Yeltsin signed the Belavezha accords, the papers that dissolved the Soviet Union on Dec. 8, 1991. The communist empire ended that day, with no air-raid sirens, no mushroom clouds, none of the nightmare imagery that had haunted two generations of Americans and Soviets. There were just six men--the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus--holed up in a hunting lodge in an ancient forest near the Polish border, declaring their secession and toasting the death of the Soviet Union.

1991年12月8日，葉利欽簽署了別洛韋日協議，解散了蘇聯。這個共產帝國在這一天完結了，沒有空襲警報，沒有蘑菇雲，沒有這些纏繞了美蘇兩國兩代人的噩夢。在場的只有6個人，是俄羅斯、烏克蘭和白俄羅斯的領導人。他們躲在波蘭邊境上的古老森林裡的獵人小屋裡，宣告退出蘇聯，舉杯慶祝蘇聯的死亡。

The willful disbanding of the Soviet empire was supposed to ring in a new era of cooperation, especially between the world's superpowers, the U.S. and Russia. One of the first calls Yeltsin made after the signing, even before they called Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, was to U.S. President George H.W. Bush. When the breakup was finalized a few weeks later and Gorbachev turned power over to Yeltsin, Bush went on television to proclaim the event "a victory for democracy and freedom." It was, in effect, the last war America won. The hope was that Russians had won it too.

率性的解散蘇聯按說應該開啟美蘇兩超級大國合作的新時代。簽署了協議之後，葉利欽首先打電話通知的不是蘇聯主席米哈伊爾·戈爾巴喬夫，而是美國總統喬治·HW·布什。幾個星期之後，戈爾巴喬夫把權力移交給葉利欽，完成了蘇聯的解散。布什在電視上宣布了“民主和自由的勝利”。實際上，這是美國贏得的最新戰爭勝利。希望俄國也同樣地贏。

But that victory was short-lived. Egged on by American free-market economists, the reformers broke up state holdings and auctioned them off for pennies on the dollar. Millions of Russians lost their jobs as hyperinflation wiped out their savings. Russia's GDP fell by 13% in 1991, 19% in 1992 and 12% in 1993, according to the International Monetary Fund. The country sank into a brutal depression. Free elections in 1993 packed the parliament with communists and nationalists who declared war against Yeltsin's policies; earlier that year, lawmakers had voted for Yeltsin's impeachment, and the would-be democrat ordered tanks to fire on the parliament building. Hundreds were killed, and by the time the smoke cleared, the country had lost faith in democracy.

但是勝利維持不久。在美國的自由市場經濟學家的慫恿下，俄國的改革家們拿出國家的財產，三錢不值兩錢的把它們拍賣了。成百萬的俄羅斯人失去了工作，惡性通貨膨脹掃光了他們的積蓄。俄國的GDP在1991年萎縮了13%，1992年19%，1993年12%，這是根據國際貨幣基金組織的統計。這個國家陷入殘酷的大蕭條。1993年的自由選舉使國會充滿了共產黨人和民族主義者，他們向葉利欽的政策宣戰。此年早些時候，議員們通過了對葉利欽的彈劾案，可是這個本該是民主派的葉利欽卻下令開坦克炮轟國會大廈，打死了好幾百人。這場硝煙散去後，這個國家對民主失去了信心。

The glow of freedom in those first post-Soviet years--the liberty to travel wherever, read whatever, vote for whomever--faded quickly. Russians' ballots, they learned, did not slow the slide into disorder or hold leaders to account. They got the worst of democracy, all uncertainty and no accountability. Fatalism, never far from the Russian psyche, set in. Better to focus on scraping out a living for yourself than on building a better society.

蘇聯解散後初期的自由光環——自由旅行、自由閱讀、自由選舉，很快就退色了。俄羅斯人認識到，他們的選票並沒有減緩國家陷入混亂，沒有產生可靠的領導人。他們從民主中得到了最壞的東西，全都是不確定和不可靠的。俄國人的精神本來就傾向宿命論，這下就更甚了。他們覺得與其建設好社會，不如努力過好自己的日子。

Worse yet, Russians feel that the West abandoned them in their time of need; in the minds of many, the bardak of the '90s was America's fault. The U.S.-led economic reforms were a disaster, and there's an argument to be made that the U.S. exploited the weakness of the new Russia by circumventing Moscow to gain quick influence in oil-rich former Soviet republics in Central Asia. "We expected they would pursue their interests," Burbulis says, "but we never thought they would be so blunt about it." There was never a Marshall Plan for Russia, in part because there was a strong undercurrent of schadenfreude in Washington about its former enemy's struggles.

更糟的是，俄國人覺得西方在他們最需要幫助時拋棄了他們。在許多人心目中，九十年代的混亂是美國人的錯。美國指導的經濟改革是一場災難。有一個觀點認為，美國利用俄羅斯新立國的弱點，繞開莫斯科，去快速地影響中亞的前蘇聯國家。布爾布利斯說：“我們知道美國要追求自己的利益，但不知道他們見了利益就忘了一切。”從來沒有過給俄國的馬歇爾計劃，在華盛頓卻有着眼看過去的敵人受罪而幸災樂禍的暗流。