take. a low and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle boris yeltsin was he a great man who made history or was he merely a product of his time and opinions differ widely don't know one denies the important role he played in creating our present crosstalk continues that series from the collapse of the soviet union twenty years ago. to cross-talk yeltsin's russia i'm joined by dmitri barber chair in the studio with me he's a political analyst at ria novosti news agency in washington we have donald jensen he's a resident fellow at the center for transatlantic relations and in london we go to alex project he is director of russian and eurasian studies center at the

university of oxford all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want well the reason why we're doing this we're doing our series here on cross talk on the collapse of the soviet union twenty years ago and twenty years ago on june twelfth one thousand nine hundred one yeltsin became the first popularly elected president of the russian soviet federated socialist republic well basically the beginning of the demise of the soviet union that would follow later in the year dimitri. let's look at that time twenty years ago and how the soviet union unraveled how much was yeltsin involved with that unraveling of the soviet union people talk a lot about going to charge what about yeltsin at this time well i think there are two parallel process that's going on which should not be mixed up there was the process of democratization and i think it was yeltsin storrow for the first time in russian history and man came to power on us to election against the will of the government that was an achievement as for that collapse of the soviet union it had begun long before that it speeded. back in one thousand eight hundred nine already

there was a lot of talk about it and by one thousand nine hundred the process was almost complete i would remind you of that in march two months before the election. seven republics out of fifteen did not take part in the referendum on the reform of the soviet union so the process has already gone very very much fault and yeltsin of course when the soviet union was just virtually collapse and in some one thousand one thousand vonne he didn't shed tears he started building the russian federation of the u.s. they say it's employment if i go to you in washington from a russian perspective in two thousand and eleven that was the good yeltsin ok the else and they did the right thing ok because right now in two thousand and eleven most people in this country are very pleased that the soviet union is gone there's still a small minority that regret it but yeltsin was seen as a great banner to bring the end of

a system that wasn't working for the people anymore so yeltsin twenty years ago what kind of character do you sense some to be. i have some looking back i'm very contradictory figure both i would almost say heroic but certainly someone who displayed tremendous political courage and i would note in passing about. with the most comments and yeltsin was ahead of even the u.s. government many outside observers and moving forward were a lot of people and most notably the first president bush seemed to indicate they wanted to preserve the soviet union albeit in a more reformed way but you asked about yeltsin i think he was in many ways one of the most politically courageous people i've ever been around and i was in moscow at the time as a diplomat but also he was a tremendously contradictory contradictory figure whose career has to be separated into a number of phases not all of in not all of which he performed admirably alex in to you in london let's speak up

a little bit let's have mr yeltsin as president of the of russia the first president of russia how do you see his the beginning of his reform process because this is where people start disliking yeltsin then and very much to some extent hating him today i'm talking about the liberalization of the economy. yeah before i come to that can i say that i agree absolutely with the fact that he's a larger than life historic and historical leader who has huge pluses and huge minuses and this goes with his economic reform program as well you remember that in one thousand nine hundred nine when handing over to putin yeltsin reflected on his own contribution to russia and he for started by saying of course the great achievement was we broke with communism broke as you just wanted to know the command economy into broken to a liberal market capitalism but then he added an apology and he apologized for the

fact that he was along with others so naive to think they could do it all in one big breakthrough exact breakthrough politically breakthrough economically breakthrough socially and if you break through you break things and ended up with a lot of inequality a lot of corruption a lot of the things that yeltsin i don't think would have wanted i remember meeting him in that in the two thousands and he sincerely came over as someone who was a big populist leader concerned with people's welfare and he. reflected that it was a shane with so many poor people still in russia after all he tried to do so the economic change was necessary whether it could be done in one big leap but where there would be better done in small stages is a very very big question demon what do you think about that in the studio here more ideologically driven theory driven in the early years because as alex just pointed out i mean it in a lot of people now is that the the russian economy contract a division fifty percent at one point during his administration and i like to point

out to my audience here the great depression in the united states the u.s. economy contract of twenty five percent so if we can put that magnitude out there well i think it was not an ideological president and if you listen to his speeches if you read his speeches now he never said the word capitalism. or the word socialism that was not quite he style i mean i remember him saying in one of his interviews back in the eighty s. that people are tired of ideology people just wanted to leave better and they wanted more economic freedom and he gave them economic freedom in one thousand nine hundred eighty two the problem was that of course people were poor and the only ones who would reach an influential were criminals or some formal party boss us so obviously they benefit from this privatization more than in every direction but unfortunately i think it was a global tendency if well look the world was tremendously down just during all of

the ninety s. and it continues to be and just now it's built on some really wrong premises which have little to do with the real liberalism and with real capitalism they wage was told by a local hopes the seventeenth eighteenth century maybe some people would say that yeltsin in the russians around him and took the idea of a market market economy too seriously because you got rid of you know you privatized the the family jewels that actually created wealth in this country and all the rest of it just fell apart i mean and in the process i go to you don on this one one of the one of the biggest criticisms to this day is the creation of oligarchy that controlled so much of the economy and the and this is exactly the inequality the demon here was talking about and it still plagues this country today there's still a concentration of wealth in this country and it comes from yeltsin's era. i very much agree i think that if he and others have talked about talk more about strengthening the rule of law i think russians probably would be

a lot happier today about what happened in the ninety's and and problem i'd even be wealthier today just to go back to a point that that demand out said which i agree with which is whether he was a man motivated by idiology i think in many ways he was motivated by instinct to sit around moscow and say well he was a democrat he's a democrat but he doesn't really know what it means and we watched this tremendous churning in society and it was very difficult to understand sometimes what yeltsin did or worse not thought he was doing particularly after ninety one when when you had to build a state and this this weakness of institutions when it's in the rule of law i think is something where at fault him very seriously alex what do you think about that that's very interesting is because in the two thousand the argument was made that the state had to restructure the government had to restructure the state because yeltsin had allowed to do deteriorate so badly and have the so much of the economy

captured into private hands i mean it this is one of the things that went wrong and maybe would not intentionally but i mean eventually this is the russian state was no longer serving the purposes of what it was supposed to do and this is the legacy of that that that follows the olson to this day. right i mean i think two things come out of that one is that yeltsin came out of a heavily state apparatus dominated system the communist system he reacted against that wanted to give people the freedom the liberty to be creative and make society themselves but i disagree a bit with dmitri but no ideology no explicit ideology but a culture of seeking panaceas believing that there are solutions out there which will fix things within maybe five or ten years and that's part of a sort of russian cultural heritage seeking marxism combining it with russian characteristics then he'll see in seeking broad based capitalism giving people like

gaidar free rule rein giving true buyers handing out and believing it's a belief that if you allow people the opportunity to be entrepreneurs to grab the assets to make things work that everything somehow will be positive sum game and that wasn't the case and therefore you don't need the state you don't need to regularize redistribute manage in the old command system so it was a typical spend to them swing from over command over state of education to undeceive occasion if you want and that undermining mr to sions and a free for all and liberty as we know has enormous costs for most people who haven't got the energy to fight for their rights let me ask you this i mean that's and it's another. accusation made against yeltsin is he was such a pendulum person he would go to such extremes if it was for on the democrat democracy issue the economy issue defense security i mean first he embraced the west by the end when you look at the cost of zero experience yeltsin felt that he had been betrayed by the west but that there was that pendulum i don't agree with

this because it was not yeltsin it was the west they changed it to russia. in one thousand nine hundred one the west was applauding russia and unfortunately the country was collapsing. and then in the end of the ninth just when russia tried to say something the west suddenly became very critical so it was not yeltsin which changed it was their digital that or the west that changed us for it here my thinking about again two very distinct process. yeltsin was a democrat in the early ninety's by the end of the ninety s. he was a different person talking about their political system it became very difficult to access hear him much more difficult than to access gorbachev in the end of weakness there were all kinds of weird people around him who had absolutely no legitimacy including an authority to base was never elected by anyone. so basically people when they made demonstrations in support of yeltsin one thousand nine hundred one

what they wanted was kind of their social democratic you go purely this point out of the browser and regular continue our discussion of the legacy of boris like the old songs they were going. to. close up team has been to use the birthplace to the most ambitious football club in the world lead argy goes to the far east where the timber industry affects the legendary siberian tigers where the ancient native community could lose its weight in the modern world play and where the country's mental well starts its way across the ocean. well come to the bars

creature russia blows up. live nation and free to critique should be free to transport charges free. range mention the free risk free spirit type free clinic download free broadcast quality video for your media projects for free media r.t. dot com. please pick me pick to steer. clear of. the completely. welcome back to talk i'm here to mind you we're talking about russia's first president boris yeltsin. click the pitch pitch stupid please. but first here's

a brief report on yeltsin's contentious legacy. in recent russian history few personalities roominess polarizing as boris yeltsin twenty years after the fall of the soviet union yeltsin is still seen in the west as the politician who ended communism and ushered in a new area of personal freedoms and western style capitalism but sure anything you learn just better perceived from a distance especially in history i think we still need more time. for the emotions and trouble to give way to serious analysis of what to take tannic figure you'll sing really well. in a moment that later became one of russia's most iconic yeltsin with genuine popular support helped to stare down an attempted coup in one thousand nine hundred one yes we declare illegal all of the craze decisions by the state emergency committee in the us and in the western world yeltsin was seen as a reformer and a leader who could compromise he was embraced as a friend and told she was treated as

a peer and when she died in two thousand and seven some of the warmest eulogies came from western leaders he stood up for freedom and democracy and openness he really believed that russia couldn't go back to communism or back further to extreme rationalism ptrace from abroad yes. but yeltsin sharpest critics were in the new country that he helped bring into being russia in theory yeltsin supported a market economy but the reality was western inspired shock therapy and crony capitalism russia's economy went to freefall and the russian ruble had to be devalued twice during his time in office for millions of russians this was yet another time of troubles. yeltsin played a critical role in ending communist rule the us president he ordered the army to tackle mutinous parliament he then ran through constitutional reforms that extended his powers as president at the expense of parliament and few can forget the brutality of the first chechen conflict by the end of his presidency yeltsin like

so many russians at the time became wary of the west i told the americans the germans don't push us toward military action otherwise there will be a european war for sure and possibly world war. there's no doubt that boris yeltsin is an outstanding historical figure you know it may take decades for the russians themselves to find a consensus about a name that changed russian and world history forever. for crossed off our team. ok alex i'd like to go back to you in london. in the studio brought up a very interesting point about how russia looked at the west and the west looked at russia during yeltsin's tenure how do you assess that i mean was there a pendulum there where there misperceptions on one side or both sides. i think they were misperceptions on both sides russia expected the west to applaud the end of

communism the introduction of a post communist purportedly democratic regime and it. expected the west to give lots of money to support the regime in to stabilize the transition to market democracy but the west responded to russia's soft liberation by appearing to be fairly mean it wasn't the best of economic conditions the big marshall play a marshall plan number two as it were didn't come about and russia became more and more disillusioned about real partnership with the west but the trouble with russian foreign policy we were back to before the discussion is that rhetorically there was a lot of protest about nato expansion nato militarism and european like a friend in the us but in actual fact the actions were pro western until the late one nine hundred ninety s. it was the combination of the bombing of kosovo and preceding that the economic crisis the banking crisis in the crash that brought about

a real disillusionment not just with the with the west among the leaders of russia but also among the new liberal middle classes don't i don't know what years you were a diplomat in the one nine hundred ninety s. and russia but what did you see i mean were the russians expecting too much from the west or the west just thought well that you know the cold war is over we won i mean you know they'll find their way on the i.m.f. you know you have a liberal economic system and everything will just be dissed jim dandy but we know it wasn't i mean what were the perceptions and misperceptions during your tenure here. well there were a lot of misperceptions i want to say that first i agree with alex that that yeltsin change the west changed but i would also say that that russia changed i think the west expected a kind of a break through to a larger version of maybe what polar the czech republic is today and that simply was never in retrospect going to be the case secondly that the west i think it's

important to recall the rest championed the nine hundred ninety three constitutional reforms that gave a much stronger presidency to yeltsin then have existed before and as a consequence to some extent we better that what we now criticize as a super thought super presidential regime but i want to go back to ninety one i think that there was a lot of misperception about what happened in ninety one where as i and many others thought it was a democratic breakthrough i think there were a lot of impulses there populism anti soviet tism and frankly russian nationalism that in a moderate form which which blended together with the pro so-called pro democratic forces so ninety one i think was misinterpreted then once that was misinterpreted a lot of what we saw go on that in the following decade was i think underestimated and misinterpreted as well you know it's very interesting is because you think in retrospect that the that the west wanted russia to disagree invented self and it's in a western image because that's what it sounds like when you go back and you know it

because it's it's the triumph in does i'm of winning the cold war and russia looks at it in a very different way it collapsed the soviet union itself would want to do it wanted something different it wasn't a defeat but russia is still even the mainstream media still treated as a defeated power well i think that's the problem russia was treated as a defeated ball and in that sense the west has shown a level fenty i would say i think it characterizes the whole period of the ninety's level fantasy of the west would not think would not invent a new russia and. light state or even a neutral state each return to the old ways of treating russia with suspicion we just usually you know it was nothing new i asked for one thousand nine hundred and i can tell you all. in july in one thousand nine hundred one. government delegation came to russia and they came to what was their head of the saudi government and

they said we stay when you we don't believe these democrats we think you are a serious person a few people remember that i am sorry that you were and i think it shows you are the level foundation of america alex go ahead jump in. like a friend is a year but it's very difficult to get this. great sense of this russia want to be treated in the early one nine hundred ninety s. both as a cove victor a victory against communism sort of self imposed victory and therefore be treated as a part and also to be given this kind of economic aid which would be expected of a defeated power it will be to be in a virtual war so at that one of the same time they wanted to be treated as equal victors and also to be bailed out and helped to recover as defeated pows and that was a very difficult pair of conceptions to get people's minds around in the west don when you think about that that's a very interesting thing here is i'm very interesting paradigm. off worst of all i should i should tell dimitri that i did not write those comments. in the embassy at

the time. i think i very much agree with what alex and frankly i know the person what the perception in russia is i was being treated like a defeated power certainly i think in policymaking circles in washington that was not the case even if it maybe appear about way to people in russia they basically thought that russia would end up relatively quickly i think being like us and that way and us a lot of the trouble that happened in the following decade at least for some people in washington what was the summit. a surprise the second point i would make is that russia itself then was ambivalent about the soviet past about its own past and that made it much more difficult to craft a policy. in one way or the other political or economic to move russia and the way we try we want it to go and the fact that because the russians themselves were uncertain about which way they want to go dimitri i mean in and we look at it in

retrospect now. after his presidency was that a missed opportunity i mean was really wanting to be. a partner of the west and that we just wasn't simply in braced i think he wanted to be able the west and i think it's very unfortunate what happened there was a lot of misstep but you need this you know moment and sort of moving in russia. and america and some of the europeans just didn't trigger ignite that moment and some were more me they didn't believe it and when they finally believe that russia started to set in you know the moment i'm still moving you know but i don't let me say one thing i mean all the gentlemen we look at the one thousand nine hundred six presidential election i mean it was amazingly fraudulent but everybody in the west wanted to ignore all of the fraud he won he won reelection ok we don't know exactly i mean i haven't gone back on the empirical evidence myself but i mean just supporting him and not what he was trying to do the democratization of this country

its economic reforms they just wanted to base everything on yeltsin hoping that he would do the right thing what do you think about that alex not a systemic change but it on a person. you know well first of all leaders of states always want stability first and foremost because stability equals security for them so yeltsin was a symbol of some degree of stabilisation instability that's why they backed him but they did like in the early ninety's magination and we mentioned lack of imagination of before but the biggest lack of imagination was on the international stage had there been an imaginative sitting down with russia at that time said listen we draw the european security system let's end an expansion of nato for inertial bureaucratic safety first reasons and let's look at the ways in which we can structure russia in an equal founding basis russia always wanted to be a founder member of something new rather than an adjunct junior member of something old that was an opportunity missed him by one thousand nine hundred ninety six that

almost gone because nato had started expanding so russia was let down in a way from a lack of imagination the same time russia let itself down by not having a unified strategy of any kind the voices coming out of moscow yeltsin say one thing one month we want to warsaw and so poland could join us or if it wanted then the arena on that second time around there were several voices and the most important voices among them were the corporate voices who were pro western pro western economic links. suggesting here gentlemen we've got run out of time and we certainly can all agree that yeltsin would lead a revolutionary life many thanks to my guest today in the studio here with me in london and in washington thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time remember crosstalk.

a suicide bomb attack targeting a police a bus in the syrian capital damascus it leaves at least twenty five dead dozens more this comes as one of the country's largest armed opposition groups calls for the overthrow of the assad regime by military force. thousands of u.s. soldiers are set to take part in their largest joint defense drill ever. raise fears that the move is just a rehearsal for a strike on iraq plus. ten years on the euro finds itself at the core of the biggest financial crisis. with

the single currency threatening to drag down the very created. orthodox christians are celebrating christmas with. holding all night vigils here in the russian capital of moscow has held at christ the savior. just after two here in moscow russia's capital on sean thomas and this is our team a suicide bombing targeting a police has rocked a residential neighborhood in damascus killing at least twenty five people authorities say most of the casualties were civilians but some security personnel were among the dead syrian t.v. says the blast happened near a primary school it comes as the leader of the country's biggest opposition group reportedly.