[Vn_survivor_67-68]

Katrina vanden Heuvel

this America-hater is not to be trusted....ever!

[A. Pole]

Katrina vanden Heuvel this America-hater is not to be trusted....ever!

You are confused. In this article the author is not a witness who is be trusted or distrusted. She presents analysis and arguments which can be rejected or accepted on their own merits.

It would not add/subtract to the value of this text whether it was written by Charles Manson or by Mother Theresa.

[Virginia Gentleman]

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"

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.

[saradippity]

First let me add my disappointment to the swelling ranks of Freepers unhappy with the suspension of A.Pole. He was one of my favorites and he seldom failed to provide good information on topics,he provoked thinking,always a benefit. I hope he will be off suspension soon.

Vn_survivor, you don't like the source of the article,not the writer or her periodical,and I can understand that. However,I have very similar info about Yeltsen taken from testimony given before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the U.S.House of Representatives on September 21,1999. The presenter is Anne Williamson,she spent ten or so years dividing her time between Moscow and New York and wrote for the Wall Street Journal among other publications. She is not in the slightest degree,left leaning.

You can Google her name right now and info about her is right at the top.

I happened on info about her prior to the election in 2000 as I looked for evidence of corruption in the Clinton/Gore Administration. From her testimony:

The first mistake was the West's perception of the elected Russian president,Boris Yeltsin;where American triumphalists saw a great democrat determined to destroy the Communist system for freedom's sake,Soviet history will record a usurper. A usurper's first task is to transform a thin layer of the self-interested rabble into a constituency. And she goes on to relate how he accomplished that.

She then goes on to say:

The second mistake lay in a profound misunderstanding of Russian culture and in the Harvard Institute of International Development advisor's disregard for the very basis for their own country's success;property rights.

It was a very grave error.

Her testimony is compelling,it is packed with great information giving names and places and missteps. I hope you will read it as it has a considerable impact on what is happening in Russia now. As others on this thread have said Putin did not have it easy and while he must be watched carefully,he came into office in a country that was buried in complex problems and corrupt men in positions of power.Boris Yeltsin,was not a good man.