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By Barry WoodProminent Swedish scholar and Russia specialist Anders Aslund Monday said Vladimir Putin is rebuilding Russia as an authoritarian1 regime and runs a corrupt2 government. VOA's Barry Wood has more.
Aslund says that after a promising3 start under President Boris Yeltsin, democracy has failed under his successor Vladimir Putin. Since at least 2002, he says, Mr. Putin has been undoing4 Russia's fragile advances in democracy and moving towards a corrupt authoritarianism5 in which the state is again dominant6. Speaking at Washington's Peterson Institute where he is a senior fellow, Aslund said President Putin and his inner circle are enriching themselves by fraudulently obtaining ownership shares in Russian energy companies.
"I think today we are seeing the greatest larceny7 in any country that we have ever seen, not counting Saudi Arabia where there is no clear distinction between state finances and family finances," said Anders Aslund.
Aslund says he does not expect Mr. Putin to surrender power when his presidential term expires next year. Outlining the central conclusions of his just published book, "Russia's Capitalist Revolution," Aslund says there can be no doubt that Russia has created a market economy. But, he says, Russia's market economy goes hand in hand with its increasingly authoritarian political structure.
"I don't think that this [system] can hold," he said. "I think it will break. It will break because of corruption8. And it will be a political break rather than an economic break."
Speaking at the same forum9, Harvard University Professor Richard Pipes says building Democracy in Russia is not easy.
"I'm not at all convinced that even if you had pure capitalism10 in Russia you would have the rise of democracy," said Richard Pipes. "Russians are very insecure people."
Just returned from three weeks in Russia, Pipes said President Putin and his policies are popular and that polls suggest he enjoys 70 percent support from the public. He said Russia has a long tradition of favoring a strong ruler and that people generally equate11 freedom with chaos12.
Aslund says Russia's economic success is impressive with high rates of economic growth and real advances in per capita living standards.
1 authoritarian | |
n./adj.专制(的),专制主义者,独裁主义者 | |
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2 corrupt | |
v.贿赂,收买;adj.腐败的,贪污的 | |
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3 promising | |
adj.有希望的,有前途的 | |
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4 undoing | |
n.毁灭的原因,祸根;破坏,毁灭 | |
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5 authoritarianism | |
权力主义,独裁主义 | |
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6 dominant | |
adj.支配的,统治的;占优势的;显性的;n.主因,要素,主要的人(或物);显性基因 | |
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7 larceny | |
n.盗窃(罪) | |
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8 corruption | |
n.腐败,堕落,贪污 | |
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9 forum | |
n.论坛,讨论会 | |
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10 capitalism | |
n.资本主义 | |
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11 equate | |
v.同等看待,使相等 | |
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12 chaos | |
n.混乱,无秩序 | |
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