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，叶利钦签署了别洛韦日协议，解散了苏联。这个共产帝国在这一天完结了，没有空袭警报，没有蘑菇云，没有这些缠绕了美苏两国两代人的噩梦。在场的只有6个人，是俄罗斯、乌克兰和白俄罗斯的领导人。他们躲在波兰边境上的古老森林里的猎人小屋里，宣告退出苏联，举杯庆祝苏联的死亡。

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.

率性的解散苏联按说应该开启美苏两超级大国合作的新时代。签署了协议之后，叶利钦首先打电话通知的不是苏联主席米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫，而是美国总统乔治·HW·布什。几个星期之后，戈尔巴乔夫把权力移交给叶利钦，完成了苏联的解散。布什在电视上宣布了“民主和自由的胜利”。实际上，这是美国赢得的最新战争胜利。希望俄国也同样地赢。

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.

但是胜利维持不久。在美国的自由市场经济学家的怂恿下，俄国的改革家们拿出国家的财产，三钱不值两钱的把它们拍卖了。成百万的俄罗斯人失去了工作，恶性通货膨胀扫光了他们的积蓄。俄国的GDP在1991年萎缩了13%，1992年19%，1993年12%，这是根据国际货币基金组织的统计。这个国家陷入残酷的大萧条。1993年的自由选举使国会充满了共产党人和民族主义者，他们向叶利钦的政策宣战。此年早些时候，议员们通过了对叶利钦的弹劾案，可是这个本该是民主派的叶利钦却下令开坦克炮轰国会大厦，打死了好几百人。这场硝烟散去后，这个国家对民主失去了信心。

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.

苏联解散后初期的自由光环——自由旅行、自由阅读、自由选举，很快就退色了。俄罗斯人认识到，他们的选票并没有减缓国家陷入混乱，没有产生可靠的领导人。他们从民主中得到了最坏的东西，全都是不确定和不可靠的。俄国人的精神本来就倾向宿命论，这下就更甚了。他们觉得与其建设好社会，不如努力过好自己的日子。

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，俄国人觉得西方在他们最需要帮助时抛弃了他们。在许多人心目中，九十年代的混乱是美国人的错。美国指导的经济改革是一场灾难。有一个观点认为，美国利用俄罗斯新立国的弱点，绕开莫斯科，去快速地影响中亚的前苏联国家。布尔布利斯说：“我们知道美国要追求自己的利益，但不知道他们见了利益就忘了一切。”从来没有过给俄国的马歇尔计划，在华盛顿却有着眼看过去的敌人受罪而幸灾乐祸的暗流。