I don't think Gaidar ever believed Russia could become a democracy and I don't think he ever said it could. I don't think he ever took any action to promote democracy, and my blog has never praised him for doing so. Your claim that we have is BOLDFACED LIE , pure and simple. You've twisted our words to suit your own propagandistic purposes, and that is an outrage. You didn't even do us the courtesy of quoting us in your original comment. Disgusting!
What Gaidar wanted was to make Russia as benign a state as possible, and to make it as difficult to consolidate power for a dictator as possible. This is basically the same idea that the American founding fathers had. They didn't create true democracy (they excluded women and blacks from voting guarantees), but they did create a government that was failsafe against dictatorship. Moreover, stopping a Hitler is not the same thing as electing a Ronald Reagan. There's lots and lots in between and Gaidar was not so stupid to fail to notice that (even if you are).
It turned out Gaidar was exactly correct, and Russia did almost immediately lapse back into autocracy. Had he not done as he did, Putin's power would be far greater now. He's spent almost his whole term of office scrambling to collect the broken pieces of power left by Gaidar.
Labeling "absurd" views you don't agree with is the mark of a nasty undereducated little child (or a meglomaniac). It's amazing that you can proceed in such a childish and haughty manner and yet dispense criticism of others as being beneath you. A slug's belly is not beneath you. Russia is the best country in the world . . . except for all the others!
Finally - and I mean finally - labeling in an internet discussion (as a side remark outside the scope of one's reply) a stated opinion of an (obvious) non-expert as "absurd", is by no means and in no way the sort of invective you seem to think it is. It's not. It is a statement of dismissive opinion. On the other hand, your demeanor over here has been anything but polite. I really don't think that the proponents of the Ann Coulter school of argumentation can lecture on debating manners. In fact your behavior here (as seen in your reply above) is truly "the mark of a nasty undereducated little child (or a meglomaniac)". And while I might very well be a "moron", I leave our readers to judge our relative IQ levels based on what we have respectively written.
All this if indeed you are not an FSB operative, a possibility that I find more and more likely with each of your responses. If that's the case, you are a genius and you are doing your masters a great service. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake
