In the twenty-five years since Soviet collapse, countless books have been published that try to make sense of the political and social changes taking place in Russia and the CIS. Two factors make this book stand out: first, the authors are exclusively Russian (bar a short epilogue by Richard Sakwa), and have lived through the changes they analyze; second, the book focusses on the opinions and material conditions of everyday Russians, rather than elite politics or institutional change that are so often the focus of studies of Russia's post-communist transformation. The picture of Russia that emerges is a contradictory one, on the one hand relishing the stability brought by the Putin era, but riven by new and multiple inequalities on the other. The Social History of Post-Communist Russia thus makes for a sobering and, at times, emotional read.
In Chapter 1, Piotr Dutkiewicz introduces the main themes of the book, making the important observation that the western focus on the development of civil society has hindered an exploration of Russian society as a whole (2). Chapter 2, by Boris Kapustin, seeks to re-embed discussions of “the people” into discourses of postcommunist transition and argues that instead of a linear process, change in contemporary Russia consists of a situation where “different strategies pursued by different actors clash, intersect, combine, and resonate” (25). Considering the material effects of postcommunist transformation on the public, Chapter 3 by Vladimir Popov and Piotr Dutkiewicz presents a stark picture of the drop in quality of life and explosion in inequality that emerged in the decade after Soviet collapse. In Chapter 4, Leonid Grigoryev traces the emergence of new powerful elites during the 1990s and highlights the role of cultural factors driving the changes. Chapter 5 by Vladimir Popov considers the extent of popular support for the transition to capitalism and shows that, despite the deepening inequality and growth of a super-rich class of oligarchs, market reforms have not lost their popular legitimacy. Mikhail Gorshkov in Chapter 6 examines the evolution of public opinion on the reforms over the 20 years, showing that most Russians believe that their country is on a “trajectory of sustained and stable development” in which it is beginning to recover its “status as an influential world power” (127).
In Chapter 7, Natalya Tikhonova explores social stratification in the post-Soviet period and presents data regarding Russians' self-perception of their place in the overall structure of society. In Chapter 8, Valery Fyodorov shows how public debate shifted from a “pragmatic-political” plane in the Yeltsin period to Putin's “moral-ideological” plane, giving a fascinating overview of the contemporary conservative-patriotic Putinite ideology. In Chapter 9, Elena Shestopal presents an analysis of Russians' perceptions of democracy and authority, arguing that Russians overall are dissatisfied with the government for “not making progress or working to effect positive change” (199). Chapter 10, by Galina Gribanova, considers the resurgence of ethnic and religious tensions in the post-Communist period; however, she also notes that there has been less inter-ethnic violence than one might have expected at this time. Chapter 11, by Natalya Zubarevich, examines elite-society relations throughout the Russian regions, noting the various power configurations that exist across the Federation. In Chapter 12, Andrei Margolin considers state investment in welfare over the past two decades and shows that while the incremental growth in public spending is encouraging, much more still needs to be done. The final chapter, by Boris Mezhuev, argues that liberal-minded Russian elites have consistently pursued an inadvertent “self-isolation” strategy, since they are unable to relate to the concerns of everyday people.
While the book constitutes a rich source of statistics, many of which are neatly visualized in graphs and tables, what is missing, in the view of this reviewer, is some accompanying qualitative materials, which could have added color to the data. One notable exception is Fyodorov's chapter, where the reader is introduced to a kaleidoscope of characters that comprise the “New Russia,” some of whom would not be out of place in a Pelevin novel. Here, we meet, for example, the “disoriented engineers” of the early 1990s, who “turned to selling gum and beer in the kiosks that lined the streets in Russian cities' (156); “the ‘red directors' of the mid-1990s, who paid their workers meagre wages while requesting subsidies from the regional government or Moscow to produce goods which no one needed” (160); and “the young ministers” that oversaw the 1998 financial crash, “protégés of the half-dead president, who were completely useless in a crisis but were always in good standing with any government” (164). These miniature portraits bring Fyodorov's accompanying statistics to life and enabled this reader to comprehend more profoundly the effects of Soviet collapse on Russians' everyday lives.
Although the book's conclusions are at points repetitive and at others contradictory (hardly surprising given the diversity of authors, methodologies and disciplines), the chapters present strong evidence for why the vast majority of Russians support Vladimir Putin. In the words of Popov and Dutkiewicz, “it must be acknowledged that Russia's socioeconomic situation today (2014) is not just satisfactory; it is rather successful” (55). After the tumult and tragedy of the 1990s, a comparatively stable and prosperous society has emerged in a country that is ethnically, religiously, socially, and regionally diverse. The central challenge for the contemporary Russian leadership, therefore, is to manage this diversity and minimize the inequalities that run alongside it in order to ensure that stability may continue.
