Boris Yeltsin and Crisis in Russia
American conservatives must be climbing the walls when they hear that the conservative Russian Congress is threatening the powers of the pro-marketeer, President Boris Yeltsin. Are the two “conservatives” the same thing?
For too long we have heard this word used in the media as though it was the same thing. Obviously it is not and no one has taken the time to differentiate it.
So-called Russian conservatives are thought of as those who wish to bring back the status quo, namely the Soviet authoritarian brand of communism which has been thoroughly discredited. In its absence today the void has been filled by crime, material deprivation, unfettered speculation and savage forms of exploitation mildly reflective of free enterprise in general but not the same thing. A distorted nostalgia thus forms in the minds of the Russian people.
Russian conservatives are generally looked at by Russians as loyalists of Soviet communist dogma, but who are equally envious of their inequitable past perks.
ANATOLI ILYASHOV
Los Angeles
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