by Amarynth for the Saker Blog

This book was recommended by one of our commenters in the Movable Feast Café. Initially I was going to put it aside to read later but that evening, while transferring it to my tablet, I paged through and … sleep was impossible. Despite the deeply serious and existential nature of the subject matter, it is just simply a fascinating read, almost like an historical spy-detective novel, featuring the real killers, war-makers, economic dirty deeds and hands of the main players in the Western and Russian theaters over approximately the last 100 years.

You will come away from reading Starikov’s book with an overall view of how Central Banking started, the details, how did it root in Russia and in historical England, France and the US. The characterization is rich and you will find no graphs and no obscurantist economic theory – only the richly sketched characters and the unadorned historical events that tell the story with clarity.

Surprisingly, there are almost no English reviews of this book. I found this short one. https://nstarikov.ru/rouble-nationalization-the-way-to-russias-freedom-20803

Published in Russian in 2010 and translated into English in 2013, I can only wonder why it is that I came across this book only now, and decided to correct the issue of a scarcity of English reviews. For those that tend not to read economics books, this is the economics book to read and you may understand by this description that this book does not fit the normal economics book model. It is a fun read with captivating content that will keep you turning the pages. For an economics book dealing with weighty issues such as sovereignty and ‘the money emission machine’, this is high praise and a ‘fun’ economics book most probably either defies the nature of economics, or makes it very real.  In Starikov’s book, it becomes very real.

This is the book that explains Sovereignty and Central Banking from the perspective of the historical happenings around the start of Central Banking up to the early 2010’s. In combination with the main theme of sovereignty, the dark underbelly of countries being deprived of any sovereignty is well presented. Set contextually in historical and geopolitical events, Starikov leaves no stone unturned as to who was killed and why the various wars were spawned; to birth world dominating wealth and power enabled through central banking.

Starikov explains sovereignty as follows:

“State sovereignty means supremacy of the state within its borders as well as its autonomy in the international affairs.”

“State sovereignty is incompatible with any interference from the outside. A sovereign state is the one to decide for itself and to reap the fruits of these decisions. The country itself has to determine its path of development; …”

And then he goes on to say that very few modern states are sovereign “…the reality is completely different. It is exactly the opposite. Nearly all countries of the modern world are forced to conduct policies that are very far from their national interests.“ Despite many efforts, such as refusal to enter the IMF and sign the Bretton Woods agreement, Russia lost full sovereignty as a result of losing the cold war

Starikov outlines the concept of sovereignty according to five aspects:

1. The recognition of the territory of the country by the international community, the flag, the national emblem and the national anthem.

2. The diplomatic sovereignty, implying the ability to pursue an independent international policy,

3. The military sovereignty — the ability to rebuff an aggressor and to provide security for yourself and your allies;

4. The economical sovereignty — the economical and industrial development, providing for further advancement of the country out of its internal reserves.

5. Cultural sovereignty.

He then measures and plots Russia’s sovereignty during the last +- 100 years against those 5 aspects, and compares and contrasts with the UK and the US. The historical grasp of this book stretches from the first British Central bank, through entering into the First World War, and then sketches the history, using historical events, right through to 2010. The historical stories are those that are not generally known, particularly from a western perspective. Many we have read and learnt about in history, yet, not quite with the almost casual élan that Starikov employs to paint the historical contextual picture of how countries are denied their own sovereignty, employing all methods, by fair means or foul.

I specifically enjoyed the first 5 chapters which take an in-depth look at what happened at the end of the 2nd World War. We are treated with stories such as:

“Who was knighted upon Stalin’s death and why?”, and

“Why Stalin did not sign the Bretton Woods agreement.”

A mini bookend follows with chapter 6, a classical treatment of how the ‘advocate of peace’ Benito Mussolini ended up supporting the war. I would venture to guess that many, even those educated and knowledgeable on this historical period will find political backstabbing and betrayal forming part of the bigger story of the a concerted war against sovereignty, that they did not know about.

The next section surprisingly turns to earlier history and mainly British Central Bank roots, including some fascinating history on both France and Canada and ending with the American story of central banking and the Dollar take-over of the world’s economic stage.

So, now we have the Dollar and while the historical cameos that make up the complete book teach something in and of themselves, together they all orchestrate the basis of the book: how Russia (and others) can and must regain true sovereignty and fulfill all 5 aspects.  It is an existential matter.   The second last chapter, titled ‘Snipers in World History’, cements part of his theory that countries are deprived of any ability toward sovereignty and he details various historical events, such as Kyrgyzstan – June 2010, Iran – June 2009, Thailand – May 2010, Romania – December 1989, Moscow – October 1993 and Petrograd – February 1917. Seen with one historical event following the other such as this, one can then only forever distrust the sudden appearance of “mysterious snipers, machine gunners and other forces of unknown origin.”

Starikov says: “The Russian version of this book came out in November 2010. And in December 2010 the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ began, where ‘unknown snipers’ were actively involved. How many more cases of mysterious snipers, machine gunners and other forces of unknown origin can be found in the history of Europe, Russia and other countries! Every time you hear about ‘waves of popular indignation’ that have washed the regime away into obscurity, along with the country and the state, look back. Look through other pages, try to find something. And you will see the reason for these waves. It’s not that difficult.” Although he says this without specifically taking aim at dollar hegemony, both the trajectory as well as the factual, cruel and absent human values implementation, is nevertheless clear – the roots of one tree.

Chapter 12 – the final one, surprisingly I did not enjoy so much. After a step by step walk-through of the take-over by the Dollar of the world (the current money emission machine), Starikov makes a passionate and deeply felt argument, even plea, for the nationalization of the Rouble. All the previous information militates strongly for his passion of Rouble nationalization, yet, I was left with the idea that his passion in the last half of this final chapter overshadowed both the easy flow of the previous chapters, detracting from a more measured, clinical and analytical treatment of his thesis. It is here that a solid economics graph or two could have been well placed to balance the passion.

Yet, one understands the emotions when you read the last sentence: “Only comprehension of the situation may help the nations of various countries to oppose the oncoming danger of chaos and new war. As the debts of the ‘civilized’ countries are so enormous, these debts can be written off only during a tremendous war.

Overall a fascinating book, enjoyable and easy to read, but nevertheless does not hide a stunning conceptualization of who killed who in a Central Bank frenzied power-grab in order to retain power and of course remain immeasurably wealthy. A Must Read and I cannot find a source to buy the English translation. It is available for download here:

http://lit.md/files/nstarikov/rouble_nationalization-the_way_to_russia%27s_freedom.pdf

As things go, after writing this, I found a lovely review, even a critique, on the Latin American Saker in Spanish. http://sakerlatam.es/economia/nacionalizacion-del-rublo-camino-de-libertad-de-rusia/

This is their final paragraph (translated from the Spanish) and clearly, they also picked up on the emotional tone: “Nikolai Starikov’s lament over the state of his homeland explains the protean nature of a process of domination that is consolidated throughout history. The solutions that the author proposes indicate a path towards national sovereignty that could be ours as well. There is enough to say that Starikov’s work deserves to be read, studied and interpreted.”

And further to correct the issue of no English reviews, another commenter, Bro93, kindly wrote a review and published it in the Moveable Feast Cafe.

Enjoy it here:  http://10.16.86.131/moveable-feast-cafe-2020-07-12/#comment-831960

Like the rest of us who read this book after being made aware of it, this commenter concludes:

“Therefore, Rouble Nationalization: Russia’s Way To Freedom should be read by current and future national leaders everywhere, so that a saner, cooperative effort of an alliance of many nations besides Russia and China might free humanity from the grip of the Money Printing Machine Madness of the Globalist New World Order octopus.

Read this book and start weakening and cutting its tentacles everywhere! Especially wherever English is the native language.”