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sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 week agoRussia between 1905 and 1914 was free enough, and Russia for a couple decades before 1905 was much better in terms of freedom
I don’t think that’s true.
During the nearly 200 years of the Russian Empire, the people were ruled by an emperor with essentially absolute power. This was reduced somewhat with the introduction of the Duma, but Nicholas II still retained absolute power.
Most people couldn’t read, and there was a ton of censorship for those that could. Serfdom wasn’t abolished until the 1860s and most people still largely lived on farms through the end of the 1800s. The abolition of serfdom created a land-owning peasant class (kulaks), and that land was stripped from them by Stalin. So there was a period of 50-60 years where a substantial portion (but still <20%) owned land, and even fewer could read amd write.
In order to actually exercise rights, you need to know what they are and gave the means to communicate outside your local circle.
This problem is not that old, it’s something from the late 20s. It’s the house that Stalin built.
It’s much older. But things started getting better in the late 1800s and early 1900s until Stalin reversed everything.
Going back to pre-Stalin government (say, Duma under Nicholas II) might actually be worse than the current status quo.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I specifically said between 1905 and 1914, as in between the first revolution and wartime laws. Most of the 200 years Russia was basically a slaver society, but not as different in that from, say, Austria, as stereotypes might suggest.
Less than Soviet censorship. Imperial censorship was reactive, something published could be forbidden after it was published. Soviet censorship was proactive, nothing could be published without being vetted by censors.
A country being mostly agrarian doesn’t by itself say much about freedom.
That’s Stalinist mythology. In fact there was a more US south-like dynamic, with plenty of poor farm workers from liberated serfs and farm owners hiring them, mostly nobility, but also, yes, more well-off farmers.
Land was stripped from everyone having some land. People could be punished for growing something to eat on a small space like suburb lawn in an American movie.
If you mention “kulaks”, then people classified as that in Stalin’s times formed a much bigger proportion of population.
No, you don’t realize the difference. A working absolutism with working democratic mechanisms, even if subordinate to absolutism, is better than a facade for a bunch of thieves Russia has now.
In any case one can’t just go back to it.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Sure. I guess my point is that ending serfdom didn’t seem to change much about where people lived, implying that people likely still did the same things as under the old system.
This article looks at literacy, and it looks like literacy was ~21% in 1897 (<5% before the end of serfdom), and it doubled over the next 20 years. 40% is a huge increase, but still atrociously low. Literacy is pretty important to other freedoms, so if the majority still wasn’t literate at the peak, that doesn’t sound promising when comparing rights to today. Maybe they were on a better trajectory, idk.
I haven’t studied it extensively, so I could be very mistaken, but it seems like a case of rose colored glasses.
I guess I struggle to see pre-socialist Russia as better than modern Russia, unless we’re merely looking at trajectory.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 week ago
They were. Russia between 1905 and 1914 was developing faster than at any point under Bolsheviks.
Not entirely, one can call NEP sort of a continuation of those few years.
In quality, not in quantity. Most people were illiterate and rural, but those who were literate had better quality of that literacy, so to say. Among those capable of touching power it was more decentralized, however strange that would seem. Quality of those people was better too, it wasn’t an organized mafia group. They had professors in the parliament and they didn’t have thieves there.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Interesting, I’ll have to read up on pre-Soviet Russia then. I also don’t know to what extent Putin’s power is limited. If you have any resources comparing modern Russia to pre-Soviet Russia, I’d be interested in reading more.