How Should Post-Soviet States Handle the Soviet Legacy?

The center piece of the central park of Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan, is a gigantic statue of Lenin, flanked by memorials to Soviet soldiers crowned with the classic hammer and the sickle.  Various government buildings in the city, leftover from their prior usage as regional administrative offices for the Soviet Union, are still marked with obvious Soviet insignias despite obvious attempts by the current Kyrgyz state to hide them under contemporary national symbols like the country's flag.

The half-hearted effort to rid the obvious presence of Soviet Legacy belies a certain level of nostalgia the country feels toward the past.  The Soviet days, for all the terror and inefficiencies, were times of economic and political stability.  The country today can hardly be characterized as such, as it is dependent upon remittances from migrant workers in Russia for economic survival, and plagued with continual bouts of ethnic violence between majority Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks.

Indeed, the Soviets should be given credit for the very idea of Kyrgyzstan.  Before the Soviet Union, there was little concept of nationhood and national boundaries.  The idea of Kyrgyz identity is in many ways a Soviet creation, cemented by separate founding of "autonomous republic" within the Soviet state.  Without Soviet Legacy, the Kyrgyz people would not exist in the same terms today, and surely there would not be an independent Kyrgyzstan that gained independence so matter-of-factly after Soviet collapse.

Yet, to celebrate the Soviet Union is a taboo in today's world.  Victory of the West in the Cold War meant that the Soviet Union's place in world history is defined to be that of an evil empire that oppressed minorities like the Kyrgyz.  The evil of the Soviets is evidenced plentifully by the many atrocities it committed against unruly non-Russians, from policy induced famines to outright massacres, to keep them in their place. To celebrate the Soviet Legacy, then, is also toxic for healthy development of Kyrgyz nationalism.

The dilemma is one faced by all Post-Soviet States to a certain extent.  On one hand, the institutions (and indeed, the political leaders ) that govern the state are complete leftovers from the Soviet Union.  To call the Soviets a failure risks decreasing the legitimacy of the modern state.  However, if Post-Soviet states were to make friends with the West (and they certainly have to now given Russia's political aggression and economic weakness), the Soviet past must be de-emphasized.

In some ways, Central Asian states are well on their way to finding a balance between the two sides.  On one hand, Soviet legacies are kept intact when they are not considered politically toxic.  Plenty of WWII memorials from the Soviet days remain in place to illustrate that non-Russians also contributed greatly and suffered much in the process of battling Nazi Germany.  The odd Lenin statues are also permissible given that the USSR founder did not have the time to kill many of his own citizens before he died.

On the other hand, plenty of new influences from non-Soviet areas are being adopted.  Looking at the streets of Bishkek or Almaty, one can easily see German car dealers, Korean cosmetic shops, Chinese cellphones, Italian restaurants, and American hotels.  As Russia's economic influence declines, plenty of other countries are filling in the vacuum.  Central Asians are embracing the products, services, and cultures from places that they could come in contact with in the Soviet days.

It does not mean the Soviet past or contemporary Russia will be completely eclipsed by others.  Russian remains the language of government and most young people can still speak it fluently (much more than they can speak English or any other foreign language).  Ethnic Russians still make up large percentages of local populations while locals continue to use traditional economic linkages to go work in Moscow or St. Petersburg.  In many ways, the Soviet Legacy is to be kept as it is when beneficial.