Autocrats Beat Anarchy

While Serhiy Kudelia presents an important analysis of the Slavic Autocracies of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus with implications of increased repression, he omits a crucial recognition of the role autocracies play in these three states. In some sense, the three countries have already had their revolution in the form of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Second, both Russia and Ukraine have already seen large protests, after which the states have continued to function. The defining question then is not whether there is enough pressure for these states to change through some kind of revolution, but to assess the medium-term aftermath of an already-completed revolution. From this perspective, the Slavic Autocracies are not a region where revolutions are ripe, but a region where we should be assessing state cohesion twenty years on.

Kudelia’s analysis is correct in that authoritarianism has set Russia, Ukraine, and most notably Belarus apart from other European post-Soviet states. However, this overwhelmingly negative analysis leaves out certain gains in governance and economic development in the former Soviet Union. Especially when compared with the recent Arab Spring-affected states of the Middle East, the combined post-revolutionary economic and political situations in the Slavic Autocracies were far more dire than their Middle Eastern counterparts. In this context, autocracy should not be viewed as a negative factor, but a stabilizing one.

The Arab Spring as a Benchmark

While the Arab Spring revolutions’ speed and success may have been tumultuous, their occurrence is not comparable to the full-scale economic collapse or severe security risks presented by the fall of the Soviet Union. In many ways, this is a poor juxtaposition because broadly comparing Middle Eastern countries with post-Soviet countries is inappropriate, but also because the dual nature of transition must not be ignored here: the return to normalcy in domestic affairs was no simple task in Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus. That we observe today in Russia and Ukraine relatively stable systems with much more openness and public participation should be viewed as an achievement. Incomes, too, have risen back and largely fulfilled expectations. Never has the modern state system been so shaken on such large a scale. In its place today is a system that is overwhelmingly stable, and has survived elections as well as protests.

If we take the Arab Spring events in Tunisia and Egypt as a benchmark, there are notable differences that make the current (and by several indicators, poor) governance situations in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus exemplary. The institutions of governance in Arab Spring countries were left largely intact. The military, police, court systems, and bureaucracy were all left in place through the Arab Spring revolutions. This is not to argue that the states were not shaken, or were not the target of public criticism—they were—but the institutions were granted license to remain in existence and continue to play their pre-Arab Spring roles, even today.

This institutional constancy was not present in the post-Soviet state transformations. The collapse meant that bureaucrats largely stopped coming to work and were no longer paid salaries. The military and its hardware, in many cases, were fragmented among the successor states, and its personnel took part in conflicts in the Caucasus and Central Asia as mercenaries. The former center of policy creation and indeed governance norms, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was all but outlawed and the systems reverted to nepotism, patrimonialism, and a whole range of -isms not befitting modern states. The post-Soviet collapse was worse than the Arab Spring collapse by an order of magnitude—to go from such stability with clearly defined institutional roles to anarchy in such a short time is unprecedented in recent history outside the context of inter-state war.

The Governance Issues in Slavic Autocracies Are Not as Dire as Stated

We should be cautious in wishing for a shake-up in the Slavic Autocracies. Firstly, because gains made in economic policy and governance are in danger of being reversed, and secondly, because the alternatives to status quo governance are few.

The economic collapse mentioned above is well-documented, and with...