Why Russia's Democracy Never Began | Hacker News Reader

Why Russia's Democracy Never Began

daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu

36 pointssegasaturn12 comments

Another garbage article that builds/propagates narratives, has zero nuance (dumbs everything down to the nomenklatura, and doesn't even mention the lineage interruption or FSB vs military vs civil institutions power struggle of 90's), and won't lead to any HN-worthy discussion beyond feeding the confirmation bias of local folks. Modern democracy is not a thing that either exists or doesn't. It's a loose bunch of basic practices and properties most meet to the certain extent: rule of law, checks and balances, representation, transparency, pluralism, market-based economy, and so on. Most of those existed in the post-Soviet Russia for a while to a certain extent. We can argue endlessly about that extent, but they undoubtedly took a while to dismantle, otherwise the war and runaway fascism could have happened in 1993 or in late 90's. In reality, it only happened after the 2020 constitution coup.

> won't lead to any HN-worthy discussion

That remains a matter of effort.

In fact, you seem to have to potentially have started one with your criticism.

It is not the quality of the article that creates a good discussion. Discussion involves cycles of correction and progression and expansion by its own nature.

"runaway fascism"

Another garbage comment that builds/propagates narratives, has zero nuance, and won't lead to any HN-worthy discussion beyond feeding the confirmation bias of local folks.

Direct link to the actual article:

https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/why-russias-demo...

May be useful: the "Journal of Democracy" does not seem to have a link to the RSS in the source, but an expectable one works:

https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/rss

I'm increasingly convinced that the short and sweet answer is: because they've had a tsar and serfs since the fall of the kievan rus and the establishment of the muscovite power, and nothing has meaningfully changed since that time, except that sometimes the tsar is called "general secretary" and sometimes the serfs are called "comrades".

Serfdom became the dominant form of relation between Russian peasants and nobility in 1649, and was abolished in 1861.

Ivan IV became the first Tsar in 1547.

Kievan Rus ceased to exist in ~1240.

>nothing has meaningfully changed

Khruschev was born to poor Russian peasants. Brezhnev's father was a Ukrainian metalworker.

Nicholas II's cousin was King of Great Britain. Catherine the Great's native language was German, with her cousin being King of Sweden.

Pretty sure a thing or two changed, and you're oversimplifying things.

Also the Novgorod Republic from the 12th to 15th centuries. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novgorod_Republic

There are many things to dislike about a soviet republic, but lack of democratic representation isn't one of them. I wish we could recall MPs via a vote like they could.

Is it representation if there’s only one political body that can even in principle represent?

Interesting interview on this subject: https://www.rferl.org/a/puti-russia-zorin-modern-tsar-mythol...

IME though this argument is used to rationalize the behavior of Russian leaders (I’ll call it “tyranny” and “oppression” as a Westerner, acknowledging that we have some of our own trash to clean up).

Interesting, I've heard a similar theory used to describe the Kim regime of North Korea. In that the Kim regime is basically an extension of the Lee dynasty of Joseon and the three generations of Kims are basically kings in all but name.

And what exactly convinced you that it's the answer?

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