How Putin and his Cronies Stole Russia

[Mark Kohut]

Who is the Russian satirist who sees recent Russia as Pynchon
saw America in Mason & Dixon?

On Sat, Dec 20, 2014 at 8:44 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
> For twenty years now, the Western politicians, journalists,
> businessmen, and academics who observe and describe the post-Soviet
> evolution of Russia have almost all followed the same narrative. We
> begin with the assumption that the Soviet Union ended in 1991, when
> Mikhail Gorbachev handed over power to Boris Yeltsin and Russia,
> Ukraine, and the rest of the Soviet republics became independent
> states. We continue with an account of the early 1990s, an era of
> "reform," when some Russian leaders tried to create a democratic
> political system and a liberal capitalist economy. We follow the
> trials and tribulations of the reformers, analyze the attempts at
> privatization, discuss the ebb and flow of political parties and the
> growth and decline of an independent media.
>
> Mostly we agree that those reforms failed, and sometimes we blame
> ourselves for those failures: we gave the wrong advice, we sent naive
> Harvard economists who should have known better, we didn't have a
> Marshall Plan. Sometimes we blame the Russians: the economists didn't
> follow our advice, the public was apathetic, President Yeltsin was
> indecisive, then drunk, then ill. Sometimes we hope that reforms will
> return, as many believed they might during the short reign of
> President Dmitry Medvedev.
>
> Whatever their conclusion, almost all of these analysts seek an
> explanation in the reform process itself, asking whether it was
> effective, or whether it was flawed, or whether it could have been
> designed differently. But what if it never mattered at all? What if it
> made no difference which mistakes were made, which privatization plans
> were sidetracked, which piece of advice was not followed? What if
> "reform" was never the most important story of the past twenty years
> in Russia at all?
>
> [...]
>
> Instead of seeing Russian politics as an inchoate democratic system
> being pulled down by history, accidental autocrats, popular inertia,
> bureaucratic incompetence, or poor Western advice, I conclude that
> from the beginning Putin and his circle sought to create an
> authoritarian regime ruled by a close-knit cabal...who used democracy
> for decoration rather than direction.
>
>
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/dec/18/how-he-and-his-cronies-stole-russia/?insrc=whc
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l