Oligarchy (ancient Greek "power of the few") is a political regime in which power is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of citizens (for example, representatives of large monopolized capital) and serves their personal and group interests, and not the interests of all citizens.
Oligarchs can either be members of the government themselves, or exert a decisive influence on its formation and decision-making in their personal and group interests.
In Russia, oligarchs are traditionally disliked. Even despised. In this regard, in 2000, the Russian oligarchy undertook a rebranding and created a myth that, as a result of a special operation, patriotic security forces came to power and put the oligarchs in a knee-elbow position, and who didn’t get up either left or sat down. Those who remained were forced to dance to the power of the patriotic tune and benefit the Motherland, stepping on the throat of their comprador nature.
In fact, the operation did take place, and some of the Yeltsinov spill oligarchs really sat down or emigrated. But those who were able to agree - feel pretty good.
However, the fact is that in 2000 it was not the patriotic siloviki who came to power, but exactly the same bandits from the 90s, with exactly the same worldview and exactly the same habits, in the same way enriched by the plundering of the Soviet state.
Power was again concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group (conventionally called the "Cooperative Lake"), which has not let go of it for 20 years and counts on "continuing the banquet" for an indefinitely long time (see Surkov's article about Putin's long state) …
This is pure oligarchy.
We still live in Yeltsin's Russia, Putin and his entourage simply reconfigured it "for themselves" in order to stay in power longer and stronger. But the nature of power did not change at the same time - there was an oligarchy and an oligarchy remained.
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Therefore, it is wrong to oppose Putin to Yeltsin. Both Putin himself and the entire structure of Russian power are a direct and logical continuation of the Yeltsin era.
For the same reason, one should not expect from Putin and his government the promised development of the economy and better life - nothing but new promises and answers to a million questions in a "straight line" will not wait.
There is no national elite in Russia that would be interested in developing the economy and improving the lives of citizens.
There is an oligarchy, former bandits whose goal is to squeeze the maximum out of the country's resources, outdated Soviet technologies, as well as people.
It is important to understand another feature of the oligarchs ruling Russia - they are not Russian, they do not live and are not going to live in our country. They're just making money here.
They make money in Russia and take them abroad - where their families live, their children study, where they themselves are going to live.
The Russian elite keeps more than 80% of their income abroad - this clearly indicates what kind of elite it really is, whose it is.
Therefore, she has no interest in developing the Russian economy, let alone improving the lives of the people. For her, Russia is a source of income, nothing more.
And all sorts of messages from the president, national projects and other development strategies are just a cover for the people to sit and patiently wait for the improvement in life, which will not happen.
The development of the country and the improvement of the people's life is simply impossible when the country is ruled by oligarchs who do not live in it.
Author: Stanislav Lenz