In a recent interview with Smart Money magazine, former prime minister Yegor Gaidar complained of the undeniable rise in anti-American attitudes among Russian young people, particularly students at Moscow University and the Higher School of Economics. Gaidar attributes this to the foreign policy promoted by the Kremlin. "Anti-Americanism is here too... and the authorities cannot help taking it into account," he said.

The results of an extensive survey, covering 44 Russian regions between 2004 and 2007, have been presented at the Carnegie Moscow Center: "The Putin Generation: the political views of young people in Russia." The survey was organized by Sarah Mendelson from the Center of Strategic and International Studies (Washington) and Professor Ted Jarber of the University of Wisconsin. The conclusion drawn by these specialists is simple: the build-up of anti-Americanism among young Russian citizens will have a negative impact on Russian-American relations in the long term.

But let's forget the future and concentrate on the here and now. Economic determinism was one of the worst mistakes made by Russian reformers in the early 1990s. They assumed (naively, as we see now) that introducing free enterprise, private property, uncensored media, and freedom of movement would automatically alter political views - particularly views of the next generation born in the post-Soviet era. Think of Anatoly Chubais's and Boris Nemtsov's diatribes (and elaborations from other democrats in 1996) to the effect that within a few years, young people will grow accustomed to free enterprise and Russia will become a normal European country.

Alas, they were wrong. Nothing changed in the Russian outlook, political or otherwise, but anti-Americanism grew. The fall of the empire injured the nation worse than it had been thought possible. Mendelson and Jarber discovered that over half of the Putin generation regards the collapse of the Soviet Union as a disaster. (That is probably why Stalin's achievements outweigh his atrocities
in the opinion of young Russian citizens.)

As it turned out, people want something more than a decent income. When a nation has no competent politicians working with it day in and day out - when elementary and boring truths are not explained, day after day (and this is precisely what has happened to Russia) - this internal vacuum gets filled with surrogates.

Anti-Americanism is a surrogate, universally convenient for Venezuela and Palestine, Russia and Iran. The American sociologists found that anti-Americanism is particularly popular among male Muscovites with university degrees. Paradoxically enough (the American researchers were stunned by this), anti-Americanism levels are lowest among Russian Muslims. On the other hand, this is understandable: Tatars and Chechens are less susceptible to imperial temptations (inseparable from anti-Americanism) than Russians.

Here is the lesson that should be learned: reforms should be uniform and simultaneous, in politics and economic matters at the same time. Eastern Europe from Poland to Estonia succeeded because privatization there followed across-the-board replacement of the state machinery and the political elite. Armies and secret services, judges and lawmakers were forced to play by the new rules -
oversight by civil society and the media. 

Gaidar and his team chose a different strategy in November 1991; a strategy Yevgeny Yasin describes as "development of economic liberalism, not democracy." Accepting the role of Boris Yeltsin's voiceless junior partners, they (and all of us) ended up with what we have now: a fast-growing economy and hopelessly obsolete politics managed by an elite that hates the West and breeds similar West-haters in Russian colleges and universities. Just like Germany before 1914 or 1933.

Vedomosti