The Dependence of the Social Structure on Previous Development: “… And the New Raved About the Old” (Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of the New Russia)

ABSTRACT An occasion for discussing the 25th anniversary of the socioeconomic development of post-Soviet Russia is the publication of a collective monograph edited by O. Shkaratan and G. Yastrebov, titled How New Is the New Russia? Its conceptual and polemical nature is clearly indicated by the title. The authors answer this question in the negative. No, contemporary Russia continues to reproduce the same basic institutions of power-property, firmly rooted in Russian civilization going back to the 13th century. In the new book, the influence of previous “oriental-despotic” development is considered in terms of the social structure and dynamics of contemporary Russian society, which the authors of the monograph describe as a neo-etacracy. The overall analytic result produced by the study is complex. The idea inherent in the book’s title is fully realized. The book shows that the old “rules of the game” continue to operate in the new Russia even after the “death” of the Soviet Union: The reproduction of power-property is conceptually substantiated, and the connection between the development of the mechanisms of social mobility and social polarization is empirically corroborated. However, the goal of connecting the reproduction of power-property with the empirical data on social life in post-Soviet Russia is more ambiguous. The book has a number of new arguments supporting the idea that in Russia the “state is still stronger than society.” One of the most original and well-designed concerns a survey question about which patients would receive preferential treatment in a hospital. However, there remains a lack of comprehensive evidence. This is primarily because the book is based on sociological research done with “ordinary people” and largely excludes the representatives of the “state-class.”