http://globalvoicesonline.org/2007/04/24/russia-more-reactions-to-yeltsins-death/ The world is talking. Are you listening? Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:11:02 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://globalvoicesonline.org/2007/04/24/russia-more-reactions-to-yeltsins-death/comment-page-1/#comment-1035107 Steven Conn Wed, 25 Apr 2007 23:47:42 +0000 http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/04/24/russia-more-reactions-to-yeltsins-death/#comment-1035107 Now that Yeltsin has passed away – God rest his soul - his “achievements” are being trumpeted…what are they? Economic collapse, tanks shooting at the parliament, neither salaries nor pensions paid out for months and months while billions of dollars were laundered abroad, while a few dozens of billionaires – many of them Yeltsin cronies who seized state assets – came to control 25%-50% of the economy. This is the Yeltsin achievement. Key democratic changes were initiated and implemented under Gorbachev – open press, contested elections, private enterprise, and peaceful secession from the Soviet Union. What did Yeltsin contribute? People still shiver from memories of skyrocketing inflation, a contracting economy - by 45% during 1991-1999, looting of state assets, near destruction of the middle class, huge disparities of wealth, and international embarrassment of seeing their president drunk at meetings and summits. Every year Russians saw two, three, and four prime ministers hired and fired – and some of these ministers only found out through the newspapers. Is this a way to run a huge country? Any country? Yeltsin won his second term in 1996 despite an approval rating of 5% - this is many times worse than G.W. Bush. How did he do that? He gave up more state assets to oligarchs and used their TV stations and newspapers, on a smaller scale, powerful oligarchs passed around sign-up sheets and pledges within their companies and demanded that people vote for Yeltsin. In the regions the governors lobbied for Yeltsin – a man who famously told them “take as much sovereignty from Moscow as you can handle”. And much like after the 1993 tank assault on the Russian parliament, US leaders approved – “Yeltsin is the guarantor of reforms”…“Yeltsin has the right to use force to protect democracy”. What reforms? What democracy? Chaos…In fact a lot of the western praise of Yeltsin is that he destroyed - USSR, the communist system, the command economy. Do these people have any idea or feelings or care that he also destroyed lives, savings, ideals, beliefs, optimism, and good will? If these shocks and abuses are considered “reforms” and “democracy”, then what are we to make of the claim that Putin is “rolling back democracy” in Russia? Now that Yeltsin has passed away – God rest his soul – his “achievements” are being trumpeted…what are they?
Economic collapse, tanks shooting at the parliament, neither salaries nor pensions paid out for months and months while billions of dollars were laundered abroad, while a few dozens of billionaires – many of them Yeltsin cronies who seized state assets – came to control 25%-50% of the economy. This is the Yeltsin achievement. Key democratic changes were initiated and implemented under Gorbachev – open press, contested elections, private enterprise, and peaceful secession from the Soviet Union. What did Yeltsin contribute?
People still shiver from memories of skyrocketing inflation, a contracting economy – by 45% during 1991-1999, looting of state assets, near destruction of the middle class, huge disparities of wealth, and international embarrassment of seeing their president drunk at meetings and summits. Every year Russians saw two, three, and four prime ministers hired and fired – and some of these ministers only found out through the newspapers. Is this a way to run a huge country? Any country?
Yeltsin won his second term in 1996 despite an approval rating of 5% – this is many times worse than G.W. Bush. How did he do that? He gave up more state assets to oligarchs and used their TV stations and newspapers, on a smaller scale, powerful oligarchs passed around sign-up sheets and pledges within their companies and demanded that people vote for Yeltsin. In the regions the governors lobbied for Yeltsin – a man who famously told them “take as much sovereignty from Moscow as you can handle”. And much like after the 1993 tank assault on the Russian parliament, US leaders approved – “Yeltsin is the guarantor of reforms”…“Yeltsin has the right to use force to protect democracy”. What reforms? What democracy? Chaos…In fact a lot of the western praise of Yeltsin is that he destroyed – USSR, the communist system, the command economy. Do these people have any idea or feelings or care that he also destroyed lives, savings, ideals, beliefs, optimism, and good will?
If these shocks and abuses are considered “reforms” and “democracy”, then what are we to make of the claim that Putin is “rolling back democracy” in Russia?

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