Posted on 04/27/2007 6:10:54 PM PDT by A. Pole
Boris Yeltsin, who died on April 23, was a towering figure in Russian political history. But was he, as so many US obituaries and editorials have described him, the "Father of Russian Democracy"?
As though a wave of historical amnesia had swept over the media, few commentators seemed to remember that it was Mikhail Gorbachev, upon becoming Soviet leader in 1985, who launched the democratic reforms of "perestroika" and "glasnost"--ending censorship, permitting, even encouraging, opposition rallies and demonstrations, beginning market reforms and holding the first free, multi-candidate elections. (Indeed, Yeltsin was the chief beneficiary of those reforms.)
[...]
After August 1991, Yeltsin's anti-democratic policies polarized, embittered and impoverished his country laying the ground for what is now unfolding in Russia--though it is being blamed solely on today's Russian President, Vladimir Putin.
[...]
Beginning in early 1992, Yeltsin launched the disastrous "shock therapy" policies which sent the country reeling with pain. Urged upon Russia by a group of US (primarily Harvard) economists, and supported by the Clinton Administration and energetically implemented by Yeltsin's young "reformers," these policies--almost universally touted as "reforms" in the Western media-- involved the swift elimination of most price controls and a privatization program that resulted in hyperinflation wiping out, in installments, the savings of average Russians. Roughly half of Russia's people thus found themselves living below the poverty level.
** In October 1993, Yeltsin used tank cannons to destroy not only the Parliament that had brought him to power and defended him during the attempted coup of 1991 but the entire political, constitutional order of Russia's post-Communist republic. The US government and media, with few exceptions, acted as Yeltsin's cheerleaders as the Russian President's tanks pounded Russia's first ever popularly elected and fully independent legislature. A senior US official told the New York Times that "if Yeltsin suspends an anti-democratic parliament, it is not necessarily an antidemocratic act"; and an unnamed US official was quoted by Newsweek as saying the Clinton Administration "would have supported Yeltsin even if his response had been more violent than it was." (187 people died and almost 500 were wounded in the attack.)
[...]
In 1996, Yeltsin's reelection campaign---financed by a handful of oligarchs including now-exiled Putin opponent Boris Berezovsky and aided by pro-Kremlin media bias and censorship--was marked by spectacular legal violations. No less enduring in its consequences was the most aggressive giveaway on Yeltsin's watch --the notorious "loans-for-shares" agreement--which allowed a small group of men, in exchange for financing Yeltsin's campaign, to take control of and Russia's most valuable economic assets.(It was a colossal piece of criminality glossed over at the time by almost all US media outlets as "market reform".) Thus was birthed the rapacious oligarchy--leading one Russian journalist to remark the other day that Yeltsin was not "the father of democracy" but "the father of the oligarchy."
**In August 1998, following a number of financial dealings that victimized or failed to benefit most Russians, the government after pledging not to do so,suddenly devalued the ruble, defaulted on its debts and froze bank accounts. In effect, people's savings were once again expropriated, this time decimating the post-1991 middle class.
Such events help explains why for millions of Russians, Yeltsin's rule was an age of blight not democracy. This magazine never lost sight of the social and economic disaster he presided over. But almost no one in the US media wanted to tell that story. Preferring Panglossian narratives, few cared to report that since 1991 Russia's reality included the worst peacetime industrial depression of the 20th century. In 1999, when the UN Development program reported that " a human crisis of monumental proportions is emerging in the former Soviet Union," the report was virtually ignored. And while, as Professor Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski wrote, "for the first time in recent world history one of the major industrial nations with a highly educated society has dismantled the results of several decades of economic development," American press coverage preferred to run glowing stories about Yeltsin's crusading "young reformers" --sometimes called "democratic giants" -- showing a cold indifference to the terrible human consequences of the crusade. (A Reuters journalist later made the observation: "The pain is edited out." ) As Stephen Cohen wrote, "sustaining such a Manichaean narrative in the face of so many conflicting realities turned American journalists into boosters for US policy and cheerleaders for Yeltsin's Kremlin."
Neither these cold realities nor the political and economic consequences today have chastened the the booster-journalists. Indeed, while many of the obituaries in newspapers that were Yeltsin's most uncritical supporters at the time now give a more balanced account than they did at the time --there is no acknowledgement that they helped promote the acts they now criticize or regret.
Embedded in those obituaries is another argument, perhaps stated most clearly by Strobe Talbott, a Russia expert and Clinton's primary adviser on Yeltsin's Russia, that while there are valid criticisms of Yeltsin there was no alternative route to what he imposed. Yet the majority of Russian pro-market economists warned against "shock therapy" --abetted by US-sponsored policies--foreseeing its tragic outcome. The alternative road they offered was more evolutionary, a gradualist approach, a "third way" that would have averted catastrophic impoverishment, plundering and lawlessness. Time has proved them right.
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LOL :)
It would have been easier for you if you had posted it anonymously, and without her or her lefty-America-hating rags name. But having a sense of humor, I DO appreciate the alleged superiority your post # 17 invokes in my direction :)
Yet it can be that even Charles Manson might be right about something and Mother Theresa could be wrong. (Not that I consider Katrina vanden Heuvel to be like either of them)
I would! But I guess it would be against the rules. Still I exercised some "editorial judgment" by picking the passages I liked :)
I wonder who has the real historical amnesia here. Perestroika and glastnost had nothing to do with democracy. They were attempts to reform the communist system and keep the Communist Party in control. While Gorbachev may have opened up the system to allow more outside voices to be heard, he was not willing to give them any role in making in making any actual decisions. There was no movement to open and free elections under Gorbachev, all the final decisions were still to be made by the Party.
Even if one were to assume Gorbachev had "reformist" inclinations, he should only be respected for folding a losing hand.
A former full professor of design engineering at Moscow U told me that in his experience you really could not plan on ever finding enough screws, nuts, bolts or nails for any project of any kind ~ NEVER.
This was not a mature economy.
Pole, you are banned? Yes, I see you are and so you cannot answer me. This is wrong.
Some of them probably preferred it the way it was. Other Eastern European countries like Poland and Hungary had the same "shock therapy" policies and I don't see them complaining. You're right Russia should be so lucky considering they're the ones who started the communist scourge that brought about so much suffering in the world.
She is the sexiest commie.
Sorry.
How much of the violence we see in Iraq is the result of US imposed economic restructuring (shock therapy)?
I was emailed by third Freeper that A.Pole is banned. Supposed reason is “trolling”. After few years of posting A.Pole was exposed to be troll?? This is simply ridiculous… I rarely agreed with him myself, I find his pro-Russian bias ala “Yeltsin—Father of Democracy” more than irritating but still I see no reason to ban him because of that. Whatever to say about him, he represented high culture of posting, I dare to say above average on FR. I ask moderators to bring him back and I think that I’m not alone here to think so.
You are not alone.
"You're right Russia should be so lucky considering they're the ones who started the communist scourge that brought about so much suffering in the world."Was Karl Marx a Russian? Marxism is purely a product of the 19-the century Western political thought.
+1
The Russians were the first to put this ideology into practice and even if they weren’t they relentlessly tried to shove it down everyone else’s throats. While I hope they succeed in their transition to democracy I still find it hard to feel sorry for any problems they may be having along the way.
"While I hope they succeed in their transition to democracy I still find it hard to feel sorry for any problems they may be having along the way."Some things you might never be able to fully understand, unless you lived through them. I was born and grew up in the Soviet Union and my family left in 1992, amid possibly the worst of the chaos and infrastructure/society breakdown of the 1st post-soviet decade. I can see why many people back then, or even now may view the relative stability of the early 80s (when the system was definitely ailing) nevermind the 70s as a better alternative to the cold, orderless (I won't use the term "lawless", since there was no "rule of law" in USSR by Western definition) and hungry, crumbling reality around them? So many highly educated people found themselves losing even whatever foundation of life they might have had before. They surely deserved better than what they got then or now under Putin. Whether by sheer mismanagement, or by design, the "90's reforms" surely accomplished but one thing - discredited the ideas of "democracy" and "capitalism" in the eyes of many ordinary Russians. You never had a chance to compare the "spirit" of 1989-90 among ordinary people vs. 3-5 years later, vs. today. In 1990 so many people believed that a new openness and newfound freedoms might pave the way for a better tomorrow. People felt very open towards the West and intoxicated by the influx of Western culture (I remember people watching Rambo III on VHS and almost cheering for the American character). Disillusionment from the "shock therapy" brought on a revival of bitter nationalism, and a general anti-Western sentiment. Perhaps, if the case was handled differently, things could have been different.
I agree. He’s a pretty decent guy for a Putinista. If we ban them all we won’t have anyone to debate.
That's because they've had such little experience with it, building a viable democracy takes time and doesn't happen overnight. I suspect however that Russia will eventually revert back to its traditional authoritarian form of government. Hopefully not but if they do there will be problems again if they try to impose it on everyone else.
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