A democracy of despots : Gorbachev and Yeltsin and the fall of the Soviet Union

Long-time Moscow correspondent Donald Murray analyzes the creation of the first authentic parliaments in the Soviet Union and Russia and shows how Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin used and abused the democratic institutions they helped make possible in this book. Arguing that Gorbachev and Yeltsin used the democratic institutions they created to crush political opponents and increase their own personal power, Murray concludes that the rise of Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the war in Chechnya are not aberrations on Russia's road to democracy but the logical extension and consequence of Gorbachev's and Yeltsin's despotism. The Author Donald Murray was the Moscow correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio Canada from 1988 to 1994. Annotation. A Democracy of Despots is a history of Soviet and Russian experiments with democratic institutions from 1988 to 1995. Based on eye-witness accounts and in-depth interviews with most of the political leaders in this drama, it tells the story of the men and women who began an experiment in euphoria only to find themselves at war with one another five years later. Arguing that Gorbachev and Yeltsin used the democratic institutions they created to crush political opponents and increase their own personal power, Murray concludes that the rise of Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the war in Chechnya are not aberrations on Russia's road to democracy but the logical extension and consequence of Gorbachev's and Yeltsin's despotism. Long-time Moscow correspondent Donald Murray analyses the creation of the first authentic parliaments in the Soviet Union and Russia and shows how Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin used and abused the democratic institutions they helped make possible. Donald Murray. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.