By Markar Melkonian | Global Research, November 11, 2017
Hetq.am 13 January 2017
Americans are outraged by allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an intelligence service to hack email accounts of the Democratic National Committee.
How inexpressibly heinous that one country, Russia, would try to influence elections in another sovereign country, in this case the United States! How unprecedented! How diabolical! How uniquely Russian!
In response, the Obama administration has expelled Russian diplomats, hinted at economic sanctions, and promised further retaliation using America’s “world-class arsenal of cyber weapons.” (NYT Dec. 16, 2016) Obama’s Republican opponents, for their part, have demanded “rocks” instead of Obama’s “pebbles.”
But does the USA meddle in the presidential elections of other countries?
Our friends in South America might have insights here — hundreds of cases of economic and military blackmail, election fraud, assassination,and the violent overthrow of democratically elected leaders.
So too in Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Georgia, Ukraine, etc.),
east Asia (Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines, etc.),
north Africa (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco), and dozens of other countries on five of the six inhabited continents. (Joshua Keating, “Election Meddling Is Surprisingly Common,” Slate.com, 4 Jan., 2017; Tim Weiner, CIA: Legacy of Ashes, 2008; Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy, 1992, 2006.)
In the welter of red-faced indignation, the torrents of denunciations from Senate hearings and press conferences, talk shows and podcasts, one might have expected someone to pose the rather obvious question whether American agencies have ever meddled in Russian presidential elections. And yet (surprise surprise!) America’s corporate-owned press of record, an institution that constantly flaunts its “objectivity,” has failed to raise that straightforward question.
So, let us raise it here:
Has the USA engaged in this sort of meddling?
And if so, what effect has it had on Russia?
The answer to the first question, of course, is a resounding Yes.
Even as you read these words, you can bet that one or more of seventeen Federal agencies of the United States are busy hacking Russia. (It is a safe bet that other countries are engaged in cyber espionage against Russia and the United States, too, including China and Israel.)
Let us limit our discussion to one single case.
Readers will recall that in the run-up to the 1996 presidential election in Russia, opinion polls put the pro-western incumbent, Boris Yeltsin, in fifth place among the presidential candidates, with only 8% support. The same polls showed that the most popular candidate in Russia by a wide margin was the Communist Party’s Gennady Zyuganov. Moved to desperation by the numbers, well-connected Russian oligarchs suggested just cancelling the election and supporting a military takeover, rather than facing a defeat at the polls. Neocons in the West embraced the idea–all in the name of Democracy, of course. In the end, though, Yeltsin and the oligarchs decided to retain power by staging the election.
In keeping with Russian laws at the time, Zyuganov spent less than three million dollars on his campaign. Estimates of Yeltsin’s spending, by contrast, range from $700 million to $2.5 billion. (David M. Kotz, Russia’s Path from Gorbachev to Putin, 2007) This was a clear violation of law, but it was just the tip of the iceberg.
In February 1996, at the urging of the United States, the International Monetary Fund (which describes itself as “an organization of 188 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation”) supplied a $10.2 billion “emergency infusion” to Russia.The money disappeared as Yeltsin used it to shore up his reputation and to buy votes. He forced the Central Bank of Russia to provide an additional $1 billion for his campaign, too. Meanwhile, a handful of Russian oligarchs, notably several big contributors residing in Israel, provided more billions for the Yeltsin campaign.
In the spring of 1996, Yeltsin and his campaign manager, billionaire privatizer Anatoly Chubais, recruited a team of financial and media oligarchs to bankroll the Yeltsin campaign and guarantee favorable media coverage on national television and in leading newspapers. In return, Chubais allowed well-connected Russian business leaders to acquire majority stakes in some of Russia’s most valuable state-owned assets.
Campaign strategists for the former Republican governor of California Pete Wilson covertly made their way to the President Hotel in Moscow where, behind a guard and locked doors, they served as Yeltsin’s “secret campaign weapon” to save Russia for Democracy.
(Eleanor Randolph, “Americans Claim Role in Yeltsin Win,” L.A. Times, 9 July 1996)
Yeltsin and his cohorts monopolized all major media outlets, print and electronic, public, and private.
They bombarded Russians with an incessant and uncontested barrage of political advertising masquerading as news, phony “documentaries,” rumors, innuendos, and bad faith campaign promises (including disbursement of back pay to workers and pensioners, stopping further NATO expansion, and peaceful settlement of Yeltsin’s brutal war against Chechnya).
Yeltsin campaigners even floated the threat that he would stage a coup and the country would descend into civil war if Zyuganov were to win the vote.
It is now public record that the Yeltsin campaign conducted extensive “black operations,” including disrupting opposition rallies and press conferences, spreading disinformation among Yeltsin supporters, and denying media access to the opposition. The dirty tricks included such tactics as announcing false dates for opposition rallies and press conferences,disseminating alarming campaign materials that they deceitfully attributed to the Zyuganov campaign, and cancelling hotel reservations for Zyuganov and his volunteers. Finally, widespread bribery, voter fraud, intimidation, and ballot stuffing assured Yeltsin’s victory in the runoff election.
The day after his victory, Yeltsin disappeared from the scene and did not reappear until months later, drunk.
During Yeltsin’s second term, the “non-ideological” IMF provided another infusion of money, this time $40 billion. Once again, more billions disappeared without a trace, much of it stolen by the President’s chronies, who placed it in foreign banks. The re-elected President didn’t even pretend to make good on his campaign promises.
Serious observers, including leading Democrats, agree that even if the recent hacking allegations against Russia turn out to be true, the “dirty tricks” did not affect the outcome of the 2016 election. By contrast, American meddling and financing of the 1996 presidential election in Russia clearly played a pivotal role in turning Yeltsin from a candidate with single-digit approval at the beginning of the year into a winning candidate with an official (but disputed) 54.4% of votes cast in the second-round runoff later that same year.
Americans are outraged by allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an intelligence service to hack email accounts of the Democratic National Committee.
How inexpressibly heinous that one country, Russia, would try to influence elections in another sovereign country, in this case the United States! How unprecedented! How diabolical! How uniquely Russian!
How inexpressibly heinous that one country, Russia, would try to influence elections in another sovereign country, in this case the United States! How unprecedented! How diabolical! How uniquely Russian!
In response, the Obama administration has expelled Russian diplomats, hinted at economic sanctions, and promised further retaliation using America’s “world-class arsenal of cyber weapons.” (NYT Dec. 16, 2016) Obama’s Republican opponents, for their part, have demanded “rocks” instead of Obama’s “pebbles.”
But does the USA meddle in the presidential elections of other countries?
Our friends in South America might have insights here — hundreds of cases of economic and military blackmail, election fraud, assassination,and the violent overthrow of democratically elected leaders.
So too in Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Georgia, Ukraine, etc.),
east Asia (Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines, etc.),
north Africa (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco), and dozens of other countries on five of the six inhabited continents. (Joshua Keating, “Election Meddling Is Surprisingly Common,” Slate.com, 4 Jan., 2017; Tim Weiner, CIA: Legacy of Ashes, 2008; Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy, 1992, 2006.)
In the welter of red-faced indignation, the torrents of denunciations from Senate hearings and press conferences, talk shows and podcasts, one might have expected someone to pose the rather obvious question whether American agencies have ever meddled in Russian presidential elections. And yet (surprise surprise!) America’s corporate-owned press of record, an institution that constantly flaunts its “objectivity,” has failed to raise that straightforward question.
So, let us raise it here:
Has the USA engaged in this sort of meddling?
And if so, what effect has it had on Russia?
Has the USA engaged in this sort of meddling?
And if so, what effect has it had on Russia?
The answer to the first question, of course, is a resounding Yes.
Even as you read these words, you can bet that one or more of seventeen Federal agencies of the United States are busy hacking Russia. (It is a safe bet that other countries are engaged in cyber espionage against Russia and the United States, too, including China and Israel.)
Even as you read these words, you can bet that one or more of seventeen Federal agencies of the United States are busy hacking Russia. (It is a safe bet that other countries are engaged in cyber espionage against Russia and the United States, too, including China and Israel.)
Let us limit our discussion to one single case.
Readers will recall that in the run-up to the 1996 presidential election in Russia, opinion polls put the pro-western incumbent, Boris Yeltsin, in fifth place among the presidential candidates, with only 8% support. The same polls showed that the most popular candidate in Russia by a wide margin was the Communist Party’s Gennady Zyuganov. Moved to desperation by the numbers, well-connected Russian oligarchs suggested just cancelling the election and supporting a military takeover, rather than facing a defeat at the polls. Neocons in the West embraced the idea–all in the name of Democracy, of course. In the end, though, Yeltsin and the oligarchs decided to retain power by staging the election.
In keeping with Russian laws at the time, Zyuganov spent less than three million dollars on his campaign. Estimates of Yeltsin’s spending, by contrast, range from $700 million to $2.5 billion. (David M. Kotz, Russia’s Path from Gorbachev to Putin, 2007) This was a clear violation of law, but it was just the tip of the iceberg.
In February 1996, at the urging of the United States, the International Monetary Fund (which describes itself as “an organization of 188 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation”) supplied a $10.2 billion “emergency infusion” to Russia.The money disappeared as Yeltsin used it to shore up his reputation and to buy votes. He forced the Central Bank of Russia to provide an additional $1 billion for his campaign, too. Meanwhile, a handful of Russian oligarchs, notably several big contributors residing in Israel, provided more billions for the Yeltsin campaign.
In the spring of 1996, Yeltsin and his campaign manager, billionaire privatizer Anatoly Chubais, recruited a team of financial and media oligarchs to bankroll the Yeltsin campaign and guarantee favorable media coverage on national television and in leading newspapers. In return, Chubais allowed well-connected Russian business leaders to acquire majority stakes in some of Russia’s most valuable state-owned assets.
Campaign strategists for the former Republican governor of California Pete Wilson covertly made their way to the President Hotel in Moscow where, behind a guard and locked doors, they served as Yeltsin’s “secret campaign weapon” to save Russia for Democracy.
(Eleanor Randolph, “Americans Claim Role in Yeltsin Win,” L.A. Times, 9 July 1996)
Yeltsin and his cohorts monopolized all major media outlets, print and electronic, public, and private.
(Eleanor Randolph, “Americans Claim Role in Yeltsin Win,” L.A. Times, 9 July 1996)
Yeltsin and his cohorts monopolized all major media outlets, print and electronic, public, and private.
They bombarded Russians with an incessant and uncontested barrage of political advertising masquerading as news, phony “documentaries,” rumors, innuendos, and bad faith campaign promises (including disbursement of back pay to workers and pensioners, stopping further NATO expansion, and peaceful settlement of Yeltsin’s brutal war against Chechnya).
Yeltsin campaigners even floated the threat that he would stage a coup and the country would descend into civil war if Zyuganov were to win the vote.
It is now public record that the Yeltsin campaign conducted extensive “black operations,” including disrupting opposition rallies and press conferences, spreading disinformation among Yeltsin supporters, and denying media access to the opposition. The dirty tricks included such tactics as announcing false dates for opposition rallies and press conferences,disseminating alarming campaign materials that they deceitfully attributed to the Zyuganov campaign, and cancelling hotel reservations for Zyuganov and his volunteers. Finally, widespread bribery, voter fraud, intimidation, and ballot stuffing assured Yeltsin’s victory in the runoff election.
The day after his victory, Yeltsin disappeared from the scene and did not reappear until months later, drunk.
During Yeltsin’s second term, the “non-ideological” IMF provided another infusion of money, this time $40 billion. Once again, more billions disappeared without a trace, much of it stolen by the President’s chronies, who placed it in foreign banks. The re-elected President didn’t even pretend to make good on his campaign promises.
Serious observers, including leading Democrats, agree that even if the recent hacking allegations against Russia turn out to be true, the “dirty tricks” did not affect the outcome of the 2016 election. By contrast, American meddling and financing of the 1996 presidential election in Russia clearly played a pivotal role in turning Yeltsin from a candidate with single-digit approval at the beginning of the year into a winning candidate with an official (but disputed) 54.4% of votes cast in the second-round runoff later that same year.
The atmosphere in Brussels has become, of late, reminiscent of the late Brezhnev era.
We have a political system run by a bureaucratic apparatus which — just like the former USSR — serves to conceal important evidence. Especially when it comes to the health of its supreme leader, Jean-Claude Juncker. | 21 July 2018
At the Nato summit gala dinner last week, videos emerged showing Juncker unable to climb the few steps leading to the podium. He hesitates at the bottom before being grabbed by the very sturdy Ukrainian Petro Poroshenko. He is then held up during the ceremony.
Afterwards Juncker — who is only 63, hardly an old man — staggers and wobbles away, propped up by Mark Rutte and António Costa, prime ministers of the Netherlands and Portugal. When asked about the incident, Juncker said that he suffered from sporadic ‘sciatica’. - This remains the official explanation.
Let us consider some of the consequences of Yeltsin’s electoral win:
–In the first years of the Chubais-Yeltsin privatization scheme, the life expectancy of a Russian male fell from 65 years to 57.5 years. Female life expectancy in Russia dropped from 74.5 years in 1989 to 72.8 years in 1999.
–Throughout Yeltsin’s terms as President, flight of capital away from Russia totaled between $1 and $2 billion every month.
–Each year from 1989 to 2001 there was a fall of approximately 8% in Russia’s productive assets.
–From 1990 to 1999 the percentage increase of people living on less than $1 a day was greater in Russian and the other former socialist countries than anywhere else in the world.
–The number of people living in poverty in the former Soviet Republics rose from 14 million in 1989 to 147 million in 1998.As a result of the 1998 financial collapse and the devaluation of the ruble, the life savings of tens of millons of Russian families disappeared over night. Since then, the Great Recession and low oil pries have only made matters worse.
–In the period from 1992 to 1998 Russia’s GDP fell by half–somethingthat did not happen even under during the German invasion in the Second World War.
Under Yeltsin’s tenure, the death rate in Russia reached wartime levels. Accidents, food poisoning, exposure, heart attacks, lack of access to basic healthcare, and an epidemic of suicides—they all played a role. David Satter, a senior fellow at the anti-communist, Washington DC-based Hudson Institute, writing in the conservative Wall Street Journal, described the consequences of this victory of Democracy: “
Western and Russian demographers now agree that between 1992 and 2000, the number of ‘surplus deaths’ in Russia–deaths that cannot be explained on the basis of previous trends–was between five and six million persons.”
(Accessed 8 April 2015. American sociologist James Petras has given a figure of 15 million surplus deaths since the demise of the Soviet Union.)
NATO continued its expansion east.
Yeltsin turned the Chechen city of Grozy into a field of rubble, and he quickly became the most reviled man in Russia. But as one observer put it at the time, “Yeltsin didn’t seem to notice, which is hardly surprising, since he was drunk for most of his tenure in office.”By the time he left office, the American-approved President of the Russian Federation had an approval rating of 2%. (CNN, 2002) But by that time it didn’t matter: the kleptocrats were safely installed in power, and American-imposed Democracy had achieved its aims in Russia’s “transition.”
Yeltsin died in 2007, celebrated as an anti-communist hero by the neocons in Washington and New York, but hated by the vast majority of Russians.
Four years later, Dmitri Medvedev, then-President of Russia, eulogized Yeltsin for creating “the base of a new Russian statehood, without which none of our future successes would be possible.” But a Time magazine writer reported that, despite Medvedev’s public praise, the story he told privately was quite different. On 20 February 2012, he reportedly told attendees at a closed-door meeting: “Russia’s first President did not actually win re-election in 1996 for a second term. The second presidential vote in Russia’s history, in other words, was rigged.” (Simon Shuster, “Rewriting Russian History: Did Boris Yeltsin Steal the 1996 Presidential Election?” Timeonline, 24 Feb. 2012.)
Some readers, perhaps, do not see the point of reminding ourselves of America’s role in the election of Yeltsin and America’s responsibility for the resulting misery and mass death. But let us remind ourselves that the recent hacking accusations are just one element of a full-on media assault against Russia, led by Washington. From supposed Russian war crimes in the fight against the murderous jihadi occupiers of Syria to Russia’s re-annexation of overwhelmingly pro-Russian Crimea and the doping of Olympic athletes, America’s neocons are engaged in a propaganda blitz with high stakes.
Armenia is one of many frontline positions in Washington’s escalating media campaign against Russia. Yes, the Russian Federation is an imperialist state, in V.I. Lenin’s technical sense of the term. And yes, Russia wields undo influence in Armenia. But by now it is clear that greater sovereignty for Armenia is not what is at stake when it comes to the Russophobe opposition. After all, the Russia haters do not seem to have much problem with the idea of giving up sovereignty to the American imperialists and their regional surrogate, the Republic of Turkey. More importantly, the cause of greater national sovereignty will be harmed if the Russia haters have their way. They only confirm the pervasivesense of vulnerability, economic isolation, and military encirclement among Russians, a people who have endured three decades of enormous destruction and humiliation, after a century of invasion and wars that claimed the lives of tens of millions of their compatriots.
Let us remind ourselves that the loudest of Yerevan’s Russia haters are the same fanatics who led Armenia to its present state of ruin. After so much failure and disaster, they continue to hawk the old dangerous fantasy of Uncle Sam as Armenia’s savior. They are unrepentant, and like Yeltsin, they take their marching orders from Washington.
Markar Melkonian is a teacher and an author. His books include Richard Rorty’s Politics: Liberalism at the End of the American Century (1999), Marxism: A Post-Cold War Primer (Westview Press, 1996), and My Brother’s Road (2005).
Let us consider some of the consequences of Yeltsin’s electoral win:
–In the first years of the Chubais-Yeltsin privatization scheme, the life expectancy of a Russian male fell from 65 years to 57.5 years. Female life expectancy in Russia dropped from 74.5 years in 1989 to 72.8 years in 1999.
–Throughout Yeltsin’s terms as President, flight of capital away from Russia totaled between $1 and $2 billion every month.
–Each year from 1989 to 2001 there was a fall of approximately 8% in Russia’s productive assets.
–From 1990 to 1999 the percentage increase of people living on less than $1 a day was greater in Russian and the other former socialist countries than anywhere else in the world.
–The number of people living in poverty in the former Soviet Republics rose from 14 million in 1989 to 147 million in 1998.As a result of the 1998 financial collapse and the devaluation of the ruble, the life savings of tens of millons of Russian families disappeared over night. Since then, the Great Recession and low oil pries have only made matters worse.
–In the period from 1992 to 1998 Russia’s GDP fell by half–somethingthat did not happen even under during the German invasion in the Second World War.
Under Yeltsin’s tenure, the death rate in Russia reached wartime levels. Accidents, food poisoning, exposure, heart attacks, lack of access to basic healthcare, and an epidemic of suicides—they all played a role. David Satter, a senior fellow at the anti-communist, Washington DC-based Hudson Institute, writing in the conservative Wall Street Journal, described the consequences of this victory of Democracy: “
Western and Russian demographers now agree that between 1992 and 2000, the number of ‘surplus deaths’ in Russia–deaths that cannot be explained on the basis of previous trends–was between five and six million persons.”
(Accessed 8 April 2015. American sociologist James Petras has given a figure of 15 million surplus deaths since the demise of the Soviet Union.)
Western and Russian demographers now agree that between 1992 and 2000, the number of ‘surplus deaths’ in Russia–deaths that cannot be explained on the basis of previous trends–was between five and six million persons.”
(Accessed 8 April 2015. American sociologist James Petras has given a figure of 15 million surplus deaths since the demise of the Soviet Union.)
NATO continued its expansion east.
Yeltsin turned the Chechen city of Grozy into a field of rubble, and he quickly became the most reviled man in Russia. But as one observer put it at the time, “Yeltsin didn’t seem to notice, which is hardly surprising, since he was drunk for most of his tenure in office.”By the time he left office, the American-approved President of the Russian Federation had an approval rating of 2%. (CNN, 2002) But by that time it didn’t matter: the kleptocrats were safely installed in power, and American-imposed Democracy had achieved its aims in Russia’s “transition.”
Yeltsin died in 2007, celebrated as an anti-communist hero by the neocons in Washington and New York, but hated by the vast majority of Russians.
Four years later, Dmitri Medvedev, then-President of Russia, eulogized Yeltsin for creating “the base of a new Russian statehood, without which none of our future successes would be possible.” But a Time magazine writer reported that, despite Medvedev’s public praise, the story he told privately was quite different. On 20 February 2012, he reportedly told attendees at a closed-door meeting: “Russia’s first President did not actually win re-election in 1996 for a second term. The second presidential vote in Russia’s history, in other words, was rigged.” (Simon Shuster, “Rewriting Russian History: Did Boris Yeltsin Steal the 1996 Presidential Election?” Timeonline, 24 Feb. 2012.)
Four years later, Dmitri Medvedev, then-President of Russia, eulogized Yeltsin for creating “the base of a new Russian statehood, without which none of our future successes would be possible.” But a Time magazine writer reported that, despite Medvedev’s public praise, the story he told privately was quite different. On 20 February 2012, he reportedly told attendees at a closed-door meeting: “Russia’s first President did not actually win re-election in 1996 for a second term. The second presidential vote in Russia’s history, in other words, was rigged.” (Simon Shuster, “Rewriting Russian History: Did Boris Yeltsin Steal the 1996 Presidential Election?” Timeonline, 24 Feb. 2012.)
Some readers, perhaps, do not see the point of reminding ourselves of America’s role in the election of Yeltsin and America’s responsibility for the resulting misery and mass death. But let us remind ourselves that the recent hacking accusations are just one element of a full-on media assault against Russia, led by Washington. From supposed Russian war crimes in the fight against the murderous jihadi occupiers of Syria to Russia’s re-annexation of overwhelmingly pro-Russian Crimea and the doping of Olympic athletes, America’s neocons are engaged in a propaganda blitz with high stakes.
Armenia is one of many frontline positions in Washington’s escalating media campaign against Russia. Yes, the Russian Federation is an imperialist state, in V.I. Lenin’s technical sense of the term. And yes, Russia wields undo influence in Armenia. But by now it is clear that greater sovereignty for Armenia is not what is at stake when it comes to the Russophobe opposition. After all, the Russia haters do not seem to have much problem with the idea of giving up sovereignty to the American imperialists and their regional surrogate, the Republic of Turkey. More importantly, the cause of greater national sovereignty will be harmed if the Russia haters have their way. They only confirm the pervasivesense of vulnerability, economic isolation, and military encirclement among Russians, a people who have endured three decades of enormous destruction and humiliation, after a century of invasion and wars that claimed the lives of tens of millions of their compatriots.
Let us remind ourselves that the loudest of Yerevan’s Russia haters are the same fanatics who led Armenia to its present state of ruin. After so much failure and disaster, they continue to hawk the old dangerous fantasy of Uncle Sam as Armenia’s savior. They are unrepentant, and like Yeltsin, they take their marching orders from Washington.
Markar Melkonian is a teacher and an author. His books include Richard Rorty’s Politics: Liberalism at the End of the American Century (1999), Marxism: A Post-Cold War Primer (Westview Press, 1996), and My Brother’s Road (2005).
The original source of this article is Hetq.am
Copyright © Markar Melkonian, Hetq.am, 2017*
https://hetq.am/eng/news/74607/meddling-in-presidential-elections-two-cases.html
___
16 March 2018 - Analysis
How the United States 'Hacked' Russia's Elections in the 1990s
In a recent interview that went viral, Russian President Vladimir Putin repudiated NBC journalist Megyn Kelly, when she pressed him on the so-called “Russiagate” scandal.
"When they (the Americans) claim that some Russians interfered in the U.S. elections, we tell them: 'but you are constantly interfering in our political life', an exasperated Putin said.
"Do you know what they told us last time?
They said, 'Yes, we do interfere, but we are entitled to do so, because we are spreading democracy, and you are not, and so you cannot do it.'”
“Do you think this is a civilized and modern approach to international affairs?” Putin asked Kelly.
Kelly proceeded to press further: “But Russia did not interfere in America's election?”
Putin denies such involvement, not only calling such accusations hypocritical, but impossible. Russia he says, has neither the means nor the desire to interfere in U.S. affairs. He points out that Russia Today, often accused of directing the “interference,” is far less powerful and influential internationally than U.S. media, and that international cyberspace infrastructure is nearly entirely controlled by the United States.
The United States, he says, interferes in Russian affairs “all the time.”
Is Putin right?
Harvard University, Post-Soviet Russia's First 'President'
As a former KBG agent who has called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century," Putin would remember well how it was the United States that helped orchestrate the auctioning off of the once powerful Soviet Union's assets, leading to a period of political and economic chaos.
The 1990s was, by all measures, a hard decade for Russia. All of the country's key industries were auctioned off and privatized, transforming a primarily state-led economy into a neoliberal feast in only a few years. This process came to be known as “shock therapy,” and was none other than the perfected final form of the “Chicago boys” orchestrated privatization of Chile's economy under military dictator, Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s.
Russia's economy, and consequently the standard of living, took a sharp nosedive. Gross Domestic Product crashed, inflation soared, and inequality widened. Even in the declining years of the Soviet Union, the country had previously had among the narrowest wealth distribution brackets in the world.
But by the mid 1990s, the fledgling Russian Federation had one of the highest number of billionaires, according to the World Wealth and Income Database.
To this day, a majority of Russians view the collapse of the Soviet Union as more harmful than beneficial, according to national and international polls.
The “shock therapy” of the former Soviet bloc, and formation of the Russian federation was carried out under the administration of President Boris Yeltsin. Directing privatization however, was deputy prime minister for economic and financial policy, Anatoly Chubais, who The New York Times once referred to as “the most despised man in Russia.”
Cozy with the U.S. Clinton administration, Chubais was instrumental in giving control of Russia's economic policy to the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), which had originally arisen out of the Harvard Center for International Affairs, founded by Henry Kissinger and known for its close relationship with the CIA and FBI. In the 1990s, the HIID consisted of an ideologically driven group of economists eager to apply their neoliberal credentials to what was once the world's then largest socialist economy.
The sale of Russia was first devised in a villa outside Moscow in the final years of the Soviet Union, when Harvard economist and HIID director Jeffrey Sachs met with Chubais and a small pro-Yeltsin clique. The team devised their plan to eliminate nearly all price controls and subsidies, and privatize all key industries in a very short time-span.
Later, at Chubais' urging following the dissolution of the Union, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, was tasked with the “reform” of the fledgling Federation's economy, and delegated that authority to the HIID.
And so it came to be that a few Harvard professors, at the behest of USAID, became the architects of post-Soviet Russia.
The “Harvard Boys,” as they came to be known as (perhaps a play off of the “Chicago Boys” that privatized Chile), included “shock therapy” theorist Jeffrey Sachs, former World Bank Chief Economist Lawrence Summers, and Harvard economists Andrei Shleifer and Jonathan Hay.
Hay and Shleifer would later be fired and sued for using USAID money for personal gain. In spite of the scandal, Shleifer teaches economics at Harvard to this day.
Shock therapy proved to be a “shock” indeed.
Commodity prices went up by 2,500 percent within a single year due to hyperinflation.
Although the inflation stabled out (temporarily), the damage was done, and numerous people had been pushed into poverty, while an oligarch class was rising to wealth and power.
Chubais implemented a voucher program to alleviate the worst of privatization, originally conceived of in an academic paper by Shleifer. The program entailed providing a “voucher” of roughly 10,000 ruble shares in formerly public companies to each citizen. However, the fact that the most profitable industries, including oil, gas, and metal, were excluded from the program, paired with extremely high inflation, quickly led to the vouchers becoming worthless.
Financial scams involving the vouchers quickly further complicated the program, leading many to sell off their “shares” for practically nothing, getting perhaps a bottle of Vodka or some groceries in exchange.
Chubais and the HIID were able to operate by using foreign money to establish private, non-governmental organizations that could bypass parliament, most notably the Russian Privatization Center, which carried out government policy and directed privatization processes. It had the power and authority of a government agency, but was not accountable to parliament or officials, being run directly by Chubais and the Harvard Boys. Hundreds of millions of dollars flowed into Russia from USAID, the World Bank, and the European Union, to prop up the NGOs carrying out privatization.
Western aid money provided the funds to construct an oligarchy. Quoted in a 1998 report by The Nation, the USAID coordinator for the former Soviet Union, Richard Morningstar, admits this: “If we hadn't been there to provide funding to Chubais, could we have won the battle to carry out privatization? Probably not.”
By the end of Yeltsin's first term, Yeltsin's popularity had plummeted to the single digits, and Chubais and his clan were implicated in a massive corruption scandal for awarding bribes and privileges and using funds for personal profit. Yeltsin in response, fired several officials, but still kept Chubais on, claiming his departure would “destabilize the situation.”
How the United States Won the 1996 Russian Elections
The U.S. government, the Harvard privatization gang, and their Russian allies faced a dilemma going into the 1996 election. After one term of Boris Yeltsin, the Russian people despised him. Four years of neoliberalism, and Russians vastly preferred none other than the Communist Party's candidate, Gennady Zyuganov.
Intent on portraying the collapse of the Soviet Union as the triumph of “democracy,” Washington decided to turn a blind eye to corruption and unpopularity in order to ensure that their agenda succeeded in Russia.
The U.S. Secretary of the Treasury reportedly said quite candidly:
“We hoped Yeltsin would get elected. We didn't care at all about the election corruption. We wanted to pour money into his campaign.”
The task before them was enormous: to get Russia's most unpopular president re-elected. They managed to succeed.
“A team of American political strategists … said this week that they served as Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin's secret campaign weapon in his comeback win over a Communist challenger,” the LA Times wrote in 1996.
The July, 1996 edition of Time Magazine cover featured a smug looking Boris Yeltsin holding a U.S. flag, with the lead story titled “YANKS TO THE RESCUE: The Secret Story of How American Advisers Helped Yeltsin Win.”
According to the Time article, an early campaign memo by the team of U.S. advisors said: "Voters don't approve of the job Yeltsin is doing, don't think things will ever get any better and prefer the Communists' approach. There exists only one very simple strategy for winning: first, becoming the only alternative to the Communists; and second, making the people see that the Communists must be stopped at all costs."
Yeltsin's daughter, Tatiana Dyachenko, who was working closely with the Americans, was initially skeptical that anti-communism would work in Russia, reportedly saying "with communism coming back all over Eastern Europe and with Stalin's reputation rising here, a campaign based on anticommunism is wrong for us."
However, a few more weeks of a failed positive campaign managed to convince Dyachenko that an American-style, negative, anti-communist campaign was the only hope for Yeltsin.
Yeltsin and Dyachenko teamed up with the Americans to form an efficient anti-communist propaganda machine, to make Yeltsin, as despised as he was, seem like the only option.
The Time article reports: "The Americans used their focus-group coordinator, Alexei Levinson, to determine what exactly Russians most feared about the Communists. Long lines, scarce food and renationalization of property were frequently cited, but mostly people worried about civil war. 'That allowed us to move beyond simple Red bashing,' says Shumate. 'That's why Yeltsin and his surrogates and our advertising all highlighted the possibility of unrest if Yeltsin lost ... 'Stick with Yeltsin and at least you'll have calm'--that was the line we wanted to convey," says Dresner. "So the drumbeat about unrest kept pounding right till the end of the run-off round, when the final TV spots were all about the Soviets' repressive rule.'"
Russian television, according to Time, became an "arm of the Yeltsin campaign," and began to broadcast an anti-communist and pro-Yeltsin message day in and day out. The idea that a communist victory would promote mass chaos, riots, and possibly a civil war was a favorite topic of the Yeltsin campaign during this time, broadcast on the now U.S.-influenced media. TV had become, according to Time, "almost exclusively a nonstop diet of past Soviet horrors"
The extent of the U.S.' role in the campaign was massive. The Americans advised on advertising, on speeches, they assembled staged crowds of supporters and mandated that government employees attend rallies. They had Yeltsin send out mail to former Soviet Red Army veterans, thanking them for their service.
While the communists were constantly calling on Yeltsin to hold a public debate, on the American's advice, Yeltsin refused to do so. According to an American adviser speaking to Time, Yeltsin "would have lost," and such a debate could have been disasterous for their efforts.
While the Americans were operating undercover for the duration of the campaign, the U.S. interference was not a secret for long. The advisers quickly bragged about it to Time magazine, and the story was plastered all over front pages with pride. The United States and its media saw nothing wrong with such interference in foreign democratic processes.
Time magazine concluded: "Democracy triumphed--and along with it came the tools of modern campaigns, including the trickery and slickery Americans know so well. If those tools are not always admirable, the result they helped achieve in Russia surely is."
Fall and Rise
Yeltsin's second term ended in flames. In August of 1998, the value of the Ruble crashed, leading to a default on domestic debt and a moratorium on foreign debt repayment. Inflation soared, reaching 84 percent.
Russian agriculture tanked, as the government could no longer pay its subsidies to the sector.
The crash was preceded by a year of scrambled attempts to stabilize the economy, with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank all engineering reforms and pouring money into the economy.
Political support for the Yeltsin presidency crashed, with a massive coal miner strike further stopping the economy due to billions in unpaid wages.
Prior to the crash, the Harvard project was largely canceled by USAID after investigations revealed that Schleifer, Hay, and Schleifer's wife, hedge fund manager Nancy Zimmerman, had used their positions to personally profit in the securities market. The U.S. government sued Harvard University in September, 2000, which was settled in 2005 for US$26.5 million.
The brief regime of Harvard-USAID rule was coming to a close.
An official during the Yeltsin years, who in the midst of the crash was appointed the Director of the Federal Security Service, and only a year later was appointed Prime Minister. After only four months into his term as Prime Minister, Yeltsin suddenly resigned, leaving Putin as acting president.
After winning Presidential elections the following year, Putin inherited a broken Russia, and immediately set on a course different from his predecessor. He set on a path of renationalization of key resources, beginning by taking a large portion of the oil industry under state control. This allowed for economic reconstruction, and laid the foundation for the powerful Russian federation that Putin still leads today
.
The West had a vision for post-Soviet Russia: that it would be constructed in its own image, that it would be an economic playground for Western economists, and that it would be a state dependent on Western aid money. This dream of the U.S. and its allies has been shattered, in spite of their best efforts.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/analysis/How-the-United-States-Hacked-Russias-Elections-in-the-1990s-20180316-0003.html
The original source of this article is Hetq.am
Copyright © Markar Melkonian, Hetq.am, 2017*
https://hetq.am/eng/news/74607/meddling-in-presidential-elections-two-cases.html
Copyright © Markar Melkonian, Hetq.am, 2017*
https://hetq.am/eng/news/74607/meddling-in-presidential-elections-two-cases.html
___
16 March 2018 - Analysis
How the United States 'Hacked' Russia's Elections in the 1990s
In a recent interview that went viral, Russian President Vladimir Putin repudiated NBC journalist Megyn Kelly, when she pressed him on the so-called “Russiagate” scandal.
"When they (the Americans) claim that some Russians interfered in the U.S. elections, we tell them: 'but you are constantly interfering in our political life', an exasperated Putin said.
"Do you know what they told us last time?
They said, 'Yes, we do interfere, but we are entitled to do so, because we are spreading democracy, and you are not, and so you cannot do it.'”
“Do you think this is a civilized and modern approach to international affairs?” Putin asked Kelly.
Kelly proceeded to press further: “But Russia did not interfere in America's election?”
“Do you think this is a civilized and modern approach to international affairs?” Putin asked Kelly.
Kelly proceeded to press further: “But Russia did not interfere in America's election?”
Putin denies such involvement, not only calling such accusations hypocritical, but impossible. Russia he says, has neither the means nor the desire to interfere in U.S. affairs. He points out that Russia Today, often accused of directing the “interference,” is far less powerful and influential internationally than U.S. media, and that international cyberspace infrastructure is nearly entirely controlled by the United States.
The United States, he says, interferes in Russian affairs “all the time.”
Is Putin right?
Harvard University, Post-Soviet Russia's First 'President'
As a former KBG agent who has called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century," Putin would remember well how it was the United States that helped orchestrate the auctioning off of the once powerful Soviet Union's assets, leading to a period of political and economic chaos.
The 1990s was, by all measures, a hard decade for Russia. All of the country's key industries were auctioned off and privatized, transforming a primarily state-led economy into a neoliberal feast in only a few years. This process came to be known as “shock therapy,” and was none other than the perfected final form of the “Chicago boys” orchestrated privatization of Chile's economy under military dictator, Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s.
Russia's economy, and consequently the standard of living, took a sharp nosedive. Gross Domestic Product crashed, inflation soared, and inequality widened. Even in the declining years of the Soviet Union, the country had previously had among the narrowest wealth distribution brackets in the world.
But by the mid 1990s, the fledgling Russian Federation had one of the highest number of billionaires, according to the World Wealth and Income Database.
To this day, a majority of Russians view the collapse of the Soviet Union as more harmful than beneficial, according to national and international polls.
The “shock therapy” of the former Soviet bloc, and formation of the Russian federation was carried out under the administration of President Boris Yeltsin. Directing privatization however, was deputy prime minister for economic and financial policy, Anatoly Chubais, who The New York Times once referred to as “the most despised man in Russia.”
Cozy with the U.S. Clinton administration, Chubais was instrumental in giving control of Russia's economic policy to the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), which had originally arisen out of the Harvard Center for International Affairs, founded by Henry Kissinger and known for its close relationship with the CIA and FBI. In the 1990s, the HIID consisted of an ideologically driven group of economists eager to apply their neoliberal credentials to what was once the world's then largest socialist economy.
The sale of Russia was first devised in a villa outside Moscow in the final years of the Soviet Union, when Harvard economist and HIID director Jeffrey Sachs met with Chubais and a small pro-Yeltsin clique. The team devised their plan to eliminate nearly all price controls and subsidies, and privatize all key industries in a very short time-span.
Later, at Chubais' urging following the dissolution of the Union, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, was tasked with the “reform” of the fledgling Federation's economy, and delegated that authority to the HIID.
And so it came to be that a few Harvard professors, at the behest of USAID, became the architects of post-Soviet Russia.
The “Harvard Boys,” as they came to be known as (perhaps a play off of the “Chicago Boys” that privatized Chile), included “shock therapy” theorist Jeffrey Sachs, former World Bank Chief Economist Lawrence Summers, and Harvard economists Andrei Shleifer and Jonathan Hay.
Hay and Shleifer would later be fired and sued for using USAID money for personal gain. In spite of the scandal, Shleifer teaches economics at Harvard to this day.
Shock therapy proved to be a “shock” indeed.
Commodity prices went up by 2,500 percent within a single year due to hyperinflation.
Although the inflation stabled out (temporarily), the damage was done, and numerous people had been pushed into poverty, while an oligarch class was rising to wealth and power.
Commodity prices went up by 2,500 percent within a single year due to hyperinflation.
Although the inflation stabled out (temporarily), the damage was done, and numerous people had been pushed into poverty, while an oligarch class was rising to wealth and power.
Chubais implemented a voucher program to alleviate the worst of privatization, originally conceived of in an academic paper by Shleifer. The program entailed providing a “voucher” of roughly 10,000 ruble shares in formerly public companies to each citizen. However, the fact that the most profitable industries, including oil, gas, and metal, were excluded from the program, paired with extremely high inflation, quickly led to the vouchers becoming worthless.
Financial scams involving the vouchers quickly further complicated the program, leading many to sell off their “shares” for practically nothing, getting perhaps a bottle of Vodka or some groceries in exchange.
Chubais and the HIID were able to operate by using foreign money to establish private, non-governmental organizations that could bypass parliament, most notably the Russian Privatization Center, which carried out government policy and directed privatization processes. It had the power and authority of a government agency, but was not accountable to parliament or officials, being run directly by Chubais and the Harvard Boys. Hundreds of millions of dollars flowed into Russia from USAID, the World Bank, and the European Union, to prop up the NGOs carrying out privatization.
Western aid money provided the funds to construct an oligarchy. Quoted in a 1998 report by The Nation, the USAID coordinator for the former Soviet Union, Richard Morningstar, admits this: “If we hadn't been there to provide funding to Chubais, could we have won the battle to carry out privatization? Probably not.”
By the end of Yeltsin's first term, Yeltsin's popularity had plummeted to the single digits, and Chubais and his clan were implicated in a massive corruption scandal for awarding bribes and privileges and using funds for personal profit. Yeltsin in response, fired several officials, but still kept Chubais on, claiming his departure would “destabilize the situation.”
How the United States Won the 1996 Russian Elections
The U.S. government, the Harvard privatization gang, and their Russian allies faced a dilemma going into the 1996 election. After one term of Boris Yeltsin, the Russian people despised him. Four years of neoliberalism, and Russians vastly preferred none other than the Communist Party's candidate, Gennady Zyuganov.
Intent on portraying the collapse of the Soviet Union as the triumph of “democracy,” Washington decided to turn a blind eye to corruption and unpopularity in order to ensure that their agenda succeeded in Russia.
The U.S. Secretary of the Treasury reportedly said quite candidly:
“We hoped Yeltsin would get elected. We didn't care at all about the election corruption. We wanted to pour money into his campaign.”
The task before them was enormous: to get Russia's most unpopular president re-elected. They managed to succeed.
“A team of American political strategists … said this week that they served as Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin's secret campaign weapon in his comeback win over a Communist challenger,” the LA Times wrote in 1996.
The July, 1996 edition of Time Magazine cover featured a smug looking Boris Yeltsin holding a U.S. flag, with the lead story titled “YANKS TO THE RESCUE: The Secret Story of How American Advisers Helped Yeltsin Win.”
According to the Time article, an early campaign memo by the team of U.S. advisors said: "Voters don't approve of the job Yeltsin is doing, don't think things will ever get any better and prefer the Communists' approach. There exists only one very simple strategy for winning: first, becoming the only alternative to the Communists; and second, making the people see that the Communists must be stopped at all costs."
Yeltsin's daughter, Tatiana Dyachenko, who was working closely with the Americans, was initially skeptical that anti-communism would work in Russia, reportedly saying "with communism coming back all over Eastern Europe and with Stalin's reputation rising here, a campaign based on anticommunism is wrong for us."
However, a few more weeks of a failed positive campaign managed to convince Dyachenko that an American-style, negative, anti-communist campaign was the only hope for Yeltsin.
Yeltsin and Dyachenko teamed up with the Americans to form an efficient anti-communist propaganda machine, to make Yeltsin, as despised as he was, seem like the only option.
The Time article reports: "The Americans used their focus-group coordinator, Alexei Levinson, to determine what exactly Russians most feared about the Communists. Long lines, scarce food and renationalization of property were frequently cited, but mostly people worried about civil war. 'That allowed us to move beyond simple Red bashing,' says Shumate. 'That's why Yeltsin and his surrogates and our advertising all highlighted the possibility of unrest if Yeltsin lost ... 'Stick with Yeltsin and at least you'll have calm'--that was the line we wanted to convey," says Dresner. "So the drumbeat about unrest kept pounding right till the end of the run-off round, when the final TV spots were all about the Soviets' repressive rule.'"
Russian television, according to Time, became an "arm of the Yeltsin campaign," and began to broadcast an anti-communist and pro-Yeltsin message day in and day out. The idea that a communist victory would promote mass chaos, riots, and possibly a civil war was a favorite topic of the Yeltsin campaign during this time, broadcast on the now U.S.-influenced media. TV had become, according to Time, "almost exclusively a nonstop diet of past Soviet horrors"
The extent of the U.S.' role in the campaign was massive. The Americans advised on advertising, on speeches, they assembled staged crowds of supporters and mandated that government employees attend rallies. They had Yeltsin send out mail to former Soviet Red Army veterans, thanking them for their service.
While the communists were constantly calling on Yeltsin to hold a public debate, on the American's advice, Yeltsin refused to do so. According to an American adviser speaking to Time, Yeltsin "would have lost," and such a debate could have been disasterous for their efforts.
While the Americans were operating undercover for the duration of the campaign, the U.S. interference was not a secret for long. The advisers quickly bragged about it to Time magazine, and the story was plastered all over front pages with pride. The United States and its media saw nothing wrong with such interference in foreign democratic processes.
Time magazine concluded: "Democracy triumphed--and along with it came the tools of modern campaigns, including the trickery and slickery Americans know so well. If those tools are not always admirable, the result they helped achieve in Russia surely is."
Fall and Rise
Yeltsin's second term ended in flames. In August of 1998, the value of the Ruble crashed, leading to a default on domestic debt and a moratorium on foreign debt repayment. Inflation soared, reaching 84 percent.
Russian agriculture tanked, as the government could no longer pay its subsidies to the sector.
The crash was preceded by a year of scrambled attempts to stabilize the economy, with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank all engineering reforms and pouring money into the economy.
Political support for the Yeltsin presidency crashed, with a massive coal miner strike further stopping the economy due to billions in unpaid wages.
Prior to the crash, the Harvard project was largely canceled by USAID after investigations revealed that Schleifer, Hay, and Schleifer's wife, hedge fund manager Nancy Zimmerman, had used their positions to personally profit in the securities market. The U.S. government sued Harvard University in September, 2000, which was settled in 2005 for US$26.5 million.
The brief regime of Harvard-USAID rule was coming to a close.
An official during the Yeltsin years, who in the midst of the crash was appointed the Director of the Federal Security Service, and only a year later was appointed Prime Minister. After only four months into his term as Prime Minister, Yeltsin suddenly resigned, leaving Putin as acting president.
After winning Presidential elections the following year, Putin inherited a broken Russia, and immediately set on a course different from his predecessor. He set on a path of renationalization of key resources, beginning by taking a large portion of the oil industry under state control. This allowed for economic reconstruction, and laid the foundation for the powerful Russian federation that Putin still leads today
.
.
The West had a vision for post-Soviet Russia: that it would be constructed in its own image, that it would be an economic playground for Western economists, and that it would be a state dependent on Western aid money. This dream of the U.S. and its allies has been shattered, in spite of their best efforts.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/analysis/How-the-United-States-Hacked-Russias-Elections-in-the-1990s-20180316-0003.html
https://www.telesurenglish.net/analysis/How-the-United-States-Hacked-Russias-Elections-in-the-1990s-20180316-0003.html
____
US agents helped Yeltsin break coup
PATRICK COCKBURN in Washington
Tuesday 17 May 1994
UNITED STATES intelligence helped Boris Yeltsin to gain power by breaking the most secure codes used by the generals behind the 1991 Soviet coup and passing on the information gained to Mr Yeltsin. An American communications specialist was seconded to help Mr Yeltsin secretly contact wavering military commanders without risk of detection.
The US intervention, which may have been critical in defeating the coup, has been kept secret to avoid the accusation that Washington was interfering in Russian affairs. It also started a row between the White House and the code-breaking National Security Agency, which strongly objected to revealing to Moscow that its most secure communications were compromised.
The degree of support for Mr Yeltsin from the American security services is disclosed by Seymour Hersh, one of the United States' best-known investigative journalists, in the forthcoming issue of the Atlantic Monthly magazine. It is likely to fuel allegations by Mr Yeltsin's opponents that he took power thanks to American support.
As soon as the coup started on 18 August 1991, the NSA, America's largest intelligence organisation, was able to decrypt conversations between the coup's two leaders, Vladimir Kryuchkov, chairman of the KGB, and Dmitri Yazov, the Defence Minister, taking place over a supposedly secure landline.
President Bush ordered the information to be given to Mr Yeltsin but, fearing Russian reaction if word of American interference leaked out, broke the law by not telling Congress.
An American specialist from the US embassy was sent to Mr Yeltsin's office in the Russian parliament building to make sure that his own communications system was secure.
'The Minister of Defence and the KGB chief were using the most secure lines to reach the military commanders,' a US official involved in the operation said. 'We monitor every major command, and we handed it to Yeltsin on a platter. It demonstrated to the Soviet commanders that we can read it all - that we can penetrate it.'
The NSA's ability to decrypt what Soviet military commanders - and their Russian successors - said over their communications system is probably the most significant intelligence achievement since Britain broke Germany's Enigma codes during the Second World War.
William Odom, head of the NSA until 1988, says the transfer of such highly classified information would lead to 'a terrible, terrible trade-off . . . Now the Russians know what I know. That is such a huge loss for the future.'
However, General Odom admitted that it was President Bush's right to decide what to do with such intelligence information, adding: 'There would be those who would think saving Yeltsin is worth it.'
In fact on 14 August 1991 - only four days before the attempted coup in Moscow - President Bush had signed an amendment to the law making it illegal for him not to tell House and Senate Intelligence Committees in secret session about covert action such as that in support of Mr Yeltsin.
Mr Bush and his aides reportedly decided to flout the law because they feared that Congress might balk at helping Mr Yeltsin because of the possible Russian reaction.
There is no information about how the NSA succeeded in penetrating Soviet military communications, or counter-measures taken since by Russian commanders to keep their conversations secret. During the final years of the Soviet Union many secrets, formerly closely held, were sold to Western intelligence services.
Mr Yeltsin was clearly grateful to Presidents Bush and Clinton for the support the US gave at a critical moment in his political fortunes, but he also has an incentive to prevent the same breach in security happening again.
Mr Hersh says: 'The US intelligence community may no longer be in a position to have advance warning of momentous events inside Russia - as it had months before the coup that brought Yeltsin to power.'
Yeltsin book review, page 16
__
1996 Russian presidential election
The 1996 Russian presidential election was held in Russia on 16 June 1996, with a second round on 3 July. The result was a victory for the incumbent President Boris Yeltsin, who ran as an independent. Yeltsin defeated Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov in the run-off, receiving 54.4% of the vote. His inauguration ceremony took place on 9 August.
16 June 1996 (first round)
3 July 1996 (second round)
Opinion polls Turnout 69.7% 
5 pp (first round)
68.8% 0.9 pp (second round)
Nominee Boris Yeltsin Gennady Zyuganov Party Independent Communist Party Home state Moscow Moscow Popular vote 40,203,948 30,102,288 Percentage 54.4% 40.7%
Regions in which a plurality of the second round vote was won by Boris Yeltsin
Regions in which a plurality of the second round vote was won by Gennady Zyuganov
President before election
Elected President
Tuesday 17 May 1994
UNITED STATES intelligence helped Boris Yeltsin to gain power by breaking the most secure codes used by the generals behind the 1991 Soviet coup and passing on the information gained to Mr Yeltsin. An American communications specialist was seconded to help Mr Yeltsin secretly contact wavering military commanders without risk of detection.
The US intervention, which may have been critical in defeating the coup, has been kept secret to avoid the accusation that Washington was interfering in Russian affairs. It also started a row between the White House and the code-breaking National Security Agency, which strongly objected to revealing to Moscow that its most secure communications were compromised.
The degree of support for Mr Yeltsin from the American security services is disclosed by Seymour Hersh, one of the United States' best-known investigative journalists, in the forthcoming issue of the Atlantic Monthly magazine. It is likely to fuel allegations by Mr Yeltsin's opponents that he took power thanks to American support.
As soon as the coup started on 18 August 1991, the NSA, America's largest intelligence organisation, was able to decrypt conversations between the coup's two leaders, Vladimir Kryuchkov, chairman of the KGB, and Dmitri Yazov, the Defence Minister, taking place over a supposedly secure landline.
President Bush ordered the information to be given to Mr Yeltsin but, fearing Russian reaction if word of American interference leaked out, broke the law by not telling Congress.
President Bush ordered the information to be given to Mr Yeltsin but, fearing Russian reaction if word of American interference leaked out, broke the law by not telling Congress.
An American specialist from the US embassy was sent to Mr Yeltsin's office in the Russian parliament building to make sure that his own communications system was secure.
'The Minister of Defence and the KGB chief were using the most secure lines to reach the military commanders,' a US official involved in the operation said. 'We monitor every major command, and we handed it to Yeltsin on a platter. It demonstrated to the Soviet commanders that we can read it all - that we can penetrate it.'
The NSA's ability to decrypt what Soviet military commanders - and their Russian successors - said over their communications system is probably the most significant intelligence achievement since Britain broke Germany's Enigma codes during the Second World War.
William Odom, head of the NSA until 1988, says the transfer of such highly classified information would lead to 'a terrible, terrible trade-off . . . Now the Russians know what I know. That is such a huge loss for the future.'
However, General Odom admitted that it was President Bush's right to decide what to do with such intelligence information, adding: 'There would be those who would think saving Yeltsin is worth it.'
In fact on 14 August 1991 - only four days before the attempted coup in Moscow - President Bush had signed an amendment to the law making it illegal for him not to tell House and Senate Intelligence Committees in secret session about covert action such as that in support of Mr Yeltsin.
Mr Bush and his aides reportedly decided to flout the law because they feared that Congress might balk at helping Mr Yeltsin because of the possible Russian reaction.
There is no information about how the NSA succeeded in penetrating Soviet military communications, or counter-measures taken since by Russian commanders to keep their conversations secret. During the final years of the Soviet Union many secrets, formerly closely held, were sold to Western intelligence services.
Mr Yeltsin was clearly grateful to Presidents Bush and Clinton for the support the US gave at a critical moment in his political fortunes, but he also has an incentive to prevent the same breach in security happening again.
Mr Hersh says: 'The US intelligence community may no longer be in a position to have advance warning of momentous events inside Russia - as it had months before the coup that brought Yeltsin to power.'
Yeltsin book review, page 16
__
1996 Russian presidential election
The 1996 Russian presidential election was held in Russia on 16 June 1996, with a second round on 3 July. The result was a victory for the incumbent President Boris Yeltsin, who ran as an independent. Yeltsin defeated Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov in the run-off, receiving 54.4% of the vote. His inauguration ceremony took place on 9 August.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Opinion polls | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 69.7% 5 pp (first round) 68.8% 0.9 pp (second round) | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Regions in which a plurality of the second round vote was won by Boris Yeltsin
Regions in which a plurality of the second round vote was won by Gennady Zyuganov
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
.jpg)
Allegations of American interference
Some have argued that the role of American president Bill Clinton's administration in securing an International Monetary Fund loan for Russia was an act of foreign electoral intervention.[61][62]
The United States favored Yeltsin.[63]
In 2016, Dick Morris alleged that Bill Clinton was involved in assembling a trio of American consultants advising Yelsin's campaign.[64] However, Morris has had a history of making both unsubstantiated and false accusations against President Clinton and his wife.[65][66][67]
The topic of American influence on Russian elections is developed in US popular culture, for example, in 2003 comedy Spinning Boris.
Knowing that his voter base was pro-Western, Yeltsin lobbied President Clinton to speak praisefully of Russia's transition to democracy. Yeltsin believed that this would strengthen his support from voters.[68]
Yeltsin warned President Clinton of the possible ramifications of a Zyuganov victory, saying,
In their conversations President Clinton assured Yeltsin that he would give him his publicly declared personal endorsement, saying, "I've been trying to find a way to say to the Russian people 'this election will have consequences,' and we are clear about what it is we support."[69]
However, President Clinton providing his endorsement was not an extraordinary act. It is not unusual for national leaders to provide their endorsements to candidates in other nations. For instance, in the 2016 US presidential election Donald Trump received endorsements from a number of then-incumbent national leaders, as did his opponent Hillary Clinton.
Not only is it not unusual for a national leader to lend their endorsement to a politician abroad but, in fact, the 1996 election cycle even saw instances in which Russian politicians lent their endorsement to candidates for the US presidential election. For instance, Zhirinovsky lent (and later rescinded) his endorsement to Pat Buchanan, who was running in the primaries for the Republican nomination in the US presidential election.[70]
In January 1997, noting the support Yeltsin had received in 1996 from the Clinton administration, former candidate Alexander Lebed visited the United States to rally support from American businesses for a potential run in the 2000 Russian presidential election. As one analyst wrote at the time (of Lebed): "He may perceive that Yeltsin benefited greatly from support from the Americans in the last campaign. Bill Clinton made a trip to Moscow during the campaign. And the International Monetary Fund extended loans that enabled the Government to make credible promises to pay wages."[71][72]
Some have argued that the role of American president Bill Clinton's administration in securing an International Monetary Fund loan for Russia was an act of foreign electoral intervention.[61][62]
The United States favored Yeltsin.[63]
The United States favored Yeltsin.[63]
In 2016, Dick Morris alleged that Bill Clinton was involved in assembling a trio of American consultants advising Yelsin's campaign.[64] However, Morris has had a history of making both unsubstantiated and false accusations against President Clinton and his wife.[65][66][67]
Knowing that his voter base was pro-Western, Yeltsin lobbied President Clinton to speak praisefully of Russia's transition to democracy. Yeltsin believed that this would strengthen his support from voters.[68]
Yeltsin warned President Clinton of the possible ramifications of a Zyuganov victory, saying,
Yeltsin warned President Clinton of the possible ramifications of a Zyuganov victory, saying,
In their conversations President Clinton assured Yeltsin that he would give him his publicly declared personal endorsement, saying, "I've been trying to find a way to say to the Russian people 'this election will have consequences,' and we are clear about what it is we support."[69]
However, President Clinton providing his endorsement was not an extraordinary act. It is not unusual for national leaders to provide their endorsements to candidates in other nations. For instance, in the 2016 US presidential election Donald Trump received endorsements from a number of then-incumbent national leaders, as did his opponent Hillary Clinton.
Not only is it not unusual for a national leader to lend their endorsement to a politician abroad but, in fact, the 1996 election cycle even saw instances in which Russian politicians lent their endorsement to candidates for the US presidential election. For instance, Zhirinovsky lent (and later rescinded) his endorsement to Pat Buchanan, who was running in the primaries for the Republican nomination in the US presidential election.[70]
However, President Clinton providing his endorsement was not an extraordinary act. It is not unusual for national leaders to provide their endorsements to candidates in other nations. For instance, in the 2016 US presidential election Donald Trump received endorsements from a number of then-incumbent national leaders, as did his opponent Hillary Clinton.
Not only is it not unusual for a national leader to lend their endorsement to a politician abroad but, in fact, the 1996 election cycle even saw instances in which Russian politicians lent their endorsement to candidates for the US presidential election. For instance, Zhirinovsky lent (and later rescinded) his endorsement to Pat Buchanan, who was running in the primaries for the Republican nomination in the US presidential election.[70]
In January 1997, noting the support Yeltsin had received in 1996 from the Clinton administration, former candidate Alexander Lebed visited the United States to rally support from American businesses for a potential run in the 2000 Russian presidential election. As one analyst wrote at the time (of Lebed): "He may perceive that Yeltsin benefited greatly from support from the Americans in the last campaign. Bill Clinton made a trip to Moscow during the campaign. And the International Monetary Fund extended loans that enabled the Government to make credible promises to pay wages."[71][72]
Spinning Boris (2003) - movie trailer
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Perestroika is sometimes argued to be a significant cause of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, and the end of the Cold War.[2]
Economic reforms
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Nov 19, 2012
Watch Spinning Boris starring Jeff Goldblum in this Drama on DIRECTV. It's available to watch.
Aug 10, 2011
TDS TV & Movies | Movies | Spinning Boris. ... Boris Yeltsin is running for re-
Gorbachev's Perestroika - History of Russia in 100 Minutes
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Perestroika (/ˌpɛrəˈstrɔɪkə/; Russian: Перестро́йка, IPA: [pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə] (
listen))[1] was a political movement Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the 1980s and 1990s and is widely associated with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost (meaning "openness") policy reform. The literal meaning of perestroika is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political andeconomic system.
listen))[1] was a political movement Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the 1980s and 1990s and is widely associated with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost (meaning "openness") policy reform. The literal meaning of perestroika is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political andeconomic system.
Economic reforms
The most significant of Gorbachev's reforms in the foreign economic sector allowed foreigners to invest in the Soviet Union in the form of joint ventureswith Soviet ministries, state enterprises, and cooperatives.
The original version of the Soviet Joint Venture Law, which went into effect in June 1987, limited foreign shares of a Soviet venture to 49 percent and required that Soviet citizens occupy the positions of chairman and general manager.
After potential Western partners complained, the government revised the regulations to allow majority foreign ownership and control. Under the terms of the Joint Venture Law, the Soviet partner supplied labor, infrastructure, and a potentially large domestic market. The foreign partner supplied capital, technology, entrepreneurial expertise, and in many cases, products and services of world competitive quality.
The original version of the Soviet Joint Venture Law, which went into effect in June 1987, limited foreign shares of a Soviet venture to 49 percent and required that Soviet citizens occupy the positions of chairman and general manager.
After potential Western partners complained, the government revised the regulations to allow majority foreign ownership and control. Under the terms of the Joint Venture Law, the Soviet partner supplied labor, infrastructure, and a potentially large domestic market. The foreign partner supplied capital, technology, entrepreneurial expertise, and in many cases, products and services of world competitive quality.
Gorbachev's economic changes did not do much to restart the country's sluggish economy in the late 1980s. The reforms decentralised things to some extent, although price controls remained, as did the ruble's inconvertibility and most government controls over the means of production.
By 1990 the government had virtually lost control over economic conditions. Government spending increased sharply as an increasing number of unprofitable enterprises required state support and consumer price subsidies continued. Tax revenues declined because republic and local governments withheld tax revenues from the central government under the growing spirit of regional autonomy. The elimination of central control over production decisions, especially in the consumer goods sector, led to the breakdown in traditional supply-demand relationships without contributing to the formation of new ones. Thus, instead of streamlining the system, Gorbachev's decentralisation caused new production bottlenecks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika__
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