Russia today

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 11, 2020 1:33 pm

In Novosibirsk, "United Russia" takes votes from their party members
09/10/2020
Party of crooks and thieves

In Novosibirsk on September 13 elections to the Legislative Assembly of the region and the city council of deputies will take place. In addition to the usual division of districts and threats towards opponents, very strange events are taking place .

In Novosibirsk, "United Russia" takes votes from their party members

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In the Soviet district ( akademgorodok ) of the city in courtyards and universities, announcements of easy earnings began to appear. As it turned out, in order to earn money (from 500 to 1000 rubles) , you need to participate in the elections. All this is organized by the United Russia party. Moreover, you can vote for any candidate, the main thing is to take an absentee ballot ( that is, vote not at the place of registration ) and vote at a specific polling station No. 1944 of constituency No. 36. That is, they urged people to disassociate themselves in favor of District 36 from neighboring districts. However, "United Russia" go to both 36 and 37 districts (where there was an ad with a call to earn money). What does United Russia want to achieve?

The current deputy of the Legislative Assembly from United Russia, Alexei Andreev, is running in this district . In the intra-party primaries, he lost about 100 votes to the director and owner of the Edem TV and radio company Vladislav Plotnikov , who is now running on the party's list . That is, the party leadership changed its decision after the primaries and allowed Aleksey Andreev to be nominated .

It is noteworthy that Andrei Andreev, the brother of deputy Alexei, was nominated in district No. 36 as a self-nominated candidate . As it turned out, Andrei Andreev should have received a million rubles from Plotnikov if he simply registered in the elections. Andrei did not know that he would go against his brother.

He gets that one candidate from United Russia, for the sake of his own victory, is ready to substitute his colleagues in the party, and also puts a spoke in the wheels of his past opponents. Election of deputies at all levels is always a division of spheres of influence, and representatives of the ruling party have their own interests in specific areas. Should workers trust such candidates who are only interested in getting a mandate ? Why would they care about the needs of the citizens?

https://www.rotfront.su/v-novosibirske- ... biraet-go/

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sat Sep 12, 2020 5:37 pm

THE CURRENT IMPASSE IN BELARUS AND THE PEACE ALTERNATIVE
Posted by Roger Harris | Sep 10, 2020 | Featured Stories | 0

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The Current Impasse in Belarus and the Peace Alternative
By Roger D. Harris
September 8, 2020

Back in the 1970s, the left and even many liberals were clear that Nixon’s dropping napalm on Vietnamese villages was an abomination. By the 1990s, some thought Bill Clinton’s bombing of Yugoslavia was, perhaps, humanitarian. Fast forward to the present, there is sentiment that the US has a global “responsibility to protect” the less enlightened lands in the name of “democracy.” Some on the liberal-left fail to recognize the fallacy of what Jean Bricmont exposes as “humanitarian imperialism – using human rights to sell war.”
In response to a peace organization advocating no foreign intervention in the internal affairs of Belarus, a US commentator protested: “[T]here has been no US intervention in the country. There’s nothing wrong, intrinsically, with external support of democracy. Your support for someone who seems like a bloody dictator is dismaying.” So, several inevitable questions arise. What is a dictator? Has there been foreign intervention in Belarus? Who has the right to intervene? And does advocating non-intervention implicitly support a presumptive dictator?
The Belarusian presidential election as a catalyst for regime change
Opposition elements in Belarus had long planned to use the September 9 presidential election as a catalyst for regime change. Their main base is with upwardly mobile white-collar professionals. However, they would have not been able to rally the tens of thousands of demonstrators had there not been broad and genuine discontent with President Alexander Lukashenko.
Elements of the opposition leadership in Belarus are partly financed by the European Union and the US and reflect those political interests. They have adopted the red and white flag, flown during the Nazi occupation. Their Resuscitation Reform Package, modeled after a nearly identical program for Ukraine, calls for the complete neoliberal privatization of the economy and an alignment with the NATO west.
Exit polls, conducted by the opposition, were cited to claim gross electoral fraud with Lukashenko garnering only 3% of the vote. Other observers accepted that Lukashenko won a majority but not by the official count of 80%. Golos, a pro-opposition election monitoring organization using data collected by US-backed youth organizations, reported Lukashenko winning with 61.7%.
BBC News laments that the election in Belarus had “no independent observers invited.” Yet there was an election observation delegation from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which reported the August 9 election “was open and competitive and ensured that Belarus citizens could freely express their will.” But the CIS report did not have the kind conclusion or “independence” sought by the BBC, itself a quasi-governmental corporation of the British state and funded by a mandatory state levy.
The voices of political tendencies and parties in Belarus and elsewhere in Europe that consider themselves socialist or communist, but are critical of their home governments, are excluded by western media. Even leftish outlets such as Democracy Now! follow the flag repeating the US/NATO regime change narrative, without providing alternative views. DN! laments the “massive crackdown on any kind of independent reporting” in Belarus, while serving as an information gatekeeper in the homeland of the empire.
Objectively, no one authoritatively knows the real outcome of the vote.

Convenient definitions of a dictator

Being unelected or fraudulently elected is not the only definition of a dictator. The functional definition for the US government is a leader disloyal to the empire.
Washington considers the democratically elected President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro a dictator. While Juan Guaidó, who proclaimed himself president of Venezuela on a Caracas street corner and was immediately recognized by the US government, is considered a legitimate head of state.
The monarch of Saudi Arabia is considered legitimate by Washington, even though the ruling House of Saud does not even bother to conduct sham elections. This is a country where women do not have basic rights, where slavery is practiced, and where those who run afoul with the law are routinely beheaded. But Saudi Arabia is the largest purchaser of US military equipment in the world, eclipsing the next contender by a factor of 2.6. So, the Saudi monarch is not on the official US list of dictators.
Then there are the leaders chosen and installed by the US after coups, such as Ukraine in 2014. There, the US literally handpicked the post-coup leader for Ukraine from a rogue’s gallery of neo-Nazis.
Intervention in Belarus by the West
The US does not have boots on the ground in Belarus and, so far, has refrained from drone attacks on funerals or wedding parties. Despite this praiseworthy restraint by the world’s sole superpower, it would be wrong to assume that the US is not intervening in Belarus. A US hybrid warfare program has been in effect since at least 2004 when the US passed the Belarus Democracy Act creating anti-government NGOs in Belarus and prohibiting loans.
Belarus is under unilateral US sanctions, illegal under international law, but justified by a presidential declaration, which bogusly claims a “national emergency” because Belarus “constitute[s] an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
The USAID, the above-ground face of the CIA, states in Orwellian language the US regime change plans for Belarus:
“[P]romote the emergence of a…market-oriented Belarus…USAID works…to stimulate the country’s transition to a market-based economy through programs that support…private business.”
Such is the imperial mindset that the US brazenly takes upon itself to “transition” a supposedly sovereign state into a neoliberal dependency.
The website of the quasi-governmental National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA cutout, lists some three dozen current projects in Belarus for what are euphemistically called strengthening “independent” online media, civil society, culture, and public discourse. NED’s years of hard work were on display in the media sophistication of the opposition in Belarus.
The runner-up in the Belarus presidential election with 10% of the official vote, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, fled to Lithuania, where she met with US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun. Although self-described as apolitical with no prior political experience, she proclaimed herself ready to lead Belarus. Indeed the 37-year-old has all the qualifications for a puppet president, being photogenic and speaking English. On September 4, she addressed the UN Security Council calling for punishing sanctions on her own people.
The European Union is playing an even more overt role in promoting regime change in Belarus and is planning to extend sanctions. The openly anti-Semitic government of Poland, with which Belarus shares a border, has an irredentist interest in “recovering” portions of the country which were once part of a Polish empire.

The Russian legacy
Belarus was a Soviet republic, which did not become a sovereign country until 1990 after the breakup of the USSR. Belarus has strong historical and cultural affinities with its Russian neighbor to the east. Some 70% of Belarusians speak Russian at home. In 2000, Belarus and Russia established the Union State, a supranational confederation for economic integration and common defense.
The US and the European Union yearn to use the color revolution in Belarus to complete the military occupation of Russia’s western border. Belarus is the last piece in that puzzle now that Latvia and Estonia are in the NATO camp and Ukraine is on its way.
Russia’s involvement has largely been in reaction to this hostile military encirclement. Escalation of tensions only motivates Russia to be more defensive. The best antidote to Russian intrusion is détente rather than a new cold war. Besides, the government that the US peace movement can best influence is its own.

The current impasse in Belarus

The color revolution in Belarus is now stalled and the opposing forces appear to be stalemated. Without getting into a debate over Lukashenko, the salient question is how the working people of Belarus can best determine their destiny.
The opposition claims Lukashenko’s 26-year rule of Belarus has degenerated with questionable elections, mismanagement, and corruption. But the cure could be worse than the disease, as in the case of Libya, especially if it is left up to the tender mercies of the US empire to dictate the new “democratic” leader and the form of government to follow.
Belarus has enjoyed a low level of unemployment, public housing, almost no homelessness, and accessible and affordable healthcare and education. These social welfare factors compare favorably to the harsh neoliberal austerity and civil disintegration of its neighbors, now drawn into the NATO bloc. The critical issue is how can the Belarusians defend their gains in a contentious international milieu.
Tony Kevin, the former Australian ambassador to Poland, sums up the current impasse:
“Belarus is at risk, because in the Lukashenko political twilight there is confusion and fear: the people have lost their ideological moorings, and there is no coherent national vision as was recovered in Russia under Vladimir Putin starting in 2000. Belarusians hopefully are coming to see the danger they will be in if they depose Lukashenko without knowing what comes after.”
Regardless of what the security forces might do, Lukashenko could easily be deposed if the workers in the major industrial enterprises went on a wildcat strike. Some discontented workers have walked off their jobs, but a majority look to the cautionary examples of the turncoat Solidarity in Poland, the sellout Yeltsin in Russia, and the neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
In those and other examples, state enterprises were sold off at bargain basement prices to new oligarchs and western financiers. Factory equipment was ransacked, work forces drastically downsized, and labor rights abrogated. Absent the specter of another US-backed coup like in Ukraine with its severe neoliberal austerity, Lukashenko would likely have been history.

The peace alternative – no foreign intervention in Belarus

The principle of non-intervention is enshrined in the UN Charter. There is no unilateral right to intervene into the internal affairs of another sovereign state. The greatest violator of this fundamental international law is the world’s sole superpower. The consequence, according to the late Uruguayan political analyst Eduardo Galeano has been: “Every time the US ‘saves’ a country, it converts it into either an insane asylum or a cemetery.”
A non-interventionist stance should not be confused with an endorsement of Lukashenko. Opposing US/NATO interventionism is no more an endorsement of Lukashenko than opposing the invasion of Iraq was an endorsement of Saddam Hussein. Belarus needs more than the binary choice of Lukashenko and the failed Ukrainian option. To have that space requires no foreign intervention in Belarus.
For those of us in the US, that means keeping our own government from fishing in troubled waters and letting the people of Belarus decide. They have the power and don’t need to be told what democracy looks like by those of us who will choose between Trump or Biden in November.

Roger D. Harris is with the Task Force on the Americas, a human rights group working in solidarity with the social justice movements in Latin America and the Caribbean since 1985. Two of his grandparents were from Belarus.

https://mltoday.com/the-current-impasse ... ternative/
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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sun Sep 13, 2020 10:42 pm

The architects proposed to bury Lenin and turn the mausoleum into an art object
12.09.2020
New information attack on the revolution

Within the framework of the Zodchestvo festival, the Union of Architects of Russia launched a competition to create the best concept for the use of the Vladimir Lenin mausoleum on Red Square. The organizers are trying to get a "bank of ideas for re-use" of the structure. In any case, the implementation of the project is impossible without burying the body of the politician.


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Lenin's Mausoleum, 1924
The organizing committee said that Lenin's presence in the mausoleum "in the very heart of the country, which has realized the historical mistakes of the past, contradicts modern ideas about fixing" eternal memory "and is a violation of the Russian Orthodox tradition, as well as the will of the leader himself."
When the architects realized that they were stepping into the soil of a long-standing political conflict, the rhetoric changed somewhat.

The head of the Union of Architects Nikolai Shumakov noted that this is not a political competition, and that the initiative is aimed, on the contrary, at protecting the mausoleum from demolition. In his opinion, the work of the Soviet architect Alexei Shchusev should remain on Red Square, but with a different functionality.

“We are not going to demolish or take out Lenin's body, we are trying to architecturally comprehend how the mausoleum can be used in the very situation when Lenin’s body will be taken out in 50 years. We are very worried about the fate of the mausoleum, because lately there have been some attempts to demolish it, ”Shumakov said.

The organizing committee proposes to transform the mausoleum into a branch of the Museum of Russian Architecture on Vozdvizhenka, telling within the walls of the building about the history of design and construction of plywood, wooden and granite versions of the mausoleum.

The jury of the competition will represent the country's highest state and cultural elite. The organizers invited the Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova , the head of the Fair Russia party Sergei Mironov , the writer Alexander Prokhanov , film director Alexander Sokurov and others.

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Closed plywood Lenin's mausoleum

One way or another, the issue of an alternative way of using Lenin's mausoleum has long been on the agenda. Every year on May 9, the mausoleum, a symbol of Victory for a Soviet veteran - a patriot of his country, is nailed down with plywood . In the media and modern film production, the propaganda of Nazism does not subside - every now and then in the speeches of government officials and pro-Kremlin journalists, phrases appear about the innocence of fascists, saboteurs and collaborators: Karl Mannerheim , Helmut von Panwitz , Peter Krasnov , Andrei Vlasov and others. Every year, the state Cinema Fund sponsors anti-Soviet films: "To Paris!"

The provocation of the Union of Architects of Russia is not accidental. Being a strong link in the array of anti-Soviet state propaganda, the competition is designed to reveal the protest sentiments of Russians and the scale of the “leftward” of society during the period of the most severe economic crisis. The symbol of Vladimir Lenin for capital is only a way to answer the question: are we ready to continue to endure hopeless poverty , mass unemployment , children's hunger , the barbarization of culture and art, the blackening of the history of our country.

https://www.rotfront.su/arhitektory-pre ... horonit-l/

Some commentary:
Counter offer - to bury the architects and turn their burial into an art object

The problem has two sides. If Vladimir Ilyich wanted to be buried next to his mother at the Volkov cemetery, then his wish must be fulfilled. But in the current situation, the removal of Lenin from the Mausoleum is an attempt by anti-Sovietists to dance on the bones of the communists. This cannot be allowed. Therefore, it is necessary to strive for the removal of Lenin's body from the Mausoleum to be postponed until the victory of the new socialist revolution.
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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Wed Sep 16, 2020 1:20 pm

Pensioners started looking for work more actively
09/16/2020
The beastly grin of capitalism

In 2020, the number of pensioners looking for work increased by 32% . Such data was recently published by the Avito Rabota analytical center .

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Pensioners are forced to look for work

Apparently, the rise in prices for food and utility services is forcing older people to look for a part-time job. The minimum pension in Russia today is 12,130 rubles, and the average is just over 14,000 rubles. Taking into account the fact that in some regions a communal apartment alone can reach up to 7-10 thousand per month, it becomes impossible to live on one pension.

According to Avito Rabota , 45% of retirees who post their resumes are looking for a full-time job. At the same time, their salary expectations are very modest: on average, job seekers expect a salary of 20 thousand rubles.

More often than not, older people view work as domestic staff ( 24% ) or as a promoter and advertiser. But even such work is hard for pensioners today. Due to the economic crisis and pandemic, the unemployment rate in the country has risen by 32.7% over the year, and older job seekers have many younger competitors. Taking into account the recent increase in the retirement age, the situation will only get worse.

Unfortunately, under the capitalist structure of the economy, pensioners, in fact, become superfluous people. As employees, they are not very interesting to employers - you won't earn much on them. And as consumers, old people are only interesting to pharmaceutical companies.

As we see from world practice and history, only the state can provide pensioners with a decent standard of living, the main purpose of which is to support the entire population, and not a small handful of moneybags, as is the case in our country now. And while everything remains as it is, our old people, unfortunately, have nothing to count on.

https://www.rotfront.su/pensionery-nach ... -iskat-ra/

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Preferential mortgage accelerates the growth of housing prices in new buildings
09/15/2020
Big capital uses even the crisis to its advantage

In the summer of 2020, prices for apartments in new buildings grew twice as fast as in the secondary market, TASS reports, citing the results of a study by analysts from Sberbank and the Domclick service . Experts say that one of the reasons for the outstripping growth is the operation of the preferential mortgage program at 6.5% , which applies only to primary housing.

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The program of preferential mortgages at 6.5% per annum for home buyers in new buildings was approved by the Government of the Russian Federation in April 2020 with the aim of supporting Russians who want to improve their living conditions and the construction industry, which is faced with a falling demand for housing and an outflow of citizens' money due to the economy and the spread of the coronavirus.

The study notes that the cost per square meter in July-August 2020 on average across the country was 3% higher than a year ago. The quotation on the primary market is growing by 6.2% (in July-August 2020 compared to the same period in 2019). At the same time, in the secondary market for the year, housing prices have grown by only 3%.

Big business will always find a way to maintain (or even increase) their income. The problems of the poor do not interest him. And now the "preferential mortgage" has not become a "boon" for poor working people. Against the background of rising unemployment and falling wages, the cost per square meter continues to creep up, and the decrease in the interest rate only naturally accelerated this process, keeping prices for new buildings practically at the same level. Even such high-ranking officials as the general director of the financial institute Dom.RF, Vitaly Mutko, no longer hide the inaccessibility of buying a home for almost half of Russians .

While there is a bourgeois state in Russia, the working people should not hope that their lives will dramatically improve. Workers can make housing truly affordable only by taking power into their own hands.

https://www.rotfront.su/lgotnaya-ipotek ... t-tsen-na/

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sun Oct 04, 2020 8:39 pm

Glazyev publicly supported Fomenko's pseudoscientific chronology
03.10.2020
New national myth about the greatness of Russia

In mid-September, Academician and former adviser to the Russian president, Sergei Glazyev, published an article entitled “Spirituality - an economic category,” which first appeared in the newspaper Voenno-Promyshlenniy Kurier. In the publication, the scientist supports the pseudoscientific theory of the historical chronology of Anatoly Fomenko and Gleb Nosovsky .

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Academician Sergei Glazyev with Russian President Vladimir Putin

“It is necessary to quickly debunk these myths and eradicate them from the public consciousness, which should feel pride in the glorious past. A scientific approach based on a mathematical analysis of historical facts, events, texts can help in this. This analysis, carried out by the outstanding Russian mathematician A. Fomenko, refuted the mythology of the Middle Ages and the Ancient World rooted in the public consciousness, and allowed him to substantiate a new chronology, ”writes Glazyev.

The academician notes that "the existing historical myths clearly belittle the role of the Russian people in the history of mankind." The former presidential advisor calls the Varangian theory of the origin of Russian statehood, "composed by German pseudo-historians", "absurd", without citing any references to the sources to prove this idea.

However, if the question with the Varangians in scientific historiography is still open - experts argue about the ethnicity of the Varangians and the historical veracity of the chronicle, then later events like the Tatar-Mongol invasion do not cause controversy: there was a yoke, and it annoyed not only Russia, but and the eastern regions of Europe in the XIII-XV centuries.

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Authors of the pseudoscientific theory of "New Chronology" Anatoly Fomenko and Gleb Nosovsky

The authors of the pseudoscientific theory of "New Chronology" Anatoly Fomenko and Gleb Nosovsky
What does Sergei Glazyev think about this?

“Subsequently, at the suggestion of French pseudo-historians, a myth about the Tatar-Mongol yoke, absurd in its name, was launched, invented at the end of the same 18th century by a Polish Jesuit,” the academician believes.

In addition, the Bolsheviks were again to blame for the Great Deception.

"The meaning of this ideological sabotage, taken up by Soviet historiography, was to create a slavish image of the Russian people, accustomed to oppression and despotism, from which the Bolsheviks allegedly liberated them," explains Glazyev.

According to the scientist, it was the Russian-Horde Empire that controlled Eurasia, and the reconstruction of history carried out by new chronologists "puts the Russian world at its proper height."

“The Western European states could not give the Russian world any achievements of civilization, since they appeared only as a result of the collapse of the Russian-Horde Empire. They grew up on its wreckage and using the socio-economic infrastructure created by it, ”the academician does not provide these amazing conclusions with references to sources.

"New Chronology" is the most famous theory of alternative history in Russia. The authors of the "chronology" believe that 90% of human history is deception.

“No civilizations existed before the 10th century, all dating methods are wrong, most of the written sources are fake or misread. Archaeological monuments are fakes, and only mathematics helps to find out the truth ”, - such a description of“ New Chronology ”was given by the skeptic Mikhail Lidin on his YouTube channel.

If you are still not familiar with the wonderful world of New Chronology, you can see a short overview.


Sergei Glazyev is a well-known politician and statesman, who in recent years has left the president's inner circle. The academician writes articles and participates in scientific and political forums, as well as in the work of the Eurasian Economic Commission. Glazyev 's report “Speech on urgent measures to counter threats to the existence of Russia,” published in 2015, caused a furor in the circles of patriotic Russian citizens.

Today the academician is throwing a new antiscientific challenge to the scientific community, but will eminent scientists want to refute once again the long- disproved myths of the Fomenko-Nosovsky theory? And if not, then who will stop a new round of rewriting the history of our country? As the famous theorist of Nazi agitprop used to say, a lie repeated a thousand times becomes true.

https://www.rotfront.su/glazev-publichn ... zhenauchn/

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jfc, shades of the Proud Boys. The contradictions of capitalism generate this nonsense. It is the same in India.Dank Gott for the Communist Party of China.
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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Thu Oct 08, 2020 12:56 pm

Belarus: how it has come to date

by Luscino

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Thucydides said, positively evaluating Pericles who managed to soothe the excitement of the Athenians and the complaints against his government: "in words it was a democracy, but in fact the government of the first citizen" (Stories, II, 65,10). Thus one could evaluate Lukashenko's work over the last abundant twenty years, at least up to the last protests carried out by the opposition, which managed to mobilize a significant number of Belarusians against the government.

In the most prosaic fora of Western propaganda Lukashenko has been defined for years as "the last dictator of Europe". And it does not matter if in the governments of the "first citizens" of the West in the anti-government protests the demonstrators are brutalized and crippled (as in the regime of the first citizen Macron), or in the USA the target practice of African American is now the national sport of policemen, if bloody repressions in pro-American Colombia indiscriminately strike the protesters in the total silence of the aforementioned Western media: all the eyes of these sincere democrats are on the last dictator of Europe. Aleksandr Lukashenko, in fact. But to understand how the first Belarusian citizen lost his talent as a mediator and his hold on the masses, it is good to make a brief excursus on the Belarusian political history of the last decades.

THE LIQUIDATION OF THE USSR AND THE GREAT LEAP BACKWARD

In 1988 the destructive attention of the liquidators of the Soviet Union, headed by the secretary of the CPSU Gorbachev, had turned to the institutional and political structure of the organs of the Republic. In December of that year, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR approved its formal suppression by giving a mandate to the newly created "Congress of People's Deputies" - a sort of general assembly elected by universal suffrage of 2250 members divided by categories (institutional bodies, trade unions, cooperatives, company representatives, scientists, etc.…) - to elect from among its members an assembly of 542 deputies similarly called the "Supreme Soviet" which was to act as a permanent parliament. This new Supreme Soviet, substantially different from the original one resulting from the constitution of 1936 which had 1500 members before its suppression, went to abolish that permanent collegial body (which also served as the "Head of State" of the Republic) it was the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, replacing it with the figure of the President of the Supreme Soviet, the head of the assembly with the function of Head of State.

It should be noted that in this new assembly, for the first time, the worker element was practically nil, while company managers, intellectuals and other categories, even the prelates, acquired more and more representation. Furthermore, for the first time, the independent candidates, present since the 1930s, no longer appeared as a coalition block with the CPSU. The nascent bourgeoisie of what had been the first socialist country in history got rid of the institutional snares of the Union, and if "after a thorough study of the experience of the two Russian revolutions, Lenin, inspired by the theory of Marxism, came to the conclusion that the the best political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat is not the democratic parliamentary republic, but the republic of the Soviets " (1) the deputies of the Gorbachevian Supreme Soviet made the coffin of the USSR the cradle of the bourgeois republic.

This brief digression on the institutional structure of the last years of the USSR has its importance in the economics of the discussion due to the fact that the individual Soviet republics adopted the same institutional body, on a scale, of the Union, since they too were replaced the old bodies with Supreme Soviets by way of national parliaments of which the figure of the head of the assembly will assume the role of Head of State in the governments of independent nations: he was president of the Russian Supreme Soviet Yeltsin, of the Ukrainian one Kravchuk and Shushkevich of the Belarusian, the three who, in December 1991, signed the dissolution of the USSR and were the first presidents of their independent nations.

In March 1990, the elections of the counter-reformed Belarusian Supreme Soviet gave rise to an assembly that saw in principle the prevalence of the liquidating Soviet bureaucracy, together with elements hostile to the counter-reforms, which we could define as the last representatives of the old power, and about a ten percent of deputies openly bourgeois and independent with respect to the Belarusian Communist Party who referred to the fierce, albeit minority among the masses, "Belarusian Popular Front, Adradzhennie" (BNF). The latter was a jumble of all anti-communist and ultra-nationalist elements similar to other civic movements, some later became real parties, which took hold in the Baltic republics (Sajudis in Lithuania, Tautas in Latvia, Rahvarinne in Estonia) and the Narodnyi Rukh in Ukraine,

The BNF - from the now well-known red and white banner of the Belarusian puppet states created by the Germans in the territories occupied in 1918 and subsequently during the Nazi aggression of the USSR - after the elections for the Belarusian Soviet it could count on about thirty deputies out of 360 and had independence from the Soviet Union and the classic "reforms" as a political agenda. In the political and economic field, the privatization of state enterprises, the implementation of wild capitalism and the total liquidation of Soviet institutions to replace them with a pure bourgeois parliament. In the cultural field, the equally classic “reforms” of abolition of the Russian language, of criminalization of the Soviet past and of glorification of the reactionary and ultra-nationalist elements of the country's history;

The stubborn action of this nationalist bloc, which naturally enjoyed enormous sympathies in Western fora, much more than at home, clashed with an assembly that proceeded by inertia, mostly following the twists and turns of the crackling neighbors (Yeltsin and Baltics in the lead) frustrating the efforts of the sincere democrats of the BNF, which however, in the wake of similar events in Russia, had managed to get the Belarusian Soviet to adopt a formal declaration of independence in July 1990. At the time, the president of that assembly was Nikolay Dementey, a communist hostile to the new liquidation course and elegantly defenestrated when he joined the famous attempted "coup d'etat" in the USSR in August 1991. This crucial event, how much useless, in reality it was not a real coup as narrated by sacred history. Rather, as the anti-communist liberal Sergio Romano honestly reports, it was an attempt by the major figures of the Soviet state, now increasingly deprived of authority, to react to the state of affairs and assert their legitimate prerogatives.(2) in the face of the real putschists - later transformed into democratic heroes together with their sober and combative captain Yeltsin - who, counting on the dualism of power that had formed thanks to the "progressive" Gorbachevian reforms, were pushing more and more towards disintegration total state.

Therefore the feats of the reformers, as the prevailing historiography calls the liquidators of the USSR, had given oxygen to the BNF which, despite the anti-Soviet zeal, was unable to dig a spider out of the hole at home: its "reformer" colleagues were hostile to it, but more moderates who did not allow him to advance politically in the assembly, and the masses who in March 1991 had voted 83% (the highest percentage among the European republics) for the maintenance of the Soviet Union were hostile to him. The failed attempt to stop the collapse of the USSR in August 1991 marked de factothe end of the Union, with the national governments that this time, not only formally, declared independence. In Belarus, Prime Minister Kebich noted the honor of this "heroic" act, simultaneously suspending the activity of the now dying Communist Party of government, after similar actions by Russians, Ukrainians, etc. Meanwhile, the defenestrated Dementey was succeeded by Shuschkevich at the head of the still Soviet (and therefore of the state). He was a scientist who had the task of signing the de jure passing of the USSR together with the Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in December 1991 and the birth of the useless initials CSI (Commonwealth of Independent States).

The efforts of the ultra-nationalists, despite these positive events to their cause, continued to be frustrated by the moderatism of the parliament (still nominally "Soviet") which, always proceeding by inertia, did not decide to embark on hasty electoral processes and maneuvers of economic brutalization of the new Belarusian Republic. This is also due to the fact that the lines that were emerging in neighboring countries imposed on the new parliament a caution that will prove to be providential: in Lithuania the former members of the Communist Party, recycled after the ban in the "Democratic Labor Party",

The new Belarusian bourgeoisie represented in various capacities in the Soviet, with the exception of the BNF hawks who pushed for total liquidation, continued to postpone the elections of the new bourgeois national assembly and the new government. Despite this, also thanks to the pressure of the nationalists, Parliament approved the privatization laws of state enterprises, albeit not in full, and the introduction of the bourgeois constitution which provided for the establishment of the office of President of the Republic as head of government instead of that of prime minister thus transforming Belarus into a presidential republic; they also succeeded in imposing the scheduling of presidential elections for the year 1994. These were held, therefore, as planned, in June 1994 and saw the blatant statement of the head of the anti-corruption commission of the Belarusian Soviet, Aleksandr Lukashenko, who collected 45% of the preferences in the first round, far exceeding the outgoing Prime Minister V. Kebich (17%), the leader of the BNF, the Christian ultranationalist Z. Pazniak (13%) and former President Shushkevich (10%), the communist heirs of the PCB, banned but reconstituted as the "Party of Belarusian Communists" collected 4.5% . In the second round even Lukashenko was elected with an overwhelming 80%. With this electoral affirmation, Lukashenko's government, which is now more than twenty years old, reconfirmed according to the deadline, began.

STRUCTURE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF POST-SOVIET BELARUS

Right from the start, Lukashenko's government distinguished itself from most of the post-Soviet regimes established in the other former socialist republics. First of all he restored all the historical emblems of Soviet Belarus (flag, emblem and national holidays: despite having appropriately "expunged" the communist symbols), he curbed the enthusiasm of the looters of state property and moved decisively towards open cooperation with Russia, much to be signed in 1996 basic agreements for a state union which, despite many contradictions, steps back and forth, was reinforced in 1999 - which led to a strong economic, political and military partnership between the two nations - and it still proceeds towards perspectives, still not fully clear, of further integration.

While in Russia and Ukraine the 90 'passed in the most atrocious social and human devastation, the state capitalist government of Lukashenko managed to spare the Belarusians the tragedies of countries where oligarchs, political bandits and real mafia thrived in the paradise of new Far West . Ukraine was consumed by a gang war for control of the national economy, with shady subjects like P. Lazarenko - a trait-d'union with the local underworld and high political circles - taking the lion's share of paving the way. to the looting and political power of fictional characters such as the well-known Timoshenko (3). Belarus was not subjected to such tearing forces, and it was equally spared the mafia, terrorist and war season that the Russian citizens had to suffer thanks to the new course inaugurated by Yeltsin.

Thus, in a condition of greater political stability, Belarus was able to take a substantially different socio-economic path from that of its neighbors. Russia in 1994 was in full liquidation and was transformed from one of the largest industrial countries in the world into an importer of low value goods and exporter of raw materials. Over 70% of the workers of medium and large state enterprises (and 100% of the small ones) had become salaried under private owners, new native and foreign sharks made their way by blowing up that fig leaf that were the farcical "distributions" and / or sales of shares of state-owned companies to employees - the government promptly legislated so that the new oligarchs (of any size) could gobble up everything without the slightest hindrance(4) .

Lukashenko for his part, introduced Belarus into capitalism at very slow steps, still, although the share is slowly decreasing, over 50% of the Belarusian economy is in the hands of the state, with large industrial complexes such as Minski Traktarny Zavod ( MTZ) - flagship of the Soviet tractor industry, and one of the most important companies in the world in the sector - which manages to guarantee its more than 30,000 workers even top-level corporate health care, company kindergartens, summer camps, cultural etc. (5) . The welfareBelarusian guaranteed by this mixed system, has generally allowed Belarusians to have living conditions far superior to their neighbors, to have, for example, a per capita income (at purchasing power parity; Bank data World) of 20 thousand dollars, compared to about half of Ukraine and Moldova. Furthermore, unlike all the others and even higher than in Western European countries, the rate of inequality in Belarus remained at very low levels, only 0.8% live in a situation of poverty (less than 5.50 $ per day) against an EU average of 2.9%, or for example 4% in Lithuania, 2.7% in Russia and Poland, 6% in Ukraine (not to mention Moldova, Armenia and Georgia, respectively 16%, 50% and 43%).

Of course this does not mean that the Belarusian economy is bursting with health, a large slice of the economy is in the hands of individuals, moreover the entry, albeit contingent, of foreign capital is becoming increasingly important, especially in the hi-tech sector: Belarus built a theme park, a kind of Silicon Valley to attract large private companies thanks to the low cost of a highly educated workforce (also praised by Pompeo in his last visit) (6). But if the latter sector could in some ways represent a driver of technological development for the country, the same cannot be said of the dependence on fuel exports, a sector of enormous importance for the Belarusian economy and at the center of long-standing questions of love and hate with Russia. In fact, Belarusian exports are based for more than 20% (about $ 8bn out of 33 total) on refined oil and other fuel products, imported from Russia (the remainder of imports are based on other chemicals, heavy machinery, agricultural products and textiles) (7). This relationship full of ups and downs, and the main reason for friction between the two countries, has tended to be marked by a privileged exchange of these products by Russia, which sold gas to Belarus - until the 2007 crisis (8) - for 46 $ per 1000 m / 3 against $ 290, for example in Germany. This is also due to the Customs Union between the two countries and a close relationship which also provides for strong military cooperation - although there are no bases, there are Russian military installations in Belarus, and on the other hand Belarus participates as a supplier. to the Russian military-industrial complex (9) .

The gas crisis of 2006-2007 was effectively smoothed out with an increase in tariffs for Belarus (up to $ 100 against the $ 200 requested by Gazprom) and a whole series of clauses that put a stop to the "subsidies" that Russia paid to Belarus thanks to the preferential lanes on the price of gas, and yet it was not completely resolved, so much so that it was repeated even more harshly with the so-called "fiscal maneuver" launched by the Russians, which full introduction should close in 2024. This maneuver provides for the gradual abolition of the duty on the export of gas for Russian companies and the simultaneous increase in the tax on extraction, a mechanism to subsidize their own oil refineries, to the obvious detriment of the Belarusian ones.

This great loss for the Belarusian economy, already underway but potentially even greater, is at the basis of the attitudes by some considered fuming, if not really schizophrenic, by Lukashenko. The latter actually, at great risk, tried to put pressure on the Russian counterpart by fearing openings to the West, which ultimately would not benefit either of them but would still have the function of prodding the older brother - a naturally strong part of the ongoing relationship - to have less dominant attitudes towards Belarus. In short, a reckless attempt to safeguard the independence of the country, also and precisely by virtue of that State Union which, although stranded, has been on the table for twenty years and although hoped for by both, could result in an annexation without indemnity for Belarus. . In this regard, last year Lukashenko himself reiterated in a meeting: “what to do with the Union? We need to sit down at a table and see what we can do together. Union can only be formed on an equal footing. It is a basic principle of any union: no fair basis - no union. Otherwise it would be an annexation of the weak by the stronger weak, or an incorporation. "(10)

This state of affairs also leads to clarifying many aspects of the current crisis. The economic crisis that would potentially hit Belarus from the loss of the "royalties" of oil refining would lead to a progressive unsustainability of the welfare that the Belarusian system was able to guarantee to its citizens and would undermine the position of Lukashenko who would find himself squeezed between two fires : the advance of the never subdued opposition of the internal liquidating bourgeoisie supported by Western imperialism, and the Russian interest in advancing its hegemonic claims on Belarus. The conditional, mandatory until a few months ago, is no longer such.

POLITICAL DIALECTIC : THE PRESIDENT, THE PROTESTS AND THE COMMUNISTS

Before describing the current situation and having outlined the main issues of Russian-Belarusian relations, it is good to do the same by outlining the appetites of the internal opposition and the state of the latter over the past two decades. In the years following the first election of Lukashenko (1994) and the referendum approval of the amendments to the Constitution (1996) the liberal-conservative oppositions grouped around the aforementioned Belarusian Popular Front (BNF), and which had played a large part (despite having a very low popular consensus) in the first years of independence, they experienced a moment of disorganization, also due to internal feuds, which led towards a split in the party towards the end of the decade. This also meant a relative calm from external pressures for Lukashenko and Belarus, pressures and interests that the BNF inevitably coagulated around itself, so much so that the 2001 elections took place without too many tensions, if not the usual accusations of irregularities by the imperialist powers that will become a constant from there on. Lukashenko won abundantly by overcoming the opponent Goncharik.

However, for the elections still subsequent, ie those of 2006, the situation changed decisively on the anti-government front. For a couple of years, in fact, an opposition movement had been regrouping, laden with the old ultra-nationalist tools, although once again cloaked in civic-democratic inspiration - then the trademark of that season of colored revolutions that will fall on the post- Soviet (and not only). The fuse that rekindled the opposition in Belarus was the 2004 referendum with which Lukashenko tried to secure an extension of his mandate by being able to run for the third consecutive time. The overwhelming victory in favor of Lukashenko, led to the first post-electoral protests, which later became rituals, and to the creation of "civic" movements such as "Popular Coalition 5 plus",* will be created in China in 2008 around the pro-American Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo). The popular consents that these movements received were very scarce, but sufficient to mobilize a few thousand people and establish themselves in the eyes of Western imperialism as a bridgehead for subsequent upheavals.

These materialized, as anticipated, at the end of the 2006 presidential elections which again saw Lukashenko largely triumphant against the ultra-nationalist opposition candidate Aleksander Milinkevich. The latter coagulated all the platforms, movements and parties mentioned above in the “United Democratic Front of Belarus”. After the elections, the opposition, led in the field by the newly born youth movement "Zubr", an outlet of the "Otpor!" by Gene Sharp, theorist of color revolutions, set up the first official revolution of this kind in Belarus, called - similarly to those carried out in neighboring countries, with the name of a color: denim- “Revolution of Jeans”. The lesson of the color revolutions of other countries and the lack of popular participation - at the peak they managed to mobilize barely 40 thousand demonstrators, ridiculous numbers if you think of those of the neighbors, or only those mobilized in Belarus itself in recent months (11) - resolved the attempted regime change in a fiasco. However, the die was cast, and from there on each election in Belarus became a laboratory of internal and external machinations that were repeated almost in carbon copies at each electoral round, more and more wearily (in 2010 and 2015) up to the elections of the current year, 2020.

The protests that began at the end of last May and are widely discounted (12), even before the elections themselves, are contemporary news. The economic crisis, the nature of which has been mentioned above, combined with that brought about by the coronavirus (and the criticisms of Lukashenko's reductionist attitude) provided the opening to the greatest recomposition of nationalist and liberal-conservative oppositions to attempt yet another "setback to the king". The ritual event for this sort of opposition Olympics was of course the presidential election. This time, in order not to be mistaken, the destabilization attempts began even before the results, obviously accusing the usual blind repressions that would have been carried out by Lukashenko against his political opponents, which is also partially true,maidan - which according to "authoritative" publications, would have constituted yet another civic movement: "The revolution of slippers" (13) .

Hand strikes carried out by unscrupulous characters such as the ultra-nationalist blogger Serghei Tsikhanouski (a sort of Belarusian Navalny), arrested by the authorities because he was found in possession of almost a million dollars in cash and for attacking the police. Other less farcical characters and also candidates for the presidency were the two ultra-liberal candidates: Viktor Babariko, former head of Gazprom Bank, viewed with sympathy by Moscow and Valery Tsepkalo, Washington's serious candidate. In any case, after the strong pre-electoral tensions, the opposition gathered around the wife of the imprisoned Tskikanouski, Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, who, defeated by Lukashenko in the elections, played the part of Guaidò in Belarusian sauce, but with less persistence , so much so that he emigrated to the Baltic countries, and - more from pressure from one's side than from personal conviction - proclaim herself the winner, calling for general mobilization against Lukashenko. Appeals for mobilization that this time have hit the mark more, managing to leverage popular dissatisfaction with the government and more generally the formal criticism of President Lukashenko. Aesthetic criticism now carried out for a long time by Western imperialism that the "eternal" president, symbol of a national-paternalistic bourgeoisie, however, a guarantee of independence, would prefer figures such as the bloody servant of NATO Poroshenko or the young Zelenski puppet, who can guarantee euro imperialism -atlantic total enslavement of one of the last independent countries of Europe.

In this context it is not even necessary to refute how the vulgar propaganda on the terrible repressions of the regime are in large part false and exaggerated almost ridiculous when compared to the terrible, indeed real, repressions that take place in the USA, in France, in Colombia etc just to mention the latest cases; but it is nevertheless good to clarify how the Belarusian masses seem to be interpreting the protest. If a large part of the demonstrators is composed mainly of liberals, ultra-nationalists, people who more or less genuinely fall into the well-known rhetorical traps of abstract freedom, it is also true that the liquidating oppositions have managed to involve, albeit to a small extent, some strata of the proletariat.

Belarus is not a socialist country, Lukashenko is a leader , as already mentioned, representing the post-Soviet national bourgeoisie which nevertheless managed to curb the most disruptive and destructive impulses typical of the area. The comparison that the vast majority of Belarusians can easily make with their neighbors - first and foremost the Ukrainians, who live in a state of social and economic devastation that Belarusian citizens certainly do not wish for themselves - shows how a large slice of the population has remained. indifferent if not actively hostile to the calls of the aspiring Maidanists. The demonstrations in favor of the government and in general the stability of the latter show how the majority of society, although silent, is not ready for the total liquidation of the state, despite some criticalities of the regime itself. The communists themselves both at home and abroad, while highlighting the real bourgeois nature of the government, realize the need to prevent reactionary and liquidating forces from gaining the upper hand in Belarus, an excellent summary of the secretary of the Russian workers' communist party -PCUS, Melenchov, in describing the situation and tasks of the Communists:

These forces cannot forgive Lukashenko for not having taken the Gaydar path with the method of "shock therapy", for not having allowed a robbery privatization, nor for those anti-popular financial reforms that in an instant plunged the population into poverty of Russia. Furthermore, Lukashenko has guaranteed the safeguarding of large state industry and agriculture, state regulation, social guarantees, etc. That said, we have no illusions and we understand how the model built by Lukashenko is still a capitalist model. " and further on, "The PCOR calls on the workers of Belarus not to allow the start and development of the Belarusian Maidan according to the Kiev model, but at the same time to use the situation of dissatisfaction of part of society with the results of the elections to strengthen their class forces, to hold meetings in the factory and production departments to develop their own claims against the authorities. Now is the time for the workers to put forward the firm demand for a change in labor legislation in the interest of all workers and for the restoration of the Soviet retirement age, to organize strikes in support of these demands.. (14)

Avoid, therefore, the reactionary turn, and at the same time work for an accumulation of the forces of the working class. Underlining the limits of state capitalism in Belarus, and the political and economic contradictions with which it manifests itself, must be a progressive stimulus towards its overcoming in the direction of socialism, certainly not towards the ultra-capitalist reaction where they would like to throw the nation the crypto-fascists, the liberals and the fetishists of formal democracy. Paradigmatic in this regard are the appeals of those who know these situations very well, for having suffered them on their own skin, such as the Ukrainian workers and trade unions of Kharkov and Mariupol who appeal to the Belarusian workers:

“We appeal to the workers of Belarus not to give in to the false calls for a strike of the so-called opponents, who ask not to recognize the results of the presidential elections. Their goal is the destruction, in the interests of the transnational corporations behind the unrest, of labor collectives, the seizure and privatization of Belarusian companies in order to dominate the markets, their competitors and take over the country. " (15)

For these reasons, support for the independence of Belarus and its national government which, like it or not, objectively defends its prerogatives, cannot be questioned by "nénéiste" positions of sectarian or dogmatic indifference, if not hostile. . In the words of Mao: "support all that the enemy fights, and fight against all that the enemy supports." The enemy in this case is without a doubt imperialism which directs its claws and sordid appetites on Belarus and his people, for this reason supporting Lukashenko must not be a taboo for the Communists, while recognizing the objective limits and contradictions of his government. It is useful to quote the famous passage, perfect to describe the question, from Stalin's Principles of Leninism :

"The struggle of the Afghan emir for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchical character of the emir's and his followers' conceptions, since it weakens, disintegrates, undermines imperialism, while the struggle of certain "Ultra" democrats and "socialists", "revolutionaries" and republicans of the kind of, for example, Kerenski and Tsereteli, Renaudel and Scheidemann, Chernov and Dan, Henderson and Clynes during the imperialist war, was a reactionary struggle, because it resulted in to artificially embellish, to consolidate, to make imperialism triumph. The struggle of Egyptian merchants and bourgeois intellectuals for the independence of Egypt is, for the same reasons, an objectively revolutionary struggle, although the leaders of the Egyptian national movement are bourgeois by origin and social affiliation and although they are against socialism, while the struggle of the British workers' government to maintain the situation of dependence in Egypt is, for the same reasons, a reactionary struggle, although the members of this government are proletarians by origin and social affiliation and although they are "for" socialism. And I am not talking about the national movement of the other colonial and dependent countries, larger, such as India and China, every step of which on the path of their liberation, even if it contravenes the requirements of formal democracy, is a hammer blow aimed at the imperialism, and is therefore unquestionably a revolutionary step. " while the struggle of the British workers' government to maintain Egypt's dependency is, for the same reasons, a reactionary struggle, although the members of this government are proletarians by origin and social affiliation and although they are "for" socialism. And I am not talking about the national movement of the other colonial and dependent, larger countries, such as India and China, every step of which on the way to their liberation, even if it contravenes the requirements of formal democracy, is a hammer blow imperialism, and is therefore unquestionably a revolutionary step. " while the struggle of the British workers' government to maintain Egypt's dependency is, for the same reasons, a reactionary struggle, although the members of this government are proletarians by origin and social affiliation and although they are "for" socialism. And I am not talking about the national movement of the other colonial and dependent countries, larger, such as India and China, every step of which on the path of their liberation, even if it contravenes the requirements of formal democracy, is a hammer blow aimed at the imperialism, and is therefore unquestionably a revolutionary step. " although the members of this government are proletarians by origin and social affiliation and although they are "for" socialism. And I am not talking about the national movement of the other colonial and dependent, larger countries, such as India and China, every step of which on the way to their liberation, even if it contravenes the requirements of formal democracy, is a hammer blow imperialism, and is therefore unquestionably a revolutionary step. " although the members of this government are proletarians by origin and social affiliation and although they are "for" socialism. And I am not talking about the national movement of the other colonial and dependent, larger countries, such as India and China, every step of which on the way to their liberation, even if it contravenes the requirements of formal democracy, is a hammer blow imperialism, and is therefore unquestionably a revolutionary step. "(16)

And certainly the "first citizen" Lukashenko, is even better than the Afghan emir, as the most reactionary and chauvinist elements in the figures of the opposition leaders openly take sides against him, even masked by false and hypocritical libertarian phraseologies, of financial capitalism and imperialism.

(1) AAVV, History of the Bolshevik Communist Party of the USSR , Editions in Foreign Languages, Moscow, 1948 pp. 387

(2) S. Romano in History of Russia by Nicholas Riasanovsky, Bombiani, Milan, 2013, pp. 622

(3) To deepen the Ukrainian political history of that period up to Maidan's prodromes see Julija Timoshenko, the conquest of Ukraine , Teti Editore, Rome, 2016

(4) https://ec.europa.eu/commission/pressco ... MEMO_94_49

(5) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -you-think

(6) https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/12 ... 02209?s=20

(7) https://oec.world/en/profile/country/blr

(8) https://www.repubblica.it/2006/12/sezio ... minsk.html

(9) https://www.analisidifesa.it/2019/05/mo ... ergetiche/

(10) https://contropiano.org/news/internazio ... sk-0111389

* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldn ... er-08.html

(11) https://www.heddels.com/2014/08/remembe ... evolution/

(12) cf. the anti-imperialist site "Moon of Alabama" had largely predicted, not that there was much surprise, how the events would unfold: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/06/b ... sponsored- color-revolution-is-underway.html

(13) https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-s-slipp ... 56256.html

(14) https://www.lordinenuovo.it/2020/08/15/ ... ielorussi/

(15) https://www.lantidiplomatico.it/dettnew ... 790_37067/

(16) https://www.resistenze.org/sito/ma/di/cl/madcpl.htm#a06

https://ottobre.info/2020/10/08/bieloru ... ti-a-oggi/

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Mon Oct 12, 2020 8:48 pm

Gazprombank will finance the Cossacks - lovers of Ataman Krasnov
11.10.2020
Mutual assistance between capitalists and the "black hundred"

Gazprombank signed cooperation agreements with the Union of Cossacks-Warriors of Russia and Abroad (SKVRiZ) and the Don Cossacks - SFedU handball club . The agreements are dedicated to the "socio-economic development of organizations and their members . " The aforementioned "SKVRiZ" has extreme right-wing political positions and does not hesitate to propagandize the life and activities of the notorious ataman Peter Krasnov , who fought against the Soviet people on the side of the German fascist invaders.


Image
SKVRiZ activists at field exercises

The announcement of the strategic partnership appeared on the bank's website. Among other things, it contains a supportive commentary by the 1st Vice President of Gazprombank Alexey Popovich . The document states the following about the goals of partnership:

The agreements provide for cooperation in solving the priority tasks of the socio-economic development of organizations and their members, strengthening their economic and industrial potential, implementing investment programs and projects, providing the population and business entities with a wide range of high-quality banking services.

In other words, the bankers will help the "Cossacks" to strengthen their "economic potential", and the members of the "SKVRiZ", in all likelihood, in response will begin to advertise to the population loans, mortgages and other services of Gazprombank.

Image
SKVRiZ activists at field exercises

The public organization "Union of Cossacks-Warriors of Russia and Abroad" has an all-Russian status and was registered at the end of 2014. The “supreme ataman” of this structure was once Viktor Vodolatsky , a deputy of the State Duma of 5-7 convocations. In 2008, Viktor Petrovich rejected offers from foreign "Cossacks" to rehabilitate Nazi collaborator Pyotr Krasnov; times were not the same. But now they have changed.

Vodolatsky added Nikolai Dyakonov , his former assistant in the State Duma, to the position of chieftain of SKVRiZ . Dyakonov is an ultra-right thugs bully, known for organizing a pogrom of the office of the Society for the Protection of Consumer Rights (OZPP) and a liberal art exhibition. Now he is a businessman, a member of the Black Hundreds “Union of Donbass Volunteers” , created by the monarchist businessman Konstantin Malofeev with the direct support of the notorious Vladislav Surkov .

Image
Nikolay Dyakonov, "Supreme Ataman" of the public organization of "Cossacks"

Under Dyakonov, loyal or even apologetic references to Pyotr Krasnov began to gradually appear on the SKVRiZ resources. For example, Krasnov is mentioned in a positive way in a report on the solemn liturgy in honor of Tsarevich Alexei. And on social networks "SKVRiZ" advises to read the novel by Pyotr Krasnov with the eloquent title "Hatred" ; this book is filled with myths about the "ideal" Russian Empire, which was destroyed by the "base motives of the coming sowers of unrest - revolutionaries" .

Presumably, this propaganda will soon become more impudent and massive - after all, it will now be financed by Gazprombank's money. There is no contradiction with the official political line of the Russian Federation here, because the idea of ​​rehabilitating the Cossacks - accomplices of Nazism is being persistently pushed now even on federal channels . The picture has taken shape, everything has fallen into place: Russia is following in the footsteps of Ukraine in imposing fascism and anti-communism.

https://www.rotfront.su/gazprombank-pro ... t-kazakov/

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:33 pm

Vital medicines in Russia will rise in price
10/16/2020
Or disappear

Pharmaceutical companies may opt out of a number of essential drugs ( VED ) due to their extremely low marginal price. To resolve this issue, the Federal Antimonopoly Service ( FAS ) and the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation want to allow manufacturers to raise prices for medicines that are becoming a shortage due to unprofitable production.


Do you want some medicine? - Pay!
Some drug manufacturers (including the “Pharmstandard” of billionaire Kharitonin ) have already warned the Ministry of Industry and Trade about the refusal to produce a number of vital and essential drugs due to low selling prices and, as a result, unprofitable production. So, the maximum price of 20 tablets of paracetamol "Biosynthesis" - 10.1 rubles. at a cost price of 16.46 rubles, and the company can sell a package of ibuprofen no more than 12.05 rubles. at a production cost of 17.21 rubles.

The main problem lies in the dependence of most Russian pharmaceutical companies on foreign raw materials, which, due to the devaluation of the ruble and the COVID-19 pandemic, has significantly increased in price. Based on this, drug manufacturers believe that the indexation of VED prices to the inflation rate will not correct the situation and the price regulation mechanism needs to be made more flexible and efficient in order to keep pace with currency fluctuations. And the authorities, as we can see, are ready to meet halfway in this matter.

The document regulating the increase in the maximum selling prices for VED is currently undergoing the stage of revision and approval. The details of it were not disclosed to journalists, so we will not guess whether or not he will take into account all the wishes of pharmaceutical companies. One thing is clear: Russians will have to pay more to get the medicine they need. Anyway.

And no matter how many billions there are in the pockets of the owners of pharmaceutical production, they will not voluntarily donate any of them for the sake of those who already save on health as they can. Officials will help them compensate for the growing costs at the expense of the poorest, who buy cheap paracetamol not from a good life .

Under capitalism, profitability will always be more important than the health and life of citizens.

https://www.rotfront.su/zhiznenno-vazhn ... rf-podoro/

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The collapse of the healthcare system in Novosibirsk
10/15/2020
Power in confusion

On October 14, the Novosibirsk mass media posted a text from the Minister of Health of the NSO K. Khalzov about the "covid" ambulance teams. The headlines of the messages contain an "unprecedented" number of infectious disease brigades, which is now in the regional center.

collapse of the healthcare system in Novosibirsk

If in the spring there were 27 such brigades, now there are 35. And this is for a city with a population of more than 1.6 million people. It is not clear who should be struck by the emphasis on "unprecedentedness"? That is, eight vehicles were added, including the transport itself, equipment, plus drivers, paramedics. By people, probably in general, there are 50 people.

And what is "unprecedented" here? What is the result? If earlier, as reported by Sergei Komlev , paramedic of the joint venture, chairman of the Novosibirsk organization of the trade union of medical workers "Action", the waiting time for the "covid" brigade in Novosibirsk was 40 hours , then how long will it take now?

It is clear that the "unprecedented" eight brigades do not save the situation in any way. Moreover, in the conditions of a rapid increase in the number of patients. Obviously, we should talk about completely different scales of solving the problem.

The question arises, why are such measures applied only now? Why was there no thorough preparation during the "first wave" or not to prepare additional teams in advance? Who made the forecast for the fall? Who identified possible needs? Or was it all the time and energy spent on organizing a funny vote on amendments to the constitution, and then engaged in ensuring the "unconditional" victory of candidates from "United Russia" in the elections on September 13?

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Property tax for business is proposed to be reduced
10/14/2020
Will there be indulgences for the common people?

Business Ombudsman under the President of the Russian Federation Boris Titov proposed to reduce the property tax for entrepreneurs in 2020 - 2021, RIA-Novosti reports .


Capitalists do not intend to share with the people
Titov pointed to a decrease in the profitability of real estate, combined with the need for entrepreneurs to invest in ensuring the sanitary and epidemiological regime. In such conditions, the Ombudsman warned, "the need to pay property taxes based on the cadastral value can lead to bankruptcy . "

He proposed to Prime Minister M. Mishustin to amend the Tax Code, according to which the amount of real estate tax for entrepreneurs in 2020 and 2021 cannot increase by more than 10% compared to the previous tax period.

Nobody proposed to reduce (at least for the duration of a pandemic) taxes for ordinary workers. On the contrary, the idea was once again voiced to introduce a tax on childlessness, which in the current difficult situation looks more like another attempt to get into the pocket of the people than any effective solution to the demographic issue .

And although both of these sentences are still in the subjunctive mood, they show who and at whose expense the current government is trying to take care.

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Despite the imperialist abuse Russia strives to be more like the USA every day.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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blindpig
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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Mon Oct 19, 2020 1:28 pm

One of those involved in the tragedy in the Odessa "House of Trade Unions" became a Russian official
10/17/2020
The capitalists don't abandon theirs

Former head of the main department of the Odessa regional department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Ukraine Vladimir Bodelan became deputy head of the Simferopol region of Crimea . On May 2, 2014, when dozens of pro-Russian opponents of Bandera were killed in the Odessa House of Trade Unions, it was Bodelan who led the Emergencies Ministry and the city's firefighters. Fleeing from criminal prosecution for leaving people in danger, he fled ... to Russia, where he continued his successful career.


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Odessa House of Trade Unions, May 2, 2014

The new appointment was announced by the official himself on the social network Facebook. Bodelan was appointed to the post of deputy head of the Simferopol district administration on October 5 . Information about this is also contained on the official website of the administration of the Simferopol region of Crimea. It indicates that the official "from December 2010 to July 2014 held the position of head of the Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Odessa region." The publication "Kommersant" highlighted Bodelan's career path in more detail:

In 2010, he was appointed head of the main department of the state service of Ukraine for emergency situations in the Odessa region. After the tragic events in the local House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014, he said that most of the victims died in a matter of seconds, not from smoke or carbon monoxide, but from unknown substances. At the same time, anti-Maidan activists accused the official of personally interfering with the work of fire brigades near the burning House of Trade Unions. Later, a special commission of the Verkhovna Rada came to similar conclusions. The official was removed from work, a criminal case was brought against him under Part 3 of Art. 135 CC(leaving in danger, which led to death or other serious consequences) and put on the wanted list. He fled the country, received Russian citizenship and moved to Crimea, where until recently he worked as the head of the branch of the federal government institution "Center for Strategic Studies of Civil Protection of the Ministry of Emergencies of the Russian Federation" ...

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Vladimir Bodelan

Thus, it was Vladimir Bodelan who obeyed the fire brigades, which arrived at the burning House of Trade Unions almost half an hour after the first fire signal.

According to journalists, the administration of the Simferopol region of Crimea declined to comment on Bodelan's appointment.

Interestingly, the father of Vladimir Bodelan is Ruslan Bodelan , the former mayor of Odessa , who has been in leadership positions since Soviet times. After the Orange Revolution in 2005, a criminal case was opened against Bodelan Sr. for abuse of office, after which he fled to Russia. Bodelan Sr. got a job not as a loader or a bricklayer, but immediately as a deputy head of the St. Petersburg International Trade Port. It is even more interesting that five years later he returned to Ukraine, and all criminal cases against him were closed.

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While ordinary citizens of Russia and Ukraine are pitted against each other every day with the help of the mass media, officials of Russia and Ukraine calmly change their citizenship and flags in their offices. Crimea has become a real reserve for such officials; Until now, many positions are occupied by former Ukrainian officials, who simply changed the “zhovto-blakitny” flag to “tricolor”. Moreover, Russian-Ukrainian officials clearly demonstrate that class solidarity is actually much more important than patriotism; Thus, in 2011 , a resident of Crimea, Valeriy Podyachiy, was convicted by a Ukrainian court for "pro-Russian separatism", and in 2017 a Russian (!) court confirmed this verdictand forbade the "separatist" to work as a teacher. And the head of the Sevastopol city branch of the ROT FRONT party, Valeriy Bolshakov , who was persecuted by the Ukrainian authorities for fighting against Bandera, was interrogated by the Russian authorities and eventually received a criminal conviction for "extremism."

The capitalists and officials of Russia are much closer to their colleagues in Ukraine, Europe, and the United States than the Russian people.

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The capitalists don't abandon theirs

Indeed. And it is unlikely that Trump will see the inside of the slammer either despite his myriad felonies and misdemeanors. If class doesn't have it's privileges what good is it? Unless he tries to usurp the election, then he might be made an example of by his increasingly nervous peers.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sat Oct 24, 2020 1:52 pm

The authorities have figured out how to deal with the criminal subculture
10/23/2020
To hold and not to let go

On October 22, a meeting was held in the Federation Council , at which senators and experts discussed a bill on pre-trial blocking of sites promoting the criminal subculture, including the AUE banned in Russia. The draft law defines the concept of "criminal subculture". According to the senators, with the advent of the Internet, "the prison subculture overflowed and spilled over into the world around us."

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The spread of the prison subculture among adolescents and young people has long worried the public. However, it would be wrong to believe that it was the emergence of the Internet that led to the penetration of the criminal way of life into society, the spread of "culture" associated with the criminal world. It began in the late 80s, early 90s and was associated with the implementation of market reforms. Mass impoverishment of the population, as a result of which many people began to resort to criminal methods of making money. The nascent bourgeoisie used crime as a tool in the division of property, in the suppression of the labor movement. In addition, it turned out to be extremely beneficial for the capitalists to redirect the energy of the active part of the population into the criminal channel - instead of fighting against capitalism, criminal showdowns and stabbing.

The destruction of the education system also led to an increase in the popularity of the criminal subculture among adolescents and young people. The system of additional education has been destroyed, a huge number of circles and sections have been closed. Additional education has often become paid and unaffordable for workers. Free time children and adolescents are left to their own devices and often fall under the influence of criminals.

But all this is characteristic of capitalism. We see similar problems in other capitalist countries, even more or less prosperous ones, for example, in the USA. Any measures taken under capitalism will only to some extent reduce the spread of the criminal subculture among young people, since it will exist and spread as long as there is a gigantic stratification in society. It is possible to liquidate it only with the liquidation of capitalism.

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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