The sadness of the Soviet situation

I had been wondering what Russia was like now, a full generation after the Soviet system collapsed. An article today in the New York Times was enlightening:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/opinion/sunday/russia-hogweed.html

“The giant hogweed isn’t just an invasive plant. It’s a metaphor for what is happening to much of this country.”

“Vasily Melnichenko, a straight-talking farmer from the Ural Mountains who heads a movement for rural development, says President Vladimir Putin’s government’s policy toward rural Russia has been awful. Rural people are seen as a burden, he said, sapping budget funding for roads, electricity and health care. Another 20 years of the same, he said, and all the remaining residents will die out, ending the Russian village as a form of life.”

* * * *

During the early years, Soviet communism had raised expectations very high. By the end of the “Great Experiment” the disillusionment was such that the counter-revolution of 1985–1995 elicited no resistance whatsoever. The people were unhappy.

No happier now, they are chastened and resigned. Depression rates are rising. Life expectancies are falling.

Increasingly: failure to thrive. Especially at the periphery.

* * * *

Under globalized conditions of the industrial state modern life is dispiriting for the majority of the human population. Just as natural resources have been over-exploited and depleted, vitality has been sucked out of the former-communities of the vast fly-over zones. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that — outside of the cosmopolitan centers of the more-affluent countries — quiet despair reigns, whether the socio-economic system is socialist or capitalist, whether the means of production are owned socially or privately.