Eight years of Putin in the Russian Presidency: A balance

An example of the disinformation of the western press: to support the theory that Putin feels a longing for the Soviet Union and wants to return to that system, they often quote a speech given on the 25th of April of 2005, in which the Russian president affirmed: we would have to recognize that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the most enormous geopolitical disaster of the century. Isolating this sentence, taking it out of context, it really seems that that Putin wants to turn to the good times of the USSR. The continuation of his speech (available in English on the president's site will reveal its true context: "For the Russian nation, it became a true drama. Ten of millions of our citizens and compatriots were out of Russian territory. Even more, was the epidemic of disintegration that affected Russia itself.

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The savings of the individuals were devalued, and old ideals had been destroyed. Many institutions had been dissolved or remodeled without care. Terrorist interventions and the capitulation of Khasavyurt that followed had harmed the integrity of the country. Oligarchical groups - that possessed absolute control on the channels of communication - served exclusive interests. Poverty in mass began to be seen as the norm.

Everything was happening in a context of dramatic economic fall, unstable finances, and the paralyzing of the social sphere. There is no doubt that the end of the USSR and the reforms that followed had an immense human and social cost, although they were necessary and Putin refers to that in his speech. The continuation of his speech goes on quite clearly: the president shows that it is necessary to become the most efficient state, while social assets reduce poverty; optimize democracy, increase civil liberties; and continue liberal reforms to increase the space of the private enterprises.

Also, the western press did not report that in 2006, Putin expressed official regret to Hungary and the Czech Republic for the Soviet military interventions in these countries, which had taken place in 1956 and 1968, respectively; that in 2005 removed of the 7th of November vacation, in which the socialist Revolution of 1917 was commemorated, substituting for it the 4th of November , the day of
Unity (the day in which Russian troops, in the year of 1612, retook Moscow, putting end to Polish occupation and the taking of the throne by the first of the Romanov dynasty); and who, on the 30th of October of 2007, visited a monument to the victims of Soviet political repression (principally Stalinist), and used it to emphasize the importance of the freedom of opposition and dissent. Not even Boris Yeltsin, the principal person in charge for the end of the USSR while declaring the independence of Russia in 1991, dared to take such actions, since the Communist party was still too strongly in the decade of the 90s.

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