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Boris Yeltsin was named President
of Russia by the Russian Republic's Supreme Soviet in 1990. He immediately
resigned from the Communist party and declared Russia's independence. In 1991 he
became the first President of the Russian Republic by popular vote. He helped
found the Commonwealth of Independent States, which ended any attempts to
preserve the USSR. He moved to end state control of the economy, privatized most
industries and among other things outlawed the Communist Party. Beginning in
1992 the conflict between Yeltsin and his political opponents intensified.
Yeltsin suffered a series of defeats at the hands of the Russian Constitutional
Court, chaired by Valeriy Zorkin. The court overturned Yeltsin's decree creating
a Russian ministry of security and internal affairs and lifted portions of
Yeltsin's ban on the Soviet Communist party. In 1993 the court repealed his ban
on the National Salvation Front, a communist-nationalist organization that had
called for Yeltsin's removal.
In 1993 Yeltsin announced on television that he
had issued a decree declaring special presidential rule. But when the decree was
published there was no mention of special presidential powers. Vice President
Aleksandr Rutskoy sharply criticized Yeltsin for issuing the decree and for
using a referendum to gain popular approval of reform policies. Yeltsin asked
Rutskoy to resign as vice president, and when Rutskoy refused, Yeltsin removed
Rutskoy's powers of office, despite p! rotests by the Supreme Soviet. Yeltsin
won the support of the majority of Russian voters who participated in the April
1993 referendum, but the referendum did little to end his power struggle with
parliament. In September, Yeltsin attempted to break the power deadlock by
dissolving parliament and calling for new parliamentary elections. In turn,
parliament voted to impeach Yeltsin and swore in Rutskoy as acting president.
Led by Rutskoy and chairman of the Supreme Soviet Ruslan Khasbulatov, hundreds
of legislators and anti-Yeltsin demonstrators occupied the parliament building
in Moscow.
On September 28 Yeltsin ordered troops to barricade the parliament
building, and in the following week security forces, acting in support of
Yeltsin, clashed with pro-parliamentary demonstrators, who were mainly hard-line
Communists and nationalists. On October 4 Rutskoy and Khasbulatov surrendered.
In February 1994 they were granted amnesty by the lower house of parliament,
despite Yeltsin's opposition. In December 1994 Yeltsin sent Russian military
forces into the region of Chechnya, which had declared its independence from
Russia in 1991. Since that time Russia had made only minor military efforts to
reclaim Chechnya. This use of military force is an example of the fact that true
democracy can not exist in Russia, these tactics are Soviet-era coercive
measures. During the bombing of Grozny Russian-speaking suffered as much as the
natives. This was demonstrated the worst of the Yeltsin Regime. Yeltsin was
using the war to expand his political base and appear as a strong leader. Over
20,000 civilians died during this conflict, which in a sense achieved nothing.
The Russian economy has been put through sweeping reforms which have only proved
to through it into disarray.
This
mainly due to the fact that because the Soviet government has no experience in
Democratic/Capitalist styles of governing, and the 70 plus years of Communist
rule has left a huge dent in the Russian economy. The old style of government
has left behind a legacy of corruption, price distortions, inefficient public
industries and financial instability. This, combined with the need for much more
extensive political reform makes this task almost impossible. The process of
democratization of Russia occurred to quickly. This was done in the hopes that
the fast privatization of industry would hinder any chance of re-nationalizing
the economy, and basically forcing this new change. At the same time
privatization has contributed greatly to the popular belief that this new system
is unjust. State assets were distributed disproportionately to insiders, to
people willin! g to circumvent the law, and in some case to criminals. Official
corruption and the lack of enforced laws and clearly defined property laws has
lead to public dissension. One of Yeltsin's greatest mistakes was moving
economic reform ahead so quickly while not addressing the need for immense
political reform at the same time. The Russian economy is in disarray, and the
standard of living for the average citizen is as low if not lower than during
the Communist rule.
This had bred many social problems which, in effect, mirror
those of the Communist administration. Religious and ethnic animosity and the
lack of proper education in this new political and economic system has lead to
public discontent and a rise in the alcoholism problem. There has been recent
improvements in the distribution of wealth. There have been improvements in the
privatization process, especially in the building sector, this could bring the
expansion of small-scale property ownership, which is also an important step
towards private ownership. There is also a stronger entrepreneurial spirit among
lower class society. Yet with the lack of any experience in private
proprietorship and private business practices the population of the Russian
Federation is still not taking to the new system. For too many years it was
imprinted on them that everything must be publicly owned. Much of this can to
attributed to the Communist tradition of not communicating with the public,
which is a core part of any democratic system, the public participation and
communication in and with government. With the apparent lack of public
participation in government, and in turn the lack of communication by the
government with the people we can see that the Russian Federation is far from
being democratic.
The government acted too quickly in it's economic reforms with
not enough practical experience in Democratic/Capitalistic to pull it off. We
saw that some of the major contributing factors in the fall of communism was the
dissension of the citizens due to the fact that the government did not live up
to it's promise of a better life and the failure of the government to properly
deal with social problems. The other factors were economic, many of which we can
see are apparent in the new system. In it's current situation we are seeing the
same factors. Unless these problems are addressed quickly and resolved
effectively we will see the decline of yet another Russian governmental system.
On looking at the past we can see that the Russian public must overcome many
hurdles in order for them to truly embrace Democracy and enjoy the promises of a
better life that it has made. The government must promote the education of it's
citizens and communicate more efficiently with them. There is a long road ahead
for the Russian Federation in this enormous task, and at this time it almost
seems impossible.
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