By Aleksandr Khaldey
Translated by Ollie Richardson and Angelina Siard
cross posted with http://www.stalkerzone.org/aleksandr-khaldey-putin-and-the-rules-of-the-elite/
source: http://www.iarex.ru/articles/61799.html
When trying to understand during many years why Putin doesn’t rotate the elite but works with what already exists, very few people understand the subject of discussion. Experts already know almost by heart the president, his biography, and the story of his arrival to the top of power. Much less attention is paid to the elite of Russia, and that’s why there is much less understanding of what it represents and whether the president has some opportunities to radically influence the elite (for example, like how Stalin did) or these opportunities are very limited.
Society already understands that the elite isn’t just economic and interest groups. The elite is a system that the head of state leans on. It is impossible to destroy this pillar without creating another one. There isn’t another system.
If there is a system, then there is an arbitrator. The elite of the 90’s reached an agreement with society whereby it listed the obligations of society and evaded from any obligations concerning society.
The system is clans. It is impossible to remove clans, since this will destroy the system, because any system consists of clans. Including the Soviet system. Since the Secretary General couldn’t change the system against the will of key clans, the president can’t do it either. Clans have resources for the purpose of undermining the system. Some clans undermine one type of pillar, other clans undermine other pillars. External participation is implied: Thatcher via Gromyko made huge efforts to appoint Gorbachev.
Gorbachev managed to break the system not because he outwitted everyone, but because the Soviet party elite wanted it long ago. A big echelon of anti-Soviet elite demanding to demolish socialism ripened. It was able to replace the old and grown decrepit Soviet elite. Now in Russia there is no mature anti-liberal counter-elite. After all, we can’t consider the pocket State Duma opposition as counter-elite! And that’s why Putin doesn’t have the resources to undermine the system. The elite has these resources, but Putin doesn’t, and there isn’t yet a counter-elite.
The media in the hands of the late 90’s oligarchy is an instrument of blackmail. So that the system doesn’t go haywire, it started to need an arbitrator. Putin then receives a mandate from the elite to preserve the system and demands the strengthening of the power wing for the fulfilment of his function. After this law enforcement bodies appeared in the elite where they previously were not. Before this they were the attendants of the oligarchy and gave power and the expeditious provision of the repartition of property. This led to the erosion of the special services and became dangerous for oligarchs themselves: a war of all against all with the participation of the special services is the most horrible thing that large businessmen can receive.
Since then one of the president’s tasks has been to ensure the stability of the elite. This explains the personnel policy of Putin. At the same time, Putin demands the adequacy of the elite in relation to society. Only in this case can he protect it both from society and from other clans. These are the resources of the arbitration position of Putin.
In Russia the elite defines the identity of the president. It is especially the opinion of the liberal wing of the elite, which was afraid of Ivanov, that became key in the appointment of Medvedev as president. Today, with the coming change of government, the opinion of this wing hasn’t lost its weight. Despite all strokes of bad luck, liberalism remains the ideology of the administrative and commercial elite. This isn’t at all because they are such villains by nature. It’s simply because they aspire to be with the West since it is profitable. It is there that all the institutes of storing money and all opportunities for their profitable use reside.
Sun Tzu said: in order to force someone to come towards you, there is only one way – to make it profitable for them. The western system of multiplying money is more profitable than the domestic one if sanctions are removed. And this system works if among the elite there is the absence of a code of honour, the absence of congenital or acquired as a result of education self-respect and self-sufficiency, the absence of due education in relation to patriotism, the absence of the participation of their own destiny in the fate of their Motherland, but the presence of a feeling of secondariness.
A considerable part of our elite, especially its nomenclature business part, is still deeply secondary in relation to the West. And the worst thing is that this, seemingly, completely suits it.
Sanctions didn’t dampen the aspiration of the elite to be with the West, but it generated an aspiration to somehow bypass sanctions and to cancel them as soon as possible or at least to weaken a part of them. The way to the West for our elite still remains the main one, despite the assertion that there are insuperable disagreements with the elite of the West. Another option that is comparable in terms of profitability doesn’t exist. Deripaska returned to Russia because of sanctions, but as soon as they will be cancelled, he will again rush back there.
All of those who are now in elite positions themselves as patriots and anti-Westerners will rush together with him. As A. Fursov often says, quoting A.Galich: “All of this, my dear, is just for the public”.
A reduction of the resource base seeded confusion in the elite and demanded from the arbitrator to remove certain players from among the active clans by force. But Putin has no such powers from the elite. In the elite he has the role of the Director-General, who doesn’t have shares in the company and can’t expel someone from the Board of Directors.
That’s why the current term of Putin is characteristic not of a mandate from the elite, but of a mandate from the people. Putin received this mandate. And the scared liberals, having a presentiment of rotation, started to sink him. The first attempt to do this was Bolotnaya Square.
Now we are observing the second attempt in the form of pension reform and tax and fuel increases in combination with the budgetary rule. The current government, from the minister to the deputy prime minister, consists of representatives and lobbyists of large financial and industrial groups. Some of them are secondary because they were put in place by deputy prime ministers who themselves are such representatives. This is about the economic bloc of the government, because the so-called power bloc is a prerogative of the president and is appointed by him. This is what the analytical community calls “the consensus of the elite”.
The structure of the liberal wing is multi-structured; it consists not only of members of the government. Its structure ranges from those who supervise this wing of the bureaucratic group in the Presidential Administration, to the liberal part of the government, the liberal oligarchy, deputies of the State Duma – both represented by the party in power and represented by some of the parties of the so-called opposition, the liberal intellectuals, and the liberal street. Because there is also another, illiberal part of all these institutions, but its resources are much less.
All radically or moderately liberal groups in power are one way or another connected to the export of raw materials and the taking out of loans from the West. This is indeed the social base for supporting the raw material model of the Russian economy. And since this model doesn’t bring in any more such income that allows to keep social consensus, a serious crisis of the base model of power and property appeared in Russia. Although nobody laid down a challenge to this model from the inside. It is precisely for this reason that, with all obvious deadlockness, this model remains the main elite-forming model.
Any attempt to radically change the composition of the elite and the conditions of their functioning will end in the same way (except for Stalin’s three purges) that all attempts to change the system bypassing the elite in Russia ended – a palace coup and a conspiracy (including Stalin’s fourth purge) Instead of perestroika there will be a firefight, which in Russia always took the form of a civil war with the subsequent collapse of former statehood.
The demand for a left-wing elite that exists in society will be fulfilled very slowly. The transition period for this change will arrive only in 2024. It is precisely at this moment that those whose Soviet childhood took place with dreams about capitalism as a system of replenished counters and general consumer prosperity, accompanied by “melodies and rhythms of a foreign estrada”, will leave the arena due to old age. Those who have no illusions neither concerning socialism nor concerning capitalism will start to penetrate the elite. Those who during capitalism passed through petty-bourgeois temptations, rose to their feet, then became bankrupt, became poor, lost everything, and hate this system with already ripened class intuition.
This new generation is now being formed. It stamps its feet at the rallies of non-systemic opposition, it doesn’t watch TV, it doesn’t take part in elections. It is those who were deprived of pensions, free education and treatment, and stable work and their small business, who are exploited as a slave by our distribution networks – and it is those who are preparing in 6 years to arrive at the foreground of history. They will come from different social classes, and the children of current oligarchs who claimed power and property by inheritance will be obliged to deal with them.
Of course, those who now look like a master of life dream of preserving the current situation for ever and ever. And, of course, none of them will manage to do it. Regardless of how they make plans and secure themselves via constitutional reforms, their time is coming to an end, and they will be forced out by new forces. This is inevitable, and they feel it. The current method of reproduction and accumulation (a raw colony of the West) is almost exhausted, and this is the main reason why new forces will come to power. This will be the middle of the 21st century. Now these forces are ripening in the depths of the people. They are waiting in the wings.
That’s why now it is impossible to demand from Putin to overthrow the elite and to radically transform it only on the grounds that the necessary internal and external conditions for this allegedly formed – they, unfortunately, haven’t yet developed. The current system hasn’t yet exhausted all of its resources, and it will continue its fight for life. The dying off of any formation is a historically long process, it is impossible to hurry and push it. The problem doesn’t lie in breaking what exists. The problem lies in understanding what should succeed it. As long as this notion doesn’t exist, then what currently exists will remain.
Speaking about the process of feudalism rotting within the framework of the arising capitalist society, Marx and Engels wrote that the most difficult thing is the process of torturous rotting when elements of the old departing system (remnants, as they called it) exist alongside the elements of the new and emerging one, and neither of them have enough forces for a historical victory. It is precisely such a period that the whole world, including Russia, now passes through. Capitalism in its remnants departs, it weakens, but it is still rather too strong to depart. But what’s new is still being formed and can’t force out the old system.
The new substance of society, which still hasn’t been understood and named, starts to be born. The old and new coexist together for some time, creating special social tension. Old mechanisms already cease to work; the new ones are in the process of creation and can’t be used. The intermediate state is the most torturous. No overtaking will bring salvation, but on the contrary – it is capable of slowing down the ripening of the new one.
The one who learnt nothing from the bitter experience of the USSR is ready to repeat its destiny. Russia can’t afford this. Premature birth often ends sadly. It is necessary to have patience and to allow the fruit to ripen. Other ways lead to an ebb towards past, historical stages that weren’t completed at the right time. And in this case it is good when statehood is preserved.
The ideas put forth here seem to align with the thinking—or at least some of it—of Immanuel Wallerstein.
Wallerstein speaks in terms of the world-system that is changing. Something new is emerging, but it is as yet impossible to nail down what will replace the capitalist system, and, crucially, whether it will be an improvement, or something even worse.
Katherine
Notice, Katherine, no one has a clue to what the new will be. Not a name, not a descriptor of its process, not an experiment anywhere, nothing. I interpret this emptiness as nothing exceptional or good is coming out of nowhere, out of the unknown, out of ‘we have no idea as yet’.
Just the opposite. We know what is coming. And it’s terrifying and what motivates us to think of what we want.
For my way of thinking, the new something has to come from what exists. Either as some form of evolutionary development, transitional development or a deliberate substitution. So it is something we see in front our eyes.
We have about 4-5,000 years of recorded histories to look at.
And we have the momentum of the present.
However, we will not get what we want if we don’t fight for it now.
Well said, Larch. Besides, it’s no rocket science. The state only needs to invest in its own country, stop the looting by asocial (un-Russian) criminals (nationalize if need be), and democratize the corrupted system.
The Russian military could easily do it, and is a good example itself (or Xi’s China) of how it should be done. The Nazi Ukraine is not. Hopefully Putin’s Russia is already doing just that, but you won’t learn it from this rather vague (typical of Russian press?) article.
Larchmonter,
Here are some of the issues that need to be addressed, in order to start on a new system;
https://medium.com/@johnbrodixmerrymanjr/a-dissenting-view-on-basically-everything-11bd6eb67f0c
As I was enjoying your article, John Brodix Merryman Jr, recent thoughts concerning the hybrid nature of almost everything echoed in my mind.
Why not just “Out with the old, In with the new!”, in a flash.
Well, that happened a few times, and it was rather jarring!
1917 a lot more so than 1776.
In the Founders idolization of the American Patriot Movement, when they rub the stars out of their eyes, they realize “We the People” were “represented” by an elite of mixed of wealthy “doers” like Franklin and Washington, who could get a lot more done in a relative vacuum on the Eastern Seaboard than they ever could have accomplished….if their fathers had not left England’s already divvied up Elite Power Pie. And that when push came to shove 50% of American settlers were Loyalists and 50% Rebels with a Cause.
But that’s a gross oversimplification. Probably 25% were freedom thirsty rebels, 25% Britain’s Colonists to the End (on their way to Canada…if not back home….or resigned to try this ‘republic” thing, against their will) and 50% or a clear majority perhaps, simply didn’t want to be bothered!
Which is why they lost the American Republic in fairly short order….and ended up with Karl “We’re An Empire Now” Rove and the Bush League.
Are “The Little People” that much better anywhere?
I want consciousness and competency to rise in every human being, but is it never the case that the cost of an industrialist’s mansion and private jet is peanuts compared to the cost of giving it all to children to run?
Even their own children, before they are ready??? LOL.
In 1917 something old and decrepit gave way to something of vengeful, youthful energy…violently…but how involved was the consciousness and will of the average Russian, from the inception, in the conception and the birthing of the Soviet State?
Not much! It’s more a matter of tolerating change or adapting to it than being a causal part of it.or fighting for it ..for any common people. Most of the time, and in most places…it depends more on the quality of emerging leadership than it does on their pure motives and aspirations…at least to this point in history and the evolution of human consciousness….IMHO.
And yet, the world turns, the future becomes the past….and if you speed up the “frames”..of the time-lapse film..the glacial pace becomes almost breathtaking……especially IF leadership such as Vladimir Putin offered is tolerated by enough of the elites sanguine enough to comprehend that they too are on the chopping block unless someone is allowed enough leeway and freedom of action to save the country.
Not pure, not ideal. But since when are hybrid situations (and that’s ALL this world ever is, except in our imaginations!) ever ideal??
Bro,
History is a bitch. Yet the alternatives to the ups and downs would be a flatline.
The was a time when government was private. It was called monarchy. The kings got a bit out of hand and people had to make “mob rule” work. We are at that stage with finance and banking now. The pendulum will swing back, probably taking large chunks of humanity with it. A hundred years from now, the dust will start to settle.
The way to make this process as efficient as possible is to lay out the dynamic, so it isn’t done blindly. Public banking is a significant aspect; http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org
I think there are deeper conceptual issues which need to be considered, but those don’t seem to get much attention.
John and the people above. I would like to add that most if not all “out with the old in with the new” where always instigated byt the dark forces staying in the shadows. Say, the once controlling Jacobins, “reds” in Russia, etc.
The problem is, that they always try to hoodwinkle the people. I still remember one of the early Soviet movie “Potiomkin” which showed the “dreadful corruption” of the Tsarist system. The crew had to eat food with live maggots. ending in glorious revolt of the “moriaki – navy men” against the Tsar. The end results were such that nothing ever changed. The little men stayed little, while the dark force stayed in power.
This is basically what this article talks about, and the way I see it: it promises another revolution. So, the Russians better be aware of what the dark force is preparing for them again.
Russia had its ‘Come to Jesus’ moment with the fall of the Soviet Union. The problem now is that Capitalism is running on debt and it’s being used to suck all possible value out of society. Predatory lending/disaster capitalism are the same thing, be it poor people, or poor countries.
Society needs an economic ecosystem, aka markets, but what we have are not healthy markets, but the “giant vampire squid.” Finance serves the entire society. It’s the very definition of a public utility, like highways.
Not to say predators won’t climb to the top again, but if they destroy the system they are on top of, they are coming down as well. It’s like cheating on the foundations, in order to store more gold in the penthouse.
The problem with that is that normally, throughout history, and as Gramsci pointed correctly out, when the old has not yet left and the new is still to arrive, they appear the monsters, which throughout history has been always fascism….
If you notice, this is what is in the making, they are organizing themselves internationally since almost a decade ago, and fascists parties who have not yet been supported amongst the people have got to the parliaments by important donations from great businessmen and TPTB….and sophisticated campaigns organized from the very lighthouse of capitalism, the US….
Right populists is too limited. We need to see a much larger perspective.
China is coming, Russia take over the police role in major areas but remain fundamentally a non GMO Christian society.
I see Orwell and Brave New World everywhere.
Western surveillance yes, but AL and China´s electronic social controle and Russia´s military and police surveillance will be even superseeding.
China´s genetic cloning and GMO, Western genetic science, Smart cities, zero privacy but total surveillance, dont promise happiness, soul and spirit.
Only superficial populations who love their slavery.
Thanks to Ollie and Angelina for the excellent translation.
I wish the author had described the security services clans and the military clans that back Putin.
Understanding his power groups is important.
And why was Sergei Ivanov thought as a threat to the Elites? This is left unexplained.
Yes, he’s the closest person to Putin since they were teens and through their careers. But why did they fear Ivanov?
If the author would have done that ( even in the case he would know it, being an outsider of power…) he would be accelerating the birth, do not you think?, and with that signaling to both, the current elites and the enemies abroad, where the premature creatures lay….and so, facilitating their assasination when they have not already developed a whole system of immunity….( i.e. enough social fabric which support them…)
Same here.
Also, I think the author is a little too pessimistic: the forces of construction are surely in greater number than he suggests – and in a few years, they will be strong enough to counter the current predatory elite.
There is, for instance, a vast and diverse associative movement made up of mostly young people, working in fields as diverse as helping out with issues in their neighbourhood, to holding leaders accountable, to political activism, STEM innovation clubs, etc.
Putin pays great attention to these groups of young people, meeting with many of them, listening to them and giving them pep talks…
A generation brought up in such an atmosphere of service and helpfulness and intelligent patriotism is bound to produce the counter-elite discussed in the article.
Pending their coming to maturity (we already see some young ministers and governors) Putin continues his prudent, “tight-rope” governance style…
At the most fundamental level ‘resources’ are people,skills/knowledge and natural resources, of the three the only moving part is the people and VVP already has the support of the Russian people, so I fail to see how dealing with these elites/clans is difficult – if there is a need to do so.Not that I’ve anything against being patient either.
Also why do writers here use the term ‘motherland’ when referring to Russia?From what I’ve seen Russians, including those at the highest levels of leadership like the President, use the term ‘fatherland’ when referring to their own country.
Rodina (Родина) – motherland, Otechestvo (Отечество) – fatherland. Both are used in Russia, Родина more often.
A very interesting article indeed from a Russian insider which confirms all the suspicions I had about Putin. The article says that Putin is working mainly for the interest of the elites, Ivanov was feared by the elites (because of his Euroasianist views as opposed to Putin’s neo-liberal tendencies). The author hopes that with the new world order (i.e east and especially China getting stronger) and the profit margins of the liberal elites dropping thus they will hopefully drop being part of the western cabal. This is a wishful thinking. It was interesting to hear from a Russian insider that Russia is in fact run by the elitist liberal cabal who control Putin. This is exactly what I was thinking for a while, over a year now. However I have also the feeling that there are true patriotic forces in Russia (like Ivanov, Glaziev, Rogozin etc.) and many patriotic army generals. Again my suspicion is that after the killing of 15 servicemen in Syria, Putin (and his liberal elitist cabal) lost control of military matters overall. It was a soft coup d’etat if you like and Gerasimov (possibly Shoigu) and other Generals took control of military affairs. This may explain why Israel since than does not fly over Syria, while before that they flew over 200 attack missions thanks to Putin’s policy of appeasement. I am hopeful for Russia and believe that patriotic forces and Euroasianist will prevail.
My goodness, here we go again for the umpteenth time: ”Putin’s neoliberal tendencies /…/ the elitist liberal cabal who control Putin”.
Deeply regret to inform you that if Putin were indeed a neoliberal, then either he would have been deposed by popular and military forces, or Russia would have plunged right into the squalor of the 1990s again, especially given the quite obvious fact that it’s precisely what the West and its traitors inside Russia dearly yearn for seeing happening.
I recall Marcus, who also got irritated over people sloppily calling Putin ”neoliberal” here. Under Saker’s submission ”Russian Presidential Elections: boring, useless and necessary?”, posted in February, Marcus wrote in absolutely justified frustration over some other commenters:
”And I can only repeat a question no one has bothered to try and answer – what kind of neoliberal increases state ownership, decreases debt, and increases social spending and welfare?
As I wrote in response to Marcus, the confusion among the West’s self-styled progressives stems from the fact that Putin does believe in free enterprise, but not in accordance with the hideously corrupt neoliberal-fascist interpretation of the concept. What’s the difference? Easy: Compare Russia and the Ukraine. Slandering Putin as a neoliberal is plain silly — he personifies Russia’s ascendance from the utter living hell of neoliberalism now enjoyed by the Ukros. The latter have further improved their neoliberal Shangri-La with the flavours and joys of Nazism (Kosher style, for sure).
Matthew,
You missed the point entirely. Your prejudices got in the way.
The article says Putin is doing his best to manage a situation in which the forces of selfishness still outstrip the forces of constructive patriotism and helpfulness.
My daughters great-aunt and uncle are avowed Communists. They vote Communist in the city elections, in the oblast elections, in the Federal elections, but in the Presidential elections they vote for Putin. When asked why, they said he is for ALL the Russians – россияне as well as русский. Gives you some indication of how well Putin is regarded.
Any analysis making no reference to China, to India, etc. blocks out dynamic elements in the south of Russia where the whole nation is into
a complicated and hugely ignored whirlwind of changes that has Putin’s inner cadre filled with uncertainty. Rightly so! It is not just terrorism of a Muslim colouration that surges forth from that source! To think otherwise is to repeat the blindness of the 1930’s looking only at Germany, Britain, France and the USA, or to see
Only coal and oil issues as unsettling. The ways of the future lead to the heavens as well as to
“terra firma,” for God’s sake!!
I don’t see Putin patiently sitting in the Kremlin allowing his personal and political (popular) power and authority ebb away for the next 5.3 years until he exits the scene.
The Russian gains made internationally require his strength at home.
The pressure of the Hybrid War is greater every month, as we see the US and UK double-team Russia at every opportunity and every False Flag they can muster.
There is the lead in military defenses and weapon systems that must be maintained.
And there is the success of soft power projects (Sochi Olympics, World Cup) and the borderland frozen conflicts that require great support logistically and diplomatic-militarily (Donbass, Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia), gains with Serbia and Armenia and the flux happening in the Central Asian states, as well as the squirrely Belarusian relations (Union State and CSTO).
Putin cannot allow all this work and success just slide away.
The safety and financial rewards of the Double Helix is largely based on Putin’s relationship with Pres. Xi.
Also, a budding relationship with PM Abe is gaining rewards economically, and may eventually weaken the Japan-US relationship. Japan wants in on the Eurasian Development, and the Arctic.
Putin and Xi have been “managing” the step-down from the brink of Kim and North Korea. This is vital work. Putin needs to be the titanium rod holding off the US military, as North Korea works a deal with South Korea and undermines the Hegemon’s hold on the Peninsula. At some point in the negotiations, Russia will supply the shield of S-400s to protect itself at the border and North Korea after it surrenders the nukes.
These are just some of the Putin portfolio that requires his power to remain high, visible and real.
He cannot be a lame duck President.
These are the high tech new breed of elites that Putin associates with.
Impressive: Putin Visits Unique ERA (Elite Of Russian Army) Innovation Technopark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiF4f8BSHuI
The author didn’t say that Putin is controlled by the elites but that he didn’t have the power to remove them wholesale. Some have been forced out though, and the trajectory of Russia under Putin has changed radically, for the better. Did the ‘elites’ order Putin to help Syria? I don’t think so. Russian armed forces have been revitalized and their hardware modernized. Russia acts principally as a soverign state since 2000. Crimea is Russian. The economy has taken a path of diversification, helped along by the sanctions. These are not minor accomplishments.
http://www.stalkerzone.org/ilya-belous-the-forgotten-truth-about-lenin/
Read this article and understand better the article you have just read.
The most interesting thing about this article is that the framework described is exactly the same as that of the elites in America, and further, we are in the same form of transition. It is called revolution, that which history so labels a governmental bankruptcy and this is what causes the inevitable transition. The question that needs answering then is how to eliminate the elites from power? That answer is to remove the administrative powers of government that have been usurped from the peoples place in government. It is a situation impossible in places like Russia that don’t have the necessary mechanism in place but entirely possible in the United States where this very mechanism is ensconced in our United States Constitution whereas all law making powers are embedded in the peoples Congress. This is where America has gone wrong, as we have abandoned Article I, Sections 7,8 & 9 of our Constitution usually one power at a time over the course of the past 105 years. This can be remedied by adopting Term Limits, REINS Act and an Audit of the Fed (HR 24/S 26), which I call “Liberty Legislation” during my 2018 campaign for Congress (17 IL).
All of the systems talked about here contain the seeds of our destruction, and eventually are steps towards the destruction of the human species. A new vision of what humans can be is needed that is not a controlling
system. Birthing this new human will not be easy, but the alternatives are suicidal.
President Putin is not a Czar, he is the elected president of Russia. As such, he does not have the power of a Czar, and not even the Czars since Ivan Groznyy had absolute power, witness how many of them did not make it to old age one way or the other.
Considering the mess President Putin inherited back in 1999, he has made order from unbelievable chaos. I very well remember in 1993 the Colonel I was with in Moskau and how he removed the wipers from his Volga whenever he parked it or they would be stolen in minutes, how he bought petrol in glass water jars from a government petrol truck on a back street and how overjoyed he was when he managed to obtain two tyres for his car. I will never forget the joy on his wife’s face when she managed to find some chicken at the local Gastronome, and this was in Stroganoh, an elite district. That’s the tip of the iceberg of the turmoil back then, and toss in two coup attempts, 1991 and 1993, things were a mess. It was not much better six years later when President Putin became acting President the last day of December 1999.
If you look at Russia today the change is as night to day, a vibrant populace, a loyal Armed Forces, huge physical plant improvements and modernizations, modernized and growing by leaps and bounds industrial plant, cutting edge military and transport systems that were hardly dreamed of a scant two decades ago. Is it perfect here? No. Is it better? Unbelievably so.
To accomplish this change, President Putin has had to play a balancing act between the oligarchs, and call them what you will, they are oligarchs, and the needs of the citizens. He’s won some and lost some, but the end all be all is life in Russia has improved dramatically under his stewardship. While I doubt he will run for office again, I have zero doubts that he will be the elder statesman who will continue to advise and guide Russia on her path to continued improvement and prosperity no matter who sits in the Presidential Palace.
Auslander
Interesting ! Now we have what we wanted to have for some time, a discussion about Russia’s state of affairs from within, from someone who is an “insider”. I cannot separate the other article written by Littlejohn on the other thread about Russian economy and her economic prospects from this one, they go hand in hand, they complement each other. Please guys, read both articles, they correlate (at least in my view)
Yes, revolution will be, it has to. The question is how. We read here that it has already started (and that is also my opinion) but not just in Russia but allover the world, it has many faces, many colors, fought not necessarily with guns and bayonet.
Months before the election in March ’18, there was “talk” of a Security Regime with Military taking sectors of the Economy and a Council for War with Putin at the head running the Russian Federation.
Some of us expected that the idea was generated in reaction to US Middle East moves with Israel and the Kurds and ISIS to move against Russian bases.
Also, all the NATO moves of men and material all along the borders of Russia indicated combat could break out, led by an assault by Ukraine in Donbass.
Additionally, the taunting with drones flying the borders and over Crimean region, as well as continual US and NATO ships coming into the Black Sea.
Over the ensuing months and post the election returns this talk disappeared.
However, the fact that Putin did not change the government but indicated Dmitri Medvedev and Kudrin, et al had but one more year to improve the economy seems to be all chips on the table.
The only way to hold power in the Kremlin is to use power–security services and military.
So, things may return to Putin reframing the relationships with the West to ‘pre-war status. (Hybrid War is war by any and all means).
Saker has indicated that Russia is preparing for war. Shoigu and Lavrov and deputies of ministries responsible for national security all say they are preparing for war.
It’s time, soon, for Putin to shed the Kremlin of the liberals and fifth columnists, take the economy over, rid Russia of Medvedev and his clan, and put Russia on the path to success domestically.
The excuse he used for not changing out the Liberals this year was they had the most relevant experience in their sectors of the economy and governance.
Well, they have spent eight months undermining progress and minimizing growth and prosperity while their patrons inside and outside Russia have grown wealthier each month.
Before six more months pass, Putin should clean out the saboteurs. If he expects his plans to be followed, he will be very disappointed. The intention of the Liberals is the same as those who went before them—to rob the wealth of Russia and destroy it as nation, carve it into small pieces and end its position as Superpower and seat at the UNSC and other global institutions.
Use the War being waged by the UK, NATO, US and international terrorists against Russia as the reason for creating a Security-based War Council administration.
Yes, I remember perfectly when the Russian military has explicitly said that, not once, not twice, that they are preparing for war, even more, they made preparations in advance on how the ,military and security services would take over the economy when the time arrived. Here comes Sergei Ivanov in the picture again. Most probably, with the recent Ukrainian provocation as an igniting element, the outflow of money from Russia will intensify, with Kudrin having already assured his ticket to Davos. However, I think it is too early to speculate what will happen, not because we couldn’t do that but because the events can have an unexpected fast turn in many places with an ultimate impact on Russia.
Here is an article that argues for active change from Putin to alter the paradigm in the economy.
You’ll need Yandex Browser to translate, but it’s a good read.
https://regnum.ru/news/economy/2525652.html
Here’s a brief taste of the article:
The situation in the Russian economy and in social life is deteriorating rapidly. Now Russia is ripe revolutionary situation, but the upper classes can no longer govern in the old way (the economy is stagnant, real incomes of Russians in recent years has decreased by 16%, while the number of billionaires in Russia increased), but the lower classes do not want to live in a deterioration of their welfare (according to the latest data of the Ranepa, 22% of Russians are already below the poverty line, and 35,6% — on the verge of moving this boundary).
The oligarchic nature of the Russian government directly connected with the conflict of interests of export-oriented commodity sector of our economy and the manufacturing sector, as the liberal-globalist ideology of the Russian government destroys the balance between the two sectors of the Russian economy in favour of export-oriented sector. As a result, the level of inequality in Russia is continuously growing, increasing the polarization of society: at one extreme, an increasing proportion of the poorest of the population, and on the other hand, rising incomes of the rich that they seek to export out of the country.
And not coincidentally, the most authoritative French economist T. Piketty, recent research has devoted an unprecedented growth of inequality in the modern Russia, making the fundamental conclusion that the level of inequality in contemporary Russia has already exceeded the level that was in the Russian Empire before the revolution of 1917.”
Thank you for that link, Larchmonter (or as in the past, L445). If someone reads this article it may come to the conclusion that the situation in Russian economy is not at all rosy, and if anyone ask why, there you have some provocative answers in the article which cannot be repudiated so easily. Here is an extract :
“…and even protect the enormous wealth of the Russian subsoil from those who claim that it is unfair when a third of the natural wealth of the entire planet is located in disposal of 2% of the world’s population. And this is the work of state power. But the Russian government, represented by D. Medvedev, A. Siluanov, D. Oreshkin, E. Nabiullina, and so on, professes the globalist ideology of liberal market fundamentalism, aimed not at protecting the interests of Russia and its people, but at meeting the demands of the global market and the dominant ones transnational corporations (TNCs) and global financial capital.”
” What kind of market freedom and liberalism can there be, if, for example, the oil monopolies constantly impose on us an increase in the prices of petroleum products. ” – this may sound as contradiction, but it refers to the liberal market orientation viewed by Putin. That kind of liberal market view is the heart of discord between the oligarchs and Putin. The imposed monopoly from outside is anything but not liberal (in terms of freedom of the Russian economy) and the above mentioned names are but helping hand for the external monopoly to suck the Russian economy and its people.