Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 07/2008

Was Liberty Really Bad for Russia? Part II

Leon Aron

September 2007

American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

Abstract

Part I of this Russian Outlook dealt with what might be called the errors of commission, or false attribution, in the "chaos-of-the-1990s" stereotype, which became a major theme of the Putin Kremlin's propaganda. The economic crisis of that era, mostly inherited from the decaying Soviet economy, was laid at the revolutionary regime's door. Yet the "chaos" legend also contains errors of omission, for, on closer inspection, there was a great deal in the 1990s besides the alleged "chaos."