President Boris Yeltsin became the guy in charge of a country with the largest population in Europe but no longer with a Soviet Plan and real problems from a security and economic standpoint. The west was mostly interested in wrangling the nuclear weapons out of former Soviet republics and their solution for the economy was "shock therapy." Bolivia and Poland had gone through similar shocks.
Poland's moves to change their moribund and stalled economy started earlier and had more more planning behind it. Hyperinflation and shortages were in place already before reforms were enacted in 1989. There was terrible suffering but inflation started to come down slowly. And shortages ended swiftly as private enterprises brought in food and supplies. It took six years for Poland to reach its 1989 GDP levels and for the last 25 years they have achieved excellent growth and are members of both NATO and the European Union.
Poland is worth mentioning here because Russia could have had what Poland has now and more. Gorbachev's perestroika was gradualist and glasnost opened the door to the change that was needed to change Russia. But as the attempted coup showed, there were forces that Poland and China did not have to contend with that Gorbachev and Russia did. And it didn't help that the U.S. offered little support either with George H. W. Bush or Bill Clinton when Russia did go into shock therapy and plunged into Depression as deep the likes the world has seen. The cash for weapons deal that was agreed by the U.S. for Russia removing the nuclear threat barely kept Russia afloat.
Boris Yeltsin threw open the doors on Russia and hyperinflation exploded. Meanwhile the west was going from one major conflict to another; first Gulf War 1 and then into the Balkans as Yugoslavia broke up. There were also costly engagements in Somalia, failures in Rwanda and continuing military efforts in bombing Iraq military targets and terror cells in Sudan and Afghanistan for worldwide attacks on Americans at home and a abroad. The United States and the world were not paying near as much attention to Russia save for the ethnic dissident violence taking place in Chechinya. As many Russians suffered, the United States went into budget surplus by the late 1990s. Russia was selling off assets to insiders and creating billionaire oligarchs. Corruption and crime were rife. Once popular Yeltsin was now near zero support.
The failing health of Yeltsin and rising power of the oligarchs meant reforms were stymied by the revolving doors at prime minister and as power and wealth were controlled in fewer hands. The resource crash of the 1998 affected Russia greatly and only an International Money Fund injection of billions kept the country from collapse. By 1999, resources rebounded but Yeltsin ravaged by sickness turned to unknown Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, to become prime minister.
Putin became engaged in combat with Chechens in Dagestan and bombs attacks in Russia attributed to Chechens. Some doubts not lie in regards to those attacks. Madeline Albright certainly felt she had seen no evidence that Chechens were bombing apartments. All Russian investigators ended up dead or arrested. This was a case where a false flag narrative appeared to re-enforce Putin as the defender of Russia. And gave him the excuse and support needed to start a second war with Chechnya.
Even Yeltsin seemed confident in Putin and resigned early and Putin became acting President in 1999. He went onto win the presidency of Russia in the next election and had held power as PM or president for near 25 years. A good deal of that success was based on a rise of resources and confiscating some oligarch's assets and removing any threat inside Russia to his power. Investment was made in schools and hospitals and people could see recovery in what had been an awful time for ten years.
Putin in every year he has been in charge of Russia has become more authoritarian. Any critic, any opposition gets removed through threat or violence. The last election in 2018 saw to it that he really was unchallenged. The trade off for most Russians is that the economy was still growing and if that was happening, it was best to stay quiet. Some were in full support as appealing to Russian nationalism often worked for Putin.
And the west was prepared to let Russia take a pass so long as it didn't involve direct conflict. Putin counted on that. For years he seethed about Russia's loss of domination of everything east of the Berlin wall and of clients states around the world. He wasn't a communist anymore, if ever was. His aspirations were for power. And in 2014, he took Crimea and part of eastern Ukraine and sanctions were insufficient to convince him that the west would ever stop his ambition. Even Olympic games just went on.
A year ago, Putin made the calculation that if Russia took the rest of Ukraine, no one would do anything about it...not even Ukraine...once it was occupied. After all, 2014 to 2022, he was able to annex Crimea and nothing happened. What he didn't count on was Ukraine fighting back and that his force would not be able to muster a lightning fast response. Keep in mind that Ukraine did this with western countries closing embassies and moving people out in the expectation that they county would fall. It didn't.
Then leader of Ukraine Zelensky shamed the west into action and galvanized his people into defending Ukraine. NATO and other nations dragged their feel about any military assistance but relented in the face of Russian brutality and Ukrainian resilience. A year is past and it appears Russia is planning a spring offensive. There hasn't been this type of heavy duty fighting since World War II. How it ends is hard to say. The Ukrainians are determined to kick Putin out once and for good and for Putin, only total victory might be acceptable for those who matter in Russia.
And to think, it could have all been so different starting way back in 1989 till now. This is why the case of Poland is still worth examining. While they are not perfect, it would be safe to say that they have embraced Europe and are a stalwart ally of the west. They have backslided on some democratic aspects of their post Eastern Bloc breakaway but then again, much of Europe is less liberal than it was.
Gorbachev's gradualist change for Russia was too slow compared to the social and economic struggles of the country. However, every move he made was constrained by those who wished no change. Give the literal shortages and the stranglehold the nation felt on any innovation, this was not a strategy that could go much longer. The Soviet Union could not continue an arms race and manage the Eastern Bloc and its own republics without collapse. Ultimately, Gorbachev chose to let the Eastern Bloc chart their own course.
Where things could have gone differently is if Gorbachev had codified the changes needed on taxes, banking, administration and a whole host of areas that Poland gave great thought to in 1989. The gradualist approach though didn't remove the command economy and had no real answers for the nearly 25% of the economy that was the military industrial complex. While Poland was one administrative area with nearly 98% ethnic Polish, the Soviet Union was multiple administrative areas, multiple ethnicities, multiple languages, nations within nations and Russia itself at the time had no administrative area just for itself.
From 1989 to 1991, Eastern Bloc countries were literally rewriting the books that were set since the end of the war. For East Germany, it was a reunification with West Germany that would have been near impossible without massive financial and structural changes from the wealthier German side. Poland and Czechoslovakia were not nearly as lucky but better planning and transfer of assets to the citizenry made for less painful and faster economic growth.
The utter corruption in the Soviet Union and Russia prevented any "Velvet Revolution" or short "shock therapy" from working as it did for others. The attempted coup in 1991 is but one violent example of the resistance. A for the next ten years there was a prolonged robbery by a kleptocracy of government and oligarchs. This collapse was not the west attempting to make a pauper of Russia. The United States, Canada and Europe were downsizing military involvement that was focused on Russia. Canada, for example, pulled all its forces out of Europe.
Putin's criticism of the west is that it was surrounded on all sides by enemies but that doesn't jibe with the fact that Russia was invited to the G8 and G20 is 1997 and 1998 respectively and was courted by France and Germany for expanded economic, social and political involvement in Europe. The break-up of Yugoslavia was the source of growing tension mainly because of Russia's connection to Serbia.
Any hope of avoiding conflict in the region seemed fruitless. And keeping the status quo while other parts of eastern Europe were looing to grow their economies and allow for open elections was just not on. Russia, still crippled economically, was not able to help their Serbian allies save for blocking any type of United Nations action. And China was never going to support action because they still kept a military option open for Taiwan and would not support something that could bring consequences.
NATO involvement in the former Yugoslavia was to end fighting that was sending millions fleeing and killing tens of thousands of others. Canada alone took in 220,000 refugees from 1994-2000. Prior to that, economic collapse sent thousand to Canada as immigrants. Years of sitting on the sidelines by the west prolonged death and suffering by so many. Still, this was never an attack on Russia nor China although the Chinese embassy was hit in Belgrade resulting in three people being killed. The Chinese continue to say this was on purpose. One thing made clear was that the CIA was the instigator of the attack rather than NATO. And perhaps the point of their attack intelligence assistance by China to support Serbia was being done in the embassy. Debate on that still goes on today.
Keep in mind that one year later, after China was compensated for the deaths and made a member of the World Trade Organization in 2001, relations with the U.S. improved. But Russia and China were not happy with NATO's response to the former Yugoslavia because it showed that ethnic cleansing was just not in the cards and that eventually would lead to action.
Today, Russia and China continue to be opposed to the west as both seek to disrupt democracies while asserting their own power and influence. The authoritarian rule of both countries depends on a narrative that western countries are a threat to national independence. The truth is that authoritarianism is a far worse threat to that. Democracy is not easy nor is rules-based relationships. In the absence of democracy, our safest and most reliable world-wide arrangement is a rules-based pattern of behaviour.
Even in democracies like Canada and the U.S,, breaking the rules happens. The January 6 riot to overturn the election in the U.S. is an example of that. But it bears repeating that the west is not looking to invade China or Russia. Putin digs back deep to World War II and the Russian Revolution in his criticisms of the U.S. and others. China often goes back to days long before the Communist Party took over when criticizing the west. The west can take the criticism but it doesn't mean attack is imminent.
For a lot of the world outside Europe, the war in Ukraine is just another western war. Unless it is in their region, it is hard for them to see why to be involved.
Authoritarian rulers often use nationalism and security threats to control their people. Russia uses that to keep its people in line and to feed the war machine. The problem is that is that the population will not accept defeat from its leaders if drawn into a war that hurts them. Emptying out the prisons and mass deaths there doesn't hurt Russians. Further call ups of citizens will eventually hurt more.
This post though was about how things could have been different for Russia and still might be if the conflict stops. There wasn't anything dictating Vladimir Putin had no choice to act the way he did from 1999 till today. In fact, from 1991-1999, he and others could have made moves to make their countries better but he acted corruptly and took money. And the first thing he did was pardon himself. And doubled down on the corruption thereafter.
Corruption is the poison that undermines representative government. Antidemocratic forces are ones that try to suppress voting, free speech, the judicial system, free press and any critics or monitors of government. It has happened in Canada, it certainly happened in the U.S. and still does. The strength of liberal democracy is that creates a rules bases system that allows people to be free but has recourse from the abuses of state and enterprise. In Russia, corruption has been going on so long that all that is left is authoritarian government. And strangely enough as Putin and oligarchs gorge themselves, they seethe about eastern Europe and former Soviet Republics.
NATO, the European Union and other world bodies are rules based organizations that Putin can't stand. These institutions were open to Russia but he only favoured ones that concentrated on trade like the WTO. As the world has come to understand the WTO is pretty powerless over brutal regimes.
After a year of war in Ukraine and longer if you go back to Crimea and Eastern Ukraine in 2014, imagine a Russia inside NATO, a member of the European Union, trade partnerships over the world and as a democratic country. It would be the wealthiest country in Europe, be safe and secure in a European and NATO circle.
No nation is perfect but Russia is in trouble because its leadership is a kleptocracy and now because of belligerence, it has finally met resistance that likely leads to defeat for Putin. It could have gone so different.
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