Vote for Capitalism!

Harutiun Surmenian currently spends his days in Pasadena, California. He spent many years of his life under the rule of the harsh Soviet Union, until he sought refuge in the land of opportunity. He faced many difficulties with his family their first few years in this country, but he is grateful for the opportunities this country has provided for him. His children are now successful in their fields of employment, and he enjoys a comfortable life at home, reading about history, listening to classical music, and occasionally travelling.

I am seventy years old and I was born in Bucharest, Romania. I graduated from Yerevan, Armenia's Polytechnic Institute in 1960 with a Master's Degree in electrical engineering. I am married to my wife Astghik for forty-five years now, and I have two wonderful children. I immigrated to the United States while the chain of events that would lead to the collapse were taking place. It's like coming from night to bright, sunny day. The difference is very big, extremely big.

The main reason that the USSR collapsed was because of its own system. The system was wrong. And, just as a building you build with the wrong foundation, sooner or later it will collapse. The system was built in one party's dictatorship, centralized economy, and of course, all that contributed to the very slow advance of society.

The Soviet Union's economy was developed as a centralized economy, and economically republics were related to each other. After the collapse the economy also did because their ties broke, so they couldn't continue their industrial output, they couldn't produce, they couldn't continue their normal life. Besides, there were internal conflicts in each republic. Everything surfaced, so political collapse plus the industrial collapse contributed to the collapse of the entire society.

After the collapse, Russia faced many unexpected problems. Twenty-five percent of the population moved below the poverty line, life expectancy and birthrates dropped, and the gross domestic product was halved. A series of crises in the 1990's nearly led to the election of communist Gennady Zyuganov. Still we cannot say that Russia is one hundred percent democratic. But the democratic forces in Russia, they were very powerful, and they tried to establish democratic rules and system in Russia. I would like to say that if we use some figures, sixty or almost seventy percent of the system is democratic and the rest is non-democratic because it is hard to say that in ten, fifteen years, everybody can be changed. There is a psychological impact, old-timers still are in power, and of course, the new generation doesn't express itself fully.

Russia can still be considered a world superpower. Russia has a big population at the present time, over one hundred forty-five million, it's a very rich country, and also, of course, they have developed a military system. And they maintain their nuclear capabilities. They have their say in world's politics. But the rest of he republics are not numerous. The population is not numerous like in Russia, except Ukraine. The other republics cannot become superpowers because population-wise they are very small, and very not significant, except a couple of them with big natural resources, but none of them can play a significant role in worldwide politics and also, in my opinion, in regional politics.

The other socialist countries in Europe; all of them relied on Soviet Union. They were supported militarily and even economically by the Soviet Union. But as Soviet Union system showed signs of cracks, immediately we felt and witnessed the same thing in Eastern Europe. Let's talk about Solidarity system in Poland. Then Berlin Wall collapsed, then Chowchesku was executed, and, of course, there was a chain reaction and one country after another country very soon got rid of their previous regimes. There was immediate and very close relationship between collapse of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Socialist systems in Eastern European countries.

If the former republics of the Soviet Union move in a democratic direction, in a decade or two, in my opinion, they can become a part of he rest of the democratic world. Otherwise, if they continue to be ruled by strong hands of single persons, like what is happening now in Uzbekistan, in Turkmenistan, in Azerbaijan, and other countries, that will keep slow the democratic reforms and will require long time until these countries will achieve the satisfactory goal of their development.

In the Communist system, you don't have freedom of speech, you don't have freedom of activities, and you don't have freedom of thinking and expressing yourself. But in the Capitalist system, you have all those freedoms. The Capitalist system gives you the opportunity to express yourself, to express your abilities, and work hard to achieve your goals.

When you have freedom of acting, and freedom to express your own abilities -- to use them for benefit of the society -- without any control from the top, you can contribute to the advance of the society, which wasn't part of the Communist regime. The Communist regime controlled everything and everything was supposed to be done in their way. I have no doubt that the freedom of the United States is directly related to the prosperity of the country.