I wonder where all these Russian intellectuals sparking social changes are now? Their country needs them, the world needs them.
American professor Mearsheimer has interesting interviews with Dugin discussing foreign policy and US-RU relations
They could be, but, you know, priorities.
Without going into deeply detailed arguments for why, they essentially threw these large, geographically and socially rich countries back by decades from levels of wealth and power that they could have achieved much earlier to become stronger rivals for dominance before was actually the case in modern history.
The USSR did eventually industrialize itself into a major military and economic power under Stalin, but only at grotesque cost in human lives, resources and efficiency that first had to overcome the vast destruction that had happened between 1917 and 1933 or so. The Nazi invasion didn't help after that but the communist system had already done considerable damage by itself.
When Russia embraced capitalism, they become a shadow of what they once where, and the main threat to West hegemony is now a socialist country that managed to retain and adapt their communist path to the change of times.
This is confirmed by the western actions, that always resort to violence to prevent marxist parties to have influence in any country and create strong economic sieges against the ones that succeed, instead of encouraging them.
However, during this prolonged period of industrialized communist administration, it slowly hollowed itself out until (without taking a more market oriented path, regardless of what political system it maintained), the USSR was a shell masquerading as a powerful force, leading to its economic collapse. The country could have maintained the communist facade and authoritarian government, while streamlining internally through capitalistic mechanisms, but it didn't before simply dissolving, and thus the sheer poverty that it had brought itself to, absent real economic reforms, was laid bare by the end of the 1980's.
Had the Russian Empire simply maintained the pseudo-capitalistic system under authoritarian rule that was the case under the czars, or even embraced the progressive liberal socialist (but partly capitalist) system that it was starting to develop between the February 1917 revolution and the Bolshevik coup of late 1917, Russia could have grown enormously and early as both an economic and political power in a way that would have made it into a very strong power indeed leading up to the 21st century.
It was soviet communism that slowly destroyed it, but first it did make it stronger through the sheer brute force of command industrialization and militarization at all costs, these mainly being huge and completely unsustainable costs in resources, sound economic practice and human life. This industrialized strengthening under a communist command economy was not at all sustainable for the long run in the case of the USSR. It had no choice but to either rot and collapse, or reform into a guided authoritarian market economy as happened in China (coming to that momentarily)
The chaotic lunacy of post-1991 Russia had little to do with any sort of functional, organized market system. It was instead closer to a stateless anarchy with a minimal, dysfunctional facade of a working central government riding on top of it. It was only after consolidation of administrative control under Putin that Russia started to redevelop economically, though still very imperfectly because under Putin too, things remain deeply corrupt, often poorly administered, though more functional and closely controlled by central authority than they were under Yeltsin.
In the case of China, it only became a truly serious competitor to U.S. dominance once it started embracing market economics and completely abandoning centralized, command economy communism as of the 1980's. Prior to that, with the exception of a very big army and possession of the nuclear bomb (produced also at huge human cost), it was in most ways a very backward, clumsy power, albeit one with enough sheer weight to have at least some regional push.
Modern China is by far closer to a fascist, authoritarian capitalist economy than a country following anything resembling a communist path. In other words, it has more in common with the Nationalist system envisioned (but very, very ineptly implemented) by Chiang Kai Shek than with anything that the Marxist Chairman Mao had in mind. If the ghosts of both men are by chance wandering the landscape of modern China, I think it would be Chiang who you'd find nodding in approval much more often than Mao.
Ironic really, but definitely not a case of capitalism weakening political power.
* The west is very afraid when a competitor follows Marxism. It is something that it tries to avoid at all costs, and employs the maximum violence to prevent any country to become communist. A country becoming fascist? Not a big deal. Religious fanatics is taking the power? Well, the west helped a lot of them in the past and in the present. But becoming communist? This never is allowed.
* The only time that western hegemony was threatened by non-western countries in modern times, they followed a variation of Marxism with revolutionary origin.
These two facts are completely at odds with your explanation.
You defend that Marxism was detrimental to the development of the countries. Of course, everyone agrees, even Marxists, that the years following a revolution are very hard and it takes time to recover, both because of the internal struggle, and because the western countries launch a violent offensive trying to destroy by military force the revolution. And yet, even with this problem, no non-western country ever was able to threaten western hegemony, except after adopting Marxist theory. And several of them tried.
Russia was a feudal country at the time of revolution. It was in the past considered a traditional and powerful country, but at the time they had become very backward country, with feudal serfdom and very little industries. This can be seen in how humiliatingly they lost a war with Japan. Japan, and all European countries were much more modern than Russia. And after revolution, in some decades, they were sending satellites to space, spaceships to the moon, before all other countries, even USA. This is a fact. You can use the "No true Scotsman" argument, saying that they are not capitalist enough, and this explains why they are a shadow of their past. But when they were more capitalist? At that time in the past, when they were doing huge leaps and developing at astonishing speed or nowadays?
You talk a lot about "huge human costs". You are aware that capitalism genocided an entire continent to develop, right? And after this, for a long time, we had first slavery, then brutal colonialism, followed by great war between capitalist powers disputing colonies and markets... I do not know any other system that had a so high human cost.
Moreover,having markets it is not at odds with Marxism and communism. Even Lenin tried to develop some form of marked based on cooperatives in USSR. True communist cannot succeed isolated in a capitalist world anyway. In my definition, what defines a country as socialist, (or "communist" using the naming more common in USA) is which is the dominant class. The bourgeoisie in China indeed have power and is taken into account, but I do not think that the country is ruled by bourgeoisie and the capital, like in capitalist countries. But I know that this is a polemic opinion. Anyway, they still have five-year plans and centralize long-term decisions. And indeed, they are being successful into achieving their long-term centralized goals.
In any case, the best we can do is to have a look at the countries that adopted Communism (the Eastern bloc) and compare them with their neighbors that didn't (have to). From that perspective, the answer is clear.
OTOH, if instead of Stalin Russia had a wise ruler, if instead of a police state it allowed people to explore various ideas and develop them, I bet we could see some very interesting results.
Regarding this: "the best we can do is to have a look at the countries that adopted Communism (the Eastern bloc) and compare them with their neighbors that didn't (have to)"
This does feel like an informative perspective. I suppose it assumes that Eastern bloc countries would be left to their own devices in the absence of the Lenin/Stalin USSR, which may be fairly safe to assume.
Like Lenin? I mean - yeah, he was an intellectual. He was also the one who in his letters and written orders expressed the will to terrorise and kill more people than some can imagine.
PS: just trying to point out that people sometimes confuse smart\intellectual people and something magical like "good" people.
Besides, Russia is "winning" Western elections, and who doesn't like to be on the winning team.
Finland and Sweden voted to join NATO; Europe re-arms. Trump may not be pro-Ukraine, but his energy policy will wreck Russia's oil-dependent pocketbook while his China and Iran strategies will also hurt Moscow. Russia's other potential pillar, arms sales, is having its reputation trashed as the world watches 90s-era Western kit take out its "cutting edge" hardware.
Add to that the declining population and it's difficult to see the Russian nation continuing in its present form for more than a few generations. Maybe we'll see an independent Chechnya or even Siberia [1] in our lifetimes.
They seem to be pretty successful in sowing discord overseas with their propaganda but it's not getting them much in the long run. Their domestic problems are the biggest thing killing them and hosing the rest of the world down with bullshit won't help them there.
Russia's elites don't care about this either. They want to be rich and will support anyone in charge who lets them be.
Anna Politkovskaya was an anti Putin writer, also killed by poisoning.
Kasparov is fairly close. "Although I'm half-Armenian, half-Jewish, I consider myself Russian because Russian is my native tongue, and I grew up with Russian culture." He's written a well reviewed book and not been killed just yet. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Winter-Coming-Vladimir-Enemies-Stop...
Tsar Nicholas II made an unforced error.
Russia was in a war (World War I) and 1905 was already a rebellious year in Russia. It was idiocy to keep 100k forcibly conscripted peasants in the capital. His minister warned Nicolas that it was dangerous but he did not listen. Those troops were very unhappy peasants waiting to be sent to their deaths and communists and others had easy time to convince them to do something else than die.
Vladimir Putin is unlikely to make the same error.
Putin made almost the exact same mistake with Prighozin.
Prighozhin was 1000km away from Moscow and was allowed some freedome only thanks to some limited support of a fraction of population, mostly what you'd call "rednecks".
One call and he had stopped the theatrics. And was zeroed two months later.
Substitute peasants with prisoners and a straight shot to Moscow versus already in and you've got the same situation. Putin didn't have enough materiel between Moscow and Prighozin to keep the fight from getting to Moscow.
Hence why I said "Putin didn't have enough materiel between Moscow and Prighozin to keep the fight from getting to Moscow." Prighozin couldn't have unilaterally seized Moscow. But he could have brought the fight to it. At that point, a new set of political calculations--ones I'm not qualified to speculate about--come into play.
Putin can be toppled, but it will be just rearrangement among powerful groups. There is no change of popular rebellion or intellectuals pushing change in Russia.
1000km vs already in, right.
>Putin didn't have enough materiel between Moscow and Prighozin to keep the fight from getting to Moscow.
Putin had at least 600k military personnel around the country at the time (200k even if we take into the account that a good part of this number are paperworkers and such). Not to mention all kinds of police, special units etc.
This was a political problem for him (using your own military against Prighozhin would at least make him look week or even illegitimate at the time). Not a "technical".
He's in a much-stronger position than the Tsar was. The peasants in Moscow were the proximate cause of the Tsar's fall, but it wasn't the ultimate one.
At which point a monarchy makes sense.
Dictatorships are unstable. They tie the fate of an immortal nation to the mortal whims and needs of a man. We came up with monarchy as a solution to this problem, and then swept it away when the modern republic was invented.
But republics aren't for everyone. Democracy requires compromise, and staring the uncertain and unknowable honestly in the eye. It may be high time that we admit that some populations prefer the certainty of autocracy. And within the domain of autocracy, the time-tested model is heridatory constitutional monarchy.
The biggest strength of autocracy is the ability to be more long-sighted. Democracy, taken to it's natural extremes, leads to a system where you have representatives spending most of their time in office planning for the next election, which is to say fund raising and focusing on things that'll pay-off before the next election cycle.
So you get an obsession on the very short-term stuff, and a tendency to trend towards oligarchy (though Plato would claim it trends to tyranny).
But the problem with autocracy (that monarchy only exasperates) is that a single bad leader can undo generations of achievements of skilled leaders. Aurelius was one of the wisest and most capable leaders to have lived. His only son was one of the worst.
Democracy's weakness is it's strength there - even the most inept (or perhaps senile) leader can't do that much and they'll be out of office in a few years anyhow.
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Also, as I seem to end up debating with you in these little geopol threads often enough - let us hold one another to our predictions. Told ya on South Korea. ;)
Which thread are you referring to? (I was in Seoul for Yoon's impeachment, so it's not surprising a HN discussion got lost in my memory.)
My debate partner was under the might makes right pov, and felt that a person in power defacto declaring themselves dictator was sufficient to enact such, regardless of their popularity, particularly when reasonably enabled by law.
I was arguing that autocracy, in spite of lack of accountability, generally cannot sustain itself without relatively broad support.
Once it became clear that South Korea was in no mood to let an unpopular man declare himself dictator, we then debated his fate. I predicted death/imprisonment (as is practically a tradition in South Korean politics) while my debate partner was expecting him to get away scot-free, impeached at worst, arguing that no laws were broken in the President's attempt.
I never said this. What I may have argued is folks in the military following orders (note: not top brass) were not clearly breaking any laws so long as parliament hadn't overturned the martial law order.
> a person in power defacto declaring themselves dictator was sufficient to enact such, regardless of their popularity, particularly when reasonably enabled by law
Out of order, but I would have never said this either. No man rules alone is like rule one of politics. Rule two is the law flows from power; being legally correct and politically wrong is a historical footnote to losing power.
- soldiers gladly obeyed orders to essentially end all democracy
- soldiers mostly seemed to stop obeying their dictator's orders when they got confused about who's even in charge and what was legally standing rather than the public will.
- Yoon is not dead, not even imprisoned
Given all that mess, I can see aspects of both of your claims being true. It's quite interesting!
I don't think my paraphrasing was inaccurate.
This bit, on the other hand, is totally unsubstantiated: “a person in power defacto declaring themselves dictator was sufficient to enact such, regardless of their popularity.” Nobody argued that.
Also: “I was arguing that autocracy, in spite of lack of accountability, generally cannot sustain itself without relatively broad support.” <— You never said this. The closest we came to this was in what adversarial states would want.
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[me, quoted by you] maintaining power without relatively widespread support is quite difficult
[you] Strange claim in a thread about the Korean peninsula.
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I'm sure you know that Yoon was/is extremely unpopular. This was the crux of the issue. If Yoon had an 80% approval, I believe he would be the dictator of South Korea today instead of impeached and with a warrant out for his arrest.
Now obviously you agree with that as well. So where did we disagree? Right, on what happens when an unpopular man tries to declare himself dictator.
They also tried democracy and failed wholly at that.
Russia tried monarchy as an empire and with an absolute ruler. Something like the Kuwaiti monarchy might suit them better. Though I’m not sure it works since the modern Russian state sort of remains an empire, something made clear by their conscription discrepancies between Moscow and peripheries.
Louis XVI had a weak but what we would call progressive reign. Louis enacted religious tolerance, abolished imprisonment without trial, and abolished letters de cachet which subjected the monarchy edicts to approval of regional parliaments.
USA supported liberal reforms in Central Europe/Warsaw pact countries like Hungary Romania Poland where shock therapy provided transition from communist economy to liberal market economy, and their currency was supported by the IMF/WB/US from severe shocks.
US literally lent money to Central European countries to ease their transition and not kill their economies.
https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/ky53w3k2273hhec...
According to Jeff Sachs, the author of shock therapy in Poland, the same shock therapy was prescribed to Russia, but no support was provided. Russian liberal reforms were betrayed by USA. Which led to severe currency and economic crisis.
Crisis led to garage sale of all state assets and privatization by foreign financial groups (oligarchs), which created a very deep sense of unfairness among Russians. This led to ascencion of Putin as he returned some of that unfairly privatized property from oligarchs
>It inspired pure panic, as people had never seen anything but utter certainty from their leaders
Russians are not uncomfortable with actual democratic openness. There were periods in Russian history when actual democratic openness was an option. Right before the USSR formation and around 1990s
The problem is that after 1991 you've got a few generations of people who are used to ussr socialism and its ways and guarantees.
You can't expect people to switch from one way of thinking to the other. The state had beed paying them all their lives. Sometime only because they had some kind of job at all. Many of them developed an addiction to their "salary for existence".
You can't go and tell them that starting tommorow they will have to compete on a market that is yet to be build. And that the whole new shiny system like that of the West will be functional 2-3 decades later. And right after they were playing (from their perspective) the same game waiting for the communism.
As Stalin has been quoted as saying "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"-- subsequent purges/famines following the revolution resulting in roughly 25% of the Russian population (without even counting WWII casualties) being killed, so it's not exactly a strong sell for "intellectuals sparking social changes".