Making love in Yeltsin's Russia: A case of ``de-medicalization' and ``de-normalization'

The collapse of the Russian currency in August 1998 and the continuingdeterioration of the economy that has followed vindicates those scholarswho have held a negative view of post-Soviet changes.¹They have argued for years thatthe collapse of the Soviet system is leading to the disintegration andcriminalization of Russian society. And the brief history of sexuality inpost-Soviet Russia perhaps illustrates that these scholars have a point whenthey argue that the collapse of the Soviet regime has triggered a destructiveprocess. The criminalization and related sexualization are part of a morebroad problem in post-Soviet society. The country has not been so muchas transforming into a Western style capitalist society as suffering a generalmeltdown.     

Corruption,the power of state and big business in Soviet and post-Soviet regimes

The growth of corruption after 1991 was probably unavoidable. The privatization of the state economy created favorable conditions for corruption, which did not exist before. The feudalization of a society, with its weakening of the state and the high autonomy of its office holders, was another major factor behind the outburst of corruption. However, while these “objective” factors account for a great part of corruption's growth, the transformation of the leaders of the country to people who encouraged corruption for their own benefit—one of the major elements of feudalization—also played an extremely large role in spreading corruption inside the country.Corruption poses greater concerns to society in the long term. Russian corruption undermines labor ethics, particularly among younger generations. Russian youths firmly believe that bribes and connections are the best and perhaps only way to become successful. Widespread corruption creates a parallel, semi-feudal chain of command that competes with the official hierarchy. The weakness of law enforcement agencies, as well as the army—now almost totally demoralized—is, to a great extent, the product of corruption.     

Contents volume

Volume Contents

Contents volume     

Perceptions of foreign threats to the regime: From Lenin to Putin

During his second term, Putin's foreign policy was strongly influenced by the belief that the West's hostility could help the opposition change the current regime, as the West had done in Ukraine and Georgia. A regime change would deprive the ruling elite, mostly people from the security police and army, of their power and illegally acquired wealth. Moscow restored, in early 2000, the ideology of Russia's “encirclement” from the 1920s, which suggested that the country was surrounded by enemies in order to legitimize the regime. At the same time, as in the past, Moscow tried to punish the Western governments for their disrespect for the regime with an aggressive and uncooperative foreign policy.