Talk:History of post-Soviet Russia

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Contents

[edit] Very Western-based opinion

This article has "negative" written all over it. It is very biased towards the Western point of view which is largely based on stereotypes of the past. A neutral person, having read this, will most likely shift against modern Russia rather than for it. Clearly, a lot of material here is written by people who have no idea about modern Russia or simply want to point out the bad stuff instead of the good one. Other countries' history has mostly positive material. No country in the world has made such a radical shift from totally state economy to market. 13 years, even less. The US needed 200, for example. Indeed, there is a lot of shit in Russia, but which countries don't have it? Remember, it is the largest country in the world and is situated in a not so convinient part of the world so simply snapping your fingers and saying, "Make the north prosper!" ain't enough. But believe me, since I am as... say, sceptical as you are, that progress is enormous. And Russia NEEDS this Putin control, otherwise the country will just be ruined by all the politicians. Russia had bad experiences with liberalism. It doesn't work at this stage. People don't know what to do with their freedom. So please, can you change this article's image to a more positive one. Russia is a country, same as Britain, US, and Fiji. It needn't be treated badly just because of some prejudice.

Okay, I will present a Soviet point of view, sorry my not so good English. 15 years ago, Russia was a core of the world's second superpower. Not Soviet and commies only, but many people claimed (at the time) USSR is a developped country. After 14 and a half (not 13, though) years of a radical shift from totally state economy to market Russia is no more developped in any sense. We have no modern capitalism in Russia. Of course, no Soviet socialism. No transparency (aka glasnost). The society is now even more disoriented than under Yeltsin's rule. The police protect private interests, not the law. Liars win elections, criminals are respected, there is no control over local governors and other state officers (even such uneffective as the Communist Party's control in the USSR). Even the popularity of such ideas that Russia so needs this Putin control demonstrate Russia's backwardness.

Soviets were sure that live in a forward country. But the Cold War ended, and Russians realized that live in a backward one, and showed its backwardness to all the world. Were worse results possible for post-Soviet Russia? Of course. We can compare Russia to Yugoslavia, which appeared in 1990--95 as a barbaric country (but positioned itself as a developped and civilized in the past). Nevertheless, the post-Soviet history is regarded in Russia as a loss of civilization (Russian-Soviet), loss of identity, because today's Russia nave no fate but to be dismantled by world's powers in not so far future. We have nothing to proud, thereby.

So, is my (Soviet) view quite differ than a Western-based view of the article? There is no Russian view opposed to Western-based, but there is the nouveau Russe and Russian TV watchers' view of modern Russia opposed to the civilized and intellectual view. The latter is presented in the article, which clarify why Russia is not a developped country now. Is it less important that the country's good image? гык 18:22, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chechnya policy and popularity

Under the heading of Succession crises, 1999-2000, it says President Putin's popularity was strengthened because he "has taken decisive action" about the Chechen rebels.

I would contend that it should read "promised decisive action" because rebels are still very much active and therefore, by definition, the action was not decisive. Also, in the wake of the crisis, Chechnya remained a bitter sticking point in international relations, until the attacks of september 11th, 2001 caused the focus to shift.

-Ovvldc 14:01, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And you, for some reason, think that Chechens are party of pupils who can be pacificed in a week?
That's not in fact so, Caucasus is a very hot place, and it was like that for something like 2 thousand years.
What did Putin do is dispacing bandits from Grozny to mountains, where they have less chances to traffic heroine and plunder hospitals. But pacifying them is not possible without decades of mutual effort, and we hope it'll happen. But noone can be sure.
Ilyak 23:18, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
P.S. Lermontov wrote something like "Evil Chechen crawls the beach// Sharpening his dagger". That's 18 century and, for some reason, a lullaby. You think you can pacify that temper, I've gotta see.
P.P.S. And international relations is something you probably want to think a little less.

"Focus shift" is, in fact, "getting hit by same brick, finally starting to blame thrower not another victim". Put it either way.

[edit] Please update to current atandards

1. As per Wikipedia:Cite sources, create a 'References' section out of Notes/External links. 2. As per Wikipedia:Footnotes, please remove all external links from main body, move to Notes and link with footnotes. While I don't think this article is in FARC danger just with those 2 deficiencies, it is falling behind our current standards and wouldn't pass FAC today until those technical issues were resolved. Tnx and please let me know when this is adressed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:49, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Improving the introduction

1. Suggested changes in the first paragraph:

The Russian Federation became a separate country after its president Boris Yeltsin signed the Belaya Vezha agreements with the heads of Ukraine and Belorussia on dissolving the Soviet Union (Dec. 8, 1991). These agreements were ratified by the Russian parliament (Supreme Soviet) on Dec. 12, 1991 (with 185 votes for and 6 votes against out of the total of 251 members), leading to Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation on Dec. 25. On the same day, the Supreme Soviet renamed the country (whose official name at that time was Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic) into Russian Federation, or Russia...Russia was recognized as the Soviet Union's successor state with regard to its permanent seat on the UN Security Council and accepted the responsibility for Soviet foreign debts.


Second paragraph: With the insistence of the international community and in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Russia managed to move Soviet nuclear weapons from the territories of other post-Soviet states where they had been located (Ukraine, Belorussia and Kazakhstan). Russian Armed Forces were officially set up by Yeltsin's decree only on May 7, 1992, after the collapse of an attempt to maintain a joint military for the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The Russian parliament, or Congress, proclaimed its sovereignty within the Soviet Union on June 12, 1990 (henceforth officially commemorated as Russia's Independence Day). Since then, Russian authorities headed by Boris Yeltsin took the lead at the major turning points on the road toward Soviet breakdown, by early recognition of the independence of the Baltic republics, by stalling the negotiations on a new Union Treaty and by unilateral takeover of key Soviet institutions and property after the failed August 1991 coup. In October 1991, [...] Russia's decision to proceed with "shock therapy" on a unilateral basis, without coordination with other Soviet republics were not prepared for it, showed that the Union had become irrelevant and was on the verge of collapse. DGV

[edit] Remarks on elections ("intelligentsia" vs "middle class" etc.)

Hello!

I have some objections against the term middle class, in the sense of "bourgeoisie", used to describe Yavlinsky's supporters in 1996. This term may be confusing from Western point of view, and is merely incorrent from Russian one. Some other terms are also questionable. Generally, information about Russian elections is incomplete. But my remarks are beyond the NPOV :)


[edit] Is Yavlinsky a "liberal"?

The article states that Yavlinsky was the liberal alternative. In Russia liberal frequently refers to liberal-criminals, also known as privatizators. Yavlinsky, though shares some liberal values, propose a social-acceptable model of economy and is a permanent critic of liberal-criminals.

Also, liberal may refer to LDPR, party of Zhirinovsky — another Yavlinsky's enemy. I think, some disambiguation required.

LDPR is neither liberal nor democratic. I's a very autoritarian party led by charismatic leader. Granted, in Russia, any political term may mean whatever, so don't look at them too believingly.

Ilyak 23:27, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Who voted for Yavlinsky?

In Moscow, the richest Russian city at the time and by now, Yavlinsky got only 7.96%, just a little above the federal average (7.34%). We must take into account a cultural importance of Moscow, leading to such considerable Yavlinsky's rate.

Regions of strongest Yavlinsky's support was, in fact:

  • the city of Saint-Petersburg (15.15%), named sometimes as "the only European city in Russia", but in 2000s that city ceased to be so European and became an ordinary Russian city IMHO;
  • the Russia'a western exclave of Kaliningrad (Königsberg) (12.85%), possibly due to the same reason of europisation;
  • most regions of Southern Siberia and Far East, with especially high rate in Novosibirsk, the city where the Siberian Division of RAS is located, and also an university;
  • regions of Kirov (Vyatka) and Arkhangelsk, for a reason unknown to me.

[1]

All named regions was never considered in Russia as especially prosperous.


[edit] The "intelligentsia" vs the "middle class"

IMHO it was the Russian outnumbered intelligentsia who voted for Yavlinsky, despite the governmental brain-washing paid by oligarchs and despite some theories, adopted also by some Russian intellectuals, that only the Yeltsin's rule can lead Russia to "democratic" civilized society like Western Europe and Scandinavia, where alternative presidental elections could take place. It's evident by now that presidental elections became in Russia just a fake.

You may know that Russian "intelligentsia" is not a class of moderately rich people. It's a people that can think, that is not the same than making money, at least in modern Russia. Because in Russia making money is closely related to corruption and criminality, the correlation between intellect and money is not so strong as in the Western world. Teachers and doctors, the backbone of Russian intelligentsia, live in poverty. A high school professor in Moscow earns about 6000 roubles/month (US$2,520/year). The prices in Moscow are close to Western prices, even somewhere supersede. In 1996 salaries were even lower.

Concerning the Russian bourgeoisie, greedy, cowardly, and strongly dependent on commercial ventures affiliated with Russian so named state, they preferred to vote for liberal-criminals to keep the existing regime, because of their fear of any changes. But, despite of their right choice, their fictive economy crashed, and there was many drivel originating from the (former) "middle class" two years later.


[edit] ... Russia's southern industrial heartland ...

Does somebody knows, what could it mean??


[edit] 1996 elections in context of other Russian presidential elections

We saw that elections of 1996 was probably less free, or less fair, than of 1991, but much more free than the successional elections of 2000. Concerning the 2004 putsidential voting, I think that the word "freedom" can not be applied to.

You, in fact, mistake "Alternative" with "Freedom". "Freedom" is hardly applicable to elections, "Just/Unjust" maybe.
Yes, there was no alternative to Putin in 2004, but who to blame? There is no alternative really. Communist party is lethargic, and everything else is too spotty to put in a real competitor to Putin. We have no balanced system of 2 parties, as in, say, USA. It's hard to bootstrap such a system.
Putin is a strong leader, and there are not many other strong leaders around. Ilyak 23:38, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
"Freedom" is applicable to elections, at least to electoral publicity. The federal TV translated P's meeting with his electoral representatives, which was an advertizing. Any candidate of opposition had not such opportunity. Unfortunally, Russians are no more readers' nation, Russians became a TV watching nation, like Amers et al. Suppose you are a TV watcher (I know, you are Linux user which correlates positively with an intellect and negatively with watching Russian TV, but suppose you have no Linux in your brains, but have a TV, beer/vodka, soccer and probably click-OK-on-this-window). Who might you vote for, if you saw only P on all TV channels? His strength based virtually on his control over TV. The English system of 2 parties is not required for alternative elections. There is no such system in France and even in Ukraine, but presidential elections was alternative in these countries. гык 03:25, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
First of all, there was no suitable leader. There are a lot of very rich people (think oligarchs) that will invest heavily in alternative leader if he will show up. In fact, Zuiganov have got enough publicity in 1996, so it should not be a problem in 200x. Still, we'll have to see it - on a next elections.
Noone who balloted on 2004 was worth mentioning, in fact, Zuganov is a political zombie, Zhirinovskiy is a dick, and Yavlinskiy is a loser. All they are niche politicans. Who's left on the tube*?
* The Oil Transportation one.

[edit] Legislatives

Article contain no information on Russian legislative elections. But these elections are important at least in the sense that it was more fair rather than presidential.


[edit] Russian translation

Does it exist somewhere for this article? Maybe, work is in progress?

гык 18:52, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

You can contribute to translation at ru:История Российской Федерации.

гык 06:21, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Very biased/inaccurate statement:

Quoting article:

Overwhelming successes at the Olympics and the great national ice hockey teams have become things of the past.

2004 Summer Olympics result for Russia is #3 overall, #2 by medal count, as you can easily see from table.

I would not in any condition call this situation "thing of past". You can't compete with ones with vastly overwhelming resources, and everyone other is 0wned, hackishly speaking.

So please correct that.

Ilyak 23:03, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, and you have to blind not to see how boldly Russia is being forced out of everything that has to do with sports. Also, if you put together all the medals of Russia + all former Soviet republics, you'll see that "Russia" is still, in fact, a sporting power. However, since Russia is Russia and Ukraine is Ukraine, unlike 20 years ago, you can't compare past performances with current.


Uhh is it just me, or are large swathes of this article lifted directly from Thomas F. Remington's Politics in Russia, 4th Ed.?

[edit] I think...

that a good picture at the front of this article would be that of one of Stalin or Lenin's statues collapsed right after the fall of the S.U. There should be several images floating around with children playing on Stalin's (statue's) arms and face, and thus symbolize the great fall of the Soviet Union - as such a giant statue tombled down could help "sum" the impact of the collapse. I have seen such photos many times. Is what I am saying making any sense?

No. ....εγκυκλοπαίδεια*(talk) 18:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
probably not, as about half of Russian population supports the Soviet Union

ANOTHER COMMENT

I am not sure if this is the right place to put a comment because I am new to this site. In the second paragraph- Russia disarmed the former republics. This is incorrect, at least not fully descriptive of reality. Russia was only able to do so because of large financial incentives that were provided by the US as part of their nuclear disarmament program.

[edit] Section on oligarchs

This section is both unduly emotional and long outdated. In particular, the two paragraphs starting "The new capitalist opportunities..." to "entrenched themselves as powerful players." is exceedingly general and opinionated. Of the "oligarchs" listed further in the section, only a few had any "insider positions" when they started their businesses.

Also the last two paragraphs of the section are outdated, to say the least. Sredni vashtar 21:37, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Update: So I edited it, getting rid of exceedingly emotional wording and outdated stuff, also adding a few words on the beginnings of guys like Abramovich and Khodorkovsky. Sredni vashtar 22:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

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