The Lessons of a Russian

Abstract

It appears that immediately after the Central Electoral Commission totalled up the preliminary results, postelection fever and hysteria broke out, embracing not only politicians and journalists but a portion of the public as well, and that very widespread myths took hold, serving as the base on which public consciousness has attempted to adapt to a new political reality. A calm professional analysis now shows, however, that much of what happened to us simply could not have occurred otherwise, that clear roots and obvious causes existed. There is much we simply did not want to notice or to acknowledge, while attempting to pass off the desirable for the real and reality for a myth. But timidity of the mind has taken its toll, and the time has now come to draw some lessons.