ABSTRACT
At the end of President Vladimir Putin’s second term, Russians viewed their political system through the prism of what they perceived to be the state weakness and chaos of the 1990s. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russian citizens were left without many of the supports that they had become used to during the Soviet era. Having lost the guarantees of a basic standard of living and free health care, they were left on their own in a vicious new capitalist system. They watched their economy plummet, as gross domestic product dropped 43.3 percent between 1991 and 1998.1 Powerful oligarchs grabbed the most lucrative assets of the state in rigged auctions that favored insiders. As the apparent loser in the Cold War, Russia saw its international standing drop from being one of two superpowers to that of mere regional power. Only the dramatic financial collapse of 1998 was finally able to shake up the old system enough to set the country on a course for economic growth. Russia’s economy began to recover in 1999.
