In his article, “Russia’s Perpetual Geopolitics”, Stephen Kotkin discusses what he describes as the tendency of Russia to “rely on the state to bridge the gap between itself and the West”, and how the current efforts of Russian President Vladimir Putin are running into the same issues that have plagued previous Russian rulers. Kotkin states that in order for Russia to catch up with the west in terms of living standards and technological sophistication, the Russian state liberalize and create institutions like “a free and professional media”, and an “impartial judiciary”. However, China has managed to become powerful and economically dynamic without liberalizing politically.
This begs the question of whether Russia is capable of doing something similar. Both China and Russia are large “civilization-states” whose people possess what Kotkin describes as “a sense of mission and a being special” as well as resentment towards the west. Both nations are also massive in terms of geographic territories, have large militaries and possess a veto in the UN Security Council which give a global reach. All these similarities make us ask why is it that China was able to revitalize itself without political liberalization while Russia has not.
Harry,
And you can add to your interesting question the fact that China was able to modernize and accelerate its economic development without abandoning its Marxist ideology or the total domination and control of the Chinese Communist Party. In retrospect, it was highly naive of the West–and the US in particular–to expect Russia to want to join the West after the end of the Soviet Union. As you suggest, it is a “civilization state”; and it has for centuries been wary of the West. This will be a good topic for our class discussion on Tuesday evening.
–Professor Wallerstein