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Russian Federation: Market Liberalization, Authoritarianism, and Oil. The formation of the USSR. Formed in 1917: Bolsheviks against Czar Nicholas II. Lenin and Marx: The communist party and capitalism New Economic Program: hybrid of capitalism and socialism
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Russian Federation: Market Liberalization, Authoritarianism, and Oil
The formation of the USSR • Formed in 1917: Bolsheviks against Czar Nicholas II. • Lenin and Marx: The communist party and capitalism • New Economic Program: hybrid of capitalism and socialism • The ideals of communism: Redistribution of power to the proletarian. • Stalin and the birth of the command economy. • Soviet Authoritarianism, 20 million deaths, the repression of media and political dissent. • Ethnicity in the USSR: the Russianization of the region.
Oil and the Command Economy • Control over resources and infrastructure: State run monopolies and the consolidation of power in Central Asia.
Map of the Current Federation • Formed after the fall of the USSR in 1991 following a failed coup. • Causes of failure: Misallocation of goods and services, an overemphasis on industry over agriculture, Cold War Military expenditure. • Is Central Asia a member of the federation?
The Privatization of Russia • Failure of Socialism required new economic model: Capitalism. • Foreign Direct Investment and the Dismantling of the Command Economy. • Loss of State revenue and debt. • By 1998 Russia’s debt was 90 percent of its GDP.
The birth of the Oligarch • Rise in cost of goods and loss of personal savings: limiting the entrepreneur. • Sale of state run industries: political power, corruption and bribes. • Consolidation of wealth and power and the effects on social services.
NeoLiberalism in Russia: Shock Therapy • Dramatic rise in the costs of goods. • Life expectancy: • Male: 1990 63.9, 2003 59 • Female: 1990 74.4, 2003 72 • No other country in the world has experienced this large of a difference during peacetime. • Causes: Job loss, stress and alcoholism.
Neoliberalism and the Rise of a New Russian Authoritarianism • Authoritarianism: of or pertaining to a governmental or political system, principle, or practice in which individual freedom is held as completely subordinate to the power or authority of the state, centered either in one person or a small group that is not constitutionally accountable to the people.
Continued… • Privatization of Russian Oil empowers multinational oil companies and oligarchs. • Russian state losses revenue to pay for social services: social unrest. • Multinational oil companies pushing private oil companies to construct new pipelines in Central Asia that by-pass Russia. • Weakens Russia’s regional power
Gazprom • Primarily State owned oil and gas monopoly: Vladimir Putin the next president of Gazprom? • The imprisonment of an Oligarch: Yukos and Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Videos • http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec04/yukos_12-23.html#
Conclusion • The rapid privatization and neoliberalization of Russian industry in the 1990’s and early 2000’s were responsible for the return of authoritarianism in Russia. • People’s experience with privatization, their loss of well-being, has given political support to Putin’s aggressive authoritarian tactics.