Frankenstein meets its monster

 

by Jeffrey St. Clair

While there have been several incarnations of “Russia” in the last 120 years the West played a huge role in creating this one. In the early 90s the Harvard Boys walked into Moscow almost unopposed and shocked the hell out of the economy, imposing austerity, privatization and deregulation schemes that gave rise to the oligarchs, impoverished tens of millions of Russians. The plan to privatize the public assets of St. Petersburg (neé Leningrad) was developed by Kissinger and Associates in concert with a young aide to the city’s mayor Anatoly Sobchak named Vladimir Putin. Frankenstein meets its monster.

+ The shock therapy regime imposed by neoliberal technocrats in the 90s resulted in the premature death of millions of Russians and, according to a Lancet study, reduced the life-expectancy of Russian men from 67 to 60 years. Austerity kills, here, there, everywhere.

+ Of course, it wasn’t only the neoliberals who helped shape Putin’s Russia, American evangelical Christians played their part.