Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Reading Russia and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century: how the ‘West’ wrote its history of the USSR
- Part I Russia and the Soviet Union: The Story through Time
- 2 Russia’s fin de siècle, 1900–1914
- 3 The First World War, 1914–1918
- 4 The revolutions of 1917–1918
- 5 The Russian civil war, 1917–1922
- 6 Building a new state and society: NEP, 1921–1928
- 7 Stalinism, 1928–1940
- 8 Patriotic War, 1941–1945
- 9 Stalin and his circle
- 10 The Khrushchev period, 1953–1964
- 11 The Brezhnev era
- 12 The Gorbachev era
- 13 The Russian Federation
- Part II Russia and the Soviet Union: Themes and Trends
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
13 - The Russian Federation
from Part I - Russia and the Soviet Union: The Story through Time
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Reading Russia and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century: how the ‘West’ wrote its history of the USSR
- Part I Russia and the Soviet Union: The Story through Time
- 2 Russia’s fin de siècle, 1900–1914
- 3 The First World War, 1914–1918
- 4 The revolutions of 1917–1918
- 5 The Russian civil war, 1917–1922
- 6 Building a new state and society: NEP, 1921–1928
- 7 Stalinism, 1928–1940
- 8 Patriotic War, 1941–1945
- 9 Stalin and his circle
- 10 The Khrushchev period, 1953–1964
- 11 The Brezhnev era
- 12 The Gorbachev era
- 13 The Russian Federation
- Part II Russia and the Soviet Union: Themes and Trends
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
The immediate afterglow of the failed coup attempt in August 1991 must rank as oneof the more optimistic periods in Russian history. In August 1991, like many othertimes in Russia’s past, Kremlin rulers had issued orders to suppress thepeople. This time around, some of the people resisted. For three days, a militarystand-off ensued between those defending elected representatives of the people inthe White House – the home to Russia’s Congress of People’sDeputies – and those carrying out orders issued by non-elected leaders inthe Kremlin. Popular resistance to the coup attempt was not widespread. In fact,except for Moscow, St Petersburg and the industrial centres in the Urals, therewere no signs of resistance at all. But this concentrated opposition, especiallyin Moscow, produced major consequences for Russia’s history. In this roundof conflict between the Russian people and their rulers, the people prevailed. Thevictory created an atmosphere of unlimited potential. One Western publicationdeclared, ‘Serfdom’s End: a thousand years of autocracy arereversed’.
The triumph, however, also fuelled inflated expectations about what was to comenext. The victors immediately accomplished some symbolic gestures, such as thearrest of the coup plotters and the destruction of Feliks Dzerzhinsky’sstatue outside the KGB’s headquarters. But the bigger tasks of creating anew state, economy and polity soon erased the euphoria of August 1991 forRussia’s political leadership. Russian President Boris Yeltsin, theunquestioned hero of the dramatic August events, most certainly seemedoverwhelmed.
Keywords
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Russia , pp. 352 - 380Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
References
, Bitva za rubl’
(London: Alma
Mater, 1999).
, Post-Communist Economic Revolutions: How Big a
Bang? (Washington:
Center for Strategic and International
Studies, 1992).
, The Chastening: Inside the Crisis that Rocked the Global
Financial System and Humbled the IMF (New
York: Public Affairs,
2001).
, and (eds.), The Soviet System: From Crisis to
Collapse, revised edn (Boulder,
Colo.: Westview Press,
1995).
, Russia Confronts Chechnya: Roots of a Separatist
Conflict (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press,
1998).
and , ‘The Process of Socialist Economic
Transformation’, Journal of Economic
Perspectives
5, 4 (Fall 1991).Google Scholar
, ‘The Perils of Polarization: Economic Performance
in the Post communist World’, World
Politics
54, 3 (Apr. 2002).Google Scholar
, and , Russia’s Virtual Economy
(Washington: Brookings
Institution Press, 2002).
, Dni porazhenii i pobed
(Moscow:
Vagrius, 1996).
, Memoirs (New
York: Doubleday,
1996; London:
Transworld, 1996).
, The Success of Russian Economic Reforms
(London: Royal Institute of
International Affairs, 1995).
(ed.), Putin’s Russia: Past Imperfect, Future
Uncertain (Armonk, N.Y.:
M. E. Sharpe, 2003).
, The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New
Russia (New York:
Public Affairs, 2002).
, Presidential Power in Russia
(Armonk, N.Y.: M. E.
Sharpe, 1999).
, Protest and the Politics of Blame: The Russian Response to
Unpaid Wages (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press,
2003).
, and , ‘Easy Money: A Special Report: For Russia and its
U.S. Bankers, Match wasn’t Made in Heaven’,
New York Times, 18 Oct.
1998.Google Scholar
, and , The Coming Russian Boom: A Guide to New Markets and
Politics (New York:
Free Press, 1996).
, ‘State Power, Institutional Change, and the
Politics of Privatization in Russia’,
World Politics
47, 2 (Jan. 1995).Google Scholar
, Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change
from Gorbachev to Putin (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 2001).
, Unexpected Outcomes: Electoral Systems, Political Parties,
and Representation in Russia
(Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 2001).
, A Democracy of Despots
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview
Press, 1995).
, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in
Eastern Europe and Latin America
(Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991).
, The Russian Parliament: Institution Evolution in a
Transitional Regime, 1989–1999 (New
Haven: Yale University Press,
2001).
Rossiiskii statisticheskii ezhegodnik
(Moscow:
Goskomstat, 1997).
, and , Without a Map: Political Tactics and Economic Reform in
Russia (Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press, 2000).
, and , Demokratiia, ogranichennaia falsifikatsiiami: vybory i
referendumy v Rossii v 1991–1993 gg
(Moscow, 1995).
, ‘The Russian Central State in
Crisis’, in and (eds.), Russian Politics: Challenges of
Democratization (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press,
2001).Google Scholar
, and , Russia’s Communists at the Crossroads
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview
Press, 1997).
, , , and , ‘Public Opinion, Parties, and Voters in the 1993
Russian Elections’, Europe–Asia
Studies
47 (1995).Google Scholar
, , , ‘Vchera v shkolakh ot Chukhotki do Kaliningrada
prozvenel pervyi zvonok. A v Okhotnom riadu poslednii
zvonok’, Rossiiskaia Gazeta, 2
Sept. 1999.Google Scholar
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown
and may be updated in the future.