On 2010-02-14, at 12:38 PM, Chris Doss wrote:
> Well, there were all those gigantic crowds of protestors led by Zyuganov and Anpilov, the former of whom almost won (possibly did win) the 1996 presidential elections in Russia.
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>
> Something like that happened in the former USSR, where the transition to/restoration of capitalism was virtually uncontested by the working class and the party bureaucracy either of which, depending on your POV, owned the Soviet economy.
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Last gasp of the old order, no? By that time, it was pretty clear that the reintroduction of private property relations was irreversible. Yeltsin and Putin were more typical of the evolution of the CPSU nomenklutura, much of which benefited directly from the privatization of the energy and other major industries. The aging party ranks were a spent force who could do little other than peacefully protest the assault on their living standards which accompanied the destruction of the social safety net.