The Return of Ideology: The Search for Regime Identities in Postcommunist Russia and China 0472119931, 9780472119936

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The Return of Ideology

As a nation makes the transition from communism to democracy or another form of authoritarianism, its regime must construct not only new political institutions, but also a new political ideology that can guide policy and provide a sense of mission. The new ideology is crucial for legitimacy at home and abroad as well as the regime’s long-­term viability. Comparing postcommunist regimes, with a focus on Russia under Putin and post-­Deng China, Cheng Chen investigates the factors that affect the success of an ideology-­building project and identifies the implications for international affairs. Successful ideology-­ building requires two necessary—­ but not sufficient—­conditions. The regime must establish a coherent ideological repertoire that takes into account the nation’s ideological heritage and fresh surges of nationalism. Also, the regime must attract and maintain a strong commitment to the emerging ideology among the political elite. Drawing on rich primary sources, including interviews, surveys, political speeches, writings of political leaders, and a variety of publications, Chen identifies the major obstacles to ideology-­building in modern Russia and China and assesses their respective long-­term prospects. Whereas creating a new regime ideology has been a protracted and difficult process in China, it has been even more so in Russia. The ability to forge an ideology is not merely a domestic concern for these two nations, but a matter of international import as these two great powers move to assert and extend their influence in the world. Cheng Chen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the State University of New York at Albany.

The Return of Ideology The Search for Regime Identities in Postcommunist Russia and China

Cheng Chen

University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor

Copyright © by Cheng Chen 2016 All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid-­free paper 2019 2018 2017 2016  4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-­0-­472-­11993-­6 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-­0-­472-­12199-­1 (e-­book)

For Katsuya and Yuzuki

Contents

Acknowledgments ix List of Abbreviations  xi Chapter 1. Introduction  1 Chapter 2. Regime Ideology and Postcommunism  20 Chapter 3. A Decade of Ideological Divergence: Russia and Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s  42 Chapter 4. Regime Ideology-­Building in Putin’s Russia: A Personalistic Approach  67 Chapter 5. Regime Ideology-­Building in Post-­Deng China: Striving for Institutionalization  96 Chapter 6. Conclusion  126 Notes 145 Bibliography 195 Index 215

Acknowledgments

This book has benefited enormously from advice and comments that I received from various colleagues over the years. In particular, Rudy Sil, Veljko Vujacic, and two anonymous reviewers read through the entire manuscript and offered detailed and invaluable comments, which helped me greatly in improving the quality of the manuscript. Other colleagues that read parts of the manuscript and offered helpful comments include Victor Asal, Zsofi Barta, Peter Breiner, Mark Baskin, Sally Friedman, Avery Goldstein, Karrie Koesel, Julie Novkov, and Meredith Weiss. I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of several of my doctoral students at the State University of New York at Albany. Turkhan Sadigov and Xiaoye She commented on parts of the manuscript, and Yeufen Hsieh and Inga Miller provided research assistance. I am grateful to the Department of Political Science at the State University of New York at Albany for providing a nurturing and stimulating intellectual environment and generously sponsoring a book workshop for me. The book had also been supported by a Faculty Research Awards Program, Category B research grant from the University at Albany. I am much indebted to my editor at the University of Michigan Press, Melody Herr, whose encouragement, guidance, and professionalism have been indispensable in the final publication of this book. My thanks also go to Marcia LaBrenz at the University of Michigan Press; John Raymond for copy-­ editing; and Eileen Doherty-­Sil for indexing. Earlier versions of some of the material in this book have previously been published in an article, “Muddling through the Shadow of the Past(s): Post-­ Communist Russia’s Search for a New Regime Identity,” Demokratizatsiya 19, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 37–­57. I thank the journal for granting me the rights to use these elements.

x  Acknowledgments

Finally, this book would not have been possible without the love and support from my parents in China and my family here in the United States. I dedicate this book to Katsuya Izumi, who has been the backbone of our family, and our daughter, Yuzuki, who arrived during this book’s writing and has since then brought us so much delight and joy.

List of Abbreviations

AIIB CCP CEE EU FSB GDP NATO PRC USSR VTsIOM

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Chinese Communist Party Central and Eastern Europe European Union Federal Security Service (Russia) gross domestic product North Atlantic Treaty Organization People’s Republic of China Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Russia Public Opinion Research Center

Chapter 1

Introduction

More than a quarter century after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States’ status as the leader of capitalist liberal democracies and the dominant global power remains unchallenged. But the efforts spearheaded by the United States to spread liberal democratic values around the world have apparently stalled despite the sweeping forces of global capitalism. Even as debates continue over “who gets the credit” when it comes to bringing down communism,1 there is a growing awareness that the specter of what some have called “authoritarian capitalism” or “market authoritarianism” is looming on the horizon.2 Compared to radical Islamic fundamentalism, which had emerged as a major threat to the West following the September 11 terrorist attacks but is so far largely confined within a religious community, the still-­evolving “authoritarian capitalism” is much less clearly defined but could pose a more profound and long-­term future challenge to the existing liberal democratic order by providing a competing political and socioeconomic vision with potentially broad appeal.3 Historically, capitalism shares a close if not intrinsic link with democracy.4 Many argue that capitalist economic development tends to empower new socioeconomic classes that struggle for political changes to serve their interests, eventually leading to democratization.5 Today, the continuing compatibility between democracy and capitalism remains a highly contentious topic.6 But at least within the Western context, the same liberal principles upholding individual rights and liberties that underlie demands for democracy also enshrine the right to private property, which forms the basis for capitalism. The combination of capitalism and democracy reached full maturity and achieved unprecedented success after World War II, as Western economies experienced decades of uninterrupted growth until the crises in the 1970s. After the end of the Cold War, among what Barrington Moore

2  The Return of Ideology

has called “three routes to the modern world”—­the liberal democratic, the fascist, and the communist—­only the first survived.7 Although capitalism has certainly existed and developed in various authoritarian settings, the fact that almost all developed capitalist countries in the post–­Cold War world also happen to be democracies seems to suggest that the very concept of “modernity” has finally come to be defined by both a capitalist economy and liberal democratic politics.8 Against such a background, the continuing rise of authoritarian China and the failure of democracy in Russia appear particularly disconcerting for those who had subscribed to such a definition. After abandoning the old communist developmental path and embracing capitalism, the two largest postcommunist countries, which together control a huge land mass in Eurasia and account for more than one-­fifth of the world’s population, so far show few signs of being on their way to becoming liberal democracies. Instead, the combination of capitalism and political authoritarianism seems to have stabilized in both China and Russia, giving rise to the increasing prominence of the idea of “authoritarian capitalism.” The idea of “authoritarian capitalism” itself, however, does not tell us much about these regimes and their respective developmental strategies. Authoritarianism, as a huge residual category, encompasses a wide and diverse range of regimes that are not democratic.9 To further complicate the matter, during recent years the institutional variations of “hybrid,” “electoral,” or semiauthoritarian regimes have also attracted increasing scholarly attention.10 Given such wide variation, authoritarianism by itself does not necessarily entail any one particular kind of political or economic arrangement. Moreover, historically, authoritarian regimes’ efforts to develop capitalist economies led to rather mixed results in different contexts. A few countries did achieve successful capitalist economic development with relatively effective state intervention under “soft” authoritarianism, such as the East Asian newly industrialized countries prior to democratization.11 Some “bureaucratic authoritarian” regimes in Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s, such as the Augusto Pinochet regime in Chile, also achieved moderate success in capitalist development, albeit at huge cost to civil liberties and human rights.12 But plenty of authoritarian regimes failed, and still fail, to develop economically. There is simply nothing theoretically or empirically to suggest any intrinsic relationship between political authoritarianism and capitalist economic development. The mere combination of authoritarianism and capitalism, therefore, hardly constitutes a developmental model. Distinctive from the democratic capitalism of the West, the current postcommunist “authoritarian capitalism” also differs from both the so-­called East Asian developmental model, which eventually led to democratization,

Introduction  3

and the now-­defunct Latin American bureaucratic authoritarianism under institutionalized military rule. At the same time, as the two regimes now most frequently associated with “authoritarian capitalism,” postcommunist Russia and China are different along many lines, and they have followed divergent developmental trajectories under circumstances that are in many ways unique. Both regimes face serious problems domestically and internationally, and their relative successes might well turn out to be temporary, especially considering the recent state of the Russian economy.13 Whether their experiences can produce a model for others to emulate thus remains a huge question. Most important, if “authoritarian capitalism” is ever going to emerge as some kind of model, these regimes themselves should at least be able to formulate and articulate a distinctive set of political and socioeconomic strategies that form the core of such a model. Otherwise, the idea of “authoritarian capitalism” will remain extremely vague, let alone be able to serve as a developmental template for anyone else. Therefore, whether “authoritarian capitalism” will one day become a credible alternative to capitalist liberal democracy depends, first and foremost, on these regimes’ ability to develop a unique self-­image and a clear sense of mission—­a distinctive regime ideology—­to justify and guide their developmental paths and foreign policies. In this sense, how these regimes perceive themselves and their future becomes a crucial issue both for themselves and for others. The main purpose of this book is to study this issue—­the search for a new regime ideology in postcommunist Russia and China. Concepts and Argument Regime Ideology after Communism

The mass extinction of communist regimes in the late 1980s and the early 1990s seemed to signal the end of the intense ideological competition that had dominated most of the 20th century and the final triumph of liberalism as the prevailing global ideology. The complex and varied postcommunist reality that followed, however, suggests that the postcommunist ideological landscape is much more heterogeneous and contentious than originally thought. The importance of ideology in shaping postcommunist political and socioeconomic development has been noted and explored in a number of scholarly works in recent years.14 Recognizing the independent and intervening effects of ideologies, many of these works treat them as largely given, something to be adopted or rejected by political actors, which in combina-

4  The Return of Ideology

tion with other factors might lead to far-­reaching political and economic consequences. The formation of new ideologies in the contemporary postcommunist setting, nevertheless, remains a rarely examined area of inquiry. This book looks specifically at the processes through which the postcommunist regimes in Russia and China attempt to formulate new ideologies to identify and define themselves. In other words, the varying degrees of success of these regimes to form a new regime ideology is being treated in this study as a political outcome to be explained. For the purpose of this study, regime ideology is conceptualized in a broad and normatively neutral way, referring to any coherent and consistent system of ideas advanced officially by state elites to define and promote a regime identity and mission that transcends individual leaders, parties, and political generations. As a political entity, a political regime is distinctive from a state or an administration along institutional and ideational dimensions (see table 1.1), even though sometimes a single leader can preside over a state, a regime, and an administration.15 Whereas a national ideology provides a state with a shared identity and defines citizenship, a regime ideology justifies a regime’s long-­term domestic and international goals with an emphasis on specific institutional configurations and dominant political and socioeconomic ideas. A regime ideology is also conceptually different from, and broader than, a party ideology that justifies the specific agendas and policies of the current ruler.16 Although national ideology, regime ideology, and party ideology are conceptually distinctive from each other and have different emphases, their goals sometimes can overlap. For example, the goals of national ideology and regime ideology can converge to an extent in settings where postcolonial or postimperial regimes are simultaneously confronted with the dual challenges of nation-­building and regime-­building. In such a situation, any regime ideological-­building project will necessarily have to take place alongside the construction of a new statehood and national identity. A regime ideology and a party ideology can also overlap to an extent where the regime is embodied by one single political party, such as in the context of communist party-­states. That being said, a regime ideology ultimately focuses on what defines the regime and justifies its long-­term political and economic programs, rather than on issues of citizenship or specific policies. For instance, China’s national ideology remains largely unchanged since the Maoist era, but, as will be illustrated in a later chapter, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime ideology has undergone dramatic transformations under Deng Xiaoping and then the post-­Deng leaderships. Moreover, during the post-­Deng era, different CCP leaders pursued some-

Introduction  5

what different policy priorities even though there was broad continuity in the regime’s overall institutions and developmental strategy. A regime ideology includes not only a supposedly factual component about the regime’s enduring characteristics but also a normative component that justifies and guides regime behavior. In itself, this use of the term “regime ideology” does not carry any derogatory connotations of such an ideology being “false” as in the case of many other uses of “ism.”17 Of course, not all political regimes have fully formed ideologies, and political regimes can certainly survive for a time without any well-­conceived ideological projects.18 But any political regime interested in its long-­term survival will have incentives to develop some kind of consistent self-­image in order to create and sustain a relatively continuous political system over time. Such a self-­ image can certainly emerge from key regime leaders, but it is designed to outlive those leaders. It not only gives the regime a sense of purpose but also shapes its political and economic organizations. Even though successive individual leaders might interpret and apply aspects of regime ideology differently, a regime ideology must have a set of core values that are commonly accepted within the regime, providing a shared ideational basis for political action. Whether a political regime succeeds in formulating such an ideology is, therefore, crucial for the regime’s internal cohesion and potential durability beyond the tenure of individual leaders. The search for a new regime ideology usually takes place under either one or both of these two conditions—­first, there has been a regime change; and second, there has been a gross discrepancy between reality and the preexisting regime ideology. Both of these conditions were present in the postcommunist context, as those countries formerly committed to Marxism-­ Leninism faced the challenge of finding new ideational frameworks to guide them through the transitions away from communism and enable them to Table 1.1. Institutional and Ideational Components of Political Entities

Political Entity State Regime Administration

Institutional

Ideational

Constitution, national laws, and National ideology: Provides government institutions shared identity and defines citizenship Enduring policies with institu- Regime ideology: Justifies long-­ tional manifestations term domestic and international goals Ruling elite linked to specific Party ideology: Justifies agendas leaders and parties and policies of current ruler

6  The Return of Ideology

adapt to the new international environment. For those with newly drawn state boundaries, this challenge could be even more daunting as they had to deal with the additional task of nation-­building.19 To be sure, the end of communism took place in a wide variety of forms, including abrupt regime collapses either through the overthrow or abdication of a communist party, as in the case of the Soviet Union and most Central Eastern European (CEE) countries, or the incremental transformations initiated from above that eventually led to halting the project of building communism, as in the case of China. Regardless of these diverse forms of extrication from communism, in all these countries ideological commitment to communism no longer dominated the processes of elite recruitment and policy-­making, and expanding market mechanisms and participation in the global economy had replaced central economic planning.20 While many postcommunist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe appeared to quickly embrace liberal democratic ideological principles, the situation was much more complicated in Russia and China—­the two biggest postcommunist countries. In the case of Russia, by the time Vladimir Putin came to power the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent failure of Yeltsin’s liberalization reforms had created an ideological vacuum at the regime level—­communism had been rejected but liberalism had failed to take root. In the case of China, although the Chinese Communist Party still stays in power, the post-­Deng regime had gone through a sustained decades-­ long deviation from the two fundamental Leninist principles characterizing all communist regimes: a centrally planned economy with at best a fixed and marginal role for market forces, and political leadership under a vanguard party with membership limited to those committed to defeating capitalism and building socialism. Despite the absence of a sudden regime change, the continuing market reform and economic globalization as well as the changing nature of the CCP have formed an increasingly stark contrast with the regime’s self-­proclaimed “communist” identity.21 Since the mid-­1990s, the regime has supported privatization of small-­and medium-­size enterprises, initiated village-­level elections open to nonparty members, and invited capitalists into the ranks of the party elite—­all of which make it plausible to classify China as “postcommunist.” In both Russia and China, confusion over regime identity arose and pragmatism seemed to have become a defining feature of regime policies. Many therefore tend to see ideology as being no more than cynical and empty rhetoric for both regimes in contemporary Russia and China, whose common top priority is the maintenance of political power in domestic affairs and the projection of state power in international affairs. Such views, although partially capturing the existing

Introduction  7

political reality in the context of postcommunist ideological confusion and pragmatism, are not able to fully account for these regimes’ persistent and sometimes painstaking attempts to outline a new regime ideology that can give them a distinctive identity and potentially long-­lasting legitimacy. Currently, nationalism plays an important role in both the Russian and Chinese regimes’ efforts to gain and maintain popular support. Nationalism, however, is a slippery mantle that can also be claimed by these regimes’ existing and potential competitors, and both regimes so far have not been able to monopolize nationalist discourses despite their efforts to do so. As the two countries’ international profile rises and domestic problems persist, nationalism alone is becoming increasingly inadequate to justify regime rule and guide long-­term developmental strategy. After all, the proclaimed nationalist goal of becoming a strong and prosperous great power, while certainly having broad appeal, begs the question of what kinds of political and socioeconomic programs are necessary to achieve such an objective, now that communism has been discredited and is no longer an option. In China, various major attempts by the regime to define a new ideology during recent decades include Jiang Zemin’s theory of “Three Represents,” Hu Jintao’s call for a “Scientific Outlook on Development” and for building a “Socialist Harmonious Society,” Xi Jinping’s vision of a “Chinese Dream” and his theory of “Four Comprehensives,” and what some have labeled the “Beijing Consensus”22 on the economic front characterized by strong state intervention in the economy. In Russia, the Putin regime’s promotion of a series of ideas, including “Dictatorship of Law” and the so-­called Sovereign Democracy with selectively rehabilitated pre-­Soviet and Soviet elements, and Dmitry Medvedev’s more recent call for conservative “modernization,” also represent a sustained effort to define a new form of popular developmental authoritarianism that rejects outside, and in particular Western, intervention. Nevertheless, as will be elaborated later, both regimes’ efforts, to varying extents, have yet to produce a viable and recognizable regime ideology that can provide a basis for a distinctive political and economic model. This book examines the two regimes’ ideology-­building projects as evidenced by their respective identity and cultural politics as well as their overall developmental strategies, and addresses two major puzzles in the process. First, despite key differences in their formal institutional trappings, why do postcommunist regimes in China and Russia both end up seeking nonliberal and non-­Western ideological alternatives? Second, given both regimes’ communist pasts and their heavy reliance on nationalism to gain popular support in the present, why are there significant divergences in their approaches to building a new regime ideology? So far, the Chinese approach is oriented

8  The Return of Ideology

more toward formal institution-­building, as indicated by the regime’s emphasis on rebuilding the party and establishing the rule of law. In contrast, the Russian approach relies more on cronyistic and personalistic power arrangements centered on individual leaders (in particular, Putin), despite the regime’s strong emphasis on statism. To put it in simple terms, even after the individual leaders who originally put forth those ideological projects are gone, the Chinese regime is still likely to continue on its current overall ideological path in the foreseeable future, while it is much harder to tell what Russian ideological politics will be like without Putin. What accounts for such a divergence? By answering these questions, this study intends to reveal the major sources of difficulty for these regimes’ ideology-­building projects and assess their long-­term prospects. Building Regime Ideology in Postcommunist China and Russia

Building a regime ideology is a long-­term collective project, and there is no known formula for its sure success. The empirical research in this book examines both crucial historical and institutional factors that constrain the ideological repertoires available to the postcommunist Russian and Chinese regimes and the vital strategic choices made by regime leaders and political elites in building a new ideology. It focuses on two necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for successful regime ideology-­building—­the coherence of ideological repertoire, and the strength of elite commitment. Successful regime ideology-­building, meaning the formation of a distinctive and viable regime ideology that can provide the regime with a clear identity and sense of mission, at the very least requires both a relatively coherent ideological repertoire and a relatively strong elite commitment.23 Shaped by existing historical and institutional factors, an ideological repertoire is the range of available ideational elements a regime draws upon in building a regime ideology. It is possible for charismatic political actors to invent or creatively reinterpret some of these ideational elements,24 but an ideological repertoire is far from infinitely malleable or extendable. It is relatively coherent if its major elements, as diverse as they may be, can potentially reinforce, instead of fundamentally undermining, each other. Relatively strong elite commitment means that the majority of political elites, defined as the social minority who wield political power and influence policy-­making,25 are able to work with the top leadership toward common ideological objectives that go beyond immediate personal interests and can be sustained over time. Given that political elites are in general self-­interested actors, it is neverthe-

Introduction  9

less possible for them to engage in projects initiated by the leadership that they believe would benefit them in the long run even if such projects don’t yield immediate short-­term personal economic and political gains. Strong elite commitment would be difficult to achieve if political elites as a group are either deeply fragmented or if most of them are alienated from the top leadership. Without strong commitment from political elites, a regime’s ideology-­building project cannot be sustainable, let alone eventually gain broader domestic and even international acceptance. The decay and collapse of communist ideology, in many cases, was greatly accelerated by the widespread erosion of faith among communist political elites, which led to their inability and unwillingness to continue to contribute to the regimes’ ideological enterprises.26 To be sure, the coherence of ideological repertoire and the strength of elite commitment alone do not guarantee the success of regime ideology-­building, and this book does not attempt to come up with an exhaustive list of sufficient conditions for building a regime ideology successfully. But it does argue that these two factors are necessary for any regime to form a distinctive and viable regime ideology. Without either of these factors, any long-­term ideology-­building project, no matter how much resources the top leadership and their advisers invest in them, will ultimately be in vain. By the end of the first postcommunist decade, liberal democratic regime ideologies had started to take root in those CEE countries that would become the first postcommunist European Union (EU) members because both of these two necessary conditions—­a relatively coherent ideological repertoire and relatively strong elite commitment—­were present. In these countries, communism was originally an alien imposition with mostly flimsy indigenous roots, and the eventual demise of communism, which also signaled the end of Soviet dominance, was easily integrated into their respective national narratives as a moment of national liberation and independence. Moreover, motivated by the impulse to “return to Europe” and encouraged by the prospect of European integration, these postcommunist regimes had been able to build upon relatively coherent ideological repertoires that explicitly and unequivocally rejected communism and embraced Western political and economic values. This renunciation of communism also seemed to constitute a broad consensus among political elites from various ideological backgrounds, including even those associated with communist successor parties, many of which had already made a clean break with their communist pasts and were operating as mainstream political forces.27 The external conditionality imposed by Western institutions, especially the EU, although generating pressure and skepticism among some, helped cre-

10  The Return of Ideology

ate a relatively long time horizon28 with predictable rewards for political elites. Consequently, the majority of the political elites in these countries, despite their diverse political backgrounds, were strongly committed to their regimes’ overall liberal democratic agenda and the existing rules of the game.29 Thus, at the end of 1990s political parties still competed with diverse platforms and various individual leaders pursued different policies, but at the regime level there was a shared consensus over these regimes’ fundamental liberal democratic identity and their long-­term mission to develop as a part of the West. Such conditions, however, did not readily exist in postcommunist Russia and China. As countries that had witnessed indigenous communist revolutions, Russia and China are burdened with much more ambivalence toward their communist experiences due to the relatively close fusion of “home-­ grown” communism with their nation-­ building processes, even though 30 these processes were far from identical. China, in particular, is still ruled by the Communist Party, whose origin and history can be traced directly back to the Chinese Communist revolution and the Maoist regime. This alone makes it extremely difficult for the CCP regime to officially denounce communism, even though the regime has discarded and repudiated the old Maoist political and economic model. Giving up the party-­state’s official “communist” identity would almost certainly undermine the historical basis for the regime’s domestic authority and open the floodgate for demands from other political groups for power-­sharing. In Russia, the Yeltsin regime did attempt a total rejection of the Soviet past, but its visions of political and economic Westernization generated little support in a society where many Soviet-­era ideational and symbolic legacies still retained considerable public appeal, and it emphatically failed to materialize.31 Any successor regime thus would have to deal with and repair at least some of the damage the Yeltsin regime had done in terms of alienating both the Russian elites and masses, and the selective rehabilitation of elements from the Soviet era became an obvious choice for the Putin presidency to achieve this goal. As a result, both the contemporary Chinese and Russian regimes have yet to make a clean break with their communist pasts despite the fact that they have abandoned the communist developmental path and are broadly committed to economic liberalization in response to the opportunities and challenges presented by globalization. Therefore, unlike those CEE regimes that were able to pursue a clear and unambiguous anticommunist liberalizing ideology, postcommunist Russia and China are confronted with rather incoherent ideological repertoires shaped by ambiguous attitudes toward the communist history. This ambiguity has given nationalism great appeal as a temporary ideological

Introduction  11

expedient for both regimes. Nevertheless, while there is a lot of confusion and controversy regarding the issue of national identity in Russia following decades of Soviet nation-­building and the collapse of the Soviet state, a relatively clearly defined and well-­accepted official nationalism still serves as the anchor of an increasingly incoherent ideological repertoire in the case of China. Meanwhile, significant differences exist between Russia’s and China’s postcommunist regime ideology-­building as a consequence of their divergent pathways of moving away from communism. In the case of China, even though no single event or date marks the beginning of the postcommunist era, the regime has gradually shed its communist characteristics while remaining authoritarian, with its party-­state structure relatively intact.32 In the absence of a competitive party system, one could easily assume that Chinese political elites had always supported the CCP leadership’s ideological agenda since the party took power in 1949. But this is not the case. Even under the communist party-­state structure, elite commitment to regime ideology could hardly be taken for granted. This is evidenced, for example, by the end of the Maoist regime, which was marked by the broad rejection of the main components of the existing regime ideology by the majority of political elites that were moderate and pragmatic, as opposed to the radicals such as the “Gang of Four.” It took place following intense struggles among political elites throughout the Cultural Revolution decade that lasted from 1966 to 1976, during which the minority radicals had Mao’s implicit if inconsistent support.33 This rejection of Maoist ideology ushered in a reform era that was a drastic departure from the Maoist regime economically, politically, and ideologically. The subsequent Deng regime had to deal with a minority of conservative hardliners that had consistently resisted bold reform measures, but most Chinese political elites remained committed to the Deng regime’s overall reform agenda even after the Tiananmen Incident. In the post-­Deng era, despite the increasing ideological incoherence generated by the regime’s simultaneous espousal of political authoritarianism and economic liberalization and globalization, the absence of a radical regime change and the overall institutional continuity and stability have helped preserve relatively long time horizons among contemporary political elites. The regime has also put a lot of emphasis on party-­building and elite institutionalization in order to combat corruption and elite fragmentation. Moreover, the cumulative success of several decades of economic reform has in general benefited political elites, and most of them are heavily invested in the status quo and supportive of the regime as a result. All this contributes to relatively strong elite commitment to the regime’s ideology-­building projects, notwithstanding signifi-

12  The Return of Ideology

cant disagreements over specific policies. The Jiang administration and the Hu administration, for example, were certainly different along important dimensions, with the former focusing almost single-­mindedly on economic growth with a particular emphasis on the development of the coastal regions, and the latter devoting more attention to the negative socioeconomic consequences generated by the reform, especially social tension created by the income gap. There were also different opinions over these priorities among the Chinese political elites, who are still very much under the sway of the factional politics that has characterized Chinese politics since the Maoist era.34 But most of them are united rather than divided when it comes to supporting the fundamental regime project of continuing economic modernization with “Chinese characteristics” under the authoritarian leadership of the CCP. This allows the CCP to act with some efficacy as the primary institutional force shaping a new regime identity, albeit with weakened authority and the potential of undermining its own rule in the long run. In the case of Russia, the demise of the Soviet Union simultaneously signaled the end of its official regime ideology—­Marxism-­Leninism. During the immediate aftermath following this double demise, liberal political elites within the Yeltsin regime were initially united by anticommunism and ready to embrace Western values in their struggle to define a new identity for Russia. The regime’s liberalization project, however, largely collapsed due to colossal policy failures and the lack of popular and broad elite support. Moreover, politics under the Yeltsin regime became progressively unstable and unpredictable, which led to widespread apathy and cynicism among political elites. Given the undesirable outcome of the Yeltsin regime’s liberal project, which severely discredited liberalism and contributed to further ideological and institutional fragmentation, the Putin regime has tried to broaden its ideological repertoire by attempting to reconcile the country’s three highly divergent pasts—­the pre-­Soviet era, the Soviet era, and the Yeltsin era. Essentially, the regime emphasized building a strong state without completely renouncing any of these pasts, even though they do not share much in common ideationally except a general sense of Russia as an independent great power. This strategy achieved partial success in that the regime has been able to appeal to the nationalistic inclinations of many Russians, providing them with more of a sense of continuity compared to the Yeltsin era. At the same time, it significantly undermined the coherence of the regime’s ideological repertoire. This lack of coherence was revealed by the rather vacuous concept of “sovereign democracy,” and the more recent push for so-­called conservative modernization. These ideological projects of the

Introduction  13

Putin regime were certainly a step away from the ideological vacuum at the end of the Yeltsin era. But they were far from a full-­fledged regime ideology that provides any kind of substantive political and economic grand strategy, and they did not gain significant traction among many of the Russian political elites. Moreover, the uncertainty and instability of the Yeltsin era contributed to a high degree of personalization of elite politics, and that has continued and even intensified in some ways under the Putin regime.35 This kind of personalism, to an extent, ensured elite support of the regime, but this support could translate neither into a high level of legitimacy for formal political institutions nor into ideational unity among the political elites. Rather, the fundamental ideational fragmentation among Russian political elites remained, as no consensus developed over whether Russia should liberalize further in order to be accepted into the West, or whether it should pursue an independent developmental path and be a part of an alternative non-­Western world order.36 In the absence of any genuine elite unity based on shared ideological convictions about the country’s identity or its future, the current Russian regime has been trying to continue with the Yeltsin strategy of compensating for weak elite commitment with a personalistic and cronyistic approach in building a regime ideology, as indicated by an ever closer fusion of “power and property” in the contemporary Russian political context. At least for now, both regimes in Russia and China are still struggling to come up with a clear and viable regime ideology that goes beyond the existing eclectic amalgam of many seemingly incompatible elements, with the Chinese regime being the more likely to succeed. This eclecticism is quite pragmatic and could be seen as offering a certain advantage by generating some public support and providing these postcommunist regimes with flexibility when it comes to policy-­making. While it temporarily contributes to regime stability, this pragmatic eclecticism falls short of constituting a substantive and distinctive grand vision on fundamental issues of regime identity and long-­term mission, leaving these regimes to “muddle through” their developmental paths. The idea of “authoritarian capitalism” hence remains rather empty and elusive when used to describe these regimes’ political and economic organization. The absence of a clear regime ideology means that public support for the regime is still largely dependent on regime performance rather than any kind of consistent ideals embodied by the regime, and will be at risk of unraveling quickly in the event of major policy setbacks when the regime fails to meet public expectations. Compared to the Chinese regime, which is also confronted with an increasingly incoherent ideological

14  The Return of Ideology

repertoire but can still rely on relatively committed political elites to support its ideological projects by building formal institutions, the challenge of formulating a regime ideology is all the more daunting in Russia because of relatively weak elite commitment, as elite support for the regime is heavily contingent upon patronage relationships built around individual regime leaders. Although this book focuses on the comparison between contemporary Russia and China, it also discusses two contrasting regime ideology-­building processes during the first postcommunist decade of the 1990s as secondary cases offering “baselines” of successful and failed regime ideology construction in the postcommunist context. These two secondary cases are the group of postcommunist CEE regimes that were the first to become EU members37 and the Yeltsin regime in Russia. During the first postcommunist decade, the former group overall had successfully constructed new liberal democratic regime ideologies despite some recent “democratic fatigue” and setbacks,38 while the latter is an example in which liberal regime ideology-­building clearly failed. This secondary comparison serves two important functions. First, it provides concrete examples of success and failure of postcommunist regime ideology-­building, against which the ongoing projects in Russia and China can be assessed. Second, the development in these secondary cases during the 1990s constituted a significant part of the background that set the stage for the subsequent regime ideology-­building in Russia and China. In the case of Russia, in particular, what happened under Yeltsin directly affected Putin’s approach to regime ideology. Based on these comparisons, this study intends to show that a successful postcommunist regime ideology hinges crucially on the regime’s ability to reconcile the new ideology-­building project with both the country’s major ideological heritages and new waves of nationalism, as well as its ability to form and maintain strong elite commitment in support of its regime ideology-­building projects. Compared to the Russian case, the Chinese regime’s ideology-­building project is more likely to succeed due to its more coherent ideological repertoire anchored by a relatively well-­defined and widely accepted state nationalism and relatively strong elite commitment sustained by ongoing institutionalization. The Russian project, in contrast, has been crippled by a highly incoherent and contested ideological repertoire and weak elite commitment in the context of continuing political personalization. The outcomes of these ideology-­building projects will not only shape these countries’ political future but also have significant international implications as these two great powers seek to assert and extend their influence in the world.

Introduction  15

Research and Methodology Comparing Russia and China

Russia and China are the two primary cases in this study, with the new EU countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Yeltsin’s Russia, both formally committed to building democracy during much of the 1990s, as secondary “baseline” cases representing successful and failed processes of postcommunist regime ideology-­building. The comparative case studies in this book are designed to uncover and highlight the important causal processes that are shaping regime ideology-­building in the postcommunist contexts. Although some of the theoretical implications may be applicable in a wider empirical setting, the book’s focus is on postcommunist Russia and China. These two cases are selected for this study because they represent, respectively, the postcommunist authoritarian regimes that are no longer ruled by communist parties and those that are still ruled by communist parties.39 Both sets of regimes face the common pressure of defining a new postcommunist identity that is nonliberal democratic, but whether they are still ruled by a communist party presents them with very different opportunities and challenges. Comparing Russia and China, however, is no easy task. n comparative analysis, with its unique During recent years, small-­ strength in revealing causal mechanisms and contextualizing abstract theoretical variables, has attracted increasing scholarly attention as part of the qualitative methods movement and multimethod research strategies.40 This trend has given intellectual momentum and provided methodological justifications to a large number of high-­quality scholarly works that engage in variation-­finding contextualized comparisons with particular attention to process-­tracing. At the same time, larger debates over quantitative and qualitative research and over the theoretical standing of area studies continue within political science. In this context, many advocates of small-­n comparisons tend to compare within the same geographic region as area experts employing the same language, such as what we often see in the fields of Latin American studies or Middle Eastern studies, or engage in controlled, often highly stylized, comparisons by extracting specific data points out of contexts.41 These research products have been fruitful in many ways, and comparing within the same region could well be justified when tackling research questions that assume scope conditions found primarily in a single geographical area. Within the field of postcommunist studies, given the wide range of variations in postcommunist outcomes,42 most comparative studies compare within those

16  The Return of Ideology

CEE countries that are now members of the European Union; or within the former Soviet states, many of which are still struggling with democratization or have “backslid” or simply remain authoritarian; or within the energy-­rich states in Central Asia. Sometimes this is a necessary result of the particular research questions that require controls provided by commonalities within one single geographical boundary. But this is not always the case, especially when it comes to many comparative analyses designed to explain divergence in postcommunist outcomes by focusing on variables that are not necessarily geographically bounded in such ways. In other words, it is possible for some types of variation-­finding postcommunist comparative studies to run the risk of engaging in what effectively becomes “most similar” case research design, thus failing to represent the full population of relevant cases across regions, even though they are dealing with research questions that do not require geographical restriction of cases.43 What is more, despite a few notable exceptions,44 the studies of the two postcommunist giants—­Russia and China—­are still dominated by single-­country studies.45 Against this broad backdrop, the shortage of studies comparing contemporary Russia and China is hardly surprising. Both Russia and China are countries with long and complex histories, and they are vastly different culturally, geographically, and linguistically. Over the decades, both Russia studies and China studies have grown into expansive and vibrant fields, and area specialists focusing on either Russia or China have produced an enormous number of scholarly works offering rich empirical information and theoretical insights. The study of the Soviet Union, in particular, experienced unprecedented growth during the Cold War, generously supported by a network of government agencies, private foundations, and area studies programs.46 For either Russia or China, there are numerous academic journals specifically dedicated to the study of every single aspect of the country’s politics, economy, culture, society, and foreign relations. Any cross-­national comparisons of the two inevitably highlight the difficulty of acquiring multiple country expertise and the challenge of immersing oneself in a vast amount of sources and relevant literature. Moreover, although both countries went through a long period of “home-­grown” communism, there are significant differences in terms of the origins of their communist regimes, their developmental trajectories under communism, and their ways of transitioning away from communism. In particular, Russia emerged from communism following a regime collapse accompanied by a territorial breakup, while China “evolved” out of communism gradually while keeping many of its fundamental institutions intact. Given such great diversity, the danger of drawing spurious parallels between the two is huge. In a sense, the very

Introduction  17

term “authoritarian capitalism” is symptomatic of this kind of danger in its lumping together political and economic systems that are similar mostly in superficial ways and are actually being shaped by many different forces. Many of their differences are so pronounced that some scholars argue that the unique aspects of Russia’s and China’s communist and postcommunist experiences make meaningful comparisons with other countries, let alone with each other, exceedingly difficult if not impossible.47 In addition, during recent years, many of the studies on contemporary Russia have focused on the backsliding or failure of democratization following the Soviet collapse and the development of the “hybrid” regime under Putin, while the studies on China tend to pay more attention to the socioeconomic consequences of reforms under the continuing authoritarian rule of the CCP. The existing disparity between the two countries’ formal political institutions and their different rates of economic growth, compounded by the limited availability of comparable data, seems to further restrict the basis for a potential comparative framework.48 The fact that it is not easy to compare contemporary Russia with China, however, does not mean that they should not be compared, or that comparisons, especially done in a well-­matched and context-­sensitive manner, are always undesirable. It is true that static comparisons across these cases based on superficial similarities or parallels could well lead to erroneous conclusions. But the existing heterogeneity between China and Russia, instead of stifling the possibilities for comparison, could pave the way for more sophisticated comparative historical analysis for questions concerning the sources and consequences of diversity across these cases. This kind of contextualized comparison, designed to identify variation-­producing causal mechanisms, would require distinguishing between the shared and distinctive features of these two countries’ respective historical legacies and disaggregating distinct components of their communist and postcommunist institutions. In concrete terms, Russia and China did share a host of similar, though far from identical, official ideologies and political and economic institutions under communism, and they both moved away from communism in varying ways. These differences can interact with other mechanisms and processes to produce more substantial variations over longer time horizons.49 This logic, which provides insights unavailable through other research approaches on issues ranging from regime type and state capacity to official ideology and political culture,50 is reflected in a number of recent postcommunist Russia-­ China comparisons that have generated fresh theoretical propositions by tracing how divergent experiences in the past lead to different postcommunist outcomes in these two countries.51 As the two prime candidates most

18  The Return of Ideology

frequently singled out to potentially alter the Western-­established status quo, both the Russian and Chinese regimes are now facing common pressures to come up with a clear and viable ideological alternative that can legitimize continuing regime rule and guide future regime actions. Specifically, this comparative study intends to examine and contrast the two regime ideology-­ building projects along dimensions including the origins of the communist regime, the ways in which postcommunist transition took place, and the strategies political elites employ in building a postcommunist regime ideology. To do this requires familiarity with both cases and careful and nuanced handling of relevant sources during the empirical research. Empirical Research and Organization

The empirical grounding for the two major comparative case studies draws from a variety of sources. Primary sources include, but are not limited to, evidence found in regime leaders’ and key policymakers’ speeches, interviews, and writings in contemporary Russia and China outlining these regimes’ efforts to construct a new regime ideology beyond nationalism. Secondary sources include evidence, mostly in the existing literature, showing the current Russian and Chinese regimes’ heavy reliance on nationalism to build up their popular support; evidence regarding Russia’s and China’s current developmental strategy and cultural politics that are part of these regimes’ ideology-­building projects; and evidence indicating the extent to which the emerging new regime ideologies in Russia and China, if any, are recognized by domestic and international audiences. In addition, the case studies draw upon secondary sources on Russia’s and China’s varying experiences under communism and their divergent paths away from communism that shape these regimes’ respective ideological repertoires, and any evidence from existing surveys, interviews, debates, and publications concerning the extent to which political elites in these two countries are committed to their regimes’ proclaimed long-­term goals. The richness of the existing literature on Russian and Chinese politics presents both opportunities and challenges. The opportunities are obvious. The abundance of literature produced by generations of area specialists provides plenty of empirical information and many theoretical insights for this study to draw upon. At the same time, the challenges are equally if not more significant. Other than the sheer amount of time and energy needed to sort out the vast amount of readings and information, the most important issue is how to minimize selection bias resulting from unintentionally choosing certain kinds of sources over others—­a common challenge confronting all

Introduction  19

comparative-­historical studies that draw upon secondary materials.52 Although the empirical evidence presented by this study also comes from a large number of primary sources, this issue is still salient here since the two primary cases have been studied by numerous area specialists over time. It is impossible to completely eliminate selection bias, but this study is aware of the need to reduce this problem by acknowledging competing evidence and interpretations whenever possible and providing explicit reasons for choosing one source over the other. Such a conscious effort will at least prevent serious mistakes from being made and make it easier for readers to assess the validity of the theoretical arguments being presented here. This book is organized into six chapters. This introduction presents the central puzzles this book addresses. It defines the key concepts, outlines the main arguments, and lays out the organizational roadmap. Chapter 2 focuses and elaborates on the main theoretical argument that frames the following empirical studies. In much greater detail, it discusses the role of regime ideology in general as well as in the postcommunist context, and examines the two necessary conditions for successful regime ideology-­building—­the coherence of ideological repertoire and the strength of elite commitment—­ with a special focus on what they mean within the communist and postcommunist settings. Chapter 3 deals specifically with the empirical issue of establishing the “success” and “failure” of building a postcommunist regime ideology. It highlights the particular challenges facing different postcommunist regimes in building a new regime ideology, and illustrates these challenges by contrasting the different outcomes of the two secondary “baseline” cases during the first postcommunist decade of the 1990s—­the group of CEE countries that were the first to join the EU and the Yeltsin regime in Russia. As such, this chapter sets the stage for the next two chapters, chapters 4 and 5, that compare the two primary cases of the book—­the Putin regime in Russia and the post-­Deng CCP regime in China. Both of these two chapters begin with a discussion of the current state of these regimes’ respective ideological projects. Then, they look at how these regimes deal with the growing incoherence in their ideological repertoires, which originated from rather different sources, and how they employ different strategies to shore up elite support to build a new postcommunist regime ideology. Finally, these two chapters also examine and assess the Russian and Chinese regimes’ varying degrees of success in ideology-­building. The conclusion, chapter 6, systematically compares and contrasts the two primary cases, and summarizes the main findings of the previous chapters. In addition, it discusses these findings’ theoretical and empirical implications for the countries studied and for the world beyond them.

Chapter 2

Regime Ideology and Postcommunism

Ever since French philosopher Destutt de Tracy first coined the term in the late 18th century, the word “ideology” has tended to generate a multitude of controversial interpretations. On the one hand, there is the extremely broad interpretation of “ideology” as any system of ideas, beliefs, or worldviews in the minds of people. On the other hand, there is the much narrower interpretation of “ideology” simply as a kind of “false consciousness” (Marxism is the typical example), implying the possibility of a “true” or “real” consciousness.1 Between these two extremes, there is a wide range of uses of this term among scholars,2 so many that some end up avoiding using the term entirely in preference for less contestable terms such as “belief system” or even “ideas.”3 Michel Foucault, in particular, rejects ideology as an acceptable concept. Refuting the notion of universal rationality and denying the existence of universal truth, Foucault argues from a relativist point of view that, since it is impossible to decide what is true and what is false by using language, which can construe “facts” in different ways, it is better to use the concept of “discourse” rather than “ideology.”4 As a modern phenomenon, however, ideology is more than just a worldview or an interpretative lens; it is also produced and used by purposeful political actors. In a changing, unstable society where the traditional views of the world are disappearing, it functions as a crucial and necessary political rallying point, providing systematic explanations of “otherwise incomprehensible social situations.”5 Disagreements over details aside, most scholars who do use this term seem to agree that ideology is a system of mental constructs about the political and social world with both descriptive and normative components. It not only offers an interpretation of how politics and society are arranged but also provides a prescription for how they should be arranged in the future. This study shares this general understanding of the term “ideology.” With this 20

Regime Ideology and Postcommunism  21

broad understanding of ideology in mind, it focuses on one particular kind of ideology advanced officially by political regimes—­regime ideology—­and within a specific political setting—­postcommunism. The important role of ideology in communist and postcommunist politics has been noticed and explored by many scholars, but the formation and development of regime ideology in the postcommunist setting has not been systematically studied in a comparative perspective. Before analyzing the empirical cases in detail, this chapter lays out the basic theoretical framework for this study by looking at the relationship between ideology, regime ideology, and postcommunism. This chapter first discusses the role of ideology in communist and postcommunist politics, thereby situating this study within the existing scholarship. It then clarifies some key concepts, and examines the two necessary conditions for building a successful regime ideology by looking at the formation, decline, and demise of Marxism-­Leninism as the official regime ideology under communism. In this process, it not only highlights the importance of regime ideology throughout the communist era across a variety of contexts, but also illustrates how increasing incoherence in the ideological repertoire and weakening elite commitment fundamentally undermined communist ideology over time, paving the way for postcommunist regimes’ search for a new regime ideology. Next, it briefly discusses the role of nationalism in postcommunist politics and the preconditions of building regime ideology in different postcommunist contexts. Finally, the last section outlines the key indicators of success in postcommunist regime ideology-­building. Ideology and Postcommunist Politics

The Cold War was not only a political struggle between the two superpowers; it was also an ideological struggle between liberalism and communism. The collapse of the Soviet Union, therefore, was usually considered as marking the final triumph of liberalism over communism. Consequently, many anticipated that the principal political and economic manifestations of liberalism—­democracy and capitalism—­would both take root in the postcommunist setting. So far, the command economic structure has been quickly dismantled and replaced by thriving capitalist forces, but norms of liberal democracy are far from universally accepted among the former communist countries. Liberalism, it seems, has not yet become the “only game in town” in the postcommunist ideological landscape. Starting from 19th-­century social thinkers such as Émile Durkheim and

22  The Return of Ideology

Max Weber,6 many social scientists have recognized the social and political importance of nonmaterial ideational elements, even though some still see them primarily as reflecting more fundamental forces such as class interests or individual strategic choices.7 Over the subsequent decades, some previously understudied phenomena, such as nationalism, culture, and ideology, received more scholarly attention as their political roles grew more prominent in a world that came to be ravaged by two world wars in quick succession. During the Cold War, social scientific studies of ideology reached a new height as Soviet communism constituted the most significant threat to the liberal capitalist West under the leadership of the United States. Many of the research products generated in this period highlighted the strong role of ideas and ideology in shaping the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet leadership, and Soviet political and economic organization.8 Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of prominent Soviet specialists continue to pay close attention to the role of ideology in the development and decline of the Soviet Union, therefore shedding new light on various aspects of the Soviet experience such as foreign policy and Soviet institutional design.9 Drawing upon newly available materials and information, these works demonstrate that ideology not only played a crucial role in the early formative years of the Soviet Union but also remained a significant factor even in the waning days of the Mikhail Gorbachev era. Similarly, the broader and evolving role of ideology in shaping communist politics elsewhere has also been explored, sometimes in comparative perspective, in many scholarly works published both during and after the Cold War.10 If the importance or at least the relevance of ideology in communist politics is more or less acknowledged and accepted by most scholars in the field, ideology has received significantly less attention in studies of postcommunist politics. This is understandable given the larger political and academic contexts. Politically, the collapse of the communist bloc and the United States’ global hegemony seemed to have pushed problems of democratization and economic reform in the postcommunist world to a position of central importance while rendering ideological politics and ideological issues in general less relevant. What is more, many postcommunist regimes’ pragmatic approach in negotiating the difficult political and economic transitions further reinforced the impression that ideology is no longer a matter of pressing concern among political actors. Within the social science disciplines, the rise of rational choice theory and large-­N statistical analysis also made ideology an unpopular subject of study due to rational choice theory’s general dismissal of ideology as merely masking individuals’ self-­interests and the fact that ideology is notoriously hard to measure, let alone to quantify. Con-

Regime Ideology and Postcommunism  23

sequently, compared to the study of communist politics, postcommunist studies as a field has been much less concerned with the role of ideology, and most of the existing literature dealing with postcommunist ideational elements tends to focus on the more general issues related to democratization, such as political culture and political discourses. There are notable exceptions to this trend, however. Postcommunist foreign policy, for example, is one area in which the role of ideology has received a lot of scholarly attention. This is particularly the case when it comes to Russian foreign policy. Examining the formation and transformation of postcommunist foreign policy, several recent works attempt to uncover the processes by which ideology influences national identity and national interests in Russia and other postcommunist countries, which in turn shape their foreign policy.11 Notably, Gilbert Rozman juxtaposes Russia and China through the lens of their respective national identities, which underlie their recent challenges to the existing world order.12 Moreover, postcommunist party politics has been identified as another area in which ideology plays a crucial role.13 Stephen Hanson, for example, studies the profound ways in which the absence of coherent political ideologies affects party politics in post-­Soviet Russia in comparison with the Third Republic in France and Weimar Germany—­two other weak regimes that emerged amid postimperial political uncertainty.14 Finally, the strong intervening role of ideology in postcommunist economic reforms, especially in affecting the strategies adopted by postcommunist regimes to steer various privatization processes, has also been noted and explored in a number of scholarly works.15 Therefore, through the studies of postcommunist foreign policy, party politics, and economic reforms, recent scholars have been able to provide compelling theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for the continuing relevance and significance of ideology in postcommunist politics. Ideologies, however, do not come out of nowhere. Having coherent political ideologies certainly makes a difference, but how and why do coherent political ideologies come into being? Despite the many excellent scholarly works on the construction of postcommunist national identities, there is little existing literature devoted to the formation of new political ideologies at the regime level, which is often related to, but different from, the construction of national identities. Even as different existing ideologies, such as liberalism or socialism, are still being contested and transformed in postcommunist settings, many political actors are already seeking new ideological alternatives that potentially could appeal to the public and provide both the elites and the masses with long-­term political visions. For those postcommunist regimes that are clearly nonliberal, searching for a justifying and guiding

24  The Return of Ideology

ideology is particularly important in a world where liberalism remains the prevailing ideology, with the United States being the preponderant global power. These regimes’ varying quests for a new regime ideology, so far, have not been studied in a comparative perspective. This study seeks to fill this gap by providing the first systematic comparative study examining the ideology-­building projects of postcommunist regimes, especially in nonliberal settings. Building Postcommunist Regime Ideology The Concept of Regime Ideology

The central issue addressed in this book is the postcommunist constructions of regime ideology in Russia and China. Before elaborating on the theoretical arguments, it is worth reiterating two important questions. First, what is regime ideology? And second, why is it important? The introductory chapter briefly deals with these questions, but a lengthier and more substantial discussion is necessary to lay out a solid theoretical and conceptual framework for the rest of the book. As a political entity, a political regime is characterized by enduring policies with distinctive institutional manifestations.16 These enduring policies and institutions are ultimately backed by the regime’s coercive powers. At the same time, all forms of government require some political support, or at least the “resigned acceptance” of the mass of its population, to maintain their authority.17 To gain public support and legitimacy, it becomes necessary for political regimes to provide ideational justifications for these long-­term policies and institutions. Such ideational justifications are particularly important in societies going through dramatic changes; they serve the crucial function of allowing actors to make sense of unfamiliar situations and organize political actions accordingly.18 Regime ideology supplies these justifications. As discussed in the introductory chapter, regime ideology is defined here as a coherent and consistent system of ideas advanced officially by state elites to define and promote a regime identity and mission that transcends individual leaders, parties, and political generations. It is consciously produced by political actors drawing upon a range of ideational options that are neither homogeneous nor infinitely malleable or extendable. In other words, political agency matters and political actors can create and innovate, but they nevertheless operate within certain ideational bounds that cannot be stretched endlessly. A regime ideology is supposed to be coherent enough to

Regime Ideology and Postcommunism  25

provide a map of the political world and its future direction but not so rigid that it cannot adapt to changing political circumstances. This understanding of ideology thus intends to occupy a “middle ground” between the fixed, deterministic notions of ideology as an ironclad framework and the purely fluid, instrumental views of ideology as flexible toolkits freely manipulated by political entrepreneurs. Such a definition consists of several key components. First, as a kind of political ideology, a regime ideology defines a regime, rather than a state or an administration. It is narrower than a national ideology, which provides a state with a shared identity and defines citizenship, but is broader than a party ideology, which justifies the agendas and policies of an administration led by a particular ruler or ruling group. By giving a political regime an identity and a mission, a regime ideology plays the crucial role of providing the justification for the regime’s long-­term domestic and international goals. This role becomes all the more important in times of great change and upheaval. In post–­World War II Japan, for example, even though the fundamental statehood of Japan was kept largely intact,19 the old ideological and institutional foundations of the prewar Japanese regime had been dismantled. Political elites thus came under enormous pressure to find new ways to define the postwar regime that could present a positive and affirmative image in the face of wartime defeat and hence constitute a unifying force for a society going through intense political and social turmoil. The conservative Liberal Democratic Party regime backed all kinds of projects to promote the ideology embodied in the intellectual tradition of Nihonjinron—­a conceptualization of Japanese national character that emphasized collective spirit, social harmony, and the continuity and functionality of Japanese national and cultural distinctiveness, 20 in order to support and justify Japan’s unique blend of state-­guided export-­led growth under “soft” authoritarianism.21 A new regime ideology thus emerged in postwar Japan in the form of a consistent set of ideas sponsored by political elites that provided justifications for a concrete long-­term developmental strategy. This ideology not only preserved a strong degree of continuity with the prewar past but also conveyed a new sense of purpose and mission in the postwar era of capitalist development. It was enthusiastically embraced by political and economic elites eager to preserve social order while promoting economic growth at a time when Japan emerged from war and instability and then went through a period of intense social-­political conflict in the late 1940s. In the subsequent decades, the “Japan, Inc.” model stood as a credible and even competitive22 alternative to Western-­style capitalism, until its decline in the 1990s. Simply put, a regime ideology answers two vital questions any modern political regime faces in

26  The Return of Ideology

the long run: What are the fundamental characteristics of the regime? And, what is the regime’s mission? If these questions are left unaddressed, it would be difficult for a regime to survive beyond individual leaders as a continuing political entity with recognizable and enduring institutional features. Indeed, in modern times, one would be hard pressed to find any political regime that does not even attempt some kind of ideological project to justify its long-­term rule. Second, a regime ideology is an official political ideology advanced by state elites, who are in turn constrained by it. It is by definition a collective enterprise sponsored by the regime, which means that it is generally accepted, supported, and promoted by both top leaders and political elites. Within a political regime, regime ideology helps establish the formal and informal rules of the game according to which political elites operate.23 In the post–­World War II United States, for instance, the conservatives and liberals did not share a common vision on many important issues, but they did broadly accept and promote the political regime’s fundamental characteristics as an individualism-­ based capitalist liberal democracy as well as the regime’s long-­term mission to spread the American image and promote democracy, either as a “promised land” or as a “crusader state.”24 Such a regime ideology was accepted and advocated by successive postwar American presidents and the majority of American political elites even though they disagreed widely over specific policies. Without elite support, no regime ideology can be viable. The collapse or dramatic transformation of an existing regime ideology usually follows dwindling elite support, as evidenced by the demise of communist ideology in the Soviet Union and in many other former communist countries. Third, although a regime ideology often originally emerges from charismatic leaders at a time of political change, it is meant to go beyond individual leaders and cut across political generations, and to be durable and responsive through periods of political and economic success and failure. The Soviet communist ideology began mostly with one crucial individual leader, V. I. Lenin, who adapted and built on Marxism over time, and was consolidated and further developed by another key individual leader, Joseph Stalin.25 But it was intended to last long after Lenin’s and Stalin’s deaths and after the revolutionary era. Because of the Soviet Union’s party-­state structure, the regime ideology and party ideology overlapped to a large extent. In a multiparty system, regime ideology is supposed to frame and justify the basic formal and informal institutions within which political parties, regardless of their respective party ideologies, compete in the long run. Over time, regime ideology can certainly evolve and change, either intentionally or unintentionally, but it always begins as a long-­term vision.

Regime Ideology and Postcommunism  27

These main elements of the concept suggest that a successful regime ideology is essential for any political regime’s long-­term viability beyond the tenure of specific individual leaders. The absence of a regime ideology does not mean regime collapse or even immediate regime crisis. In fact, it could even offer a kind of temporary advantage as it gives the regime much flexibility in policy-­making and allows the regime to appeal to diverse political forces. Over time, however, the lack of a clear identity and a sense of mission will pose serious problems when it comes to leadership succession and long-­term regime legitimacy, as the regime is left vulnerable to external and internal challenges to its raison-­d’état. After all, what characterizes the regime other than the particular individual leaders? And, why should this particular group of people, instead of any others, be in power? Without answering these questions, it is hard for any political force to keep holding on to power once the key leader is gone. Of course, building a successful regime ideology is no easy matter. But before turning specifically to the issue of the search for a new regime ideology within the postcommunist context, it is helpful to first briefly look at the historical developments leading to this search—­the formation, decline, and demise of Marxism-­Leninism as a regime ideology. The Formation of the Communist Regime Ideology

For many decades, Marxism-­Leninism was the official regime ideology not only for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe but also for a number of non-­ European countries such as China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, and Cuba. It became the official regime ideology in these different settings in varying ways. In some countries, such as Russia, Yugoslavia, China, and Vietnam, it was the result of indigenous communist revolutions. In most of Eastern Europe, however, Marxism-­Leninism was externally imposed by the Soviet Union following World War II. The successful formation of a new regime ideology is never easy. The introductory chapter briefly discusses two necessary, but not sufficient, conditions—­a relatively coherent ideological repertoire and relatively strong elite commitment. The establishment of Marxism-­Leninism as the regime ideology occurred, in most cases, with these two necessary conditions present. There were several main components within the ideological repertoire of Marxism-­Leninism. Leninism was based on classical Marxism, but with significant innovations and modifications. While sharing the Marxist assumption of historical materialism and adhering to the Marxist prediction

28  The Return of Ideology

of an eventual worldwide proletarian revolution, Leninism suggested that a proletarian revolution would nevertheless take place first within national bounds. Moreover, instead of taking place only after capitalism reaches full maturity, such a revolution would be voluntarily carried out by a “vanguard party” consisting of committed professionals, which would then establish a “dictatorship of the proletariat” organized according to the principles of democratic centralism.26 Socioeconomically, Marxism-­Leninism offered a program of centrally planned development designed to accelerate the transition to communism without going through fully developed capitalism.27 As such, Marxism-­Leninism’s theoretical, political, and economic components formed a relatively coherent whole by emphasizing the leading role of the communist party-­state in all aspects of political and socioeconomic life. It contained both Weberian impersonal rational-­legal and charismatic features: the former as seen in the “scientific” character of historical materialism, in the rules governing party organization, and in the quest for rationalization in economic planning; and the latter as seen in the belief in the correctness of party ideology and decisions as well as individual heroism in fulfilling economic plans. Nevertheless, in the particular historical and social context, rather than undermining each other, the mixed “charismatically impersonal features” of Leninist organization allowed the party to appeal effectively to individuals and groups in a “turbulent society who themselves are a composite of heroic, status, and secular orientations.”28 The elite commitment to Marxism-­Leninism as a regime ideology came from rather different sources in different contexts. The Soviet Union was the very first communist regime and had to construct all its political and economic institutions from scratch. During the regime’s formative years prior to Stalin’s consolidation of power, there was evidence that different factions of Soviet political elites disagreed over the regime’s developmental strategy, but all of these visions stayed within the broad Marxist-­Leninist framework even though they could have led to possible alternative pathways had they succeeded.29 As Stalin gained full control of the party and eradicated his real and imagined enemies within the regime, the Soviet political elites rallied around Stalin’s “state-­instructed, state-­directed, and state-­enforced revolution from above”30 embodied in the doctrine of “Socialism in One Country.” Whether it was based on genuine belief or the result of coercion and terror, or both, elite commitment to Marxism-­Leninism as the official regime ideology reached a height under Stalin as voices of dissent largely disappeared. Although Stalin’s increasing reliance on selective elements of Russian nationalism in state-­building gradually gave rise to discrepancies and even contradictions with formally internationalist Marxism-­Leninism,31 the basic

Regime Ideology and Postcommunism  29

ideological, political, and economic framework initiated under Lenin and solidified under Stalin provided the basis for the policies of not only the subsequent Soviet administrations but also communist regimes elsewhere. Those communist regimes that were established as a result of indigenous communist revolutions, such as Yugoslavia, China, and Vietnam, usually had political elites who came to power as revolutionaries strongly committed to Marxism-­Leninism. However, compared to the Soviet elites, political elites in these regimes shared a much stronger emphasis on nationalism as their communist revolutions overlapped with powerful movements of national liberation against foreign powers.32 This strong national focus helped these regimes win the allegiance of a significant portion of their population during the communist revolutions, but it also meant that Marxism-­ Leninism per se was open to be interpreted and modified by these regimes through a nationalist lens.33 Most Eastern European communist regimes, along with their political elites, were installed by the Soviet Union either by force or through electoral manipulation. During these regimes’ early years, especially before the end of the Stalinist era, the political elites closely adhered to the Soviet line in order to ensure their regimes’ and their own survival, which was ultimately dependent on Soviet military backing. But after Stalin’s death and Nikita Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” in 1956 that loosened Stalin’s demand for an indivisible communist monolith, some Eastern European political elites started deviating from the orthodox Marxist-­Leninist political and economic model. In a few cases, such as Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, it eventually led to Soviet military invasion to preserve these regimes’ communist character. Regardless of the sources, relatively strong elite commitment to Marxism-­ Leninism was present at least in the early days of most communist regimes. The combination of a relatively coherent ideological repertoire and relatively strong elite commitment created the conditions under which Marxism-­ Leninism could emerge as the new regime ideology in these diverse settings. To be sure, as a regime ideology, Marxism-­Leninism had evolved and been modified over time, and individual communist regimes had interpreted Marxism-­Leninism in rather different ways, sometimes even resulting in serious long-­term ideological disputes.34 But modifications and different interpretations aside, there were important institutional similarities among these regimes as a result of their official commitment to communist ideology. Every one of these regimes was ruled by a single party that restricted political leadership to those ideologically committed to promoting international communism/socialism and to transforming preexisting class relations in one way or another. Moreover, to varying extents, they all pursued a program of

30  The Return of Ideology

economic development in which central planning overseen by communist party officials was privileged over market mechanisms and participation in the international capitalist economy.35 Thus, for most of the time that it lasted, Marxism-­Leninism as a regime ideology provided a distinctive communist identity and a set of long-­term political and economic goals compatible with this identity for communist regimes across a variety of contexts. The Decline and Demise of Communist Regime Ideology

Toward the end of the 1980s, Marxism-­Leninism was already in apparent decline as a regime ideology across the communist bloc. First, the gap between reality and the official regime ideology, instead of shrinking, kept widening. The Cold War stalemate that had persisted for decades and the strength of the Western democracies called into question the Marxist-­Leninist prediction of an eventual worldwide communist revolution. Second, the overall economic stagnation and even decline throughout the communist world stood in stark contrast with the official regime ideology’s proclaimed objectives of continuous growth and economic abundance. The widespread corruption, the “petty tyranny at every level,” and the increasingly visible socioeconomic stratification also undermined the moral superiority claimed by Marxism-­Leninism as a regime ideology that emphasized social equality and justice.36 Third, over time some fundamental principles of Marxism-­Leninism were gradually compromised, albeit not destroyed, by reform communism, which culminated in the dramatic Gorbachev economic and political reforms. Under communism, a number of Eastern European regimes, including Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, adopted rather unorthodox policies for the purpose of accommodating other national or local political and economic objectives. For example, the “New Economic Mechanism” in Hungary, the “self-­management” economy in Yugoslavia, and the small-­holder peasant agriculture in Yugoslavia and Poland, where collectivization was never realized, all diverged significantly from the Soviet developmental model and gave rise to growing market forces.37 Even though these reforms fell short of demolishing the command economic structure, they increasingly corroded these regimes’ communism-­building projects. But it was Gorbachev’s perestroika that dealt the death blow to the coherence of Marxism-­Leninism as a regime ideology. Under Gorbachev, the old structures of the economic planning system were practically dismantled before being replaced by established market mechanisms. More important, in trying to revive Leninism

Regime Ideology and Postcommunism  31

and the Soviet Union, Gorbachev ended up allowing the systematic weakening of the very party-­state structure that had sustained Soviet rule, eventually leading to a loss of political control.38 As such, the concrete economic and political-­institutional manifestations of Marxism-­Leninism were both fatally undermined, leaving the broad ideational framework an empty shell. Thus, even before the 1991 attempted coup that led to the final Soviet collapse, Marxism-­Leninism as a regime ideology was already in tatters. Finally, elite support for Marxism-­Leninism had been steadily decreasing in most communist regimes. Although some communist regimes were established without indigenous revolutions, many political elites under communism had originally found Marxism-­Leninism appealing when the Soviet economy experienced robust growth and Soviet power was rising. Over time, however, as the Soviet economy itself slowed down and the Soviet model failed to achieve developmental objectives elsewhere, an “erosion of faith” started to take place among communist political elites even within the Soviet Union.39 In addition to the spread of corruption and abuse of power, this disillusionment was manifested by the speed with which Eastern European political elites discarded the communist cause after the Soviet Union abandoned the “Brezhnev Doctrine,”40 sometimes even initiating postcommunist transitions from above.41 Some hardliners did attempt to resist change,42 but it was clear that a significant number of political elites across the communist bloc toward the end of the 1980s had replaced ideological commitment to Marxism-­ Leninism with cynicism and pragmatism.43 Without strong elite commitment, Marxism-­Leninism as a regime ideology had become unsustainable. The final demise of Marxism-­Leninism as a regime ideology took a number of different forms in different contexts. In most of Eastern Europe, the end of Marxism-­Leninism took place in a rather sudden fashion, either as a result of the overthrow of the communist regime from below, such as in Poland, the German Democratic Republic, and Romania, or as a result of the abdication of the Communist Party from above, such as in Bulgaria and Hungary. In the Soviet Union, it followed Boris Yeltsin’s dissolution of the Communist Party after the attempted coup. In these cases, there was a clear event or date that marked the end of Marxism-­Leninism as the official regime ideology. But the demise of a regime ideology can also be gradual instead of sudden, and when it comes to countries such as China and Vietnam, it is more difficult to pinpoint exactly when the regime decidedly moved away from Marxism-­Leninism. Since China is one of the primary cases under study here, a brief discussion is necessary to establish its postcommunist identity. To be sure, China is still ruled by the Communist Party. Unlike the postcommunist regimes in

32  The Return of Ideology

CEE and Russia, the Chinese regime never formally denounced Marxism-­ Leninism, and its leadership still pays occasional lip service to communist ideology. The continuing rule of the CCP, however, does not preclude China from being considered postcommunist. Several decades of profound market reform, which gave rise to a thriving capitalism and increasing international economic integration, have effectively put an end to the planned economy and the overall project of building communism in the foreseeable future. Politically, landmark developments, such as the implementation of grassroots elections open to nonparty members and the 2001 decision to allow private entrepreneurs to join the ranks of the party elite, suggested that the post-­Deng CCP had begun to function more as an ordinary authoritarian party rather than as a Marxist-­Leninist party composed of individuals committed to communist principles and the class struggle.44 These policies also suggested that the Chinese regime no longer identified itself as a Marxist-­ Leninist regime that pursued long-­term communist goals. Reflecting these trends, Jiang Zemin’s theory of the “Three Represents,” which was incorporated into the CCP program in 2002, officially and clearly redefined the CCP as a party that represented “the interests of the majority” and “the most advanced productive forces” rather than as a proletarian workers’ party. In sum, although China’s transformation was certainly different from postcommunist transitions in CEE and in Russia, Marxism-­Leninism also ceased to be the guiding regime ideology in China just as it did in Russia and Eastern Europe, only in a more gradual fashion. A gross discrepancy thus appeared between the formal “communist” label of the Chinese regime and the economic and political strategies that the regime actually pursued in reality. This gross discrepancy created the condition in which the Chinese regime had to search for a new regime ideology, just as the collapse of the communist regimes elsewhere pushed the new postcommunist regimes in CEE and Russia to seek new regime ideologies. After Communism

In retrospect, there were many reasons why the communist experiment failed. Whether the communist ideology was the major cause of this failure is a matter of continuing debate.45 But regardless of what constituted the most important reason for the communist collapse, this outcome completely discredited Marxism-­Leninism as a regime ideology. The communist developmental strategy did not lead to economic prosperity and a classless society. Moreover, the international competition between the West and the

Regime Ideology and Postcommunism  33

communist bloc ended with the clear triumph of the West and the collapse of the communist bloc. For the postcommunist regimes that were moving away from Marxism-­Leninism, finding new governing guidelines and ideational justifications for regime policies would be instrumental in shoring up public support and building regime legitimacy domestically and internationally. But the formation of a new regime ideology takes time. In the immediate aftermath of the communist collapse, nationalism became a convenient common recipe for postcommunist regimes to quickly fill the ideological vacuum and appeal to the public, as it could be easily attached to a wide range of political orientations, cutting across socioeconomic classes. In Russia, following the collapse of the Soviet state and the failure of decades-­long Soviet identity-­building, a “national identity void” emerged at the onset of the Yeltsin era.46 Communism was completely denounced by the Yeltsin regime as a historical aberration from Russia’s true national path, and over time the regime adopted some of the key Russian nationalist positions despite its official commitment to liberal reforms.47 In most of Eastern Europe, where an indigenous communist revolution never took place, the collapse of communism was celebrated as a moment of national liberation from Soviet domination and the historic opportunity for these countries to “return to Europe.” In China, as Marxism-­Leninism faded into the background, the post-­Deng CCP regime increasingly revived Confucianism and other elements of traditional Chinese nationalism to boost its projected image as the champion of the Chinese nation. As will be elaborated in much greater detail in the following chapters, these efforts to appropriate nationalism achieved varying degrees of success. Nevertheless, nationalism, with its basic principle of upholding national interest or national identity as the primary ground on which political judgment is based, can be quite a chimerical force when combined with different political doctrines.48 The fact that postcommunist regimes tried to use nationalism to their own advantage did not, and could not, prevent these regimes’ political enemies from attempting the same thing.49 Indeed, under communism, various regimes had manipulated and promoted selective elements of nationalism in their nation-­building projects, channeling nationalism toward authoritarian and illiberal directions.50 During the postcommunist era, nationalism was seized by diverse political forces, including liberals, conservatives, ex-­communists, and neofascists, to advance their own agendas. Its potential to be exploited in ways that undermine postcommunist regimes and their key policies was illustrated vividly, among other examples, by the antiliberal and nationalistic “Red-­ Brown coalition” in Russia during the early 1990s. Even in China, where

34  The Return of Ideology

the Communist Party is still in power, popular nationalist demands often challenged the party-­state’s claims to legitimacy.51 As long as postcommunist regimes are not able to monopolize the force of nationalism, which they have failed to do so far, nationalism alone without any clear and substantive political and economic programs is not enough to provide these regimes with a much-­needed distinctive identity and lasting source of legitimacy. To effectively fend off their existing and potential political enemies, therefore, postcommunist regimes need to back up their nationalist slogans with a set of concrete developmental agendas justified by a clear regime ideology. A new regime ideology needs raw materials—­an ideological “repertoire” that the regime draws upon. In the postcommunist context, such repertoires are shaped by a number of factors. First, a postcommunist regime’s ideological repertoire is crucially dependent on its official attitude toward the communist era. Following the collapse of communism, almost all postcommunist regimes turned to their precommunist history for ideational inspirations. But it was their divergent attitudes toward the more recent communist past that led to very different ideological repertoires. If a postcommunist regime completely rejects its communist past, such as in the cases of the Yeltsin regime and most postcommunist CEE regimes, it means that it is excluding all the ideational elements directly related to the former regime from its ideological repertoire. The advantage of this approach is that the regime can build a new regime ideology upon a relatively clean ideational “slate” free from communist elements, but it also risks discarding potentially useful ideational assets that might still appeal to elites and masses. Alternatively, the regime could reject only parts of its communist legacy while seeking to present other aspects in a neutral or even relatively positive light, such as in the cases of the post-­Deng CCP regime and the Putin regime. The advantage of this approach is that it helps maintain a relatively strong sense of continuity among the public by preserving some ideational elements from the communist era that might still have symbolic values, but it also increases the possibility of an incoherent ideological repertoire with incompatible communist and postcommunist elements potentially undermining each other. Either way, these different official attitudes toward the communist past have their respective trade-­offs when it comes to building a new regime ideology. Second, a postcommunist regime’s ideological repertoire is constrained by its regime type. Postcommunist regimes are politically diverse. Some, such as those CEE countries that have become EU members, are consolidated democracies. Many others, especially among the post-­Soviet states, are still struggling with democratization even though they have built formal democratic institutions. Some have made progress over the years, but a few,

Regime Ideology and Postcommunism  35

such as Russia, have “backslid.” Yet others, such as China, have remained authoritarian. These different regime types affect the regimes’ ideological repertoires. Postcommunist regimes that are trying to justify their illiberal or authoritarian character are unlikely to incorporate many liberal or Western political principles into their ideological repertoires. Instead, they often draw upon the illiberal and authoritarian elements in traditional culture to provide ideational support for illiberal or nondemocratic rules, or both. Conversely, the consolidated democracies and those regimes moving toward democratic consolidation are likely to emphasize universalist liberal values as well as any liberal and democratic elements in precommunist culture and traditions. In addition, a postcommunist regime’s ideological repertoire is also significantly shaped by the international environment, especially by its perceived relationship with the West. All the postcommunist regimes have more or less engaged in marketization in order to participate in global capitalism, but this does not mean that they are equally receptive to Western political values and norms. Scholars have pointed to the significant role of international diffusion when it comes to postcommunist transitions, as countries that are geographically closer to the West seem to have been more successful in terms of democratization and economic transformation.52 Historically, those postcommunist countries located close to Western Europe, such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the Baltic states, had for the most part been considered as an integral part of Europe53 and shared a relatively strong “European” identity culturally and religiously. These regimes were also among the first postcommunist regimes to be incorporated into Western political and economic institutions. In general, some persisting suspicion notwithstanding,54 these regimes’ overall perception of the West is relatively benign, and many of them now consider themselves as a natural part of the West after becoming EU members. Consequently, they tend to embrace political principles championed by the West, such as liberalism and representative democracy. For countries with a more ambiguous and even sometimes confrontational history with the West, the situation is quite different. Russia, for example, never had a clear and unequivocal “European” identity due to its Eurasian location and its complex culture and history.55 It had tried to emulate the West at various points in history,56 but its historical relationship with the West was fraught with deep ambivalence because of its historical status as a relatively late developer57 and because all the major invasions of Russia had come from the West.58 The West, and the United States in particular, also stood for everything that the Soviet Union was against throughout the Cold

36  The Return of Ideology

War. During the postcommunist era, aside from maybe the early Yeltsin years, most Russian politicians have viewed the West, along with liberalism and Western-­style democracy, with a lot of wariness. The ideological project of “sovereign democracy” under Putin went so far as to explicitly reject any Western political and ideological intervention in Russia. China is another example in which the regime’s past confrontations and present disagreements with the West contribute to a perception of the West as potentially threatening, which in turn severely limits the possibility of incorporating Western political values and norms into the regime’s ideological repertoire. It should also be noted, however, that Russia’s and China’s relationships to the West are far from identical—­the former is an ex-­superpower that is trying to reclaim some of its lost status, while the latter is an emerging power that might eventually pose a challenge to the existing international order. This difference is also important in conditioning these regimes’ respective ideological repertoires. In short, whether a postcommunist regime perceives the West as largely benign or potentially threatening can have a strong impact on its ideological repertoire and hence on its construction of a new regime ideology. Therefore, a postcommunist regime’s ideological repertoire is shaped by factors that include its attitude toward the country’s history, its regime type, and its perceived international environment. But an ideological repertoire alone is not enough for building a regime ideology, which is a long-­term collective project. For this ideology-­building project to come to fruition, relatively strong and sustained elite commitment is necessary. In the postcommunist context, elite commitment to the regime’s ideology-­building project also depends on a number of factors. First, it is closely related to the level of regime legitimacy in the eyes of the political elites. Regime legitimacy is conceptually different from an individual leader’s popularity. Rather, it is the extent to which the existing political regime is regarded as “providing a satisfactory order,” to which “no available alternative would be vastly superior.”59 Although the search for a new regime ideology is usually initiated by the top leadership and its advisers, a regime ideology is not the same as a cult of personality built around an individual leader, even though they are sometimes related, as in the case of some personalistic dictatorships.60 Regime ideology is designed to outlast individual leaders and administrations. If the regime enjoys a high level of legitimacy among political elites, it is more likely that they would be willing to contribute to the regime’s ideological project. That is to say, if a significant number of political elites do not believe that the existing postcommunist regime is providing a satisfactory order that cannot be replaced by a better alter-

Regime Ideology and Postcommunism  37

native, they would be much less likely to sustain such efforts over time, even if they support the particular individual leader(s). Moreover, elite commitment to a postcommunist regime’s search for a new regime ideology is also affected by the degree of elite unity, especially over fundamental issues. Political elites, as self-­interested individuals, usually have different interests and agendas. This means that in order to engage in building a new regime ideology as a long-­term collective enterprise, political elites would have to overcome the problem of collective action. In this sense, if the majority of political elites share some basic beliefs or agreements over the major components of the postcommunist regime’s ideological repertoire, it will prolong the time horizon for the elites,61 making it easier for them to cooperate with each other over a common ideological project sponsored by the regime. The absence of such basic agreements can be compensated for to an extent by patronage relationships based on power arrangements or materialistic interests, or both. But these patronage ties are ultimately self-­serving, and can become unstable and unreliable if the key individual(s) sustaining these relationships lose power, thereby removing the material incentives for political elites to keep cooperating. If they are deeply divided and fragmented, political elites are unlikely to be able to work together with the top leadership as a group on long-­term ideological projects beyond their short-­term personal interests. Such a situation also means that the top leadership often can rely only on a small minority of political elites when promoting its key policies. Finally, in some cases, such as in the CEE countries, elite commitment can be strongly influenced by external factors. As will be elaborated in the next chapter, the processes of political, economic, and military integration into the West played an essential role in creating and sustaining relatively strong elite commitment to the project of building a liberal democratic regime ideology in Central and Eastern Europe. Western institutions, especially the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the EU, provided concrete goals and incentives for political elites of diverse political and ideological backgrounds to commit to a common path, even if many of these elites did not initially plan on some sort of deliberate quest. Such a condition, however, has been largely absent in the cases of Russia and China. Therefore, in the process of building a new postcommunist regime ideology beyond nationalism, neither a coherent ideological repertoire nor strong elite commitment can be taken for granted. Rather, the coherence of the ideological repertoire and the strength of elite commitment depend on both historical and institutional factors and political actors’ perceptions and stra-

38  The Return of Ideology

tegic choices. How these factors actually play out in postcommunist politics will be illustrated by empirical cases. The Outcomes of Postcommunist Regime Ideology-­Building

More than two decades have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although regime ideology-­building remains an ongoing process for many postcommunist regimes, some have already developed a relatively clear and distinctive postcommunist identity and sense of mission. The sources of these different outcomes of postcommunist regime ideology-­building are the main subject of the study here, but first the variation in the outcomes needs to be clearly established. In other words, how do we know when a new postcommunist regime ideology has been formed successfully? Although it is usually difficult or even impossible to pinpoint the specific dates or events that mark the successful formation of a new postcommunist regime ideology, there are some key indicators that we can look for based on regime ideology as we have defined it. Politically, a distinctive and coherent regime ideology is concretely manifested by enduring formal and informal institutions and policies carried out by successive administrations, even under the leadership of different political parties and individual leaders. This kind of broad continuity can be ensured only by relatively clear and consistent substantive criteria of leadership succession that are commonly understood, accepted, and followed by political elites. Under communism, for example, the political leadership was officially restricted to those ideologically committed to promoting international communism/socialism and to transforming preexisting class relations. Leadership succession did lead to policy changes and innovation, but mostly only within well-­defined parameters,62 and the fundamental characteristics of the communist regime were effectively preserved in most cases.63 Therefore, one key indicator for the successful formation of a new regime ideology is whether there are relatively clear and consistent substantive criteria regarding leadership succession that are largely uncontested among political elites. It is true that almost all states have constitutions that contain formal procedures for leadership succession. However, how these formal procedures are interpreted and applied in reality is at the discretion of the particular political regime in power. After all, elections can be manipulated, results can be forged, and leaders can be ousted by force. Vague, inconsistent, or arbitrary succession criteria, or those that are hotly contested among elites, often signal confusion over regime ideology, and they can easily lead to regime instability and a situation in which dif-

Regime Ideology and Postcommunism  39

ferent administrations under different rulers can radically switch gears and even change the rules of the game. Since a regime ideology is a system of consistent and coherent ideas, another key indicator for the successful formation of a new postcommunist regime ideology is whether the regime’s basic political and economic organization shares the same or similar fundamental assumptions about state-­society relations. A political regime, along with its formal and informal institutional manifestations, operates according to certain basic assumptions about how state-­society relationships should be structured.64 A regime’s political affairs and economic programs can of course operate differently, but with a consistent and coherent regime ideology the regime’s basic political and economic principles should follow the same or similar underlying logic regarding how the state and the society are supposed to interact with each other. Under communism, for example, the state’s total domination over society is reflected in both the political party-­state structure and the top-­down command economic system. In contrast, in a liberal regime, a decentralized and marketized economy dominated by the private sector is usually matched by a political democracy that safeguards individual freedom and civil liberty. This does not mean that there are no significant variations within the broad categories of “political democracy” and “market economy,” and that specific combinations would not generate considerable tensions in varying contexts.65 Yet, if a regime’s political and economic organization reflects very different or even contradictory ideas about state-­society relations, it would suggest the absence of a coherent and consistent regime ideology. Finally, a third key indicator for the successful formation of a new postcommunist regime ideology is the degree of consistency between the regime’s official rhetoric and its actions. A coherent regime ideology is officially promoted by state elites through both propaganda and concrete policies. Without the latter, the former will remain empty talk. In Stalin’s Soviet Union, for instance, the official rhetoric of building “Socialism in One Country” was backed up by major policy initiatives including mass collectivization, heavy industrialization, and progressive assimilation of ethnic minorities. To be sure, no political regime in the world always does exactly what it says. However, a persistently low degree of consistency between official rhetoric and major regime policy initiatives suggests a high degree of discrepancy between the regime’s stated goals, which are being promoted by its rhetoric, and its actual goals, which are being pursued by its major policies. In other words, it reveals the absence of a consistent and coherent regime ideology. One important sign that Marxism-­Leninism was in sharp decline across the communist bloc in the 1980s was that regime rhetoric and

40  The Return of Ideology

actions increasingly did not match.66 In contrast, a relatively consistent and coherent regime ideology, such as under Stalin, would be reflected in relatively consistent official regime rhetoric and major policy initiatives. Based on these three key indicators—­the clarity and consistency of the substantive criteria of leadership succession; the congruence of ideas on state-­society relations as reflected in the nation’s political and economic organization; and consistency between regime rhetoric and actions—­we can roughly gauge the degree of success in postcommunist constructions of regime ideology. It should be emphasized that these indicators are far from binary, and the success of regime ideology-­building should be seen in relative terms, as these above criteria can be partially met. As the following empirical chapters will show in greater detail, some postcommunist regimes, such as those that were the first to become EU members, had successfully developed a new postcommunist regime ideology by the end of the 1990s, as suggested by these three key indicators. In these countries, there were relatively clear and consistent substantive criteria of leadership succession including a commitment to building democracy and a market economy and generally liberal “European values”;67 their basic political and economic programs reflected roughly the same liberal ideas about state-­society relations; and these regimes’ promarket and pro-­Western rhetoric largely matched their overall domestic and foreign policies. Meanwhile, by one or more of these measures, the postcommunist regimes in Russia and China have yet to formulate a consistent and coherent regime ideology that can provide the regime with a clear identity and mission. In the case of China, a set of relatively clear and consistent substantive criteria for selecting top leaders appears to be emerging during recent years. However, the strictly authoritarian political system and the increasingly marketized and globalizing economic organization seem to reflect somewhat different ideas about how state-­society relations should be structured; and the regime’s rhetoric, which emphasizes social justice and sustainability, and its key policies, which severely constrain civil society and perpetuate socioeconomic gaps, often do not match. In the case of Russia, leadership succession so far seems to be based more on personal political loyalty rather than any clear and consistent substantive criteria; its political and economic systems contain so many eclectic elements that they hardly reflect any coherent ideas on state-­society relations; and the regime’s continuing formal commitment to a democratic framework and its blatantly authoritarian policies are often inconsistent aside from sharing a general emphasis on building a strong state and restoring Russia’s great power status. The postcommunist regimes in Russia and China may develop coherent regime ideologies in the future, but for now there is still considerable confu-

Regime Ideology and Postcommunism  41

sion over their regime identities and the directions in which they are going, more so in Russia than in China. These different outcomes present a puzzle: Given the similar communist experiences, why are some postcommunist regimes more successful in developing a new regime ideology than others? The following chapters will study these cases to reveal the crucial factors leading to these different outcomes in postcommunist regime ideology-­building. The next chapter will look at the two secondary “baseline” cases that formed a contrast during the 1990s—­the group of postcommunist regimes that were the first to become EU members and developed a relatively consistent and coherent new regime ideology by the end of the decade, and the Yeltsin regime in Russia, whose project of building a new postcommunist regime ideology failed.

Chapter 3

A Decade of Ideological Divergence Russia and Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s

If the decade of the 1980s saw the geopolitical entity of the “communist bloc” coming to an end, the decade of the 1990s arguably witnessed the increasing irrelevance of the “postcommunist region” as one single geopolitical category. Following the 1992 Soviet collapse, it seemed that the Yeltsin regime in Russia and many of the postcommunist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe initially shared the same objective of building a Western-­oriented liberal democracy. In the subsequent years, these regimes also appeared to adopt similar policies of rapid political and economic liberalization, in part overseen by Western advisers. Yet, by the turn of the new millennium, it was already clear that Russia and those postcommunist CEE countries were embarking on divergent political and economic trajectories and no longer shared the same set of governing ideas, despite the common formal institutional trappings of democracy. This chapter focuses on the two contrasting processes of regime ideology-­building in the group of CEE countries that were front-­runners in the process of European integration1 and in Yeltsin’s Russia during the first postcommunist decade of the 1990s. The former case serves as an example of relatively successful postcommunist regime ideology-­building, and the latter as an example of overall failure where no clear and consistent regime ideology emerged. To be sure, even in the case of the CEE countries, liberal political and economic reforms were carried out in a rather uneven and sometimes inconsistent manner, and their progress varied greatly across the region throughout the 1990s. Nevertheless, it was evident that, at the end of the decade, these regimes in general were mov42

A Decade of Ideological Divergence  43

ing toward establishing a guiding ideology that was essentially pro-­Western, capitalist, democratic, and liberal. It is therefore crucial to discuss the case of these CEE regimes, as it suggests that successful regime ideology-building is entirely possible within the postcommunist context, and sets a baseline for comparison with other postcommunist regime ideology-­building projects. Meanwhile, although the Yeltsin regime in Russia had also intended to adopt a liberal and democratic regime identity following the collapse of communism, it did not succeed in doing so. Instead, the regime’s early liberal self-­image steadily fell apart as Russian politics increasingly took on illiberal and authoritarian features. By the end of the decade, Yeltsin’s failure to build a viable regime ideology had paved the way for the Putin regime’s full-­blown authoritarian turn. This chapter begins with a comparison of the outcomes of regime ideology-­building in those CEE countries that would be the first to join the EU and in Yeltsin’s Russia at the end of the 1990s. It then examines the processes of regime ideology-­building in these two cases in an attempt to identify the key factors contributing to such divergent outcomes, namely the coherence of the regime’s ideological repertoire and the strength of elite commitment. Finally, the chapter concludes by summarizing the findings, and looking at how these ideology-­building processes during the first postcommunist decade set the stage for subsequent ideological developments, especially in the case of Russia. Two Outcomes of Regime Ideology-­Building

In terms of postcommunist political and economic transformation, the group of CEE countries that were the first to become EU members is often identified as presenting a relative “success story.” As early as the end of the 1990s, they had been regularly singled out as clear “front-­runners” both in democratization and market reform and in the process of being integrated into the West.2 By 1999, all of them could be considered “consolidated democracies” according to the definition by Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan.3 They all had entered into membership negotiations with the EU, and three of them, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, had joined NATO in 1999. This is, of course, not to say that their postcommunist transformation was uniform or without serious problems and setbacks. In the new millennium, these capitalist democracies would face new and grave challenges to their established identities.4 But it is an undeniable fact that, within a mere decade, these countries had moved away from com-

44  The Return of Ideology

munism to become full-­fledged democracies and were poised to be fully incorporated into the liberal West. Toward the end of the 1990s, these CEE regimes’ postcommunist identities ceased to be an issue of intense domestic contention. All the major political parties seemed to have reached agreement over fundamental issues regarding commitment to democracy and market reform and the desirability of further integration with the West.5 The relatively successful establishment of a clear postcommunist regime identity was evident in several ways. First, by the end of the decade, the election slogans of the major political parties, despite their diverse political backgrounds, all contained elements of “democracy, the market, and a return to Europe.” These countries had all received advice and economic assistance from international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and the EU, which not only exerted significant influence over their policies but also on their political institutional design.6 In order to join the EU, applicants had to accept and pass into law the so-­called acquis communautaire—­the accumulated laws, legal acts, and court decisions that constitute the body of EU law. Starting in 1998, all applicant countries were evaluated annually to assess their political and economic progress, as well as their ability to undertake the “obligations of membership.” This effectively ensured that these countries’ fundamental political and economic institutions would conform to European norms. Although such strong external influence did lead to some resentment and skepticism among segments of the population, major political actors from Left and Right remained committed to negotiations for EU accession and NATO membership.7 By the end of the 1990s, the political and economic acceptance of EU norms had become the dominant trend in these postcommunist countries. This ensured the congruence between their political and economic systems within the commonly recognized liberal framework of Western-­style democracy and regulated capitalism,8 despite the emergence of some significant variations.9 Moreover, during the 1990s democratic electoral politics had stabilized in all these countries.10 Significantly, there had been an overall decline, or even the absence in some cases, of extremist political forces, and a convergence among political leaders around support for EU membership as the decade went on.11 As the few remaining proauthoritarian leaders, such as Vladimir Meciar in Slovakia, were voted out of power, it is undeniable that toward the end of the decade political leaders across the region started to share quite a lot in common in terms of commitment to democratic governance and European integration. The idea of European integration came to be embraced not only by liberal political forces but also by communist successor parties, such as the Hungarian Socialist Party and some populist parties, including

A Decade of Ideological Divergence  45

Meciar’s Movement for a Democratic Slovakia. Therefore, it could be argued that leadership transition in these countries was becoming rather predictable in the sense that there were hardly any surprises both in the election processes and in the fundamental policies new leaders would likely pursue. In other words, leaders were being selected according to a relatively clear and consistent set of substantive criteria. In such a context, leadership transition, while taking place on a regular basis, was highly unlikely to dramatically alter existing institutions and dominant political ideas. Finally, the prodemocracy, promarket, and pro-­Western rhetoric of these postcommunist CEE regimes was mostly well matched by their policies. Among the postcommunist countries, this group was the most successful in establishing a liberal democracy and a functioning market economy. These regimes’ strong commitment to postcommunist political and economic transformation was highlighted by the considerable “growing pains” their countries had to go through in the process of implementing liberal reforms, especially economically. Between 1989 and 1993, all CEE economies experienced large declines in gross domestic product (GDP). Unemployment, which did not officially exist under communism, and poverty rates skyrocketed throughout the region.12 These significant setbacks, however, did not reverse the reform process. Instead, political elites pressed ahead with liberalization. Regardless of the debates over the sources of postcommunist economic reform success,13 the fact that these regimes had to overcome formidable obstacles to implement liberal reforms showed sufficient political will rather than just empty rhetoric. Similarly, joining NATO and the EU entailed high costs despite the obvious benefits. Joining NATO required expensive restructuring and reequipping of these countries’ militaries, which cut deeply into their already depleted budgets.14 In order to become EU members, these regimes had to make substantial policy adjustments in many areas, sometimes to the dismay of domestic groups at home.15 Despite mixed public attitudes toward joining the EU, political elites across the region largely stuck to their end of the bargain during the long process of negotiations. Therefore, successive leaders and administrations across the region had been able to “keep their word,” so to speak, on fundamental issues of political and economic reform and Western integration. In sum, based on the overall congruence of these regimes’ basic political and economic systems, the procedural predictability and consistency of their leadership transition, and the relatively high degree of consistency between regime rhetoric and actions, it can be argued that these CEE regimes had established a clear and coherent postcommunist regime ideology by the end of the 1990s. This regime ideology was essentially liberal democratic, promarket, and Western. Although the popular support it enjoyed was far

46  The Return of Ideology

from universal, such a regime ideology laid the ideological foundation for the group’s EU accession in 2004, and would be adopted later, with varying degrees of success, by other countries in the region aspiring to Western integration, such as Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia. The outcome of the Yeltsin’s regime’s ideology-­building project in postcommunist Russia was vastly different. To be sure, the Yeltsin regime was always fiercely anticommunist, and the early Yeltsin era, like in the case of many CEE countries, was marked by a strong leadership commitment to transformation away from communism and toward democracy and a market economy. Nevertheless, when the Yeltsin era drew to a close at the end of the 1990s, the regime had failed to find a coherent identity and a clear long-­ term mission. First, the Yeltsin regime’s attempted dual transition of democratization and market reform did not lead to a functioning capitalist liberal democracy as the decade wore on. Although Russia under Yeltsin possessed the formal trappings of democratic governance, the regime’s heavy-­handed tactics in pushing its radical neoliberal reforms significantly enfeebled a nascent Russian democracy,16 and eventually culminated in a system of increasingly authoritarian “super-­presidentialism” that derailed the democratization process.17 On the economic front, the radical economic liberalization program failed in the context of weak institutional development following the complete and hasty dismantling of the old command economy.18 While enriching a tiny elite, it coincided with plunging living standards for the majority and contributed to the financial meltdown of 1998,19 which dealt a huge blow to the regime’s legitimacy. Thus, during much of the 1990s, the regime’s political and economic programs appeared to be undermining, rather than supporting, each other. Toward the end of the decade, the Yeltsin regime was saddled with a political system that was democratic in form but illiberal in content, and a marketized and privatized but fragile economy. Second, although the Yeltsin regime succeeded in preventing Communist opposition forces from retaking power, Russian electoral politics in the 1990s did not reveal any clear and substantive criteria of leadership succession. If Yeltsin’s first presidential victory in 1991 indicated the Russian population’s genuine hope for a better post-­Soviet political and economic order, his second presidential victory in 1996, which benefited enormously from a heavily biased media and almost unlimited campaign spending, reflected his supporters’ anticommunism rather than support for any concrete ideas embodied by the regime or any long-­term positive goals.20 Immediately after the election, Yeltsin himself admitted to his top campaign aides that “[e] ach epoch had its own ideology. [But] now we don’t have one. And that’s bad.” He went on to instruct them to “give Russia an idea.”21 Because the regime became increasingly weakened and unpopular, Yeltsin did not even

A Decade of Ideological Divergence  47

finish his second term. The leadership transition from Yeltsin to Putin could not have happened without Yeltsin’s personalistic power orchestration,22 and therefore was not simply the result of regular electoral politics. The substantive criteria of leadership succession thus remained murky toward the end of the Yeltsin era. Third, as the 1990s went on the Yeltsin regime’s policies and practices increasingly did not match its self-­proclaimed liberal democratic identity. Politically, Yeltsin’s rhetorical commitment to “universal values” such as civil society and the rule of law notwithstanding,23 the regime had no qualms about bypassing due process when its power was threatened, as indicated by Yeltsin’s unconstitutional dismissal of the Duma in 1993 and his repeated threats of doing so again. Moreover, the regime became plagued by growing cronyism and rampant corruption, and the leadership itself was often unable to put decisions into practical effect despite its excessive use of executive power to rule “above parties” and above a hostile parliament. Economically, even after the retreat of the free-­market radicals, the reform that was intended to increase efficiency and prosperity not only produced hyperinflation, corruption, chronic unemployment, and widespread poverty but also led to a huge concentration of wealth and resources among a small number of individuals known as the “oligarchs.”24 The entrepreneurial middle class that was supposed to energize and thrive as a result of the liberal reform remained weak and marginalized. Thus, toward the end of the decade a widening gap had emerged between the Yeltsin regime’s proclaimed reform program and Russia’s political and economic reality. To put it in brief, in contrast to the group of CEE regimes discussed earlier, the Yeltsin regime at the end of the 1990s still lacked a clear and coherent regime ideology. Its political and economic programs were mismatched; both the top leadership itself and the process of leadership transition became highly personalized; and the regime’s policies diverged widely from its rhetoric. The next section will examine the varying regime ideology-­building processes in these two cases, with a focus on the crucial factors leading to such disparate outcomes. Regime Ideology-­Building in Postcommunist Central and Eastern Europe Precommunist and Communist Ideological Legacies

Historically, most peoples in Central and Eastern Europe were ruled by various empires of Europe, and many of them did not acquire independent

48  The Return of Ideology

statehood until after World War I or even later. After World War II, they fell under Soviet military, political, and economic domination. Only when the Cold War ended were they finally able to decide their own fate. During the past decade or so, within the field of postcommunist CEE studies, the old debate between the so-­called transitologists and those who emphasized the communist legacy seems to have given way to an emerging scholarly awareness of the highly significant role of long-­term historical continuities in shaping the region’s political and economic landscape. Through varying causal mechanisms, precommunist historical legacies are found to not only condition these countries’ communist experiences but also correlate strongly with their postcommunist outcomes.25 The precommunist traditions and legacies of this group of CEE countries being studied here are quite diverse, but they do share a few things in common. Geographically, compared to the Balkan countries and the majority of post-­Soviet states, this group of countries is the closest to Western Europe. Indeed, spatially most of these countries could be seen as located right at the heart of Europe,26 and this geographical proximity played a role in making these countries the first candidates to be considered for incorporation into Western organizations such as NATO and the EU.27 Religiously, they share Western Christian (Catholic or Protestant), rather than Orthodox Christian or Muslim, traditions. All of them were also heavily influenced by Western cultural traditions. The Austro-­Hungarian Empire encompassed an area that included today’s Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, and part of Poland. The three Baltic states had strong historical and cultural ties with Germany and the Scandinavian countries. It could be argued that there was more of a civic tradition in these societies, even with their undeniable variations,28 compared to the rest of the postcommunist region further to the east or in the Balkans.29 Such cultural-­religious legacies have been shown to strongly correlate with postcommunist democratic development.30 Finally and importantly, despite the fact that there were strong leftist movements in parts of the region,31 in none of these countries was the communist takeover the result of an indigenous communist revolution. Hungary had a brief encounter with communism in 1919 when Bela Kun set up an extremely short-­ lived government, but it was the byproduct of immediate post–­World War I chaos rather than an organized mass-­based revolution. The Baltic three, although officially a part of the Soviet Union, were incorporated into the Soviet Union only after the Red Army installed pro-­Soviet governments in 1940 following the Molotov-­Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. The imposition of communism therefore took place in all these countries, first and foremost, as a result of Soviet backing. The only exception was Slovenia, but, as in the

A Decade of Ideological Divergence  49

rest of Yugoslavia, the communists came to power following an antifascist nationalist struggle against German invaders rather than a Leninist proletarian revolution.32 Consequently, communism was perceived as an alien ideology with little indigenous legitimacy in most of these settings, and was seen by large segments of the population as inherently antinationalist, especially in those countries with well-­formed precommunist national identities.33 Given such precommunist legacies, it was not surprising that communist regimes in these CEE countries had a difficult time incorporating communism into their national narratives.34 Over decades, many of them greatly modified and deviated from the Soviet model in their developmental strategies. In Poland, for example, the communist regime allowed a relatively independent peasantry that was largely spared from agricultural collectivization, a rather intact Catholic Church, and later a strong national labor organization that evolved into a viable opposition movement. In Hungary, the Janos Kadar regime followed an innovative developmental strategy that increasingly departed from the Soviet model, as exemplified by the famous New Economic Mechanism. The communist regime in Czechoslovakia attempted periods of liberalization, such as the “Prague Spring” that was eventually crushed by Soviet military intervention. Slovenia benefited greatly from Yugoslavia’s unorthodox economic policy of self-­management and decentralization and developed a highly industrialized and marketized economy. Even in the Baltic states, which were subject to direct Soviet rule, armed resistance went on for years, and the anti-­Soviet population eventually gave rise to large-­scale independence movements in the 1980s. In this sense, communism never became an integral part of these countries’ national identities. Postcommunist Ideological Repertoire

Such was the context in which the CEE regimes started to build a postcommunist regime ideology. Their precommunist and communist legacies shaped the postcommunist regimes’ ideological repertoire in significant ways. Since there was never a deep fusion between communist ideology and preexisting national identity, the collapse of communism and the end of Soviet domination seemed to mark a moment of national liberation for many CEE countries. In the aftermath of communist collapse, new political regimes across the region rushed to denounce communism,35 thus effectively precluding communist-­era ideational elements from becoming a part of the new regime ideology. The wholesale rejection of communism-­associated

50  The Return of Ideology

ideational legacies was highlighted by the dramatic transformation of the few successful ex-­communist parties in the region, such as the Hungarian Socialist Party and the Democratic Left Alliance in Poland. These parties’ ability to survive and even regenerate in the postcommunist era had a lot to do with the fact that party elites quickly and decisively restructured the party, rejected old communist ideology, and embraced electoral competition. Those who failed to do so and continued to hold on to past symbols and ideology did not fare well in elections.36 As communist ideology became largely unusable in the construction of a new regime identity, the ideological repertoire of postcommunist CEE regimes came from two main sources: precommunist legacies and Western ideological diffusion. To be sure, these two ideational sources—­precommunist legacies and Western political and economic ideology—­were not always compatible. Following the rejection of the communist past, precommunist legacies came to constitute an important part of the postcommunist CEE regimes’ ideological repertoire. The two most important legacies among these were traditional nationalism and a historical and cultural “European” identity. Although some of these CEE states were “old,”37 such as Poland and Hungary, while others were relatively “new,”38 such as Slovenia and the Czech Republic, postcommunist regimes in the region, to varying extents, all resorted to nationalism to bolster their initial legitimacy. In the immediate postcommunist ideological confusion, as nationalism was perceived as being in direct opposition to communism, the old official commitment to building communism was replaced by a focus on the identity and development of the nation-­state, now finally free from communism and, in some cases, the domination of multiethnic federal states. This trend was entirely understandable given decades of brutal communist oppression that suppressed and distorted preexisting nationalism, but it also gave rise to some illiberal political voices and practices.39 In Slovakia, for example, Vladimir Meciar’s illiberal nationalist party was in power for a long time in the 1990s. In Poland, the Catholic Church gained enormous influence over all aspects of public life, and was at the forefront of culture wars against women’s rights and gay rights. In some cases, the nation-­state fixation contributed to xenophobia and ill treatment of ethnic minorities, such as the Roma in the Czech Republic, ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia, and the Russian-­speaking minority in Estonia and Latvia, and sometimes led to the return of anti-­Semitism. Many of these illiberal political forces and practices were met with severe EU criticisms and became obstacles for these countries’ EU accession. The other important precommunist legacy—­the historical and cultural “European” identity—­arguably countered some of the illiberal nationalist

A Decade of Ideological Divergence  51

tendencies and effectively paved the way for postcommunist Western ideological diffusion. At first sight, a “European” identity and nationalism seem to be short of fully compatible. After all, a national identity and a broader European identity across national boundaries are conceptually different. Nevertheless, in the CEE context they had become mutually reinforcing, especially under communism. Historically, compared to the Balkan peoples, who suffered from more autocratic and oppressive Ottoman rule,40 the CEE countries as a whole had more contact with Western ideas and institutions and were economically more advanced.41 During the period between the two world wars, this group of CEE countries42 all had at least the semblance of parliamentary and democratic forms of government, even though most of these governments were later replaced by profascist dictatorships.43 This kind of experience with representative government, coupled with these countries’ long-­standing hostility toward and suspicion of Russia,44 made the imposition of communism a rather traumatic event that seemed to sever the region, politically and culturally, from its European roots. Such sentiment was captured by Milan Kundera’s 1984 characterization of CEE as a “kidnapped West.”45 For many dissidents of communism, the notion of “civil society” came closely intertwined with the idea of “Europe,” which signified all the Western forms communism suppressed.46 Therefore, in the CEE context nationalism and European identity, instead of undermining each other, actually complement and reinforce each other to a large extent. It was not a coincidence that the first generation of postcommunist CEE leaders, such as Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and Mart Laar of Estonia, were mostly “patriotic intellectuals with longstanding anticommunist and anti-­Russian sentiments who embraced freedom and the West as an anti-­Russian national project.”47 Soon after communism collapsed, the call for a “return to Europe” became the common political slogan in the region. Communism was now the aberration that distracted these countries from their true and natural path—­and that was one that was “European.” Aside from these precommunist legacies, the other major source of the regime ideological repertoire for the postcommunist CEE countries was Western ideological diffusion, which also had two components—­political and economic. Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchik define diffusion as “a process whereby new ideas, institutions, policies, models, or repertoires of behavior spread geographically from a core site to new sites, whether within a given state or across states.”48 In the case of postcommunist CEE countries, the main Western political and economic ideas that were being diffused were those of Western-­style liberal democracy and neoliberal capitalist market reform. The most important formal mechanism for this diffusion was EU con-

52  The Return of Ideology

ditionality, but the ideas of “democracy” and “market” were starting to be embraced by most postcommunist political elites even before these countries officially became EU candidates. The acceptance of the idea of democracy was fairly easy for several reasons. First, as previously mentioned, these CEE countries had precommunist experiences with democratic forms of government and a civil society. Even though such experiences were brief and those precommunist governments were hardly Western-­style liberal democracies, at least the idea of democracy, in contrast to externally imposed communism, did not seem alien to the population at large. Second, during the communist era, because communism and liberalism were seen as ideological opposites, many who were against communism took the side of liberalism. This was particularly the case among dissident intellectuals, some of whom ended up playing prominent roles in postcommunist politics.49 Finally, the end of bipolarity and Soviet dominance provided an important international incentive for these CEE countries, which had been secondary powers historically, to be on the side of the victorious liberal democratic West.50 Leaving aside the grandiose claim of “the end of history,” liberalism did appear to become the dominant global trend in the immediate post–­Cold War aftermath. The idea of liberal democracy therefore quickly became the norm, although the actual practice still varied quite a lot across the region.51 The economic component of Western ideology was the idea of neoliberal market reform. On the one hand, it was undeniable that the old command economy did not work and needed to be dramatically transformed. On the other, neoliberal market reform, with liberalization, privatization, and free trade at its core, was not necessarily the only or even the best choice in the postcommunist context.52 Nevertheless, “the choice of economic system is profoundly ideological,” and serves political objectives.53 During the postcommunist transition, neoliberal market reform was supposed to foster pluralism, spur the growth of a middle class, and facilitate democratization, at least according to its proponents.54 Like the idea of democracy, the idea of capitalism was not alien to the CEE countries, where industrial capitalist economies on average were at a higher level of development in the precommunist era compared to Russia and most former Soviet states. In regions such as Czechoslovakia and Slovenia, the levels of industrialization and commercial activities were quite high before the outbreak of World War II. Moreover, the idea of moving from a command to a market economy was not new, at least for those countries in the region that had a head start during the communist era. For example, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia were known for their varieties of “reform communism” infused with market elements, which diverged significantly from the Soviet command economic model.55 In addition, the

A Decade of Ideological Divergence  53

idea of neoliberal reform was acceptable for many in the region as they could take advantage of their geographical proximity to Western markets. The three Baltic states, for example, benefited from economic and trade cooperation with their Nordic neighbors. To be sure, in practice neoliberal market reform was implemented in a diverse and sometimes inconsistent manner across the region.56 Even so, by the end of the 1990s these CEE countries as a group were clearly ahead of their Balkan and post-­Soviet counterparts in terms of neoliberal market reform and economic freedom.57 Based on the above analysis, we can see that the main components of the CEE countries’ postcommunist regime ideological repertoire—­ precommunist ideational legacies and Western ideology—­were not always compatible in all aspects. In particular, one part of precommunist ideational legacies—­traditional nationalism—­and Western ideas of liberal democracy and market reform could potentially undermine each other. However, the other important part of precommunist ideational legacies—­the historical and cultural “European” identity—­effectively acted as the “bridge” between the two, being compatible with both traditional nationalism and Western ideology within the postcommunist CEE context. Consequently, this regime ideological repertoire, given its diverse elements, is largely coherent. Postcommunist Political Elites and Regime Ideology-­Building

Since the end of communism, postcommunist CEE political elites have always been a heterogeneous group, consisting of people with a variety of ideological backgrounds. This heterogeneity was reflected in postcommunist party and electoral politics, which was marked by fierce competition and sometimes frequent changes of government during the 1990s. It was apparently hard for these political elites to cooperate on just any ideology-­ building projects. Yet toward the end of the decade, democracy, capitalism, and Western integration did seem to have become “the only game in town” in the region, and this would have been impossible without relatively strong elite commitment. To understand the sources of elite commitment to regime ideology-­ building, it is necessary to first briefly examine these postcommunist political elites’ backgrounds. According to Michael McFaul, this group of CEE countries, including the Baltic states, followed a common transition path characterized by confrontation between the old elite and new challengers, with the latter achieving hegemonic power over the former. Subsequently those prodemocratic challengers were able to use this political power config-

54  The Return of Ideology

uration to impose new democratic regimes and exclude the ex-­communists from the institutional design process.58 Thus the majority of political elites that survived the first postcommunist years and set the new rules of the game, meaning McFaul’s “challengers,” already shared some ideational common ground,59 their heterogeneity notwithstanding. This shared ideational common ground was the rejection of the old communist regime and ideology and a broad commitment to democratic electoral politics. This rather auspicious starting point for building a new regime ideology, however, was not a guarantee that most political elites would continue to remain committed to the same set of fundamental ideas.60 That would be achieved by the prospect for integration into the West. To say that the development of liberal democracy in CEE could have been much more difficult and uncertain without NATO and EU expansion would be an understatement. This point is highlighted by the fact that, as conditionality faded after these countries’ EU accession, liberal democracy suffered considerable setbacks in some cases, such as in Hungary under Viktor Orban, in Poland under the Law and Justice party (PiS) and, to a lesser extent, in the Czech Republic under Milos Zeman.61 In Hungary, in particular, Orban vowed to create an “illiberal state” based on “national foundations,” citing Russia, Turkey, and China as “successful” examples.62 Even though these setbacks hardly signaled an outright return to authoritarianism, it was clear that the success and stability of liberal democracy could not be taken for granted even in the relatively successful postcommunist CEE countries. Similarly, the authoritarian behavior of various postcommunist CEE politicians showed that elite commitment to liberal democracy could not be assumed. NATO and EU are both important Western institutions and both viewed democracy as the first condition for admission, but their roles in fostering postcommunist elite commitment were somewhat different. The development of democracy and a market economy required a peaceful international environment. The stabilizing role of NATO was significant during the early years63 of the postcommunist democratic transition, allowing the former Warsaw Pact countries to focus on domestic transformation rather than external security and potential instability.64 This was particularly the case for countries in the region that were traditionally wary of the Russian threat, such as Poland, where NATO membership was hugely popular. In any event, being under the pacifying NATO umbrella provided reassurance that Soviet domination was over and proof that these countries were now free from communism and fully democratic. In this way, from early on, the prospect of NATO enlargement created an international environment conducive to elite commitment to democracy and being “in the West.”

A Decade of Ideological Divergence  55

Compared to the role of NATO, the role of the EU in creating and sustaining the postcommunist elite’s commitment to Western political and economic norms was even broader and more profound. It is possible that some political elites were already so ideologically committed, or averse, to these norms that their beliefs would not have changed under any circumstances. Nevertheless, assuming that most political elites were rational actors concerned about their political survival and advancement, they needed incentives to stick to an ideology-­building agenda over the long run. EU expansion provided such incentives. Unlike during the communist era, when the party leadership made decisions over and above the heads of the people, postcommunist political elites needed public support to survive in a democratic setting. Throughout the 1990s, public opinion polls, such as the Eurobarometer Surveys, showed that the majority of citizens in the region trusted the EU and supported their countries’ EU membership.65 The enthusiasm was particularly overwhelming in the early 1990s, before the costs of membership became evident. It was therefore unsurprising that most postcommunist political elites in the region, including the authoritarian types like Meciar, supported EU membership during the 1990s. Moreover, in contrast to many other postcommunist countries whose prospects for joining the EU were remote or even nonexistent for a variety of geopolitical and economic reasons, this group of CEE countries were identified early on as potential EU candidates and were subjected to EU conditionality, as outlined in the acquis communautaire during their candidacies. Meanwhile, the EU moved to provide the region with substantial economic assistance in forms such as the Phare program.66 Hence, the EU provided concrete goals and concrete incentives, rather than empty promises and slogans, for postcommunist political elites to adopt policies to meet EU political and economic standards.67 The appeal of EU integration was so strong that even some populist parties and communist successor parties, such as the Hungarian Socialist Party, ended up embracing it. Domestically, the integration process had the effect of curbing authoritarian tendencies68 and stifling debates over fundamental state policies. Elite competition became more about politicians’ competence and policy implementation than about alternative ideological commitments.69 This convergence of mainstream parties would later give rise to populist and nationalist voices such as Eurosceptism, but such trends did not become obvious until the late 1990s. By then it was already too late for these minority voices to turn back the wheel of EU expansion. Against such a background, the majority of postcommunist political elites in these CEE countries had strong motivations to stick to the ideological agenda of building liberal democracy and a market economy. In this

56  The Return of Ideology

sense, the successful formation of a new postcommunist regime ideology in CEE was not necessarily the result of some kind of grand design by political elites from the beginning, although it was possible that some elites were ideologically committed to this project all along. Rather, many political elites were pushed onto this path by circumstances, the most important of which was the process of Western integration. At the beginning their commitment was bolstered by public support, but even after this support waned, the process of Western integration had already created strong enough momentum to sustain such commitment. In the postcommunist CEE context, Western political and economic norms, combined with elements of traditional nationalism and with the historical and cultural “European” identity as the ideational “bridge,” formed the core of a distinctive and relatively coherent regime ideology. At various points in the 1990s, this regime ideology took root in the postcommunist CEE countries and was then sustained across different administrations and individual leaders. The fact that such a regime ideology was formed successfully does not mean that it would not be challenged, or even subverted, in the future. Nevertheless, this regime ideology so far had turned out, by and large, to be stable in most of the postcommunist CEE context. The same conclusion could not be said about the Yeltsin regime, to which we now turn. Regime Ideology-­Building in Yeltsin’s Russia Pre-­Soviet and Soviet Ideological Legacies

Compared to the peoples of the CEE countries, Russians had little historical experience with democratic or representative forms of government. Prior to the communist era, Russia was known for its long tradition of political authoritarianism under the conservative and absolutist rule of the tsars, which remained almost unchanged from its beginning in the 16th century until its overthrow in 1917.70 This autocratic tradition was so strong that some scholars even argue that it constituted the root of Soviet communism.71 At the same time, others argue that Soviet communism, instead of being a “natural” extension of traditional authoritarian political culture, actually broke up the gradual emergence of liberalism in Russia.72 It is true that precommunist Russian political culture was hardly a monolithic whole. After all, despite the emphasis of traditional Russian national identity on Russia’s geographic, historical, and cultural uniqueness,73 a few Russian leaders, such as Cath-

A Decade of Ideological Divergence  57

erine II and Alexander I, did try to cultivate a sense of a shared “European” identity. Starting in the 19th century, Russian political elites were preoccupied by the ideological debates between the so-­called Slavophiles—­those who emphasized Russian uniqueness and thought Russia therefore should pursue its own developmental path and build a non-­Western civilization —­and the Westernizers—­those who saw Russia as squarely belonging to Europe and the West and therefore urged that it should modernize accordingly.74 The more liberal strand of the Russian political tradition was evident in policies pursued by prerevolutionary politicians such as Pavel Miliukov and Alexander Kerensky, who wanted to liberalize Russian politics; while the Slavophiles were more emphatic about communitarianism and the purity of the “Russian soul,” as represented by the peasantry. Even during the Soviet era, this division was carried on in dissident circles, as symbolized by the disagreement between Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, both leading critics of the Soviet system.75 Still, compared to the CEE countries, Russia’s historical and cultural ties with the West were neither as broad nor as deep. But no matter how one evaluates Russia’s precommunist past, all agree that communism transformed Russia in extremely profound ways. Unlike the CEE countries, where communism was mostly an external imposition, Russia became communist following an indigenous revolution, even though original Marxism was “imported.” Before and during the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin significantly modified original Marxism according to the Russian context.76 Although communist ideology was officially internationalist, the Bolsheviks were predominantly Russian, and reaped support from many people with patriotic feelings who were not communists.77 Compared to the CEE cases, therefore, the initial social acceptance of the communist regime among both elites and masses was much higher in Russia. With Marxism-­Leninism as the dominant ideology, the Soviet regime had originally intended to construct a class-­based, rather than nation-­based, identity, assuming a global mission of promoting the world socialist revolution and a worldwide communist society.78 Russian culture was subjected to intense ideological and political censorship, and many of the core symbols of traditional Russian nationalism—­such as the Orthodox Church, the gentry, and the monarchy—­were either severely suppressed or completely eliminated.79 However, the Soviet regime, especially starting with the Stalinist era, decided that Marxism-­Leninism alone was not enough for the regime to achieve effective ideological control in the context of managing a multinational state with external and internal boundaries. Consequently, the Soviet regime manipulated and integrated

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selective elements of traditional Russian nationalism, such as the Russian language and part of Russian culture, into the dominant Marxist-­Leninist ideological framework in an effort to hone a Soviet national consciousness.80 Therefore, despite the fact that the Soviet attacks on, and suppression of, the precommunist ideational heritage were nothing short of devastating, a certain degree of cultural continuity was preserved even at the regime level. At the same time, given the country’s multiethnic federal structure, a separate Russian nationalism was suppressed and subsumed under Soviet identity, leading to a “national” identity strongly influenced by both a universal/imperialist mentality and communist ideology.81 In addition, internationally the communist era greatly reinforced and exacerbated Russia’s traditional suspicion of the West.82 Historically, Russia’s biggest external threats had always come from the West, the most prominent examples being Napoleonic France in the early 19th century; Germany and the Austro-­Hungarian Empire in the early 20th century; and Nazi Germany during World War II. In this context, the post–­World War II Soviet Union had every incentive to make sure the CEE region stayed under its control as a vital security buffer zone. The subsequent Cold War seemed to confirm the ongoing hostility between Russia and the West. During this time, Western ideational elements, such as ideas of liberal democracy and capitalism, were regarded as dangerous and vehemently rejected by successive Soviet leaderships until arguably Gorbachev.83 Under Gorbachev, the relationship between the Soviet Union and the West improved to an extent, but it did not change the fundamental fact that liberalism and communism remained mortal enemies. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the existing Russian identity was in shambles after decades of official internationalism and imperialism in the construction of a supranational federal system. Ideologically, the Western influence had been minimal throughout the communist era. On the one hand, many illiberal elements of traditional Russian culture and nationalism, such as collectivism, were strengthened under communism, and liberalism, as a Western capitalist ideology, had been consistently rejected for decades. On the other hand, because of the indigenous roots of Soviet communism and decades of Soviet nation-­building, many Soviet ideational legacies still remained meaningful to a large number of Russians.84 After all, the Soviet Union was the very first communist country, and for Russians its 74-­year-­long existence was the only Russian past within living collective memory. Therefore, the political and ideological background out of which the postcommunist Russian regime could build a new regime ideology was dramatically different from that of the CEE cases.

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Post-­Soviet Ideological Repertoire

In the wake of the collapse of both communism and Soviet statehood, the Yeltsin regime’s construction of a new postcommunist ideology partially overlapped with the construction of a new national ideology, as the issue of citizenship and national identity remained as unsettled as a new regime identity. On the surface, the Yeltsin regime’s ideological repertoire appeared not unlike that of the CEE countries during the 1990s, with its two major sources being pre-­Soviet legacies and Western political and economic ideology. A closer look, however, reveals a much more complicated picture. As the first postcommunist Russian leader, who came to power after defeating a communist coup and formally dismantling the Soviet Union, Yeltsin was initially eager to establish the new regime’s pro-­Western liberal credentials and discredit the communist opposition forces. As in the case of the CEE countries, communism was quickly denounced and the communist ideational legacies were entirely excluded from the Yeltsin regime’s postcommunist ideological repertoire. However, while such ideational legacies never held broad social appeal in the CEE context, that was not the case in Russia during the 1990s. Since communist legacies, including any Soviet symbols, values, or identities, were regarded as no longer usable,85 the pre-­Soviet era became an important source of the Yeltsin regime’s ideological repertoire. While rushing to replace Soviet symbols and institutions such as the Soviet flag, national anthem, and city names, Yeltsin rehabilitated many key elements of traditional Russian nationalism, such as the tricolor, the national coat-­of-­arms, and, significantly, the conservative Russian Orthodox Church, making it a powerful ally of the regime.86 Religious holidays were reintroduced, and many properties previously nationalized during the Soviet era were returned to the Church. Furthermore, despite its official commitment to liberalism, the Yeltsin regime took measures to restrict the activities of foreign religions and to grant special privileges to the Orthodox Church. Throughout the Yeltsin era, the Russian Orthodox Church grew increasingly powerful and its social standing rose substantially.87 These tactics were clearly aimed at emphasizing aspects of continuity between the Yeltsin regime and the pre-­Soviet era. Nevertheless, much of this was done while rejecting the entire Soviet era as a historical aberration whose legacies were to be completely erased. This turned out to be unacceptable for much of the Russian masses and elite, with whom many parts of Soviet history and values still resonated strongly.88 Meanwhile, whereas the postcommunist CEE regimes all used nationalism to bolster their legitimacy, the Yeltsin regime failed to effectively tap into

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Russian nationalism as a significant source of legitimacy. While issues of national identity were relatively uncontested in the postcommunist CEE, decades of Soviet nation-­building in an attempt to create a new “Soviet man” had profoundly transformed Russian national identity, leaving it in a state of great confusion after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Russian political elites as well as public opinion were deeply divided over the question of what constituted the Russian nation and state, 89 with an imperial mentality competing with various ideas of Slavic unity and “Russia for Russians.”90 As Russian political scientist Viacheslav Morozov noted, Russia in the 1990s did not have a “historical narrative that would work as an alternative to the imperial narrative and could provide a basis for its self-­identification as a nation state.”91 The main representatives of fragmented and disorganized nationalist movements in Russia in the 1990s were the so-­called national patriots who pursued far-­right positions instead of championing liberal values.92 In this sense it was understandable that the Yeltsin regime and the liberal elites, who perceived nationalism as a negative force, did not initially want to ally themselves with right-­wing nationalists.93 Throughout the 1990s, the most discernible and consistent strand of the regime’s ideology was anticommunism, which was equated with democracy itself, but that alone could not be translated into any concrete long-­term positive goals.94 As the Yeltsin regime tried to completely cut off the Russian people from the Soviet past along with all who had contributed to it, it lost the initiative to start building a new national identity that could potentially be compatible with liberal values and still be meaningful to most Russians. Consequently the nationalists were left to form political alliances with the communist opposition. As the decade wore on and the elite backlash intensified, Yeltsin attempted to refocus on the “Russian idea” and even adopt some nationalist positions, such as initiating the first Chechnya War, to appeal to the Russian public and appease the powerful security establishment, which had vehemently rejected a pro-­Western identity. But these efforts yielded little results other than provoking the ire of the West. Therefore, although pre-­Soviet legacies supposedly constituted an important part of the regime’s ideological repertoire, the regime did not provide any clear answer to the most basic and salient issue of national identity, which remained a source of fierce contention.95 The other major source of the Yeltsin regime’s ideological repertoire—­ Western political and economic ideology—­also created problems. As previously discussed, the historical relationship between Russia and the West was fraught with ambivalence. Unlike the case of the CEE countries, there was never a consensus among Russian elites that Russia belonged indisputably to a “Europe” already defined by the West or to the West more broadly. During

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the communist era, the Soviet Union’s relationship with the West became outright hostile. For better or for worse, the Soviet Union was a superpower in a bipolar world, feared and respected around the globe. Whereas the end of communism signaled national liberation in the CEE countries, for Russia it entailed loss of territory, population, and most important, national prestige. In the immediate aftermath of the Soviet collapse, the Yeltsin regime nevertheless adopted the Western rhetoric of liberal democracy and capitalism. Russia’s postcommunist era thus began with the regime’s enthusiastic embrace of the Western value system and partnership. Both Russian and Western leaders proclaimed that Russia and the West shared the same “universal values.” As Yeltsin declared in 1996, “from the perspective of universal values, our country has made a strategic choice in directing its development: civil society, rule of the law and the market economy. Civil society is the guarantee of freedom, democracy and justice.”96 As the decade progressed, however, the regime’s Westernizing policies were undermined by the authoritarian manner in which they were implemented and their disappointing and destabilizing outcomes, which led to widespread skepticism about and disillusionment over partnership with the West.97 Moreover, the blanket rejection of values and norms associated with the Soviet order did not lead to the blossoming of a liberal culture thought to be thwarted by communism.98 As a result, Yeltsin gradually abandoned his initial plan of immediate Westernization. At the same time, as his health deteriorated and his political influence waned, Yeltsin was increasingly unable to come up with a clear alternative to replace Western political and economic ideology.99 Internationally, the regime’s initial agenda to join the West also turned out to be problematic over time. Even though many political elites were positively inclined toward the West and favored capitalism and democracy, very few would accept a secondary international status for Russia or the negative depiction of Russia’s historical distinctiveness as prescribed by, and implicit in, the Westernization imperative.100 This was fundamentally different from the CEE countries, which traditionally were considered secondary powers and hence had little problem accepting the West’s right to set the criteria of “Europeanness” and their own role as European apprentices.101 Moreover, throughout the 1990s Russia remained very much internationally isolated, with no prospect of joining key Western institutions such as NATO and the EU, and lacking any reliable great-­power allies.102 This international isolation was further exacerbated by NATO’s expansion, which incorporated former members of the Warsaw Pact,103 and the NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia, which Russia opposed strongly. Seen by Russian elites and the public as deeply humiliating, these developments stood in the way of any at-

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tempt at portraying Russia as an integral part of the West, or, for that matter, Europe. After NATO ignored Russian opposition and wrestled Kosovo from Belgrade, in the eyes of many Russian elites Russia had ceased to be a power in Europe for the first time since the 18th century.104 The decade thus ended with much Russian skepticism and bitterness toward the West. In short, although the postcommunist Yeltsin regime’s ideological repertoire at first seemed to resemble that of the CEE countries, a closer look revealed fundamental inconsistencies. Most of these inconsistencies stemmed from the regime’s lack of a clear and widely accepted idea of Russia’s self-­ image and its place in the world following decades of Soviet nation-­building and the sudden demise of the Soviet state. Specifically, there was the absence of an equivalent to an unambiguous and relatively uncontested “European” identity as in the CEE case that could bridge the gap between diverse precommunist ideational elements, which are mostly conservative with a strong sense of Russian civilizational uniqueness, and Western political and economic ideology, which claims to be universal. Because of the existence of such an ideational “bridge,” the postcommunist CEE regimes’ ideological repertoire was able to form a relatively coherent “organic” whole, while similar elements in the case of Russia could only be assembled mechanically with little binding them together. Moreover, as the 1990s went on, Western political and economic ideas came to be seen by many as undermining Russian interests, and hence incompatible with traditional Russian values. Over time, this perceived incompatibility led to the strengthening of conservative elements and the weakening of Western influence,105 thus opening up space for the partial rehabilitation of Soviet ideational legacies under Putin. Post-­Soviet Political Elites and Regime Ideology-­Building

The post-­Soviet political elites in Yeltsin’s Russia were a deeply divided group. The three major political forces—­communists, patriots, and democrats—­ barely shared anything in common ideologically, with the first two rhetorically committed to the destruction of the new liberal democratic order.106 Those who belonged to the communist and the national patriot camps, and their numbers were substantial in the 1990s, obviously had no incentive to support the Yeltsin regime’s ideological agendas. The regime not only made little attempt to co-­opt them but also relied on excessive executive power to stifle and bypass the opposition of the Duma, which was under the control of the communists supported by the patriots. But even the group of political elites that were supposed to form the core of the regime’s supporters—­the

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democrats—­remained rather fragmented and became increasingly so as the decade went on. Upon the Soviet collapse, key members of political elites within the Yeltsin regime were initially united by anticommunism and ready to embrace Western values in their struggle to define a new identity for Russia. They had the support of some pragmatic representatives of the former communist nomenklatura, especially those with backgrounds in the Komsomol (the Communist youth organization) and directors of large state enterprises, who did not share their liberal democratic ideals but wanted to obtain control over property previously owned by the state.107 However, as many national and regional elites from the previous Soviet era managed to retain their positions of power and influence, the Yeltsin government’s self-­proclaimed liberal ideology encountered strong resistance from those who were supposed to implement reforms.108 The regime’s liberalization project was intensely contested, even among the democrats themselves—­primarily because this project’s implied second-­class international status for Russia did not correspond to their great-­power aspirations and because of the authoritarian manner in which the administration implemented the often-­destabilizing reforms.109 Moreover, throughout the 1990s, politics under the Yeltsin regime became progressively unstable and unpredictable. The 1993 dissolution of the Duma, in particular, demonstrated the highly contingent nature of politics under Yeltsin.110 By creating a system of “superpresidentialism” that concentrated excessive decision-­making power in the executive, the regime was able to force through some policy initiatives by bending the existing rules of the game and at times bypassing the nonliberal parliament.111 The direct consequence was that, in the absence of a relatively predictable future, and given the economic opportunities created by poorly regulated privatization and marketization, the majority of the political elites in the Yeltsin era felt increasingly impotent politically; instead, they focused solely on their personal power and enrichment, as evidenced by extensive corruption at all levels of government.112 Significantly, unlike the case of postcommunist CEE countries, there was no international force or mechanism to check this trend. If anything, many political elites became deeply disillusioned with the West as partnership with the West seemed to only exacerbate Russia’s dependency instead of bringing any visible improvement either in people’s living standards or in Russia’s international status. By the mid to late 1990s, a powerful elite opposition to Yeltsin’s pro-­ Western liberal policies emerged and rallied around Yevgeny Primakov. It consisted of military industrialists, the army and the secret services, and some economic elites with ties to former Soviet republics.113 The disastrous

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military campaign in Chechnya, which Yeltsin initiated partially to improve his relationship with the security establishment, added further humiliation to both the army and the regime itself. In response to his weakened position, Yeltsin started filling important government positions with security and military personnel during his second term, including making Primakov his foreign minister and then the prime minister,114 while attempting to continue with liberal economic reforms. But this failed to repair Yeltsin’s ties with the security community, and his extremely frequent and often erratic personnel reshuffling only created more enemies. Primakov was fired after only eight months as prime minister, probably because his rising popularity made him a threat. The 1998 economic meltdown, coupled with Yeltsin’s failure to stop either NATO’s eastward expansion or the bombing of Yugoslavia, as well as Yeltsin’s increasingly questionable physical and psychological state, delivered more crushing blows to Yeltsin’s credibility as a leader among disillusioned elites. As Putin’s former key adviser Gleb Pavlovsky poignantly described the situation in a 2012 interview: There were hundreds, thousands of people like that in the elite, who were not communists. . . . They were people who just didn’t like how things had been done in 1991. This group consisted of very disparate people, with very different ideas of freedom. Putin was one of those who were passively waiting for the moment for revanche up till the end of the 90s. By revanche, I mean the resurrection of the great state in which we had lived, and to which we had become accustomed. We didn’t want another totalitarian state, of course, but we did want one that could be respected. The state of the 1990s was impossible to respect.115 Toward the end of the Yeltsin era, political apathy and cynicism had become prevalent among the elites, and the initial enthusiasm and determination of the “market Bolsheviks” had dissipated. Official corruption was deeply entrenched and rampant, and a small band of well-­connected “oligarchs” whose wealth and resources far surpassed that of even the highest-­ ranked members of the Soviet official class were completely detached from the deeply disillusioned masses.116 Moreover, elite politics came to be dominated by seemingly endless wars among competing “clans” with varying degrees of influence.117 Therefore, although Yeltsin was not uninterested in formulating a new official regime ideology, such a political context provided little incentive for the political elites to commit to any long-­term ideological design. After all, if the elites, and even the leadership itself, face a highly uncertain future, the rational strategy would be to focus on immediate, short-­ term goals, such as money and personal power.118 What is more, after the

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failure of its liberalization program, the regime was incapable of coming up with any alternative political project that could command the support of the majority of political elites. Patronage and clientelism were nothing new in Russian politics from the imperial days to the Soviet era.119 But under the Yeltsin regime, instead of being constrained by the formal institutions of a constitutional democracy, personalism predominated at the regime level as enormous formal power became concentrated in the hands of the presidency. Although this kind of personalism brought the regime certain benefits, such as facilitating the building of new institutions and preventing communist restoration, it also ended up weakening formal political institutions and fostering an “individualized, anti-­ procedural and anti-­institutional” approach to governance and “crony capitalism.”120 Whatever elite support there was for the regime was largely based on patronage ties, which were becoming increasingly unstable as the decade went on,121 rather than on any shared belief in the regime’s long-­term legitimacy. Over time, a not-­so-­implicit contract was formed between the regime leadership and the political elites in which the leadership tolerated rampant corruption and nepotism among political elites in exchange for their political cooperation or at least acquiescence. Such an arrangement left little room for political elites to commit to the regime on anything beyond a contingent basis. With flimsy elite commitment, the Yeltsin regime’s effort to come up with a viable ideational framework to guide political action did not yield any substantive result. Beyond anticommunism, it was not clear what the Yeltsin regime really stood for or what its long-­term mission would be. The regime thus left a thin ideational foundation for whoever came after to build upon. Conclusion

This chapter juxtaposes two dramatically different outcomes of postcommunist regime ideology-­building, and compares the two processes leading to such outcomes during the first postcommunist decade in CEE and Russia. In the former case, a historical and cultural “European” identity constituted a vital ideational “bridge” that brought traditional nationalism and Western political and economic ideology into a relatively coherent framework for building a regime ideology. The international environment, and in particular the process of Western integration, played an important and even indispensable role in creating and sustaining a relatively strong elite commitment to these regimes’ ideological agenda of building liberal democracy and a market economy. As a result, these regimes were able to form a distinctive and viable postcommunist regime ideology by the end of the 1990s.

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In contrast, although the Yeltsin regime seemed to initially embrace similar political and economic ideas, Russia’s vastly different communist history and traditional relationship with, and perception of, the West generated considerable inconsistencies within its ideological repertoire. The international environment, instead of facilitating elite commitment, as in the case of the CEE countries, actually exacerbated these inconsistencies, cultivating growing suspicion of Western ideology among many elites. This, coupled with significant elite fragmentation and the personalization of politics, led to the overall failure of regime ideology-­building under Yeltsin, despite the regime’s undeniable accomplishments in dismantling communism and preventing communist restoration. In other words, an ideological vacuum had appeared at the regime level. Moreover, Western-­style liberalism was largely discredited as a viable future regime ideology due to the Yeltsin era’s policy blunders and significant elite resistance. Whether or not there was really a causal link, for most Russians the regime’s liberalization programs came to be fatefully associated with a rapidly declining economy, ballooning crime and corruption, and the breakdown of law and order.122 In this sense, under the Yeltsin regime the communist-­nationalist coalition failed in the power struggle but succeeded in dominating the political discourse. Finally, as the Yeltsin era progressed, ordinary Russian citizens became extremely alienated from the regime, and the ideational gap between the general public and the regime widened exponentially.123 Any successor regime would have to deal with and repair at least some of the damage that the Yeltsin era had inflicted in alienating the Russian masses. Therefore, whereas the CEE regimes could build upon an established postcommunist ideological framework in the new millennium, the Yeltsin regime’s failure to find a viable regime ideology presented a daunting challenge to the succeeding Putin presidency. Given these two cases of postcommunist regime ideology-­building during the 1990s—­one a relative success and one an overall failure—­it is evident that precommunist and communist history, the international environment, and elite politics all play crucial roles in shaping a regime’s ideological repertoire and elite commitment, which in turn leads to varying outcomes of regime ideology-­building. Within the contemporary context, the two postcommunist giants—­Russia and China—­are still endeavoring to form a viable regime ideology. The next two chapters focus on the ongoing efforts by the Putin regime and the Post-­Deng CCP regime to search for a long-­term regime identity and mission, and explain how they have not yet been successful in reaching this goal.

Chapter 4

Regime Ideology-­Building in Putin’s Russia A Personalistic Approach

Vladimir Putin was handpicked by Boris Yeltsin as his successor to take over the Russian presidency,1 and his regime inherited the Yeltsin era’s constitution and basic political and economic institutions. Yet the Putin regime was far from a mere continuation of the Yeltsin era. While most of the Yeltsin era was marked by chronic political chaos and sharp economic decline, the period since 2000 seemed to have been characterized by relative political stability and, until recently, robust economic growth buoyed by petrodollars and a cheap currency. At the same time, if there was still hope during the Yeltsin era that the country might eventually move toward a more liberal and democratic direction, such hope was largely dashed as the Putin regime’s authoritarianism appeared to stabilize.2 For many observers, the Putin era started with a lot of pragmatism aimed at, first and foremost, the maintenance of political power in domestic affairs and the projection of Russian state power in international affairs.3 This pragmatic approach presumably not only formed a contrast with the Soviet regime’s official ideological commitment to “building socialism”4 but was also different from the early Yeltsin era’s pursuit of radical economic liberalization in the face of severe socioeconomic consequences.5 Nevertheless, despite the Putin regime’s firm grip on power, Russian citizens remained dissatisfied with their institutions even though they accepted them with resignation.6 Moreover, the dominant political party, United Russia, failed to inspire political confidence among the public with any clear guiding ideas. As the country sought to improve its international status while its domestic problems persisted, some key elements within the regime sought a system of ideas to define and promote a distinctive regime 67

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identity that could be viable in the long run. According to Putin’s top aide and one of the Kremlin’s chief ideologists, Vladislav Surkov, “We must have our own political language. . . . If we do not have our own discourse, public philosophy, and ideology acceptable to most (but preferably all) our citizens, then nobody will speak to us (why should they speak to a mute?). If we do not speak, we will not be taken into account.”7 Also, “a bureaucratic way of keeping the country together cannot last, and we will be unable to maintain the country’s integrity without complementing this vertical power with an ‘ideology’ recognized by people.”8 However, despite the emergence of what some have called “Putinism,”9 thus far these efforts have yielded no full-­ blown coherent regime ideology that could justify continuing regime rule and frame a long-­term developmental strategy. This chapter examines the major forces shaping the current Russian regime’s search for a new ideology, and explores the reasons why this process has been so difficult and full of ambiguities. Moreover, it seeks to offer a tentative assessment of the potential implications of this ongoing regime ideology-­building process. The chapter first provides an overview of the successive ideology-­building projects under the Putin regime, exemplified by the promotion of the now-­defunct “sovereign democracy” and the more recent push for conservative “modernization.” It then focuses on major elements of the ideological repertoire the Putin regime drew upon as well as elite commitment to these ideology-­building projects in an attempt to explain why the Putin regime has yet to successfully come up with a distinctive and viable regime ideology. The chapter concludes by summarizing the findings and gauging the prospects for building a regime ideology in the current Russian context. Ideology and the Putin Regime

Even though the Yeltsin era could hardly be called a success when it comes to providing the Russian people with political stability and economic prosperity, the regime did succeed in quickly dismantling formal communist political and economic institutions in a nonviolent fashion, and prevented communist opposition forces from retaking power. At the same time, the regime’s liberal project eventually turned into a self-­mockery as its visions of political and economic Westernization failed to materialize. Consequently, toward the end of the Yeltsin era the Russian regime was in an ideological limbo—­the old had been discarded, but the new did not work. By many measures, compared to the Yeltsin era, the Putin regime was a

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relative success, at least from the regime’s point of view. Economically, the Russian economy recovered robustly after the 1998 meltdown and continued to grow at a healthy rate for almost a decade, mostly due to a rapidly devalued ruble and rising oil prices.10 The situation changed, however, following the 2008 global economic crisis and then more so in late 2014 when Western economic sanctions and falling oil prices started to take a toll. Politically, the Putin regime successfully consolidated power by systematically weakening and suppressing opposition forces and strengthening the central government’s authority. Even at the personal level, Putin’s calculated image of being a strong, resolute leader contrasted sharply with Yeltsin’s often erratic style, contributing to a consistently high popularity rating.11 Significantly, according to the past two decades of New Russian Barometer surveys, which have tracked the changing political perceptions of Russian citizens since the collapse of communism, the proportion of Russians supporting the postcommunist regime was growing and was at the same or an even higher level than popular support for the CEE democracies.12 These apparent successes, however, did not necessarily denote a high level of regime legitimacy.13 Indeed, persistently low levels of public confidence or trust in most national government institutions14 showed that popular support for the regime still very much hinged upon the regime’s ability to deliver desired public goods such as public order, economic security, and social justice—­all of which were linked to a stronger sense of national pride.15 Moreover, it has been argued that the lack of a viable alternative and the passage of time had helped maintain public support for the regime.16 According to a Levada Center survey, between 2000 and March 2015, only a small minority of Russians (averaged around 23%) said the existing political system was the best for the country, far less than those who supported the Soviet system (averaged around 37%) and slightly more than those who supported Western-­style democracy (averaged around 21%).17 Such sentiments could not, and should not, be taken to mean that Russians actually wanted a regime change, but they were an indication that the majority of Russians did not find the current system satisfactory. This suggested that the Putin regime’s durability was far from ensured if the regime’s performance slackened or if support for Putin himself was undermined for any reason. In addition, Putin’s domestic authoritarianism and recent aggressiveness abroad had come under severe international criticism. In this context, despite Putin’s previous claim that he was “against the restoration of an official state ideology in any form,”18 the regime had taken steps to build a new ideology that could justify regime rule and even provide a long-­term basis for domestic and international legitimacy.

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The First Eight Years of Putin’s Presidency

The Russian political system under the first eight years of Putin’s presidency was associated with many labels derived from many different political and scholarly perspectives—­such as “guided democracy,” introduced by pro-­ Kremlin theorists including Gleb Pavlovksy;19 or “managed democracy,” widely used among Western observers.20 Regardless of the exact wording and the terms’ respective origins, the core idea of these labels was the same: “democracy” under the Putin regime was not a Western-­style liberal democracy, but a tightly controlled entity overseen by the regime itself. According to Grigory Yavlinsky, the former head of the liberal Yabloko Party in Russia, “managed democracy” included government control of the mass media, manipulated elections, politically influenced judicial decisions, and the transfer of power from the regions to the Kremlin.21 In other words, this political system’s emphasis was on “guided” and “managed,” rather than on “democracy.” Employing the term “managed pluralism,” Harley Balzer describes the Putin regime as integrating “insistence on a nation’s unique path,” which required strong executive authority, with “ambiguous responses to the diversity accompanying globalization.”22 But unlike many other “competitive authoritarian regimes” or “illiberal democracies”23 that either do not focus upon ideology or rely on preexisting religious or cultural commitments to justify their rule, the Putin regime came up with a series of ideas to justify such a political arrangement. During his 2000 presidential campaign, Putin promised to end the disorder of the Yeltsin era, and his efforts at recentralization were captured in the phrase “dictatorship of the law.” His first annual address to the Federal Assembly also emphasized a stable legal system guaranteed by the state. What kind of policies this “dictatorship of the law” would entail was not immediately self-­evident, but soon it became clear that at its core was the recentralization of political authority—­the “power vertical.” This was reflected in political moves including the regime’s attempts to curtail the collective influence of the oligarchs, who had grown powerful and had cultivated a cozy relationship with the leadership during the Yeltsin era; and the reestablishment of the authority of the central state by weakening the power of regional governors. The idea of “dictatorship of the law” in a sense provided the regime with a broad political action plan, and appealed to the Russian public’s desire for a return of stability and law and order following the chaotic 1990s, but it barely constituted a new “national idea” that could give the regime a clear identity. The subsequent promotion of so-­called sovereign democracy was a step in this direction, and it became

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the centerpiece of the regime’s ideology-­building project during the first eight years of Putin’s presidency. The term “sovereign democracy” was first used by Vladislav Surkov in a 2006 speech titled “Sovereignty as a Political Equivalent of Competitiveness,” delivered to activists of United Russia.24 Surkov suggested that “sovereign democracy” was a political system that suited Russia’s national character, and that Russia should reject “external management.”25 What this meant practically speaking was that the Putin regime’s authoritarian characteristics were entirely justified by Russia’s national character and that the West had no right to judge or criticize Russia’s political system. This echoed Putin’s earlier statement that the “particularities” of Russia meant that Russia would “decide for itself the timeframe and conditions for its progress” toward democracy as “a sovereign nation.”26 Later, Surkov elaborated by arguing for building Russian democracy “as predetermined by the foundational categories and matrix structures of our history, national self-­consciousness, and culture.” Specifically, “the striving for political wholeness and centralized power, the idealization of goals, and the personification of politics” constituted the Russian mind-­set.27 In addition, hoping to capitalize on popular resentment over the privatization of the 1990s, Surkov called for the nationalization of the business elite and the marginalization of the so-­ called offshore aristocracy28—­those who had moved their money and their families abroad. Even though many were unimpressed by its lack of originality, “sovereign democracy” was subsequently incorporated into United Russia’s program statement, and a logo announcing that “United Russia is the party of sovereign democracy” appeared on the home page of the party’s website.29 A number of volumes were released to discuss and promote the idea of “sovereign democracy” in Russia.30 Meeting Putin’s demand for history classes that would make schoolchildren “proud of their motherland,” a widely publicized history teacher’s manual, which contained an entire final chapter on “sovereign democracy,” was published in 2007.31 A few months later, the Ministry of Education and Science approved the controversial high school textbook History of Russia: 1945–­2007, which grew out of the aforementioned manual and provided a view of contemporary Russian history from the perspectives of “sovereign democracy” and the “Russophobia of adjacent states.”32 Its elevation to a near official status notwithstanding,33 “sovereign democracy” remained largely vacuous. Other than emphasizing the importance of a strong state and asserting that Russia should reject all outside—­and, in particular, Western—­interventions, the concept offered no substantive grand vision as to where Russia should be heading, or what kind of long-­

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term developmental strategy it should pursue. Moreover, it is not at all clear what made the “democracy” in “sovereign democracy” still democratic, since a popular dictatorship could well be justified using the same rhetoric. To an extent, this ambiguity could be seen as offering a certain advantage in providing the regime with a flexible ideological framework; too much flexibility, however, revealed a troubling lack of consensus among political elites when it came to many crucial political and economic issues. Even Dmitry Medvedev, a loyal Putin ally, seemed reluctant to embrace “sovereign democracy.” In more than one interview34 before his 2008 election as the Russian president, Medvedev reiterated his preference for speaking about democracy without any adjectives. Although these statements could be interpreted as part of Medvedev’s preelection tactics to establish his liberal credentials and undermine Surkov’s political influence,35 the fact that Putin’s official successor stopped short of endorsing “sovereign democracy” showed that the idea had not yet gained significant traction among many Russian political elites. The promotion of “sovereign democracy” was certainly a step away from the ideological vacuum at the end of the Yeltsin era and toward the construction of a new regime ideology. While liberal democratic regime ideologies had started to take root in many postcommunist CEE countries, “sovereign democracy” helped the Russian regime identify itself against Western-­style liberal democracy. Still, this was far removed from a full-­fledged regime ideology that justifies political and economic institutions and presents concrete long-­term visions. Thus, during the 2007–­8 election cycle, United Russia introduced “Putin’s Plan”36 in an attempt to offer a more detailed description of the regime’s policy agenda, which included the development of Russian civilization; economic modernization; social modernization; and promotion of Russia’s international status. Nevertheless, this “Plan,” as its name indicated, was intimately tied to Putin as an individual leader. A 2007 poll showed that the overwhelming majority of Russians could not describe Putin’s Plan or had even heard of it, while an equally large majority was confident that Putin had one.37 Prior to the 2007 Duma election, United Russia’s leader and Duma Speaker, Boris Gryzlov, proclaimed that “contemporary Russia is Putin,” arguing that without Putin, Russia would be “divided up” and be a country “to whom you can do anything you like.”38 The subsequent election results further indicated that many Russians wanted the country to be led by Putin’s strategy, whatever it was. After his endorsement by United Russia, Medvedev assured Russians that he would faithfully implement Putin’s Plan together with the “author of that strategy.”39 Therefore “Putin’s Plan” seemed inseparable from the person of Putin himself and it was unclear if it could endure at all beyond Putin, let alone constitute a regime ideology.

Regime Ideology-Building in Putin’s Russia  73

Given the Putin regime’s authoritarian character and its extensive control over the domestic media, it had considerable capability to inculcate ideas among both the elites and the masses. Seen in this context, the regime’s inability to come up with a coherent and substantive ideology that could go beyond individual leaders was rather striking. Russian sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya commented in 2008 that Russia under Putin did not have an ideology beyond what she dubbed a “chauvinist nationalism”: “The Soviet Union had global ambitions. It believed in socialism and social justice. Now the main ideological idea is nationalism and anti-­Americanism. There are no positive ideas any more, only negative ones.”40 Because the Russian Constitution prevented Putin from running for a third consecutive term, Dmitry Medvedev, with Putin’s endorsement, came to power committed to continuing the broad outlines of “Putin’s Plan.” With Putin staying on as the prime minister, it was almost certain that Medvedev would not be given free rein to pursue a vastly different course. At the same time, Medvedev’s liberal inclinations meant new rhetoric and experiments in the area of ideational engineering. The Medvedev/Putin “Tandemocracy”

Although he was Putin’s trusted long-­term protégé,41 Medvedev nevertheless had somewhat different policy outlooks and priorities. Putin’s first two terms were necessarily a reaction to the perceived instability and failures under Yeltsin, but the regime also needed a way to move forward and respond to new and continuing challenges. In a sense, Medvedev could be seen as representing the liberal and proreform side of Putin, who had previously put more emphasis on building a strong state with the “power vertical.” But this difference did not turn out to be fundamental, and in retrospect the Medvedev presidency witnessed no significant departure from the political and economic framework formed under the first eight years of Putin’s regime. During the four years of Medvedev/Putin’s rule “in tandem,” Medvedev’s main ideological project was “modernization,” the gist of which was outlined in his programmatic article “Forward, Russia!” published in September 2009.42 The publication of this article followed the 2008 global financial crisis, when the drop in oil prices and the crashing of the capital market delivered a huge blow to the Russian economy,43 exposing the fragility of the country’s previous economic success. Discontent rose among elites whose economic interests had been hurt severely, and there was speculation about a possible rift between Putin and Medvedev.44 In “Forward, Russia!,” Med-

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vedev criticized Russia’s “primitive,” commodity-­based, and therefore unsustainable economy; pervasive and “chronic” corruption; and semi-­Soviet “paternalistic” social system. The solution to these problems, according to Medvedev, was economic modernization and technological innovation. In many of his following speeches, Medvedev further discussed his program of modernization. In 2011, for example, Medvedev insisted that modernization was “the only way to address the many issues before us, and this is why we have set the course of modernizing our national economy, outlined our technology development priorities for the coming years, and set the goal of turning Moscow into one of the world’s major financial centers.” He went on to criticize centralization and stressed the importance of judicial reforms and combating corruption.45 Many of Medvedev’s sharp criticisms of the existing Russian system, albeit never Putin himself, were spot on, but his suggestions regarding how to address these issues were less compelling. His call for economic modernization presented an exciting high-­tech future for Russia, which certainly appealed to the liberal-­leaning segment of the population that was previously alienated by the “Putin majority,”46 but exactly what should be done to achieve these goals was unclear. Indeed, Medvedev’s talk of a modernization project was accompanied not by any substantive institutional reforms of the country’s political and economic systems, but by relatively minor changes including reducing the number of Russia’s time zones; converting the Russian militia to police; and creating business and technology incubators such as the Skolkovo project to build a Russian version of Silicon Valley.47 Arguably the one single important political reform under Medvedev was to extend the presidential term from four to six years. None of these adjustments required any real alteration of the existing political and economic framework. Meanwhile, in apparent contrast to Medvedev’s earlier stated mission of “modernization,” United Russia, now with Putin as its official leader, proclaimed its official ideology as “Russian conservatism,” although one that would be seeking to strengthen its “sovereignty.”48 As both Putin and Medvedev explained at the 2009 United Russia Congress, Russia’s modernization should be brought about without losing traditional values and heritage, or, more important, tampering with the country’s political regime.49 This view echoed a speech by Surkov earlier that year, who argued that although “there are a lot of drawbacks in the fact that a single party is dominant in our country” and that the system “must be modernized,” “the system works” and “it is necessary to accustom ourselves to social institutions whether we like them or not.”50 Some hence dub the central theme of the Medvedev/Putin “tandemocracy” as “conservative modernization”—­the

Regime Ideology-Building in Putin’s Russia  75

idea that Russia would become a modern and independent power based not only on economic diversification and rule of law but also on traditional core values such as a strong state and patriotism, and all this could be achieved while maintaining the existing political system and avoiding political upheaval.51 Thin on substance, this idea was described by critics as “nothing more than ideological window dressing to cover up for the country’s lack of economic strategies and national ideas.”52 The Medvedev presidency nevertheless left its own ideological legacy. “Sovereign democracy,” not surprisingly, was gradually dropped from the official discourse, even though its expressed desire for independence from Western influence very much remained, as evident in the 2008 Georgian crisis, when Medvedev spoke about Russia’s sphere of “privileged interests.”53 Instead, the new ideological project focused on reform and put forth a set of ideas based on “humanism”; restraints on the state’s coercive power; judicial reforms; and promotion of entrepreneurship relatively free from corruption and political influence.54 Although Putin might not have seen eye to eye with Medvedev on all these issues, he was almost certainly in agreement with Medvedev when it comes to the necessity of economic development, further reforms, curbing official corruption, and an assertive foreign policy. Indeed, these elements of the Medvedev era were carried into Putin’s third presidency. The Return of Putin

The year 2012 saw the return of Putin to the Russian presidency, this time with Medvedev as his prime minister. Despite continuing popular support for Putin,55 the 2012 presidential election, compared to the previous two, encountered mounting international and domestic criticism. Coupled with the poorer performance of United Russia in the 2011 parliamentary election56 and the subsequent mass demonstrations, it seemed that the Putin regime’s invincibility could no longer be taken for granted. Under such conditions the regime’s need for ideational justifications appeared all the more urgent. In an interview later in 2012, Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry S. Peskov, said, “Definitely he [Putin] is thinking about ideology. Ideology is very important. Patriotism is very important. Without dedication from people, without trust of people, you cannot expect a positive impact of what you are doing, of your job.”57 In 2013, Putin himself acknowledged that “questions about who we are and who we want to be are increasingly prominent in our society,” and openly called for “a new national idea” at the annual Valdai con-

76  The Return of Ideology

ference.58 Subsequently, lawmakers repeatedly drafted amendments seeking to remove the ban on official state ideology and international guarantees of human rights and liberties from the Russian Constitution.59 Putin’s third term so far has shown a gradual return of the emphasis on building a strong state. Some of the moderate reforms attempted under Medvedev were rolled back, including the judicial reform that was supposed to defeat “legal nihilism.” The Skolkovo project, one of the centerpieces of Medvedev’s “modernization” program, was put under investigation for alleged misuse of state funds. Moreover, Vladislav Surkov, who had been Medvedev’s deputy prime minister, was replaced by his long-­term rival Vyacheslav Volodin, a conservative hardliner who was associated with the siloviki60 and preferred heavy-­handed tactics.61 In addition, while continuing to suppress opposition, the regime launched a large-­scale anticorruption campaign with the understanding that widespread corruption was eroding its popular support. All this reflected Putin’s determination to reaffirm his hegemonic status in shaping Russian politics. This renewed commitment to strong statism, however, did not mean the regime was able to break substantive new ground on the ideational front. Putin’s ideological platform continued to be defined by a familiar blend of building a strong state, upholding Russia’s “traditional values,” and rejection of Western intervention. In an emotional article titled “Russia in Focus: The Challenges We Must Face” published in the Russian national daily Izvestia in 2012, the then prime minister and presidential candidate Putin criticized the “major economic centers” that were trying to “export democracy” “with the help of force and military measures,” and called for a “deserving” role for Russia that was “dictated by its civilization model, great history, geography, and its cultural genome, which seamlessly combines the fundamentals of European civilization and the centuries-­old experience of cooperation with the East.” What exactly this role should be, however, was not specified.62 During his 2012 address to the Federal Assembly following his reelection, Putin stressed the importance of “traditional values,” ideology, and character, evoking “national and spiritual identity” and Russian traditions passed from one generation to the next.63 His vague mention of the “inner strength” found in centuries of Russian history aside, it was not clear what Putin’s call for a “revival of national consensus” would entail. Ironically, given that “sovereign democracy” had been cast aside by the regime, the basic idea it embodied remained palpable in the speech. “For Russia there is no and can be no other political choice than democracy,” he said, and then made it plain that Russian “democracy” meant “the power of the Russian people with their own traditions of self-­rule and not the fulfillment of standards imposed on us from outside,” and that “[c]ontrol is without doubt the most

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important function of the state.” Putin reiterated and elaborated on some of these points at the 2013 Valdai conference, which focused on the issue of Russian identity and values. In his speech, Putin repeatedly invoked traditional “moral norms” and “Christian values” while criticizing the moral decadence of the West.64 During the Ukraine Crisis and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, anti-­ Western sentiment based on a stereotypical depiction of the West as being in opposition to Russia’s “traditional values” came to occupy a central place in Putin’s ideology-­building.65 Putin framed the Russian annexation of Crimea, which was condemned by the West as illegal, as a rectification of historical injustice against Russia, while accusing the West of containing Russia and “acting irresponsibly and unprofessionally.”66 These themes were again driven home by Putin at the 2014 Valdai conference, in which the United States was portrayed as an irresponsible revisionist hegemon and a practitioner of “legal nihilism” internationally.67 All this showed no real ideational difference from Putin’s earlier emphasis on building a strong state free from Western intervention. Beyond Putin’s authoritarian control and rejection of Western values, what kind of specific long-­term political and economic programs would constitute a “strong state” in Russia was never truly explained. From “dictatorship of the law” to “sovereign democracy” to “conservative modernization,” the regime did try to move beyond the post-­Yeltsin need for restoring order and stability to providing the country with an agenda forward. Nevertheless, how such an agenda could be implemented by concrete policies that would endure beyond Putin himself and his patronage networks remained a huge question mark. As issues of national identity remain as unsettled as those of regime identity in Russia, this trend was also reflected in the ever-­expanding contemporary Russian literature on Russian national identity, which offered no clear answer to what kind of policies the state should pursue.68 Many years had passed since Putin first came to power, but a coherent regime ideology that could give the postcommunist Russian regime a distinctive identity and a long-­term mission beyond individual leaders continued to elude the regime. The next two sections will look at the two key elements leading to this current conundrum—­the ideological repertoire the Putin regime has been drawing upon, and the elite commitment to the regime’s ideological projects. Ideological Repertoire and the Russian Past(s)

As Yury Afanasyev, a Russian liberal historian, states in Novaya Gazeta, “The attitude toward the past is the central element of any ideology.”69 The cur-

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rent Russian regime is keenly aware of the ideological importance of history, as Putin claimed that the views expressed in the course of teaching history would “determine the attitude in society to what we are doing today, to our short-­and medium-­term plans, as well as our strategy for a longer historical period”70—­essentially leading to a regime ideology. The official manipulation of Russian history for ideological purposes could not be more evident under the Soviet Union, when state-­issued history books denounced and rehabilitated different phases of Russian history and historical personalities as a result of the changing political atmosphere. Hence the sardonic joke among Soviet citizens, “The future is known. It is the past that keeps changing.” Being either “for” or “against” any existing legacies and institutions cannot but shape the ideological repertoire available to a regime. In the case of the Putin regime, the “past” that must be confronted is threefold—­it is composed of the pre-­Soviet era, the Soviet era, and the Yeltsin era. To further complicate matters, among these three distinctive pasts the second radically diverged from the first, and the third attempted to make a complete break with the second. Given the failures of these previous attempts to reject the preceding era, the Putin regime embarked on its search for a new regime ideology without trying to completely renounce any of these pasts. As will be shown below, however, the regime’s attempts to broaden its ideological repertoire temporarily increased its popular appeal at the expense of its overall ideological coherence. The Pre-­Soviet Era

Traditional Russian nationalism, or at least elements of it, had never fully disappeared from the successive Russian regimes’ ideational projects, even under the revolutionary communist regimes of Lenin and Stalin. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, in an attempt to play up the historical continuity between the new regime and the pre-­Soviet era despite the Soviet aberration, Yeltsin rehabilitated many key elements of traditional Russian nationalism, especially the conservative Russian Orthodox Church. Similarly, the Putin regime made attempts to capitalize on the pre-­Soviet era in building a regime ideology, though with a somewhat different accent. While Yeltsin focused more on the liberal strands within Russian political traditions, as evidenced by his liberal reforms, Putin and Medvedev tried to combine the liberal tradition, especially in economic affairs, with an emphasis on the cultural and historical distinctiveness of Russia. Compared to the Yeltsin presidency, the Putin regime appealed to tra-

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ditional Russian nationalism in an even more explicit way. Its emphasis on building a strong state effectively drew upon the legacy of Russian authoritarian and communitarian traditions. During a speech on the eve of his elevation to the post of acting president in 1999, Putin stressed the importance of “patriotism’ and the “belief in the greatness of Russia” in forming a new “Russian idea,” which would be “an alloy or an organic unification of universal general humanitarian values with traditional Russian values which have stood the test of the times, including the test of the turbulent 20th century.”71 In his first annual address to the Federal Assembly following his election, Putin declared that “the only real choice for Russia is the choice of a . . . country that is strong and confident of itself,” and that “the unity of Russia is strengthened by the patriotism inherent in our people, by cultural traditions and common historical memory.”72 In 2005, a new holiday, National Unity Day, was introduced by the Kremlin to commemorate the 1612 uprising in Moscow to liberate the Kremlin from Polish occupiers, marking the beginning of the rise of the centralized Russian state. In a highly symbolic gesture by the regime, this new holiday replaced another national holiday, which occurred on November 7 and formerly commemorated the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Despite Medvedev’s liberal leanings, this trend largely continued during his four-­year presidency. When Medvedev came to power, he touted Russia’s “spiritual and moral heritage” such as the traditional family, a strong state, patriotism, a “belief in Russia,” and great-­power independence.73 The 2009 announcement by United Russia that its official ideology was “Russian conservatism” highlighted the Russian tradition of a strong state led by a strong leader. In a 2010 interview with the Russian national daily Izvestia, Medvedev emphasized that, without going against universal values, Russian democracy should correspond to “Russian traditions.”74 After Putin won his third term, “traditional values” and Russian “national and spiritual identity” featured even more prominently in the regime’s rhetoric. At a 2012 meeting that renewed a national push for “patriotic education,” Putin said the conflict over “cultural identity, spiritual and moral values and moral codes” had become a field of intense battle between Russia and its foes. “Distortion of the national, historic and moral consciousness more than once led the whole state to weakness, collapse and loss of sovereignty.”75 In his speeches, Putin frequently quoted Russian conservative nationalist philosophers such as Nikolai Berdyaev, Vladimir Solovyov, and Ivan Ilyin.76 The Kremlin even sent a recommended reading list of these philosophers to the regional governors over the 2014 New Year’s holiday.77 The Putin regime’s heavy reliance on “traditional Russian values” and its

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championing of “conservatism” clearly aimed to appeal to popular Russian sentiments. According to a 2008 Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) poll, “national conservatism,” described as “the protection of traditional Russian values, national independence and self-­reliance, the reinforcement of a strong power, and the protection of interests of Russians,” was the most popular ideology among Russians, supported by 33 percent of those polled. This number was significantly higher than the 24 percent who were supporters of “leftwing socialist ideas,” and 14 percent who shared “rightwing liberal ideas, economic freedom, human rights, political democracy, and closer ties with the West.”78 Although both the state-­funded VTsIOM and the survey came under criticism for confirming the views of United Russia,79 it was undeniable that some of the ideas embodied by the regime’s version of “conservatism” resonated with many Russians. Even though the Russian Constitution explicitly prohibits having a state religion, the regime fostered close ties between the Russian state and the Orthodox Church—­a core symbol of traditional Russian identity.80 Under Putin, the Orthodox Church had been granted a spiritual monopoly in the armed forces, and classes in Orthodox Christianity were made mandatory in many regions.81 On various occasions, Putin openly praised the Church’s special role in the “uniting of the Russian world” and its important contribution to “the national and spiritual identity of Russians,” and pledged continuing comprehensive state support for the Church.82 Following the enthronement of Patriarch Kirill I in early 2009, Medvedev was shown on Russian television calling the Orthodox Church the historical and future source of “the moral forces of the Russian nation,” while emphasizing the Church’s “enormous contribution to the formation of Russian statehood, to the development of the national culture and to the assertion of spiritual and moral values in society.”83 In 2011, Patriarch Kirill was granted official residence in the Kremlin. In return for the regime’s favors, the Church remained politically loyal to the Kremlin and supported the official view that Russia’s unique historical role made it unsuited for Western-­style liberal democracy.84 Patriarch Kirill openly endorsed Putin’s third run for president, calling Putin a “miracle from God” who had “rectified the crooked path of history.” As a leading Orthodox Church official, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, said in 2012, “The Western idea that the state and the church should be slight rivals and slight enemies is both bizarre and incorrect from an Orthodox point of view,” and “[w]e have . . . teachings about harmony, cooperation and agreement between the state and the church.”85 In 2013, the Orthodox Church awarded Putin with a prize for turning Russia into “a powerful and strong country that has self-­respect and is respected by others.”86

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This close relationship between the Church and the regime seems set to continue as long as Putin remains in power. In 2013, in an apparent move to appeal to conservative religious forces, Putin signed laws banning “blasphemy,” “gay propaganda” to minors, and adoption by same-­sex couples. These laws led to an international uproar, which was promptly dismissed by Putin, who claimed that the laws were a conservative bastion against an assault of “genderless and fruitless so-­called tolerance” that “equals good and evil.”87 During his Valdai speech in the same year, Putin specifically emphasized the importance of upholding Christianity and traditional religious values if Russia were to preserve its identity and avoid moral decadence and demographic decline.88 In his 2014 speech to a joint parliamentary session on the annexation of Crimea, Putin openly appealed to patriotism and praised Orthodoxy as “the overall basis of the culture, civilization and human values that united the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.”89 At the Valdai conference later that year, Putin once again called “consolidating society based on traditional values and patriotism” a priority for Russia.90 Therefore, although the top regime leaders, such as Putin and Medvedev, largely refrained from open appeals to Russian or Slavic ethnicity, their promotion of powerful symbols of traditional Russian nationalism revealed the regime’s determination to build up its historical legitimacy among the ethnic Russian majority in the country—­even as these measures tended to encourage intolerance and exclusionary ethnic nationalism in a multiethnic and multireligious setting.91 The regime’s heavy use of the Orthodox Church to enhance its claim of representing Russian historical continuity paradoxically exposed its own lack of confidence in its long-­term legitimacy. Russian history, meanwhile, was hardly “continuous,” and the regime would have to deal with another important legacy—­the Soviet era. The Soviet Era

The Soviet era is not yet in “the dustbin of history,” at least in the minds of many Russians. A VTsIOM survey in 2012 showed 56 percent of Russians still regretted the dissolution of the Soviet Union, although the number was almost 10 percent less than a decade ago.92 This result was corroborated by a 2014 survey by Pew Global Research, which showed that 55 percent of Russians agreed with the statement that “it is a great misfortune that the Soviet Union no longer exists.”93 According to a poll by the Levada Center in 2013, over half of Russians believed the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was the best head of state in the past century, followed by Lenin and Stalin. Gorbachev

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and Yeltsin ended up at the bottom of the list.94 Not surprisingly, as discussed in the previous chapter, the Yeltsin regime’s wholly negative attitude toward the 74-­year-­long Soviet era encountered strong resistance in Russian society, and contributed to its failure to build a viable regime ideology. Realizing that many Soviet ideational legacies still remained meaningful to a large number of Russians, the Putin regime moved swiftly to partially reconcile with the Soviet past. One of its first steps, and a highly symbolic one, was to restore the popular Soviet anthem, albeit with new lyrics. In explaining this move, Putin made the regime’s position clear: “if we accept the fact that in no way could we use the symbols of the previous epochs including the Soviet one, then we must admit that our mothers and fathers lived useless and senseless lives, that they lived their lives in vain. I can’t accept it either with my mind or my heart.”95 Along with the anthem, the Soviet Red Army’s red star was also restored as a symbol of the Russian Army. The regime went on to announce a “patriotism education” program to reshape the educational system with new textbooks, influence the mass media, and create a network of Soviet-­style “military-­patriotic” youth clubs around the country.96 In his 2005 address to the Federal Assembly, Putin famously deplored the collapse of the Soviet Union as “a major geopolitical disaster” of the 20th century, while claiming that “our place in the modern world” would “only depend on how strong and successful we are.”97 At the same time, the role of the Federal Security Service (FSB, the successor to the KGB) was greatly strengthened in the government and armed forces as part of the restoration of a strong state, which is seen by the regime as the key to a Russian renaissance.98 The Soviet victory in World War II—­known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War—­is a historic event that resonates deeply among the Russian people, and the Putin regime exploited this sentiment to the maximum. Based on a VTsIOM survey in 2008, the majority (60%) of Russians believed that the Great Patriotic War was the biggest event of the 20th century.99 The regime certainly wanted to capitalize on the Russian people’s genuine sense of pride in the Soviet wartime victory to boost its popularity. At a 2007 conference for humanities and social sciences teachers, Putin claimed that Russian history “did contain some problematic pages. But so did other states’ histories! And we had less than some others. And they were not as terrible as some others. . . . We shouldn’t allow anyone to impose a sense of guilt on us.”100 Such an ambivalent attitude was clearly reflected on the regime’s treatment of the Soviet Union’s wartime leader, Joseph Stalin.101 According to Lev Gudkov, the Levada Center’s director, the Putin regime has “very quietly and equivocally” improved the image of Stalin and the Soviet era, tying

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Stalin to the Allied victory in World War II and praising the modernization that took place on his watch.102 Putin publicly acknowledged that Stalin was a dictator and that the Stalin regime had some “negative sides,” and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, which traced the history of the system of Soviet labor camps that reached a height under Stalin, was made required reading in high school. But the regime also promoted the image of Stalin as an effective leader responsible for the defeat of the Nazis. When asked about Stalin’s place in Russian history by Polish journalists in 2002, Putin acknowledged that Stalin was a dictator and then said, “The problem is that it was under his leadership that this country won World War II. . . . It would be stupid to ignore that.”103 During his annual call-­in television show in 2009,104 Putin declared that it was “impossible to make a judgment in general” about Stalin, and praised Stalin for winning the war and making the country a superpower even though it was achieved at too high a price.105 Later he also defended the signing of Molotov-­Ribbentrop pact, calling it one of the “methods of international politics” commonly adopted by other European nations.106 Under Putin, the recent anniversaries of Victory Day were prominently and lavishly celebrated, with Soviet symbols such as red banners, red stars and the hammer-­and-­sickle emblem proudly displayed. In 2008, the regime restored the Soviet-­era Red Square military parade, which had ended after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, not only to mark the victory but also to demonstrate its military might and signal to the world Russia’s return as a major military power. This move was approved by a large majority of Russians, according to VTsIOM.107 During his various victory parade speeches, Putin repeatedly emphasized the importance of patriotism, loyalty to “the motherland,” and the defense of its interests. In the new Russian history textbook unveiled by a working group headed by the State Duma Speaker, Sergei Naryshkin, in 2013, Stalin became a “modernizer,” while the democratic achievements of Gorbachev and Yeltsin were ignored, and Putin was portrayed as a hero who had restored Russia’s greatness.108 Any assessments of World War II that deviated from the official view were labeled, in Putin’s own words, as “a disgrace” and “ideological garbage.”109 Accordingly, a law was passed in 2014 making “spreading of knowingly false information on the activities of the Soviet Union during the Second World War” a criminal offense.110 At the same time, in order to improve its relationship with the West and the postcommunist CEE states, as well as to lend credence to its proclaimed “democratic” identity, the regime, especially during the Medvedev presidency, had come to acknowledge and condemn some of the worst Soviet

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atrocities, including police corruption, prison torture, and crimes such as the Katyn Massacre.111 Putin recognized the “negative consequences” of the postwar imposition of communism on the CEE countries, which was “nothing good,” before he went on to criticize the United States for attempting the same all over the world.112 To be sure, some Soviet symbols and traditions were revived by the regime not because of their connection to communism, but because what they represented—­stability, continuity, and power—­held a strong appeal to many Russians. According to various polls by the Levada Center, despite the Stalin regime’s atrocities, many Russians still believe that Stalin played a positive role in the history of the country.113 A 2013 opinion survey commissioned by the Carnegie Endowment found that Stalin was more popular in Russia now than at the end of the Soviet Union.114 For many ethnic Russians, the sense of loss and humiliation that resulted from the Soviet Union’s disintegration was further compounded under the Yeltsin era by political instability, economic recession, and the liberal elite’s negative depiction of Russia’s historical distinctiveness.115 Understandably, with Putin promising strong leadership, many still held on to the hope that Russia would regain the great power status once enjoyed by the Soviet Union.116 Given such a context, it was not surprising that Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia and 2014 annexation of Crimea both enjoyed overwhelming popular support. Putin and Medvedev publicly and strongly condemned communism on multiple occasions, and were certainly not communists. The regime’s restoration of selective Soviet traditions and icons were not attempts to resurrect the Soviet era, but represented a way to connect Russia’s past and present to the majority of Russians who had previously felt marginalized and disappointed by Yeltsin’s liberalizing reforms. The restored symbols and traditions were linked less with specific communist characteristics of the Soviet era than with the overall image of the Soviet Union as a strong state that maintained domestic order and stability and was a great world power that wielded considerable influence in the region and beyond. This is the very image that the current Russian regime has tried hard to emulate and incorporate into its present post-­Soviet identity. The Yeltsin Era

Among Russia’s three “pasts,” the Yeltsin era is the briefest and the most recent. In many ways, the strong statism of the Putin regime was a reaction to the instability and confusion generated by the ill-­implemented radical lib-

Regime Ideology-Building in Putin’s Russia  85

eralization program of the Yeltsin era. In the eyes of most Russians, Yeltsin’s presidency was crisis-­ridden compared to the relative stability of the Putin era,117 and this negative popular impression of the 1990s has been deliberately reinforced by the Putin regime to its own advantage. Leading politicians and the mass media in contemporary Russia frequently labeled the 1990s as a time of chaos, “national humiliation,” and “a failed state.” Moreover, the Putin regime’s selective restoration of Soviet ideational legacies and its studied ambivalence toward the Soviet era formed a striking contrast with the Yeltsin regime’s position of total rejection and unequivocal condemnation. Finally, the Yeltsin regime’s enthusiastic embrace of the Western value system was replaced by the Putin regime’s skepticism and insistence on Russia’s right to follow a more distinctive developmental path. The Putin regime, nevertheless, was far from a complete break with the Yeltsin era. After all, Putin was chosen by Yeltsin as his successor to take over the presidency. The regime preserved the Yeltsin era’s constitution and basic political and economic institutions. Instead of seeking a third consecutive term by amending the constitution, which he was fully capable of, Putin did choose to abide by it and step down from the presidency in 2008. Ideologically, the Putin regime also kept important elements from the Yeltsin era. While rejecting Western-­style democracy, which was an ideal publicly championed by Yeltsin, the current Russian regime nevertheless accepted the Western emphasis on international economic standards and the “universal values” of private property and entrepreneurship drawn from the West.118 Putin himself insisted that Russia’s role in the world had to be based on its economic capabilities, not just on its military might and territorial expansion.119 In his 2002 address to the Federal Assembly, Putin called for closer integration among former Soviet republics for the purpose of “receiving . . . specific advantages on world markets.”120 For all its rhetoric on Russian exceptionalism, the regime was clearly eager to reap economic benefits from the international economy. At an international economic forum in 2005, Putin emphasized that “ensuring a high economic growth rate” remained the priority, and that it would be “impossible without integrating the country with [the] global economy,” although it “should be done on the precondition that this state’s sovereignty is preserved inviolable.”121 Even after Russia’s relationship with the West turned markedly sour following the Ukraine Crisis, Putin repeatedly stressed the regime’s willingness to participate in international economic bodies such as the World Trade Organization, as well as to improve “democratic and open economy institutions.”122 Significantly, Putin’s choice of Dmitry Medvedev, a liberal economic reformer and someone with no background in the security forces, as his second-­in-­command,

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no doubt appealed to the liberal-­leaning Westernizers in Russia. Its continuing political authoritarianism notwithstanding, the present Russian regime remains largely committed to a market economy and further global economic integration, at least to the extent that such commitments do not undermine the regime’s grip on power domestically and internationally.123 Many Russians look upon their country’s history with great pride.124 However, Russian history, just like any other history, is full of inconsistencies and contradictions. Profound disagreements exist among Russians over diverse aspects of Russia’s complicated historical heritage. According to Russian historian Gennady Bordyugov, Russia will continue to face “memory wars” for years to come, and deep divides remain over how to “say farewell” to the Soviet and imperial pasts or face their “re-­animation in new forms,” especially when “the transition from ‘Soviet’ to ‘Russian’ is far from completion.”125 To build a new regime ideology, the current Russian regime has tried to broaden its ideological repertoire by attempting to reconcile with all its three historical pasts that were dramatically different from each other: the pre-­ Soviet era, the Soviet era, and the post-­Soviet Yeltsin era. As Putin stressed when discussing common history textbooks for schoolchildren, Russian history should be presented around “a single concept,” follow “a single logic of continuous Russian history,” and with “respect towards all the episodes of our past.” Moreover, such textbooks should be “free from internal contradictions and ambiguities.”126 In the context of mounting tension with the West following the Ukraine Crisis, the regime further restricted debates over Russia’s historical memory and suppressed dissenting voices.127 This strategy has achieved partial success in that the regime has been able to appeal to the nationalistic inclination shared by many Russians with different backgrounds and provide them with more of a sense of continuity compared to the Yeltsin era. In particular, the regime’s instrumental use of nationalism struck a powerful chord on two widely shared sentiments among Russians: the first was the Soviet victory over Nazism in World War II as a positive experience, and the second was a reluctance for Russia to be a secondary power politically and militarily surrounded by the West, such as in the form of NATO’s eastward expansion. The partial success of this strategy was reflected in the fact that despite United Russia’s image of being a “party of crooks and thieves,”128 its supporters represented a cross-­section, very similar to the way in which Putin’s own support drew almost without differentiation on all social categories.129 Putin himself, as Yuri Levada once famously put, “is a mirror in which everyone, communist or democrat, sees what he wants to see and what he hopes for.”130 Yet this was done at the ex-

Regime Ideology-Building in Putin’s Russia  87

pense of the coherence of the regime’s ideological repertoire, as evidenced by the substantive vacuity of eclectic concepts such as “sovereign democracy” and “conservative modernization.”131 The three “pasts” that the regime tried to capitalize on did not share much in common ideationally except a general sense of Russia being an independent great power—­and that became the core of the various ideology-­building projects under the Putin regime. The other major ideational elements in the regime’s repertoire, such as conservative ethnic nationalism (which is ethnically oriented), authoritarian statism (which is state-­oriented), and globalizing market liberalism (which is Western-­oriented), could certainly coexist, but they fell short of complementing each other and constituting a coherent long-­term vision that could give the regime a clear and meaningful identity. The regime’s attempt to reconcile Russia’s antagonisms, although making it acceptable to divergent forces, simultaneously confined the regime to paradoxical stances.132 The result, in the words of a Russian historian, was “not a synthesis, but a construct full of controversies, based on the principle of ignoring problems and disregarding responsibility.”133 In this sense, the Putin regime’s pragmatic eclecticism produced only a series of convenient, but no more than temporary, ideological expedients. Whether the regime will be able to eventually come up with a more coherent ideological repertoire remains to be seen. Elite Commitment and Regime Ideology-­Building in Putin’s Russia

Putin claimed that he wanted to build a strong state based on a “power vertical,” yet the Russian political elites were by no means a well-­organized hierarchical group. There were existing and potential splits between central and regional elites; progovernment and opposition elites; elites with backgrounds in the security services and those without; and Putin’s own circle and everyone else. Moreover, such divisions were not clear-­cut and were frequently changing.134 Even among the top elites surrounding Putin, intense rivalry and competition remain constant.135 In fact, one crucial factor in Putin’s political success was his ability to manage elites’ internal differences and moderate among key factions and players. Within the span of a few years, the “presidential party”—­United Russia—­had become a big-­tent, catch-­all party that embodied a sort of election-­winning consensus among elites that occupy positions of power.136 Currently, the majority of political elites in Russia seem to be supportive of the Putin regime or at least willing to operate within its established rules, and the opposition forces remain marginalized. But does this mean that the Russian political elites are com-

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mitted to the regime’s ideology-­building projects? To answer this important question, this section examines the continuing ideational fragmentation and the increasing personalization of elite politics since the end of the Yeltsin era, and assesses the level of commitment of these political elites at present and in the future. Continuing Ideational Fragmentation of Russian Political Elites

Toward the end of the Yeltsin era, elite politics in Russia was characterized by fierce infighting and the progressive isolation of the top leadership. When Putin came to power, he inherited a political system that was marked by deep corruption, and a group of fragmented and largely self-­serving political elites, many of whom turned out to be quite flexible and “pragmatic” in cooperating with the regime despite their prior ideological reputations.137 As a kind of “normalizing” reaction to the Yeltsin era’s rapid and destabilizing transition,138 the Putin regime quickly injected a greater sense of confidence and continuity into the country’s political elites, who subsequently gravitated toward “the party of power”—­Unity and later United Russia—­and its cooperative partners.139 Compared to the Yeltsin era, the Putin era appeared much more stable and predictable, with a strong and popular president and a recovering economy, even though the regime’s fundamental institutional weaknesses remained. The regime also made a number of moves to rein in political elites and consolidate state power, which proved effective to the extent that most Russian political elites, including many “liberals,” seemed supportive of the regime, and those who did not were sidelined. This political outcome, however, was more an indication of the Russian political elites’ cynical “pragmatism”—­the calculation that they would benefit politically and economically from their support for the regime—­rather than an indication of genuine unity based on shared ideological convictions about the country’s future. The lack of ideological conviction among many Russian elites was evidenced by the ease with which they shifted their slogan from “sovereign democracy” to “modernization” a few years later.140 According to analyses of elite recruitment patterns in Russia, the new Russian elites at different government levels were characterized more by technocratic administration than by representing the diverse interests contained within society.141 Moreover, support for the regime was also generated by a common fear among political elites, even those wary of the regime, that politics without Putin might well turn out to be much worse in the contemporary

Regime Ideology-Building in Putin’s Russia  89

Russian context. The impact of the unstable Yeltsin era in terms of shortening political elites’ time horizon was hard to reverse, and many of them remained skeptical of any grand designs for the future.142 Most important, the historically rooted ideational divide among political elites remained, as no consensus developed within the regime over whether Russia should liberalize further in order to be accepted into the West, or pursue an independent developmental path and build an alternative non-­ Western world order.143 Internationally, this was reflected in the ongoing debate among elites about the place Russia should occupy in the world, in which the key issue was whether Russia should follow the path of the West or pursue its own path while taking into account its own historical and geographical uniqueness. Domestically, even within a dominant party packed with Putin loyalists—­United Russia—­multiple factions exist, reflecting the party’s ideological heterogeneity.144 This heterogeneity could only get worse as the party recently tried to lure new recruits and discredit critics by incorporating a “liberal” platform.145 As Putin had backgrounds in both the security services and in the government of St. Petersburg, the political elites within the Putin regime could be roughly divided into two broad “meta” categories—­the siloviki and the liberals/technocrats. Each of them was far from a cohesive group and instead consisted of multiple factions and “subfactions” connected through intricate patronage ties; many of those factions were quite fluid and often in conflict with each other.146 In general, there were vast differences between the siloviki’s priorities of control and order and the liberal-­leaning reformers’ desire to build a civil state and open up Russia to the West. The current regime remained stable largely because Putin was able to strike a political balance between these diverse groups of elites with different ideological and policy preferences. But it was an unstable equilibrium, even as neither camp wanted to “reset” the current system.147 While the siloviki, as represented by Sergei Ivanov and Igor Sechin, dominated the military, the FSB, and the oil industry,148 the liberals and technocrats within the regime, as represented by Medvedev, controlled most economic and financial institutions and the natural gas sector.149 The 2008–­12 “tandemocracy” to an extent exacerbated the existing elite fragmentation as a result of an unclear division of power, which generated considerable elite uncertainty and contributed to the crisis of 2011 and 2012, when large-­scale protests supported by some dissatisfied political elites took place.150 If Medvedev’s 2008 ascension to the presidency tilted the balance in favor of the liberals and the technocrats, the recent Ukraine Crisis seemed to shift the balance back in favor of the siloviki. The fact that these political forces were able to

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coexist within the Putin regime, however, did not mean that they were able to resolve their considerable ideational differences. Putin’s third term only intensified such differences; many who had hoped for further reforms were disappointed.151 There were signs that the Russian leadership was mindful of the severe lack of ideological unity among political elites and was attempting to address it. For example, according to Vedomosti, Russia’s leading business daily, the Kremlin organized a series of educational seminars in 2014 for officials of the presidential administration on ideological issues ranging from Russian conservatism and conservative policies to the history of Russian patriotism.152 Later, similar lectures on conservative ideas were given to mayors, governors, Duma deputies, and United Russia activists. According to participants, the lectures explained the Russian tradition of conservatism, which emphasized “gradual progress based on traditional, including Christian, values and the sacrifice of public officials,” and discussed how to use conservatism to attract voters. Stalin was portrayed as embodying “elements of conservatism.” In the post-­Soviet context, conservatism was described as having been revived by Yevgeny Primakov and consolidated by Putin and Medvedev.153 Whether such efforts to instill a sense of ideological unity among political elites would yield any long-­term results was hard to tell. For now, the idea that Russia’s international status should be that of a modern great power became the “lowest common denominator on which elites could agree.”154 Beyond that, the only commitment most political elites shared was probably the commitment to survive and gain as much as possible in a political environment that seemed stable for the time being but fundamentally depended on cronyistic and personalistic power arrangements. It is to this intensifying personalization of elite politics in postcommunist Russia that we now turn. Increasing Personalization of Elite Politics in Putin’s Russia

A number of leading scholarly works on postcommunist Russian political elites seem to share a consensus on what might be called the personal nature of Russian politics. It has been observed that state practices in Russia were mostly based on informal and often opaque networks and circles rather than formal and transparent institutions and laws, even though the latter did partially constrain the former.155 Informal politics was neither new nor unique to Russian politics, but had deep roots in traditional community-­oriented social relations in Russia.156 Under the Yeltsin era, Russian politics remained

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highly personalistic, and whatever elite support there was for the regime was largely based on patron-­client relationships. Despite the enormous formal power concentrated in the hands of the president, toward the end of the Yeltsin era the top leadership was increasingly unable to keep political infighting among elites in check and became politically isolated.157 Unlike the Yeltsin regime, the Putin regime, its heavy-­handedness notwithstanding, genuinely appealed to many political elites for its promises of providing domestic order and stability and restoring Russia’s international prestige. But at a fundamental level, the personalization of elite politics continued and even intensified during the Putin era.158 By late 2007, 65 of the top positions in the 30 main federal ministries and agencies were occupied by officials who had worked with Putin in St. Petersburg at some point.159 As the Communist Party of the Russian Federation leader Gennady Zyuganov wryly observed, “There are lots of professionals in this country, but Putin’s benchwarmers are all from St. Petersburg.”160 In fact, compared to the Yeltsin regime, the Putin regime was in a much stronger position when dealing with political elites, with higher levels of popularity, more centralized power, and more monetary resources generated by petrodollars.161 First, under the current Russian regime, in addition to a political system marked by intricate personal ties, there was an increasing fusion of “power and property,” as indicated by the fact that almost all the key economic and corporate positions were occupied by representatives of the political ruling circle. The power networks that used to be mostly aimed at obtaining privileges had become closely oriented toward monetary income and capital.162 In 2008, Vedomosti estimated that the political personal allies of the president headed the boards of companies that together accounted for 40 percent of the country’s economy.163 A prominent example was Igor Sechin, a close Putin ally and a former deputy prime minister, who was simultaneously chief executive officer of Rosneft and head of the presidential energy commission. Typically, the boards of directors of large state-­owned companies consist of government representatives, members of the presidential administration, and the siloviki.164 According to the 2014 “crony-­capitalism index” created by the Economist, Russia scored the worst among the world’s big economies.165 Many political elites were therefore heavily invested in the status quo under the Putin regime. Moreover, the regime was able to use personnel arrangements to effectively co-­opt some political elites that could potentially challenge it. One prominent example was Putin’s 2012 incorporation of leaders of the Duma opposition into the State Council, as opposition figures called for protests and the government feared further political instability. This move was seen

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by many as an attempt to politically neutralize potential challengers ahead of the regional and mayoral elections later in the year.166 Another example was the political co-­optation of the popular nationalist Dmitry Rogozin, the former head of the right-­wing Rodina Party, first as Russia’s ambassador to NATO and then as Putin’s deputy prime minister. Finally, under the current Russian regime, the siloviki became a larger and more influential group among political elites. According to some estimates, no more than 8 percent of those who held leadership positions in the Gorbachev years had a declared military or security background, but this number grew to 25 percent under Yeltsin and 42 percent by the end of Putin’s second term in 2008.167 After a temporary dip under Medvedev’s presidency, the number rebounded to 47 percent during Putin’s third term.168 Many of Russia’s largest companies and media organizations were also headed by former security forces men with personal ties to Putin. Although the siloviki, who, despite their image of preserving a high level of in-­group solidarity and loyalty, are far from an undifferentiated group with one common agenda,169 their political and economic prominence contributed to the political elites’ subservience to the regime. Therefore, the apparent elite support the current regime commanded was based upon extensive and carefully configured personalistic and cronyistic power arrangements. This also largely characterized the Kremlin’s relationships with many of the country’s regional governors,170 including, most notoriously, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who called himself “Putin’s man” and claimed toward the end of Putin’s second term that “we must kneel to Putin and ask him to remain and to continue ruling the state.”171 In addition, unlike Yeltsin, whose sacked officials often ended up in the opposition, Putin has been careful in “recycling” dismissed elites through the Federation Council or the Duma to keep them from turning against the regime.172 There were certainly a number of well-­trained professional bureaucrats in Russia who were willing to work for the country, but the general political system, much driven by personality, has only encouraged short-­term self-­interested behavior. The problem of official corruption had become so rampant173 that Putin promised a “firm and consistent”174 anticorruption campaign to drum up public support, starting with the sacking of the defense minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, in late 2012.175 A new anticorruption department was established in the presidential administration, which already had an anticorruption council, in late 2013. But a thorough campaign to root out corruption would only fatally undermine the foundation of the very system that his power rested upon. So far, this system has worked as the regime has yet to face domestic

Regime Ideology-Building in Putin’s Russia  93

political challenges serious enough to threaten its survival. However, such a system could not and will not be able to solve the problem of ideational fragmentation among the Russian political elites, making it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for them to overcome the problem of collective action in order to cooperate with each other over a common ideological project sponsored by the regime. The patrimonial contract between the regime leadership and the political elites had not changed fundamentally since the Yeltsin era. Although the regime apparently enjoyed elite support, this support could translate neither into high levels of legitimacy for formal political institutions176 nor into ideational unity among the political elites. Power struggles and infighting have remained a constant theme in contemporary Russian politics. The political balance between the siloviki and the liberals and technocrats has stayed fragile and has been heavily dependent on Putin’s role as the ultimate arbiter. As an editorial in the Russian daily Nezavisimaya gazeta pointed out, no one other than Putin is “capable of effectively controlling the elites.”177 This means that any perceived weakness of Putin could potentially lead to the quick unraveling of elite loyalty to the regime and open warfare among political elites. What is more, this situation is unlikely to change in the present context, especially given the fact that long-­term regime stability would necessarily require a structural change of the personalized system that has benefited these elites and ensured their loyalty to the leadership. Conclusion

This chapter shows that the fact that the current Russian regime has yet to produce a clear and viable new ideology largely stemmed from two major sources: the incoherence of the regime’s ideological repertoire, and the relative weakness of Russian political elites’ commitment to the regime’s ideological projects. Consequently, the regime had to muddle through a rather inconsistent assortment of selected elements from the past(s), only to arrive at vague ideas devoid of concrete socioeconomic programs, such as “sovereign democracy” or “conservative modernization,” to define itself. This kind of fundamental ambiguity could have far-­reaching implications, both domestically and internationally. Domestically, the absence of a clear ideology means that although the current regime is not presently in crisis and is able to appeal to different parts of the electorate, public support for the regime is still largely dependent on its performance (which is indicated, most of all, by the ability to deliver eco-

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nomic security and to raise Russia’s international status), rather than on any kind of consistent ideals it embodies. Moreover, the fact that the regime does not yet have an ideological hold over political elites means that elite support for the regime remains relatively contingent, hinging mostly on extensive personalistic and cronyistic power arrangements. Therefore, a bad economic environment is inherently dangerous for the regime, as both public support and elite support could potentially decay if the regime is unable to deliver the expected performance over time. If that happens, which is likely if Western sanctions continue and the Russian economy stays heavily dependent on raw materials exports, we can expect to see the regime resorting to harsher and more authoritarian measures to maintain its hold on both the elites and the masses. The boost in Putin’s approval rating following the Ukraine Crisis might well turn out to be short-­lived if the domestic economy continues to slump. But whether anybody else could replace Putin’s role as a balancer of elite interests is a huge question. To this extent, the claim made by Vyacheslav Volodin, Putin’s deputy chief of staff, that “there is no Russia today if there is no Putin”178 is not exactly hyperbole. Internationally, since the emphasis on Russia being a great power is the one idea that the regime and the majority of political elites can all agree on, foreign policy has become the area of consensus that plays a significant role in maintaining the vitality of the system.179 If during Putin’s first term there was still a rhetorical commitment to Russia’s European identity and the importance of freedom and democracy, Putin’s rhetoric became noticeably more anti-­Western starting with his second term, highlighting the need for a strong state to protect Russia against internal and external enemies.180 This line of thinking, in particular, resonated with the siloviki, who prioritized order and control. The regime’s tactics paid off to an extent. According to a Levada Center poll in late 2013, the number of Russians who believed that Russia had outside enemies had gone from 13 percent in 1989 to close to 80 percent.181 Another poll at the end of 2014 showed that the overwhelming majority of Russians believe that the West has pursued a hostile policy toward Russia.182 Moreover, the majority of Russians agreed with the government that “foreign agents,” including all sorts of NGOs that criticized the authorities, were undermining Russia’s national interests and should be sanctioned.183 In an ironic twist, the Levada Center itself had been targeted by the authorities and ordered to register itself as a “foreign agent.” During the 2014 annexation of Crimea, many Russians blamed Western influence for the political upheaval in Ukraine, which was perceived by them as a violent coup.184 In the subsequent conflict in eastern Ukraine, the majority

Regime Ideology-Building in Putin’s Russia  95

of Russians (64%) blamed the West for stirring up the crisis, and few (3%) believed that the conflict was due to Russian interference.185 In the post-­Soviet region, Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia was overwhelmingly supported by both the public and the elites in Russia.186 The 2014 annexation of Crimea was again hugely popular among both the elites and the general public, and gave Putin’s popularity yet another strong boost. While the West universally condemned Putin’s aggressive move and imposed a series of sanctions against Russia, polls showed that Putin’s approval rating shot up to a record high following the crisis.187 Another Levada poll showed that a majority of Russians (63%) believed that Russia had regained the status of a superpower, which was exactly what Putin had hoped to achieve.188 Despite the sanctions imposed by the West, there was considerable popular support behind Putin’s policy in Ukraine.189 Therefore, although the Putin regime has so far refrained from overt large-­scale military adventures in the region, there is still room for unpredictable developments. If the regime’s domestic control weakens, which is likely if the Russian economy fails to recover,190 it is not inconceivable that it would resort to a more assertive, even aggressive international stance—­especially with regard to its “privileged interests” in the “near abroad” such as Georgia and Ukraine—­in order to continue to shore up public and elite support. The postcommunist Russian regime has made some progress on the ideational front from the ideological vacuum at the end of the Yeltsin era. At the same time, the sources of the Putin regime’s hitherto inability to come up with a clear and viable ideology are unlikely to change within the present context. This means that the regime’s search for such an ideology will continue for the time being. To achieve this goal, the regime will need time—­and its current strategy seems to be one that prolongs Putin’s rule (with the possibility of rotating with Medvedev or someone else loyal) for as long as possible. The past decade has shown the regime’s ability to adapt to and deal with various challenges, and it is too early to come to the conclusion that this search will definitely fail. But as the system remains heavily dependent on Putin’s ability to hold it together, and a stable political future for a Russia without Putin is still hard to envision, time is not necessarily on the regime’s side.

Chapter 5

Regime Ideology-­Building in Post-­Deng China Striving for Institutionalization

Unlike the CEE countries and Russia, where the collapse of communist regimes put an abrupt end to their communist identities, China is one of the few countries still ruled by a Communist Party that survived the end of the Cold War. Yet China is in what is clearly a postcommunist era, as a series of crucial policy choices over decades have gradually but decisively dismantled the regime’s communist features. Economically, these policies included Deng Xiaoping’s post-­Tiananmen 1992 decision to further economic reform by expanding the private sector as part of “market socialism,” and the persistent quest for greater involvement in the international economy, culminating in China’s 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization. Politically, a couple of vital decisions suggested that the Chinese Communist Party, while unwilling to cede political power, had evolved away from a proletarian party composed of individuals committed to Marxist-­Leninist principles. One was the 1987 initiation of village-­level elections open to nonparty members, while the other was the 2001 decision to welcome private entrepreneurs into the CCP. Together, these landmark developments signaled the beginning of the postcommunist era in China. The CCP regime’s official commitment to further marketization and economic globalization suggested a readiness to permanently incorporate institutions, practices, and interests related to the capitalist economy, and the identity of a workers’ “vanguard party” was upturned by allowing capitalists to not only become party members but also to hold certain leadership positions.1 These dramatic transformations were essential in prolonging the CCP’s 96

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rule and even bolstering public support for the regime after the “mass extinction” of Leninism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.2 At the same time, they severely undermined the ideological foundation and hence the organizational integrity of the CCP regime,3 widening the gap between the regime’s policies and its self-­proclaimed “communist” identity. If there were still doubts that the post-­Mao regime under Deng Xiaoping held on to some basic communist features as indicated by Deng’s insistence on the so-­called Four Cardinal Principles,4 the post-­Deng CCP regime had unmistakably entered the postcommunist era for the reasons outlined above. As communist ideology receded into the background, the post-­Deng regime continued to manufacture and promote a particular strand of nationalist sentiment that portrayed the CCP as the champion of the Chinese nation that had saved the country from its past humiliations and was capable of leading China to future glory.5 As the regime became increasingly unable to monopolize the nationalist discourse,6 however, it found itself having to invest enormous resources in the search for a new postcommunist regime ideology beyond nationalism that could revitalize party rule and provide it with long-­term legitimacy. The post-­Deng CCP regime’s successive attempts at ideology-­ building included “Three Represents” under Jiang Zemin; “Building a Harmonious Society” and “Scientific Outlook on Development” under Hu Jintao; and the “Chinese Dream” and then “Four Comprehensives” under the current president, Xi Jinping. During a widely publicized trip to Guangdong shortly after assuming party leadership in late 2012, Xi made it clear that he believed the Soviet Union had collapsed because of its ruling party’s ideological erosion.7 Since then he has launched a “rectification” campaign to purify the CCP while tightening control over discussions of controversial subjects such as universal values, freedom of the press, and civil society.8 In a key speech delivered at the 2013 National Propaganda and Ideology Work Conference, Xi repeatedly emphasized the importance of ideological work, putting it side by side with economic development, and stressed the regime’s determination to win the “public opinion struggle” (yulun douzheng) against ideological foes.9 So far all signs suggest that China under Xi Jinping will continue to make ideology-­building a priority, even though it was questionable whether this project would take root within the party, let alone among the general population. This chapter examines China’s efforts at ideology-­building in the post-­ Deng years. It focuses on the ideological legacies the regime has drawn upon as well as the Chinese political elite’s commitment to this project. Following the case study of Russia, it identifies and explains the apparent similarities and crucial differences between these two regimes as they have searched

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for a viable postcommunist identity. Compared to the Russian regime, the Chinese also suffered from an increasingly incoherent ideological repertoire, though one that was nevertheless anchored in a relatively widely accepted, clearly defined version of state-­sponsored nationalism. Moreover, in China the level of ideological commitment among the political elite remained relatively high despite its factional divisions. Consequently, although the success of the regime’s ideological work is far from certain, there is a stronger institutional basis for its success in the case of China because the future of the Chinese regime is less dependent on the fate of particular individuals. Ideology in Post-­Deng China

When the CCP came to power in 1949, its claim to political legitimacy was based upon a combination of the Chinese Communists’ nationalist credentials established during the Anti-­Japanese War and its version of communist ideology.10 While officially adhering to universalist communist ideas, the Maoist regime significantly modified Marxism-­Leninism to fit its distinctive nationalist visions and its developmental goals for China.11 The subsequent decades of Maoist rule, however, were marked by chronic political instability and economic stagnation, which steadily undermined both of these initial sources of the regime’s legitimacy. Deng Xiaoping’s unprecedented economic reforms were partially a response to the gradual erosion of the ideological bases of regime legitimacy. Given that abandoning the official communist ideology was not an option (as it would have been tantamount to rejecting the party’s own origin), the CCP under Deng reversed and reduced the role ideology played in the Chinese policy process by turning it from guiding principles from which policies were derived into a tool for post-­hoc rationalization of regime policies.12 Deng’s socialist market economy “with Chinese characteristics” clearly departed from orthodox Leninism. His advocacy of “seeking truth from facts” legitimized a pragmatic attitude characteristic of the early decades of Mao’s leadership of the CCP in the 1930s, one Mao had abandoned when he insisted after the mid-­1950s that politics take precedence over everything. At the same time, in order to ensure regime survival, Deng was firm on upholding the “Four Cardinal Principles”—­a commitment to Marxism-­Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, party leadership, socialism, and the existing state structure—­as the limits to permissible political discourse. Any direct challenge to the CCP’s monopoly on political power or its official ideology, such as the 1989 student movement, would be crushed without mercy. These changes in the regime’s ideology under Deng Xiaoping, while provid-

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ing the regime with much-­needed flexibility and policy justification, had far-­reaching consequences. First, the role of communist ideology continued to diminish as the regime’s policies, especially in the economic realm, increasingly veered away from the Marxist-­Leninist-­Maoist framework. Even before the collapse of the communist bloc in 1989, the fast pace of marketization and the opening up of China’s economy to global capitalism challenged the regime’s self-­proclaimed identity as Leninist and proletarian. The erosion of the old communist ideology was highlighted, in dramatic fashion, by the 1989 Tiananmen Incident. Second, to compensate for the retreat from communist ideology, the CCP started to put more emphasis on promoting nationalism. Immediately after the Tiananmen Incident, Deng concluded that “during the last ten years our biggest mistake was made in the field of education, primarily in ideological and political education.  .  .  . We didn’t tell them enough about the need for hard struggle, about what China was like in the old days and what kind of country it was to become.”13 Subsequently, the government intensified its efforts at nationalist indoctrination by carrying out a series of “patriotic education” campaigns to bolster the CCP’s claim of having saved China from past humiliations and foreign invasion14 in an attempt to build a “state-­led nationalism.”15 Compared to the previous decades, the post-­Tiananmen decade of the 1990s was marked by an upsurge of Chinese nationalism that was not merely tolerated but also encouraged by the regime,16 which partially mirrored the upsurge of nationalism in CEE and Russia around the same time that was driven by different dynamics. Third, as the reforms went further and deeper after the Tiananmen Incident, it became increasingly clear that the party would have to come up with new concepts and ideas to justify regime policies and to adapt to the new post–­ Cold War environment. One of the main conclusions the CCP drew from the collapse of the Soviet Union was that ideology there became stagnant, ossified, and disconnected from reality, contributing to the system’s degeneration and dissolution.17 In the Chinese context, simply relying on references to the ideological legacy of Marx, Lenin, and even Mao clearly would not suffice. It would be up to new leaders to invent new ideas that, while still broadly based on Marxist principles, were more effectively connected to a new generation and a new reality in China.18 The Jiang Zemin Administration

Jiang Zemin came to power at a crucial period in the CCP’s history. The 1989 Tiananmen Incident delivered a severe, albeit not fatal, blow to the

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party, exposing a profound legitimacy crisis. Even though Deng Xiaoping was able eventually to sideline the emboldened conservative leaders within the regime19 and press ahead with his reform agenda, it was obvious that, if the regime were to survive, it would need to put the maintenance of political stability on top of its agenda. Moreover, the leadership group under Jiang was the first postrevolutionary leadership in China, having followed very different career paths than their predecessors, who gained their formative experiences during the communist revolution and the Anti-­Japanese War.20 During the 1990s, virtually all the veteran revolutionary leaders within the regime, including Deng himself, departed from the political limelight as they died or became senile. Although Jiang had solid support from his power base in Shanghai,21 it was impossible for him to develop the same kind of broad and penetrating political control within both the party and the military that Mao and Deng had previously enjoyed. The Jiang leadership, therefore, needed to rely more on institution-­building and consensus-­building to consolidate its power and achieve its policy objectives.22 The Jiang Zemin era thus started with a lot of pragmatism, focusing on upholding the CCP’s political monopoly while following the economic reform agenda as had first been broadly outlined by Deng, who remained powerful behind the scenes until incapacitated in 1994. Given Jiang’s background as a technocrat with political roots in Shanghai, however, he pursued an economic policy that was much more urban-­focused, coastal-­oriented, and growth-­driven, than the rural-­centered approach of the previous decade.23 Ideologically, Jiang did not break any new ground in the 1990s other than calling for “holding high the banner of Deng Xiaoping Theory.”24 Within the party, Jiang consolidated his leadership and pushed institutionalization forward by securing authority over the military, curbing decentralization trends, and imposing term limits and norms on retirement ages for political elites.25 The Chinese economy grew rapidly during the 1990s, but the negative side effects of Jiang’s urban-­centered developmental strategy were becoming increasingly apparent toward the end of the decade. Social cleavages grew deeper and more entrenched between the rich and the poor, between urban residents and rural migrants, and between the cities and the countryside. Reflecting these trends, longitudinal survey data showed that there was a decline in the Chinese regime’s legitimacy starting in the mid-­1990s.26 These results were corroborated by qualitative evidence that included growing local protests, increasing social apathy, and mounting public frustration over rampant official corruption.27 This decline of regime legitimacy, coupled with rising nationalism within Chinese society, provided the background for

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Jiang’s 2000 proclamation of “Three Represents” as the core of an ideological reframing of the post-­Deng CCP’s legitimacy as China’s ruling party.28 According to Jiang, the CCP at the turn of the century represented not just the vanguard of the proletariat but also the “advanced productive forces, advanced Chinese culture, and the fundamental interests of the majority.” Compared to Deng’s “Four Cardinal Principles,” Jiang’s “Three Represents” provided a less strict set of criteria for assessing political permissibility. In addition, its pragmatic focus on economic growth, Chinese culture, and the promotion of the majority’s interests was more easily accepted by a wide range of opinions from the Left to the Right.29 In terms of policy implications, “Three Represents” justified the continuing prioritization of economic reform and the dismantling of the public ownership system.30 Significantly, the articulation of “Three Represents” officially shifted the CCP’s previous identity from a proletarian workers and peasants’ party to what was effectively a party that embodied the interests of the whole nation and the entire society. It was a clear move to expand the CCP’s social basis to the largest theoretical extent possible without discarding the “communist” façade. Armed with this new theoretical tool, the CCP regime under Jiang was quick to co-­opt private entrepreneurs—­the previous class enemies and the core of an emerging “middle class”—­by allowing them to become party members. Many chose to join, and since 2001 private entrepreneurs have become an important base of support for the CCP.31 In 2002, “Three Represents” was formally included in the party’s program as “the foundation for building our party, the cornerstone for its governance and the source of its strength” at the CCP’s 16th Party Congress. At the congress, Jiang reaffirmed his developmentalist agenda. “Development requires that we do away with all notions which hinder development, change all practices and regulations which impede it, and get rid of all the drawbacks of the systems which adversely affect it.”32 Jiang’s “Three Represents” did expand the party’s support base and provide theoretical justification for the regime’s reform policies, which were increasingly unrecognizable in a Marxist-­Leninist-­Maoist framework. However, it was better at discarding the party’s old proletarian identity than at providing a clear and full-­fledged guiding ideology for the regime beyond nationalism. Despite a major propaganda campaign to promote “Three Represents,” the inclusion of capitalists was a very controversial move within the party, with many, understandably, seeing it as a move to abandon the CCP’s proletarian origin and become a party of elites.33 While expanding the scope of party membership, “Three Represents” failed to improve the party’s cohesion or to boost the party’s morale. If anything, it undermined both as the

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redefined party represented a de facto “political protection racket” for many without ideological commitments who sought the political “cover” of party membership to more safely pursue their interests.34 “Three Represents” was even more poorly received by the Chinese public—­most people viewed it with cynicism and thought of it as nothing more than yet another propaganda cliché. By the time Jiang’s presidency ended in 2002, it had become obvious that the next leadership would have to engage in some ideological reorientation. The Hu Jintao Administration

In contrast to previous CCP leadership transitions, which were marked by unpredictability and sometimes violence, the power transition from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao had long been arranged and anticipated.35 Without fierce intraparty strife or contention over policy, it was the first peaceful and orderly leadership transition in the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).36 Moreover, even after Hu took over the top party and government posts, Jiang retained his position as the chairman of the Central Military Commission for two years. Some of Jiang’s close associates, such as Wu Bangguo and Zeng Qinghong, stayed on the Standing Committee of the Politburo for years. This ensured Jiang’s continuing political influence and precluded the possibility of a radical ideological change under the new Hu administration.37 At the same time, mere ideological continuation from the Jiang era was not really an option for the new leadership. Unlike Jiang’s political coalition, which represented the interests of coastal regions and the new economic sectors, key members of the new leadership came from a very different and, indeed, more humble background. Many, including Hu Jintao, advanced their careers through the Chinese Communist Youth League. Hu had spent decades working in some of the poorest inland provinces in China, and therefore had developed a deeper appreciation of the negative social consequences of the reform and the plight of less-­privileged social groups such as farmers and migrant workers. Thus, compared to the “elitist” Jiang leadership, the Hu leadership could be considered as “populist,” representing the interests of those left behind—­the inland regions and the more traditional economic sectors such as agriculture and heavy industry.38 Also, Jiang’s embrace of new economic elites, the erosion of party identity, and the widening income stratification and growing social resentment generated by breakneck economic growth were met with a flurry of “New Left” criticisms inside and outside the party.39 Rising social

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discontent not only undermined party legitimacy but could potentially hinder further economic development. All this provided incentives for Hu and those under his leadership to pursue ideological reorientation and reinterpretation as well as adjustments in economic development policies. Without jettisoning or directly challenging Jiang’s formula of “Three Represents,” since coming to power in 2002 Hu shifted the emphasis of “Three Represents” to the third “represent”—­the interests of the majority—­by stressing “putting people first.”40 Hu thus reoriented regime policies away from Jiang’s growth-­driven elitism and toward a more populist approach. Meanwhile, Hu began to develop the two cornerstones of his ideological project—­building a “Socialist Harmonious Society” and “Scientific Outlook on Development.” In 2005, after Hu consolidated his political power, the CCP formally adopted the new doctrine of building a “Socialist Harmonious Society,” which emphasized tackling the severe side effects of unrestrained growth. Hu himself defined the idea as building a society serving “the fundamental interests of the people” and featuring “democracy, the rule of law, equity, justice, sincerity, amity, and vitality” while stressing that the regime must pay attention to social justice.41 What this implied, essentially, was that social concerns such as income disparity, corruption, pollution, social stratification, and social unrest should be accorded an importance on a par with economic growth in party theory and government policy. Subsequently, the government adopted a series of policies focusing on the development of the poorer inland areas and reducing the wealth gap. These policies included proposals for the gradual phasing out of the residential permit system that had perpetuated the urban-­rural gap (2005); allowing peasants to trade their land-­use rights (2008); and the enactment of a new labor law that would crack down on inhumane working conditions (2008). The government also increased investment and spending in areas previously left behind in the economic boom under Jiang and improved rural access to education and medical care. In addition, the leadership undertook a sustained crackdown on official corruption, even though it was not successful and corruption actually worsened under Hu. These measures clearly represented a very different approach from Jiang’s growth-­at-­all-­costs developmental strategy. For Hu, implementing a “Scientific Outlook on Development” was an essential part of building a “Socialist Harmonious Society.” Hu formulated this idea in 2003–­4, which incorporated the principles of “putting people first” and “all-­round development.” Significantly, the idea was closely intertwined with campaigns to improve the CCP’s “governing capability” and build up its “advanced character.” These two “closely associated and mutu-

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ally reinforcing” tasks, according to Hu, “should run through the Party’s ideological construction, organizational construction, work-­style construction, and institutional construction.”42 Hu’s ideological initiatives were formally written into the party program at the 17th CCP Congress. “Scientific Outlook on Development,” which “calls for comprehensive, balanced and sustainable development,” was presented as “a scientific theory that is in the same line as Marxism-­Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents and keeps up with the times.”43 At the end of Hu’s term in 2012, Hu described the formulation and implementation of “Scientific Outlook on Development” as “the most important achievement” during his administration, and explained that the idea was “created by integrating Marxism with the reality of contemporary China and with the underlying features of our time, and it fully embodies the Marxist worldview on and methodology for development.” He also vowed that the party would never take the “evil route of changing its color.”44 The ideology-­building projects under Hu represented a discernible Left-­ leaning and populist shift in policy priorities from the Jiang Zemin era. This shift, predictably, was resisted by both Jiang’s faction, which remained politically powerful, and those regional governments that had previously benefited from Jiang’s coastal-­focused reforms.45 However, what was equally striking was the fundamental continuity in the regime’s emphasis on party building and its firm insistence on the CCP’s unchallenged monopoly on power. Different policy preferences aside, neither Jiang nor Hu ever attempted to change the basic political institutions of the CCP regime, and the survival and strengthening of the party’s leadership remained the top priority. During Hu’s administration, the regime heightened its repression of dissenting voices, including in ethnic minority regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang. Meanwhile, the erosion of regime identity and, indeed, party identity, which had started under Deng Xiaoping and accelerated under Jiang and Hu, remained unresolved.46 Hu himself acknowledged that “[o]ur Party has been constantly seeking answers to major theoretical and practical questions such as what socialism is and how to build it, what kind of Party we must build and how to build it, and what kind of development China should achieve and how to achieve it.”47 Just as Jiang’s “Three Represents” had failed to inspire either the party or the society, Hu’s “Socialist Harmonious Society” and “Scientific Outlook on Development” failed to unite the party or to provide the regime with a viable new identity. In the end, Hu’s administration was marked by political stagnation and an obsession with maintaining the status quo, especially during his second term. Many critics referred to his tenure as a “lost decade” in which the state remained economically dominant while

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political and social reforms stalled,48 even while China’s GDP and military power continued to make huge strides under Hu’s leadership.49 This paradoxically created an ample opening for the next leader, Xi Jinping, who was deemed an acceptable choice by both the elitists and the populists within the regime, to present a new ideological approach. The Xi Jinping Administration

Unlike Hu Jintao, who was from a relatively humble background, Xi came from the family of one of the revolutionary elders from Mao and Deng’s generation50 (thus making him a so-­called princeling) and hence had deeper and more extensive ties within the regime and the military. Like Hu, Xi had been groomed for the top leadership position for years, and his elevation to the presidency came as no surprise. However, whereas Jiang and his close associates stayed on in important positions for years after Hu took power, Hu retired from all three top positions in the party, the government, and the military,51 thereby leaving the political playing field almost entirely to Xi. This presented a political context in which Xi had relatively free rein in carving out his own ideological agenda and breaking the leadership paralysis characteristic of Hu’s second term. So far, Xi’s main ideological projects seem to be his vision of the “Chinese Dream” and the theory of “Four Comprehensives” presented at the end of 2014. According to the official media, which widely propagandized the term, the “Chinese Dream”—­the goal of the “great renewal of the Chinese nation”—­was about “realizing a prosperous and strong country, rejuvenation of the nation and the well-­being of the people.”52 Specifically, Xi called for China to become a “moderately well-­off society” by around 2021, the 100th anniversary of the CCP, and for China to become a fully developed nation by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the PRC. In this vision, Xi combined strong nationalist sentiments with an economically liberal desire for all Chinese to rise to middle class status.53 During his first summit with President Barack Obama in 2013, Xi compared the “Chinese Dream” to the American dream. By emphasizing “the well-­being of the people,” Xi was making a direct appeal to the Chinese public by presenting them with a more prosperous future. What was conspicuously missing, however, was any mention of democracy or fundamental political reforms. To achieve the “Chinese Dream,” Xi promoted the idea of “three self-­confidences,” which first appeared in Hu’s talk at the 18th Party Congress—­confidence in China’s political system, in the party line, and in party theory. On various occasions,

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Xi made it clear that the only road to the realization of the “Chinese Dream” was socialism with Chinese characteristics under the CCP’s leadership. In 2014, Xi further elaborated his thinking in more concrete terms as the “Four Comprehensives,” which was summed up by People’s Daily as comprehensively building a moderately prosperous society; comprehensively deepening reform; comprehensively implementing the rule of law; and comprehensively strengthening party discipline.54 This concept was quickly and enthusiastically touted by the state media, which provided massive coverage, as the new guiding theory for the regime. The first three components of the “Four Comprehensives” had all been incorporated by Xi’s predecessors’ various ideological slogans, but it was the first time the fourth, “comprehensively strengthening Party discipline,” was elevated to the level of official ideology. Following Jiang and Hu, Xi emphasized party-­building, only to a larger extent. Despite sensational comparisons of Xi to an “emperor” and allegations by some commentators about his “growing cult of personality,”55 Xi was committed to further political institutionalization and determined to fight corruption and keep power “restricted by the cage of regulations.”56 After Xi came to power, a large-­scale and sustained anticorruption campaign became a keystone of his domestic policy. Xi reiterated Hu’s warning that corruption could “kill the party and ruin the country,”57 and vowed to crack down on both “tigers” and “flies”—­ high-­ranking officials and ordinary bureaucrats.58 Since then, the regime has cracked down on a considerable number of major “tigers” in both the government and the military,59 including many high-­level executives in powerful state-­owned enterprises;60 various provincial and municipal leaders; dozens of senior officers in the military;61 and top-­level officials such as Hu’s former top aide Ling Jihua, former vice chairman of the People’s Political Consultative Conference Su Rong, and, most prominently, the former security chief and Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang.62 This campaign has had a direct impact on government officials at all levels as many perks and privileges were either banned or sharply curtailed and austerity was once again touted as a virtue.63 Accordingly, the Party’s 4th Plenum in 2014 focused on building the “rule of law” and party discipline.64 As Xi put it, “the CCP leadership, the people as the master, and law-­based governance” should form “an organic synergy.”65 Xi’s anticorruption drive, nevertheless, did not signal the regime’s willingness to engage in fundamental political reforms. On the contrary, it was accompanied by a renewed ideological conservatism. At the 2013 meeting with propaganda officials, Xi called for CCP members to adhere to their belief in Marxism and communism, saying that ideology was “an extremely

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important job for the party.”66 The regime also issued orders instructing public intellectuals not to speak about seven sensitive topics: universal values, freedom of the press, civil society, civil rights, past mistakes by the CCP, crony capitalism, and judicial independence.67 Moreover, Xi called for stepping up the party’s “leadership and guidance” in universities to “strengthen and improve the ideological and political work” and urged the study of Marxism.68 Following Xi’s talk, Education Minister Yuan Guiren vowed to ban university textbooks that promoted “western values” as well as “remarks that slander the party leadership” and “smear socialism,”69 apparently ignoring the inconvenient fact that Marx himself was a Westerner. Under Xi, the regime also tightened its control over the Internet, cracking down not only on critical voices but also on virtual private networks, Gmail, and even Japanese anime. At the same time, the Xi leadership showed a firm commitment to furthering bold economic reforms without relinquishing state control over the commanding heights of strategic sectors such as energy, telecommunications, and banking. It released a sweeping and ambitious economic reform plan after the Party’s 3rd Plenum in November 2013, proclaiming the “decisive,” instead of the previously “basic,” role of market forces in shaping the economy and calling for an “acceleration” of moves to let the market determine interest rates and resources prices. This economic blueprint also called for strengthening the ability of state-­owned enterprises to “control and influence” the direction of economic development.70 Internationally, the plan showcased the regime’s new assertiveness by unveiling the Silk Road strategy,71 which involved the building of a Eurasian land-­based “Silk Road economic belt” to the West and a “Maritime Silk Road” to Southeast and South Asia through Chinese-­ financed infrastructure and transportation projects and trade and financial ties. Although indicative of China’s growing ambition, this “One Belt, One Road” initiative, later backed by a $40 billion “Silk Road Fund” announced at the 2014 meeting of the Asia-­Pacific Economic Cooperation countries and a 2015 white paper outlining its key details, reaffirmed China’s commitment to further embracing the international market. In addition, the plan’s major initiatives included a relaxation of the one-­child policy, the elimination of the “re-­education” labor camps, rural land reform that lifted the restriction on transferring usage rights, and reforms to the taxation and state-­owned enterprise systems.72 Therefore, the post-­Deng CCP regime’s fundamental governing strategy of combining economic reform with political authoritarianism seemed set to continue under Xi Jinping. The fact that Xi quickly consolidated his political power did not necessarily mean that he was going to use his clout to

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pursue a dramatically new direction. It is true that Xi demonstrated more assertiveness compared to his predecessor Hu, but it was in amassing power and building his nationalist credentials rather than in pursuing a different set of political reforms. The extent of Xi’s power consolidation was evident in the 2013 3rd Plenum’s approval of the creation of two high-­level party bodies: a “leading small group” to coordinate reform, and a National Security Commission to oversee security affairs, both headed by Xi himself.73 In terms of building up nationalist credentials, Xi had exhibited more confidence and ambition than both Hu and Jiang in the area of foreign policy, partially reflecting China’s continuously growing economic clout and rising international status. Xi’s high-­profile military visits74 and his tough talks on the aspect of the “Chinese Dream” as “the dream of a strong nation” and “a dream of a strong military” clearly appealed to hawks within the Chinese military. Moreover, he added a qualification to Hu’s foreign-­policy idea of “peaceful development” by claiming that “we absolutely will not abandon our legitimate rights and interests, and absolutely cannot sacrifice core national interests.”75 Xi’s government seemed to have so far backed up his nationalist rhetoric by engaging in saber rattling in disputes over territories and maritime rights in the East China Sea and South China Sea. Such nationalist posturing no doubt scored points with the Chinese public, but it also suggested that Xi’s “Chinese Dream” represented above all a dream for the CCP regime rather than a dream of the Chinese people. Xi’s “Chinese Dream” and “Four Comprehensives” essentially reaffirmed the CCP’s long-­term commitment to bolstering its nationalist identity while maintaining its political monopoly. However, ideologically they did not manage to go beyond nationalism and present the regime with a new policy guideline other than the already existing formula of deepening economic reform coupled with conservative political authoritarianism. In this sense, there was much underlying continuity from “Three Represents” to “Socialist Harmonious Society” and “Scientific Outlook on Development” to “Chinese Dream” and “Four Comprehensives.” To an extent this was understandable inasmuch as this formula had contributed to the resilience of the CCP regime. But given the multitude of political and socioeconomic problems China is facing, it is increasingly unlikely that the regime can thrive while holding on to an anachronistically defined ideological status quo. It has been almost 20 years since Deng’s passing, yet the regime seems both unwilling and unable to move on from Deng’s original ideological expedient of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” with those “characteristics” never fully explained except by stock propaganda phrases.76 How to reconcile this slogan’s implied policy flexibility the regime so desires and the regime’s insistence on

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unchallenged party leadership and “socialism” has remained an unanswered question for China’s post-­Deng CCP leaders. To fully appreciate this enduring issue, it is necessary to probe more deeply into the dynamics behind recent attempts to redefine the regime’s ideology. Ideological Repertoire and the Chinese Past(s)

Mao Zedong once famously said, “the outstanding thing about China’s 600 million people is that they are ‘poor and blank.’ . . . On a blank sheet of paper free from any mark . . . the freshest and most beautiful pictures can be painted.”77 For a long time after it took power, the CCP regime seemed bent on destroying all imprints of traditional China on the society and hence creating a “blank sheet” for building socialism.78 In reality, however, even the CCP itself was never built upon a “blank sheet.” Marxism-­Leninism had been significantly modified and adapted according to the Chinese context, and the CCP’s ideology and organization were as much a Chinese product as they were a communist one.79 After the initiation of reform and opening under Deng, the communist ideology increasingly lost its appeal and credibility among the Chinese public even as the CCP stayed officially committed to the slogan of building socialism. The post-­Deng CCP regime consequently drew more heavily on selective precommunist legacies in constructing its ideology while continuing to capitalize on useful elements from the Maoist era and the Deng era. Many of the components within the regime’s ideological repertoire, as we will see, are far from compatible with each other, although a relatively clearly defined state-­sponsored nationalism has remained an underlying central theme. The Precommunist Era

Chinese civilization was among the most ancient and continuous in the world, with a feudal system under the rule of successive imperial dynasties persisting for thousands of years. After the communist revolution, many of China’s precommunist historical and cultural legacies were considered by the new regime as backward and repressive and therefore destined to be discarded and replaced by the new and advanced socialist culture.80 Nevertheless, over the following decades, these precommunist legacies turned out to be too rich and varied for the CCP regime to ignore entirely; some were viewed as potentially useful ideational assets. For the post-­Deng CCP

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regime, the precommunist era provided three important and related major sources for its ideological work: selective elements of Confucianism; the historical narrative of the “greatness” of imperial China and the subsequent “century of humiliation”; and 20th-­century Chinese nationalism. Confucianism, as a set of philosophical teachings that emphasized proper social relationships and communal order and harmony, remained the dominant way of thinking in traditional Chinese politics and society for centuries. It was officially promoted and revered by various feudal dynasties for its recognition of the imperial authority as possessing the “mandate of heaven” and its focus on maintaining political order and social stability by complying with the existing hierarchy. As such, parts of Confucianism could be seen as legitimating feudalism, and it was targeted and attacked by the CCP regime during the Cultural Revolution, culminating in the “Anti-­Lin Biao, Anti-­ Confucius” campaign in the 1970s.81 Confucianism nevertheless outlived Mao. For example, the system of civil service exams, which reflected the Confucian meritocratic principle, was restored under Deng. As communist ideology lost its appeal, the post-­Deng CCP regime resorted to elements of Confucianism to maintain social stability and to fend off Western cultural influence.82 Although the regime stopped short of officially endorsing Confucianism, it recognized the potential usefulness of the Confucian political tradition in providing legitimacy to the existing technocratic political system.83 Moreover, Hu Jintao’s “people-­centered” policy and call for building a “Socialist Harmonious Society” blended both a Confucian emphasis on social harmony and a Maoist emphasis on the “mass line.”84 During a 2013 visit to Confucius’s hometown, Xi Jinping acknowledged the value of Confucianism by saying that the thoughts of the renowned philosopher of ancient China could exert a positive influence today, and described the CCP as a defender of ancient virtues.85 At a 2014 international conference commemorating Confucius’s birth, Xi said, “The ideology and culture of today’s China is a continuation and sublimation of traditional Chinese ideology and culture.” He then claimed that “the Chinese Communist Party is the successor to and promoter of fine traditional Chinese culture.”86 In terms of foreign policy, the post-­Deng regime’s normative promotion of China’s peaceful rise was influenced by the moralistic Confucian distinction between “kingly way” (wang dao) and “hegemonic way” (ba dao).87 Indicative of a sort of Confucian revival, the study of Confucian classics enjoyed a comeback at Chinese universities and within the broader Chinese society. In addition, hundreds of government-­sponsored “Confucius Institutes” were established around the world to expand Chinese cultural influence and to enhance China’s “soft power.”88

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Like its selective treatment of Confucianism, the regime’s manipulation of Chinese history was also for the purpose of bolstering the CCP’s rule. The post-­Deng CCP regime had carried out periodic “patriotic education” campaigns to ensure the Chinese people’s identification with the regime. At the heart of these campaigns was an official historical narrative that celebrated the past greatness and superiority of Chinese civilization while emphasizing the suffering and chaos during the so-­called century of national humiliation.89 Such a historical narrative was widely propagated through the official state media, the state mass education system, and popular culture.90 It intended to highlight the role of the Chinese Communist Party in saving the country from past defeat and humiliation and reviving China’s glory, with the underlying message that undermining the CCP’s rule could only bring chaos and open the door to foreign oppression. This interpretation of Chinese history was not a natural product of the past but was consciously and deliberately manufactured by the regime.91 After Xi came to power, a crucial part of his proclaimed ideological agenda of the “Chinese Dream” was “the great rejuvenation (fuxing) of the Chinese nation.” His “Four Comprehensives” was hailed by the 18th Party Congress as “a crucial step towards the Chinese dream of great rejuvenation.”92 This key phrase had already been used and repeated numerous times by Xi’s two predecessors, Jiang and Hu. Hu, for example, concluded many of his public speeches with a call to “strive harder for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”93 This idea of national rejuvenation simultaneously acknowledged the continuity of Chinese history, China’s past greatness, and the determination of the regime to remain the standard-­bearer of the national mission to restore China to its rightful place in the world. Finally and importantly, 20th-­century Chinese nationalism remained a significant ideational asset for the post-­Deng CCP regime. Nationalism, as an originally Western idea, was not indigenous to China. Nevertheless, as the Qing, the last imperial dynasty, gradually lost control and Western aggression intensified, nationalist ideas spread rapidly among Chinese intellectuals and activists in the early 20th century.94 Mao himself was a Chinese nationalist who saw Marxism-­Leninism as the means to liberate China.95 Under Mao’s leadership, the CCP followed a rural-­centered and peasant-­ oriented revolutionary strategy that decidedly departed from the Soviet urban-­centered revolutionary model.96 During the Anti-­Japanese War, Mao presented himself as the faithful follower and rightful successor of the great Chinese nationalist Sun Yat-­sen97 while successfully mobilizing Chinese peasants whose nationalist fervor was ignited by Japanese aggression and atrocities. Nationalism thus became an integral part of the CCP regime’s

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founding myth. After the Maoist era, “invigorating China” (zhenxing zhonghua), a phrase first used by Sun Yat-­sen, became one of Deng’s favorite slogans, and was later rephrased by the post-­Deng leaders as “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”98 The Maoist slogan of “only the CCP can save China” was effectively transformed into one of “only the CCP can rejuvenate China.” And like Sun, the post-­Deng CCP leaders also used China’s traumatic historical experiences to mobilize popular support. Although Sun was not a communist, the CCP regime nevertheless continued to revere him as a national hero. Compared to the Maoist regime and the Deng era, the post-­Deng CCP regime’s use of precommunist ideational legacies was heavier but still highly selective. Some of the elements used by the regime, such as the nationalist narrative of Chinese history, had been deliberately reinforced through mass education and propaganda, and held broad social appeal.99 They had no doubt contributed to public support for the regime. These precommunist legacies, however, did not have any inherent relationship to the “communist” identity of the CCP regime. This means the communist era under Mao and Deng needed to remain a vital source for the post-­Deng regime’s ideological repertoire. The Maoist Era

For the post-­Deng CCP regime, the most obvious and significant ideational inheritance from the Maoist era has been China’s “socialist” identity. From Jiang to Xi, every post-­Deng leader has reaffirmed this official identity of the country despite the wide and widening gap between this proclaimed identity and the regime’s developmental path. After Xi came to power, for example, he vowed that “our red nation will never change color.”100 At the same time, the regime’s acceptance of the much tarnished communist era could not possibly be wholehearted. The Maoist period, after all, was associated with major disasters and mistakes that even the CCP had officially recognized and criticized.101 While commenting on the 120th anniversary of Mao’s birth, Xi called for upholding “the banner of Mao Zedong Thought” “forever,” but also acknowledged that Mao had made “serious mistakes,” especially during the Cultural Revolution.102 More important, today’s China had simply evolved to such an extent that a return to Maoist politics became impractical and nearly unthinkable. Nevertheless, some ideational elements from the Maoist era continued to play crucial roles in the post-­Deng regime’s ideological projects, especially the “mass line,” as manifested by both

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the regime’s deliberate emphasis on “the people” and its authoritarian rule based on mass mobilization. Building upon positions already taken by Marx, Lenin, and Stalin, Mao developed the “mass line” as a method of leadership during the Chinese communist revolution.103 By emphasizing a strong participatory role for the populace under party leadership, this idea essentially combined dictatorial rule with mass participation in the form of campaigns and struggle.104 In a sense, both Jiang’s “Three Represents” and Hu’s “People First” policy could be seen as putting a new spin on the old Maoist maxim of putting the interests of the people above everything else in order to bring the regime’s stated ideological goals closer to its actual policies.105 Hu’s “People First” policy, in particular, contained a blend of Confucian and Maoist elements. Moreover, the Maoist tactic of mass mobilization through campaigns and movements was still employed by the regime even though they were never carried out on a scale and intensity comparable to those during the Maoist era. Other than the periodic “patriotic education” campaigns, the post-­Deng CCP regime has launched major campaigns to propagate and study top leaders’ core ideological constructs; to build a “socialist spiritual civilization”; to improve the party’s “governing capacity”; and to rid the party of corruption. In June 2013, Xi launched a 15-­month large-­scale “rectification” “Mass Line” campaign whose stated main content was “serving the people, being down-­ to-­earth, upright and corruption-­free.”106 By emphasizing “plain living” for the People’s Liberation Army and confronting military corruption, Xi also wanted to build up his political power by placing his stamp on the military while paving the way for further economic reforms.107 Xi specifically stressed the “mass line” as the lifeline of the party, explaining that “winning or losing public support is an issue that concerns the CCP’s survival or extinction.”108 The campaign was directly led by all seven members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, and hundreds of units across the country, including government agencies, enterprises, and universities, were mobilized and deployed within just a couple of months.109 In addition, as Elizabeth Perry points out, the post-­Deng CCP leaders continued to try to instill a sense of revolutionary continuity among officials and ordinary people alike while making instrumental use of Maoist mobilization tactics. With the state holding a virtual monopoly over political discourse, the society’s active engagement was encouraged as long as people played by the official rules of the game.110 The regime had proven adept at “creating coalitions with, and cleavages among, key social elements as a means of stimulating popular political involvement so as to bolster its own political hegemony.”111 In other words, it used the effective and time-­tested

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technique of “divide and rule,” pitting different socioeconomic groups against each other. Relying on such Maoist tactics, the contemporary CCP regime’s policies separated different categories of workers and residents, and divided these sectors using differential treatments and threats to prevent coordination or a common trust between them and to reinforce the regime’s dominance.112 In this sense, the “mass line” endured as a highly important defining feature of the CCP’s authoritarian rule. Some key Maoist ideational legacies, therefore, continued to play a vital role in the post-­Deng era and constituted part of the basis for the CCP regime’s authoritarian rule. The current Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, came from a background that was steeped in Maoist revolutionary traditions, and many suspected that he was more of a Maoist than his two predecessors even though it was unlikely that his policies would be fundamentally different from theirs. So far, his rhetoric has done little to dispel such suspicions. Apparently, Chairman Mao, although long dead, has remained both a rich resource and a significant constraint for the CCP regime. The Deng Era

The Deng Xiaoping era witnessed the launch of far-­reaching reforms that have shaped the economic and political landscape of today’s China. The reforms represented a dramatic departure from the previous Maoist approach of ideology-­in-­command. This, of course, does not mean that ideology was irrelevant during the Deng era. On the contrary, Deng made a series of important ideological adjustments to justify new policies and to provide a new basis for the CCP’s rule. These adjustments had a profound and lasting impact on his successors’ ideological projects. They included two closely related components: the elevation of economic development as an ideological goal in itself, and the reconceptualization of “socialism” with the deliberately ambiguous definition of “Chinese characteristics.” At the beginning of the reform era, the CCP regime under Deng formally shifted the emphasis of its work from class struggle to economic development.113 Arguing that China was still at the “primary stage” of socialism, Deng made economic development a necessary and indispensable component on the road to communism. Deng initiated the economic reform and opening in part to consolidate his political power.114 But even long after he had won the political battle, Deng demonstrated a real commitment to economic development despite monumental setbacks, such as the 1989 Tiananmen Incident. While orthodox Marxism-­Leninism defined socialism as fun-

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damentally distinct from the capitalist market economy, Deng justified his market-­oriented economic reform by formulating the concept of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” which essentially meant a distinctively Chinese developmental model under the unquestionable leadership of the CCP. Interestingly, according to Ezra Vogel, Deng also expressed the view that it was unnecessary to ask if something was called “capitalism” or “socialism.”115 The post-­Deng CCP leaders have all made economic development a top policy priority and an integral part of their ideological projects. Jiang’s “Three Represents,” for example, put “the most advanced productive forces” first, and this emphasis was reflected in Jiang’s growth-­oriented developmental strategy focusing on the fast-­developing coastal and urban areas. In Hu’s speech at the 17th CCP Congress, he stated that economic development should be “the center” of “Chinese style socialism.”116 The current leadership under Xi Jinping has expressed a renewed commitment to sustain the country’s economic development over the long run even if it meant slower growth. At a G20 summit in 2013, Xi claimed that “China’s economic fundamentals are sound,” and that China had to “advance structural reforms in order to solve the problems hindering its long-­term economic development, even though it will mean slower growth.”117 Xi also made clear that GDP growth would no longer be the overriding criterion for evaluating officials. Instead, the party would “adopt more comprehensive criteria for assessing the performance of its officials” including improving people’s livelihood, social development, and environmental protection.118 This shift, however, did not change the central importance of economic development, which was amply demonstrated by the party’s sweeping reform plan following the 2013 3rd Plenum to ensure continuing economic growth.119 Rather, it meant that the leadership had realized that sustainable growth was at least as important as rapid growth. Therefore, although Jiang, Hu, and Xi all had different takes on economic development, focusing on growth, socioeconomic issues, and sustainability, respectively, their common goal of national economic success remained faithful to the goals first laid out by Deng Xiaoping. Deng’s idea of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” was also upheld and elaborated by successive post-­Deng CCP leaders. Without fail, every post-­Deng leader has called for building socialism with Chinese characteristics, and it has been identified by some as constituting the core of the so-­called China Model.120 Other than the insistence on party leadership and the pursuit of economic development, it has never been entirely clear exactly what this formula entails. But this ambiguity provides the regime with ample room to interpret the formula and to justify a wide range of policies, even including many that normally would have been considered capitalist.121 Upon

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taking party leadership, Xi Jinping immediately called for developing socialism with Chinese characteristics, defining it as “an incorporation of socialist system, path and theories with Chinese characteristics.”122 He also stressed that it was “the only route” to “realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”123 This emphasis showed a continuity with the Deng era. The idea’s inherent ambiguity and the policy flexibility that it generated, however, was combined with the resolute commitment to the label of “socialism” and the party leadership. As a result, the regime is ultimately constrained by its own ideology; and the justification of its “socialist” identity remains a constant struggle, given that many of its policies are already unrecognizable in the old Marxist-­Leninist framework. Compared to the Deng Xiaoping era, the post-­Deng CCP regime has diverged even further from the socialist developmental path, and communist ideology has played an even more diminished role. Deng’s original ideological bottom line of the “Four Cardinal Principles” was still occasionally invoked, but the post-­Deng leaders were much more interested in their new ideological innovations. The “Three Represents,” for example, clearly strayed from at least one of the “Principles”—­the principle of upholding the people’s democratic dictatorship, with “the people” usually defined as the proletariat. The Deng era nevertheless set the overarching tone for the next decades with its ideological prioritization of economic development and the opening up of some, albeit not unrestrained, ideological space for unorthodox policies. The post-­Deng CCP regime’s ideological repertoire therefore consists of selective elements from the precommunist era, the Maoist era, and the Deng era. Many of these elements are far from compatible, especially the regime’s official socialist identity, which still retains significant features from the communist era, and its more recent ideological prioritization of economic development, which increasingly entails policies that have nothing to do with, or even contradict, socialism. As the CCP regime under Xi now gives the market a “decisive” role in the economy, which obviously runs counter to socialist principles where the government plays the leading role, this incompatibility is likely to become even more acute in the foreseeable future. Compared to the Russian case, however, there has been a greater degree of institutional continuity from the past even though it is difficult to categorize today’s Chinese regime as truly “communist.” A state-­sponsored nationalism, which is based upon the official historical narrative and earlier 20th-­ century nationalism and driven by the century-­old desire to make China “strong and prosperous,” has remained a constant theme running through the Maoist era to the post-­Deng era. This common theme of nationalism by itself could not make the regime’s ideological repertoire coherent; but it

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was relatively clearly defined and broadly recognized by both the regime and the society. In contrast, following the Soviet collapse and the liberal Yeltsin era, Russian national identity has been in considerable disarray and confusion despite the Putin regime’s efforts to incorporate disparate perspectives that are often contradictory. Whereas in the Russian case, the central idea within the regime’s ideological repertoire—­that of Russia as a great power—­ contains many ambiguities regarding national identity and developmental strategy, a more concrete and consistent idea of Chinese nationalism still serves as the anchor of an increasingly fragmented and incoherent ideological repertoire for the post-­Deng CCP regime. Elite Commitment and Regime Ideology-­Building in China

Given the continuing authoritarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party, it would be tempting to assume overall elite unity in China. But since the early revolutionary days, the CCP political elites in China have never been a homogeneous and united group. Mao himself became the party leader after purging the previous pro-­Soviet leadership of the “returned Bolsheviks” and sidelining the Zhang Guotao faction. During much of the Maoist era, factional conflicts over power and ideology featured prominently in elite politics, leading to successive purges of various “cliques” and “gangs.” The catastrophic Cultural Revolution era was characterized by intense and sometimes deadly struggles124 between the radicals supported by Mao and the majority moderates, which decimated political elites and eventually resulted in the victory of the moderates represented by Deng over the radicals represented by the “Gang of Four.” It was later blamed on the “counterrevolutionary cliques” of Jiang Qing and Lin Biao by the Party’s 1981 Resolution.125 The subsequent Deng era witnessed power struggles between the reformers and the conservatives, which partially contributed to the tragedy of the 1989 Tiananmen Incident.126 Against such a backdrop, the post-­Deng elite’s commitment to the regime’s ideological projects could not be taken for granted. This section examines major sources of elite division and unity in the post-­Deng era in order to assess the elite’s commitment to the regime’s ideological projects. Ideological Division and Convergence of Chinese Political Elites

Compared to the political elites under Mao and Deng, the post-­Deng political elites were less divided in several important ways. First, for post-­Deng

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political elites, the 1989 Tiananmen Incident and the collapse of Leninism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union highlighted the dangers of elite division.127 It was impossible for the Chinese elites not to try to draw some lessons in order to avoid this fate. After the conservatives within the regime, emboldened by the Tiananmen Incident, failed to roll back the reforms, most political elites rallied around Deng’s pragmatic approach of ensuring regime survival with the combination of economic reform and political authoritarianism. A richer and more powerful post-­Deng China further raised the stake for elites, as the potential consequences of all-­out elite fights like those that took place under Mao would now be even more damaging.128 Second, as the old communist ideology, along with the revolutionary generation, receded into the background, there was a “technocratization” of the political elites during the post-­Deng era. In 1994, almost two-­thirds of party members made their living in agriculture or industry, but by 2011 farmers and workers made up only 38.6 percent,129 and by 2014, 37.9 percent.130 Instead, the CCP increasingly concentrated its recruitment efforts on the newly emerging urban professional class and the private sector in order to create an alliance of political and economic elites.131 Under Xi, the party issued new recruitment rules for the first time in decades to enlist new members in a “prudent’ and “balanced” manner, essentially imposing more quality control. 132 Rather than focusing on political and revolutionary movements and ideological debates like their predecessors, the majority of the post-­Deng political elites, having grown up and received their education during the postrevolutionary era, were relatively well educated, often in technical subjects, and focused mostly on economic performance.133 Finally, the leadership had been able to keep a relatively tight rein on the loyalty and ideological commitment of political elites through a system of recruitment and promotion usually tied to economic performance,134 reinforced by promises of concrete political privileges and material benefits. This to an extent made the post-­Deng political elites a more homogeneous group in terms of both their identity and interests. The fact that post-­Deng political elites were a less divided group compared to those in the Maoist and Deng eras, however, did not mean that they did not have significant ideological differences. For example, some scholars had identified two informal political camps or coalitions within the CCP political elites—­“populists” and “elitists.” The first group was represented by former president Hu Jintao and by the current prime minister, Li Keqiang. The second group was represented by former president Jiang Zemin.135 While the “elitists” usually represented the interests of economically prosperous coastal cities and the interests of China’s business elites, the

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“populists” usually came from more humble backgrounds and were focused more on less-­developed inland regions and the concerns of vulnerable social groups such as farmers, migrant workers, and the urban poor. The makeup of the 18th CCP Politburo Standing Committee selected in 2012 partially reflected this two-­camp divide, with the “elitists” forming a majority.136 These two competing groups coexisted through compromises and negotiations, and their divide did not degenerate into the kind of vicious infighting that characterized elite politics under Mao and to a lesser extent under Deng. But their ideological disagreements were real, as clearly highlighted by the different policy priorities the regime pursued under Jiang and Hu. Xi Jinping, China’s president since 2013, came from a “princeling” background, had long experiences working in a number of economically advanced regions such as Fujian and Zhejiang, and was thus considered close to the “elitists” coalition. At the same time, his nationalist posturing, tough anticorruption stance, and Maoist rhetoric appealed to the “populists” within the regime. This combination made Xi an acceptable choice for both ideological camps. Unlike his predecessor Hu, who had to deal with Jiang’s constant meddling, Xi so far seems to be able to operate relatively free of factional constraints and assert his power across factional lines. But the divide among the political elites persists and is likely to remain for quite some time. Nevertheless, compared to the Russian political elites under Putin, the post-­Deng Chinese elites were less ideationally fragmented despite their apparent differences over policy priorities. Lacking common ideological ground, Russian political elites’ support for the regime hinged crucially around Putin’s seemingly indispensable role in mediating between divergent elite interests. In contrast, Chinese political elites as a group still appeared relatively homogenous in terms of supporting the CCP regime for its basic institutions and what they could offer, rather than for any individual leaders. When it comes to fundamental issues such as the CCP’s leadership and the existing political and economic structures, the overwhelming majority of China’s political elites seemed to stay loyal. Moreover, although it was unlikely that the political elites had fully internalized the regime’s ideological projects, local officials (or cadres) had to prove their familiarity with party theory as they put it into practice since they could only advance their careers by receiving positive evaluations in a system managed by their superiors.137 In other words, regardless of whether they actually believed in the official ideology or not, most political elites had to at least maintain the appearance of ideological correctness in order to survive and thrive in the political system where personal loyalty is very much tied to ideological loyalty.138 A 2010 nationwide survey conducted by Chinese scholars showed that CCP mem-

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bers, compared to nonmembers, were more likely to demonstrate their loyalty by participating in political and civic activities, and to support and trust the central party-­state.139 In 2014, the party’s 4th Plenum passed a resolution that requires all civil servants, most of whom are CCP members, to swear allegiance to the Chinese Constitution. This was very different from the Russian case, where a relatively weak institutional structure and the “catch-­ all” characteristic of United Russia provided few mechanisms to maintain any kind of real ideological unity. Finally, despite their differences, which could be significant sometimes, the two broad elite political coalitions in post-­Deng China were to an extent complementary in terms of administrative skills and political credentials. They did not necessarily get along all the time, but neither side was capable of nor interested in completely defeating the other because both wanted to maintain one-­party rule and improve China’s international status.140 Under the current leader, Xi Jinping, the regime has been striving to establish a new elite consensus behind the reform process. To facilitate consensus-­building among the top leadership, the Politburo Standing Committee’s membership was reduced from nine to seven.141 So far, Xi’s major policy initiatives, such as the 3rd Plenum reform plans and the ongoing anticorruption campaign, cannot be simply explained through a factional lens as they do not particularly benefit any identifiable “faction.” Despite his “princeling” background and bold leadership style, Xi’s agenda closely followed what was already outlined in the work report delivered by outgoing leader Hu Jintao at the 18th Party Congress, which took a drafting group of both central and provincial leaders almost a year to draft and revise, and was repeatedly reviewed by both the entire Politburo and its Standing Committee.142 This suggests that his “strongman” image notwithstanding, Xi came to power with a mandate within the regime and his agenda had considerable support among political elites. Increasing Institutionalization of Elite Politics

For a long time, especially since the initiation of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, elite conflicts were a prominent feature of Chinese elite politics. Although scholars disagree over the exact sources of these conflicts, whether policy disputes, power struggles, or institutional arrangements,143 most agree that strife and conflict, rather than cooperation and unity, defined elite politics in China during most of the Maoist era and the Deng era. One analytical lens frequently employed to study elite conflicts in China is the

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factionalism model, which sees elite politics in China as dominated by factions based on patron-­client relationships.144 During the Mao and Deng periods, the highly personalized nature of elite politics and the extremely weak institutionalization of the political process led to sometimes fierce struggles between elites and political instability, which in turn jeopardized ideological unity and policy consistency.145 This long-­standing problem, however, started to change as the Deng era unfolded. In order to create a relatively predictable and stable political environment conducive to economic development and to guard against the kind of individual power concentration that characterized the Maoist dictatorship, the CCP regime under Deng started to institutionalize elite politics by establishing institutional routines and procedures while also emphasizing organizational discipline.146 As the powerful old revolutionary generation faded in post-­1989 politics, the new post-­Deng leaders, who did not enjoy the same kind of personal clout, increasingly had to rely on compromise and consultation rather than on dominance over their opponents to achieve their goals.147 Elite factions, although still present, were no longer able to destroy each other and instead found themselves constrained by institutional arrangements such as collective decision-­making leadership and age and term limits.148 Significantly, the regime had been promoting the so-­called intraparty democracy (dangnei minzhu) in recent years to better institutionalize elite politics,149 and the new members of the Politburo were now collectively selected through voting.150 All this signaled a sustained effort by the post-­Deng CCP regime to counter the personalization of elite politics that had characterized the Maoist era and the Deng era. Xi himself had spoken out forcefully against factionalism within the party—­what he called “small circles,” “cliques,” and “gangs” based on patronage relationships.151 Subsequently, a 2015 Central Commission of Discipline Inspection meeting chaired by Xi specified a focus on taking down factions within the party as a core element in its top priority of enforcing party discipline.152 In addition, as the Chinese state still directly and indirectly controls enormous economic assets, an informal system that allowed the political elites to use state-­controlled rents to help manage intraelite conflicts played an important role in maintaining the relative elite unity within the regime.153 This last mechanism, however, has come under increasing strain as a result of Xi’s large-­scale anticorruption campaign, which has curtailed, but not eliminated, elites’ rent-­seeking behavior. This post-­Deng institutionalization of elite politics, both formal and informal, took place within the broader context of gradual institutional adjustments by the CCP designed to guarantee ongoing economic reforms

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and political stability as well as to accommodate shocks resulting from socioeconomic development, with the ultimate goal of maintaining the CCP’s dominance.154 At the same time, the post-­Deng elites, lacking both electoral legitimacy and revolutionary prestige, must maintain their factional support, especially at the senior level.155 The 2006 purge of Chen Liangyu and the 2012 purge of Bo Xilai,156 both on corruption charges, showed that factional politics in post-­Deng China could still occasionally turn ugly.157 But the fact that these instances led to the downfall of only a few individuals rather than the elimination of entire groups indicated that institutional checks had kept factional struggles relatively, if not entirely, under control. The persistence of factional divisions to an extent poses a continuing challenge for the regime’s efforts to institutionalize elite politics. Xi Jinping’s rapid power consolidation and his recent “Mass Line” campaign suggest that the regime will strive to keep a tight rein on its political elites in the foreseeable future. So far, there is little evidence that the anticorruption campaign is being driven by factional politics, despite the large number of high-­ranking officials sacked.158 Although Xi enjoys more personal authority than his predecessors, there are signs that he still consults with Jiang and Hu when making key decisions in the campaign,159 and his relationships with these former leaders do not appear seriously strained as a result. This shows that party unity remains a top concern for Xi. It forms a contrast with Putin’s anticorruption campaign in Russia, which has been much more timid and has been overshadowed and often propelled by intricate elite conflicts.160 The two recent leadership transitions—­from Jiang to Hu and then from Hu to Xi—­showed that Chinese elite politics, at least at the top level, is growing more stable and systematic. Being only the “first among equals” instead of the wielders of overwhelming political power, such as Mao and to a lesser extent Deng, the post-­Deng top leaders themselves have not been able to drastically alter fundamental policy directions. This has ensured an overall consistency in the regime’s basic political and economic frameworks independent of the tenure of individual leaders. Recently, Xi’s assertive leadership style has been characterized by some as breaking the mode of “collective leadership,”161 but this is partially a reaction to his immediate predecessor Hu’s relatively weak leadership and the mounting domestic and international pressures that demanded comprehensive reform in order to sustain party governance. There is little indication that Xi will revamp the existing system in any fundamental way. Of course, the preservation of party unity might require further steps toward greater intraparty democracy and judicial independence.162 In this sense, the 19th Party Congress scheduled for 2017 will be an important test for elite unity as the political elites decide on the

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next generation of Chinese leaders. But for now, as Xi Jinping quickly and decisively consolidated his political power over the military, the economy, the police, and foreign affairs, there has been little evidence that the regime is in any imminent danger of losing control over its political elite, who, despite their internal differences, remain heavily invested in the status quo. Therefore, although some have drawn parallels between Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin,163 the dynamics underlying Chinese elite politics have been very different from the Russian case. After Xi took power, a Russian political analyst commented, “The Chinese have managed to do something the Russians can never pull off: to stop relying on great and irreplaceable individuals, and instead establish a system of regular change of [its] top leaders.”164 An article in the Russian business newspaper RBK Daily even suggested that China’s leadership succession provided the “best example” for Russia.165 Whereas Russian elite politics under Putin has been sustained primarily through a personalistic system built around individual leaders, especially Putin himself, post-­Deng Chinese elite politics has been increasingly institutionalized in an effort to keep personalization and fragmentation in check. Although there is no guarantee that this institutionalization effort will be successful in the long run, at present it does provide a plausible basis for the Chinese political elites to continue to remain loyal to, and cooperate with, the top leadership on fundamental issues. Conclusion

The post-­Deng CCP regime has appeared fairly stable for a number of reasons, including primarily its relatively successful record of economic development; its ability to adapt to the changing reality and co-­opt the middle class; and the lack of appealing political alternatives. Few, if any, would argue that the regime’s apparent stability was achieved and sustained by its ideological appeals. This suggests that despite the regime’s successive ideological changes, it still suffers from a sort of “ideological deficit,” and its search for a clear and viable regime ideology remains a work in progress. Nevertheless, compared to the Russian case, the Chinese regime’s ideological repertoire has had a relatively consistent and clearly defined “core”—­a state-­sponsored nationalism that has been widely accepted at least within the regime and maybe even within much of the society. Moreover, despite existing differences, the Chinese political elites have been less ideationally fragmented and better institutionalized than their Russian counterparts. Consequently, the post-­Deng CCP regime’s ideological projects have been relatively well sup-

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ported by elites even though their broader significance domestically or internationally remains very much an open question. Domestically, it is likely that the CCP regime will continue to invest heavily in ideology-­building under President Xi Jinping. Xi’s administration so far has shown a particular determination for China to avoid the fate of the Soviet Union. A key commentary from the People’s Daily in October 2013 puts it bluntly, “Today, the Soviet Union, with its history of 74 years, has been gone for 22 years. For more than two decades, socialist China has never stopped reflecting on the destruction of the Soviet communist party and state (wangdang wangguo) by Soviet communists.”166 If anything, early evidence shows that Xi might be putting even more emphasis on ideology than his two post-­Deng predecessors while operating under the same broad developmental framework of political authoritarianism combined with continuing economic reforms. Such a framework, however, will only make the regime’s ideological repertoire increasingly incoherent, as had been the case under Jiang and Hu. This means that the official nationalism, as the constant and possibly the least controversial element, will most likely remain central to whatever ideological innovations the regime will come up with. It also means that in the event that this official nationalism loses its appeal among either the elites or the general public, there won’t be much left to the ideology on which the regime rests its legitimacy. In this way, China’s official nationalism could be seen as both a vital asset and a heavy burden and a potential liability for the regime. Internationally, even though the Chinese regime’s search for a regime ideology is taking place under conditions that are more favorable than in the Russian case, the fact that a peculiar kind of nationalism shaped by the regime’s unique history occupies a central place in its ideological projects makes the so-­called China model ill-­suited for emulation by others. One could identify some specific features of such a “model”167 that could potentially be transplanted elsewhere, but what ultimately holds this “model” together is a state-­sponsored nationalism that is fundamentally particularistic and an institutional structure that bears distinct imprints from the communist era. In other words, even if the Chinese regime does succeed one day in defining and articulating a clear “China model,” such a model is unlikely to emerge as a potentially universalist model with global appeal. Given all the talk about a “Beijing Consensus” and the Chinese government’s enormous multidimensional efforts in boosting the regime’s international image and “soft power,” China’s global ideational and cultural impact has been relatively minimal. As David Shambaugh puts it, “China is not a magnet that attracts others.”168 In terms of foreign policy, the Chinese regime will continue

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to attempt to uphold its nationalist image by showing more assertiveness. To prevent this nationalist stance from unintentionally threatening economic development or even regime stability, or both, will require great balancing skills. Whether the regime succeeds or fails in striking the necessary balance will have a direct effect on China’s future prospects. In contrast to the Putin regime, which has tried to recover from the monumental failure of ideology-­building under Yeltsin, the post-­Deng CCP regime has faced the different challenge of modifying and rebuilding a once-­ coherent but now moribund regime ideology under Mao and, to a lesser extent, under Deng. The Chinese regime has benefited from the advantages of relative institutional stability and continuity and elite homogeneity lacking in the Russian case. Also important, however, has been the Chinese regime’s ability to adapt and to create new formal and informal institutional incentives for the political elites to support the regime and its ideological projects. This has been no small feat. Yet over time this advantage might well turn into an obstacle as the regime’s ideological projects become increasingly constrained by its own institutional frameworks, which rest, ultimately, on Leninist one-­party rule. In this sense the Chinese regime’s search for a clear and viable regime ideology will continue to be an uphill battle.

Chapter 6

Conclusion

The opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2014 Sochi Olympics were arguably the two most impressive in recent Olympics history in terms of scale and extravagance. They also revealed some interesting parallels. While the Beijing Olympics was China’s big coming out party, which announced to the world that China had finally arrived as a great power, the Sochi Olympics was the first for Russia after the Soviet Union’s collapse, which was used by the Putin regime to promote the image of a resurgent Russia reclaiming its lost glory after years of chaos and decline.1 Instead of just showcasing artistic and athletic performances or technical spectacles, of which there were plenty, both ceremonies were designed to invoke a sense of grandeur and national pride based on sweeping historical narratives, which were beautifully and lavished presented to emphasize continuity from ancient times through the modern era while downplaying any troubling or controversial periods.2 These ceremonies were no doubt intended to project strength and to portray the current CCP regime and the Putin regime as legitimate heirs of China’s and Russia’s rich historical heritage. At the same time, their deliberate and almost overwrought focus on a continuous history suggests a deep underlying anxiety for these regimes to define themselves and their places in history and in the postcommunist world. Today, with the United States as the predominant global power, few states are perceived as having the ability or even the potential to challenge U.S. leadership and the existing world order. Over time, however, China and Russia have emerged as the two prime candidates, among other “middle” or “regional” powers, to potentially alter the Western-­established status quo. This is not simply because of the two countries’ vast sizes, their growing political and economic power, and their increasing international assertiveness. Rather, it is because these factors are being combined with the uneasy 126

Conclusion  127

perception that the kind of political and economic ideas these regimes embody are drastically different from the global liberal democratic mainstream. Meanwhile, all the hypothetical talk of an alternative “model” aside, the reality is that these regimes’ global ideological influence, and, indeed, their “soft power” in general, has so far been extremely and disproportionately weak (even more so in the case of Russia than in China) given their rising status. The continuing prevalence of liberal democratic ideology backed by American hegemony surely plays a role, but these regimes’ ideological weakness mostly stems from within. Striking Parallels; Significant Divergence Main Points of Comparison

The end of communism presented postcommunist regimes with new and exciting political and economic opportunities while also challenging them to redefine themselves. During the 1990s, the majority of postcommunist CEE regimes and the Yeltsin regime in Russia both attempted to establish a liberal democratic identity, with drastically different outcomes. A comparative study of these two “baseline” cases presented in chapter 3 showed that these different outcomes were linked to the varying degrees of coherence of these regimes’ ideological repertoires and the strength of elite commitment to their ideological projects, which were in turn shaped by a range of institutional and historical factors. In particular, the CEE regimes were able to benefit from a relatively uncontroversial “European” identity and the prospect and process of Western integration—­both factors missing in Yeltsin’s Russia. Also important was the absence of a great power aspiration among the majority of CEE political elites that would demand an independent, rather than a secondary, international status. Unlike in Yeltsin’s Russia, this absence made it possible for external forces—­NATO and especially the EU—­to exert pressure on CEE elites to promote a sort of ideological conformity. In this sense, the CEE cases did enjoy certain geographic and historical “advantages” that would be hard to duplicate elsewhere in the postcommunist world. This study’s main focus, however, is on the ongoing search for a new regime identity in contemporary Russia and China—­the two postcommunist giants that have so far embarked on a nonliberal democratic path since making little progress in ideology-­building back in the 1990s. Although it is still too early to draw any definite conclusions regarding the final outcomes of this search, it is possible to compare and contrast these two cases to exam-

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ine these regimes’ respective ideological repertoires and elite commitment and thereby gauge their prospects for successfully building a clear and viable regime ideology. The two tables below sum up the main points of comparison regarding their ideological repertoires and elite commitment. In order to highlight the contrast between the two cases, these points are presented in a relatively simplified way, leaving out some of the details and nuances included in the previous chapters. Based on the three indicators of success in regime ideology-­building—­ the clarity and consistency of the substantive criteria of leadership succession; the coherence of ideas about state-­society relations as reflected in political and economic organization; and consistency between regime rhetoric and actions—­both the Russian regime under Putin and the post-­Deng CCP regime have not yet succeeded in outlining a clear and viable new regime ideology. Considering that these processes are still unfolding, it could be argued that the Chinese regime’s ideology-­building project has moved along further compared to the Russian one. First, given formal differences in reTable 6.1. Regime Ideological Repertoires in Putin’s Russia and Post-­Deng China

Putin’s Russia Main Components

Summary

The Pre-­Soviet era • Traditional Russian identity • Prerevolutionary conservativism • Orthodox Christianity The Soviet era • Selective Soviet symbols • “Great Patriotic War” The Yeltsin era • Liberal democratic constitution • Market economy and global economic integration The only common theme of this ideological repertoire is the idea of Russia as an independent great power. But this repertoire’s main components diverge greatly regarding who this state represents and what kind of political and economic institutions and international orientation it should pursue.

Post-­Deng China The Precommunist era • Selective elements of Confucianism • Historical greatness and the “century of humiliation” • 20th century nationalism The Maoist era • “Socialist” identity • “Mass Line” The Deng era • Economic development as an ideological goal • Reconceptualization of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” Many of these components do not complement each other, especially the “socialist” identity and the ideological prioritization of economic development. But compared to the Russian case, a more clearly defined and broadly accepted official nationalism, relatively unchanged over time, still anchors this ideological repertoire.

Conclusion  129

gime structure, whereas leadership succession remains heavily dependent on individual loyalty and is therefore highly personalistic in Russia, it appears to have become more institutionalized in the case of China, despite the continuing relevance of factional politics. Although the actual procedures remain rather opaque to outsiders, the two most recent power transitions in China were carefully arranged and anticipated far in advance and took place in an orderly fashion. This is an indication that at least within the Chinese regime itself, a set of relatively clear and consistent substantive criteria for Table 6.2. Elite Commitment in Putin’s Russia and Post-­Deng China

Putin’s Russia

Post-­Deng China

Elite Ideational Unity

• Lack of ideological conviction among diverse elites despite considerable support for Putin • No consensus over whether Russia should liberalize further or pursue an independent developmental path • United Russia remains ideologically heterogeneous • Vast ideational differences between siloviki and liberals/technocrats

Elite Institutionalization

• Increasing formal and informal fusion of “power and property” • Constant power struggle and infighting checked only by personalistic power arrangements instead of formal institutions • Putin as the ultimate, and for now irreplaceable, arbiter Russian elite politics is sustained primarily through a complicated personalistic system built around Putin. The ideologically heterogeneous elites have relatively few incentives to support the regime’s ideological projects in this context.

• Post-­Deng elites became more homogenous in both identity and interests compared to the Maoist and Deng eras • Majority of elites appear to support the regime’s basic institutions • Elites need to prove their ideological loyalty to survive and thrive • “Populists” and “elitists” differ on policy preferences but not on fundamental institutions or party leadership • Sustained regime efforts in party-­building • Persistent factionalism and official corruption and persistent institutional efforts to counter them • Gradual institutionalization of leadership succession

Summary

The continuing institutionalization of Chinese elite politics has kept fragmentation relatively in check and provided incentives for elites to show support for the regime’s ideological projects, at least for now.

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selecting top leaders is emerging. In contrast, as evidenced by the Putin/ Medvedev “tandemocracy,” it is not clear whether any substantive criteria for leadership succession exist within the Russian regime at present, other than personal loyalty to Putin. This kind of electoral “uncertain rules but certain outcomes” contributed to the outbreak of mass protests across Russia in late 2011, which became known as the “December Movement.”3 Second, in both Russia and China, political and economic organizations do not match well in terms of their underlying assumptions about state-­society relations. Both regimes are committed to building a marketized and increasingly globalized economy that would certainly encourage, and possibly require, greater independence and autonomy of the society from the state. Politically, both nevertheless rely on extensive authoritarian measures to maintain and even strengthen the dominance of the state. The key difference is that while China under the CCP had been gradually moving along the overall direction from command economy to allowing the market a “basic” and then “decisive” role,4 albeit without relinquishing control over strategic sectors, the Russian regime had been engaging in political and, to a lesser extent, economic re-­centralization after rapid liberalization under Yeltsin. In this sense there has been more of a broad sense of institutional continuity and coherence in the case of China. Finally, in both China and Russia, regime policies increasingly do not match these regimes’ respective self-­proclaimed identities as “socialist” and “democratic.” For the Chinese regime, the insistence on being “socialist” is a result of the continuing leadership of the CCP. For the Putin regime, the official “democratic” identity is part and parcel of the preservation of the Yeltsin era’s constitution and basic political and economic institutions. Many therefore classify the regime as a “hybrid”, “semi-­,” or “competitive” authoritarian regime. At the same time, while the Chinese regime can still attempt to justify its policies by using the deliberately ambiguous concept of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” coined by Deng exactly for such purposes, the increasingly authoritarian Putin regime has to operate under, and be constrained by, the 1993 liberal democratic constitution. Consequently, multiple attempts have been made in recent years to change the constitution to better suit the Putin regime’s authoritarian characteristics and objectives.5 Between the “Old Road” and the “Evil Road”

The introductory chapter of this book presented two major puzzles. First, despite key differences in their formal institutional trappings, why do post-

Conclusion  131

communist regimes in China and Russia both end up seeking nonliberal and non-­Western ideological alternatives? Second, given both regimes’ communist pasts and their heavy reliance on nationalism to gain popular support in the present, what explains the significant difference in their approaches to building a new regime ideology? This study provided answers as summarized below. Regarding the first question, the Putin regime and the post-­Deng CCP regime both rejected Western-­style liberalism, but they arrived at this point following rather different trajectories. For both Russia and China as late developers, the West had traditionally been perceived as an “Other.” While the idea of China as a distinct civilization separated from the West was widely accepted within China, a similar idea about Russia had been repeatedly contested in Russian history. Having rejected communism, postcommunist Russia attempted the liberal democratic path under Yeltsin during the 1990s, but this attempt was ultimately a feeble one in the immediate wake of Soviet collapse. Its failure was the result of an incoherent ideological repertoire fragmented by ambiguous and conflicting ideas of national identity and the growing perception that Western ideas were undermining Russian interests and therefore were incompatible with traditional Russian values. It was also due to extremely weak support from Russian political elites, most of whom, given their diverse orientations, desired a great power status for Russia and hence became deeply disillusioned with the West as the decade wore on. The liberal democratic formal institutions, without the help of any international force or mechanism such as those that existed in the CEE case, were unable to effectively constrain elite behavior, and the gap between formal institutions and increasingly personalized informal elite politics widened. Within the span of less than a decade, the Yeltsin presidency’s failed attempt to embrace Western liberal ideology paved the way for Putin’s rejection of Western-­style liberalism and his regime’s search for a nonliberal and non-­Western identity by co-­opting selective platforms and ideational elements from the leftist opposition, the liberal opposition, and the far-­right opposition. In postcommunist China, there had been no real attempt at the regime level to adopt liberal democratic values. As Xi Jinping famously declared, having moved away from the “old road”—­communism—­China should not now take the “evil road”—­liberal democracy.6 This of course has something to do with the continuing rule of the CCP, which severely limits opportunities for political contention, and the fact that embracing liberal democratic values would be tantamount to “regime suicide.” But given that the post-­ Deng CCP regime has largely accepted the norms and practices of a market economy, it is rather conspicuous that this acceptance is accompanied by a resolute rejection of Western liberal values and the absence of any major

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liberal or quasi-­liberal dissenting voices within the regime such as the likes of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang in the Deng era, which was arguably more authoritarian. This development should be understood in light of the 1989 Tiananmen Incident and the 1991 Soviet collapse, which has been endlessly and painstakingly analyzed over by the CCP regime determined to avoid a similar fate. The perception that ideological erosion was a leading cause of the 1989 crisis as well as the Soviet demise hardened the post-­Deng leaderships’ resolve to resist Western liberal ideology. Unlike in Russia, where the rejection was in many ways enabled by the failed experiment under Yeltsin rather than based on any unequivocal understanding of Russia as non-­ Western, the post-­Deng CCP regime’s aversion to liberal democratic values was an integral part of its official nationalist narrative that had pitted China against the West ever since the “century of humiliation” inflicted by foreign powers, which implied that a unique developmental path was required to achieve the cherished goal of “national rejuvenation.” This narrative, virtually unchanged from the Maoist days, constitutes the core theme of the regime’s ideological projects. During the post-­Deng era, it has been greatly buttressed by decades of economic success, relative political stability, and China’s rising international status, all of which the CCP can claim credit for, effectively stifling liberal voices. As to the second question about the divergence between Russia’s and China’s regime ideology-­building projects, the previous chapters have shown that these processes are being crucially shaped by different ideological repertoires and the varying strength of elite commitment in Russia and China. The comparative study reveals both striking parallels and significant divergence. One of the most obvious similarities between China’s and Russia’s regime ideology-­building projects is a shared emphasis on nationalism as a part of these regimes’ ideological repertoires. Internationally, this is reflected in both regimes’ increasing assertiveness in dealing with their neighbors, which has yielded considerable domestic dividends when it comes to generating popular support. A closer look, however, suggests that nationalism takes different forms and plays very different roles in these two contexts. In the case of Russia, the Putin regime has been focusing on the idea of building a great and powerful state. This idea of a strong state has a long tradition in Russian political history and enjoys broad support within the regime, but it also masks deep and persistent divisions over the issue of national identity, which had been greatly transformed by decades of Soviet nation-­building that attempted to build a multinational state spearheading a global ideology. Russia’s annexation of Crimea was hugely popular among competing Russian nationalists of different stripes exactly because it satisfied

Conclusion  133

both the imperial-­minded expansionists and the more exclusionary Slavic and ethnic types.7 Even within the regime itself, there is no clear consensus over what it means to be Russian or whether Russia could, or should, be considered “Western.” Therefore, although most agree that Russia should be an independent great power, there is actually little agreement on what kind of great power it should become or how Russia should achieve such a status. This explains the Putin regime’s heavy reliance on precommunist conservative ideational elements, which, compared to those from the Soviet era or the Yeltsin era, are the least controversial among Russia’s complex historical legacies, in constructing a new regime ideology. In contrast, China’s official state nationalism, a constant central theme of the CCP regime’s ideological projects, is relatively well defined and widely accepted within the regime. Like Russian nationalism, this official Chinese nationalism also has its roots in the precommunist history. But unlike Russian nationalism, which has to confront highly controversial and inconsistent legacies of nation-­building under the Soviet era and then the Yeltsin era, the official Chinese nationalism’s main component consists of the CCP’s past and present nationalist credentials in saving China from foreign humiliations and restoring China to its rightful place in the world. This official nationalism can be traced back to the CCP’s origin as a nationalist as well as communist revolutionary party, and it has remained relatively unchanged since the Maoist days. Therefore, despite the fact that the current CCP regime is in many ways different from its predecessor under Mao, and that its ideological projects have long veered away from the traditional communist path, its official nationalism could still serve as a unifying ideational force internally. Another notable parallel between the two cases is the fact that, in both Russia and China, elite politics has been marred by rampant elite corruption and extensive informal ties, which could undermine elite commitment to these regimes’ ideological projects. At the same time, pandemic official corruption itself is an indication that these regimes face a significant deficit in ideology-­building. Thus a vicious cycle is formed: the absence of an appealing regime ideology enables elite corruption, which in turn weakens elite commitment and makes it even more difficult for the regime’s ideological projects to succeed. To be sure, elite corruption and informal ties were not new in either case even under communism. For example, during the Brezhnev era, svyazi (connections) and blat (pull) became widespread in the Soviet system; and guanxi (personal relations) among elites remained an important feature of Maoist politics. In the postcommunist context, however, elite corruption reached a new height in both countries as economic and political reforms generated numerous opportunities that did not pre-

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viously exist. Because rampant corruption and elite nepotism damage regime legitimacy and governing efficacy, it calls into question elite loyalty to these regimes. Indeed, both regimes have launched large-­scale anticorruption campaigns, sometimes targeting high-­profile officials, in order to rein in political elites. The personalization of elite politics, however, has been under better control in China than in Russia. So far, elite politics has not deteriorated so much as to seriously destabilize the regime in either case. The important difference is that in Russia conflicts among heterogeneous elites are being managed mainly through power arrangements built around a few individuals, especially Putin, whereas in China factional politics is increasingly constrained by ongoing institutionalization aimed at strengthening party discipline and preserving party unity. In addition, the Chinese political system provides both institutional incentives and mechanisms for elites to at least appear to toe the party line while relatively few such mechanisms exist in Russia. Therefore, although anticorruption campaigns carry inherent risks by changing the existing informal rules of the game and creating political uncertainty in both cases,8 it was nevertheless possible for Xi Jinping to operate above factional lines to crack down far and wide, whereas the options for Putin were much more limited as Kremlin rule remains heavily personalized. In this sense, elite politics in China is in relatively less danger of spiraling out of control in the event of a top leadership transition. In comparison, elite politics in Russia could potentially become unpredictable without Putin as the ultimate arbiter in the capacity of either president or prime minister. It is possible that some other individual(s) might be able to play the same role, but this is far from certain. Not surprisingly, the current Russian regime has attempted to keep Putin in power for as long as possible, while the Chinese regime has gone through two successful top leadership transitions in recent decades. Consequently, at least for now, the Chinese political elites, compared to their Russian counterparts, are more likely to support their regime’s ideological projects. These parallels and differences suggest that some apparent similarities between the two cases notwithstanding, the underlying dynamics of regime ideology-­building in China and Russia are quite different. In their efforts to carve out a new identity that is distinctive from both the old communist identity and the Western-­oriented liberal democratic identity, the postcommunist regimes in China and Russia have adopted different strategies under different circumstances. Although at this point the Chinese regime seems to be further along in its search for a new regime ideology, it does not mean that it will definitely succeed, or that the current Russian regime will necessarily be unable to construct a new regime ideology. What it means is

Conclusion  135

that if the current situation persists in both countries, which is of course in no way guaranteed, a “China model” might well materialize sooner than a “Russia model.” This tentative assessment is based on comparison of the two regimes’ existing ideological repertoires and elite commitment to their ideological projects, as presented in the previous chapters. It should be emphasized that such an assessment does not tell us much about whether these regimes’ ideological projects would be widely accepted by the society at large or even by the broader international community, even though it must be these regimes’ intention to gain domestic and international acceptance and legitimacy eventually. It also does not tell us much about whether and to what extent their ideological projects alone would contribute to these regimes’ long-­term durability, given the multitude of challenges they face. These important questions should be addressed in further studies. Broader Implications

Temporally and spatially, this study focuses on postcommunist Russia and China, and, to a lesser extent, on postcommunist Central and Eastern Europe. Although it employs broadly defined concepts, it neither claims nor attempts to put forth a theoretical argument that is universally applicable across time and space. However, some of its findings could potentially shed light on a number of broader theoretical and empirical issues. This section focuses on some of these issues. Regime Identities in the Postcommunist Context and Beyond

Currently, many postcommunist CEE regimes have adopted, or are trying to build, a liberal democratic identity. Nevertheless, most postcommunist regimes elsewhere, including in the two biggest postcommunist countries, Russia and China, have yet to carve out a clear and distinctive new identity. These simultaneously postcommunist and “nonliberal and nondemocratic” regimes include the two Asian regimes in Vietnam and Laos that are still ruled by communist parties but have so far departed from the communist developmental path.9 More recently, the regimes in Cuba and North Korea also attempted limited economic reforms, but their scope and duration were nowhere near those in Vietnam and Laos.10 Therefore, it is particularly problematic to categorize either Cuba or North Korea as “postcommunist” even though their versions of communism are idiosyncratic in many aspects.11

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The case of China could potentially illuminate the processes by which the Vietnamese regime and the Laotian regime attempt to define a new postcommunist identity. In both Vietnam and Laos, fundamental economic reforms started much later than in China. This late start, however, enabled the Vietnamese and Laotian regimes to learn valuable lessons from the earlier Chinese reform experience. Significantly, both avoided the Gorbachev-­ style simultaneous political and economic reforms that preceded the Soviet collapse, and pursued gradual economic reform under the continuing and largely stable one-­party system dominated by the communist party. The Vietnamese “Doi Moi” was actually modeled loosely after the Deng Xiaoping reform.12 The “New Economic Mechanism” in Laos was in many ways similar to the Vietnamese reform as the Laotian regime remained under heavy political influence from Vietnam and its leadership looked to Vietnam for economic advice and military assistance.13 After the mass extinction of communist regimes, both Vietnam and Laos faced the challenge of redefining their developmental paths while rejecting outright democratization.14 Politically and ideologically, mirroring developments in China, these two regimes gradually shed their communist characteristics over the years, allowing private entrepreneurs to join the party and even sit in national parliaments through limited and tightly controlled multicandidate elections, even as their communist parties insist on a monopoly of power. Given these regimes’ strong nationalist roots, it is highly likely that they will increasingly rely on nationalism as a main part of their ideological repertoires just like their Chinese counterpart does.15 This has already happened in Vietnam as evidenced by the large-­scale and sometimes violent anti-­China protests and riots in 2014 in response to maritime disputes in the South China Sea, protests that were unusually tolerated and even tacitly encouraged by the regime until the situation threatened to get out of control. Moreover, although these regimes’ existing party-­state structures still possess considerable disciplinary power from the center and the ability to reward loyalty politically and economically,16 the Chinese case highlights the importance of continuing party adaptation and institutionalization in preventing elite fragmentation and widespread official corruption from fatally undermining regime rule.17 This will not be an easy task in the context of ongoing economic reforms, and waves of anticorruption campaigns seemed to have achieved little. Nationalism alone might turn out to be insufficient in constituting a new regime ideology in the long run, and the party-­state structure will increasingly constrain desperately needed further economic reforms. But if these regimes do succeed in the daunting task of institutionalizing elite support, this national-

Conclusion  137

ist approach, as a temporary expedient, could still buy them precious time to focus on economic development and domestic political stability. Similar to Russia, most post-­Soviet regimes have also not yet embraced a clear liberal democratic identity, even though the communist party is no longer in power. These include a number of “semi” or “electoral” authoritarian regimes where there are constitutionally supplied opportunities for regular elections; and straightforward autocracies such as Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. To be sure, it is entirely conceivable for these regimes to eventually move closer to a liberal democratic regime identity. Some of them, such as Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia,18 are arguably becoming more Western-­ oriented. For many others, however, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, the Russian political and economic system still holds a great deal of appeal. Like the Russian regime, many of them rely heavily on precommunist ideational assets, especially traditional “indigenous” religions and culture, in building a new postcommunist identity.19 In particular, now that Soviet secularism is gone, Islam, as a part of the “national heritage,” has experienced a strong if tightly controlled revival in regime ideology-­building projects in Central Asia,20 as the number of citizens self-­identifying as Muslims has grown rapidly during the past two decades.21 But unlike Russia, which had to confront the historical conflation of “Soviet” and “Russian,”22 these regimes are less burdened with ambivalence toward their Soviet past or some kind of great power aspiration, and therefore do not have to deal with a highly incoherent ideological repertoire. At the same time, lacking adequate institutionalization of elite politics following the collapse of the Soviet party-­state, patronage relationships and cronyism continue to play an essential role in generating and maintaining elite support.23 Within the region, elite conflicts and infighting are frequent and official corruption is among the most rampant in the world.24 As in Russia, the apparent stability of some of these regimes is so dependent on existing patronage ties that leadership succession remains an enormous unresolved issue, which has given rise to a number of “rulers for life” across the region.25 As a result, elite commitment to these regime’s ideological projects is likely to remain highly contingent. In addition, these projects will be strongly influenced by international factors. Specifically, whether the West, as opposed to Russia, is willing and able to exert enough political and economic influence to push these regimes toward a Western-­oriented direction will likely be decisive in shaping their identities. This dynamic tension had already become transparent in Ukraine, which turned into a sort of battleground for supremacy between Russia and the West. However, the possibility of Western intervention

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in countries elsewhere that are not regarded as “EU borderlands” is relatively low,26 and Russia is clearly unwilling to relinquish its political and economic influence in its “near abroad.” These regimes’ ideological projects will therefore likely continue to be characterized by patronage politics and sometimes even cults of personality built around top leaders. In sum, the comparative studies presented in the previous chapters could provide some insights when it comes to the general issue of building postcommunist regime identity. But regime ideology-­building is hardly a challenge unique to the postcommunist countries. Most of the non-­Western postcolonial world has been dealing with the issue of formulating regime ideologies that are either “liberal” or “independent” or somewhere in between since independent nations were formed, and most have gone back and forth in terms of emphasis while continuously trying to integrate a sense of independent identity with a readiness to engage international institutions, norms, and practices. With a wide range of liberal/nonliberal ideas competing for attention, this balancing act has always confronted the political regimes of the developing world, democratic or authoritarian. Against this backdrop, the potential viability and portability of “authoritarian capitalism” as a developmental model that promises advanced modernization while rejecting liberal political ideology deserves particular attention. “Authoritarian Capitalism” as a Developmental Model

During recent years, China and Russia have been frequently associated with so-­called authoritarian capitalism or market authoritarianism, which is often referred to as a sort of “model.” This implies that it is a developmental strategy that could potentially be imitated by others and applied elsewhere in the world. This study, however, casts serious doubt over the potential of “authoritarian capitalism” as a widely applicable developmental model. First, although China and Russia exhibit some superficial similarities when it comes to the combination of political authoritarianism and a market-­oriented economy, the underlying dynamics are too different to lump these two cases together as representing one common developmental strategy. Specifically, as this study has shown, the Chinese regime’s simultaneous espousal of authoritarian and market reform, given its inherent tension and contradictions, is nevertheless anchored by an official state nationalism that has remained constant over the decades and is relatively widely accepted within the regime. This fundamental political and economic framework so

Conclusion  139

far has enjoyed relatively strong elite support, which has been sustained by ongoing institutionalization. In contrast, Russia’s return to political authoritarianism started mostly as a reaction to, and a retreat from, the radical liberalization and institutional fragmentation under Yeltsin. There is no consensus, even within the Russian regime itself, over whether Russia should pursue a more Westernized developmental path, or on what basis the Soviet and post-­Soviet periods should be evaluated, as the fundamental issue of national identity remains controversial. Although the regime’s policies enjoy some elite support, such support is being maintained mostly by informal patronage ties. The combination of authoritarianism and a market economy in the Russian case, therefore, is not based on any coherent ideational foundation and is dependent on highly contingent elite support. Second, if a “China model” is more likely to emerge than a “Russia model,” which is already happening to an extent under Xi as the regime seems more confident in designing and implementing policies that match its stated strategic objectives at home and abroad, it is still questionable whether this “model” would be widely applicable. This so-­called model is far from the simple combination of political authoritarianism and a capitalist economy, which by itself obviously has not led to much economic development elsewhere. Rather, this particular developmental strategy evolved over time within a very specific historical and institutional context in China. Ideationally, it rests upon a powerful yet peculiar official state nationalism that had its long-­term historical roots in the CCP’s revolutionary days, which witnessed the transformation of a communist revolution into a movement for national liberation. Equally important, its implementation has been greatly facilitated by the institutionalization of elite support built upon the existing party-­state structure inherited from the communist era. Therefore, even if a few specific features of the “China model” could be emulated by others, it is nearly impossible to duplicate either the historical legacy of nationalism or the institutional legacy tied to the communist past in the Chinese case. Elements of the “China model” could potentially be transplanted in the postcommunist Asian countries such as Vietnam and Laos, where the regimes share some similar historical and institutional legacies. But it is unlikely to become a universally applicable developmental model for the developing world at large. That said, it is entirely possible that the “China model” could serve as an inspiration for authoritarian regimes elsewhere simply by the power of its example, which suggests, at least on the surface, that sustainable economic growth and long-­term political stability are possible without democratization.27

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Third, it is still too early to argue that the existing “authoritarian capitalism” is an overall success, even in China. To be sure, China’s economic growth has been sustained for over three decades, which is nothing less than astounding for such a large economy. This great economic achievement, coupled with the apparent resilience and stability of the CCP regime, easily leads to the impression that China has found the right recipe for long-­term development, at least from the regime’s point of view. But the reality is much more complicated. China’s economic success has come with huge costs, accompanied by a multitude of socioeconomic and environmental problems. Its existing authoritarian structure is ill-­equipped to handle many of these issues, such as the widening gap between the rich and the poor, rampant corruption, and increasing social unrest. As these problems could potentially threaten regime stability in the long run, especially in the inevitable event of an economic downturn, the real tests for “authoritarian capitalism” are still to come. What is more, further economic reforms and rising public expectations will create increasing pressure on the authoritarian political framework, forcing it to adapt to and accommodate an expanding civil society.28 Even though the regime so far has been able to co-­opt the middle class, moving beyond the “middle-­income trap” will require more government transparency and accountability, if not outright democratization.29 It is highly possible that China’s political system, in its present form, could end up impeding, rather than promoting, sustainable economic development. The “China model,” if it does emerge one day, needs to constantly evolve and adapt in order to survive. Its long-­term viability, therefore, is in no way guaranteed. In short, at present it is far from an imminent reality for “authoritarian capitalism” to become a global developmental alternative to the dominant liberal democratic capitalist model. The so-­called Washington Consensus certainly has flaws, and has been increasingly called into question during recent years, especially since the 2008 global financial crisis. But the hype about “authoritarian capitalism” is more indicative of the widespread disappointment over the Washington Consensus than of the actual success of “authoritarian capitalism” in the developing world as a whole. As this discussion shows, there is currently no clearly defined authoritarian capitalist developmental strategy, and even the much-­hyped emerging “China model” is still going through an evolutionary process of trial and error. Moreover, it would be exceedingly difficult to make such a development strategy work elsewhere without the specific historical and institutional contexts that gave rise to this strategy in the first place. Following the 2014 Ukraine Crisis and the subsequent Western sanctions

Conclusion  141

on Russia, there had been speculation that a strategic alliance between Russia and China might be emerging30 based on their perceived common threat from the West and their strong prospects for mutual economic cooperation, which were reflected in a number of massive energy, transportation, and banking deals signed between the two. Their military ties had also grown as indicated by increasing high-­profile joint military exercises and arms sales. Russia and China are certainly edging closer to each other in multiple dimensions; this study, however, suggests that such an “alliance” would most likely remain relatively contingent and issue-­oriented rather than stable and comprehensive. Despite their common emphasis on nationalism, the similarities between these two regimes remain rather superficial. More important, their ongoing ideology-­building projects suggest that, given their evident regional ambitions, which admittedly have led to frictions with the West, they are still mostly unwilling and unable to come up with some sort of grand design that could challenge the existing global order established and maintained by the West. They do not yet have, let alone share, an alternative global vision,31 even as both continue to demand greater international influence, especially in their respective neighborhoods. Consequently, Russia and China will continue to cooperate on a range of issues depending on the circumstances, but the ideational basis for a deep, broad, and enduring alliance comparable to that among the Western countries simply does not exist at this point. The Future of Ideology

Today, few would argue that ideology has lost its relevance in the world.32 But many believe that the Western ideology of liberal democratic capitalism, given its considerable range of variants,33 has become the only universalist ideology with global reach since the demise of communism. Therefore, even if it is not exactly “the only game in town,” ideological struggles and conflicts are no longer a main feature of world politics as they were during much of the 20th century. To an extent, this study lends some support to the idea that liberalism still enjoys global dominance, and that the so-­called authoritarian capitalism so far has not constituted a serious global threat to such dominance. What this study also shows, however, is that this is largely due to inability so far of the leading nonliberal regimes to formulate a clear and viable alternative that could be widely applicable, rather than necessarily because of liberalism’s innate invincibility or superiority. The ascendance of the liberal West is a relatively recent development in the longue durée of

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world history. Liberalism itself has gone through centuries of evolution as different circumstances have created new tensions and new pressures. Its global dominance cannot be taken for granted and will increasingly come under challenge. New ideologies are constantly being formulated and promoted in various political settings, and many existing ideologies are also evolving and adapting to new circumstances. Even if some of them, such as the emerging “China model,” are not yet able to compete with liberalism on a worldwide scale, it does not mean that they might not end up becoming a serious rival to the liberal model locally and even regionally. As a matter of fact, the idea of “China model” has appeared to gain ground in parts of the developing world. Some of this attention comes from autocrats who are simply eager to modernize while holding on to power. But mostly it is generated by China’s own success in becoming a major global power within the short span of a few decades. There are signs that the Chinese regime itself is also interested in promoting its developmental model as a part of the overall strategy of expanding its “soft power.” Other than encouraging discussions of the “China model,” the regime has established training programs for officials and professionals from other developing countries to learn about China’s developmental experiences; used close party-­to-­ party ties with other developing countries, such as Vietnam, Mongolia, and Russia, to promote its political and economic model; and built networks of formal and informal summits with other developing countries, such as the Boao Forum for Asia, to criticize the failings of Western economic models and advertise the advantages of the Chinese model.34 These efforts have been accompanied by major initiatives to expand state media overseas, including the Xinhua state news agency, the English-­language newspaper China Daily, Central China Television, and China Radio International, to enhance their international presence and promote China’s image.35 As China’s “backyard,” the Asia-­Pacific region is a major target for the regime’s efforts to increase its influence. Under Xi Jinping, China’s foreign policy shows a renewed focus on Asia, as evidenced in Xi’s two-­prong strategy of assertiveness in the South China Sea and East China Sea and developing the “One Belt, One Road” in both West Asia and Southeast Asia, backed by a $40 billion “Silk Road Fund” unveiled during the 2014 Asia-­Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting. This ambitious initiative, which will no doubt add to China’s regional clout, is overseen by a coordination group headed by a member of the Politburo Standing Committee—Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli. To complement this strategy, China has set up a BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) development bank called the New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai, as well as an Asia Infrastructure

Conclusion  143

Investment Bank (AIIB), based in Beijing with an authorized capital of $100 billion, to project China’s global influence and potentially compete with established institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.36 Despite initial objections from the United States, which saw the AIIB as China’s vehicle to extend its soft power in the region, scores of countries, including a large number of key U.S. allies such as Britain, France, Germany, Australia, and South Korea, decided to become founder members of AIIB in 2015, reflecting the genuine broad appeal of some of these initiatives. As the very first China-­proposed multilateral financial institution that included developed nations as members, the AIIB was hailed by Xinhua as “a paradigm power shift.”37 These efforts clearly revealed China’s growing ambition to create a China-­centric order regionally, if not yet globally, harkening back to the “all-­under-­heaven” system of ancient dynasties. Although it is too early to accurately gauge how successful these efforts will be in the long run, it is undeniable that China is already gaining a greater presence and having a deeper impact in many parts of the developing world, from Latin America to Africa to Asia. As China continues its rise internationally, its developmental strategy will only become more influential. The global ideological battle, therefore, is far from over. If anything, this battle with the still-­dominant liberal ideology might intensify in coming decades as other potential ideological alternatives, including the “China model,” evolve and possibly mature. This might not be such bad news for the liberal ideology as it will be pushed to adapt and improve yet again in order to fend off its potential challengers. If history has taught us anything, it is that progress comes from struggle, and never from complacency and stagnation.

Notes

Chapter 1 1. During recent years, the resilience of a few regimes still ruled by communist parties is also attracting scholarly attention. See, for example, Martin K. Dimitrov, ed., Why Communism Did Not Collapse: Understanding Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Asia and Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 2. See, for example, Azar Gat, “The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers,” Foreign Affairs 86:4 (July/August 2007): 59–­69; Timothy Garton Ash, “China, Russia and the New World Order,” Los Angeles Times, September 11, 2008; Slavoj Zizek, “Post-­Wall,” London Review of Books 31:22 (November 19, 2009): 10–­12; Stefan Halper, The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-­First Century (New York: Basic Books, 2010); and Christopher A. McNally, “Sino-­Capitalism: China’s Reemergence and the International Political Economy,” World Politics 64:4 (October 2012): 741–­76. 3. See, for example, Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order (New York: Penguin, 2009); and Ian Bremmer, The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War between States and Corporations? (New York: Penguin, 2010); Slavoj Zizek, “Three Notes on China: Past and Present,” Positions 19:3 (2011): 707–­21; and Andrew J. Nathan, “The Authoritarian Resurgence: China’s Challenge,” Journal of Democracy 26:1 (January 2015): 156–­70. 4. Within American social science, one of the earliest and most influential works examining this link is Seymour Martin Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” American Political Science Review 53 (March 1959): 69–­105. Also see, for example, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyn Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), and Robert Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 166–­72. 5. See, for example, Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy; and Eva Bellin, “Contingent Democrats: Industrialists, Labor, and Democratization in Late-­Developing Countries,” World Politics 52:2 (2000): 177. 6. Some Marxist and critical theorists, such as Karl Marx himself, Theodor W. 145

146  Notes to Pages 2–3

Adorno, and Max Horkheimer, have argued that capitalism and democracy are naturally in tension with each other. For a summary of this debate in the postcommunist context, see Laszlo Bruszt, “Making Capitalism Compatible with Democracy: Tentative Reflections from the ‘East’,” in The Diversity of Democracy: Corporatism, Social Order and Political Conflict, ed. Colin Crouch and Wolfgang Streeck (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2006), 149–­74. 7. See Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966). Fascism and communism could be seen as providing two major alternatives to the liberal definition of “modernity,” with the former centered on the creation of a purified and regenerated organic national community and the latter pointing to a classless, stateless, and egalitarian world following a global proletarian revolution. What they and the liberal definition of “modernity” share in common, however, is the idea of the possibility of perpetual economic growth. 8. One notable exception is Singapore, a city-­state with a highly developed capitalist economy and an authoritarian political system. Because it is the only country in the world that combines advanced industrial development with stable one-­party rule, Singapore has drawn the attention of the Chinese government and scholars as a potential model. See Stephen Ortmann and Mark R. Thompson, “China’s Obsession with Singapore: Learning Authoritarian Modernity,” Pacific Review 27:3 (2014): 433–­55. 9. Notable studies of institutional variations of authoritarian regimes include Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956) during the Cold War, and Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-­Communist Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), and Juan J. Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000) after the Cold War. 10. For example, see Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, “Elections without Democracy: The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism,” Journal of Democracy 13:2 (2002): 51–­65; Marina Ottaway, Democracy Challenged: The Rise of Semi-­Authoritarianism (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003); Lucan Way, “Authoritarian State Building and the Sources of Regime Competitiveness in the Fourth Wave: The Cases of Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine,” World Politics 57:2 (2005): 231–­61; and Andreas Schedler, ed., Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2006). 11. See, for example, Chalmers A. Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–­1975 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982); Alice Amsden, Asia’s Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); and Robert Wade, Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). 12. For a discussion of the “bureaucratic authoritarian” model, see Guillermo A. O’Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic-­Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California at Berkeley, 1973). 13. Although the Chinese economy so far seems relatively resilient, the Russian

Notes to Pages 3–6  147

economy, after growing at an average annual rate of 6–­7% for nearly a decade, took a hit from the 2008–­9 global financial crisis as oil prices plummeted and foreign credits dried up. Some have suggested that the growth of the Russian economy under Putin had nothing to do with authoritarianism, and would have been much greater if democracy had survived. See Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-­Weiss, “The Myth of the Authoritarian Model: How Putin’s Crackdown Holds Russia Back,” Foreign Affairs (January/February 2008): 68–­84. Since 2008, the Russian economy has slowed down considerably, and suffered further severe setbacks following Western sanctions and diving oil prices in 2014. 14. The representative major works focusing on the role of political ideologies in postcommunism with a comparative angle include Hilary Appel, A New Capitalist Order: Privatization and Ideology in Russia and Eastern Europe (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004); and Stephen E. Hanson, Post-­Imperial Democracies: Ideology and Party Formation in Third Republic France, Weimar Germany, and Post-­ Soviet Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 15. One example would be the case of Nazi Germany under Hitler, where the line between the fascist German state, the Nazi regime, and Hitler’s leadership was blurred. But this is unusual, as regime and leadership transitions can take place even under authoritarianism. For example, Mao Zedong remained the supreme leader of China for decades until his death in 1976. Even though the CCP state did not change fundamentally in its basic form, the Maoist regime was very different from the subsequent Deng regime in terms of its enduring policies and institutional manifestations, while the ruling elites linked to the Mao leadership were also very different from those linked to the Deng leadership. 16. For example, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was in power in the United States, the ideas embodied in the New Deal represented a regime ideology that informed party ideology. Later, this regime ideology endured even after a Republican became president. 17. Therefore, communist and fascist regimes certainly had explicit regime ideologies, but even a liberal democracy like the United States could also be considered as having a regime ideology that is committed to individualism-­based liberal capitalist democracy with elements of “manifest destiny” such as the belief in the American “mission” to spread the American image and promote democracy. For a succinct discussion of the more general term “ideology,” which informs the definition of “regime ideology” here, see Michael Freeden, Ideology: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). 18. Such examples could be found in some personalistic and predatory dictatorships, where the government is primarily interested in extracting resources from its own population and maintaining political power as long as the top leader is in control. But even among these predatory regimes, many had attempted to build some kind of ideological project to justify their rule, such as the Mobutu Sese Seko regime’s “Authenticity Campaign” that sought to purge Zaire of all colonial cultural legacies. Indeed, there are hardly any political regimes in modern times that do not at least attempt some sort of ideological project. 19. For example, the identity crises confronting newly independent post-­Soviet states and their political implications are highlighted in comparisons with similar

148  Notes to Pages 6–9

problems in newly formed postcolonial states in Mark Beissinger and Crawford Young, eds, Beyond State Crisis? Postcolonial Africa and Post-­Soviet Eurasia in Comparative Perspective (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center/Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002). 20. Cheng Chen and Rudra Sil, “Stretching Postcommunism: Diversity, Context, and Comparative Historical Analysis,” Post-­Soviet Affairs 23:4 (2007): 278. 21. See Andrew J. Nathan, “China’s Changing of the Guard: Authoritarian Resilience,” Journal of Democracy 14:1 (2003): 6–­17; and Cheng Chen, “Institutional Legitimacy of an Authoritarian State: China in the Mirror of Eastern Europe,” Problems of Post-­Communism 52:4 (2005): 3–­13. According to the regime’s official theory of “Three Represents,” which was put forth by Chinese president Jiang Zemin in 2002, the CCP now represents the “interests of the majority” rather than the interests of the proletariat. 22. This term, referring to an alternative developmental model that emphasizes effective government intervention of the economy in contrast to the free-­market-­ promoting Washington Consensus, was originally coined by Joshua Cooper Ramo. See Joshua Cooper Ramo, The Beijing Consensus (London, UK: Foreign Policy Centre, 2004), http://fpc.org.uk/publications/TheBeijingConsensus. The Chinese government itself does not use this term, even though it has since gained traction and generated many debates. See, for example, Yang Yao, “The End of the Beijing Consensus: Can China’s Model of Authoritarian Growth Survive?” Foreign Affairs 89:1 (January/ February 2010); Halper, Beijing Consensus; Yasheng Huang, “Rethinking the Beijing Consensus,” Asia Policy 11 (2011): 1–­26; and Francis Fukuyama, “The Future of History,” Foreign Affairs 91:1 (January/February 2012): 53–­61. 23. There are other factors that could potentially be conducive to successful regime ideology-­building, such as popular support or a favorable international environment. However, these are not necessary conditions as a regime ideology could be formed without either. For example, a communist regime ideology was first established in the Soviet Union within an extremely hostile international environment, and was later imposed in many Eastern European countries without much popular support. This book therefore focuses only on the “bare minimum”—­the two aforementioned necessary conditions for successful regime ideology-­building. 24. For example, see Gerald Berk, Dennis C. Galvan, and Victoria Hattam, eds., Political Creativity: Reconfiguring Institutional Order and Change (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). 25. A similar concept, “ruling class,” is used by some political theorists including Karl Marx, Gaetano Mosca, and Raymond Aron. However, since “ruling class” has become a somewhat loaded term due to its implied association between political rule and economic class, this book instead chooses to use the more neutral term “political elites.” This definition is informed by Charles Wright Mills’s concept of the “power elite”—­“those political, economic, and military circles, which as an intricate set of overlapping small but dominant groups share decisions having at least national consequences. Insofar as national events are decided, the power elite are those who decide them.” See Charles Wright Mills, The Power Elite (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 18. 26. See, for example, Alexander Dallin, “Causes of the Collapse of the USSR,” Post-­ Soviet Affairs 8:4 (1992): 286–­89.

Notes to Pages 9–15  149

27. See Anna Grzymala-­Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 28. For a discussion of the importance of political actors’ perception of time, see Anna Grzymala-­Busse, “Time Will Tell? Temporality and the Analysis of Causal Mechanisms and Processes,” Comparative Political Studies 44:9 (2011): 1273. 29. This commitment, however, cannot be taken for granted after the EU accession and the effects of EU conditionality started to wear off. See Venelin I. Ganev, “Post-­Accession Hooliganism: Democratic Governance in Bulgaria and Romania after 2007,” East European Politics and Societies 27:1 (2013): 26–­44. 30. For the details of varying nation-­building processes under communism, see my previous book, Cheng Chen, The Prospects for Liberal Nationalism in Post-­Leninist States (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2007). 31. Tim McDaniel, The Agony of the Russian Idea (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). 32. See Nathan, “China’s Changing of the Guard,” and Cheng Chen and Sil, “Stretching Postcommunism,” 286. 33. For details, see Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006). 34. See Jing Huang, Factionalism in Chinese Communist Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 35. Lilia Shevtsova, “The Return of Personalized Power,” Journal of Democracy 20:2 (April 2009): 61–­65. 36. See, for example, William Zimmerman, “Slavophiles and Westernizers Redux: Contemporary Russian Elite Perspectives,” Post-­Soviet Affairs 21:3 (2005): 183–­209, and Anne Clunan, The Social Construction of Russia’s Resurgence: Aspirations, Identity, and Security Interests (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). 37. These postcommunist CEE countries include the Visegrad four (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) plus the three Baltic countries and Slovenia. To be sure, they are diverse in many ways, and by treating them as a group this study does not imply homogeneity among them. Rather, it simply means that these countries are generally considered as consolidated democracies that have been successfully integrated into the capitalist liberal democratic West, and their fundamental political and economic frameworks—­the “rules of the game”—­are at present no longer an issue of domestic political contention. See Jacques Rupnik and Jan Zielonka, “Introduction: The State of Democracy 20 Years On: Domestic and External Factors,” East European Politics and Societies 27:1 (2013): 6–­7. 38. Rupnik and Zielonka, “Introduction.” 39. The former group of regimes includes many post-­Soviet regimes that are either noncompetitive authoritarian regimes or competitive authoritarian regimes with potentially competitive elections, while the latter includes Vietnam and Laos, two postcommunist regimes that are still ruled by communist parties but have largely abandoned the project of building communism and become integrated into the global capitalist economy. 40. See, for example, James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, eds., Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Alexander George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development

150  Notes to Pages 15–17

in the Social Sciences (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005); and Sidney Tarrow, “The Strategy of Paired Comparison: Toward a Theory of Practice,” Comparative Political Studies 43:2 (2010): 230–­59. 41. Rudra Sil, “Area Studies, Comparative Politics and the Utility of Cross-­Regional Small-­N Comparison,” Newsletter of the Qualitative & Multi-­Method Research Section, American Political Science Association (Fall 2009): 27–­28. 42. Some have argued that because of such variations, the very category of “postcommunism” is losing its relevance. See, for example, Jacques Rupnik, “The Postcommunist Divide,” Journal of Democracy 10:1 (1999): 57–­62; and Charles King, “Post-­ postcommunism: Transition, Comparison, and the End of ‘Eastern Europe’,” World Politics 53 (October 2000): 143–­72. 43. Cheng Chen and Sil, “Stretching Postcommunism,” 276–­77. 44. In recent years, a number of scholars including Harley Balzer, Stephen E. Hanson, Karrie Koesel, Rudra Sil, Yan Sun, Valerie Bunce, and Gilbert Rozman have been engaging in theoretically driven research that compares either postcommunist Russia or China with other countries or with each other. 45. This was also the case before the fall of the Soviet Union, but even then comparative studies made significant contributions to the field of communist studies. Notable examples include Chalmers Johnson, ed., Change in Communist Systems (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971); Alec Nove, Economics of Feasible Socialism (London: Allen and Unwin, 1983); and Walker Connor, The National Question in Marxist-­Leninist Theory and Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), just to name a few. 46. For an excellent and detailed study of the development of Soviet studies, see David Engerman, Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America’s Soviet Experts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Also see Victoria E. Bonnell and George Breslauer, “Soviet and Post-­Soviet Area Studies,” in The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines, ed. David L. Szanton (Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 217–­61. 47. See, for example, Stephen F. Cohen, “Russian Studies without Russia,” Post-­ Soviet Affairs 15:1 (1999): 37–­55; Andrew Walder, “The Party Elite and China’s Trajectory of Change,” China: An International Journal 2:2 (September 2004): 190; and Elizabeth J. Perry, “Studying Chinese Politics: Farewell to Revolution?” China Journal 57 (January 2007): 22. 48. For the limited availability of comparable data in China, see Allen Carlson, Mary E. Gallagher, and Melanie Manion, “Introduction,” in Contemporary Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies, ed. Allen Carlson, Mary E. Gallagher, and Melanie Manion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 5–­6. The issue of data limitation as a result of the nondemocratic features of the contemporary Russian regime is explored in J. Paul Goode, “Redefining Russia: Hybrid Regimes, Fieldwork, and Russian Politics,” Perspectives on Politics 8:4 (December 2010): 1055–­75. 49. Calvin Chen and Rudra Sil, “Communist Legacies, Postcommunist Transformations, and the Fate of Organized Labor in Russia and China,” Studies in Comparative International Development 41:2 (Summer 2006): 63. 50. See Scott Kennedy, “Overcoming Our Middle Kingdom Complex: Finding China’s Place in Comparative Politics,” in Beyond the Middle Kingdom: Comparative

Notes to Pages 17–22  151

Perspectives on China’s Capitalist Transformation, ed. Scott Kennedy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 10–­11. 51. Some examples include Harley Balzer, “Russia and China in the Global Economy,” Demokratizatsiya 16:1 (Winter 2008): 37–­47; Calvin Chen and Sil, “Communist Legacies, Postcommunist Transformations, and the Fate of Organized Labor,” 62–­87; Christer Pursiainen, ed., At the Crossroads of Post-­Communist Modernisation: Russia and China in Comparative Perspective (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Karrie Koesel, Religion and Authoritarianism: Cooperation, Conflict and the Consequences (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014); and Gilbert Rozman, The Sino-­Russian Challenge to the World Order (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), just to name a few. 52. Ian S. Lustick, “History, Historiography, and Political Science: Multiple Historical Records and the Problem of Selection Bias,” American Political Science Review 90:3 (September 1996): 605–­18. Chapter 2 1. Ernesto Laclau, “Ideology and Post-­Marxism,” in The Meaning of Ideology: Cross-­ Disciplinary Perspectives, ed. Michael Freeden (London: Routledge, 2007), 109. Within political science, some scholars also tend to adopt a narrow understanding of “ideology” as it is often specifically associated with totalitarianism. See, for example, Juan Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 162. 2. For an analysis of existing definitions of “ideology,” see John Gerring, “Ideology: A Definitional Analysis,” Political Research Quarterly 50:4 (December 1997): 957–­94. For an excellent comprehensive overview of the intellectual history of the concept of “ideology” within the social sciences, see Sinisa Malesevic, Ideology, Legitimacy and the New State: Yugoslavia, Serbia and Croatia (New York: Routledge, 2002), 11–­83. 3. Appel, New Capitalist Order, 7–­8. 4. See Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon, 1984), 59–­60. Foucault’s discourse analysis is highly influential in the humanities and some branches of the social sciences, often leading to preference for the concept “discourse” over “ideology” in these areas. 5. See Clifford Geertz, “Ideology as a Cultural System,” in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 193–­233; quote from 220. Understood as such, ideology would serve no purpose in a premodern “traditional” society, according to Geertz. 6. Durkheim and Weber were among the first social scientists that specifically emphasized the role of culture and meaning in sociological analyses. See, for example, Émile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society (1893), and The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912); Max Weber, The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), and Economy and Society (1922). 7. The former is represented by Marxism, which usually sees ideology as a part of the “superstructure,” reflecting deeper class conflicts (although some important scholars in the Marxian tradition, such as Antonio Gramsci, recognize the independent sig-

152  Notes to Pages 22–24

nificance of culture and ideology). The latter is represented by rational choice theories and neoclassical economics. 8. Some examples include Leopold Haimson, The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955); Barrington Moore, Soviet Politics—­the Dilemma of Power: The Role of Ideas in Social Change (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965); Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Robert C. Tucker, Political Culture and Leadership in Soviet Russia (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987); and Stephen White, Political Culture and Soviet Politics (New York: St. Martin’s, 1979). 9. See, for example, Robert English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); Igal Halfin, From Darkness to Light: Class, Consciousness, and Salvation in Revolutionary Russia (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000); and Stephen Hanson, Time and Revolution: Marxism and the Design of Soviet Institutions (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999). 10. Some representative works include Ken Jowitt, New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966); Robert Tucker, The Marxian Revolutionary Idea (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969); and Katherine Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceausescu’s Romania (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). 11. See, for example, Clunan, Social Construction of Russia’s Resurgence; Rick Fawn, ed., Ideology and National Identity in Post-­Communist Foreign Policy (New York: Routledge, 2003); Andrei P. Tsygankov, Russia’s Foreign Policy: Change and Continuity in National Identity, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010); and Astrid S. Tuminez, Russian Nationalism since 1856: Ideology and the Making of Foreign Policy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). 12. Rozman, Sino-­Russian Challenge to the World Order. 13. See, for example, Marlene Laruelle, In the Name of the Nation: Nationalism and Politics in Contemporary Russia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); and S. Hanson, Post-­Imperial Democracies. 14. Recognizing ideology as a powerful independent variable, Hanson argues that, unlike in the French Third Republic or Weimar Germany, where political parties had clear ideologies, the lack of a consistent political ideology among Russian political parties fundamentally cripples post-­Soviet party politics, leaving the political parties too weak to challenge the authoritarian state. See S. Hanson, Post-­Imperial Democracies. 15. See Appel, New Capitalist Order; Hilary Appel and Mitchell A. Orenstein, “Ideas versus Resources: Explaining the Flat Tax and Pension Privatization Revolutions in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union,” Comparative Political Studies 46:2 (2013): 123–­52; and Keith A. Darden, Economic Liberalism and Its Rivals: The Formation of International Institutions among the Post-­Soviet States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 16. This kind of institution-­based understanding of political regimes is widely employed by political scientists. Some prominent examples include Ruth Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and

Notes to Pages 24–28  153

Regime Dynamics in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 789; Robert M. Fishman, “Rethinking State and Regime: Southern Europe’s Transition to Democracy,” World Politics 42:3 (1990): 428; Stephanie Lawson, “Conceptual Issues in the Comparative Study of Regime Change,” Comparative Politics 25:2 (1993): 187; and Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry L. Karl, “What Democracy Is . . . and Is Not,” Journal of Democracy 2:3 (1991): 76. 17. Richard Rose, William Mishler, and Neil Munro, Popular Support for an Undemocratic Regime (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1–­2. 18. Geertz, “Ideology as a Cultural System,” in Interpretation of Cultures, 193–­233. 19. After the Japanese surrender, the Allies allowed Japan to keep its kokutai (national polity), which was embodied by the emperor. Its significance subsequently diminished, especially after the 1947 constitution. 20. To be sure, Nihonjinron could trace its intellectual roots, especially in the field of anthropology, back to the pre–­Meiji Restoration period, but it only gained explicit and significant government support during the postwar era. For examples of Nihonjinron arguments, see Takeo Doi, The Anatomy of Dependence (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1973); Edwin O. Reischauer, The Japanese (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978); Ezra F. Vogel, Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979); Michio Morishima, Why Has Japan “Succeeded”? Western Technology and the Japanese Ethos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); and Shoichi Watanabe, The Peasant Soul of Japan (London: Macmillan, 1989). 21. Chalmers Johnson classifies the Japanese regime under Liberal Democratic Party rule (1955–­85) as “soft authoritarianism.” The regularly held elections basically reaffirmed public confidence in the Liberal Democratic Party and in the governing elite, and the government maintained intimate ties and provided strong support for private firms within certain dominant sectors as represented by the auto industry and electronics. See Chalmers A. Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–­1975 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982). 22. For example, see Karel Van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation (New York: Vintage, 1990); and Clyde V. Prestowitz Jr., Trading Places: How We Are Giving Our Future to Japan and How to Reclaim It (New York: Basic Books, 1993). 23. As Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky point out, political behavior often cannot be explained by formal rules alone; informal constraints may shape actors’ incentives in significant ways. See Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky, “Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics: A Research Agenda,” Perspectives on Politics 2:4 (2004): 725–­26. 24. Walter A. McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World since 1776 (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997). For a recent view of American political history as divided by regimes, see Morton Keller, America’s Three Regimes: A New Political History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 25. See Ronald Grigor Suny, The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 19–­22, 56–­93, 217–­67. 26. Jowitt, New World Disorder, 2–­17. 27. See Alfred G. Meyer, Leninism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), 272.

154  Notes to Pages 28–31

28. Jowitt, New World Disorder, 18–­19. It was not a coincidence that all the successful indigenous Leninist revolutions took place in relatively underdeveloped settings with large peasant populations. 29. For example, the “leftists” within the regime, such as Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev, advocated a “permanent revolution” and the end of Lenin’s “New Economic Policy,” which partially reestablished a private sector and encouraged the development of light industry and agriculture, while the “rightists” such as Nikolai Bukharin preferred a gradualist developmental approach and the continuation of the New Economic Policy within the country. But even the “rightists” were unequivocal regarding the absolute control of the Communist Party and the leading role of the state in economic development. 30. Tucker, Political Culture and Leadership in Soviet Russia, 83. 31. See E. A. Rees, “Stalin and Russian Nationalism,” in Russian Nationalism: Past and Present, ed. Geoffrey Hosking and Robert Service (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998). 32. See Chalmers A. Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China 1937–­1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962). In both China and Yugoslavia, the Communist Party led a mass movement in the context of resistance to a foreign invader during World War II (Japan and Germany, respectively). In the case of Vietnam, the development of the Vietnamese communist revolution was intimately related to the anticolonial and anti-­imperialist struggles against first France and then the United States. 33. For a comprehensive discussion of the relationship between Leninism and nationalism, see my previous book, The Prospects for Liberal Nationalism in Post-­ Leninist States (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2007). 34. The most prominent example was the Sino-­Soviet ideological dispute during the 1960s, when Khrushchev’s pursuit of “peaceful co-­existence” with the West was attacked by the Chinese as “revisionism,” and the “people’s communes” in China was labeled by Khrushchev as “reactionary.” The Yugoslav regime also had a very different interpretation of communist ideology from the Soviet regime, especially in the area of foreign policy, leading to the Non-­Aligned Movement. 35. Cheng Chen and Rudra Sil, “Stretching Postcommunism: Diversity, Context, and Comparative Historical Analysis,” Post-­Soviet Affairs 23:4 (2007): 278. 36. Daniel Chirot, “What Happened in Eastern Europe in 1989?,” in The Crisis of Leninism and the Decline of the Left: The Revolutions of 1989, ed. Daniel Chirot (Seattle: University of Washington Press), 9–­12; quote from 11. 37. See Alec Nove, “Reform Models: Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland, China,” in Economics of Feasible Socialism (London: Allen and Unwin, 1983), 118–­51. 38. Stephen E. Hanson, “Gorbachev: The Last True Leninist Believer?” in Chirot, Crisis of Leninism and the Decline of the Left, 52–­54. Also see Karen Dawisha, “The Question of Questions: Was the Soviet Union Worth Saving?,” Slavic Review 63:3 (Fall 2004): 513–­26. 39. Dallin, “Causes of the Collapse of the USSR,” 286. 40. The “Brezhnev Doctrine” was proclaimed following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 to crush the “Prague Spring”—­a liberal reform movement. It essentially asserted the right for the Soviet Union to militarily intervene whenever socialism was perceived as being threatened within the socialist bloc.

Notes to Pages 31–35  155

41. Stephen White, Communism and Its Collapse (London: Routledge, 2001), 61–­ 70. 42. The examples include the Romanian Nicolae Ceausescu regime’s brutal crackdown of 1989 in an attempt to crush the revolution, and the 1991 attempted coup in the Soviet Union orchestrated by hardliners within the Soviet regime. 43. For an excellent account of the crisis of communist ideology in the 1980s, see Vladimir Tismaneanu, “Ideological Erosion and the Breakdown of Communist Regimes,” in Why Communism Did Not Collapse: Understanding Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Asia and Europe, ed. Martin K. Dimitrov (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 67–­98. 44. Cheng Chen, “Institutional Legitimacy of an Authoritarian State: China in the Mirror of Eastern Europe,” Problems of Post-­Communism 52:4 (July/August 2005): 3–­13; and Andrew Nathan, “China’s Changing of the Guard,” Journal of Democracy 14:1 (2003): 6–­17. 45. White, Communism and Its Collapse, 74–­75. 46. Rozman, Sino-­Russian Challenge to the World Order, 104. 47. Yitzhak M. Brudny, Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet States, 1953–­1991 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 260. These nationalist positions included the protection of ethnic Russians in former Soviet republics; the suppression of Chechen secession; and the political and economic reintegration of part of the former Soviet territory. 48. Omar Dahbour and Micheline R. Ishay, eds., The Nationalism Reader (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1995), 2. 49. See, for example, J. Paul Goode, “Nationalism in Quiet Times: Ideational Power and Post-­Soviet Hybrid Regimes,” Problems of Post-­Communism 59:3 (2012): 6–­16. 50. See Cheng Chen, Prospects for Liberal Nationalism. 51. See Peter Hays Gries, China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 119–­21. 52. For a discussion of the literature on international democratic diffusion, see Valerie J. Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik, Defeating Authoritarian Leaders in Postcommunist Countries (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 17–­20. 53. To be sure, the Ottoman Empire did extend into Central Europe, such as in parts of Hungary, in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Baltic states were ruled by the Russian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. 54. Such suspicion is reflected in, for example, movements of “Euroscepticism” in some Eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic and Hungary. 55. See Simon Franklin and Emma Widdis, “All the Russias . . . ?,” in National Identity in Russian Culture: An Introduction, ed. Simon Franklin and Emma Widdis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 1–­8. 56. The most prominent early example was the modernization efforts under Peter the Great. However, within Russia, the Westernizers had always coexisted, and been in confrontation, with the Slavophiles who argued that Russia should follow a distinctive path as a result of its unique non-­Western Eurasian identity. 57. It has been argued that late industrialization and development tend to lead to institutional mechanisms that depart from those found among the early developers as late developers are under pressure to leapfrog developmental stages. See, for example,

156  Notes to Pages 35–43

Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962). 58. The most prominent examples are the French invasion of Russia in 1812 under Napoleon and Nazi Germany’s Operation Barbarossa in 1941. 59. M. Steven Fish, “When More Is Less: Superexecutive Power and Political Underdevelopment in Russia,” in Russia in the New Century: Stability or Disorder?, ed. Victoria E. Bonnell and George W. Breslauer (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001), 27. 60. Recent examples include the ideological project of “Juche” initiated under the Kim regime/dynasty in North Korea, where the top leader’s cult of personality itself is a part of regime ideology built around Kim Il-­sung, Kim Jong-­il, and then Kim Jong-­ un. But even in this case, “Juche” was supposed to outlive the individual Kims. 61. The argument that common ideological beliefs could create a long time horizon for politicians is elaborated within the context of party politics in Hanson, Ideology, Uncertainty, and Democracy, chap. 1. 62. See, for example, Valerie Bunce, “Leadership Succession and Policy Innovation in the Soviet Republics,” Comparative Politics 11:4 (July 1979): 396. 63. There could be exceptions. For example, some argue that although Gorbachev was a committed communist, his political and economic reforms unintentionally led to the collapse of the Soviet communist system. See S. Hanson, “Gorbachev: The Last True Leninist Believer?,” 33–­59. 64. Fishman, “Rethinking State and Regime,” 428. 65. Peter Wagner, “The Democratic Crisis of Capitalism: Reflections on Political and Economic Modernity in Europe,” LSE “Europe in Question” Discussion Paper Series, LEQS Paper No. 44, December 2011. 66. This was revealed, for example, by the increasingly stark contrast between many communist regimes’ official commitment to egalitarianism and the policies that tolerated official corruption and led to the perpetuation and even worsening of socioeconomic stratification within those societies going through late communism. 67. The Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force in 2009, defines such values as “human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and the respect for human rights.” See http://europa.eu/lisbon_treaty/glance/rights_values/. Chapter 3 1. As stated in previous chapters, those CEE countries that are being studied here were the first postcommunist countries to become EU members in 2004. They include Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. By the end of the 1990s, all of them had received “Freedom Ratings” that were lower than 2 from Freedom House (1 being the best and 7 being the worst) and were all considered as consolidated democracies. Romania and Bulgaria are not included in this group as they clearly lagged behind during the 1990s in terms of democratization and economic reform, which was reflected in their worse “Freedom Ratings” and their much more protracted and difficult processes of European integration. 2. See, for example, M. Steven Fish, “The Determinants of Economic Reform in the Postcommunist World,” East European Politics and Societies 12 (Winter 1998):

Notes to Pages 43–44  157

31–­ 78; Rupnik, “Postcommunist Divide,” ; Valerie Bunce, “Lessons of the First Postsocialist Decade,” East European Politics and Societies 13:2 (1999): 236–­43; King, “Post-­postcommunism,” ; and Jeffrey S. Kopstein and David A. Reilly, “Geographic Diffusion and the Transformation of the Postcommunist World,” World Politics 53:1 (October 2000): 1–­36. 3. Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan define a “consolidated democracy” as “a political regime in which democracy as a complex system of institutions, rules, and patterned incentives and disincentives have become, in a phrase, ‘the only game in town.’” See Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, “Toward Consolidated Democracies,” Journal of Democracy 7:2 (1996): 15. 4. It has been argued that liberal democracy in some CEE EU members came under the threat of rising nationalism and populism in the 2010s. See, for example, Jan-­Werner Mueller, “Eastern Europe Goes South,” Foreign Affairs 93:2 (2014): 14–­19; and Irena Grudzinska-­Gross, “The Backsliding,” East European Politics and Societies 28:4 (2014): 664–­68. 5. Among these countries, Slovakia probably took the longest to settle the issue of postcommunist regime identity. During much of the 1990s, Slovakian politics was dominated by nationalist prime minister Vladimir Meciar and his Movement for a Democratic Slovakia. The government led by Meciar, who was heavily criticized for his antidemocratic practices, was voted out in 1998. In 1999, the European Commission recommended starting EU membership negotiations with Slovakia. Since then Meciar and his party have not been able to regain power. But even Meciar supported his country’s membership in both EU and NATO and submitted Slovakia’s applications to both organizations. 6. See Wade Jacoby, The Enlargement of the European Union and NATO: Ordering from the Menu in Central Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); and Milada Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage, and Integration after Communism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 7. Significant political backlashes only appeared after EU accession in countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. Since then a number of Eurosceptic parties have emerged, and sometimes even thrived, in the region. Prominent examples include Jobbik and Fidesz in Hungary and the Civic Democratic Party in the Czech Republic. 8. This does not imply that all kinds of democracy and all kinds of capitalism are always compatible. Rather, in the European context, the political and economic congruence is based on a specific combination of liberal democracy and regulated capitalism that allows the parallel upholding of citizenship rights and property rights according to liberal principles. Such a combination was the result of historically contingent compromises and hence is by no means universal. See Laszlo Bruszt, “Making Capitalism Compatible with Democracy: Tentative Reflections from the ‘East’,” in The Diversity of Democracy: Corporatism, Social Order and Political Conflict, ed. Colin Crouch and Wolfgang Streeck (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2006), 166. 9. For example, Dorothee Bohle and Bela Greskovits argue that in postcommunist Eastern Europe, three different types of capitalist political economy have been established: “neoliberal” in the Baltic states; “embedded neoliberal” in the “Visegrad Four”—­Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia; and “neocorporatist”

158  Notes to Pages 44–47

in Slovenia. See Dorothee Bohle and Bela Greskovits, Capitalist Diversity on Europe’s Periphery (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012). However, these are variants of, rather than alternatives to, capitalist democracies. Bohle and Greskovits also note that the range of possible reforms in the region was narrowed by the ideological hegemony of neoliberalism and globalization. 10. In 1999, all these countries received a “Freedom score” of 1.5 from Freedom House, putting them pretty high in the “Free” category in terms of political rights and civil liberties. 11. This was only the case in the 1990s before these countries became EU members. During recent years, a number of far right parties, such as Jobbik in Hungary and the People’s Party and the Slovak National Party in Slovakia, have been gaining momentum in the region. 12. Again, there were big variations within the region. For example, the unemployment rate reached around 20% at its peak in Poland, while it peaked at only around 8% in the Czech Republic. 13. See, for example, Joel Hellman, “Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transition,” World Politics 50 (1998): 203–­34; and Timothy Frye, “The Perils of Polarization: Economic Performance in the Postcommunist World,” World Politics 54 (2002): 308–­37. 14. Jeffrey Simon, “Security Issues: NATO and Beyond,” in Central and East European Politics: From Communism to Democracy, ed. Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane L. Curry (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 158–­59. 15. One such area was minority policy. See Michael Johns, “‘Do as I Say, Not as I Do’: The European Union, Eastern Europe and Minority Rights,” East European Politics and Societies 17:4 (2003): 682–­99. 16. See Graeme Gill and Roger Markwich, Russia’s Stillborn Democracy: From Gorbachev to Yeltsin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), and Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski, The Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms: Market Bolshevism against Democracy (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2001). 17. See M. Steven Fish, Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 18. Yoshiko M. Herrera, “Russian Economic Reform, 1991–­1999,” in Russian Politics: Challenges of Democratization, ed. Zoltan Barany and Robert G. Moser (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 135–­73. 19. See Philip Hanson, “The Russian Economic Crisis and the Future of Russian Economic Reform,” Europe-­Asia Studies 51:7 (November 1999): 1141–­66. 20. Richard Sakwa, “Perestroika and the Challenge of Democracy in Russia,” Demokratizatsiya 13:2 (Spring 2005): 263. 21. Cited in Michael Urban, “Remythologising the Russian State,” Europe-­Asia Studies 50:6 (1998): 969. 22. Lilia Shevtsova, Putin’s Russia, trans. Antonina W. Bouis (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003), 33–­34; and Masha Gessen, The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (New York: Riverhead Books, 2012), 11–­22. 23. Christer Pursiainen, “Introduction,” in At the Crossroads of Post-­Communist

Notes to Pages 47–50  159

Modernization: Russia and China in Comparative Perspective, ed. Christer Pursiainen (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 5. 24. See Stephen White, Russia’s New Politics: The Management of a Postcommunist Society (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 133–­40. 25. See, for example, Herbert Kitschelt, “Accounting for Postcommunist Regime Diversity: What Counts as a Good Cause?,” in Capitalism and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Grzegorz Ekiert and Stephen E. Hanson (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Keith Darden and Anna Grzymala-­Busse, “The Great Divide: Literacy, Nationalism, and the Communist Collapse,” World Politics 59:1 (2006): 83–­115; Keith Darden, Resisting Occupation: Mass Schooling and the Creation of Durable National Loyalties (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Grigore Pop-­Eleches and Joshua A. Tucker, “Communism’s Shadow: Postcommunist Legacies, Values, and Behavior,” Comparative Politics 43:4 (July 2011): 379–­99; Jason Wittenberg, Crucibles of Political Loyalty: Church Institutions and Electoral Continuity in Hungary (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); and Grzegorz Ekiert and Daniel Ziblatt, “Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe: One Hundred Years On,” East European Politics and Societies 27:1 (2013): 90–­107. 26. The Baltic three are the exception, but they are geographically very close to the Scandinavian countries and Finland, most of which are EU or NATO members, or both. 27. For a discussion of the importance of geography in postcommunist development, see Kopstein and Reilly, “Geographic Diffusion and the Transformation of the Postcommunist World.” 28. The conventional view is that civic traditions are more salient in Western Europe than in the CEE countries, which historically lacked strong independent cities. However, even among the CEE countries, there are variations. The Czech Republic and Poland, for example, have strong traditions of civic engagement, while Hungary has a much more conservative and authoritarian political tradition. 29. See Germ Janmaat, “Civic Culture in Western and Eastern Europe,” European Journal of Sociology 47:3 (2006): 376. 30. Grigore Pop-­ Eleches, “Historical Legacies and Post-­ Communist Regime Change,” Journal of Politics 69:4 (November 2007): 908–­26. 31. For example, in Czechoslovakia and Hungary the Communist Party had traditionally enjoyed some degree of popular support. In Czechoslovakia, in particular, the Communist Party actually won the 1946 parliamentary election in the Czech lands. 32. Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power, 156–­75. 33. Darden and Grzymala-­Busse, “The Great Divide.” 34. Cheng Chen, Prospects for Liberal Nationalism, 3. 35. In the case of Poland, ex-­Communists were able to recoup power as a result of social frustration over economic conditions such as hyperinflation, but this did not change the democratization process. 36. Grzymala-­Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past. 37. Here being “old” simply means having achieved independent statehood historically. 38. These countries were under the rule of various empires historically and did not achieve independent statehood until after the end of the World War I.

160  Notes to Pages 50–53

39. See Vladimir Tismaneanu, Fantasies of Salvation: Democracy, Nationalism, and Myth in Post-­Communist Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). 40. It should be pointed out that despite its long-­term autocratic rule, the Ottoman Empire was arguably more “tolerant” of cultural diversity than the Christian empires. See, for example, Mark Mazower, The Balkans: A Short History (New York: Random House, 2002), 37–­76. 41. This includes the Baltic states, which traditionally was under strong German and Scandinavian cultural and religious influences, even though a large part of it was ruled by the Russian Empire. 42. Back then Czechoslovakia was one single country, and Slovenia was a part of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. 43. One notable exception was Czechoslovakia. After 1933, it remained the only democracy in the region. 44. These anti-­Russian sentiments were partially the result of traditional cultural prejudices and partially a response to Russian imperialism, especially in the case of Poland, whose eastern part was occupied by Tsarist Russia for centuries. 45. See Milan Kundera, “A Kidnapped West or Culture Bows Out,” Granta (1984): 95–­118. 46. Katherine Verdery, What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 104. 47. Alina Mungiu-­Pippidi, “The Splintering of Postcommunist Europe,” Journal of Democracy 26:1 (2015): 92. 48. Valerie J. Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik, Defeating Authoritarian Leaders in Postcommunist Countries (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 17. 49. Examples include Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic, Joze Pucnik in Slovenia, and Adam Michnik in Poland. 50. See Andrew Janos, “From Eastern Empire to Western Hegemony: East Central Europe under Two International Regimes,” East European Politics and Societies 15:2 (2001): 221–­50. 51. By the late 1990s, Slovakia was the only country among this group where the democratic nature of the political regime was still less than certain. This situation ended in 1998 when Meciar lost power. 52. For a brief overview of the debate between proponents of neoliberalism and its critics, see M. Steven Fish and Omar Choudhry, “Democratization and Economic Liberalization in the Postcommunist World,” Comparative Political Studies 40:3 (2007): 255–­61. 53. Quote from Anders Åslund, How Russia Became a Market Economy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1995), 5. 54. Fish and Choudhry, “Democratization and Economic Liberalization,” 256–­58. 55. See Alec Nove, “Reform Models: Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland, China,” in Alec Nove, The Economics of Feasible Socialism (London: Allen and Unwin, 1983), 118–­51. 56. Venelin I. Ganev, “The ‘Triumph of Neoliberalism’ Reconsidered: Critical Remarks on Idea-­Centered Analyses of Political and Economic Change in Post-­ Communism,” East European Politics and Societies 19:3 (2005): 343–­78. 57. See Bryan T. Johnson, Kim R. Holmes, and Melanie Kirkpatrick, eds., 1999 Index of Economic Freedom (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation and Dow Jones,

Notes to Pages 54–56  161

1999). The countries were scored on 10 economic factors: trade policy, taxation, government intervention in the economy, monetary policy, capital flows and foreign investment, banking, wage and price controls, property rights, regulation, and the black market. 58. Michael McFaul, “The Fourth Wave of Democracy and Dictatorship: Noncooperative Transitions in the Postcommunist World,” World Politics 54:2 (January 2002): 228–­32. 59. McFaul, “Fourth Wave of Democracy and Dictatorship,” 228. 60. Some, such as Meciar, did end up straying from a commitment to democracy as the 1990s went on. 61. In the case of Hungary, the Orban government made controversial changes to Hungary’s constitution, which, according to critics, would curb judicial authority and curtail freedom of expression and civil liberties and therefore undermine democratic governance. In Poland, PiS represented the rise of right-wing ideology that aimed at weakening judicial authority, curtailing media freedom and the rights of ethnic and sexual minorities. The PiS government was put under investigation by the EU for violating its democratic standards. 62. Viktor Orban, “Speech at the XXV Bálványos Free Summer University and Youth Camp,” Băile Tuşnad, July 26, 2014, http://budapestbeacon.com/public-policy/ full-text-of-viktor-orbans-speech-at-baile-tusnad-tusnadfurdo-of-26-july-2014/. 63. As early as 1990, NATO invited the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries to establish regular diplomatic liaisons. In 1991, the North Atlantic Cooperation Council was set up to include the postcommunist countries. NATO moved toward enlargement in 1994 by establishing the Partnership for Peace. 64. See Zoltan Barany, The Future of NATO Expansion: Four Case Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); and Richard McAllister and Roland Dannreuther, The EU and NATO Enlargement (London: Routledge, 2005). 65. The Eurobarometer Surveys data, http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_ en.htm. 66. This program was originally created in 1989 to provide economic assistance to Hungary and Poland, but it was later expanded to cover many more countries in the region, including all the CEE states that joined EU in 2004. 67. Jacoby, Enlargement of the European Union and NATO; and Vachudova, Europe Undivided. 68. For example, some argue that external pressure played an important role in preventing the Meciar regime from turning into an outright dictatorship. See Kopstein and Reilly, “Geographic Diffusion and the Transformation of the Postcommunist World,” 29–­32. 69. Anna Grzymala-­Busse and Abby Innes, “Great Expectations: The EU and Domestic Political Competition in East-­Central Europe,” Eastern Europe Politics and Societies 17:1 (2003): 64–­73. Also see Alina Mungiu-­Pippidi, “The Transformative Power of Europe Revisited,” Journal of Democracy 25:1 (2014): 20–­32. 70. Some Russian leaders, notably Alexander II, did attempt serious reforms (abolishing serfdom). But these reforms usually provoked serious backlashes and were reversed consequently, such as what happened after the assassination of Alexander II. 71. See, for example, Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dic-

162  Notes to Pages 56–58

tatorship and Autocracy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965); Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917–­1923 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964); Richard Pipes, Russia under Bolshevik Rule (New York: Vintage, 1991); and Theodore Von Laue, Why Lenin? Why Stalin? Why Gorbachev? The Rise the Fall of the Soviet System (New York: HarperCollins, 1993). 72. See Martin Malia, The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917–­1991 (New York: Free Press, 1994); Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Mortal Danger: How Misperceptions about Russia Imperil America (New York: Harper and Row, 1981); and Nikolai N. Petro, The Rebirth of Russian Democracy: An Interpretation of Political Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). 73. James H. Billington, Russia in Search of Itself (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2004), 2–­5. 74. McDaniel, Agony of the Russian Idea, 10–­13. 75. See Andrei D. Sakharov, “In Answer to Solzhenitsyn,” New York Review of Books, June 13, 1974. 76. See V. I. Lenin, State and Revolution: Marxist Teaching about the Theory of the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978). 77. See Cheng Chen, Prospects for Liberal Nationalism, 48–­51. 78. Roman Szporluk, Communism and Nationalism: Karl Marx versus Friedrich List (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 231. 79. For example, see Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Cultural Revolution in Russia: 1928–­1931 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978). 80. Cheng Chen, Prospects for Liberal Nationalism, 45–­57. 81. See Veljko Vujacic, “Historical Legacies, Nationalist Mobilization, and Political Outcomes in Russia and Serbia: A Weberian View,” Theory and Society 25 (1996): 773–­81; Yuri Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism,” Slavic Review 53: 2 (Summer 1994): 414–­52; and Valerie Bunce, “Peaceful versus Violent State Dismemberment: A Comparison of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia,” Politics and Society 27:2 (June 1999): 222–­23. 82. Historically, Russia’s relationship with its constant social “other”—­the West—­ had been a complicated one, marked by cooperation, defensiveness, and assertiveness in response to different modes of Western engagement. See Andrei P. Tsygankov, Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin: Honor in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Also see Angela Stent, “Reluctant Europeans: Three Centuries of Russian Ambivalence toward the West,” in Russian Foreign Policy: The 21st Century and the Shadow of the Past, ed. Robert Legvold (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 393–­441; and Rozman, Sino-­Russian Challenge to the World Order, 40–­42. 83. It should be pointed out that Gorbachev initiated economic and political reforms, but he did it to revive Leninism and the Soviet Union rather than to embrace democratization. See Stephen E. Hanson, “Gorbachev: The Last True Leninist Believer?,” in The Crisis of Leninism and the Decline of the Left: The Revolutions of 1989, ed. Daniel Chirot (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991), 33–­59. 84. Studies conducted over the 1990s consistently suggested an “overall socialist ori-

Notes to Pages 59–61  163

entation” among Russians, evident in their strong support for the values of social equality, strengthened state control over the economy, and state-­backed guarantees of employment and welfare. See Judith Kullberg and William Zimmerman, “Liberal Elites, Socialist Masses, and the Problems of Russian Democracy,” World Politics 51 (April 1999): 336; Alexander N. Domrin, “Ten Years Later: Society, ‘Civil Society,’ and the Russian State,” Russian Review 62 (April 2003): 204; and Robert Brym, “Re-­ evaluating Mass Support for Political and Economic Change in Russia,” Europe-­Asia Studies 48:5 (1996): 751–­66. 85. McDaniel, Agony of the Russian Idea, 162–­86. 86. Leslie L. McGann, “The Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Aleksii II and the Russian State: An Unholy Alliance?,” Demokratizatsiya 7:1 (1999): 12–­27. 87. See Nikolas K. Gvosdev, “The New Party Card: Orthodoxy and the Search for Post-­Soviet Russian Identity,” Problems of Post-­Communism 47:6 (November/December 2000): 29–­38. 88. This attitude was reflected in many opinion polls. For example, the New Russia Barometer survey of April 2000 indicates that 71% of respondents viewed the pre-­perestroika Soviet political system favorably (and 22% unfavorably) while 82% viewed the old economic system favorably (and 13% unfavorably). See New Russia Barometer IX, http://nesstar.ukdataservice.ac.uk/webview/index/en/UKDA/Aboutthe-UK-Data-Service-Nesstar-Catalogue.d.55/Research-Datasets.d.56/New-RussiaBarometer.d.62/New-Russia-Barometer-2000–2001.s.4550/New-Russian-Barometer-IX/fSection/4550_VG1. 89. Ronald Grigor Suny, “Provisional Stabilities: The Politics of Identities in Post-­ Soviet Eurasia,” International Security 24:3 (1999/2000): 147–­49. 90. See Vera Tolz, “Conflicting ‘Homeland Myths’ and Nation-­State Building in Postcommunist Russia,” Slavic Review 57:2 (1998): 267–­94. 91. Cited in Olga Malinova, “A Workable Past: Symbolic Politics in Post-­Soviet Russia,” Russia in Global Affairs, December 27, 2012, http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/ number/A-Workable-Past-15815. 92. Anatoly M. Khazanov, After the USSR: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Politics in the Commonwealth of Independent States (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 38. 93. This is changing during recent years, as some liberals, such as Alexei Navalny, have adopted some nationalist positions. See Nicu Popescu, “The Strange Alliance of Democrats and Nationalists,” Journal of Democracy 23:3 (2012): 46–­54; Marlene Laruelle, “Alexei Navalny and Challenges in Reconciling ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Liberalism’,” Post-­Soviet Affairs 30:4 (2014): 276–­97; and Pal Kolsto, “Russia’s Nationalists Flirt with Democracy,” Journal of Democracy 25:3 (2014): 120–­34. 94. Sakwa, “Perestroika and the Challenge of Democracy in Russia,” 255–­75. 95. See Urban, “Remythologising the Russian State.” 96. Boris Yeltsin, “O Natsionalnoy Bezopasnosti. Poslanie Presidenta Rossiyskoy Federatsii Federal’nomu Sobranomu,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 14, 1996, 7. Cited in Christer Pursiainen, “Introduction,” in At the Crossroads of Post-­Communist Modernization: Russia and China in Comparative Perspective, ed. Christer Pursiainen (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 5. 97. Public support for the U.S. model of society decreased dramatically. According

164  Notes to Pages 61–64

to a 1995 poll, 44% of the elites and 75% of the population believed that the economy was essentially in foreign hands. See Vladimir Sogrin, “Zapadnyi liberalizm I rossiyskiye reformy,” Svobodnyaya mysl’ 1 (1996): 32. Cited in Andrei P. Tsygankov, The Strong State in Russia: Development and Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 91–­92. 98. Urban, “Remythologising the Russian State,” 982. 99. See Stephen H. Hanson, Post-­Imperial Democracies: Ideology and Party Formation in Third Republic France, Weimar Germany, and Post-­Soviet Russia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 215. 100. Anne Clunan, The Social Construction of Russia’s Resurgence: Aspirations, Identity, and Security Interests (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 117. 101. Viacheslav Morozov, “Policy Transformation,” Russia in Global Affairs, December 20, 2009, http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/n_14242. 102. S. Hanson, Post-­Imperial Democracies, 215. 103. According to Russia, NATO’s eastward expansion violated a pledge made to Gorbachev during negotiations on German unification that NATO would not expand eastward in exchange for Soviet consent. See “Gorbachev: West Breaks Word with NATO Expansion Plans,” Moscow Times, May 23, 1996, http://www.themoscowtimes. com/news/article/gorbachev-west-breaks-word-with-nato-expansion-plans/324009. html. Also see Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson, “Put It in Writing: How the West Broke Its Promise to Moscow,” Foreign Affairs, October 29, 2014, http://www.foreignaffairs. com/articles/142310/joshua-r-itzkowitz-shifrinson/put-it-in-writing. 104. Dmitri Trenin, “Russia’s Sphere of Interest, Not Influence,” Washington Quarterly 32:4 (October 2009): 9. 105. Marlene Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire, trans. Mischa Gabowitsch (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 222. 106. S. Hanson, Post-­Imperial Democracies, 215. 107. Tsygankov, Strong State in Russia, 88–­89. 108. Anton Steen, Political Elites and the New Russia: The Power Basis of Yeltsin’s and Putin’s Regimes (London: Routledge, 2003), 8. 109. Clunan, Social Construction of Russia’s Resurgence, 117–­18. 110. Gill and Markwick, Russia’s Stillborn Democracy, 258. 111. During the Yeltsin era, the Duma did successfully block a number of presidential initiatives, such as key efforts to alter labor legislation and social policy. 112. At the end of the Yeltsin era, Russia was perceived as one of the 10 most corrupt countries in the world, according to Transparency International. See “TI Corruption Perception Index, 2000,” http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/previous_cpi/2000. 113. Tsygankov, Strong State in Russia, 92. 114. Yeltsin’s last three prime ministers, Primakov, Sergei Stepashin, and Putin, all had security backgrounds. 115. Gleb Pavlovsky, “Putin’s World Outlook: Interview by Tom Parfitt,” New Left Review 88 (2014): 56, http://newleftreview.org/II/88/gleb-pavlovsky-putin-s-worldoutlook. Known as a chief architect of “managed democracy” during Putin’s first two

Notes to Pages 64–67  165

terms, Pavlovsky was an advisor to the presidential administration of Russia until 2011, when he was dismissed for opposing a third term for Putin. 116. See Richard Rose, “Russia as an Hour-­Glass Society: A Constitution without Citizens,” East European Constitutional Review 4 (1995): 34–­42; and White, Russia’s New Politics, 144–­81. 117. See Olga Kryshtanovskaya, “Kto Segodnya pravit bal v Rossiya” [The real masters of Russia], Argumenti i Fakti 21 (May 1997): 4. 118. Vladimir Shlapentokh, “The Short Time Horizon in the Russian Mind,” Communist and Post-­Communist Studies 38 (2005): 1–­24. 119. For the imperial era, see Marc Raeff, Understanding Imperial Russia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984). For the Soviet era, see T. H. Rigby, Political Elites in the USSR (Aldershot, UK: Edward Elgar, 1990); John P. Willerton, Patronage and Politics in the USSR (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); and Gerald M. Easter, Reconstructing the State: Personal Networks and Elite Identity in Soviet Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 120. George W. Breslauer, “Personalism versus Proceduralism: Boris Yeltsin and the Institutional Fragility of the Russian System,” in Russia in the New Century: Stability or Disorder?, ed. Victoria E. Bonnell and George W. Breslauer (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001), 35–­38. 121. This was reflected in the intensification of factional struggles among Russian elites during Yeltsin’s second term. Toward the end of the decade, Yeltsin’s few trusted allies were referred to as “the Family,” whose key members included Boris Berezovsky, Roman Abramovich, Aleksandr Voloshin, and Yeltsin’s daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko. 122. Many Russians refer to the decade of 1990s as “smuta”—­the same word historians use to describe the Time of Trouble in 1598–­1613 when Russia was going through intense chaos before the Romanov dynasty came to power in 1613. 123. See, for example, Rose, “Russia as an Hour-­Glass Society,” 34–­42, and Kullberg and Zimmerman, “Liberal Elites, Socialist Masses, and the Problems of Russian Democracy,” 323–­58. Chapter 4 1. In 1999, Boris Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin as Russia’s prime minister. At the end of the year, Yeltsin resigned and handed the presidency over to Putin. Yeltsin later explained that he wanted to catch the opposition off guard and ensure Putin the best possible chance to win the upcoming presidential election. See Boris Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries (New York: Public Affairs, 2000), 286. 2. Since 2004, Freedom House has downgraded Russia from “partially free” to “not free” because of the Putin regime’s increasing restrictions on political rights and civil liberties. 3. See, for example, Harley Balzer, “Managed Pluralism: Vladimir Putin’s Emerging Regime,” Post-­Soviet Affairs 19:3 (2003): 189–­227; and Vladimir Shlapentokh, “Putin as a Flexible Politician: Does He Imitate Stalin?,” Communist and Post-­Communist Studies 41:3 (2008): 205–­16.

166  Notes to Pages 67–69

4. Although the Soviet regime could be quite pragmatic at times, such as during the Brezhnev era when black market and blat (connections used to gain favors, akin to guanxi in China) were being tacitly tolerated and the regime pursued détente with the West, the official ideological commitment to building socialism remained firm until the Soviet collapse. 5. See, for example, Reddaway and Glinski, Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms; and Stephen Cohen, Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-­Communist Russia (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001). 6. Rose, Mishler, and Munro, Popular Support for an Undemocratic Regime, 68–­69. 7. Vladislav Surkov, Osnovnye tendentsii i perspektivy razvitiya sovremennoy Rossii [The fundamental trends and development prospects of contemporary Russia] (Moscow: Modern Humanitarian Academy, 2006), http://polit.ru/article/2007/01/23/surkov/. 8. “News Conference of Presidential Aide Vladislav Surkov, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration,” on the official website of the G8 presidency of the Russian Federation in 2006, http://en.old.g8russia.ru/news/20060704/1168817.html. 9. For example, see special issue on “Putinism under Siege,” Journal of Democracy 23:3 (2012): 19–­62, and Anne Applebaum, Putinism: The Ideology (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 2013), http://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/publications/reports/pdf/su13–2-putinism.pdf. According to Applebaum, the most central element of Putinism is “the carefully managed electoral process, the managed political parties which take part in that process and the managed results” aimed at maintaining “the dominance of his clique.” 10. Philip Hanson, “The Russian Economic Recovery: Do Four Years of Growth Tell Us That the Fundamentals Have Changed?,” Europe-­Asia Studies 55:3 (2003): 365–­ 82. 11. According to the monthly poll conducted by the Levada Center, Putin’s approval rating has stayed consistently above 60% ever since 2000, with its peaks close to 90%. After Putin started his third term as Russian president, the number hovered just above 60% for a while, but rebounded to over 80% following the Ukraine Crisis. The Levada Center is Russia’s most respected independent polling center and its polling results are generally considered reliable. See http://www.levada.ru/eng/indexes-0. 12. Rose, Mishler, and Munro, Popular Support for an Undemocratic Regime, chap. 4. 13. Vladimir Gel’man, “Regime Changes despite Legitimacy Crises: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty in Post-­Communist Russia,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 1:1 (2010): 54–­63. 14. According to the Trust Barometer surveys conducted by global communications firm Edelman, Russia consistently remained one of the lowest ranked among all 26 countries surveyed in terms of the level of public trust in government and nongovernment organizations, business, and media. For Russians, government institutions were the least trusted among the four groups. See http://www.edelman.com/insights/ intellectual-property/edelman-trust-barometer-archive/. These results were corroborated by many other survey data. The director of the Russian polling agency VTsIOM, Valery Fedorov, admitted in 2012 that “Russians’ trust in institutions in general . . . is less than that of other countries of Western Europe or the United States.” See Thomas Grove, “Less Than Half of Russians Trust Putin Vote Result, Poll Shows,” Reuters, March 15, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/15/us-russia-election-pollidUSBRE82E0PT20120315.

Notes to Pages 69–71  167

15. Rudra Sil and Cheng Chen, “State Legitimacy and the (In)significance of Democracy in Post-­Communist Russia,” Europe-­Asia Studies 56:3 (2004): 347–­68. 16. Rose, Mishler, and Munro, Popular Support for an Undemocratic Regime, chap. 6. 17. After Putin became the Russian president, this national survey was carried out 14 times from February 2000 to March 2015. In general the numbers fluctuated over the years, with the March 2015 results showing 34% preferring the Soviet system; 29% preferring the current system; and 11% preferring a Western democratic system. See http://www.levada.ru/eng/citizens-and-state. 18. Putin made this claim back in 1999 before he became the president of Russia. See Vladimir Putin, “Rossiya na rubezhe tysyacheletiy” [Russia at the turn of the millennium], Rossiyskaya gazeta, December 31, 1999, http://www.ng.ru/politics/1999–12–30/4_millenium.html. 19. This term was first coined by Sukarno of Indonesia in the 1950s, who claimed that Western-­style democracy was unsuitable for Indonesia and that the country should be governed according to traditional principles. Sukarno used this idea as a pretext for his increasingly authoritarian rule. 20. See, for example, Timothy J. Colton and Michael McFaul, Popular Choice and Managed Democracy: The Russian Elections of 1999 and 2000 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2003); and Perry Anderson, “Russia’s Managed Democracy,” London Review of Books, January 25, 2007. Other labels that have been used by political scientists to describe the Russian regime include “Potemkin democracy” and “competitive authoritarianism.’ For the former, see William A. Clark, “Russia at the Polls, Potemkin Democracy,” Problems of Post-­Communism 51:2 (2004): 22–­29. For the latter, see Levitsky and Way, “Elections without Democracy.” 21. “Putin neimeyet nichevo protiv demokratii—­ona emy bezrazlichna” [Putin is not against democracy, he is just indifferent to it], Die Welt, November 11, 2003, http:// inosmi.ru/inrussia/20031110/198891.html. 22. Balzer, “Managed Pluralism,” 190–­91. 23. For the more general use of these terms on hybrid regimes, see Levitsky and Way, “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism,” and Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003). 24. Vladislav Surkov, “Suverenitet: Politicheskiy sinonim konkurentosposobnosti” [Sovereignty as a political equivalent of competitiveness], in Surkov, Teksty 97–­07 (Moscow: Europe, 2008), 143–­47. 25. News conference of presidential aide Vladislav Surkov, deputy head of the Presidential Administration, on the official website of the G8 presidency of the Russian Federation in 2006. 26. See Vladimir Putin, “Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,” April 25, 2005, http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2005/04/25/2031_ type70029type82912_87086.shtml. 27. Vladislav Surkov, “Russkaya politicheskaya kultura. Vzglyad iz utopii” [Russian political culture: A glance from utopia], in Tektsy 97–­07, 9–­28. 28. Richard Sakwa, “Russian Political Culture through the Eyes of Vladislav Surkov,” Russian Politics and Law 46:5 (2008): 5. 29. Eugene Ivanov, “‘Sovereign Democracy: Is It United Russia’s Ideology?,” Ivanov Report, January 20, 2007.

168  Notes to Pages 71–74

30. Examples include Nikita Garaja, Sovereignty (Moscow: Europe, 2006), and A. V. Fenenko, ed., The Concept and Definition of Democracy (Moscow: URSS, 2006). 31. This manual was titled A Book for Teachers: The Modern History of Russia, 1945–­ 2006, authored by Aleksandr Filippov. 32. This textbook was authored by Aleksandr Filipov, Anatoliy Utkin, and Aleksandr Danilov. See Yuliya Taratuta, “Suverennuyu demokratiyu budut izuchat’ v shkole” [Sovereign democracy will be taught in schools], Kommersant, December 27, 2007, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/840253. 33. Putin himself never actually claimed that “sovereign democracy” was the regime’s official ideology. 34. For example, see Medvedev’s interview for the Russian weekly business magazine Ekspert, “Dlya protsvetaniya vseh nado uchityvat’ interesy kazhdogo” [For the prosperity of all, it is necessary to consider everyone’s interests], Ekspert, July 24, 2006, http:// expert.ru/expert/2006/28/medvedev/. 35. “Russia Profile Experts Panel: The Debate over Sovereign Democracy,” Russia Profile, September 22, 2006. 36. “Putin’s Plan” included Putin’s addresses to the Federal Assembly from 2000 to 2007, as well as his other key speeches such as “Russia at the Turn of the Millennium.” See Plan prezidenta Putina: Rukovodstvo dlya budushchikh prezidentov Rossii [President Putin’s Plan: A manual for future presidents of Russia] (Moscow: Europe, 2007). The phrase itself was introduced by the chairman of United Russia, Boris Gryzlov, in a 2007 speech. 37. “Plan Putina: Otsenki Rossiyan” [Putin’s Plan: Russians’ evaluation], VTsIOM Press Release no. 794, October 18, 2007. Cited in Clifford G. Gaddy and Andrew C. Kuchins, “Putin’s Plan,” Washington Quarterly 31:2 (2008): 118. 38. Boris Gryzlov, “Putin ostaetsya liderom Rossii” [Putin remains the leader of Russia], Rossiyskaya gazeta, October 17, 2007, http://www.rg.ru/2007/10/17/grizlov.html. 39. Dmitry Medvedev, “Vmeste my dob’yemsya mirovogo liderstva rossii” [Together we will achieve world leadership by Russia], United Russia, December 17, 2007, http://qwas.ru/russia/edinros/id_85948/. 40. Luke Harding, “Back to the USSR,” Guardian, December 10, 2008. 41. Putin and Medvedev worked together in St. Petersburg in 1990–­91 under Mayor Anatoly Sobchak before Putin brought Medvedev with him to Moscow in 1999. Medvedev was Putin’s chief of staff during his tenure as Yeltsin’s prime minister and then as Russian president. He had also been the head of Gazprom and the first deputy prime minister under Putin. After Medvedev became president, many powerful Kremlin aides from the Putin era stayed on. 42. Dmitry Medvedev, “Rossiya, vpered!” [Forward, Russia!], www.gazeta.ru/ comments/2009/09/10_a_3258568.shtml. 43. In the first quarter of 2009, the Russian economy shrank by 9.5% on an annual basis, and industrial output tumbled by almost 15%. 44. See Arkady Ostrovsky, “Reversal of Fortune,” Foreign Policy 171 (March/April 2009): 70–­74. 45. Dmitry Medvedev, “Speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum,” June 17, 2011, http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/2411. 46. The term “the Putin majority” was coined by Gleb Pavlovsky in 1999. Pavlosvky

Notes to Pages 74–76  169

used this term to imply that Putin had reestablished democracy in Russia and to justify Putin’s policies by claiming that the majority supported them. Since 2003, Pavlovsky had pushed the idea that the Putin majority was institutionalized politically in United Russia. See Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, “The Limits of the Matrix: Ideas and Power in Russian Politics of the 2000s,” Problems of Post-­Communism 59:3 (May/June 2012): 21. 47. Sharafutdinova, “Limits of the Matrix,” 23–­24. 48. This was announced at United Russia’s 11th Congress at St. Petersburg in December 2009. 49. See Vladimir Putin, “Speech at the 11th United Russia Party Congress,” November 21, 2009, http://www.russialist.org/archives/2009–214–15.php; and Dmitry Medvedev, “Speech at the 11th United Russia Party Congress,” November 21, 2009, http:// www.russialist.org/archives/2009–214–14.php. 50. Vladislav Surkov, “Speech by Vladislav Surkov, first deputy chairman of the Russian Presidential Staff, to March 2, 2009, Moscow ‘Strategy 2020’ Forum Marking the First Anniversary of President Dmitry Medvedev’s Election,” Alinga Consulting Group, March 11, 2009, http://www.acg.ru/english/transcript_of_surkov_speech_to_ strategy_2020_forum. 51. Dmitri Trenin, “Russia’s Conservative Modernization: A Mission Impossible?,” SAIS Review of International Affairs, May 25, 2010, http://carnegie.ru/ publications/?fa=41108. 52. Fyodor Lukyanov, “The Well of Soviet Nostalgia Is Running Dry,” Moscow Times, January 20, 2012, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/the-wellof-soviet-nostalgia-is-running-dry/397760.html. 53. See “Interview with Dmitry Medvedev,” August 31, 2008, http://archive.kremlin.ru/appears/2008/08/31/1917_type63374type63379_205991.shtml. 54. Richard Sakwa, “Political Leadership,” in Return to Putin’s Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain, ed. Stephen K. Wegren, 25–­44 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), 31. 55. In the 2012 presidential election, Putin won 64% of the vote, almost 50 percentage points ahead of the runner-­up. 56. To be sure, United Russia remained the dominant party in the Russian parliament, securing nearly 50% of the votes. But it was a sharp drop from the 64% it received in the elections back in 2007. Despite this drop, United Russia’s performance was still much better than other parties, including the Communist Party, which got 19.19% of the votes. This result was enough for United Russia to secure 238 of the 450 seats in the State Duma. 57. Ellen Barry, “Putin, in Need of Cohesion, Pushes Patriotism,” New York Times, November 20, 2012. 58. For a full transcript of Putin’s speech, see http://valdaiclub.com/politics/62880. html. In this key speech, Putin emphasized Russia’s urgent need for a united national idea to succeed in the global environment. The Valdai International Discussion Club was established in 2004 for international elites to discuss Russia and its role in the world on an annual basis. 59. The amendments were first drafted in November 2013 by State Duma deputy Yevgeny Fyodorov, who was a member of United Russia. These proposals, however, were turned down by Putin, though it did not signal the end of his search to find a

170  Notes to Pages 76–79

“national idea” to unite Russians, according to the Kremlin’s spokesman. See Anna Dolgov, “Kremlin against Ending Ban on Official State Ideology,” Moscow Times, December 5, 2013, http://russialist.org/kremlin-against-ending-ban-on-official-stateideology/. In 2014, Fyodorov and Sergei Katasonov from the Liberal Democratic Party drafted similar amendments again. 60. The word siloviki comes from silovye struktury, meaning security apparatus. This term is widely used to refer to Russian political elites with security or military backgrounds. 61. It was said that Surkov was forced to resign by the siloviki, who were getting more powerful as Putin started his third term. But within a few months, Surkov was brought back as Putin’s aide on foreign affairs. During the Ukraine Crisis, Surkov was at the top of the U.S. sanctions list. 62. For a full translation of this article, see “Russia in Focus—­the Challenges We Must Face,” RT, January 16, 2012, http://rt.com/politics/official-word/putin-russiafocus-challenges-845/. 63. Vladimir Putin, “Address to the Federal Assembly,” December 12, 2012, http:// eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/4739. 64. See the transcript at http://valdaiclub.com/politics/62880.html. 65. Olga Malinova, “‘Spiritual Bonds’ as State Ideology,” Russia in Global Affairs, December 18, 2014, http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/Spiritual-Bonds-as-State-Ide ology-17223. 66. See Vladimir Putin, “Address by President of the Russian Federation,” The Kremlin, Moscow, March 18, 2014, http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/6889. 67. For excerpts from Putin’s speech, see http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/23137. 68. Rozman, Sino-­Russian Challenge to the World Order, 137. 69. Cited in “The Rewriting of History,” Economist, November 10, 2007. 70. Vladimir Putin, “Speech at a Meeting with Designers of a New Concept for Teaching Russian History,” January 16, 2014, http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6536. 71. Vladimir Putin, “Rossiya na rubezhe tysyacheletiy” [Russia at the turn of the millennium], Rossiyskaya gazeta, December 31, 1999, http://www.ng.ru/politics/1999–12–30/4_millenium.html. 72. Vladimir Putin, “Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,” July 8, 2000, http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2000/07/08/0000_ type70029type82912_70658.shtml. 73. Dmitry Medvedev, “Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,” November 5, 2008, http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2008/11/05/2144_ type70029type82917type127286_208836.shtml. 74. “Russian Democracy Should Correspond to Russian Traditions, Universal Values—­Medvedev,” RIA Novosti, April 15, 2010. 75. Cited in Barry, “Putin, in Need of Cohesion, Pushes Patriotism.” 76. These philosophers, all of whom were anticommunists, called for Russian greatness based on elements of Russian tradition and Orthodox Christianity. Other more recent personalities Putin mentioned in his speeches include Dmitry Likhachev and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. 77. See Elizaveta Surnacheva, “V poiskakh mudrosti: Chinovnikam veleno poduchit’ filosofiyu” [In search of wisdom: Officials told to brush up on philosophy], Kommersant, April 28, 2014, http://www.kommersant.ru/pda/power.html?id=2383840.

Notes to Pages 80–82  171

78. “National Conservatism Most Popular Ideology among Russians—­Poll,” Interfax, December 3, 2008. 79. Robert Coalson, “Russian Conservatives Challenge Notion of ‘Universal’ Values,” RFE/RL, December 10, 2008. 80. According to a 2013 VTsIOM national poll, 44% of the respondents believed Russia’s state religion to be Orthodox Christianity. The majority of Russians (56%) believed the Orthodox Church had played a significant role in the history of Russia and had a determining influence on the country’s development; 28% disagreed. Forty percent of respondents thought that it was unacceptable for Russia to have a president whose religion was something other than Orthodox. See “Russians Believe Influence of Orthodox Faith on Country’s Development Is Considerable—­Poll,” Interfax-­Religion, November 13, 2013, http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=10896. 81. Leon Aron, “Putinism,” Russian Outlook, AEI Online, May 8, 2008, http://www. aei.org/publications/pubID.27958/pub_detail.asp. 82. See, for example, “Putin Expresses Gratitude to Church for Uniting Russian World,” Itar-­Tass, June 28, 2008; and “Russian Orthodox Church to Work for Russian Identity—­Putin,” Interfax-­Religion, February 3, 2009. 83. “Russian President Outlines Principles of Relations between State and Church,” NTV, February 2, 2009, BBC Monitoring. 84. Mansur Mirovalev, “Russian Orthodox Church a Growing Political Force,” Associated Press, April 4, 2009. Church leaders blessed the government’s plans to eliminate some social benefits for the elderly, called on Russia’s youth to volunteer for military service, and consecrated new warships and nuclear missiles, calling the latter “Russia’s guardian angels.” 85. “In Putin’s Russia, Little Separation between Church and State,” Washington Times, August 13, 2012. 86. “Putin Gets Orthodox Award for Boosting Russia’s Global Role,” RIA Novosti, November 6, 2013. 87. Vladimir Putin, “Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly,” December 12, 2013, http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6402. 88. See http://valdaiclub.com/politics/62880.html. 89. See “Address by President of the Russian Federation,” The Kremlin, Moscow, March 18, 2014. 90. See http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/23137. 91. See Zoe Knox, “Russian Orthodoxy, Russian Nationalism, and Patriarch Aleksii II,” Nationalities Papers 33:2 (2005): 533–­45; and James W. Warhola, “The Kremlin’s Religion Temptation,” Current History 106:702 (2007): 340–­45. 92. “Russians’ Nostalgia for USSR Is Dwindling—­Poll,” RT, December 29, 2012. 93. The survey notes that “in 2009, 58% described the collapse of the USSR as a great misfortune, and 50% expressed this opinion in 2011.” This attitude was particularly common among older Russians. The same survey also shows that a majority of Russians surveyed (61%) believed that “there are parts of neighboring countries that really belong to Russia.” See http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/05/08/chapter-3-russiapublic-backs-putin-crimeas-secession/. 94. According to this poll, 56% of respondents had positive feelings about Brezhnev, while the numbers for Lenin and Stalin were 55% and 50%, respectively. Yeltsin was

172  Notes to Pages 82–84

viewed positively by only 22% of the respondents and Gorbachev by 20%. See “Russians Name Brezhnev Best 20th-­Century Leader, Gorbachev Worst,” RT, May 22, 2013. 95. “Putin Calls for Soviet-­Era Anthem, Czarist-­Era Symbols,” Associated Press, December 5, 2000. 96. Judyth L. Twigg, “What Has Happened to Russian Society?,” in Russia after the Fall, ed. Andrew C. Kuchins (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002), 159. 97. Putin, “Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,” April 25, 2005. 98. Tuminez, Russian Nationalism since 1856, 297. 99. “Russians Call Great Patriotic War of 1941–­1945 Biggest Event of the 20th Century,” Itar-­Tass, November 16, 2008. The space flight of Yuri Gagarin ranked second (13%). 100. Vladimir Putin, “Meeting with Participants in the All-­Russian Conference of Humanities and Social Sciences Teachers,” June 21, 2007, http://kremlin.ru/ appears/2007/06/21/1702_type63376type63381type82634_135323.shtml. 101. For a detailed account of the role of Stalin in the formation of a new Russian national identity, see Veljko Vujacic, “Stalinism and Russian Nationalism: A Reconceptualization,” Post-­Soviet Affairs 23:2 (2007): 156–­83. 102. Jonathan Earle, “Stalin Lives On, 60 Years after Death,” Moscow Times, March 4, 2013, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/stalin-lives-on-60-years-afterdeath/476444.html. 103. Yuri Zarakhovich, “Putin Plays Follow the Leader,” Time, January 18, 2002, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,195071,00.html. 104. Since first becoming president in 2000, Putin has answered viewers’ questions in a TV show every year except in 2004 and 2012 (postponed for weather reasons). 105. See “Prime Minister Putin Annual Town Hall,” C-­SPAN, December 3, 2009, http://www.c-span.org/video/?290455–1/prime-minister-putin-annual-town-hall. 106. “‘Crimea Cradle of Russian Christianity’: Key Quotes from Putin’s Meeting with Historians,” RT, November 8, 2014, http://rt.com/news/203467-putin-speechcrimea-wwii/. 107. “Over 70% of Russians Approve of Renewed Military Parades on Red Square,” Itar-­Tass, May 4, 2008. 108. Vladimir Ryzhkov, “Putin’s Distorted History,” Moscow Times, November 18, 2013, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/putins-distorted-history/489799 .html. 109. Putin, “Speech at a Meeting with Designers of a New Concept for Teaching Russian History.” 110. This is article 354–­1 of the Criminal Code, titled “Rehabilitation of Nazism.” The bill was submitted by United Russia Duma deputy Irina Yarovaya, and signed by Putin in May 2014. 111. For example, in April 2010 Putin became the first Russian leader to join Polish officials in commemorating the anniversary of the Katyn Massacre, the 1940 mass execution of Polish military officers by the Soviet secret police. 112. Putin made this comment during his 2015 annual call-­in TV show. See “Putin

Notes to Pages 84–86  173

Demands Respect for Russia, Pledges Never to Become US Vassal,” RT, April 16, 2015, http://rt.com/politics/250229-putin-russia-respect-international/. 113. For example, one Levada poll in 2015 showed that 45% of the respondents thought “the sacrifices of the Soviet people” under Stalin were “justified,” and 39% describe their feelings toward Stalin as “admiration,” “kind regards,” or “sympathy.” See http://www.levada.ru/eng/stalin. 114. According to this survey conducted by the Levada Center, 42% of Russian respondents named Stalin as the most influential historical figure in Russia, compared to 12% back in 1989. See Thomas de Waal, Maria Lipman, Lev Gudkov, and Lasha Bakradze, The Stalin Puzzle: Deciphering Post-­Soviet Public Opinion, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 1, 2013, http://carnegieendowment. org/2013/03/01/stalin-puzzle-deciphering-post-soviet-public-opinion/fmz8. 115. Clunan, Social Construction of Russia’s Resurgence, 117. 116. Such sentiments were reflected in various polls over the years. For example, a VTsIOM poll in 2014 showed that 42% of Russians wished that Russia was a superpower just like the former Soviet Union, up from 33% in 2010. See “Russians Want Their Country to Regain Superpower Status—­Poll,” Sputnik News, May 29, 2014, http://sputniknews.com/voiceofrussia/news/2014_05_29/Russians-want-their-coun try-to-regain-superpower-status-poll-4133/. 117. See the Levada Center, “Public Opinion on the Yeltsin Years,” http://www.russiavotes.org/president/yeltsin_public_opinion.php?S776173303132=9dfdd7e14877 02e5ecb81a66d913152b#243. 118. Clunan, Social Construction of Russia’s Resurgence, 102–­3. 119. Clunan, Social Construction of Russia’s Resurgence, 144. 120. Vladimir Putin, “Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,” April 18, 2002, http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2002/04/18/0000_ type70029type82912_70662.shtml. 121. “Putin: Non-­market Economy Performed Well in the 1920–­30s, Then Resulted in USSR Collapse,” Sputnik News, June 14, 2005. 122. Putin, “Speech at the 2014 Valdai International Discussion Club.” 123. The limits to such commitments were demonstrated by events such as the Yukos Affair, the Russian government’s seizure of the Yukos oil company headed by oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his subsequent trials and jailing. 124. According to a 2013 survey by VTsIOM, 85% of Russians were proud of their country’s history, followed by pride in its athletes (77%) and arts and culture (75%). See “Russians Proud of Their History but Not Life—­Poll,” RIA Novosti, July 29, 2013, http://sputniknews.com/russia/20130729/182473366.html. 125. Gennady Bordyugov, “Voiny pamyati” [Memory wars], Novaya Gazeta, June 6, 2011, http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/47842.html. 126. Vladimir Putin, “Speech at a Meeting of Council for Interethnic Relations,” February 19, 2013, http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/5017. Italics added. 127. See Alexei Miller, “A Year of Frustrated Hopes,” Russia in Global Affairs, December 18, 2014, http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/A-Year-of-Frustrated-Hopes-17224. 128. This nickname was coined by anticorruption activist Alexei Navalny in a radio interview in early 2011. It was widely used by critics of United Russia during the 2011 parliamentary elections.

174  Notes to Pages 86–89

129. Stephen White, Understanding Russian Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 57. 130. “Sotsiologi zhdut legkoi pobedy” [Sociologists expect an easy victory], Kommersant, March 17, 2000, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/142722?isSearch=True. 131. Brian D. Taylor, State Building in Putin’s Russia: Policing and Coercion after Communism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 314. 132. Laruelle, In the Name of the Nation, 152. 133. Alexei Miller, “The Labyrinths of Historical Policy,” Russia in Global Affairs, June 22, 2011, http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/The-Labyrinths-of-Historical-Policy-15240. 134. David Lane, “What Kind of Capitalism for Russia? A Comparative Analysis,” Communist and Post-­Communist Studies 33:4 (2000): 485–­504. 135. See Yevgeny Minchenko and Kirill Petrov, “Vladimir Putin’s Big Government and the ‘Politburo 2.0.’,” http://minchenko.ru/netcat_files/File/Big%20Government%20and%20the%20Politburo%202_0.pdf. 136. Laruelle, In the Name of the Nation, 119–­20. 137. For example, see Vladimir Shlapentokh, “How Putin’s Russia Embraces Authoritarianism: The Case of Yegor Gaidar,” Communist and Post-­Communist Studies 40 (2007): 493–­99. 138. Richard Sakwa, “Regime Change from Yeltsin to Putin: Normality, Normalcy or Normalization?,” in Russian Politics under Putin, ed. Cameron Ross (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2004), 17–­36. 139. For example, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation had been the most organized and popular political party in Russia until Putin managed to splinter it, cause defections to new pro-­Kremlin parties, and use Unity’s ties to the Kremlin to push out Community Party leaders from key committee positions. 140. Ivan Krastev, “Paradoxes of the New Authoritarianism,” Journal of Democracy 22:2 (April 2011): 8. 141. Eugene Huskey, “Elite Recruitment and State-­Society Relations in Technocratic Authoritarian Regimes: The Russian Case,” Communist and Post-­Communist Studies 43 (2010): 363–­72. 142. Shlapentokh, “Short Time Horizon in the Russian Mind,” 16. 143. For example, see Zimmerman, “Slavophiles and Westernizers Redux.” Zimmerman argues that the fundamental divide among Russian elites is between Slavophiles and Westernizers, in a reprise of 19th-­century debates, while others, such as Clunan, argue that there are more nuanced divides. According to Clunan, in contemporary Russia elites of different ideological orientations include national-­restorationists, neocommunists, statists, Slavophiles, and Westernizers. 144. Richard Sakwa, The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism and the Medvedev Succession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 25. 145. In 2013, three prominent United Russia members, Vladimir Pligin, Viktor Zubarev, and Valery Fadeyev, presented a “Manifesto of Russian Political Liberalism,” claiming that United Russia “is the only political party capable of realizing the liberal values of freedom, private property, justice, solidarity and sovereignty.” For the full text, see “Manifest rossiyskogo politicheskogo liberalizma” [Manifesto of Russian political liberalism], http://er.ru/news/96408/.

Notes to Pages 89–90  175

146. See Sakwa, Crisis of Russian Democracy, 117–­30. Russian political consultant Yevgeny Minchenko further classifies Russian elite circles as “security,” “political,” “technical,” and “business.” See Minchenko and Petrov, “Vladimir Putin’s Big Government.” Conflicts between rival factions of the siloviki are well documented, especially during the succession crisis toward the end of Putin’s second term. Compared to the siloviki, the liberals and technocrats tend to avoid open conflicts. 147. Minchenko and Petrov, “Vladimir Putin’s Big Government,” 10. 148. Ivanov is currently head of the presidential administration after serving as deputy prime minister and defense minister. Sechin is the head of Rosneft. Other prominent members of the siloviki are usually thought to include Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu; Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Security Council of Russia; Viktor Ivanov, head of the Federal Drug Control Service; Alexander Bortnikov, director of the FSB; Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, and Rostec CEO Sergei Chemezov. 149. The liberal-­leaning reformers were sometimes known as “civiliki” and many of them have backgrounds in St. Petersburg. They include former finance minister Alexei Kudrin; Igor Shuvalov, first deputy prime minister; Arkady Dvorkovich, deputy prime minister; German Gref, head of state-­owned Sberbank; Alexander Konovalov, the minister of justice; Anton Ivanov, the head of the Supreme Arbitration Court; and many others serving in the top echelons of the state and Gazprom. Other than the so-­called civiliki, Kremlin-­friendly liberals also include Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Rosatom; and Anatoly Chubai, the head of Rusnano. 150. See Ilia Viktorov, “The Legacy of Tandemocracy—­Russia’s Political Elite during Putin’s Third Presidency: Interview with the Sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya,” Baltic Worlds 7:2–­3 (2014): 14–­16. This elite dynamic was also elaborated in detail by Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 282–­91. 151. One such example was a leading figure in the liberal group, the former finance minister Alexei Kudrin, who declined Putin’s offer to return to state service, citing “the system of half-­hearted measures and half reforms” and “the economy’s manual guidance and inertia process” as the reason. See “Kudrin Says Declined Job over Government’s ‘Half-­measures’,” RIA Novosti, April 25, 2013. He later joined Putin’s economic council, but still refused to return to the government. 152. “Uroki kremlevskogo” [Lessons of the Kremlin], Vedomosti, February 19, 2014, http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/articles/2014/02/19/uroki-kremlevskogo. 153. Irina Nagornykh, “Edinaya Rossiya osvezhila ideologiyu” [United Russia has refreshed its ideology], Kommersant, March 31, 2014, http://www.kommersant.ru/ doc/2441786. 154. Clunan, Social Construction of Russia’s Resurgence, 116. Also see Lilia Shevtsova, “Russia and the West: A Liberal View,” OpenDemocracy.net, November 4, 2008, https:// www.opendemocracy.net/article/russia-theme/russia-and-the-west-a-liberal-view. 155. See, for example, Alena Ledeneva, How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-­Soviet Politics and Business (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006); Michael Urban, Cultures of Power in Post-­communist Russia: An Analysis of Elite Political Discourse (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Huskey, “Elite Recruitment,” 363–­72; and Alena Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

176  Notes to Pages 90–92

156. Urban, Cultures of Power, 34–­68. 157. Lilia Shevtsova, Putin’s Russia (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003), 7–­43. 158. Shevtsova, “Return of Personalized Power”; Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, Political Consequences of Crony Capitalism inside Russia (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), 138–­65; and Karen Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014). 159. Sakwa, Crisis of Russian Democracy, 114. 160. Natalya Kostenko and Maksim Glikin, “V Rossii ne byvaet dvukh tsarei—­ Gennady Zyuganov, predsedatel’ CK KPRF, lider fraktsii KPRF v Gosdume” [There have never been two tsars at once in Russia: An interview with CPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov], Vedomosti, May 15, 2008, http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/ articles/2008/05/15/v-rossii-ne-byvaet-dvuh-carej—-gennadij-zyuganov-predsedatelck-kprf-lider-frakcii-kprf-v-gosdume. 161. Taylor, State Building in Putin’s Russia, 108–­9. 162. Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernise?, 248–­49. Also see Timothy Frye, “Capture or Exchange: Business Lobbying in Russia,” Europe-­Asia Studies 54:7 (2002): 1017–­36; and Marshall I. Goldman, Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 194–­98. 163. Examples included Gazprom, Rosneft, Channel One, Russian Railways, and Transneft. See Leon Aron, “The Merger of Power and Property,” Journal of Democracy 20:2 (April 2009): 66. 164. Olga Kryshtanovskaya, “An Exhausted Resource,” Russia in Global Affairs, September 5, 2009, http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/n_13582. 165. The index was created by calculating “the total wealth of those of the world’s billionaires who are active mainly in rent-­heavy industries,” and comparing that to world GDP. The higher the ratio, the more likely the economy suffers from crony capitalism. See “Planet Plutocrat,” Economist, March 15–­21, 2014, 57–­58. 166. See Tai Adelaja, “Open Arms, Not Open Minds: The Kremlin Gives Official Opposition Another Reason to Smile,” Russia Profile, July 17, 2012. 167. Olga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White, “The Sovietization of Russian Politics,” Post-­Soviet Affairs 25:4 (2009): 283–­309. 168. Viktorov, “Legacy of Tandemocracy.” According to Olga Kryshtanovskaya, the proportion of siloviki in the Russian top bureaucracy constituted about 20% in 2011. In 2014, the proportion increased again to 47%. 169. For example, during Putin’s second term, the conflict between Sechin’s faction and the faction of Viktor Cherkesov, the former head of the Federal Drug Control Service, came to the surface as several senior drug control officers were arrested by FSB agents. Cherkesov subsequently wrote in an open letter to Kommersant, published on October 9, 2007, that the security services were embroiled in “bitter rivalries.” See Viktor Cherkesov, “Nel’zya dopustit’ chtoby voiny prevratilis’ v torgovtsev” [Soldiers should not be allowed to become merchants], Kommersant, October 9, 2007, http:// www.kommersant.ru/doc/812840. There was also long-­standing tension between different siloviki organizations, such as between the FSB and the Interior Ministry, and between the military and the FSB. 170. Putin scrapped popular elections of regional governors in 2004, but reintro-

Notes to Pages 92–94  177

duced them in 2012 amid opposition protests.  In 2013, however, Putin signed a law that would allow him to pick candidates for regional governor if a regional legislature votes to abandon direct elections. In 2014, United Russia won 28 of the 30 gubernatorial seats. 171. Ivan Sukhov, “The Power Vertical and the Nation’s Self-­Consciousness,” Russia in Global Affairs, June 15, 2008, http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/n_10931. 172. Olga Kryshtanovskaya, “V elitu pozhiznenno ili krugovorot chinovnikov v Rossii” [In the elite for life, or the recycling of the officials in Russia], Argumenti i Fakti, November 14, 2012, http://www.aif.ru/politics/russia/37914. 173. It is reported that approximately $300 billion, or about 16% of Russia’s GDP, had been eaten up by corruption. See Ivan Krastev and Vladislav Inozemtsev, “Putin’s Self-­ Destruction: Russia’s New Anti-­Corruption Campaign Will Sink the Regime,” Foreign Affairs, June 6, 2013, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139442/ivan-krastev-andvladislav-inozemtsev/putins-self-destruction. 174. Putin, “Annual Address to the Federal Assembly,” December 12, 2012. 175. Many saw Serdyukov, who had a civilian background and was replaced by Sergei Shoigu, as having been driven out by conservatives unhappy with his military reforms and anticorruption measures. See Andrey Shary, “Voenniy ekspert Aleksandr Gol’ts—­o bedakh Anatoliya Serdyukova” [Military expert Alexander Golts on the woes of Anatoly Serdyukov], RFE/RL, November 3, 2013, http://www.svoboda.org/ content/article/24925413.html. 176. Vladimir Shlapentokh, “Trust in Public Institutions in Russia: The Lowest in the World,” Communist and Post-­Communist Studies 39 (2006): 153–­74. 177. “Putin ostaetsya” [Putin stays], Nezavisimaya gazeta, December 28, 2007. Cited in Sakwa, Crisis of Russian Democracy, 305. 178. “‘No Putin, No Russia,’ Says Kremlin Deputy Chief of Staff,” Moscow Times, October 23, 2014. 179. Shevtsova, “Return of Personalized Power,” 64. 180. Taylor, State Building in Putin’s Russia, 108–­10. 181. Only 13% claimed that Russia had no enemies and 9% could not answer the question. See “Almost 80% of Russians Say Their Country Has Enemies—­Poll,” Interfax, November 29, 2013, http://russialist.org/interfax-almost-80-of-russians-say-theircountry-has-enemies-poll/. 182. The number was 87%. See “Poll Shows Russians Becoming More Hostile towards the West,” Interfax, January 13, 2015, http://russialist.org/poll-shows-russiansbecoming-more-hostile-towards-the-west/. 183. According to an April 2013 survey by the Levada Center, 56% of Russians agreed with the Kremlin that NGOs that criticize the authorities must not be allowed to receive funds from abroad; 53% concurred that such organizations must be sanctioned or closed down; and 62% believed that foreigners support nonprofit and human rights groups in a desire to influence internal Russian politics and to undermine Russia’s national interests. See Levada Center, “Obshchestvennoe mnenie ob NKO s inostrannym finansirovaniem” [Public opinion on NGOs that receive foreign funding], http:// www.levada.ru/17–05–2013/obshchestvennoe-mnenie-ob-nko-s-inostrannymfinansirovaniem. 184. This is based on a Levada poll conducted during February 21–­25, 2014. See

178  Notes to Pages 95–97

“Poll: Nearly Half of Russians Believe Riots in Ukraine Influenced by West,” Interfax-­ Ukraine, February 27, 2014. 185. This nationwide poll was conducted by the Levada Center in July 2014. See Ivan Nechepurenko, “Doctored Public Opinion Shapes Kremlin’s Ukraine Policy,” Moscow Times, July 29, 2014, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/doctored-publicopinion-shapes-kremlin-s-ukraine-policy/504274.html. 186. “Impervious to War, Inflation, and Foreign Barbs, Russian Pride Grows,” RFE/ RL, September 23, 2008. 187. See http://www.levada.ru/eng/indexes-0. 188. See “Putin’s Approval Rating Rises to 80%—­Poll,” RIA Novosti, March 26, 2014, http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140326/188776004/Putins-Approval-Rating-Rises-to-80— Poll.html. 189. A January 2015 poll by the Levada Center showed that 69% of Russians supported the Kremlin’s Ukraine policy, http://www.levada.ru/03–02–2015/sanktsii-zapadaposledstviya-i-reaktsiya. 190. As of the end of the third quarter of 2015, the Russian economy has fallen into a dismal state despite some signs of recovery in the stock market and the value of the ruble. The World Bank estimates that by 2017, Russia’s real GDP will be smaller than it was in 2012. Chapter 5 1. See Cheng Chen and Sil, “Stretching Postcommunism,” 286. According to a 2012 analysis by the Wall Street Journal, using data from the Shanghai research firm Hurun Report, 160 of China’s 1,024 richest people, with a collective family net worth of $221 billion, were seated in the CCP Congress, the National People’s Congress (the legislature), and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. See James T. Areddy and James V. Grimaldi, “Defying Mao, Rich Chinese Crash the Communist Party,” Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2012. 2. See Cheng Chen, “Institutional Legitimacy of an Authoritarian State,” 10. 3. Joseph Fewsmith, “Elite Politics: The Struggle for Normality,” in China Today, China Tomorrow: Domestic Politics, Economy, and Society, ed. Joseph Fewsmith (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 157. 4. Deng Xiaoping set the “Four Cardinal Principles” as the limit to permissible political discourse. These four principles included a commitment to Marxism-­ Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, Communist Party leadership, socialism, and people’s democratic dictatorship. See Deng Xiaoping, “Uphold the Four Cardinal Principles, March 1979,” in Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, 1975–­1982 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984), 172. 5. Allen Carlson, “A Flawed Perspective: The Limitations Inherent within the Study of Chinese Nationalism,” Nations and Nationalism 15:1 (2009): 23. 6. See, for example, Peter Hays Gries, “Chinese Nationalism: Challenging the State?,” Current History (September 2005): 256. 7. During an internal speech given in December 2012 during his “Southern Tour” and later circulated among officials, Xi said, “Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate?

Notes to Pages 97–100  179

Why did the Soviet Communist Party collapse? An important reason was that their ideals and convictions wavered. . . . Finally, all it took was one quiet word from Gorbachev to declare the dissolution of the Soviet Communist Party, and a great party was gone. . . . In the end nobody was a real man, nobody came out to resist.” See “Xi Jinping nanxun neibu jianghua” [Xi Jinping’s internal speech during his Southern Tour], http://www.open.com.hk/content.php?id=1197#.VZQq_9HbJ1s. 8. Party cadres were being instructed to guard against discussions of universal values, freedom of the press, civil society, civil rights, historical mistakes by the Communist Party, elite cronyism, and an independent judiciary. This was referred to as “seven don’t mentions.” These warnings were enumerated in a communiqué, which came to be known as “Document 9,” circulated within the party by its General Office in April 2013. It was first leaked on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging website. For a translation of the full text, see “Document 9: A ChinaFile Translation,” https://www.chinafile. com/document-9-chinafile-translation. 9. This speech was delivered on August 19, 2013, and was followed by a massive state media campaign, with eight editorials in the People’s Daily commenting on the “spirit” of the speech and another five “supporting” pieces on related issues as well as numerous other official publications. For the full text of the speech, see Xi Jinping, “Speech at the National Propaganda and Ideology Work Conference,” August 19, 2003, http:// chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/xi-jinpings-19-august-speechrevealed-translation/. 10. Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power. 11. Cheng Chen, Prospects for Liberal Nationalism, 95–­113. 12. This change was embodied in the famous Dengist slogan “practice is the sole criterion of truth.” See David Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2008), 104–­5. 13. Deng Xiaoping, “Address to Officers at the Rank of General and Above in Command of the Troops Enforcing Martial Law in Beijing,” June 9, 1989, http://english. peopledaily.com.cn/dengxp/vol3/text/c1990.html. 14. Zheng Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press), 95–­117. 15. See Suisheng Zhao, “A State-­Led Nationalism: The Patriotic Campaign in Post-­ Tiananmen China,” Communist and Post-­Communist Studies 31:3 (1998): 287–­302. 16. See Gries, China’s New Nationalism; Yongnian Zheng, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China: Modernization, Identity, and International Relations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and Yingjie Guo, Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary China: The Search for National Identity under Reform (New York: Routledge, 2004). 17. Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party, 65–­73. 18. Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party, 105–­6. 19. These conservative leaders included Yao Yilin, Song Ping, Li Ximing, Yang Baibing, and Yang Shangkun. 20. Mao’s generation of CCP leaders is usually referred to as the “Long March Generation,” while the Deng generation is referred to as the “Anti-­Japanese War Generation.” In contrast, most leaders belonging to Jiang’s generation were trained as engineers and had climbed the bureaucratic ladder step by step.

180  Notes to Pages 100–103

21. Before being promoted to top leadership by Deng, Jiang was the mayor and then the party chief of Shanghai during the 1980s. Upon assuming party leadership, Jiang elevated many of his associates and former subordinates from Shanghai to leadership positions. They were collectively known as the “Shanghai clique” (Shanghai bang). Key members included Wu Bangguo, Jia Qinglin, and Zeng Qinghong. 22. Jing Huang, “Institutionalization of Political Succession in China: Progress and Implications,” in China’s Changing Political Landscape, ed. Cheng Li (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2008), 83–­87. 23. Yasheng Huang, Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 109–­74. 24. See “Jiang Zemin’s Report at the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,” September 12, 1997, http://www.fas.org/news/china/1997/970912prc.htm. 25. J. Huang, “Institutionalization of Political Succession in China,” 87–­89. 26. See Jie Chen, Popular Political Support in Urban China (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2004), and Wenfang Tang, “Political and Social Trends in Post-­Deng Urban China: Crisis or Stability?,” China Quarterly 168 (December 2001): 890–­909. 27. See Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden, eds., Chinese Society: Change, Conflict, and Resistance (New York: Routledge, 2000). 28. Jiang first introduced this theory in February 2000 while touring Guangdong. 29. Kalpana Misra, “Neo-­Left and Neo-­Right in Post-­Tiananmen China,” Asian Survey 43:5 (September/October 2003): 742. 30. Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party, 113. 31. Bruce Dickson, “Integrating Wealth and Power in China: The Communist Party’s Embrace of the Private Sector,” China Quarterly 192 (December 2007): 827–­54. 32. “Full Text of Jiang Zemin’s Report at 16th Party Congress,” November 8, 2002, http://english.people.com.cn/200211/18/eng20021118_106983.shtml. 33. Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party, 112. 34. Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party, 114. 35. It is said that Deng Xiaoping had chosen Hu to succeed Jiang when he was still in power. 36. J. Huang, “Institutionalization of Political Succession in China,” 81–­84. 37. It should be pointed out that many, including some within the party, saw Jiang’s retention of the top military post as a violation of accepted procedures, signaling a failure of institutionalization. 38. Cheng Li, “China’s Fifth Generation: Is Diversity a Source of Strength or Weakness?” Asia Policy 6 (July 2008): 76–­77. The Hu leadership was only “populist” compared to that of Jiang. Despite its “populist” rhetoric, the Hu leadership made only limited progress in terms of political and social reforms, partially because Jiang’s associates remained politically powerful. 39. Fewsmith, “Elite Politics,” in Fewsmith, China Today, China Tomorrow, 159. 40. Hu officially introduced this idea, “yi ren wei ben,” at the third plenum of the CCP’s 16th Party Congress in 2003. During the same year, Hu translated “Three Represents” into “Three People” (san ge wei min): the Party must “exercise its power for the people, have passion for the people, and seek benefits for the people.”

Notes to Pages 103–6  181

41. “Building Harmonious Society Important Task for CPC,” Xinhua, February 19, 2005, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005–02/19/content_2595488.htm. 42. Hu Jintao, “Zai qingzhu zhongguo gongchandang chengli bashiwu zhounian ji zongjie baochi gongchan dangyuan xianjinxing jiaoyu huodong dahui shang de jianghua” [Speech at the celebration of the 85th anniversary of the founding of the CCP and meeting to sum up achievements of the educational drive to maintain the advanced character of party members], Xinhua, June 30, 2006, http://news.xinhuanet. com/newscenter/2006–06/30/content_4772463.htm. 43. “Full Text of Constitution of Communist Party of China,” Xinhua, October 25, 2007, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007–10/25/content_6944738.htm. 44. “Full Text of Hu Jintao’s Report at 18th Party Congress,” Xinhua, November 19, 2012, http://english.people.com.cn/102774/8024779.html. 45. Fewsmith, “Elite Politics: The Struggle for Normality,” 159–­60. 46. Yongnian Zheng, The Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor: Culture, Reproduction and Transformation (London: Routledge, 2010), 3. 47. “Full Text of Hu Jintao’s Report at 17th Party Congress,” Xinhua, October 24, 2007, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007–10/24/content_6938749.htm. 48. See, for example, Cheng Li and Eve Cary, “The Last Year of Hu’s Leadership: Hu’s to Blame?,” China Brief 11:23 (2011): 7–­10. 49. Under the Hu administration, for example, China hosted the 2008 Beijing Olympics, completed its first lunar mission, and produced its first aircraft carrier. 50. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, was one of the political and military leaders of the CCP during the communist revolution and the Anti-­Japanese War. He worked in a number of leadership positions under Mao. He was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution but was fully rehabilitated under Deng. 51. Hu’s full retirement (“luo tui” in Chinese) received praise both domestically and abroad for ending the post-­Mao CCP “tradition” of rule and interference by retired leaders. 52. See Xinhua special report on “Chinese Dream,” http://www.xinhuanet.com/ english/special/chinesedream/. 53. Cheng Li and Ryan McElveen, “Can Xi’s Governing Strategy Succeed?,” Current History 112:755 (September 2013): 206. 54. “Renmin ribao pinglunyuan: Yinling minzu fuxing de zhanlue buju—­lun xietiao tuijin ‘si ge quanmian” [People’s Daily commentator: Guiding strategy of national rejuvenation—­a discussion on the coordinated advance of “Four Comprehensives”], People’s Daily, February 25, 2015, http://cpc.people.com.cn/pinglun/n/2015/0225/ c78779–26591975.html. 55. Compared to his predecessors Jiang and Hu, Xi seems to receive more personalized attention from the Chinese media. According to a study by researchers at the University of Hong Kong published in 2014, China’s state media mentioned Xi’s name more than twice as frequently as his predecessors during the first 18 months of their respective presidencies. See Qian Gang, “Lingxiu xingming chuanbo qiangdu guancha” [Observations on media frequencies of leaders’ names], Media Digest, July 11, 2014, http://app3.rthk.hk/mediadigest/content.php?aid=1563. 56. “Xi Jinping Vows ‘Power within Cage of Regulations’,” Xinhua, January 22, 2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013–01/22/c_132120363.htm.

182  Notes to Pages 106–7

57. Zhao Yinan, “Xi Repeats Anti-­graft Message to Top Leaders,” China Daily, November 20, 2012, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012–11/20/content_15942984.htm. 58. “Xi Jinping Vows ‘Power within Cage of Regulations’.” 59. Since the party’s 18th Congress in 2012 when Xi took power, as of January 2015, 61 cadres at the ministerial level or above had been placed under investigation or convicted of corruption or other disciplinary violations, or both. See “Pandian: Shibada yilai luoma de liushiyi ming shengbuji yishang guanyuan” [Counting: The 61 officials at provincial and ministerial levels and above disciplined since the 18th Congress], People’s Daily, January 5, 2015, http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2015/0105/c1001– 26326662.html. 60. According to Financial Times, as of May 2015, more than 100 top executives from some of China’s largest state-­owned enterprises had fallen victim to the campaign. “China Corruption Purge Snares 115 SOE ‘Tiger’,” Financial Times, May 18, 2015. 61. They included Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, two former vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission. 62. Zhou was officially put under investigation for “serious disciplinary violations” in 2014 and was formally charged with bribery and abuse of power in 2015. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2015. The crackdown on Zhou Yongkang was in a sense unprecedented since retired Politburo Standing Committee members were usually considered immune from such charges. Indeed, Zhou was the most senior Chinese politician to be investigated for corruption since the CCP came to power in 1949. 63. One prominent example was the new standard of “four dishes, one soup” at official dinners, following Xi’s simple dinner during a 2012 visit to Hubei Province. Another example was the investigation of “naked officials” (luo guan)—­officials who had sent their family members to live abroad, sometimes to facilitate transferring their assets overseas. They were told to bring their families home and quit their jobs or face demotion. 64. See “Highlights of Communique of 4th Plenary Session of CPC Central Committee,” Xinhua, October 23, 2014, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014– 10/23/c_133737957.htm. 65. “Xi Jinping qiangdiao: Yifa zhiguo yifa zhizheng yifa xingzheng gongtong tuijin” [Xi Jinping emphasizes: Pushing forward law-­based leadership, governance, and administration together], Xinhua, February 24, 2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/ politics/2013–02/24/c_114782088.htm. 66. See Xi, “Speech at the National Propaganda and Ideology Work Conference.” 67. See “Document No. 9: A ChinaFile Translation,” https://www.chinafile.com/ document-9-chinafile-translation. 68. “Xi Jinping: Jianchi lide shuren sixiang yingling jiaqiang gaijin gaoxiao dangjian gongzuo” [Xi Jinping: Upholding the leadership on educating moral values; strengthening party-­building in higher education], Xinhua, December 29, 2014, http://news. xinhuanet.com/politics/2014–12/29/c_1113818177.htm. 69. “Yuan Guiren: Gaoxiao jiaoshi bixu shouhao zhengzhi, falu, daode santiao dixian” [Yuan Guiren: College teachers should hold the political, legal, and

Notes to Pages 107–10  183

moral bottom line], Xinhua, January 29, 2015, http://news.xinhuanet.com/2015– 01/29/c_1114183715.htm. 70. This implies that even though the private sector could now enjoy a more level playing field, the state sector would continue to play a strong role in the economy. 71. This idea was first brought up by Xi during his 2013 visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia. 72. See “Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu quanmian shenhua gaige ruogan zhongda wenti de jueding” [Decision of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee on several major questions about deepening reform], Xinhua, November 15, 2013, http:// news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013–11/15/c_118164235.htm. 73. “Leading small groups” have long existed at the top level of the CCP government to formulate and implement key policies in different areas. But these two small groups, created under Xi to replace several existing groups, are overarching ones overseeing economic reforms and security affairs, respectively. 74. During his first year as the chairman of the Central Military Commission, Xi visited six of China’s seven military regions, naval bases in Dalian and Sanya, and the 2nd Artillery (strategy missile forces) headquarters. 75. “Xi Jinping: Genghao tongchou guonei guoji liangge daju, hangshi zou heping fazhan daolu de jichu” [Xi Jinping: Better coordination of domestic and international situations and strengthening the basis for the path of peaceful development], People’s Daily, January 30, 2013, http://cpc.people.com.cn/n/2013/0130/c64094–20368861. html. 76. For example, at the CCP’s 17th Congress, Hu defined “the road of Chinese style socialism” as “under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, based on basic country conditions, to take economic development as the center, persist in the reform and opening up, release and develop the social productive forces, solidify and improve the socialist system, build a socialist market economy, socialist democracy, socialist advanced culture, and a socialist harmonious society, and build a prosperous, democratic, civilized and harmonious modern socialist country.” See “Full Text of Hu Jintao’s Report at 17th Party Congress.” 77. Mao Zedong, “Jieshao yige hezuoshe” [Introducing a co-­operative], April 15, 1958. 78. This was exemplified by the campaign to eliminate the so-­called Four Olds—­old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas—­during the Cultural Revolution. 79. Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China. 80. In his “On New Democratism,” Mao wrote that “[a]s imperialist culture and semi-­ feudal culture serve imperialism and the feudal class, they should be eliminated,” and that “[c]ompared to Confucius’s classics,” “socialism is much better.” Mao considered feudalism as one of the “three big mountains” that stand athwart the path to success in the socialist transformation of the Chinese people. The other two “big mountains” were imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism. These “three big mountains” were identified by Mao as the essential “enemies to be overthrown” in the revolution. See Mao Zedong, Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 4 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1961), 235. 81. Tong Zhang and Barry Schwartz, “Confucius and the Cultural Revolution: A Study in Collective Memory,” International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 11:2 (1997): 189–­212.

184  Notes to Pages 110–11

82. Shaohua Hu, “Confucianism and Contemporary Chinese Politics,” Politics & Policy 35:1 (2007): 136–­53. 83. Zheng, Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor, 181. 84. In a speech delivered to the National Congress in February 2005, Hu famously said, “Confucius said, ‘Harmony is something to be cherished.’” In March 2007, Hu’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, remarked, “From Confucius to Sun Yat-­sen, the traditional culture of the Chinese nation has numerous previous elements, many positive aspects regarding the nature of the people and democracy.” Cited in Daniel A. Bell, China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 9. Also see John Dotson, The Confucian Revival in the Propaganda Narratives of the Chinese Government (Washington, DC: US-­China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2011). 85. “Confucius’ Lessons Still Relevant, Xi Says,” China Daily, November 27, 2013, http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013–11/27/content_17133357.htm. For the full text of Xi’s speech, see http://bodhi.takungpao.com/topnews/2014–02/2272840. html. 86. Xi Jinping, “Zai jinian kongzi dancheng liangqian wubai liushiwu zhounian guoji xueshu yantaohui shang de jianghua” [Speech at the international academic conference commemorating the 2,565 anniversary of the birth of Confucius], Xinhua, September 24, 2014, http://news.xinhuanet.com/2014–09/24/c_1112612018.htm. 87. Lowell Dittmer, “On China’s Rise,” in China’s Rise in Historical Perspective, ed. Brantly Womack (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 40–­41. 88. China opened its first Confucius Institute in 2004 in South Korea, and by the end of 2013 the number had increased to 440 institutes and 646 classrooms serving 850,000 registered students around the globe. The spending in 2013 alone totaled $278 million. The government plans to open another 60 institutes and 350 classrooms worldwide by the end of 2015. These institutes have caused controversy, especially in the United States, over issues of academic freedom because they are influenced by Chinese government funding. See “Confucius Says,” Economist, September 13, 2014. 89. This referred to the period from the Opium War to the founding of the PRC in 1949. See Gries, China’s New Nationalism, 43–­53. 90. See Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation, 97–­117. 91. Carlson, “Flawed Perspective,” 23. 92. “China Voice: Xi’s ‘Four Comprehensives’ a Strategic Blueprint for China,” Xinhua, February 25, 2015, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2015– 02/25/c_127517905.htm. 93. Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation, 129–­32. 94. These intellectuals and activists were represented, above all, by Sun Yat-­sen, the great Chinese nationalist who formulated the idea of “Three Principles of the People,” calling for Chinese nationalism, eventual democracy, and improving people’s livelihood. 95. See Stuart Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-­tung (New York: Praeger, 1969), 30; John W. Garver, Chinese-­Soviet Relations 1937–­1945: The Diplomacy of Chinese Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 4–­5; and Peter Zwick, National Communism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983), 156. 96. Benjamin I. Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951), 189–­90.

Notes to Pages 111–14  185

97. See Mao Zedong, “On New Democracy,” in Selected Works of Mao Tse-­tung, vol. 2 (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1967), 363–­69. 98. Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation, 129. 99. Importantly, much of this support comes from the rapidly growing middle class. See David M. Lampton, Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 224–­26. 100. Xi made this claim during a visit to an old residence of Mao in Hebei in July 2013. See “Xi Jinping: Yao shi hongse jiangshan yongyuan bu bianse” [Xi Jinping: Our red nation will never change color], CCTV News, July 13, 2013, http://www.chinanews. com/shipin/2013/07–13/news251970.shtml. 101. For example, Deng Xiaoping famously judged that Mao had been 70% correct and 30% wrong. The end of the Maoist era was followed by the overthrow of the radicals within the regime and dramatic political and economic changes. The CCP’s Central Committee’s 1981 Resolution on CPC History admitted that “[t]he ‘cultural revolution,’ which lasted from May 1966 to October 1976, was responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest loss suffered by the Party, the state and the people since the founding of the People’s Republic. It was initiated and led by Comrade Mao Zedong.” See Resolution on CPC History (1949–­1981) (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1981), 32. 102. “Xi: Holding High the Banner of Mao ‘Forever,’” Xinhua, December 26, 2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013–12/26/c_132998764_2.htm. 103. Edward Hammond, “Marxism and the Mass Line,” Modern China 4:1 (January 1978): 3–­26. 104. Kenneth Lieberthal, Governing China: From Revolution through Reform (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 64–­65. In practice, the “mass line” was severely corroded during the postrevolutionary Maoist era, as highlighted by the enormous tragedy of the “Great Leap Forward,” in which tens of millions of peasants starved before the leadership fully realized what was happening. 105. Misra, “Neo-­Left and Neo-­Right in Post-­Tiananmen China,” 741. 106. “Xi: Upcoming CPC Campaign a ‘Thorough Cleanup’ of Undesirable Practices,” Xinhua, June 18, 2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013– 06/18/c_132465115.htm. 107. See James Mulvenon, “‘Comrade, Where’s My Military Car?’ Xi Jinping’s Throwback Mass-­Line Campaign to Curb PLA Corruption,” China Leadership Monitor 42 (2013), http://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/CLM42JM.pdf. 108. See “Xi: Upcoming CPC Campaign a ‘Thorough Cleanup’ of Undesirable Practices.” 109. “First 259 Units Deployed for ‘Mass Line’ Campaign,” Xinhua, July 23, 2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013–07/23/c_132567184.htm. 110. Perry, “Studying Chinese Politics,” 16–­21. 111. Perry, “Studying Chinese Politics,” 10. According to Perry, the regime employed such tactics during various social movements—­including the 1989 student demonstration, the Falun Gong movement, and even the public health campaign against SARS—­to mobilize a part of the population against another part. 112. Teresa Wright, Accepting Authoritarianism: State-­ Society Relations in China’s Reform Era (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 24.

186  Notes to Pages 114–18

113. At the third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP in 1982, the leadership announced that the problem of class struggle had been permanently resolved in the Chinese context, and the party’s work was now focused on the so-­called Four Modernizations, the modernization of industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology. 114. Susan L. Shirk, The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 36–­37. 115. Ezra Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), 684. Deng saw CCP rule, public ownership of the land, a dominant role for state ownership, and economic planning as essential components of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” 116. See “Full Text of Hu Jintao’s Report at 17th Party Congress.” 117. “News Analysis: As China’s Economy Grows, So Does Reform Call,” Xinhua, October 19, 2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013– 10/19/c_132813011.htm. 118. Zhao Yinan, “Leadership Evaluation Weighed,” China Daily USA, July 17, 2013, http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/2013–07/17/content_16790915.htm. 119. The full report of the Third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress proposed further promarket reforms including price liberalization measures, opening up the market to private and foreign competition, and fiscal reforms. At the same time, it also stressed issues of social justice, environmental protection, and growth sustainability. See “Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu quanmian shenhua gaige ruogan zhongda wenti de jueding.” 120. See “The China Model: China’s Development and Global Expansion Strategy; A Review from Chinese Sources,” Chinascope 47 (September/October 2010): 7–­8. There is no scholarly consensus over exactly what the “China model” means or whether it actually exists. See Joseph Fewsmith, “Debating the ‘China Model’,” China Leadership Monitor 35 (2011), http://media.hoover.org/sites/default/files/documents/CLM35JF. pdf; and Daniel A. Bell, Timothy Garton Ash, Andrew J. Nathan, Taisu Zhang, Mark Danner, Rebecca Liao, and Ryan Mitchell, “Is There a China Model? A ChinaFile Conversation,” ChinaFile, October 16, 2015, http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/ there-china-model. 121. See, for example, Y. Huang, Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics. 122. “Xi Jinping Urges to Develop Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” China Daily, November 19, 2012, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012cpc/2012–11/19/ content_15939817.htm. 123. “Xi Jinping Reiterates Adherence to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” Global Times, January 5, 2013, http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/753830.shtml. 124. See Frederick Teiwes, Politics and Purges in China: Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms, 1950–­1965 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1993). 125. See CCP Central Committee, Resolution on CPC History (1949–­1981) (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1981). 126. See Richard Baum, “The Road to Tiananmen: Chinese Politics in the 1980s,” in The Politics of China: The Eras of Mao and Deng, 2nd ed., ed. Roderick MacFarquhar (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 340–­470. 127. Joseph Fewsmith, “Political Creativity and Political Reform in China?,” in Chi-

Notes to Pages 118–20  187

na’s Rise in Historical Perspective, ed. Brantly Womack (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 235. 128. Alice Miller, “The Trouble with Factions,” China Leadership Monitor 44 (2015), http://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/clm46am.pdf. 129. “CPC Membership 2011,” China.org.cn, August 14, 2012, www.china.org.cn/china/2012–08/14/content_26231924.htm. Cited in Bruce Dickson, “Who Wants to Be a Communist? Career Incentives and Mobilized Loyalty in China,” China Quarterly 217 (2014): 45. 130. See “Zhongguo Gongcandang dangyuan duiwu jiegou jinyibu youhua” [The further optimization of the CCP’s membership structure], Xinhua, June 30, 2015, http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2015/0630/c70731–27227422.html. 131. See Bruce Dickson, Wealth into Power: The Communist Party’s Embrace of China’s Private Sector (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 132. “Xinhua Insight: CPC Membership Records Slower Growth,” Xinhua, June 30, 2014, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2014–06/30/c_133449357.htm. 133. Zheng, Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor, 181–­84. Also see Gongqin Xiao, “The Rise of the Technocrats,” Journal of Democracy 14:1 (2003): 60–­65. 134. See Pierre Landry, Decentralized Authoritarianism in China: The Communist Party’s Control of Local Elites in the Post-­Mao Era (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); and James Kung, Yongshun Cai, and Xiulin Sun, “Rural Cadres and Governance in China: Incentives, Institution and Accountability,” China Journal 60 (2009): 61–­78. 135. Li, “China’s Fifth Generation.” The populists were sometimes referred to as “Tuanpai,” meaning those with a background in the Communist Youth League. The elitists overlapped to an extent with the so-­called princelings, but they were not the same as many elitists did not necessarily come from prominent family backgrounds. 136. Nevertheless, the balance between the two camps stayed rather intact on the Politburo as a whole and the Central Military Commission. See Li and McElveen, “Can Xi’s Governing Strategy Succeed?,” 204. 137. Heike Holbig, “Ideology after the End of Ideology: China and the Quest for Autocratic Legitimation,” Democratization 20:1 (2013): 75. 138. See Victor Chung-­Hon Shih, “‘Nauseating’ Displays of Loyalty: Monitoring the Factional Bargain through Ideological Campaigns in China,” Journal of Politics 70:4 (2008): 1–­16. 139. Dickson, “Who Wants to Be a Communist?,” 55–­64. The survey was conducted by the Research Center for Contemporary China of Peking University among 3,874 respondents in urban areas, including both long-­term residents and recent migrants. 140. Li, “China’s Fifth Generation,” 77. 141. When Hu took over the leadership in 2002, Jiang Zemin expanded the membership from seven to nine in order to pack the Standing Committee with his cronies. 142. Alice Miller, “Trouble with Factions.” For an official account of the process in which the work report was formed, see “Formation Process of 18th CPC National Congress Report Revealed,” China Daily, November 20, 2012, http://www.chinadaily. com.cn/xinhua/2012–11–20/content_7555118.html. 143. See, for example, Doak Barnett, Uncertain Passage (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1974); Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution,

188  Notes to Pages 121–22

1: Contradictions among the People, 1956–­1957 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974); and Kenneth Lieberthal and Michael Oksenberg, Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structure, and Process (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). 144. Classic examples include Andrew Nathan, “A Factionalism Model of CCP Politics,” China Quarterly 53 (January 1973): 34–­66; Lowell Dittmer, “Bases of Power in Chinese Politics: A Theory and an Analysis of the Fall of the ‘Gang of Four,’” World Politics 31 (October 1978): 26–­60; and Tang Tsou, The Cultural Revolution and Post-­ Mao Reform: A Historical Perspective (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 102–­21. For an assessment and critique of the factionalism models, see Avery Goldstein, From Bandwagon to Balance-­of-­Power Politics: Structural Constraints and Politics in China, 1949–­1978 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 177. For more recent examples employing the factionalism model, see Andrew Nathan and Kellee Tsai, “Factionalism: A New Institutionalist Restatement,” China Journal 34 (1995): 157–­92; J. Huang, Factionalism in Chinese Communist Politics; and Victor C. Shih, Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 145. J. Huang, “Institutionalization of Political Succession in China,” 82–­83. 146. Alice L. Miller, “Institutionalization and the Changing Dynamics of Chinese Leadership Politics,” in Li, China’s Changing Political Landscape, 62–­63. 147. J. Huang, “Institutionalization of Political Succession in China,” 84. Also see David M. Lampton, “How China Is Ruled: Why It’s Getting Harder for Beijing to Govern,” Foreign Affairs 93:1 (2014): 74–­84. 148. J. Huang, “Institutionalization of Political Succession in China,” 85–­86. 149. Cheng Li, “Intra-­Party Democracy in China: Should We Take It Seriously?,” China Leadership Monitor 30 (2009), http://media.hoover.org/sites/default/files/documents/CLM30CL.pdf. According to the Fourth Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee in 2009, the main components of intraparty democracy included multicandidate inner-­party elections, decision by votes, institutional regulations and informal norms, a comprehensive supervision system, and the transparency of party affairs. 150. Zheng, Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor, 96. 151. “Xi Jinping tan fanfu: Gao shantou zhuyi bi chushi” [Xi Jinping talks about anticorruption: Forming cliques is the way to trouble], People’s Daily, December 23, 2014, http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2014/1223/c1001–26258437.html. 152. “Xi Jinping: Shenhua gaige gonggu chengguo jiji tuozhan, buduan ba fanfubai douzheng yingxiang shenlu” [Xi Jinping: Deepening reform; consolidating our achievements; expanding and deepening the fight against corruption], Xinhua, January 13, 2015, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2015–01/13/c_1113982249.htm. 153. See Minxin Pei, China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 31–­33. 154. Zheng, Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor, 43. 155. See Victor Shih, Christopher Adolph, and Mingxing Liu, “Getting Ahead in the Communist Party: Explaining the Advancement of Central Committee Members in China,” American Political Science Review 106:1 (2012): 166–­87. 156. Chen Liangyu was the former Shanghai party boss and was widely seen as belonging to former president Jiang Zemin’s “Shanghai Gang.” Bo Xilai came from a “princeling” background as his father was one of the revolutionary elders of Deng’s

Notes to Pages 122–23  189

generation, but he embraced neo-­Maoist rhetoric and heavy-­handed populist policies during his tenure as Chongqing party boss. He was once seen as a potential rival for Xi in the Politburo. 157. Some analysts argue that Bo was purged mainly because he had tried to buck the institutional procedures for succession and that corruption was merely a convenient pretext to convict him. 158. Some of the largest corruption cases, such as those of Xu Caihou and Zhou Yongkang, involved senior officials from the “elitists” group led by former president Jiang, with which both Xi and his anticorruption chief, Wang Qishan, were thought to have close ties. At the same time, Xi’s anticorruption campaign also brought down Ling Jihua, one of Hu Jintao’s former top aides and a prominent member of the “populists.” Moreover, the campaign has brought down high-­ranking officials in all 31 provinces and municipalities, including Zhejiang and Fujian, the two provinces that Xi had governed. 159. According to the Financial Times, in 2014 Hu and Jiang both gave their approval to an investigation of Zhou Yongkang, although they cautioned against expanding the campaign too far. See Jamil Anderlini and Simon Rabinovitch, “Ex-­President Jiang Urges Beijing to Curb Anti-­corruption Drive,” Financial Times, March 31, 2014. Hu and Jiang’s approval was later confirmed by “sources with ties to the Chinese leadership,” according to Reuters. One of the sources said that “Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping reached a consensus” on the Zhou case. See Benjamin Kang Lim and Ben Blanchard, “Exclusive—­China’s Xi Reached Deal with Former Leaders to Investigate Ex-­Security Chief: Sources,” Reuters, July 30, 2014, http://uk.reuters. com/article/2014/07/30/uk-china-corruption-idUKKBN0FZ0F520140730. Later in 2014, Xi secured the approval of Hu Jintao before launching an investigation against Ling Jihua. According to “a source with ties to the leadership,” Hu “did not block the investigation. He agreed to and supported it when consulted.” See Benjamin Kang Lim and Ben Blanchard, “Exclusive—­Former China President Hu Approved Probe against Aide—­Sources,” Reuters, December 30, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/30/us-china-politics-probe-idUSKBN0K80KA20141230. 160. See Dmitri Travin, “The War between the President’s Men,” Opendemocracy.net, November 6, 2012, https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/dmitry-travin/warbetween-president%E2%80%99s-men. 161. For example, see Elizabeth C. Economy, “China’s Imperial President: Xi Jinping Tightens His Grip,” Foreign Affairs 93:6 (2014): 80–­91. 162. See Cheng Li, “The End of the CCP’s Resilient Authoritarianism? A Tripartite Assessment of Shifting Power in China,” China Quarterly 211 (September 2012): 595–­ 623. 163. For example, see “The Vladimir Putin of China?,” Bloomberg, July 30, 2014, http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014–07–30/the-vladimir-putin-of-china. 164. Mikhail Rostovsky, “Pilyulya ot vozhdizma” [A pill against the cult of leader], Moskovsky Komsomolets, November 14, 2012, http://www.mk.ru/politics/ article/2012/11/14/774359-pilyulya-ot-vozhdizma.html. 165. Viktor Averkov, “Kitayskaya dilemma pokoleniya Putina” [The Chinese dilemma of Putin’s generation], RBK Daily, November 14, 2012, http://www.rbcdaily.ru/ politics/562949985127303.

190  Notes to Pages 124–31

166. Ren Zhongping, “Shouhu renmin zhengdang de shengming xian” [Guarding the lifeline of the people’s political party], People’s Daily, October 14, 2013, http:// opinion.people.com.cn/n/2013/1014/c1003–23187114.html. “Ren Zhongping” is an apparent homophone for “important People’s Daily commentary.” 167. For example, Jing Huang identifies three distinct points about the “China model” compared to the “Washington Consensus”: the prioritization of collective and state interests over individual rights; the state holding the right to be a monopoly of strategic economic sectors; and the CCP’s one-­party leadership. See Ye Yun, “The Future of China Model—­Exclusive Interview with Professor Huang Jing,” October 1, 2009, http://www.nfcmag.com/article/1690.html. Another culture-­centered view of the “China model” describes it as “meritocracy at the top, experimentation in the middle, and democracy at the bottom.” See Daniel A. Bell, The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015). 168. David Shambaugh, China Goes Global: The Partial Power (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 207–­68; quote from 310. Chapter 6 1. See Richard Arnold and Andrew Foxall, “Lord of the (Five) Rings: Issues at Sochi, 2014,” Problems of Post-­Communism 61:1 (2014): 3–­12. 2. Konstantin Ernst, the creator of the Sochi ceremony, explained, “Probably because we had 70 years of communism and about 50 years of the Cold War, the image of Russia in the world is incorrect. It was important for us to show a different Russia.” See Paul Sonne, Pia Catton, and Gregory L. White, “2014 Sochi Olympics: A Dazzling Opening Ceremony,” Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2014. 3. Lilia Shevtsova, “Implosion, Atrophy, or Revolution?,” Journal of Democracy 23:3 (2012): 19–­21. 4. Xi’s Third Plenum in 2013 confirmed the Chinese leadership’s strong commitment to further economic reforms after the relative stagnation under Hu. This was in the tradition of the previous third plenums in 1978, 1984, and 1992. See Barry Naughton, “After the Third Plenum: Economic Reform Revival Moves toward Implementation,” China Leadership Monitor 43 (2014), http://media.hoover.org/sites/default/files/ documents/CLM43BN.pdf. 5. Examples range from lengthening presidential tenures from four to six years to the recent attempts to remove the ban on official state ideology. The former change was made by Medvedev with the concurrence of the United Russia-­controlled Duma at the end of 2008 when he was Russian president, after the constitution forbade Putin from seeking a third consecutive term. This move was criticized and opposed by both the Communist and the democratic opposition. Regarding the latter attempt, Article 13 of the 1993 constitution specifies that “no ideology can be established as a state or obligatory one.” But starting in 2013, some Russian officials have been taking steps, such as drafting amendments, to remove this ban. These proposals, however, were turned down by Putin. 6. See “Xi Jinping: Gaige kaifang shi you fangxiang, you lichang, you yuanzhe de”

Notes to Pages 133–36  191

[Xi Jinping: Reform and opening have direction, position, and principles], People’s Daily, July 16, 2014, http://cpc.people.com.cn/n/2014/0716/c164113–25286658. html. 7. Henry E. Hale, “Nationalism and the Logic of Russian Actions in Ukraine,” Perspectives on Peace & Security, August 2014, http://perspectives.carnegie.org/us-russia/ nationalism-logic-russian-actions-ukraine/. 8. Indeed, scholars have warned that anticorruption campaigns in both cases could potentially lead to regime collapse. For Russia, see Krastev and Inozemtsev, “Putin’s Self-­Destruction.” For China, see Michael Forsythe, “Q. and A.: Roderick MacFarquhar on Xi Jinping’s High-­Risk Campaign to Save the Communist Party,” New York Times, January 30, 2015; and David Shambaugh, “The Coming Chinese Crackup,” Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2015. 9. Both Vietnam and Laos initiated significant and large-­scale liberalizing promarket reforms—­“Doi Moi” and “New Economic Mechanism,” respectively—­in the late 1980s, abandoning collectivization and encouraging the growth of the private sector. 10. It is important to note that at this point, Cuba, rather than North Korea, is more likely to embark on large-­scale market-­oriented reforms, especially following the 2011 6th Party Congress that laid out an economic reform plan featuring price liberalization and economic decentralization. But it is still too early to tell how far these reforms will go. 11. In both North Korea and Cuba, the communist regimes have been highly personalistic and have so far exhibited dynastic features, especially in North Korea. These features were not unprecedented among communist regimes (for example, Romania under Ceausescu showed some very similar characteristics) but were certainly far from the norm. In the case of Cuba, the regime has also relaxed restrictions on religious freedom more than most other communist regimes. 12. See Pietro Masina, Vietnam’s Development Strategies (London: Routledge, 2006). 13. See Ronald Bruce St. John, “The Political Economy of Laos: Poor State or Poor Policy?,” Asian Affairs 37:2 (2006): 180–­83. 14. Martin Gainsborough, “Elites vs. Reform in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam,” Journal of Democracy 23:2 (April 2012): 36–­37. 15. See, for example, Tuong Vu, “Vietnamese Political Studies and Debates on Vietnamese Nationalism,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2:2 (2007): 175–­230; and Le Hong Hiep, “Performance-­Based Legitimacy: The Case of the Communist Party of Vietnam and Doi Moi,” Contemporary Southeast Asia 34:2 (2012): 145–­72. 16. Gainsborough, “Elites vs. Reform in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam,” 39–­40. Also see Regina Abrami, Edmund Malesky, and Yu Zheng, “Vietnam through Chinese Eyes: Divergent Accountability in Single-­Party Regimes,” in Why Communism Did Not Collapse: Understanding Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Asia and Europe, ed. Martin K. Dimitrov (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 237–­75. 17. Both regimes face serious problems of official corruption, and both have launched anticorruption campaigns to counter these problems and to assert central authority. See, for example, Martin Gainsborough, “Corruption and the Politics of Economic Decentralisation in Vietnam,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 33:1 (2003): 69–­84. In Vietnam, factional politics also remains a serious problem as Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has many political rivals, and is set to lose his job in 2016 as a result.

192  Notes to Pages 137–41

18. All three are currently ranked by Freedom House as “partly free.” In 2014, all three signed partnership agreements with the European Union, in a move strongly opposed by Russia. Notably, all of them have large ethnic Russian enclaves. 19. See J. Paul Goode, “Nationalism in Quiet Times: Ideational Power and Post-­ Soviet Hybrid Regimes,” Problems of Post-­Communism 59:3 (2012): 6–­16. 20. See Adeeb Khalid, Islam after Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). It should be noted that authoritarian regimes in the region also see Islam as a potentially dangerous competitor for political legitimacy and therefore maintain tight control over religious organizations and activities. 21. Eric McGlinchey, Chaos, Violence, Dynasty: Politics and Islam in Central Asia (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011), 14. 22. Vujacic, “Historical Legacies,” 773–­81; Slezkine, “USSR as a Communal Apartment”; and Bunce, “Peaceful versus Violent State Dismemberment,” 222–­23. 23. See McGlinchey, Chaos, Violence, Dynasty. 24. According to Transparency International, which ranked perception of corruption in 175 countries and territories in 2014, Armenia is ranked 94th out of 175 in the world; Belarus, 119th; Azerbaijan, 126th; Kazakhstan, 126th; Kyrgyzstan, 136th; Tajikistan, 152nd; Turkmenistan, 169th; and Uzbekistan, 166th. See http://cpi.transparency. org/cpi2014/results/. 25. Examples include Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, and Ilham Aliyev following Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan. For an excellent account of post-­Soviet “patronal politics” in Eurasia, see Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 26. This is particularly the case with the resource-­rich Central Asian countries, where the local authoritarian regimes, the multinational corporations, and the major Western powers all have strong incentives to prefer a situation of political stability that enables a steady supply of resources to the global market. 27. Nathan, “Authoritarian Resurgence,” 158–­60. 28. See Jessica C. Teets, “Let Many Civil Societies Bloom: The Rise of Consultative Authoritarianism in China,” China Quarterly 213 (2013): 19–­38. 29. See, for example, Larry Diamond, “The Coming Wave,” Journal of Democracy 23:1 (2012): 5–­13. 30. For example, see Gilbert Rozman, “Asia for the Asians: Why Chinese-­Russian Friendship Is Here to Stay,” Foreign Affairs, October 29, 2014, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/142305/gilbert-rozman/asia-for-the-asians; and Dmitri Trenin, “From Greater Europe to Greater Asia? The Sino-­Russian Entente,” Carnegie Moscow Center, April 9, 2015, http://carnegie.ru/publications/?fa=59728#. For a counterargument, see Joseph Nye, “A New Sino-­Russian Alliance?” Project-­Syndicate, January 12, 2015, http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/russia-china-alliance-by-josephs—nye-2015–01. 31. In 2015, a high-­ranking official of China’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the idea that China and Russia were forging a “new ideological bloc” as “absurd” and affirmed that China would never enter into a military alliance with any country. See Wu Jianmin, “Are China and Russia Forging a New Ideological Bloc?,” China US Focus, March

Notes to Pages 141–43  193

3, 2015, http://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/are-china-and-russia-forging-anew-ideological-bloc/. 32. The original “end of ideology” thesis was put forth by Daniel Bell, who published a collection of essays titled The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960). The book portrayed a postcapitalist order in which grand humanistic ideologies had been exhausted and widespread political dissatisfaction would be expressed culturally rather than in economics. A related and more recent argument was offered by Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992). But Fukuyama did not argue that ideology per se was irrelevant or finished. Rather, he argued that Western liberal democracy, as the best possible ideology, had become hegemonic. For a rebuttal of these arguments, see Samuel P. Huntington, “No Exit—­The Errors of Endism,” National Interest 17 (1989): 3–­11. 33. See, for example, Herbert Kitschelt, Peter Lange, Gary Marks, and John D. Stephens, eds., Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, eds., Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Bruno Amable, The Diversity of Modern Capitalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); and Sven Steinmo, The Evolution of Modern States: Sweden, Japan and the United States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 34. See Joshua Kurlantzick, Democracy in Retreat: The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline of Representative Government (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 117–­34. 35. See Shambaugh, China Goes Global, 227–­35. 36. “China Focus: Xi’s ‘Belt and Road’ Prioritize Infrastructure,” Xinhua, January 5, 2015, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2015–01/05/c_133898488.htm. 37. “AIIB, a Paradigm Power Shift,” Xinhua, March 31, 2015, http://news.xinhuanet. com/english/2015–03/31/c_134114065.htm.

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Index

accountability, 140 Adorno, Theodor, 146n6 Afanasyev, Yury, 77 agriculture CEE, 30, 49 China, 102, 118 Soviet, 154n29, 186n113 See also collectivization; farmers aggression/invasions, 35, 99, 111, 156n58 and Putin, 69, 84, 95 Soviet, 29, 154n40 See also Crimea; intervention Alexander I, 57 Alexander II, 161n70 alliances in Chinese politics, 118 Russia/China, 141, 192n31 in Russian politics, 59–­60, 72, 91, 165 Western, 60–­61, 143 anthem, Russian, 59, 82 anti-­Americanism. See anti-­Western attitudes anti-­China protests, 136 anticolonialism, 154n32 anticommunism, 10, 12, 46, 51, 60, 63, 65 Anti-­Japanese War, 92, 98, 100, 111, 154n32, 179n20, 181n50. See also World War II anti-­Russian attitudes, 49, 51, 160n44 anti-­Semitism, 50

anti-­Soviet attitudes. See anti-­Russian attitudes anti-­Western attitudes, 73, 76–­77, 84, 94 apathy, 12, 64, 100 APEC, 107 area studies, 15–­16 Armenia, 137, 192n24 Aron, Raymond, 148n25 Asia Infrastructure Bank, 142–­43 Asian Development Bank, 143 assertiveness, international China, 107–­8, 124–­26, 132, 142 Russia, 75, 95, 107–­8, 126, 132, 162n82 See also aggression/invasions atrocities, 84, 111 Australia, 143 Austro-­Hungarian Empire, 48, 58 authoritarianism authoritarian capitalism, 1–­3, 13, 17, 138–­41 bureaucratic, 3 competitive/electoral, 70, 130, 137, 167n20 and development, 3, 7, 13, 25, 124, 138–­41, 146n8, 148n22 vs. Marxism-­Leninism, 2–­3,11–­12, 32–­ 33, 107–­8, 114–­15 and mass mobilization, 113–­14, 122, 128 and nationalism, 7, 11, 33, 73, 108, 124, 138–­41 215

216  Index

authoritarianism (continued) soft, 2, 25, 153n21 as tradition, 35, 56–­57, 79, 132, 159n28, 167n19 Azerbaijan, 137, 192n24, 192n25 Baltic countries, 48–­49, 155n53, 157n9 and Western Europe, 35, 48, 53, 149n37, 159n26, 160n41 Balzer, Harley, 70, 150n44 Beijing Consensus, 7, 124 Belarus, 81, 192n24, 192n25 Bell, Daniel, 193n32 Berdyaev, Nikolai, 79 bipolarity, 61. See also Cold War black market, 161n57, 166n4 blasphemy, 81 blat, 133, 166n4 Boao Forum , 142 Bohle, Dorothee, 157n9 Bolsheviks “market,” 64 “returned,” 117 See also under revolution Bordyugov, Gennady, 86 Bo Xilai, 122, 188n156, 189n157 Brezhnev, Leonid attitudes toward, 81, 171n94 Brezhnev Doctrine, 31, 154n40 and corruption, 133, 166n4 BRICS, 142 budgets, 45. See also finance Bukharin, Nikolai, 154n29 Bulgaria, 31, 46, 156n1 Bunce, Valerie, 51, 150n44 bureaucratic authoritarianism. See authoritarianism campaigns anti-­corruption, 76, 92, 106, 120–­22, 134, 136, 189n158, 191n8, 191n17 election, 46, 70 propaganda, 97, 99, 101, 103, 110–­11, 113, 122, 147n18, 179n9, 193n78 See also corruption; elections capitalism

authoritarian, 1–­3, 13, 17, 138–­41 crony, 19, 176n165 and democracy, 1–­3, 21, 44, 52–­53, 58, 61, 145n6, 157n8 See also markets Catherine II, 56–­57 Catholic Church, 48–­49, 50 Central and Eastern Europe, 6, 37 and ideology-­building, 47–­56 as “kidnapped West,” 51 See also specific countries centralization, 74, 79 re-­centralization, 70, 130 See also decentralization central planning. See planning, central Chaplin, Archpriest Vsevolod, 80 charisma, 8, 28 Chechnya, 60, 64 Chen Liangyu, 122, 188n156 Cherkesov, Viktor, 176n169 Chile, 2 China model, 124, 135, 139–­43, 186n120, 190n167 Chinese Communist Party intraparty democracy, 121–­22, 188n149 and Marxism-­Leninism, 98–­99, 101, 104, 106–­16 monopoly on power, 104, 120, 125, 146n8 and party-­building, 8, 11, 101, 106, 129 party discipline, 106, 121, 134 as postcommunist, 4, 6, 10–­12, 32–­34 and regime ideology, 96–­125, 133, 147n15, 183n73, 183n76 populists vs. elitists, 102–­5, 118–­19, 180n38, 187n135, 189n156, 189n158 “Chinese Dream,” 7, 97, 105–­6, 108, 111. See also Xi Jinping Christianity, 48, 160n40, 170n76 and Putin, 77, 80–­81, 90, 128, 171n80 Church, Catholic, 48–­49, 50 citizenship and national ideology, 4–­5, 25 rights, 157n8 and Russia, 59 civilization

Index  217

China, 109, 111, 113, 131 Russia, 57, 62, 76, 81, 131 civil service exam, 110 civil society CEE, 48, 51–­52 China, 40, 107, 179n8 Russia, 47, 61 class, 22, 57, 64, 151n7, 183n80 middle, 47, 52, 101, 105, 123, 140, 185n99 professional, 118 relations, 29, 38 “ruling,” 148n25 struggle, 32, 114, 186n113 clientelism. See cronyism, patronage, personalism cliques , 117, 121, 166n9, 180n21. See also factions Clunan, Anne, 174n143 coastal regions (China), 12, 100, 102, 104, 115, 118 cohesion, regime, 5 Cold War, 16, 21–­22, 30, 58, 190n1 and bipolarity, 61 end of, 1–­2, 48, 52, 96, 99 collective action, 37, 93 collective leadership, 121, 122 collectivization, 30, 39, 49, 191n9 people’s communes, 154n34 colonialism, 4, 138, 147n18, 154n32. See also imperialism commodities, 74. See also natural gas; oil communes. See under collectivization communism as aberration, 33, 51, 59, 78 anti-­communism, 10, 12, 46, 51, 60, 63, 65 and economic growth, 30, 31, 146n7 legacies of, 10, 34, 47–­53, 56–­62, 78, 81–­82, 85, 99, 114, 139 vs. liberalism, 6, 21, 52, 56, 58, 131, 141–­42 communitarianism, 57, 79 comparisons, cross-­national, 15–­17 conditionality (EU), 9, 44, 54–­55, 149n29

Confucianism, 33, 110–­11, 113, 128, 183n80, 184n84 Confucius Institutes, 110, 184n88 connections, 133, 166n4 conservatism, national, 74, 79–­80, 90. See also under values conservative modernization, 7, 12, 68, 74, 77, 87, 93 constitutions, 5, 38, 47, 65, 137, 153n19, 161n61 Chinese, 120 Russian, 47, 65, 73, 76, 80, 85, 128, 130 counterrevolution, 117 corruption and communism, 30–­31, 84, 133, 156n66, 166n4 in post-­Soviet republics, 137 under Putin, 74–­76, 92, 133–­34, 173n128, 177n173, 177n175, 191n8, 191n17 under Xi Jinping, 106, 113, 119–­22, 129, 133–­34, 136, 140, 182n59, 189n62 under Yeltsin, 47, 63–­66, 88, 164n112 coup, attempted (1991), 31, 59, 155n42 Crimea, 77, 81, 84, 94–­95, 132 crisis, financial of 1998, 46, 64, 69 of 2008 , 69, 73, 140, 147n13 Croatia, 46, 160n42 cronyism China, 107, 179n8, 187n141 crony capitalism, 65, 91, 107, 176n165 Russia, 8, 13, 47, 90–­94, 137 See also patronage; personalism Cuba, 27, 135, 191n10, 191n11 cult of personality, 36, 106, 156n60 Cultural Revolution, 11, 110, 117, 120, 183n78, 185n101 culture cultural legacies, 48–­53, 79, 109, 112, 147n18 cultural politics, 7, 18 European/Western, 35, 50–­53, 56–­57, 61, 65, 76, 110 liberal, 61

218  Index

culture (continued) political, 23, 56 wars, 50 currency, 67, 69, 178n190 cynicism/disillusionment in China, 102 and ideology, 6 in Russia, 12, 31, 61, 63–­64, 88, 131 Czech Republic Czechoslovakia, 29, 52, 154n40, 159n31, 160n42, 160n43 and ethnic minorities, 50 and postcommunism, 35, 43, 48–­54, 149n37, 155n54, 157n7, 157n9, 158n12 Prague Spring (1968), 29, 49, 154n40 decentralization, 39, 49, 191n10 democracy as anticommunism, 60 and capitalism, 1–­3, 21, 44, 52–­53, 58, 61, 145n6, 157n8 consolidated, 35, 149n37, 156n1, 157n3 democratic fatigue, 14 as “evil road,” 130–­31 export of, 76 guided/managed, 70, 164n115 as idea, 52–­54, 58, 70–­72 intraparty, 121–­22, 188n149 sovereign, 7, 12, 36, 68, 70–­77, 87, 88, 93 “tandemocracy,” 73–­75, 89, 130 democratic centralism, 28 Deng Xiaoping Deng era, 4, 11, 96–­100, 104–­5, 108–­ 22, 128–­29, 132, 136, 147n15 Deng Xiaoping Theory, 100, 104 Four Cardinal Principles, 97–­98, 101, 116, 178n4 and Mao, 98–­99, 114, 117 pragmatism of, 98, 100, 118 and reform, 11, 96, 98–­100, 109, 114–­ 18, 136 socialism with Chinese characteristics, 106, 115, 130, 186n115

dependency (Russia), 63, 94 development, late, 35, 131, 155n57 dictatorship, 36, 51, 18n147, 161n68, 178n4 of the law, 7, 70–­71, 77 and Mao, 113, 121 of the proletariat, 28, 116 and Stalin, 83 diffusion, 35, 50–­51 discipline, party, 106, 121, 134 discourse, 7, 23 in China, 97, 98, 113, 178n4 as concept, 20, 151n4 in Russia, 66, 68, 75 dissidents, 51–­52, 57. See also opposition/ dissent diversity, cultural, 16, 48, 53, 160n40 Duma and Putin, 72, 83, 90, 91, 92, 169n56, 190n5 and Yeltsin, 47, 62–­63, 164n11 Durkheim, Emile, 21, 151n6 dynasties, 109–­11, 143, 165n122, 191n11 East Asian developmental model, 2–­3 East China Sea, 108, 142 eclecticism, 13, 40, 87 education access to, 103 patriotic, 71, 79, 82, 99, 111–­13 and religion, 80 “re-­education,” 107 and textbooks, 71, 82, 83, 86, 107 electoral politics and authoritarianism, 70, 130, 137, 167n20 in CEE, 44–­47, 50, 53–­54 in China, 6, 32, 96, 136 competitive, 11, 53, 149n39 manipulation of, 29, 70 and Putin, 70, 72, 75, 76, 79, 87, 92, 130, 166n9 elites, political (defined), 8 elite commitment China and Russia compared, 128–­37 defined, 8–­9

Index  219

empire, 159n38 Austro-­Hungarian, 48, 58 European, 47, 160n40 Ottoman, 155n53, 160n40 Russian, 155n53, 160n41 energy, 16, 91, 107, 141. See also specific sectors enterprises, state, 62, 91, 106, 107, 182n60 entrepreneurship Chinese, 32, 96, 101, 136 political, 25 Russian, 47, 75, 85 environmental issues, 115, 140, 186n119 equality egalitarianism, 146n7, 156n66 and Marxism-­Leninism, 30 as value, 156n67, 163n84 Ernst, Konstantin, 190n2 Estonia, 50, 51, 156n1 ethnicity ethnic nationalism, 81, 87, 132–­33, 155n47 minorities, 39, 50, 104, 161n61 multiethnic states, 50, 58, 81 Russian, 84, 155n47 Europe “return to,” 9, 33, 44, 51 values of, 12, 40, 63, 77, 107 European Union, 14, 15, 19, 34–­46, 50–­55, 61, 127, 157n4, 157n5 158n11, 159n26 “EU borderlands,” 138 acquis communautaire, 44, 55 and conditionality, 9, 44, 54–­55, 149n29 Euroscepticism 55, 155n54, 157n7 executive branch, 47, 62, 63, 70 presidential term, 73, 74, 85, 190n5 super-­presidentialism, 46, 63 exports, 25, 94. See also trade factions China, 12, 104, 117–­22 Russia, 28, 87, 89, 165n121, 175n146, 176n169

China and Russia compared, 98, 129, 134 Vietnam, 191n17 Fadeyev, Valery, 174n145 Falun Gong, 185n111 family (as value), 79 farmers, 102, 118, 119. See also agriculture; collectivization fascism, 49, 51, 147n15, 147n17 and modernity, 2, 146n7 neofascists, 33 Federal Assembly (addresses to), 70, 76, 79, 82, 85 federalism, multiethnic, 50, 58 Federal Security Service, 81, 89, 175n148, 176n169 Federation Council, 92 feudalism, 109–­10, 183n80 finance, 44, 74, 107, 143. See also crisis, financial Finland, 159n26 flag, Russian, 59 Foucault, Michel, 3, 151n4 Four Cardinal Principles, 97–­98, 101, 116, 178n4 Four Comprehensives, 7, 97, 105–­6, 108, 111 foreign policy Chinese, 107–­8, 110, 124–­25, 142 postcommunist, 23 Russian, 75, 94, 95 Soviet, 22, 154n34 See also assertiveness, international; aggression/invasions fragmentation and China, 117, 119, 123, 129, 136 and Russia, 60, 63, 66, 88–­90, 93, 131, 139 France, 143, 154n32, 156n58 Napoleon, 58 Third Republic, 23, 152n14 Freedom House, 156n1, 158n10, 165n2, 192n18 FSB. See Federal Security Service Fujian, 119, 189n158

220  Index

Fukuyama, Francis, 193n32 Fyodorov, Yevgeny, 169–­70n59

Gudkov, Lev, 82 Gryzlov, Boris, 72, 168n36

G20, 115 Gang of Four, 11, 117 gay rights, 50, 81, 161n61 Gazprom, 168n41, 175n149, 176n163 Georgia, 137 crisis in, 75, 84, 95 Germany, 48, 58, 143, 160n41 GDR, 31 Nazi, 49, 58, 147n15, 154n32, 156n58 unification of, 164n103 Weimar, 23, 152n14 globalization and China, 6, 10, 11, 40, 96, 130 and CEE, 158n9 and Russia, 10, 70, 87, 130 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 22, 30–­31, 81–­83, 92, 136, 156n63, 162n83, 172n94 and West, 58, 164n103 governors, regional (Russia), 70, 92, 176–­77n170 Gramsci, Antonio, 151n7 Great Britain, 143 Great Leap Forward, 185n104 great power status, 7 and CEE, 127 of China, 126, 142 of Russia, 12, 40, 84, 87, 90, 94, 117, 128, 131, 133, 137 of United States, 1, 22, 24, 126–­27 Greskovits, Bela, 157–­58n9 gross domestic product CEE, 45 China, 105, 115 Russia, 177n173, 178n190 growth, economic China, 12, 17, 100–­103, 105, 115, 139–­ 40, 186n119 CEE, 45 and communism, 30, 31, 146n7 Japan, 25 Russia, 17, 67, 85, 147n13, 178n190 West, 1 guanxi, 133, 166n4

Hanson, Stephen, 23, 152n14 harmony, 25, 80, 110, 184n84 Havel, Vaclav, 51, 160n49 Helmke, Gretchen, 153n23 heroism individual, 28 and Putin, 83 and Sun Yat-­Sen, 112 history and education, 71, 78, 83, 86 “end of,” 52, 193n32 Russia’s “three pasts,” 84, 86–­87 historical materialism. See materialism, historical Hitler, Adolph, 147n15 holidays, 59, 79 Victory Day, 83 homosexuality. See gay rights Horkheimer, Max, 146n6 Hu Jintao, 7, 12, 97–­109, 110–­24 passim, 180–­90 and “lost decade,” 104 as populist/”people-­centered policy,” 102–­5, 110, 113, 118–­19, 129, 180n38 “Scientific Outlook on Development,” 7, 97, 103–­4, 108 “Socialist Harmonious Society,” 7, 103–­4, 108, 110, 183n76 humanism, 75 human rights. See under rights humiliation “century of,” 110, 128, 132 and China, 97, 99, 110, 111, 128, 132, 133 and Russia, 61, 64, 84, 85 Hungary, 29–­31, 35, 43, 48, 54, 155n53, 157n9 and Europe, 35, 43, 155n54, 156n1, 157n7, 158n11, 161n66 Hungarian Socialist Party, 44, 50, 55 and illiberalism, 54, 159n28, 159n31, 161n61 New Economic Mechanism, 30, 49, 52

Index  221

Hu Yaobang, 132 hybrid regimes, 2, 17, 130 ideology ban on, 76, 190n5 defined, 1 official, 17, 74, 79, 106, 119, 168n33 vacuum of, 6, 13, 33, 66, 72, 95 See also repertoire, ideological ideology, regime defined, 4, 24–­27 vs. cult of personality, 36 illiberalism, 33, 35 and CEE, 50, 54 and Russia, 43, 46, 58, 70 See also anti-­liberalism; liberalism Ilyin, Ivan, 79 imperialism, 154n32 and China, 183n80 and Russia, 58, 160n44 See also colonialism income/wealth gap, 12, 30, 102, 103, 156n66, 176n165 “middle-­income trap,” 140 and power networks, 47, 60, 91 See also gross domestic product; growth, economic individuals and heroism, 18 individualism, 26, 147n17 individual rights, 1, 190n167 See also liberalism; rights Indonesia, 167n19, 183n71 industrialization, 2, 49, 52, 146n8 heavy, 39 late, 2, 155n57 inequality, 12, 30, 102, 103, 156n66, 176n165 and power networks, 47, 60, 91 inflation, 159n35. See also prices inland (China), 102, 103, 119 integration economic, 32, 86 former Soviet republics, 85, 155n47 Western/European, 9, 37, 42–­46, 53–­ 56, 65, 127–­28, 156n1

intellectuals CEE, 51, 52 China, 107, 184n94 interest class, 1, 22, 148n21 coastal, 102, 118 elite/privileged, 37, 73, 75, 94–­95, 118, 119, 129 majority, 32, 101, 103, 148n21 national, 33, 94, 101, 108, 118, 131 Russian, 62, 80, 83, 94, 177n183 self, 8, 37, 92, 101 state, 190n167 interest rates, 107 internationalism, 28, 57, 58 International Monetary Fund, 44 internet, 107 intervention, market, 2, 7, 148n22 intervention, military Soviet, 49, 154n40, 161n57 Western, 71, 76–­77, 137 invasions. See aggression/invasions Islam, 1, 137, 192n20 Ivanov, Sergei, 89, 175n148 Izvestia, 76, 79 Japan, 107, 153n19, 153n21 Anti-­Japanese War, 92, 100, 111, 154n32, 179n20, 181n50 Nihonjinron, 25, 153n20 Jiang Qing, 117 Jiang Zemin, 12, 99–­105, 106, 108, 111, 118–­19, 122, 124, 180, 187n141, 189n159 as elitist, 102, 118–­19, 189n158 “Three Represents,” 7, 32, 97, 101–­4, 108, 113, 115, 116, 148n21 judiciary China, 107, 122, 179n8 and EU, 44 Hungary, 161n61 Russia, 70, 74–­76 Kadar, Janos, 49 Kadyrov, Ramzan, 92 Kamenev, Lev, 154n29

222  Index

Katyn Massacre, 84, 172n111 Kazakhstan, 137, 183n71, 192n24, 192n25 Kerensky, Alexander, 57 KGB, 81. See also Federal Security Service Khodorkovsky, Mikhail, 173n123 Khrushchev, Nikita, 29, 154n34 Koesel, Karrie, 150n44 Komsomol, 63 Kosovo, 62 Kryshtanovskaya, Olga, 73 Kudrin, Alexi, 175n149, 175n151 Kun, Bela, 48 Kundera, Milan, 51 Laar, Mart, 51 labor CEE, 49 China, 103 Russia, 164n111 See also workers labor camps, 83, 107 land, 186n115 reform, 107 rights, 2, 103 language vs. discourse, 20 political, 68 Russian, 58 Laos, 27, 135–­36, 139, 149n39, 191n9 Latin America, 2, 3, 143 Latin American studies, 15 Latvia, 50, 156n1 law breakdown of, 66 dictatorship of, 7, 70, 77 and EU, 44 legal nihilism, 76, 77 rule of, 8, 47, 61, 75, 103, 106, 156n67 leadership individual, 36–­37 charismatic, 8, 26 collective, 121–­22 succession, 27, 38, 40, 47, 123, 129–­30, 137, 189n157 legitimacy

and nationalism, 59–­60 and personalism, 13 vs. popularity, 36 Lenin, Vladmir, 26, 29, 57, 78, 81, 99, 113, 154n29, 171n94 Leninism. See Marxism-­Leninism Levada Center, 69, 81, 82, 84, 94–­95, 166n11, 173n113, 173n114, 177n183, 177n184, 178n185 Levada, Yuri, 86 Levitsky, Steven, 153n23 liberalism vs. communism, 6, 21, 52, 56, 58, 131, 141–­42 as discredited, 7, 12, 61, 66, 85 and religion, 59 triumph of, 3, 21, 33, 52 See also illiberalism; liberalization liberalization and communism, 49, 191n9, 191n10 and postcommunism, 10–­12, 52 and Putin, 89, 129 and Yeltsin, 6, 42, 46, 63–­67, 84, 130, 139 liberals vs. technocrats (Russia), 88–­89, 93, 129, 175n146 liberation, national, 9, 33, 49, 61, 139 Li Keqiang, 118 Likhachev, Dmitry, 170n76 Lin Bao, 110, 117 Ling Jihua, 106, 189n158, 189n159 Linz, Juan, 43, 157n3 Lithuania, 156n1 loans, foreign, 44 loyalty in Chinese politics, 118–­19, 123, 129, 134, 136 in Russian politics, 40, 80, 90, 92–­93, 95, 129–­30, 134, 136 as value, 83, 92 mandate of heaven, 110 Mao Zedong, 4, 10–­12, 98–­100, 105, 109–­25 passim, 128, 129, 133, 147n15, 181n50, 183n79, 185n101, 185n104

Index  223

Mao Zedong Thought, 104, 112, 178n4 neo-­Maoism, 189n156 market authoritarianism, 1, 138. See also under authoritarianism marketization, 35, 39, 49 CEE, 49 China, 40, 96, 99, 130 Russia, 46, 63, 130 markets. See capitalism market socialism, 96 Marx, Karl, 99, 107, 113, 145n6, 148n25 Marxism-­Leninism and China, 98, 104, 109, 111, 114, 178n4 demise of, 5, 12, 21, 27, 30–­32, 39, 97, 118 formation of, 27–­30 and Gorbachev, 30–­31, 162n83 as imported, 57 orthodox, 29, 98, 114 mass line, 110, 112–­14, 122, 128 materialism, historical, 27–­28 McFaul, Michael, 53–­54 Meciar, Vladimir, 44–­45, 50, 55, 157n5, 160n51, 161n60, 161n68 Medvedev, Dmitry, 7, 72–­84, 85–­86, 89–­ 95, 130, 168n41, 190n5 memory, historical, 58, 79, 86 meritocracy, 110, 190n167 methodology, 15 rational choice, 22, 152 Middle East studies, 15 migrants, 100, 187n139 migrant workers, 102, 119 military Chinese, 100, 105–­6, 113, 123 Red Army/Russian, 48, 63–­64, 89, 176n169 Miliukov, Pavel, 57 Minchenko, Yevgeny, 175n146 minorities ethnic, 39, 50, 104, 161n61 sexual, 161n61 mistakes, 99, 107, 112, 179n8 mobilization, mass, 111–­13, 185n111

modernization, 15, 72–­77, 83, 88, 138, 142, 155n56 conservative, 7, 12, 68, 74, 77, 87, 93 Four Modernizations, 186n113 “modernity,” 2, 146n7 Moldova, 137 Molotov-­Ribbentrop Pact, 48, 83 Mongolia, 142 Moore, Barrington, 1 Morozov, Viacheslav, 60 Mosca, Gaetano 148n25 names, city, 59 Naryshkin, Sergei, 83 nation-­building, 4, 6, 10–­11, 33, 58, 60, 61, 132–­33 nationalism 20th century Chinese, 110–­11, 116, 128 and authoritarianism, 7, 11, 33, 73, 108, 124, 138–­41 and CEE, 50–­53, 65 “chauvinistic,” 73 ethnic, 81, 87, 132–­33, 155n47 official/state-­led, 11, 98, 109, 116, 123–­ 24, 128, 133 traditional Russian, 33, 57–­60, 78–­81 NATO, 37, 92, 159n26, 161n63 and CEE, 43–­45, 48, 54–­55, 127, 157n5, 164n103 and Yugoslavia, 61–­62, 64 natural gas, 89 Navalny, Alexei, 163n93, 173n128 networks, personal, 90, 91, 107 newly industrialized countries, 2 New Russian Barometer, 69, 163n88 NGOs, 94, 177n183 nomenklatura, 63 Non-­Aligned Movement, 154n34 Nordic countries, 53. See also Scandinavia North Korea, 27, 135, 156n60, 191n10, 191n11 Obama, Barack, 105 oil, 89, 173n123 petro-­dollars, 67, 91 prices, 69, 73, 147n13

224  Index

oligarchs, 47, 63, 70, 173n123 Olympics, 126, 181n49 “One Belt, One Road,” 107, 142 one-­child policy, 107 opinion, public and China, 97, 100, 119 and Europe, 55 and Russia, 60, 69, 72, 80–­84, 94–­95, 163n88, 164n97, 166n11,166n14, 167n17, 171n80, 171n 93, 173n 114, 173n124, 174n133, 177n183, 178n189 opposition/dissent (China), 104, 132 opposition/dissent (Russia), 57–­58, 63, 69, 76, 86–­87, 91, 131, 165n1, 177n170, 190n5 and communists, 46, 59, 60, 68 Orban, Viktor, 54, 161n61 Orthodox Church, Russian, 48, 57, 59, 78, 80–­81, 128, 170n76, 171n80, 171n84 Patriarch Kirill I, 80 Ottoman Empire, 51, 155n53, 160n40 parades, 83 parties, political, 20, 26 38, 44, 152n15, 166n9 communist successor, 9, 44, 55 Eurosceptic, 157n7 multi-­party system, 26 party ideology, 4–­5, 25–­26, 28, 147n16 populist, 44, 55 vanguard, 6, 28, 96, 101 party-­state structure, 4, 10, 39 China, 11, 34, 120, 136, 139 Soviet Union, 26, 28, 31, 137 patriotism, 75, 79, 81–­83, 90 patriotic education, 71, 79, 82, 99, 111–­13 patronage and China, 121, 137 and postcommunism, 37 and Russia, 14, 65, 77, 89, 91, 137–­38, 139 See also croynism, personalism peasants, 154n28 CEE, 30, 49

China, 101, 103, 111, 184n104 Russia, 57 “people-­centered policy.” See under Hu Jintao Perry, Elizabeth, 113, 185n111 personalism, 8, 13, 36, 65, 90–­95, 123, 129, 147n18 Peskov, Dmitry, 75 Peter the Great, 155n56 petro-­dollars, 67, 91. See also oil petroleum. See oil Phare program, 55 planning, central, 6, 30, 186n115 Pligin, Vladimir, 174n145 pluralism, managed, 70 Poland, 30–­31, 43, 79, 83, 149n37, 156–­61, 172n11 and Europe, 35, 48–­54 Politburo, Chinese, 102, 106, 113, 119–­20, 121, 141, 182n62, 187n136, 188–­ 89n156 population, 2, 61 populism and China, 101–­5, 118–­19, 129, 180n38, 187n135, 188n156, 189n158 and Europe, 44, 55, 157n4, 161n61 poverty, 45, 47 power-­sharing, 10 “power vertical,” 70, 73, 87 pragmatism, 6–­7, 22, 31 and China, 11, 13, 98, 100–­101, 118 and Russia, 63, 67, 87–­88, 166n4 presidency. See executive branch press, freedom of, 97, 107 Primakov, Yevgeny, 63–­64, 90 prestige/status (international) CEE, 127 Chinese, 108, 127, 132 Russian, 36, 40, 61, 63, 67, 72, 84, 90–­ 91, 94, 131, 133 prices, 107, 161n57, 186n119, 191n10 oil, 69, 73, 147n13 pride and China, 126 and Russia, 69, 82, 86

Index  225

princelings, 187n135 Bo Xilai, 188n156 Xi Jinping, 105, 119, 120 privatization, 6, 23, 46, 52, 63, 71 proletariat, 99, 148n21 dictatorship of, 28, 116 and party, 32, 96, 101 and revolution, 28, 40, 146n7 propaganda, 39 and China, 97, 101, 105, 106, 108, 112 “gay propaganda,” 81 property, 1, 63, 85, 157n8, 161n57, 174n145 “power and property,” 13, 129 protests/demonstrations and China, 100, 136 and Russia, 75, 89, 91, 130, 177n170 purges, 117, 122, 189n157 Putin, Vladimir aggressiveness of, 69, 75, 95, 132 anti-­Western rhetoric, 73, 76–­77, 84, 94 background in security, 82, 89 and corruption, 74–­76, 92, 133–­34, 173n128, 177n173, 177n175, 191n8, 191n17 and dictatorship of the law, 7, 70–­71, 77 image as strong leader, 69, 72, 83 and personalism, 8, 13, 67, 90–­95, 119, 123, 129–­31, 134 popularity of, 69, 75–­76, 78, 88, 91, 94–­95, 166n11 “Putin’s Plan,” 72–­73 and sovereign democracy, 7, 12, 36, 68, 70–­77, 87, 88, 93 and “tandemocracy,” 73–­75, 89, 130 and traditional Russian values, 74–­81, 90 Putinism, 68, 166 rational choice theory, 22, 35, 152n7 rationality, 20, 28, 64 raw materials, 34, 94 recession, economic, 84, 140 recruitment, elite, 6, 88, 118 rectification

campaigns, 97, 113 and Crimea, 77 and Putin, 80 Red-­Brown Coalition, 33 regime, political (defined), 4 regime ideology. See ideology, regime regulations, 101, 188n149, 161n57 “cage of,” 106 rejuvenation, national, 105, 111, 116, 132 relativism, 20 religion, 1, 35, 48, 160n41, 191n11 and post-­Soviet regimes, 137, 192n20 and Putin, 70, 80–­81, 171n80 state, 80, 171n80 and Yeltsin, 59 See also Orthodox Church, Russian rent-­seeking behavior, 121, 176n165 repertoire, ideological defined, 8 factors shaping , 34 republics, former Soviet, 16, 52, 63, 85, 149n39, 155n47 revisionism, 77, 154n34 revolution Bolshevik, 22, 57, 79 Chinese Communist, 10, 100, 109, 111–­14, 117–­18 indigenous, 10, 27, 29, 31, 33, 48, 49, 57, 154n28 permanent, 154n29 revolutionary prestige, 122 world, 27–­28, 30, 146n7 right-­wing Poland, 161n61 Russia, 60, 80, 92, 131, 154n29 rights citizenship, 157n8 civil, 107, 158n10, 165n2, 179n8 gay, 50, 81, 161n61 human, 2, 76, 80, 156n67, 177n183 individual, 1, 190n167 maritime 108 minority, 104,161n61 property/land-­use, 103, 107m 157n8 women’s, 50 Rodina Party, 92

226  Index

Rogozin, Dmitry, 92 Romania, 31, 46, 155n42, 156n1, 191n11 Roosevelt, Franklin, 147n16 Rozman, Gilbert, 23, 150n44 ruble, 69, 178n190 rural areas, 100, 103, 107, 111 Russia model, 135, 139 “Russian idea,” 60, 79 Russians, ethnic, 84, 155n47 Sakharov, Andrei, 57 sanctions, economic, 69, 94–­95, 140–­41, 147n13, 170n61 SARS, 185n111 Scandinavia, 48, 159n26, 160n41 “Scientific Outlook on Development,” 7, 97, 103–­4, 108. See also Hu Jintao Sechin, Igor, 89, 91, 175n148, 176n169 secularism, 28, 137 security economic, 69, 94 external, 54, 58, 108 See also military; security forces security forces, 60, 64, 85, 87, 170n60 China, 108, 183n73 FSB, 81, 89, 175n148, 176n169 and Putin, 82, 85, 89, 92 See also military self-­image, 3, 5, 43, 62 September 11, 1 Serdyukov, Anatoly, 92, 177n175 Shambaugh, David, 124 Shanghai, 100, 142, 180n21, 188n156 Sil, Rudra, 150n44 Silk Road strategy, 107, 142 siloviki, 76, 89–­94, 129, 170n60, 175n146, 175n148, 176n168, 176n169 Singapore, 146n8 “Slavophiles,” 57, 155n56, 174n143 Slovakia, 44–­45, 48, 50, 149n37, 156n1, 157n5, 157n9, 158n11, 160n51. See also Czechoslovakia Slovenia, 48–­50, 52, 149n37, 156n1, 158n9, 160n42, 160n49 socialism, market, 96 “Socialism in One Country,” 28, 39

socialism with Chinese characteristics, 106, 115, 130, 186n115. See also Deng Xiaoping “Socialist Harmonious Society,” 7, 103–­4, 108, 110, 183n76. See also Hu Jintao social movements, 185n111 soft authoritarianism, 2, 25, 153n21. See also authoritarianism soft power, 110, 124, 127, 142, 143 Solovyov, Vladimir, 79 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 57, 83, 170n76 South China Sea, 108, 136, 142 South Korea, 143, 184n88 sovereign democracy, 7, 12, 36, 68, 70–­ 77, 87, 88, 93 defined, 71 “Soviet man,” 60 spiritual identity of China, 113 of Russia, 76, 79, 80 St. Petersburg, 89, 91, 168n41, 175n149 Stalin, Joseph, 26, 28–­29, 39–­40, 57, 78, 81–­84, 90, 113 as modernizer, 83 and public opinion, 84, 171n94, 173n113, 173n114 State Council (Russia), 91 state-­owned enterprises. See enterprises, state statism, 8, 76, 84, 174n143 statistical analysis, 22 status. See prestige/status Stepan, Alfred, 43, 157n3 Sun Yat-­sen, 111–­12 super-­presidentialism, 46, 63 superpowers, 21, 36, 61, 83, 95, 173n116. See also Cold War; great powers Surkov, Vladislav, 68, 71, 72, 74, 76, 170n61 Su Rong, 106 svyazi, 133 symbols, 10, 34, 50 and Russia, 57, 59, 79–­84, 128 “tandemocracy,” 73–­75, 89, 130

Index  227

technocrats China, 100, 110, 118 Russia, 88–­89, 93, 129, 175n146 “technocratization,” 118 technology, 74, 186n113 territory break-­up of, 16, 61 disputes, 108 expansion, 85, 155n47 textbooks in China, 107 in Russia, 71, 82, 83, 86, 168n32 “Three Represents,” 7, 32, 97, 101–­4, 108, 113, 115, 116, 148n21. See also Jiang Zemin Tiananmen Incident, 11, 96, 99, 114, 117–­18, 132 Tibet, 104 time zones, 74 tolerance 81, 160n40 torture, 84 trade, 52–­53, 107, 161n57 World Trade Organization, 85, 96 tradition. See under values “transitologists,” 48 transparency, 90, 137, 140, 164n112, 188n149, 192n24 Treaty of Lisbon, 156n67 Trotsky, Leon, 154n29 trust interpersonal, 73, 114, 166n14 in public institutions, 55, 69, 75, 120, 165n121 tsars, 56, 160n44 Turkey, 54. See also Ottoman Empire Turkmenistan, 137, 192n24 Ukraine, 81, 137 crisis, 77, 85–­86, 89, 94–­95, 140, 166n11, 170n61, 178n189 unemployment, 45, 47, 158n12 United Russia, 67, 71–­75, 79, 87–­90, 120, 129, 168n36, 169n46, 169n56, 169n59, 173n128, 174n145, 177n170, 190n5 United States

and AIIB, 143 American vs. Chinese Dream, 105 and Cold War, 22, 35 and democracy promotion, 1, 26, 147n17 Putin criticisms of, 73, 76, 77, 84 hegemony of, 1, 22, 24, 126–­27 and regime ideology, 26, 147n16, 147n17 universities, Chinese, 107, 110, 113 urban areas (China), 100, 103, 111, 115, 118, 119 Uzbekistan, 137, 192n24, 192n25 Valdai conference, 75–­77, 81 values traditional Russian, 62, 74–­81, 90, 131 Western/European, 12, 40, 63, 77, 107 vanguard party, 6, 28, 96, 101 Vedomosti, 90, 91 Vietnam, 27, 29, 31, 135–­36, 149n39, 154n32, 191n17 and “China Model,” 139, 142 Doi Moi, 136, 191n9 Visegrad four, 149n37, 157n9 Vogel, Ezra, 115 Volodin, Vyacheslavm 76, 94 VTsIOM, 80–­83, 166n14, 171n80, 173n116, 173n124 Warsaw Pact, 54, 61, 161n63 Washington Consensus, 140, 148n22, 190n167 Weber, Max, 22, 28, 151n6 West anti-­Western attitudes, 73, 77, 94 as decadent, 77, 81 disillusionment with, 61, 63–­64, 131 ideas of, 50–­51, 53, 131 integration with, 9, 37, 42–­46, 53–­56, 65, 127–­28, 156n1 and postcommunist ideological repertoire, 35 values of, 12, 40, 63, 77, 107 Westernizers (Russia), 57, 86, 155n56, 174n143

228  Index

Wolchik, Sharon, 51 women, 50 workers, 114, 118 migrant, 102, 119 workers’ party, 32, 96, 101 World Bank, 44, 143, 178n190 World Trade Organization, 85, 96 World War 1, 48, 159n38 World War 2, 1, 48, 52, 58 82–­83, 86, 154n32 as “Great Patriotic War,” 82, 128 See also anti-­Japanese war Wu Bangguo, 102, 180n21 xenophobia, 50 Xi Jinping, 7, 97, 105–­24, 131, 134, 139, 142, 178n7, 181n55, 182n59, 189n158, 189n159 “Chinese Dream”, 7, 97, 105–­6, 108, 111 and corruption, 106, 113, 119–­22, 129, 133–­34, 136, 140, 182n59, 182n62, 189n158, 189n159, 191n8, 191n17 and factionalism, 119–­22, 134 Four Comprehensives, 7, 97, 105–­6, 108, 111 and Mao, 112–­14 and military, 105–­6, 108, 113, 123, 181n50, 183n74 power consolidation, 107–­8, 122–­23 as princeling, 105, 119, 120 Xinjiang, 104 Xu Caihou, 182n61, 189n158 Yabloko party, 70 Yavlinsky, Grigory, 70

Yeltsin, Boris attempts at ideology-­building, 56–­67, 165n121 and corruption, 47, 63–­66, 88, 164n112 failures of, 6, 10, 12–­13, 41, 46–­47, 66, 71, 95, 127, 130–­33, 139 and personalism, 13, 47, 65–­66, 91 and public opinion, 81–­82, 164n112, 171n94 and Putin, 14, 68–­70, 72, 73, 77, 78, 81–­95, 128, 165n1 rejection of communism, 31, 33–­34, 36, 42–­43 youth Chinese, 102, 187n135 Russian, 63, 82, 171n84 Yuan Guiren, 107 Yugoslavia, 27, 29, 154n32, 154n34, 160n42 bombing of, 61, 64 and economic policy, 30, 49, 52 Zaire, 147n18 Zeman, Milos, 54, 161n61 Zeng Qinghong, 102, 180n21 Zhang Gaoli, 142 Zhang Guotao, 117 Zhao Ziyang, 132 Zhejiang, 119, 189n158 Zhou Yongkang, 106, 182n62, 189n158, 189n159 Zimmerman, William, 174n143 Zinoviev, Grigory, 154n29 Zubarev, Viktor, 174n145 Zyuganov, Gennady, 176n160