Why Russia cannot become a democracy

The story of how the #Russian #government evolved also explains why it cannot become a #democratic state in its current territorial configuration.

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[ketembo]

Geographical determinism is one way to explain Russia. Another would be failure to set up functional social institutions. Truth is, as always, somewhere in between.

[artbasss]

One correction Shirvan. Ivan The Terrible’s initiative was called “oprichnyna”, “oprichnik” is a person that served in it.

[Leeeeegion]

A Belgium a year keeps the doctor away.

[sat]

Yeah, Yeltsin was so democratic that he shot the parlament with tanks when they didn't obey him.

[barracuda]

One correction - not all of Moscow's expansion in the medieval period was through soft power. The Novgorod Republic (an example of a possible democratic Russian State, in ages past) was conquered by force at the hands of Ivan III of Moscow.

[happyelephant]

Imagine 200 years ago Caspian looks at France and says:

"France has always been absolutist monarchy. It can't be anything else because it has so many enemies: England, Spanin, Austria, Prussia. They from all sides. Only monarch can save France, it can never be democracy"

[crocve]

Geographical determinism alone does not explain this. There are both big and small countries which are liberal-democracies, and there are big and small countries which are not. If a country is a democracy or not is determined by various number of factors.

[patrickazzarella]

Always found it pretty cool how just like in the U.S. the construction of railroads in Russia brought along with it large populations and nessecary boomtowns all across Siberia and Asia to Vladivostok following the transsiberian railroad bringing Russians from Europe to East Asia just like it brought Americans from the East Coast to the West of America

[boboblacksheep]

Hey Shirvan, I have a suggestion.
It would be awesome if you could use a different projection for the Arctic region it would be really lovely. It would be much easier to estimate distances and areas and not suffer from the scaling effects of Mercator projection.

[justitmoko]

I always liked the detail that the Oprichnik were the strongest units for killing civillians in Age Of Empires 3.

[bobg]

"soft power and annexation"
ivan the III literally burned novgorod to the ground

[markayzenshtadt]

The main problem of Russia is that it never stopped being an empire, so people still tend to think in that way.

[playtf]

3:20 You know man, you are the best when it comes to pronunciation. As a russian I appreciate the effort. You make mistakes but you come so close, I haven't seen anybody do that. Usually people don't even try but you -- hats off, man, wow.

[princekyros]

I don't disagree that Russia in it's current form can't become a democracy, but I heavily disagree that it's because of geography. Geographic determinism is a very silly notion that disregards much more important variables like history, culture, human agency and etc. If geographic determinism was the case, we would never have had civil wars between ideologies (north and south korea, east and west germany, communist, democratic and nationalist china, spain and etc) nor would the form of a state change so long as it's geography didn't (literally most of the entire world).

[fedorku]

I am from Russia, I live in Russia and I studied our history with all the regimes and emperors, I know a lot about our culture. And I state that this video is a collection of oversimplified one-sided arguments that was beautifully presented to prove an idea which has no theoretical value at all.

Of cause country which history goes back to 9th century will be generous on historic examples of all kind of wars, emperors and regimes(same as The Roman Empire for example).

Democracy in its various forms is possible everywhere, cause it is a concept, not a set of rules.

[Papin_Demokrat]

You can use geographical characteristics of any country to prove why it’s couldn’t be a democracy. Russia is not a democracy for many other reasons than it’s geography

[dirkpill-basher]

I'm a great fan of your videos, but I have to disagree with you on this one. I think you may be overreacted when assessing the demand for sovereignty in Russia's autonomous republics and territories. With the exception of some of the Caucasus republics, Russians still make up a majority of citizens within the Eastern territories and even amongst the indigenous populations, Independence remains low. You also try to use Russia's history of expansion and size as proof that Russia cannot transition to democracy. I also disagree with this, although geography and size can play a role in impacting a countries adminstration, federalisation and de-centralisation can address many of the problems associated with this. For evidence of this just observe countries like the United States and Australia, two countries that have a history of conquest, and governing over large and geographically diverse countries yet have evolved into entirely different countries than Russia.

The true problem in Russia's democracy comes not from its size or georaphy, but rather the development of its institutions and governance. A dismantling of Russia would not guarantee that democracy succeeds, but rather the creation and reinforcement of democratic institutions and safeguards.

[levoGAMES]

Governing Russia is like playing on nightmare difficulty.

[deyanpetrov]

The statement that democracy is determined by geography is silly. What about North vs South Korea or West vs East Germany during the Cold War. Or even Ukraine vs Russia currently. Neighbouring territories with vastly different systems. It's determined by causality like everything else. But just because things have led to something bad doesn't mean we should justify the bad thing or not try to change it.

[scottthomas]

"If Russia is sealed to despotism, then let It have democracy, for it gives every person the right to be his own oppressor."
Very well said.