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This article, written by Olli Tammilehto, has been published in Finnish in Ydin no. 3/2026. . You can republish it in English or in any other language but you should first inform the author.

Democracy unleashed by external threat in the West and in the East

For 46 years after World War II, the Soviet Union posed a major challenge to Western capitalism. Despite the fact that both the reality of real socialism and the image of it conveyed by Western propaganda were in many respects terrible, the very existence of the Soviet Union proved that society could be organized in ways other than capitalist. Victory in World War II and achievements in space technology showed that the socialist system was functional, at least in some respects. The image of a society in which basic security for all was provided also inspired many ordinary people in the West. During the last decades of the USSR this image corresponded to reality to such an extent that even some dissidents exiled from the Soviet Union who idolized the West were forced to admit that the life of an ordinary low-income person in the United States was much harder than it was in the East¹.

The challenge of real socialism contributed to the fact that Western countries occasionally pursued tax and social policies that reduced the most blatant injustices of capitalism. For example, in the USA, income taxation was sharply progressive after World War II. The marginal tax rate for the richest was 91% between 1944 and 1963². In many countries, a “welfare state” was built with tax funds. The livelihood of the poorest people was made easier and the threshold for receiving help in cases of illness was significantly lowered.

But wouldn't such reforms have inevitably been pursued in a democratic West anyway? Since a policy of reducing economic inequality benefits the majority, wouldn't the normal democratic process lead to the implementation of this policy? This is often not the case, however, because economic inequality also means inequality of power resources. Company owners and other wealthy people can always use election financing, lobbying, and media manipulation to nullify the effect of electoral democracy. “The risk can be taken out of democracy” so that it does not threaten the privileges, power, and wealth of a small, wealthy minority³. Therefore, in order for reforms that benefit the majority of people to take place, in addition to universal suffrage, some counterforce to the power of the propertied class is needed. Such a counterforce can be a powerful social movement. After World War II, one counterforce was the challenge posed by the Soviet Union. Paradoxically, the undemocratic East increased democracy in the West.

A similar development is also observed in capitalistic Russia. As the country transitioned to “democracy,” economic inequality exploded, and society was transformed to meet as little as possible the wishes of ordinary people. In contrast to their own capitalists, the Western media began to call Russian capitalists oligarchs, or people who exercise the rule by a few. In this way, it acknowledged that people’s misery was a consequence of capitalist power.

Despite its capitalism, Russia was not accepted into the Western camp. Russia was not admitted to NATO, even though the country announced its desire to join the military alliance⁴. Instead, one after another, almost all other Eastern European countries became members of NATO. Even the most pro-Western Russian politicians regarded the expansion of NATO as a major security threat⁵.

Russian fears were also heightened by Western-backed “color revolutions.” In these, a social movement, partly fueled by real grievances but supported and financed by the West, used peaceful or violent demonstrations to change the government to a more pro-Western one. More or less successful color revolutions financed and supported by the CIA and other US “democracy” organizations have taken place since the early 1990s for example in Albania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Romania, Armenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, and Ukraine⁶.

In addition to change of government, many Western politicians and influencers have wanted Russia to suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union: the breakup into smaller states. This view was represented in the early 1990s by, among others, the then US Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.⁷

Because of all these phenomena public discontent began to be considered a security problem in Russia. This in turn contributed to two changes in the 2000s: the power of the oligarchs was curtailed and some degree of welfare state was built. Between 2000 and 2008, state spending on social security increased almost tenfold⁸.

Primary healthcare and hospital care have been kept free, as in the Soviet Union. Queues and access problems, however, have made the well-off spend a lot of their own money on healthcare. Per capita healthcare expenditure in 2023 was about ten times higher than in 2000.⁹ About 70% of this expenditure came from the state budget¹⁰.

Recently, on a trip to Russia, I met a woman from the countryside who had had knee surgery in St. Petersburg. It cost her nothing. She was very satisfied with the care she received.

Between 2000 and 2012, investments in roads and other infrastructure quadrupled¹¹. This made life easier, especially for people living in remote areas. These investments also increased the satisfaction of city dwellers.

A couple of years ago, I visited a family I knew living in a medium-sized Russian city. They were enthusiastically showing off the renovated parks and squares in the city center. The changes that pleased ordinary city dwellers had been brought about by a new governor. Unlike in many other Russian administrative regions, residents had been able to elect the governor. According to my acquaintances, the previous governor represented large-scale industry and did not want to invest in people's well-being. When I asked the family’s daughter, who is studying law, whether Russia is a democracy, she answered without hesitation in the affirmative. However, I heard that one of the reasons for the ouster of the representative of the oligarchs was that Putin openly supported the new candidate for governor.

Even if in this and many other similar cases the motivation had been love for the Russian people, as many citizens believe, it would not have been enough in the power struggle with the powerful oligarchs. When instead the discontent of the people can be presented as a security problem due to the intrigues of the West, the power of the capitalists can be successfully limited.

Western powers talk about democracy in Russia, but they do not mean a system that would fulfill the wishes of the majority of its citizens. Instead, they mean a pro-Western government that, like in the 1990s, would turn this vast Eurasian landmass into a playground for American and Western European corporations and banks. By creating a threat image that would use people's discontent as a tool for a coup, the West is unwittingly increasing democracy that fulfills the wishes of ordinary Russians.

1Valdas Anelauskas: Discovering America as it is (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 1999).

2Mark Luscombe: “Historical Income Tax Rates,” Wolter Kluvers , 29/04/2026, https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/whole-ball-of-tax-historical-income-tax-rates.

3Alex Carey: Taking the Risk out of Democracy, Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1997).

4https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule

5Scott Horton: Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine (Austin, TX: The Libertarian Institute, 2024), 47.

6Op.cit. 147.

7Bruno Tertrais: "After the Fall. Must We Prepare for the Breakup of Russia?", Institut Montaigne, 20/03/2023, https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/after-fall-must-we-prepare-breakup-russia; Anchal Vohra: "The West Is Preparing for Russia's Disintegration", Foreign Policy , 14 July 2023, https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/17/the-west-is-preparing-for-russias-disintegration/.