In Russia, associates of President Boris Yeltsin talked of the “dangers of democracy” and complained that “most representative bodies have become a hindrance to our [market] reforms.” (Nation, 12/2/91 and 5/4/92). Apparently, the free market, said by “reformers” to be the very foundation of political democracy, could not be introduced through democratic means. In 1992, the presidents of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Russia demanded that their parliaments be suspended and they be allowed to rule by presidential decree, with repressive measures against “hardliners” and “holdovers” who resisted the
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