re: #43 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave to the waffle light)

That is what I was getting at.

No, you also said that the mythical monolithic “they” “allowed” the chaos in order to seize power and that’s just nonsense, sorry. Those connected to the old power structures always had the power. They were just never an ideological monolith, in fact all the factions were bitter enemies. But most of them, whether Yeltsin, Gaidar and Chubais, or Putin, Medvedev and Ivanov, stem from that old power system.

Was there some lying in wait involved for some bitter clingers? Certainly. Was there any long-term plan? Nope.