Russia's ethnic self-cleansing

It probably has something to do with the demoralization wrought by Bolshevism and Stalinism, but Russians had a rep as hard drinkers before the revolution, too. It may have something to do with the long winter nights and cabin fever. Also, I believe that the communist practice of making abortion readily available and routine has continued.

The psychological anthropologists had the "swaddling hypothesis," that babies there are swaddled and then periodically unwrapped, thus inclining them to periods of morose inactivity interrupted by intense activity of one kind or another. On the surface, this is plausible, but of course it's speculative and hard to test.

Orthodoxy has revived somewhat there, but like the US, Russia needs some mighty saints to reconvert her.

I don't know how the "Men" got in there.

Anyway, I hold no brief for the predatory state capitalism of the post-Gorbachev era. It's the deformed heir to post-Stalinism.

Another thought is that the greatest devastation wrought by Communism, on an already impoverished rural world, was collective farming, about as un-crunchy as one can get.

Bryan said of America, destroy the farms, and grass will grow in the streets of the cities. Russia did destroy what it had of farms (and it was quite productive, at one time). What does she have to fall back on, culturally? A certain literary tradition, and Orthodoxy, which itself was martyred and eviscerated.

The best Russians are remarkable and fascinating people, of course, but healing that country will take saints and miracles.

I know a few people who have lived in Russia. They said that impact of Communism was very pernicious in people's lives, especially the men. Men who had grown up in the pre-Gorbachev era simply had no will, no backbone, no creativity. These things simply were too dangerous because they would lead to false accusations, imprisonment, and sometimes execution. So men learned to be passive and kept their heads down. This is one reason why Russian women (i.e. the "babushkas") have a reputation for being so strong and intense - because they had to become matriarchs in caring for their families. The husbands were too demoralized to be stong parents.

Having seen the streets of Moscow firsthand, let me tell you that the drinking begins early in the morning and continues throughout the day. Street kiosks serving alcohol like bottled water make it very accessible, and public drinking (ie. an open bottle of beer on the subway) is commonplace.

Putin's ambitions for Russia's resurrection don't factor in the disastrous fact that there won't be enough people around to accomplish what he hopes for.

On the one hand, Putin might get additional power and population out of annexing the eastern portion of present Ukraine in the not too distant future.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/europe/08ukraine.html

Putin may also get more ethnic Russians as Russian colonizations continue to lose power, decline economically, fail, and the native peoples expel the remnants. Moldava seems to be closing in on that.

On the other hand, Russia seems to have attained a proportionately larger agrarian and industrial city population bloat under the Soviets than Western countries did. The present Russian suffering is terrible and unfortunately, despite periods of respite, it's probably a long and large decline until Russia reaches its post-industrial equilibrium population size.

Jillian, when you speak of Russia's "post-industrial equilibrium population size", you have an interesting point. The way in which capitalism and industrialisation work to quite precisely turn have-nots into haves and haves into have-nots, along with the cultural changes that becoming a "have-not" involves, means that as I see it the "post-industrial equilibrium population" of Europe is in fact extremely small compared to its current population. In fact, it may be as little as 10 million in all of Europe. Because Europe's sole natural resource is soils of a fertility quite unprecedented in the Earth's geological history, under a pre-industrial economy it was extremely resource-rich and could support very dense and self-sufficient populations.

However, as farming methods improved, the value of Europe's extraordinary soil fertility became offset - slowly at first as the plains of North America were opened, but much more rapidly when fertilisers allowed the cultivation of what we think of as very infertile soils (but are geologically soils of normal fertility) in Australia and the tropics. Because the hotter climates of these regions allow for the cultivation of several crops per year, farmers in the cooler European climates could no longer compete. This left competing land uses in urbanisation and tourism, but also left Europeans (first those in the high Alps which were often depopulation in the nineteenth century, then gradually those further down in the plains) dependent in a free market on imports for basic needs. Such a dependence encourages stinginess and materialism, which can be seen in the low rates of charitable giving in Europe and Asia today. It is also seen in the cultural decay of societies in which deliberately violent and satanic black metal is one of the main forms of music.

Nowhere in that article was there mention of the effect on the nation of all those institutionalized, drug and alcohol exposed children. I'm raising 4 adopted kids with Fetal Alcohol syndrome. They are - despite a good home, moral upbringing, regular church attendance, and all the advantages of a solidly middle class American childhood - on a fast track to prison, unwed motherhood, having their children removed by the state, poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction, and all the other things no parent wants for their child. Its not because they are bad kids- its because they are brain damaged! How can the Russian nation grow and improve when as many as 5 to 10% of its children are unable to connect cause and effect or make sound moral judgments ?

This is why abortion has to remain legal.

Maybe having your country's assets strip mined by decidedly non-ethnic Russian oligarchs under the cover of 'neoliberalism' and 'shock therapy' has something to do with it. But I really think this 'Russia is dying' is old news. The 'nationalists' Putin and Medvyedev are just about the only whi... I mean European leaders that have expressed any concern for demographics of their co-ethnics and have done so things to correct the problem -- so far minimal but even that seems to be having an effect.

See, for example this article

http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1068513.html

Note the headline, which sends a negative message about Putin's attempts to increase the birthrate, contrasting with the actually quite positive comments by some of the actual Russian mothers. Strange that.

And here's some good news, especially for Caucasians and the Orthodox

Church leader sparks Georgian baby boom

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7964302.stm

Re :This is one reason why Russian women (i.e. the "babushkas") have a reputation for being so strong and intense - because they had to become matriarchs in caring for their families. The husbands were too demoralized to be stong parents.

Sounds a lot like the dysfunctional dynamic that is at work in the American underclass too.

Re: It's really a simple equation: Progressives = modern Russia

I was with you until this part. Equating American liberals to Stalinists is every bit as absurd as when leftists equated the Bush admninistration to Hitler and the Nazis.

Re: The Patriarch might want to take a page from the successful pro-natalist policy of Patriarch Ilia II of the
Georgian Orthodox Church, as detailed here:

The problem isn't so much the birth rate (though that is a problem). It's the death rate.

Re: as I see it the "post-industrial equilibrium population" of Europe is in fact extremely small compared to its current population. In fact, it may be as little as 10 million in all of Europe.

Ridiculous. Europe supported several times that number even with the primitive technology of the Roman Empire. Unless the climate turns really cold (a possibility if the Gulf Streanm shuts down) I would think Europe could support at least as many people as dwelt there in the early 20th century before mechanized agriculture became the norm.