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> nor do I believe in the kleptocratic crony carnival that is Russia. The rush to privatize everything in Russia came from the West - particularly the US. The

> nor do I believe in the kleptocratic crony carnival that is Russia. The rush to privatize everything in Russia came from the West - particularly the US. The US encouraged Yeltsin (who Putin was a protege of) to use tanks to shell Russia's parliament - which was celebrated on US news shows, in government etc. You're upholding the beacon of the US to militantly right what it had a hand in creating in the first place.

dmix 3y ago
Plenty of other post-soviet countries rushed to privatize too and it worked out fine. At least far better than what it was before. Russia doling out their biggest companies to their friends turning them into oligarchs was probably a predictable outcome in retrospect. The difference between Russia and the surroundings smaller states was that it was the power center of that entire part of Europe and beyond. That huge amount of backroom power structures (not to mention the KGB) were far larger and not things that were going to fade away easily. It was primed to turn into a pseudo mafia state without proper reforms... By the people themselves, not some foreign overlord (although good advisor's always helps). The responsibility is always ultimately going to rely on people caring internally, as we saw in Afghanistan/Iraq you can't externally prop up democratic/fair organizations without local buy in and local cultural adhesion. So it comes down to what Russia could/would do themselves. I'm curious what the alternative would have been given Russia's sovereignty. The west not getting involved and pushing raw privatization and not pushing back during the power struggle by the communist factions... I guess it would be more like a modern extreme top-heavy state-capitalism. So basically China? The oligarchs would have to do their deals via gov annoited monopolies, being run by princelings. Elite party members rather than Oligarchs. Or maybe best case scenario some top heavy EU style country like Belgium (53%) / France (58%) . Finland (54%) / etc where >50% of GDP is via gov (Russia is currently 36%) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen...
voz_ 3y ago
Bullshit. I was there. I remember. The crony capitalism came from Russia's own spirit. I remember watching the "new style businessmen" in their leather jackets try to intimidate family members into giving up their apartments. All the criminals and thugs that had heretofore operated in the shadows, smuggling and working around the systems, came out into the open and became the new economy. All the brains and talent fled, and as things settled and shook out, a sort of mob-capital hybrid emerged that has to the kleptocratic paradise we now see today.
- foverzar 3y ago
  Oh please, you are mixing things up. Leather jackets mafia types have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Source: i was there.
themodelplumber 3y ago
Uh. Privatization in RUS has stimulated the propagation of kleptocracy which was _systemic_ in CCCP times to a magnificent extent. To relate it solely to or even just directly with privatizing things in the US is not only not necessary, but misleading, especially given the near 1:1 relationship of the de facto world Putin operated in early in his career as compared to what is being exposed to the west about his government's operating style right now.
InTheArena 3y ago
This is simply untrue. Go read almost all of the recent scholarship on Russia - almost all of it concludes that the problem is not too much US involvement, but rather to little engagement combined with too much capital given freely in a effort to replicate the success of the Marshall plan in stabilizing European democracy post world war 2. This is a popular Putinist talking point, and like all of his other propaganda vehicles untrue.
- sschueller 3y ago
  Interesting that you would call this a Putinist talking point when back in the 90s people where saying the same thing before Putin was on anyone's radar. Yeltsin by many was considered a drunk western puppet.
- foverzar 3y ago
  > recent No thank you. The fact that you insist specifically on "recent", i.e. decades after actual events and during a very specific political climate makes me 100% sure that there is zero substance. > capital given freely You have no idea what you are talking about right? Dude, what capital? The only capital that went through Russia were the investors buying state assets cheap and oligarchs filling their pockets for selling "well fluid" (oil, but not taxed)
  - InTheArena 3y ago
    You dismiss the research and numbers, then re-iterate your point, as if the research and numbers don't exist. Wilful ignorance of reality is still ignorance. (https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1117290.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1117290.pdf, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjTu7G7oPr-AhU0In0KHezKCp0QFnoECBAQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2F2001-2009.state.gov%2Fr%2Fpa%2Fho%2Fpubs%2Ffs%2F85962.htm%23%3A~%3Atext%3DJuly%25201993%253A%2520Additional%2520Economic%2520Assistance%2520to%2520Russia%26text%3DThe%2520Summit%27s%2520Economic%2520Declaration%2520called%2Cand%2520the%2520former%2520Soviet%2520republics.&usg=AOvVaw0-j5zIwvMsEG8LOx1ZBB9Y https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c..., https://ips-dc.org/aid_to_russia/ https://ips-dc.org/aid_to_russia/). Also Warcast from the ISI which recently did a great podcast on the subject.
eternalban 3y ago
> The rush to privatize everything in Russia came from the West - particularly the US. The US encouraged Putin's protege Yeltsin to use tanks to shell Russia's parliament - which was celebrated on US news shows, in government etc. > You're upholding the beacon of the US to militantly right what it had a hand in creating in the first place. translation: Russians have no agency. What happned in Russia post USSR is entirely on Russians and Russian culture. You should show more respect to a people and arguably a civilization than painting them as chumps that do the bidding of foreigners to their own detriment. Russia is responsible for Russia's situations. Just like we are responsible for our (equally not optimal lately) situation over in US. +I have no idea where you get your facts: Yeltsin wasn't "Putin's protege", Putin wasn't Yeltin's protege either. The mayor of St. Petersburg was Putin's patron and he (being powerful) apparently* brokered a deal for transition from Yeltin's clique to his own (and then Putin ran with it). Yeltsin promoted Putin because he got a deal for himself and his family after the transition. That does not make him Putin's protege. As to the tanks, it's possible CIA called and suggested something. Is this America's fault that Russian politicians overnight turn from fire breathing communist to CIA lapdogs? Is it really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Sobchak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Sobchak * that's actually wrong. Sobchak was in exile in Paris at that time. So Putin's actual patrons in his rise may have been KGB all along.

dmix 3y ago

Plenty of other post-soviet countries rushed to privatize too and it worked out fine. At least far better than what it was before. Russia doling out their biggest companies to their friends turning them into oligarchs was probably a predictable outcome in retrospect. The difference between Russia and the surroundings smaller states was that it was the power center of that entire part of Europe and beyond. That huge amount of backroom power structures (not to mention the KGB) were far larger and not things that were going to fade away easily. It was primed to turn into a pseudo mafia state without proper reforms... By the people themselves, not some foreign overlord (although good advisor's always helps). The responsibility is always ultimately going to rely on people caring internally, as we saw in Afghanistan/Iraq you can't externally prop up democratic/fair organizations without local buy in and local cultural adhesion. So it comes down to what Russia could/would do themselves. I'm curious what the alternative would have been given Russia's sovereignty. The west not getting involved and pushing raw privatization and not pushing back during the power struggle by the communist factions... I guess it would be more like a modern extreme top-heavy state-capitalism. So basically China? The oligarchs would have to do their deals via gov annoited monopolies, being run by princelings. Elite party members rather than Oligarchs. Or maybe best case scenario some top heavy EU style country like Belgium (53%) / France (58%) . Finland (54%) / etc where >50% of GDP is via gov (Russia is currently 36%) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen...

voz_ 3y ago

Bullshit. I was there. I remember. The crony capitalism came from Russia's own spirit. I remember watching the "new style businessmen" in their leather jackets try to intimidate family members into giving up their apartments. All the criminals and thugs that had heretofore operated in the shadows, smuggling and working around the systems, came out into the open and became the new economy. All the brains and talent fled, and as things settled and shook out, a sort of mob-capital hybrid emerged that has to the kleptocratic paradise we now see today.

foverzar 3y ago
Oh please, you are mixing things up. Leather jackets mafia types have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Source: i was there.

themodelplumber 3y ago

Uh. Privatization in RUS has stimulated the propagation of kleptocracy which was _systemic_ in CCCP times to a magnificent extent. To relate it solely to or even just directly with privatizing things in the US is not only not necessary, but misleading, especially given the near 1:1 relationship of the de facto world Putin operated in early in his career as compared to what is being exposed to the west about his government's operating style right now.

InTheArena 3y ago

This is simply untrue. Go read almost all of the recent scholarship on Russia - almost all of it concludes that the problem is not too much US involvement, but rather to little engagement combined with too much capital given freely in a effort to replicate the success of the Marshall plan in stabilizing European democracy post world war 2. This is a popular Putinist talking point, and like all of his other propaganda vehicles untrue.

sschueller 3y ago
Interesting that you would call this a Putinist talking point when back in the 90s people where saying the same thing before Putin was on anyone's radar. Yeltsin by many was considered a drunk western puppet.
foverzar 3y ago
> recent No thank you. The fact that you insist specifically on "recent", i.e. decades after actual events and during a very specific political climate makes me 100% sure that there is zero substance. > capital given freely You have no idea what you are talking about right? Dude, what capital? The only capital that went through Russia were the investors buying state assets cheap and oligarchs filling their pockets for selling "well fluid" (oil, but not taxed)
- InTheArena 3y ago
  You dismiss the research and numbers, then re-iterate your point, as if the research and numbers don't exist. Wilful ignorance of reality is still ignorance. (https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1117290.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1117290.pdf, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjTu7G7oPr-AhU0In0KHezKCp0QFnoECBAQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2F2001-2009.state.gov%2Fr%2Fpa%2Fho%2Fpubs%2Ffs%2F85962.htm%23%3A~%3Atext%3DJuly%25201993%253A%2520Additional%2520Economic%2520Assistance%2520to%2520Russia%26text%3DThe%2520Summit%27s%2520Economic%2520Declaration%2520called%2Cand%2520the%2520former%2520Soviet%2520republics.&usg=AOvVaw0-j5zIwvMsEG8LOx1ZBB9Y https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c..., https://ips-dc.org/aid_to_russia/ https://ips-dc.org/aid_to_russia/). Also Warcast from the ISI which recently did a great podcast on the subject.

eternalban 3y ago

> The rush to privatize everything in Russia came from the West - particularly the US. The US encouraged Putin's protege Yeltsin to use tanks to shell Russia's parliament - which was celebrated on US news shows, in government etc. > You're upholding the beacon of the US to militantly right what it had a hand in creating in the first place. translation: Russians have no agency. What happned in Russia post USSR is entirely on Russians and Russian culture. You should show more respect to a people and arguably a civilization than painting them as chumps that do the bidding of foreigners to their own detriment. Russia is responsible for Russia's situations. Just like we are responsible for our (equally not optimal lately) situation over in US. +I have no idea where you get your facts: Yeltsin wasn't "Putin's protege", Putin wasn't Yeltin's protege either. The mayor of St. Petersburg was Putin's patron and he (being powerful) apparently* brokered a deal for transition from Yeltin's clique to his own (and then Putin ran with it). Yeltsin promoted Putin because he got a deal for himself and his family after the transition. That does not make him Putin's protege. As to the tanks, it's possible CIA called and suggested something. Is this America's fault that Russian politicians overnight turn from fire breathing communist to CIA lapdogs? Is it really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Sobchak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Sobchak * that's actually wrong. Sobchak was in exile in Paris at that time. So Putin's actual patrons in his rise may have been KGB all along.