Contradictions of Liberalization in Post-Communist Russia
This chapter highlights the contradiction between the expectations of liberalization after the fall of communism in Russia and the reality on the ground. It discusses the centralization of power and capital, decline in standard of living, and the negative effects of privatization without considering existing power dynamics and moral collapse.
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In the words of historian and noted Russian scholar Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson, the Soviet Union was the only empire to fall without a war. To the ordinary Russian citizen, however, the 1990s were no less tragic as life expectancy, average income, and birthrates all plummeted as crime, alcoholism and unemployment all rose. As the nation descended into the depths of despair, a new Oligarch class emerged controlling the commanding heights of production, principally in the natural resource and heavy industry sectors, coming to dominate not just the economy but with politics under the Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Only until the current President Vladimir Putin rose to power, ironically with the help of major oligarch Boris Berezovsky who was later exiled along with many others, did the Russian people begin to recover economically and in national pride.
