Khrushchev and Gorbachev at the latest. As far as Gorbachev's period is concerned, some people call it the post-materialistic authoritarian period, while others call it "the combination of non-totalitarianism of daily political leadership and management horizontally and new totalitarianism that ensures the unity of function and value vertically." No matter how it is expressed, the characteristics of Gorbachev's social form are as follows: first, democratic transformation has no reliable social structure foundation support; Second, the traditional structure of totalitarianism cannot be completely abolished in a short time. It is an inevitable phenomenon that there are old people in the alternation of old and new. It is precisely because of the objective existence of such a complex structural relationship that Gorbachev's period and subsequent institutional transformation have all kinds of possibilities and selectivity for development, which is not what some westerners imagined. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, this region will inevitably tend to the western style, especially the American-style democracy and market economy. ?

Now let's look at the initial mode of system transformation. It is worth mentioning that in recent years, the research on the transformation of former socialist countries has put considerable emphasis on the national differences and particularities in the process of this universal transformation, and even thinks that this difference and particularity largely determines the way and orientation of social transformation. From a comparative point of view, the system transformation of the former Soviet Union was carried out in a relatively peaceful environment, and there was no large-scale war situation like that of the former Yugoslavia, which was due to the special conditions of the former Soviet Union-Russia. First of all, the former Soviet Union is a big country with a super nuclear arsenal. From this perspective alone, western countries do not want to see major events in this country lead to turmoil or even nuclear disaster. At the same time, in the case that the traditional ideology of the Soviet Union is facing a crisis day by day, Gorbachev? The "open" movement, even the older anti-Stalin movement, has greatly damaged the legitimacy foundation of the ruling of the * * * production party, especially making the traditional ideology gradually unable to play its role in maintaining the traditional system. A widespread and profound crisis of faith does exist, and few people are willing to wage a violent struggle for their beliefs. Even in the 199 18. 19 incident, the "eight-member Committee" did not dare to use force easily, which objectively made it difficult for ideological confrontation to be transformed into social confrontation in such a large-scale social upheaval as the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Third, due to the great social changes during the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the elites of the former Soviet Union regained their social status through various channels and means (such as government retention at all levels) and regained control of the distribution channels of social wealth (such as privatization). Managers of state-owned enterprises often become privatized business owners again. Social management has remained relatively stable in this way, greatly reducing the possibility of full-scale turmoil. Finally, the growth of national isolationism in Russia does not want to be the leading nation in the former Soviet empire, but only wants to maintain the existing borders; We have no tendency to promote monolingual immigration easily, but try our best to maintain the similarity of all ethnic groups, so that Russia has not had an exchange of fire with other ethnic groups like the former Yugoslavia. ?

Under the pressure of the West, a superpower like the former Soviet Union, which was highly antagonistic to the West, completed the fundamental transformation of the social system in a basically peaceful way, which is a unique precedent in the history of international relations. The research on this issue needs more detailed and in-depth discussion, but in any case, the phenomenon of peaceful transformation provides decisive conditions for the development of Russia's transformation process. ?

Second, the path choice of Russian system transformation?

If Russia's institutional transformation is regarded as a process of institutional change, then the path choice of this institutional change is an important issue. The problem of path choice not only reflects a country's judgment on mode choice in system transformation, but also reflects the depth of understanding of the relationship between mode choice and local environment in transformation. In other words, the problem of path selection not only raises the question of which advanced institutional model to choose, but more importantly, whether the selected institutional model is suitable for the specific national conditions. ?

When Yeltsin vigorously promoted the policy of "shock therapy" from 1992 to 1.2, on the premise of tightening monetary policy, he greatly opened prices in a relatively short period of time, promoted trade liberalization, freely exchanged rubles, and quickly promoted the privatization of state-owned enterprises, it was generally believed that Russia's institutional transformation had made a "neo-liberal" path choice. Politically, in line with the policy of economic liberalism, Yeltsin vigorously promoted the multi-party system and the new? The policy of media liberalization and the replacement of state leaders by universal suffrage at least should be regarded as Yeltsin's attempt to create an environment for economic liberalization through political democratization. Even in diplomacy, Yeltsin once envisaged developing relations with western countries through the one-sided policy towards the West led by the United States at that time, and striving to "return to a democratic society in the northern hemisphere" and "become a member of a democratic country" through internal transformation and pro-Western foreign relations. From the aspects of economic system, political system and even diplomatic strategy setting, Russia undoubtedly takes the principle of liberalism as the basic orientation of path selection. This point is not controversial in international and domestic academic circles. ?

The question is, what kind of result has Russia achieved from the ten-year transition of liberal path choice, or is it a phased result? This is a question worth observing. ?

Look at the economic system first. Nearly ten years after the implementation of "shock therapy", even radical liberals in Russia sharply criticized the current system, which is very surprising. Although they still describe Russia's current economic form in the category of capitalism, before the category of capitalism, various restrictions have been added, calling Russia's current economic form hierarchical capitalism, bureaucratic capitalism, oligarchy capitalism or criminal capitalism and so on. Under such a system, who is dominant in asset possession and economic decision-making? One view is that government bureaucrats still occupy a dominant position in the whole economic system, and government officials still play a leading role in market operation rules and market share cutting, while entrepreneurs and businessmen are basically ignored. Especially in the context of President Putin's strengthening of central management, this view has been strengthened. Another view is that Russia's economic operation so far mainly depends on large monopoly groups. On the one hand, Russia's unique national conditions (such as vast territory and abundant natural resources) determine the convenience of the formation of monopoly groups; On the other hand, the privatization policy in the early 1990s also greatly promoted the formation of oligarchic consortia. These oligarchic consortia acquired state-owned enterprises at low prices, occupying the special position of commercial banks replacing the state in issuing loans, and formed industrial financial groups. Those who hold this view believe that the economic and political operation in Yeltsin's period basically relied on oligarchs, while the role of oligarchs in Putin's period was hindered, but its influence was still huge. The third view is that it is difficult to determine who plays the leading role in the current transitional stage. They believe that the current resource allocation and economic decision-making are completely completed in the game process of various interest groups. It is believed that this situation has improved after Putin replaced Yeltsin, and the process of "nationalization" has the upper hand than that of "privatization". However, from the perspective of institutional arrangements, the relationship between interest groups is not very clear, and the relationship between interest groups and the government is still developing and changing. ?

Even from the current debate on Russia's economic system, we can still find some noteworthy features: First, although Russia's constitutional system has clearly stipulated respect for private ownership, the boundary of property rights in Russia's actual economic operation is still very unclear. The basic fact that the military sector accounts for the vast majority of the national economy hinders the differentiation and reorganization of property rights; Russian bureaucratic interest groups are very good at adapting the privatization policy to the interests of individuals or small groups in the process of market transformation, which also makes it quite difficult to clarify property rights. Second, the current system operation is very similar to the Russian economic model at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century: at that time, Russian bureaucrats were mixed with entrepreneurs and businessmen, and "public and private were not divided"; The whole society is filled with extreme doubts about the merchant class and business spirit; The process of modernization puts forward unrestrained financial requirements for the state treasury, which makes the state have a very urgent tax demand for enterprises and objectively limits the free development of enterprises. Others believe that the current situation in Russia is somewhat similar to the transition stage of western countries from the Great Depression to the "Roosevelt New Deal", which requires the state to expand demand and stimulate the economy. However, due to Russia's excessive dependence on the world economy, the formation of a new monopoly pattern, the confluence of political power and capital, the parasitism of the government on the financial industry, the emergence of a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises, and even the privatization of agricultural land, it will take time for the real "New Deal" to come.

Compared with the social transformation process of most southern European, Latin American and Central and Eastern European countries, the path of Russian system transformation is particularly prominent. Generally speaking, the above countries follow this path choice:

First of all, on the premise that the "national night watchman" plays a role, it is to transform the classical market concept and promote marketization on the basis of the relative cooperation of democratic forces; Specifically, although the process varies from country to country, in general, radical democratic transformation is first carried out to establish a democratic system, and then reforms are carried out in different degrees in the social field to ensure the effectiveness of economic redistribution and try to make it the social foundation of a democratic system. Many countries finally only promote structural reforms in the economic field. On the other hand, Russia is the opposite. Yeltsin first advocated the principle of "making people rich and making people poor", which greatly weakened the state's supervision over the whole system reform. Secondly, without the above-mentioned series of preparations, a package of comprehensive reforms was launched in the fields of property rights system and economic system; Especially because of this series of major changes in Russia, a country that is extremely difficult to control. In this way, the system transformation will inevitably start with "liberalism" and end with "criminal, oligarchic and bureaucratic hierarchical capitalism". ?

Of course, there is another question worth discussing, that is, on the surface, or according to the general evaluation in the early 1990s in the West, Russia has implemented "democratic reform", so why can't it make the economic system transition smoother? This involves the evaluation of Russian political system reform since 1990s. ?

Similar to the evaluation of Russian economic system, more and more foreign academic colleagues, including liberal theorists, tend to choose the latter, that is, mixed system, to define the status quo of Russian government system transformation in the evaluation of "democratic system", "authoritative system" and "mixed system". Since the 1990s, Russia has of course implemented universal suffrage and freedom of speech. Ban implements a multi-party system, but many scholars still disagree with simply using "democratic system" to describe today's Russian regime. First, the electoral system still involves a lot of political skills, "abdication" and other non-electoral factors; Second, because the "freedom of speech" in Russia today is mostly "managed freedom of speech"; Third, Russia's current political operation is still carried out in the form of non-political parties to a large extent, and the existing political parties lack the corresponding stable social interest groups as the foundation, so Russia's political party system is still in the process of maturity. Therefore, it is meaningful that the current situation of Russian political system cannot be simply defined by "democratic system". At the same time, Russia's political system is not a simple authoritative system. From the perspective of written law, the Russian president has far more rights than the United States, France and other presidential countries, but in the process of real power operation, the Russian president himself will be subject to many constraints. As for the definition of "oligarchy system", it is not only because the oligarchy group's position in Russian political life is not stable, but also because there is still great uncertainty in the relationship between oligarchy and government and oligarchy and people. Therefore, the Russian political system cannot be simply defined by "oligarchy". ?

The reason why the category of "mixed system" is adopted to define Russia's current political system is not because Russia's political system pattern is chaotic and difficult to describe. In fact, it still has some outstanding features worthy of attention. First of all, as far as Russia's political system is concerned, it does have some characteristics of democracy, authority and oligarchy at the same time, and we cannot simply deny any of them. It should be noted that the Russian oligarchy group, with the government as the background and the monopoly of large state-owned enterprises as the foundation, has an unshakable position as a whole. Even if a part of it is deterred, from the overall point of view, no matter its position in the national economy, the concentration of funds, or even its political influence, if all of it is cut off, one cannot and the other is unfavorable. As far as the generalization of "authoritative system" is concerned, we should really pay attention to the vital importance of heads of state and government in Russian political management, and often the president is a combination of legislative power and executive power. Even we should not simply deny the rationality of using the category of "democratic system" to define the status quo of Russian system. At least, formal democracy has a certain effect on curbing authoritarianism and social polarization. Secondly, using "mixed system" to define the current Russian political system has its special meaning: First, at present, various political interest groups (including bureaucratic groups and oligarchs) and various political factions (including liberals in the form of "right alliance", opposition in the form of * * * production party and centrists in the form of "unity party") have failed to occupy an absolute dominant position. In principle, the political structure of Russia is "polarized"; Second, at present, various political facilities, various interest groups and various political factions in the Russian political structure still lack a mutual consistency. Although during Yeltsin's and Putin's periods, various political arrangements were used to strengthen the internal consistency among "poles", "factions" and "sides" in the Russian political system, the effect of such efforts seems to be still being reflected. ?

From the long process of ten years' transformation, what we get from the path of "neo-liberalism" is a "mixed system" (phased) transformation outcome, which is more or less a dramatic result, or at least an unexpected result for the decision makers who made the path choice that year. ?

Third, the trend of Russian social transformation?

Vladimir Mao, a Russian economist and current economic adviser to the government, compared the transformation of Russia with the institutional transformation of Latin American countries in his early years. His conclusion is that the transition of Russian liberal system is likely to fall into an anti-liberal state and end in populism. His reason is that Russia, like Latin American countries, has the common background of the transition from liberalism to populism: first, the trend of economic structure duality under the guidance of liberalism often turns into fierce social contradictions; Second, populism is quite easy to occur under the conditions of lack of democratic tradition, unstable political facilities and relatively weak political party strength; Thirdly, an important premise of populism is that the full implementation of austerity policy under the slogan of reform has aroused widespread opposition from the whole society; Fourthly, nationalism rises under the political pressure of external opposition, and nationalism is often an ally of populism. ?

Judging from the current situation, the Russian system transformation under Putin is increasingly showing a different direction from the early liberal system. Although Putin is still firmly pursuing the market-oriented reform in the direction of liberalism, he obviously emphasizes the guardianship role of "government night watchman" more and more; Although Putin has never given up the slogan of political democracy, what he can see is more and more "management democracy"; Although Putin's diplomacy still pays attention to the West, his emphasis on "returning to Europe" and strengthening relations with eastern countries clearly includes the Eurasian orientation of opposing American unilateralism. ?

Perhaps, a conclusion that can be drawn from Russia's ten-year social transformation is that it is unfounded to simply judge that countries with non-European and American civilization backgrounds (especially big countries) can grow into European and American market economies and democratic countries through institutional changes. The process of institutional transformation is much more complicated than the input or output of any non-social system, and paying more attention to the interaction and mutual adaptation between mode selection and local environment may be the key to institutional transformation.