Modernization Theory in Post-Soviet Nations

Modernization Theory has a lot of problems, not least of which is the unapologetic western bias and disregard of other nations' potential for growth without developed western nations. To highlight these issues, however, the best place to look isn't the abject failure of western aid in Africa or post-colonial imperialism, but in nations where modernization theory appears to have functioned as intended. The west has long been considered Europe and the USA, the developed nations that lead the UN and the global economy, but Europe is not all cut from the same cloth. Europe is fairly considered the snobby rich kids of the world, but once you reach mid-central Europe, just past the German city of Witzenhausen, things look a little different. Colonialism wasn't just the means of which western Europe stifled the development of the developing world, it was also the means of which eastern Europe had its own development harmed. The Soviet Union was an empire in all but name, and just as Tsarist Russia subsisted off of the wealth of other nations, so too did the USSR maintain power by economic and cultural domination of its client states. In 1989, the USSR loosened its grip on its client states, and most immediately fell in line with western capitalist ideals, each effectively having to rebuild society from scratch or risk corruption and crony capitalism infesting their government. This would seem to support modernization theory, but this is simply not the case. The first assertion to go is the requirement or western investment. It was and remains difficult to invest in these regions, as despite their proximity and frequent existence in the eurozone, their labor is simply not very cheap, certainly not cheap enough to exploit. Their development fell into their own hands, and it was up to them to remain stable in a market uninterested in their labor. This was rectified for the most part by the affordability of their products, which western Europe happily consumed, but the financial crisis in 2008 brought the viability of their dependency on western exports and their own reliance on western money into the limelight. These nations rather immediately emerged into the third stage, but that's mostly where they have stayed. Their improvement, contrary to modernization theory, is mainly due to their own efforts, and western support has often just furthered dependency. Instead of emerging into a western world, the success stories have been kept up by cooperation with other former soviet bloc states, like the Visegrad 4, and their failures have only remained as the stagnant backwaters of Europe. Mass consumption may simply be unviable in these areas so long as this stagnation remains, and it is a stagnation brought on by the exploitation of the west for goods. The west sees benefit, like cheap labor in the form of Slavic immigrant workers and cheap goods, but the east sees little of these benefits, as they are prevented from taking control of their economic destinies by regulation that attempts to mold them into good little western states instead of allowing them to develop on their own terms.