Russian Democracy in the 1990s: Doomed to fail?

manav95

Banned
Titanicus said:
Russian people were ready for democracy when they, in 1991, went out in force to stop the August Putsch. This ideal that some people are 'not ready for freedom' is silly at best, discriminatory at worst.
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The best pod is to avoid the August putsch and allow Gorbachev to reorganize the Soviet Union via the new Union treaty. It would still be weakened considerably with only 9 republics at most signing it, but it allows for an orderly transition to a democratic Soviet Union.
 
AlanJWhite

AlanJWhite

manav95 said:
The best pod is to avoid the August putsch and allow Gorbachev to reorganize the Soviet Union via the new Union treaty. It would still be weakened considerably with only 9 republics at most signing it, but it allows for an orderly transition to a democratic Soviet Union.
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No. It may simply make less mess dismantling the communist dictatorship. It will NOT create any effective democracy but speed the way back to some form of autocracy much as happened iotl.

The victims of centuries of tsarist rule and decades of soviet oppression cannot acquire the necessary skills and experience to form and maintain any semblance of effective democracy fast enough to stop the degeneration
 
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manav95

Banned
AlanJWhite said:
No. It may simply makes less mess dismantling the communist dictatorship. It will NOT create any effective democracy but speed the way back to some form of autocracy much as happened iotl

The victims ofcenturies of tsarist rule and decades of soviet oppression cannot acquire the necessary skills and experience to form and maintain any semblance of effective democracy fast enough to stop it
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Unless they had some sort of benevolent dictator on top, 08 Gorbachev. And I think he would still be in charge during the crisis.
 

Cryptic

sampleswift said:
Was the effort to bring democracy to Russia in the 1990s doomed to fail? Could it have possibly succeeded?
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My guess is that democracy would have to be gradually phased in along with the gradual adoption of a capitalist economy. Going from 70 years of intense socialism to wild west capitalism over night was just too much.
 

GeorgeUK

What if another candidate had won the 1996 election? Say voters flock to Russia's Choice, seeing Yeltsin as an incompetent drunk, Zhirinovsky as a lunatic and Zyuganov as one of the old Soviet dinosaurs?
 
Worffan101

Worffan101

Gone Fishin'
GeorgeUK said:
What if another candidate had won the 1996 election? Say voters flock to Russia's Choice, seeing Yeltsin as an incompetent drunk, Zhirinovsky as a lunatic and Zyuganov as one of the old Soviet dinosaurs?
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THe main problem with that is that Yeltsin and/or his paymasters blatantly rigged the 1996 Russian election, too.
 

Karelian

It's the economy.

Democracy needs a certain GDP average to take root and operate. Less Chicago school devastation and slower diversification of the state economy would enable the Russian government to avoid the economic collapse and the mob wars and oligarchy that followed, instead using the oil money to create a consumerist middle class like Putin eventually did in OTL, after Russian democracy had been taken over by the siloviki.

The problem is that this directly contradicts the aims and goals of the handful of people who had amassed the post-Soviet wealth to themselves, and they would not allow elected politicians to step to their toes without at least tacit approval for their new position in exchange of their retreat from daily politics.

So in the end the systemic change has to start from within the Soviet system, not from its ruins. So no August coup attempt would be the latest POD to actually enable some kind of lasting democracy to take root in former USSR.
 

sampleswift

Karelian said:
It's the economy.

Democracy needs a certain GDP average to take root and operate. Less Chicago school devastation and slower diversification of the state economy would enable the Russian government to avoid the economic collapse and the mob wars and oligarchy that followed, instead using the oil money to create a consumerist middle class like Putin eventually did in OTL, after Russian democracy had been taken over by the siloviki.

The problem is that this directly contradicts the aims and goals of the handful of people who had amassed the post-Soviet wealth to themselves, and they would not allow elected politicians to step to their toes without at least tacit approval for their new position in exchange of their retreat from daily politics.

So in the end the systemic change has to start from within the Soviet system, not from its ruins. So no August coup attempt would be the latest POD to actually enable some kind of lasting democracy to take root in former USSR.
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Last I checked, one of the points of Gorbachev was to open up the USSR and start systemic change that would hopefully lead to a more democratic system--but the USSR collapsed faster than Gorbachev expected it to? So he ran out of time?
 

Karelian

sampleswift said:
Last I checked, one of the points of Gorbachev was to open up the USSR and start systemic change that would hopefully lead to a more democratic system--but the USSR collapsed faster than Gorbachev expected it to? So he ran out of time?
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The stock AH answer is that he botched the order to reform a one-party planned economy dictatorship, and that the "Deng Method" of getting the GDP up while suppression of all dissent stays on a high level as well would have been the correct way to do it.

And Putin and his clique did really follow this script to a large degree.
"Ignore politics and high-level corruption, and rising standards of living, supermarkets and vacations abroad will be coming your way."
 

WolframandHart

The dissolution of the Soviet Union itself, against the democratic will of the Soviet people in a referendum, an unabashed coup, that lead Tsar Yeltsin to ultimately resolve that he didn't care one iota about Law or Democracy and lead a military counter coup when he was impeached and removed from office in 1993
 

sampleswift

WolframandHart said:
The dissolution of the Soviet Union itself, against the democratic will of the Soviet people in a referendum, an unabashed coup, that lead Tsar Yeltsin to ultimately resolve that he didn't care one iota about Law or Democracy and lead a military counter coup when he was impeached and removed from office in 1993
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Thank you! I thought this thread was dead. Speaking of dead...
So democracy in Russia was already dead on arrival after the dissolution of the USSR...
 

WolframandHart

Basically I'd say so, if you want a better picture of the Soviet Union and modern Russia your best bet is the late Professor Stephen Cohen an expert of Russia and the USSR, he advised HW Bush in the early 90s.
Search on Amazon and you'll see a few of his books,

Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War​

is your best bet.

Its important to note that people around Yeltsin wanted a Russian Pinochet, not exactly a good idea for democracy despite Thatcher's
complete misunderstanding/ignorance
 
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