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[XXSockXX]

>Yeltzin
>democracy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnz9lOXQP3w

Well, that certainly was not very democratic, but what would have been the alternative? Zhirinovsky, or maybe the communists? That was a transitional phase that we hoped Russia would have overcome by now, but it has not.

Means you don't really understand Russians.

That may very well be true BTW, but I don't think Russians (at least many of them) do understand us either. We had that already, with the post-socialist thinking and the cynical Russian soul being too pessimistic to believe that democracy might actually work. From what I see many Russians today seem to think that "democracy" means a dictatorship of what the masses are ok with, and that is not how democracy is supposed to work.

[Sergarr]

Protip: Russians cannot into democracy. At all. That transitional phase? Yeah, it wasn't transitional at all.

That's because the position of politician in Russian culture is considered to be lower than a thief on a scale of "honest work". Means no honest Russian will go to politics. Means the country will be ruled by the wastes of society. Means the politicians will continue to be considered lower than thieves.

The only real way to break out of that cycle (that I see) is do what ancient proto-Russians did in the 9th century and invite people from some other nation to rule over them.

EDIT: In fact, the only politician in Russia that Russians will consider good would a Tzar. Probably because whole Russian Tzar blood-line taking from the Rurik, who was a Scandinavian - non-Russian.

[Sheb]

So, your point is that it's the west's fault for the 90's, because they didn't just took over the whole country and install an american to lead it?

Also, what kind of support did Yeltsin receive from the West, apart from photo ops and kind words?

[Sergarr]

So, your point is that it's the west's fault for the 90's, because they didn't just took over the whole country and install an american to lead it?

Also, what kind of support did Yeltsin receive from the West, apart from photo ops and kind words?

Right now, yes, I think it's the West's fault to not realize the Russian dreams of being ruled with an iron fist by a foreigner.

Although it may be because of a terrible headache I'm currently having.

[XXSockXX]

Russians cannot into democracy.

I don't believe that. If we can do it, you can do it too. We're even quite good at it now, we just had to lay waste to half the world in the process. I'm sure you can do better than that. Please try.

[Sergarr]

We've tried, I think, two times already? In 1917 and in 1991. Both times it failed so miserably that even students are mostly apolitical nowadays. And I know that Russian student were very passionate about politics in the beginning of the 20th century, even going so far as to go bomb people.

Do you know that one of the major birthplaces for the classic terrorism (suicide bomb throwing) was Russia? Back in these days, the death causes for many high-ranked officials were "blown to death". Hell they even killed Alexander II! Can you imagine: a moderately progressive leader of a country, enacting laws forbidding slavery, being killed by a terrorist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_II_of_Russia#Assassination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnaya_Volya

A terrorist from an organization which aimed for progress!

And look what they did! They killed the only Tzar for centuries that was powerful enough to enact a meaningful change! They killed him in the name of so-called "freedom"!

These Russian people killed democracy in Russia, while ironically trying to promote democracy in Russia. Isn't this fucking ironic? Isn't this the very essence of our history?

When a bad ruler is in force, he's strong enough to quash all opposition, and the life is generally terrible for everyone.
When a good ruler is in force, he's too good to protect himself from radicals.
When a weak ruler is in force, either the radicals snatch power from him and become the worse rulers, or the so-called "elites" proliferate by forcing lower classes of society to work for them 6 days in a week 18 hours per day (that's a real thing that was existing. The peasants were only allowed to work for themselves for ONE DAY - Sunday. ONE. FUCKING. DAY).

[Guardian G.I.]

Also, what kind of support did Yeltsin receive from the West, apart from photo ops and kind words?

As I said, the West plopped up Yeltsin.
When the anti-liberal Supreme Soviet of Russia rose up against Yeltsin in 1993, the US government and the Western media, especially American media supported Yeltsin's crackdown against "communo-fascists". When Yeltsin took part in the presidential elections of 1996 while having a deserved approval rating of 5-6%, the US sent spin doctors to bail him out. It was all presented in the Western media as a fight between the "good" liberals and the "evil" communists.
Furthermore, a lot of major economic decisions were enacted by the Russian government only if they were approved by American economic advisors and the US government. Strobe Talbott, the Deputy Secretary of State during early 1990s, describes such practices in detail in his book "The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy".

The results of the first few years of Western liberal democracy, as described in a Russian article from 1995:

It is estimated that only 15 million people out of the 160 million population of Russia have preserved their standards of living (less than 10%), and only 5 million out of these 15 have significantly or noticeably improved it. Interestingly enough, 1 million of them resides in Moscow. From history it is known that such a state is typical for "dependence capitalist" countries: colonies and semi-colonies, as well as "periphery" countries in the era of neocolonialism. Generally that means the further from the capital, the less rich people are present and the more desperate the poverty is. The collapse of industrial production, mass lay-offs, rapid rise of unemployment (only 1 out of 3-5 fired workers registers at labour exchanges, and only 1 worker out of them receives an official unemployment status), constant delays of salary payments (up to 7-8 months for employees of services in Eastern Siberia, Kurgan Region, Perm), inflation - all of that naturally leads to a rapid fall of standards of living, the consequences of which are the fall of birth rate, the fall of life expectancy, the rise of morbidity and mortality.

As a result, in 1992, the Russian population fell by 219 000 people, despite the inflow of Russian-speaking refugees from other republics. In 1993, the death rate overtook the birth rate by 700 000 and in 1994, the population decline in Russia reached 920 000 people by some estimates. In other words, the Russian population declined by almost 2 million people in 3 years. In the Far East, the Ivanovo, Kurgan, Arkhangelsk, Saratov, Vladimir, Volgograd, Perm Regions people have to eat livestock feed - it has become a common and usual occurrence. In the Kurgan Region, hundreds of children were hospitalized after eating combined feed - it's food for livestock, after all, and not people...

[Ukrainian Ranger]

I can't say that Putin haven't seen support from the West.

Simple geopolitical truth is that USA\EU need stable Russia because

a) Russia is a market, not that large but still billions. And raw materials, delicious raw materials
b) It counterbalance China somewhat
c) Civil war or outright mad dictator of country with huge arsenal of nukes is bad

After all USA (or at the very least the president) was opposed to Ukrainian Independence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Kiev_speech

[Sergarr]

http://korrespondent.net/business/companies/3447054-vooruzhennye-luidy-zakhvatyly-odesskyi-npz

Ukraine really needs to reign its oligarchs in. After all, Maidan was supposedly a revolution of dignity?

(for english-speakers: unknown people with assault rifles have captured the Odessa's oil refinery, with Ukrnafta's staff with them. Ukrnafta partially belong to Kolomoyskiy - the infamous Ukrainian oligarch)

Welcome to fucking 90s, Ukraine, you're pretty late to the party.

[XXSockXX]

These Russian people killed democracy in Russia, while ironically trying to promote democracy in Russia. Isn't this fucking ironic? Isn't this the very essence of our history?

Well, the Weimar Republic was our first real attempt at democracy (1848 was just too ahead of the time to count) and we all know how well that went. Still, you don't have to repeat the same history over and over again. You can't change your history and it takes a long time to change the mentalities that are formed by that history, but it can be done.

The results of the first few years of Western liberal democracy, as described in a Russian article from 1995:

That is not how liberal democracy is supposed to work. Russia made a transition from planned economy to the worst kind of turbo-capitalism. The shitty kind of 19th century capitalism Marx and so many others rightfully criticised. What took many decades to grow in the West was implemented in Russia in just a year or so, without any counterbalance, no surprise it worked out disastrously.

Simple geopolitical truth is that USA\EU need stable Russia

That is true, like I said people were very willing to accept a semi-authoritarian rule in Russia, as long as it provided stability. Unfortunately, while Russia is relatively stable now, it has become totally unreliable in terms of foreign policy.

[Sergarr]

These Russian people killed democracy in Russia, while ironically trying to promote democracy in Russia. Isn't this fucking ironic? Isn't this the very essence of our history?

Well, the Weimar Republic was our first real attempt at democracy (1848 was just too ahead of the time to count) and we all know how well that went. Still, you don't have to repeat the same history over and over again. You can't change your history and it takes a long time to change the mentalities that are formed by that history, but it can be done.

Well I think we're at least doing somewhat okay on the whole "don't be a nazist" thing, at least. Though not good enough, as seen by the thousands of Russian nationalists fighting in Ukraine, some of them with flags like this.

I think this is probably the only good outcome of this war. With the amount of nationalists reduced in a country, maybe we'll have less chances of them becoming a major power.

Then again maybe it'll make them incredibly popular and "heroes of the nation" and crap like this and I'll live to see what a Nationalistic state looks like.

[Sheb]

Well, you're an expensionist power. Sure you might not be genociding anyone soon, but you can cause all kind of geopolitical problems.

Also, a russian bank lent 9 millions euros to the far-right, pro-Russian, French Front National.

[Sergarr]

An expansionist power which already is the biggest state of the fucking planet.

While most of our territory was last time developed by USSR.

Fucking Christ it's our destiny to live as the world's biggest joke isn't it

[Sinistar]

But... but... but we like jokes!

And we like Russia because it's one crazy country!

We Europeans are dull, Americans are stupid, Asians are too foreign and we always forget about Africa so that leaves only Russia to do it's best to make us smile and think "oh u Russia, y u so cray cray".

Without you world would be just too boring.

It's when you start being mean to the rest of the world is when we have troubles.

_{Above is a gross over-generalization and lame attempt at humor, please take it as such.}

[Ukrainian Ranger]

http://korrespondent.net/business/companies/3447054-vooruzhennye-luidy-zakhvatyly-odesskyi-npz

Ukraine really needs to reign its oligarchs in. After all, Maidan was supposedly a revolution of dignity?

(for english-speakers: unknown people with assault rifles have captured the Odessa's oil refinery, with Ukrnafta's staff with them. Ukrnafta partially belong to Kolomoyskiy - the infamous Ukrainian oligarch)

Welcome to fucking 90s, Ukraine, you're pretty late to the party.

If state bureaucratic system is too  slow to nationalize factory that is de facto owned by Yanukovich... Then I fully support methods like that