Only a few years ago, American policymakers were confidently
predicting that a regimen of privatization and market reform would in
due course transform Russia into a stable and prosperous democracy.
America would smooth this transition and U.S. aid--unselfish and
urgent--would serve as a "bridge", enabling representatives from both
sides to implement their respective agendas. Pictures of "Bill" and
"Boris" embracing and beaming at the camera symbolized the promise of
a new era in U.S.-Russia relations, one that bore little resemblance
to the preceding decades of Cold War acrimony.
Today all that has passed away. Far from fulfilling their promise of
a better life, the U.S.-sponsored "reforms" of the 1990s have left
many, if not most, Russians worse off. For this state of affairs many
Russians today blame precisely the Western aid and advice they have
received. Some, indeed, believe that the United States set out
deliberately to destroy their economy.
How did the United States, by far the dominant partner in the
relationship, allow one of the most promising rapprochements of the
last century to founder? Rather than proceeding on the basis of
common sense and well-established modes of representation between
states, it acted upon an ideology implemented through a most dubious
mode of conducting relations between nations. The ideology--that of
radical privatization and marketization, applied in this instance in
a cold-turkey manner to a society with no recent experience of
either--is well known. The way in which advice and aid were given is
much less familiar, but it is a vital part of the story.
