Russian population decline

Russia’s low birth rate may not be out of step with the rest of Europe, but the high death rate, particularly among men, is unique. Russian men have the lowest European life expectancy – 62.7 in 2009 (74.6 for women) – well below the global average (66.9 in 2008). Western life expectancy has increased by 10 years since the mid-1960s, yet Russians have still not regained the levels of 1964. People in Tver say population decline is attributable to young people leaving for the capital, less than 200km away, and it is true that the most enterprising head for Moscow or Saint Petersburg to find more lucrative and interesting work. But the number of emigrants is more than made up for by immigrants from other Russian regions and Central Asia. The main reason for the fall is male mortality, with male life expectancy (58.3 in 2008) lower than in Benin or Haiti (2).

Russia made rapid progress in the fight against infectious diseases in the 1950s. Thanks to health surveillance, vaccination and antibiotics, the Soviet Union had almost caught up with the West by the time Leonid Brezhnev came to power in 1964. Since then the gap has widened again and is now worse than at the beginning of the 20th century. The health system stopped being a priority when the Soviet economy began to stagnate, and it has proven ineffective against modern ailments such as cancer and heart disease. Central planning led to quantity rather than quality of health care, and insufficient funds were allocated to modernising facilities or developing the medical profession. The Soviet authorities were also unable to make people take responsibility for the health implications of their lifestyles.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union between 1991 and 1994, Russians lost almost seven years of life expectancy. While higher death rates have affected all the former communist countries, it worsens the further east you go, and this can be explained by examining the chaotic era of Boris Yeltsin’s leadership (1991-99). “The population was given a shock similar to what the Soviet Union went through between 1928 and 1934,” wrote Jacques Sapir (3), referring to the famine in Ukraine. In 1998 GDP was 60% of what it had been in 1991; investment was less than 30%. It was not until recently that capitalist Russia earned as much as it had at the end of the Soviet era (4). The privileged few – most from the former nomenklatura – pillaged public property and natural resources. The choices made by the early leaders, advised by the American Jeffrey Sachs and Frenchmen Daniel Cohen and Christian de Boissieu (chairman of the Council of Economic Analysis), turned Russia into the most unequal country in Europe, and indeed much of the world.

Rise in suicides

The decay was accompanied by a huge increase in violent deaths. The suicide rate among Russian men is currently the second highest in the world; the rate of deaths on the road (33,000 per year) and the murder rate are the highest in Europe (5). Russians have become disorientated and timid, and have lost their social connections. They are among the least likely in the world to be active members of clubs.

via mondediplo.com

Comments

[Goosehead]

Issues around Russia during and post-USSR, in relation to arguing for socialism today are always vexing for me. How do you tell students or other interlocutors that the Soviet Union "wasn't all that bad" in a way that doesn't valourize or excuse away many of the horrifying policies and events, especially under Stalin? I remember watching a Bill Maher interview with Whoopie Goldberg who, apparently lived in East Berlin for a bit. She said she loved her time there, hanging out with all kinds of bohemian artist types. But when she was pressed to make a normative comment about the political system, she only had the ability to say "it wasn't all that bad." It was clear that, that she was completely uneasy making even this simple statement, and today this sort of position is largely prohibited by the progressive Left.

How do we go about distinguishing the Soviet Union's progressive social policies from the crimes? I know Zizek talks about this some, but I don't think I really understand his argument (something along the line of they're inextricably linked). It seems like the contemporary left wants to start something completely new and entirely disavow the history of the USSR, China, Yugoslavia, et al. This is clearly too easy a way out. I know you've posted something about this very question on this Blog, Jodi. I think I'll re-read it, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you might approach these issues with undergrads, for example, or just regular joes.

[Jodi Dean]

How about some talking points for use in the US. Here's the beginning of a list:

1. No political regime is faultless; that is, every regime enacts kinds of violence, particularly as it works to establish and strengthen itself. Does the violence of one period mean that the entire system is irreparably stained, corrupt, worthless? And who makes this call? If irreparably stained, does that not then mean that the only just alternative is complete erasure and starting again, surely itself a renewal of violence? The US is stained by constitutive violence--genocide of native people and slavery. .

2. Violence is part of revolution. If one thinks that this kind of violence is never justified, then one is dooming a people to the regime that they have instead of keeping open the possibility that we can create the regime that we want. Additionally,given the organized ferocity of capital and the state that supports it, one can expect that establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat will not be fast or easy.

3. What does it mean to avow a history? Particularly for the communist left today? Whose history? English language history of the USSR languished under the Cold War. This should be a stimulus to new work and research rather than to a reflex-like evocation of history as if this history were a bludgeon.