Oleksii Myronchenko a Computer Programmer has shared his view about Why Russia go to dictatorship again after the collapse of the Soviet Union and How it can be prevented from happening again in the future
Read Below:
Russia had never developed all of the 4 things that are instrumental in any healthy state that wants to exist, integrate with others and break up peacefully.
1.Inclusive feedback (or what is largely called ‘democracy’).
2.Power management — one (preferably all 2) of
a. Change of a person(s) in power.
b. Power sharing between institutions
3.Rule-based society (or what is called ‘independent judiciary system’)
4.Independent press (from the State).
First, some comments on all three.
Fully Inclusive feedback is hard to achieve. Right now, in even the most democratic systems people who were considered fully grown-up in societies 200 years don’t have political representation. It is cured by giving them extended privileges that is not good, but it solves the problem for now. But if the society considers some group mature enough, it should have a political representation in some form proportional to its size in a population.
Power sharing is even harder. A lot of formally democratic systems allow their leaders to remain as long as their political parties remain in power. It is a vulnerable construct. Power corrupts, and it’s proven by centuries of people corrupted by power. Some countries concentrate too much power in hands on one person, and this could lead to an erosion of any institution of that country at will.
Rule-based society is simpler, especially if the laws are close to common sense. If the law contradicts the common sense of the society, it’s not followed. If enough are not followed, rules are not respected. Mind you, even in the most legalist of systems there are lots of people breaking the law, and in most countries anyone did it at least a few times without punishment. But the less systematic it is, the better.
Independent press is the easiest of them all. In general, it should be independent from the State. The test is — “would your press actor be normally commanded to not write/air something by the State?” Barring the military necessity, suppression of the enemy foreign press and protecting state secrets, it should not happen. Any dependencies on corporations, political parties and so on are okay.
Let’s get to the modern Russian history:
First, Rule-based society never managed to be born. It eroded the belief of the society in itself and its government, it atomized the society. Judges were keen on listening to whoever gives them more money or to the State interventions all the time. Criminals were going around rich and unpunished.
Then, the independent press was eroded in early 2000s by Putin, starting with TV. He argued that the press controlled by oligarchs is worse than the press controlled by the State, which is nonsense since the press controlled by those who have money is somewhat normal since, unless a cartel pact is in place, it gives an information picture closer to reality than a government-controlled press.
