Thread: Is Russia a democracy? Плюс то же о некоторых других странах

Originally Posted by alexsms

I'd like to introduce this simple question (simple in form) and I suspect the answers might be unexpected. I hope this could be a kind of a poll (YES/NO or YES, but.. NO, but style) with comments; I also hope the answers are based on reasoning rather than pure emotions.

Russia and Democracy by DanielM

Russia has never had a democracy in the western sense of the word because that type of democracy is rooted in middle-class notions of political freedoms and Russia has never had a well-developed middle-class. The Russian notion of freedom is radically different from middle-class freedom. Culturally speaking, the Renaissance was the flowering of middle-class values expressed in art forms which despite their great beauty were expressions of the need of the middle-class to alienate and isolate itself from other classes. Russia never passed through the experiences of the Renaissance. The goal of middle-class freedoms embodied in western democracies is to protect by laws rich individuals and their riches from the masses of humanity. On one level, the Russians conceive of freedom as union with other individuals in a group in a way that is unknown to the western bourgeois mind. It is summed up in the word sobornost which is untranslatable. On another level, Russians have always been passionate about freedom meaning total freedom materially, intellectually and spiritually. All the great Russian men who lived with this ideal of freedom are loved by Russians and they always lived tragic lives. Read Dostoevsky’s Notes From The Underground if you want a taste of this kind of freedom. A Europeanized Russian risks being no longer a Russian. A Europeanized democracy can not exist in Russia because only the freedom forever alive in the soul of the great masses of Russians is Russian freedom and it is impossible to organize politically such freedom using western logic.

Originally Posted by DanielM

Russia and Democracy by DanielM

Russia has never had a democracy in the western sense of the word because that type of democracy is rooted in middle-class notions of political freedoms and Russia has never had a well-developed middle-class. The Russian notion of freedom is radically different from middle-class freedom. Culturally speaking, the Renaissance was the flowering of middle-class values expressed in art forms which despite their great beauty were expressions of the need of the middle-class to alienate and isolate itself from other classes. Russia never passed through the experiences of the Renaissance. The goal of middle-class freedoms embodied in western democracies is to protect by laws rich individuals and their riches from the masses of humanity. On one level, the Russians conceive of freedom as union with other individuals in a group in a way that is unknown to the western bourgeois mind. It is summed up in the word sobornost which is untranslatable. On another level, Russians have always been passionate about freedom meaning total freedom materially, intellectually and spiritually. All the great Russian men who lived with this ideal of freedom are loved by Russians and they always lived tragic lives. Read Dostoevsky’s Notes From The Underground if you want a taste of this kind of freedom. A Europeanized Russian risks being no longer a Russian. A Europeanized democracy can not exist in Russia because only the freedom forever alive in the soul of the great masses of Russians is Russian freedom and it is impossible to organize politically such freedom using western logic.

Welcome Daniel!

Originally Posted by DanielM

Russia never passed through the experiences of the Renaissance.

Some shadow of Renaissance may have visited Russia in what they call the Golden Age (which gave rise to world famous literature, including Dostoevsky); it's not the European Renaissance in its pure sense, of course. With all that in mind, serfdom was abolished in 1861 only (cf, underground rail opened in London in 1863), tsar who abolished it was killed 20 years later (in the 5th attempt), reaction followed, turn of the century, 1905, 1917... Seems like no time for middle class to appear.