Posted on 09/10/2014 4:22:53 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Sometime in 1993, after several trips to Russia, I noticed something bizarre and disturbing: people kept dying. I was used to losing friends to AIDS in the United States, but this was different. People in Russia were dying suddenly and violently, and their own friends and colleagues did not find these deaths shocking. Upon arriving in Moscow I called a friend with whom I had become close over the course of a year. Vadim is no more, said his father, who picked up the phone. He drowned. I showed up for a meeting with a newspaper reporter to have the receptionist say, But he is dead, dont you know? I didnt. Id seen the man a week earlier; he was thirty and apparently healthy. The receptionist seemed to think I was being dense. A helicopter accident, she finally said, in a tone that seemed to indicate I had no business being surprised.
The deaths kept piling up. Peoplemen and womenwere falling, or perhaps jumping, off trains and out of windows; asphyxiating in country houses with faulty wood stoves or in apartments with jammed front-door locks; getting hit by cars that sped through quiet courtyards or plowed down groups of people on a sidewalk; drowning as a result of diving drunk into a lake or ignoring sea-storm warnings or for no apparent reason; poisoning themselves with too much alcohol, counterfeit alcohol, alcohol substitutes, or drugs; and, finally, dropping dead at absurdly early ages from heart attacks and strokes.
Back in the United States after a trip to Russia, I cried on a friends shoulder. I was finding all this death not simply painful but impossible to process. Its not like there is a war on, I said.
But there is, said my friend, a somewhat older and much wiser reporter than I. This is what civil war actually looks like. Its not when everybody starts running around with guns. Its when everybody starts dying.
My friends framing stood me in good stead for years. I realized the magazine stories I was writing then were the stories of destruction, casualties, survival, restoration, and the longing for peace. But useful as that way of thinking might be for a journalist, it cannot be employed by social scientists, who are still struggling to answer the question, Why are Russians dying in numbers, and at ages, and of causes never seen in any other country that is not, by any standard definition, at war?
In the seventeen years between 1992 and 2009, the Russian population declined by almost seven million people, or nearly 5 percenta rate of loss unheard of in Europe since World War II. Moreover, much of this appears to be caused by rising mortality. By the mid-1990s, the average St. Petersburg man lived for seven fewer years than he did at the end of the Communist period; in Moscow, the dip was even greater, with death coming nearly eight years sooner.
In 2006 and 2007, Michelle Parsons, an anthropologist who teaches at Emory University and had lived in Russia during the height of the population decline in the early 1990s, set out to explore what she calls the cultural context of the Russian mortality crisis. Her method was a series of long unstructured interviews with average Muscoviteswhat amounted to immersing herself in a months-long conversation about what made life, for so many, no longer worth living. The explanation that Parsons believes she has found is in the title of her new book, Dying Unneeded.
Parsons chose as her subjects people who were middle-aged in the early 1990s. Since she conducted her interviews in Moscow over a decade later, the study has an obvious structural handicap: her subjects are the survivors, not the victims, of the mortality crisisthey didnt dieand their memories have been transformed by the intervening years of social and economic upheaval. Still, what emerges is a story that is surely representative of the experience of a fair number of Russians.
People of the generation Parsons describes were born in the desolate, hungry years following WWII. They grew up in communal apartments, with two or three generations of a single family occupying one or two rooms and sharing a hallway, bathroom, and kitchen with three or seven or even a dozen other families. But then, in the early 1960s, Nikita Khrushchev organized a construction boom: cheaply constructed apartment buildings went up all around the periphery of Moscow, and Russiansfirst and foremost, Muscovitesmoved out of communal apartments en masse. By the Brezhnev years, in the late 1960s and 1970s, there were also Soviet-made cars and tiny country housessuch at least was the Soviet consumer dream, and it was within reach for a significant number of Russians.
In addition, three important things made life not only less harsh, relative to earlier years, but even worth living. One was the general perception of social and economic stability. Jobs were unquestionably secure and, starting in the 1960s, followed by a retirement guaranteed by the state. A second was the general sense of progress, both of the sort Soviet propaganda promised (the country was going to build the first communist society, in which money would be abolished and everyone would share in the plenty); and the personal material improvement this generation experienced itself moving toward. A third source of comfort of Soviet life was its apparent equality. A good number of people with connections enjoyed extraordinary perquisites compared to the vast majority of the population, but the wealth-and-privilege gap was concealed by the tall fences around the nomenklatura summer houses, the textbook and newspaper depictions of Soviet egalitarianism, and the glacial pace of mobility into one of the favored groups at the top.
Parsons and her subjects, whom she quotes at length, seem to have an acute understanding of the first two forces shaping Soviet society but are almost completely blind to the last: the hidden nature of Soviet social inequality. One woman says that the difference between current poverty and poverty in the postwar era is that now there are rich folks.
But by the early 1980s, the Soviet economy was stagnant and the Soviet political system moribund. Finally, a younger leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, emerged, but the decrepit structure proved incapable of change and, in short order, collapsed, taking with it the predictable life as hundreds of millions of people had known it. Russia rushed into a new capitalist future, which most of the population expected to bring prosperity and variety. Boris Yeltsin and his team of young, inexperienced reformers instituted economic shock therapy. As far as we know today, this series of radical measures jerked Russia back from the edge of famine but also plunged millions of people into poverty. Over the next decade, most Russian familieslike their counterparts elsewhere in the former Soviet Unionactually experienced an improvement in their living conditions, but few who had spent many adult years in the old system regained the sense of solid ground under their feet.
To Lyudmila, economic shock therapy looked a lot like war-ravaged Russia, Parsons writes of one of her respondents. In a terrible sense it was as if the poverty of her youth and the poverty of the early 1990s had merged together. Thirty-five years of her life, from age nineteen when she started work in the mechanics factory to age fifty-five when the Soviet Union fell, fell out of view. Parsons devotes an entire chapter to comparisons between the collapse and chaos of the 1990s and the devastation that followed World War II. Margarita told me with some disgust, It is just like after the war. And then she would addhalf angry, half baffledBut there was no war. The fifty-seven-year-old taxi driver I interviewed said, of those older than himself, They will never understand what happened. No war, nothing. And everything fell apart. Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos Workers in a tractor factory, Vladimir, Russia, 1972
Not only had the retirement system collapsed, but neither the job market nor their own familiesthose grown children who had once been entirely dependent on their parentshad any use for these people. Gone, too, was the radiant future: communist slogans were replaced with capitalist advertising that didnt speak to the masses, who were in no position to over-consume. For those over forty, the message of the new era was that no onenot even the builders of an imaginary futureneeded them anymore. Above all, the veil that had hidden the wealth of the few from the incredulous and envious gaze of the many had been ruthlessly removed: for the 1990s and much of the 2000s, Moscow would become the world capital of conspicuous consumption. No longer contributing to or enjoying the benefits of the system, members of the older generations, Parsons suggests, were particularly susceptible to early death.
Parsons argument is provocative but not entirely convincing. She describes Russia as though it were a new country that replaced the USSR, and it was this new country that suffered a mortality crisis, which can and should be explained entirely by social forces specific to itself. This is a standard way to approach the problem, and it is not a bad description of what many Russians actually experienced. But, by attempting to identify a single turning point, she overlooks more gradual changes that may have been underway well before 1991. For example, Parsons largely skips over the 1980s, with the broad social movements and the severe economic crises that marked the Gorbachev period.
In fact, if we zoom out from the early 1990s, where Parsons has located the Russian mortality crisis, we will see something astounding: it is not a crisisunless, of course, a crisis can last decades. While the end of the USSR marked one [of] the most momentous political changes of the twentieth century, that transition has been attended by a gruesome continuity in adverse health trends for the Russian population, writes Nicholas Eberstadt in Russias Peacetime Demographic Crisis: Dimensions, Causes, Implications, an exhaustive study published by the National Bureau of Asian Research in 2010. Eberstadt is an economist who has been writing about Soviet and Russian demographics for many years. In this book-length study, he has painted a picture as grim as it is mystifyingin part because he is reluctant to offer an explanation for which he lacks hard data.
Eberstadt is interested in the larger phenomenon of depopulation, including falling birth rates as well as rising death rates. He observes that this is not the first such trend in recent Russian history. There was the decline of 19171923the years of the revolution and the Russian Civil War when, Eberstadt writes, depopulation was attributable to the collapse of birth rates, the upsurge in death rates, and the exodus of émigrés that resulted from these upheavals. There was 19331934, when the Soviet population fell by nearly two million as a result of murderous forced collectivization and a man-made famine that decimated rural Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, Russia. Then, from 1941 to 1946, the Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people in the war and suffered a two-thirds drop in birth rate. But the two-and-a-half decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union are the longest period of depopulation, and also the first to occur, on such a scale, in peacetime, anywhere in the world. There is no obvious external application of state force to relieve, no obvious fateful and unnatural misfortune to weather, in the hopes of reversing this particular population decline, writes Eberstadt. Consequently, it is impossible to predict when (or even whether) Russias present, ongoing depopulation will finally come to an end.
Russia has long had a low birth rate. The Soviet government fought to increase it by introducing a three-year maternity leave and other inducements, but for much of the postwar period it hovered below replacement rates. An exception was the Gorbachev era, when fertility reached 2.2. After 1989, however, it fell and still has not recovered: despite financial inducements introduced by the Putin government, the Russian fertility rate stands at 1.61, one of the lowest in the world (the US fertility rate estimate for 2014 is 2.01, which is also below replacement but still much higher than Russias).
And then there is the dying. In a rare moment of what may pass for levity Eberstadt allows himself the following chapter subtitle: Pioneering New and Modern Pathways to Poor Health and Premature Death. Russians did not start dying early and often after the collapse of the Soviet Union. To the contrary, writes Eberstadt, what is happening now is merely the latest culmination of ominous trends that have been darkly evident on Russian soil for almost half a century. With the exception of two brief periodswhen Soviet Russia was ruled by Khrushchev and again when it was run by Gorbachevdeath rates have been inexorably rising. This continued to be true even during the period of unprecedented economic growth between 1999 and 2008. In this study, published in 2010, Eberstadt accurately predicts that in the coming years the depopulation trend may be moderated but argues that it will not be reversed; in 2013 Russias birthrate was still lower and its death rate still higher than they had been in 1991. And 1991 had not been a good year.
Contrary to Parsonss argument, moreover, Eberstadt shows that the current trend is not largely a problem of middle-aged Russians. While the graphs seem to indicate this, he notes, if one takes into account the fact that mortality rates normally rise with age, it is the younger generation that is staring down the most terrifying void. According to 2006 figures, he writes, overall life expectancy at age fifteen in the Russian Federation appears in fact to be lower than for some of the countries the UN designates to be least developed (as opposed to less developed), among these, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Yemen. Male life expectancy at age fifteen in Russia compares unfavorably to that in Ethiopia, Gambia, and Somalia.
Eberstadt sets out to find the culprit, and before conceding he cant, he systematically goes down the list of the usual suspects. Infectious diseases, including not only HIV and TB but also normally curable STDs and every kind of hepatitis, have the run of the land in Russia, but do not in fact seem overrepresented in its death statistics; from a demographers point of view, as many Russians die of infections as would be expected in a country of its income level. Cardiovascular disease is an entirely different matter:
As of 1980, the Russian population may well have been suffering the very highest incidence of mortality from diseases of the circulatory system that had ever been visited on a national population in the entire course of human historyup to that point in time. Over the subsequent decades, unfortunately, the level of CVD mortality in the Russian Federation veered further upward . By 2006 Russias mortality levels from CVD alone were some 30% higher than deaths in Western Europe from all causes combined.
And then there are the deaths from external causesagain going from bad to worse. Deaths from injuries and poisoning had been much higher in Russia than in Western Europe in 1980well over two and a half times higher, in fact. As of 2006, he writes, it was more than five times as high.
So why do Russians have so many heart attacks, strokes, fatal injuries, and poisonings? One needs to have only a passing knowledge of Russian history and culture to tick off a list of culprits, and Eberstadt is thorough in examining each of them. True, Russians eat a fatty dietbut not as fatty as Western Europeans do. Plus, Russians, on average, consume fewer calories than Western Europeans, indicating that overeating is not the issue. Yes, Russia has taken abominable care of its environment, but it sees only a few more deaths from respiratory diseases than does Western Europeand fewer deaths of diseases of the kidneys, which would be expected to result from pollution. Yes, Russians have lived through severe economic upheaval, but there is no indication that economic shock in a modern society leads quickly, or at all, to increased mortalitythe Great Depression, for example, did not. Russia spends roughly as much on health care per capita as do the less-affluent European countries like Portugal. Russians smoke a lotbut not as much as Greeks and Spaniards, who live on average roughly as long as other Western Europeans.
The most obvious explanation for Russias high mortalitydrinkingis also the most puzzling on closer examination. Russians drink heavily, but not as heavily as Czechs, Slovaks, and Hungariansall countries that have seen an appreciable improvement in life expectancy since breaking off from the Soviet Bloc. Yes, vodka and its relatives make an appreciable contribution to the high rates of cardiovascular, violent, and accidental deathsbut not nearly enough to explain the demographic catastrophe. There are even studies that appear to show that Russian drinkers live longer than Russian non-drinkers. Parsons discusses these studies in some detail, and with good reason: it begins to suggest the true culprit. She theorizes that drinking is, for what its worth, an instrument of adapting to the harsh reality and sense of worthlessness that would otherwise make one want to curl up and die.
For Eberstadt, who is seeking an explanation for Russias half-century-long period of demographic regress rather than simply the mortality crisis of the 1990s, the issue of mental health also furnishes a kind of answer. While he suggests that more research is needed to prove the link, he finds that a relationship does exist between the mortality mystery and the psychological well-being of Russians:
Suffice it to say we would never expect to find premature mortality on the Russian scale in a society with Russias present income and educational profiles and typically Western readings on trust, happiness, radius of voluntary association, and other factors adduced to represent social capital.
Another major clue to the psychological nature of the Russian disease is the fact that the two brief breaks in the downward spiral coincided not with periods of greater prosperity but with periods, for lack of a more data-driven description, of greater hope. The Khrushchev era, with its post-Stalin political liberalization and intensive housing construction, inspired Russians to go on living. The Gorbachev period of glasnost and revival inspired them to have babies as well. The hope might have persisted after the Soviet Union collapsedfor a brief moment it seemed that this was when the truly glorious future would materializebut the upheaval of the 1990s dashed it so quickly and so decisively that death and birth statistics appear to reflect nothing but despair during that decade.
If this is trueif Russians are dying for lack of hope, as they seem to bethen the question that is still looking for its researcher is, Why havent Russians experienced hope in the last quarter century? Or, more precisely in light of the grim continuity of Russian death, What happened to Russians over the course of the Soviet century that has rendered them incapable of hope? In The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt argues that totalitarian rule is truly possible only in countries that are large enough to be able to afford depopulation. The Soviet Union proved itself to be just such a country on at least three occasions in the twentieth centuryteaching its citizens in the process that their lives are worthless. Is it possible that this knowledge has been passed from generation to generation enough times that most Russians are now born with it and this is why they are born with a Bangladesh-level life expectancy? Is it also possible that other post-Soviet states, by breaking off from Moscow, have reclaimed some of their ability to hope, and this is why even Russias closest cultural and geographic cousins, such as Belarus and Ukraine, arent dying off as fast? If so, Russia is dying of a broken heartalso known as cardiovascular disease.
When we adopted our Vanya, from Russian Far East tribal origins (Koryaks on the Kamchatka peninsula) our fellow Russian Orthodox parishioner and friend said "Ah, Koryaks, good people, good people." Then somehow the topic of the people of the Caucasus region came up, and he said, "Bad, Chechens, veddy bad people.'
Lol. I posted mine before I noticed yours!!
So the feelings of the russian people about the U.S. are utterly irrelevant. The leadership of russia considered the United States to be an enemy and they were a threat to us for 97 years.
Oh, absolutely. In the ultimate sense, existentially, deep down, there’s no hope for anyone, except the hope we have in Jesus Chirst our Lord.
Not entirely; at least not to me. And they were not an enemy, but an ally, during World War II. Allegiances shift, and as America goes more and more Communist and Fascist, so they should.
The dashes are a convenience for American readers of translated Russian, btw. Russia has no word for 'are'. The word 'are' in the phrase "All people are good people" is implied, and the dashes put in the 'are' for American readers.
Small bit of trivia. :) I love languages. :)
Ain’t that sump’in?
So, when Clinton said, famously, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is', is."... the Russian newspapers reported he said "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'exists', exists'.
Not quite the same thing. :)
You two. Go get married or sumpin. :)
Great tagline. It’s sad and sorry that we have lacked the ability and the foresight to negotiate straight up with Russia and achieve a true mutually beneficial relationship.
They didn’t seem to have this issue in the 1800s. But They still had religion then. The soviets did all they could to kill it off. Putin may actually be encouraging its revival to help counteract this hope issue. Not that I’m a fan of Putin but he has been supportive at least in speeches of the Orthodox Church.
The winter nights are too long and there is too much vodka.
I guess I would answer that by saying if someone is pointing a gun (or an ICBM) at me, I don't concern myself too much with their back story. As far as WWII goes, Stalin collaborated with Hitler on the invasion of Poland and thus launched the War. Prior to WWII, German troops sometimes trained in Russian territory to avoid restrictions placed on Germany under the Versailles Treaty.
Our entire society got skewed up by 50 years of Cold War. How many Americans were killed or wounded by munitions designed and/or manufactured by the Russians? Soviet pilots flew Russian MIGs in Korea and Vietnam and shot down American pilots. How many American POWs were dragged off to die in the Soviet Union in those conflicts? And just a few days ago, Russian nuclear-capable aircraft were playing games with our air defenses. I'm very sorry, I just can't consider Russians to be our friends in any meaningful way.
bttt
I would add that the Soviets infiltrated our media and other institutions with their propaganda. They are part of the reason why the anti American left is in power in our country and is destroying it.
Amen.
Ping to an important article. This study is a good start, but loss of the will to live by so many people in this one country/culture should be studied more specifically and more thoroughly.
One liberal defending another.
No surprise here...
I suggest you read a bio of the author before you lecture me.
Shut up, commie.
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