Great Russian philosopher Alexander Zinoviev predicted the new cold war well before the old one ended in 1990.
Only 9% of the electorate would have voted for Boris Yeltsin should he have run for President in June 2016, a poll by the Levada Center revealed recently. Well in June 1991, he was elected the first president of the Russian Federation as the USSR’s constituent republic by 57% of the voters.
These two figures would give you an idea of a degree of disillusionment of the Russians in the promises of democracy and free markets that paved Yeltsin’s way to power.
Yet there was one person who with frighteningly graphic detail described the disasters that would befall the Soviet state and the Russian people should the likes of Yeltsin ever be put in charge.
Alexander Zinoviev (passed away in May 2006), a philosopher and sociologist, a WWII combat pilot and a political exile in the West who was still banned from the USSR in spite of the policy of glasnost. This happened in 1990 in a live debate on French TV with aspiring opposition politician Boris Yeltsin.
But this video is only a small part of the debate. RI published a longer transcript that is full of even more striking forecasts.
RI works in close cooperation with the Alexander Zinoviev Club at the International News Agency Rossiya Segodnya. Essays by Alexander Zinoviev and by the club members have been extremely popular with our readers.
RI’s Editor, Charles Bausman, was awarded the Oles Buzina Prize for Journalismestablished by the Club.
by Alexei Pankin