Who Lost Russia? A rogues' gallery from a decade ago

Last February, I was inspired to collect a bunch of references from the past 10 years to westerners asking "who lost Russia?"

At the time, I promised a follow-up post, which has now been over a year in coming (no doubt you've all been waiting...). But since my original post, there's been a new twist on the question - last March, a WaPo columnist asked, "Who's to Blame for Russia?" - modifying the old "who lost Russia?" question by stirring in one of Russian philosophy's "eternal questions."

And the question came up in an interesting interview with Mark Medish:

(Konstandakopoulos) Who lost Russia?

(Medish) Russia may not have been lost. If it was lost in any sense of the word, it was lost by the Russians. Not from outside. I do not believe that those outside have the gift of losing countries. And this is the wrong way to think of the world. It is up to the Russians what to do with their country. If they feel themselves to be losers, it is because of their policies.

(Konstandakopoulos) I phrased the question in this way because this is how you traditionally do.

(Medish) US tradition teaches us how Americans think of the world, not how the world is. We go through cycles of high expectations and disappointments from other countries.

(Konstandakopoulos) A new cold war?

(Medish) I don't think so. There is no ideological component. Russia went through a transitional phase, it was quite weak, it sought a new identity after the collapse of the empire.

(Konstandakopoulos) What do you mean by transition? A transition to what?

(Medish) Good question. To begin with, a transition from something, from empire, from a communist-controlled political system, to something that they should decide. It is up to Russia whether to win or to lose. The ability of Europe and the United States to decide what the new Russian identity will be is extremely limited. We should not delude ourselves.

Actually, another variant on the question was posed last year as well: "Who Lost Moldova?" But I digress. The first anniversary of Yeltsin's death (which was yesterday, if I'm not mistaken) seems like a good time to revisit the 1990s. And an excellent vehicle for a trip back in time is a 1999 NYT Magazine article on the era, and specifically the illustrations to the article. Presumably, they are intended to depict people who, one way or another, were involved in "losing" Russia. I've listed the individuals pictured, in case you can't read the captions, and I tried to provide some links to bios in case you hadn't heard about some of these folks in the past few years.



David Lipton, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers; Anatoly Chubais; Boris Yeltsin and President Clinton; Tatyana Dyachenko.

Gennadi Zyuganov; Strobe Talbott and Viktor Chernomyrdin; Yegor Gaidar; Jeffrey Sachs.


Sergei Stepashin; Viktor Chernomyrdin and Vice President Gore; Vladimir Gusinsky; Boris Berezovsky.

Obviously one shouldn't attach too much meaning to the selection of photos, but it's interesting that the only guy who shows up twice, Chernomyrdin, still has a not unimportant job, and that Khodorkovsky did not merit placement in this photo array at all.