injured. But the struggle between parliament and
the president was not over. The December elec-
tions proved disappointing for the reformers
even though the new constitution proposed by
Yeltsin, which strengthened the power of the
president, was accepted in a national referendum.
The big shock of the elections was the emergence
of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the populist ultra-
nationalistic leader of the anti-reform group mis-
named the ‘Liberal Democratic Party’, which
gained sixty-four seats. Yegor Gaidar’s Russia’s
Choice, a reformist party, secured a disappointing
seventy seats, the Communist Party forty-eight,
the anti-reform Agrarian Party thirty-three, and
the Women of Russia twenty-three. The balance
of forces is against radical reform even though 129
Independents were also elected. Russia’s new
democratic institutions are fragile; the workings of
democracy are not fully understood in a factional
conflict lacking any consensus; the economy with
its constantly declining output is only being
reformed piecemeal. And added to the difficulties
of trying to maintain standards of living is the
peripheral but lethal nationalities problem.
Russia would also like to become a member of
the European Union, but such a prospect lies years
in the future. The Russian people have faced seem-
ingly interminable years of reform and falling stan-
dards of living with astounding patience and
fatalism. Serious conflicts that arose within the
country had national and ethnic causes. However,
solace is sought in the consumption of vodka.
Medical services lack the resources to deal with
endemic poor health aggravated by alcoholism and
a new threat, tuberculosis. Russia’s course of
reform has been erratic and uncertain. President
Yeltsin’s own mercurial performance was an indi-
cation of uncertainties of his policies. Nevertheless,
although Russia’s transition to market capitalism is
far from complete it has irreversibly moved away
from communism. Despite the fact that he con-
cealed a near-fatal heart condition the Russians
chose to stick with the devil they knew and re-
elected Yeltsin in June 1996.
After surgery, the Russian president staged
a remarkable recovery, and a new impetus to
economic reform was signalled with the appoint-
ments of Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov
as first deputy prime ministers. The task they
faced in normalising the economy and the lives
of the Russian people was daunting. Moreover,
the young reformers faced opposition from the
Duma, controlled by communists and national-
ists; fortunately these opponents of reform have
been held in check by the threat of losing their
seats and privileges in the event of an election.
Every year since 1992 it was hoped that Russia’s
economic decline had bottomed out. By 1996 the
official economy had shrunk to about half its 1989
level. Unsurprisingly the market economy failed
to bring equal benefits to all the Russian people.
The young and enterprising, a minority, were
profiting from new opportunities. The super-rich
derived their new wealth from privatisations
riddled with corruption. Guns as well as bribery
played an important role in this process and ‘pro-
tection’ was paid to Mafia-style bosses. A small
group of bankers, who helped to finance Yeltsin’s
re-election, did particularly well by promising
loans in return for shares to cash-starved indus-
tries selected for privatisation. However, despite
‘protection’, bankers were at risk: over a period
of just four years, after 1993, 118 were murdered.
Life has been hard for the ordinary people.
The bright lights of Moscow and St Petersburg
do not reach the rest of the country and the pri-
vatisation of agricultural land has made virtually
no progress. The black economy flourished while
taxes remain unpaid and for months the govern-
ment was unable to pay the army, health service
employees or pensioners. Trade was conducted as
much by barter as by cash. Although privatisation
of industry has made great strides it is hampered
by mismanagement. Some factories resorted to
desperate stratagems; The Economistreported how
one manufacturer of marine equipment, unable to
pay its workforce for over a year, switched pro-
duction to rubber dildos, marketed as ‘Adam’,
only to find that they were unable to compete
against more sophisticated battery-operated
Western models available in Moscow. Market
research is evidently still in its infancy in Russia.
Surprisingly, the armed forces of 2 million have
borne all these hardships and remained loyal. Badly
led, trained and equipped, the young conscripts
were unable to defeat the rebels of breakaway
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