Ten years ago this week the world held its breath as a political convulsion ran its course in Moscow. The collapse of a hardline coup d'etat on August 21st, 1991, due as much to bad organisation as to opposition from the public, ushered in an intense period of change and instability. Initially hopes were high of positive reforms, despite the demise of Mikhail Gorbachev, whose programme of change had won support from the West. Power moved rapidly to Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian component of the Soviet Union. The expectations were that movement towards democratic and economic reform would be swifter and more positive under his leadership.
Mr Yeltsin proved to be extremely adept at destroying the old Soviet structures and this, it is generally accepted, was the main achievement of his presidency. His ability to put effective new arrangements in their place proved to be severely limited. In power virtually from the end of the coup until the conclusion of the century, Mr Yeltsin presided over two terrible internal wars in the breakaway province of Chechnya, in which more Russian citizens lost their lives than at any time since Stalin was in power. His presidency also saw the establishment of a corrupt system of "wild capitalism" in which cronyism dominated the procedure for privatisation of state assets and, in many cases, the Makarov pistol became an everyday business tool.
In August, 1998, the economy lurched into a deep crisis. Russia defaulted on its international debt. Major banks collapsed and the emerging middle class saw its savings annihilated. The value of the rouble plummeted and for a short time the shelves on Russian food stores began to resemble those of old Soviet times. Mr Yeltsin, increasingly given to extremely unpredictable behaviour, surprised the world on the morning of December 31st, 1999, with the announcement that he was resigning his post. He appointed the little-known former KGB spy, Mr Vladimir Putin, as his successor and was immediately given an amnesty from prosecution at a time when allegations of corruption beset him and his family.
The 1998 devaluation of the rouble gave the economy a boost. Mr Putin's taking over the reins of power coincided with a massive rise in oil prices and with oil exports making up 80 per cent of the country's hard currency revenues, Russia may now be on the brink of a period of strong economic growth. Economic growth for the first half of this year, for example, was more than 5 per cent. The indications are that Russia's weak economic and military position will not last forever. This is something the western powers, particularly the United States, would do well to take into account when tempted to act unilaterally.