The curse of Democracy – who’s next?

The curse of Democracy – who’s next?

Yegor Gaidor saw over the “shock therapy” applied to the Russian economy following the breakup of the Soviet Union from 1991 to 1992.  He commented that he could accept the fall of the Soviet Union, much as the British had to accept the decline of their empire a century before.  The fall of empire is not pretty, he said, and the economic fallout and the corruption were unavoidable.  People, especially the poor, were just going to have to suffer.  The economy would feel an enormous shock and then rebound as everything found a natural price and value.  In the end, much suffering could not be avoided, but that the country would rebound quickly and it would all be over.  He said this with a smile and people braced themselves. 

 What followed the next decade was a persistent rise of the mafia-state and intensified suffering of the working poor and elderly populations. By 1995, workers, who had not been paid for months and years, were now paid in the products they made.  Most of the money in Russia had been pilfered by oligarchs into western off-shore accounts.  Eventually, factories would stop making products because there was no money to buy materials. In 1998 as the Russian government ran out of money, an IMF loan was made for 4.8 billion dollars. Within weeks it was sent to an offshore account on the Isle of Jersey and then disappeared.  None of the money went to help Russians.  Many in the country were assisted by the International Red Cross.  The cities began to run out of food. An already difficult situation was becoming dire.  

While the former Soviet Union was collapsing, they engaged in a terrible war in Chechnya, partly to distract the population from the suffering at home, but also because the Republic of Chechnya was a main transit area for stolen and illegal goods.  Western powers also began backing factionalist groups in the region.  Young Russians were leaving their families to never come home again.  Tajikistan was embroiled in a civil war that cost over 100,000 lives.  Georgia was in conflict with Azhbak rebels who gave assistance to the Chechnians (who were also aided by the west).  Many people feared an Islamic takeover of their province – and that is what happened across many of the former Soviet states of the south.  Violence was the norm.  Nothing was safe.

Russians were outraged at all the needless suffering and the workers having not been paid though expected to work.  The fall and economic adjustment were too much for them.  Yeltsin fired Gaidor and then the Supreme Council impeached Yeltsin and placed General Rutskoy to further the interests of the new Russian Federation.  Yeltsin disagreed; isolated the parliament building and then called in the tanks.  Yeltsin – the man that was embraced by Queen Elizabeth, Tony Blair, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton – used tanks against the people’s representatives in the Supreme Council. This was democracy in Russia and all the western democratic leaders, visibly, got behind it.  Remember, Yeltsin was able to do this because he had the allegiance of the military and the backing of the west.

The unpopular war and decline in living and working conditions led to a resurgence of the Communist Party, who won the majority of elections in the late 1990s.  Yeltsin would be elected in the next presidential vote, though widespread election fraud was reported and he had complete and total access to the media.  He was also losing in the poles, despite many people being told that the communists would bring back the Soviet Union – a message heard by Muscovites and those with access to media.  For those in the country and many smaller cities, they already ignored most media.  Yeltsin’s victory brought new foreign investment, but the mafia that he allowed in his rise to power, was now out of control.  He called the oligarchs in to tell them to stop the violence, but they were also powerless.  Despite democracy, Russia was spiraling downward into oblivion.  Foreign investors began to take all their money out of Russia.  The Russian people had nothing left to simply live.  A dire situation was becoming direr.  

A blood bank, opened in Rostov-on-Don, collected blood for money.  People queued in long lines for the opportunity as they had nothing to eat or were unable to buy medicine.  Long lines of people with nothing who were giving their own blood at a chance for tomorrow.   Though everyone was paid for their blood, most of it could not be accepted because the people donating were too malnourished.  

Meet the new boss; Same as the old boss.

By now, after nearly a decade of western style democracy, nearly everyone in Russia realized that it was dead.  Life expectancy dropped 8 years over the period; the price of an assassination was $100.00.  The suffering of the Russian people is well illustrated by Adam Curtis in Trauma Zone.

Famous Russian TV journalist Yevgeny Kiselyov said in late 1998 as Vladimir Putin was being prepared to be the next president of Russia:

Don’t mix Russians with Muscovites.  There is a big difference between the two.  200 or 300 kilometers from Moscow, and of course all of Russia much further away, democracy is no big deal. After ten years, democracy in Russia is a curse. You can offend someone; you can curse someone (in Russia) by naming them a democrat (paraphrased).

In steps Putin; who are you?

The oligarchs and Yeltsin had to find a replacement that would not throw them all in jail, as the communists surely would.  Vladimir Putin was chosen, placed at the head of the FSB (secret police/spy agency) and then became the Prime Minister.  The education system was in shambles due to the rejection of communist ideology, yet the need to teach young people to be good citizens remained.  Manuals were distributed that explained what a good president was – introducing Vladimir Putin.  The message was spread through the last remaining threads of decent society – the schools.  Professionals knew already that a leader was needed in Russia –they didn’t care who so long as they would be secure and important again – as they were during communism.  The entire nation would accept Vladimir Putin and no longer cared about this romantic notion of democracy.  They were much more interested in freedom.

In a unique mix of communist ethics and planning with the popular appeal to democratic ideals – Russia was moving towards a different and better future.  For the west, the opportunity to extract Russia’s wealth would be significantly curtailed.  It is one of the reasons why, for example, that the sanctions did not work.  The sanctions actually helped Putin reign in the power of many oligarchs who had the power to create violence and instability as they had before. The war in Ukraine is mostly the result of powerful oligarchs using superpowers to grab lands and resources.  The sanctions only hurt the oligarchs of Russia – not the people or the government. 

Democracy had created the opportunities for oligarchic control of the nation – Putin’s new Russia, which tried to turn once again to western Europe for assimilation, would rise out of a mix of communism and democracy.  Russia and Putin are in a much stronger position internationally than ever in their history. Putin is the democratically elected leader of Russia.

Most of Russians support Putin and this will not change even if the war in Ukraine should turn south.  As much as the west has tried to use Navalny, misinformation about assassinations and cancel culture against the Russian people and Putin, Russians by-and-large support their president.  This is in stark contrast to the “democracies” of the west who will begin to implode as they double down on the war, cancel culture and the sanctions.  It’s not clear even what they are fighting for, but as this goes on, the only thing they have left is to try and level out everyone else so that they have a better chance next time.  How many more countries will be thrown on the sacrificial flames of American hegemony – one cannot tell, but surely there will be many more to fall.

The west is suffering from a lack of leadership and this has been going on for some time now.  In America, the corruption, low educational standards, and increased government propaganda are reminiscent of the Soviet Union, which eventually fell. People had had enough. The western democracies, in fact, have become led and controlled by psychopaths -- Blinken, Nuland, Biden, Trump, Truss, Macron, Borrell, take your pick.  Perhaps they always were psychopaths, but people just couldn’t notice until the hypocrisies were laid bare and the whole world was forced to isolate them to maintain their own “democracies.”