The Soviet Union would be 100 years old today if it were still standing. Hanna Smith, a Russia expert, says that Russia, which is at war, has revived Soviet-era methods of operation.
The world has been thinking about the deepest essence of Russia, which has been waging a war of aggression in Ukraine for almost a year.
The general explanation is that the Russian president Vladimir Putin hooks deep into Russian history in his thinking. Putin is considered to want to return modern Russia to the time of the mythical greatness of Mother Russia.
In a long ideological arc, this is indeed the case. Tsarist and imperialist Russia is the ideological starting point of Putin’s superpower dreams.
Ideologically speaking, the Soviet Union, which was born exactly one hundred years ago at the end of the post-revolutionary civil war, has not been considered such a central factor here.
There might be a reason.
Connections in Stalin’s time
Of course, Vladimir Putin has already been reminded in 2005 that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a great disaster.
Russia expert Hannah Smith says that in the case of Putin’s speech, the idea is specifically about a great power, not about how it is managed. Now the yearning for the Soviet Union has taken on precisely these dimensions related to control.
– There are points of convergence in Putin’s power Stalin’s at the time. In the 30s, power was concentrated in a small circle led by Stalin. Power is also now strongly concentrated in the Kremlin.
Of course, the authoritarian state system has been strengthened in Russia for a long time, but now warring Russia is looking for more and more content in its toolbox from the Soviet Union.
Wartime planned economy
– The Russian economy has been harnessed to a war economy. Its isolation and protection have similarities with the Soviet Union.
Hanna Smith says that it is not yet a question of any socialist thinking, but goals are now being set in the economy in the same way as in the Soviet Union. At the time of the tsar, the state did not interfere in the activities of companies in this way.
– Now there is an idea that companies cannot survive unless they cooperate with the state.
It has been noticed how modern Russia, which is subject to sanctions, for example, has to fiddle with getting various components. In the same way, the Soviet Union had difficulties in getting the western technology it needed.
Hanna Smith says that Putin’s Russia is now looking for a model from the Soviet Union specifically in the way it manages its country strategically and tactically.
The desire to be a great power prevents democracy
Of course, the status of civil society has also been returned to its Soviet-era pen. This is especially evident in what can and cannot be said.
– On the other hand, for example, the position of women was better during the Soviet Union. It has been significantly weakened.
The time of the Soviet Union is seen in a way as the last period of Russia’s superpower status.
Russia’s image of itself changed when, at the end of the 90s, it had to listen to the International Monetary Fund’s instructions on how to manage the economy and what changes to make in order to get financing. The EU also demanded its own conditions in exchange for aid.
– In Russia, it was thought that you can’t say that to a great power.
Since then, Russia has chosen its own path. It did not choose the path of democracy that the West hoped for.
– Russia’s own interpretation is that in order to be a great power, it cannot be a democracy, says Russia expert Hanna Smith.
Here you can test whether you would do well in the Soviet Union of 1985
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