The Agony of the Russian idea

by Tim McDaniel

Boris Yeltsin's attempts at democratic reform have plunged a long troubled Russia even further into turmoil. This dramatic break with the Soviet past has left Russia politically fragmented and riddled with corruption, its people with little hope for the future. In this ambitious and fascinating account, Tim McDaniel illuminates Yeltsin's failure by placing it in the larger context of many ill-fated efforts by Russia's rulers to transform their country over the last two hundred years. He demonstrates that the inability of the last tsars and all Communist rulers to create the foundations of a viable modern society is rooted in a cultural trap endemic to Russian society. By analyzing the perspectives and values of not just rulers and elites but also workers and peasants, McDaniel shows that throughout the whole modern period there was widespread loyalty to the "Russian idea." In its most basic sense, the Russian idea is the belief that Russia could have forged its own, separate path in th