From Cold War To Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia

by Michael McFaul

At the same time, the way Yeltsin achieved victory did not feel virtuous. He had run a negative campaign, stoking voters’ fears about the perils of communist restoration. He had used state resources to win—not exactly in keeping with “free and fair.” And allegations of electoral fraud dampened the celebration about Russian democracy’s resilience. More generally, the Russian political system still lacked many attributes of a consolidated, liberal democracy. This vote had been, more than anything, a referendum on communism, not an affirmation of democracy or Yeltsin and his policies. My mixed feelings about the vote were captured by two different headlines for the same exact op-ed. The title of my piece in the Moscow Times was “A Victory for Optimists.” The title of the same piece in the Washington Post was “Russia: Still a Long Way to Go.”13 The task moving forward, then, was to strengthen the institutions that make democracy endure: political parties, civil society, and an independent judiciary.

1996 elections