VOA

VOA

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. December marks twenty years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev was the last Soviet leader. His reforms influenced the Soviet Union's fall. In nineteen eighty-five, Mr. Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He was fifty-four years old - the youngest member of the ruling committee, called the Politburo, that voted him into power. For the next six years, Mr. Gorbachev worked toward a series of reforms that radically changed the Soviet Union. His reforms included loosening press restrictions and releasing political prisoners and dissidents from jail and exile within the country. One institution Mr. Gorbachev failed to reform, however, was the Soviet Communist Party. And it was people within the party, along with the leadership of the military and the KGB, the Soviet intelligence service, that attempted a coup against Mr. Gorbachev in nineteen ninety-one. The coup failed. And the Soviet Union collapsed four months later. On December twenty-fifth, nineteen ninety-one Mr. Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president. Russia has made major economic progress since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Incomes have increased sharply. But twenty years after demonstrations against communism, Russians are again taking to the streets. This time the demonstrations are not for capitalist revolution, but for democratic reform. Masha Lipman marched in the nineteen ninety-one protests. She is now an expert at Carnegie Moscow Center. MASHA LIPMAN: "It's very symbolic that we are having this public activism on the rise exactly twenty years after the collapse of the USSR." In nineteen ninety-one the major concern was economic. Vladimir Ryzhkov, at the time, was trying to run a provincial city. VLADIMIR RYZHKOV: "The economy was destroyed. Nothing worked. I remember we had meetings every day to discuss very simple questions: Where could we get coal? Where could we get kerosene? We even had a meeting to figure out how to assure the supply of bread and milk for the city." In the twenty years since the Soviet collapse, Russians' real incomes have increased. But democratic institutions have not kept up. Public opinion expert Lev Gudkov says institutions did not evolve with Russia's consumer economy. LEV GUDKOV: "Government is still vertical, it is not controlled by the society and in essence, despite all the changes, is built the same way it was built in the Soviet Union. And its base is mainly political police, criminal police, there is no independent court, prosecution and system of education." Next March, Russian citizens will elect a new president to replace Dmitry Medvedev. Former president and current prime minister, Vladimir Putin is expected to win. Russian President Medvedev is stepping down to make way for Mr. Putin's candidacy. Suspected cheating in the December fourth Russian parliamentary elections has caused the largest protests since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Activists say Mr. Putin's United Russia party illegally won a narrow majority. They want to throw out the results and hold a new vote. And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English written by Brianna Blake. I'm Mario Ritter.

这里是美国之音慢速英语新闻报道。 今年的12月是苏联解体20周年，米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫是苏联最后一位领导人，他的改革影响了苏联的瓦解。 1985年，戈尔巴乔夫当选为苏联共产党总书记，他当时年仅54岁，是苏共中央局最年轻的委员，是政治局投票支持他上台。 随后的六年间，戈尔巴乔夫致力于一系列从根本上改变苏联的改革，包括放松出版限制，释放监禁和流亡国内的政治犯和异见者。 然而，戈尔巴乔夫未能改革的机构，确是苏联共产党。1991年，党内人士、军队领导人和苏联情报机构克格勃试图发起一场反对戈尔巴乔夫的政变。 这场政变失败了，4个月后苏联解体了。1991年12月25日，戈尔巴乔夫辞去苏联主席一职。 苏联解体后，俄罗斯经济取得了重大进步，收入快速增长。但在反苏共抗议20年后，俄罗斯人再次走上街头。这次不是进行资本主义革命，而是要求进行民主改革。 Masha Lipman参加了1991年的抗议，如今她是莫斯科卡内基中心一名专家。 Masha Lipman：“苏联解体整整20年后，这次公众行动主义的崛起具有象征意义。” 1991年的主要问题是经济，弗拉基米尔·雷日科夫当时正努力治理一个省级城市。 弗拉基米尔·雷日科夫：“经济被毁了，一切停止了运转。我还记得每天都要开会，讨论很简单的问题：哪里能弄到煤？哪里弄到煤油？我们甚至还开会研究怎么确保本市的面包和牛奶供应。” 苏联解体后20年的今天，俄罗斯人的实际收入已经增加。但民主体制却没跟上。 公众意见专家Lev Gudkov称，体制并没有随着俄罗斯消费经济的发展而进步。 Lev Gudkov：“政府机构仍是垂直性的，本质上不是由社会来控制的，尽管有了变化，事实上与苏联的构成是一样的。政府的基础主要是政治警察、刑事警察，没有独立的法院、检查和教育体系。” 明年三月，俄罗斯人民将选出一位新总统代替梅德韦杰夫。前总统兼现任总理普京有望胜出，俄罗斯总统梅德韦杰夫将卸任，为普京参选让路。 12月的俄罗斯第四届议会选举涉嫌舞弊，引发自苏联解体来最大规模的抗议。活动分子称，普京的俄罗斯统一党以非法手段微弱取得优势，他们希望放弃这次选举结果，重新投票。 这里是美国之音慢速英语新闻报道，作者Brianna Blake，我是Mario Ritter。