Communist rule. This had bred many social problems which, in effect,
mirror those of the Communist administration. Religious and ethnic
animosity and the lack of proper education in this new political and
economic system has lead to public discontent and a rise in the
alcoholism problem. There has been recent improvements in the
distribution of wealth. There have been improvements in the
privatization process, especially in the building sector, this could
bring the expansion of small-scale property ownership, which is also
an important step towards private ownership. There is also a stronger
entrepreneurial spirit among lower class society. Yet with the lack of
any experience in private proprietorship and private business
practices the population of the Russian Federation is still not taking
to the new system. For too many years it was imprinted on them that
everything must be publicly owned. Much of this can to attributed to
the Communist tradition of not communicating with the public, which is
a core part of any democratic system, the public participation and
communication in and with government. With the apparent lack of public
participation in government, and in turn the lack of communication by
the government with the people we can see that the Russian Federation
is far from being democratic. The government acted too quickly in it’s
economic reforms with not enough practical experience in
Democratic/Capitalistic to pull it off. We saw that some of the major
contributing factors in the fall of communism was the dissension of
the citizens due to the fact that the government did not live up to
it’s promise of a better life and the failure of the government to
properly deal with social problems. The other factors were economic,
many of which we can see are apparent in the new system. In it’s
current situation we are seeing the same factors. Unless these
problems are addressed quickly and resolved effectively we will see
the decline of yet another Russian governmental system. On looking at
the past we can see that the Russian public must overcome many hurdles
in order for them to truly embrace Democracy and enjoy the promises of
a better life that it has made. The government must promote the
education of it’s citizens and communicate more efficiently with them.
There is a long road ahead for the Russian Federation in this enormous
task, and at this time it almost seems impossible.
—
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