The Day Russian Democracy Died

[pieter]

The Day Russian Democracy Died



Russia as a country is described by many as a dictatorship these days. Some people claim that Russia is a country that never had democracy in its history. I believe that it's not true. Russia did have democracy after the collapse of the USSR, but not for a very long time. Everything changed during the events known as "Black October" of 1993 in Moscow. Russia was in a constitutional crisis caused by a divide between president Boris Yeltsin and the parliament. The conflict got so hectic that president Yeltsin basically committed a coup, sending tanks to fire at the parliament building in Moscow. After this Yeltsin changed Russia's governmental system, essentially giving the president unlimited power and setting up everything that is happening in modern Russia. Let's talk about Russia's 1992-1993 constitutional crisis and the day Russian democracy died.

1993 Russian constitutional crisis



The 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, also known as the 1993 October Coup, Black October, the Shooting of the White House or Ukaz 1400, was a political stand-off and a constitutional crisis between the Russian president Boris Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation that ended in a bloody massacre of pro-parliamentary protestors when Yeltsin ordered the use of military force.

The relations between the president and the parliament had been deteriorating for some time. The power struggle reached its crisis on 21 September 1993, when President Yeltsin intended to dissolve the country's highest body (Congress of People's Deputies) and parliament (Supreme Soviet), although the constitution did not give the president the power to do so. Yeltsin justified his orders by the results of the referendum of April 1993, although many in Russia both then and now claim that referendum was not won fairly.

In response, the parliament declared the president's decision null and void, impeached Yeltsin and proclaimed vice president Aleksandr Rutskoy to be acting president. On 3 October, demonstrators removed militia cordons around the parliament and, urged by their leaders, took over the Mayor's offices and tried to storm the Ostankino television centre. The army, which had initially declared its neutrality, stormed the Supreme Soviet building in the early morning hours of 4 October by Yeltsin's order, and arrested the leaders of the resistance. At the climax of the crisis, Russia was thought by some to be "on the brink" of civil war. The ten-day conflict became the deadliest single event of street fighting in Moscow's history since the October Revolution.

According to the General Prosecutor's Office, 147 people were killed and 437 wounded.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_crisis

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

Open Russia

Open Russia (Russian: Открытая Россия; Otkrytaya Rossiya) is a political organisation founded by the exiled Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the shareholders of his firm, Yukos (a company closed in 2006). Khodorkovsky states that his organisation advocates democracy and human rights. The first initiative took the form of a foundation whose stated purpose was to "build and strengthen civil society in Russia", established in 2001. Khodorkovsky relaunched Open Russia in September 2014 as a nationwide community platform as part of a group of activities called "Open Media".

In 2017, the organisation was listed as undesirable by Russia's Prosecutor General, and its website banned in Russia. On 27 May 2021, Open Russia announced to cease its operations in Russia to protect its members from the risk of facing criminal prosecution and being imprisoned in the country. "Open Media" is now known as "Mozhem Obyasnit".

Mikhail Khodorkovsky



Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky (Russian: Михаил Борисович Ходорковский, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil xədɐrˈkofskʲɪj]; born 26 June 1963), sometimes known by his initials MBK, is an exiled Russian businessman and opposition activist, now residing in London. In 2003, Khodorkovsky was believed to be the wealthiest man in Russia, with a fortune estimated to be worth $15 billion, and was ranked 16th on Forbes list of billionaires. He had worked his way up the Komsomol apparatus, during the Soviet years, and started several businesses during the period of glasnost and perestroika in the late 1980s. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in the mid-1990s, he accumulated considerable wealth by obtaining control of a number of Siberian oil fields unified under the name Yukos, one of the major companies to emerge from the privatization of state assets during the 1990s (a scheme known as "Loans for Shares").

In 2001, Khodorkovsky founded Open Russia, a reform-minded organization intending to "build and strengthen civil society" in the country. In October 2003, he was arrested by Russian authorities and charged with fraud. The government under Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, then froze shares of Yukos shortly thereafter on tax charges. Putin's government took further actions against Yukos, leading to a collapse of the company's share price and the evaporation of much of Khodorkovsky's wealth. In May 2005, he was found guilty and sentenced to nine years in prison. In December 2010, while he was still serving his sentence, Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were further charged with and found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering, Khodorkovsky's prison sentence was extended to 2014. After Hans-Dietrich Genscher lobbied for his release, Putin pardoned Khodorkovsky, releasing him from jail on 20 December 2013.