Fall of Communism and Rise of Democracy

At 66 years old, Harout Davtyan still walks about busily and in his spare time works with his hands to make things out of wood.  Born in the Soviet Union, he lived there with his family until 1992, when he came to America.  Back in the Soviet Union, he worked as a teacher for almost 30 years.  He witnessed the fall of the Soviet Union and communism first hand and saw the incline of democracy throughout the world.  My interview with him taught me a great deal about socialism and enlightened me about the Soviet Union.  What he had to say was important because it gave a first hand account of a time of great change.

I emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1992 when something unbelievable happened.  In the world where there were two major political systems, socialism and capitalism, nobody could predict that socialism was going to collapse that soon.  The people in the soviet countries weren’t ready for the upcoming changes, economically, politically.  What happened was a surprise for everybody.  People had no idea about capitalism, what capitalism was and how they were going to continue their lives.  And many questions stood out and opinions varied.  First of all, the system collapsed because of lack of modern technology.  All 16 Soviet Republics lived by rudimentary means and the non-producing population survived relying on country’s existing resources only.  As a result the system collapsed. The country where we lived, which lasted 80 years, had advantages and disadvantages.  The general education was high.  Students from early elementary age up to different institutions were knowledgeable.  Another good thing was that everybody had his or her job, though they were getting little salary, the work was enough.  The disadvantages for the system were the secretive ideological aspects, which the people were unaware of.  We did not know that outside of our country were others who lived better lives than us and we thought socialism was the best political system and we lived better than everybody else in the world.  That was our ideology.  Which was false and brought us the collapse of the system, where everything was only written, nothing practical. The relationship between people in our country was warmer because of relative financial and economical equality; low general living standards, minimum income, and lack of competition.  There was limited freedom but a lot of us never enjoyed it because of dictatorial internal regulations and policies.  The collapse of socialism deeply affected the rest of the world.  First of all, the balance, which existed between socialism and capitalistic systems, disappeared.  The countries that were sympathetic to socialism were getting political and economical assistance from the Soviet Union on the expense of the soviet people, for example Cuba.  Smaller countries that were getting support from the Soviet Union had to be supported by other world powers such as United States and other European countries after the fall of the Soviet Union.  Even the collapse of socialism deeply affected the leading country of the soviet system, Russia.

After the collapse Armenians could create our own educational and cultural system.  We had good schools, colleges and universities, academies of sciences, and proved we were an intellectual nation.  But the collapse of the system caught us off guard.  It was hard for us to figure out in a short stretch of time what direction to follow and what kind of changes to do and in about 10 years, the nation was faced with enormous difficulties.  Economic difficulties and joblessness created enormous problems for the population of the country.  The country was in economic blockade by neighboring Azerbaijan and Turkey.  We were isolated from the external world.  [In the beginning] small and medium size businesses were established to create new type of economy.  We had to realize that these changes were new experience for us and we had to make the right decisions on how to implement the new ideas of business as a concept, because in socialism, there was no private sector. Slowly but surely, we got used to the new reality, international organizations were enormously instrumental in research and organization of a new type of private economy in our country, which proved to be better than government controlling the economy.  And we finally realized that we were going through the first steps of the organization of a new democratic country with economical and political systems.  Corruption still existed.  The corruption was in the secretive infrastructure of socialism and the regular population was unaware of it.  During the democratization of the political system, we learned about corruption when we discovered the outside world, their political systems, economy, lifestyle, and freedom.  Political and economical changes deeply affected the culture of work habits and lifestyles.  The government of Armenia had adopted new laws, rules, and regulations to fight against corruption that deeply affects economic and political systems of our society.  We must follow example of the well-developed countries like the United States, which has well-established political, economical, and social relations.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and international socialism triggered mass exodus of the population from socialist countries.  This phenomenon created a huge economic and social hardship for hosting countries.  Being unable to cope with economic and political difficulties of their own countries, many people of the Soviet Union immigrated into Europe and United States.  After the Second World War, the Allies divided Germany and Berlin between east and west.  I think that separation of one nation was politically wrong and the decision of Michael Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Soviet Union was correct to reunite East and West Germany and create one united country.  My countrymen and I were closely following the events and the fall of the Berlin wall, which I consider was a great event of that century which left us tearful, Armenians in particular, who were divided and separated in the course of wars and historic events.

The people in the Soviet Union were taught the ideology of communism.  But starting from 1980’s, people of the Soviet Union were able to travel outside the country for different reasons and see and socialize with the people of foreign countries.  They realized the fundamental differences of existing political systems and understood that the ideas of socialism and communism as a whole were unrealistic.  I personally had opportunity to travel to four of five European countries and closely study the lifestyle of foreign countries and millions of people like me saw the fundamental differences of existing political systems and departed from the ideas of communism.  In order to have a democratic country, it’s very important to create a democratic mentality among the population, especially in early childhood.  As a retired teacher I deeply believe that proper education of young generation is key element of creation of a democratic country.  For creation of a democratic country, we must have freedom in every area of our lives, and the elected authorities must be moral and responsible.