标题: [转帖] [2011.09.10] The mood of Russia: Time to shove off 咱该滚了 [打印本页] 作者: showcraft 时间: 2011-9-18 09:37 标题: [2011.09.10] The mood of Russia: Time to shove off 咱该滚了
The Soviet Union was undermined by stagnation and a sense of hopelessness. Is the same thing happening again?
昔日经济滞胀和绝望情绪动摇了苏联的根基，而今是否昨日重现？
Sep 10th 2011 | MOSCOW | from The Economist print edition
IN 2000 a group of young Russians, just back from their studies in America, started the website WelcomeHome. Ru. “Life in Russia is becoming more normal. It is possible to live here, make a career and bring up children. Many of those who had left have come home. We are among them,” the site read. It was a typical reaction by young Russian professionals to the growth, opportunities and promise of stability from Vladimir Putin, the new president. Soon, after years of capital flight, money started to flow back into Russia.
千禧年之际，数位留美归国的俄罗斯青年创建了一个域名为WelcomeHome. Ru.（意为“欢迎回家”）的网站，其上写着：俄罗斯的生活趋于正常，人们可以在此休养生息、开创事业、抚育后代；我们，连同众多游子一道，已经回乡。这是俄年轻俊才对于上升的经济态势、增长的就业机会和新总统普京就社会稳定的承诺所作出的典型回应。在经历数载资本外逃后，资金很快向俄罗斯回流。
Twelve years later, as Mr Putin appears to be preparing to retake his presidential office for another 12 years, the mood is starkly different. WelcomeHome.ru is dead. Instead, a new popular blog has sprung up on a Russian social network. It is called “Pora valit”, which means roughly “Time to shove off”. Its few thousand users exchange stories about how best to leave Russia. The blog’s title sums up perfectly the mood among Russia’s urban and educated class.
然而十二年后，正值普京有意重回总统办公室再执政十二年时，俄民众的反应已全然不同。“欢迎回家”的网站早已关闭，取而代之的是一个新兴的、颇受欢迎的博客正在社交网络上迅速壮大——“Pora valit”，意为“咱该滚了”。数千名用户在该平台上交流离俄的最好方法，博客的名字极好的概括了俄城市及受教育阶层的情绪。
Emigration is the talk of the town. Dmitri Bykov, a popular and prolific author, dedicated a recent weekly feuilleton to the flight of money and people and the travelling ban imposed briefly on two opposition politicians, Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov. The Soviet government punished dissidents by expelling them, Mr Bykov quipped. “Now they punish them by keeping them in.”
移民是街谈巷议的话题。家喻户晓、著作等身的德米特里·贝科夫在最新一期的《通俗小说》（feuilleton ）周刊上专述了资金外逃、人口外流以及加诸于两位反对派政治家鲍里斯·涅姆佐夫（Boris Nemtsov）和弗拉基米尔·米洛夫(Vladimir Milov)的出行禁令。苏维埃政府曾以驱逐出境作为对异见人士的惩罚，“现在改成禁止出境了”贝科夫打趣道。
A recent opinion poll by the Levada Centre shows that 22% of Russia’s adult population would like to leave the country for good. This is a more than threefold increase from four years ago, when only 7% were considering it. It is the highest figure since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when only 18% said they wanted to get out. Those who are eager to leave are not the poor and desperate. On the contrary, most are entrepreneurs and students.
近日，勒瓦达中心（Levada Centre）主持的一项民意测验显示，俄成年人口中22%有意永远离开自己的祖国，这一数字高出四年前的7%三倍还要多，达到苏联解体后的峰值——即使那时也只有18%的人口有意离境。这些人并非身陷贫穷和绝望之中，正相反，他们中大多数人是企业家或学生。
The Levada Centre recently conducted a survey of people aged 25-39 living in large cities and earning five-to-ten times the average income in Russia. Almost a third would like to emigrate permanently. They are not dissidents or romantics. Half say they have no interest in politics, a third are Kremlin supporters, most work in the private sector and have done well over the past decade. “These are not just people who would like to leave Russia, but people who have the means to do so,” says Lev Gudkov, the head of the Levada Centre.
勒瓦达中心近日针对年龄在25至39岁、生活在大城市、收入高出平均水平5至10倍的人口展开了一项调查，调查显示近三分之一的受访者有意永久移民。他们并非胸怀不同政见或难舍浪漫情怀：半数的受访者表示对政治毫无兴趣，三分之一受访者是克林姆林宫现行政府的支持者，他们中大多数人在私企工作且过去十年业绩丰厚。“这些人不仅有离开俄罗斯的想法，而且也有这个条件”勒瓦达中心的主席列夫·古德考夫（Lev Gudkov）表示。
These figures do not necessarily indicate a brain drain. Mr Gudkov, who has been measuring Russia’s emigration over the past 20 years, says the number of people who will actually leave is probably small. Among the young and well-off, only 6% have filed for a visa, are negotiating a contract or have applied to study abroad. (Though, given Russia’s unfavourable economic and social trends, it can ill afford to lose even a small number of its best educated young people.) What these figures really show is a startling level of frustration with the state of the country. “This is a cardiogram of Russian society,” says Mr Gudkov. If so, things are going badly.
不过以上数据并不意味着人才流失已成定局。古德考夫在过去二十年持续测算俄罗斯的移民情况，他表示真正把离境的想法付诸实践的人其实很少。青年和富者当中，真正申请出国的只有6%，且是为了洽谈生意或完成学业。但是在经济和社会走向不近人意的背景下，纵使比例再小，俄罗斯也承受不了失去受过精英教育的年轻人才。这些数据反映了国民对国家现状失望非常。“这是俄罗斯社会的心电图”，古德考夫如是说。若真是如此，情况就大为不妙了。
The suitcase syndrome
手提箱综合征
In some ways, the urge to leave now may seem odd. Mr Gudkov says that what he calls the “suitcase mood” usually spikes either in anticipation of a crisis or just after one. After the financial crisis in 1998, for example, his emigration indicator went up to 21%. Devaluation and default had wiped out savings and Boris Yeltsin had fired his government, raising fears of an unstable succession. But now the succession is in no doubt. Mr Putin will remain in power for the foreseeable future. And even if, by chance, Dimitry Medvedev, the present president, is allowed to stay on in his post, the current regime will continue in some form or another.
从某些角度来看，俄民众现在迫切离境的情绪是很奇怪的。古德考夫表示这种他称之为“手提箱情绪”的情况通常在经济危机前期或后期滋生。如1998年亚洲金融危机后，他的移民标尺上升至21%。货币贬值和债务拖欠让国家的存款化为乌有，鲍里斯·叶利钦（Boris Yeltsin）解散政府之举加剧了民众对不明了选局的恐惧情绪。但是现在总统的交接毫无疑问，普京在可预见的未来将持续掌权，就算现任总统梅德韦杰夫偶获连任，现行的政体也会以这样或那样的形式延续下去。
The economy also shows no sign of immediate distress. After the 2008 financial crisis, which hit Russia harder than most countries, output bounced back and is now growing at between 4% and 5% a year: not as fast as in the mid-2000s, but certainly no worse than in many other emerging markets, including Brazil. The oil price is 1.5 times higher than it was in 2007, the peak of general optimism; inflation is heading down; employment is up and consumption is robust. Evgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika, a Russian investment bank, calls it “a good muddling through”.
俄罗斯当前没有经济拮据的迹象。2008年金融危机对俄的打击尤为严重，危机后生产得到反弹，现以每年4-5%的速度持续增长——虽然增速不及2005年，但是并不逊色于包括巴西在内的其他新兴市场；油价是2007年的1.5倍，达到预期峰值，通货膨胀加剧，失业率上升，消费力强劲。俄最大最古老的投资银行Troika Dialog首席经济学家叶甫根尼·加夫里连科(Evgeny Gavrilenkov)称其“还算不错的应付过去了”。
Yet, despite this, people and firms are taking money out of Russia. Last year the net outflow was $34 billion (see chart). Some of the capital flight, Mr Gavrilenkov says, can be attributed to the unexpected windfall from higher energy prices: unable to invest everything at short notice domestically, energy firms are parking it abroad. But a lot of capital is leaving the country in small sums and can only be attributed to individual transfers. Soaring sales of mid-price properties to Russian buyers in Europe confirm the trend.
然而民众和公司正不断将资金带离俄罗斯，去年资本外流净额为340亿美元（见表）。加夫里连科表示资金外逃部分归因于攀升的能源价格带来的意外之财，能源公司无法在国内进行短期投资，就把目光转向国外。大量资金以个人转账的小额形式离境。欧洲国家中等价格房产市场上激增的俄国买家证实了这一趋势。
So while the sense of acute crisis has gone, it has been replaced by a feeling of stagnation. Mr Gavrilenkov, one of Russia’s more optimistic analysts, argues that the economy is in a better state than people think—for the moment. “Things can go on like this for another two years. Maybe three. But then…”
比起严重的金融危机，人们感受日益强烈的是经济的滞涨。就连以乐观著称的分析师加夫里连科也表示，短期来看，目前的经济情况比人们认想象的要好，“这种情况能持续个两三年，但是那之后嘛……”
Misusing oil
原油的误用
Russia’s most immediate vulnerability is its growing dependence on energy. During Mr Putin’s rule the share of oil and gas in Russia’s export revenues has gone up from half to two-thirds. This increase is almost entirely due to higher prices rather than growing production. The budget depends on them. Five years ago Russia needed $50-a-barrel oil in order to balance its budget. Next year the price will have to be $120 to meet its spending obligations. The current price is $113 a barrel. As Russia gets closer to elections, its budget expenditure (which is already growing by more than 10% a year) is bound to increase.
摆在俄面前的问题是其对能源与日俱增的依赖性。普京执政期间，原油天然气在出口总额中的比例从二分之一上升至三分之二，这几乎完全仰赖价格的提高而非产量的提升。预算全靠能源销售：五年前俄罗斯需要原油每桶售价五十美元以平衡其预算；而2012年为满足预算这一价格需涨至每桶120美元（目前价格为每桶113美元）。随着俄大选临近，预算支出势必增长，而目前的涨幅已经超过每年10%。
The fact that Russia has a lot of oil to export is not a problem in itself; as Clifford Gaddy of the Brookings Institution has argued, it ensures a competitive advantage. The problem is the country’s addiction to it, and its misuse of oil revenue. Instead of investing in human capital—such as better schools and hospitals—and modernising the oil and gas industry, Russia has used the money to perpetuate the inefficient structure of the Soviet economy in exchange for political support. Instead of encouraging people to look for newer opportunities, Russia ties them down with handouts to dinosaur enterprises and one-company towns.
俄罗斯的问题不是在于拥有大量可以出口的原油，正如布鲁金斯学会（Brookings Institution）的俄罗斯问题专家科利福德·盖狄（Clifford Gaddy）指出，这确保了竞争优势；而是在于这个国家沉醉其中并误用其原油收入。为换取政治支持，俄政府将资金用以维持效率低下的苏维埃经济，而非用以投资诸如修缮学校、医院等人力资本，或用以更新原油天然气产业。比起鼓励民众寻求新的机遇，政府将他们束缚在赠予过时企业和地头蛇企业的施舍物上。
A good example is the case of Avtovaz, maker of the Lada car. After the 2008 crisis, Mr Putin should probably have let the ailing company go bust. It simply could not compete with the new models being produced elsewhere, especially in Japan. Instead, Mr Putin gave Avtovaz more than $1 billion and shielded the company from foreign competition. Since Avtovaz employs 70,000 people directly, and millions of parts-suppliers and car-dealers rely on it, the prime minister’s investment is expected to pay off on election day. Asked who should be Russia’s next president, Igor Komarov, the plant’s boss, replied: “If you weigh up who has helped us in our hardest time, the answer is obvious: Mr Putin.”
拉达汽车的制造商奥托瓦兹(Avtovaz)就是个恰如其分的例子。2008年金融危机后，奥托瓦兹的产品完全无力与其他国家（尤其是日本）生产的新式汽车相竞争，普京本该让这家病多体衰的公司关门大吉，相反却拨款十多亿美元并保护公司规避国际竞争。因为奥托瓦兹直接雇员即七万名，还有数以百万计的零件供应商和汽车经销商依附于此，总理的投资旨在未来大选时得到回报。当该公司首席执行官伊戈尔·科马洛夫（Igor Komarov）被问及下任总统席位当属谁人时，他答道“只要掂量一下谁曾在我们最困难的时期伸出援手，就知普京先生理应当选。”
Mr Putin’s rule, however, is far from being as beneficent as it seems. Throughout most of his vaunted “period of stability”, disposable income and retail-trade volumes have grown twice as fast as GDP. In the 2000s soaring consumption translated into economic growth, but this was largely achieved by using up the spare capacity of Soviet assets and underinvesting in new industries and infrastructure. A study commissioned by the World Bank in 2007—a year before the crisis—revealed that only 5% of firms were created or destroyed in the decade of high growth. In a healthy market economy the rate is much higher, sometimes approaching 20%.
然而普京政府并非表面看来那样益处多多。在他所吹嘘的“稳定时期”的大部分时间里，虽然可支配收入和零售业额增长速度是国民生产总值（GDP）的两倍，但这大部分要归功于耗尽苏联遗留下的资产和对新产业及基础设施的开发不足。世界银行2007年（金融危机的前一年）进行的一项研究表明：在经济高速发展的十年间，俄仅有5%的公司新建或倒闭，而在健康的市场经济中，这一数字要高得多——有时甚至接近20%。
As a result, Russia now lacks capacity for strong economic growth. The continued increase in consumption, backed by a high oil price, has led to an astonishing increase in imports (up 40% a year), but it no longer stimulates the domestic economy. Such stimulus can come only from a boost in productivity and investment.
由此可知，俄现在缺乏的是经济长足增长的能力。在高原油价格的支撑下，消费的持续增长导致了进口额惊人的攀升——每年涨幅为40%，但是这种增长已不能刺激国内经济，经济的提振只能通过发展生产力或加大投资力度。
Fresh investment, both foreign and domestic, is deterred by Russia’s poor business climate, which shows little sign of changing. When Walmart tried to buy a retail chain there—a three-year flirtation that eventually ended last year—it was apparently fobbed off by bureaucrats who, according to a source familiar with the negotiations, “did not want another whiner like Ikea, which had exposed corruption.”
国内外的新进投资受到俄恶劣商业环境的阻碍，而这一环境却无改善迹象。沃尔玛曾试图在俄收购零售链，这一一时兴起的动作持续了三年直至去年才落下帷幕，据熟悉谈判人士称，显然是有官员搪塞，理由是“不想再招来个宜家那样被爆行贿哭哭啼啼的主。”
Not for a sack of gold
技术人才不差钱
That corruption crushes the prospects of active and talented people. The rent-seeking behaviour of Russia’s rulers, who control the money and the levers of repression, stifles competition. Many of the elite have backgrounds in the security services; their instinct is to raid, grab and control, rather than create and compete. The occasional firing of high-ranking officials such as the former mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, leads not to a change in the system but to the simple redistribution of cash flow.
行贿事件粉碎了那些极富行动力、创造力人士的前景。俄高层手握资金和杠杆的双重大权，他们的权力寻租扼杀了公平竞争。佼佼者们多有安保常识，直觉告诉他们要出其不意、提纲衔领、进而掌控全局，而非创造发明和公平竞争。高官不时被免职的局面（如前莫斯科市长尤里·卢日科夫（Yuri Luzhkov））造成了变动只存在于简单的资金再分配而非整个体系的改良。
Investing in innovation and raising productivity makes little sense when your well-connected competitor can hire the tax police and prosecution service to force you out of business. As Dmitry Kamenshchik, owner of Moscow’s Domodedovo airport (now being eyed by state-backed competitors), says wryly: “Like anyone else I don’t know whether I will be sent to prison or not. We are all citizens of the Russian Federation and live under the Russian criminal code.”
如果竞争的一方人脉丰富，能雇佣税务警察和公诉人员迫使另一方离开市场，那么针对创新和提高生产力的投资就没什么意义了。莫斯科多莫杰多沃机场主德米特里·卡门史切克先生（Dmitry Kamenshchik）讽刺道：“我们谁都不知道自己会不会去蹲大牢，我们是俄联邦的子民，依照刑法做事。”
Mr Medvedev has a grand plan to create a Silicon Valley in Skolkovo, a special zone outside Moscow, and is bringing in Cisco, an internet-services giant, as a flagship firm. But this will do nothing to free up competition or make Russia an attractive place to do business. When two Russian physicists who live and work in Britain won a Nobel prize last year they were asked to come and work in Skolkovo. “You must have all gone mad over there if you think that for a sack of gold you can invite anyone,” Andre Geim replied. The fact that Russian scientists want to work abroad is not a problem in itself; large numbers of Chinese scientists do the same. The problem is that so few want to return. According to the World Bank, 77% of Russian science and engineering students studying in America will never come back.
梅德韦杰夫提出在莫斯科郊外斯科尔科沃（Skolkovo）打造俄版“硅谷”的宏伟计划，以旗舰店形式引入网络服务巨头思科公司（Cisco），但这一举措对自由竞争和吸引外商并无用处。去年，两位在英国生活工作的俄物理学家荣获诺贝尔奖，当俄方邀请他们回到斯科尔科沃工作，安德烈·盖姆（Andre Geim）答道“你们要是以为凭金钱就能请到任何人那真是脑袋有问题。”事实上俄科学家想要在国外工作本身并不是问题所在——中国很多科学家也是如此——真正的问题在于很少有人愿意回来。世界银行数据显示，俄留美的理工科学生中77%永不回国。
In the past, Russian entrepreneurs were prepared to put up with bad institutions and corruption because of high returns. Now that the rewards are smaller and the appetites and impudence of bureaucrats greater, large Russian firms are reducing the domestic sector of their business to a minimum, while smaller ones are looking to sell up. A recent survey by Campden Media and UBS, a bank, of 19 Russian businessmen with a personal wealth of more than $50m and a turnover of $100m showed that 88% had moved their personal wealth abroad and were prepared to sell their companies. Few planned to pass their businesses on to their offspring, which is hardly surprising, since most children of the rich and powerful are now ensconced in the West. Parents send their children abroad not to learn to run their businesses more efficiently, but so they never have to come back.
过去俄罗斯的企业家为了高回报只得忍受不良机构和行贿受贿，现在回报缩水了而腐败官员的胃口却更大、更放肆。大型公司正在把国内业务量削减至最低，而较小的公司正在寻求出盘。瑞士银行和总部设在伦敦的商业媒体Campden Media一项近期的调查显示，个人资产超过五千万美元、流动资产超过一亿美元的19位俄商中，88%已将个人资产转移至国外，且准备出售公司；个别计划把业务过户给自己的后代——这也不足为奇，要知道大部分富二代和官二代都已在西方国家安家落户。父母把儿女送出国不是要他们学习更优的经营之道，而是让他们能够永久移民。
A future amputated
断层了的未来
All this is breeding a sense of stagnation that compounds the glum mood of the middle class. It is not fear of impoverishment or unemployment that makes people think of emigrating, as in many other countries, nor the threat of instability or revolution, which have forced out Russians in the past. People want to leave because they feel there is nothing more for them in Russia. The sense of a future has been amputated. According to the Levada Centre, three-quarters of Russians do not plan more than two years ahead; only 3% plan more than ten years ahead. The degradation of infrastructure, institutions and, most important, human capital, creates a desire to tune out of it all.
这一切让人们更感经济滞涨，并加重了中产阶级的沉闷情绪。俄民众想要移民并不是像其他国家那样出于对贫穷和失业的恐惧，也不是出于过去曾迫使人们离开的动荡和革命的威胁；而是出于留俄并不会有更好的发展、更辽阔的未来的感受。勒瓦达中心调查显示，四分之三的俄罗斯人民对两年以后的生活没有计划，仅有3%的人有超过十年的长期计划。基础设施、公共机构和人力资本（这也是最重要的）的老化，让人们想把这一切撇开不管。
Those who want to go abroad often have higher material standards of living than their peers in the West. They are looking for things they cannot buy: recognition of achievements, protection of property rights, physical safety, a functioning health service, a proper education for their children. They want to live a life which does not involve paying bribes, or losing one’s business for political reasons, or being jailed at the whim of a corrupt bureaucrat.
一般来说，比西方同龄人，那些想要出国的人有更高的生活标准，他们所寻求的是金钱买不来的东西：自身成就的认同感、财产权的保护、人身安全、有效的医疗服务和适宜子女的教育。他们想要的生活是不需要行贿、不会因为政治因素失去工作、也不会因为腐败官员的心血来潮而被关进监狱。
The story of Sergei Magnitsky looms large in the minds of professionals. Mr Magnitsky, a successful corporate lawyer, blew the whistle on a big corruption scheme run by a group of police investigators, only to be put in jail and hounded to death by the same policemen. The government failed to investigate the accusations, and is still covering up the circumstances of Mr Magnitsky’s death.
沙格·麦尼特斯基（Sergei Magnitsky）的遭遇在专业人才的心中久久挥之不去。曼尼特斯基是一位成功的公司律师，因为揭发警方调查人员的惊天贪污阴谋，最终被这些人关进监狱折磨致死。然而政府并没能对各项指控展开调查，且一直隐瞒麦尼特斯基的死讯。
Unenraptured with Putin
普京复位 狂喜不再
The feeling that nothing will change, improve or open up is exacerbated by the likelihood of Mr Putin’s return as president. His restoration will be largely symbolic, since he never let power shift out of his hands. But it does, nevertheless, symbolise a reversal, rather than a forward movement.
普京重回总统席位的可能性加重了人们的看法，即俄罗斯将会一成不变，不会更强大也不会更开放。复位有着重大的象征意义，尽管普京从不让权力流出他的掌心，但无独有偶，权力还是会外流，而这象征的不是进步而是后退。
And the roots of unhappiness go much deeper. After the collapse of the Soviet empire, the country was left without a clear sense of purpose or destiny. After seven decades of trying to set up Utopia, Russia’s only aim in the 1990s was to become a normal, civilised state. But two wars in Chechnya and the destruction of Yukos, Russia’s most successful oil company, in 2003 put an end to that hope.
民众郁郁寡欢的情绪与日俱增。在苏维埃帝国土崩瓦解后，这个国家的目标和命运变得模糊不清。历经七十年向乌托邦看齐的努力，上世纪90年代俄罗斯的目标只是成为正常的文明国家，然而在经历了两次车臣战争和本土最为成功的尤科斯（Yukos）石油公司的衰败后，2003年这一希望终于化作泡影。
Mr Putin has stirred and exploited the country’s nostalgia for its Soviet past. But the narrative of resurgence and restoration was combined with contempt for ordinary Russians who, in the view of the Kremlin’s rulers, were not ready for democracy. The double-digit growth of incomes masked problems for a while, but when growth slowed down stability turned into immoveability.
普京一直在激发和调动民众对苏联时期的怀念之情。然而伴随其卷土重来复位在即的是克林姆林宫的统治者们对民众轻视，他们认为俄普通民众还不需要民主。两位数的收入增长也许能把诸多问题遮掩一时半会，但当增长放缓时，所谓的稳定局面就会成为死水一潭。
In some ways, says Vladimir Mau, Russia’s leading economic historian, Russia’s situation is similar to that of the Soviet Union in the 1970s and early 1980s, the “era of stagnation (zastoi)”, after a thaw in the 1960s. Then, too, the oil price was high and consumption rising, but the country was consumed by a sense of hopelessness. Life was reasonably comfortable for the well-educated, but social mobility was blocked by party apparatchiks. The gap between expectations and reality was unbridgeable. When the oil price fell, food shortages and fury at the privileges of the elite became catalysts for change.
俄知名经济学家乌拉基米尔·茂(Vladimir Mau)表示从某些方面来看，俄罗斯的现状和苏联在经历20世纪60年代经济的短期复苏后，70年代及80年代初的“滞涨时期”有相似之处。那时原油的价格也很高且消费持续攀升，但是整个国家却笼罩在无望的情绪当中。对于受过良好教育的人来说生活是安逸的，但是社会的流动性却被党政官员堵死，期待和现实之间的鸿沟不可逾越。当原油价格下跌时，普通民众食品短缺的境遇和对享有特权人士的怒火成为了革命的催化剂。
Russia’s economy is more flexible than the Soviet one was, but frustration with the unfairness of the system is no less strong. Shortages of goods have been replaced by lack of property rights; the humiliation of queueing for meat has been replaced by the humiliation of being milked by bureaucrats. Most important, the gap between rhetoric and reality is just as wide. The question is whether Russia’s middle class, whose demands and expectations exceed the capacity of the system, can play the same role as the relatively affluent Soviet intelligentsia who helped to sweep away the Soviet Union.
眼下俄罗斯的经济状况比苏联时期要灵活的多，但是民众对体制不公的失望情绪却与那时不相上下。产权保护的匮乏替代了食物商品的短缺，官员压榨的屈辱替代了排队领食的羞辱，更严重的是，民众悲惨暗淡的现实与政客豪言壮语的承诺依旧相去甚远。唯一不同的就是现在的俄中产阶级——他们的需求和期待远超出现行体系有力负担的——是否能扮演和过去一样的角色，与较为富足的苏维埃知识分子一起推翻苏联。
In the 1980s the intelligentsia believed that removing senile Communist apparatchiks would be enough to put the country on a path towards normality. Millions of young technocrats who faced spending the rest of their lives behind the Iron Curtain, unable to fulfil their ambitions, did not expect the Communist system to collapse; but when Mikhail Gorbachev started his reforms, they were a powerful force behind them.
80年代的知识分子曾相信推翻腐朽的共产主义党政官员就可以让国家重回正常的发展道路。数以百万计的青年技术人员在面临于铁幕后度过余身、无法实现人生抱负的境遇时，也并没有想要推翻共产主义体系，但是当米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫（Mikhail Gorbachev）开始推行改革时，他们马上成为中坚力量。
Today, Russian society as a whole is much more cynical and distrustful than it was in Soviet times. Aggression, hatred and nationalism have risen to levels not seen even after the Soviet collapse in the 1990s: 34% of Russians “want to shoot” those they blame for their troubles. As for the middle class, it is much less cohesive and idealistic. It is also less desperate. “They would rather exchange their country than change it,” says Mr Mau.
现如今，俄罗斯社会比那时要更加愤世嫉俗更加缺乏信任。即使是90年代苏联解体时，挑衅心理、仇恨情绪和民族主义也没有像现在这么强烈——34%的俄民众“想要枪杀”他们眼中麻烦的制造者。现在的中产阶级也远没有当时那么凝聚团结、理想主义，那么急切进取，茂表示“他们宁可更换国籍也不想改变祖国。”
The Kremlin undoubtedly likes things that way. It has learned from the mistakes of the Soviet Union, which raised levels of education and science to compete with America, but in the end created pressure from within the system that it could not contain. This is one reason why Mr Putin is so keen for Russia to have a visa-free travel arrangement with the rest of Europe. The other is that it would give the Russian elite unhindered access to their European properties.
这正好遂了克林姆林宫的心愿。苏联时期政府为与美国竞争大力发展教育科学，但最终在体制内部引起了难以控制的压力，现在的政府已经从这一错误中吸取了教训。这也是普京急切想要促成俄罗斯与欧洲其他国家免签证旅游计划的原因之一，另一原因是俄精英就能由此获得他们在欧洲财产的无障碍通道。
Yet it is important to remember that Russians are not going to emigrate in their millions. The overwhelming majority will stay at home, discontented. The big question is what will they do? Will their frustration be transformed into protest and an attempt to change things? Or will it simply be dissolved in the general conformism and cynicism which has been nurtured to such harmful effect over the past decade?
值得我们注意的是，俄民众并不会成百上千万的大规模移民，绝大多数人还是会心怀不满的留在国内。问题的关键就在于他们会做些什么。他们的失望不满能否转化为示威游行并试图改变现状？还是说这种情绪终将在墨守成规和犬儒主义中消磨殆尽？而后者在过去的十年已经给这个国家带去如此之多的负面影响。
The stagnation in the dying days of the Soviet Union was both more restrictive and more productive. Russia’s current stagnation is comfortable for most people, but also less promising. It may take a new generation to make fiercer demands on the system and force change. But what kind of change that will be, nobody knows.
与现在相比，苏联残存时期的经济滞涨范围更小，且创造的价值更多。对大多数人来说，现在的滞涨虽没有带来不适之感，但却让前景更加暗淡。也许要等三十年后，人们才会对体系需求更多，从而推进改革，但那时改革会是什么局面就很难说了。
