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Comment by sudosysgen | Hacker News Reader

Yes, the US has heavily meddle in the 1996 Russian elections to prevent the much more popular Communist Party from winning the elections, and by doing so elected Yeltsin, whose disastrous actions led to the much weaker Russia we see today.

Complete with advising him as he seized control of the media and used it to spread disinformation, forcing an IMF loan that was then used to buy votes, sending US intelligence agents to Russia, the whole deal.

As for direct electoral fraud, the numbers in the election are incredibly fishy even from our historical viewpoint, was fraught with irregularities, much, much less than in the Bolivian elections that the US called illegitimate. This hypocrisy is yet more meddling.

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Yep, so the communists which drove USSR to the ground had to get 2nd chance to completely dismantle Russia that time? I'd say that was an interesting possibility.

Right, so there it is, elections don't matter if the people elected are those we don't like.

The Communist Party was in the process of decentralizing the economy and increasing democracy. Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev drove Russia so far into the ground that it is worse than the RSFSR in every single measurable way.

If the people want to elect a Communist Party which agrees to respect elections, who are you to say that they're not allowed and to meddle in their elections?

Oh, so queues in modern Russia are 3 hours now? People still can't buy decent food and clothes? They still need to buy grain in US and Canada? I don't think so.

The Russian GDP which is lower when adjusted for inflation as well as the lower life expectancy disagrees with you.

Focusing on one or two indicators is misleading, on all macro indicators rapid liberalization under Yeltsin has been an unmitigated disaster Russia still hasn't recovered from. Literally millions of excess deaths have happened because of it.

You could just ask a Russian person who lived 1991 as an adult for their opinion, if you want subjective and anecdotal evidence. I know I did.

Finally, a 3 hour queue for food, which was fairly rare under the USSR anyways, is better than dying at the age of 40 from deaths of despair, which you would have a two-digit percentage chance of doing as a Russian male after 1996.

Really? And you have the data for two-digit percentage deaths is despair?

It's in the link someone else linked to you and you seem to have ignored, but here is another source : https://qz.com/403307/russia-is-quite-literally-drinking-its...

>more than 30% of deaths in 2012 in Russia were attributable to alcohol

Deaths due to alcoholism are, of course, deaths of despair.

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