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When the USSR collapsed in 1991, Russia had never before experienced such a high level of democracy thanks to Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, which were put in place after he took office six years earlier. The Russian populace then has only one desire: for their nation to develop into a successful western democracy.

Paradoxically, the liberal Russian elites will initiate the process that will turn their nation into a nationalist autocracy by attempting to establish this Western democracy. Like others, a KGB agent by the name of Vladimir Putin will be able to take advantage of this movement by joining it.

Russia's development during the 1990s demonstrates the fundamentals of the process of ideological dissolution, which sees a society turn to ultranationalism as the final pillar after the collapse of first communism and then liberalism. Even though the situation in Russia after the fall of the USSR was delicate, with significant shortages connected to an increase in prices, it was still looking up.

Gorbachev had been successful in establishing a true separation of powers, which is the cornerstone of all democracies. The populace of Russia was optimistic at the time.

She had been energized and persuaded that democracy would eventually prevail by her ability to overthrow the coup in August 1991. For Russians, there was no doubt about the connection between the emergence of democratic institutions and the approaching prosperity of the "West.".

The only political concern was the radical nationalism that was rapidly growing but was nevertheless successfully resisted by a strong liberal movement. Accordingly, a survey conducted at the end of 1991 revealed that 85% of Russians supported the country's transition to a market economy.

A profound deindustrialization, a decline in living standards, and the exodus of Russia's intelligentsia were the results of the country's economic and political collapse, which occurred between 1992 and 1995. The latter either left the country or changed to a life of subsistence.

In the end, the nation was demoted to the status of a straightforward producer of raw materials and semi-finished goods. The political collapse will take place over a shorter period of time, during the first two post-Soviet years, and will be confirmed during the 1996 presidential election.

As a result of this process, paradoxically, Russia will have become a more authoritarian state than the USSR was in the late 1980s. In this state, people's autonomy will have significantly decreased, whether in their interactions with their employers or with governmental institutions. The political opportunism of Vladimir Poutine, who will take a nationalist stance at the end of the 1990s, will only serve to confirm the current developments.

The start of a troubling transition The first few months of post-Soviet Russia were marked by a liberal consensus, despite the significant costs incurred by the onset of high inflation. After evaluating the state of Russian society and the economy, the Parliament—where the former Communists, despite being sharply divided, were in the majority—suddenly came out against President Boris Yeltsin's economic policies.

This "shock therapy" policy, which was implemented without taking into account the complexity of the socio-economic realities in Russia, involved quickly establishing a market economy that was modeled after the liberal recipes supported by the IMF. Due to the population's nearly complete destruction of savings, it had serious social repercussions.

The introduction of a free trade system, in a similar vein, could only have disastrous consequences for Russian industry, which was already far behind its new Western rivals. Ironically, Égor Gadar, the man responsible for putting these new liberal policies into place, appeared to lack even the barest sense of pragmatism, enforcing the reforms with a dogmatism befitting of the upper classes in the former USSR.

The Establishment of an Authoritarian State In September 1993, Boris Yeltsin dissolved Parliament following a year and a half of ongoing disagreements with it. Because it was against the Constitution, this decree was unconstitutional.

Following a ruling by the Constitutional Court that declared this decree invalid, the Russian Parliament approved the removal of the president by a vote. Boris Yeltsin instituted the first step of Russian autocracy by ordering the Russian armed forces to storm the Parliament building while claiming that there had been a coup attempt linked to violent protests by members of the Parliament.

The United States approved of this horrific act of violence, which most likely resulted in the deaths of several hundred people. This was because they were too focused on putting an end to what they perceived to be the former Soviet elites' resistance. The dissolution of Parliament and concurrent resignation of President Yeltsin, which would have allowed for the crisis to be resolved while maintaining Russia's democratic framework, were the solutions put forth at the time by the president of the Constitutional Court.

Unfortunately, both parties declined to consider this proposal. Contrarily, and because of its heterogeneity, it is possible that the victory of the relatively conservative Parliament would have had less of an effect on Russian democracy.

Following that, Boris Yeltsin was able to establish the components of an authoritarian State by actually weakening the separation of powers, made possible in part by a new Constitution. As a result, Parliament lost some of its functions and was reduced to a simple recording and consultation chamber that was powerless to change the course of the executive.

Regarding the judiciary, it lost its independence and actually saw a significant reduction in its ability to overturn presidential decisions. This is how Boris Yeltsin turned Russia into an authoritarian state, and Vladimir Putin, who will succeed him on December 31, 1999, will be the heir. Boris Yeltsin was re-elected in 1996 following a presidential campaign that fell far short of democratic standards.

It is surprising that the West and the United States, in particular, are unaware of this significant democratic backsliding and the consequences we are currently experiencing. However, at the time, it was believed that the emergence of the market economy would guarantee the establishment of a fully democratic logic. and a totalitarian society In reality, the opposite took place.

Contrary to what some international organizations believed, which saw the privatization process as a way to get rid of the maintainers left over from the old system, the privatizations allowed the old Russian technical and administrative elite to acquire a legal right of ownership over what they had in fact previously owned. A social authoritarianism was brutally added to the authoritarianism of the state.

Because business executives now have a lot more discretion in how they manage their workforces, workers' autonomy has been significantly reduced. By the 1990s' end, Russia had developed into a nation of oligarchs—a social class with enormous power in comparison to the general populace.

The demise of the middle class and the intelligentsia has also been accompanied by rising inequality. The latter had been actively involved in the transition to democracy during the final years of the USSR.

Boris Yeltsin's authoritarianism emerged during the first war in Chechnya, a bloody conflict that was notable for the nearly complete destruction of Grozny, and which was used to deceive a West that was afraid of a potential return of the Soviet system. The European authorities at the time did not, in any case, recognize Chechnya's independence, so their response to the numerous violations carried out at the time by the Russian army was muted.

With the benefit of hindsight, it appears that Boris Yeltsin benefited from unwarranted Western assistance while distancing Russia from any democratic logic. This was confirmed during the 1996 presidential election, where he benefited from the United States' explicit support, which, among other things, greatly helped him win this election, when the Communist candidate initially appeared to be the big favorite. However, the latter's victory, far from seeing the return of the USSR, would probably have tempered a resolutely anti-democratic development.

He would have been forced into a number of compromises on his program because of the Russian elites' vehement opposition. After all, other communist-affiliated leaders have triumphed in elections in nations that once belonged to the Eastern Bloc without reestablishing the previous order.

It was also Boris Yeltsin's liberal team that made a significant contribution to the final component of today's Russia: the emergence of a strong nationalism, which was used as a replacement for a failing liberalism. The liberal team realized in 1994 that it could share some common ground with Vladimir Zhirinovsky's far-right party, even though it had initially viewed nationalists and communists as its worst enemies.

To make matters worse, liberals discovered that nationalists were more likely to support their legislative proposals than communists and centrists when they found themselves in the minority after the new Parliament's elections in December 1993. By the 1990s' end, there was no longer any question that nationalism was the Russian elites' last stand against the rejection of liberal ideas.

This was something that Vladimir Putin quickly grasped, and he became its champion. The original version of this article was written by Eric Martel-Porchier and published on The Conversation. He is a research professor at the ICD Business School.

apostle. The original version of this article was written by Eric Martel-Porchier and published on The Conversation. He is a research professor at the ICD Business School.

apostle. The original version of this article was written by Eric Martel-Porchier and published on The Conversation. He is a research professor at the ICD Business School.

Boris Yeltsin's authoritarianism emerged during the first war in Chechnya, a bloody conflict that was notable for the nearly complete destruction of Grozny, and which was used to deceive a West that was afraid of a potential return of the Soviet system.