HOW ABOUT A HARD BOIL?:

Is Russia Heading Back to the USSR? (Clifford D. May, March 11, 2004, Townhall)

When the Soviet Union collapsed, most Russians looked forward to joining the Free World as quickly as possible. Having been a student and a reporter in the USSR, I soon found myself attending conferences with enthusiastic Russian reformers. At one point, I complimented my colleagues on having chosen a difficult path. I noted that in any library there were dozens of scholarly books on the transition from capitalism to socialism.

But a serious discussion on how to transition from socialism to democratic capitalism? That was as unlikely as a cookbook explaining how to make eggs out of omelets.

That got a little laugh. So I added how in Africa, where I also had worked for a number of years, democratic institutions and free markets have mostly failed. The lessons of those failures, I suggested, were worth examining.

An uncomfortable silence ensued. It was clear I had caused offense. Then, in tense tones, I was instructed that we were discussing Russia now. We were talking about sophisticated people who had been kept in chains by Communism, among the most oppressive ideologies ever conceived. Now that Russians were finally free, they would know how to defend their freedom. Soon, they would be living like their neighbors in Western Europe.

I should have nodded and shut up. Instead I said: “But Russia's neighbors are not all in Europe. Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, China – those are your neighbors, too.”

This was not the first conference at which I made myself unpopular. It probably won't be the last. But I've been reminded of it in recent days as I've watched with dismay what appears to be Russia's drift from democracy.

With terrorism and the conflicts in the Middle East dominating the news, this trend has hardly captured the public's attention. But its significance is enormous. Because if Russia – with all its vast natural and human resources – were to slip back into authoritarianism, what would that imply about the chances for other formerly oppressed nations to become free, democratic and prosperous?

It would tell us precisely what Mr. May himself seemed to recognize twenty years ago, that some states should make a stop at authoritarianism on the path from totalitarianism to democracy, in order that the necessary institutions--legal system, private property rights, church, and military, to begin with--can be restored. Mr. Putin holds out the promise of providing such an interval, though we'd do well to keep the pressure on him to do so.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 12, 2004 8:27 AM