A worthy argument & read by @popovaprof.bsky.social about reframing what happened in 1989-91 as national liberation & not as communist collapse. Of course, there were those of us, here *and* in the region, arguing for it at the time. We did warn of the ongoing Russian imperial project. A🧵. 1/ - ThreadSky

ericdchenoweth.bsky.social • 5 days ago

A worthy argument & read by @popovaprof.bsky.social about reframing what happened in 1989-91 as national liberation & not as communist collapse. Of course, there were those of us, here *and* in the region, arguing for it at the time. We did warn of the ongoing Russian imperial project. A🧵. 1/

Reposted from Maria Popova 🇨🇦

My new, long reflection about 1989-1991, which we all know as “the collapse”. I argue that if we saw it as liberation, we would have better recognized the dangers of reversal and Russian revanche. We need the liberation lens even more today. www.eurozine.com/liberation-n...

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popovaprof.bsky.social•5 days ago

Thank you for these additional reflections! Those are precisely the conversations we should be having today.

ericdchenoweth.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yes, indeed! Thanks for starting the conversation.
(FWIW, we tried ten years ago with limited success. https://idee-us.org/25-years-unfinished-business/uncaptive-minds-special-issue/. But it is ever more important given the situation here in U.S.)

popovaprof.bsky.social•5 days ago

Thanks! Bookmarking to read this 📌

ericdchenoweth.bsky.social•5 days ago

as well as the immense danger of intertwining the neo-liberal project w/ postcommunist elites in Russia (and in all the other postcommunist countries). The failure to recognize these dangers stemmed from misconceptions of the Cold War. One was that the Cold War was a struggle btw two...2/

ericdchenoweth.bsky.social•5 days ago

economic systems, not btw different political systems. Neo-liberals believed that if you changed the economic system you automatically got liberal democracy. It was a fundamental misconception that capitalism is what is essential and democracy is just the political representation of capitalism. 3/

ericdchenoweth.bsky.social•5 days ago

This thinking led to working with communist elites to immediately change the economic system over working w/ the political dissidents who liberated their countries to build new democracies that would allow free markets to develop. 4/

ericdchenoweth.bsky.social•5 days ago

The second misconception was that the Cold War was a conflict btw the US & "Russia," as if the USSR were a single nation, and not what Lenin & Stalin made it: a continuation of the Russian empire that suppressed the many nations living under the Russian yoke. It was easier for policy planners...5/

ericdchenoweth.bsky.social•5 days ago

to deal with one center (Moscow) than to try to deal with all the many different capitals & their emerging national leaders. (It was similar in E. Europe. It was easier to deal with a handful of communist leaders than a plethora of opposition movements.) In this view, the collapse of the center.../6

ericdchenoweth.bsky.social•5 days ago

was too dangerous to contemplate given the nuclear stakes. When nations liberated themselves (and it wasn't just the Baltic nations), this then became too complex a geostrategic challenge. No one was prepared for it. And so, they chose to deal w/ one center (Moscow) and its "zone of strategic...7/

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