Monday, May 19, 2025
013 - At History’s End (Part III): Fukuyama and the Soviet Crossroads
In this episode, I continue my deep dive through Fukuyama’s “The End of History?” essay, particularly focusing on the contrast between the liberalization of the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, and the directions they were potentially heading.
Duration: 00:11:35
Episode Transcript
Foreword
This is the third installment of “At History’s End,” a subseries exploring the contextual underpinnings of the disposition and psyche of contemporary American politics and culture. If you’re just now listening in, you may want to consider starting from part one.
Previously, I began a deep dive into Fukuyama's essay, "The End of History," focusing on his discussion about Hegel and Kojève and their influence on his thesis; the influence of consciousness and culture with respect to the spread of Liberalism in different societies; and the case study of postwar Japan.
I also highlighted general points of interest from the essay, which I would like to continue doing in this episode.
Let’s begin.
Introduction
Good evening. You’re listening to the Reflections in Beige Podcast, hosted by Michael LeSane. The date is Sunday, May 18th, 2025.
Deng Xiaoping’s China
At the time the essay was written, the People’s Republic of China was, by Fukuyama’s estimate, no more than twenty percent marketized. He noted that unlike the Soviet Union, its governing entity – the Communist Party of China – had no parallel to Glasnost. It was more reserved in its criticisms of Mao Zedong thought and policy than the Soviet Union had been towards Joseph Stalin beginning during the tenure of Nikita Khrushchev.
Yet, despite paying continued lip service to Marxism-Leninism, Fukuyama observed that the technocrats at the helm in China were no longer guided by it, and that consumerism was beginning to take hold for the first time since the revolution.
China was managing its liberalization quite differently from the Soviet Union. Political reform was slow and dissent was suppressed. In Fukuyama’s words, quote:
End quote.
But Fukuyama remained optimistic. Pointing out that over twenty thousand Chinese students – overwhelmingly the children of Chinese elites – were studying abroad in Western countries, he believed that they would be dissatisfied with China being the major exception as the world trended towards political liberalism. He saw the student protests of 1986 and later in 1989 – the year his essay was published – as the beginning of a rising tide of popular pressure for political liberalization.
Brezhnev’s Soviet Union
Meanwhile in the Soviet Union, Fukuyama similarly described Marxism-Leninism having lost traction as a guiding principle, retaining only unifying symbolic relevance, for lack of better words. Quote:
Gorbachev’s Soviet Union
Fukuyama described the tenure of Mikhail Gorbachev as, in his words, “a revolutionary assault on the most fundamental institutions and principles of Stalinism.”
Economically, he described Gorbachev’s administration’s support for free markets as growing increasingly radical.
Quote:
End quote.
While the process of implementation was bumpy for lack of better words, this new consensus had become policy by the late 1980s, with a few lingering deficiencies, such as the lack of comprehensive price reform. With respect to this incomplete implementation, Fukuyama suggested that while Gorbachev’s administration understood the economics of marketization, they were concerned about the consequences of ending subsidies and other state benefits.
While hesitant to label the alternative principles introduced as liberalism, Fukuyama did note that liberalism was the sole connecting thread with respect to those principles. Though cynical about the future success of perestroika, and considering Gorbachev’s Soviet Union far from being a successful liberal society, Fukuyama believed that the criticism of the Soviet system Gorbachev facilitated effectively mitigated the chances of a return to Stalinism or even Brezhnevism.
Quote:
End quote.
The aforementioned commentary offered by Fukuyama would prove to be eerily prophetic with respect to the near term trajectory of the Soviet Union in general, and Russia in particular.
For instance, hardliners would attempt to overthrow Gorbachev with a coup in 1991. Furthermore, the economic, political, and ideological power vacuum which Russia would descend into in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union could perhaps be characterized as a wild west period. This is an area of history that I would like to explore in greater depth at another time.
Post-Historical Soviet Foreign Policy
Fukuyama took some time in his essay to explore how the Soviet Union might carry itself on the world stage after discarding Marxism-Leninism, and indeed what the world stage itself would look like in a “de-ideologized contemporary world.”
One school of thought, Fukuyama citing Charles Krauthammer as an example, believed that the Soviet Union would revert to something resembling 19th Century Imperial Russia, and that its foreign affairs would still be characterized by competition and conflict.
Fukuyama expressed skepticism, however, about the argument that post-Communist Russia would pick up where it left off prior to the revolution, and argued that human consciousness had continued to evolve in the meantime, as demonstrated by the new economic ideas coming into vogue in the Soviet Union.
Supporting this point, he highlighted the contrast in foreign policy between the China of the 1960s and the China of the 1980s, where the former was more inclined to spreading its influence overseas and sponsoring Maoist insurgencies.
With respect to troubling counterpoints, he suggested that China’s exports of ballistic missile technology to the Middle East were more commercially motivated while its lingering support for the Khmer Rouge in its war with Vietnam was vestigial in nature.
Fukuyama believed that with its decline in the realm of ideas, Marxism-Leninism had the potential offer the Soviet Union a temporary rallying point following Gorbachev’s decentralization of authority, but it was intrinsically dead as a mobilizing ideology and that confidence in it was lost. On the other hand, however, the long-standing streak of Russian chauvinism and Slavophile ultranationalism in the Soviet Union had passionate proponents – and it was effectively amplified by relaxed rules on political expression by Glastnost. With that taken into consideration, Fukuyama suggested that the fascist alternative had not necessarily run its course.
The two possible paths he identified for the Soviet Union moving forward were either liberalization in the vein of Western Europe and Asia following World War II, or what he referred to as the realization of its own uniqueness, where the latter path would leave it stuck in history. Given its gravity on the world stage, this decision would be of concern to the rest of the world and would potentially, quote, “slow our realization that we have already emerged on the other side of history.”
The End of Conflict?
Fukuyama did not believe that the end of history marked the end of international conflict. He anticipated a world divided between the historical and post-historical, with conflict among countries in the historical world as well as conflict between historical and post-historical countries. He also predicted an increasingly ethnic or nationalist nature to such conflict, even in the post-historical world. Nevertheless, he believed that, quote, “large-scale conflict must involve large states still caught in the grip of history, and they are what appear to be passing from the scene.”
Conclusion
As much as I’d like to dedicate the remaining time in this episode to discussing the contradiction Fukuyama highlighted between Western liberalism and Western imperialism, or the relationship between ideology and foreign policy as he saw it, or most importantly, introducing his conception of the last man, I believe these would be better served by an additional episode… or episodes.
I’d also like to cover responses to Fukuyama’s writings by other prominent thinkers, as well as to perhaps explore the institutional influence of his ideas. Let’s see where things go.
That will be all for tonight.
Thank you for listening and sharing, and have a good night.
This is the third installment of “At History’s End,” a subseries exploring the contextual underpinnings of the disposition and psyche of contemporary American politics and culture. If you’re just now listening in, you may want to consider starting from part one.
Previously, I began a deep dive into Fukuyama's essay, "The End of History," focusing on his discussion about Hegel and Kojève and their influence on his thesis; the influence of consciousness and culture with respect to the spread of Liberalism in different societies; and the case study of postwar Japan.
I also highlighted general points of interest from the essay, which I would like to continue doing in this episode.
Let’s begin.
Introduction
Good evening. You’re listening to the Reflections in Beige Podcast, hosted by Michael LeSane. The date is Sunday, May 18th, 2025.
Deng Xiaoping’s China
At the time the essay was written, the People’s Republic of China was, by Fukuyama’s estimate, no more than twenty percent marketized. He noted that unlike the Soviet Union, its governing entity – the Communist Party of China – had no parallel to Glasnost. It was more reserved in its criticisms of Mao Zedong thought and policy than the Soviet Union had been towards Joseph Stalin beginning during the tenure of Nikita Khrushchev.
Yet, despite paying continued lip service to Marxism-Leninism, Fukuyama observed that the technocrats at the helm in China were no longer guided by it, and that consumerism was beginning to take hold for the first time since the revolution.
China was managing its liberalization quite differently from the Soviet Union. Political reform was slow and dissent was suppressed. In Fukuyama’s words, quote:
“By ducking the question of political reform while putting the economy on a new footing, Deng has managed to avoid the breakdown of authority that has accompanied Gorbachev's perestroika.”
End quote.
But Fukuyama remained optimistic. Pointing out that over twenty thousand Chinese students – overwhelmingly the children of Chinese elites – were studying abroad in Western countries, he believed that they would be dissatisfied with China being the major exception as the world trended towards political liberalism. He saw the student protests of 1986 and later in 1989 – the year his essay was published – as the beginning of a rising tide of popular pressure for political liberalization.
Brezhnev’s Soviet Union
Meanwhile in the Soviet Union, Fukuyama similarly described Marxism-Leninism having lost traction as a guiding principle, retaining only unifying symbolic relevance, for lack of better words. Quote:
The corruption and decadence of the late Brezhnev-era Soviet state seemed to matter little, however, for as long as the state itself refused to throw into question any of the fundamental principles underlying Soviet society, the system was capable of functioning adequately out of sheer inertia and could even muster some dynamism in the realm of foreign and defense policy. Marxism-Leninism was like a magical incantation which, however absurd and devoid of meaning, was the only common basis on which the elite could agree to rule Soviet society.
Gorbachev’s Soviet Union
Fukuyama described the tenure of Mikhail Gorbachev as, in his words, “a revolutionary assault on the most fundamental institutions and principles of Stalinism.”
Economically, he described Gorbachev’s administration’s support for free markets as growing increasingly radical.
Quote:
There is a virtual consensus among the currently dominant school of Soviet economists now that central planning and the command system of allocation are the root cause of economic inefficiency, and that if the Soviet system is ever to heal itself, it must permit free and decentralized decision-making with respect to investment, labor, and prices.
End quote.
While the process of implementation was bumpy for lack of better words, this new consensus had become policy by the late 1980s, with a few lingering deficiencies, such as the lack of comprehensive price reform. With respect to this incomplete implementation, Fukuyama suggested that while Gorbachev’s administration understood the economics of marketization, they were concerned about the consequences of ending subsidies and other state benefits.
While hesitant to label the alternative principles introduced as liberalism, Fukuyama did note that liberalism was the sole connecting thread with respect to those principles. Though cynical about the future success of perestroika, and considering Gorbachev’s Soviet Union far from being a successful liberal society, Fukuyama believed that the criticism of the Soviet system Gorbachev facilitated effectively mitigated the chances of a return to Stalinism or even Brezhnevism.
Quote:
Gorbachev has finally permitted people to say what they had privately understood for many years, namely, that the magical incantations of Marxism-Leninism were nonsense, that Soviet socialism was not superior to the West in any respect but was in fact a monumental failure.
The conservative opposition in the USSR, consisting both of simple workers afraid of unemployment and inflation and of party officials fearful of losing their jobs and privileges, is outspoken and may be strong enough to force Gorbachev's ouster in the next few years. But what both groups desire is tradition, order, and authority; they manifest no deep commitment to Marxism-Leninism, except insofar as they have invested much of their own lives in it.
For authority to be restored in the Soviet Union after Gorbachev's demolition work, it must be on the basis of some new and vigorous ideology which has not yet appeared on the horizon.
The conservative opposition in the USSR, consisting both of simple workers afraid of unemployment and inflation and of party officials fearful of losing their jobs and privileges, is outspoken and may be strong enough to force Gorbachev's ouster in the next few years. But what both groups desire is tradition, order, and authority; they manifest no deep commitment to Marxism-Leninism, except insofar as they have invested much of their own lives in it.
For authority to be restored in the Soviet Union after Gorbachev's demolition work, it must be on the basis of some new and vigorous ideology which has not yet appeared on the horizon.
End quote.
The aforementioned commentary offered by Fukuyama would prove to be eerily prophetic with respect to the near term trajectory of the Soviet Union in general, and Russia in particular.
For instance, hardliners would attempt to overthrow Gorbachev with a coup in 1991. Furthermore, the economic, political, and ideological power vacuum which Russia would descend into in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union could perhaps be characterized as a wild west period. This is an area of history that I would like to explore in greater depth at another time.
Post-Historical Soviet Foreign Policy
Fukuyama took some time in his essay to explore how the Soviet Union might carry itself on the world stage after discarding Marxism-Leninism, and indeed what the world stage itself would look like in a “de-ideologized contemporary world.”
One school of thought, Fukuyama citing Charles Krauthammer as an example, believed that the Soviet Union would revert to something resembling 19th Century Imperial Russia, and that its foreign affairs would still be characterized by competition and conflict.
Fukuyama expressed skepticism, however, about the argument that post-Communist Russia would pick up where it left off prior to the revolution, and argued that human consciousness had continued to evolve in the meantime, as demonstrated by the new economic ideas coming into vogue in the Soviet Union.
Supporting this point, he highlighted the contrast in foreign policy between the China of the 1960s and the China of the 1980s, where the former was more inclined to spreading its influence overseas and sponsoring Maoist insurgencies.
With respect to troubling counterpoints, he suggested that China’s exports of ballistic missile technology to the Middle East were more commercially motivated while its lingering support for the Khmer Rouge in its war with Vietnam was vestigial in nature.
Fukuyama believed that with its decline in the realm of ideas, Marxism-Leninism had the potential offer the Soviet Union a temporary rallying point following Gorbachev’s decentralization of authority, but it was intrinsically dead as a mobilizing ideology and that confidence in it was lost. On the other hand, however, the long-standing streak of Russian chauvinism and Slavophile ultranationalism in the Soviet Union had passionate proponents – and it was effectively amplified by relaxed rules on political expression by Glastnost. With that taken into consideration, Fukuyama suggested that the fascist alternative had not necessarily run its course.
The two possible paths he identified for the Soviet Union moving forward were either liberalization in the vein of Western Europe and Asia following World War II, or what he referred to as the realization of its own uniqueness, where the latter path would leave it stuck in history. Given its gravity on the world stage, this decision would be of concern to the rest of the world and would potentially, quote, “slow our realization that we have already emerged on the other side of history.”
The End of Conflict?
Fukuyama did not believe that the end of history marked the end of international conflict. He anticipated a world divided between the historical and post-historical, with conflict among countries in the historical world as well as conflict between historical and post-historical countries. He also predicted an increasingly ethnic or nationalist nature to such conflict, even in the post-historical world. Nevertheless, he believed that, quote, “large-scale conflict must involve large states still caught in the grip of history, and they are what appear to be passing from the scene.”
Conclusion
As much as I’d like to dedicate the remaining time in this episode to discussing the contradiction Fukuyama highlighted between Western liberalism and Western imperialism, or the relationship between ideology and foreign policy as he saw it, or most importantly, introducing his conception of the last man, I believe these would be better served by an additional episode… or episodes.
I’d also like to cover responses to Fukuyama’s writings by other prominent thinkers, as well as to perhaps explore the institutional influence of his ideas. Let’s see where things go.
That will be all for tonight.
Thank you for listening and sharing, and have a good night.
Episode Sources
- “The End of History?” by Francis Fukuyama, The National Interest (1989).
- “1991 Soviet coup attempt” on Wikipedia.
- “Robert Service on Lenin, Trotsky & Stalin” from “Secrets of Statecraft” by the Hoover Institution (2024).