POLS 303 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Guided Democracy, Democratic Centralism, Planned Economy
14 Mar 2018
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Lecture notes - russia in transition: from communism to. Promotion of civil society, democratic practices: seems to have gone to waste. Prologue: soviet communism (ussr union of soviet socialist republics) Economic and political stagnation in the 1970s and 1980s: soviet gerontocracy, state run/governed by older people, most leaders in their late 70s/early 80s, deficiencies of planned economy, shortages, waiting periods. Inefficiencies: arms race, military race with the us ate up a large chunk of the soviet budget, less money for consumer goods/agriculture, widening economic imbalances, war in afghanistan, soviet version of vietnam, popular discontent. Soviet union collapsed in december 1991: emergence of 15 new states in europe and asia one of these was russia. Political reform: legal chaos and uncontrolled decentralization. Economic reform: shock therapy and social dislocation. Boris yeltsin: steered russia towards reform, born-again democrat. He was elected as president in march 2000. He pro(cid:373)ised to restore order i(cid:374) ussia through a (cid:862)di(cid:272)tatorship of la(cid:449)(cid:863) a(cid:374)d re-establish.
