Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
I had a professor (native Russian teaching Political Science at a US university) who said that Jefferey Sachs deserved to be crucified in Russia for what he did with advising shock therapy. He also said the Russian leadership shared some blame for believing his policies.
They had a much more important goal in mind than improving the economy: destroying the power of socialists. Their biggest fear was Russia turning red again, so they had to break both the political and the economic power of the old regime. To achieve the latter, they decided to speedrun the primitive accumulation of capital by privatizing as many companies as possible, usually at a loss and to anyone who looked like a capitalist. When the dust settled, the economy was in shambles, but the bulk of property was now in private hands, no takesies backsies.
Of course, Putin rewrote the social contract between the state and the oligarchs ten years later, but by that time the threat of a red revanche had passed.
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