Wow, without clicking the link, guess who said this: ...the moment that proved decisive in shaping people’s attitude toward the democrats was the voucher scam (the controversial privatization voucher program of the 1990s in Russia). And it seems to me that the public might even have forgiven the whole scheme if its authors had publicly repented, admitted that they did not know how to tackle the financial difficulties, and that they had decided to follow the advice of sponsors from Chicago and Harvard, who did not understand the situation in the country. But that never happened. And at the same time, another process was already unfolding quietly—the unchecked enrichment of the Komsomol-Party elite close to those in power. ***And then, seemingly out of nowhere, like mushrooms after rain, on the one hand the oligarchs appeared, and on the other a mass of impoverished people. Then the main instrument of democracy—elections—was compromised. Remember the Xerox paper box? We saw one on TV—but how many were there really? As a result, the image of the reformer, the image of the democrat in Russia, was compromised immediately and for a long time. ***[\\\]({{URL_1}}) via allan999