1) Yeltsin didn't inherit a disaster, he created it. He was one of the central people responsible for undermining the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Union_Treaty In fact, he was supposed to be negotiating that very treaty when he, Ukrainian and Belarus leaders signed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belovezh_Accords instead, breaking up the USSR. Millions people dead and catastrophic economic collapse, all because some a-holes wanted more personal power and free hands to plunder the state.
2) Yeltsin was the person that choked democracy in its crib, not Putin. His government was in charge of fraudulent privatizations that created oligarchs, who in turn funded his election campaigns. His democracy looks like this https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/a/a7/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BB_%D0%B1%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE_%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B0_%D0%B2_1993_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%83.jpg Tanks firing into Russian House of Deputies. Why you ask? Oh, that's simple, Yeltsin signed an illegal order to disolve the Congress. Both chambers of it. Obviously, they refused that illegal order, and in turn voted to have him deposed, so he sent in the tanks to kill them. You know, democracy. BTW Clinton patted him on his back, and said he handled that pretty well.
3) In 1996 elections, Yeltsin was polling in single digits before they started. You've guessed it, he won the elections. I'm sure it was completely fair, despite people running between US Embassy and Kremlin getting arrested with boxes of cash to fund the campaign, using state resources to help run illegal TV coverage, and many regions sending in forged totals for the main vote count, that was officially investigated and declared fradulent. Nope, free and fair elections.
If you are going to write about history and missed opportunities, it helps to do some research about the background situation. Looking at an isolated person or time out of context, and comparing it to your reality today, is a pointless and automatically distorted way to present history.
When it comes to mismanaging oil wealth, Russia and Iran aren’t even close to the worst offenders. At least Russia developed some semblance of a middle class, as did Saudi Arabia and even Iran under the Shah. (Since 1979 it’s harder to know how much of Iran’s plight is from the Mullahs’ mismanagement and how much is because of sanctions.)
Ordinary folk in Angola and Nigeria see even less benefit from their countries’ oil wealth (though from what I’ve read, corruption in Nigeria is so endemic that even the lowest paid oil workers can demand bribes) and Venezuela is a particularly notorious example of a populist government running an oil economy into the ground.
But the worst of all might be Equitorial Guinea, which *should* be the Dubai of Africa but is cursed with a shockingly corrupt and brutal ruling family.
9 million unnecessary deaths according to the Lancet, since the fall of the Soviet Union. The decline of the economy was to a tenth of its size before the reforms of Perestroika. The argument is not that Putin and his thugs treat Russia as purely a mafia possession, but that misunderstanding goes both ways. What the Soviet leadership, and I mean the controlling group within the KGB, wanted was simple. From their perspective they could out compete the USA. The USA was never an enemy even to Stalin, but a "competitor". They didn't understand the way the West actually operated, and the West was a bit dense as to the end goal of Russia's predators at the top of the food chain. So, they thought they would simply stop being the Soviet Union and go into a Free Market competition with the West. Well, that didn't end well. Partly, but not all, it was due to the West having an insatiable fear of Russia. Who knows, perhaps its shaped the wrong way and it looks awfully big. Now we see the results of hatred blind as fear itself from the West and overestimation of the future by Russia. Russia has always and will always suffer from an excess of "Optimism". The leadership keep hoping the West will come to terms and negotiate, they never will. Now without negotiation they are driven into the arms of China and make beautiful and helpful deals to India and all impoverished nations, to the extent even Lenin would think it an ultra-left position. By the way for the first time since the Fall of the Soviet Union, the leader of Russia has quoted Lenin in a speech with reverence. The only way out of this is negotiation. Hold your nose if you must but sign an agreement to end this, is all our leaders can and should do.
1) Yeltsin didn't inherit a disaster, he created it. He was one of the central people responsible for undermining the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Union_Treaty In fact, he was supposed to be negotiating that very treaty when he, Ukrainian and Belarus leaders signed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belovezh_Accords instead, breaking up the USSR. Millions people dead and catastrophic economic collapse, all because some a-holes wanted more personal power and free hands to plunder the state.
2) Yeltsin was the person that choked democracy in its crib, not Putin. His government was in charge of fraudulent privatizations that created oligarchs, who in turn funded his election campaigns. His democracy looks like this https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/a/a7/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BB_%D0%B1%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE_%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B0_%D0%B2_1993_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%83.jpg Tanks firing into Russian House of Deputies. Why you ask? Oh, that's simple, Yeltsin signed an illegal order to disolve the Congress. Both chambers of it. Obviously, they refused that illegal order, and in turn voted to have him deposed, so he sent in the tanks to kill them. You know, democracy. BTW Clinton patted him on his back, and said he handled that pretty well.
3) In 1996 elections, Yeltsin was polling in single digits before they started. You've guessed it, he won the elections. I'm sure it was completely fair, despite people running between US Embassy and Kremlin getting arrested with boxes of cash to fund the campaign, using state resources to help run illegal TV coverage, and many regions sending in forged totals for the main vote count, that was officially investigated and declared fradulent. Nope, free and fair elections.
If you are going to write about history and missed opportunities, it helps to do some research about the background situation. Looking at an isolated person or time out of context, and comparing it to your reality today, is a pointless and automatically distorted way to present history.
When it comes to mismanaging oil wealth, Russia and Iran aren’t even close to the worst offenders. At least Russia developed some semblance of a middle class, as did Saudi Arabia and even Iran under the Shah. (Since 1979 it’s harder to know how much of Iran’s plight is from the Mullahs’ mismanagement and how much is because of sanctions.)
Ordinary folk in Angola and Nigeria see even less benefit from their countries’ oil wealth (though from what I’ve read, corruption in Nigeria is so endemic that even the lowest paid oil workers can demand bribes) and Venezuela is a particularly notorious example of a populist government running an oil economy into the ground.
But the worst of all might be Equitorial Guinea, which *should* be the Dubai of Africa but is cursed with a shockingly corrupt and brutal ruling family.
Great article on Russia. Also, what books do you recommend on Equatorial Guinea? I will search for your other article on it.
Good article.
9 million unnecessary deaths according to the Lancet, since the fall of the Soviet Union. The decline of the economy was to a tenth of its size before the reforms of Perestroika. The argument is not that Putin and his thugs treat Russia as purely a mafia possession, but that misunderstanding goes both ways. What the Soviet leadership, and I mean the controlling group within the KGB, wanted was simple. From their perspective they could out compete the USA. The USA was never an enemy even to Stalin, but a "competitor". They didn't understand the way the West actually operated, and the West was a bit dense as to the end goal of Russia's predators at the top of the food chain. So, they thought they would simply stop being the Soviet Union and go into a Free Market competition with the West. Well, that didn't end well. Partly, but not all, it was due to the West having an insatiable fear of Russia. Who knows, perhaps its shaped the wrong way and it looks awfully big. Now we see the results of hatred blind as fear itself from the West and overestimation of the future by Russia. Russia has always and will always suffer from an excess of "Optimism". The leadership keep hoping the West will come to terms and negotiate, they never will. Now without negotiation they are driven into the arms of China and make beautiful and helpful deals to India and all impoverished nations, to the extent even Lenin would think it an ultra-left position. By the way for the first time since the Fall of the Soviet Union, the leader of Russia has quoted Lenin in a speech with reverence. The only way out of this is negotiation. Hold your nose if you must but sign an agreement to end this, is all our leaders can and should do.