Melberg, Hans O., The Russians

_{[Note for bibliographic reference: Melberg, Hans O. (1996), The Russians, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/960509.htm]

The Russians

by Hans O. Melberg

This is a short observation which will be expanded as I gather more information. The topic
is what various writers have written about the Russian culture. The reason for collecting
these views is that I suspect some of these characterisations are based on arm-chair
theory. On the other hand I also admit that there are important cultural differences that
have explanatory power. However, before I can start to judge which theories are good and
which are not so good, I need to create an overview of the theories.

A short list of characteristics

1. "Unlike the Russians, the Chinese people have a talent for entrepreneurship."
(Brzezinski (1989) p. 177)

2. "Unlike the Russians, the Chinese ... are not driven by thinly suppressed
inferiority complexes toward the West." (Brzezinski (1989), p. 183).

3. "Fear of chaos is deeply rooted in the psychology of the average Russian"
(Bauner-Barry and Hody (1995) p. 40)

4. "a deeply held cultural fear of innovation." (Barner-Barry and Hody (1995) p.
46)

5. "The Russians were obsessed with security - both national and personal - and thus
with defending themselves against foreign invasion." (Bauner-Barry and Hody (1995) p.
62)

6. "In general it is difficult (if not impossible) for most Russians to think of
government in terms of institutions rather than in terms of people who occupy positions
within institutions." (Barner-Barry and Hody (1995) p. 212)

7. "a political opponent should be crushed rather than listened to and
accommodated" (V. Tolz quoted in Barner-Barry and Hody (1995), p. 221)

8. "another way of laughing, living and dying" (M. Kundera (1984), p. 34). - A
different attitude to time (patient) and space. - "I don't know if it [the Russian
world] is worse than ours, but I do know it is different." (also p. 34)

9. The Russians mode of thinking is dual (bipolar), unlike Western thinking which is
tripolar. For example, A bipolar mode of thinking would conclude that either you are
religious or your are not. A tripolar mode of thinking would include a third option:
agnosticism. This model of the Russian culture is employed by B. Uspenski and J. Lotman,
A. Zinoviev, Per-Arne Bodin and many others.

10. The Bolsheviks created "a modernized version of Russia's traditional
patrimonialism." (Pipes (1994) p. 28)

These were ten characteristics and the list could be made much longer. The two important
questions are then: What is the point of these statements and how reliable are they?

Why search for traits?

The cultural traits described above are used in three contexts: When explaining a fact or
an event; When predicting; when recommending a policy. For example: The storming of the
Parliament in October 1993 is explained by the Russian unwillingness to compromise. The
tradition of looking to a strong leader is used to predict that democracy will never be
stable in Russia. The supposed Russian obsession with security is used to recommend
policies (such as creating a special Partnership for Peace deal) as the best way to deal
with the obsession. it is thus beyond doubt that cultural traits have a prominent place
both in description, prediction and prescription.

Reliable?

Given its prominence we should ask how reliable the knowledge about the traits are. In
general we are given two types of reasons.

First there is the micro theory which explains why a trait comes into the culture.
For example, the Russian obsession with survival is supposed to be the result of repeated
invasions. The Russian aversion against risk and innovation is supposed to be a product of
the low yield in agriculture. This low yield meant that there was no room for risky
innovations since a failed experiment would mean starvation and possibly death.

The second type of justification is macro-correlations. One simply observes that there is
a correlation between being Russian and a certain trait. Despite their differences, both
the Bolsheviks and the Tsar tended to think in terms of "us v. they" categories.
Both favoured strong centralization; Both created what one could call a patrimonial
regime. Thus, one concludes, these must be typical Russian traits.

I am not impressed by either of the above justifications. That does not mean I think they
are of no value. It simply means that I do not think they provide enough reason to
convince me. The first suffers under the problem that one could easily create a story to
explain any trait one wants. The second suffers under the problem that it is circular and
it ignores the problem of spurious correlation. How then it is possible to distinguish
between what is true and what is false?

Sugested improvements

In addition to the above I would suggest two methods.

First, one could try to conduct experiments. For example, one could examine whether the
Russians really are more averse to risk than people in the West by game-theoretic
experiments in which the subject is offered a choice between various types of gambles. A
similar method would be to use questionnaires to examine how attitudes differ (for example
by asking whether you would charge a friend interest rates on a loan - as I remember being
done in an article in the American Economic review about Russian attitudes to capitalism).

Second, one could study how immigrants from various countries succeed in the same system.
A comparison of Chinese and Russian immigrants could reveal (as I suspect) significant
differences.

Both methods have flaws. Not all traits can be tested experimentally and there might be
adverse selection which makes the comparison of immigrants invalid. In any case I believe
that it is necessary to provide more evidence than some of the simple "stories"
that are often provided when one proposes to use a cultural trait as an explanatory
factor.

Bibliography

Barner-Barry, Carol and Cynthia, A. Hody (1995), The Politics of Change - The
transformation of the former Soviet Union, New York: St. Martins

Bodin, Per Arne (1993), Ur djupen ropar jag - Kyrka och teologi i 1900-talets Russland, Tro
och Tanke 11:1-136

Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1989), The Grand Failure, Charles Schribers

Kundera, Milan (1984), The Tragedy of Central Europe, The New York Review of Books
26. April 1984, pp. 33-38

Malia, Martin (1994), The Sovet Tragedy, New York: The Free Press

Pipes, Richard (1994), Communism: The Vanished Specter, Oslo: Scandinavian
University Press

_{[Note for bibliographic reference: Melberg, Hans O. (1996), The Russians, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/960509.htm]}}