Talk:History of the Russian Federation

Archive 1 | Archive 2

Chechnya policy and popularity

Under the heading of Succession crises, 1999-2000, it says President Putin's popularity was strengthened because he "has taken decisive action" about the Chechen rebels.

I would contend that it should read "promised decisive action" because rebels are still very much active and therefore, by definition, the action was not decisive. Also, in the wake of the crisis, Chechnya remained a bitter sticking point in international relations, until the attacks of september 11th, 2001 caused the focus to shift.

-Ovvldc 14:01, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And you, for some reason, think that Chechens are party of pupils who can be pacificed in a week?

That's not in fact so, Caucasus is a very hot place, and it was like that for something like 2 thousand years.

What did Putin do is dispacing bandits from Grozny to mountains, where they have less chances to traffic heroine and plunder hospitals. But pacifying them is not possible without decades of mutual effort, and we hope it'll happen. But noone can be sure.

Ilyak 23:18, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Lermontov wrote something like "Evil Chechen crawls the beach// Sharpening his dagger". That's 18 century and, for some reason, a lullaby. You think you can pacify that temper, I've gotta see.

P.P.S. And international relations is something you probably want to think a little less.

"Focus shift" is, in fact, "getting hit by same brick, finally starting to blame thrower not another victim". Put it either way.

Please update to current standards

1. As per Wikipedia:Cite sources, create a 'References' section out of Notes/External links. 2. As per Wikipedia:Footnotes, please remove all external links from main body, move to Notes and link with footnotes. While I don't think this article is in FARC danger just with those 2 deficiencies, it is falling behind our current standards and wouldn't pass FAC today until those technical issues were resolved. Tnx and please let me know when this is adressed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 15:49, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Improving the introduction

1. Suggested changes in the first paragraph: The Russian Federation became a separate country after its president Boris Yeltsin signed the Belaya Vezha agreements with the heads of Ukraine and Belorussia on dissolving the Soviet Union (Dec. 8, 1991). These agreements were ratified by the Russian parliament (Supreme Soviet) on Dec. 12, 1991 (with 185 votes for and 6 votes against out of the total of 251 members), leading to Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation on Dec. 25. On the same day, the Supreme Soviet renamed the country (whose official name at that time was Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic) into Russian Federation, or Russia...Russia was recognized as the Soviet Union's successor state with regard to its permanent seat on the UN Security Council and accepted the responsibility for Soviet foreign debts.

Second paragraph: With the insistence of the international community and in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Russia managed to move Soviet nuclear weapons from the territories of other post-Soviet states where they had been located (Ukraine, Belorussia and Kazakhstan). Russian Armed Forces were officially set up by Yeltsin's decree only on May 7, 1992, after the collapse of an attempt to maintain a joint military for the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The Russian parliament, or Congress, proclaimed its sovereignty within the Soviet Union on June 12, 1990 (henceforth officially commemorated as Russia's Independence Day). Since then, Russian authorities headed by Boris Yeltsin took the lead at the major turning points on the road toward Soviet breakdown, by early recognition of the independence of the Baltic republics, by stalling the negotiations on a new Union Treaty and by unilateral takeover of key Soviet institutions and property after the failed August 1991 coup. In October 1991, [...] Russia's decision to proceed with "shock therapy" on a unilateral basis, without coordination with other Soviet republics were not prepared for it, showed that the Union had become irrelevant and was on the verge of collapse. DGV

Remarks on elections ("intelligentsia" vs "middle class" etc.)

Hello!

I have some objections against the term middle class, in the sense of "bourgeoisie", used to describe Yavlinsky's supporters in 1996. This term may be confusing from Western point of view, and is merely incorrent from Russian one. Some other terms are also questionable. Generally, information about Russian elections is incomplete. But my remarks are beyond the NPOV :)

Is Yavlinsky a "liberal"?

The article states that Yavlinsky was the liberal alternative. In Russia liberal frequently refers to liberal-criminals, also known as privatizators. Yavlinsky, though shares some liberal values, propose a social-acceptable model of economy and is a permanent critic of liberal-criminals.

Also, liberal may refer to LDPR, party of Zhirinovsky — another Yavlinsky's enemy. I think, some disambiguation required.

LDPR is neither liberal nor democratic. I's a very autoritarian party led by charismatic leader. Granted, in Russia, any political term may mean whatever, so don't look at them too believingly.

Ilyak 23:27, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Yvlinsky had social liberal attitude at the time, IIRC. Also, please read something about what anglophones mean by liberalism - you seem to be watching too much state TV :\ — Kallikanzarid (talk) 16:43, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

The term "Liberal" was a contrived Western academic obfuscation device used during the Gorbachev period in reference to the system changes in that country. "Liberal" were the free market proponents, "Conservative" were the proponents of maintaining the command system.

In reality, Yvlinsky was a free-market Libertarian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.215.214.37 (talk) 18:10, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Who voted for Yavlinsky?

In Moscow, the richest Russian city at the time and by now, Yavlinsky got only 7.96%, just a little above the federal average (7.34%). We must take into account a cultural importance of Moscow, leading to such considerable Yavlinsky's rate.

Regions of strongest Yavlinsky's support was, in fact:

• the city of Saint-Petersburg (15.15%), named sometimes as "the only European city in Russia", but in 2000s that city ceased to be so European and became an ordinary Russian city IMHO;
• the Russia'a western exclave of Kaliningrad (Königsberg) (12.85%), possibly due to the same reason of europisation;
• most regions of Southern Siberia and Far East, with especially high rate in Novosibirsk, the city where the Siberian Division of RAS is located, and also an university;
• regions of Kirov (Vyatka) and Arkhangelsk, for a reason unknown to me.

[1]

All named regions was never considered in Russia as especially prosperous.

The "intelligentsia" vs the "middle class"

IMHO it was the Russian outnumbered intelligentsia who voted for Yavlinsky, despite the governmental brain-washing paid by oligarchs and despite some theories, adopted also by some Russian intellectuals, that only the Yeltsin's rule can lead Russia to "democratic" civilized society like Western Europe and Scandinavia, where alternative presidental elections could take place. It's evident by now that presidental elections became in Russia just a fake.

You may know that Russian "intelligentsia" is not a class of moderately rich people. It's a people that can think, that is not the same than making money, at least in modern Russia. Because in Russia making money is closely related to corruption and criminality, the correlation between intellect and money is not so strong as in the Western world. Teachers and doctors, the backbone of Russian intelligentsia, live in poverty. A high school professor in Moscow earns about 6000 roubles/month (US$2,520/year). The prices in Moscow are close to Western prices, even somewhere supersede. In 1996 salaries were even lower.

Concerning the Russian bourgeoisie, greedy, cowardly, and strongly dependent on commercial ventures affiliated with Russian so named state, they preferred to vote for liberal-criminals to keep the existing regime, because of their fear of any changes. But, despite of their right choice, their fictive economy crashed, and there was many drivel originating from the (former) "middle class" two years later.

... Russia's southern industrial heartland ...

Does somebody knows, what could it mean??

1996 elections in context of other Russian presidential elections

We saw that elections of 1996 was probably less free, or less fair, than of 1991, but much more free than the successional elections of 2000. Concerning the 2004 putsidential voting, I think that the word "freedom" can not be applied to.

You, in fact, mistake "Alternative" with "Freedom". "Freedom" is hardly applicable to elections, "Just/Unjust" maybe.

Yes, there was no alternative to Putin in 2004, but who to blame? There is no alternative really. Communist party is lethargic, and everything else is too spotty to put in a real competitor to Putin. We have no balanced system of 2 parties, as in, say, USA. It's hard to bootstrap such a system.

Putin is a strong leader, and there are not many other strong leaders around. Ilyak 23:38, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

"Freedom" is applicable to elections, at least to electoral publicity. The federal TV translated P's meeting with his electoral representatives, which was an advertizing. Any candidate of opposition had not such opportunity. Unfortunally, Russians are no more readers' nation, Russians became a TV watching nation, like Amers et al. Suppose you are a TV watcher (I know, you are Linux user which correlates positively with an intellect and negatively with watching Russian TV, but suppose you have no Linux in your brains, but have a TV, beer/vodka, soccer and probably click-OK-on-this-window). Who might you vote for, if you saw only P on all TV channels? His strength based virtually on his control over TV. The English system of 2 parties is not required for alternative elections. There is no such system in France and even in Ukraine, but presidential elections was alternative in these countries. гык 03:25, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

First of all, there was no suitable leader. There are a lot of very rich people (think oligarchs) that will invest heavily in alternative leader if he will show up. In fact, Zuiganov have got enough publicity in 1996, so it should not be a problem in 200x. Still, we'll have to see it - on a next elections.

Noone who balloted on 2004 was worth mentioning, in fact, Zuganov is a political zombie, Zhirinovskiy is a dick, and Yavlinskiy is a loser. All they are niche politicans. Who's left on the tube*?

* The Oil Transportation one.

Legislatives

Article contain no information on Russian legislative elections. But these elections are important at least in the sense that it was more fair rather than presidential.

Russian translation

Does it exist somewhere for this article? Maybe, work is in progress?

гык 18:52, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

You can contribute to translation at ru:История Российской Федерации.

гык 06:21, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Very biased/inaccurate statement:

Quoting article:

Overwhelming successes at the Olympics and the great national ice hockey teams have become things of the past.

2004 Summer Olympics result for Russia is #3 overall, #2 by medal count, as you can easily see from table.

I would not in any condition call this situation "thing of past". You can't compete with ones with vastly overwhelming resources, and everyone other is 0wned, hackishly speaking.

So please correct that.

Ilyak 23:03, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, and you have to blind not to see how boldly Russia is being forced out of everything that has to do with sports. Also, if you put together all the medals of Russia + all former Soviet republics, you'll see that "Russia" is still, in fact, a sporting power. However, since Russia is Russia and Ukraine is Ukraine, unlike 20 years ago, you can't compare past performances with current.

Uhh is it just me, or are large swathes of this article lifted directly from Thomas F. Remington's Politics in Russia, 4th Ed.?

To be fair... ther majority of ex. Soviet athlets are playing for the U.S., Canada or other western nations... so if you tally those up, the USSR is still going strong in the Olympics ;)

-G —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.231.135.37 (talk) 01:21, 28 April 2007 (UTC).

I think...

that a good picture at the front of this article would be that of one of Stalin or Lenin's statues collapsed right after the fall of the S.U. There should be several images floating around with children playing on Stalin's (statue's) arms and face, and thus symbolize the great fall of the Soviet Union - as such a giant statue tombled down could help "sum" the impact of the collapse. I have seen such photos many times. Is what I am saying making any sense?

No. ....εγκυκλοπαίδεια* (talk) 18:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

probably not, as about half of Russian population supports the Soviet Union

ANOTHER COMMENT

I am not sure if this is the right place to put a comment because I am new to this site. In the second paragraph- Russia disarmed the former republics. This is incorrect, at least not fully descriptive of reality. Russia was only able to do so because of large financial incentives that were provided by the US as part of their nuclear disarmament program.

...Didn't the other republics HAND OVER their arms to Russia because A: To expensive to hold and B: Didn't want to be targets?

-G

Section on oligarchs

This section is both unduly emotional and long outdated. In particular, the two paragraphs starting "The new capitalist opportunities..." to "entrenched themselves as powerful players." is exceedingly general and opinionated. Of the "oligarchs" listed further in the section, only a few had any "insider positions" when they started their businesses.

Also the last two paragraphs of the section are outdated, to say the least. Sredni vashtar 21:37, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Update: So I edited it, getting rid of exceedingly emotional wording and outdated stuff, also adding a few words on the beginnings of guys like Abramovich and Khodorkovsky. Sredni vashtar 22:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

172, the use of expressions such as "privatization program was deeply corrupt from the beginning" is in no way "a more encyclopedic version". We'll have to stick to the facts and not indulge in generalized condemnations. Sredni vashtar 21:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I see only one citation for the entire section. There needs to be more support for the sheer number of claims given, or they need to be removed. Aekleber (talk) 23:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

This article described the "oligarchs" economic changes as if they were of negative impact. This is clearly not neutral, as it fails to mention that the "oligarch" investors played an important role on converting all state owned industries into concentrated privately owned corporations without spreading the money too loosely, as well as removing Russia's unwanted portion of society through competition and survival of the fittest. 173.183.69.134 (talk) 00:41, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

rumours

is it just a rumour, or is it true that russia could be considering returning to a tsarist style absolute monarchy?

I have never even heard of this. Besides, it's ridiculous to think that either the people or the politicians would support it (especially since the latter would have to give up their power). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.86.254.131 (talk) 11:57, August 23, 2007 (UTC)

Featured article review

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Government Dismantling

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296441,00.html

This should be added to the article. Xaritix 01:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

The result was no merge -- Otebig (talk) 22:28, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I created the article Post-Soviet states and it never really became what I had intended. I propose that the relevant information in that article be merged into this one (and a lot of info on that article can simply be discarded.) Juppiter (talk) 01:19, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

KEEP it seprate . putting 13 diffrent countries may result in very long article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Munish82 (talk • contribs) 08:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

ITS time to revise! There is a new cold war going on (2008). Russia is becoming dangerous! No mention is made of Russia using its gas resources against Europe. Or about the polonium poisoning of a FSA agent in London. Or the current controversy over the "missile defense shield" to be placed in Poland and Czech Republic. And what about the Russian connection to the burning of the Belgrade US Embassy? What about the nukes they still posess? What about comments last week (mid -feb 2008) by a Russian general "it may take brute force to counter the Kosovo Independence"? US/Russian relations are at a recent all time low. Sounds dangerous to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.115.89.99 (talk) 04:45, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Oppose Merge - the Post-Soviet States page covers much more than just Russian history. Otebig (talk) 04:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Don't merge. At least, not with history, as "Post-soviet states" is rather a geo-politic term than historic. Garret Beaumain (talk) 19:22, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
• Don't merge. One is a group of countries, other is a historical description, two different topics. --ssr (talk) 15:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
• Don't merge. Soviet Union wasn't Russia. Russia is just one of 15 Post-soviet states. --DmitriyR (talk) 11:11, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Fair use rationale for Image:GaidarandBush.JPG

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BetacommandBot (talk) 18:26, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Problematic paragraph

This paragraph: "Following the economic reforms of the early 1990s, Russia suffered from a sharp increase in the rates of poverty and inequality.[7] Estimates by the World Bank based on both macroeconomic data and surveys of household incomes and expenditures indicate that whereas 1.5% of the population was living in poverty (defined as income below the equivalent of $25 per month) in the late Soviet era, by mid-1993 between 39% and 49% of the population was living in poverty.[8] Per capita incomes fell by another 15% by 1998, according to government figures."

implies that the worsening of economic conditions during this era can be directly attributed to the "economic reforms of the early 1990s". This has not been established. In fact most of the collapse in the standard of livings took place in 1990 and 1991, before any of the major "shock therapy" reforms were implemented. Hence I propose changing "Following the economic reforms of the early 1990's" to something more NPOV and non-OR like "Following the economic collapse of the early 1990's".radek (talk) 20:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC) Or it should be changed to "Until the economic reforms of the early 1990s, Russia had faced extreme poverty and inequality, surely due to the Soviet initiated Cold War with the U.S." 173.183.69.134 (talk) 00:30, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I doubt there was an increase in poverty when communism collapsed as communism failed to eradicate inequality. It is just another regime oppressing its people just like the federal era so the chances are that just as many suffered in the Imperial and Soviet era as they do in the Federal era. --203.59.193.180 (talk) 05:11, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Problematic paragraph

Not entirely sure about this paragraph: "On October 23, 2002, Chechen separatists took over a Moscow theater. Over 700 people inside were taken hostage in what has been called the Moscow theater hostage crisis. The separatists demanded the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and threatened to blow up the building if authorities attempted to enter. Three days later, Russian commandos stormed the building after the hostages had been subdued with a sleeping gas, shooting the unconscious militants."

No mention of the 120 odd hostages who were killed by the chemical agent which was used? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.208.192.112 (talk) 20:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Stopping at 2008

Is there a reason why the edits of the federal era beyond the late 00s have been deleted because it has been five years since the last update wasn't deleted. So should more info be put in to the document in the years since? --203.59.193.180 (talk) 05:05, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Probably paid trolls at work.Wikidgood (talk) 00:56, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The name of the article must be corrected

Russian Federation was established on 26 December 1991. Therefore, the correct name for the article should be

History of Russia (1991–present)

Nicolas Love (talk) 06:30, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

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Biased article

This is very biased article. It must be changed ASAP! Nicolas Love (talk) 00:55, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

In what way is it biased? In favour of Russia or against Russia? Denver45 (talk) 18:39, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

@Nicholas Love: I don't see any evidence of bias in this article. Which parts of the article need to be changed? Jarble (talk) 20:33, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

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Bias in the Crimean annexation section

Hey, I'm concerned that the section on the annexation of Crimea is not neutral. I think it is too favorable to the Russian view on the annexation. For example, the phrasing of "though [the referendum on joining Russia] was passed with an overwhelming majority, the results are contested by some and approved by others" seems to advance the idea that the referendum was legitimate as it doesn't explain why some contest the results. It even waters down the critique by saying that some people support it.
I think overall, the whole section is like this, both on the scale of individual sentences as well as the overall structure and order of the paragraph. It emphasizes all of the details in support of the annexation while glossing over the negatives. I think it's possible that someone could read this section and not realize that this was a Russian invasion and annexation of the territory of another sovereign nation, in violation of international law. 108.28.184.197 (talk) 00:14, 22 May 2020 (UTC) BW