An Empire's New Clothes
The End of Russia's Liberal Dream
Bruce Clark
393 pages including index
published in 1995, updated 1996

I bought this book last year as a present for Sandra (she likes reading about politics) and came across it again a couple of days ago, trawling through her bookshelves looking for something to read.

An Empire's New Clothes tells the story of Russia's recent history. It traces the political developments in Russia from about 1989 onwards, through the breakup of the USSR up till the midnineties and the 1996 elections. To outsiders, those years seemed to be filled with chaos: first there was the 1991 coup that ended the Soviet Union, followed in 1993 by the nationalist coup against Yeltsin, in which the latter order the shelling of Russian parliament's building --the same building he defended in 1991! After that there was the war in Chechnya and in between it seemed Yeltsin's government changed direction every week.

Bruce Clark attempts to show that this view, the western view of Rusia is wrong, that Russia is not as weak or chaotic as we think and that there's method to the chaos. He shows how the liberal dream of Russia, that Russia would become a "normal" western liberal democratic state has failed. Instead the old power structures of Tsarist and communist Russia have been restablished with the president holding almost all the reigns of power.

What has changed, is the approach to how the economy should be run. In the late 1980ties it became clear to a small group of young, intelligent economists that communism had failed and Russia should follow neoliberal capitalist practises. Under Yeltsin's government, these have been put into practise, helping Russia become strong again.

It's neigh impossible for me to give more then the barest outlines of this book, it wills uffice to say Bruce Clark makes his case clearly and with conviction. He gives a good overview of Russia's political scene, concentrating both on Yeltsin and co and his opponents. For everybody who wants to get a grip on Russia's political situation, this is a good book to start with.