Russia today

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Mon Feb 06, 2023 3:12 pm

Communists celebrate 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazis at Stalingrad

In the historic five-month-long battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943), the Soviet Red Army and partisans defeated the invading Nazi forces, marking the beginning of the Nazi retreat and defeat in World War II

February 06, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch

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Communists paying tributes to fallen heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad in Russia. (Photo: via kprf.ru)

On February 2, communists and several anti-fascist groups across the world organized events to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet forces over German Nazis at the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. Under the auspices of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), major commemorative events were held in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), Moscow, and other major cities of Russia.

The Battle of Stalingrad (August 23,1942-February 2, 1943) was among the bloodiest episodes of World War II, fought between the invading forces of Nazi Germany and the Red Army and partisans of the Soviet Union. In the historic battle, which resulted in the deaths of over two million people, the Soviet Army prevailed, forcing the Nazis to surrender. This marked the beginning of the Nazi retreat and defeat in World War II.

For this year’s commemoration of the victory at Stalingrad, Gennady Zyuganov from the CPRF leadership demanded that Russian President Vladimir Putin to return the heroic city to its true name—Stalingrad.

The name of the city—the administrative capital of the Volgograd Oblast, on the western bank of the Volga river—was changed to Volgograd in 1961. In 2013, the Volgograd City Duma decided to honorarily return the name to Stalingrad on nine days a year—February 2 and 23; May 8 and 9; June 22; August 23; September 2; November 19; and December 9, marking major victories of the Soviet Union and the working class.

“The victory at Stalingrad was the beginning of the transformation of the Soviet country into one of the two greatest world powers. This was confirmed by the complete defeat of the fascists in the Oryol-Kursk arc and the further liberation of Europe and the whole world from fascism,” Zyuganov said.

“In my opinion, it is time for Putin to return to the hero city its true historical name—Stalingrad. I believe this step is of fundamental importance. Because the world knows Stalingrad. The whole planet highly appreciated the victory of the Red Army. Our task is to restore this historical truth,” he added.

The general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), Rob Griffiths, said that “the working class and peoples of Britain celebrated joyously when the Russian people and the Soviet Red Army prevailed, because they knew this would be a turning point in the international struggle against the Nazis and fascism.”

“So it was—and this should never be forgotten, whatever our views on the Ukraine war today.”

CPRF’s Roman Kononenko told Peoples Dispatch on February 3, “the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad destroyed Hitler’s dreams to wipe out the city bearing the name of the leader of the Soviet Union—Stalin—from the face of the Earth. Nazi Germany’s Army Group B failed to capture the city, cut off our country from the strategically important oil and gas fields in the Caucasus, and take control of the agrarian breadbasket of Soviet Russia. All this became possible thanks to the steadfastness, courage, heroism, true valor, and patriotism of the Soviet people and the soldiers of the Red Army.”

“Thanks to the courage and selflessness shown by the Soviet people in those harsh years, today we have the opportunity to live, study, and work. The victory at Stalingrad has been forever inscribed in world history and the history of Russia, and the sacrifices of Soviet soldiers, officers, and civilians will remain in our hearts forever!” he added.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/02/06/ ... talingrad/
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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Thu Feb 09, 2023 2:56 pm

Railways of Russia. Turn to the east
February 7, 12:35

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Comrade "Periscope" https://t.me/periskop_pacific about changes on the Russian railway.

Railways of Russia. Turn to the east

A few curious excerpts from the railway officialdom (the meeting between Putin and Belozerov ( http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/65315 ), who was summoned to the SBU yesterday)

* For the first time in the history of the railway economy, the volume of transportation to the East exceeded traffic to the West. 80 million - to the East, 76 million - to the West.

* The volume of cargo transported with friendly countries increased by 23%, while non-friendly countries decreased by almost 40%, respectively, from 365 million to 210 million [tons], and this trend continues.

* Heavy traffic has been doubled - [weighing] 7100 [tons], heavy trains run twice as much. Container trains have been connected, that is, two trains run simultaneously on the same line of the schedule, and have grown by almost one and a half times. And a unique technological thing is that we have started transportation of connected heavy freight trains, one train is 14,200 [tons], the length of such a train is more than 2 kilometers.

* The number of containers in transportation has reached record levels - 5 million 800 thousand, an absolute record. At the same time, flexitanks, linerbags, opentop containers appeared, and even coal was transported in containers last year. That is, to imagine a few years ago that it was possible to work this way ...

* Result of e-ticketing in 2022: Almost 74 percent were sold digitally. But in 2019 - 57, that is, we have grown by almost 30 percent.

* Double-decker trains have proven themselves very well: they increased coverage by almost 30 percent - more than 60 cities.

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/77467 - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8154197.html

Base in Port Sudan
February 9, 16:20

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Lavrov said that the Russian military base in the form of a logistics center in Port Sudan is more than real. The issue of ratifying the agreement on its establishment is in the process of being coordinated with the Government of Sudan.

The agreement was signed back in 2020, but the United States by all means prevented its creation, using various levers of pressure within the Sudanese generals and the opposition that came to power after the overthrow of Al-Bashir. However, the United States failed to completely block this issue, and Russia continues to push through this issue.

The base in Sudan will expand Russia's capabilities in the region, including near the strategic Suez Canal. It is worth noting that neighboring Eritrea also offered Russia to open a naval base on its territory.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8159024.html

Google translator

***********

THINGS ARE GROWING PEAR-SHAPED IN THE RUSSIAN POIRÉ MARKET

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By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

The Massachusetts philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson was making a mistake when he claimed “there are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.” Although he grew pears himself, Emerson isn’t known to have made them into pear cider, also known as poiré in France, perry in England.

Russians understand how to prolong the pleasure of consuming pears by turning them into cider. And so, despite the efforts of the warmongering English, Poles, and Czechs to cut off the supply of pear concentrate from which, until the sanctions war began, Russian pear cider producers bottled their drinks, the Russian taste for it continues to grow. Known as пуаре after the French name, pear cider has been steadily gaining in sales volume of the market for light alcohol drinks. Friendlier foreign sources of pear concentrate, sanctions-busting alternate trade, and state-backed investment in the planting of new Russian pear varieties are all substituting in the domestic cider market.

According to Vadim Drobiz, “the import of pears concentrate has not been influenced too much [by the sanctions war].” Drobiz is the national expert on the alcohol market; he is the director of the Centre for Federal and Regional Alcohol Markets (TsIFRRA). “There have been changes in domestic consumer tastes and preferences, and so the [cider] producers have followed them. There are many ways in which the sanctions and prohibitions on import of different goods can be avoided, and these are widely used.”

All the English, Poles and Czechs have managed to do is to make pear cider a state secret. This secret is profitable enough that the Russians don’t care if the enemy thinks the cider market is going pear-shaped. For that reason, no Russian poiré producer or bottler will talk on the record to a foreign correspondent reporting in English. They say ваше здоровье! Cheers! instead.

In the pear world, China leads by far with production of more than 16 million tonnes of the fruit, according to the published results for 2020. That outstripped Italy, the US, and Argentina with about 600,000 tonnes each, followed by Turkey with 545,000 tonnes. On the global map for 2020, Russia reportedly trailed with about 72,000 tonnes. The volumes indicate that allied and friendly-country sources of pears and pear concentrate for Russian cider-makers to turn into cider starts with China, Argentina, and Turkey.

GLOBAL PRODUCTION OF PEARS IN 2020 – RUSSIA-FRIENDLY STATES LEAD

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/

Two years later, the statistics published for 2022 indicate production gains in the allied and friendly-source countries, China, Argentina, South Africa, and India – plus a significant increase in pear production in Russia itself. The latest US Department of Agriculture report for December 2022 suggests that Chinese pear farmers are cutting down their trees and reducing production because the profit margins for fresh fruit and for juice concentrate sales have been falling. By contrast, Argentine output of pears is accelerating.

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Source: https://www.statista.com/

Russian imports of fresh pears and other fruit from China had been suspended for two years until March of 2022, days after the start of the Special Military Operation. Officially the ban was imposed because of the phytosanitary evidence of pest infections risking the health of domestic orchards. Protection of Russian apple and pear growers was also a factor. The war has changed these calculations by the Russian government. Accordingly, Russian pear growers are now applying for state protection from the war impacts.

Although Poland falls short of ranking on the global scale as a major producer of apples and pears, until this year it has been the largest exporter to Russia of pear concentrate. The Polish share of the market came to 50%; Argentina, Czech Republic, Finland, and the UK trailed with 12.5% each. The sourcing of replacement supplies takes time, money, and marketing expertise, but the story of Russia’s adaptation for pear cider is the same in microcosm as the story for oil, gas, coal and every other Russian product – smuggling, alternate trade, substitution, concealment, state planning, growth of production. The point of the Russian poiré story is defeat of sanctions.

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Source: https://kodtnved.ru/

For a country without a traditional taste for pear cider and few orchards producing the bittersweet varieties best suited to fermentation, it is remarkable that there are currently five major brands on the mass market, not counting the regional artisanal products.

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Pictured are the main Moscow pear cider brands. The British have dozens -- -- the French likewise. Most of them are artisanal – they are little known outside the areas where the fruit is grown and pressed. Poland, a major producer of apples but not of pears, had not been a producer of cider until recently, and pear cider is still little known there. Then with the start of the Ukraine war in 2014, Russia cut off its importation of Polish fruit, severely damaging Polish cider for the domestic Russian market and Polish farmers, especially those in the southeast bordering the Ukraine, where Polish support for the war against Russia has been greatest.

Following the start of the Special Military Operation last February, the abrupt cutoff of supplies of imported concentrate led to a decline of pear cider availability and consumption, and a shift by Russian cider drinkers to apple cider. Sales of imported apple and pear cider, other fruit juices, and Russian mead dropped. But production in Russian apple orchards has increased.

For the story of Russian mead, read this. For the impact of Russia’s counter-sanctions against Polish apples, click; and for the Russian oligarch attempt to capitalize on the protected domestic apple market, there’s this.

Russian production and consumption figures are issued by the government’s Federal Service for Alcohol Market Regulation (Rosalkogolregulirovanie). These show that between 2018 and 2021 production and consumption of cider was stable to growing, taking just 1% of the alcohol market as a whole. Pear cider amounted to about 10% of the cider and mead market.

In 2022, because of the war sanctions and cutoff of concentrate from Europe, poiré production and sales dropped sharply, and so Russians moved to other light alcohol drinks.

Alexander Kazakov, Chairman of the National Association of Traditional Cider Producers, told Kommersant newspaper last week the decline in the sale, import and consumption of poiré is temporary for the same reason as last year’s figures. He was joined by a spokesman for a well-known orchard brand in expecting a 10% to 15% annual growth in sales as the pear orchardists bring older trees into fruit and plant new varieties.

Alexei Axel, the head of the Volkovskaya Brewery, has told the Kommersant in Moscow that until the war poiré occupied about 10% of the total cider market, and that the immediate reaction of the producers in March was to switch their production to different fruits and to a change of assortment in their retail portfolio, depending on the supply chain for concentrates and aromatic additives. Baltika, for example – a Russian unit of the Danish Carlsberg group — made a switch from its Somersby cider brand to a beer.

Kommersant reported a different story from one of the largest cider producers, the Anheuser-Busch InBev Efes group. Maria Dementieva, the current marketing director, has told Kommersant that in the first eight months of last year, it took second place in the Russian cider market overall, and that its sales were increasing. In December the group introduced its first pear cider brand, and the group is planning to expand its pear cider brand portfolio this year.


The Russian poiré is benefitting directly from the war sanctions because Anheuser-Busch, a Belgian multinational company, was forced into selling its Russian assets to Efes of Turkey at a book loss of $1.1 billion. This in turn triggered a 10% drop in the share price, and the loss of almost $20 billion to the European and American shareholders of the company. There are corroborating reports from the other large cider producers in the Russian market. Kommersant has reported that Mr Fox, the Russian cider brand produced by the Dutch Heineken group, has increased its sales by 26% to reach a market share of 59%, the leader. This was despite the announcement of the company, amplified in the US media, that Heineken was exiting the Russian market because its business “is no longer sustainable nor viable in the current environment. As a result, we have decided to leave Russia.” Heineken declared a balance-sheet loss of $438 million. The Dutch share price also collapsed with a far bigger loss to the shareholders.

From the Russian point of view, the setback in imported concentrates and cider sales has been a short term one. The market data suggest it took roughly six months from the start of the Special Military Operation for the producers to develop the new supply sources and logistics they needed in order to bypass the obstacles thrown up by the US and NATO measures. The long–term prospect for domestic poiré now is for growth of sales with cheap, almost confiscated foreign capital, working on a lower domestic cost and higher profit base than the enemy state companies allowed when they controlled the Russian market. None of this the domestic poiré producers wish to tell the foreign press.

The next step for Russian poiré is to secure state planning and financial support, Soviet style. According to what the producers and officials are now telling the Moscow business press, the ministries of agriculture, finance, and economic development, and the inter-government committee on war planning, are now considering proposals from the producing companies and the orchardists to grant cider the same agricultural product status as the Russian winemakers already enjoy. This status, which must be enacted into the tax law and the budget, would allow state support to commence for the fruit farmers and investors.

There’s one problem to solve, however. Russian winemakers grow their grapes on Russian soil, particularly now in Crimea. Apple cider and poiré produced and sold as Russian products are up to 90 percent-fabricated from imported ingredients. Pears grow more slowly on the tree than wine grapes on the vine, and so for Russian orchards to increase their supply of the fruit and concentrate required to the level qualifying for state support will take several years as the new orchard trees mature. The latest figures indicate that in 2021 over 60 million litres of apple and pear cider were produced in Russia, but only 3.5 million litres (6%) were drawn from domestic fruit.

There are legal ways in which the apple and pear orchardists will be able to qualify, especially if they have the Russian agro-industrial combines, controlled by sanctioned oligarchs, behind them with cash and lobbying the government in front. Read more on who, before the war, controlled the Russian farmlands, the potato harvest and the French fries market. Here’s the story of the land banks and pork oligarchs. And the sugar oligarch file.

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June 23, 2016 -- source: http://johnhelmer.net/

If the government officials agree to the cider proposals, this will open the state war economy plan and state and regional budgets for money to subsidize the running costs of family or small farmers, agricultural machinery lease charges, modernization of the fruit processing mills, and much more. The tax the poiré businesses will pay the state will be cut to just 6% nationwide, while in some regions like Moscow, there is a zero-tax holiday for new food and beverage processors. The cider-makers will also be eligible for relief of VAT, land tax and transport tolls.

Kazakov has told Vedomosti newspaper for the producers that they expect to gain a tax deduction that will significantly exceed the amount of excise their products are required to pay at present. Today the excise tax rate on cider in Russia is at the level of 24 rubles per litre. The average price of a bottle of traditional cider (0.5 – 0.7 litres) is about Rb110 – 120, including the excise duty.

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Source: http://www.yablochny-spas.ru/

For the time being also, the cider makers cannot receive subsidies for planting orchards, Oleg Gorelov, chief executive of Yablochny Spas (“Apple Angel”), one of the largest apple and pear cider producers in the country, has told the Russian press. But if the government agrees, he anticipates, both the industrial sized farms and the small orchardists will be able to draw on the full range of state support so long as they produce low-alcohol drinks up to 6% proof.

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Left to right: Vadim Drobiz of TsIFFRA; Alexander Kazakov, Chairman of the National Association of Traditional Cider Producers; Alexei Axel, Volkovskaya Brewery; and Maria Dementieva of InBev Efes. For the wartime reason, Kazakov, Axel, and Dementieva were unwilling to speak to a foreign correspondent.

The orchardists and cider producers are predicting that with state planning and budget support, and also with the removal of Belgian, Dutch, English, and other enemy-state companies from market competition, there will be “explosive” growth in Russian production volumes and sales. This will be boosted also by domestic tourism, they say, on the model of the Herefordshire cider circuit and the Normandy cider route. At present, apples and pears are grown commercially in only six Russian regions. With fresh war incentives and investment, however, they can be grown in 76 regions of the country.


Footnote for warmakers: the enemy-state beer companies which withdrew from the Russian market last year are now counting additional losses from the smuggle supply routes and alternate import trade which are replacing many of the brands that were temporarily cut off last year. Reporting by the Russian branch of the NielsenIQ group indicates that the temporary impact cut the market representation from 35 to 18 brands of imported beer with Russian licences. By October 2022, however, this number has grown back to 22. At the same time, the imported beers had become significantly more expensive for Russian consumers, while the profits were taken, not by the Belgians, Dutch, Germans or Americans, but by the intermediaries in the allied and friendly states. This price effect has also benefited the Russian beer brands which have grown from 78 to 80 positions, and added at least two percentage points of market share at the expense of the foreign beers. For the archive of the war on the beer front, read this.

http://johnhelmer.net/things-are-growin ... more-70646
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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:23 pm

Reflections on the international and domestic situation
№ 2/78.I.2023

The consequences of the sanctions imposed by Western countries against the Russian Federation after the start of the special operation in Ukraine quickly led to an increase in internal protests in the West. The population is dissatisfied with the sharp increase in gas and electricity tariffs, prices for consumer goods, as well as shortages and inflation. Of course, the protests are not only caused by sanctions due to the NWO, they were the result of a trend towards the crisis of capitalism in general. And the sanctions only made it worse. Moreover, the actions of trade unions and protests are closely linked to the gradual growth of anti-war sentiment.

All this, of course, does not suit the politicians of the US, England and the EU, as it hurts their authority and ratings. They try to convince the rapidly impoverished proletariat to approve their policies in order to demonstrate cohesion in the face of the threat of defeat in Ukraine, but such "arguments" have little effect on anyone. Since it was not at all doctors, teachers, railway workers and other workers who imposed sanctions against the Russian Federation and set fire to Eastern Europe. But since the proletariat in the West is still far from becoming a revolutionary class, it is limited in its maneuvers and easily makes concessions to capital.

The countries of the West found themselves in a situation where the masses are gradually becoming disillusioned with the imperialist policy of the authorities, and the bourgeois ideals, in the name of which the current imperialist order was allegedly created, are being blown away before our eyes. However, the only thing that the workers and petty bourgeoisie in the West today can oppose to their imperialist bourgeoisie is toothless pacifism. All this gives reason to believe that the gradual collapse of US hegemony with the increase in internal problems in Western countries will increasingly push the bourgeoisie and its politicians against the proletariat, during which the latter will turn into an opponent of imperialist policy, which in turn will lead to the strengthening of the dictatorship in the West. .

Since January, strikes by railway workers, bus drivers, healthcare workers, civil servants, and education workers have continued in England. All of them are dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the economy, a disproportionate drop in income and rising prices. In addition, the government failed to comply with their demands for higher wages and better working conditions. On February 1, the largest strike in a decade took place in central London, in which, as reported in the media, up to half a million people took part.

The struggle of the British trade unions for higher wages and better working conditions, of course, has the character of bargaining. Otherwise it can not be. In early December last year in England, health unions offered to halt the wave of strikes "at Christmas and New Year's" if Health Minister Steve Barclay agreed to a deal. Royal College of Nursing (RCN) general secretary Pat Cullen has said the RCN is ready to drop its demand for a 5% inflation-adjusted pay rise if the local Health Ministry agrees to increase wages by at least £1,400.

Also in early December in Scotland, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives announced a temporary suspension of strikes after talks with the local government, which was portrayed in the local press as averting the threat of widespread strikes on the national health service. Health Minister Humza Yusuf welcomed this "breakthrough" and urged the British authorities to follow suit.

We can also recall the protests against raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 in the French capital, in which 1.3 million people took part, where both right and left are almost equally involved, and the police mutuzit both of them.

In the German cities of Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Duisburg, Rostock and others, anti-war actions and protests against the supply of tanks to the Kyiv regime are taking place, the participants of which urge the country's authorities to remain neutral.

“No war should go through Germany, not arms shipments, or anything else, because otherwise Germany will again be in the center of events, which only America wants,” said one of the protesters.

It was to be expected that a Russian trace would be found in all this. As the foreign agent The Insider writes, "the Kremlin organizes pro-Russian actions in Germany." Ridiculous position. But even if this were the case, it is impossible not to notice that when the West organizes riots in the Russian Federation, it turns out that everything is normal, correct and democratic, just like when Ukrainian refugees scurry back and forth through the streets of European cities, with insane screams calling to “cut Rusnya” or universally ban everything connected with Russia. If the shares are ordered by the Kremlin, then this is a priori bad and immoral. That's just funny. It doesn't really matter who orders the shares, the question is the nature of the protests, the demands and the situation. If people do not want to express their position, then no one is able to take them out into the street. Even money. Remember Euromaidan - what is there, each paid individually? Of course not. Even the Maidan became possible only because, firstly, the authorities bankrupted themselves, and secondly, the masses were seething with discontent.

About how the local press covers the protests in Germany, the Systemic Pesticide channel writes :

“The Russian service of Deutsche Welle (recognized as a foreign agent) covers the German protests in a very peculiar way. One article writes that anti-government protests took place "in the east of Germany." This wording is very indicative: after all, the “East of Germany” is still marginalized by the “progressive” media, blaming everything on the “dark” and “narrow-minded” inhabitants of the former GDR. But the problem is that the protests took place even in the capital of Germany. Here DW has already found another wording: “Rally of right-wing populists in Berlin.”

But, as I pointed out above, due to the connection between the current protests and anti-war sentiments, Western politicians will forward all the claims of the European proletariat to Putin. Although few people are satisfied with such answers, since we are talking about the fact that the authorities turned out to be completely lousy forecasters, unable to foresee the consequences of their actions. Or they even betrayed their bourgeois interests in collusion with the American imperialists.

For example, the chairman of the Conservative Party of England, Nadhim Zahavi, addressing the staff of the National Health Service, said:

"Now is the time to come together and send a very clear signal to Mr. Putin that we will not be divided in this way."

According to him, the protests will demonstrate the disunity of English society. In turn, the secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Pat Cullen, reproached the authorities for using the Ukrainian crisis as an excuse to lower the salaries of medical staff.

Now the Western proletariat and petty bourgeoisie are faced with the same problems that the inhabitants of the "second" and "third" worlds face, forced to work hard and earn little or even live in poverty, beyond the poverty line. But this is only the beginning. Yes, and the wars waged by NATO in different parts of the world were of little interest to the layman, because, despite the high cost, he lived very well in comparison with how the proletariat lives in the "jungle", outside the "flowering garden", in the words EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell. From time to time, European cities were shaken by terrorist attacks staged by Islamists, but the European inhabitants showed unity with their imperialist bourgeoisie. Je suis Charlie.

Now the European and English proletariat has become interested in the questions of peace. But again, this is to a greater extent the urge of the stomach and only to a small extent the voice of reason. After all, before that, very few activists in the West were critical of NATO imperialism. But the old life is no more. Its level will fall lower and lower, as there are fewer and fewer opportunities to carry out coups, to place your people at the helm in formally independent colonies with orders to supply resources for next to nothing. Now you have to pay for all vital resources. And much more than before.

Now, when the war is already on the threshold of his house, the Western man in the street is gradually waking up from "hibernation" and trying to figure out what the problem is.

Of course, understanding what is happening at first is not of a mass nature, most of the workers, as well as the ruined and ruining petty bourgeoisie, are not even capable of this. The inhabitant begins to make claims to the authorities, demanding higher wages and working conditions. To which he receives a well-known answer, from which it follows that if he does not like what is happening, then he, in fact, becomes an enemy of the state. And here, in theory, a thought process should start, which should eventually lead him to the path of Marxism. But whether he decides to do this ... Depends on his personal courage. And above all, honesty. But most importantly, it depends on the quality of the work of European Marxists, and there are criminally few of them left there. For the past thirty years, the European Left has become completely mired in Economism and Trotskyism.

As you can see, Western bourgeois politicians are dissatisfied with the way their subjects behave... I would even say that they are frightened. Indeed, in the current conditions, it is much more difficult to maintain “unity”. If earlier the proletariat was asked to do this on a full stomach, now it is proposed to do it under completely different conditions - on a half-empty stomach, and even with “cosmic” utility bills by local standards. That is, this situation further emphasized the position of the population of the West as hostages of the bourgeois system, which they have always been.

In the conditions of the previous Cold War and the Iron Curtain, Western capitalists liked to show in their propaganda the advertising picture of a “beautiful life”, or, as it was also said, dolce vita, passing it off as “socialism with a human face”, and hiding everything that did not fit into this image. Now the situation is completely different. The United States will devour and throw into the furnace of war its vassals and their populations, as opportunities to plunder other countries become less and less. The EU will become even more dependent on Washington, which blocks opportunities for cooperation with China and the Russian Federation.

Of course, the local proletariat can take to the streets, arranging a pogrom or two and fights with the police, as was the case during quarantine restrictions against COVID-19, to let off steam, so to speak, but what will it give? This behavior is no different from the behavior of a disorganized pack of primates. As the practice of recent years shows, this "headless horseman" can only destroy and break. But he is unable to create. It can create only under the leadership of the Communist Party.

In the old days, the American and European bourgeoisie shared their neo-colonial profits with the workers, but now that their own survival is at stake, they no longer intend to do so. Because now it is much more important for her to fight. And this means that the profits will go to the military-industrial complex. More precisely, the American military-industrial complex, which is interested in weakening European armies. And pacifist walks will not help the cause.

And further. The Western proletariat must realize that the collapse of the neo-colonial empire cannot but affect it. And there are two ways - part of it can continue to support neo-colonialism, that is, its own governments, and the other part can take the opposite position.

Moreover, if we talk about Europe, then it will consist in upholding national independence. And their sympathies will, albeit not immediately, shift towards the Russian Federation and China. Since the establishment of strong and friendly ties with Moscow, Beijing and other major economies will be the only way to the desired goal. This process will be opposed by local puppet pro-American politicians, as well as a network of agents of influence built by the United States. Therefore, one should expect the growth of nationalist sentiments, which will have a different character - not the preservation of the Western liberal empire and its colonies, but gaining independence from the United States. Most of the European proletarians, not to mention the local affected bourgeoisie from small to large (but non-financial), will probably follow this path.

Many people forget that Europe after the Second World War and the Marshall Plan turned into a colony of the United States, which, in the same way, in accordance with the laws of capitalism, is striving for independence. And it's not about the "strategic autonomy" that European politicians preach, but about the confrontation with the United States. And one of the ways in this direction is the expansion of economic cooperation with China. But, as the current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz noted, it is the United States that is the guarantor of the security of the European Union. And therefore, there can be no question of any political independence of the EU. And the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines showed this with all clarity. The US holds Europe firmly in its hands, and in order to loosen this grip, the European peoples will have to go a long way of resistance.

As for the United States, they are already preparing for the battle for Taiwan (just look at how American public opinion is treated with the notorious “Chinese ball”), and therefore they will pump up their proletariat with anti-Chinese and anti-communist chauvinist propaganda. By the way, it is very funny that a Republican named McCarthy with extremely aggressive rhetoric against China became the head of the US House of Representatives. The positions of Democrats and Republicans on this issue differ only in nuances. And the EU will follow the same course. Since it is necessary to spoil relations with China as much as possible, which plays an important role in the European economy. With England and Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand dependent on it, the situation is similar. A defeat in Ukraine could set the stage for the disintegration of what

Noting the further unenviable fate of the proletariat in the Western countries, I speak without gloating, since our proletarian unity must be unshakable, despite the difference in nations and races. And the sooner the Western proletariat grows wiser and understands that its goal is to live not for the sake of a better handout, but for the sake of destroying the capitalist system, the better for it. At this stage, he is a reflection of the local bourgeoisie, since he was lured, brought up by it and on its values. And therefore, trying to fight according to its rules and on its territory, he will never win.

In this vein, it is important to say about the Russian proletariat, which united around the current government in the Russian Federation and supported the NVO, but did not avoid nationalism and chauvinism against the Ukrainian, European and American proletariat, perceiving it as an enemy in the same way as Western politicians and bourgeoisie. The only difference is that now in the Russian Federation, in the West, everyone who supports the NWO and opposes NATO and aggressive Western policies is considered “their own”. It doesn't matter what position a particular person is speaking from - from the right or from the left. But it is easy to understand that today you are “one of you”, and, relatively speaking, “tomorrow”, you can easily fall into the category of enemies. Since the policy also tends to change.

Based on these considerations, it is important for the proletarian to have a more solid position that does not swirl back and forth like a weather vane due to political winds. Moreover, this is not just about the petty-bourgeois interests of increasing wages, since this position does not differ much from the position of an animal occupied between birth and death with the question of daily subsistence, but about a position on the solid basis of science. We are talking about such a political position that will save him from being a puppet in the hands of businessmen and politicians paid by them and will allow him to engage in politics on his own. And this is possible only if one takes the position of Marxism. For what it is necessary to defeat petty-bourgeois "interests" and realize the objective necessity of the victory of the working class.

If we talk about the current situation both in the West and in the Russian Federation, then both there and there imperialism is based on different ideological and economic bases.

The ideological base used by the German Nazis and which is being actively revived today not only in Ukraine, was developed back in the British Empire. It was there that the “recipe” for National Socialism was invented. The bourgeoisie and its politicians in a country where state-monopoly capitalism has taken shape are embarking on the path of imperialism and are interested in "tuning" the proletariat accordingly. So that he is also imbued with the awareness of the pride of belonging to the national empire. And not just imbued, but imagined that "his" empire is the best and most correct of all.

However, the difference is that the West is waging a proxy war against the Russian Federation through Ukraine in order to dismember Russia in order to replenish resources and preserve the right to continue to plunder and implement fascism on an international scale under the guise of “liberating” peoples from totalitarian dictatorships. The Russian Federation is waging a defensive war, and, despite the right-wing rhetoric, there is no outright fascism there yet.

By the way, I recommend reading Manuel Sarksyants' book "The English Roots of German Fascism" to see how National Socialism was made in England and how the local bourgeoisie and its politicians pumped their proletariat with chauvinistic imperial ideas. Of course, in order to prevent the "heresy" of Marxism. It is also worth pointing out that the book is sustained in the ideological mainstream of modern Western leftist sociology with its philistine terminology, but there is a lot of interesting factual material. Based on this material, one can easily come to the same conclusions about the market nature of fascism that Valery Podguzov theoretically substantiated and outlined in Breakthrough long ago. In particular, that German fascism in general and in principle was not some kind of “original” phenomenon of its kind. It was typical imperialism.

Nationalism is a bourgeois ideology, the purpose of which is to prevent the proletariat from realizing its objective class tasks, therefore it is based on idealistic philosophy and is inextricably linked with religion and mythology, which in one form or another are its integral elements. The content of the nationalist ideology in a particular country can be very different. It all depends on the customer and conditions. Socialism, on the other hand, is the same bourgeois ideology and was dragged into the cause by the Nazis only to calm down and attract irresponsible workers as a demagogic device. And they were far from the first to do so. Therefore, all those who have not understood the issue can once again read the section of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, where Marx and Engels chew on the question of socialism and how how it is used by the reactionaries in their interests. Therefore, it should be clear that National Socialism is the bourgeois rhetoric of the imperialist bourgeoisie, aimed at deceiving the unconscious sections of the proletariat in order to further exploit it and divert it from studying the theory of Marxism. This is not even so much a pure ideology as it is a political technology.

Of course, the Marxists also used the term "socialism", but this was the only way at that time to explain to the proletariat what, in fact, the first phase of building communism consists of. That is, the society of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Marxists often had to use bourgeois terminology, but fill it with scientific, communist content. However, we must move away from this and use our own, which expresses our true goals. In addition, the use of bourgeois terminology in our work can become a trap, since any bourgeois ideologist in a polemic will be able to say: “Are you for socialism? Well, we are for socialism! What are we to argue about? It was on this that the Nazis partly caught the German proletariat.

The term “socialism” has long turned for the ordinary proletarian into a fairy tale about heaven on earth, like universal equality… but without understanding Marxism and not understanding it, he invents socialism for himself, which has nothing in common with the first phase of building communism. By the way, this is immediately clear when it comes to socialism with Chinese characteristics. Moreover, the positions of those who claim that capitalism has been established in China completely coincide with the positions of our homegrown Russian Trotskyists.

For example, if you listen to academician Sergei Glazyev, who now somehow rarely gets into the media, it turns out that in China they combine capitalism, socialism and nationalism. In short, some kind of national socialism is coming out, like socialism for the Chinese. But this is a wrong understanding. In the same way, once the Trotskyists and other Mensheviks criticized the Bolsheviks, arguing that there can be no communism in the former tsarist Russia, because there can never be. It can only be in the West. Therefore, you need to wait until they finally ... give birth. But what to do when the conditions for the transition to communism have developed, but a class capable of taking power has not appeared? And what is the working class to do in the former tsarist empire? Refuse the revolution so that then it is not known how much to plow for the capitalists and degenerate? Such ideas only play into the hands of our enemies. The construction of the dictatorship of the proletariat in each country has its own characteristics. Depending on the level of development of the country at the time of the revolution.

I myself have heard similar assessments of the current political system in China. And not at all from bourgeois academicians, but from interlocutors who positioned themselves as leftists. Only if Glazyev noted this as if in a “positive” way, such as this is an excellent example for the Russian Federation and it would be good if Russia understood something like that, then I have heard something different. Like, in words China is socialism, but in reality it is capitalism and exploitation. And all because people think at the level of templates and quotes, without delving into the essence of the ongoing processes. NEP in the USSR? No, they haven’t heard… However, you can read all this on your own, you just have to go to the Telegram channels dedicated to China. There are sometimes big and pointless disputes on this topic.

Now the West is dominated by a left-liberal agenda with an emphasis on combating discrimination and inequality with a pointedly aggressive external imperialist line. In Russia, on the contrary, a right-liberal, conservative agenda dominates, aimed at strengthening the so-called Russian world, accompanied by internal rhetoric of uniting the nation on the basis of traditional values ​​and Orthodoxy. Both see each other as mortal enemies, while we Marxists see in them only different factions of a single bourgeois party hostile to the proletariat. What kind of rhetoric is used by the bourgeois class to deceive wage workers is secondary.

But we must not forget about the heroic people of Donbass, whose struggle, although it is in the wake of petty-bourgeois illusions, is just and requires sympathy.

To this should be added a thing that the left does not think about at all and thus demonstrates an absolute inability to think strategically for decades to come. If the PRC and the Russian Federation do not destroy the American empire now, then in the future the communists will have to fight against the united front in two layers. That is, to fight not only against the national bourgeoisie with all its coercive and repressive apparatus, but also against the Western bourgeoisie, which, in the event of a victory in Ukraine (which now seems unlikely), will further strengthen its forces and further complicate the work for us in the near future.

No matter how much the Russian state and local politicians hate the current West and the United States (not to mention other countries that have to fight the American network of influence on their territory), but in the event of an increase in the activity of the international communist movement and a proletarian revolution in the future, they will immediately rally on an unbreakable front with this very Western imperialism, they will forget their differences and will plan the fight against "red terrorism". Therefore, we need to take into account the contradictions between the bourgeois factions for the future. But for now, we have to explain the elementary things and prove the obvious. Under what conditions is it more convenient for the proletariat to carry on its struggle?

Now, during the crisis of Western imperialism, internal class peace is one of the main goals of the authorities in the US, Britain and the EU, since the course of further confrontation depends on it. But the objective course of the destruction of the single world market, the peak of which took place in the last thirty years after the destruction of the USSR, is causing more and more contradictions between bourgeois governments and workers. The downside is that in the West there is not a single worthy Communist Party capable of taking advantage of this situation. But the course of further events will show how far this process will go. So far, the proletariat does not question the power of the bourgeoisie, but the latter is worried that it is showing dissatisfaction with its policies in the face of a fateful confrontation on which the future fate of the West depends.

In the future, with the collapse of American imperialism and the British and European politicians subordinate to it, the local proletariat will have a lot of opportunities to improve the conditions of the struggle and create communist parties of a new type. Of course, this will not get rid of the struggle with the local right and fascists, but it will provide a lot of room for maneuver. All the more so since the plight of the proletariat, if the work of the local Marxists is properly organized, can bear fruit. However, it is a mistake to assume, as the Russian Trotskyists do, that a difficult situation will automatically force the European proletariat to read Marx and Engels. The question is, why then do we need the Communist Party? Of course, the US confrontation will strengthen the position of the local right in the countries of the European Union and the Eurozone, but the current moment in history provides an opportunity.

K. Kievsky
12/02/2023

https://prorivists.org/78_situation/

Google translator

*********

Furgal received 22 years in prison
February 10, 12:33

Image

Former governor of the Khabarovsk Territory Sergei Furgal received 22 years in a strict regime colony.
Earlier, the jury found him guilty of organizing contract killings in the first half of the 2000s, in which Furgal eliminated local merchants competing for the market for the collection and resale of scrap metal.
Furgal has at least 2 contract killings on his account.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8161033.html

Google Translator

Well, it's a start....Plenty more where that hoodlum come from...

But when will we get started on ours?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Fri Feb 17, 2023 4:03 pm

The ruling class of the Russian Federation works to strengthen the communists objectively
No. 2/78.I.2023

In what and how?

1. Spoils liberal ideologists, which greatly facilitates the propaganda work of the communists.

2. Introduces elements of planning, which will make it easier for us to manage the economy after taking power and promote the socialization of the means of production.

3. Reduces the rations of the petty bourgeoisie, "white collars", which weakens the mass base of supporters of capitalism.

4. Roughly, clumsily and formally conducts jingoistic propaganda.

5. Forced to enter into a close alliance with socialist China.

6. He cannot afford large-scale persecution of communist ideology and symbols, since he needs them to justify the special operation and draw an analogy with 1941-45.

If the Russian Federation loses the SVO, then the 90s will seem like a paradise, because the Russian liberal bourgeoisie will introduce a direct anti-communist dictatorship, as in the Baltics or Ukraine, accompanied by the collapse of the economy and its complete colonization. And we didn’t have, and still don’t have, a party to effectively counteract this. If Putin loses, will you, pacifist leftists, take power? No.

I. Bortnik
16/02/2023

NWO and bourgeois ideology
No. 2/78.I.2023

Not so long ago, patriotic bloggers were outraged by the videos that appeared on the network , motivating them to become volunteers. As conceived by the authors, the main motivating motive for this is money. “Where is the defense of the fatherland? Where is the fight against fascism and the hated West?” the patriotic community was outraged. Apparently, gentlemen patriots have forgotten that we live in a capitalist society, where money is objectively the highest value. In any case, such is the morality of the ruling class, which is dominant in bourgeois society. The course of the NWO itself clearly demonstrates this.

The bourgeoisie does not fight, but trades, using military methods to realize their economic interests. In words, the defense of the fatherland and the fight against fascism. In fact, the pumping of oil and gas through the territory of the Nazis, all sorts of grain and ammonia deals. Even those people who succumbed to the patriotic propaganda of the Russian bourgeoisie begin to ask legitimate questions... After all, if propaganda obviously does not fit in with practice, it will stop working very soon. Under these conditions, indeed, the material incentive is the most understandable for the masses. He fought - survived (if he survived) - received a lot of money. The capitalist man in the street is quite accustomed to such logic.

But volunteers are volunteers, but it is necessary to somehow explain to the masses why the war is going on. But here, too, the bourgeoisie demonstrates miracles of clumsiness. After all, it is impossible for the Russian authorities to say directly that the war is for the interests of Russian big monopoly capital (which would explain the constant huckstering). Therefore, they invent something eclectic from a mixture of bourgeois patriotism and Soviet ideology.

There is simply nothing for the bourgeoisie to be proud of for more than thirty years of its power. Therefore, she actively speculates on the Soviet past, the achievements and victories of the Soviet people. At the same time, he carefully glosses over the role of the communists, presenting everything in a national-patriotic vein. They say that the “great Russian people” achieved all this on their own, and Russia is great by definition and has always been a bulwark of good, opposing the world of evil. For this, of course, the "evil enemies" always wanted to destroy poor Russia. Therefore, the Russian people have always defended Russia from external enemies. At the same time, what class is in power and who determines who exactly is the enemy of Russia and who is not, these questions are not raised at all.

To anyone more or less familiar with the history of Russia, the poverty of this myth is obvious. Allegedly, the peacefulness and constant self-defense of Russia has nothing to do with reality. As soon as the Russian exploiters, squeezing the last juices out of their people, built up their muscles, they became very actively involved in European showdowns, far from Russian proper territory. So, in 1760, Russian troops ended up in Berlin, later they participated in the division of Poland ... Why did Suvorov cross the Alps? What did the Russian troops forget at the battle of Austerlitz in the territory of modern Czech Republic? At the same time, not a single European soldier entered the territory of the Russian Empire then ... Until 1812. But the Patriotic War, although it was caused by the invasion of Napoleon, but, sorry,

After the defeat of Napoleon, the Russian Empire received the well-deserved nickname of the "gendarme of Europe", suppressing here and there the national liberation movements. So the Russian exploiters were no better and no worse than the European ones. They also participated in aggressive wars in alliance with other predators. Yes, the Russian exploiters have not stained themselves with barbaric colonial policy, but there it is already simply “everything was stolen before us.” However, the policy of Russian tsarism in the same Central Asia was by no means distinguished by humanism. The First World War began for Russian tsarism with offensive actions on foreign territory, ten years earlier, tsarism got involved in a war with Japan because of colonial claims to Korea and a desire to participate in the exploitation of China. So the Russian exploiters have always been not very peaceful with peacefulness ...

Another delusional myth that the ideologists of Russian patriotism came up with is the so-called “Russian world”, which obliges Russia to protect Russian people around the world, especially in the post-Soviet space. But this myth also bears a reflection of all the contradictions of Russian imperialism, either bargaining with the “hated West” and considering itself a part of it, or resisting the attempts of this West to grab a tasty morsel from the Russian imperialists. Therefore, the chatter about the “Russian world” and the protection of the Russian people was accompanied by attempts to merge the Russian Donbass with Ukraine and the absence of any consistent “national policy” in the same Baltic states. Russian capitalists preferred to cooperate with openly Russophobic bourgeois regimes, without putting forward any conditions regarding the "protection of the Russian world."

The third direction of Russian propaganda is the opposition of the Russian Federation to the “collective West”. They say that the West is a concentrated evil, a nest of depravity, where all traditional values ​​are destroyed, for example, the family. But at the same time, Russian bourgeois culture, the culture that the bourgeois class imposes on the rest of society, is, both in essence and in form, the most Western, or rather American. After all, it is the United States, as the bulwark of world capital, as the most powerful capitalist country, that sets the world direction for the development of bourgeois culture. In words, the Russian bourgeois government is all so patriotic and anti-Western. In fact, the “achievements” of the Western bourgeois “culture” in the form of idiotic films and TV shows, which, in fact, are a copy of their Western counterparts, are streaming down on the Russian inhabitant from TV channels owned by the bourgeoisie. Flat and vulgar humor savoring the private life of "stars" and ordinary people. The Russian bourgeoisie cannot give people any higher culture. In any case, this culture is bourgeois, and therefore American, and not national Russian.

Even the attempts of the bourgeoisie to portray something "national-Russian" result in a kind of lubok written according to Western patterns. It is enough to watch Russian historical cinema. Primitive content, formalism, falsification of history, vulgarity, pornography.

The defense of "traditional values" is, in fact, also outright propaganda chatter. Protecting a family by actively encouraging them to harness themselves to credit bondage from television screens is the height of cynicism. To give real social guarantees to the family, to ensure the free realization of at least the need for housing - this is contrary to the interests of the capitalists. After all, the family is a powerful incentive for the proletarian to work hard for a beggarly wage, or even go to war. It is much easier to "defend the traditional family", as opposed to Western "protection of the rights of sexual minorities." It does not oblige you to anything and does not cost anything. In fact, the very relations of private property that dominate our society are destroying the family. On the one hand, these relationships bring up selfish people who are incapable of love and long-term relationships in general. With another, the creation of a family means for the wage-worker only the intensification of his exploitation. After all, the state "material support" of motherhood and childhood is a penny, and the debt load of families is enormous.

The only thing that worked out well for the bourgeoisie was the use of Soviet images in propaganda. It was not in vain that liberals and other anti-communists were angered by what they called "victory frenzy." Russian capitalists skillfully clung to the victory of communism over capitalism in 1945, inflating a kind of “national idea” out of the Victory, they say, Russia saved the world from fascism. It is objectively positive that with the help of this propaganda scheme it was possible to turn the masses anti-fascist. In addition, the bourgeoisie had to somewhat abandon the purposeful and open denigration of Soviet history.

It is quite logical that the NWO was also declared a fight against fascism. Say, Russian soldiers are fighting for the same things for which their great-grandfathers fought in the Great Patriotic War. And, indeed, such motivation is quite common both in the army and in the rear. True, the bourgeoisie is doing a lot here too to vulgarize these generally progressive ideas. After all, the masses are convinced that fascism is an absolute evil. But for some reason, the Russian authorities constantly express their readiness to negotiate with the Nazis. Fascist war criminals are quietly exchanged for Medvedchuk, and announced publicly that they are going to be tried. The leaders of a fascist state are not destroyed, even when they are within artillery range. In general, this is all very dissonant with how the communist great-grandfathers consistently fought against fascism.

The bourgeoisie also failed completely with the forms of conveying all these ideas to the masses. What is the only symbol of the NWO worth - an old woman with a red flag, with which the graffiti artists rushed to decorate the empty walls. Let me remind you that the old lady blindly went out to meet with a red flag ... the Nazis. What is this symbol supposed to represent? Some kind of parody of the famous Soviet poster with the Motherland.

Or take music. Here, the song of a glamorous young man with long hair and an earring in his ear with a chasing "Shaman" received the greatest promotion. He sang the song “I am Russian” to good music and with a good voice. From a primitive text with an equally primitive rhyme it follows that "I am Russian, I go to the end", "I am Russian to spite the whole world." But the work of the rest of the "mouth singers" is even worse and smacks of frank blatnyak, which is noted even by musicologists, see https://youtu.be/jmE3gpkSMwE . In general, bourgeois Russia did not give birth to any brilliant artists, or brilliant musicians, or brilliant poets.

Judging by the information received from the participants of the NMD, agitation and propaganda work among the troops failed. The use of smartphones is prohibited, and there are no alternative sources of information. Bourgeois "political instructors" are absent as a class, and front-line newspapers are not published. Instead of systematic, purposeful work with the fighters, everything is at the mercy of army amateur performance. There are attempts to cosplay Soviet propaganda from the Second World War, glorifying feats of arms. Only for some reason, the faces of the heroes look at us from billboards in cities that live a peaceful life, although they have the right place in the army press, they should inspire fighters, not ordinary people.

Against the backdrop of all this confusion, the lamentations of patriotic bloggers in the spirit of “we need a national idea”, “we need a state ideology” sound funny. Who should create all this? The class of merchants whose highest value is money? They cannot solve the particular task of setting up propaganda work in the NWO. In fact, everything that it could, in terms of state ideology, the bourgeoisie has already generated. It's pathetic, clumsy, but she's not capable of more.

N. Fedotov
16/02/2023

https://prorivists.org/78_svo/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Mon Feb 20, 2023 5:06 pm

Remy Meisner as an example of leftism
No. 2/78.I.2023

The "suddenly" beginning of the SVO once again reminded of the weakness of the communist movement in Russia, clearly showed the whole opportunistic essence of modern citizens who call themselves communists. The struggle against opportunism is a necessary moment in the struggle for communism. Ignoring or underestimating the problem of opportunism leads the communist movement to a natural defeat in the face of reaction.

In our time, opportunism has two main forms. The first form of opportunism is a bias towards patriotism (for example, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation), the second form is a bias towards leftism (for example, Remi Meisner, Konstantin Semin, Oleg Komolov and others). This article will be devoted to the analysis of the position of one of the representatives of the second form of deviation.

Remy Meisner, a well-known Marxist publicist in narrow circles, after the start of the SVO in Ukraine, took the position “both are worse”, substantiating it with the thesis that the communists could not support their government in the imperialist war, and successfully completed his long overdue transition to the camp of opportunism. Unable to cope with the charm of YouTube Marxism, Remy (like many other left-wing bloggers) dug into the abyss of analogies, mechanistically appealing to quotes from the classics. As if mocking Marxism, Remy, who for years had been propagating the dialectical method, at the first opportunity abandoned its use, starting to extract one after another quotes about social chauvinists from his “wide trousers”, while ignoring the need for a Marxist analysis of reality. Remy replaced the dialectic of categories with the metaphysics of analogies.

In order not to be unfounded, I offer a brief analysis of Remy Meisner's article under the biting title "Cold Showers for the Communists." The questions raised in it are important for revealing and preventing tendencies in the development of Marxists towards opportunism.

Meisner writes:

“How did people live in Ukraine under the Khokhlofashists? Bad life! All money is in the hands of usurers, all material wealth is in the hands of speculators, all the means of production are in the hands of exploiters, everything is controlled by corrupt Khokhlyatsky officials, for whose health the soulless Khokhlyatsky priests pray. And now in Ukraine everything has turned upside down - in the regions liberated from Bandera, of course. There, now, all the money is in the hands of the Russian usurers, all the material goods are in the hands of the Russian speculators, all the means of production are in the hands of the Russian exploiters, are controlled by the well-known for their honesty Russian officials, for whose health highly spiritual Russian priests pray. Oh, what a blessing!

So and so capitalism, of course ... But! We know that the Russian usurer Garpagonov is not such a greedy and ruthless robber as the Ukrainian usurer Garpagonenko. That in the shop of the Russian speculator the prices are always lower than in the Hohlyat speculator's store. That the Khokhlyatsky exploiter always offends the hard workers, and the Russian exploiter endlessly indulges the hard workers. That a typical khokhlochinush is a fascist, a liar, an embezzler and a bribe taker, but a typical racist official is quite the opposite. That the Khokhlyatsky pop is spreading the spiritual vodka, and the Russian pop is spreading nanotechnologies.

In a word, racist capitalism will be much more progressive and humane than Khokhlyatsky capitalism in all respects, because the proletarian Allah himself ordered all literate Marxists to support Putin’s special operation to destroy Ukraine.”

Communists do not argue with the fact that Russia has capitalism. Communists argue that the tactics of Remy and others like him are opportunism in the form of leftism, capable of harming the cause of communism. This or that form of dictatorship of the bourgeoisie should be judged by how much easier it is for the communists to work under a given regime. If conditions have been created in a capitalist state under which practically nothing interferes with the construction of the communist party on the part of the authorities, then the communists consider such a regime more beneficial for the cause of communism than one in which the communist movement is actively suppressed by force, aggressive nationalism is financially supported by the state, Soviet symbols are banned in the most unattractive way, chauvinism and nationalism are elevated to the rank of state ideology. With all the "charms" of Russian capitalism, the features listed above are practically not observed in the practice and theory of modern Russian power. What cannot be said, for example, about Ukraine, Latvia, Poland, etc.

Remy calls for the defeat of his imperialist government in the absence of a communist party, the absence of a strong labor movement in both warring countries, a strong world labor movement, and a weak Marxist literacy of the proletarian masses in the Russian Federation. The defeat of the Russian Federation in the war with NATO will bring openly “pro-Western” politicians to power, thereby turning the Russian Federation ... into Ukraine, into a springboard of world imperialism directed against world communism, in particular against the PRC. How many maps on "decolonization" with the collapse of the country have already been drawn? In this case, the communists, already weak, will be destroyed, open and radical de-communization will be carried out. Putin's Bonapartism does not yet threaten the communists. We have every opportunity to conduct agitation and propaganda on the Internet, actively forge cadres and create a party on this basis.

Indeed, capitalism in Russia is bashfully adopting some features of capitalism in Ukraine. Under certain circumstances, "Ukraine today is Russia tomorrow", because capitalism constantly contains the possibility of fascism. But possibility does not equal reality. The oligarchic circles in the US and Europe, having used the Ukrainian regime to destroy the sovereign imperialist Russian Federation, will not disdain to use Russian fascism to destroy sovereign Nepman China. Either the communists will gather their will into a fist and begin to use a temporary advantage, or the communists, having failed to create a party, will meet tomorrow's "sunrise" in a disorganized manner, repeating in general terms the fate of the German and Italian communists after the First World War .

We do not argue with the fact that decommunization is underway in Russia. That is why we must take advantage of the situation, and not fearfully and erroneously declare that fascism has already allegedly arrived in the Russian Federation. The truth is concrete and such that in Russia at the beginning of 2023 (and in the near future, provided that the power of the Putin team remains), conditions have been created for strengthening the pace of building the communist party. The denial of this fact is a direct path to the camp of opportunism.

Further. Communists do not argue that Russian capitalism does not fight for the Russian people. Everything is quite the opposite. Communists claim that Russian capitalism is fighting for its vital interests, roughly speaking, for its life. But objectively, this struggle of Russian imperialism for survival in a short historical period partly coincides with the interests of the communists. Russian capital, against its will, by all its inconsistent actions creates favorable conditions for the strengthening of the communists; those same communists who are obliged to take advantage of these conditions immediately. The working masses see the inability of the ruling elites at the moment of the threat looming over the country to scientifically mobilize Russian society for the long-awaited victory, they see the whole commercial essence of the modern regime, which the communists, due to the absence of a party, nothing can be opposed. Simply put, people without any communist propagandists-agitators guess that capitalism works poorly, that the problems in society are of a systemic nature, and that therefore it is necessary to change this rotten system. Taking advantage of these circumstances, the communists are obliged to more rapidly and conscientiously engage in self-education, propaganda, agitation, so that the creation of a party (which would lead powerful social changes) would be a matter of the near future.

I repeat, NWO is partly an imperialist military conflict for economic and political influence in the region. However, the circumstances in which the communists approached the beginning of the NWO dictate to the communists the tactics of strengthening the theoretical form of the class struggle in order to create a party of scientific centralism, consisting of "ripened wise men", diamatically literate personnel capable of leading in the conditions of a new communist revolution and an aggravation of the civil war in the Russian Federation. class struggle of the working class on all fronts. Communists (and sympathizers) now cannot influence the NWO, because they are only disparate interest groups. However, the communists can influence the creation of a party, under the leadership of which it will already be possible to influence the NWO.

In addition, the essential moment of the NWO is the struggle of the people of Donbass against the Kyiv pro-American regime, which requires a sympathetic attitude. Although it has been and is being waged on a bourgeois basis, the fighting people always learn faster, always look for leaders and answers to pressing questions in the Communists.

Most of the mistakes of Remy and those like him directly stem from their ignorance in the field of Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the subjective factor of revolution. As we know, the possibility of an abrupt change in the quality of the social form of matter (the possibility of a social revolution) can be realized only if both factors (objective and subjective) are mature. The objective factor is long overdue and overripe. The reason for the delay of the revolution lies precisely in the underdeveloped subjective factor, in the absence of a communist party and the organization of the proletariat into a class. The main reason for the stability of capitalism is mass social ignorance, which only the working class under the leadership of the communist party of scientific centralism can overcome. From this fact follows the thesis about the need to create a party, consisting of diamatically literate communist cadres. This is now the main goal of all communists, without achieving which all howling about the revolution will remain a cry into the void. Without awareness of the need for social development on the path to communism, without awareness that will be brought into the working class precisely by the Communist Party, there is no need to talk about any revolutions and Soviet power. These are the basics of Marxism.

Meisner continues:

“Well, like in World War I, the literate Marxists of the Second International supported republican France against monarchist Germany, or supported a more liberal German monarchy against a more reactionary Russian monarchy. You can't undermine such a position (unless you're a squabbler, like Ilyich) - a republic is clearly more progressive than a monarchy, and the liberal Black Hundreds are clearly more progressive than the reactionary Black Hundreds! Everything is strictly “according to Marx”! So, a century ago, literate Marxists of all countries supported their native rulers - and today they also support them. The continuity of generations, however!

The point is that Marxism is not a dogma, and the mistakes and opportunism of the leaders of the Second International did not lie in the fact that they reasoned according to Marx or not according to Marx, but in the fact that they incorrectly assessed the circumstances and conditions. And they did it consciously or unconsciously because of the desire to adapt to bourgeois politics. And already on the basis of this position of theirs, theoretical justifications were proposed, which led to even more fundamental mistakes and a revision of Marxism as a whole.

Citing analogies with the First World War, Meisner "accidentally" misses a fundamental point. Behind Lenin was the Communist Party, capable of taking power. Now there is no party behind Remy's back. However, Remy objected to this statement in one of his monologues, saying that even when the communists are objectively weak, they are obliged to behave like communists. Exactly, Comrade Remy. At least listen to yourself. After all, you can whenever you want. Communists should always behave like communists. So? What does it mean to act like a communist? Yes, that means: always and everywhere, in order to cognize the essence of any object, it is necessary to apply diamatic thinking, according to which truth is always concrete. It is the concreteness of truth that obliges us to approach any phenomenon of the material world from the standpoint of its historical conditioning.

Lenin wrote about the impossibility of supporting his government in certain historical conditions, which are fundamentally different from modern conditions. I will quote the words of Vladimir Ilyich himself:

“In the imperialist war of 1914-1917, between two imperialist coalitions, we must be against ‘defence of the fatherland’, for (1) imperialism is the eve of socialism; (2) imperialist war is a war of thieves for booty; (3) there is an advanced proletariat in both coalitions; (4) in both, the socialist revolution is ripe. This is the only reason why we are against ‘defence of the fatherland’, this is the only reason!!” (PSS Lenin, T. 49, p. 371).

Lenin focuses on the uniqueness of the events of the First World War, on the historical conditionality of the slogans proclaimed by the Bolsheviks. It is not difficult to guess how he would have reacted to the theses of modern "communists".

So. The defeat of the Russian Federation in the Northern Military District in the absence of the Communist Party will lead the communist movement into the deepest crisis, in comparison with which modern Russian conditions will seem like paradise on earth. A regime similar to the Ukrainian, Polish, Baltic regime will be established in Russia, which will mark the beginning of open decommunization and a policy directed primarily against the PRC, the DPRK and other socialist and near-socialist states. Remy's actions contribute to the development of just such a scenario, because he does not understand that the defeat of the Russian Federation during the war with NATO, in the absence of a Communist Party in the Russian Federation, will lead people like him to the liberal-democratic scaffold. This lack of understanding follows directly from his ignorance of the teachings of Marxism about the key role of the party in the history of the communist revolution. It is the methodological illiteracy

Meisner:

“The snickering Zommunists-radicals naively believe that the God-saved Anti-Fascist Federation should bring Ukraine something more progressive than the banal change of Ukrainian capitalism to racial capitalism. That Putin and Kadyrov together are almost restoring the USSR with their humanitarian bombardments, almost they are going to build communism.”

Russian capitalism brings Ukraine Russian capitalism, which differs from Ukrainian capitalism in a more loyal attitude towards the communist movement, that is, the form of Russian capitalism in this sense is more progressive than the form of Ukrainian (pro-American) capitalism. Remy wants to doubt that Ukrainian anti-Sovietism is not equal to Russian anti-Sovietism?

Further. Putin and Kadyrov will not restore the USSR, because they are not communists. Any form of revival of the USSR without a real communist party of the Bolshevik type at the head of this revival is a deception of the working masses. Meisner presents the case in such a way that the Putin team finds support from the communists in their actions. This is fundamentally not true. Real communists do not support Russian imperialism. The question is somewhat more complicated: the communists do not prevent Russian imperialism from deepening its contradictions with Western imperialism, while at the same time educating the cadres of future victorious communists, from whom the party of scientific centralism will be created. Roughly speaking, the Communists' criticism of Russian imperialism is absolute, their support for it is relative.

We did not start the SVO, we do not sit on the General Staff, we are not part of Putin's government. For us, the civil war in Ukraine and the intervention in it, on the one hand, of the Russian Federation, on the other, of the NATO bloc, is an objective political fact, the inevitability of which was warned long before 2022. Neither Putin, nor Zelensky, nor Biden ask our advice and recommendations. Our task is to orient the most advanced proletarians correctly in the current situation and to continue the work of introducing Marxism. But we, unlike the leftists, offer, firstly, a scientific view of the NWO, and secondly, not to engage in nonsense that pours water on the mill of American imperialism.

Meisner:

"Why bother with paraphernalia? Why try to comb all bourgeois warriors with the same brush? Well, we are conducting a special operation, and not dispersing a banned rally. While all the soldiers are doing one common thing that benefits one particular class - let them even run around in loincloths, if it’s more pleasant for them to fight in special operations. Let them, if you wish, at least put on Soviet symbols, even pickenhelms and epaulettes with aiguillettes! Whatever the child amuses himself with, as long as he goes on the attack properly.

Remi is right. The badges on the chests of some soldiers do not yet speak of Soviet power in the Kremlin. Breakthrough has an article on this issue that I highly recommend reading.

To all of the above, I would add the following. Among many privates and officers there are sympathies for the USSR. This fact cannot be denied. As well as the fact that the modern Russian government does not carry anything Soviet in itself, except for some fragments of education, lurking in the depths of the souls of some bosses, fragments of education, unfortunately, without having any decisive significance in their personality. Communists do not endow Russian imperialism with communist traits. Each concrete historical situation, with the help of the diamatic method of thinking, must generate in the minds of communists concrete truths, thanks to which the communists will correctly decide the question of tactics and strategy.

Remy, on the other hand, is arguing on an issue that has long been resolved. The Communists do not console themselves with hopes for a sweet future, they do not believe in God or devils who perform miracles, the Communists know that there can be no communist turn from above (we, however, admit that under certain circumstances, under the pressure of the working masses and questions of our own survival , the Russian ruling class will intensify its "Soviet mimicry"). The communists only argue that the victory of the Russian Federation in the NWO (with the subsequent deepening of the confrontation between the Russian Federation and the West and rapprochement with the NEP China and the socialist North Korea) is more favorable for modern communists than the victory of the most aggressive, most reactionary imperialist military bloc in the history of mankind. The tragedy of the situation is that this very human story played a cruel joke on Russian imperialism,

If there was a communist party in the Russian Federation, if there was a developed working class in the Russian Federation, then there could be no question of any neutrality in relation to the NWO. This is clear to any communist. Under such circumstances, the Communists would have opposed their government, but for a civil war under the leadership of the Communist Party. However, we, unfortunately, do not yet have the opportunity to observe such circumstances. To oppose the government of the Russian Federation, without having a communist party capable of taking power, is like death.

Meisner:

“Kurkuli may not worry in vain, no one encroaches on their dominance. And there is nothing for the kurkuly of red banners to be afraid of! Gone, gone are those terrible totalitarian times, when any kurkul fled the city, barely seeing the communist banners!”

Indeed, they don't care much about the communists, because those who call themselves communists behave like Remy. Think for yourself, who should the oligarchs be more afraid of? A bunch of unfortunate communists on YouTube and VKontakte, or an organized and powerful military bloc? It is for this reason that the repressions fell upon those who took an active position in support of NATO (including the left, for example, Kagarlitsky).

Meisner:

“Have the communists ever heard what our Supreme Anti-Fascist, Mr. Putin, said about the communist idea? What did the Supreme High Priest Gundyaev say? What did Academician-Debanderizator Kadyrov say? What does 24/7 Russian TV tell about communism, about social justice, about the Revolution, about Lenin? So, dear Communists, I assure you: Mr. Khodakovsky was still very delicate and very tactful (compared to the above-mentioned gentlemen) in addressing the “social justice” hated by all curcules. In Putin's historical Appeal to the Beloved Nation On the Occasion of the Beginning of the NWO, for example, there was much more anti-communism and insults against Lenin and that anti-communism was an order of magnitude angrier, but then no one paid much attention to it ... Gundyaev recently vapche Lenin "The Destroyer of Historical Russia" called, and the opinion of the Patirarch, let me remind you, is considered authoritative among Orthodox Christians. Here Orthodox Christians, like Khodakovsky, Gundyaev's opinion and broadcast further to the masses.

Remy is surprised that the bourgeois government hates the communist Lenin? Remy is trying to explain to us that the bourgeoisie considers Lenin their enemy? Thank you, dear comrade, for the "discovery". However, the problem here is not that the oligarchs sling mud at the communists of the past, but that the communists of the present are not able to turn the tactics of the oligarchs against the oligarchs themselves. It is no secret to anyone that the success of the October Revolution was ensured in many respects precisely by the skillful play of the Bolsheviks on the contradictions between the warring imperialist powers outside and the political forces inside. So what prevents the Meisners from taking an example from their great ancestors? The question is rhetorical.

But we affirm that every dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is deeply hostile to the communists. However, remembering the concreteness of the truth, communists in different historical circumstances are forced to agree to a temporary cooperation with the bourgeoisie that manifests itself in various forms or a loyal attitude towards one or another of its political processes. What, for example, were the Bolsheviks thinking about when they collaborated with the bourgeois governments of Germany, Turkey, China, Great Britain, and the USA? What were the Bolsheviks thinking when introducing the NEP? What were the Bolsheviks thinking when signing the non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany? Difficult to answer, Mr. Meisner? Never mind, I'll help you: the Bolsheviks thought about communism, which could not be built "in a straight line", without forced concessions to capitalism or petty-bourgeois consciousness. Modern communists found themselves in a situation similar in form, not having the opportunity to go ahead, break capitalism and build communism "here and now." The greater the number of citizens who call themselves communists will be able to understand this truth, the more likely the success of the communist revolution in the Russian Federation. And vice versa.

Meisner:

“Khodakovsky is also for the war to a victorious end, dear comrades! You've got it all mixed up! COMMUNISM, communism Pan Khodakovsky does not like! And Pan really likes the war. And there is nothing surprising in this. It’s amazing when the lovers of communism “drown” for the bourgeois war, but for right-wing radicals such behavior is quite natural.”

What surprises Remy? That a bourgeois patriot supports the policy of his bourgeois state? Or the fact that the communists in different historical circumstances are forced to change the tactics of their activities? So this is the dialectic, Comrade Remy. You are the one who teaches your listeners and readers. Is not it so?

If not, then it is easy for me to repeat: in different historical conditions, the communists of this or that country are in different circumstances of the struggle for communism. Diamatics, applied to various historical situations, requires us to draw specific conclusions for each such specific historical situation. In order to work out tactics and strategy, it is necessary to resolve diamatically the question of the present state of the various forms of class struggle, taking into account their qualitative specifics. Such activity is necessary because communists do not always have the opportunity to enter into open confrontation with their class enemies. Properly understood, the conditions of existence themselves dictate to communists the most successful tactics for building communism.

I will be more specific. Caught in a military situation without a party, the communists of Russia do not have the right to call for the defeat of the Bonapartist RF in the face of a radically anti-communist NATO until the moment when the communist party of scientific centralism appears, until the general headquarters of a new civil war appears. The partisanship practiced by YouTube Marxists has already brought them into the camp of opportunism. Whether they manage to get out of it depends both on the level of their scientific conscientiousness and on the quality of our propaganda. At the present time, we, unfortunately, are forced to admit that the communists in modern conditions cannot openly fight the bourgeoisie of the Russian Federation. This is sad but true.

Meisner:

“And is there in the world around us today - at least one prerequisite for the “development model” of Russia to change from capitalist to communist?”

All the objective prerequisites for building a communist society are right now. The only reason for the preservation of capitalism is the subjective factor, that is, mass social ignorance in the absence of the scientific vanguard of the working class, the party of scientific centralism. It is mass ignorance, multiplied by the absence of a real communist party, that allows the oligarchs to rob the people, supporting the public anarchy of idiocy. Capitalism, like other antagonistic formations, is mass illiteracy guarded by the most powerful apparatus of physical and spiritual violence.

Speculating on the impossibility of a communist coup from above, Remy point-blank sees no way to make a communist turn in science, according to the classics, from below, as the Bolsheviks bequeathed. In other words, the communists do not count on some third parties who could replace capitalism with communism. Communists rely only on their own strength. That is why we demand from all those who call themselves communists an uncompromising struggle, first of all, with themselves, with their intellectual laziness, with their dishonesty, with their internal opportunism, which destroys the mind and will.

Meisner:

“And you, gentlemen of the Communists, are “filling” into the ears of the fighters that they are supposedly shedding blood in the fields of Ukraine “for communism and for social justice?”

The fact of the matter is that the soldiers who do not understand anything, shedding blood on the fields of Ukraine, objectively do much more for the cause of communism than Remy, who is crucified into hundreds of thousands of souls in his swagger. Of course, they are not fighting for communism or for Soviet power in the Donbass, but their activities are objectively for the benefit of progress. The weaker US imperialism is, the more competition other imperialisms impose on it, the greater the chances for communism throughout the planet, in particular in China, North Korea, Cuba, and so on.

The tragedy of the Russian army is that it consists mainly of ordinary sons of the working people of Russia, sons who, due to the lack of scientific authority in the face of the Communist Party, are forced to listen either to the official religious and nationalist propaganda of bourgeois Russia, or to the official aggressively liberal propaganda of the bourgeois West , or to the propaganda of self-named communists, broadcasting about “both are worse”, without having a Bolshevik-type party behind them. Our soldiers do not have an ideological guideline. The ideas of bourgeois patriotism, Orthodox fundamentalism and Russian imperialism are poorly suited to the fight against the North Atlantic Alliance, but this is our shortcoming. The Communists of Russia and Ukraine failed to seize power in thirty years, why blame the soldiers now?

Meisner:

“There are periods in history when a cunning Menshevik is more terrible and dangerous for the communist cause than an open Black Hundredist.”

In vain you, Remy, are trying to play the fool. Opportunism is always more terrible and dangerous than an open enemy. Always. Try asking yourself a question. Who did the most harm to communism? Wilhelm or Kautsky? Trotsky or Denikin? Khrushchev or Hitler? Andropov or Yeltsin? Yakovlev or Reagan? Help with answers? The fact of the matter, Remy, is that an opportunist who screams “both are worse”, while hiding behind slogans about Soviet power, volumes of the writings of Lenin and Stalin, hiding from the Marxist analysis of the present behind absurd analogies with the past, is much more dangerous for the cause of communism than thousands of Russian or Ukrainian nationalists.

I repeat. Lenin agitated in the face of rampant reaction, being the leader of the Bolshevik Communist Party. Remy and those like him do not even have a shameful semblance of a party. The conditions of existence for the communists in the Russian Federation are still convenient. There is no rampant reaction, especially the level of the Russian Empire or Ukraine, and not even close. This means that without throwing all their efforts into educating party cadres, agitating at the top of their lungs about the problems of capitalism in the Russian Federation is populism, which will lead Remy and others, as I already wrote, to the liberal-democratic scaffold. You do not need to be afraid of Putin, but the Russian version of the Maidan, after which you, Remy, will pray to the proletarian Allah (as Meisner himself puts it) for the return of Putin's oligarchic Bonapartism.

The errors of Meisner and those like him stem from their scientific dishonesty and Marxist illiteracy. They are not Bolsheviks, they do not understand that the doctrine of the party, the doctrine of the vanguard of the working class, the doctrine of the maturity of the subjective factor, is the fundamental position of Leninism, the very position that distinguishes it from all forms of opportunism. Lenin is great precisely because he diamatically substantiated the need for the development of the subjective factor of the revolution, extending the Marxist, truly scientific understanding of the categories of necessity and freedom to the concept of a new type of party. It is from the underestimation of the role of the party that many of the delusions of modern citizens who call themselves communists stem. Without understanding the significance of Lenin's contribution to the theory of revolution, no communist revolutionary practice is possible. For as we know practice without theory is meaningless activity, actionism and economism on a leash at reaction; theory without practice turns into a set of empty phrases actively spread by various left-wing demagogues-rrrevolutionaries.

Such activity only divides the proletarian masses. What clearly demonstrated to us on February 24. Some of the sympathizers followed the pro-Western opportunists, while the other part followed the patriotic opportunists. The proletarian masses, already chaotic, were bewildered by the disparate activities of various groups, associations, blogs and circles. The so-called left movement has confirmed its status as "communist anarchy", killing everything communist.

All the forces of modern communists should be thrown before it is too late to study the theory of Marxism-Leninism, its application to the analysis of modernity, the creation of a party of scientific centralism on the basis of a central body consisting of stubborn theoreticians and practitioners. Only after the creation of the party can there be talk of the defeat of the government, for only then will a force appear that can take state power.

Remy Meisner and others like him draw an owl of analogies to the abstract concept of war, ignoring the uniqueness of contemporary events, thereby ignoring the very philosophy of Marxism, which affirms the historical concreteness of every formulated truth, including the truth about war or peace. The SVO does not strengthen the communists, the SVO creates conditions for the strengthening of communist propaganda, because the layman (often unconsciously) is disappointed in capitalism. Moreover, this war weakens imperialism by playing off military potentials, aggravates the contradictions between them, helping to improve the possibilities of communist propaganda. That is why we do not support war, but communism, which can only be built under the leadership of the Communist Party. This party is not therefore, the defeat of the Russian Federation in modern conditions will lead the communist movement to a catastrophe similar to Ukraine and the Baltic states. And in order not to be dependent on conditions, in order to subordinate these conditions to human reason, it is necessary to intensively form cadres for the future party, which can be created only from real communists, only from experts in dialectical materialism. This is exactly what Breakthrough does.

We live in an era of communist revolutions, an era of broken fronts of imperialism. Koreans, Chinese, Cubans, Vietnamese and many other peoples are not without mistakes, not without difficulties, but they follow the path of communism. World imperialism, sensing the danger emanating from the freedom-loving peoples (the near end of its economic and political hegemony), in every possible way hinders the development of communism throughout the planet. The conflict in Ukraine is a moment of imperialist competition that can be used against imperialism itself. Only in this and similar to the First World War with NWO. It is precisely because of the diamatic literacy of the Bolsheviks that socialist states now exist that are interested in deepening inter-imperialist contradictions, just as Lenin and Stalin were once interested in them. Our duty is to help them help all mankind. However, for this it is necessary to make a communist revolution in Russia. Without a party, to stutter about such things is an extreme form of voluntarism, dilettantism and primitivism.

But we Russian Communists are full of confidence that the mighty pace of progress will sweep world reaction out of its way. At the same time, I personally admit the idea that it is the domestic communists, the new Bolsheviks, who will play the role of the center of the world communist movement, built precisely on the principles of scientific centralism. Russia once again has a chance to stand at the forefront of all human civilization. The sooner people like Meisner leave the clownish manner of long gatherings, the sooner they realize the most important goal of modern communists, the sooner they begin to fulfill this goal, the more chances Russia has in repeating the great experience of building communism. However, I will not entertain myself with hopes about a possible Bolshevik reforging of Remy. Unfortunately, only the grave can correct a hunchbacked opportunist.

Bronislav
20/02/2023

https://prorivists.org/78_antimeisner/

Google Translator

A pointed polemic that Lenin would approve of, I think, but slam full of information that we yankees need for understanding current Russia.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Fri Feb 24, 2023 3:33 pm

“NAVALNY”, THE OSCAR NOMINEE FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM, IS DISINFORMATION

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By Lucy Komisar, New York* @bears_with

How do you make a good propaganda film? How do you expose it before it wins a truth-telling award and embarrasses the prize givers? Before they discover it’s a propaganda pseudo-documentary that has been nominated for the Oscars – before the white envelopes are opened in front of millions of people on Oscar night, March 12th?

“Navalny” is a slick production full of easily-documented fabrications, disinformation, with lots of clever visuals to distract and manipulate viewers. It is about Russian political activist Alexei Navalny, who according to the respected Levada Institute has shown 2% support in Russia. But he and the film have a great deal of backing in Washington and London. Will they make sure the film wins, and the Oscar is theirs?

The three people credited as the production’s authors are Canadian Daniel Roher; he admits he has never visited Russia nor speaks Russian. Bulgarian Christo Grozev of Bellingcat; this is an organization openly hostile to Russia which acknowledges financing by governments of the U.S, UK and Europe. And Russian Maria Pevchikh has worked for Navalny’s organization but has lived mostly outside Russia since 2006 and in 2019 obtained a British passport. None has made documentaries before. CNN and Der Spiegel, which have put their names on the findings, acknowledge they joined an investigation by the group Bellingcat. This challenges the film’s credibility as an independent production.

The film’s hero, Alexei Navalny, has strong Washington ties. In 2010, at 34, he graduated from the Yale Greenberg World Fellowship, which was originally called White House Fellows under Bill Clinton’s presidency. The first program director of the Yale World Fellows was Dan Esty, energy and environmental policy adviser for the 2008 Obama campaign.

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Film flashback to a rally three years earlier.

When Navalny returned from the U.S. to Russia, he started an anti-corruption campaign. It was endorsed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He went to work for an Open Society Foundations program financed by George Soros, who supported a network of opposition NGOs in Russia before being banned in 2015. Navalny is also allied with exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky; he was jailed for ten years for documented tax evasion using offshore shell company transfer pricing to launder profits of oil company Yukos, which he obtained through the infamous corrupt loans for shares deal in the Boris Yeltsin years. The photo above shows Navalny at a rally three years before the key events of the film.

However, Navalny has had his own criminal fraud problem, along with his brother Oleg.

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Source: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/

In 2008, when the state-owned Russian Post decided to end collecting parcels from clients’ distribution centers, Oleg Navalny persuaded several companies to shift to the privately owned Chief Subscription Agency (GPA), not revealing it was a company he, Alexei and their parents had just set up in tax haven Cyprus. Later, Yves Rocher Vostok, part of the French cosmetics firm, sued that they were deprived of free choice and weren’t told GPA was using subcontractors which charged around half as much as they paid GPA and that the Navalny cutout kept the difference as profit. A court gave Alexei a suspended sentence of 3 ½ years and his brother a prison sentence of the same term.

The European Court on Human Rights found, “By all accounts, GPA was set up for profit-making purposes and the applicants thus pursued the same goal as any other founder of a commercial entity.” So, in spite of questionable insider tricks, the European court deemed it no crime, because that is how business is done. But it was still an ethics problem for the “fighter against corruption,” because some people think that making money off insider dealing is unethical.

Although the plaintiff Yves Rocher was part of a French company, which sued for damages in France, Western media depicted the trial as a sham instigated by President Vladimir Putin and didn’t report the full details of the case. Navalny’s violation of his conviction parole by failing to return to Russia as soon as he had recovered his health in Germany were the grounds for his arrest on January 17, 2021, and his subsequent court sentence to prison, where he remains. U.S. court rules for parole violations would not be different.

Navalny also became a player in America’s Russiagate operation. He published a video in 2018 claiming that Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska acted as a messenger between President Donald Trump’s ex-campaign chief Paul Manafort and a top Kremlin foreign policy official. The Trump-Russia stories have all been proved false, including this one. However, Navalny has not corrected his anti-Trump video. This confirms not only his standard for truthfulness in documentary work, but also what allies he has made in the U.S.

During the Russian regional election campaign of 2020, Navalny was making regular trips out of Moscow to promote his anti-corruption organization. He claimed popular support, though according to the Levada poll, he was drawing no more than 2% among Russians countrywide – less in the regions, more among the young in Moscow.

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Source: https://www.levada.ru/

Zhirinovsky, the nationalist leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, died in 2022; Zyuganov is the leader of the Russian Communist Party. At the time of the survey, both were in the State Duma (federal parliament); Zyuganov still is.

On August 20th, winding up a campaign in southeastern Siberia, Navalny got on the regularly scheduled flight from Tomsk to Moscow and fell ill. On the pilot’s decision, the aircraft made an unscheduled landing in Omsk, and Navalny was taken to a city hospital. The emergency ward staff treated his symptoms and stabilized his condition. A medical evacuation aircraft arrived from Germany the next day after Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, received Kremlin permission for his treatment in Germany, and he was flown from Omsk to Berlin August 22, with Navalnaya and Pevchikh accompanying him on the flight.

Navalny has had a history of medical conditions known to reflect the sudden reduction in blood sugar and cholinesterase levels – diabetes, Quincke’s Disease, and allergies leading to anaphylactic shock. This information, which had been reported in Russia and by Navalny sources well before the Tomsk incident, was not make public after his arrival in Germany.

The earliest claims that Russian intelligence agents had poisoned Navalny were made by CNN which said they were based on a Bellingcat investigation. The CNN articles scripted what the film produced the following year and released in 2022.

The film starts with Navalny returning to Russia after several months in Germany and then goes to flashbacks.

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Navalny on a campaign stop in Novosibirsk on August 18, 2020, before he travelled on to Tomsk. He complains “where is my police?”

In one of the flashbacks Navalny makes an admission whose honesty is worth noting. He is complaining that he has gone to Novosibirsk in Siberia to make a movie about local corruption. He says, “I expected a lot of people who’d try to prevent our filming, confiscate our cameras or just break our cameras or try to beat us. I expected that sort of things and I was very surprised, like, “Why is nobody here?” “Why is there kind of…” I even have this strange feeling like, like a lack of respect. Like, seriously? I’m here and where is my police?” This is evidence from Navalny himself that he was far less important than he, the western press, and the filmmakers claim he was. It casts doubt from the beginning of the Navalny film that the president of Russia was out to get him and sent hitmen to Tomsk.

But let’s get to the fabrications at the heart of the film. There’s a long section about how Christo Grozev, identified as working for Bellingcat, buys travel and contact data on the Darknet to find the names and phone numbers of Federal Security Service (FSB) agents who had been traveling on planes to Siberia in August of 2020. There is no way to verify that the charts and faces substantiate what Grozev and Bellingcat say they prove, at least not at any standard required in any prosecution service or court in the U.S. In fact, CNN reported December 14, 2020, “CNN cannot confirm with certainty that it was the unit based at Akademika Vargi Street that poisoned Navalny with Novichok on the night of August 19.”

The Great Phone Call Hoax

The real test of the veracity of the film, the “smoking gun” to which everything is leading, is the great telephone call hoax.

Those who made the film have understood the psychology of manipulating audiences. Slowly you bring them into a secret scam to be played on the bad guys. In this one, it starts with Navalny putting on a body mike. Why? He is not going somewhere to secretly record someone. Only his own team is in the room. And the camera crew uses a sound boom. But the body mike is a special effect, it’s a dramatist’s stage trick. Navalny speaks to the camera: “Now I feel like an undercover agent, being wired up.” Does the audience know they are the butt of a theatrical joke?

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Navalny, in a room with his film team, puts on a hidden microphone before the phone calls. The real recording microphone is off camera, where the film audience can’t see it.

Navalny “calls” three “FSB” agents. This is a setup for a veracity diversion, a factoid – that’s a seeming truth disguising a fake. We can be sure of this now because he says to each of them, “I am Navalny; why do you want to kill me?” And the fake people hang up. What is the point of that? It’s to convince the audience of Navalny’s film production that the FSB was being telephoned. The voices are not real, they sound the same – either computer generated or acted by a professional mimic.

But then there’s his pièce de résistance, the interview with “the scientist” whom Grozev tells Navalny to call, because he will be more likely to talk than the regular FSB agents.

Navalny declares (as translated), “Konstantin Borisovich, hello my name is Ustinov Maxim Sergeyevich. I am Nikolay Platonovich’s assistant.” He says, “I need ten minutes of your time …will probably ask you later for a report …but I am now making a report for Nikolay Platonovich … what went wrong with us in Tomsk…why did the Navalny operation fail?”

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Source: https://youtu.be/ posted by Bellingcat, logo top left.

According to Bellingcat, (the real) Kudryavtsev worked at the Ministry of Defense biological security research center and is a specialist in chemical and biological weapons. Supposedly not so stupid.

But the talkative “Konstantin” says, “I would rate the job as well done. We did it just as planned, the way we rehearsed it many times. But when the flight made an emergency landing the situation changed, not in our favor….The medics on the ground acted right away. They injected him with an antidote of some sort. So it seems the dose was underestimated. Our calculations were good, we even applied extra.”

CNN highlighted the phone call:

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Journalist John Helmer, who has reported on Russia since 1989, notes, “Navalny was questioned by the Berlin Staatsanwaltschaft (District Attorney) on December 17, 2020. Did he tell them about the phone call to Konstantin Kudryavtsev, which allegedly took place on December 14? If he told the Staatsanwaltschaft Berlin about the phone call, would they then have to check the authenticity? And what did they determine?”

If Navalny’s evidence checked out, why didn’t the German authorities hold a press conference revealing it? They still haven’t, even though Der Spiegel ran the Bellingcat story with a video.

There are key clues to the film’s fabrications. They deal with dates and timing which are not subject to dispute: the qualities of Novichok, the date of Kudryavstev’s “cleaning” in Omsk, the timing of lab reports and the date of the phone calls.

Novichok

Let’s go to Novichok and Navalny’s underpants, because Navalny, his wife Yulia, his assistant Pevchikh, his press spokesman, others in his group, and the reporters publishing what they were told had been claiming until that moment that the instrument of the Novichok, the poison vector, had been a tea cup at the airport café, then a water bottle in the Tomsk hotel room. Pevchikh, she repeatedly told the press, had filmed the removal of the hotel room water bottles, taken them secretly to Omsk, then loaded them on the medevac flight to Berlin in the luggage of one of the medevac crew, and delivered them from the German ambulance into the Berlin hospital by hand. But then, after four months had elapsed, the story became underpants.

Consider this scenario: An agent carrying the deadly Novichok, and for protection suited head to toe in hazmat (against hazardous material), which causes no consternation among hotel staff and guests, gets into the Navalny room. He checks out Alexei’s suitcase and the dresser drawers or shelves and discovers a change of underwear. Navalny’s trip started August 14, according to CNN, so one may assume he saved a fresh pair for the flight home August 20th.

The FSB would have known that such a poison delivered to a target through the fabric of underwear would likely take an uncertain amount of time to take effect, depending on the fabric and the site of bodily penetration.

A CNN clip not in the film claims the poison was put on the underpants “across the seams” at the button flap, but in what form – powder, aerosolized spray, or gel? Was the FSB counting on Navalny not to notice or feel moisture as he dressed? Was the poison then in direct contact with his body?

On the plane, Navalny fell ill, and the pilot diverted to Omsk, where he was transferred to a hospital. The calculated lethality of the dose should have been fatal after symptom onset. However, the first symptoms appeared only after several hours, and they remained non-lethal for at least one more hour between Navalny going to the toilet cabin on his flight and his reaching Omsk hospital.

The Timing of Kudryavtsev’s trip and “cleaning”

The film script puts Kudryavtsev in Tomsk for the job. At least he knows the details of where the Novichok was placed. He says, “We did it as planned.”

But then there’s a curious factoid never confirmed. The deadly underpants remain in Omsk. CNN says that “Kudryavtsev” flies from Moscow to Omsk five days after the event to “clean” the shorts.

Were they still considered dangerous? Did hospital workers who undressed Navalny get sick? A great many people were exposed to Navalny and his deadly underpants, but not one has been reported to have fallen ill. The passengers who attended him in the plane and who flew on to Moscow have not reported medical problems.

The film Kudryavtsev voice says, “When we arrived [in Omsk], they gave [the underpants] to us, the local Omsk guys brought [them] with the police.” Did they take all the belongings or just the boxer shorts? Did the Navalny group complain about this? Did any police fall ill?

Kudryavstev says, “When we finished working on them everything was clean.” He explains that solutions were applied, “so that there were no traces left on the clothes.” CNN, in its video, has Kudryavtsev saying that he also cleaned Navalny’s pants, not mentioned in the film. Alexei is shown in Berlin holding the underpants. Did the Omsk police ship the “decontaminated” item to Germany? What about the pants?

There are more problems with this story, especially dates

Navalny was flown to Germany August 22. The FSB would know that Navalny fell ill and had been taken to a hospital.

CNN declares that Kudryavtsev flew to Omsk on August 25, with a visual of a flight from Moscow. Not for five days? Why didn’t Bellingcat just tell CNN that Kudryavtsev flew to Omsk on August 20 or even the 21st?

But that wouldn’t work either. On August 20, Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh posted a tweet with the text: “Alexei’s things were taken with her by Yul [Yulia Navalnaya]. She said that she did not allow them to be seized.”

As Helmer writes, Navalny’s underpants were under Navalny staff control on August 20, flew to Berlin August 22; they weren’t in Omsk on August 25 for Kudryavtsev to “clean.”

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Source: https://twitter.com/

In fact, everything the Germans say they tested arrived with Navalny, Navalnaya, Pevchikh and the medevac plane on August 22. What “Kudryavtsev” claimed to have tested on August 25 and to have cleaned cannot have gone to Germany.

Conflicts about the Novichok story and lab reports

Bellingcat’s Grozev says, “The insidiousness of Novichok is that it actually starts switching off your nerve connectors in your body one by one. If it’s dosed properly, it will just turn you off as a body. But then within hours any trace of it will disappear. So, it will always, forever look like it was a natural death.” Bellingcat is saying in the film there should have been no trace in the underpants “within hours”. The film shows a purported FSB agent saying that after more than five days – that’s 120 hours – the traces were still in the underpants for him to “clean” – can the film audience spot the discrepancy?

And Bellingcat posted: “Navalny was evacuated to the German Charité hospital where he was promptly diagnosed with severe poisoning with a cholinesterase inhibitor.”.

Here’s what the doctors in Berlin said, reported by Helmer:

“The German laboratory test results for Alexei Navalny, published by a group of doctors at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin last month, reveal a surprising number of medical symptoms, according to medical specialists who reviewed them and reported them to Helmer. The test results which the Charité group released on December 22 indicated symptoms of acute pancreatitis, diabetes, liver failure, severe dehydration, muscular rigidity, as well as a serious bacterial infection, and a possible heart attack associated with his kidney problems.”

They are not symptoms of Novichok nerve agent poisoning. That is confirmed in a report signed by 14 German doctors and published in The Lancet.

But then there was another Berlin clinic statement of August 24 that there had been “poisoning with a substance from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors.” This claim was signed by a press agent, not a doctor or the head of the patient treatment team.

When Helmer asked follow-up questions of the doctors, their press spokesman and of The Lancet’s editor, who had vetted and then published the German doctors’ clinical case findings, they declined to answer.

Finding Novichok

Helmer says, “The German Government did not mention Novichok publicly till September 2, when Steffen Seibert, chief government spokesman, issued a statement saying that the German military laboratory, in Munich, had reported to Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ministers that at the request of the hospital, it had carried out tests and found proof of a chemical nerve agent of the Novichok group.”

“In their Lancet report of December 2020, report, Kai-Uwe Eckardt, and David Steindl who headed the Berlin Charité team, noted that ‘severe poisoning with a cholinesterase inhibitor was subsequently diagnosed’, not by the Charité group, but by a ‘laboratory of the German armed forces.’” If the Charité doctors didn’t find it, how did the military?

Unlike the civilian doctors, the military lab would not release details of its tests. There was no toxicology report, no name of the expert in charge of the testing and of the interpretation of the results, no name and formula of the chemical compound of the “Novichok group.” The Germans refused to send any medical or toxicological evidence they claimed to substantiate the attempted homicide to Moscow prosecutors investigating the crime. From then on, by hearsay and without evidence, the story became the West’s “Putin poisoned Navalny.”

Moving chronologically, there’s the date of the phone call

Ronald Thomas West, a U.S. Special Forces veteran working in Europe, writes, with irony:

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West says, “The poisoning happened on 20 August, the ‘hoax call’ is made on 14 December, and released by Bellingcat on 21 December. Now, wait a minute. The context of the call, a desperate demand for answers of what went wrong (Navalny didn’t die) for a report to higher up authority, is something you would expect within the first 48 hours, not nearly three months later. By the time this call was made, that dust should have settled and been vacuumed up by Russia’s intelligence services, everyone would have been debriefed by this time, including the target of the hoax call.”

The Trojan Horse

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Maya Daisy Hawke, the film’s co-editor, makes an unusual admission on her website. She said “It’s the best thing I ever worked on; the highlight of my career,” and adds, “Navalny was a Trojan horse.” I emailed her and asked what she meant, pointing out that Merriam-Webster defines trojan horse as “someone or something intended to defeat or subvert from within usually by deceptive means.” She walked it back and said, “They were hastily chosen words on a personal social media post.” She declined further comment and told me to contact the film’s publicist. I did. Charlie Olsky of Cineticmedia also declined to answer questions.

The film supports an analysis of the Russian public that is fallacious

An unidentified woman says, “What to do with Navalny presents a conundrum for the Kremlin, let him go and risk looking weak, or lock him up, knowing it could turn him into a political martyr.” A U.S. broadcast reporter says, “Unexpectedly, Vladimir Putin has a genuine challenger. More than any other opposition figure in Russia, Alexei Navalny gets ordinary people out to protest.”

Eric Kraus, a French financial strategist working in Moscow since 1997, explains, “Mr. Navalny was always a minor factor in Russia. He had a hard-core supporter base – Western-aspiring young people in Moscow and St. Petersburg – the “Facebook Generation.” He was never much loved out in the sticks and could never have polled beyond 7% nationwide, even before the war. Ordinary Russians now increasingly see the West as the enemy. Navalny is seen as the agent of forces seeking to break or constrain Russia. Now, he would get closer to 2%.”

Kraus said, “He is the supreme political opportunist. In Moscow, speaking in English to an audience of Western fund managers and journalists, it is the squeaky clean, liberal Navalny. Full of free markets, diversity, and social justice. Hearing him a few months later out in Siberia, speaking in Russian, one encounters an entirely different animal – fiercely nationalistic, angry and somewhat racist – there, his slogan is “kick out the thieves” but especially “Russia for the ethnic Russians,” anyone without Slavic blood, especially immigrants from the Caucuses, are second-class citizens.”

Another drama!

Finally, if readers can take any more drama, I ended up in the center of one!

As a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, I was invited to a November 9, 2022 “Navalny” screening by CNN at 30 Hudson Yards in Manhattan. The post-film moderator was Timothy Frye, professor of post-Soviet foreign policy at Columbia University; the speakers were the filmmakers. I recorded them. Frye asked about “the one scene where Navalny is talking and getting the fellow to, you know, tricking him into speaking.”

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Daniel Roher, Christo Grozev, Maria Pevchikh, Timothy Frye at the Council on Foreign Relations screening. Photo Lucy Komisar.

Filmmaker Roher explained the political purpose: “And then the war started and what I understood was that this film became not just a film but we were now on a mission to remind the world that Vladimir Putin is not Russia and Russia is not Vladimir Putin and is Navalny.”

In the talk-back, I asked a question. “My name is Lucy Komisar, and I’m an investigative journalist. I want to delve more into the Kudryavtsev story. Mr. Navalny was questioned by the prosecutor in Berlin on December 17th. And three days earlier was the phone call with Kudryavtsev. Did he tell the prosecutor about the phone call which I assume they would have to check the authenticity of, and what did they determine about him? He claims on the phone call he examined these things on August 25 …. But on August 20 ….” [In fact,“Kudryavtsev” didn’t give the August 25th date, Bellingcat did.]

Interruption by Prof. Frye: “This is all on the issue and nobody else. Which is that after we stop in 10 minutes. There will be drinks. Okay, that’s….”

LK: “The point is the press secretary said Alexei’s things were taken by Yulia before that, and she didn’t allow them to be seized. So how could they have been examined by this man after they were already taken away? And finally, the Berlin doctor said they didn’t detect any poisoning in Navalny’s blood, but two weeks later it was the German Armed Forces laboratory that said, yes.

So, all these things I think are contradictory and I would like to know the facts of why these contradictions exist.”

Christo Grozev: “Almost none of this was actually correct and including the sequence of events. I mean this was reactive and FSB officer on screen on recording that I made on my phone confessing to all of that.”

LK: “You said it’s him, but we don’t know it’s him.”

Grozev: “Well, I think the rest of the world knows and now okay. Be nice to know who you work for because….”

LK: “Oh, is this gonna be a [Joe] McCarthy question now?”

Prof. Frye: “Well, thank you, Tim, Maria, Christo and Daniel. Thanks also to CNN HBO Max Warner Brothers Pictures … .”

He invited us all to drinks at Milos, a trendy restaurant in the complex. I went to the reception and asked Roher if I could interview him. He screamed at me, Noooo! And accused me of working for the Russians.

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Then on the 17th I got an email from Nancy Bodurtha, Council on Foreign Relations Meetings and Membership Vice President. She had received complaints about my “conduct” at the screening. She threatened that I could be dropped from membership.

She said:

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“I have received numerous complaints concerning your conduct at CFR’s November 9 documentary screening and discussion of Navalny. As stated in the member handbook, CFR is committed to maintaining a civil and respectful environment. All members are expected to exhibit the highest levels of courtesy and respect toward speakers, moderators, staff, guests, and one another. As a nonpartisan organization committed to hosting a wide range of viewpoints and perspectives to be debated and discussed freely, it is essential that the Council foster an inclusive and welcoming environment free from verbal, written, or physical harassment of any kind.

Per the Council’s By-Laws, a member may be dropped or suspended from membership for any conduct that is prejudicial to the best interests, reputation, and proper functioning of the Council.

Please be advised that further misconduct may result in suspension with the possibility of the termination of your membership as determined by the board of directors.”

I replied

“Dear Ms. Bodurtha

Regarding “numerous complaints concerning your conduct at CFR’s November 9 documentary screening and discussion of Navalny” which you cite, please send me copies of the complaints, including who sent them. I’m sure you agree that a Council member has the right to specifics on such an attack. If a person seeks anonymity, that raises questions about the truthfulness of their charges.

Did you investigate the complaints? If not, why not? If so, what were your findings?

Do you know what I said at the meeting? Like many journalists, when I ask a question of public figures in a public place, I record the interchange to make sure I can quote correctly.

[Here I repeated the recorded Q&A.]

What part of my question do you find objectionable? What as a journalist did I not have a right to ask? How was this harassment? Does courtesy and civility mean one cannot challenge what a film or speaker says?

Does allowing a wide range of viewpoints end when the challenge is to a view a Council staff member may not support? Were my statements deemed so dangerous that you voice a threat to throw me out of the Council? Who signed off on the decision to send me your notice?

After the film, I attended a reception where I encountered the filmmaker Daniel Roher and asked if I could interview him. In the presence of many people, he screamed at me, No! and said I was working for the Russians. Pretty much what Christo Grozev suggested. This persuades me that the “numerous complaints” came from Roher and his collaborators.

I look forward to you telling me who made the complaints, what they said, if you investigated their truthfulness and what in the above citation you find objectionable.

I don’t like attempts at intimidation. Neither should the Council. Nor would the Board. If I was not intimidated by killer racists in the early 60s, when I spent a year as editor of the Mississippi Free Press, I will hardly be intimidated now.

This persuades me I must write an article about the film and mention the “complaints” and your threat, which I dismiss as part of the cancel culture and deeply harmful to our society. Accordingly, let’s be clear that this exchange is on the record.

Lucy Komisar”

Her response was

“Lucy: I acknowledge receipt of your response to my email and reiterate the Council’s expectation that members exhibit the highest levels of courtesy and respect toward speakers, moderators, staff, guests, and one another. Best, Nancy”

Navalny, Bellingcat, and the filmmakers have made a documentary about the FSB creating not a professional hit, but a plan for immeasurable chaos, with high odds of failure and exposure to the public. The only professionalism is the filmmakers’ strike against their targets: the western media, the film’s audience, and maybe voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

[*] Lucy Komisar is an investigative journalist who won a Gerald Loeb award of the UCLA Anderson School of Management, the major prize in financial journalism, for an article published by the Miami Herald which told how the head of the Florida Banking Department allowed Ponzi fraudster Allen Stanford to move money offshore with no regulation. Her website is https://thekomisarscoop.com/, Twitter @lucykomisar. The original publication of this article can be read here. https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2023/02 ... formation/

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sat Feb 25, 2023 3:32 pm

Modern theory of imperialism and the split of the communist movement
February 25, 7:40 am

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Another article about the attitude of the left (in addition to the articles of the "breakthroughs") to the problems of the NWO and the crisis caused by world imperialism.

Modern theory of imperialism and the split of the communist movement

1. Russia is a country of the imperialist periphery, its economy is exploited and has few opportunities for development, the profit from Russia goes mainly to the collective imperialists.

2. The Russian government, however, pursues an independent policy and wants to maintain at least political independence, territorial integrity and a certain standard of living for the people.

3. The own big bourgeoisie is largely a comprador bourgeoisie and is on the side of collective imperialism.

4. The crisis in Ukraine was prepared by the secret services of collective imperialism since 2014, and in fact much earlier, with the aim of putting Russia in its place politically, and also, if possible, dismantling it so that it could no longer make independent decisions (without nuclear weapons , without a large army, with a divided territory, etc.).

5. Undoubtedly, the policy of the Western imperialists and NATO is extremely dangerous for the working class of Russia as well. The above-described "victory" over Russia and the deprivation of its independence also means a massive deterioration in the position of the working class, economic and political (the key word is "decommunization").

6. The working class of Ukraine is now already suffering from a fascist and completely dependent regime, at least since 2014 (collective imperialism would like to see something similar in Russia). Apart from a very bad social situation, anti-communism and partly (especially in the east and south) fascist terror, the imperialists, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, did not even stop at conducting biological experiments on people in NATO laboratories.

Of course, the current war also brings great suffering to the Ukrainian people. An end to this war is highly desirable. But since the war has already begun, it must be ended when the interests of all the peoples involved - Russia, Donbass and Ukraine - are protected, and not in the interests of collective imperialism, which, under the pretext of "a child's tear" (Dostoevsky), would very much like to get Crimea and access to the coast of the Black Sea, the rich resources of Donbass and Taurida, and in the future - the dismemberment of Russia and its complete dependence.

7. This war cannot be called "inter-imperialist", because it is the largest Russian bourgeoisie that is not interested in this war, as evidenced by the numerous statements of the oligarchs and the lightning-fast departure of, for example, Chubais, Prokhorov and other super-rich people. This is not a war waged by the "Russian imperialists", but a war waged by the nationally oriented bourgeoisie and patriotic officials with great support from the proletariat (75% of popular support in the polls, a noticeable volunteer movement).

This is an anti-imperialist defensive war.

8. This war slows down the global ambitions of the imperialists. In this sense, any equidistance, any condemnation of Russia as "also an aggressor" and "also an imperialist" is a betrayal of international solidarity.

Today we can see with our own eyes how the peoples of the world spontaneously understand this situation: in Africa or in distant Peru, anti-imperialist fighters suddenly raise Russian flags and posters with the inscriptions “Putin, intervene!”, “Russia, help defend our Motherland!” They perceive Russia as a "comrade" in a peripheral position, but with a more powerful army, as a force standing on their side - against imperialism.

Of course, one should not idealize Russia in this way: the presence of a powerful class of the comprador bourgeoisie does not allow it to pursue an anti-imperialist policy consistently, hence the many failures, and the observed vacillations and problems in the course of the NWO. But the position of the Communists, who are looking for "Russian imperialism" with fire during the day in order not to resolutely take the side of the fighting peoples, is weak and conciliatory.

(c) Ya. Zavatskaya

https://prometej.info/covremennaya-teor ... vizheniya/ - completely by the link (there is a lot of material with excursions into theory and history)

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8189655.html

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Tue Feb 28, 2023 2:14 pm

APPLES & TOMATOES & THE SPORTS CLUB OLIGARCHS

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By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with

Football is the most popular sport Russians like to play and like to watch. Ice hockey comes second.

The connexion between football and ice hockey, apples and tomatoes is that Gennady Timchenko (lead image left) is the sanctioned oligarch who is now moving into domestic production of apples to substitute for imports; he has been a player, sponsor, financier and director of ice hockey clubs, associations, and stadiums in Russia and Finland. Yevgeny Giner (right) has been the long established owner of the Moscow football club CSKA, a financial director at the Russian Football Union, and stadium builder; he is now taking a position in tomatoes.

Why apples, why tomatoes, why now in Russia?

The reason is the war – and the way in which the US and NATO campaign to destroy the Russian economy is rebuilding it in directions and in sectors which the pre-war oligarchs had no wish, no incentive to consider.

By curtailing their freedom to export cash, capital, and assets outside Russia, the sanctions have forced the oligarchs to look for the right combination of investment factors in the domestic Russian market. Apples and tomatoes qualify for them because of the large and growing size of consumer demand; the relatively low level of domestic competition for market entry; and the determining role of the state in raising protection from imports, allocating low-cost land for production; and handing out budget cash to pay for borrowing, seed, fertilizer, and other purchases, machine leasing, tax relief, subsidized storage and transport to the point of sale – and price fixing. Traditional oligarch methods for consolidating assets, raiding and bankrupting small producers, and court corruption can flourish under the war emergency regulations administered by state planning committee apparatchiki. They have taken over where the state anti-monopoly and environment regulators left off.

And so, by striking at Putin’s cronies, as the US Treasury and the Office for Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) call them, with their long-arm prohibitions, freezes, and threats of confiscation, the warfighters are revolutionizing the domestic economy.

Think of this revolution as an apple a day to keep the oligarchs in play.

The Russian business press treads carefully in the way it reports this. For example, this is how Kommersant, the Moscow business daily, reported Timchenko’s management of his apple business.

“French investors, who owned through Swiss Procuri SA together with Gennady Timchenko’s Volga Group and its large apple producer Alma Holding, have withdrawn from the company’s capital. Their 54% share has gone to the ex-president of the International Ice Hockey Federation René Fasel. The transaction may have been required due to restrictions for foreign investors to operate a business in the Russian Federation. Fasel, the owner of 54% of Alma Holding, the parent company of a large apple producer, where 46% belongs to the Volga Group structure of Gennady Timchenko, has become a citizen of the Russian Federation.”

Fasel’s citizenship was announced officially a year ago, on January 17, 2022. The change in the shareholding of the Alma group was gazetted in Moscow earlier this month, triggering press interest.

“The Alma Holding was founded in 2007,” according to Kommersant which identified its offshore French nominees acting for Timchenko. “The Alma Production company controlled by Alma Holding manages about 400 hectares of apple orchards in the Krasnodar Territory. In 2019, more than 13,000 tonnes of fruits were harvested here, but in 2020, due to adverse weather conditions, just 8,500 tons, it follows from the reports. By 2023, Alma Production plans to double the volume of the harvest, according to its website.”

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According to the Alma Holding’s website presentation, nine apple varieties are produced – three of them Russian. For a full list of the Russian apple varieties and their seasonal maturation cycles, read this.

According to the Kommersant report, “Fasel is mentioned in the media as the former president of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), who held this position in 1994-2021. According to TASS, Mr. Fasel was born in Switzerland, where he played for the Fribourg-Gotteron hockey club, and then became a hockey referee. In 2015, as reported by TASS, René Fasel was the chief referee of the gala match of the Night Hockey League, when Russian President Vladimir Putin and Gennady Timchenko also played.”

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Left: Putin and Timchenko in their game to celebrate Putin’s birthday, Sochi, October 7, 2015. Right, Fasel presents Putin with his game jersey. Source: https://www.insidethegames.biz/ (November 2022)

“According to Kommersant’s source in investment circles and Kommersant’s interlocutor in the agricultural market, Fasel may own a share in the interests of the owners of Procuri SA. In the spring of 2022, Kommersant’s sources said that French investors began looking for buyers for their share in Alma Holding due to the crisis resulting from the military actions of the Russian Federation in Ukraine and the expansion of western sanctions against Gennady Timchenko. As one of the interlocutors of Kommersant notes, it has not been possible to agree on the sale of the asset until now, and, apparently, they decided to transfer the share to a third party. René Fasel did not respond to Kommersant’s questions sent by e-mail…Volga Group does not comment on the changes. It was not possible to contact Procuri SA…”

“Senior Partner of the Pen & Paper legal firm Anton Imennov says that foreign structures from ‘unfriendly’ jurisdictions generally have difficulties with business management in the Russian Federation. ‘Unfriendly’ LLC participants receive distributed profits only in a type C account, the withdrawal of funds from which is difficult, and they cannot attract loans in foreign currency, he points out. In addition, Mr. Imennov notes, the EU last October introduced a norm into legislation which allows the imposition of sanctions against persons who help those who have fallen under restrictions to reduce the effect of measures. Ingvarr Managing Partner Igor Mazilin says that the transfer of ownership of a stake in a business to a Russian partner relieves the headache of a foreign investor and simplifies the work of the Russian business. It may be easier for a fully Russian agricultural enterprise to receive state support measures today, says Ekaterina Makeeva, partner of the A-Pro law firm.”

“According to Andrey Neduzhko, CEO of the Steppe Agro Holding, Russian horticulture retains significant growth potential due to increasing domestic apple production and import substitution. Russia remains the largest importer of apples, according to data from the USDA. They predict that this season the Russian Federation can produce 1.54 million tons of apples, and import 550,000 tonnes.”

USDA REPORT ON RUSSIA’S SOURCES OF APPLE IMPORTS, JUNE 2022
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In its June 2022 report, the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the US Department of Agriculture published this table of Russian apple imports and their country sources, led by Moldova, Serbia and then Turkey, and the consolidated “Other” category. The report claimed: “Russia imports are projected to drop 40 percent to 480,000 tons. Shipments from most suppliers have been lower throughout the year, including Southern Hemisphere countries at the start of the marketing year, more than offsetting gains from top supplier Moldova.” Six months later, however, the US agency revised its import estimate upwards by 21%. “Russia is raised 100,700 tons to 580,700 on higher‐than‐expected shipments from Moldova and Turkey”. Industry reports vary in their estimates of the leading apple importers by volume and value – Russia has been either number one, or number two, after Germany.

The discretion required to print these lines, and the understanding to read between them, reflects more than the wartime rule against giving aid to the enemy.

In peacetime Timchenko has demonstrated his readiness to use the local and foreign courts to deter investigation of his business operations. Here’s the archive on Timchenko’s investments in crab fishing, wine, ports, shipping, oil and coal trading, The last time Timchenko issued an ultimatum to the domestic press was in 2009, when his lawyers claimed they were enforcing Timchenko’s right to protect “information about commercial and other legally protected secrets, in the absence of the explicitly expressed consent of the person in whose interest the conditions of secrecy operate (art. 1 part 1 and part 3 and art. 46 part 1 of the Law on mass media taken with art. 47 part 1 item 5) and art. 40 part 1 of the Law on mass media; art 4 part 4 and art. 3 part 1 item 2 of the Law on commercial secrets2; art. 23 part 1 of the Russian Constitution and item 1 of the List of information of confidential character.”

Andrei Neduzhko, the source cited in the Kommersant report, represents the Steppe Agro Holding group. Kommersant avoids explaining that he and his group are a competitor for Timchenko’s Alma Holding in the Russian apple market. Steppe Agro is owned by the first of the pre-war oligarchs to invest in apples, Vladimir Yevtushenkov. He is not sanctioned by OFAC but his British PR agent, Lord Peter Mandelson, has resigned from his employment in 2017 after the London press attacked his Russian associations. Follow Yevtushenkov’s apple business here.

Neduzhko was one of several leaders of the Russian apple business to be asked these general questions:

— what are the estimated or projected rates of return which the investors now moving into Russian fruit and vegetable production aim at over the next five years?
— what is the value of new investment they think will be spent in the next five years on domestic production and import substitution, especially for tomatoes/paste and green vegetables and potatoes?
— how to solve the seed import problem for starting up new plantings?
— what do the producers estimate will be the value of state budget subsidies to the fruit, vegetable and potato industries this year and each year for the next five — what rate of growth of the subsidies?
— what are the biggest problems the new investors would like to solve in domestic policymaking and planning ahead?

They all refuse to answer.

In the Russian tomato business the story is a similar one. Kommersant has also reported this month opening an investigation of Yevgeny Giner’s tomato interests and operations.

In the global fresh tomato trade, Russia has been hanging on to its position in the top-five country importers worldwide. However, Russia is the only one to have cut its foreign imports significantly in the years from 2014 to 2021.The value was cut from $1.1 billion in 2014 to $398.5 million in 2021. During 2022 and into this year, the Russian food trade press has been reporting that the import volumes have continued to decline. Imports of tomatoes from China, the world’s leading tomato producer, fell by one and a half times. Tomato imports from Turkey, the third largest producer in the world, fell twofold. Sharp declines in tomato imports from the Balkan states and from the Caucasus have also been registered. Azerbaijan, which has been the largest volume supplier of fresh tomatoes in the Russian market, has also been hit with anti-pest phytosanitary restrictions; these are interpreted as political in the trade and at the source.

Correspondingly, the price of imported tomatoes for Russian consumers to buy has doubled, and the price of domestic tomatoes has followed them upwards. Retail data for the food market across the country indicate that by early in February a third of Russians said they were buying less tomatoes and cucumbers because of their price; 12% said they could no longer afford to buy them at all. In the first week of February, Rosstat, the government statistics agency, reported that tomatoes had jumped by 30% since December.

This is where Giner’s business calculation comes in.

UN FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION (FAO) TABLE OF TOMATO PRODUCTION, 2020
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Data from the FAO. According to this report, “Russia, which used to be the largest EU export market and which is still banning the imports of fruit and vegetables from the EU, is increasingly self-sufficient.” Source: https://www.tomatonews.com/

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In the top-6 display only the Russian chart shows significant decline.

The Kommersant headline early this month was: “With tomatoes at the ready Yevgeny Giner has found an investor in a vegetable project. The beneficiary of the Agroinnovation agroholding Yevgeny Giner has found a partner for growing and processing tomatoes in the Astrakhan region. The owner of 25% of the project was the top manager of the luxury goods seller Mercury Group. Analysts note the growing interest of private investors in agricultural sectors with a focus on the domestic market and the relatively low competition.”

“Igor Kozlovsky, CEO of Auto Drive CJSC associated with Mercury Group, became the owner of 25% of the vegetable project of Giner’s Agroinnovation holding in the Astrakhan region. Changes in the membership of Agroinnovation Astrakhan LLC were made on February 1, it follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Created by Leonid Fridland and Leonid Strunin, the Mercury Group operates a chain of watch and jewelry stores, fashion boutiques and car showrooms. Among the assets are TSUM, DLT, and Barvikha Luxury Village. According to SPARK-Interfax, LLC Briar, controlled by Auto Drive, manages the Mercury Classic and Mercury Reserve companies, and owns shares in M Estate Vnukovo, M Estate Mall and other commercial real estate. Igor Kozlovsky is listed on the Mercury Auto website as one of the heads of the Bentley automobile center.”

“The Agroinnovation group of Giner, the president of the CSKA football club, manages 44,000 hectares of land, sugar factories and a dairy plant in the Kursk and Belgorod regions. It plans to grow tomatoes, potatoes, and produce tomato paste in the Astrakhan region. As the administration of the governor of the region has announced, the project — estimated to be worth Rb10.5 billion [$138 million] — can use about 30,000 hectares of land, and from that the plan is to produce about 50,000 tonnes of paste per year.”

“Tamara Reshetnikova, CEO of Growth Technologies, notes that Russia still imports a significant part of tomato paste, which is used, among other things, for the production of canned food, sauces, vegetable juices, so new [paste] projects may be in demand. According to her, there is a problem with moisture deficiency in the Astrakhan region, so, apparently, Agroinnovation plans to grow seedlings for tomatoes in greenhouses in order to harvest an early harvest.”

“Alexey Krasilnikov, Executive Director of the Union of Potato and Vegetable Producers, adds that the Astrakhan region is one of the main producers of open-ground vegetables in the Russian Federation, and the area under potatoes here has grown four to five times in recent years. According to him, the climatic conditions of the region allow growing and harvesting two potato crops, and early local potatoes in June—July can compete with imports from Egypt and Azerbaijan. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, in 2022, the harvest of tomatoes in the open ground in the Russian Federation increased by 7.7%, to 451,000 tonnes, potatoes, up by 9.1% to 7 million tonnes year on year.”

“The Astrakhan project is probably the first for Agroinnovation, where an outside investor participates. Senior analyst of Gazprombank Marat Ibragimov notes that a participant with a minority stake can be a financial partner, and this will allow the main owner, among other things, to reduce the risks associated with raising funds. According to Mr. Ibragimov, the focus of projects on meeting domestic demand, the large size of the target market and the relatively low level of competition may be especially important for local investors. So, the analyst points out, there is already high consolidation in the food retail sector, and non-food can be quite difficult for non-core players. Investment banker Ilya Shumov notes that in recent years the agro-industrial sector has been on the rise, so many non-core players, funds and private investors have shown interest in it, because they see great opportunities in this market in the current realities. Among the largest investments, the expert highlights the purchase by the structure of the owner of the AEON corporation Roman Trotsenko of the Rostagro agroholding with 240,000 hectares of land and the Rumelko dairy projects of the main owner of NLMK Vladimir Lisin.”

Kommersant reported that Kozlovsky claimed his participation in Agroinnovation Astrakhan is a personal project, and he refused to discuss more details. Giner’s Agroinnovation refused to answer the newspaper’s questions.

None of the sources who agreed to speak to Kommersant would agree to answer questions from this reporter and website.

Giner has a long history of secret offshore business operations, as well as of tax haven companies and foreign residences, which the Russian kompromat media have documented. One of Giner’s principal cashcows has been VS Energy, which until recently has been the second most lucrative producer and distributor of electricity in the Ukraine. The annual revenue of Giner’s group at the end of 2014 was over UAH 13 billion – more than $1 billion. In addition to the energy sector, Giner has also controlled a Ukrainian hotel chain, a bank, and a specialty steel plant. The last of these, Dnieprospetsstal, is reportedly owned by Giner with the Ukrainian oligarch, Igor Kolomoisky.

For a Russian summary of Giner’s business history, including the violent Luzhniki market controversies in which he was a central figure, read this.

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The Luzhniki consumer goods market when Giner was one of its controllers in 1997; at the time annual turnover of the market was estimated at about $350 million. The trading operations were closed by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin in mid-2011.

Since the start of their troubles in Kiev in 2015, Giner and his partners have held out against allegations from Ukrainian prosecutors that the group had illegally privatized assets, avoided taxes, and laundered money from criminal enterprises in Russia. As of mid-2022, the Ukrainian courts have dismissed these allegations as lacking in evidence.

Berlin has been reported to be one of the Giner family addresses. This appears not to be oligarch palatial standard:

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Above: source: https://biz.liga.net/
Vadim Giner, Yevgeny’s son, is reported to be a resident of Luxembourg, where one of the related Giner group companies is based (below).

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While Giner’s Ukrainian businesses generate much of his income and his borrowing collateral, his sports businesses, including the Moscow football club and its stadium are major borrowers from Giner’s group, as well as from the state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB), chaired by ex-president Dmitry Medvedev.

As the account and ownership filings of the UK-registered Bluecastle Enterprises Ltd. reveal, this entity is the principal controller of Giner’s sports assets and revenues. In 2019 Yevgeny Giner replaced his son Vadim as the nominal controller of Bluecastle, and took over himself through a network of other offshore entities registered in the UK, The Netherlands, and the Marshall Islands. Other entities reported by Bluecastle to be supplying cash to the sports businesses and either under common management or under common control include Sensei International SA of Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands (BVI) registration, Spencerdale Ltd.

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Source: https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ce.gov.uk/

The football club, stadium and associated commercial and hotel businesses were in financial trouble by 2014-2015, before the impact of the war struck. In the UK Companies House files Giner and Bluecastle reported that in the year ending December 31, 2015, they were holding assets of about $320 million, the largest share of which was the CSKA stadium, the football field, and the concessions which included media rights for the games, a hotel and office complex. In addition, the capital value of the players on the CSKA team was estimated at $57 million at the end of 2015; this was down from $72.1 million in 2014. The company also recorded falling revenue for the year of $67.1 million; that was down from $80.8 million in 2014. Losses on the bottom line for 2015 came to almost $50 million.

This was so serious, the company auditor was obliged to report the “existence of a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt about the Group’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

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Source: https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ice.gov.uk

To stay solvent, the auditor reported that Giner was lending Bluecastle, and thus the sports businesses, money from related-party companies; at the same time he was persuading the Russian government to bail out CSKA with a VEB line of credit totalling $280 million.

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Source: https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ce.gov.uk/

By the end of 2020, according to the last filing of accounts at Companies House, Bluecastle acknowledged its asset value had dwindled to a fraction of its earlier worth – down to $52.3 million from $378.1 million in 2019. Revenue had plummeted from $56 million to just $14 million. Broadcasting and advertising led the lossmakers, as the impact of the pandemic lockdowns for that year, were felt.

Football has enabled Giner to establish personal and business relationships with powerful presidential, government, and Moscow city officials. Their closeness, however, has not triggered US sanctions for either Giner or his principal money-making companies. However, the CSKA football and basketball club companies were sanctioned in a US Treasury action on February 22, 2022, following prompting by George Soros’s publications. The Treasury announcement indicated the reason for CSKA’s sanction was its link to VEB. By then Giner had arranged with VEB to swap his obligation to the bank for shares giving the bank control of Bluecastle, and thus of CSKA. “In April 2020 the Club issued 9,595 ordinary shares which were fully subscribed by Vnesheconombank. This diluted the Company’s [Giner’s] control over the Club from 100% to 22%.” This note appears in the small print at the end of the last page of the last financial report filed by Bluecastle in January 2022.

Since the US imposed its sanctions a few weeks later, there have been no financial reports from Bluecastle. Instead, it was issued with a compulsory strike-off notice on November 29, 2022. This threatened British government confiscation of “all property and rights” owned by the company. A month later the government withdrew its threat and the strike-off action was dropped.

In the present situation, Giner is bound to calculate that home-grown tomatoes will make a more profitable and less risky investment than offshore football. State financing remains a constant, however.

Government support for Giner’s new business includes a 10% to 15% protective duty on imported tomatoes and a duty-free volume quota for Turkish tomatoes. The level of this protection will be reduced, federal Agriculture Ministry officials warned a few days ago, unless retail price increases for tomatoes are slowed down or stopped.

Government apparatchiki are also resisting demands from the growers and their investors for an increase in budget subsidies. Last year, among the emergency wartime measures introduced, Rb445.8 billion were allocated to the development of the agro-industrial complex, and will be maintained this year. In parallel, subsidies to tomato, potato, and other vegetable growers will be increased. State bank-financed concessional loans have jumped from Rb137.9 billion five years ago to Rb1.5 trillion now.

These capital inputs are helping Russian agriculture to develop import substitution at the pace of the manufacturing industries.

For the time being, lobbying by the oligarchs, farm and grower associations has succeeded in stopping legislation to introduce new price controls on essential foodstuffs. A proposal from left deputies in the State Duma to fix a maximum profit margin of up to 15% was rejected last week by the federal ministries of Agriculture and Industry and Trade, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, and the leading supermarket companies. The Agriculture Ministry told the Duma by letter that permanent measures for price and profit control would “destabilize the economy, depriving producers and sellers of an incentive to work, lead to lower taxes and a shortage of goods.”

http://johnhelmer.net/apples-tomatoes-t ... more-70606

*************

The great cyber attack on Russian state television

Since global media are completely silent on the subject, whereas I raised it in my 22 February essay analyzing Putin’s State of the Nation address, I am obliged to return briefly to this subject for purposes of closure.

Shortly before the live broadcast of Putin’s widely anticipated annual speech was about to begin at noon Moscow time on the 21st http://www.smotrim.ru, the website platform for all of Russia’s state television programs, both live and streaming, went dead. That is to say, the home page was on the screen but it was a frame without content. Then a few hours later even that disappeared, most likely by decision of Russia’s communication engineers to shut down and prepare for a reconstruction of the site.

The Kremlin said not a word about this broadcasting disaster, which had to be the result of a cyber attack waged by a state, not a prankster group, given its intensity and success in completely disabling the site. This leads me to believe that the damage only affected the international broadcasting, meaning that Moscow had no need to make embarrassing explanations to its domestic audience.

Last night, one week after the disaster, www.smotrim.ru was back in operation, as if nothing had happened. However, the configuration for accessing the live programs is not the same as before, indicating that what was done was not merely flicking a switch but the reconstruction of the site from zero.

It is noteworthy that the problem was confined to the state news broadcasters www.smotrim.ru and www.vesti.ru Other Russian channels, even the far more aggressive Solovyov Live channel, continued operation this past week without any problems.

Surely the Russians know who did it. One may be certain they will take their revenge at an appropriate time and in an appropriate manner. Given the fragility of the global internet, it is stunning that this brazen attack took place at all. If I may invert the words in the soliloquy of Hermann, the ill-fated hero of Tchaikovsky’s opera Queen of Spades, spoken at the end of his calamitous wagers at cards, ‘today it is me, tomorrow it will be you.’

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2023/02/28/ ... elevision/
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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Wed Mar 01, 2023 2:31 pm

Tougher laws for discrediting NWO members
March 1, 11:45

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The State Duma is preparing documents for another tightening of the screws associated with discrediting the participants of the NWO.
Note to social media commentators.

Tougher laws for discrediting NWO members

Amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses on liability for discrediting participants in a special operation in Ukraine have been submitted to the State Duma for consideration , said Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin.
According to the politician, the new legislative initiative is designed to protect those who ensure the security of citizens and the country.

“Any public dissemination of deliberately false information, as well as public actions aimed at discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, volunteer formations, organizations and individuals that assist in the fulfillment of the tasks assigned to the Russian Armed Forces, are unacceptable,” he wrote in his Telegram .

The amendments provide for the introduction of punishment for violators in the form of fines of up to 5 million rubles, in the amount of wages or other income for a period of up to five years; correctional labor for up to five years or imprisonment up to 15 years.

“The second reading is on Thursday, March 2. In case of support, the third, final reading will take place on Tuesday, March 14,” Volodin added.

Earlier it was reported that the head of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin sent a letter to Volodin asking him to work on introducing an article into the Criminal Code prohibiting the discrediting of volunteers participating in the SVO, including former convicts.

In his opinion, publications of a "negative nature and any criticism of the participants of the SVO, as well as information about their past offenses" should be banned.

https://russian.rt.com/russia/news/1117 ... ki-gosduma - zinc

I note in advance that after the adoption of these amendments, the moderator will be instructed to preventively delete comments potentially falling under these amendments so that I do not have problems with the RKN, and some of the readers did not raise five years in prison for comments in the magazine. Given the practice of the law on fakes about the Russian army, it is advisable for commentators to consider what they write in wartime conditions.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8196194.html

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Fri Mar 03, 2023 2:53 pm

The Red Scare 2.0: Russophobia in America Today
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 1, 2023
Scott Ritter

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The Red Scare and McCarthyism (1984), Judith Baca

I have been wrestling with the issue of Russophobia in the United States for some time now. As someone who cut his academic teeth studying Russian history in college, and who, at an early stage in my development as an adult had the opportunity to live and work in Russia during the Soviet era, I have a deep, yet admittedly incomplete, appreciation for Russian culture, language and history. This appreciation has empowered me to make informed judgments about Russia, its political leadership, and its people, especially when assessing the interactions between Russia and the United States today.

Void of this background, I would expect that I would be susceptible to the Russophobia emanating from the US government and echoed without question by a compliant mainstream American media. With it, I am able to see through the falsehoods and mischaracterizations that appear deliberately designed to warp the sensibilities and logic of Russophobia’s intended audience—the American people.

Recently, I ran across an essay that had been published by the Ambassador of Russia to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, in the Russian newspaper, Rossiyaskaya Gazeta, and subsequently posted on the Russian Embassy Facebook page. The title of the essay, Russophobia as a malignant tumor in the United States, is, admittedly, provocative—as all good, thought-provoking titles should be. After reading it, it became apparent to me that, in the interest of combating Russophobia, I should help bring the Ambassador’s essay to the attention of as many people as possible.

“Russia,” the essay opens, “has always venerated and respected the rich cultural traditions of all countries. This is the core of our national identity, mentality, and statehood. Culture must always remain the bridge for strengthening trust between the peoples, however complicated the relations between the states may be.”

There was no “cancellation of culture” even during the Cold War. A lesser-known fact is that the first Tchaikovsky International Competition in 1958 was won by Van Cliburn, an outstanding pianist and U.S. national. His sensational performance in Moscow at the height of the Cold War helped break down barriers and gave hope for finding mutual understanding based on love for classical music.

The story of how Harvey Lavan “Van” Cliburn, a tall, curly-haired Texan pianist, conquered Moscow is legendary. By 1958, US-Soviet relations were tense, impacted as they were by the politics of the Cold War. To promote a thawing in relations, the Soviets and Americans proposed a series of cultural exchanges. The Soviets, for their part, convened the first International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, named after the famous Russian composer, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Tchaikovsky is perhaps best known in the United States for his rousing 1812 Overture, the melodic Nutcracker Suite, once a Christmas staple, and the unforgettable Swan Lake ballet. The premise of the competition was to invite 50 musicians from 19 countries to compete in an international competition designed to highlight Soviet accomplishment in the arts. A distinguished jury, headed by Dmitri Shostakovich, a legendary composer in his own right, was convened to judge the competition.

Cliburn was one of several Americans invited to compete. His rendition of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto, considered one of Tchaikovsky’s most popular compositions and, as such, familiar to all, leaving little room for error or misinterpretation, brought the crowd to its feet. Olga Kern, one of Russia’s finest classical pianists, said of the performance, “Van Cliburn won because he played in a grand way. Soaring. It was beautiful; the piano was singing. It sounded so new and fresh. It was incredible.”

Popular legend has it that Shostakovich was uncertain whether he could award first prize to an American. When the famed Soviet composer approached Nikita Khrushchev for advice, the Soviet leader asked, “Is he the best?” Shostakovich replied yes to which Khruschev announced, “Then give him the prize!”

Van Cliburn returned to America a hero and was given a ticker-tape parade down New York City’s Avenue of Heroes, the only musician ever to be so honored. Time Magazine put him on its cover, with the headline, “The Texan Who Conquered Russia.”

Six months prior to Van Cliburn’s achievement, the Soviets had put the world’s first satellite, Sputnik, into orbit, an act that left many Americans feeling vulnerable and uncertain. The country still reeled from the Red Scare politics of Senator Joe McCarthy, whose admonition that “you cannot offer friendship to tyrants and murderers…without advancing the cause of tyranny and murder” continued to resonate in certain circles even after his death in 1957.

Van Cliburn’s performance did, in fact, help “break down barriers” and give “hope for finding mutual understanding.” There’s no lie in the essay penned by the Russian diplomat.

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Van Cliburn performs at the first International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, 1958.

“Cultural cooperation,” Ambassador Antonov’s essay noted, “helped melt the ice then. Its significance cannot be overestimated also in our days because the universal language of art unites people of different nationalities, whatever is going on in the realm of big politics.”

It was, in short, an historic event, one worthy of continued attention and recognition. And, largely because of the singular accomplishment of Van Cliburn, the International Tchaikovsky Competition went on to become one of the best-known and most respected music competitions in the world.

“The competition,” the essay observed, “was excluded from the World Federation of International Music Competitions in 2022 amidst indiscriminate Russophobia.”

This, too, is a true statement. On April 13, 2022, the World Federation of International Music Competitions voted by an overwhelming majority to exclude the International Tchaikovsky Competition from its membership. In a press release the federation declared that “Many laureates of the Tchaikovsky Competition are among the leading artists of today. However, in the face of Russia’s brutal war and humanitarian atrocities in Ukraine, the [federation] as an apolitical organization cannot support or have as a member, a competition financed and used as a promotional tool by the Russian regime.”

In 2003, following the invasion of Iraq by the United States—an act widely acknowledged worldwide as a blatant act of aggression that violated international law, the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, one of six American music competitions are part of a network of some 120 internationally recognized organizations that comprise the federation, and whose collective goal is to “discover the most promising young talents in classical music through public competition,” was not excluded by the World Federation of International Music Competitions.

So much for the “apolitical” status of the federation. The exclusion by the federation of the International Tchaikovsky Competition is an inherently political act, a clear example of Russophobia. To pretend otherwise is illogical—but then again, Russophobia (“the fear or dislike of Russia and its people, often based on stereotypes and propaganda”), like all other phobias, is inherently illogical, representing as it does an excessive, extreme, irrational, fear or panic reaction derived from ignorance of the subject in question.

“And yet,” Antonov declared, “despite that, representatives of the United States still seek to become laureates and winners of this prestigious contest. The 2023 Tchaikovsky International Youth Competition, by the way, was attended by 128 gifted performers from 14 countries, including the United States.”

Again, not a false statement—the XI International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians was held in Moscow and St. Petersburg in January 2023. There, 27 young musicians from Russia, China, the Republic of Korea and the United States were selected for participation in the final round. The top two spots were awarded to competitors from China, while the third spot went to a Russian performer. But Americans were there, participating, and that is what matters.

Russian artists are considered among the world’s most accomplished, and many of their works can be found in art galleries around the world. And yet, even here, Russophobia has raised its ugly head, as the Russian essay so pointedly notes. “The anti-Russian ‘hate virus’ is giving metastases and continues to affect the United States,” the essay states. “It has also infected the leading US art galleries that are now trying to outdo each other in their efforts to ‘cancel’ Russian culture.

“The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Ambassador Antonov reports, “has reclassified great Russian painters Arkhip Kuindzhi, Ivan Aivazovsky and Ilya Repin as Ukrainians guided by the fact that they were born in Mariupol, Feodosia and Chuguev, which is nothing short of a complete absurdity.”

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The Wave (1889), Ivan Aivazovsky

Once again, the assertion put forward in the essay is factually correct. “The Met continually researches and examines objects in its collection in order to determine the most appropriate and accurate way to catalogue and present them,” a Met spokesperson said, commenting on the reclassification. “The cataloguing of these works has been updated following research conducted in collaboration with scholars in the field.”

The “collaboration” the Met speaks of came in the form of online pressure from someone the Met described as a Ukrainian art historian, Oksana Semenik, whose Twitter account, Ukrainian Art History (@ukr_arthistory) ran a concerted campaign criticizing the Met for incorrectly labelling the works of Arkhip Kuindzhi as Russian. “All his famous landscapes were about Ukraine, Dnipro, and steppes,” Semenik tweeted. “But also about Ukrainian people.”


But, as the Ambassador’s essay points out, “This does not withstand any criticism at least because the artists considered themselves Russians. Just in case: ethnically, Ilya Repin was Russian, Ivan Aivazovsky was Armenian and Arkhip Kuindzhi was Greek. All three were born in the Russian Empire – when Ukrainian statehood did not exist.”

Kuindzhi was a landscape painter from the Russian Empire of Pontic Greek. When he was born, in 1841, the city of Mariupol was one of the subdivisions of the Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire. The landscapes he painted were, at the time they were produced, depicting Russian scenes, and Russian people. Kuindzhi, by any account, was a Russian artist.

While Ivan Aivazovsky may have been ethnically Armenian, he and all of Russia considered (and considers) him to be an iconic Romantic painter who is considered one of the greatest masters of marine art of all time. Indeed, several of Aivazovsky’s works hang in Ambassador Antonov’s residence in Washington, DC.

Prior to the reclassification, the Met described Aivazovsky as such: “The Russian Romantic artist Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817–1900) was widely renowned for his paintings of sea battles, shipwrecks, and storms at sea. Born into an Armenian family in the Crimean port city of Feodosia, Aivazovsky was enormously prolific—he claimed to have created some six thousand paintings during his lifetime. He was a favorite of Czar Nicholas I and was appointed official artist of the Russian imperial navy.”

As for Ilya Repin, his father had served in an Uhlan Regiment in the Russian army, and Repin was a graduate of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg.

The Russophobia of the Met did not stop there. As Antonov’s essay notes, “Another example of ignorance by the Met is the renaming of Edgar Degas’s ‘Russian Dancers’ to ‘Dancers in Ukrainian Dress’.”

This is true. Moreover, in introducing the work the Met declared, “In 1899, Degas produced a series of compositions devoted to dancers in Ukrainian folk dress,” ignoring the fact that Degas himself named the drawings “Russian Dancers,” thereby reflecting the reality that he was devoting his drawings to dancers in Russian folk dress.

But historical accuracy is not, apparently, what the Met aspires to. As Ambassador Antonov explains, “Moreover, a comment added beneath the picture now reads: ‘The subject reflects the surge of French interest in the art and culture of Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, following France’s political alliance with that Empire in 1894’. Those who came up with this idea did not bother to figure out that it was dancers of the Russian Imperial Ballet on tour in Paris who inspired the French impressionist to create the masterpiece. It is naïve to imagine,” the Ambassador notes caustically, “that the artist was familiar with ‘the great Ukrainian choreographic school’.”

Anatoly Antonov lambasts the decisions of the Met to cancel Russian art history in the name of virtue signaling. “The American Museum of Modern Art,” his essay notes, “has also yielded to the derangement, dedicating a permanent-collection gallery to works by ‘ethnic Ukranians’. Titled ‘In Solidarity’, it features pieces by Kazimir Malevich, Leonid Berlyavsky-Nevelson, Sonia Delaunay-Terk and Ilya Kabakov.”

Kazimir Malevich was an ethnic Pole, born in Kiev in 1879, and widely considered a leading Russian avant-garde artist and art theorist. Malevich’s pioneering work had a profound influence on the development of abstract art in the 20th century. His art, and associated politics, ran afoul of Joseph Stalin, and Malevich suffered persecution at the hands of the KGB, before dying in Leningrad in 1935.

The Ukrainian art historian-turned-activist, Oksana Semenik, led an online campaign to have the Met reclassify Malevich as Ukrainian. “Russian art critics who had access to the KGB archives,” she tweeted, without referencing either the art critic or the archival material in question, “note that Malevich answered that he was Ukrainian when asked about his nationality.”


Semenik went on to tweet, “So, @MuseumModernArt, how about making corrections about his true nationality? It will be a present for his birthday (note: Malevich was born on February 23.)”

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Self Portrait, 1910, Kazimir Malevich

A modicum of due diligence, however, of the sort one would expect from an institution such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where assiduous accuracy in the pursuit of art history is the norm, not the exception, appears to be lacking in the case of Ms. Seminik.

Far from a simple art historian, Oksana Seminik is what she calls a “cultural journalist” whose articles have been published in outlets such as The New Statesman, a British progressive political and cultural magazine with a decidedly pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia editorial bias. On April 4, 2022, The New Statesman published an article authored by Oksana Seminik entitled “I escaped Russian atrocities in Bucha. My neighbors weren’t so lucky.”

The account of Ms. Seminik is what it is, and it is important to note that she provides no first-hand observations of so-called “Russian atrocities.” What is more interesting is her naming of her partner, Saskho Popenko, and the name of the person who edited and translated the article into English, Nataliya Gumenyuk. Both are journalists working for the Public Interest Journalism Lab, which in 2022 was awarded the Democracy Award from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an erstwhile non-governmental organization formed in 1983 during the Reagan administration to assume control of CIA programs operating overseas designed to influence international public-private opinions and policies. The NED is funded by an annual grant from the United States Information Agency, and receives direct tasking from the US Congress regarding specific countries of interest to the United States. Ukraine has been designated as such a country.

In 2015, the NED was banned in Russia under a law targeting so-called “undesirable” international organizations.

It is not my position to question the motives of either Ms. Seminik, Ms. Gemenyuk, the Public Interest Journalism Lab, or the NED.

Likewise, Russian domestic policy is a matter for Russia and those impacted by it, including the NED.

However, one cannot pretend to turn a blind eye, as the Met does, to the fact that its most ardent proponent for the cultural cancellation of Russia in the Met is not a simple Ukrainian “art historian,” but rather a journalist-activist affiliated with a partisan Ukrainian organization that receives funding from a US government-controlled agency that has a chip on its shoulder against Russia for being evicted as “undesirable.”

By acting on Ms. Seminik’s passions regarding the re-classification of longstanding Russian artists as Ukrainian (something the Kiev Post has described as the “Decolonization of Ukrainian art”), the Met has allowed itself to become, wittingly or otherwise, a de facto tool of anti-Russian propaganda.

This is not the proper role of a major American cultural institution.

Here I will let the anger and frustration of the Russian Ambassador to the United States to manifest itself without comment:

Judging by the rhetoric of the American art beau monde, Vasily Kandinsky, a native of Moscow, and his works are next in line to be ‘ukrainized’. There is a heated discussion on whether the fact that he studied in Odessa is a good reason to treat him as a Ukrainian artist.

Here arises the question for the museum innovators who until recently admired Russian culture: why they has set about perverting historical reality only now? Isn’t this sudden “revelation” just a banal tribute to political fashion? Anyway, the time will come for the US cultural elite to sober up and be embarrassed of its doings.


Perhaps. But the reality is that what passes for culture today in America is anything but, especially when it comes to all things Russia. Liquor stores have poured “Russian” vodka out in protest of the Russian military incursion into Ukraine, ignorant of the fact that many of the brands they were disposing of originated from places other than Russia.

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Town officials in Hempstead, Long Island, pour out Vodka in protest against Russia

Other absurdities abound. The Miri Vanna, a well-known Washington, DC-based Russian restaurant, has renamed the famous “Moscow Mule” mixed drink (two parts vodka, three parts ginger ale, and a squeeze of lime juice) has become the “Kyiv Mule,” and the long-time Russian staple, borscht, has been redefined as “the masterpiece of Ukrainian cuisine.”

But the culture war against all things Russian has serious connotations as well. The Russia House, an established Washington, DC-based Russian restaurant, was vandalized in the weeks following the Russian incursion into Ukraine, leading the owners to shutter their doors for good (the restaurant, like many others, had temporarily closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.)

In New York City, the iconic Russian Samovar restaurant came under attack simply because of its name, forcing the owners to fly Ukrainian flags and profess their open support for Ukraine, lest they, too, be subject to attacks that would derail their business.

It is not just Russian culture that is being cancelled in the United States, but Russian people, including those dispatched to the United States by the Russian government for the singular task of improving relations between the two countries. A recent exposé published in Politico, entitled “Lonely Anatoly: The Russian ambassador is Washington’s least popular man,” observes that “Russia’s ambassador to the United States can’t get meetings with senior officials at the White House or the State Department. He can’t convince US lawmakers to see him, much less take a photo. It’s the rare American think tanker who’s willing to admit to having any contact with the envoy.”

Ambassador Antonov is not the only Russian official singled out for diplomatic isolation. In March 2022, at the request of the Ukrainian embassy’s defense attaché, the Canadian Embassy orchestrated a vote by the Defense Attachés’ Association, a professional and social organization for defense attachés and their spouses whose dean is selected by the Defense Intelligence Agency, to expel Major General Evgeny Bobkin, the Russian Military Attaché assigned to the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, from the group.

“It was hard to believe that xenophobia could take roots,” Ambassador Antonov observed, “in a state which is supposed to be resting on the principles of cultural and ethnical diversity and tolerance to different peoples. Nevertheless, US politicians not only encourage hatred of everything Russian, but actively implant it in the minds of citizens. In recent years, they have never stopped fabricating baseless accusations to justify tougher sanctions.”

One of the problems confronting the Russian government and people today is the quality of individuals that comprise what passes for “Russia experts” in America today. Gone are the days when men such as Jack Matlock, the former US Ambassador to Russia, or Stephen Cohen, the deceased Professor Emeritus of Russian and Slavic Studies who taught at Columbia, Princeton, and New York University, dominated the halls of academia and power. Both men possessed a deep appreciation of Russian history, culture, traditions, language, and politics. Erudite and tough, they articulated for better relations between Russia and the United States.

Today, they have been replaced by people like Michael McFaul, the former US Ambassador to Russia under Barack Obama, and Fiona Hill, a National Security Council “expert” on Russia in both the Obama and Trump White Houses. Both McFaul and Hill have expressed a Putin-centric approach when assessing Russia, where everything is explained through an incomplete and narrowly focused concentration on the Russian leader over the Russian nation.

The contrast between the approaches taken by Jack Matlock and Stephen Cohen, on the one hand, and Michael McFaul and Fiona Hill, on the other, could not be more stark; the first argued for bridging the differences through better understanding, and the other for managing differences through containment and isolation.

One promotes peaceful coexistence based upon principles of shared humanity.

The other promotes never-ending conflict fueled by Russophobia.

“Russian culture,” Ambassador Antonov concludes, “does not belong only to Russia. It is the world’s treasure. We know the Americans as appreciative connoisseurs of true art. Not so long ago tours of the troupes of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theatres as well as our renowned musicians drew packed houses and were always greeted with a storm of applause. The local audience is apparently longing for Russian performers and art exhibitions.”

“Isn’t it time to stop the Russophobic madness?,” the Russian Ambassador asks.

That, I believe, is the question that defines our times, and our collective fate.

Who among us will be the next Van Cliburn? Who will challenge the modern McCarthyism by refusing to bow to the insane pressures of Russophobia, and decide instead to engage with the Russian people as people, with full respect and admiration for their culture, heritage, traditions, and history? This journey doesn’t require a trip to Moscow. Defeating Russophobia begins here at home, simply by choosing not to buy in to the madness promulgated on the part of those who seek to promote conflict by promoting fear generated by ignorance.

When it comes to stopping the madness of Russophobia, there is no time like the present. Because if we allow fear-based prejudice to prevail, there may be no tomorrow.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... ica-today/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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