Russia

  • Exit Yeltsin

    Following the April 23 death of Boris Yeltsin, various polling organisations conducted surveys on how Russians regarded his actions. Asked what they saw as Yeltsin’s main achievement, 33% of respondents answered: “He left office voluntarily in December 1999.” All his other achievements were within the statistical margin of error. The majority of those surveyed did not consider that Russia’s first president had any achievements at all.

  • Kagarlitsky: How I became an enemy of the state

    A few months ago I was simply a political analyst. However, since March, I have stepped back into a role I had almost forgotten — that of coordinator of an informal political movement, in this case to organise a boycott of the Russian presidential election.

  • Can Russian Communists topple Yeltsin?

    Since supporters of President Boris Yeltsin were routed in parliamentary elections in December, Russians have been faced with the prospect that their next president may be Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF).

  • Medvedev assesses the Gorbachev era

    Roy Medvedev was the leading dissident Soviet historian during the Brezhnev years. He was expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1969. In 1971, following the publication in the West of his monumental study on Stalin, Left History Judge,

  • Interview with Boris Kagarlitsky, Alexander Popov, Vladimir Kondratov

    In this concluding part of their interview with Steve Painter and Jim Percy, Soviet Socialist Party members Boris Kagarlitsky, Alexander Popov and Vladimir Kondratov discuss Boris Yeltsin's challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev's leadership, and the increasing national unrest which is threatening the future of the USSR.

  • The decline of Gorbachev

    BORIS KAGARLITSKY, ALEXANDER POPOV AND VLADIMIR KONDRATOV are members of the Socialist Party of the Soviet Union, an organisation of about 300 members, formed in July 1990. They spoke to Steve Painter and Jim Percy.