Introduction to a book «After the Fall»

Roy Bradshaw, Nick Manning and Stuart Thompstone

This collection of articles was first gathered and presented to a conference held at the University of Nottingham, organised by the Institute for Russian Soviet Central and Eastern European Studies and the School of History. The objective was to mark the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a wide-ranging review of the state of the post-communist world that was inaugurated by that highly symbolic event. To do this, we have drawn on scholarship from international relations, politics, economics, sociology, literature, geography, cultural studies, and Russian studies. Space limitations make it impossible to cover every aspect, country or theme, but these papers do constitute a vivid and incisive guide, which offers new observations and in many cases original data to build a comprehensive picture of the impact of the first ten years of post-communist developments.

The collection begins with a broad summary by a seasoned analyst of the communist and post-communist world, Michael Kaser. His paper provides a general guide to the political and economic landscape that we are seeking to review. Thereafter we have a number of more detailed studies that vary in their geographical focus, disciplinary identity and subject matter. Initially of course it was the political landscape in the region that changed most noticeably, in particular the collapse of communist power. McCauley suggests however that the gains arising from the de-monopolisation of power have been heavily offset by the surprising agility with which the nomenklatura reinvented themselves and their families as investment bankers and corporate managers. Thus the stakeholders that normally share influence over the corporate governance process in the Western world have not appeared in the East. Wright and his colleagues suggest that the varied control mechanisms that have developed around American, German or Japanese corporations do not have Russian equivalents. Neither the considerably weakened State apparatus nor the similarly weak banking sector have been able to exercise either the constraints or stimulus to corporate enterprises that they need.

The arrival of capitalism in the East has not, or at least not yet, heralded the benefits of a smooth transition to economic growth; and whatever the turnarounds that there have been (for example, the much vaunted return to 1990 levels of GDP in Poland and Hungary), this has certainly not lead to the wider spread of consumer affluence. Levels of inequality have exploded across the region, with the benefits of economic change experienced by comparatively small sections of society. Thus Gabrielczyk warns that the benefits of growing Foreign Direct Investment may not trickle down through the Polish economy, and Siegelbaum records the hardships that Russian workers have suffered in terms of unemployment, declining wages, and the absence of organised channels through which their legitimate interests might be articulated.

Some of the key groups to press for change in the years leading up to the 1989/91 revolutions were those broadly involved in religious, cultural and sports activities, such as the intelligentsia, artists, writers, sports and performance stars. Since the 1990s there has been not only a sudden relaxation of censorship, but also the abrupt withdrawal of what had been quite generous levels of State sponsorship. Pornography has flourished, but classical music, and serious literature has fallen on hard financial times. In common with aspects of the economic and political system, Marsh reports that there is a sense of chaos in the world of letters. For some young writers this is celebrated as a precious freedom, but freedom to write does not mean it is easy to get published. Even in Berlin, with its new role as showpiece for a unified Germany, State subsidies to the arts have been cut back after the long period of State subsidised competition at the heart of the cold war, and Mey argues that the future choices for cultural policy are difficult.

Religious life has by contrast relished the new freedoms without any of the disadvantages of State subsidy withdrawal. In the vacuum left by the collapse of communist values, many have turned to religion for guidance, while religious leaders have been quick to organise an expansion in their status and influence. This can be measured not only by the astonishing speed with which a major new cathedral was erected in the heart of Moscow, but also further afield in the mutual rise of Islamic and nationalist influence in the Caucasus and Central Asian republics. Yemelianova charts the complex relations between ruling political elites and their relative comfort or discomfort respectively with official or fundamentalist Islamic groups. Sport, too, has changed enormously since the 1980s. But this is true right across the world. Riordan and Thompstone record that just as Eastern European sport was about to adjust to a new relationship to the wider world, sport itself began its dizzying transformation from noble art to a drug-fuelled and commercial arena for business. Nowhere has the contrast been sharper between the ideals of the State socialist system and the less attractive elements of a market driven activity.

How has the average citizen experienced these changes in terms of family life, health and welfare? Stephenson shows that there has been a sharp growth in homelessness linked to economic migration, as the Soviet empire broke up. Housing was never adequate under the old regime, and the mass privatisation that took place in the early 1990s has not changed the general experience of those struggling to sustain family life in very cramped conditions. Indeed life for ordinary households has become very much harder right across Eastern Europe in the last ten years, although more so for Russian families than for many others. While GDP bounced back in the Visegrad countries, it is still little more than about half its pre-1991 level in Russia. Manning shows that family life and individual welfare have not been priorities for the first ten years of the new era. However, there are signs now that this is changing. Personal incomes have grown throughout the 21^st Century in Russia. Arrears of wages and pensions are declining, and the Putin government has made explicit commitments to reduce the sharp inequalities that have grown up. Nevertheless policy controls remain weak, and the huge regional variation that is now extant across Russia will be extremely difficult to reduce, let alone eliminate.

Is the new system sustainable? We can address this question in two ways. First is the appalling legacy of environmental damage left by the old system. One ironic benefit from the collapse in production in Russia has been the reduction in pollutants. This must be an environmental gain, although not a simple gain. Bradshaw shows through a series of detailed case studies how cavalier the Russian system was about the welfare of its citizens and the environment on which they depended. It is not surprising that the initial focus for citizen disenchantment in the late 1980s centred on green issues. But a second kind of sustainability concerns the social reproduction of Russian society. We have seen that family life and life expectancy has grown more difficult. Muckle shows that educational provision for children has also been severely compromised. Levels of literacy and numeracy were high under the old regime, and provided a highly educated workforce for the new economic markets that have emerged. But it is not clear to what extent this level can be sustained as the engine for future economic prosperity, although this will be the key to economic success for the 21^st Century and beyond.

With the Visegrad countries on the eve of EU succession, while some of the Central Asian republics retreat to pre-industrial economic and cultural forms of life, it is not easy to capture and present the enormity of the changes that have characterised the 27 countries that now exist in this region. Nevertheless this collection, we hope, makes a major contribution to this task.