The Soviet economy was growing under Brezhnev, albeit at an increasingly slow rate. Economic decline started in 1989, after the advent of perestroika, then accelerated with the 500 Days program and reached a nadir with the 1998 crisis, then the economy started rapidly growing again.
Stagnation (zastoi) was a term invented by Gorbachev. In the 70s and 80s, most Soviets didn't think they were stagnating. I mean, they went from having no video games to having video games.
Anyway the same pattern of rapid collapse followed by rapid growth occured in all the post-Soviet countries, so it cannot be specifically blamed on Yeltsin, who was after all not president of Ukraine. (With the exception that four of the former republics -- Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan -- have yet to have the rapid growth part. They are still at pre-1989 levels.)
----- Original Message ---- From: JAMES Heartfield <heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk>
No doubt it was, but Clinton could not do worse to the Russian economy than Breznhnev, Chernenko, Gorbachov and Yeltsin did between them. The Soviet economy was already screwed by the time of 'stagnation'. Blaming the failures on the west was by that time a pathetic alibi. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk