--- joanna <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> I'm far from being a Putin hater, but you have to
> admit that
>
> 1. Oil was a significant part of the success story
So much so that I sometimes half-suspect that the well-being of the Soviet/Russian economy has more to do with the price of export commodities than with its actual structure. Prices down = bad, prices up = good. Similarly, the Baltic States and Belarus, despite totally different economic systems, are all experience approximately the same high growth levels. Why? Because of the Russian rebound, on which they are parasitic.
That said, the stability of the system is certainly a major factor as well. I think the idea that Yeltsin was trying to "build a market economy" is largely mistaken. Yeltsin was trying to stay in power by any means necessary by giving state property to people who would support him, constantly rewiting laws to serve the exigencies of the moment, and dismissing the government every other Wednesday. There was very little actual reform in the Yeltsin era as opposed to "reform"). Putin on the other hand _is_ trying to build a "market economy with Russian characteristics" and to a large extent succeeding. That's why Gorbachev loves him.
> 2. That 50% drop in poverty is relative to the
> Yeltsin years, not the 70's.
>
Well yes the percentage of people earning under the subsistence level in the 1970s was probably about zero. However Putin did not come into office in the 1970s, he came into power in 2000. It was "polnyi khaos" (complete chaos). You can't work miracles.
Moreover very few people in Russia (pensioners excepted) want to return to the 1970s economic system. They like that they can choose from a wide variety of products, that the quality of goods is much better, that you own your own apartment, and so forth. (This is despite the generally high appraisal of Brezhnev and the Brezhnev era.)
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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