Reinventing Russia: The Formation of a Post-Soviet Identity

As Russia enters the first decade of the new millennium, self-confident and assertive in relations with the rest of the world, the country is also in search of a new identity to take the place of the ideology of the now defunct Soviet system. Russia’s sudden resurgence as a world force poses a dilemma among the West’s political leaders who see the country moving in the wrong direction. Russia’s reformers have attempted to create a new economic paradigm of broadly shared capital ownership and social partnership between government and workers that implies greater economic egalitarianism and increased paternalism, but also higher productivity and quality. Reinventing Russia: The Formation of a Post-Soviet Identity is a study of the formation of a new national identity in post-Soviet Russia. We must realize that Russia’s recent resurgence is due not only to the current high price of oil and gas, but is also the consequence, in large measure, of the economic reforms of the past twenty years.