[This article was written for the Unz Review]
According to RT, citing a Levada Center poll,
Over 50 percent of Russians are disappointed in the government of Dmitry Medvedev, which, they believe, is unable to curb growing prices and provide jobs for people, a new poll has revealed. Some 23 percent said they were absolutely sure that the government must resign, with another 30 percent telling Levada-Center that they were also leaning toward this opinion. This means that a total of 53 percent would like the country to have a new cabinet. Trust in the government has crumbled since September, when only 23 percent advocated its resignation. Meanwhile, the proportion of people who believed the government should stay in charge was 40 percent, with 14 percent expressing full confidence in the cabinet, and 26 percent saying that resignation wouldn’t be the best idea.
Source: http://www.levada.ru/en/ Jan 15th 2019 (details here: https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/)
This was very predictable and, in fact, I did predict just that when I wrote “A comment I just saw on the YouTube chat of the inauguration was succinct and to the point: “Путин кинул народ – мы не за Медведева голосовали” or “Putin betrayed the people – we did not vote for Medvedev”. This is going to be a very widely shared feeling, I am afraid (…) Medvedev is unpopular and that most Russians hoped to see a new face. Yet Putin ignored this public sentiment. That is a very worrying sign, in my opinion“. In a subsequent article I wrote that “it is quite clear to me that a new type of Russian opposition is slowly forming. Well, it always existed, really – I am talking about people who supported Putin and the Russian foreign policy and who disliked Medvedev and the Russian internal policies. Now the voice of those who say that Putin is way too soft in his stance towards the Empire will only get stronger. As will the voices of those who speak of a truly toxic degree of nepotism and patronage in the Kremlin (again, Mutko being the perfect example). When such accusations came from rabid pro-western liberals, they had very little traction, but when they come from patriotic and even nationalist politicians (Nikolai Starikov for example) they start taking on a different dimension. For example, while the court jester Zhirinovskii and his LDPR party loyally supported Medvedev, the Communist and the Just Russia parties did not. Unless the political tension around figures like Kudrin and Medvedev is somehow resolved (maybe a timely scandal?), we might witness the growth of a real opposition movement in Russia, and not one run by the Empire. It will be interesting to see if Putin’s personal ratings will begin to go down and what he will have to do in order to react to the emergence of such a real opposition“.
Think about it in this way: we know from ALL the past elections that the pro-Western segment of the Russian population is somewhere around 1-3% (that is why they cannot make it into the Duma). But let’s generously give that hardcore, liberal, opposition 5%, for argument’s sake. So if 53% of Russians want a new cabinet, and if 5% of Russians are hardcore pro-Western liberals, then who are the remaining 48%?
Or in this way: if 53% of Russians want a new cabinet, and if Putin’s approval rating is still somewhere in the 65% range, who are those Russians who like Putin but dislike the Medvedev government?
There is an easy cop-out argument which I´ve often offered to explain away this fact:
Levada Center is officially classified as a “foreign agent” under Russian law. This makes sense: for one thing, Levada Center receives most of its financing from abroad, including the USA and even the Pentagon! Furthermore, Levada is staffed by liberals (in the Russian meaning of the word which really means “pro-US”) whose biases are also reflected in their work. However, while this is all true, Levada is still credible enough to be cited even by Russian officials. Finally, the kind of results Levada publishes are often generally similar to the finding of the official VTsIOM polling institution, not down to the percentage point, but often reflecting similar trends (check out the VTsIOM English language page here: https://wciom.com/). So the fact that Putin is much more popular than Medvedev or that the majority of Russian people are unhappy with the government really is not in doubt.
So regardless of the actual numbers, it is clear that the Russian government is only popular with those whom it allows to make a lot of money (corporations and various millionaires and billionaires) and that everybody else strongly dislikes it.
And yet, recently Putin was asked if he was happy with the government and his reply was “on the whole, yes“.
This type of political yoga is hard to sustain in the long term: if Putin is the champion of the interests of the common people, and if most common people feel that the government cares more for millionaires and billionaires, then how can the President say that he is “on the whole happy” with the government?
It is truly a crying shame that the basics of Marxism-Leninism is not taught in schools and colleges any more (even some self-described “Communists” are clearly clueless about what Marx, Lenin or even Hegel taught!). Not because the solutions advocated by Marx and his followers are so universally effective, but because one can use the Marxist-Leninist conceptual toolkit to better understand the world we live in and, one can do this without necessarily endorsing the solutions offered by Marxism. For example, in the West at least, very few people are aware of this very simple Marxist-Leninist definition of what a state, any state, really is. According to Lenin, the state is simply an “apparatus of coercion and violence by which the ruling class governs the society“. Specifically Lenin wrote:
In essence, the state is ruling apparatus created from the human society. When such a group of people appears, one which is only concerned with ruling over others, and which for that purpose needs a coercion apparatus which can force people to obey by means of jails, special units, armed forces, etc, – that is the moment when the state appears (Lenin, collective works, vol 39, page 69).
From a Marxist point of view, any state is always and by definition the dictatorship of the ruling class, which is a good thing, at least according to the Marxists, when this ruling class is the workers and people, and a very bad thing when the ruling class is the plutocracy.
In the post-modern West, where political discourse has been reduced to a particularly nauseating form of intellectual flatulence, the very notion of “class” and “class warfare” has been fully replaced with vapid (pseudo-) identity politics which completely obfuscate all the real issues and problems our world is dealing with. Thus, by removing the concepts and categories needed to understand the nature of the struggle which is taking place internationally, but also inside each of the countries currently living under the AngloZionist yoke, the leaders of the Empire have deprived the people they rule over from the means to understand why and how they are oppressed. All that nonsense about “gay” rights, gun control, #meetoo, the many sex scandals, the struggle for racial identity (White or Black or any other), abortion, drugs and all the rest of the crap we are fed on a daily basis by the AngloZionist propaganda machine are primarily a distraction to keep the eyes of the general population from the real issues. In a way, this zombification and re-direction to fake topics serves exactly the same function as the red cape of the bullfighter: to keep the bull busy with trying to gore a harmless red piece of cloth while completely missing the real cause of his suffering and eventual death.
From that point of view, the Russian people are much better informed and have a much better understanding of what is going on. For example, while in the West the people define “democracy” as “people power” (or something similar), in Russia the joke is that “democracy is the power of the democrats” which, in Russia, is a general codeword/euphemism for “pro-US wealthy liberal” who want to turn Russia into some kind of “bigger Poland” or something equally uninspiring.
Various pro-Western “intellectuals” like to say that this is an old Russian pathology: to say that the Czar (President) is very good, but his court (the Ministers) are bad and that this makes absolutely no sense. These are the folks who go as far as denying the existence of a struggle between what I call Eurasian Sovereignists (roughly Putin supporters) and Atlantic Integrationists (roughly Medvedev and the “economic block” of this government).
The folks who deny this remind me of something Berthold Brecht once wrote after the 1953 uprising in Berlin in a short poem entitled “The Solution”: (emphasis added)
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers’ Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
This deep alienation from the Russian masses, this notion that the Russian people have, yet again, failed to heed the “wise words” of the “progressive intelligentsia” and other (mainly financial) “elites” has plagued the Russian ruling classes since Peter I and is still at the very core of their worldview. Believe you me, the Russian “liberals” and the folks in the West who deny that there is any 5th column in Russia are psychologically and politically joined at the hip: neither one of them can accept this. Furthermore, both the Russian “liberals” and the western believers in the values of “democracy” and “free market capitalism” share exactly the same worldview: they want the Russian people to become “Europeans” not in a geographical sense, of course (geographically speaking most Russian live in the European part of Russia), but culturally! This is what the Popes wanted, this is what the French Freemasons wanted, this is what the Nazis wanted, and this is what the AngloZionists want. That dream to turn Russians into Europeans while totally cleansing them from any “Russian-ness” is what united *all* the invaders of Russia over the centuries.
But the “stubborn” Russian people just don’t seem to “get it” and, for some totally mysterious reason, they always resist all these “benevolent” western attempts at “civilizing” them.
This is exactly what we see today: Putin and his Eurasian Sovereignists try as hard as they can to *sovereignize* Russia; in other words, they want to make Russia *truly* Russian again. Sounds basic, but that is categorically unacceptable to the Russian plutocrats and to their supporters in the West. Thus any kind of defense of the Russian-ness of Russia is immediately and contemptuously dismissed as “national leftism”, “nationalism” or, God forbid!, “monarchism”. And when the person trying to make the argument that Russia ought to be Russian uses Marxist concepts or categories, these arguments are also dismissed out of hand as an “outdated rhetoric of a system which has failed and discredited itself”. What they fail to realize is to say that the collapse of the Soviet Union was due primarily/solely to the Marxist or Communist ideology is just as stupid as blaming the current collapse of democracy in the USA on the writings of the Founding Fathers rather than on the SOB politicians who are destroying this country day after day after day. Tell me: when the USA finally bites the dust, will you simply declare that “democracy is dead” and that the “collapse of the USA proved that democracy is not a viable regime”? So yes, the Soviet Union did indeed collapse, broken into 15 pieces by its own ruling elite (the Nomenklatura), but the ideas contained in the Marxist-Leninist ideology have not only not been “defeated” – they have not even been challenged (more on this issue here).
But, thank God! most Russians are still not willing to be incorporated into the “European cultural Borg collective“, at least not in the cultural sense. And in spite of 300 years of oppression by various pro-western regimes (with various degrees of russophobia, not all were equally bad), the Russian people still want to remain Russian, not just by speaking a language, but by having a ruler and a regime in power which they feel defends their interests and not the interests of the ruling class. They want to live in their own civilizational realm, and not the kind of post-Christian intellectual desert the West has become.
Many decades of rabid russophobia by the rulers of the AngloZionist Empire have convinced the Russian people that they have no friends in the European or North American ruling elites and that true freedom comes through liberation, not submission. That, and the appalling example of the consequences of the “Euromaidan” in the Ukraine.
At the end of the day, it is not about GDP or the availability of cheap consumer goods. At the end of the day, it all depends on real, moral, ethical, spiritual and civilizational values. This was true 1000 years ago and this is still true today. At least in Russia.
It is very important to keep a close eye on this trend: the appearance of slowly but surely growing (truly) patriotic opposition (as opposed to the CIA-paid clowns in the Russian liberal camp). As for the “official” opposition (LDPR, KPRF and the Just Russia), they might decide to grow a few teeth, initially small, baby teeth only, but if this trend accelerates, they might decide to look a tad more credible. Until now the rather lame and ridiculous LDPR & KPRF parties are just a collective form of court jesters with no real opposition potential. Just look at how the KPRF, thoroughly discredited by their crazy choice of the millionaire Grudinin for candidate, jumped onto the pension reform PR-disaster to suddenly try to launch a referendum. This would never have happened in the past.
The political landscape in Russia is becoming more complicated, which is both good and bad. It is bad because Putin’s personal political credit suffers, however modestly for now, from his continuous inability to purge the Kremlin from the 5th columnists, but it is also good because if things get bad enough Putin will have no choice but to (finally!) get rid of at least the most notorious 5th columnists. But fundamentally the Russian people need to decide. Do they really want to live in a western-style capitalist society (with all the russophobic politics and the adoption of the terminally degenerate “culture” such a choice implies), or do they want a “social society” (to use Putin’s own words) – meaning a society in which social and economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits.
You could say that this is a battle of greed vs ethics.
The future of Russia, and much of the world, will depend on the outcome of this battle.
The Saker
UPDATE: well, just as I was mentioning that the fact that Levada Center and VTsIOM mostly agree, at least on trends, the Russian media is now reporting that the latter now also is reporting a drop in the popularity of Putin. And just to make things worse, the Russian authorities have deported an (in-)famous anti-Nazi Ukrainian journalist, Elena Boiko, to the Nazi-occupied Ukraine in spite of the fact that Boiko had requested political asylum in Russia. Now, Boiko is a very controversial person for sure (and, personally, not *at all* my cup of tea), but the sole fact that Russia would deport ANY anti-Nazi activist to the Nazi-occupied Ukraine is disgusting and revolting. And, sure enough, the bovine-excreta is already hitting the proverbial fan as now members of the Duma, journalists and various personalities are demanding explanations for this absolutely stupid and deeply immoral act. Sadly, can only agree with Nikolai Starikov who speaks of a “liberal revanche” following the “Russian Spring” of 2014. If this kind of nonsense continues we will see a further deterioration of Putin’s personal rating along with a gradual degradation of the Russian political environment.
Important moment in Putin history.
He is faced with choices he has chosen not to choose.
Yes, he buried his popularity by backing the pension reform. He had little choice. The birthrate is flatlining again and reform now is less financially painful than later, at crisis point.
He needs to corral Belarus. It’s going sideways from the Union State. He has little leverage to hold it. He and the last dictator have talked and talked. It doesn’t look good. Belarus can become a strategic mess.
He wants to end his authority in 2024 when he must stay. That requires a Constitutional change to allow him to stay as President, or a political arrangement of the Union State with Belarus in which a new government is formed and he can start again as President of that entity.
He needs to purge the government of the Liberals. He gave them one more year of his six year plan. It is almost over and they are screwing the economy instead of building it.
Putin has to choose. The People are signaling that they have made up their mind. They want to rid the Kremlin of the Liberals and move the nation forward with prosperity for all. The day of the oligarchs has to end.
The People will follow Putin if he decides and chooses Them over the Fifth Column Liberals.
He has to choose.
All he has done internally and externally will be lost and reversed after 2024 if he chooses not to chose or chooses compromise. He can’t get Russia to where he wants it to be if he doesn’t do what the People want him to do.
Russia and Putin have arrived at the end of the last chance for the Medvedev and his brethren. Putin has to end the deal with the Liberals and Oligarchs and take Russia forward and create growth and prosperity and the social justice system the People desire.
The US is waging a Hybrid War against Russia. Putin should declare a War Council, throw out Medvedev and the Liberals and unite the People. Ten months ago he had an enormous victory in the election. He could have done what the People wanted. Maybe that time was not right. The time is right in 2019. He cannot wait.
“Yes, he buried his popularity by backing the pension reform. He had little choice. The birthrate is flatlining again and reform now is less financially painful than later, at crisis point.”
What utter twaddle. Wealth of just the top 100 Russians is $0.4Trillion. That alone provides $2000 to each of the entire 145 Million population (let alone the pensioner population). Radical progressive taxation was a simple fix. Instead he supported the entrenched plutocracy moneyed interests hook, line and sinker.
Here’s more rubbish:
Russian Economic Resilience by Gary Littlejohn for The Saker Blog November 24 2018
Quote
“Russia fulfils both criteria for long-term growth, namely, it is not too unequal and has a state-sponsored growth strategy. It also has the most fundamental feature for long-term growth, namely population growth, and is now the only technologically advanced society to have this positive demographic profile. That is a result both of growing optimism about the future and of more stable families. Among ethnic Russians and some minorities this is almost certainly a result of the restored influence of Christianity.”
End Quote
So, a one time payment based on total confiscation of the Wealth of Oligarchs is your pathetic solution.
How long will that money last?
When that is gone, you still have the pension problem.
Pensions are designed for growth, new pay-ins from demographics and wise and prudent investment so the funds are managed for incremental growth.
If either of those two elements is lacking, you have pension crisis. It is predictable.
The quick and simple solution of taking the Oligarchs’ wealth is remarkably naive.
Putin would have rid the country of them if he could have.
What is necessary is getting more investment into the country and growing better than 1-2 %.
And the young Russians of marriage age need to start procreating at a much higher rate.
Naturally, there are economic reasons why families are not forming and small families have replaced traditional large families. But this is the crux of Russian self-realization that must be faced.
Adjusting pensions is global because birth rates in nations with pensions are flat-lining or declining.
The populations of dirt-poor countries is growing. They have no jobs, no incomes, no pensions. Thus, migration is a global issue.
Russia is festooned with bad management in the Liberal branches of government and has suffered for generations with corruption and thievery. This was born out of the Soviet system and exploited by the Liberals.
Putin merely rides the tiger, doing what he can to protect the sovereignty and safety of the country.
Perhaps, he is waiting for true crisis that will allow him to crush the Fifth Column and force change.
Meanwhile, if the Russians think less people paying in, while the present workers retiring earlier is a formula for success, they need to look at Mathematics, Subtraction. You can’t get more or the same from less.
No growth needed, sharing what already exists fairly among less people, if that is the case, is all that is required.
Hey, anonymous, it also the case that it is not a one time deal, pulling the ill gotten gains of oligarchs away from them. The oligarchs are parasitising continuous flows of wealth, that they are not working for in any way. All should be taken from them, as they simply stole the wealth of the nation. and continue to do so, and so all future thefts should be taken from them also, and returned to the people, the nation. It is not a quick and naive solution, as Larch contends. And further, pensions do not depend on what Larch pretends. Pensions depend entirely on productivity. If there is insufficient productivity, there can be no pensions. Pensions only exist because there is sufficient productivity. They have nothing to do with demographics, and they have nothing to do with growth.
Russia has excess capacity, and is able to ramp up production of many commodities, as exemplified by recent wheat harvests. This does not require more labour, it simply requires existing capacity to be utilized more. Pensions can readily be accommodated from current production, and from increased capacity utilization. Demographics is not an issue.
Russian record wheat: https://www.rt.com/business/420849-russia-wheat-record-harvest-exports/
Your naiveté is astounding. Commodities as the basis for pensions is like betting on bat guano output.
Commodities of any sort, agricultural or fossil fuels or minerals would be the riskiest basis for pension security.
Really, answering yourself with more nonsense of sophomoric output is below our standard here.
Come back when you know something that is related to the topic.
Meanwhile, stop trolling.
Obviously, there is a divergence between the financial view, and the real economy view. And that is what the productivity point is about. If there is no excess of commodities beyond the share of labour and capital, then there can be nothing for pensions, or other non-working people. Pensions are not just payments of money, they have to have real resources, that is the commodities, to back them up. That is not trolling, it is facts.
Larchmonter clearly lives in the fantasy world of capitalism, where “wealth” is measured by the stock market continually climbing, not in the real world where there are mouths to feed, and as long as enough food is grown to feed those mouths, society can be stable.
Infinite growth is not possible on a finite planet, too many mouths to feed is a real problem when crops fail, (and crops refer to food for people to eat, not commodities for Wall Street to gamble on).
Pensions do not have to be gambling funds, they can be pay-as-you-go transfers from currently workers to retired workers, with the understanding that they will be taken care of when their time comes. It takes a stable and honest society for this trust to be reached.
The US used to be that kind of society, but decades of greed and obfuscation have led to blowhards confidently spouting reactionary think tank talk like ”the retired can only be fed if there is population growth and wise gambling decisions”.
Since you and your shadow-self have all the answers, we’re looking forward to the society you build and the grand pensions for all your citizens. Have at it.
sometimes it seems to me that there are people who go out of their way to pick on regular commenters here – regular commenters who, for a long time – adore Saker’s work and who actually SUPPORT him.
Do either of you mice support Saker ? No ? then please, on behalf of the regular long time folks that come here to engage in interesting dialogue – don’t be rude to us – okay ?
Love Ann
Ann,
the saker is (or, at least, has been) a long time supporter of VVP. The Russian people are beginning to see that rather than have their best interest at heart Putin has that of the Russian moneyed class only.
This piece means saker may have started to see the light.
If he has he will gain my 100% support.
I agree that Larchmonter is not a troll but simply deluded. With the resources that Russia has the Russian people may not be due a “grand” pension but they are certainly due one which does not impoverish them. The only thing Putin is feeding them is bullsh*t and they don’t appreciate it..
I think, perhaps misguidedly, that the Saker has more sense than to take your particular point of view in ‘seeing the light.’
I also think that Mr Putin is engaged in a very delicate balancing act of catering to the multitude of factions that must exist within Russia, without destabilising the whole precipitously.
The job of a chief executive is to ensure that the state, or country as a whole survives. Since it is impossible to satisfy everyone all of the time, (people do differ greatly) every part must expect to make sacrifices at one time or another.
I an confident that Mr P is better informed as to what constitutes the best for the country as a whole at any given time than either you or I can ever be.
I hope that the Russian people retain their faith in Mr P and his team, clearly their best hope right now and for the foreseeable future.
@wagelaborer
_ ” us used to be that kind of society , but decades of greed …. “….
There is nowdays situation with pensions in usa…
CEO of usa some of pension fund played games brokers play
, and lost enormous amount of money. Pension fund.
Retired men lost its pensions.
But CEO of funds kept his hunderd milions $ salary.
And for months pensioners do not recive pensions.
Months waiting , and then recive 30 % of pension..
. Until new bilions of $ are printed by fed…
Pension funds do not have to be gambling funds. Surely not.
But maintaining the purchasing power in a pay-as-you-go transfer system is not evident long-term either, with or without taking risks in the placement of funds.
The transfer system presupposes that the active workers in a country permanently outnumber by far the retired workers, a condition which can be easier met when the economy is on the rise, but which is a lot harder to meet when joblessness rates are rising and less active people are contributing to the system, which is currently the scenario.
He has already chosen. The Russian Central Bank remains chained to International Finance; Russians are being fed baloney that there is no money.
Flopot, you keep coming up with the same drivel about RCB. RCB is not chained to any foreign bank, and that fact drives Da West nuts. There is no IMF money in Russia and never will be, VVP is not that dumb.
“Russians are being fed baloney that there is no money.” Prove it, if you would, please.
Auslander
I’ve been reading that Russia has been getting OUT of the international monetary system. Russia has sold most of their US Treasuries which are used in the swift system of the international monetary system. Russia has been buying gold and yuan. With all the sanctions on Russia, and the anti-Russia propaganda I would think you would be a little more considerate.
‘Russia and Putin have arrived at the end of the last chance for the Medvedev and his brethren.’
Should not be given at first place.
Wrong decision to keep Medvedev and his gang in power can backfire badly for Putin.
Time for purge is well overdue.
I am not blind, I see the every increasing discontent in the populace, in some areas approaching ‘seething’. Prices are going up by increments. VAT increased by 11% this month which means the price of all goods including many foods went up the same if not more. Utility prices, water, electric and gas, are going up, in come case exponentially. With the pension fund being ‘revamped’, people who have worked hard all their lives see the time of pension and retirement set back a year or three. ‘Seething’ does indeed describe the thought of many Russians of late.
As far as our little piece of heaven is concerned, we are still getting screwed royally by the excessive ‘transport’ charges for goods and services from the mainland. Before the bridge was completed, prices since summer of ’14 were 75% and even 100% more than on the mainland for the same goods shipped all over Russia. I asked the owner of a new shop why and he said the trucks have to pay $2000 to cross the straights by ferry each way. So, says I, you have a truck with $100,000 of goods and the cost of the ferry is $4000, IOW 4%, plus the drive from Kerch to this berg, add another 2%. So where is the other 94% gouge coming from? He seemed to be not able to answer that question, nor did he have a reply when I walked out the door and talked to the truck driver who just drove up in a huge new Benz tractor trailer assembly, asked him what it cost for the ferry since he had a Rostov tag number on his truck and was told $300 each way for that massive beast, less for smaller trucks. Plus, he said he had a load to take back with him to the mainland so he was not dead heading back. This is indicative of how we are getting screwed from Kerch to Djankoi to Sevastopol to this day, bridge or no bridge. You think the locals don’t know this? Dream on. It’s ‘just’ the siloviki on the mainland who now own almost all large businesses in Sevastopol and Krimea raping the citizens for cash, most of which promptly goes to Hotel California or Cyprus.
One of the biggest stunners is citizens in this berg and Krimu have to pay taxes now. Under the orcs taxes were paid but the vast majority of ‘taxes’ was simply some orcs coming to a shop with Militsiya and telling the owner how much he owed that month. Of course this ‘tax’ never made it to ‘government’ coffers, but it was paid on pain of loosing one’s business and the cost of the ‘tax’ was passed on to customers as usual. Now, property tax, auto tax and, for those employed, pension and income tax, is paid to the government.VAT is paid on just about everything except medicines and paid health care.
My charming bride was truly stunned when she found out we will have to pay property tax this year and I’m sure those of you living on Mars heard her displeasure. I asked her where she thought the money was coming from for the bridge, the new power plant at Inkerman, the massive road and infrastructure repairs worth billions and such and she had no answer. She still is far from happy but on the other hand the tax for our little 14 year old A Klasse is 250 rubles, IOW about four bucks. House tax is similar. If she could she would pay that tax in Kopeki, one kopek coins. She’s that upset and so are all her friends from Sevastopol to Moskau.
The problem with Russia, the Atlanticists and the rapacious thieving oligarchs is not that they can and do get away with this rampant theft wherein the monies leave for Hotel California, Cyprus and UK, but with the somewhat touchy international situation. President Putin has his hands full with defending Russia tooth and claw whilst rebuilding Russia ground up, in particular the defenses thereof but basically everything. One, this is not cheap and two, it takes time. Of prime importance is our defenses and I’ll be the first to admit that the performance in the mess in Gruzya in ’08 was not quite stellar. However, it’s ten years later and the improvements in our military is incredible, and this fact is not lost on SehSha and Hotel California, aka HC.
We are at war with SehSha and HC and while it’s not ‘officially’ a shooting war, it’s as close as you can get without some really nasty events happening. This effort takes preference over most anything domestic. I might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but I see very clearly what is going on both locally and nationally. Once this ‘war’ is at a manageable level, I have no doubts that the Atlanticists and their hangers on in St. Pete and Moskau will have some very sad days. President Putin has several times in the last two years asked them to return their monies to Russia and invest in Russia. A few, a very few, did, but most keep on with their old ways and arranging their and their families’ comfortable lives in UK/HC. I would aver that this year, 2019, will be the watershed in Russia’s international relations and 2020 may well be the year when things get uncomfortable for the thieves and brigands all over Russia. Time will tell, but I’m patient and I not only look, I see when I look.
Auslander
Author
Never The Last One. A deep look in to Russia, her culture and her Armed Forces, in essence a look at the emergence of Russian Federation.
https://saker.community/product/never-the-last-one-a-novel-by-r-h-auslander-pdf-ed/
Sevastopol, The Third Defense. Set against a backdrop of real events and real places, the reader is left to filter fact from fiction.
https://saker.community/product/sevastopol-the-third-defense-2013-2014-a-premonition-the-move-south/
Please be more clear about names like ´sesha´ and HC. These are insider terms, and neutral outsiders can only guess what they mean…
Rootman,
Sorry, I did not mean to confuse. USA in Russian is США, pronounce ‘SehSha’. HC, as I also said in my post, is Hotel California, aka (also known as) EU, aka European Union.
The song ‘Hotel California’ fits EU to a ‘T’ in that you can always become a member of EU but you can never leave EU. That is what will happen with UK, there will be another ‘referendum’, and another and another until EU gets the vote they want, then there will be no more referendums.
Auslander
Thanks! And LOL, in this last week I’ve been listening to both the Brexit debate in the UK, and an old classic concert performance by The Eagles, where of course they opened with their big hit “Hotel California” :)
“Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
“Relax,” said the night man
“We are programmed to receive
You can check-out any time you like
But you can never leave!””
— Hotel California, by The Eagles.
:)
Bring your alibis!
Thanks so much for doing the extensive leg-work of asking an actual truckdriver what is paid in transit fees; an invaluable perspective (absolutely no sarcasm intended). I would like to suggest that our US president’s financial security, as it is, depends on laundering money in his highly over-valued condos. In the last 2 decades lower Manhattan has been transformed into a disgusting collection of glass towers. Trump over-paid for all the property, as he had always done. It’s propped up with money laundered through various criminal entetprises. I’m sure VVP is aware that cracking down on money-flight may emperil a working relationship w/the US Mobster-in-Chief
Larry
I’m laughing, a little. The ‘leg work’ was every bit of 15 meters, a walk out the shop back door to the back lot. Started the conversation with comparing his Mt. Everest size Benz tractor to our old and little A Klasse sitting beside it, his three pointed star on the grill was roughly the size of our little ‘Kamazik’, little Kamaz. Then asked about the truck and got a guided tour after I showed him my passport, he figured out real quick that I was not Russian. He spoke some English and between his small English and my hideous Russian we did commo a bit. Truck is a grin, danged thing will do just about everything but fix the driver breakfast and kiss him ‘good morning’ and he said since the truck is new, there might be a button for that, too, that he hasn’t found yet.
VCO got his cell number and he’s got hers, this after he offered his services if we needed anything picked up the other side of the straights and brought here. He does the bridge crossing regularly, that’s his gig.
Auslander
Thank you, Auslander! Your comments provide undeniable grit and polish to Saker’s analysis because you are where it is all at. Very much appreciated!
A very good article!
But the author is in error if he thinks the alternative to “Capitalism” (= Liberalism/Neoliberalism)” was Marxism. The real and very successful opponent of Liberalism/Neoliberalism is instead only MERCANTILISM!
Mercantilism means three things:
1) High taxation of all companies (producing or delivering service). Yes, this is directly contrary to Trumps “tax relief” for corporations (same happened in Germany, France, GB since a lot of years). This leads to nowhere. The promised more employment never happened every time they installed “tax relief” for corporations!
And, yes, the prices of products (let’s say for a man’s shirt) will even double for a certain time. But if this more money of the state’s exchequer is poured out to the citizens, there would be more customers that are able to buy products/services.
2) A high custom duty to imports.
Like your watch is totally sealed (may be even to water – so You could shower with Your watch on) a national market, or transnational market like the old “EEC – “European Economic Community”, which later changed into this disgusting “EU” – is an inside “machine”! Yes, a globalised, let’s say, car-tire company could produce cheaper tires for the whole world than a single producer in every country. But that’s not the point. A national producer makes workstations a lot .and income for the state’s exchequer .
3) State Firms:
When in poor Germany after the lost war, in the 1920s, the private power corporations delivered too expensive power to the people, the government of the federal state of Hamburg founded a state owned power corporation: “Hamburgische Electricitäts-Werke AG”. After that the state of Hamburg didn’t profit not only by it’s exchequer, but also the citizens (and industry) had suddenly much cheaper energy.
But now, about 20 years ago, the government of Hamburg sold its “Hamburgische Electricitäts-Werke AG” to the Swedish corporation “Vattenfall”. That’s how it goes!
In times of Kaiser William II. (a stupid asshole!) the exchequer of the “Reich” had an enormous income be “state firms”. They were also by technology top (only Communists and Liberals can’t work with state firms!)! Also in Germany after WWII the state firm “Volkswagen” was enormously profitable for the national exchequer (and producing working places). Remember: the Volkswagen “Beetle” and even more the “Transporter” became the Hippy’s favourite (and also sold tremendously well in Asia and Latin America). Also Renault, then owned by the state of France, conquered even the car producing Germany with their products (namely their “R4”). But both companies have been “privatised” some decades ago. Since then privatised “Volkswagen” and privatised “Renault” fall far behind Japanese, Koreans, Chinese producers!
4) “Intellectual property”
Scientific, technical and economical progress belongs to 90% to us people. If Einstein had lived in the stone age he couldn’t’ even have written down his ideas. Even more he even wouldn’t haven been able come up with his “Relativity Theory”. This because Einstein’s thoughts and every “invention” nowadays is rooted to the progress of our civilisations (“Yes, nice cave painting, Einstein – but where is Your Relativity-Theory?“). Thus 90 % of “inventions” or scientific progress in out societies belongs to us – the people.
Why not tax Microsoft with a new program or Apple with a new App with 99% of Tax? They are using letters and numbers! And letters are an inheritance of our(!) civilisation. The Phoenicians systematically invented letters, when they thought that little pictures (what Egyptian and Chinese writing was) were not functional enough. So the Phoenicians developed “letters” for vocals and consonants. The clever old Greeks stole this idea immediately. The also clever old Romans stole this idea then from the Greeks. Our “Arabic numbers” were stolen from the Arabs, who stole it from the Indians.
This is OUR PROPERTY – not that of some corporations!
This “Intellectual Property”-thing is nothing but a liberal trick to dispossess the community/state/citizens. Like they did with material things: Unnoticed by the German citizens their “Autobahns” have long been “privatised”. See (only in German, sorry): https://youtu.be/Z2mGHgFiqVk
Also see Michael Hudson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXF7xJP6hW8
To Mercantilism also (only in German) “WELCHE STAATSWIRTSCHAFT” – http://www.directupload.net/file/d/4556/o7qbq9dq_pdf.htm .
After WWII West-Germany and Japan came back on their feet because of modern Mercantilism (in Japan ‘practical Mercantilism’ based on another economic history though). Mercantilist Sweden under Olof Palme hat the highest per capita income of all European states (East and West).
Modern Mercantilism is no more so much about “infrastructure” (canals, railways and so on – like the old Mercantilism) but about distributing the national GDP to the citizens – instead to corporations/oligarchs.
In days past only businesses were taxed at a flat 25% of profits only!…The workers were never taxed nor was there a VAT tax imposed on anything.
Between Import Tax and a business Tax…that would suffice in any situation.
25% of profits would still make Bezos worth more than $100 B so the Oligarch problem doesn’t go away (even though Amazon profits are currently tiny/non-existent their market power will lead to them soon charging whatever they want).
Bezos’s Amazon makes practically no profits on the sales business. But Amazon performs data mining for NSA/CIA and stores their data for them ass well, for which these agencies pay hundreds of millions.
Joarg, Saker is correct and you are wrong. The process started in late 70’s with the West getting flooded by the “non-communist liberals” from the communist block. What you see today in the West is a hybrid system, which stresses “privatization” and dictatorship in various forms. Hence the clamping down on freedom of speech and increasing censorship of the Internet. If you look around you will see that the the staunchest anti-Russian activists actually came from the Eastern-Block.
@Anonius
When I said that the alterative to “Capitalism” (= Liberalism/Neoliberalism)” is not Marxism, but Mercantilism, it doesn’t oppose what You, Anonius, said and it didn’t oppose what Saker said. I only pointed out that almost everyone has forgotten Mercantilism. In my view the only successful and just (to the citizens) state economy system.
Now let’s look, why Mercantilism was forgotten. Or better: Why we were made to forget it.
Remember: When the father of Frederick the Great introduced Mercantilism to Prussia in the 18th century it was the most back warded country of all German-language states. And in the middle of the 19th century Prussia was one of the most modern, and technically progressive and also most social states in Europe. Why did they throw Mercantilism over board?
Or take West-Germany of the 1950s and 1960s: Everything worked very well: A very social state with a very progressive economy and technology, full employment.
But then the Liberals came. And what in the 1960s was called “Social Market Economy” (“Soziale Marktwirtschaft”) suddenly, in the 1980s, changed to “Market Economy”. They simply dropped the word “Social” – and no one complained! Why not?
And then some 20 years ago they changed “Market Economy” to “The Market”. And again no one recognized this enormous change of the “system” (or what you would call it).
My own answer to my question above is:
The citizens/people forgot to fulfil their “duty”. What was their “duty”? Their duty was and is to rule. Our forefathers chased away kings and princes, because they wanted us people to rule ourselves and considered everyone of us a ‘King’ or a ‘Queen’.
But our people (with few exceptions) forgot about that. “Ruling” means to inform yourself every day, to take part in political discussions and decisions, to found political parties, to demonstrate and – if necessary – to even make a mass-riot.
But our citizens only cared about their private life (like so many bad(!) kings before – only caring for love affairs and hunting). And so two or three (I think) mobs (with their oligarchs) now rule at least the western nations.
Like the Mafia these ‘oligarch-mobs’ rule with murder (only sometimes) and corruption (permanently). Just think of these missing $21 Trillion of the Pentagon (good: https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1407-mark-skidmore-on-the-pentagons-missing-trillions/) . If you can buy a lot of individuals (in parties, governments, administrations, trade unions, news outlets) with, let’s say $2.1 Million, this mobs can buy 1 Million individuals (on the hole planet) with these $21 Trillion alone!
Not earlier will these dictatorships (in the west and elsewhere) be overthrown than the citizens understand that “Democracy” means “rule of the people/citizens” and they start to rule.
Okay. I’ll go along with that. Mind you I did not miss the word “mercantilism”.
Joerg
In your view was not Germany practicing successful mercantilism prior to 1914 and their blazing success so freaked out the English ruling class that their answer was to shut it all down by creating World War One?
I agree with you about the functionality of mercantilism. I believe that is what got the USA going in its early stages. You say that for it to work the people must be actively politically engaged. Absolutely right. So would that not be socialist-mercantilism? History tends to show that capitalists ditch mercantilism when they no longer need it. It appears to me this (socialist-mercantilism) is what China is up to. Your thoughts?
@Snow Leopard
My answer to You from 12 hours ago doesn’t appear.
I’ll use a somewhat newer broser and post that comment again.
Those who produce should have their just share of the means of production and the fruits of production. The ownership of land and assets is a very, strange idea, and one that is clearly underpinned by threats of violence. My own preference would be for a ‘Cooperative Commonwealth’, world peace, and a global focus on green technology and space travel.
In 1844 in London, the term ‘Scientist’ was invented at the third meeting of British Association for Science, open to public, unlike the Royal Society which was invitees only and to RS, all new knowledge belonged to King or discoverer.
The term was thought up because the elderly poet Coleridge ( they at first did not know who he was) stood up to protest at these people calling themselves “Natural Philosophers”, a shocking unearned prideful title for the audience
Whatever the name, let the philosophy prevail over the Royal Society and their present day kindred.
Interesting blog and comments, thank you
Agree with you on many points, especially the theft of the commons known as ”intellectual property rights”.
The US is now using this to foment war with China.
https://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2019/01/intellectual-property-and-war-on-china.html
And we must be reminded that Olaf Palme was assasinated. I don’t subscribe to coincidence theories.
You couldn’t be more in error yourself, Jörg (same goes for Flopot). You seem to be trained/fooled by the AngloZionist aka ‘Nazi’ propaganda machine, or the AngloZionist West’s ‘educational’ system, to right away dismiss the solid scientific theories of German intellectuals like Karl Marx (and Marxism-Leninism), without even having the slightest idea what they are (just as The Saker says). Those intellectuals were the mafia’s most dreaded opponents and not by coincidence targeted by ‘Nazism.’
Mercantilism, you’re way off there, was merely (still) sub-divided Western imperialism, which was mostly collaborating with or run by the same banksters & gangsters, and the forerunner of AngloZionist monopoly capitalism’s liberalism/neoliberalism.
After this miserable mob/cult of vulgar lying psychopaths, poisoners and assassins (it’s their modus operandi) poisoned Stalin (March 1953) and began dismantling Marxism-Leninism, East Germany was under attack from both the ‘Nazis’ aka AngloZionists in the West and the Trotskyite pseudo-Communist Zio-fascists in the Kremlin. Hence the Euromaidan-like uprising a few months later in Berlin. See e.g. https://sascha313.wordpress.com
when we talk about pension reform, many Russians behave like spoiled girls.
Pension reform is needed and Putin is not a fool. And also Medvedev is not a fool.
In whole developed world pension age is at least 65 years of age. In Australia where I live now it is 67 .
And government just decided and nobody asked people for nothing.
About question of conflict between so called nationalists and atlantists, I have to say, Russia have to preserve sovereignty but it does not mean isolationism at all.
Isolationism is a path to death of the nation.
Crucial thing for Russia – balance between sovereignty and non-isolationism.
Putin is going this path and HE IS RIGHT. Absolutely.
A. N. Other turkey looking for the lowest common denominator voting for Christmas while the Oligarchs continue to party like it was 1999 but more so.
Trump would kill several people to get Putin’s popularity chart.
By comparison, a chart of Trump’s popularity can be found here. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo With the government shut down going on and on over Trump’s temper tantrum that he’s got to have his expensive construction boondoggle project, Trump is now below 40%. The end of the chart which is the post-shut-down period looks like a submarine captain yelling “dive! dive! dive!”. What’s rather impressive about Trump’s chart is that it means there are people who regularly vote Republican who disapprove of Trump.
———–
The one thing that oligarchs and aristocrats have agreed on throughout history is that the people should be slaves and have no say at all in how the oligarchs and aristocrats behave. Even when the oligarchs and aristocrats decide that it would be better for the oligarchs and aristocrats if the people were to just starve and die.
“From a Marxist point of view, any state is always and by definition the dictatorship of the ruling class, which is a good thing, at least according to the Marxists, when this ruling class is the workers and people, and a very bad thing when the ruling class is the plutocracy.”
Marx worked for the ruling classes (industrialists and financiers) to undermine real socialist and republican movements. Leave him and his ideas in the ground where these belong.
The problem with Russia is that its Central Bank’s Constitution is still tied to the dollar. And if/when the dollar is usurped by another reserve currency then the Bank will still be tied to an external currency ruled the uber-elite financiers. China is still controlled by the banksters that helped set up that state and so a Chinese-backed reserve currency will be the same old scenario.
The Russian Central Bank needs to be nationalized so that Russia controls own currency again Putin has made no moves to do this, despite all the rumours of the last decade. I have no hope that the world will ever be free of the cabal that rules over us. People just cannot grasp the fundamental concept that they are being lied to about everything. Quoting Marx and Marxists is always a red flag in my little book ;)
Flopot, we need to understand these philosophies and I agree with The Saker on this one. Heaven knows, before I read Das Kapital (Capital. Critique of Political Economy), I never understood capitalism. One does not have to swallow everything hook line and sinker. Go and watch a few of Professor Richard Wolff’s videos on Marxism, which, contrary to what we think in the West, is alive and well and developing as a system. The debate and the implementation as simply labor and capital has developed tremendously into a workable different economic systems. I mean Vietnam is a socialist country. China is a communist country (with Chinese characteristics). Iran is socialist with their characteristics. Mexico is fast turning into a socialist type structure which suits the latam people much better.
My own view and it is perhaps a naive view, is that both these can co-exist and one can use one or the other depending on the requirements at the time. There are state level initiatives that have to centrally managed (if we even continue with the current nation/state Westphalian type concepts). Under capitalism this also happens, it is just called robust capitalism, while the internationalists are in a real sense in charge of the state. It is already upside down. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3078632?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Also, if we ideologically cling to one way or another, our ideology will be tested fiercely in the time to come with the advent of the type of technological development we are seeing. Robotics and the type of artificial intelligence that we are living through is going to knock all our current ideologies on their heads, but, if I think about it, with all the jobs that are being replaced through these technologies, capitalism will keep people very hungry. There simply has to be a social aspect to our technological changes. Anyway, while capitalism stands on its feet and does not want to change, in the socialist world, the concepts are developing fast.
I am not saying it is right or wrong, I am just saying that this is happening.
This pension furore almost looks to me like a clash of a social world vs a capitalist world.
We may see and I say this very tentatively, a change in the Russian Central Bank (or we may not visibly see this, but only in terms of what they do). Russia has very little US treasuries currently, so, the central bank by definition is now managing Euro, Yuan and other currencies as well as currency swops with others for trade. That already is a tremendous change from a geo-economics point of view.
Which “real socialist” movements are not based on Marx’s analysis of Capitalism?
From the stand point of far sightedness Putin cannot be be faulted with increasing the Pension age, this is necessary because otherwise the demographics of the country will worse: the young will have that much less to support children and start families to support the aged overly long retirements.
However, anytime the government offers less than class tensions are bound to rise. Putin should have some temporary tax on his oligarchs to build nursery homes or some other jester of public solidarity. But I doubt he could make them uncomfortable in such a direct way even if he were so inclined.
Convincing defence of the Russian people and their ethical values. It made me quite reflect. In particular because of the ideological questions.
One could say that, during my life, the research of an, ethically speaking, defendable ideology was central. This also means an ideology which I can – more or less – really live (not just think).
In my youth, I started with a commitment in (protestant) Christianity. However, the people I met (in Switzerland), were disappointing, they did not really believe what they pretended to believe. So, religion was not an issue for me. No religion does not mean no believes; it is in the (biological) nature of human beings to have believes, most of them being unconscious.
Then I continued with Marxism-Leninism. And in particular with the writings of Mao Zedong. I still think that with Marx, the Western culture has reached its highest level. It is one of the profound weaknesses of the ruling Western thinking that it is (still) not capable to discuss Marx on a more or less objective basis. [By the way, I do not like the term “globalisation”; this was already described in Lenin’s book “Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism” and is not at all a modern phenomenon.] However, I do not see me as a Marxist; perhaps, I am too individualistic. In addition, I do not like the promises of a paradise and I have not the optimism of Marx concerning the capacity of planning the economy.
Finally, I also have a long experience with (classical) sciences. I do not know how the universities in China, in Russian or in Iran work. However, the universities in the Western world have more or less abandoned the spirit of the research of truth. They just produce a lot of diploma and are essentially guided by superstition.
So, my experiences confirm the “intellectual desert the West has become”. The “battle of greed vs ethics” is not in favour of ethics (in the West). Hopefully, the situation for the ethic side is better in other parts of the world.
It would be a disaster if Russia got it’s own Neoliberal Permanent Oligarchy allied with the Permanent Deep State running things. If Putin does not tame the Oligarchs and their continuous looting of Russia how can Russia develop in a sustainable direction?
If the bridge over Kerch, magnificent as it is, is to be paid for by sucking the blood out of the populace while the Oligarchs move their loot to tax havens then something is seriously wrong.
Well it was paid for with tax money like any other country would.
“…if Putin is the champion of the interests of the common people, and if most common people feel that the government cares more for millionaires and billionaires, then how can the President say that he is “on the whole happy” with the government?”
Psychologically, I think this is simple enough. It’s much the same with the Tsar and his ministers or the Queen of the UK and her ministers.
All human beings have a deep instinctual need for a single, strong, effective, undisputed leader. If a troop of chimpanzees or a pack of wolves lacks a strong leader, it will fare badly and may break up or even die out. Hence it is far more important to have a single leader who is respected by all than it is to like that leader, or even agree with his (or her) policies.
In the UK the situation is particularly clearcut, because the monarch is head of state and little else. He or she is strictly forbidden by the unwritten constitution to meddle in any way with politics; even expressing opinions is ruled out. Therefore all the concrete actions and policies of the government are the responsibility of the ministers, and in case of failure it is the ministers who bear the brunt of the people’s wrath. That is as it should be, and allows governments to come and go (and be execrated) while the monarch floats serenely above the fray.
Most citizens feel loyalty and even love for their nation (or fatherland, or motherland, or rodina) and find it easy to focus those emotions on a single human being. So the “little Father” or “Her Majesty the Queen” can be loved and honoured, while the dirty doings of those unscrupulous ministers are criticized mercilessly.
This doesn’t work so well in countries like the USA or most other republics, as the head of state is also the chief politician. Very few Americans feel the same powerful emotions when they gaze at Donald Trump as when they contemplate The Flag and the National Anthem.
It seems to me that over the past 18 years Mr Putin has gone a long way to standing in the place of the Tsar, emotionally speaking. It must be easy to see him as the father of his people, in view of all he has done for them and also his high moral tone and respect for law. So it is reasonable that he would be considered (mostly) above the muck and mess of real politics.
From my very naive point of view it seems Mr Putin should be telling the Russian people some home truths.
1. He has been in power for 19 years, following 10 years of increasing anarchy orchestrated by the West. Without him, Russia would have collapsed utterly by now. Before 1991 there were 75 years of Soviet rule, aimed at creating a wholly different kind of society. If Russia can be put back on course within one lifetime, it will be a great triumph. To do it in 20 years is asking too much. True, people have worked hard all their lives and deserve a good pension – but how much would they have got under the Soviet system? And how much have pensions increased since 2000?
2. As everyone has pointed out, Mr Putin’s top priority must be defending Russia against the concerted and very powerful attacks it is experiencing. If prices are high in Crimea, that is because rejoining Russia carried great costs.
3. Somehow, all Russians must be persuaded that they are now living through another huge trial such as the Great Patriotic War. It is much slower, and far less bloody, but exactly like the GPW it is a struggle for the continued existence of Russia. Considering the sacrifices made in 1941-5, people must now be prepared to make rather more bearable sacrifices so that the future can be better.
4. Don’t they prefer being citizens of a relatively poor country that is steadily rising in the world, rather than citizens of a boastful, arrogant has-been country that is steadily getting poorer and less powerful?
Tom, while I think I know quite a bit about the System as it was in the Eastern-Block I can understand Russian reactions. First of all while the USSR was basically bankrupt it insisted on providing all the life’s essentials to the people practically free. While people’s life was secure, they wanted more because of Hollywood Propaganda. People expect Putin to give them the same, which he can’t. And this is his problem. We are back to what Saker says: Putin can not sit on the fence, he has to do something. No matter what he does he is screwed. If he cuts neo-liberal influence he will most likely be assassinated. Just like many people in DPR. Mozgovoy comes to my mind, because he was increasingly popular and openly threatened the clique.
Also, western pressure (sanctions) does not help, because instead of simply buying things he needs, he has to spend money on R&D and growing the economy rapidly. Something has to give, unfortunately, and many people fail to understand that: he does not have the luxury of printing money at will, because unlike the US, when vultures throw that money back at him he has to pay them in Gold.
‘First of all while the USSR was basically bankrupt it insisted on providing all the life’s essentials to the people practically free.’
Nothing is free. The productivity of the people supplies the surplus/profit which then provides the necessities of life. The ‘USSR’ the state, or managing body produced nothing, only labour produces. So how can the benefits of labour’s productivity miraculously become a free gift of the state? Who is kidding who here?
The government’s function is distribution and logistics management, it produces nothing, ever.
The next question must be why was the USSR bankrupt? Had it been doing its proper function of management and distribution of production it should not have happened.
“…The ‘USSR’ the state, or managing body produced nothing, only labour produces. …”
All flesh is grass.
It is the action of sunlight falling on plants, producing grass, grain etc, that is the source of our necessary food. Yes labour may plant this or that, and pull up weeds, and apply watering, but it is really the combination of sun, and water, and inorganic nutrients (N,K,P, etc) plus the seeds required, that feeds us all. Labour is tiny compared to the sun, water, seed, etc, that labour did not create. Capital did not create those either. Neither Capital nor Labour created the earth and creation.
Labour does not create the value in fish in the sea. Labour and capital can harvest, but they are not the true source.
True, but that hardly aids the originator of the assertion in seeing the deception does it?
Bet it makes you feel virtuous though. Done any gardening for food lately? To produce sufficient food for a family takes work, knowledge, good management and husbandry of resources.
Try living off the land for a while, then call on Ray Mears for some tips on how to survive it.
There is a reason we moved on from subsistence farming, it is a precarious way to provide for oneself and never gets any easier with regular famines and widespread starvation accompanying any untoward weather events or pestilences.
I grew up on a farm.
You make me laugh. In reality we Westerners moved on from subsistence farming to ever more destructive and unproductive farming. Just for fun look up the input/output energy ratios of farming and do that for the periods before the introduction of chemicals and fuel (the tractor), then the ratio at the introduction of those two and then for nowadays farming.
You’ll be surprised about the utter energy waste of modern farming, only possible because of relatively cheap energy.
Then another matter, in North America before Europeans introduced their ‘modern’ farming by taking the land from its rightful owners and chopping down the woodlands, there was another type of farming going on that was much more efficient. Nowadays we call it “Forest Gardening” or “Edible Forest Gardens”. These gardens produce year round and after establishment only need minor management/energy and don’t need any pesticides. These people did not suffer from famines or starvation, let alone pestilences until the immigrants willfully gave them their share.
The silly immigrants never realized what they chopped down, plowed over and destroyed forever.
I am not at all surprised. Nothing is free including our vaunted human ingenuity. The fact that we do not, generally and conveniently, count the cost does not automatically make the cost go away, as we are finding to our cost now or will shortly. ‘These people’ with their forest gardening were also remarkably fewer in number than at present require feeding and also seasonally nomadic, hardly any real comparison or future remedy. Since they also has a developed system for treating illness, it is unlikely that they were free from such afflictions. Archaeological studies on bones show the presence of most of the common pestilential ailments that we still suffer today.
I’m glad, at least, I make you laugh, though I suspect that it is in easy derision and sadly, no real mirth.
Such a waste.
one minion,
Well my boy, if I may (and I do not mean to suggest that you are my son. I have only one son and it’s not you). The point is as follows. USSR did produce a lot, but it wasn’t enough. Also the economical and all other sanctions took their tall. Also, the biggest problem was the idiotic idea of kolkhoz. The land was confiscated by the state and big agricultural companies were created, which were a total failure. People forced (had no choice) to work there did not care (this is the unforeseen reaction to communist system). West did not learn from this example and it’s doing the same thing, except that it does not employ people uses machinery and throws immense amounts of energy and poison to get the results. But nobody talks about it. Also, they were were adhering to the dictates of the “god of communism” – Lenin, who said that in communist system everyone must be employed. Hence, they created factories to employ people, but the product had no market value and it went to be burned in furnaces just as soon as it was produced. So, to answer your question this was the reason, why SU and its vassals were going bankrupt. Also, this is to all the “communists” who throw all those fancy theories at us => “the theory has nothing to do with reality on ground”.
@Anonius,
Thanks for that, I had heard about the inefficiencies of the kolkhoz and that the people didn’t feel that they had a personal stake in the success of such huge and unwieldy projects.
“the theory has nothing to do with reality on ground”.
So true. A small pilot project would have been better for the first experiment in communism to spot the snags and problems before scaling up or dumping the idea if it was unworkable. However, small worker co-ops have been running successfully and proving viable in many countries for decades. I watched Dr Wolff lecture yesterday and he mentioned the famous Mondragon worker co-op project in Spain (worth investigating) which has been successfully running and diversifying for years. From a small group it is now the 6th largest organisation in the country.
In the UK we have some examples too, though less famous. It takes hard work, dedication and much thought to build from the ground up though, but if it works in the cold light of reality its worth it whatever ideological label you stick on it.
@ Anonius
_ “… biggest problem was idiotic idea of kolhoz ” ..
That is the point.
Idea from depth of hell.
Very cleverly thought out way how to destroy small peasants , small farmers.
So , it was not idiotic. It was horror story.
Since small farmer cared about his area of farm , cared about productivity , but once they were forced to leave their land , and give it to colective big kolhos , after that no farmer cared about productivity , since it is not his land any more.
And productivity of kolhos also decreased , since nobody cared about common land.
So it was double sided path to hell. To destruction of farmland and farmers.
Should i remind that small farmers were those mayority of rusians.
Disconnected from earth , as source of food.
And farmers had to leave their farms , and to go to city , and become poor worker.
So , you turn farmer to worker , to make land of farmers land of workers.
And to apply theories of Marx_Engels upon new by force created , work class.
And since productivity of kolhos decresses , hunger increases.
People die.
Aim of enemies of rusians. Cleverly thought out.
Okay, I just realized that I made a mistake. I should have said SOVKHOZ, those were totally government run corporations. KOLKHOZ were COOPs. Needless to say that neither really performed very well. KOLKHOZ did little bit better.
@ one minion
_ ” … Nothing is free … ”
There are some things free , like sunlight is free , air is free , water is free , …
In life of wolf , beàr , lion , eagle , falcon , mice , buterfly , shark , everything is free.
But in life of materialistic_man ,
everything has its price , and has to be paid , earned , or grabbed from someone.
For man nothing is free , besides some of sunrays , and air for breathing.
God created all of His creation for free.
And presented it to mankind as gift.
And mankind turned free gifts as merchandise , to be paid , earned , or stolen
Gods’ gifts as content of mans’ economy.
And mankind does not say : ” Thank you Lord for your gifts “.
I would suggest that you become acquainted with the work of philosopher Thomas Hobbes who described the life of the natural man as ‘solitary, nasty, brutish and short’ before advocating that all is free, or should be.
You cannot, try as you might, put the genie back in the bottle.
Pol Pot and his crew tried exactly that and look at the result, the same as all others who have tried it. There is no going back, no matter how much you might want to, to some non-existent paradise that now lives on in your dreams, where everything you want is easy and comes with no effort your part.
You might also try investigating Jean-Jaques Rousseau, who grappled with these ideas 300 years ago, in a lot more depth than you appear to be doing. For all that, he had to live off the patronage and hand-outs of others for most of his life, just to get by.
Myself, I’d give it a try in reality to see if it is workable before mouthing pious platitudes about ‘natural man’ in his ‘natural world’ and how free everything is. Reality always bites, and that is what you have to deal with, not some pleasant utopian dream that will never be realised, no matter how hard you wish for it.
@one minion
my short reply ” nothing is free ” , had no connection to any economist or philosopher. Something like thinking of a little bit , religious man.
My comment is not based on such high philosophy toughts. Just my simple mind.
Nor i am ” advocating … that all is free or should be ” . Like my wishfull thoughts.
I just pointed to evolvment of simple relation , and its strange transformation :
” everything is free ” ——-….! ? ! ——- ” nothing is free ” .
Since we know that earth was formed or “terraformed ” is such a way to be home_base for mankind.
Nobody said , earthians , we created earth for you ,
and there is bill for you , you have to pay. Everything was placed as free.
Gods’ willing . His gift to mankind. Gift without price to be paid.
How much earthians , mankind , pay Sun for sunrays , sun energy.?
There would be no life of earth without energy from sun , that reaches for free.
No matter what enormous amount of money earthians could collect, or hard work
they would not be able to pay energy from Sun. That comes for free. God loves men.
And somehow it turned out that everything has to be paid , to be earned.
Who placed himself in position of declared owner of earth ,
and collector of valuables, oil , ores , gold , diamonds…
Stuff that was formed in depths of earth 250 milions of years ago ,
but usa , old 250 years is its’ owner now….
Yes , usa , that declared that every point on earth is ” of most national interest ” , and has to be defended with thousand miltary bases around world.
Who gave right usa to declare it as foreign national policy ? Based on what ?
Power of arms ? Each point on earth is our national interest. Our ownership.?
Yes , satan was responsible for letting genie out of bottle. No return possible.
He whispered to men , there is progress before you , civilisation , era of inventions , era of gold , era of money , era of fortune. And men followed his ideas of progress.
But that progress has to be paid. Everything has to be paid , to be earned.
And so mankind comes to ” nothing is free ” …
_ ” reality always bites…”
Yes , that is why there are many people in usa converting their life from citizen of nyc , or some other city , to ” off grid living ” in some forest.
” off grid living ” , as we do not wish to pay bills for water , for electricity , we want life of free man.
So i am not ” advocating ” life of ” natural man ” or ” natural world ” ,
just pointing out that there are lot of people in usa who prefere that kind of life.
They are fed up with city life , everything has to be paid , hard earned money.
Well , utopian dream was always present in man’s thoughts ,
no matter how hard is it to achieve it. Or not possible to achieve.
Dreams of better life, of a free man. Slaves always dream so.
Dream is a dream. For free. Not some material item that has to be paid.
Wether i wish it or not. Question is what mankind wishes. Or hopes for.
Mankind has to find better path , since present path is not promising.
Capitalism is its worst path.
Subsistence farming did not disappear due to it being an unpleasant or difficult life. It disappeared largely due to land reforms instigated by moneyed interests that sought control of land for more profitable purposes. Much traditional and common use land was not controlled by the system of land title as we know it. It was a simple matter to petition governments to award title to corporations or other Capital interests and force the traditionalists off the land they had used for centuries. This process is still ongoing in the developing world.
The enclosures certainly aided the process of moving on from subsistence farming and enforced it in some areas eg Scotland and Ireland, but there was also a voluntary migration from the land by the people to the promise of a ‘better life’, a more stable life, in the industrialising towns. It was a con but people willingly bought into it, on a promise, as people continue to do.
@ бели орао збг,
I have no intention of discussing religion with you, being a staunch and committed agnostic (don’t know, don’t ever expect to know and cheerfully admit it).
‘You wrote ‘Since we know that earth was formed or “terraformed ” is such a way to be home_base for mankind.’
In fact we know nothing of the kind. You might have been told that or read it somewhere but you have been misinformed–we don’t know and it is better, if sanity is to prevail, that we admit what we don’t know and not just assume that how we want it to be is how it is in fact.
Earth and life itself might be an unlooked for gift (it can be just as much of a burden to some unfortunates) but it is a short and confused step from that simple idea to the notion of man’s dominion over earth, beloved of fundamentalist religious types everywhere and the cause of much murderous stupidity and downright wickedness, satan or no satan.
A few moments close observation will confirm that nature is supremely indifferent to the fate of all her creations, man included. Perhaps your god is too, neither of us know the answer to that one whatever we might believe. One day she (nature) will shrug us all off, like a bad case of fleas, as Carlin memorably remarked. Until she does, I expect the craziness in men’s minds to continue, despite agreeing with you that we need a new way to live and that capitalism is failing big time.
There is still no free lunch. Wild creatures spend most of their time looking for food and often don’t manage to get sufficient even on a day to day basis. Man in the wild will be in the same position. How many erstwhile city dwellers will succeed at off-grid living off the land in our already crowded, desecrated and polluted landscape?
Do you think that they will remain polite and considerate of their fellows in such a fraught situation?
@ one minion
_ ” in fact we know nothing of the kind ” …
Then , may we conclude that Earth does not exist at all ?
Since it is obvious conclusion.
We do not know it was created , so it does not exist.
If something was not created , it could not exist ?
Than how one could explain all those elements that are grouped
on earth , under earth , above earth ?
What about oxygen in air ? No mankind without oxygen. No breatning.
What about ozone layer above earth. Preventing extremly dangerous uv radiation.
Without ozone layer there would be no plants , no vegetables , all burned.
What about wan_allen ring around earth ?
Decreasing extreme power of Sun radiation , and adjusting it to bearable level.
And preventing men leave Earth. No space travels for men. No escaping Earth.
_ ” nature is supremly indifferent to fate of …”
Of course nature is indifferent. Nature is present to help man live his life.
Ĝod gave men free will to decide if he wants to live or want to die.
His actions , good or evil , determine where his soul would go in afterlife.
We do not know anything about those facts providing life on earth.
As earth was not ” teraformed” , made perfectly habitable to men.?
There is no other place in Universe man could live. Only on Earth !
And we do not know about it ?
Why ?
Because we do not want to know about it ?
If we would recognized it , than we woluld , must belive in God.
And that God gave Earth as gift to mankind. To develop man’s virtue.
Man has to work , hard. To earn for living. To earn for luxury. To spend goods.
What is man’s work ?
Just a game ! Like kids play with their newspaper paper money.
Like grownup men play games with $ , also paper money. No value , just paper.
Since men got everything for free from God , they could play with worthless money.
If you find yourself thirsty in middle of sahara desert , giving 100 bilions $ for glass of water. But if there is no water , what is worth of 100 bil $ , when you die of thirst.
For 100.000 years worth of hard work of collective mankind , all printed money ,
could not pay for 1 second of Sun light, comming to earth , for free. For 1 second.
_ ” there is still no free lunch _ “…
Imagine , strange , but there is.
There is tribe in amazona deep forest , that have free lunch. Called Yanomame.
Of course there are some other tribes , around them, but i mention those, example.
For they walk around their forest , for about 1 hour a day , and find everything for food for that day. They walk back to their dwellings , and are free for 23 hours.
To play with their kids , to talk with other members of tribe , to make love, to contemplate about nature of universe , about nature of spirits , everything they like.
And everything for free.
No paper money , no plastic money , no job , no boss , no overtime hours , no city crowd , no murders , no crime.
Just life of simple , primitive , ordinary man.
_ ” how many city will succed … off grid ” ….
Yes , but how many will suceed on grid ? Living in city ?
Number of killed in city , is far gerater than off grid. Number of suicides ?
Number of mentally ill ? How many depressed ? How many bunkruppted ?
If men do not learn to love his brother , as God explained them , gens una summus,
than in troubled times ,
he might decide to kill him , as we do not know that all men are brothers.?
Sons of God.
Sorry, бели орао збг,
This is the end of the discussion for me.
‘Then , may we conclude that Earth does not exist at all ?
Since it is obvious conclusion.’
You may conclude whatever you like but I like a bit of logic, reflection and knowledge with my discussions. Without those as a bare minimum I am just wearing out my fingertips for no purpose at all and I have far better ways to waste my time and my fingertips.
All of your four points have been heavily discussed among Russians. On 3 and 4 there is agreement to a high degree. Crimea is regarded by some as a burden.
The most discussed is number 1. On it, Russians en mass wonder how come Stalin menaged to raise the country after the disastrous WWI, the Civil war, and Intervention, and absolute rejection and isolation. It took just five years, in five years the country was not only recovered, but became a world power. How come Putin in 19 years could not achieve at least one third of what Stalin did? That’s what Russians are talking about.
You know what? There was a big earthquake in SSSR’s Armenian republic in the 80’s. I visited as a doctor with an international relieve team. The city of Leninakan was in ruins, all buildings down to the ground but for some.It was strange to see those buildings standind among the ruins without a crack. And people in those buildings survived. When we asked why they did not fall, the locals told us that those were built under Stalin. Period.
Given the rapidly decaying state of the western Anglo-American empire with it’s moral collapse and fake economic prosperity, I don’t think they are going to allow the good people of Russia to decide if they want to accept or reject this western disease willingly.
They intend to have world control one way or another. Perhaps we are finally near the time of the coming of Christ and eternal judgement.
I have always lived in Canada but I want no part of this culture and I won’t support the deeds of the ruling class. We have a government of Soros puppets who do as they are told and the people are none the wiser while all the political class in the U.S. are like rabid dogs barking for more war.
.
as foreigner , if i dare to mention some statistical data …
There are about 84 % rusians in present state rusia.
But only aproxim 8 % of rusians in government and high ranking positions.
Rusia is under heavy burden of sanctions , intended to destabilize country.
Result of sanctions , about 60 % rusisans living close to poverty line.
And besides those facts rusia is forced into armanent race , provoked into.
Usa does not allow rusia time break to turn to improving internal economy.
Also still present problems of spread coruption are heavy complication.
Stil presence of large number of former nomenclature , pulling backwards.
Honest , patriotic rusians should do their best , to improve situation .
60% close to poverty line.
You are talking rubbish. So many poverty was not even in ninetees.
In the end of First quarter 2018, poverty line was 14.2%.
_ ” 60 % close to poverty line _”…
I did not say at , or below , but close , as around , summed number.
Governmet statistics knows to be with sweetend figures , we know about it.
But speaking as number of man there about 23 milions people in rusia below poverty line. Poverty line as set as aprox 9.500 roubles a month ( aprox $ 138 )
So those with 9.500 are below , but what about those with 10.000 , 10.500 , 11.000 , they are not far away from poverty. 15.000 roubles is close to poverty.
And there are many such close to poverty , but statistically , not poverty.
There are about 45 milions of americans below poverty line , close to 15 %.
15 % looks like small figure , but 45 milions is big number of poor people , in usa.
There is also ” deep poverty ” line , 50 % of poverty line ! Like a 70 $ a month ?
Not promising figure.
But number of poor ones is increasing.
Even without some new economy crisis
in preparation, in progress , behind the corner ,
awaiting to add figure of poor.
_ ” close to poverty line ” …
If those data mentioning monthly rouble income is not clear enough , lets use %
It is estimated that there are about 5 % of very very rich in rusia , oligarhs, tycoons,
That leaves 95 % , as rest.
If we subtract 60 % from 95 % , it givers number of wealthy ,
and upper midle class , high managers , bankers , industrialists , scientists.. 35 %.
If we subtract 15 % of those that are below poverty line , from ” close ” 60 % ,
it gives 45 %
Those are lower level middle class , midle managers , professors , teachers ,
and those close to poverty line , closer to poor than to average middle group ,
workers , farmers , retired ones ,
So we have those 60 % = 45 % close to poverty line + 15 % below poverty line
Since poverty line is as border line ,
has its areas of summimg numbers above and below = close. On both sides.
Saker,
First of all excellent article. This article is sort of an extension of your article after the presidential elections. People got disappointed then for Putin basically keeping his government intact, and if I am not mistaken accepting Kudrin back in (who later on was pushing for Russia to surrender). I’d like to think that anyone who lived in the said “Peoples Socialism” (particularly Russians) agrees that although there were some positive things about their communist system, generally speaking it was bad. First of all because it was run by the “gang”. They see western-loving liberals as the continuation of the old apparatchiks who just changed their hats.
Interestingly enough, the other day I was reading an article about the head of the so called “Russian Mafia” who was a Jew from Ukraine and a citizen of Israel (I guess triple citizen if we add US, but from Russia per se). Otherwise, untouchable.
Also, some time ago I was reading another article about Russian Mafia, which said that it was basically a “Georgian” Mafia.
So, welcome to the Russophobia.
@ Аnonius
_ ” … Putin basically keeping his government intact _ ” …
Well , who could guess his likeness for same government.
Yes , there are many opinions that he should have changed well known liberals and antlantists …
But _ there is also story of KGB likeness to work with double or triple ageñts..
So , being old kgb operative , maybe he is still conductig one of kgb famous games …
We can hope for better of rusia ,…
The people I spoke to in Russia last summer were divided on generational lines. Those who remember the Crazy Nineties and those who came of age after. The former support Putin whereas the latter acknowledge that he has done good things for Russia, but Putin is all they know and he has had no meaningful opposition. They would like to see a change.
Jon
Tell them to look at Ukraine, Belarus, the rest of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. And then EU, for the best look at the future without Putin.
The generation that knows only Putin should understand, without him, there would be no Russia.
Just look next door to see the future the opposition wants.
The Hegemon is busy destroying China and China’s crucial tech companies.
What do they think will happen to their cozy self-indulgent life.
Time for the young Russian doubters to get real.
They, at least, should procreate and raise some healthy, strong Russian children.
A big, beautiful country needs big, beautiful citizens.
I know this article is more about Medvyedev. I didn’t get into too much detail so I framed my questions mainly about Putin. But, actually, many of the people I spoke with weren’t that interested in politics, though they were versed on what was going on. And I don’t believe I’ll tell people in other countries what to think. Any impressions of mine are hardly George Gallup. This can go into the ‘anecdotal’ bin.
Jon.
Another uncontrollable factor for Putin and Russians is the ongoing tragedies caused by the corrupt past, particularly the collapsing buildings and fires, which I think is far more prevalent than reported by the English language Russian media. And as I recall from several of Putin’s once-a-year conferences, confidence in local and regional government is also lacking. So, it would seem that the dislike attributed to the PM and his cabinet is also fueled by distrust at the local and regional levels.
The fiscal situation will soon improve once gas begins flowing through TurkStream and NordStream2 and as other BRI connections get completed in the Far East. The growing trade turnover will also help and will keep employment numbers rising. Inflation Putin has always talked about at his conferences as he knows it’s a sore subject with his polity since wages despite the growing economy do lag behind rising prices. That the national government continues to run a surplus combined with Central Bank policies is another situation that will need to change if Russia is to be truly sovereign.
As for the awareness of the Russian polity, the recent polling showing a growing sentiment at the unpopularity of the USSR’s demise is a factor Saker ought to investigate. Putin has stated several times he isn’t attempting to rebuild the Soviet State, but he does advocate the need for income leveling and realization that every position of employment is as important as another–from janitor to Prime Minister–that every citizen becomes a winner, even those with insurmountable disabilities. I’m sure Russians express it differently, but they recognize the vast gulf between the Win-Winism philosophy of Putin and Xi versus the moral bankruptcy of the Outlaw US Empire’s Zerosumism.
Soon the Spring thaw will commence while the Hybrid War escalates. Trump continues to push Europe to look Eastward, but not as hard as the US Congress is with its attempt to meddle in key, strategic, European interests. The solving of the Afghan problem will become more visible and possibly replace Syria by year-end. Who knows what will happen in Korea other than the ongoing determination of both Moon and Kim to reunify economically and culturally. Recently the actual impasse in finalizing the Peace Treaty with Japan was quietly announced–Japan must become 100% sovereign, meaning it must become de-occupied by the Outlaw US Empire, before it can be signed.
Putin is a president of a presidential (not parlamentary) republic. He should not advocate, he should implement what he advocate for. It baffles me what prevents him to do it.
Great article Saker.
Thanks!!
The Saker
Yoga actually comes from the same sanscrit word as ” yoke “. It means to bind, to hold together, an union if you will. So my guess is that you meant political ” grand-ecart ” rather than political yoga :)
You frequently mention the war waged by the BAO upon Russia, 80% of which being informational ; subsequently, there should also be some sort of cultural confrontation between the two systems. However, we never hear about modern Russia’s cultural soft power. The Japan on the rise brought along Mangas, Karaoke, its cuisine on top of its economic might. How come an historical cultural powerhouse like Russia does not seem to generate any spark of contemporary creation that would appeal to people outside its own culture ? It probably would be a welcome alternative to the formatted and corralled yet sophisticated Western productions. It’s all neat and dandy to look back 300 years searching for the genuine Ivan the serf and Pavel the monk, but where are today’s Tarkovsky, Mayakovsky, Noureev etc ? Any information there would definitely be most appreciated
I think the answer is censorship. In Canada, we are allowed to exalt Russians for hockey and ballet – beyond that, the plethora of US State Dept funded NGO’s, “experts”, academics, etc. block out the horizon with their protests. I’ve noticed recently that we can still praise Russia for its space endeavors, too.
@Jerome_Montreal
_ ” but where are today’s Tarkovsky… ” …
Those mentioned artists lived and created in communist Rusia , that had it’s own aproach to art , culture , other kind of conditions for life . State investments.
Today Rusia is capitalistic country , different aproach to culture ,
art is often valued by its value in $ ,..
Also today rusia is under heavy economic sanctions , for years.
People suffer in poverty. Hardly conditions for great art.
Yes , there are those very rich. But very rich are rarely great artists.
Also there are many rich people in usa , but very few great artists.
Nowdays rusia is in search for new path , as continuation of path discontinued from 1917. .. and..it takes generations of ordinary people to breed new , famous artists.
It takes time for appearance of great artist.
Artists are special , rare , kind of people.
Sensitive , intuitive , like prophets of their time.
But similar question can be asked , as if why in europe there are not artists like ,
Motzart , Bach , Bethowen , there is no new Goethe , … Why ?
Germany , Europe have great economic power , old uninterruped heritage ,
but still there are not famous artists?
Geat art is based on great spiritual and mental capacity of nation.
Thanks for your answer. I get your point, and agree that disruption does not, contrary to popular belief, foster creation and hard work. Still, for a nation such as Russia, we should hear at least something.
I happen to be French : as for me, the first novels of Houellebecq and the entire works of Philippe Muray might be of interest today, and also tomorrow, if you care to take a look :)
@ Anonymous
_ ” for a nation such as Rusia , we should hear at least something _ ” …
Yes , that is strange. Hard to explain. One should be worried about it.
Rusian artist nowdays , did not reach level of artists 60_70 years ago.
So it may be there were very strong, spiritual , forces holding down rise of artists.
Rusians did not reach yet , collective level of uprise needed to give great artists.
We can only imagine , or we can not , what level of desperation and poverty was reached in years with gorbachov , and yeltsin. Nation in depresion , desperate.
Everything falling apart. Desoriented people. Lost . Spiritual darkness ?
But , also , there is no explanation for art stagnation of germany , france , europe.
What is holding down , them. They were not in situation of rusia. Strange also.
People too much immersed in material kind of life ? Spiritual neglected ?
Colective spirit of mankind is low ? Exausted ? Dark clouds everywhere..?
Thinking about it, this feels like unbalanced development … Maybe Russia quasi-miraculous national come back over the last 20 years lacks a broader and deeper dynamic. The same could indeed apply for Western Europe, where overall prosperity did not develop in a creative, energetic, outburst. Sad …
@Jerome_Montreal
_ ” this feels like unbalanced development _ ” …
Yes , when after nato bombing of serbia in 1999 rusians realised that that were in fact preparations for attack at rusia , they immediately removed yeltsin.
No more games with a ” american friends ” , “american advisers ” , ” american bankers “, while rusia was on knees , or in knockdown.
Rusia had no army . Rusia had no power. Just resources grabbed by usa bankers.
So they brought V V Putin , and immidiatelly directed all possible powers to renew army , defense potentails.
All other was secondary. All had to wait. Until army becomes operational , able.
During those Putin years rusia army gained its lost power. Army renewed.
But it left traces in those areas of life that had to wait. Art had to wait better days.
Also , we should not forget that present day rusia in not in rusians hands yet.
Some statistics say there are about 8 % rusians in governent and in other leading positions , compared to 84 % as rusian people in state rusia.
There are many leading positions native rusians have to get. Fulfill up to 84 % !
Than it would be real rusia , led by rusians.
For example , religious leaders in rusia, patriarchs , are not rusians.
Former patriarch , Alexei II , was from Latvia ,
and present , Kiril is from some Mordowi tribe.
Rusia waits for patriarch rusian to move religious strength of rusia to higher level.
Then , new strong , renown , and well known artists , poets , might appear.
Than one could say , Rusia is balanced. On its level and role.
The simple fact is : the oil price is still quite low, there are unprecedented geopolitical tensions, therefore a collective belt tightening is required!
Now that the ordinary people have contributed (through reform of various pension and social programs) Putin needs to ask the oligarchs to chip in. He would be perfectly justified to introduce measures such as making it obligatory for any commodities company to be incorporated in Russia, then introducing a revenue-based corporate tax (which prevents tax avoidance through tax haven companies.)
Mines, unlike manufacturing or financial capital, cannot be relocated..
You could say that Marxist-Leninist ideology did collapse the CCCR, yes. It incorrectly identifies the oligarch as a big rich industrialist. The Rockefellers aren’t industrialists. They aren’t entrepreneurs. They’re con men. Marx doesn’t teach con science because he was a con man himself.
In reality, an oligarch is far more demonic, far more concerned with control than profit. Some of them can’t even be classified capitalist. “Competition is a sin”: that’s the motto. I sometimes wonder if a Sergei Lavrov gets that. He does, I think, but Lord knows the average Russian doesn’t. Is George Soros a capitalist? You think he is? Really? Did every store in North American put in mind numbing, grossly expensive LED lights, because they’re capitalists? Sure about that? Have most laundry detergents become completely nauseating and toxic because of capitalism? They did? Sure about that?
Democracy isn’t that real. If america fails, it fails as Sodom and Gormorah did. Russia has the same problem, perhaps more serious, because it’s willing to feel bad for any and all debased people. Most of them are provocateurs. When up against provocateurs, rules of warfare apply. Pity them when they’re gone.
Rather than reading Marx, they should be watching “the Sting” 100 times. Watch every conman movie America has ever put out, especially those made before the 80s — they were giving away the game up until the 80s. Also, try studying the Art of War. That’s your national security lesson. Spiritually, try to be Orthodox. You’ll learn more of how to see evil from Christ, who Putin quoted a father as having said, gave us “the freedom to choose between good and evil.” That’s a hell of a lot more important than some lame-o freedom of speech that is, yes, democratic, and is, yes, destroying the values system in america.
Your comment reminded me of a recent interview with Ron Paul that I saw on RT America. He talked about crony capitalism. I don’t know the precise definition of that term, but it brings to mind for me the crookedness you are speaking about (a few cronies get all the capital.)
.
Chikens and lambs ..
Thru threads in this analysis names of marx and his theories are oftrn mentioned
Indicating its importance..
Karl Mrax , born in germany , died in britain ,
Friedrich Engels , born in germany , died in britain ..
Not borned in rusia , not lived in rusia , not died in rusia.
But very important to rusians. Deadly important.
Their theories written in capitalistic environment did not influence “west”.
But they strongly influenced ” east” . Namely , Imperial Rusia.
How ?
What they wrote about capitalism , workers , their rights , was known in west.
Theory : manifesto of communist party ,
But was applied in east only. In Imperial Rusia.
It seems those theories were written , like they were ordered , like scenarios.
Like tailor made.
Like base for false flag operation.
Those Marx-Engels theories were accepted by V U Lenin and brought to rusia.
Heavily financed by uk and usa bankers, politicians , as all false flag operations are.
V U Lenin brought them in form of ” october 1917 revolution ” ,
that dethroned Rusian Csar , Nikolai II , and brought V U Lenin , communist.
So marx-engels theories did not dethrone king of england.
Marx-Engels theories did not cause collapse on wall street.
They just effected life in imperial rusia. Discontinuation of development.
That false flag operation stopped economic development of Rusia ,
and brought great degradation of rusian life. Brought several years of war.
It also brought into action many commisars who started killing rusians with maniacal, and ruthless efficiency. So millions of Rusians were killed.
V U Lenin was replaced with J V Stalin , communist , who also added his share of killed rusians.
Number of people , possible workers decreased , destructions increased.
Then other theory appeared, that had great danger to rusian economy
Theory was formed by Adolf Hitler , born in germany , died in Argentina.
Theory was called ” My Kampf “.
Many rusians were killed based on theory of this ,
second fasle flag operation
aimed at rusia. This time communist rusia.
It also decreased , grossly , number of Rusian people , adding horrible destructions.
Two theories from germany , two false flag operations from uk and usa.
Results 80-100 milions dead rusians , enormous war damages.
If today rusia had 300 milions inhabitans , and if did not have war destructions
, it would be diferent country.
It would be Imperial Rusia , with 300 milions inhabitants.
And economy in much better position than today.
It all started just hundred years ago , but its effect are still present today.
Lambs do suffer in those tragic crimes forced upon them from west.
Well, if you had read Marx carefully you would have known that both Marx and Engels were 100% sure that revolution will happen in England or Germany, as they were industrialized and had big numbers of “proletariat”. They never thought that Russia, which was basically a feudal country (read peasants) would be the subject to a Communist revolution. It just did not fit their theories and forecasts.
In general they did not. But at times they revised their forecasts:
“. only when the capitalist economy has been overcome in its homeland and the countries where it is flourishing… only then can this shortening process of development commence. But then it will be tackled with a certainty of success. And this goes for all countries in a pre-capitalistic stage of development, not only for Russia… [where, Engels admits] it will be relatively easier, because a part of the indigenous population has already acquired the intellectual achievements of capitalistic development and it will thus be possible here, in a revolutionary period, to accomplish the social transformation almost simultaneously with the West…
However, this much is certain: the first condition for a survival of what remains from the communal village is the overthrow of Tsarist despotism, the revolution in Russia. This revolution will not only uproot the great mass of the nation, the peasants, out of the isolation of their villages, from the mir which forms their world, to bring them on to the great stage where they will learn to know the world abroad and with it themselves, their own condition and the means to get out of their present destitution; at the same time it will give a new impetus to the working-class movement of the West, and provide it with better conditions for the struggle. Thus it will hasten the victory of modern industrial proletariat, without which contemporary Russia cannot achieve a socialist transformation neither proceeding from the village community nor from capitalism…
@Anonius
Yes , very strange things were present in those years.
Strange clash of obvious facts.
_ ” both … were 100 % sure that revolution will happen in england or germañy ” …
Marx-Engels in their theory papers analysed west capialism with ” proletariat “,
with their famous conclusion : ” proletars of whole countries , unite “.
But proletariars from west did not unite. Did not overthrone their government.
But there is fact that ” peasant revolution ” in imperial rusia was suported with 10.000.000 $ in gold from usa , and 10.000.000 british pound , in gold
, and given to Lenin to start ” october revolution ” .
Remember , Lenin was escorted in armoured train from Switzerland , through Germany , to Rusisa. To start job he was paid for.
So ” revolutionary ” ” practice ” of Lenin
enormously increased speed up theories of Marx-Engels, backed by uk usa money
So revolution ” happened ” there , were it was not ” expected ” , by M-E , initially.
That happens with aplications of colour false flag revolutions. With help of gold.
First false flag revolution , ” Red revolution ” . first colour revolution.
Who ” expected ” that maidan events would outcome destruction of Ukraine.?
Also false flag revolution backed by uk usa money . Strange repeating , revolutions.
_ ” they never tought that rusia which was basicaly a feudal country would be subject to a communist revolution …. “…..
Strange , is it not ?
Theoretical papers written about western proletariat workers did not succeed there, but suceeded in imperial rusia among feudal peasants ?
But , it seems , and it proves , that there were ones , who knew both therory and practice , much better than M-E.
And they paid to M-E , to write theoretical scenario . And M-E did , as were paid.
But those that ordered , knew wider frame. That papers would be just base for FFO.
When they support theoretical papers with large amount of real gold ,
revolution will be successfull , even among peasants , M-E did not think about.
And they achieved what they planned. Destruction of Rusian Empire.
There are more and more coloured false flag operations to be done.
Correct. This has been in works for almost 2000years. They keep trying and trying and trying. And all the fake philosophers constantly keep popping up with “new and modern methods to achieve the goal”. And the “tools” keep throwing vast amounts of money trying. Well that money means nothing to them as they stole it from us in first place.
What is Putin going to do with the $90 billion that Russia has so far repatriated from the oligarchs? Prof. Stephen F. Cohen suggests that Putin could use the money to help alleviate the pension reform problem.
The bullfighter’s red cape is an excellent metaphor of how high cultural marxism bs has been stacked to socialize the gentile suckers.
Regarding Russia’s leadership, I don’t think they deserve the Clusterfuck Cross First Class with Swords, Oakleaves and Diamonds.
The useless idiots who are running the Israel and America scams on the other hand…
There is one Atlantic Integrationist that is more influential (harmful) than all the others put together. Nabiulina the head of the Central Bank. What is holding Russia back are the absurdly high real interest rates maintained by the Bank. Jacking up interest rates because the price of oil collapsed is the wrong remedy. And, now it has continued for years. increase the money supply and Russia’s economy would boom. ‘Austerity’ policies are completely wrong for Russia. That is what is holding them back.
FNA has asked Roskomnadzor to check the pages of Open Russia on social networks
Author: Katerina Ivanova
Moscow, January 18. The Federal News Agency sent an appeal to the head of Roskomnadzor,
Alexander Zharov, to check the accounts of the scandalous organization “Open Russia” on social
networks.
In April 2017, the organization Open Russia (the public network movement Open Russia), by deci-
sion of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation No. 556-p, was included in the list
of foreign and international non-governmental organizations whose activities on the territory of the
country were considered undesirable. After this, the organization’s website became unavailable to
users, however, Open Russia continues to disseminate information on its pages on social networks.
FNA has found active accounts of the junk organization on Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. Links
to the relevant pages were transferred to Roskomnadzor. The Federal News Agency asks to verify
and bring the perpetrators to justice, as well as execute the decision of the Prosecutor General.
The activities of “Open Russia” has repeatedly attracted attention: representatives of the company
distributed on the Internet various fakes and “photoshopped” pictures about Russia. They have such informational miscalculations as the alleged appearance of the star of the Ukrainian director Oleg
Sentsov, who was convicted of preparing the act of terrorism in Russia, on the Walk of Fame in
Hollywood, as well as the scandalous rumor about some naked picketers in Red Square who
protested against pension reform in Russia.
(Google translation)
https://riafan.ru/1142221-fan-obratilos-v-roskomnadzor-s-prosboi-proverit-stranicy-otkrytoi-rossii-v-socsetyakh
Chirtsov Aleksandr’s comment
ROSKOMNADZOR diligently cleans the TRUTH from the patriots and just the right citizens of Russia
for subversive activities, negligence and lack of professionalism, and sometimes direct betrayal of some pseudo-governors, the fifth and sixth columns, directed against the national security and national welfare
of everyone and everyone on Russian land, those idiots due to their negligence or greed, they again lead Russia to shocks … To whom do you serve, gentlemen?
P.S.: Ros-(siyskiy) Kom-(munikatsionnyy) Nadzor
Russian Communication Supervision
Sixth Column: the aggregate of persons in a countryr who assist the subversive
activities of the fifth column by defeatist talk, the spreading of rumors, and other
activities that weaken resistance or appease the enemy.
”So if 53% of Russians want a new cabinet, and if 5% of Russians are hardcore pro-Western liberals, then who are the remaining 48%?”
Am I wrong or, there is something in this calculation, that I do not understand?!
53%+5%+48% =106%
Somebody, please… I just started to translate this article on serbian, for our local patriotic website (https://srbin.info/) and blogspot (https://zekaonica.blogspot.com/) too.
I will not send anything, until you clarify this to me.
Your math is wrong.
53% of all Russians want a new cabinet, within this 53% obviously are also hardcore pro-Western liberals which consists of 5% of all Russians. That means that 48% of all Russians who want a new cabinet are not pro-Western liberals.
53% – 5% = 48%
If 53% of all Russians want a new cabinet then 47% of all Russians don’t want a new cabinet or don’t know if they do or whatever.
(48 + 5) + 47 = 100
Thank You, very, very much, my Anonymous friend!
Kudos to Saker’s article – a timely reminder to all truth-seeking citizens and netizens across world. Saker raised a crucial question that can’t be suppressed any more – how long the Russian political environment allows the Russian oligarchy-kleptocracy (a default extension of global Zionist-Capitalist-Imperialist clique since mid-19th century) carry on its plunder of Russian natural resources and its exploitation of Russian society? What should be President Putin’s agenda now onwards ?
It is worthwhile to recapitulate the structural movements that took place in political-social-economic order across the world in 1980s:
(a) the Zionist-Capitalist-Imperialist elites located primarily on either side of the Atlantic (who were driving force for military block like NATO, banking institutions like WB- IMF, aristocratic clubs like Bilderberg Club- Club of Rome, Deep State think-tanks like Trilateral Commission – all of which were created between WWII and 1975) were immensely successful in mobilising most of the academic institutions and media entities across world to spread propaganda among the people world-wide about ‘failure’ of socialism/Marxist philosophy/communism in Soviet Union (and east European countries) as well as China (and east Asian countries). This was equally true in the countries ruled by communist party.
(b) after President Nixon broke the link between Dollar and gold holding of Federal Reserve, the ‘fiat petrodollar era’ of world economic order started flying high since beginning of 1970s. By 1981 most of the Asian, African, European, South American countries which were not ruled by communist party (backed by either Soviet Union or China) had corrupt ruling party whose leaders were under direct control of global capitalist-imperialist elites, and semi-literate societies under spell of ‘Hollywood’-promoted illusion and ‘drug & sex’-oriented culture (a not so hidden cultural agenda of Zionist-Capitalist-Imperialist global elites). The relatively small islands of Soviet sphere and China came to a crossroads – they were falling behind in harnessing technological progress in economic growth, which resulted in relatively low standard of living of majority population while government officials and ruling party officers had a better lifestyle than commoners.
(c) CIA-MI6-Mossad operatives were fairly successful in their decades old planning of wrecking Soviet Union and China from within – while large number of ‘reformist’ politicians ascended to respective top decision-making body of both ruling party and goverment institutions, due to lack of serious introspection and course correction among different government departments as well as lack of transparent discussions among communist party leaders on how policies need to be dynamically changed to keep pace with socio-economic changes, most of these ‘reformist’ leaders decided that the best way to economic growth and clean governance is to join hands with Zionist-Capitalist ‘world order’ after bringing down the governments (ruled by communist party). In Soviet Union, the ‘reformist’ Communist-turned-Zionists were successful while in China they failed (even after reformist leaders staged a coup keeping the ‘student’ leaders in the front row).
1990s witnessed fast decay of the socio-political order in Russia and China (even with the shortcomings, which were identified by all, as successful implementation of basic tenets of Marxist philosophy):
(a) after Soviet Union was pulled down, the corrupt leaders surrounded by the zionist-capitalist elites ripped apart the socio-economic fabric of Russian society. The state exchequer was looted blatantly, the natural resources were ‘distributed’ among the zionist-capitalist oligarchy, the industrial capital either swindled or destroyed, workers and peasants were left without income and food, regional separatist movements were planned by ‘western liberal’ think-tanks and implemented by 5th column within Russia.
(b) military capabilities of Russia were being marginalised – not only technological development and manufacturing of defense machinery took a hit due to lack of budgetary support from Yeltsin government, but all wings of defense forces were demoralised and corrupted by the senior staff, many of whom became agents of foreign powers like 5-Eyes, Israel, France, Germany. While Kievan Rus lost the battle of primacy among many ‘Slavic Rus’ principalities/kingdoms by 11th century to Muscovy Rus, the “Ukrainianism”, a concept created and nourished by jewish zionist-capitalist forces since end-19th century grew into a self-destructive anti-slavic russophobic ‘movement’ with dissolution of Soviet Union – since manufacturing base of many technologically advanced machinery used by Soviet Army, Navy and Airforce was located in the geographic region of the (now) Ukraine, Russia found itself cornered with Ukraine’s non-cooperation.
(c) Chinese government went all-out to create a ‘happy hunting ground’ of global Zionist-Capitalist-Imperialist elites who wanted more profits from their capital, and hence were busy shifting their manufacturing base to China to harness cheap labour and export their products from China – thus, China moved towards creating an unequal society in line with ‘western capitalist democracies’ where higher standard of living will be ensured at the cost of creating a wealthy oligarchy (de facto the 5 column of zionist capitalists).
From 2001, there has been relentless self-motivated drive among leaders of both Russian and Chinese government and ruling party to challenge the current Unipolar world order of USA-UK based Zionist-Capitalist-Imperialist elites. During the first 2 decades of 21st century, the Russian government and a section of ruling party led by President Putin has been pushing economic policies that result in ‘self-sufficiency’ in agricultural production, oil-gas extraction, and consumer goods manufacturing which drives ‘economic growth based on domestic consumption’ while growing export of oil-gas. However, the liberal zionist-capitalist oligarchy led by Medvedev has been deeply entrenched influence in the bureaucracy, academia and media which support their illegal amassing of wealth through exploitation of common people and society. Corruption and nepotism among ruling party cadres and government officials go unpunished, things like outward flow of capital, extortion by syndicated groups, and tax breaks for rich have been packaged as democratic reform. Instead of moving towards equality-justice-morality, Russian society is becoming more unequal than ever!
However, at the same time, Russian government has taken strategic decisions to re-establish Soviet-era geopolitical influence in west Asia, north Africa and Caribbean region. Russian government rebuilt a complete
military-industrial complex in its geographic territory (mitigating the risks of dependence on Ukrainian military-industrial units). Simultaneously, President Putin and Defense Minister Shoigu have been very successful in modernising offensive and defensive machinery through continuous research and development of 5th generation fighter aircrafts, upgraded bombers, nuclear submarines, submarine drones for coastal explosion, hypersonic cruise missiles (land launched, aircraft-based), anti-satellite missiles, air-cum-space defense systems like S400 and S500, electronic warfare systems, AI-driven tank warfare, etc. While Russian liberal oligarchy has been busy amassing wealth in European banks along with their Zionist-Capitalist-Imperialist Anglo and Jewish partners, Russian patriots has been busy building social base among the common people and enhancing the military prowess for asymmetric warfare against the hegemonic world order elites.
Since around 2010, Chinese government and ruling party has been busy implementing economic policies that result in ‘economic growth based on domestic consumption’ while maintaining the decades old export-oriented economy – even the poorest section of the society has access to food, shelter, and medical facility. Simultaneously, ruling party has taken strong measures so that corrupt among ruling party cadres and government officials are identified and punished, Marxist principles are enforced as guideline for Chinese communist party so that society and economy can be steered towards equality and justice. Chinese ruling party has also woken up from slumber to enhance its geopolitical and geoeconomic base through channeling their enormous forex reserve into infrastructure-energy-industry projects in 50+ countries across Asia-Africa-Europe (which has been named as ‘Belt & Road Initiative’ since 2013). Simultaneously, Chinese government has taken concrete measures to modernize all wings of military through research and development of 5th generation fighter aircrafts, naval ships, nuclear submarines, hypersonic cruise missiles (land launcher, ship-based, aircraft-based), anti-satellite missiles, as well as procuring most lethal S400 air defense and electronic warfare systems from Russia.
Taking all the above background into consideration, we can deduce that, since 2001 there has been a very remarkable turnaround of the ‘resistance camp’ in their struggle against unjust hegemonic world order. During this period there has been an uneasy co-existence of the ‘liberal capitalist swindler oligarchy’ and ‘patriotic social democratic leaders’ (IMHO) in Russia. Before snapping that co-existence, in my opinion the following pre-requisites should get fulfilled:
(1) Awareness among 90% population (the common people) of Russian society on how the Russian ‘liberal democratic’ oligarchy has been always the 5th column of global industrialists-bankers-traders; Russian people must know about the struggle of Lenin and Stalin for freedom from capitalist-imperialist exploitation, and about how Soviet communist party was hijacked by the 5th column in 1980s that broke their entire country, destroyed their society and brought a negative population growth
(2) All sectors of economy – agricultural, mining and extraction, indiustrial – have domestically developed technology and sufficient capital which can support the population and society to defy all types of economic sanctions and blockade by the hegemonic zionist-capitalist world order. Russian society must be able to withstand such pressure from west Europe and North American continents, if the ‘western civilization’ continue to consider the Eurasian and east Asian landmass (i.e. Russia-Iran-Kazakhstan-China-Korea) as their fiefdom
(3) Modernisation plan of Russian military is 90% complete with deployment of Sarmat and Yars MIRV nuclear warheads, deployment of Avangard and Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, deployment of sufficient Su34, Su35, MiG35 aircrafts and Su57 5th Generation fighters, deployment of sufficient T-14 MBT divisions, deployment of Borei and Akula nuclear submarines in pacific, atlantic, and indian oceans, and finally deployment of anti-satellite orbital vehicles are done
(4) Groundwork for integration of Belarus and Novorussian regions of (current) Ukraine with Russia is complete, so that actions of any of the eastern Slavic societies should not be detrimental to the other. Entire land and adjoining coastal regions should get covered by S400 and S500 air-defense batteries and electronic warfare systems, and underground habitats for majority population of major industrial
and administrative cities should get arranged
(5) Russian government make concrete plans and discussions to enter into ‘barter trade’ and ‘mutual defence’ pacts at a future point of time, if such necessity arise, with the Chinese, Iranain, Kazakh,
Turkish governments irrespective of whether multi-lateral bodies like SCO, EEU, CSTO, APEC etc. cover such arrangements – nothing works better than teamwork !
Contrary to many other readers and bloggers, my feeling is – it will be around 2 years from now when President Putin will declare ‘exploitation of Russian people and society must stop now’!
I hope to live till that day, when Russian society (which never deviated from its core structural tenets of social justice-equality-morality during its past 1200 years of recorded history of civilisation even if Mongol Khan warlords and Germanic Oldenburg aristocrats (whom history books mention as ‘Romanovs’) ruled over the land and society for 500 years between them) establish the natural laws of equality-justice-morality breaking the shackles of zionist-capitalist exploiters !
Straight-Bat
@Russian society (which never deviated from its core structural tenets of social justice-equality-morality during its past 1200 years of recorded history…
That Russian society was created and dominated by the Scandinavian Rurikids, the only real ‘Russians’ (who gave the country the name!).
The Romanovs were the first ‘Slavic’ native dynasty, elected by the whole country.
Anon, I do not think you are correct. Both Tsar and his wife were practically of German/Dutch royal houses. I say that because even though his wife was partially Greek (western royals mixed with Greek aristocracy) in the end it did not matter. Just look at prince Phillip nad the ex-Greek-King Konstantinos as well. They were all cousins, and this includes Austrian/Spanish royals as well.
@German/Dutch
You mean German/Danish.
The ‘Greek’ royalty was purely German/Danish.
Prince Philip is the son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and Princess Alice of Battenberg, great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
Philip is the grand-son of George I of Greece and Olga Constantinovna Romanov, daughter of the second son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich. Originally a Danish prince,William of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg; Danish: Prins Vilhelm, George was born in Copenhagen, and seemed destined for a career in the Royal Danish Navy.
In any case, the founders of the Romanov dynasty were not Nicholas II and Alexandra. The House of Holstein-Gottorp, came to the Russian throne because Peter III was the grand-son of Peter I, through his daughter Anna Petrovna, sister of Empress Elisaveta Petrovna. Catherine the Great was the first purely German Empress. But she converted to Orthodoxy and adopted the name of Romanov. The British monarchs were also German (Saxa-Coburg-Gotha) and Anglified their name only in 1914 when they became Windsor (when the Battenbergs also changed their name to Mountbatten).
@ Anonymous
_ ” Romanov dynasty _ ”
I think i could add few word about romanov dynsty , in 21st century..
Of course story , that romanov family of csar nikolay II was murderd , has some other threads , so if there some interseted , they may check it out.
Other story says that nikolai Ii lived in germany until 1924 , them left to serbia.
And that he lived in serbia until some 1950 , or so year , and was buried there.
And his grave is stil in serbia. Also there is story that his two daughters lived in serbia, one even married in serbia ,other left to usa.
Daughters Maria and Anastasya.
But there is special story , about his son , who also lived in sebia ,
left for england , and had son borned there. Name : Sir Mark Gray.
On serbian tv , reporter mira adanja polak had intervirew ,
one can watch on yuotube.
Words to enter : mira adanja polak unuce poslednjeg ruskog cara
Also : mira adanja polak princ mihail fjodorovic romanov
Also there is monumet of nikolai II , in belgrade ,
announced by service of rusian and serbian patriarchs.
I do not know if there are monuments of nikolai II , besides in rusia ,
in some other country , besides serbia.
There is aslo mosaic icon of csar nikolai Ii in zica monastery in serbia.
Mosaic icon was made by Baron Meyendorf who lived in belgrade , before ww2.
That icon was made as episkope nikolay velimirovic asked baron meyendorf to do.
In rusian church in belgrade , built in 1924 year ,
Baron general Vrangel is also buried.
There were some 50.000 white rusians living in serbia , after they left rusia.
_ _ TV reportage _ story about Grandson of Nikolai II Romanov _
Living , today in england , as mentioned in above reply text . just explaining. Above.
Alexandra’s grandmother was Queen Victoria and Nicholas’s cousin was George II. The hemophilia gene originated In Queen Victoria. When Nicholas abdicated he asked George for sanctuary, but George refused. So much for one big, happy family.
Jon.
No argument here.
BTW,
I understand that at some point, when Prince Phillip’s mother became Orthodox nun in one of the Greek Monasteries He decided to revert/convert to Orthodoxy. This is what I have read some time ago. I also understand that He (Prince Phillip) spent all his young life in Germany, later to join British Navy and go to marry Queen Elizabeth II.
@Anonymous,
About Romanov Tsar, I read it in wikipedia and somewhere else as well. During late medieval and early modern period of west Europe (including England), east Europe and Russia, it was quite common to have Germanic aristocrats as the Duke / King / Prince. Sending a link to an article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Holstein-Gottorp
Rurikid, i must agree with you, were from Scandinavian regions – but they didn’t create Russian society, they introduced the feudalistic ‘kingdom’ system in that region populated by the eastern slavic people!
Straight-Bat
I know how much the ‘Slavic’ sensitivities (especially ‘Ukrainian’) are ruffled by the ‘Normanist theory’. It is a debate that is ongoing for at least a century. But the historical sources (not the ‘Slavic’ mythology) are quite explicit about the origins of the ‘Russian society’. ‘Feudalistic kingdoms’ are societies as well.
“In the year 6360 (852), the fifteenth of the indiction, 15 at the accession of the Emperor Michael, the land of Rus’ was first named”.
“6367 (859). The Varangians from beyond the sea imposed tribute upon the Chuds, the Slavs, the Merians, the Ves’, and the Krivichians. 10 But the Khazars imposed it upon the Polyanians, the Severians, and the Vyatichians, and collected a white squirrel-skin from each hearth”.
“6368-6370 (860-862). The tributaries of the Varangians drove them back beyond the sea and, refusing them further tribute, set out to govern themselves. There was no law among them, but tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against another. They said to themselves, “Let us seek a prince who may rule over us and judge us according to the Law.” They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Russes: these particular Varangians were known as Russes, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans, English, and Gotlanders, for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs, (20) the Krivichians, and the Ves’ then said to the people of Rus’, “Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us.” They thus selected three brothers, with their kinsfolk, who took with them all the Russes and migrated. The oldest, Rurik, located himself in Novgorod; the second, Sineus, at Beloozero; and the third, Truvor, in Izborsk. 20 On account of these Varangians, the distirict of Novgorod became known as the land of Rus’. The present inhabitants of Novgorod are descended from the Varangian race, but aforetime they were Slavs”.
“But the Slavs and the Russes are one people, for it is because of the Varangians that the latter became known as Rus’, though originally they were Slavs”.
And of course, what hugely contributed to the creation of ‘Russian society’ was the Baptism of Vladimir and the Land of Rus’:
“It is indeed marvelous what benefits Vladimir conferred upon the land of Rus’ by its conversion. But we, though Chrisdans, do not render him honor in proportion to this benefaction. For if he had not converted us, we should now be a prey to the crafts of the devil, even as our ancestors perished”
“He is the new Constantine of mighty Rome, who baptized himself and his subjects; for the Prince of Rus’ imitated the acts of Constantine himself”.
Welcome back Straight-Bat, good to see you here ! Time is running very fast, soon I’ll belong to past…
Dear ioan,
Thank you for extending a warm welcome – I miss the old friends in the cafe!
But i’m surprised and worried with the concluding part of your statement “… soon I’ll belong to past…”. Are you having health related issues of late ? Age, anyway, is agent of change – all of us are ageing very fast. But, before fading away, I still hope to see the dawn of a new beginning of humanity in the land of great Russia !
With my best wishes for a long and healthy life ahead !
Straight-Bat
MORE ABOUT ZHAROV
DEFECTOR
Zharov, Alexander Alexandrovich, Head of Roskomnadzor, born on August 11, 1964,
in Chelyabinsk, USSR
The career of the head of Roskomnadzor developed unexpectedly – after graduating from the
medical institute, he worked for nine years in his specialty. But then he decided to go into journa-
lism and in a short time managed to rise to the post of spokesman for the Ministry of Health, and
remained in the government, changing a number of posts.
Family
He is married, has five children (according to other information – six children).
Biography
In 1987 he graduated from Chelyabinsk State Medical University. Candidate of Medical Sciences.
In January 2004 he defended his thesis on the topic “Promotion of a healthy lifestyle.”
2006 – graduated from the Law Faculty of the Russian Academy of State Service under the
President of the Russian Federation.
He speaks fluently English and French.
1987-1996 – Anesthesiologist and resuscitator in Chelyabinsk.
1997 – Columnist, deputy editor-in-chief of the Moscow magazine “Family Doctor: Practical
Tips on Medicine”.
1998 – 1999 – Advisor to the Chairman of the Board, RIA “Vesti”.
1999 – 2004 – Press Secretary of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation.
Politics
2004 – 2006 – Assistant, and then the press secretary of the Prime Minister of Russia,
Mikhail Fradkov.
2006 – 2007 – Worked as Deputy General Director of the Federal Unitary Enterprise
“All-Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Company.”
2007 – 2008 – Director of the Department of the Press Service, Information and Protocol
of the Government of the Russian Federation.
2008 – appointed Deputy Minister of Communications and Mass Communications of the
Russian Federation in the team of Igor Schegolev.
May 3, 2012 – Order of the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Vladimir
Putin dated May 3, 2012 No. 702-r A. A. Zharov was appointed head of the Federal Service for
Supervision in the Sphere of Telecommunications, Information Technologies and Mass
Communications (Roskomnadzor).
In April 2014, Zharov at the ONF Media Forum asked the Popular Front to take a legislative
initiative to toughen the punishments of the editorial staff for extremism.
In November 2014, Zharov denied plans to introduce an Internet tax in Russia. According to
the head of the department, talking about it is a rumor.
“I heard about the possible introduction of an Internet tax for users in some countries of the
so-called Western democracy. In the Russian Federation I have not heard of such trends at all”,
Interfax quotes Zharov.
In February 2015, Zharov said that Twitter did not fulfill the requirements of Russian legislation,
including those aimed at countering extremism.
“In 2014, the social network satisfied almost 3,000 requests from the US government to disclose
personal information of users. Of the 108 requests for disclosing data on attendance of accounts
of popular users sent to the administration of the social network by Roskomnadzor, not one is
satisfied,” TASS quoted Zharov’s words. February, Twitter agreed to negotiate with the supervisory
authority.
On August 25, 2015, Zharov held a meeting with Facebook representative Thomas Kristenson.
The reason for it was a discussion of the execution by the social network of the requirements of
the 242nd Federal Law on the storage of personal data, which comes into force on September 1
of this year.
At the same time, the ministry said that Facebook, Twitter and Google are absent in terms of checks
on the execution of the personal data law for 2015, so the question of blocking them is not yet worth it.
Income
Roskomnadzor and Rossvyaz published declarations on the incomes of their managers for 2013.
Alexander Zharov, who heads Roskomnadzor, earned 3.8 million rubles for the year, which is almost
700 thousand rubles exceeds his earnings in 2012. The new property at the head of the department
did not appear – he still owns the Toyota Land Cruiser, two land plots, two residential buildings and
2/5 apartments with an area of 174.1 sq. m. The remaining shares in this apartment belong to
Zharov’s wife and one of his children.
The wife of Alexander Zharov for the year earned 26.3 million rubles, and also acquired five small
apartments – ranging from 37 sq. M to 47 sq. M. The declaration states that the income of the spouse
of the head of Roskomnadzor takes into account the revenue “from renting an apartment and selling apartments.” In 2012, her income was only slightly more modest – the spouse of the head of Roskom-
nadzor then declared 20.6 million rubles, which included funds from renting an apartment and selling
a house and a land plot.
In Roskomnadzor, CNews reported that the spouse of the head of the department is engaged in indi-
vidual entrepreneurial activity (her name and professional activity sphere are not disclosed), and this
property was acquired for investment purposes. “For this, borrowed bank funds are disclosed, which
are disclosed in the declaration,” – noted in Roskomnadzor.
Rumors, scandals
On April 16, 2015, a group of anonymous hackers “Humpty Dumpty” published a correspondence
allegedly belonging to the head of Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov. In total, more than 800 letters
were published.
In particular, from the correspondence it follows that the leadership of Roskomnadzor was in close
contact with the alleged Director General of Echo of Moscow, Mikhail Demin; produced at least one
note in Izvestia, and also closely followed the story with the Greenpeace campaign on the
Prirazlomnaya platform.
It also revealed a letter from the allegedly former editor-in-chief of Kommersant Andrei Vasilyev, in
which it is proposed to create the next Registry – this time legal content distributors. Place in it,
according to the idea of Vasiliev, you can buy and thereby insure yourself against blocking.
(Google translation)
There are two videos in the article. You can change the subtitles of both to English.
http://perebezhchik.ru/person/zharov–aleksandr-aleksandrovich/
Russia needs to develop it’s own economic theories that they can make predictons with, and then test the predictions against reality. I’d start with Michael Hudson, Steve Keen and Bill Mitchell who all operate on reality based models, but even they fall short as far as imaginative solutions go. What would it cost for economics students->graduates to have a competition to produce the most accurate model? And if they can’t produce one what use are they?
Money is created as debt, unless you want the grief of carrying precious metals around, there can never be a shortage of money as long as people have the confidence to borrow. In the west we have several layers of priviledge around money creation, the first layer are those who have monopolised the right to keep the ledgers, the bankers. The next layer are those who always have the right to borrow interest free, then those who can borrow at the ‘bank rate’ also bankers, after that the more you can prove you don’t need any more money the cheaper it is, but you have to put assets at risk. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf just read the overview.
@johno,
I would contest your point that Russia needs to develop it’s own economic theory. While Economics is still the least understood subject, there is no shortage of theory and principle – what is truly lacking, is the ‘application model’ of economic theory. The basic principle remains same for ages – if and how there can be equitable distribution of resource and wealth among maximum number of population…
On creation of ‘money’, you have identified half of the picture – since 1690s when Bank of England actually started it’s operation, the Jewish and Anglo bankers came out with the concept of Fractional Reserve Banking (with gold-backed currency) which finally became fiat money delinked from gold/other precious metals.
Straight-Bat
Straight -Bat, Imagine there’s one bank with different franchises, whenever you borrow money it appears as a deposit in the banks balance sheet, if you spend it it’s still appears as a deposit on the banks balance sheet. Of course you have to put up something as security, whether that’s your good record of meeting obligations, some real asset or both. The bank now has twice the value you borrowed under it’s control. The banks main purpose is to gather intelligence on all economic activity, it then uses the money you created for it to bet on outcomes, this is the fractional reserve part.. My suggestion is that the Russians could perhaps develop a different model.
“What they fail to realize is to say that the collapse of the Soviet Union was due primarily/solely to the Marxist or Communist ideology is just as stupid as blaming the current collapse of democracy in the USA on the writings of the Founding Fathers rather than on the SOB politicians who are destroying this country day after day after day. Tell me: when the USA finally bites the dust, will you simply declare that “democracy is dead” and that the “collapse of the USA proved that democracy is not a viable regime”?
It may be Politically Incorrect to admit this, but American “Democracy” in particular has always been a lie–since 1776.
It has the same reality as the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, or rainbow-flavored Unicorn Turds.
In fact, America-style democracy is one of the greatest deceptions ever peddled. It has infected the minds of much of the world–including non-Americans–who slavishly worship this false Secular Religion.
In practice, American democracy is American oligarchical empire.
The USA’s Founding Fathers, whom many people fawn over, represented the interests of the the emerging US oligarchs (both Southern plantation owners and Northern merchants) who did not want to share their colonial loot with the British Empire and its oligarchs.
Hell, these precious Founding Fathers would be more accurately described as America’s Founding Oligarchs.
For instance, George Washington was one of the richest men of this era.
Washington was the Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Carlos Slim, and George Soros of his time.
And how did George Washington make his fortune?
Much like how James Madison (father of the US Constitution) and Thomas Jefferson (author of the Declaration of Independence) earned their own wealth.
Through chattel slavery.
Oligarchical slavocracy … not democracy … is the foundation of the self-styled Land of the Free.
The Noble Families of America
https://theoligarchkings.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/the-noble-families-of-america/
The Persistence of Oligarchy, Washington – King, Consul and President
https://theoligarchkings.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/the-persistence-of-oligarchy-washington-king-consul-and-president/
The Problems Of America’s Oligarchy. And What To Do About It.
https://theoligarchkings.wordpress.com/2011/07/31/the-problems-of-america%E2%80%99s-oligarchy-and-what-to-do-about-it/
First thing I want to say, I do not have enough information to be able to say anything but what my intuition tells me.
And it tells me about a serious split in the western elites. The interests of the really big money, like Rothschild and the other old financial magnate families, and the interests of the nouveau riches like Soros, Clintons, Obamas, Neocons, etc, who got rich in the last couple of decades, are not same at all.
Soros Macron and similar were in the service of the Rothschilds, but they are not anymore, I think. They got very independent, too independent , it seems. The first signs of that were the serious conflicts of Obama with Netanyahu’s Israel, and a split became even more obvious as Netanyahu and Soros started showing openly their hatred of each other. Let us not forget, Israel is the private state of the Rothschilds.
The nouveau rich Neocons et all and the MIC can earn their money only in an environment of the money printing, constant war and international tension, riding on the back of the US war machine.
Rothschilds know US got kaputt economically following that course, and they certainly know for a long time already, the center of mass of the world economy is moving east, unavoidably. They do not need the US MIC or wars or anything – they simply think of changing the horse, and letting the US down the river, after it does a task or two for them beforehand. The only problem for them, but a big one, they let their helpers, neocons et all get control of all the major levers of the US state power.
What happens before our eyes, the big money is trying to push back the globalist neocons with nationalism, and the examples are Trump and Brexit for starters. Who wins, no way to tell. The big money has the money and all the threads of the financial control, and the new money, small compared, but a real lot of them, has the control of the important segments of US state.
Where is Putin and Russia in all that? It looks very like Putin is coordinating with the Big money. He has good relations with Netanyahu, tolerates neoliberals in his government.
Only thing, neoliberalism translates to ‘ Who has, he’ll get more, who hasn’t, even that what he has ‘ll be taken from him’
The pensions and the tax policy are two important policy indicators of one’s economic ideology. On this front Putin is unambiguously neo-liberal, just like Medvedev and his ministers.
From a technical perspective, his justification for retirement age increases is completely bogus. What one has to take into account is the life expectancy after retirement, not the average life expectancy. The former stopped increasing in most countries decades ago: simply because human body has an expiry date and we do not have the tech to increase that anymore for quite some time already.
Another important factor, even more important perhaps, is that when making these calculations they show the ratios of working population vs non-working over the years, which is also incorrect. When making such calculations one must also take into account of technological change which increases the productivity per worker. All of these gains went to the capital since at least late 70s while productivity increased many folds. Therefore, it is time for correction. After all, at the beginning of the 20th century economists were making predictions that technology would free most of us from working.Granted, we did not gain that much of technological advancement but we do have robots and high levels of automation in most industries but still work 40 hours a week and someone must account for all these productivity gains.
The other face of this coin is taxing policy. Russia has one of the worst taxing policies, even worse than the US that is completely skewed for the rich and Putin did nothing to change that during the entire time he has been the president.
So, many things that can be done to address the issue and Putin chose the increase retirement age. This is by no means imperative but because he does not want to tax his rich pals and prefers to protect interests of rich against working class, unfortunately.
Well, the advance was good enough so that only 2-5% of people are in primary food production, and so the farmers are feeding all those other people, 95% + of people. There are huge excesses of food produced in the advanced countries, Russia in particular, and so that part of pensions is not in danger.
A pension is real wealth, (food, clothing, shelter, health care, utilities, …). The pension payment of money is exchanged for real wealth. When the real wealth is produced in sufficient excess over the requirements of capital and labour, essential workers (management, police, military, border guards, etc) and their children, then pensioners can have something. In Russia, the production of real wealth is so great that the retirement age can be reduced. There was no need to increase it. Pensions are always paid out of productivity, the real wealth production. There is no other way. Pensioners do not eat their pension checks, nor wear them, nor heat with them, etc.
Yes, the tax policy tells us directly of the problem, just as you say. The oligarchs are being protected.
My wife is Russian and we live in the U.S. She was telling me the discussions she has been having with her mother, who lives in Kazan, Russia, about the growing discontent with Putin and his Govt.
Her Mother doesn’t like what she is hearing from the people she knows. She fears of another collapse liked they lived thru under Yelstin.
“(…)Tell me: when the USA finally bites the dust, will you simply declare that “democracy is dead” and that the “collapse of the USA proved that democracy is not a viable regime”?”
Oh, yes indeed.
Even though it is not the US collapse that proves democracy’s failure: the failure of democracy is already written because of its intrinsic contradictions, and those contradictions are already listed in the most famous writings of political theorists (very often liberal ones like Stuar Mill or Tocqueville) and great thinkers like Plato.
No future for democracy: the sooner we understand this, the better.
:)
Well, we first got to ask ourselves, what is democracy? The word , in Greek, means the rule of the people. And that is exactly what the people get to hear about it, from the elementary school onwards.
But the politics is not about telling the truth to the people. It is about manipulating them to do what the social elite wants them to. Other words, the politics is a craft of lying convincingly. The broadest collection of the lies is the so called ideology. And this is not much more than a fairy tale, anywhere in the world or anytime. Only sometimes the lies get more brazen, like today.
If we talk about the western democracy, it has been born a couple of centuries ago in Holland. The still young financial and bourgeois manufacturing elite has pushed back, step by step, the power of the landowning aristocracy and church.
As this spread to England and France, it got a bit less step by step and bit more bloody, exchanging the old elites with the new one, who then called their system rule of the people. Namely, they needed the people to get in power. Once there, they did not share it with the people, only very rich had a a vote.
To cut the long story short, the nearest the people in the west ever came to power were the years from 1920 to 1970, with the welfare and voting rights spreading thru broader layers of the society, including women as well.
But it was exactly at that time that all the financial strings got into a very few hands, finishing a process which lasted thru the whole 19th century and before, making all talk about democracy even bigger farce.
Still, the plutocracy has been relatively benign to the people in this period, for several reasons unnecessary to get into.
Then comes the period of neoliberalism, todays buzz word. While the enormously rich plutocrats have their castles and Bentleys, there has been very few of them, and the amount of the social wealth wasted that way was not very high, they control enormous sums, larger than many states, and do not need to get rich. They are.
The are in a position to invest very long term, like states.
On the other hand, their nouveau rich neoliberal helpers which the old oligarchy let loose in the last 40 years are not few, and their appetite is as voracious, as their thinking is short term and rapacious. No means are too low for them, real robber barons.
So where is the rule of the people in all that, except as a fairy tale? That is the first question. The second one.
Does this mean that the idea of the rule of the people should be abandoned as an impossible utopia, a fairy tale?
I think not.
Nor do I.
But that’s not the point.
The point is: can the practice of the rule of the people guarantee democracy’s premises? No, it cannot.
Or: is a mass of people able to democratically withstand the inevitable degeneration of a government system? No way.
And, very important: is it a good choice to rely on the majority’s decisions? No it’s not. (“Polloi kakoi” – Heraclitus; “Democracy dies by majority’s incompetence” – Plato).
Flocks and herds solving today’s politics is just… delusional thinking: the democratic delusion.
Well, then, lets think about ways to get the individuals capable of making the democratic decisions. One precondition is that they be truthfully informed, bud that is not enough if they lie to themselves.
It is almost Impossible to lie to someone who is truthful to himself, but we are not, and the people have not been for the last 7000 years or so. So it is quite easy to lead the people by the nose, simply by telling them what they like to hear.
Look at a boy holding a Spiderman doll and whirling it around, thinking he is the Spiderman. He does that because Spiderman is brave, truthfull , strong – everything he has be told he needs to be to be loved from everyone. Believe it or not, it when he grows up he stays basically the same. We are like that, indentifying with a socially acceptable things and thinking that’s what we are, to avoid the social ire. That is a big lie, the mother of all the others we so readily believe. We are simple souls in our inner being, no Spidermen.
So as long as we are Spidermen, there ll be no democracy, and that could take quite a while. That much is true. But 7000 years ago, before the first beginnings of what we call civillization, we were no Spidermen, and the time ‘ll come again when we stop being kids and grow up.
I have just seen this release :
https://russia-insider.com/en/russia-brings-record-100-billion-current-account-surplus-2018/ri25965
Also, an article about how the “Yellow Vests’ movement has spread to many countries, and what the issues are in each case. In France, they are working all week, often at 2 jobs, but by the end of the week they cannot feed their children: health services are at a standstill, and everyone, bar none, wants Macron gone. In many places, they protest Government oppression, and widespread starvation. In Russia? In Moscow some were protesting a raise in ——– parking fees!!!! That was all.
Last years figures for inflation have been released, in Russia. It’s standing at about 2.7%. Here in Ecuador it’s more than 7%.
So – I”m sorry Saker, but I dont get your point. Quoting some dubious “polling” centre – which does not give it’s poll data, i.e. size of poll, social demography polled, etc etc, truly is meaningless in the face of the objective evidence I just showed – that Russia is doing very well, and people can’t find really find anything to complain about.
[Apart of course, from asking them – what do you least like?. People everywhere can answer that one. IN Britain they complain about the weather, always and ever: in Russia it’s the Government. They have been doing this for hundreds of years. They love the “Tsar” but hate the Government. It’s the Russian way]
Very revolting
Ukrainian journalist Elena Vischur (Boyko) was deported to Ukraine for violating Russian immigration laws. Boyko is known for her pro-Russian views and critisism of Ukraine. In Ukraine, several criminal cases have been initiated against her due to the fact that she supported the DPR, LPR, and the annexation of the Crimea.
Hi Saker, Boiko is not who she is “promoted” to be. This is a typical tool used by the empire, creating a pseudo hero and spinning it wildly using all available means. It’s such a shame that so many people are unaware and defend her, including you, Ostashko and many others. This only gives support to our enemies. Here is some info in Russian
https://www.kp.ru/daily/26931.7/3981170/
Don’t mix Marxism and Leninism. There are significant differences between Marxism and Bolshevism.
yes, one is for having a central bank for communism (Marx) and the other (Bolshevism) is for jews to kill off the goyim.
Re: Russia has sold most of their US Treasuries which are used in the swift system of the international monetary system.
So? Treasuries are simply dollars with a coupon attached. Countries buy treasuries exactly as you would put your money in a checking account–in order to receive interest on the account. Chinese who have sold goods for dollars can choose to buy treasuries because they want the interest. If they “dump” the treasuries it is like closing a savings account and they receive the dollars, with which they can go and buy anything from anyone or any business that will accept dollar payments. No need to complicate or mystify what is very simple.
@ Saker
[Specifically Lenin wrote:
In essence, the state is ruling apparatus created from the human society. When such a group of people appears, one which is only concerned with ruling over others, and which for that purpose needs a coercion apparatus which can force people to obey by means of jails, special units, armed forces, etc, – that is the moment when the state appears (Lenin, collective works, vol 39, page 69).]
Could it be that the reference “Lenin, collective works, vol 39, page 69” is incorrect and that this text comes from another volume ?
I’ve been reading the content of this Vol. 39 which I found on the internet in PDF-form (freely accessible), and tried to find this passage, but couldn’t find it at all.