30.

La cada de la Unin Sovitica (1991) y la restauracin

capitalista en Rusia

* 5 marzo 1953: La muerte de Stalin y el desmantelamiento del

Gulag.
* 26 junio 23 diciembre 1953: El arresto y ejecucin de Lavrenti
Beria.
* 14 septiembre 1953 14 octubre 1964: Nikita Jrushchov secretario
general.
* Febrero 1955: El alejamiento de Georgy Malenkov del Presidium.
* 24-25 febrero 1956: El discurso secreto de Jrushchov en el XX
Congreso del PCUS.
* 4 noviembre 1956: La invasin sovitica de Hungra.
* 4 de octubre 1957: El satlite Sputnik y el cosmonauta Yuri Gagarin
(12 abril 1961)
* 1-2 junio 1962: Jrushchov y la masacre de Novocherkassk: 22
muertos.
* 1963: La crisis agrcola y la colonizacin de Kazajstn: importacin
de granos.
* Coexistencia pacfica y crisis de los misiles cubanos (14 octubre-3
noviembre 1962)
* Agosto 1960: Retirada de asesores de China y conflicto sino-
sovitico (julio 1963)
* Baja productividad del trabajo: En 1963 un minero en los EEUU
produce 14 toneladas de carbn por da, mientras que su homlogo
sovitico produce 2.1 toneladas por da.
* 14 octubre 1964: Destitucin de Nikita Jrushchov: Gobierno de
Leonid Brezhnev (14 octubre 1964 - 10 noviembre 1982): 18 aos
* Septiembre 1965 - febrero 1966: Juicio a los escritores Andrei
Sinyavsky y Yuli Daniel, condenados, respectivamente, a 7 y 5 aos
de prisin por haber escrito obras satricas.
* 20 agosto 1968: Invasin sovitica de Checoslovaquia: Fin de la
Primavera de Praga.
 2

* Alcoholismo y cada en la esperanza de vida: de 69,3 aos en 1969

a 67,7 en 1979
* 1971-9: La poltica de dtente (distensin): Tratados de desarme
nuclear SALT I y II
* Agosto 1971: Richard Nixon suspende la convertibilidad del dlar en
oro debido a dficit ocasionado por la Guerra de Vietnam: Fin de los
acuerdos de Bretton Woods
* 30 julio 1 agosto 1975: La Conferencia de Helsinki y los derechos
humanos.
* 18 octubre 1978: El cardenal de Cracovia Karol Wojtya es elegido
Papa Juan Pablo II.
* 24 diciembre 1979: Invasin sovitica en Afganistn: 9 aos de
guerra (1979-89).
* Segunda Guerra Fra (1979-1985): Boicot norteamericano de los
Juegos Olmpicos de 1980 en Mosc
* 17 agosto 1980: Tercera ola de huelgas en Polonia y creacin de
Solidarno.
* 20 enero 1981: Eleccin de Ronald Reagan como presidente de los
Estados Unidos .
* 12 noviembre 1982 9 febrero 1984: Gobierno de Yuri Andropov (16
meses)
* 23 marzo 1983: La Iniciativa de Defensa Estratgica de Ronald
Reagan: Star Wars
* 13 febrero 1984 10 marzo 1985: Gobierno de Konstantin
Chernenko (13 meses): gerontocracia sovitica (burocrtica).
* 11 marzo 1985 - 24 agosto 1991 (6 aos): Gobierno de Mijail
Gorbachov, de 54 aos.
* Mayo 1985: La campaa contra el alcohol: Disminucin en los
ingresos del estado
* 1986: Gorbachov nombra a Yeltsin 1 secretario del comit del
partido en Mosc.
* 26 abril 1986: El desastre nuclear de Chernobyl (Ucrania) y su
encubrimiento.
 3

* Estancamiento: la 5 parte de la comida consumida en la URSS era

importada
* "Perestroika" (reestructuracin) y "glasnost" (apertura,
transparencia)
* Tres grandes reformas econmicas tienden a restaurar el
capitalismo:
1) Julio 1987: Ley de Empresas Estatales aprobada por el Soviet
Supremo (nueva NEP): autonoma financiera de las empresas: las
empresas que daban prdidas podan ser cerradas (desempleo):
transicin gradual al comercio mayorista y a la liberacin de precios:
capitalismo de estado.
2) Mayo 1988: Ley de Cooperativas: Creacin de empresas privadas
bajo el rtulo de cooperativas.
3) Diciembre 1988: Decreto sobre el Comercio Exterior: Abolicin del
monopolio estatal del comercio exterior y creacin de compaas de
importacin y exportacin
* Octubre 1987: Gorbachov despide a Yeltsin por criticar la lentitud de
la perestroika. Yeltsin se recrea a s mismo como un nacionalista ruso
y principal critico de Gorbachov desde la derecha que pide restaurar
el capitalismo.
* 8 diciembre 1987: Tratado de Fuerzas Nucleares Intermedias:
Destruccin de 1.846 armas nucleares en la Unin Sovitica y de 846
en Estados Unidos tres aos.
* Febrero 1988 a mayo 1994: Guerra de Nagorno-Karabaj entre
Armenia y Azerbaiyn.
* Retirada del ejrcito sovitico de Afganistn: comenz el 15 de
mayo de 1988 y termin el 15 de febrero de 1989.
* Mayo 1988: Viaje de Ronald Reagan a Mosc.
* Diciembre 1988: Reforma poltica de Gorbachov: Una enmienda a la
Constitucin de la Unin Sovitica de 1977 crea un Congreso de los
Diputados del Pueblo de la Unin Sovitica (2.250 diputados de los
cuales se eligen ), el cual a su vez elega al Soviet Supremo de la
Unin Sovitica (542 diputados), y este al Presidente de la URSS
 4

* 26 marzo 1989: Elecciones al Congreso de los Diputados del Pueblo:

las nicas elecciones celebradas al Congreso de los Diputados del
Pueblo, que dur solo 2 aos. Yeltsin es elegido delegado por la regin
de Mosc con una plataforma nacionalista
* Marzo 1989: Movimientos independentistas en el Bltico ganan las
elecciones.
* Junio 1989: Elecciones en Polonia: Solidarno gana 60 de los 61
escaos del Sejm
* 9 noviembre 1989: Cada del muro de Berln.
* 4 marzo 1990: Elecciones legislativas en la Repblica Socialista
Federativa Sovitica de Rusia: Primera eleccin parlamentaria
relativamente libre en Rusia desde 1917. Entre los diputados electos
del PCUS estaba Boris Yeltsin, quien fue elegido por el Congreso de los
Diputados del Pueblo de la RSFSR como Presidente del Presidium del
Soviet Supremo de la RSFSR, efectivamente el lder de Rusia (12 junio
1991).
* 12 junio 1991: Rusia se declara un estado soberano, y al mes
siguiente hacen lo mismo Ucrania y Bielorrusia. Yeltsin renunci al
PCUS un mes despus, en julio 1990.
* Septiembre 1990: La privatizacin se transforma en poltica oficial
bajo Gorbachov: por primera vez la economa se contrae un 2,4% en
1990 y un 13% en 1991: cada en un 50% en el comercio exterior
debido a la disolucin de la Comecon y de la URSS.
* Enero 1991: Ultimtum de Gorbachov a Lituania y a Letonia: 18
muertos civiles.
* Marzo 1991: Referndums en Letonia y Estonia a favor de la
independencia.
* 17 marzo 1991: Referndum sobre el mantenimiento de la Unin
Sovitica: 77,8% a favor, con un 80% de participacin.
* 12 junio 1991: Elecciones presidenciales en Rusia: Yeltsin gana con
el 58,6% de los votos. El candidato del Partico Comunista, Nikolai
Ryzhkov, obtiene el 17,2%.
 5

* Julio 1991: Gorbachov abole el Comit Estatal de Planificacin

(Gosplan) y solicita la afiliacin de la Unin Sovitica al FMI y al
Banco Mundial.
* 18-21 agosto 1991: Intento fallido de golpe de Estado contra
Gorbachov.
* 25 diciembre 1991: Gorbachov dimite, la Unin Sovitica es
disuelta (dur 74 aos)
* La URSS fue sucedida por 15 repblicas: 7 en Europa (las tres
repblicas eslavas de Rusia, Ucrania y Bielorrusia; las tres repblicas
blticas de Lituania, Letonia y Estonia; y Moldavia en la frontera con
Rumania); las 5 repblicas de Asia Central (Uzbekistn, Kazajstn,
Tayikistn, Kirguistn y Turkmenistn), y las 3 repblicas situadas en
las montaas del Cucaso (Azerbaiyn, Georgia y Armenia).
* Rusia tiene aproximadamente las partes de la superficie terrestre
de la antigua Unin Sovitica y la mitad de su poblacin. Es la nacin
ms grande del mundo por su superficie: posee 70% ms territorio
que el segundo pas ms grande del mundo.
* 12 junio 1991 - 31 diciembre 1999: Boris Yeltsin presidente de Rusia
(8 aos)
* 2 enero 1992: Terapia de shock de Yegor Gaidar: Levantamiento
del control de precios (hiperinflacin) y privatizaciones (a cargo de
Anatoly Chubais): Desempleo masivo y surgimiento de la burguesa
de los oligarcas.
* 1990-8: 9 aos de crisis: El PBI se contrajo un 49% y la produccin
industrial un 46%: En comparacin, en los EEUU, la contraccin
econmica de 4 aos de 1929 a 1933, que marc el punto bajo de la
Gran Depresin, supuso una cada del PIB del 30%. Slo en 2007 el
PBI de Rusia super el de 1990 (20 aos perdidos).
* Disminucin de los salarios reales en un 52% entre 1990 y 1995
(jubilaciones 57%)
* Entre 1990 y 2004 la esperanza de vida masculina en Rusia se
redujo de 65,5 aos a 58,8 aos, una cifra inferior a la de la India,
 6

Egipto o Bolivia. En un perodo de 4 aos, de 1990 a 1994, la

esperanza de vida de las mujeres se redujo de 75 a 71 aos.
* Como resultado de la restauracin capitalista, la poblacin de Rusia
disminuy en 6 millones en 20 aos, de 148,3 millones de personas
en 1990 a 142,4 millones en 2010.
* La tasa de homicidios en Rusia aument rpidamente a partir de
1991, llegando a 32,4 por cada 100.000 habitantes en 1994, ms del
triple de la tasa de 9,8 en 1988.
* Primarizacin de las exportaciones (gas y petrleo): Rusia pas de
ser una superpotencia a ser un pas semicolonial exportador de
commodities, como Argentina.
* La crisis asitica que estall en julio de 1997 redujo las
exportaciones de petrleo rusas a la mitad, dando lugar a la crisis
financiera rusa de octubre 1998: Default y depreciacin del rublo,
como Argentina en el 2001. La economa de Rusia era para entonces
un poco ms pequea que la de los Pases Bajos.
* Desde 1999, la economa comenz a crecer un 7% cada ao debido
a la devaluacin del rublo y al fuerte aumento del precio del petrleo,
con una recada en el 2008-9.
* 21 septiembre-4 octubre 1993: Crisis constitucional rusa de 1993
(187 muertos): Resulta en un rgimen presidencialista bonapartista y
semidictatorial: El choque entre Yeltsin y el presidente del Soviet
Supremo, Ruslan Khasbulatov, hizo que las propuestas de ley de
Yeltsin fueran rechazadas. En septiembre de 1993 Yeltsin orden la
disolucin de la legislatura. En respuesta, el parlamento destituy a
Yeltsin de su cargo y eligi en su lugar al vicepresidente Aleksandr
Rutskoi, llamando a sus partidarios a tomar las armas en defensa del
parlamento. El 2 de octubre de 1993 Yeltsin orden bombardear la
sede del parlamento ruso. 187 personas murieron y 437 resultaron
heridas. En cuestin de horas, los parlamentarios se rindieron.
* 12 diciembre 1993: Referndum ratifica una nueva Constitucin
presidencial rusa: El presidente designa el primer ministro y a su
gabinete, puede disolver la legislatura, vetar la legislacin y gobernar
 7

por decreto en caso de necesidad. Rgimen presidencial autocrtico y

restriccin drstica de las libertades democrticas.
* 11 diciembre 1994 31 agosto 1996: 1 Guerra de Chechenia: 6.500
civiles muertos
* 16 junio 1996: Elecciones presidenciales: Yeltsin es reelegido, luego
de que el FMI le otorgara un prstamo de emergencia de $10.2
billones en febrero 1996.
* 9 agosto 1999 - 7 mayo 2000: Vladimir Putin como primer ministro
de Yeltsin.
* 26 agosto 1999 mayo 2000: 2 Guerra de Chechenia: 10.000
civiles muertos
* 31 diciembre 1999: Yeltsin renuncia a la presidencia y designa en su
lugar a Vladimir Putin, un ex-agente de la KGB.
* 23 marzo 2000: Elecciones presidenciales: Vladimir Putin es
oficialmente elegido.
* 31 diciembre 1999 - 7 mayo 2008: Primera presidencia de Vladimir
Putin
* Los choques de Putin con los oligarcas: Vladimir Gusinsky (el dueo
del canal de televisin NTV), Boris Berezovsky (exiliado en Londres) y
Mikhail Khodorkovsky (Yukos Oil pasa a manos de la compaa estatal
Rosneft). El estado tambin retom el control de la industria
aeronutica, de la compaa de diamantes Alrosa y de Gazprom.
* Bajo Putin la economa creci un 7% anual hasta la crisis del 2008
(recada en 2008-9)
* 14 marzo 2004: Elecciones presidenciales: Putin es reelegido con el
71% de los votos
* 2 marzo 2008: Elecciones presidenciales: Presidencia de Dmitry
Medvedev (7 mayo 2008 - 7 mayo 2012)
* 4 marzo 2012: Elecciones presidenciales: 2 presidencia de Vladimir
Putin (7 mayo 2012 - actualidad)
* Poblacin de Rusia: 143,5 millones en 2012.
 8

1973: Oil Shock: cada drstica en las tasas de crecimiento.

1975: Acuerdos de Helsinki: derechos humanos (contrarrevolucin

democrtica).

1983: Ronald Reagan lanza la Iniciativa de Defensa Estratgica:

Segunda Guerra Fra.

11 marzo 1985 - 24 agosto 1991: Mikhail Gorbachev (6 aos en el

poder).

Estancamiento: Perestroika (reestructuracin) y glasnost (apertura,

transparencia).

Julio de 1987: Ley de Empresas Estatales (autonoma: las empresas se

autofinancian).

Mayo de 1988: Ley de Cooperativas (empresas privadas: NEP).

Diciembre de 1988: Decreto sobre el Comercio Exterior (abolicin del

monopolio estatal).

26 March - 9 April 1989: Elecciones al Congreso de los Diputados del

Pueblo (reforma).

9 de noviembre de 1989: Cada del muro de Berln.

1989-1990: Movimientos independentistas en el Bltico, el Cucaso,

Ucrania y Bielorrusia.

12 de junio de 1991: Boris Yeltsin es elegido Presidente de la

Repblica de Rusia.

18-21 agosto 1991: Intento de golpe de Estado contra Gorbachov.

25 de diciembre 1991: Gorbachov dimiti y la URSS dej de existir.

25 diciembre 1991 - 31 diciembre 1999: Boris Yeltsin es Presidente de

Rusia.

Enero 1992: terapia de choque de Yegor Gaidar elimina control de

precios + privatizacin

La crisis econmica dur 9 aos, desde 1990 a 1998 - la ms larga y

profunda depresin econmica sufrida por un pas importante en
tiempos de paz. En 1998 el PIB real haba cado a un poco menos del
49% de su nivel de 1990. En 1998, la produccin industrial total se
haba reducido a 46% de su nivel de 1990. En comparacin, la
contraccin econmica de cuatro aos en 1929-33 en los Estados
 9

Unidos, que llev a la economa estadounidense en el punto ms bajo

de la Gran Depresin, supuso una cada del PIB del 30%. Desde 1999,
la economa rusa empez a crecer un 7% anual debido a la
devaluacin del rublo y al fuerte aumento del precio del petrleo. Slo
en 2007 el PIB de Rusia super el de 1990, pero volvi a caer en 1008
debido a la crisis mundial (20 aos perdidos).

Primarizacin de las exportaciones (commodities): de gran potencia a

pas semicolonial.

Entre 1990 y 2004, la esperanza de vida masculina en Rusia

disminuy de 65.5 a 58.8 aos. Esta ltima cifra era menor que la de
la India, Egipto o Bolivia. La poblacin de Rusia era 141.930.00 en
2011. Alcanz un mximo histrico de 148.689 millones en 1991,
justo antes de la desintegracin de la Unin Sovitica, pero comenz
una larga declinacin poco despus, cayendo a un ritmo de 0.5%
anual debido a la cada de las tasas de natalidad y el aumento de las
tasas de mortalidad. Rusia registr un crecimiento natural de la
poblacin por primera vez en 15 aos en 2009. Como resultado de la
restauracin capitalista, en el perodo de 20 aos de 1991 a 2011
Rusia perdi 6.850.000 personas.

21 septiembre-4 octubre, 1993: Golpe de Yeltsin: Crisis constitucional

rusa de 1993: Yeltsin bombardea la sede del parlamento (la Casa
Blanca del Congreso de los Diputados del Pueblo de Rusia) y disuelve
del parlamento.

12 de diciembre 1993: Referndum ratifica nueva Constitucin para

Rusia, instaurando un rgimen presidencial autocrtico y
restringiendo drsticamente la democracia.

11 diciembre 1994 31 agosto 1996: Primera guerra de Chechenia.

16 junio-3 julio, 1996: Eleccin presidencial rusa: Yeltsin fue reelegido.

9 agosto 1999-7 mayo 2000: Vladimir Putin como primer ministro de

Yeltsin.

26 agosto 1999 mayo 2000: Segunda guerra de Chechenia.

Insurgency phase: June 2000 16 April 2009 (9 years, 7 months and 2

weeks)

31 diciembre 1999 - 7 mayo 2008: Presidencia de Vladimir Putin (ex-

KGB).
 10

Enfrentamientos con los oligarcas: Procesamiento de Mikhail

Khodorkovsky (Yukos Oil).

14 de marzo 2004: Putin reelegido a la presidencia, con el 71% de los

votos.

7 mayo 2008 - 7 mayo 2012: Presidencia de Dmitry Medvedev.

07 de mayo 2012 - : Segunda presidencia de Vladimir Putin.

53 periodistas asesinados desde el 1992 - 36 periodistas asesinados

desde el 2000
 11

La cada de la Unin Sovitica en 1991 y la restauracin del

capitalismo en Rusia

General Secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union:

14 septiembre 1953 14 octubre 1964: Nikita Khrushchev (11 aos)

14 octubre 1964 10 noviembre 1982: Leonid Brezhnev (18 aos)

12 noviembre 1982 9 febrero 1984: Yuri Andropov (16 meses)

13 febrero 1984 10 marzo 1985: Konstantin Chernenko (13 meses)

11 marzo 1985 24 marzo 1991: Mikhail Gorbachev (6 aos)

(President of the Soviet Union from 15 March 1990)

Presidents of the Russian Federation:

Boris Yeltsin (25 diciembre 1991 31 diciembre 1999)

Prime Ministers:

Yegor Gaidar (15 June 1992 15 diciembre 1992)

Viktor Chernomyrdin (14 diciembre 1992 23 marzo 1998)

Sergey Kiriyenko (23 marzo 1998 23 marzo 1998)

Viktor Chernomyrdin (23 marzo 1998 11 septiembre 1998)

Yevgeny Primakov (11 septiembre 1998 12 mayo 1999)

Sergei Stepashin (12 mayo 1999 9 agosto 1999)

Vladimir Putin (9 agosto 1999 7 mayo 2000)

Vladimir Putin (31 diciembre 1999 7 mayo 2008)

Dmitry Medvedev (7 mayo 2008 7 mayo 2012)

Vladimir Putin (7 mayo 2012 )

 12

14 September 1953 14 October 1964 : Nikita Khrushchev (8

aos de gobierno)

5 March 1953: Stalins death - GUlag inmates released

26 June 1953: Beria arrested (executed on 23 December 1953)

February 1955: Malenkov demoted as Presidium member.

Agricultural crisis: There was a terrible famine in 19467 caused by an

especially harsh drought. The income of farmers in 1949 amounted to
about 50% of the 1928 level, and by 1953 it had gone up to only 60%
of that level.

Virgin lands campaign: Colonization of Kazakhstan (soil erosion):

300,000 pioneers

Poor harvest and beginning of food imports in 1963.

15 May 1955: Austrian State Treaty: Allies left Austrian territory on 25

October 1955

February 1956: De-Stalinization: Secret speech at the Twentieth Party

Congress

Thaw (deshielo): Peaceful Coexistence

4 November 1956: Soviet occupation of Hungary

4 October 1957: Satellite Sputnik launched: Beginning of Soviet space

program

1-2 junio 1962: Masacre de Novocherkassk (22 muertos, 87 heridos, 7

ejecutados)

1428 October 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis

12 April 1961: Yuri Gagarin: First person in space: Space race

Julio 1963: Mao hace pblico el conflicto sino-sovitico (Agosto 1960:

retirada de los asesores soviticos de China)

1963: desastre agrcola : Khrushchev decide importar 12 millones de

toneladas de cereales de los pases occidentales : Fracaso de la
colonizacin de las tierras vrgenes

18 octubre 1964: El Pleno del Comit central despide a Khrushchev y

designa a Brezhnev como Primer Secretario del Partido y a Alexei
Kosygin como Presidente del Consejo de Ministros, separando las
funciones de jefe del partido y jefe del gobierno.
 13

14 October 1964 10 November 1982 : Leonid Brezhnev (18

aos de gobierno)

Convinced that nobody lives just on his wages, Brezhnev was

unashamedly corrupt.

Dissident clandestine literature: samizdat (self-publishing)

mimeograph machines.

September 1965-February 1966: The Sinyavsky-Daniel trial: against

Russian writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, sentenced to,
respectively, 7 and 5 years in prison for having secretly circulated
satirical works.

In 1973 the KGB employed 500,000 people; by 1986 the number had
risen to 700,000.

In 1974 Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Union.

From 1962 to 1983 some 500 opponents were detained in psychiatric

hospitals.

20-21 August 1968: Crushing of the Prague Spring (5 January21

August 1968): Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia

24 December 1979: Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: Afghan War (24

December 197915 February 1989) lasted 9 years. Afghanistan was
undergoing a civil war that Soviet leaders feared the regime might
lose to Muslim fundamentalists. But the intervention proved to be a
major blunder.

Economic stagnation under Brezhnev (1964-1982): Khrushchevs

drive to improve the standard of living remained stalled. The
government maintained military expenditures, some 10.5% to 11.5%
of the gross national product. In 1963 each miner in the United
States produced 14 tons of coal per day, whereas their Russian
counterpart produced 2.1 tons per day. To understand the workers
attitude, one need only consider the lot of an unskilled worker, who in
1964 earned 60 rubles a month, a sum that could buy two pairs of
shoes and nothing else. The performance of the Soviet economy
dramatically deteriorated after 1975. This was manifested in a sharp
slowdown in the rate of economic growth, which fell below the USs.
This coincided with a sharp reduction in economic growth in the
capitalist countries after the oil shock of 1973, showing that the
Stalinists countries were in fact subordinated to the dynamics of the
world market.
 14

The agricultural sector was stagnant. Investments in capital stock

increased by 160% in the years from 1965 to 1980, whereas total
output went up by only about 20%. One reason for this was the poor
quality of agricultural machines. Machines were obsolete and often
broke down. In western Siberia, only 15% of milking machines were in
working order. Even when they did work properly they were
inefficient. Throughout the USSR there was such a shortage of trucks
and trains with refrigerators that a substantial amount of the
agricultural yield perished before reaching the markets.

Fall in life expectancy: During the decade from 1969 to 1979 life
expectancy fell from 69.3 years to 67.7 years. The health care system
was for most people woefully inadequate, but that was not the only
reason for these declines. Alcoholism, a perennial problem in the
Russian empire, remained widespread in the Soviet Union. In
Leningrad alone, in 1979, over 11% of the population was arrested for
being inebriated in public. It has been estimated that in 1980 some
50,000 people died from alcoholism and that 8% to 9% of the
countrys national income was lost because of alcohol abuse. The rate
of absenteeism at factories and offices on Mondays of workers
recovering from a weekend of excessive drinking was alarmingly high.

In 1977 Brezhnev took the initiative in drafting a new constitution,

which replaced the outworn Stalin constitution of 1936.

16 October 1978: Karol Wojtya, Cardinal of Crakw, elected Pope as

John Paul II

31 August 1980: Solidarno (Lech Wasa) and the Polish revolution

of 1980-81

12 November 1982 9 February 1984 : Yuri Andropov (16

meses)

Andropov was 69 and ill. He died in February 1984, having served as

general secretary less than 16 months. His period in office coincided
with the US Star Wars Program:

23 March 1983: Strategic Defense Initiative proposed by President

Ronald Reagan: Segunda Guerra Fra.

The Soviet Union was economically unable to cope with the American
military buildup

13 February 1984 10 March 1985 : Konstantin Chernenko (13

meses)
 15

The Politburo then chose the 72-year-old K.U. Chernenko, who died in
March 1985, after 13 months in power without any memorable
achievement.

11 March 1985 24 August 1991 : Mikhail Gorbachev (6 years

in power)

Unlike the previous gerontocrats, Gorbachev was a relatively young

apparatchik (54). In 1985 the Soviet economy had experienced a
decade of stagnation, with no end in sight. Gorbachev tried to break
out of this impasse by launching two campaigns called "Perestroika"
(reestructuracin) and "glasnost" (apertura, transparencia: lifting of
control on public debate and freedom of expression).

May 1985: Gorbachev's Anti-Alcohol Campaign: Less than two months

after becoming General Secretary of the Communist Party, Mikhail
Gorbachev launched a campaign against alcohol abuse, backing it up
with a series of measures to reduce alcohol production and sales.
These included limiting the kinds of shops permitted to sell alcohol,
closing many vodka distilleries and destroying vineyards in the wine-
producing republics of Moldavia, Armenia and Georgia, and banning
the sale of alcohol in restaurants before two o'clock in the afternoon.
While the anti-alcohol campaign may well have resulted in a decline
in alcohol consumption, it also precipitated a sharp rise in the
production of vodka at home (samogon) and, like Prohibition in the
United States, an increase in organized crime. Instances of alcohol
poisoning also rose, as hard drinkers turned to other, more
dangerous, substances. No less serious was the decline in state
revenues, which created a budgetary imbalance. This was overcome
by resort to printing money, which fuelled inflation. And the campaign
against alcoholism did not stimulate an increase in productivity. It was
quietly abandoned after 1987.

December 1986: Gorbachev personally invited Andrei Sakharov, a

Nobel Prize winning scientist who had been exiled to Gorky for his
human rights activities, to return to Moscow, where he soon became
the leader of the democratic movement.

26 April 1986: Chernobyl disaster: ecological catastrophe and

cover-up

Economic stagnation under Gorbachev:

In both industry and agriculture, the rate of increase declined steadily.

About one-fifth of the food consumed in the Soviet Union had to be
imported, at a time of growing budget deficits, declining tax revenues
 16

and falling net investment. To revert this situation, Gorbachev

launched his oxymoronic market socialism reforms in 1987.

Perestroika : Gorbachevs 1987 Economic Reforms:

June 1987: At a plenary session of the Central Committee of the

Communist Party (CPSU), Gorbachev presented his "basic theses,"
which laid the political foundation of economic reform for the
remainder of the existence of the Soviet Union.

July 1987: Supreme Soviet of the USSR passes the Law on

State Enterprise

The law stipulated that state enterprises were free to determine

output levels based on demand from consumers and other
enterprises. Enterprise autonomy meant abandoning the system of
central determination of a detailed plan of outputs and inputs for each
enterprise. There would be mandatory state orders for part of the
enterprises output, to ease the transition away from the old system
of detailed central administration. But, over time, state orders were to
gradually shrink as a proportion of output. The remainder of
enterprise output would be sold through wholesale trade.
Enterprises would become relatively free to determine what they
would produce and to whom they would sell their products. The share
of wholesale trade was supposed to rise to 60% by 1990. While some
prices would remain centrally controlled, others would be set by
contracts, with growing freedom of pricing over time. Enterprise
directors were granted increased power over employee pay.
Enterprises became self-financing; that is, they had to cover expenses
(wages, taxes, supplies, and debt service) through revenues. No
longer was the government to rescue unprofitable enterprises that
could face bankruptcy. Finally, the law shifted control over the
enterprise operations from ministries to elected Labor Councils at
enterprises. The Councils were to play a role in decisions about pay,
discipline, and worker training. Key managerial personnel, including
the enterprise director, were to be elected by the employees, with the
right of removal by vote as well.

May 1988: The Law on Cooperatives

For the first time since the NEP, the law permitted private ownership
of businesses in the services, manufacturing, and foreign-trade
sectors. The law initially imposed high taxes and employment
restrictions, but it later revised these to avoid discouraging private-
 17

sector activity. Under this provision, cooperative restaurants, shops,

and manufacturers became part of the Soviet scene.

December 1988: Decree on Foreign Trade:

Abolicin del monopolio estatal del comercio exterior

The opportunities to make a lot of money in private business

improved greatly after this decree was passed by the Council of
Ministers in December 1988. Previously all foreign trade had been the
monopoly of the state. This decree allowed both state and private
firms to trade directly with foreign entities. The decree on foreign
trade of 1988 opened an important means to get rich. Many Soviet
goods, particularly oil and metals, were potentially lucrative export
items. After this decree opened up foreign trade to private firms,
importexport companies were formed, in the legal form of
cooperatives, which soon began to conduct a partly legal, partly
illegal, and very profitable export trade. Over three thousand such
firms were formed. Exporting raw materials required a license, but the
Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations turned was bribeable. By
199091 a new group of private capitalists had developed and was
getting rich mainly through connections with the outside world.

La poltica exterior de Gorbachov y el fin de la Guerra Fra

Gorbachov hizo prcticamente todas las concesiones que condujeron

a los trascendentales acuerdos de reduccin de armamento de fines
de los aos ochenta. Por medio de una serie de propuestas y
concesiones totalmente inesperadas y a menudo unilaterales,
Gorbachov y su ministro de Asuntos Exteriores Eduard Shevardnadze
buscaban sanear las finanzas del pas librndolo del peso de la
carrera armamentstica.

Gorbachov se reuni cinco veces con Ronald Reagan entre 1985 y

1988. Tras un primer encuentro celebrado en Ginebra en noviembre
de 1985, que tuvo pocos resultados prcticos, Gorbachov convenci a
Reagan de que asistiera a una reunin que se celebr en Reykiavik,
Islandia, en octubre de 1986. All, ambos mandatarios estuvieron muy
cerca de decidir la eliminacin de todos los misiles balsticos. Al final,
la insistencia de Reagan en seguir adelante con la SDI llev al
mandatario sovitico a retirar las asombrosas propuestas que haba
puesto sobre la mesa. Pero el fracaso de Reykiavik fue slo temporal.
Poco despus, Gorbachov dej de insistir en que el abandono por
parte de Estados Unidos de la SDI tuviera que ser condicin
indispensable para avanzar en las conversaciones sobre control de
 18

armamento y acept la opcin cero ofrecida por Estados Unidos en

1981, que slo haba sido una estratagema propagandstica, ya que
favoreca de forma evidente a este pas. Las concesiones del
mandatario sovitico tuvieron como resultado el Tratado de Fuerzas
Nucleares Intermedias, firmado en la cumbre de Washington el 8 de
diciembre de 1987, que condujo a la destruccin de 1.846 armas
nucleares en la Unin Sovitica y de 846 en Estados Unidos en el
plazo de tres aos, permitiendo a ambos bandos una inspeccin
rigurosa, sin precedentes, de las bases del contrario. Por primera vez
en la era atmica, toda una categora de armas nucleares no slo se
limitaba, sino que se eliminaba.

La retirada del ejrcito sovitico de Afganistn comenz el 15 de

mayo de 1988, y termin el 15 de febrero de 1989.

El viaje de Reagan a Mosc en mayo de 1988 demostr de forma an

ms palpable la transformacin que se estaba operando en las
relaciones entre Estados Unidos y la Unin Sovitica. En diciembre de
1988, Gorbachov volvi a Estados Unidos para reunirse con Reagan
por ltima vez, as como para entrevistarse con el presidente en
funciones, George Bush. Durante ese viaje pronunci un importante
discurso en la sede de Naciones Unidas, en el que revel su intencin
de reducir unilateralmente en 500.000 hombres las fuerzas militares
soviticas. La relajacin del dominio sovitico provoc el jbilo de los
disidentes de Europa del Este e hizo temblar a los apparatchiks
comunistas de la lnea dura. A ella sucedi, con notable celeridad, una
serie de revoluciones democrticas populares que acabaron con los
regmenes comunistas de Europa del Este, comenzando, a mediados
de 1989, por el de Polonia, donde el sindicato Solidarno, hasta
entonces prohibido, form un nuevo gobierno, y terminando por el
violento final del rgimen de Nicolae Ceauescu en Rumania en
diciembre de ese mismo ao. El acontecimiento que con mayor fuerza
simboliz el desmoronamiento del viejo orden fue la cada del muro
de Berln, que tuvo lugar el 9 de noviembre de 1989. Esa infame
barrera de cemento de 45 kilmetros de longitud haba llegado a
significar no slo la divisin de la antigua capital alemana, sino
tambin la divisin de Europa.

December 1988: Gorbachevs political reform:

December 1988: enmienda de 1988 a la Constitucin de la Unin

Sovitica de 1977:

1. Congreso de los Diputados del Pueblo de la Unin Sovitica

(2.250 diputados)
 19

2. Soviet Supremo de la Unin Sovitica (542 diputados)

3. Presidente del Soviet Supremo de la URSS (1989-1991)

In December 1988, Gorbachev created a new political structure: a

new executive in the form of a presidential system, as well as a new
legislative element, to be called the Congress of People's Deputies A
Congress of Peoples Deputies consisting of 2,250 members, partially
elected, was to meet annually. The congress elected a Supreme
Soviet of 542 representatives, which would meet twice a year and
served as a legislature. But only two-thirds of the Congress of
Peoples Deputies were to be elected. One-third of its members were
chosen by organizations belonging to the Communist Party. The
Supreme Soviet elected a President, who was also the general
secretary of CP, the post that Gorbachev occupied. The new
arrangements included a 16-member Presidential Council, like a
cabinet, which the president would appoint.

El Congreso de los Diputados del Pueblo de la Unin Sovitica fue el

mximo rgano de autoridad del Estado en la Unin Sovitica de 1989
a 1991. El Congreso se reuna una vez al ao y elega al Soviet
Supremo de la URSS, que constaba de 542 diputados. El Soviet
Supremo serva entonces como legislatura permanente. Solo un
Congreso fue elegido, en marzo de 1989. El Congreso se auto-disolvi
el 5 septiembre de 1991, entregando sus poderes al Soviet Supremo
de la Unin Sovitica y al recin creado Consejo de Estado de la Unin
Sovitica, que dej de existir el 26 de diciembre de 1991, con la
propia URSS.

26 March - 9 April 1989: Elecciones al Congreso de los

Diputados del Pueblo

In the elections held on 26 March 1989, close to 90% of the eligible

voters went to the polls. They were the final Soviet legislative
elections held before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The
meetings of the Congress of Peoples Deputies over a 2-week period
in late May and early June 1989 were greeted with enormous
excitement throughout the country. On 15 March 1990, Gorbachev
was elected to a new post, chairman of the Supreme Soviet, the
leading position in the state; a title that was soon changed to
President of the Soviet Union (the head of state of the USSR from 15
March 1990 to 25 December 1991). Gorbachev retained the post of
general secretary of the CP.
 20

On 14 March 1990, Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution was

amended by the 3rd Extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies of
the USSR, as a means to formalize the transition to a multi-party
political system, ended the CPs monopoly of political power

Congreso de los Diputados del Pueblo de Rusia:

Durante el mismo periodo, una estructura similar de dos niveles, con

el Congreso de los Diputados del Pueblo reunindose dos veces al ao
y el Soviet Supremo reunindose todo el ao, se cre en la Repblica
Socialista Federativa Sovitica de Rusia. Las reuniones del Congreso
tenan lugar en la Casa Blanca. Existi hasta que fue disuelta por el
presidente Boris Yeltsin, en la Crisis constitucional rusa de 1993.

October 1987: Break between Gorbachev and Yeltsin:

In 1986, Gorbachev had brought Yeltsin to the capital where, as first

secretary of the Moscow Party City Committee, he proceeded to make
a mark by dismissing numerous functionaries for corruption. Yeltsin
also played the role of a populist, often travelling around the city by
bus and visiting factories. His popularity rose quickly. In October 1987
Gorbachev fired Yeltsin, who now assumed the relatively minor post of
deputy chairman of the State Construction Committee, resigning from
his position as candidate member of the Politburo. Yeltsins fallout
with Gorbachev began at a central committee meeting in October
1987 when Yeltsin delivered a sharp denunciation of the slow pace of
perestroika. Yeltsin was soon removed from his party post and from
the Politburo. Yeltsin decided to resurrect his political career by joining
the opposition to Gorbachev.

On 26 March 1989 Yeltsin was elected to the Congress of People's

Deputies of the Soviet Union as the delegate from Moscow district,
and three days later was elected by the Congress of People's Deputies
to a seat on the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. The following
year Yeltsin was elected to the newly reformed parliament of the
Russian Republic, which elected him its President on 29 May 1990,
with the help of the Democratic Russia movement, a coalition of
organizations whose goal was to abolish the monopoly of power of the
CPSU (ceased to exist in 1994). In July 1990 Yeltsin dramatically
resigned from the CPSU, defying Gorbachev and creating a potential
situation of dual power. The Russian parliament scheduled a popular
election for the new post of president of the Russian Republic for June
1991. Yeltsins running mate in the presidential elections was
Alexander Rutskoi, leader of a group called Communists for
Democracy (democratic counterrevolution). On 12 June 1991 Yeltsin
 21

was elected president of the Russian Republic with 57% of the vote,
defeating Gorbachev's candidate, Nikolai Ryzhkov who got 16% of the
vote. Democratic Russia leaders Gavriil Popov and Anatoly Sobchak
won the mayoral races in Moscow and Leningrad.

10 November 1989 : Fall of Berlin Wall

Beginning in 1989, the 6 satellite states in the Eastern bloc Poland,

East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia
broke away from the glacis, declared their independence, and
discarded communism.

9 de noviembre 1989: cada del muro de Berln.

El 3 de octubre 1990 tuvo lugar la reunificacin alemana ( Deutsche

Wiedervereinigung)

Break Up of the Soviet Union: The Baltic Republics (Estonia,

Latvia, Lithuania)

By the early 1980s, thanks to forced expulsions during and after the
war and a steady inflow of Russian soldiers, administrators and
workers, the population of the three Baltic republics was mixed,
especially in the northern republics. In Lithuania some 80% of the
residents of the republic were still Lithuanian; but in Estonia only 64%
of the population was Estonian-speaking; while in Latvia the share of
native Latvians in the population, at the 1980 census, was 1.35
million out of a total of some 2.5 million (54%). The countryside was
still peopled by Latvians, but the cities were increasingly Russian, and
Russian-speaking. The first stirrings of protest in the region were thus
directed at questions of language and nationality, and the associated
memory of Stalins deportations to Siberia. Thus on 25 March 1988 in
Riga hundreds gathered to commemorate the Latvian deportations of
1949, followed by a demo in June to mark the expulsions of 1940. In
November 1988, the Estonian Supreme Soviet announced that it had
the authority to veto laws enacted in Moscow.

It was in Lithuania that the challenge to Soviet power was made

explicit. On 9 July 1988 a demonstration in Vilnius to demand
environmental protections, democracy and autonomy for Lithuania
attracted 100,000 people in support of Sajudis, the newly-formed
Lithuanian Reorganization Movement, openly critical of the
Lithuanian Communist Party for its subservience to Moscow, with
Red Army Go Home emblazoned on their banners. By February 1989
Sajudis had been transformed into a nationwide political party. The
following month, in the elections to the Soviet Congress of Peoples
 22

Deputies held on 26 March 1989, Sajudis won 36 of Lithuanias 42

seats. The elections of March 1989 in all three republics were a
marked victory for independent candidates. In November 1989 the
Soviet parliament granted autonomy to the Baltic republics, but this
failed to satisfy them. Two months later, Lithuania officially protested
the presence of Soviet military forces on its territory.

On 18 December 1989 the Lithuanian Communist Party split; a great

majority declaring itself for immediate independence. Gorbachev
traveled to Vilnius on 11 January 1990 to advise against the proposed
secession. However, the republican elections of March 1990 produced
majorities for the nationalists in the Baltic republics. Emboldened by
the electoral victory of Sajudis the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet on 11
March 1990 voted 124-0 to declare independence from the USSR,
reinstating the 1938 Constitution of the State of Lithuania.
Gorbachev launched an economic boycott, abandoned in June 1990,
in return for a Lithuanian agreement to 'suspend' the full
implementation of its declaration of independence. On 20 December
1990, his Foreign Minister, Edvard Shevardnadze, resigned and
warned publicly of the growing risk of a coup.

On 10 January 1991 Gorbachev issued an ultimatum to the

Lithuanians, demanding in his capacity as President of the USSR that
they adhere forthwith to its Constitution. The following day soldiers
from the lite forces of the KGB and the Soviet Ministry of the Interior
seized public buildings in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and
installed a 'National Salvation Committee'. On 12 January 1991 they
attacked radio and television studios in the city, shooting at a large
crowd of demonstrators who had gathered there: fourteen civilians
were killed, 700 wounded. A week later troops from the same units
stormed the Latvian Ministry of the Interior in Riga, killing 4 people. (8
dead)

The bloodshed in the Baltics precipitated a political crisis in the Soviet

Union. Within a week over 150,000 people had gathered in Moscow to
demonstrate against the shootings. Boris Yeltsin, erstwhile First
Secretary of the Moscow City Committee andsince May 1990
Chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet, traveled to Tallinn to sign a
mutual recognition of sovereignty between Russia and the Baltic
Republics, bypassing altogether the Soviet authorities. In March 1991
referenda in Latvia and Estonia confirmed that electors there too
overwhelmingly favored full independence. Gorbachev, was now
under attack from both sides. His reluctance to crush the Latvians
definitively alienated his military allies (two of the generals who
 23

staged the attacks in Vilnius and Riga would figure prominently in the
subsequent coup in Moscow). Yeltsin in March 1991 publicly
denounced Gorbachev's 'lies' and called for his resignation.

Ukraine and Belarus

Ukrainian nationalism was expected, but a non-Party movement

RUKH (the 'People's Movement for Perestroika') founded in Kiev in
November 1988, the first autonomous Ukrainian political organization
for many decades, in elections to the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet in
March 1990 won less than a quarter of the seats: the Communists
secured a clear majority. Thus it was not Ukrainian nationalists who
were to seize the initiative but rather the Communist bureaucrats
themselves. The Communists in the Ukrainian Soviet voted, on 16 July
1990, to declare Ukrainian 'sovereignty' and asserted the republic's
right to possess its own military and the primacy of its own laws,
under the direction of Leonid Kravchuka Communist apparatchik
and former 'Secretary for ideological questions' of the Ukrainian
Communist Party.

In Belarus, the nearest thing to an independence movement was

Adradzhenne (Rebirth), an organization based in the capital Minsk
that emerged in 1989 and closely echoed the Ukrainian RUKH. In
Belarus as in Ukraine, the Soviet elections of 1990 saw the
Communists returned in a clear majority; and when the Ukrainian
Soviet declared itself sovereign in July 1990 its northern neighbour
duly followed suit 2 weeks later. In Minsk as in Kiev, the local
nomenklatura followed events in Moscow.

The Caucasus

In the Caucasus, the longstanding antagonisms between Armenians

and Azeris, complicated in particular by the presence in Azerbaijan of
a substantial Armenian minority in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh,
had already resulted in violent clashes both with each other and with
Soviet troops in 1988, with hundreds of casualties. (The Azeris being
of Turkic origin, part of the background to these tensions can be
traced to the Armenian massacres of World War One in Ottoman
Turkey.) In the Azerbaijan capital of Baku there were further clashes in
January 1989. In neighbouring Georgia, twenty demonstrators were
shot during clashes in the capital Tbilisi between nationalists and
soldiers in April 1989, as tensions rose between crowds demanding
secession from the Union and authorities still committed to preserving
it. In Georgia, like the neighbouring Soviet republics of Armenia and
Azerbaijan, the ruling Communist parties re-defined themselves as
 24

national independence movements and regional Party leadersof

whom by far the best known was Edvard Shevardnadze in Georgia
positioning themselves to seize power as soon as it fell into the street.

Yeltsins moves to secure the independence of Russia;

The key was Russia itselfby far the dominant republic of the Union,
with half the country's population, three-fifths of its Gross National
Product and three-quarters of its land mass. This was the setting for
the rise of Boris Yeltsin. A Brezhnev-era apparatchik, specializing in
industrial construction before becoming a Central Committee
Secretary, Yeltsin rose steadily through the ranks of the Partyuntil
he was summarily demoted in 1987 for over-reaching himself in his
criticisms of senior colleagues. At this juncture Yeltsin re-programmed
himself as a Russian politician: emerging first as a deputy for the
Russian Federation after the March 1990 elections and then as
Chairman of the Russian Supreme Sovieti.e. the Russian Parliament.
It was from this influential and visible perch that Boris Yeltsin became
the country's leading reformist, ostentatiously quitting the
Communist Party in July 1990 and building his power-base in Moscow.
He supported the struggles for Baltic independence. On 12 June 1991
Yeltsin was elected President of the Russian Republic, with 57% of the
votes.

On 8 June 1990 the Russian Republic passed a resolution declaring

Russia to be a sovereign entity, with control of its own natural
resources. By August 1990 sovereignty resolutions had been passed
by Uzbekistan, Moldavia, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, and Tadzhikistan. By
October 1990 even loyal Kazakhstan followed suit as well.

In December 1990 Yeltsin launched a bold strike at the USSR central

government. Taxes collected in the Russian Republic had supplied
about half of the Soviet governments budget revenues. On 27
December 1990 Yeltsin pushed through the Russian Republic
parliament a measure to provide less than one-tenth of the tax
revenues due to the central government for its 1991 budget.

The 1990-91 Economic Crisis:

All this happened in the context of the first depression in Soviet

history. Prior to 1985 the Soviet Union had a negligible budget deficit.
A sizeable deficit suddenly arose in 198687 when the anti-alcohol
campaign drastically reduced state revenues from alcohol sales. In
198889 the effects of the 1987 Law on State Enterprise produced a
very large deficit. Net fixed investment suddenly began to decline in
 25

1988 by 7.4%, and in 1989 it fell by 6.7%. This trend threatened the
future productive capability of the economy. The economy as a whole
continued to expand in 1988 and 1989, with GNP growing at 2.1% in
1988 and 1.5% in 1989, but the rate was no better than the laggard
early 1980s. The central problems that followed the 1987 reforms
(declining investment and tax revenues, consumer shortages) were
increasing. In 1990, during Gorbachevs fifth year in office, the
economic crisis deepened dramatically. Within one year in 1990 the
net national product declined by 2,4%. Prices rose precipitately, some
staple products such as milk, tea, coffee, and soap were hard to find,
and in numerous regions the authorities introduced a system of
rationing. Recesin, inflacin, desabastecimiento

In August 1990 Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, by then the chairman of

the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Republic, jointly named a team of
economists to come up with a new economic reform plan. It was
headed by Gorbachev advisor Stanislav Shatalin, with Yeltsin advisor
Grigory Yavlinsky also playing a leading role. In early September 1990
the team reported the famous 500 Day Plan, which called for a drastic
transformation of the Soviet economy within 500 days that is about
17 months.

The 500 Day Plan called for the rapid freeing of prices, cutbacks in
subsidies to enterprises, allowing a substantial number of enterprise
bankruptcies, encouraging cheap imports to keep costs down, and
advocacy of tight fiscal and monetary policy. Gorbachev backed away
from the 500 Day Plan, although Yeltsin obtained its approval by the
parliament of the Russian Republic.

In 199091 economic planning was virtually eliminated. The Soviet

state banking system was being transformed into a private system of
commercial banks and securities exchanges. By the end of 1990 a
stock exchange had opened in Moscow. Since September 1990
privatization became official policy. Although few legitimate
privatizations of large enterprises actually occurred before the end of
1991, enterprise directors knew their enterprise would soon become
private property. On 1 July 1991 the process of dismantling economic
planning reached its climax, when the agencies Gosplan and Gossnab
were abolished (Gosplan was in charge of overall coordination of the
economy, while Gossnab had managed supply relations among
enterprises).

During 199091 the Group of Seven leading industrial nations began

offering the Soviet Union significant Western aid, making it conditional
upon undertaking implementing a program of rapid privatization. The
 26

seal of approval of the IMF had to be obtained before this aid would
be dispensed. In July 1991, Gorbachev applied for Soviet membership
in the IMF and the World Bank, two pillars of world capitalism. The
intention to integrate the Soviet economy in the world capitalist
system was now clear.

In 199091, the Soviet economy moved from a condition of severe

problems to one of crisis. For the first time in memory, the Soviet
economy actually contracted, with the GNP falling by 2.4% in 1990
and about 13% in 1991. Net fixed investment declined at the
astounding rate of 21% in 1990 and an estimated 25% in 1991.

The 199091 economic crisis had three main causes:

1. The dismantling of the institutions of state economic planning.

2. The 198990 revolutions in Eastern Europe and

3. The breakdown of economic links among the republics and regions

of the USSR.

The main trading partners of the Soviet Union had been its fellow
members of Comecon in Eastern Europe. These 6 countries Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland,
and Rumania had accounted for 54.2% of Soviet imports and 48.9%
of Soviet exports in 1988. In 198990 every ruling Communist Party in
the region, outside of the USSR, fell from power. This had a significant
effect on the Soviet economy. First, as the socialist economies of
Eastern Europe were rapidly dismantled, the ensuing economic
disruption led to large declines in economic activity in those
countries, reducing their ability to engage in trade with the USSR.
Second, the new leaderships moved to reorient their nations trade
toward the West. As a result, in 199091 the USSR suddenly found
that it was losing its main trading partners. This hit especially hard in
1991, when the value of Soviet imports, in rubles at the official
exchange rate, fell by 56.2 per cent, mainly due to the decline in
imports from Eastern Europe. On the other hand, the severity of this
blow should not be overstated. It was softened by the fact that the
Soviet Union, having a large, diversified economy with practically all
important natural resources within its borders, was not a heavily
trade-dependent country. Its total imports in the late 1980s were only
about 8% as large as its GNP. Thus, while the approximately 50% drop
in foreign trade in 1991 did hurt, it did not represent a large
proportion of total Soviet economic activity.
 27

More devastating for the Soviet economy was the growing autonomy
of the republics of the Soviet Union during 199091. By the summer
of 1990 nearly all of the Soviet republics, including the Russian
Republic, had declared sovereignty over their territory and natural
resources. Since the beginnings of Soviet state socialism, the
economy had been built as a highly integrated mechanism. Many
products, including critical industrial inputs, were produced by only
one or two enterprises for the entire Soviet market. A single factory in
Baku was the sole manufacturer of deep-water pumps. One
consortium produced all of the Soviet Unions air conditioners. An
estimated 80% of the products of the Soviet machinery industry had a
single source of supply. Now many of the links in this highly integrated
economy began to break down, as traditional supply relations
between enterprises located in different republics were disrupted by
the autonomy policies pursued by the newly assertive republics. In
some cases barter deals had to be arranged between enterprises
across republic lines. This process was a major contributing factor to
the economic contraction of 199091.

17 March 1991: Referendum on the future of the Soviet Union

(77.8% in favour)

Gorbachev decided that, if the Soviet Union were to survive, it would

have to be reconstituted on a new basis that would allow more
autonomy for the republics. He began a process of negotiating a new
Union treaty. To build support for this goal, Gorbachev planned a
referendum on preserving the Union, believing that the disintegration
process did not reflect the wishes of the majority of the people.
Although the vote was boycotted by the authorities in Armenia,
Estonia, Georgia (though not the breakaway province of Abkhazia,
where the result was over 98% in favour, and in South Ossetia),
Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova (though not Transnistria or Gagauzia),
turnout was 80% across the USSR. The referendum was approved by
77.8% of voters in all nine other republics that took part. It was the
first, and only, referendum in the history of the Soviet Union, which
was dissolved on 26 December 1991.

To prevent the disintegration of the country, Gorbachev initiated a

rapprochement with Yeltsin in April 1991 to secure his support for a
new Union Treaty that would grant the constituent republics greater
autonomy than heretofore in economic and political affairs but still
retain the Soviet Union as a unified state. A formal treaty between the
republics establishing the new arrangement was to be signed on 20
August 1991, creating the Union of Sovereign States. The proposal
 28

was never implemented due to the outbreak of the August 1991 Coup
and the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The overall
proposal was resurrected as the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS), established on 21 December 1991 (12 of the 15 former
Soviet Republics participated in the CIS. Three former Soviet
Republics, the Baltic States, chose not to join.).

The 18-21 August 1991 Soviet coup d'tat attempt against

Gorbachev

On 18 August 1991, a coup against Gorbachev was launched by

government members opposed to perestroika. The immediate cause
of the coup attempt of was the impending signing of the new Union
treaty. Gorbachev was held in Crimea while Yeltsin raced to the White
House of Russia (residence of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR) in
Moscow to defy the coup. The White House was surrounded by the
military but the troops defected in the face of mass popular
demonstrations. By 21 August 1991 most of the coup leaders had fled
Moscow and Gorbachev was returned to Moscow.

On 6 November 1991, Yeltsin issued a decree banning the Communist

Party throughout the RSFSR and forced Gorbachev to disband the
Soviet Congress of Peoples Deputies.

8 December 1991 : Belavezha Accords signed by the

presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, declaring the
Soviet Union dissolved and establishing the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) in its place.

On 8 December 1991, Yeltsin met Ukrainian president Leonid

Kravchuk and the leader of Belarus, Stanislav Shushkevich. The 3
presidents announced the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the
establishment of a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The
main goal of the dissolution of the USSR was to get rid of Gorbachev.

24 December 1991 : The Russian Federation took the Soviet Union's

seat in the UN.

25 December 1991: Gorbachev resigned and the USSR ceased

to exist.

It lasted 74 years. 286,730,819 inhabitants in 1989. It gave way to 15

separate republics.

The USSR has been organized as a federation of 15 republics: 7 in

Europe the three Slavic republics of Russia, Ukraine, and
Byelorussia, the three Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and
 29

Estonia, and Moldavia, bordering Rumania; the 5 Central Asian

republics Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tadzhikistan, Kirgizstan, and
Turkmenistan; and the 3 republics located in the Caucasian mountains
Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia.

25 December 1991 31 December 1999 : Boris Yeltsin (1st

President of Russia)

Yeltsin suffered from deep depressions, during which he would

disappear from public view for weeks at a time. Addicted to alcohol,
he would occasionally be seen in public unable to walk in a straight
line. And there were protracted periods when Yeltsin was so seriously
ill that he could not perform his official functions. Struck down by
several heart attacks, he underwent a quintuple coronary by-pass
operation late in 1996. During these periods of indisposition no one
was legally empowered to take his place, since the constitution
contained no provision on who was to govern when the president was
incapacitated. The warring factions in his entourage, eager to protect
their privileged positions, would unite in an attempt to conceal the
presidents infirmity.

When the Soviet Union ceased to exist on 31 December 1991, Russia

emerged as the largest and most influential successor state. Russia
has approximately three-fourths of the former Soviet Unions land
mass and half of its population. It succeeded the USSR as the largest
nation in the world in land area, possessing over 70% more territory
than the worlds second largest nation. Yeltsin was the first President
of Russia, serving 8 years, from 26 December 1991 to 31 December
1999. Sponsored by the Western powers: George Bush and Helmut
Kohl announced a $24 billion aid package for Russia.

On 2 January 1992 Yeltsin launched a shock therapy program of

privatization, price liberalization, reduction of government spending,
tight monetary policy, free trade and capital movement, and
government non-intervention in the economy. Yeltsins main economic
advisor was the neoliberal Yegor Gaidar, while the privatization
program was run by Anatoly Chubais, Viceprimer Ministro de la
Federacin de Rusia.

Yegor Gaidars shock therapy:

On 2 January 1992, price controls were removed all across Russia.

Consumer prices rose by 520% during the first three months of 1992
(hyperinflation). In 1992 average real wages fell to 68% of its 1990
level, climbed slightly in 1993, and then fell to 48% of the 1990 level
 30

by 1995. Pensioners experienced even larger declines in real income,

the average real pension declining to 43% of its 1990 level in the first
9 months of 1995.

A crash privatization program was also launched. By the end of 1994,

i.e. in just in 2 years, private enterprises accounted for 78.5% of
industrial output and 69.9% of industrial employment.!!!

Store shelves in Moscow and St Petersburg did rapidly fill up with a

wide variety of goods for sale. However, this did not result from any
upturn in production. The only increase in supply came from an influx
of previously unavailable imported goods. The sudden surplus in the
markets was due, not to increased supply, but to a drastic drop in
consumer purchasing power as rising prices placed many goods
beyond the reach of most households. Industrial production fell
sharply, the value of the ruble declined dramatically, and
unemployment rose at a rapid pace. In late 1992 one-third of the
countrys 148 million citizens lived below the poverty line.

Russia experienced a severe decline in production, a decline that was

to continue through 1998 (9 years of recession). During the 5 years
1991-95, GDP fell by 47% and industrial production by 50%. This was
the longest and deepest recession experiences by a country in
peacetime. By comparison, in the United States the four-year
economic contraction in 192933, which brought the American
economy to the low point of the Great Depression, entailed a decline
in GDP of 30%. Only in 2007 did Russias GDP exceed that of 1990 (20
aos perdidos). In 2009, however, after a decade of growth, the GDP
contracted by 7.9% and industrial production by 11%.

Due to the falling birth rate and rising death rate, in 1992 the
population (particularly males) began to decline. From 1990 to 2004
male life expectancy in Russia fell from 65.5 years to 58.8 years. The
latter figure was lower than that for India, Egypt, or Bolivia (ranking:
160). In a four-year period, from 1990 to 1994, the life expectancy of
women declined from 75 to 71 years. As a result, Russias population
declined by 8.9 million in 20 years, from 148.3 million people in 1991
to 139.4 million people in 2010

Rise of the new class of oligarchs: extreme social inequality and

organized crime.

Russias homicide rate rose dramatically in the post-Soviet era. In

1988 Russia had 9.8 homicides per 100,000 population, somewhat
higher than the US rate of 8.6 in 1995. Russias homicide rate rose
 31

rapidly after 1991, reaching 32.4 per 100,000 in 1994, more than
triple the 1988 rate. This was one of the highest in the world, topping
Brazil (19.0 in 1992) and Mexico (17.2 in 1995).

The immediate effects of the capitalist restoration were plummeting

production, rapid inflation, impoverishment of the majority, increased
inequality, declining public services, growing crime and corruption,
unemployment and demographic collapse. The trends suggested that,
over time, Russia would be deindustrialized, becoming a raw-material-
exporting country dependent on imports for manufactured goods.

17 August 1998: Russian financial crisis: Depreciation of the

ruble + Default

On 17 August 1998, Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko suddenly

devalued the ruble by 50% and announced that Russia could no
longer make the required payments on its $200 billion foreign and
domestic debt. All payments on its foreign debt were postponed for
90 days, the entire debt was to be restructured, and the ruble
devalued. World stock markets tumbled, and the IMF was forced to
bail out Brazil, the worlds eighth largest economy, with an
emergency $41.5 billion loan.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis was the trigger for the 1998 Russian
financial crisis. Because of the disappearance of East Asias formerly
rapid growth, a surplus of oil appeared on the world market, driving
down its price. Oil exports had been Russias main source of foreign
currency earnings, but this source fell by almost half in the first six
months of 1998. Foreign investors knew that, without large oil export
revenues, which had assured a trade surplus every year, Russia would
be unable to service its foreign debt. The ebbing oil revenues began
to speed the exit of foreign capital. Russias shrivelled economy was
by then slightly smaller than that of the Netherlands.

Russias financial crisis of 1998 was the final stage of a remarkably

long and severe crisis, which lasted 9 years from 1990 to 1998 the
longest and deepest economic depression ever experienced by any
major country in peacetime. By 1998 real GDP had fallen to just under
49% of its 1990 level. By 1998 total industrial output had fallen to
46% of its 1990 level. In 1998, as much as 80% of transactions in
Russia were conducted by barter or other non-monetary means.
Unpaid wages were estimated at 36.5 trillion rubles ($6.8 billion) in
September 1996, which represented some 64% of the nations total
monthly wage bill. Workers were often paid with an allotment of the
goods they had produced instead of in money. During the depression,
 32

the average real wage fell even more than GDP, declining to about
one-third of its 1990 level by 1998.

Since 1999, the economy began to expand 7% each year due to

devaluation of the rouble and the sharp rise in oil prices (the average
export price of Russian crude oil almost doubled in 2000, compared to
its average in 199899) until the world crisis of 2008, which caused a
sharp fall in world oil prices. In 2007, Russia's GDP exceeded that of
1990, meaning it has overcome the devastating consequences of the
1990-1998 recession. In 2009, however, after a decade of growth, the
GDP contracted by 7.9% and industrial production by 11%. By late
2009 the Russian economy had begun a modest recovery, bolstered
by government anti-crisis policies, the global rebound, and the nearly
50% rise in oil prices over the course of the year.

Primarizacin de las exportaciones (commodities): Russia has

regressed to an economy that now centers around the extraction, and
to some extent the initial processing, of natural materials, for export
to the world market. In 2009 Russia was the world's largest exporter
of natural gas, the second largest exporter of oil, and the third largest
exporter of steel and primary aluminium. Since 1998 such products
have made up between 72.2 and 82.2% of exports each year. Russian
industry is primarily split between globally-competitive commodity
producers and other less competitive heavy industries that remain
dependent on the Russian domestic market. The structural shift in
Russia away from manufacturing and toward extraction of natural
materials for export has transformed Russia into a giant-size version
of Kuwait.

The population of Russia was 141,837,976 in 2011. The population hit

a historic peak at 148,689,000 in 1991, just before the breakup of the
Soviet Union, but began a decade-long decline shortly after, falling at
a rate of about 0.5% per year due to falling birth rates and rising
death rates. The population decline has slowed considerably since
about 2006, with the current growth rate at 0.004% in January
October 2009. Russia recorded natural population growth for the first
time in 15 years in 2009 albeit a small increase of just 23,000. As a
result of capitalist restoration, in the 20-year period 1991-2011 Russia
lost 6,850,000 people.

21 September-4 October 1993: Yeltsins coup: Russian

constitutional crisis of 1993

Deputies in the two parliamentary chambers, the Supreme Soviet and

the Congress of Peoples Deputies, vigorously criticized the
 33

governments economic program. The speaker of the Supreme Soviet,

Ruslan Khasbulatov, was initially a strong supporter of Yeltsin, but
soon became estranged from him. This open rivalry between a
legislative leader and the executive had terrible consequence for
Russias political system. A perennial problem for Yeltsins
governments throughout the 8 years of his presidency was to obtain a
majority for their legislative proposals. By inclination and because he
faced so many crises, Yeltsin wished to govern by decree. In October
1991 the Congress of Peoples Deputies of Russia had in fact granted
him emergency powers to enact his economic measures by decree,
but once the impact of the reforms became evident the legislature
had second thoughts. By mid 1992 it would no longer give the
president carte blanche and turned down one after another of the
governments reform measures. The stage was set for a confrontation
between the president and the legislature that ended in a terrible
setback for Russian democracy.

2-4 October 1993 : Yeltsin bombardea la sede del parlamento (la Casa
Blanca del Congreso de los Diputados del Pueblo de Rusia): The
conflict between the parliament and the president lasted for about a
year. To end the gridlock, Yeltsin in September 1993 took the drastic
step of ordering the dissolution of the legislature. In the meantime he
would rule on his own and an election of a new legislature would be
held in December 1993, at which time there would also be a
referendum on a new constitution drafted by the authorities.
Presidential Decree No. 1440, which proclaimed these measures,
brought the conflict to a head. Only hours after the publication of the
decree, the parliament in effect dismissed Yeltsin from his post by
electing Aleksandr Rutskoi as president of the Russian Federation.
Rutskoi was the vice president, but ever since early 1992 he had
vigorously opposed Yeltsins policies and because of his fame as a
general and his charisma the opposition, composed of communists
and ultra-nationalists, embraced him as a man who could lead the
struggle against the president. To safeguard Rutskois election, the
parliamentary leaders convened an emergency session at the White
House of the Tenth Congress of the Peoples Deputies and directed
their civilian supporters to take up arms in defense of the White
House. Yeltsin responded by declaring a state of emergency in
Moscow and by ordering military forces, including tanks, to surround
the building. Fighting began on 2 October 1993 and two days later
tanks fired into the building. 187 people were killed and 437
wounded. Within hours, the people holed up in the White House
 34

surrendered. Rutskoi and other political leaders were imprisoned until

26 February 1994, when he and other participants of both August
1991 and October 1993 crises, were granted amnesty.

12 December 1993: Referendum ratifies new Russian Constitution

12 December 1993: Referendum ratifies new Russian

Constitution

Yeltsins government drafted a new constitution, which was adopted

in a referendum on 12 December 1993. Although it provided for a
bicameral legislature, the State Duma and the Federation Council, it
shifted the balance of power in favor of the president. According to
the constitution, the president was head of state and guarantor of the
Fundamental Laws, and also was to appoint the prime minister and all
other ministers. The prime minister had to be approved by the State
Duma, but if it rejected the presidents choice three times and voted
no confidence in the government twice within a three-month period
the president could dissolve the legislature. At the same time, it was
exceedingly difficult to oust the president. That could be done only if
the chief executive could be proven to have committed high treason
or some other crime, and even then the charges against him required
the affirmative vote of two-thirds of both legislative chambers, the
Supreme Court, and the Constitutional Court. And all the steps for the
presidents removal had to be completed within the short period of
ninety days from the moment that the charges were first voted by the
Duma.

The new legislature (the Federal Assembly) found it hard to pass any
laws, which had to be supported, not just by a majority of those
present and voting in each house of the legislature the normal
procedure in democratic legislative bodies but by a majority of the
total membership in each house. This had the effect of making it very
difficult to pass laws, leaving the field open for presidential decrees.
Similarly, overturning a presidential veto required a vote of two-thirds
of the total membership, not just of those present and voting. This
made the overturn of vetoes practically impossible, unless the
legislature were nearly unanimous in its sentiment. Thus, the
outcome of Yeltsins victory over the Congress of Peoples Deputies,
embodied in the new draft constitution, was an authoritarian
presidential regime with few democratic features.

12 December 1993: Russian legislative election

 35

In the two months following the dissolution of the parliament, Yeltsin

suspended local and regional legislatures, removed regional
administrators who had opposed him, forced the leader of Russias
trade union federation, Igor Klochkov, to step down, and warned the
federation to stay out of politics if it wanted to survive, and banned
18 Communist and nationalist organizations and closed 15
newspapers. Despite that, the parliamentary elections held in Russia
on 12 December 1993 led to a Duma dominated by opponents of
Yeltsin, showing the unpopularity of Yeltsin's economic policy. The two
competing pro-government parties, Russia's Choice (Yegor Gaidars
party) and the Party of Russian Unity and Accord, gained 15.5% (66
seats) and 6.7% of the vote respectively and won 123 of the 450
seats in the State Duma. Neither party was able to impose the will of
the president on the Duma. Lacking legislative success, both parties
rapidly lost membership. Of the 450 seats in the State Duma, the bloc
led by the communist Gennady Zyuganov commanded 103 and the
ultra-nationalist and right-wing Liberal Democratic Party of Russia
under the erratic Vladimir Zhirinovsky had captured 64 seats. Of the
remaining two hundred or so deputies, over 120 considered
themselves independents and the rest were divided among four other
parties. However, despite Zhirinovskys bombastic rhetoric, his party
often supported the government on budget issues, and Zhirinovsky
was one of the few Duma supporters of the military campaign in
Chechnya that Yeltsin launched in December 1994.

11 December 1994 31 August 1996: First Chechen War (2

aos)

In the northern Caucasus, the autonomous republic of Chechnya,

home to about 1.2 million Sunni Muslims, attempted to achieve
independence. In 1991 Yeltsins government installed General
Dzhokhar Dudayev, who had been an officer in the Soviet army, as
leader of the Chechen republic on the assumption that he would
remain loyal to the Russian Federation. But Dudayev quickly
announced his support for independence, which he formally declared
in November 1991.

At first, Yeltsin did not react to Dudayevs move, perhaps because he

was preoccupied with other matters. But late in 1994 the president
decided to stop Chechnyas drift to independence. The Russian
Federation was not a multinational state to the same extent as the
Soviet Union, but 18% of the population was non-Slavic. If the
Chechens were permitted to create a separate state, on what basis
would the government be able to prevent other republics from
 36

following suit? In eight regions of the Russian Federation movements

for autonomy or independence were becoming increasingly vocal.

But Chechnya was important to Russia for yet another reason. An oil
line was to be built through the region to carry large quantities of oil
from the Caspian fields to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, and
Russia expected to earn millions of dollars from this arrangement.
Already in desperate straits financially, the government was not
prepared to jeopardize that income. Late in November 1994, a small
group of volunteers organized by the Russian security forces marched
toward Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, expecting to oust Dudayev in
a matter of days. It was only the first of many miscalculations of the
Russian political and military commanders. The Chechens quickly
routed the volunteers. On 2 December 1994 the Russians began what
would turn out to be a bloody war that caused horrendous suffering
among the Chechens. On two occasions Grozny was subjected to long
series of air attacks and to invasion by Russian troops. ]During the
two years 60,000 Chechens lost their lives and much of the capital
was destroyed. But the Russians suffered about 25,000 casualties.[

Total: 23,123 muertos segn datos oficiales rusos.

5,732 Russians killed or missing (official figure)

17,391 Chechens killed or missing (Russian official 2001 estimate)

The First Chechen War ended in August 1996, when General A. Lebed
signed an agreement with the Chechens granting them political
autonomy, a concept so vague that many commentators predicted,
correctly, that the conflict would be resumed in one way or another.
Outside Russia, but even more so within the country, the Chechen war
provoked widespread condemnation of Yeltsin and his government.

26 August 1999 May 2000: Second Chechen War

26 August 1999 May 2000: Battle phase

June 2000 16 April 2009: Insurgency phase

Unofficial estimates range from 25,000 to 50,000 dead or missing,

mostly civilians in Chechnya. Russian casualties are over 5,200
(official Russian casualty figures) and are about 11,000 according to
the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers.

16 June - 3 July 1996: Russian presidential election: Yeltsin

reelected
 37

The first round was held on 16 June 1996. Boris Yeltsin and
Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov finished first and second
with 35 and 32% of the vote respectively. They met in the runoff
round on 3 July 1996. Yeltsin won the second round with 53% of the
vote compared to Zyuganov's 40%. During the first six months of
1996 the government had managed to collect only 60% of due taxes,
inflation had escalated, government employees had endured long
delays in receiving their salaries, and the gross national product had
fallen by another 4%. Fearing a Communist victory at the polls, the
IMF granted a $10.2 billion loan to Russia in February. The loan
enabled Yeltsin to spend huge sums paying long-owed back wages
and pensions to millions of Russians. Yeltsin won because a small
group of wealthy oligarchs spent huge amounts of money on his
election campaign and the media was controlled by the presidents
supporters.

Boris Yeltsins second term lasted for three and a half years, from his
July 1996 re-election until 31 December 1999, when he resigned, six
months before the end of his term, in favour of Vladimir Putin. The
oligarchs main political ally from the campaign, Anatoly Chubais,
became Yeltsins chief of staff. This period was marked by the
financial crisis that hit Russia on 17 August 1998 (triggered by the
Asian financial crisis starting in July 1997) when Yeltsin's government
defaulted on its debts.

17 August 1998: Russian financial crisis: Depreciation of the ruble +

Default

9 August 1999 7 May 2000: Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister

of Yeltsin

In August 1999, Yeltsin made yet another ministerial change that

surprised everyone. He named Vladmir Putin, an unknown bureaucrat,
as prime minister, the fifth person to occupy that post in seventeen
months. 47 years old, Putin had spent most of his adult life working
for the KGB and for several years he had served as a spy in East
Germany. After the collapse of the Soviet Union he returned to his
place of birth, St Petersburg, where he held a senior administrative
post in the local administration under the reformist Anatoly Sobchak,
rising to the position of deputy mayor. He began to work for Yeltsin in
1996 and quickly joined Yeltsins inner circle, known as the family.

On 31 December 1999, Yeltsin made another startling announcement.

He resigned and appointed Putin acting president, giving him a clear
advantage in the election scheduled for March 2000, three months
 38

before the end of Yeltsins term. The presidents health no doubt

played a role in this sudden resignation, but there is also much
speculation that Putin promised not to investigate Yeltsins family or
entourage for corruption.

The selection in August 1999 of the little-known FSB (Federal Security

Service, main successor agency of the Soviet-era Cheka, NKVD and
KGB) head Vladimir Putin as prime minister, and as Yeltsins
designated successor, surprised many analysts. Putin had
connections with the oligarchs. Within a few months, he was
transformed from an unknown former intelligence agent, without
charisma or the ability to make contact with the public, into a popular
leader. The means of achieving this remarkable transformation of
Putins image was the renewal of war with Chechnya and particularly
the way in which it was restarted.

On 5 September 1999, a few weeks after Putins confirmation as

prime minister, a bomb demolished a building that housed Russian
officers and their families in Dagestan, killing 30. Then, between 9
September and 16 September 1999, three apartment buildings in
working-class neighborhoods were blown up, two right in Moscow and
one in Volgodonsk, a city some 750 miles southeast of Moscow, killing
a total of 243 people. Although the Russian government attributed the
three apartment bombings to Chechen fighters, no group claimed
responsibility.

26 August 1999 May 2000: Second Chechen War:

On 1 October 1999 Russian troops entered Chechnya, in response to

the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Brigade,
occupying the capital Grozny. The campaign ended the de-facto
independence of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and restored Russian
federal control over the territory. Russian official casualties are over
5,200. 14,113 Islamic militants were killed up to the end of 2002, and
2,186 more between 2003 and 2009. On 16 April 2009, the counter-
terrorism operation in Chechnya was officially ended.

While not formally associated with any party, Putin pledged his
support to the newly formed Unity Party, which won the second
largest percentage of the popular vote (23.3%) in the December 1999
Duma elections, and in turn he was supported by it. Adding the votes
received by the Union of Rightist Forces and the by then reliably pro-
government Zhirinovsky Bloc, the three pro-government blocs won
46.7% of the party vote. The Unity party had no clear ideology or
program beyond its support of the war in Chechnya. The party
 39

supported Vladimir Putin in the 26 March 2000 presidential elections,

in which Putin received 52.9% of the votes against Gennady
Zyuganovs 29.2%. In April 2001 the Unity Party and the Fatherland-
All Russia movement took the decision to unite into a single Kremlin
political party, called United Russia.

31 December 1999 7 May 2008: Presidency of Vladimir Putin

Putin was easily elected president and has placed his stamp on
Russian politics. Putin established seven new regional administrators,
each one headed by a former general of the KGB or the army, to
assume greater control over the outlying regions of the country.

Putins clashes with the oligarchs:

Under Putin the state has become more centralized, more

authoritarian, better organized, and more assertive in controlling key
sectors such as the mass media and the energy sector. When an
individual oligarch criticized the president or his key policies in their
media, Putin moved against the offender.

Vladimir Gusinskys NTV channel backed the Primakov-Luzhkov

alliance in the December 1999 Duma election, and it also carried
critical coverage of the Chechen War. Starting in May 2000, the state
began to put pressure on Gusinsky, threatening criminal prosecution.
In July 2000 Gusinsky threw in the towel, ceding control of NTV to
Gazprom, which had been a major creditor, in return for dropping the
criminal charges and allowing Gusinsky to leave Russia. At that point
NTVs critical coverage came to an end.

In May 2000, the oligarch Boris Berezovsky criticized Putins plans for
reasserting tight Kremlin control over Russias regions. Berezovsky
found himself under threat of prosecution, and in November 2000 he
too went into exile.

The prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky:

Khodorkovsky was the richest of the oligarchs, heading Yukos Oil, as

well as being active in politics. He organized a youth group New
Civilization, modeled after the old Soviet Pioneer and Komsomol
organizations, that grew to 1.5 million members by 2003. He provided
funding for a variety of political parties and candidates, including
opposition parties and even some Communist Party candidates. He
hinted at an interest in running for president at some time in the
future. Perhaps most unsettling to the Putin regime, Khodorkovsky
seemed to be following an independent foreign energy policy: he
 40

pursued an agreement to build an oil pipeline to China without

consulting the Kremlin, and favored redirecting Russian oil exports
from Europe to the United States. After many months of investigations
and threats, on 25 October 2003 Khodorkovsky was arrested at
gunpoint and charged with fraud, embezzlement, and tax evasion.
After a long trial, on 31 May 2005 Khodorkovsky was convicted of
fraud, embezzlement, and corporate and personal tax evasion and
sentenced to 9 years in prison. When he was convicted and
imprisoned, the state oil company Rosneft took over the most
valuable assets of his huge Yukos Oil valued at some $30 billion in
2004, Yukos had been privatized for $110 million. Putin disciplined the
oligarchs more severely than had Yeltsin, but he has not eliminated
them as a class.

On 13 September 2004 Putin announced that the system of direct

election of the governors of Russias 89 regions would be scrapped
and replaced by a new system in which the president would nominate
the governor, to be ratified by the regional legislature. This measure
followed closely after the seizure of a school by Chechen fighters in
Beslan, located in North Ossetia, earlier that month, which ended with
330 dead. Putin presented his reorganization as necessary to
effectively fight terrorism. The geographic centralization of power, the
snuffing out of independent media, and the limitations on public
protests indicated an increasingly authoritarian regime in Russia.

In the Duma election of 3 December 2003, the pro-government party,

now named United Russia, won 37.6% of the party vote, with the
KPRF shrinking to only 12.6%, the pro-government Liberal Democratic
party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky rebounding to 11.5%, and a new
nationalist bloc Rodina, which was not unfriendly to the government,
garnering 9.0%. Neither Yabloko nor the Union of Rightist Forces
passed the 5% barrier to get representation in the Duma. The total
allocation of Duma seats gave 49.8% to United Russia and only 12.0%
to the KPRF. With its subordinate allies, the government effectively
controlled more than two-thirds of the Duma seats.

14 March 2004: Putin re-elected to the presidency, with 71%

of the vote.

When Mikhail Khodorkovsky was convicted and imprisoned, the state

oil company Rosneft took over the most valuable assets of his huge
Yukos Oil. The Kremlin arranged the consolidation of most of Russias
aircraft industry into a single state-controlled firm. The state has
retained control of the diamond monopoly, Alrosa, and in the Putin era
the Kremlin effectively asserted control over the natural gas
 41

monopoly Gazprom, raising the state holding of its shares from 40%
to just over 50% in late 2005.

Under Putin the economy made real gains of an average 7% per year,
making it the 7th largest economy in the world in purchasing power.
Russia's nominal GDP increased 6 fold, climbing from 22nd to 10th
largest in the world. In 2007, Russia's GDP exceeded that of Russian
SFSR in 1990, meaning it overcame the devastating consequences of
the 1998 financial crisis and the recession in the 1990s. During Putin's
eight years in office, industry grew by 76%, investments increased by
125%, and agricultural production and construction increased as well.
Real incomes more than doubled and the average monthly salary
increased sevenfold from $80 to $540. Putins handpicked successor,
Dmitry Medvedev, won the presidential election held on 2 March 2008
with 71.25% of the popular vote. Medvedev had never held elective
office before 2008.

7 May 2008 7 May 2012: Presidency of Dmitry Medvedev

During Medvedev's tenure, Russia emerged victorious in the 2008

South Ossetia war (an armed conflict in August 2008 between Georgia
on one side, and Russia and separatist governments of South Ossetia
and Abkhazia on the other) and recovered from the 20082012 global
recession. The recession proved to be the worst in the history of
Russia, and the country saw its GDP fall by over 8% in 2009. The
government's response was to use over a trillion rubles (more than
$40 billion) to help troubled banks, and launch a large-scale stimulus
program, lending $50 billion to struggling companies. The economic
situation stabilised in 2009, but growth did not resume until 2010.

7 May 2012 : Second Presidency of Vladimir Putin

Journalistic death toll in Putin's Russia:

53 journalists killed in Russia since 1992 36 since 2000.

Perry Anderson, Neoliberalismo: un balance provisorio

El neoliberalismo naci despus de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, en

una regin de Europa y de Amrica del Norte donde imperaba el
capitalismo. Fue una reaccin terica y poltica vehemente contra el
Estado intervencionista y de Bienestar. Su texto de origen es Camino
de Servidumbre, de Friedrich Hayek, escrito en 1944. Se trata de un
ataque apasionado contra cualquier limitacin de los mecanismos del
mercado por parte del Estado, denunciada como una amenaza letal a
la libertad, no solamente econmica sino tambin poltica. El blanco
 42

inmediato de Hayek, en aquel momento, era el Partido Laborista

ingls, en las vsperas de la eleccin general de 1945 en Inglaterra,
que este partido finalmente ganara. El mensaje de Hayek era
drstico: A pesar de sus buenas intenciones, la socialdemocracia
moderada inglesa conduce al mismo desastre que el nazismo alemn:
a una servidumbre moderna. Tres aos despus, en 1947, cuando las
bases del Estado de Bienestar en la Europa de posguerra
efectivamente se constituan, no slo en Inglaterra sino tambin en
otros pases, Hayek convoc a quienes compartan su orientacin
ideolgica a una reunin en la pequea estacin de Mont Plerin, en
Suiza. Entre los clebres participantes estaban no solamente
adversarios firmes del Estado de Bienestar europeo, sino tambin
enemigos frreos del New Deal norteamericano.

En la selecta asistencia se encontraban, entre otros, Milton Friedman,

Karl Popper, Lionel Robbins, Ludwig Von Mises, Walter Eukpen, Walter
Lippman, Michael Polanyi y Salvador de Madariaga. All se fund la
Sociedad de Mont Plerin, una suerte de franco masonera neoliberal,
altamente dedicada y organizada, con reuniones internacionales cada
dos aos. Su propsito era combatir el keynesianismo y el solidarismo
reinantes, y preparar las bases de otro tipo de capitalismo, duro y
libre de reglas, para el futuro. Las condiciones para este trabajo no
eran del todo favorables, una vez que el capitalismo avanzado estaba
entrando en una larga fase de auge sin precedentes su edad de oro,
presentando el crecimiento ms rpido de su historia durante las
dcadas de los 50 y 60. Por esta razn, no parecan muy verosmiles
las advertencias neoliberales de los peligros que representaba
cualquier regulacin del mercado por parte del Estado. La polmica
contra la regulacin social, entre tanto, tuvo una repercusin mayor.
Hayek y sus compaeros argumentaban que el nuevo igualitarismo
de este perodo (ciertamente relativo), promovido por el Estado de
Bienestar, destrua la libertad de los ciudadanos y la vitalidad de la
competencia, de la cual dependa la prosperidad de todos. Desafiando
el consenso oficial de la poca ellos argumentaban que la
desigualdad era un valor positivo en realidad imprescindible en s
mismo , que mucho precisaban las sociedades occidentales. Este
mensaje permaneci en teora por ms o menos veinte aos.

Con la llegada de la gran crisis del modelo econmico de posguerra,

en 1973 cuando todo el mundo capitalista avanzado cay en una
larga y profunda recesin, combinando, por primera vez, bajas tasas
de crecimiento con altas tasas de inflacin todo cambi. A partir de
ah las ideas neoliberales pasaron a ganar terreno. Las races de la
crisis, afirmaban Hayek y sus compaeros, estaban localizadas en el
 43

poder excesivo y nefasto de los sindicatos y, de manera ms general,

del movimiento obrero, que haba socavado las bases de la
acumulacin privada con sus presiones reivindicativas sobre los
salarios y con su presin parasitaria para que el Estado aumentase
cada vez ms los gastos sociales.

Esos dos procesos destruyeron los niveles necesarios de beneficio de

las empresas y desencadenaron procesos inflacionarios que no podan
dejar de terminar en una crisis generalizada de las economas de
mercado. El remedio, entonces, era claro: mantener un Estado fuerte
en su capacidad de quebrar el poder de los sindicatos y en el control
del dinero, pero limitado en lo referido a los gastos sociales y a las
intervenciones econmicas. La estabilidad monetaria debera ser la
meta suprema de cualquier gobierno. Para eso era necesaria una
disciplina presupuestaria, con la contencin de gasto social y la
restauracin de una tasa natural de desempleo, o sea, la creacin
de un ejrcito industrial de reserva para quebrar a los sindicatos.
Adems, eran imprescindibles reformas fiscales para incentivar a los
agentes econmicos. En otras palabras, esto significaba reducciones
de impuestos sobre las ganancias ms altas y sobre las rentas. De
esta forma, una nueva y saludable desigualdad volvera a dinamizar
las economas avanzadas, entonces afectadas por la estagflacin,
resultado directo de los legados combinados de Keynes y Beveridge, o
sea, la intervencin anticclica y la redistribucin social, las cuales
haban deformado tan desastrosamente el curso normal de la
acumulacin y el libre mercado. El crecimiento retornara cuando la
estabilidad monetaria y los incentivos esenciales hubiesen sido
restituidos.

La hegemona de este programa no se realiz de la noche a la

maana. Llev ms o menos una dcada, los aos 70, cuando la
mayora de los gobiernos de la OECD (Organizacin para el Desarrollo
y la Cooperacin Econmica) trataba de aplicar remedios keynesianos
a las crisis econmicas. Pero al final de la dcada, en 1979, surgi la
oportunidad. En 1979 fue elegido en Inglaterra el gobierno de
Margaret Thatcher, el primer rgimen de un pas capitalista avanzado
pblicamente empeado en poner en prctica un programa
neoliberal. Un ao despus, en 1980, Reagan lleg a la presidencia de
los Estados Unidos. En 1982, Kohl derrot al rgimen social liberal de
Helmut Schmidt en Alemania. En 1983, en Dinamarca, estado modelo
del bienestar escandinavo, cay bajo el control de una coalicin clara
de derecha el gobierno de Schluter. Enseguida, casi todos los pases
del norte de Europa Occidental, con excepcin de Suecia y de Austria,
tambin viraron hacia la derecha.
 44

Durante sus gobiernos sucesivos, Margaret Thatcher contrajo la

emisin monetaria, elev las tasas de inters, baj drsticamente los
impuestos sobre los ingresos altos, aboli los controles sobre los flujos
financieros, cre niveles de desempleo masivos, aplast huelgas,
impuso una nueva legislacin anti sindical y cort los gastos sociales.
Finalmente y sta fue una medida sorprendentemente tarda, se lanz
a un amplio programa de privatizaciones, comenzando con la
vivienda pblica y pasando enseguida a industrias bsicas como el
acero, la electricidad, el petrleo, el gas y el agua. Este paquete de
medidas fue el ms sistemtico y ambicioso de todas las experiencias
neoliberales en los pases del capitalismo avanzado.

La variante norteamericana fue bastante diferente. En los Estados

Unidos, donde casi no exista un Estado de Bienestar del tipo europeo,
la prioridad neoliberal se concentr ms en la competencia militar con
la Unin Sovitica, concebida como una estrategia para quebrar la
economa sovitica y por esa va derrumbar el rgimen comunista en
Rusia. En 1978, la segunda Guerra Fra se agrav con la intervencin
sovitica en Afganistn y la decisin norteamericana de incrementar
una nueva generacin de cohetes nucleares en Europa Occidental. En
poltica interna, Reagan tambin redujo los impuestos en favor de los
ricos, elev las tasas de inters y aplast la nica huelga seria de su
gestin. Pero no respet la disciplina presupuestaria; por el contrario,
se lanz a una carrera armamentista sin precedentes,
comprometiendo gastos militares enormes que crearon un dficit
pblico mucho mayor que cualquier otro presidente de la historia
norteamericana. Sin embargo, ese recurso a un keynesianismo militar
disfrazado, decisivo para una recuperacin de las economas
capitalistas de Europa Occidental y de Amrica del Norte, no fue
imitado. Slo los Estados Unidos, a causa de su peso en la economa
mundial, podan darse el lujo de un dficit masivo en la balanza de
pagos resultante de tal poltica.

Mientras la mayora de los pases del Norte de Europa elega

gobiernos de derecha empeados en distintas versiones del
neoliberalismo, en el Sur del continente (territorio de De Gaulle,
Franco, Salazar, Fanfani, Papadopoulos, etc.), antiguamente una
regin mucho ms conservadora en trminos polticos, llegaban al
poder, por primera vez, gobiernos de izquierda, llamados
eurosocialistas: Mitterrand en Francia, Gonzlez en Espaa, Soares en
Portugal, Craxi en Italia, Papandreu en Grecia. Todos se presentaban
como una alternativa progresista, basada en movimientos obreros o
populares, contrastando con la lnea reaccionaria de los gobiernos de
Reagan, Thatcher, Kohl y otros del Norte de Europa. Mitterrand y
 45

Papandreu, en Francia y en Grecia, comenzaron aplicando una poltica

de redistribucin, pleno empleo y proteccin social. La tentativa de
crear un equivalente en el Sur de Europa de lo que haba sido la
socialdemocracia de posguerra en el Norte del continente en sus aos
de oro fracas debido a la crisis.

En marzo de 1983 el gobierno de Mitterrand en Francia cambi su

curso dramticamente y comenz a aplicar una poltica econmica
mucho ms prxima a la ortodoxia neoliberal, priorizando la
estabilidad monetaria, el equilibrio presupuestaria, las concesiones
fiscales a los capitalistas y el abandono definitivo del pleno empleo. Al
final de la dcada, el nivel de desempleo en Francia era ms alto que
en la Inglaterra conservadora. En Espaa, el gobierno de Gonzlez
jams trat de realizar una poltica keynesiana o redistributiva. Al
contrario, desde el inicio, el rgimen del partido en el poder se mostr
firmemente monetarista en su poltica econmica, gran amigo del
capital financiero, favorable al principio de la privatizacin y sereno
cuando el desempleo alcanz rpidamente el record europeo de 20%
de la poblacin econmicamente activa.

En Australia y Nueva Zelandia, un modelo de caractersticas similares

asumi proporciones verdaderamente dramticas. Los gobiernos
laboristas superaron a los conservadores en su radicalidad neoliberal.
Probablemente Nueva Zelandia sea el ejemplo ms extremo de todo
el mundo capitalista avanzado. All, el proceso de desintegracin del
Estado de Bienestar fue mucho ms completo y feroz que en la
Inglaterra de Margaret Thatcher. Con excepcin de Suecia y Austria,
hacia fines de los aos 80 la propia socialdemocracia europea fue
incorporando a su programa las ideas e iniciativas que defendan e
impulsaban los gobiernos neoliberales. Paradjicamente, eran ahora
los socialdemcratas quienes se mostraban decididos a llevar a la
prctica las propuestas ms audaces formuladas por el
neoliberalismo. Fuera del continente europeo slo Japn se mostr
reacio a aceptar este recetario. Ms all de esto, en casi todos los
pases de la OECD, las ideas de la Sociedad de Mont Plerin haban
triunfado plenamente.

La prioridad ms inmediata del neoliberalismo fue detener la inflacin

de los aos 70. En este aspecto, su xito ha sido innegable. En el
conjunto de los pases de la OECD, la tasa de inflacin cay de 8,8% a
5,2% entre los aos 70 y 80 y la tendencia a la baja continu en los
aos 90. La deflacin, a su vez, deba ser la condicin para la
recuperacin de las ganancias. Tambin en este sentido el
neoliberalismo obtuvo xitos reales. Si en los aos 70 la tasa de
 46

ganancia en la industria de los pases de la OECD cay cerca de 4,2%,

en los aos 80 aument 4,7%. Esa recuperacin fue an ms
impresionante considerando a Europa Occidental como un todo: de
5,4 puntos negativos pas a 5,3 puntos positivos. La razn principal
de esta transformacin fue la derrota del movimiento sindical,
expresada en la cada dramtica del nmero de huelgas durante los
aos 80 y en la notable contencin de los salarios. Esta nueva
postura sindical, mucho ms moderada, tuvo su origen, en gran
medida, en un tercer xito del neoliberalismo: el crecimiento de las
tasas de desempleo. La tasa media de desempleo en los pases de la
OECD, que haba sido de alrededor de 4% en los aos 70, lleg a
duplicarse en la dcada del 80. Finalmente, otro objetivo sumamente
importante para el neoliberalismo - el grado de desigualdad social -
aument significativamente en el conjunto de los pases de la OECD:
la tributacin de los salarios ms altos cay un 20% a mediados de
los aos 80 y los valores de la bolsa aumentaron cuatro veces ms
rpidamente que los salarios.

En todos estos aspectos (deflacin, ganancias, desempleo y salarios)

podemos decir que el programa neoliberal se mostr realista y obtuvo
xito. Pero, a final de cuentas, todas estas medidas haban sido
concebidas como medios para alcanzar un fin histrico: la
reanimacin del capitalismo avanzado mundial, restaurando altas
tasas de crecimiento estables, como existan antes de la crisis de los
aos 70. En este aspecto, sin embargo, el cuadro se mostr
sumamente decepcionante. Entre los aos 70 y 80 no hubo ningn
cambio significativo en la tasa media de crecimiento, muy baja en los
pases de la OECD.

De las tasas de crecimiento de la larga onda expansiva, en los aos

50 y 60, slo quedaba un recuerdo lejano. A pesar de todas las
nuevas condiciones institucionales creadas en favor del capital la tasa
de acumulacin, o sea, la efectiva inversin en el parque de
equipamientos productivos, apenas creci en los aos 80, y cay en
relacin a sus niveles ya medios de los aos 70. En el conjunto de los
pases del capitalismo avanzado, las cifras son de un incremento
anual de la acumulacin de 5,5% en los aos 60, 3,6% en los 70, y
slo 2,9% en los 80. Una curva absolutamente descendente.

Cabe preguntarse an por qu la recuperacin de las ganancias no

condujo a una recuperacin de la inversin. Esencialmente, porque la
desregulacin financiera, que fue un elemento de suma importancia
en el programa neoliberal, cre condiciones mucho ms propicias
para la inversin especulativa que la productiva. Los aos 80
 47

asistieron a una verdadera explosin de los mercados cambiarios

internacionales, cuyas transacciones puramente monetarias
terminaron por reducir de forma sustancial el comercio mundial de
mercancas reales. El peso de las operaciones de carcter parasitario
tuvo un incremento vertiginoso en estos aos.

Por otro lado, y ste fue el fracaso del neoliberalismo, el peso del
Estado de Bienestar no disminuy mucho, a pesar de todas las
medidas tomadas para contener los gastos sociales. Aunque el
crecimiento de la proporcin del PNB consumido por el Estado ha sido
notablemente desacelerado, la proporcin absoluta no cay, sino que
aument, durante los aos 80, de ms o menos 46% a 48% del PNB
medio de los pases de la OECD. Dos razones bsicas explican esta
paradoja: el aumento de los gastos sociales con el desempleo, lo cual
signific enormes erogaciones para los estados, y el aumento
demogrfico de los jubilados, lo cual condujo a gastar otros tantos
millones en pensiones.

El segundo aliento de los gobiernos neoliberales

El capitalismo avanzado entr de nuevo en una profunda recesin en

1991. La deuda pblica de casi todos los pases occidentales comenz
a reasumir dimensiones alarmantes, inclusive en Inglaterra y en los
Estados Unidos, en tanto que el endeudamiento privado de las
familias y de las empresas llegaba a niveles sin precedentes desde la
Segunda Guerra Mundial. Pero el thatcherismo no solo sobrevivi a la
propia Thatcher, con la victoria de Major en las elecciones de 1992 en
Inglaterra; en Suecia, la socialdemocracia, que haba resistido el
embate neoliberal en los aos 80, fue derrotada por un frente unido
de la derecha en 1991. En Italia, Berlusconi, una suerte de Reagan
italiano, lleg al poder en 1994 conduciendo una coalicin en la cual
uno de sus integrantes era antes un partido oficialmente fascista. En
Espaa la derecha lleg al poder con Aznar en 1996.

Una de sus razones fundamentales de este segundo impulso de los

regmenes neoliberales en el mundo capitalista avanzado fue la
victoria del neoliberalismo en otra regin del mundo. En efecto, la
cada del comunismo en Europa Oriental y en la Unin Sovitica, del
89 al 91, se produjo en el exacto momento en que los lmites del
neoliberalismo occidental se tornaban cada vez ms evidentes. La
victoria de Occidente en la Guerra Fra, con el colapso de su
adversario comunista, no fue el triunfo de cualquier capitalismo, sino
el tipo especfico liderado y simbolizado por Reagan y Thatcher en los
aos 80. Los nuevos arquitectos de las economas poscomunistas en
el Este, gente como Leszek Balcerowicz en Polonia, Yegor Gaidar en
 48

Rusia, Vclav Klaus en la Repblica Checa, eran y son ardientes

seguidores de Hayek y Friedman, con un menosprecio total por el
keynesianismo y por el Estado de Bienestar, por la economa mixta y,
en general, por todo el modelo dominante del capitalismo occidental
correspondiente al perodo de posguerra. Esos lderes polticos
preconizan y realizan privatizaciones mucho ms amplias y rpidas de
las que se haban hecho en Occidente; para sanear sus economas,
promueven cadas de la produccin infinitamente ms drsticas de las
que jams se ensayaron en el capitalismo avanzado; y, al mismo
tiempo, promueven grados de desigualdad y empobrecimiento mucho
ms brutales de los que se han visto en los pases occidentales. No
hay neoliberales ms intransigentes en el mundo que los
reformadores del Este.

La dictadura de Pinochet fue el primer rgimen en aplicar polticas

neoliberales: desregulacin, desempleo masivo, represin sindical,
redistribucin de la renta en favor de los ricos, privatizacin de los
bienes pblicos. Todo esto comenz casi una dcada antes que el
experimento thatcheriano. En Chile, naturalmente, la inspiracin
terica de la experiencia pinochetista era ms norteamericana que
austraca: Friedman, y no Hayek, Pero es de notar tanto que la
experiencia chilena de los aos 70 interes muchsimo a ciertos
consejeros britnicos importantes para Thatcher. Existieron
excelentes relaciones entre los dos regmenes hacia los aos 80.

Robert Pearce, Atlee's Labour Governments, 1945-51, Routledge,

1994.

Eric J. Evans, Thatcher and Thatcherism, Routledge, 2004.

 49

History of the European Union

Perry Anderson, The New Old World, Verso Books, 2011.

1950 Schuman Plan: The Schuman Plan was a proposal by French

foreign minister Robert Schuman on 9 May 1950, for the creation of a
single authority to control the production of steel and coal in France
and West Germany, to be opened for membership to other European
countries. The proposal was realized in the European Coal and Steel
Community, and the plan laid the foundations for the 1958
establishment of the European Economic Community.

1951 Treaty of Paris creates Coal and Steel Community.

1957 Treaty of Rome creates Economic Community: The Treaty of

Rome was an international agreement, signed in Rome on March 25,
1957, by Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany (West
Germany), Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, that established
the European Economic Community (EEC), creating a common market
and customs union among its members

1963 Charles de Gaulle vetoes UK entry

1973 Accession of Denmark, Ireland and the UK

1979 Creation of European Monetary System (EMS) - First direct

elections to Parliament

1981 Accession of Greece

1986 Accession of Portugal and Spain; flag adopted

1989 The fall of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe

1992 Maastricht Treaty - The European Union is born

1995 Accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden

2002 The euro replaces twelve national currencies

2004 Accession of ten countries (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia,

Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia);
signing of Constitution

2005 France and the Netherlands reject the Constitution

2007 Accession of Bulgaria and Romania (27 member states sin

total)

2009 Lisbon Treaty

 50

The French contribution to the construction of common European

institutions has been out of all proportion to the weight of France
within the overall economy of Western Europe. The political and
military containment of Germany was a strategic priority for France
from the outset, well before there was any consensus in Paris on the
commercial benefits of integration among the Six. Once Anglo-
American opposition ruled out any re-run of Clemenceaus attempt to
hold Germany down by main force, the only coherent alternative was
to bind it into the closest of alliances, with a construction more
enduring than the temporary shelters of traditional diplomacy. At the
centre of the process of European integration, therefore, has always
lain a specifically bi-national compact between the two leading states
of the continent, France and Germany. The rationale for the
successive arrangements between them, principally economic in
form, was consistently strategic in background. Decisive for the
evolution of common European institutions were four major bargains
between Paris and Bonn.

1. The first of these was, of course, the Schuman Plan of 1950, which
created the original Coal and Steel Community in 1951. If the local
problems of French siderurgy, dependent on Rhenish coal for its
supply of coke, were one element in the inception of the Plan, its
intention was far broader. Of the two countries, Germany possessed
much the larger heavy industrial base. France feared its potential for
rearmament. On the other hand, Germany feared continued
international military control of the Ruhr. The pooling of sovereignty
over their joint resources gave France safeguards against the risk of
renascent German militarism, and freed Germany from Allied
economic tutelage.

2. A second milestone was the understanding between Adenauer and

Mollet that made possible the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Overriding
reservations from the Finance Ministry in Bonn and the Foreign
Ministry in Paris, the two governments reached an accord that
secured German and French goods industries free entry into each
others markets, on which each was already highly dependent for its
prosperity, while holding out the prospect of increased imports by the
Federal Republic of French farm produce. Adenauers affirmative vote
for this deal, in the face of fierce liberal opposition from Erhardwho
feared higher French social costs might spread to Germanywas
political in inspiration. He wanted West European unity as a bulwark
against Communism, and a guarantee that eventual German
 51

reunification would be respected by France. In Paris, on the other

hand, economic counsels remained divided over the project of a
Common Market until rival proposals from London for a free trade
area looked as if they might be more attractive to Bonn, threatening
the primacy of Franco-German commercial ties. What swung the
balance was the political shock of the Suez crisis (1956).

Mollet headed a government far more preoccupied with prosecution of

the Algerian War, and preparations for a strike against Egypt, than
with trade negotiations of any sort. Anglophile by background, he was
committed to an understanding with Britain for joint operations in the
Eastern Mediterranean. On 1 November 1956 the Suez expedition was
launched. Five days later, as French paras were pawing the ground
outside Ismailia, Adenauer arrived in Paris for confidential talks on the
Common Market. He was in the middle of discussions with Mollet and
Pineau, when Eden suddenly rang from London to announce that
Britain had unilaterally called off the expedition, under pressure from
the US Treasury. In the stunned silence, Adenauer tactfully implied the
moral to his hosts. The French cabinet drew the lesson. America had
reversed its stance since Indochina. Britain was a broken reed. For the
last governments of the Fourth Republic, still committed to the French
empire in Africa and planning for a French bomb, European unity
alone could furnish the necessary counterweight to Washington. Six
months later, the Treaty of Rome was signed by Pineau; and in the
National Assembly it was the strategic argumentthe need for a
Europe independent of both America and Russiathat secured
ratification.

3. The third critical episode came with the advent of De Gaulle in

1958. The first really strong regime in France since the war inevitably
altered the terms of the bargain. After clinching a Common
Agricultural Policy to the advantage of French farmers in early 1962,
but failing to create an inter-governmental directorate among the Six,
De Gaulle initiated talks for a formal diplomatic axis with Bonn in the
autumn. France was by now a nuclear power. In January 1963 he
vetoed British entry into the Community. In February Adenauer signed
the Franco-German Treaty. Once this diplomatic alliance was in place,
De Gaullenotoriously hostile to the Commission headed by Hallstein
in Brusselscould check further integration of the EC so long as he
was in power. The institutional expression of the new balance became
the Luxembourg compromise of 1966, blocking majority voting in the
Council of Ministers, which set the legislative parameters for the
Community for the next two decades.
 52

4. Finally, during a period of relative institutional standstill, in 1979

Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt together created the European
Monetary System to counteract the destabilizing effects of the
collapse of the Bretton Woods order, when fixed exchange rates
disintegrated amid the first deep post-war recession. Created outside
the framework of the Community, the EMS was imposed by France
and Germany against resistance even within the Commission, as the
first attempt to control the volatility of financial markets, and prepare
the ground for a single currency within the space of the Six. The
European Currency Unit (ECU): A basket of currencies, preventing
movements above 2.25% (6% for Italy) around parity in bilateral
exchange rates with other member countries.

For the first three decades after the war, then, the pattern was quite
consistent. The two strongest continental powers, adjacent former
enemies, led European institutional development, in pursuit of distinct
but convergent interests. France, which retained military and
diplomatic superiority throughout, was determined to attach Germany
to a common economic order, capable of ensuring its own prosperity
and security, and allowing Western Europe to escape from
subservience to the United States. Germany, which enjoyed economic
superiority already by the mid-fifties, needed not only Community-
wide markets for its industries, but French support for its full
reintegration into the Atlantic bloc and eventual reunification with the
zonestill officially Mitteldeutschland under the control of the
Soviet Union. The dominant partner in this period was always France,
whose functionaries conceived the original Coal and Steel Community
and designed most of the institutional machinery of the Common
Market. It was not until the Deutschmark became the anchor of the
European monetary zone in 1979 that, for the first time, the balance
between Paris and Bonn started to change.

Jean Monnet (18881979): European integration has always

been an elitist project

During World War I Monnet was the French representative on the

Inter-Allied Maritime Commission, and after the war he was deputy
secretary-general of the League of Nations (191923). Then, after
reorganizing his familys brandy business, he became the European
partner of a New York investment bank in 1925. At the start of World
War II he was made chairman of the Franco-British Economic Co-
ordination Committee. After the Franco-German armistice he left for
Washington, D.C., and in 1943 he was sent to Algiers to work with the
Free French administration there. After the liberation of France,
 53

Monnet headed a government committee to prepare a comprehensive

plan for the reconstruction and modernization of the French economy.
On Jan. 11, 1947, the Monnet Plan was adopted by the French
government, and Monnet himself was appointed commissioner-
general of the National Planning Board. (Commissaire gnral au Plan:
3 janvier 1946 11 septembre 1952. Le plan Marshall contribue la
ralisation du plan Monnet, en assurant le financement d'une grande
partie des investissements des secteurs de base.).

In May 1950 Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, then the French
foreign minister, proposed the establishment of a common European
market for coal and steel by countries willing to delegate their powers
over these industries to an independent authority. Six countries
France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and
Luxembourgsigned the treaty in 1951 that set up the European Coal
and Steel Community (ECSC). From 1952 to 1955 Monnet served as
the first president of the ECSCs High Authority. The ECSC inspired the
creation of the European Economic Community, or Common Market,
in 1957.

Jean Monnets opportunity came when in late 1949 the US Secretary

of State Dean Acheson demanded of Robert Schuman, the French
foreign minister, a coherent French policy towards Germany, for which
the Quai dOrsay had no answer. It was Monnets solutionthe offer of
a supranational pooling of steel and coal resources that set the ball
of European integration rolling. The larger part of the institutional
model of the EEC eight years later descended directly from the ECSC
Monnets circle designed in 1950.

Monnets initiatives in these years owed much to American

encouragement. His decisive advantage, as a political operator across
national boundaries in Europe, was the closeness of his association
with the US political elitenot only the Dulles brothers, but Acheson,
Harriman, McCloy, Ball, Bruce and othersformed during his years in
New York and Washington. Monnets intimacy with the highest levels
of power in the hegemonic state of the hour was unique. He was to
become widely distrusted in his own country because of it. His
European zeal was prompted by his American patrons, within the
strategic framework of the Marshall Plan. Monnet was first set
thinking about post-war integration by discussions in the US, and his
subsequent achievements depended critically on US support.
American policy was driven by the relentless pursuit of Cold War
objectives. A strong Western Europe was needed as a bulwark against
Soviet aggression, on the central front of a world-wide battle against
 54

Communist subversion, whose outlying zones were to be found in

Asia, from Korea in the north to Indochina and Malaya in the south,
where the line was being held by France and Britain.

Monnet was a stranger to the democratic process. He never faced a

crowd or ran for office. Shunning any direct contact with electorates,
he worked among elites only. At no point untilostensiblythe British
referendum of 1976 was there any real popular participation in the
movement towards European unity. The electorates themselves were
never consulted. Europe was scarcely mentioned at the polls that in
January 1956 brought the Republican Front to office in Francethey
were fought over the Algerian conflict and the appeal of Poujade. But
the critical point on which the fate of the EEC finally turned was the
switch of a few dozen SFIO votes in the National Assembly that had
blocked the EDC, in response to the climate after Suez. There was an
absence of popular opposition to plans designed and debated on high,
which received mere negative assent below. The Benelux countries,
whose own customs union was adumbrated in exile as early as 1943,
were states whose only prospect of significant influence in Europe lay
in some kind of supranational framework. It was two foreign ministers
from the Low CountriesBeyen in the Netherlands and Spaak in
Belgiumwho originated the key moves that led to the eventual
brokerage of the Treaty of Rome. Beyen, who first actually proposed
the Common Market, was not an elected politician, but a former
executive for Philips and director of Unilever parachuted straight from
the IMF into the Dutch cabinet.

There was a second, much heavier weight in favour of a European

deferation: the United States. Monnets strength as an architect of
integration did not lie in any particular leverage with European
cabinets even if he eventually came to enjoy the confidence of
Adenauer but in his direct line to Washington. American pressure, in
the epoch of Acheson and Dulles, was crucial in putting realnot
merely idealforce behind the conception of ever greater union that
came to be enshrined in the Treaty of Rome. When the potential for
economic competition from a more unified Western Europe, equipped
with a common external tariff, was registered by the Treasury, the
Department of Agriculture and the Federal Reserve, they were firmly
overridden by the White House and the State Department. American
politico-military imperatives, in the global conflict with Communism,
trumped commercial calculation without the slightest difficulty.
Eisenhower informed Pineau that the realization of the Treaty of Rome
(1957) would be one of the finest days in the history of the free
world, perhaps even more so than winning the war. The basic
 55

objective of the United States was to create a strong West European

bulwark against the Soviet Union, as a means to victory in the Cold
War. The key French goal was to tie Germany down in a strategic
compact leaving Paris primus inter pares west of the Elbe. The major
German concern was to return to the rank of an established power
and keep open the prospect of reunification. This constellation held
good till the end of the sixties. In the course of the next decade, two
significant shifts occurred. The belated entry of the UK brought
another state into the Community of nominally comparable weight to
France and West Germany; while on the other hand, the US withdrew
to a more watchful stance as Nixon and Kissinger started to perceive
the potential for a rival great power in Western Europe.

1 January 1973: The six become nine when Denmark, Ireland and the
United Kingdom formally enter the EU.

The second change was more fundamental. The economic and social
policies that had united the original Six during the post-war boom
disintegrated with the onset of global recession, and were replaced by
neoliberal policies. (Economic watershed in the early 70s)

4 May 1979 28 November 1990: Margaret Thatcher elected UK

Prime Minister

20 January 1981 20 January 1989: Ronald Reagan elected President

of the US

12 June 1982: Franois Mitterrands neoliberal 'U' turn in France

1 October 1982 27 October 1998: Helmut Kohl elected Chancellor of

Germany

Pan-European Political Institutions set up by the Single

European Act in 1986

Most visible, the unaccountable European Commission in Brussels

acts as the executive of the Community. A body composed of
functionaries designated by member- governments, it is headed by a
president enjoying a salary considerably higher than that of the
occupant of the White House, but commanding a bureaucracy smaller
than that of many a municipality, and a budget of little more than 1 %
of area GDP. These revenues, moreover, are collected not by the
Commission, which has no direct powers of taxation itself, but by the
member- governments. In a provision of which conservatives can still
only dream in the US, the Treaty of Rome forbids the Commission to
 56

run any deficit. Its expenditures remain heavily concentrated on the

Common Agricultural Policy, about which there is much cant both
inside and outside EuropeUS and Canadian farm support being not
much lower than European, and Japanese much higher. A certain
amount is also spent on Structural Funds to aid poor or rust-belt
regions. The Commission administers this budget; issues regulatory
directives; andpossessing the sole right of initiating European
legislationproposes new enactments. Its proceedings are
confidential.

Secondly, there is the Council of Ministersthe misleading name for

what is in fact a series of inter-governmental meetings between
departmental ministers of each member-state, covering different
policy areas (about 30 in all). The Councils decisions are tantamount
to the legislative function of the Community: a hydra-headed entity in
virtually constant session at Brussels, whose deliberations are secret,
most of whose decisions are sewn up at a bureaucratic level below
the assembled ministers themselves, and whose outcomes are
binding on national parliaments.

Capping this structure, since 1974, has been the so-called European
Council composed of the heads of government of each member-state,
which meets at least two times a year and sets broad policy for the
Council of Ministers.

Thirdly, there is the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg,

composed of judges appointed by the member-states, who pronounce
on the legality of the directives of the Commission, and on conflict
between Union and national law, and have over time come to treat
the Treaty of Rome as if it were something like a European
Constitution. Unlike the Supreme Court in the US, no votes are
recorded in the European Court, and no dissent is ever set out in a
judgment. The views of individual judges remain unfathomable.

Then there is the European Parliament, formally the popular element

in this institutional complex, as its only elective body, is an impotent
talking-shop. However, in defiance of the Treaty of Rome, it possesses
no common electoral system: no permanent homewandering like a
vagabond between Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Brussels; no power
of taxation; no control over the pursebeing confined to simple
yes/no votes on the Community budget as a whole; no say over
executive appointments, other than a threat in extremis to reject the
whole Commission; no right to initiate legislation, merely the ability to
amend or veto it. In all these respects, it functions less like a
 57

legislative than a ceremonial apparatus of government, providing a

symbolic facade not altogether unlike, say, the monarchy in Britain.

Finally, there is the Coreper (Comit des reprsentants permanents),

made up of the heads of the missions from the EU member states in
Brussels, who confer behind closed doors with functionaries of the
Commission to draft the EUs legally binding directives.

Constitutionally, the EU is a caricature of a democratic federation,

since its Parliament lacks powers of initiative, contains no parties with
any existence at European level, and wants even a modicum of
popular credibility. Modest increments in its rights have not only failed
to increase public interest in this body, but have been accompanied
by a further decline in it. Participation in European elections has sunk
steadily, to below 50 per cent, and the newest voters are the most
indifferent of all. In the East, the regional figure in 2004 was scarcely
more than 30 per cent; in Slovakia less than 17 per cent of voters cast
a ballot for their delegates to Strasbourg. Such ennui is not irrational.
The European Parliament is a Merovingian legislature. The mayor in
the palace is the Council of Ministers, where real law-making
decisions are taken, topped by the European Council of the heads of
state, meeting every three months. Yet this complex in turn fails the
opposite logic of an inter-governmental authority, since it is the
Commission alone the EUs unelected executivethat can propose
the laws on which the Council and (more notionally) the Parliament
deliberate. The violation of a constitutional separation of powers in
this dual authoritya bureaucracy vested with a monopoly of
legislative initiativeis flagrant. Alongside this hybrid executive,
moreover, is an independent judiciary, the European Court, capable of
rulings discomfiting any national government.

The institutional upshot of European integration is thus a customs

union with a quasi-executive of supranational cast, without any
machinery to enforce its decisions; a quasi-legislature of inter-
governmental ministerial sessions, shielded from any national
oversight, operating as a kind of upper chamber; a quasi- supreme
court that acts as it were the guardian of a constitution which does
not exist; and a pseudo-legislative lower chamber, in the form of a
largely impotent parliament that is nevertheless the only elective
body, theoretically accountable to the peoples of Europe. All of this
superimposed on a set of nation-states, determining their own fiscal,
social, military and foreign policies. Up to the end of the eighties the
sum of these arrangements, born under the sign of the interim and
 58

the makeshift, had nevertheless acquired a respectable aura of

inertia.

In the nineties, however, three momentous changes loomed over the

political landscape in which this complex is set. The disappearance of
the Soviet bloc (i.e. the restoration of capitalism east of the Elbe), the
reunification of Germany and the Treaty of Maastricht have set
processes in motion whose scale can only be compared to the end of
the war.

It was the collapse of Communism that allowed the reunification of

Germany in 1990 that precipitated the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992.
After securing passage of the Single European Act in 1986, Delors
persuaded the European Council two years later to set up a
committee largely composed of central bankers, but chaired by
himself, to report on a single currency. Its recommendations were
formally accepted by the Council in the spring of 1989. But it was the
sudden collapse of East Germany that spurred Mitterrand to conclude
an agreement with Kohl at the Strasbourg summit, putting the
decisive weight of the Franco-German axis behind the project.
Monetary union was pressed not merely by the hopes or fears of
bankers and economists. Ultimately more important was the political
desire of the French government to fold the newly enlarged German
state into a tighter European structure in which interest rates would
no longer be regulated solely by the Bundesbank. In Paris the creation
of a single currency under supranational control was conceived as a
critical safeguard against the reemergence of German national
hegemony in Europe. But France proved overoptimistic. Thatcher
rejected monetary union.

The Treaty of Maastricht (1992) and the advent of monetary

union (1 January 1999)

The core of the Treaty of Maastricht (1992) was the commitment by

the member-states, save England and Denmark, to introduce a single
currency, under the authority of a European Central Bank, by 1999.
This step meant an irreversible move of the EU towards real
federation. With it, national governments lost the right either to issue
money or to alter exchange rates, and now are only able to vary rates
of interest and public borrowing within very narrow limits, on pain of
heavy fines from the Commission if they break central bank
directives. Once devaluations are ruled out, the only mechanisms of
adjustment are sharp wage reductions or mass out-migration.
Maastricht leads to an obliteration of what is left of the Keynesian
legacy that Hayek deplored, and most of the distinctive gains of the
 59

West European labour movement associated with it. The convergence

criteria appended to the Treaty (public debt no higher than 60 per
cent and public deficit no more than 3 per cent of GDP, inflation
within 1.5 and interest rates 2 per cent of the three best performers in
the Union) and a Stability Pact beyond them. But in the text signed
at Maastricht the convergence criteria are not unconditional targets to
be met, but reference values to be moved towards. The introduction
of a single currency, adopted simultaneously by eleven out of fifteen
member-states of the EU on the first day of 1999 meant the
substitution of a dozen monies by one (Greece joined in 2002).

The pay-off for EMU has been disappointing. Far from picking up,
growth in the Eurozone initially slowed down, from an average of 2.4
% in the five years before monetary union, to 2.1 % in the first five
years after it. Caught between the scientific and technological
magnetism of America, where two-fifths of all scientistssome
400,000are now EU-born, and the cheap labour of China, where
average wages are 20 times lower, Europe has not had much to show.
Not only has the performance of the single-currency bloc been well
below the American. More pointedly, the Eurozone has been
outstripped by those countries within the EU which declined to scrap
their own currenciesSweden, Britain, and Denmark all posting
higher rates of growth over the same period.

Casting a further shadow over the legacy of Maastricht, the Stability

Pact, which was supposed to ensure that fiscal indiscipline at national
level would not undermine monetary rigour at supranational level, has
been breached repeatedly and with impunity by both Germany and
France, the two leading economies of the Eurozone. Had its
deflationary impact been enforced, as it was on a weaker Portugal, in
less position to resist, overall growth would have been yet lower.

The boom of Ireland and Spain, once upheld as success stories within
the Eurozone, came from rocketing house prices construction was
the linchpin of economic growth. In the major Eurozone economies,
where mortgages have never been so central to financial markets,
such effects have been subdued. The abrupt decline in the American
housing market dragged their banks down with the outbreak of the
transatlantic recession.

The expansion of the EU into Eastern Europe: Periphery of

cheap labour
 60

2004 Accession of ten countries (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia,

Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia);
signing of Constitution

The expansion of the EU to the East was set in motion in 1993, and
completed for the momentin 2007, with the accession of Romania
and Bulgaria. All nine former captive nations of the Soviet bloc have
been integrated without a hitch into the Union. Only the lands of a
once independent Communism, in the time of Tito and Hoxha, wait to
join the fold, and even there a start has been made with Slovenia.
Capitalism has been restored speedily. European capital now has a
major pool of cheap labour at its disposal, conveniently located on its
doorstep, not only dramatically lowering its production costs in plants
to the East, but capable of exercising pressure on wages and
conditions in the West. The archetypal case is Slovakia, where wages
in the auto industry are one-eighth of those in Germany, and more
cars per capita are shortly going to be producedVolkswagen and
Peugeot in the leadthan in any other country in the world. It is the
fear of such relocation, with closure of factories at home, that has
cowed so many German workers into accepting longer hours and less
pay. Race-to-the bottom pressures are not confined to wages. The ex-
Communist states have pioneered flat taxes to woo investment, and
now compete with one another for the lowest possible rate.

Expansion to the East was piloted by Washington: in every case, the

former Soviet satellites were incorporated into NATO, under US
command, before they were admitted to the EU. Poland, Hungary and
the Czech Republic had joined NATO already in 1999, five years
before entry into the Union; Bulgaria and Romania in 2004, three
years before entry; even Slovakia, Slovenia and the Baltics, a
gratuitous monthjust to rub in the symbolic point before entry
(planning for the Baltics started in 1998). Croatia, Macedonia and
Albania are next in line for the same sequence.

The expansion of NATO to former Soviet borders, casting aside

undertakings given to Gorbachev at the end of the Cold War, was the
work of the Clinton administration. Twelve days after the first levy of
Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic had joined the Alliance, the
Balkan War was launchedthe first full-scale military offensive in
NATOs history. The successful blitz was an American operation, with
token auxiliaries from Europe, and virtually no dissent in public
opinion. These were harmonious days in Euro-American relations.
There was no race between the EU and NATO in the East: Brussels
deferred to the priority of Washington, which encouraged and
 61

prompted the advance of Brussels. So natural has this asymmetrical

symbiosis now become that the United States can openly specify
what further states should join the Union.

United over Yugoslavia, Europe split over Iraq, where the strategic
risks were higher. But the extent of European opposition to the march
on Baghdad was always something of an illusion. On the streets, in
Italy, Spain, Germany, Britain, huge numbers of people demonstrated
against the invasion. Opinion polls showed majorities against it
everywhere. But once it had occurred, there was little protest against
the occupation, let alone support for the resistance to it. Most
European governmentsBritain, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands,
Denmark, Portugal in the West; all in the Eastbacked the invasion,
and sent troops to bulk up the US forces holding the country down.
Out of the fifteen member-states of the EU in 2003, just three
France, Germany and Belgiumcame out against the prospect of war
before the event. None condemned the attack when it was launched.
For the rest, Europe remains engaged to the hilt in the war in
Afghanistan, where a contemporary version of the expeditionary force
dispatched to crush the Boxer Rebellion has killed more civilians this
year than the guerrillas it seeks to root out.

Virtually every timethere have not been manythat voters have

been allowed to express an opinion about the direction the Union was
taking, they have rejected it. The Norwegians refused the EC tout
court (1972 and 1994); the Danes declined Maastricht in 1992; the
Irish, the Treaty of Nice in 2001; the Swedes, the euro in 2003. Then
the French and the Dutch rejected the Treaty establishing a
Constitution for Europe in 2005. Each time, the political class
promptly sent them back to the polls to correct their mistake.

It was pressure from Brussels to cut public spending which led the
Jupp government to introduce the fiscal package that detonated the
great French strike-wave of the winter of 1995, and brought him
down. It was the corset of the Stability Pact that forced Portugala
small country unable to ignore itinto slashing social benefits and
plunged the country into a steep recession in 2003. The government
in Lisbon did not survive either. Since then, the government of
Berlusconi and Zapatero are gone, together with Sarkozy.

Todays EU, with its pinched spending (just over 1% of Union GDP),
minuscule bureaucracy (around 16,000 officials, excluding
translators), absence of independent taxation, and lack of any means
of administrative enforcement, could in many ways be regarded as a
 62

ne plus ultra of the minimal state, beyond the most drastic imaginings
of classical liberalism.

It was at German insistence that the ECB was given absolute power
without a trace of popular accountabilityto determine the money
supply, and therewith rates of growth and employment, in Europe;
that draconian convergence criteria were made the condition of entry
into the single currency; that a deflationary Stability Pact was
imposed on national budgets even after entry.