主题：西方，西方媒体，中国，俄国，智者。 -- CaoMeng

通过西方的瞳孔-俄国是整么被误解的

Shock Therapy

休克疗法

The decline of the Soviet system mirrored the of other great historical empires –from Persia and Rome to the Hapsburgs and the Ottomans: all were characterized by the inability of an all-powerful centre to micro-manage an increasingly complex and diversified periphery while containing the inevitable centrifugal forces.

苏联制度的衰退反映了历史上其他伟大帝国的失败-从波斯到罗马到哈布斯堡王朝到奥斯曼帝国：所有上述者都是典型的强力的中央无法微观管理一个越来越复杂，越多元化的边陲而继续约束不可避免的各种离心势力。

Gorbachev’s misguided attempt at stepwise reform of the socialist system – gradually loosening political control while maintaining tight command over the economy – was an objective lesson in how not to reform.

戈尔巴乔夫错误地改造社会主义的企图步骤 – 慢慢放松政治掌握一边继续紧抓计划经济 – 是一个客观的不该整么样改革的课程。

Unlike China, which allowed the gradual development of a parallel private economy under the ridged political oversight of the Communist Party, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dismantling of its command structure amounted to simply ripping out the control unit, allowing the decerebrated body to reorganize itself as best it could in what was to become a grotesque parody of Adam Smith liberalism.

不像中国那样让与计划经济平行的私人企业在共产党严格控制下逐步发展，苏联的崩溃和它指挥中心的拆卸相当于简单地剖出控制单元，让无脑的身体自己重新组建自己，完全变成了亚当史密斯自由主义的一个奇形怪状滴滑稽模仿体。

The economic systems of our developed countries function not in some stellar vacuum based on the abstract, mechanical workings of free-market dynamics, but rather within a framework developed over decades if not centuries: an extensive body of legislation,business practices, regulatory bodies, and most vitally, a complex system of checks and balances against the depredations of unconstrained capital – a robust civil society, political parties representing competing economic interests, labour unions, a relatively independent judiciary and in the best of cases, a diverse (if not precisely “free”) press.

我们发达国家的经济系统不是在一些星际真空中根据抽象，机械的自由市场动态原则来发挥作用的， 而是运行于一个通过了几十年如果不是几百年发展起来的框架中： 一个丰富的机构包括法规，商业惯例，监管机构，然后最重要的，一个复杂的用于对不受约束的掠夺资本的制衡系统-一个强大的民间社会，代表各派经济利益竞争的各党派政党，工会，一个比较独立的司法机构和在最佳环境中，一个多元化（如果不是真正地“自由”）的媒体。

Russia, of course, had none of these. Soviet legislation was grotesquely unsuited for the workings of a liberal economy.

俄国，当然，没有任何这些东西。 苏联的法规是完全不能对付一个自由经济的运作的。

The press was openly controlled by a handful of oligarchs, with journalists bought and sold like cattle. Government regulators were ineffective in the best of cases, available for rental in the remainder.

媒体被一帮少数的寡头们明目滴掌握，记者们被像牲口一样买卖。政府监管官员，在最好的情况下是无能为力，其他时候可作出租。

Political parties served the economic interests of their owners.

政党为它们的主人的经济利益服务。

By the middle of the decade, a small group of men had – by means fair or foul – succeeded in gaining control of the only truly value-accretive sectors of the Soviet economy, the natural resources exporters, while creating a banking system which lived by parasitizing the State.

在这10年的中期（草蜢注：指90年代中期）， 一小帮男人-通过正常和非正常手段-成功地掌握了苏联经济中唯一价值增值部分，自然资源出口，同时创建了一个扮演国家寄生虫角色的银行机构。

In the absence of any substantial countervailing powers, the oligarchs could buy, bribe, or upon occasion, shoot away any attempts at constraint – only after the inevitable crisis, with the rise of Vladimir Putin, was there to be a counterforce powerful enough to break the political stranglehold of the oligarchy.

在没有任何反对势力的情况下，寡头们可以随心所欲地买，贿赂，或有时候，击毙任何约束-只有在不可避免的危机以后，普京的崛起，才有了一个强有力的反对力量将寡头们的政治束缚打破。

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