Tony Wood teaches Latin American history at the University of Colorado–Boulder. He is the author of several books and editor of Paths of Revolution, a selection of Adolfo Gilly’s writings.
Adolfo Gilly witnessed some of the most dramatic events in Latin American history and wrote about them with unparalleled clarity. With his recent passing, the Latin American left lost one of its most compelling voices.
After the Soviet Union’s fall, the West backed Boris Yeltsin as a paragon of democracy, even as his administration rigged elections and empowered a new capitalist class. Now, under Vladimir Putin, the crisis of Russia’s democracy is only intensifying.
Very little about the horrific war that Russia is waging against Ukraine seems based on solid calculations by Vladimir Putin. It’s hard to imagine the war benefiting Russia in the long run. Why, then, is Putin waging it?
Twenty years ago, a crisis of Russian capitalism doomed Moscow’s pro-Western regime and gave birth to the Putin era.