The KPRF, its rhetoric notwithstanding, is a completely corrupt body the oligarchs could have allied with just as easily as with the Yeltsinites (maybe not as corrupt, it's hard to be more corrupt than Yeltsin. You would have to go to Corruption University and get a Ph.D. or something.).
I find it laughable when people justify Yeltsin's backdoor politicking in 1996 as necessary to keep the Communists from power. The KPRF are not Communists. They are populist lobbyists. Moreover, they would have had to work in a parliamentary system. There was zero chance of restoring Stalinism in 1996. Maybe one could make this argument in 1993, but 1996? No way.
Chris Doss The Russia Journal ---------- But why would they need to give the oligarchs "incentive" to defeat the KPRF? Surely the KPRF in 1996 was not something whose victory the oligarchs welcomed. Why weren't they already working as hard as they can to defeat the KPRF?
Brad DeLong