Three steps forward and two backward!

  “Nothing is impossible in Russia but reform.” Oscar Wilde

I think Oscar Wilde was wrong—but it will take time to know. The efforts to transform Russia into a viable and democratic economy, one that fits comfortably with the rest of the free world, will at best jerk forward over the coming years. But it is happening. Three steps forward and two backward. Still, one residual step in the right direction is something to be grateful for in a land of such immense potential. That is an improvement over Lenin’s assessment of Russian progress, “One step forward and one back.”

History has not been kind to the Russians. Seventy years of cruel rigidity under Communism within the context of a thousand years of autocratic rule has fostered a blind dependence on central authority, as de Tocqueville says “of servitude,” a resulting lack of personal responsibility and self confidence, and a fatalistic distrust of the future.

 Historically, and largely because of their geography, Russians missed out entirely on the pivotal events of Western development. A thread running through their complex political history is the fear of and acceptance of an all-powerful and sometimes arbitrary central authority, the influence of constricting medieval orthodoxy, and the mystical unifying force called the “Russian soul.”

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The Rule of Law and “The Rule of Thumbs”

For over a thousand years in Russia the rule of law was whatever the ruler ordered. Then, the interpretationand application of his decisions depended on those down the line, which in practice may not even be what he intended. It was more like what I call “The Rule of Thumbs.” Everyone had a thumb to put on top of another. Sometime I think nothing has changed. It is what happens in a “top down” bureaucracy. What is understood by “The Rule of Law” by one party, such as the Westerner, may often not be the same it means to another (such as in an autocratic regime, a dictatorship.) Indeed, today laws are being made, and step-by-step they are coming closer to the universal meaning.

 In a democracy the laws are made by duly elected representatives of the people. Russia is not there yet. In many ways it is still “The Rule of Thumbs.” Often it seems that everyone seems to have his thumb on someone else, and under the thumb of someone above. Even the lowest guy on the totem pole looks for someone lower on whom he can put his thumb, maybe a parking attendant. As de Tocqueville says, ““The American struggles against the natural obstacles which oppose him; the adversaries of the Russian are men.”

 Excerpted from “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”