“Russia and the role of the state”

Even after their ideological struggle, Russia had become one of the world’s largest constitutionally-socialist dominating powers. Russia alike many states, is lead by a president who has authoritative rule over the whole state. He, himself has the power of leading the pluriform multi-party system which was exercised by the central government. As we all know from history, Russia has been recognized as its own state for a fair amount of time. Even under Stalin’s communist regime, Russia had the ability to influence its surrounding countries and to control the outcome of specific events. During the period of the Cold War, Containment was their main ideology which allowed inequality and increased rivalry amongst different countries. Since the period of the Cold War, USSR used “compellence” (forced power) against their rivalries in order to gain political support and increase expansion. This created a disruption in their state in that it didn’t gain national security. Although even under dictatorial rule, Russia attained her tangible source of power with the help of her dominating power in natural recourses, geographical size and enormous population.

 However after the collapse in communism (1991) Boris Yeltsin agreed to follow the idea of “deterrence” in order to prevent aggressive action against surrounding states. (This in the past was the reason for their conflicts.) The idea of deterrence was positive in that it allowed stability and peace amongst the people of the state. This idea reflected upon the realist notion that “the state act independently of their society” and that the person in power does have an affect on the outcomes of events throughout history. By exercising a new approach of their ideology, the state was in unity as it shared sovereignty among neighboring countries.

The International System and the Soviet Union.

It seems that over the years Russia has dabbled in just about every international system there is.  The most effective lens in which to view the Russian / Soviet international system would be a realist approach which deals with issues of polarity.  In the nineteenth century they tried out multipolarity along with Great Britain, Austria, France, and Prussia.  And that system worked fairly well for Russia for a while. But the system that the Soviet Union is most well known for is a bipolar system. 

The Cold War era is perhaps the best example of a Bipolar system.  A Bipolar system simply means that power is divided evenly between two states that together hold the majority of economic strength, military power, and cultural influence.  According to our textbook, alliances in a bipolar system tend to be long term and relatively permanent.  This can illustrated by the fact that the majority of communist states fell under the influence of the Soviet union and most democratic states (and the majority of Western Europe) fell under the influence of the United States. 

Even though fundamental principles between the two key powers in a bipolar system tend to be near opposites, each side preferred negotiation rather than fighting a face-to-face war with each other in this new, nuclear age.  Rather than engage the other head on, a series of smaller conflicts arose and were indirect confrontations between the two powers.  These smaller conflicts did not run as great a risk of leading to nuclear proliferation as a direct war most certainly would have. 

When a bipolar system becomes strong – as it did in the Cold War – our text also explains that international organizations lose their influence and effectiveness.  An example of this would be the United Nations during the Cold War.  There were three main international organizations during the cold war – The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Warsaw Pact, and the United Nations.  NATO was one of the many faces of the United States influence while the Warsaw Pact was a representation of the Soviet Union.  These two organizations were representations of the alliances that made up each of the great powers.  These organizations were prominent during the war because of what they symbolized.  However, the United Nations was left in the middle without a side and without real purpose.  During the peak of conflict, the United Nations tried, but failed, in making any impact on the conflict.  The UN had members from both sides of the conflict that made any sort of decision-making impossible.

In the end (as we all know), the Soviet Union collapsed and took the Bipolar system down with it.  But the Cold War does serve as a chilling example of what the Bipolar system is capable of.  However many do regard the Bipolar system as the most stable international system.  Kenneth Waltz perhaps puts it best in a quote found in our text.  The two key powers are “able to both moderate the other’s use of violence and to absorb possibly destabilizing changes that emanate from uses of violence that they do not or cannot control.”  It is this that ensures that each power will strive to preserve the balance of power in order to preserve itself and the system as a whole.  This is why the end of the Bipolar system was not due to one power overcoming another – it ended because the Soviet Union fell apart from the inside out. 

Theoretical Perspectives on the Soviet Union

Over the years, the history, political, social and economic issues concerning the USSR has had a great impact on the western civilization.  It is a fact that the Soviet Union emerged from World War II as one of the world’s superpowers. Since then, the USSR maintained its position for the few decades through its powerful domination in Eastern Europe (Eastern bloc) through its use of military and economic strength as well as introducing the theories of idealism, Marxism and Leninism. Without these theories, would not have what we see Russia today. These theories provide the filter in which we view the world and help facilitate different views on how we react for the future.

 Idealism can be interpreted as the willingness to sacrifice self interest for higher moral goals which the USSR followed. For the soviets, any idea other than communism was not considered as idealism (more or less the lack of idealism). The communism idealism reflected upon the optimistic idea of achieving a perfect utopian society under self-sacrifice. In theory, communism created a classless society of abundance and freedom which was the ideal of the soviets in their time which we all know marked the beginning of the cold war. 

Along with the idealist theory, Marxist ideology had the efforts to convince people to accept and recognize its immoral truth.  Marx believed that global problems progress through five different stages, but above all believed that capitalism will produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction. His promises involved the inability of the world’s working class to prevent war and its rejection of internationalism for nationalism.

Finally, Leninism had become one of the dominant branches of Marxism. Leninism refers to various related political and economic theories elaborated by Vladimir Lenin. Leninism holds that capitalism can only be overthrown by revolutionary means. Reform and survival were the key aspects of his theory which in later years Russia perused.  During the period of Stalin’s rule in the USSR, Marxism-Leninism was proclaimed as the official ideology of the state which in later years Mao (China) adapted and converted into Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. All theories mentioned on the above are what shape Russia today.