Communist Russia
In the past Russia has been a communist society. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the society strived to become more advanced and more "Western". After the collapse, the people had optimistic expectations. They believed that there would be a short transition period, a rise of a normal/civil society and that Russia would replace the Soviet Union as a great power. This did not happen. In fact, there were many difficulties that they are slowly overcoming. An event that, in my opinion, has encouraged a step in the right direction is the 1996 presidential election. This election was similar to a democracy but not exactly. There are certain elements of a democracy that Russia has not fully embraced. In the 1996 elections, Russia was still in the shadows on how to make the democracy work for them. Before jumping right into the election, I would like to discuss the collapse and the path that led to the democracy style elections. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the people expected a short, difficult transition period. This period turned out to be long and lasted until the end of the decade. The people were also looking forward to a rise of a normal/civil society with the addition of a middle class. In fact, they d
eveloped an hourglass society. This meaning that there was a small amount of middle class people and a large number of lower class people. The concentration of the wealth was in the possession of a small number of people. Russia also expected to take the place of the Soviet as a great power. The role of money, as with any election, played a main role in the 1996 election. First of all the oligarch's have always supported the centrists. The reason is that the centrists were "favorable" to the oligarchs. However, Yeltsin's re-election was heavily supported by Clinton and he supported large loans to Russia. The United States and Germany lent Yeltsin's government a total of 2.4 billion dollars. The Russian's ignored this corruption but after the election, the loans dried up. Some observers believed that these loans were intended to help Yeltsin's presidential election campaign by easing the economic situation. It is obvious that this contributed to Yeltsin's re-election. So money does contribute to the election. Is this not similar to the American campaigns? The Russian's have tried to be a more democratic society. First of all a democratic society is a big step for a Post-Communist Russia. "Voting was still quite new in early post-Communist Russia. Voting, that was, in the sense of choosing. Under the Soviet System there were frequent votes, but no opportunity to choose, not just between candidates or parties but (in practice) whether to vote at all"(White, 32). A democracy is quite simply, a government by the people. The people elect leaders to represent them (the people). In 1996, by allowing the people to vote for the person that he/she wanted they embraced a democratic ideal. This is similar to our democracy. I would like to elaborate on the ideas of a democracy. I was taught that there were six essential ideas of a democracy. The first is that people must accept the principle of the majority rule. By having elections I believe that Russia understood that they had the right to vote, but that someone they did not agree with could come into authority. Meaning they would accept the rule of the winner/majority. The second idea is the political rights of the minorities must be protected. By allowing minority parties to participate in the election, they are accepting this idea. However, with the impartiality of the media and the financial support of "select" parties, they have not fully taken into effect this idea. it derives its power from the people. Once again by allowing elections they are leaning in this direction, but they are not all the way there. These are the ideas of our democracy. We do no meet these ideas fully ourselves, so how can we criticize the Russians. That would be like the pot calling the kettle black. They are very influential. The last of the actors is the media, specifically T.V. There are three major T.V. stations in Russia; they are PRT, DRT and NTV. The oligarch's or the soviets own PRT and DRT. Gusinsky, who's an oligarch, owns NTV. He is usually truthful. Putin has waged a war for control of this station. These are all of the major political actors. They ea
Some common words found in the essay are:
Soviet System, Soviet Union, Prime Minister, Gennadi Zyuganov, United Germany, Federation Council, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Communities Al, Army Chechen, President TV, democratic society, presidential election, prime minister, prt drt, 1996 presidential, ideas democracy, soviet union, 1996 election, major political actors, middle class, people russia, normal democratic society, rise normal/civil society, 1996 presidential election, post-communist russia voting,
Approximate Word count = 2128
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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