How have pre-communist social structures persisted in Russia, and why does this persistence matter for understanding post-communist political regime trajectories? In a CDDRL seminar series talk, Tomila Lankina, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, discussed her award-winning book, The Estate Origins of Democracy in Russia: From Imperial Bourgeoisie to Post-Communist Middle Class (Cambridge University Press, 2022). The book challenges the assumption that the 1917 revolution succeeded in leveling old estate hierarchies, arguing that these social structures persist today. 

While analyses of the bourgeoisie factor heavily into the understanding of many societies, the relevance of this group is frequently left out when discussing countries like Russia and China, on the assumption that they had been completely leveled by revolutionary ruptures. Lankina’s book critically assesses this assumption. It adopts a uniquely interdisciplinary approach, utilizing archives, subnational comparisons, statistical analysis, social network analysis, and interviews with descendants. 

In characterizing the social structure of pre-communist Russia, Lankina noted that peasants comprised 77 percent of the population on the eve of the revolution. Other social groups, which she refers to as “educated estates” because of their higher literacy rates compared to those of peasants, included the urban meshchane, the merchants, nobility, and clergy. Out of the educated estates, meshchane constituted the majority, or 10 percent of the population. While their homes appeared rather modest, members of the meshchane exhibited characteristics of the urban bourgeoisie, and even their dress differed from that of the rural estate. They enjoyed much higher literacy rates than peasants.

Lankina explained that the comparatively high status of these “educated estates” — the meshchane, merchants, nobility, and clergy — persisted even after the Bolshevik revolution. To illustrate this, she highlighted partially intact social circles of the highly networked merchants, nobles, and tsarist-inspired soviet schools. Letters from the Samara province indicate that while many high-status citizens emigrated, there were matriarchs who stayed, spreading the tsarist-era values to their children and grandchildren after the revolution. Regardless of whether this middle class was endowed with democratic values, Lankina maintained that they passed human and entrepreneurial capital onto their offspring.

How did these estates endure? While the literature clearly articulates what happened to the ruling classes following the revolution, less time has been spent understanding what happened to the educated, middle-class segments of society. How did they adapt? 

Lankina proposed three different routes. First is the “pop-up brigade,” wherein young, educated individuals traveled around promoting education to peasant workers, instantly employable and absorbable into a new society. Then there is the “museum society,” where prominent nobles and merchants joined insular cultural institutions like archives, provincial libraries, and museums. Finally, “the organization man” denotes professionally skilled individuals, such as medics, who retained their positions following the revolution as the social hierarchy got absorbed into newer organizations. 

To illustrate the significance of this persistence in social structures and values, Lankina, drawing on her co-authored paper with Alexander Libman (APSR 2021), indicated that meshchane concentration (as opposed to more recent educational indices) is a better predictor of a post-communist region’s openness, at least in the 1990s.

Is Ukraine too corrupt to be a part of the European Union? In a recent Rethinking European Development and Security (REDS) seminar talk co-hosted by CDDRL and The Europe Center, Maria Popova, McGill University Associate Professor of Political Science, assessed how serious the issue of Ukrainian corruption really is. While some observers have claimed that Ukraine’s corruption renders it unprepared for EU accession, Popova’s research suggests otherwise. Contrasting Ukraine to recent EU entrants — Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia — she finds that corruption indices are not very helpful in drawing reliable conclusions.

In all four said countries, corruption is touted as the most salient issue, with strikingly similar scandals occurring across them. Over the last ten years, Ukraine has developed an extensive anti-corruption infrastructure, forming institutions for the prevention, investigation, and prosecution of corruption cases, as well as for asset recovery. These institutions have produced mixed results, and issues of political competition between institutions have tainted their wider reputation, with the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption receiving the most positive feedback. Innovative e-procurement systems like ProZorro have been internationally praised. Ukraine is unique in that its anti-corruption infrastructure came well before attempting EU accession. 

Bulgaria, on the other hand, established its anti-corruption agencies ten years after becoming an EU member. These institutions have since become politically compromised; so much so that anti-corruption reformists recently forced their abolition. 

In Romania, institutions were created around the time of accession and have been successful in holding corrupt oligarchs accountable. Similarly, Croatia’s anti-corruption reforms proceeded during accession negotiations.

Although the four countries adopted similar anti-corruption institutional reforms, today Ukraine tracks as significantly more corrupt than the EU members across measures of regime, public sector, executive, and political corruption, even though it is cleaner than Romania was when it started accession negotiations, more corrupt than Bulgaria was, and equally corrupt as Croatia at its start of negotiations. Why? Popova argued that the indices are fundamentally non-comparative and thus need to be taken with a grain of salt. The score for each country is determined by experts that focus exclusively on that country, who consider variation in corruption over time only. Moreover, the abstract conceptual definition of corruption is applied to their narrow case knowledge and experience and thus reflects local, rather than generalizable conceptualization. 

While index scores correlate with local perceptions, this, too, may just reflect a narrative on the ground. If the local narrative is that the country is highly corrupt, the population will likely perceive it to be, with no sense of its real magnitude. 

When analyzing Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions, Popova finds that Ukraine is better prepared for EU accession than is widely assumed.

What has driven Russia’s violence in and against Ukraine from the 19th century to the contemporary era? In a recent Rethinking European Development and Security (REDS) Seminar talk co-hosted by The Europe Center and CDDRL, Eugene Finkel, the Kenneth H. Keller Associate Professor of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, argued that Russia’s recurrent attacks against Ukraine can be traced to issues of identity and security. Finkel draws on what he described as a two-hundred-year-long quest by Russia to dominate Ukraine, as detailed in his upcoming book Intent to Destroy (due for release in November 2024 by Basic Books).

Reflecting on the role of Russian identity in driving the country’s attempts to capture Ukraine, Finkel pointed out that many Russians think of Ukrainians as a subbranch of the Russian people.  These stark views on identity, he noted, are partly the product of the struggle between the Russian Empire and the Polish Independence movement. In an effort to avoid Polish influence, Russia began emphasizing unity between the Russian and Ukrainian people.

Security is another key driver of Russia’s aggression. There are large geographical features that block off Ukraine from the rest of Europe, but no such dividing features exist between Ukraine and Russia. As such, any force that enters Ukraine can easily invade Russia. Historical repetition of this route has made Ukraine seemingly imperative to Russian national security.

Regime security also plays an important role. Many of the democratic ideas reaching Russia were diffused through Ukraine. Abiding by the logic of Russians and Ukrainians as one people, if Ukraine can be democratic, so can Russia. Thus, an independent democratic Ukraine poses a serious ideological threat to the regime. 

Finkel argues that identity and security have always been the driving factors of Russia’s aggression. To illustrate this continuity of this trend, he draws upon a case study from the early 20th century, namely the Russian occupation of Galicia and Bukovyna. As rising Ukrainian activism threatened the Russian empire, the regime responded with propaganda peddling the notion that Ukraine had been created to destroy Russia from within – a stark parallel to propaganda today. Russia also waged a war to “liberate” the Ukrainians, believing that annexing Galicia would allow Russia to reestablish its rightful boundaries.

The conflict resulted in violence and plunder against civilians, targeting of Ukrainian community leaders, banning Ukrainian publications, and switching the education system – actions closely mimicking those of Russia today. 

In 2022, Russia’s “divide and repress” strategy failed. Ukraine witnessed the emergence of a nation – Ukrainian identity became more pronounced. Russia’s initial plan was to repress Ukraine’s elites, not conduct mass executions. But as the war progressed and Ukrainians turned from brother to traitor, the violence escalated. 

This obsession begs the question – when will Russia’s quest to dominate Ukraine end? Or rather, how? Given the central role of identity in driving this quest, Finkel believes that the only realistic path for ending this longstanding trend is changing the education system – a path that Russia seems to be moving further away from.

Oleksandra Matviichuk told a Stanford audience on April 15 that freedom and democracy are profoundly important in her home country of Ukraine and that Western allies need to quickly do more to help Ukraine prevail against Russian aggression.

“A new international architecture of peace and security is required,” and a defeat in Ukraine would have global ramifications, Matviichuk said during her S.T. Lee Lecture hosted by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). The lectureship is named for Seng Tee Lee, a business executive and noted philanthropist, and its purpose is to raise public understanding about complex policy issues facing the global community. The S.T. Lee Distinguished Lecturer is chosen for his or her international reputation as a leader on international policy-making issues.

Matviichuk’s presentation was delivered at a time when proposed U.S. aid to Ukraine is stalled in the U.S. Congress, and the Russia-Ukraine War is mired in a stalemate. After more than two years of conflict, the concern among Western allies is whether Ukraine can sustain its fight against Russia as that country grapples with shortages in weapons, ammunition, and troops.