The Portrayal of Events in Russia by the Western Press
This chapter discusses the portrayal of events in Russia by the Western press during a particular period. The speaker highlights the frustrating tendency of the Western press to label communists as conservatives and emphasizes that decisions made by Yeltsin were actually influenced by external forces. It concludes by emphasizing that Yeltsin's power was not as significant as it seemed.
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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.
