Dear Justin,

Originally Posted by Justin '77

> If it's art that interests you, a bit of investigation would dig
> up the fact that the late 40s was the beginning of a major
> flowering of the arts in Russia (both in depth and breadth).
> composers like Kabalevskiy or Abramskiy or Muradeli; directors
> like Tarkovskiy or Braun or Ivchenko; writers like Kazakov or
> Panova.

I wonder if you've ever considered a different approach.

When we talk about Russia in WW II, we always focus on the war, and
the sieges of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Stalingrad.

However, Russia is a huge country, and there must have been many
regions that remained far away from the major battlegrounds. My
question is: What happened in these regions?

From a purely theoretical point of view, I would expect the
following: There would be no regeneracy, and a great deal of
criticism of Stalin's pursuit of the war.

What would the Church's role be? I would expect that people in
Stalin's generation would support him, while younger (Prophet)
clerics would also be critical.

Do you have any sense of this? I gather that Pushkin is near St.
Petersburg, and so wouldn't qualify as a region "far away from the
major battlegrounds." But have you ever come across any information
about how other parts of the country reacted?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Tell me you're joking...

I don't look into someone's eyes (as George W. Bush said that he did) to see into his character. I look instead into someone's behavior. Vladimir Putin (sorry about the Freudian slip) is one in 150 million or so... but a system in which an ex-KGB official can rise to the apex of power without fully repudiating the worst practices of the organization and its ways of thought.

I look at Russian history and I see nothing analogous to a 2T in Russia or the Soviet Union between 1910 and 1985. That looks abnormal.

There was no generation of pampered children; pampered children came from the social elite of the time. Children's lives were highly structured -- but never was there any pattern of children being indulged as a fashion of the time. There were always 'greater' priorities -- either reshaping the society, waging a war, or 'building socialism'. From Stalin's time the MVD, OGPU, NKVD, and KGB all suppressed any cultural tendencies that might run counter to 'socialism'.

Can you imagine beatniks or hippies arising in the Soviet Union? Sure -- only to be seen as 'hooligans' or 'bourgeois decadents' to be sent to a prison or a mental ward. Mid-life 'yuppies'? Only within the Party... otherwise not until Glasnost and Perestroika.

Where is the religious activity? Sure, Rasputin.... a sicko... bit after him, what? Religion itself was repressed or co-opted. The Russian Orthodox Church became a nest of spies and enforcers. Judaism? Nice try, in view of the large number of Russian Jews and the high level of intellectualism within Jewish religion as seen in America. The Soviet secret police repressed Judaism more than it repressed Christianity. A Maimonides or a Buber could never have emerged in the Soviet Union -- or would have been either killed in the nastier times or exiled to some country like the United States where he might have more possible influence. Islam? Co-opted. 2Ts are times of religious exploration as well as cultural ferment; the Soviet Union missed out on the schedule for the schedule.

This is a big deal; Russia will likely be a big player in the coming 4T in much of the rest of the world. North America, western Europe, east Asia, south Asia, Oceania, and much of Latin America is on a 3T/4T cusp. Russia seems on the same time. If Russia has no adult Idealist generation in charge because of a generational cycle that has allowed none, then can Russia have effective leadership? Maybe; a valid parallel may be the Armada Crisis with Britain -- in which Elizabeth II reigned and ruled. Quite effectively, it must be said.

The worst situation for a 4T is one in which the top leadership is callous, cynical Reactives who have thrown out older Idealists prematurely and then try to impose tyranny elsewhere, as happened in Germany, Italy, and Japan in the 1930s -- or bungle the struggle badly (China; Soviet Union if you consider Stalin a Reactive at heart -- if you can associate that monster with that word).

Originally Posted by Mustang

Fascinating. Thanks. Where did Sabbe hide all those years?

The forests of Võrumaa in southeast Estonia are dense. I can imagine that you could live in there for eternity without getting caught. He was 69 when he died. Estonians of that generation did not speak Russian en masse either, so if NKVD-KGB came upon him he might as well have been any other random Estonian hick.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Justin,



I wonder if you've ever considered a different approach.

When we talk about Russia in WW II, we always focus on the war, and
the sieges of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Stalingrad.

However, Russia is a huge country, and there must have been many
regions that remained far away from the major battlegrounds. My
question is: What happened in these regions?

From a purely theoretical point of view, I would expect the
following: There would be no regeneracy, and a great deal of
criticism of Stalin's pursuit of the war.

What would the Church's role be? I would expect that people in
Stalin's generation would support him, while younger (Prophet)
clerics would also be critical.

Do you have any sense of this? I gather that Pushkin is near St.
Petersburg, and so wouldn't qualify as a region "far away from the
major battlegrounds." But have you ever come across any information
about how other parts of the country reacted?

Leningrad (now known as Saint Petersburg, of course) was under a protracted (900 days) and very lethal siege. German shells hit Leningrad, so the city was a war zone. That reeks of Crisis. Leningraders knew what they were fighting for: their very lives. Leningrad and its suburbs were a major war zone.

We may know less about the Ural region or Siberia -- but in view of the dismantling of Soviet factories and the mass evacuation of Soviet workers to the Urals, one can hardly expect anything other than a Crisis mentality. Life may have been no more regimented than it had been during the 1930s -- only because the Soviet Union had military-like regimentation at all levels of society in the 1930s, so little changed.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

> We may know less about the Ural region or Siberia -- but in view
> of the dismantling of Soviet factories and the mass evacuation of
> Soviet workers to the Urals, one can hardly expect anything other
> than a Crisis mentality. Life may have been no more regimented
> than it had been during the 1930s -- only because the Soviet Union
> had military-like regimentation at all levels of society in the
> 1930s, so little changed.

What could you POSSIBLY be talking about? This is total, utter
nonsense. There's no such thing as "crisis mentality." In order to
have a crisis era, you have to have the entire constellation of
generations in place -- Artists, Heroes, Nomads, Prophets -- in that
order. In an Awakening, the generations are Nomads, Prophets,
Artists and Heroes. There's no way for a "crisis mentality" to
scramble the generations. You don't have the vaguest idea what a
generational crisis is, do you?

Why do you keep beating this same dead horse, over and over? I just
get the feeling that something else must be going on. Why do you keep
pushing this over and over? What's really going on with you?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

Hi. I have assumed Estonia was on the Russian timeline. What do you consider the Crisis before 1934?

Estonia has a very interesting history. The territory of Estonia was won by Russia from Sweden in the Great Northern War in 1721. But Russia did not create its own institutions in Estonia at that time. It inherited the institutions of the German Teutonic Knights and the Swedish empire. That is:

I. The Lutheran Church -- first Bible published in Estonian in 1625
II. The Hanseatic League and German marchant class
III.The university system -- founded by Gustavus Adolphus in the 1630s.

So you had an educated, land owning merchant class propelled forward by these institutions. The Estonian peasantry was also literate by the 18th century. So Peter I did not end these institutions. Instead he let them be and made deals with the local landholders. Estonia was formally a part of the Russian empire but was a Baltic Province -- Finland similarly became a Grand Duchy in 1809 -- as opposed to a contiguous part of Russia proper. The administration was all in German. Estonian peasants were granted freedom in 1816, a full half century before Russian peasants.

My impression is that empires in these days mattered little. It was just a matter of switching flags and allegiances. Obviously the gold traveled in a different direction -- to St. Petersburg rather than Stockholm -- but as long as you were still filling your pockets, what difference did it make?

Peasants in the Russian empire though had less rights than peasants in the Swedish empire. Ever since then Sweden has been progressive in the Estonian brain and Russia has been seen as backward.

It was not until the late 19th century that the tsars tried to 'Russify' Estonia. They did this by trying to transplant their institutions:

I. Orthodox Church
II. Russophone authority

I think the orthodoxy campaign was mildly successful at best. Estonians were never devout Lutherans, though they are workaholics. The frills of orthodoxy were probably met with pragmatic 'so what?''s The switch to Russian language in instruction, commerce, et cetera, rubbed everyone the wrong way, including the established German speaking upper class. That was sort of the catalyst that resulted in the establishment of independence in 1918.

As for previous crises, you could say that the Great Northern War was a tremendous crisis for the people who lived here. I believe only 150,000-200,000 people were living here after 1721. Villages were said to be desolate, wolves roamed feasting on rotting corpses. Yikes.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

To pbrower2a:

Exactly. You could not have demonstrated better the difference between a Prophet and a Nomad leadership. If you looked back a mere handful of years, you would see a very clear Russian analogue to the ideologues who will be in power in the US for the next 1.5 decades -- Boris Yeltsin.

Excellent. The same thing occurred to me the other day, obviously suggesting that Yeltsin was a Prophet. And it occurred to me that Gorbachev is probably a Prophet as well. Looked it up and both were born in 1931. Putin, by contrast, seems like a Nomad. Born 1952, a full generation later.

If Gorbachev and Yeltsin are Prophets, then the Russian 2T began no earlier than the mid 1930s. If Gorbachev is a Nomad, then the 2T began no later than the mid 1950s. Russia would be anywhere from 10 to 30 years off from our saeculum, but they would definitely be off.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

What could you POSSIBLY be talking about? This is total, utter
nonsense. There's no such thing as "crisis mentality." In order to
have a crisis era, you have to have the entire constellation of
generations in place -- Artists, Heroes, Nomads, Prophets -- in that
order. In an Awakening, the generations are Nomads, Prophets,
Artists and Heroes. There's no way for a "crisis mentality" to
scramble the generations. You don't have the vaguest idea what a
generational crisis is, do you?

Why do you keep beating this same dead horse, over and over? I just
get the feeling that something else must be going on. Why do you keep
pushing this over and over? What's really going on with you?

Thirty years of some of the most violent wars and genocide in human history, and catastrophic destruction of an economic infrastructure. That was Russia or the Soviet Union between World War I and V-E Day. If thirty years of such horrors doesn't have an impact upon a generational cycle, what does?

A Crisis does not quite scramble the generations; it defines them. I expect the Great Patriotic War veterans to become (Civic) hubristic, secular, big doers with a tendency to indulge children in a solidified post-Crisis time. I expect the children of the Crisis to have been over-protected (Adaptive) youth and adults in the aftermath of the war (Get them away from the Front!) kids told to keep their mouths shut and be thankful for the sacrifices being made on their behalf. That is much as happened in the United States with our GI and Silent generations.

But a big difference exists between kids born after 1945 in the USA and the USSR. The Civic generation of Brezhnev focused its efforts on rebuilding wartime damage and building a huge military establishment. That ensured that Soviet kids would have few toys and (usually) handed-down clothes and that families would live in cramped tenements. That would scar them. American youth born in the fifteen years after World War II would know suburbs with spacious new houses, nice clothes, plenty of toys and other consumer goods, nice clothes, and of course the privacy that allows a Voyage to the Interior.

Add to that, Russia had no 2T when much of the rest of the world (even parts of the Soviet bloc) from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s. If a Crisis Era goes badly it can cause the cycle to skip a beat.

Some of that was the economic reality of a wrecked infrastructure that had to be rebuilt if people were even to be fed. Some was the absurd ideology of Marxism-Leninism. Someone born in 1952 in America, Britain, Italy, India, or Japan is likely to be an Idealist in his generational path. Someone born in Russia in 1952 is likely to have taken some other path. I see that path as Reactive -- someone likely to act in accordance with efficacy without an effort to associate one's deeds with some transcendent principle.

The default manner of child development in a wrecked world that cannot be fixed in their time is toward a Reactive pattern of life. Those who follow a Reactive pattern seem 'primitive' in contrast to those who follow even if they succeed in creating a better world.

Is Vladimir Putin representative of his generation in Russia? We can't be completely sure... but Gorbachev seems to have represented his, Brezhnev his, Zhukov his, and Lenin his.

If a Crisis goes very badly -- as does the nearly thirty-year Crisis of Russia -- then living generations can be shoved into different roles. A generational type can be skipped, or the cycle can be telescoped. The Crisis in Russia that began with the collapse of the tsarist regime and ended on V-E day was too long and too severe to not shake up patterns of childcare -- and the ways in which generations in some countries think and act.

Originally Posted by Mustang

Excellent. The same thing occurred to me the other day, obviously suggesting that Yeltsin was a Prophet. And it occurred to me that Gorbachev is probably a Prophet as well. Looked it up and both were born in 1931. Putin, by contrast, seems like a Nomad. Born 1952, a full generation later.

If Gorbachev and Yeltsin are Prophets, then the Russian 2T began no earlier than the mid 1930s. If Gorbachev is a Nomad, then the 2T began no later than the mid 1950s. Russia would be anywhere from 10 to 30 years off from our saeculum, but they would definitely be off.

I definitely agree with the idea that Putin is a Nomad, leading in a 1T. Yeltsin had all the fire-breathing moralism and self-righteous ideology of a (pretty bad) Prophet leader, and Gorbachev sure as hell had the vision of a Prophet (Perestroika, Glasnost). Yeltsin's solutions to everything were grand, impulsive, passionate, and total. Putin's leadership, on the other hand, has been extremely conservative, in the same way most 1T Nomad leaders are conservative: put aside the left-right spectrum; they all attempt to slow things down and stabilize society. Midlife Heroes at the same time try to advance their agenda of civic progress, but are continually vetoed by said Nomads, with not enough Prophets available to keep things dynamic. This is why we think of 1Ts as "bland".

Whenever I read about things going on in Russia, it reinforces in my mind the idea that Russia is 1T. (I am less sure about Ukraine, Belarus, and other neighbors.) Ponder this: if Putin was eroding democracy in the lead-in to a 4T, don't you think he'd be pretty hated? Don't you think the Russian people would be calling for his head, or at least would bevery disenchanted with his administration? Any time Bush does something perceived as undemocratic or corrupt (which is often), he gets reamed for weeks and his approval rating falls another point. But Putin's moves to "stabilize society", while ominous, even chilling, to us outsiders, are pleasing the Russian people very much. His approval rating, at last check, is around 80%. His party is assured to sweep the legislative elections this year and one of his two deputies will win the presidency next year. This is a country that strongly feels it's going in the right direction. Try to name one country on the 3T/4T cusp that feels that way these days.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Add to that, Russia had no 2T when much of the rest of the world (even parts of the Soviet bloc) from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s.

I am not sure how you can be so certain of that. First and foremost, a 2T is associated with spiritual awakening. In order to locate the Soviet 2T, we might look for a period of pronounced increase in religiosity. Xenakis made reference to Stalin's loosening of restrictions on the Russian Orthodox Church in 1943. But I believe he was only motivated to "put on a good show" (hey, we don't persecute Christians!) for the Tehran Conference after the Church of England requested a meeting with the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. There may or may not have been a marked increase in pressure to lift the restrictions on the Church (a 2T indicator, I would think) at that time (I don't know).

But an Awakening of sorts may actually have been underway between 1945 and 1959 when the number of parishes increased to around 27,000 from some minuscule number. This explosive Church expansion was only halted in 1959 when Khrushchev cracked down and cut the number of parishes by more than half. But the question must be asked, was this Church expansion fueled by a contemporaneous religious revival, or was it merely fueled by the desire of longstanding Christians to have back the parishes they had lost in the 1920s? I don't know enough to say for sure, but in that I see Gorbachev and Yeltsin as Prophets, I expect that there was indeed a genuine religious revival from some point in the '40s, through the '50s, perhaps to some point in the '60s.

For whatever it is worth, I have come across reports from time to time that Gorbachev is a very serious New Ager. I don't know how accurate these reports are, and I do not know how representative Gorbachev is of his cohort. But this would be consistent with a generation of Russian Prophets being born in the '30s before a 2T began at some point in the '40s.

Originally Posted by 1990

I definitely agree with the idea that Putin is a Nomad, leading in a 1T. Yeltsin had all the fire-breathing moralism and self-righteous ideology of a (pretty bad) Prophet leader, and Gorbachev sure as hell had the vision of a Prophet (Perestroika, Glasnost). Yeltsin's solutions to everything were grand, impulsive, passionate, and total. Putin's leadership, on the other hand, has been extremely conservative, in the same way most 1T Nomad leaders are conservative: put aside the left-right spectrum; they all attempt to slow things down and stabilize society. Midlife Heroes at the same time try to advance their agenda of civic progress, but are continually vetoed by said Nomads, with not enough Prophets available to keep things dynamic. This is why we think of 1Ts as "bland".

Whenever I read about things going on in Russia, it reinforces in my mind the idea that Russia is 1T. (I am less sure about Ukraine, Belarus, and other neighbors.) Ponder this: if Putin was eroding democracy in the lead-in to a 4T, don't you think he'd be pretty hated? Don't you think the Russian people would be calling for his head, or at least would bevery disenchanted with his administration? Any time Bush does something perceived as undemocratic or corrupt (which is often), he gets reamed for weeks and his approval rating falls another point. But Putin's moves to "stabilize society", while ominous, even chilling, to us outsiders, are pleasing the Russian people very much. His approval rating, at last check, is around 80%. His party is assured to sweep the legislative elections this year and one of his two deputies will win the presidency next year. This is a country that strongly feels it's going in the right direction. Try to name one country on the 3T/4T cusp that feels that way these days.

Excellent analysis.

Originally Posted by Mustang

I am not sure how you can be so certain of that. First and foremost, a 2T is associated with spiritual awakening. In order to locate the Soviet 2T, we might look for a period of pronounced increase in religiosity. Xenakis made reference to Stalin's loosening of restrictions on the Russian Orthodox Church in 1943. But I believe he was only motivated to "put on a good show" (hey, we don't persecute Christians!) for the Tehran Conference after the Church of England requested a meeting with the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. There may or may not have been a marked increase in pressure to lift the restrictions on the Church (a 2T indicator, I would think) at that time (I don't know).

But an Awakening of sorts may actually have been underway between 1945 and 1959 when the number of parishes increased to around 27,000 from some minuscule number. This explosive Church expansion was only halted in 1959 when Khrushchev cracked down and cut the number of parishes by more than half. But the question must be asked, was this Church expansion fueled by a contemporaneous religious revival, or was it merely fueled by the desire of longstanding Christians to have back the parishes they had lost in the 1920s? I don't know enough to say for sure, but in that I see Gorbachev and Yeltsin as Prophets, I expect that there was indeed a genuine religious revival from some point in the '40s, through the '50s, perhaps to some point in the '60s.

For whatever it is worth, I have come across reports from time to time that Gorbachev is a very serious New Ager. I don't know how accurate these reports are, and I do not know how representative Gorbachev is of his cohort. But this would be consistent with a generation of Russian Prophets being born in the '30s before a 2T began at some point in the '40s.

A 2T between ~1945-1964 is very possible. What I look for in modern 2Ts is not just a spiritual revival (since long-term, civilization has been secularizing for centuries), but an increased focus on the individual (which is the real key to the inner-driven/outer-driven dichotomy). 2Ts are when people remember the value of individual rights. 3Ts are when that stabilizes and society is entirely focused on feeding the needs of the individual. Then in the 4T focus begins to shifts to community duties. 1Ts are when that stabilizes and society is entirely focused on feeding the needs of the group.

It's very clear that Russian society is more community-oriented now than it was at the peak of Soviet power. The populace seems perfectly happy to lose their rights for questionable reasons, all while Putin strengthens his and his party's grip on day-to-day Russian life. Compare to the U.S., where even the hint of sacrifice for the greater good draws gasps and screams. This is why the U.S. is still in a 3T mindset. But Russia doesn't even seem to be adjusting to a 4T group-focused mentality; it seems to be deeply settled into that thinking, past the point of self-analysis and questioning the status quo.

Anyway, back on point, there are signs of an (admittedly watered-down) 2T after WWII. Marx's original ideal of total atheism as a key to a Communist society was loosened, especially during Khruschev. Khruschev also attempted a lot of social reforms to keep up with growing discontent. He was, of course, punished for this by the Politburo and party establishment, which is why I date the 2T as ending around 1964. Note that the Prague Spring, a key 2T event in parts of Eastern Europe (those parts for whom WWII was a 4T), had little effect in Russia.

And oh dear, how did this become another Russia thread?

Originally Posted by 1990

Try to name one country on the 3T/4T cusp that feels that way these days.

But Russia isn't on the 3T/4T cusp?

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

But Russia isn't on the 3T/4T cusp?

That's my conclusion, yes.

Originally Posted by 1990

That's my conclusion, yes.

And I think you pretty much proved it. Can you do the same for Russia not being post-regeneracy?

Originally Posted by 1990

It's very clear that Russian society is more community-oriented now than it was at the peak of Soviet power. The populace seems perfectly happy to lose their rights for questionable reasons, all while Putin strengthens his and his party's grip on day-to-day Russian life. Compare to the U.S., where even the hint of sacrifice for the greater good draws gasps and screams. This is why the U.S. is still in a 3T mindset. But Russia doesn't even seem to be adjusting to a 4T group-focused mentality; it seems to be deeply settled into that thinking, past the point of self-analysis and questioning the status quo.

I think the Russians are far more cynical than described in the Western media. The reason Putin is popular is because there is a growing middle class that has access to choices -- in lifestyle, education, media, etc. -- that their parents never had. As long as that continues, who is to argue with he who is pulling the strings. As Strauss and Howe rightly pointed out, Putin's government has fascist overtones -- 'he made the trains run on time.'

But the flipside of that is, if and when the good times run out, is there a mechanism in place to allow the Russian middle class a say in who is running things? Or is this going to turn into a politburo thing where the successor is chosen from the inner ring of a very wealthy group of people? It looks like it is already settling into the latter, as happened in 2000 when Mr. KGB took over.

I personally dislike the Yeltsin bashing that is in vogue these days. We forget that Russia would not be where it was if the hardline coup had won out in 1991. Russia would not be sipping wines at the G8 if Yeltsin hadn't climbed on top of that tank. There wouldn't be enthusiastic investment conferences if Russia remained the center of a continent-wide party dictatorship. Everyone there seems to hate him now, but I think whining is just a national Russian pasttime. If something bad happened, then it must be because 'foreigners' were behind it and, as always, the Russians were the true victims.

And those war criminal NKVD officers that loaded humans into cattle cars and sent them to die in Siberia? That wasn't so bad, say the history books in creepy Putin Russia. The books also say it was necessary to 'make the USSR strong.' I can imagine post-WWII history books in Third Reich Europe explaining away the Holocaust in a similar matter. "It needed to be done to make the Reich strong.' How crazy. And people like Putin? But don't worry, even though they were speaking Russian and were in Russia at the time and had Russian names, they weren't really Russian. They were really Soviet. See, because of Yeltsin, Russia gets to avoid any responsibility for its sordid past.

Rest in peace, Boris. You did the Russian people a lot of favors.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

And I think you pretty much proved it. Can you do the same for Russia not being post-regeneracy?

Wow, thank you. For the sake of argument, I could try proving Russia is not post-regeneracy, though I don't believe it.

Here would be possible arguments if I though Russia was yet to enter a real 4T:

• The collapse of the Soviet Union did not result in any kind of genocidal war (outside of Chechnya). The death rate did soar in the 1990s, but more due to suicide and illness rather than organized brutality.
• WWII was brutal enough to extend the 4T from 1917-1945, making Russia about on schedule to enter a 4T now. (Then again, if this is the case, where's the 2T? The 1970s saw a huge overextension, financially and militarily, of the USSR, in a highly 3T bubble fashion.)
• The 1991 coup was not bloody enough to bring a Regeneracy. It merely confirmed "jitters" about the state of things.
• Yeltsin was no more of a GC than Gorby.
• Putin's moves are eerily Hitler- or Stalin-like, not policies to keep society prospering in a 1T. They were Nomad leaders in a 4T, and he must be too.
• The economic collapse of the late 1990s wasn't enough to reset the clock. Jitters are just growing, not calming.

Of course, I don't agree with any of this: while crisis wars are common, they are not requisite for a 4T, and the 1991 coup (or the 1990s high point of the offensive in Chechnya) could both serve the role (coup as rebellion, Chechnya as internal war), especially when paired with the economic devastation of the period. And I don't believe WWII was a 4T; rather an incredibly sucky 1T as we witness in Somalia today. As to points 3 and 6, I don't think jitters are growing; I get the strong impression that Russians are at their most confident about the state of their nation in many decades. Again, there is no way Putin would have such a strong popular mandate in a pre-Regeneracy 4T; that kind of "rallying" NEVER happens until a Regeneracy has occurred, and often divisions are still harsh enough for the rallying to not happen at all in the 4T. As far as Yeltsin not being a GC, while he may have had a very mixed record, his actions were bold, passionate, and total in upheaving the civic order. Without him Russia would not be where it is today. Putin is serving much more to "confirm" and "strengthen" Yeltsin's legacy than to reverse it as some of the media cries.

All in all, I still think Russia be 1T.

Dear Nathaniel,

Originally Posted by 1990

> A 2T between ~1945-1964 is very possible. What I look for in
> modern 2Ts is not just a spiritual revival (since long-term,
> civilization has been secularizing for centuries), but an
> increased focus on the individual (which is the real key to the
> inner-driven/outer-driven dichotomy). 2Ts are when people remember
> the value of individual rights. 3Ts are when that stabilizes and
> society is entirely focused on feeding the needs of the
> individual. Then in the 4T focus begins to shifts to community
> duties. 1Ts are when that stabilizes and society is entirely
> focused on feeding the needs of the group.

> It's very clear that Russian society is more community-oriented
> now than it was at the peak of Soviet power. The populace seems
> perfectly happy to lose their rights for questionable reasons, all
> while Putin strengthens his and his party's grip on day-to-day
> Russian life. Compare to the U.S., where even the hint of
> sacrifice for the greater good draws gasps and screams. This is
> why the U.S. is still in a 3T mindset. But Russia doesn't even
> seem to be adjusting to a 4T group-focused mentality; it seems to
> be deeply settled into that thinking, past the point of
> self-analysis and questioning the status quo.

If I understand you correctly, then you're reaching these conclusions
by comparing Russia today to America today. You're saying that
Russia today is different from America today, therefore must be in a
different turning, therefore must be in the first turning.

I agree with the first of those therefores, but I would question the
second.

If Russia is still headed for a crisis war (something of which I am
absolutely certain), then Russia would not be in a first turning; it
would be in a fifth turning. Thus, Russia would still be quite
different from America, since a fifth turning is distinctly different
from a fourth turning, and so your analysis would fail.

What would a country be like during a fifth turning? We have no
guidance at all from S&H, so we'd have to figure it out for
ourselves.

(The one thing that I've identified, based on research over the
London subway bombers and various Mideast bombings, is that a fifth
turning seems to give rise to distantly-motivated suicide bombers. By
this I mean that suicide bombers in the 4T do so with their parents'
blessings, as we're seeing with the Palestinians. In a fifth turning,
young people may commit "altruistic suicide" against their parents'
wishes, but their motivations, as we're seeing today in the UK and
Iraq, come from clerics and radicals who are distant from their
parents.)

If you want to identify Russia's current turning by saying it's
"different" from something, you'd have to make the comparison to
countries that are in fifth turnings, not fourth turnings. These
would be Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco, for example. There might
also be a comparison with the US just prior to the Civil War.

You've done a lot of research on Mexico. How would you compare and
contrast Mexico today with Russia today? Do the Russian xenophobia
crimes in St. Petersburg compare in some way to the drug cartel
gunfights in Nuevo Laredo? Do the border issues in Russia compare
with Mexico's border issues with the US and Guatemala? Why has
Russia's population been decreasing, while Mexico's has been
increasing? Are Mexicans willing to lose their individual rights to
protect themselves, as you say the Russians are?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by 1990

Wow, thank you. For the sake of argument, I could try proving Russia is not post-regeneracy, though I don't believe it.

Here would be possible arguments if I though Russia was yet to enter a real 4T:

• The collapse of the Soviet Union did not result in any kind of genocidal war (outside of Chechnya). The death rate did soar in the 1990s, but more due to suicide and illness rather than organized brutality.
• WWII was brutal enough to extend the 4T from 1917-1945, making Russia about on schedule to enter a 4T now. (Then again, if this is the case, where's the 2T? The 1970s saw a huge overextension, financially and militarily, of the USSR, in a highly 3T bubble fashion.)
• The 1991 coup was not bloody enough to bring a Regeneracy. It merely confirmed "jitters" about the state of things.
• Yeltsin was no more of a GC than Gorby.
• Putin's moves are eerily Hitler- or Stalin-like, not policies to keep society prospering in a 1T. They were Nomad leaders in a 4T, and he must be too.
• The economic collapse of the late 1990s wasn't enough to reset the clock. Jitters are just growing, not calming.

Of course, I don't agree with any of this:

I'm confused. Were you listing all the possibly reasons for Russia being post-regeneracy 4T, while intending to smack them down?? If so, then all of those reasons are bad, except for the bookends (especially the last).

while crisis wars are common, they are not requisite for a 4T, and the 1991 coup (or the 1990s high point of the offensive in Chechnya) could both serve the role (coup as rebellion, Chechnya as internal war), especially when paired with the economic devastation of the period.

Every single Crisis I've found has had a war involved.

I get the strong impression that Russians are at their most confident about the state of their nation in many decades.

This is not necessarily generational. Hell, after coming out of that and then making it through the 1990s, you bet they have some renewed confidence.

Again, there is no way Putin would have such a strong popular mandate in a pre-Regeneracy 4T; that kind of "rallying" NEVER happens until a Regeneracy has occurred, and often divisions are still harsh enough for the rallying to not happen at all in the 4T.

You are probably right, but I'm asserting the Russia is post-regeneracy 4T.

All in all, I still think Russia be 1T.

Where is the climax?

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Nathaniel,



If I understand you correctly, then you're reaching these conclusions
by comparing Russia today to America today. You're saying that
Russia today is different from America today, therefore must be in a
different turning, therefore must be in the first turning.

I agree with the first of those therefores, but I would question the
second.

If Russia is still headed for a crisis war (something of which I am
absolutely certain), then Russia would not be in a first turning; it
would be in a fifth turning. Thus, Russia would still be quite
different from America, since a fifth turning is distinctly different
from a fourth turning, and so your analysis would fail.

What would a country be like during a fifth turning? We have no
guidance at all from S&H, so we'd have to figure it out for
ourselves.

(The one thing that I've identified, based on research over the
London subway bombers and various Mideast bombings, is that a fifth
turning seems to give rise to distantly-motivated suicide bombers. By
this I mean that suicide bombers in the 4T do so with their parents'
blessings, as we're seeing with the Palestinians. In a fifth turning,
young people may commit "altruistic suicide" against their parents'
wishes, but their motivations, as we're seeing today in the UK and
Iraq, come from clerics and radicals who are distant from their
parents.)

If you want to identify Russia's current turning by saying it's
"different" from something, you'd have to make the comparison to
countries that are in fifth turnings, not fourth turnings. These
would be Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco, for example. There might
also be a comparison with the US just prior to the Civil War.

You've done a lot of research on Mexico. How would you compare and
contrast Mexico today with Russia today? Do the Russian xenophobia
crimes in St. Petersburg compare in some way to the drug cartel
gunfights in Nuevo Laredo? Do the border issues in Russia compare
with Mexico's border issues with the US and Guatemala? Why has
Russia's population been decreasing, while Mexico's has been
increasing? Are Mexicans willing to lose their individual rights to
protect themselves, as you say the Russians are?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Well, this is what I was getting 1990 to think about in the above.

Don't forget Turkey! I think that is the best comparison!

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

Every single Crisis I've found has had a war involved.

What about the Potato Famine Exception? There have been several cases without any kind of a war, coup, rebellion, revolution, etc. What about the Latin American countries where you identified a 4T as "high instability"? Russia certainly was just as unstable, if not more so, in the late 1980s and through the '90s.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

Where is the climax?

The economic crisis of 1998. This devastated an already-pained economy, yet was resolved shockingly well and quickly (the same kind of surprising comeback witnessed at the end of many 4Ts). The 4T could have been ~1982-1999, or perhaps ~1980-1999 if you prefer the Afghanistan intervention as a catalyst. Chernobyl could have been the Regeneracy; so could Gorby's great pillars of 1987 - Glasnost and Perestroika. Hell, even Gorby's ascension in '85 could have been enough. What made this 4T a little different is that Gorby did not last as a GC, thanks to the events of 1991, and the messier (but more fiery) Yeltsin took that role.

The lack of a war (though Chechnya was pretty bloody in 1994) does not preclude a 4T. Again, check your Latin America examples.

Originally Posted by 1990

What about the Potato Famine Exception?

Oops, forgot that one.

There have been several cases without any kind of a war, coup, rebellion, revolution, etc. What about the Latin American countries where you identified a 4T as "high instability"?

IIRC, every single one of them had a war, but not necessarily on the scale of a Crisis War.

Russia certainly was just as unstable, if not more so, in the late 1980s and through the '90s.

And it was a 4T..

The economic crisis of 1998. This devastated an already-pained economy, yet was resolved shockingly well and quickly (the same kind of surprising comeback witnessed at the end of many 4Ts). The 4T could have been ~1982-1999, or perhaps ~1980-1999 if you prefer the Afghanistan intervention as a catalyst. Chernobyl could have been the Regeneracy; so could Gorby's great pillars of 1987 - Glasnost and Perestroika. Hell, even Gorby's ascension in '85 could have been enough. What made this 4T a little different is that Gorby did not last as a GC, thanks to the events of 1991, and the messier (but more fiery) Yeltsin took that role.

The lack of a war (though Chechnya was pretty bloody in 1994) does not preclude a 4T. Again, check your Latin America examples.

Here's how S&H describe the climax:

Originally Posted by TFT pg. 258-259

The Crisis climax is human history's equivalent to nature's raging typhoon, the kind that sucks all surrounding matter into a single swirl of ferocious energy. Anything not lashed down goes flying; anything standing in the way gets flattened. Normally occurring late in the Fourth Turning, the climax gathers energy from an accumulation of unmet needs, unpaid bills, and unresolved problems. It then spends that energy on an upheaval whose direction and dimension were beyond comprehension during the prior Unraveling era. The climax shakes a society to its roots, transforms its institutions, redirects its purposes, and marks its people (and its generations) for life. The climax can end in triumph, or tragedy, or some combination of both. Whatever the event and whatever the outcome, a society passes through a great gate of history, fundamentally altering the course of civilization.

In other words, the climax is a sudden outburst of energy that would have been unthinkable years earlier. Is almost always manifested in violence -- though not 100%. There is really no way that I can see the financial Crisis of 1998 fitting this definition. It is an upsurge in "Crisisness," but it seems to act more like a final swipe of the troubles of the 1990s, where events more or less happened to the Russian people, instead of the other way around. It may fit your definition of a Climax, but it sure as hell doesn't fit mind.

I think a comparison to other 5T countries (Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Ireland) is in order.

Dear Nathaniel and Matt,

Here are some additional thoughts.

Nathaniel, you've identified Russians as willing to give up individual
rights to protect themselves (inductive reasoning). That's an
interesting idea.

Let's suppose that this is characteristic of fifth turnings, and try
to develop a narrative that explains it, in order to be able to test
it.

Consider a country that traverses its fourth turning, but doesn't
have a crisis war.

Normally we associate giving up individual rights with the
regeneracy. How could it happen in a fourth turning where there's no
regeneracy?

Even if there's no crisis war, there are threats. What characterizes
a 4T is the increasing anxiety over these external threats. A crisis
war occurs when the the society panics over the external threats.
If no panic occurs, then there's no crisis war.

But perhaps the continuing threats, in the face of anxiety, is a
"slow-motion regeneracy," where the population increasingly is
willing to give up individual rights, just to deal with the external
threats.

We can certainly see that in the US, where the Patriot Act is a
reduction in individual rights, to deal with the threat of terrorism.

I've always assumed that a new terrorist attack on American soil would
lead to war and a regeneracy. But suppose it just a "small" attack,
not big enough to justify a war. Anxious Americans would still be
willing to give up some civil rights in return for a real or imagined
guarantee that there would be no more terrorist attacks. That would
imply a strengthened Patriot Act.

Thus, we would be in a "slow motion" regeneracy. And presumably if
it lasted 20 years, then we would enter a 5th turning with reduced
civil rights in return for protection against terrorist attacks.

But it wouldn't be a complete regeneracy, because without the
unifying effect of a crisis war, there would still be political
divisions. There would even be a split among the would-be Hero
generation.

That would provide an explanation for the "distantly-motivated"
suicide bombers. The would-be Hero generation would have children,
whom I've referred to as "Super-Nomads." They would be frustrated
because their parents had sacrificed their ideals and rights for
security. The marginal kids of this generation would express their
frustration through acts like suicide bombings, "altruistic suicide"
on behalf of their parents, who have given up everything.

This certainly seems to me what's happened in Saudi Arabia, where
individual rights have been sacrificed. This environment spawned
Osama bin Laden.

This narrative seems to pull everything together in a neat package.
How about testing it against Russia, Mexico and Turkey?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by 1990

What about the Potato Famine Exception? There have been several cases without any kind of a war, coup, rebellion, revolution, etc. What about the Latin American countries where you identified a 4T as "high instability"? Russia certainly was just as unstable, if not more so, in the late 1980s and through the '90s.





The economic crisis of 1998. This devastated an already-pained economy, yet was resolved shockingly well and quickly (the same kind of surprising comeback witnessed at the end of many 4Ts). The 4T could have been ~1982-1999, or perhaps ~1980-1999 if you prefer the Afghanistan intervention as a catalyst. Chernobyl could have been the Regeneracy; so could Gorby's great pillars of 1987 - Glasnost and Perestroika. Hell, even Gorby's ascension in '85 could have been enough. What made this 4T a little different is that Gorby did not last as a GC, thanks to the events of 1991, and the messier (but more fiery) Yeltsin took that role.

The lack of a war (though Chechnya was pretty bloody in 1994) does not preclude a 4T. Again, check your Latin America examples.

My guess is:

1980 (Afganistan debacle) : Catalyst
Andropov and Chernenko: Hoover equivalents
1985 (rise of Gorby): Regeneracy
Gorby and Yeltsin: GCs
1998 (aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis) Climax
1999 though 2001 or 2002: Resolution
Putin: Truman equivalent

Originally Posted by Odin

My guess is:

1980 (Afganistan debacle) : Catalyst
Andropov and Chernenko: Hoover equivalents
1985 (rise of Gorby): Regeneracy
Gorby and Yeltsin: GCs
1998 (aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis) Climax
1999 though 2001 or 2002: Resolution
Putin: Truman equivalent

All well and good, except how is Putin at all like Truman, aside from being a Nomad leading a 1T? His approval rating when he leaves office will very likely be no less than 70%. Truman's was 22%, IIRC. Their styles are totally different. Truman was scrappy, earthy, and tough. Putin is as slick as they come.