Russia was as libertarian in the 90's as it was communist in the 80's.
You remind me of some Euro-Communists who argued that Soviet system wasn't true socialism and just tainted brilliant idea with bad implementation. Well, Soviet socialism was what could be realistically created then and there. Post-Soviet libertarianism was what could be realistically created then and there. I'm not sure that Russian libertarianism of 1920 vintage would have less warts than Russian libertarianism of 1991 vintage had.
The reason is sucked so badly was because it ends up the economic infrastructure built up by the USSR was horribly inefficient and the newly freed markets revealed this.
I'm not saying that libertarianism was the root cause of everything that screwed up post-communist Russia. It is just that majority of ones who lived then and there tend to think of libertarianism as being part of the problem, not part of the solution.
1. "As impossible" is a very strong word. Would a "libertarian" or Syndicalist Russia sponsor subversion abroad and endlessly propagandize about the Inevitable Victory of Communism, scaring everyone else?
Yes, the word is strong, but West (well, half of it) eventually allied itself with USSR. I'm not sure it will ally itself with Syndicalist Russia earlier as this "syndicalism" will inevitably be steeped in very serious socialist rhethoric. It is hard to imagine today how far left Russian society of 1900-1917 was. Even parties we usually position as "anti-communist" (due to hindsight knowledge of their opposition to Bolsheviks post-1917) were very left and SRs were
socialists, fer crying out loud. They would inevitably call their system "socialist" and, the more successfull and humane it would be the more danger it would be for ruling elites of Rest of the World (you himself wrote that elites did not fear
Russian communism, it did fear
socialist alternative). Sponsoring subversions? Entirely possible, IWW (anarcho-syndicalism) was very active in international mischief-making and Spanish syndicalist attracted fair number of foreign volunteers.
2. Even if Stalin's purges were not well-known to the public, there was also the terror-famine (Holodomor) and atrocity stories from the Revolution, like the Soviet somewhere in the Caucasus that nationalized women.
As far as Holodomor is concerned, don't try to project our today's reaction on what peoples thought (when they knew) of it then and there. Just 15 years pre-Holodomor hundreds of thousands of Germans died of hunger during WWI. Hunger was fact of life of significant minority (sources are very shy on numbers here, making do with modest "malnutrition became widespread", I do wonder why) simultaneously with Holodomor. It begs the question, was Holodomor powerful enough deterrent to kill thought of communism in the head of every Pierre, Peter and Piter who read accounts of it in rabid anti-labour newspaper while sitting next to his hungry kids and having no means to feed them through no fault of his own. Spooky stories about nationalization of women would, if anything, be much more widespread in syndicalist Russia as Bolsheviks, with their rigid party structure spreading from Kremlin all the way to tiny hamlets, were actually pretty good in weeding out "local enthusiasm" as far as implementation of socialism by overzealous and uneducated recent converts to socialist cause is concerned.
4. And if you're actually from the former USSR, has it ever occurred to you that you dismiss many of the accusations against the USSR as "propaganda" because that is what exactly you've been taught to do?
I can't claim with any degree of certainty that I'm immune to propaganda (beauty is in eye of beholder and humans are generally pretty bad in self-assessment) but I dare to say that my level of resistance is above average. It is not due to any superiority of my own, it is just consequence of soul-searching that thinking part of x-USSR's population (excluding Baltics) went through in 1985-1995. One who didn't live there and then can hardly imagine the amount of slaughter propagandistic holy cows went through. It creates certain cynical attitude and mistrust toward propaganda, believe me.
Well, I don't know of the others... It did to me. And it might be true, but not in the way you think. Back in 80's, and even 70's (although I haven't seen them.) US and "the West" in general were perceived as rivals, you know, some guys in a house next to you whom you really don't like and whio've got a better car, but not more than that.
I would say that you are quite wrong in assessing effectiveness of 1970s Soviet propaganda. It was dead by then, as far as educated part of population was concerned. Would "Pravda" write that sugar is sweet, majority of intelligentsia would automatically think that it is bitter. That "everyone believed americans can cross the Atlantic on foot and not get wet" attitude wasn't born in 1985 on a whim.
First, Russia isn't in the crapper because of liberalism or capitalism. It's doing poorly because its white knight was Yeltsin, a drunk theifing putz. Combine that with a populace born and raised knowing only autocratic rule and a failing command economy, and you have a very poor chance for a national turn over occuring in the immediate post-Communist period.
I quite agree with ac220v opposing yours painting Yeltsin as root cause of Russian problems. If anything, Russia was better off than anyone else (including poster success story Baltics) in 1991-1993, as far as living standards are concerned. At least, even in Komi x-GULAG factory towns what peoples ate was significantly different from what they crapped (although I owe to my buddy from those backwoods for brilliant joke "Crapper is the most expensive piece of furniture in my apartment. It consumes 80% of my salary.")
As for the real world validity of Libertarianism, I can only say that it makes far more sense to let individuals make more of their own decisions without governments, corporations, churches or any other organization having a great deal of control over their actions. Organizations are composed of people and are no more or less evil than any individual but they are slow to change and often become insensitive and callous.
I would say that answer is in the middle. Now, $1bln question is "how to find this optimum"
