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AFP. 5 December 2001. Russia's dashed hopes. MOSCOW -- At a glance Russia has made remarkable progress in the 10 years since the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist on December 8, 1991, with individual freedom, democracy and a market economy apparently taking root. But look closer and the picture is less rosy -- a mixture of stagnation and decline -- with nobody in Russia's political or economic elite seemingly able to halt the downward slide that hastened the Soviet Union's defeat in the Cold War. The dawn of Russian democracy saw many pro-Yeltsin reformers nurturing unrealistic hopes of an economic miracle that would have taken Russias income per head above Spain's by 2010. Devaluation, default and a banking collapse in August 1998 dispelled the mood of optimism, and prompted much hand-wringing in the United States, where Congress and the Clinton White House answered the question "Who lost Russia?" with a bout of finger-pointing. Some economists look wistfully westwards, acknowledging that even to match the prosperity of the European Unions poorer members such as Greece and Portugal, Russia needs to grow by eight percent a year for the next 15 years. "The current numbers give a rather good impression. But compared to 1991, we are 10 or 20 years behind," argues Oleg Bogomolov, an economist at Russias Academy of Sciences. Gross domestic product (GDP) in 2001 is almost 30 percent down from where it was in 1992, while industrial output has fallen by 35 percent, and capital investment by 70 percent, while nearly one Russian in three has to get by on less than the basic minimum. In the political arena, doom-mongers point to the costly and debilitating war in Chechnya -- the second in a decade -- and the Kremlin's clumsy attempts to clamp down on press freedom as evidence that Soviet strongarm tactics are still highly regarded by Russia's masters. Significantly, Putin the ex-KGB spy reinstated the Soviet anthem last year in a bid to appease the millions of Russians who still hanker for old certainties as opposed to the more blustery atmosphere of post-Communist pluralism. The sad state of its once-proud army remains one of Russia's weakest links 10 years on, and few here agree about how to fix a force that nowadays scares its allies as well as its enemies, for all the wrong reasons. The sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine in August 2000 was only the most painful reminder that much of Russia's military and civilian infrastructure is leaking and rusting and rotting. Already widespread in the Soviet Union, corruption has poisoned most areas of Russian life, while ordinary citizens have witnessed a terrifying explosion of criminality and contract killing. Murder aside, Russians risk quite simply dying out, due to the collapse of the birthrate and rising mortality levels caused by their cigarette-smoking, vodka-swilling lifestyles that are further endangered by an exponential increase in tuberculosis and AIDS. Experts have warned of a "demographic disaster" amid talk of the population falling from its current 145 million to 55 million by 2075. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
