Our theories are sound but the locals are too rotten for our high minded theories
This isn't racism, this is realism. To use a simple example, America is full of all-you-can-eat buffets, but if you tried to pull a business like this off immediately after the fall of the soviet union, your restaurant would crash and burn. As a novelty, everyone in town would try to "game" it in Russia, until you adjust the written rules to the point where it isn't an all-you-can-eat anymore. I don't even think people would do it because they're particularly hungry, but because they're used to gaming the system every chance they get.
Russia has a multigenerational culture of bribes and gaming the system. You can never root that out in a few years - it takes many decades of very carefully constructed policies to root that out. Just look up the history of early Russian immigration waves to the U.S., and see the kind of scams the Russians pulled here that Americans would never consider pulling en masse (adding water to gas in the gas stations, car and health insurance scams, etc.)
I wouldn't blame Russians - this is a simple adaptation that was required to survive in Russia/USSR for so long. People adapt, and Americans would, too. You were just lucky to have no tzars, no WW on your territory, and, the most important point - no communism.
Communism degrades social trust, in Poland before the WWII we had very cultured and organised population, people were helping each other, etc. We had regained independence after over 100 years.
Even 5 years into the WWII, there were uprising in Warsaw, many young people died for Poland, others were fighting in the England, Italy, on the far east.
In the first 10 years of communism everybody that were active as partisant during the war were either in the jail, killed, has escaped from the country, or vere hiding in the forests. Then, communistic gov said if the remains of Armia Krajowa uncover, there will be now more killing. And of course they lied, like many times before and after that.
After 45 years of communism people in Poland still don't trust each other. People are still gaming the system, current gov aren't helping, at least they are elected in honest elections. Regaining the trust of the people is work for many years, and without the trust gov can do anything with the people.
I think in Russia it has to be even worse - they had communism for much longer, and before that they had just as corrupt system, only less deadly.
"in Poland before the WWII we had very cultured and organised population, people were helping each other, etc"
Poland before WWII was an ethnically fractured state whose population consisted mainly of impoverished peasants. The political system had collapsed into a rightist dictatorship only a few years after independence.
Only the horrific subsequent history of the country makes it possible to look back on this period with any kind of nostalgia.
I'm not suggesting the Russians are to blame, or that there is some genetic aspect to it, or any nonsense like that. I'm merely pointing out that it's not racism, it's a valid phenomenon. Mentality matters a whole lot.
@idlewords:
yes, you are right, also there were big differencies between parts of Poland from Russia, Germany, and Austria.
But my point was - social trust level was very high - in 1920 we have won war with ussr, we have had almost 1 million army made mainly from volunteers, there were many socal iniciatives helping people, etc.
That athmosphere was lost during communism.
PS I agree that Piłsudski regime that come later was bad for Poland.
Communism ended twenty years ago. Blaming it for any aspect of today's Russia would like blaming the Tsar in 1937, which Communists actually did, BTW :-)
Consequences of past events or situations are felt for a long time through the mechanism of culture - which acts as a sort of collective societal memory. People who have not lived the traumatic situations assimilate their teachings through culture.
Blaming Tsar's influence and Communism is perfectly reasonable, just as blaming HDR or McCarthy's heritage in the US.
This isn't racism, this is realism. To use a simple example, America is full of all-you-can-eat buffets, but if you tried to pull a business like this off immediately after the fall of the soviet union, your restaurant would crash and burn. As a novelty, everyone in town would try to "game" it in Russia, until you adjust the written rules to the point where it isn't an all-you-can-eat anymore. I don't even think people would do it because they're particularly hungry, but because they're used to gaming the system every chance they get.
Russia has a multigenerational culture of bribes and gaming the system. You can never root that out in a few years - it takes many decades of very carefully constructed policies to root that out. Just look up the history of early Russian immigration waves to the U.S., and see the kind of scams the Russians pulled here that Americans would never consider pulling en masse (adding water to gas in the gas stations, car and health insurance scams, etc.)