Communism in Russian History

George F. Kennan

From Foreign Affairs, Winter 1990/91

Summary:  Examines the challenges now facing the Russian people after the collapse of communism, in terms of the calamitous loss of entire generations of a free-thinking intelligentsia, first the 'bourgeois', then the Marxist -- a loss which now deprives them of the patience, understanding and articulateness needed to establish and secure democratic rule. Western help should be not merely financial, but intellectual and cultural. To be read with this author's 1947 forecast, under the pseudonym 'X', of the reasons and character of the collapse of communism. The analysis of the 'calamity' of Stalinism acknowledges a debt to Robert W Tucker 'Stalin in power: the revolution from above' (WW Norton, 1990).

George F. Kennan is Professor Emeritus in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. Copyright (c) 1990 by George F. Kennan.

Let the following stand, then, as a summary of the considerations set forth above.

What is now emerging on the territory traditionally known as Russia will not be-cannot be-the Russia of the tsars. Nor can it be the Russia of the communists. It can only be something essentially new, the contours of which are still, for us and for the Russians themselves, obscure.

The tasks to be encompassed are immense. A workable system of humane representative government-something of which Russian history provides only the most rudimentary experience-will have to be devised and rendered acceptable to a people among whom the principle of reasonable compromise, essential to its success, is largely foreign. A new economic system, compatible with Russian traditions but not limited by them, will have to be devised; and an essential feature of this new system will have to be a wholly new organization of the agricultural process for which, in the main, there will be no precedent in Russian experience. And, finally, the immensely complex and dangerous process of political and institutional decentralization of the traditional Russian state will have to be in some way managed.

For the meeting of these demands the Russian people are today poorly prepared. The events of this century have, as we have seen, taken a terrible toll on their social and spiritual resources. Their own history has pathetically little to tell them. A great deal will have to be started from scratch. The road will be long, rough and perilous.

How can we best relate to a people that finds itself in such straits, confronted with such tremendous and difficult tasks? The lingering tendencies in this country to see Russia as a great and dangerous enemy are simply silly, and should have no place in our thinking. We have never been at war with Russia, should never need to be, and must not be. As Gorbachev has often pointed out, we live in an age when other people's problems are essentially our own. This is the way we must come to view Russia's.

The Russians will need help from wherever they can get it. Some of that help, in our case, may from time to time take the form of economic assistance; but this will be of minor importance. The greatest help we can give will be of two kinds: understanding and example.

The example will of course depend upon the quality of our own civilization. It is our responsibility to assure that this quality is such as to be useful in this respect. We must ask ourselves what sort of example is going to be set for Russia by a country that finds itself unable to solve such problems as drugs, crime, decay of the inner cities, declining educational levels, a crumbling material substructure, and a deteriorating environment.

The understanding, on the other hand, will have to include the recognition that this is in many ways a hard and low moment in the historical development of the Russian people. They are just in process of recovery from all the heartrending reverses that this brutal century has brought to them. They are not, seen in the historical dimension, entirely themselves. We should bear this in mind. We, too, may someday have our low moments. And while we should beware of our American tendency to idealize those foreign peoples whom we consider to be particularly unfortunate, there is no reason why an understanding American attitude towards Russia at this juncture in its history should not include a reasonable measure of compassion.

Beyond this, while we speak of understanding, we can try to bear in mind that along with all the dark aspects of their development, the Russians have shown themselves historically to be a great people-a people of many talents, capable of rendering significant contributions, spiritual, intellectual and aesthetic, to the development of world civilization. They have made such contributions at times in the past. They have the potentiality for doing it again-in a better future.

The obligation to respect and cherish that potentiality is primarily their own. But in another sense it is ours as well. Let us accept that responsibility, and meet it thoughtfully, imaginatively and creatively wherever we can.