Posted on 04/25/2007 6:13:58 AM PDT by A. Pole
MOSCOW - To Western eyes, it was the new, democratic Russia. Boris Yeltsin, the man who had wrested the country from the grip of communism two years earlier, was facing what he described as an armed "mutiny" by communist holdovers in the country's elected parliament. So when Mr. Yeltsin sent troops and tanks to disperse the Supreme Soviet legislature and arrest its leaders, Western leaders cheered his actions.
But many Russians were appalled.
"When I heard [then US President Bill] Clinton describing Yeltsin's actions as 'a triumph for democracy,' I was horrified," says Viktor Kremeniuk, deputy director of the official Institute of USA-Canada Studies in Moscow. "The president shelled parliament, killed lawmakers, and destroyed the only elected branch of government capable of challenging him. That had nothing to do with democracy."
[...]
During Yeltsin's nearly nine years in power, Russia's gross domestic product slumped by over 50 percent, millions of people lost their savings in repeated financial crises, and life expectancy plunged to third-world levels.
[...]
"At no stage did Yeltsin attempt to build anything. Things slipped out of his hands, and were taken over by ... business tycoons, regional leaders, and criminal groups. The guiding principle of the Yeltsin era was chaos."
[...]
On New Year's Eve 1999, a faltering Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and handed power to Putin, his chosen prime minister. The years under Putin have been some of the most stable and prosperous in Russia's history, says Mr. Medvedev. "Putin is a creator. He restored the state, the army, effective government, and did much to improve the lives of the people," he says.
[...]
Putin's latest popularity rating, in March, was 82 percent. And, true to the historic pattern, the new Kremlin leader is regarded with growing antipathy in the West
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Yeltsin didn’t kill all his opponents. In Russia, that is a step forward. Thinking you can come out of 70 years of socialism without a struggle is insane. No one, Yeltsin included, was going to turn Russia into a modern democracy easily.
And Putin is not our friend. He’s just another dictator in a uniparty state - note how he is using the organs of state security to attack his political enemies. Vlad might as well start calling himself the czar, because that is what he aims to be.
Are you saying that members of Russian Parliament and the civilians defenders were IMMUNE to the tank shells?
Oh, I get it, you said he "didn’t kill ALL his opponents". True, not "all".
Interesting article and link. Thanks for posting. The threads on Yeltsin’s death were also informative. Amazing transformation of the U.S.S.R.
What I am saying is that there wasn’t a “terror” - no systematic murder a la Lenin. And yes there was an attempt at a coup and it was put down.
This is a distortion. The attempt of Communist coup was in 1991 when Yeltsin and Parliament were on the same side resiting the Communist coup. It was not "put down", it fell apart when troops refused to obey orders.
In 1993 it was Yeltsin who attacked Parliament and shed a lot of blood. Western media spinned it that Parliament was Communist and was attempting a coup. It was not true, it was the same Parliament as in 1991! So it was Yeltsin who made a coup.
The massacre of Parliament allowed seizure of national assets by the small group of "oligarchs".
No, just a little economic discomfort
During Yeltsin's nearly nine years in power, Russia's gross domestic product slumped by over 50 percent, millions of people lost their savings in repeated financial crises, and life expectancy plunged to third-world levels.
and enough unsecured nuclear material to make an estimated 20,000 bombs.
Yeah, just a little. The life expectancy went down several years what translates to millions of premature deaths.
Little price to make a few crooks into billionaires. What is a few millions of Russian lives versus god of Free Market?
I don't get it. When millions of Chinese died as a result of Mao's grossly misguided economic policy, we rightly blame Communism and Mao; when Cubans live in poverty, though fed, educated, and with a life expectancy matching ours, we blame Castro and Communism. Yet we worship the free market for the wealth it creates even when the wealth is owned by a few and poverty and death results.
Free market poverty is the fault of the individual, Socialist poverty is the fault of the system.
I think Yeltsen was a mixed bag. The problem was that you can’t put an end to 70 years of totalitarian rule and centralization of the economy without some violence and disorder, and when the Communist Party was overthrown there was virtually nothing left to take its place.
Russia does not have any tradition of freedom or Democracy or self rule. The closest it came to western liberalism (in the old sense of the word) was in the last years of the Tsars, after the serfs were freed, or possibly under Alexander Kerensky.
Boris Yeltsen was far from perfect, but it’s doubtful whether anyone else could have done much better.
Poland was blessed with Lech Walensa, but although he managed to lead a bloodless revolution leading to freedom, and was certainly a great man who rose to the occasion, he lacked the everyday political skills needed to run Poland after the revolution had run its course.
I’m afraid a lot of people in Russia still long for the good old days of the USSR and imperial rule over their neighbors. The current Mafioso type leadership is not great, but it’s better than Stalin.
Hmmm ~ you want that in dollars or zlotys.
Exactly. Putin follows right in the footsteps of the man who appointed him. Putin also continues the unprovoked aggression against the nation of Georgia which Yeltsin began when he sent Russian Forces to help Shamil Basayev and other Chechen jihadists exterminate thousands of Georgians in Abkhazia.
It’s amazing how that drunken buffoon managed to keep the country from further fragmentation and avoid having a bunch of nukes stolen from Russia’s arsenals by rogue elements. The Yeltsin years were a disaster for Russia. That’s why he’s so worshiped in the West.
Right, turning the corner on 70 years of socialism and disaster was going to be easy? Piece of cake. Right.
I am not saying it is. All I am saying is, it might have been better for the country had someone else been tasked with leading it through the 90s.
The NY Slimes recently reported that a Russian governmental decree instructs the media there to run at least half of its news stories as positive. The United States is to be put in a hostile light, according to the same decree.
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