Russia today

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Tue Dec 27, 2022 4:05 pm

Today’s Russia Is Upholding the Best of the Soviet Legacy
DECEMBER 27, 2022

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Monument to V. I. Lenin at pavilion No. 1 (“Central”) at VDNKh in Moscow. Photo: RIA Novosti/Alexei Filippov.

By Victoria Nikiforova – Dec 5, 2022

The following essay is written and published by a columnist at Russia’s main state media outlet, RIA Novosti. The essay provides an overview of the achievements and the lasting legacy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) for today’s Russia and for the world. It is not a comprehensive history of the USSR; that is for historians to continue to write and debate. The essay’s most salient feature is the insight into the thinking of the people of the Russian Federation at this very turbulent turning point in their history.
The essay voices the wholesale loss of positive expectations of the Russian Federation people for the Western imperialist countries as the latter escalate their drive to isolate and weaken their country and its government. Many other such writings are appearing in Russian media. Altogether, they reflect a deepening understanding in Russian society that world imperialism—headed by the United States and including the major powers of Europe and Japan–is very much alive, dangerous, and, quite literally, out to get them. There is a profound upheaval taking place in the political thinking and the aspirations of the many peoples of the Russian Federation.
_________________________

December 2022 marks 100 years since the founding of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There are no nationwide celebrations of this event in the Russia Federation. And yet, this is the anniversary of a fantastic victory for its people.

One hundred years ago, our country became the most free, democratic and progressive state on the planet. The rights and opportunities that were won for the ordinary citizen of the USSR were simply unthinkable for the people of that time.

The Socialist Program Red Star Over the Third World w/ Vijay Prashad: Lessons of Soviet History – Part 2


For the first time in Russian history, millions of people, both men and women, won the opportunity to vote and to be elected to office once they reached the age of 18. In Western countries during those years, such rights were strictly limited, subject to all kinds of conditions such as ownership of property, age and other qualifications.

Women in our country received the right to higher education and equal wages with men. In Great Britain, the stronghold of democracy, so to speak, it was half a century later before women were allowed to study at Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Citizens of the USSR won the right to work and decent pay. These were not just words: for 70 years, Soviet people did not know what unemployment was, except what they viewed in international news reports.

Let’s not forget how much the unbelievably generous social package of the USSR supplemented the salaries of its citizens: paid holidays, free medical care, free housing, plus transport and other communal expenses that were minimized by state subsidies. Add to that all sorts of benefits freely available to citizens—travel vouchers, tickets to the theater, gifts from trade union committees and many other pleasant trifles. Today, not even every top manager of an enterprise can boast of such a package.

Education became absolutely free, and everything for children was arranged with special style. Luxurious palaces of the wealthy classes were used to house youth ‘pioneer’ brigades.

All this and more were symbols of Soviet power. Nothing of the kind, not even a hint of it, existed at that time in the world’s most advanced countries.

Moreover, nowhere else was there such a powerful grassroots democracy as existed in the USSR. The Soviets of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies [the central governmental power of the USSR] ensured the widest possible representation not of economic elites and business clans but of real working-class people.

Western countries, out of fright, broke off diplomatic relations with the young Soviet state. ‘God forbid,’ their elites thought, ‘that our people might want the same for themselves.’ But gradually, the social achievements of the USSR came perforce to be adopted more widely. For decades, the social policies of the USSR became the gold standard for the entire civilized world.

Under the pressure of protesting workers and under the threat of revolutions, voting rights and paid holidays ‘somehow’ began to appear in other countries. Gradually, but not earlier than the 1970s and not in every respect, Europe pulled itself up to our level of social security and observance of the rights of citizens. Throughout these years, the powers in western Europe never ceased to nag us about “human rights”.

In the United States, our achievement many decades ago of paid maternity leave has yet to be equalled. [Railroad workers in the United States to this day do not have paid sick days. A threatened strike to achieve this was refused and declared illegal by the U.S. Senate on December 1.] And what about free healthcare or turning the palaces of the wealthy into social centers for young people? Or the guaranteed right to vote? ‘Sorry, we’re not quite there yet.’

All of this, as Marx would say, describes the social superstructure of human society. What about society’s social base? In the late 1980s, a meme about the inefficiency of socialist management began to be actively introduced into our public consciousness. But to put it mildly, this was entirely untrue.

Dry statistics tell us that the Soviet economy grew at a rate exceeding ten percent per year for 30 years in a row. There is not a single country in the modern world that even comes close to this achievement. Moreover, the Soviet Union did all this while under extremely heavy sanctions and while enduring repeated armed conflicts and devoting enormous resources to winning the Second World War.

Many will say that the rapid achievements of the Soviet Union were due to its low starting point, compared to the wealthier countries of the day. But prior to 1917, the tsarist government made various stumbling attempts to improve social conditions and proved unable to do so. The Soviet government succeeded in double-quick time.

Alexander Galushka, the author of the remarkable book The Crystal of Growth: Toward a Russian Economic Miracle (co-authored with Artur Niyazmetov and Maxim Okulov), was recently nominated for Russia’s Knowledge Society Prize. His book describes in detail how the idea of ​​a planned economy arose and became the foundation of the Soviet economic miracle.

The book describes how German social scientists made the first calculations demonstrating that the planning of economic processes on a national scale greatly increases the efficiency of an economy. But in the late 19th century there was no one to put this idea into practice. The rusted-out mechanisms of the European monarchies could not be repurposed to this end, while in the countries of savage capitalism such as Britain and the United States, it not just the economy but all of life that was held hostage in the eternal class war of all-against-all. People in these countries simply could not conceive of trying to build a modern state on foundations of social justice.

The Bolsheviks in 1917 set out to do so, and they succeeded. Hundreds of new cities were built on our land. These consisted not of unremarkable residential areas but of houses of culture, libraries, drama theaters, health care clinics, and kindergartens and schools. Public transport was highly developed. In a word, what was created were progressive metropolises with comprehensive social infrastructure.

This description is typically followed by critics with a ritual lament: ‘Yes, but at what cost? There were repressions, the GULAG… the corpses piled up….’ But no matter how many noughts are added to the numbers of those who died in the labor camps, this lie is refuted by simple demography. Even despite the terrible war that took millions of lives, from 1929 to 1955, the population of the USSR increased by 46 million. Average life expectancy increased by 26 years.

The sad truth is that as soon as the USSR collapsed, the upshot was the beginning of the demographic troubles with which our country is still dealing. The social and demographic conditions of the ‘unspeakable 1990s’ killed far more humans than the notorious GULAGs.

By the early 1920s, we had survived the horrible Civil War. The second act of this tragedy was the political purges of the 1930s by the Soviet leadership of the day. But hardships have proven to be the price for any social revolution. Other peoples have paid a much worse price than the Soviet people, but this does not prevent them from being proud of their revolutions and drawing inspiration from them centuries later.

The Great French Revolution of 1789 saw many bloody massacres, but it infused the country with creative energy for generations to come. The revolutionary slogan ‘Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité’ still adorns all administrative buildings in France. The national anthem of the country, La Marseillaise still sounds: ‘To arms, citizens! Form your battalions!’.

In the same way, the pragmatic Chinese managed to draw inspiration from Comrade Mao. “Seventy percent achievement, thirty percent mistakes,” is how they sum up his achievements, and discussion closes with that. Monuments to Comrade Mao adorn the thoroughly capitalist landscapes of Chinese cities today and by no means do they prevent the cities from flourishing and getting rich.

The example of the USSR looks especially inspiring today. Despite the harsh economic sanctions wielded against it (yes, they were wielded against us even then) and despite the rabid anti-Soviet propaganda of the day- arguably as intense as today’s Russophobia – the USSR created new industries, modernized agriculture, built the military-industrial complex, traded with the world, and prospered.

From the beginning of the 1930s, the Soviet government regularly reduced prices for various categories of goods – and did so generously, sometimes by tens of percent. The famous Stalinist price cuts in 1947-1953 were the high point. Salaries grew and the ruble strengthened, while its dependence on foreign currencies grew weaker.

When we look in amazement at the feat of our ancestors in the Great Patriotic War, we should not forget that they fought not just for their land. They also fought for their rights, for their freedoms, for their well-being. All this was far too precious to hand over to the enemy.

The rapid growth of the Soviet economy did not proceed by itself. In an atmosphere of social experimentation, people became liberated, believed in themselves and achieved the impossible. Moscow became an artistic mecca. Films by Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Dovzhenko are still shown in all film schools in the world. Mayakovsky and Pasternak created modern poetry. Prokofiev and Shostakovich created contemporary music. The theatre of the entire world was shaped by the scripts drawn from the pockets of Vsevolod Meyerhold ‘s overcoat.

Our grandparents did not know the expression ‘social advancement’, but for decades a powerful social elevator operated. Any peasant could board it from a young age and in the natural course of events grow up to be a philosopher, an army general, a professor, a lead physician or a government minister. They could grow up and become a head of state. The Soviet Union was governed by people from the bottom of the social order. They knew poverty, hunger and war firsthand. And they thought anxiously about how to secure the future for us, the future generations.

It is a striking fact that today on the fields of the special military operation in Ukraine, our army still uses equipment and shells produced during the time of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev. They are simple, cheap and indestructible weapons, and there are supplies for years to come. It was customary to laugh at Leonid Ilyich over the production of tens of thousands of tanks which he oversaw. Why bother with that? The Secretary General lived through the Great Patriotic War from start to finish, taking care of his descendants. How will we cope with the NATO aggressor? We are coping well, Leonid Ilyich. Thank you.

This year’s centenary of the USSR is our family holiday, so to speak. Our grandparents built an absolutely amazing and unique country for us. They built it with their bare hands in the truest sense of this expression. They gave us a rich inheritance. We live in the cities built by them, and in the civilization that they built for future centuries.

For those who like to sneer at Soviet officialdom, I would advise you to turn off the electricity and see how you like it. Electricity was brought to you by those damned Bolsheviks. Decrees on this topic were signed personally by Lenin and by – fearful though it is to say it – Stalin. It is also worth turning off the water in the bathroom and then reflect, because it was the Bolsheviks who came up with the idea of ​​​​building apartment blocks for working people with modern amenities that earlier had been only for the privileged. They provided dwellings inside them free of charge. Meanwhile, don’t forget to turn off the central heating: the “accursed Soviet officials” also messed that up… by creating it. This is not to mention the subway, public transport, the education system, healthcare and sports. This legacy saved us during the 1990s and has been a powerful springboard for our growth in recent years.

On the spiritual level, Soviet civilization revealed the best that existed in the Russian world: its primordial kindness, modesty and love for people. The Soviet people did not need to learn from elsewhere about tolerance – there was a genuine friendship of peoples among us. In the 1990s, this fundamental humanism allowed us to avoid a slide into civil war such as occurred in the long-suffering Yugoslavia. It also ensured the emergence in today’s Russia of a completely unprecedented democracy and diversity of thinking. Unlike in other countries, our freedom of speech has not yet been trampled down by censorship.

The USSR also provided us with a proverbial “soft power” for the century that lies ahead. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is still a world-class superstar. The ideals of socialism remain an inspiration for billions of people in many countries. This intangible legacy of the USSR is now providing us with enormous help on the world stage. This is something we can now counterpose to rabid Russophobia.

One year ago, President Putin noted that the capitalist model of development had exhausted itself. Today this idea is even more relevant, because the outmoded capitalism has grabbed us by the throat and is trying to drag us down into its grave. We are all awaiting the economic crisis, the global “perfect storm” that is about to break upon us in the near future. We have to prepare for that.

It turns out we are the heirs to a unique experiment in building socialism. The centenary of the USSR is a good occasion to ponder this.

https://orinocotribune.com/todays-russi ... et-legacy/

Well, yeah, kinda/sorta...And while much on the surface might be reminiscent to Soviet times the core issue remains unchallenged, ownership of the means of production. Until that is resolved in the people's favor all resort to method and success of the socialist state remains a temporary option the Russian bourgeois adopt in necessity, regrettably, not unlike the New Deal in the US, an expedient to be dismissed at the nearest opportunity.

Still, the people of the former USSR have a superior frame of reference, having experienced rampant capitalism and experimental, hopeful and imperfect socialism. Their decision will be much better informed than that of we 'stunted' USians...

And while rights and particularly speech have been curtailed as a result of the current hostilities by Russia, the USA, by means both deniable and subtle, manages popular opinion deftly, the hallmark of really effective propaganda, ya don't even notice that it's there.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sun Jan 01, 2023 11:35 pm

The Kremlin celebrates New Year’s eve

The Kremlin celebrates New Year’s Eve on television: style evocative of a Greek wedding

Thanks to smotrim.ru, the internet broadcaster of state and commercial television in both live and call-up streaming modes, I was able to sample how Official Russia packaged New Year’s Eve for consumption by an audience numbering tens of millions who tuned in across the Federation.

Though there were amusing vintage Soviet films on offer the whole day long, the party really began only after midnight, following the President’s televised address to the nation. This speech, in which Putin spoke against a background of male and female warriors in the Southern Military District headquarters, has, to my surprise, been given reasonable coverage on the BBC and on Euronews this morning. Not as much coverage as Zelensky’s rant to his nation last night, but long enough for Putin to be allowed to score several points in his justification for the Special Military Operation. Accordingly, I will skip directly to the entertainment program which followed.

The show was constructed around a succession of popular songs delivered by well known Russian crooners, male and female, young and old. A string orchestra accompanied some numbers, a sole guitarist or pianist accompanied others. Professional dancers lent support to still others.

There were a number of presenters. Among them, I would call the lead a certain Andrei Malakhov, fifty years old, who is the television host of a scaled down version of this type of songfest every weekend. Andrei is a warm personality, a gallant, who regularly brings on stage many superannuated singers, mostly women, in the most kindly and respectful manner. When I say ‘old,’ I mean old: the well-known lady composer who performed last night as piano accompanist to one singer must be in her 90s; the whole nation was aware of her illness with Covid last year; judging by last night, she seems to have emerged invincible.

I was not a fan of Malakhov till yesterday, when I paid more attention to the social message that explains his success over many years, and which also explains what the New Year’s Eve show had to convey to the Russian nation. Yes, the personalities and their music are stale, overly sentimental at times. But what you saw on stage and in the audience was a mirror image of Russian society as a whole. Apart from the several svelte singers, apart from the professional dancers, who were by definition, physically very attractive, most of the folks on stage captured by the camera could be your aunts and uncles at a Greek or maybe at a Jewish wedding: overweight, a bit clumsy, but energized and shaking a leg whenever given a chance. They were determined to have a good time.

If I had to put German words to this homeliness, they would be Gemuetlich and freulich. Only the Russians don’t reach back to waltzes and polkas, but rather to their own alternation of two-steps and gypsy rhythms with their wild acceleration. A lot of oriental gestures among the middle aged women dancers. But these were not borrowings from belly dancing classes; this was the Russian answer to singles dancing in disco bars way back in the 1970s.

In the audience, there were many well known personalities from Russian state television’s leading shows, including its news services. Yevgeny Popov and his wife Olga Skabeyeva, presenters of Sixty Minutes, were picked up by the cameras at their table in the audience. Then there was the chief of all Russian television news programming, host of News on Sunday, Dmitry Kiselyov. Another familiar face in the audience was the talk show presenter Vladimir Solovyov.

However, the television journalists who were not only picked up by the cameras at their seats but who were given the microphone to make short presentations were of a different stripe, namely the best known war correspondents covering the Special Military Operation in Ukraine. They were flown in from the front for this show. I will name one here, Yevgeny Yevgenyevich Poddubny.

Here is where last night’s New Years Eve programming was different from any previous New Years show that I have seen on Russian television over the past twenty years or more: the two war correspondents each introduced four highly decorated heroes from this campaign and each was given the opportunity to address the audience with a New Years greeting .

The casting for the line-up of heroes was intended to make a point that President Putin has repeatedly stressed from the outset of the SMO. It was that Russia is a multi-national, multi-confessional and diverse country. Among the heroes given the microphone was a female officer from the Donbas who has distinguished herself in a tank division. There was also one fighter whose physiognomy was very Far Eastern. Perhaps he is a Mongol. After a brief ‘Happy New Year’ in Russian, he switched to his own (unidentified) language to complete the salutation.

Apart from the Heroes of the Russian Federation, with their beribboned medals pinned to their chests, who were given the microphone and who wished for victory in the war, for the safe return to their families of the reservists who had been called up and for the return to their home bases inside Russia of the contract soldiers, we saw from the camera scans of the audience a number of Russian female officers in uniform. Good looking ladies, all of them, in fighting trim, I might add. Perhaps I am reading too much into the subliminal message here, but I think it was an effective response to the Ukrainian allegations that the Russian armed forces are rapists one and all.

*****

Once the war is indeed over, it will be interesting to see what awaits Russia’s many decorated officers from the field, not to mention all other veterans of the SMO. In Russia’s last big war, in Afghanistan, the returnees came back to a country that was in economic and social disintegration. The disabled, the amputees all got a kick in the ass and little more. In the mid-90s they were used by the corrupt officials around Yeltsin as a cause for granting tax privileges to importers of luxury goods, who were then supposed to pass the savings along to NGOs supporting veterans. Of course, most of those funds were siphoned off to cronies of Yeltsin.

This time around may well be different. Judging by what I saw on television last night, it would be reasonable to expect that the valor of those fighting at the front will be rewarded by fast track promotion in the political and business elites of Russia. And for those who evaded the draft, those who ran away to Kazakhstan, Georgia and so on, the ignominy may well be an irremediable stain on their CVs.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2023/01/01/ ... years-eve/

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

Consolidated budget of Russia in 2022-2023
January 1, 18:34

Image

Consolidated budget of Russia in 2022-2023 - the share of the federal deficit to GDP is six times less than in the United States

An analysis of Russia's federal budget is a prerequisite for understanding the government's macroeconomic plans. Over the past year, we have been actively analyzing these income and expenses, including unexpected jumps ( https://t.me/suverennews/587 ) in funding volumes. However, this was not a complete picture: the federal treasury is only a part of government spending.

The personal income tax paid from your income goes to the regional budget. But when you import a laptop or smartphone bought in a foreign store, import duties turn into federal budget revenues. It's the same with spending: the armed forces and their modernization are financed from the federal center. Local universities and schools, in turn, function at the expense of expenses from regional and municipal sources. In any case, the aggregate of all expenses and incomes of the executive branch is the consolidated budget.

The revenues of the consolidated budget of the Russian Federation in 2022 amounted to about ₽52.1 trillion, expenses - about ₽53.4 trillion. That is, the total deficit amounted to ₽1.3 trillion, which is less than 1% of GDP. This can be called more than a stable situation. For comparison: in the US, the federal budget deficit last year amounted to 5.5% of GDP.

The following is curious: the excess of revenues of the consolidated budget of Russia over expenditures accounted for only its federal part. Municipal and regional governments, in turn, managed to avoid a bias towards spending through transfers and subsidies from the federal budget.

In 2023, a stable dynamics of consolidated income is predicted: an increase of only ₽200 billion to ₽52.3 trillion, which will amount to 34.9% of the country's economy. Expenses will grow stronger: by ₽2.9 trillion to ₽55.3 trillion. That is, the total budget deficit of authorities at all levels will not exceed 2% of GDP - not the most joyful situation, but it will still be many times better than in the United States. We try to live within our means, unlike some.

https://t.me/suverennews/661 - zinc

It is worth noting that the US can afford a much larger deficit because it can run wild issuing and aggravate its total debt that it is not going to repay.
Therefore, Russia has to live within its means. In 2022, the economic situation was maintained and well.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8071885.html

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

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:38 pm

Wars make nations

There has been a lot of commentary in our mainstream media about how the war with Russia that began on 24 February 2022 has forged a nation in Ukraine with a common identity under the brilliant leadership of President Zelensky. This nation found self-confidence in its seeming ability to withstand an armed invasion by the powerful neighbor to the east and even to strike back with success measured in large territorial gains in the Kharkov oblast first, and then in the Kherson oblast. Hardships have been shared. Dreams of victory maintain a buoyant mood, we are told.

That one quarter of the Ukrainian population has now fled the country is not discussed. I am counting here not just those who fled to the West but those who fled to Russia. And why should the significance of this be discussed? One quarter of the population of all three Baltic States, one quarter of Romanians and Bulgarians also fled their countries as from the early 1990s when they experienced economic ruin following the breaking of ties with Russia and attempted, unsuccessfully at first, to integrate into the European markets. That Ukrainians are fleeing military action whereas the others I have named were economic refugees, the end result for the residual populations and their re-constituted nation states is the same: a kind of self-inflicted ethnic cleansing and concentration of the more “loyal” strata of the population in the nations that emerged from the crisis.

Meanwhile no observations about nation-building have been made with regard to Russia since the start of the Special Military Operation. That should come as no surprise, given that our experts in American and European universities and in think tanks have transitioned away from being Russian studies centers, which is how they were set up and financed as from the beginning of the Cold War in 1949. The Harriman Institute at Columbia University and the Davis Center (formerly, the Russian Research Center) at Harvard have become Ukrainian study centers in all but name. No matter that at Harvard they already had a properly designated and separately sponsored Ukrainian Center dating from the 1970s. University administrators follow the money and the professorate goes along for the ride.

However, studies of the emerging Ukrainian nation will have a near term “sell by” date. This nation run by ultranationalists is doomed by the coming defeat on the battlefield and removal from power of those who have led the nation building exercise down the wrong road of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Meanwhile, the New Russia that is also being shaped by the challenges of all out war will be with us for a long time to come. We will see it in the shifting geopolitical and military balance of forces globally. I would advise our scholars in the United States and Europe to rethink what they are doing with their time if they are to have any relevance to future political decision-making.

In what follows, I will sketch several areas of particular interest in the transformation I see in Russian society, the economy, and international posture as a New Russia is forged by war.

*****

The consolidation of Russian society is a much discussed topic these days on Russian talk shows. One dimension of this has been the political cleansing, the voluntary departure or removal of the 1990s vintage West-loving Liberals who, to a large degree, despised their fellow citizens and, whenever possible, spent their free time in Europe or the States.

One of the leading voluntary exiles who left the country just ahead of warrants to appear in court to face corruption charges was Anatoly Chubais, who had built his fame or infamy in the 1990s as a director of the privatization programs that helped to create the circle of so-called oligarchs that dominated Russian political life until they were tamed, imprisoned or expelled by President Putin early in the new millennium. There were, of course, hundreds and thousands of lesser devils who have been a counterweight to the forces of patriotism through the entire Putin presidency.

These anti-Putin personalities have enjoyed untouchable status in such institutions as the Higher School of Economics in Moscow or the Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg.

The latter has been under attack for several years by Russian film director and political commentator Nikita Mikhalkov on his own television program Besogon. Mikhalkov denounced the Yeltsin Center for disseminating treasonous propaganda and for collusion with the American consulate in Yekaterinburg.

The Yeltsin Center exists under the patronage of Yeltsin’s widow, Naina, and she, like Mayor Anatoly Sobchak’s widow and daughter as well as other odious figures from Boris Nikolayevich’s time in power, has enjoyed the personal protection of Putin. Unlike Western leaders, Vladimir Putin has never gone back on his word, and protection of ‘The Family’ was part of the deal which gave him the presidency in 1999.

Going back 18 months or so, Mikhalkov’s program was taken off the air. It would be safe to say that his remarks on the Yeltsin Center were a major factor in this political decision from on high. However, today Mikhalkov has been restored to a place of honor. You can find his recent broadcasts of Besogon on youtube. His thinking has been taken up by Vladimir Solovyov among others. And so the Yeltsin Center is today denounced as the ‘Yeltsin Sedition Center’ by right-thinking political commentators on state television. Most of its directors are now abroad in self-imposed exile.

The Higher School is being cleansed of its worst elements from the standpoint of Russia’s new patriotic leadership. And so it goes up and down the country. I will not attempt to judge here the legality or effectiveness of the processes at work. But that they are at work is undisputable. That the cleansing is popular with the broad Russian population is also undisputable.

However, the consolidation of Russian society is noteworthy not so much for the dross that it has expelled as it is for the closer bonds that it is forging in the population at large based on new self-confidence and support for the war effort in Ukraine.

In past essays, I mentioned the phenomenon of volunteer work across the Russian Federation to solicit and collect contributions in money and kind to support the Russian soldiers in the field. I spoke about the letters to the soldiers from school children, about the food and clothing sent to the front by newly formed local NGOs. I add to this the phenomenon of volunteering to fight that is remarkable in scope and in who is coming forward. These include Duma members, administrators and legislators from oblasts reaching across European Russia, across Siberia to Kamchatka and the Far East. These volunteers receive military training in specialized units, among them one named “Akhmat” in honor of the father the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and under his direct supervision.

Time spent in the Donbas by Russian volunteers, even those not directly engaged in battle, is not risk free. We all learned a week ago of the nearly fatal injuries sustained by Dmitry Rogozin, one-time RF Ambassador to NATO here in Brussels and for a number of years the head of Roskosmos. We do not know what tasks he was performing in Donbas as a volunteer, but we do know that he was caught in an artillery barrage and that he had to undergo an operation to remove metal fragments from the vertebrae of his neck.

Meanwhile, Russian cities, led by Moscow and St Petersburg, have made collective contributions of manpower to assist the war effort, something you will not read about in The Financial Times. In the time since the September mobilization, while the proper conditions for a major offensive against the Ukrainian army are not yet met, the Russians have been busy doing groundwork to ensure that there will be no further Ukrainian breakthroughs along the 1,000 km front such as happened in Kharkov oblast in the late spring. They have dug in and created second and third lines of defense consisting of well executed trenches and pillboxes. And who did much of this? It was done by the 20,000 municipal workers sent down to the Donbas by Mayor Sobyanin of Moscow and an additional 10,000 civilian workers sent by Petersburg.

News of these volunteer works has spurred feelings of pride across Russia. At the same time, the country’s resilience in the face of economic warfare by the Collective West has been evident to everyone. The policy of import substitution has turned into a broad program of reindustrialization. Success stories are featured daily on the news.

The government is giving cheap credits to manufacturing start-ups to provide encouragement. With new, high paying positions being created, it is no wonder that the Russian unemployment rate has moved down close to 3%. That all by itself favors confidence and pride in society.

The other side of the same coin is growing contempt for Europe and the Collective West. Russian news is providing accurate, not propagandistic coverage of the energy crisis, rampant inflation and anxiety of European populations. This, in combination with the acts of vandalism and destruction perpetrated against Russian war monuments in the Eastern states of the EU, in combination with other manifestations of Russophobia in Europe in the cultural and tourism domains, has turned even the hitherto Western leaning Russian intelligentsia into patriots by necessity.

In my most recent comments on the New Year’s celebration on Russian state television, I remarked on how recruitment to Russia’s leadership cadres in the future is likely to come from among the heroes on the battlefield today.

For guidance in this matter, I look back to what happened in the several decades following the launch of Yuri Gagarin into orbit. Those who followed Gagarin also set down new records and feats in space that other countries, including the United States, only duplicated years later. These included the first woman in space, the first space walk or the longest time in orbit. These heroic men and women were not given just ticker tape parades in the capital. They were given seats in the (largely ceremonial) legislative organs of the USSR.

We may well expect today’s decorated soldiers similarly to be offered preferment and find places in the Russian Federation legislative and administrative bodies. But there is a lot more to expect in terms of advancement today. Given that field officers have very practical and useful experience for running commercial enterprises, whereas astronauts generally did not and do not, we may expect to see the decorated officers take an honored place among the top managerial caste in Russia as it retools and industrializes. There is nothing extraordinary in that. After WWII, after the Korean War, most top executive positions in American corporations went to veterans.

I have spoken about re-industrialization. But there are also other changes in Russia coming out of this war that are driven by the US-led sanctions. The forced abandonment of Europe as its largest economic partner has compelled Russia to expand ties with China, with India, with the Global South. This is grudgingly getting some attention in The Financial Times and other Western media, which have reported on the new infrastructure being built and being planned to increase energy exports to China and India, for example. A week ago, a gas field in Eastern Siberia using a newly completed 800 km long pipeline is now feeding directly into the Power of Siberia main pipeline to China.

There is even mention in our media of the astonishing cooperation developing between Russia and Iran to realize a North-South logistics project that was first planned in the year 2000 but never found practical application. Today this multi-modal rail, river and sea corridor stretching from St Petersburg in the north to Mumbai in the south and traversing Iran is showing impressive first deliveries of grain cargos and holds the promise of changing supply chains in Eurasia in a cardinal manner, sharply reducing transit times and costs.

Of course, the most important changes within Russia forced by the war in Ukraine concern foreign relations. Our media have already speculated extensively about the Russian-Chinese relationship which is self-described as closer than an alliance. But there are new commercial, political and military relationships between Russia and Iran, between Russia and North Korea. And there is the Russian outreach to Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, i.e. to the Global South for the sake of de-dollarization of trade and promotion of a multipolar world order.

These last-named changes in global commerce and furtherance of a multipolar world have, as I say, gotten some expert attention in the West. What remains to be done is to link them to the changes within Russian society in connection with the new Russian self-awareness and confidence that I spoke about at the start of this essay. There will be a lot of catch-up work for the Western expert community once its infatuation with Zelensky’s newly forged Ukraine passes into the dustbin of history.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:22 pm

The results of 2022 of the Proryvist newspaper
No. 1/77.I.2023

The past year 2022 has been difficult and difficult in many ways. The natural aggravation of the contradictions of world imperialism and the ongoing crisis led to a whole series of important and well-known events. The internal political situation in the country has changed, the conditions for promoting Marxism have improved.

The year has passed as quickly as ever, and its results become an occasion to reflect on how much we have not managed to do by the current moment, when the pace of history has accelerated significantly. The times are approaching, the significance of which will be determined by the presence or absence of the Party of Scientific Centralism. Cadres decide everything. As we wrote in March of this year:

“The moment is not far off when the foam of political chatter will come to naught, exposing everything essential, fundamental, theoretically deep. And we must have not only software developments about the present and future of society, which, of course, is being done, but also a close-knit team of propagandist theorists, skillful agitators and talented organizers. People who, without the pursuit of false relevance, brightness of forecasts and originality, personify a reliable stronghold of communist work. Only behind such cadres will the proletariat be ready to go through the decisive turns of history.”

In the past year, the literary and propaganda work of the newspaper continued to be somewhat stagnant. The number of articles decreased slightly compared to a year earlier - up to 70 articles. This is bad, but, firstly , several major works were published, and secondly , it took time to research and develop a position on key processes. In general, the editorial staff recognizes the work done in this area as satisfactory.

The newspaper published an article on the Marxist attitude to the war, which is a guide in this difficult issue. In addition, a lot of materials on the war came out.

The newspaper promptly responded to other current events: “ On the events in Kazakhstan ”, “ On the Kazakh left ”, “ On sanctions and import substitution ”, “ How to solve the problem of“ school shootings “ ”, “ Pelosi’s visit to the virtual world of Russian propaganda ”, “ Analysis of the political views of the Latvian population: prospects for anti-fascist resistance ”, “ What kind of qualitative growth can we expect in the USA? ".

The following materials should be attributed to research works: “ On the Formation of Marxists in Modern Conditions ”, “ On the Limitation of Competition as a Pedagogical Method ”, “ Semashko and Soviet Medicine. A look into the future ”, “ Remarks from correspondence ”, “ Historical background of love relations ”, “ On an in-depth understanding of a number of categories of Marxism: mode of production and formation ”. In addition, a new version of the article " On the Laws of Society and History " was released.

The newspaper traditionally published materials retelling and summarizing the breakthrough position: “ The path to the “Breakthrough” is the path to communism ”, “ On involvement ”, “ Kudrin and the planned economy ”, “ Life in the market ”, “ On the Chinese NEP ”, “ On the anti-communist argument about the so-called nature of man ”, “A red fighter is not always a publicist, but a red publicist is always a fighter ”, “ On the question of a new era ”, “ On opportunism ”, “ According to ‘science’ or according to Marx? ”,“ My path to Marxism ”,“ Gorbachev and freedom ”,“ I’m not in the house ”,“On the organization ”, “ On the question of cooperation ”, “ On the party spirit of the scientific pop ”, “ American biologist on modern science ” and others.

The newspaper's representative offices operate successfully at various venues . The next version of V.A. Podguzov , a version of the " minimum " in a new format is presented.

The main organizational and political conclusion based on the results of the year is that a turning point has occurred in the situation with the involvement of personnel . This year, we receive much more letters, we have many new authors, and more and more regional branches are emerging, including in other countries. The corpus of fundamental theoretical materials that formed the face of our publication began to bear fruit.

We have entered an era of rapidly changing circumstances, in which long, hard, hard work awaits us. The conclusions from 2022 remain the same: 1) not weaken, but strengthen self-education and propaganda, 2) not weaken, but strengthen the circulation of breakthrough materials, 3) continue to develop and strengthen the magazine and newspaper .

REVISION
07/01/2023

https://prorivists.org/here-now2023/

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 12, 2023 3:43 pm

Built, conquered, conquered
January 12, 12:25

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Severodvinsk.
Poster for the 100th anniversary of the USSR.
The country now faces largely similar tasks - to build, win, conquer.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8096084.html

The president is more than a leader
January 12, 11:02 am

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The process of Denazarbaevization continues in Kazakhstan.
Now Nazarbayev has been stripped of the title of Elbasy, as well as the title of honorary senator of Kazakhstan.

Elbasy are no longer Elbasy

The Constitutional Court of Kazakhstan ruled to invalidate the law "On the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan - Elbasy", which proclaimed Nursultan Nazarbayev the leader of the nation (elbasy) and provided him with lifelong privileges and guarantees.

“Based on the will of the people of Kazakhstan, expressed at the republican referendum of June 5, 2022, on the exclusion from the Constitution of paragraph 4 of Article 46 and other norms, to recognize that at present there are no legal grounds in the Constitution for the preservation of the constitutional law “On the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan - Elbasy" in the current law of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in connection with which it is subject to recognition as invalid," the court ruling says.

The deprivation of the ex-president of this status was provided for by amendments to the Kazakh Constitution, which came into force in June. In November, the Mazhilis reported that they were working to bring the republic's laws in line with the updated Constitution. “As we know, in the basic law of the Republic of Kazakhstan, during the referendum, all references to the merits of the Elbasy were removed. Now the relevant rule-making work is underway in the profile committee,” said deputy Yerlan Sairov.

After his resignation, Nazarbayev retained a number of privileges as the owner of the special status of the first president, they were enshrined in 2000 in the constitutional law "On the first president of the Republic of Kazakhstan - Elbasy." Subsequently, amendments were made to the law, strengthening the role of the first president. In particular, the current authorities were obliged to coordinate with Nazarbayev the main directions of Kazakhstan's domestic and foreign policy, and in 2018 secured the lifelong right to head the republic's Security Council. Nazarabayev received the official title of "elbasy" in 2010.

However, the second president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who took office in 2019 and is now in power for a second term, decided to move “to a new state model”, including changing the Constitution. A referendum on amendments to the Basic Law, which, Tokayev explained, "are designed to consolidate the final transition from a 'super-presidential' form of government to a presidential republic with an influential parliament and an accountable government," was held on June 5, 2022. According to the CEC of Kazakhstan, 77.18% of those who voted were in favor of the amendments.

As a result, from Art. 46 of the Constitution, paragraph 4 was removed, according to which the status and powers of the first president are determined by the Constitution and the corresponding constitutional law. As Aydos Sarym, a member of the Mazhilis from the ruling Amanat party, explained to journalists, after the repeal of the law, the powers and rights of Nazarbayev and his family will be regulated by the clauses of the Constitution and the law “On the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan”, which relate to the rights of former heads of state.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8095960.html

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

Russia Asia Relations: The Emerging International Order
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 11, 2023
Nivedita Das Kundu

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Russia-Asia relations are considered one of the highest priorities in Russian foreign policy. Russia’s pivot to Asia entails a wider regional policy involving key Asian states, writes Nivedita Das Kundu, Senior Researcher at York University, Academic Director at Liaison College. This article was prepared for the Valdai Club’s 13th Asian Conference.

The strategic debate over whether Russia belongs to Europe or Asia has lasted years. Russia has important stakes in the region and important bilateral ties with Asia’s most powerful countries.


Russia – Indo-Pacific

Russia’s presence in the Indian Ocean and Pacific region can be traced back to the Soviet era. Russia’s relations with the prominent Indo-Pacific players and ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) as a whole are significant. The Pacific Fleet was one of the largest and strongest single fleets in the Soviet Navy and was considered as an important Soviet military strength in the region. The Soviet military presence was prominent in the Indian Ocean too, and after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Pacific Fleet was officially called the Russian Pacific Fleet. Among the four Russian fleets, the Pacific Fleet covers the largest area, spanning across both the Pacific and Indian Ocean and extending to the Persian Gulf. In Russia’s Maritime doctrine, prepared in 2015, the Indian Ocean was mentioned as one of the regional priorities along with the Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific, Caspian, and Antarctic. Russia also became an Indian Ocean Rim (IOR) Association member on November 17, 2021, and this further reflected Russia’s strong presence in the Indo-Pacific.

Today, the Indo-Pacific is a centre of global trade and commerce, with 65 percent of the world’s population, 63 percent of the world’s GDP and 46 percent of the world’s trade. By 2030, it is expected to become home to two-thirds of the global middle class. Russia is an APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) member; however, Russia did not participate in the APEC summit hosted by Thailand in November 2022. The APEC leaders called for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, as this conflict is having a significant impact on the global economy. The APEC leaders pledged to steer the region’s economies toward sustainable growth and promote free trade in the Pacific region.

Russia should be able to join the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) as part of the Indo-Pacific and other Asian groupings and forums. The four policy pillars of the IPEF includes digital trade, the building of resilient supply chains, the fulfilment of clean energy commitments and the implementation of fair trade rules with effective taxation and the elimination of corruption. However, one should be aware that there are challenges and concerns attached to these new economic groupings, as the countries joining the initiative may be divided in the future negotiations due to their prior participation in multilateral FTAs (free trade agreements) and their intersecting strategic alignments. The free flow of data models and the climate change pillars also might put a strain on the group. Nonetheless, this regional economic framework will benefit labour, entrepreneurs, and consumers.

Russia – India

India’s unique and independent position within the evolving and dynamic Indo-Pacific concept is well suited to alleviate relations with Russia. It shows how Russia is important for India to advance its inclusive vision for the region, and India for Russia, to achieve its ambitious Greater Eurasia vision, among other reasons. The bilateral relationship between India and Russia has been marked by a close understanding and a convergence of views on major issues and concerns. Russia occupies a special place in India’s foreign policy. They are strategic partners and this partnership is based on a fruitful, time-tested relationship which has witnessed events of historic dimensions. Russia is a major defence partner of India. This multifaceted relationship has created an atmosphere of trust and mutual understanding between the two countries. India has so far refrained from criticising Russia regarding its Special Military Operation in Ukraine, despite pressure from the West. India strongly feels that dialogue should open up for resolving this conflict.

Russia has been a key supplier of weapons and energy to India. Even today, India’s military assets are mostly of Russian origin, necessitating Russia’s continuous maintenance and the delivery of spare parts. India recently purchased the S-400 missile system from Russia. However, recent sanctions targeting Russia under the US CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act) are expected to jeopardize India’s prospects of obtaining a waiver in this deal. Western sanctions affect Russia’s economy too, according to the report. Russia has asked India to supply certain key spare parts and has sent a list of around 500 items. These products include parts for automobile manufacturing; components like engines, pistons, oil pumps and ignition coils, as well as bumpers and seatbelts. Russia has reportedly asked for 41 items for aircraft and helicopters, including gear components, fuel, and communications and fire extinguishing systems. Delhi stresses that it is willing to boost trade with Russia and is working on this recent request and developments, while adding that it is on the “side of peace”, which entails resuming “dialogue” and “diplomacy regarding the end” of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Indian government thanked both the Russian and Ukrainian governments for their help in evacuating nearly 20,000 Indian students under “Operation Ganga”, from the war zone in February-March 2022. As per India, diplomacy and talks are the logical options and an immediate ceasefire is needed for an early resumption of peace and resolution of this conflict.

Russia – Central Asia

Russia is a prominent regional player in Central Asia and will remain so in the foreseeable future. In terms of both security and cultural diplomacy, Russia maintains a proactive, assertive and effective policy in Central Asia. Russia continues to maintain considerable influence in Central Asia and has cordial relations with all the five central Asian countries and their leaders. Russia remains the most important external actor and maintains influence over Central Asian political and security matters. The Central Asia plus Russia format has continued well for the past several years. Russia had so far limited itself to bilateral cooperation or cooperation within the framework of international alliances. These include the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). The EAEU members include Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, while Uzbekistan has observer status. The CSTO is comprised of the five EAEU members and Tajikistan. Russia and the Central Asian countries are transit countries for goods between Europe and Asia. Many infrastructure projects and road and railway corridors are being constructed between Russia and the Central Asian states. Russia is also assisting Central Asian states in their fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and arms smuggling emanating from neighbouring Afghanistan.

Russia – China

The Russia-China strategic cooperation and partnership is going on smoothly even amid the Russia-Ukraine crisis, in which China has unambiguously backed Russia. China has formulated its stance in keeping with its own foreign policy approach and national interests. In general, China’s public messaging on the Russia-Ukraine crisis has been confined to a few key messages. China is looking out for its national interests, abiding by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. It has proposed peace and opposed war, while at the same time appealing for negotiations. Russia and China both have a strong strategic interest in maintaining good relations with each other. Today, China-Russia economic and trade cooperation and interdependency are operating at a very high level, and this cooperation is critically significant to both nations. China is now Russia’s most important trading partner and Russia is China’s largest source of energy imports. China will continue to support Russia diplomatically and in terms of information. Both Russia and China are of the opinion that it is important to establish a common security concept in the world which takes into account the interests and concerns of all parties and avoids domination by any bloc.

Russia – SCO & BRICS

Many new organizations have taken shape in the emerging international world order. The new groupings and forums represent different ideologies and interests and help in precluding domination or hegemony. Today, these international organisations are becoming more effective in world politics, enabling the countries to open up new opportunities and prospects. Russia, India, China and the Central Asian countries are also part of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and are striving to create a more stable and predictable international environment. Today, the SCO is a recognised international organisation and a serious forum in ensuring regional security and stability. The SCO strives to reshape the international system and bloc politics and work together to promote the development of the international order in a more just and rational way. Russia is also prominent in BRICS, another significant multilateral organisation comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It is a powerful economic forum comprising half of the population of the world and nearly 50 percent of world’s GDP. The BRICS intertwined the interests of all the nations in the group and work jointly to protect multipolarity.

The Way Forward

Russia – Asia relations have deepened over the last decade; this connectivity and cooperation will open up options for improving future economic and trade relations as well as diplomatic and political connections, defence cooperation and interpersonal contacts. Russia should put forward certain strategic initiatives to expand its cooperation with the Asian countries going forward.

– Russia could create a specialised regional platform for multilateral cooperation to ensure energy security.

– Improve “Northeast Asia Regional Electric System Ties” (NEAREST) by building new power engineering facilities in Siberia and in Russia’s Far Easter regions for exporting electricity.


– Build an oil hub in Russia’s Far East.

– Create an East Asian grain reserve within the EAS (East Asia Summit) framework and build infrastructure in Siberia and in the Russian Far East for grain exports.

– Collaborate with other Asian space agencies and share its space capabilities like GLONASS and other navigation systems and remote infrastructure monitoring technologies with its Asian partners.

– Improve its diplomatic approaches and enhance the role of the “Russia factor”, in settling regional conflicts, if necessary.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/01/ ... nal-order/
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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 19, 2023 3:47 pm

SPOILS OF THE SANCTIONS WAR – NATO LION MEETS RUSSIAN TIT FOR TAT

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By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

As democracy goes in states at war, in Russia there is more of it — faction fighting, public criticism, media debate — about battlefield operations, wins and losses, than there is on the NATO side, in the US, Canada, Germany, France or England.

By contrast, on the conduct of domestic economic policy, in Russia there is much less open argument than there is on the other side.

This is surprising because the sanctions war has forced the US-controlled and NATO-allied banks and corporations to abandon their Russian business, halt production plants, close offices, cancel supply and marketing agreements, write down the value of their Russian assets, and withdraw from Russia if they can. The outcome is an opportunity, a revolutionary one, for Russia’s businessmen to take over the foreign assets and operate them for domestic profit for the first time in many years.

In theory, there has been active debate in Moscow about how this re-nationalization should be managed, and to whose profit. On one side, there has been Sergei Glazyev and his Anti-Crisis Expert Council which includes the public economist Mikhail Khazin and Duma deputy Mikhail Delyagin. On the other side, the oligarch lobby known as the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE), led by Alexander Shokhin.

In practice, Glazyev has kept his government job as minister for integration and macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC, aka EAEU ), the bloc of former Soviet states coordinating customs, central banking, trade and fiscal management policies together. However, Glazyev has lost the fights he has waged for change in Central Bank policy and in the priorities of the government’s war economy. Like Glazyev, Khazin and Delyagin have kept their tribunes, but their message has proved unsuccessful.

At the same time, Elvira Nabiullina – Glazyev’s attack target as Governor of the Central Bank – has kept her Kremlin mandate and her policies. Her former patron, Alexei Kudrin, has lost his post at the head of the Accounting Chamber but received Kremlin promotion instead to run the new presidential campaign fund created around the Yandex group of companies, owned by Arkady Volozh.

How much then of the opportunity to convert the foreign-owned assets to new purpose in the Russian economy is being seized by the well-known oligarch faction? What evidence is there for the political defeat of the Glazyev faction? What is the current balance-sheet of foreign assets lost to Russia and Russian assets gained by the US side?

The first attempt to answer these questions was published in May 2022.

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Since then, for reasons of war, President Vladimir Putin has stopped serving the Kremlin’s annual Christmas dinner for the oligarchs. Instead, the format was changed and combined with his annual appearance before the RUIE, the meeting with the president was held on February 24; this was just hours after special military operation had begun.

Putin offered reassurance for the oligarchs. He declared his continuing support for “extending the most popular support tools and mechanisms, including corporate programmes for enhancing competitiveness, investment tax deduction and regional investment projects…[and] to provide you with good conditions and ensure more freedom. There may be only one response – to ensure greater freedom of entrepreneurship, naturally, within a certain framework so that, as our colleagues put it, there is a certain amount of predictability from the Government but we expect predictability from businesses as well.”

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The RUIE meeting with President Putin, February 24, 2022; source: http://en.kremlin.ru/

For a discussion of the particulars of Putin’s reassurance, Shokhin then met the president in the Kremlin on March 2. The official communiqué said no more than they “spoke at length about ways to minimize the impact of sanctions on major Russian companies.”

Also for reasons of war, this website has suspended publishing the results of its regular investigations of Russians under sanctions.

Last month Forbes Russia broke the silence by publishing a list of the beneficiaries and transaction values of the most significant transfers of assets from foreign to domestic ownership at the year’s end. The new list repeats several of the banking and oil asset deals published in the May report.

THE FORBES RUSSIA RATING OF THE TOP 25 NEW OWNERS OF FOREIGN ASSETS AS OF DECEMBER 2021
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Source: https://www.forbes.ru/
Total value Rb468.3 billion ($6.8 billion).

The tabulation is the first of its kind to appear in public; it is not definitive and may not be comprehensive.

It is noteworthy because just three pre-war oligarchs or their groups are listed — Vladimir Potanin at Number 1; the LUKoil group controlled by Vagit Alekperov at number 8; and the Sistema group of Vladimir Yevtushenkov at Number 22.

A name by name search through the sanctions listings of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) reveals that 22 of the 25 listings have not been sanctioned by the US. No attempt has been made by the Forbes Russia reporters to investigate what links may exist between the unsanctioned 22 and those Russian names and companies which have been sanctioned. The reason is obvious, as a senior state company chief executive comments: “At the point of sale I doubt there was a way for the [foreign] sellers to accept money from sanctioned sources. So the new names are not in the same spotlight.” He acknowledges that camouflage is required. The sanctioned oligarchs he knows “are overloaded with the [war] risks connected with the arrangements and agreements they have done with the managers of their assets.”

In defence of the foreign banks and the Anglo-American law firms advising them, the Financial Times, a propaganda outlet owned by the Nikkei group in Tokyo, reported last week that the Russian oligarchs whose assets have been seized abroad are retaliating by trying to take over foreign assets which remain in Russia. “Advisers to western banks trying to exit Russia say a law introduced by Vladimir Putin is disrupting sales and allowing deals to be hijacked by businesspeople close to the Kremlin. Almost a year into the invasion of Ukraine, only a handful of western banks have managed to leave Russia, albeit at steep cost, while others have made the choice to hold on to their businesses in the country. For the majority trying to sell their Russian assets, however, hopes for a swift exit were shattered when Putin last year said foreign owners from “unfriendly” countries could not complete deals without his approval. The list of affected companies includes 45 banks with subsidiaries in Russia. Advisers working on deals expect the Russian president’s intervention to thwart some sales already under discussion, while fundamentally altering the terms of others. They predict already agreed sale prices to fall by up to half as the Kremlin exerts more influence on deals. And they say would-be buyers who were originally beaten to deals have gained presidential approval and are attempting to hijack sales from rivals who lack the Kremlin’s favour. ‘There are some very powerful Russians with close links to the Kremlin who are trying to use their influence to grab these entities from fleeing foreigners,’ said a person involved in negotiations, one of several people who spoke to the Financial Times on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of talks with the Russian government.”

The newspaper has pursued Russian-owned yachts when they have been arrested or confiscated. To date, it has not attempted to quantify the tit-for-tat – the value of Russian oligarch assets held abroad versus the value of foreign assets held in Russia. Instead, it has reported this tabulation of foreign bank assets in Russia, totaling Rb4.3 trillion ($63 billion).

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Source: https://www.ft.com/

According to this US propaganda source, reporting the US Government calculation of Russian oligarch assets seized at the end of June 2022, the total value came to $30 billion. This is less than half the foreign bank asset valuation.

Glazyev, Khazin, Delyagin and the Communist Party parliamentary faction in Moscow were asked how they assess the Forbes Russia list. In the redistribution of the foreign assets, they were given three questions — do they see evidence that the pre-war oligarchs have not been gaining the advantage which might have been predicted? Do they recognize the interests represented by the new names on the list? What does the list indicate about the way in which the government is planning for the future direction of asset control in the economy?

All four refused to answer by telephone or by email.

In a lengthy lecture he published on January 13, Glazyev was sharply critical of what he called the Russian military strategy in the Ukraine, but he directed his blame at the Central Bank, its encouragement of continuing capital export by the oligarchs, and the government’s failure to replace oligarch profit schemes with state mobilization methods.

“The whole uncertainty of the coming year lies in the lack of strategy in Russia. Our leadership tried to seize the strategic initiative from the United States by accepting the LDNR [Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics], Zaporozhye and Kherson regions as part of the Russian Federation. But it is impossible to keep it without a clear ultimate goal, a clear ideology and a full-scale mobilization of resources to win the hybrid war with the collective West.”

“The first condition is the mobilization of all available resources to provide the army and the population with everything necessary. The most dangerous thing in military affairs, as you know, is the underestimation of the enemy. Having run into the fierce resistance of the neo-fascists, we continue to fight the collective West half-heartedly, if not to say carelessly. Following the seizure of more than $300 billion in reserves, the leadership of the Bank of Russia continued to condone the export of capital, the volume of which exceeded $200 billion last year [2020]. Of this total, $150 billion were payments abroad authorized by the monetary authorities on the credit obligations of Russian enterprises. Basically, in the jurisdiction of unfriendly countries which have begun to confiscate our foreign exchange reserves in order to use them to pay off military loans to Ukraine. Is it possible to win a war against an enemy that is many times superior in financial power by supplying him with money received from the export of raw materials to his own address? “

“We agree that the transition to a Soviet-style mobilization economy in a market economy is impossible. But the mobilization of resources through the targeted use of the same market mechanisms is absolutely necessary. From the capricious arguments of some official commentators of the Ministry of Defense that the supply of foreign equipment does not fundamentally change anything on the battlefield, it is necessary to move on to a sober assessment of the enemy’s potential. The military spending of the NATO bloc countries is an order of magnitude higher than ours. The USSR found itself in the same position by the end of 1941, when the economic potential of Europe united by the Nazis was an order of magnitude higher than ours. But we persevered because we used our potential to more than 100%, while in Germany the holidays were kept and the production of consumer goods continued. The slogan ‘Everything for the Front, everything for the Victory” is relevant again. The impediment by the leadership of the Bank of Russia to the full utilization of production capacities and connivance with the export of capital is incompatible with the achievement of Victory.”

http://johnhelmer.net/spoils-of-the-san ... more-70529

There is strong opinion that confiscated properties should become state enterprises, a trend which extant oligarchs will abhor. The need to mobilize the public thru reference to the Soviet past may have some 'unintended consequences'.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sun Jan 22, 2023 6:15 pm

Exclude Solzhenitsyn from the school curriculum
January 22, 13:17

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The issue is under discussion

The issue of exclusion from the school curriculum of the book "The Gulag Archipelago" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn "was not and is not worth" being discussed. This was stated by the chairman of the State Duma Committee on Education Olga Kazakova.


“He was not brought to the site of either United Russia or the faction of the party in the State Duma,” her press service quoted the deputy as saying.

Earlier, the first deputy head of the United Russia faction in the State Duma, Dmitry Vyatkin, proposed ( https://t.me/rt_russian/143842 ) to remove untrue works from the school curriculum. He cited Solzhenitsyn's book as an example.

Dmitry Vyatkin, the first deputy head of the United Russia faction in the State Duma, told TASS about this. We are talking about works that do not correspond to reality, the authors of which "humiliate Russia and pour mud on it."

As an example, Vyatkin named Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago": Historians have checked all the facts."

At the same time, the deputy proposes to return to schools Soviet books that instill a sense of patriotism. For example, "Young Guard" by Alexander Fadeev and "Hot Snow" by Yuri Bondarev.


The question is so not worth it that even in the leadership of the United Russia they began to raise this topic.
However, the "Memorial" from the "Echo of Moscow" was also not immediately closed, so the water wears away the stone.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8118212.html

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I hope that defunct Polish nobleman Zbigniew Brzezinski. is thrashing in his grave.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Thu Feb 02, 2023 2:53 pm

Problems with sour cream
February 2, 9:36

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Sour cream producers complain that due to the management of "effective managers" who lived according to the principle "Why don't we make it at home - we will buy it abroad", there is a critical vulnerability in the country associated with the production of banal sour cream.

Problems with sour cream

“Consumers, probably, do not even fully understand that if Europe suddenly imposes sanctions on dairy starters, then we will not have sour cream in Russia. We will not be able to produce it, because the dependence here is total. I believe that this is a problem of a strategic level , ”the founder of AgriVolga told RBC.

According to Bachin, first of all, we are talking about biosourdoughs — microbiological compounds that cause fermentation, which are necessary for the production of fermented milk products and cheese making. “Now 90% of our market is imported sourdough. We simply do not have biofactories for their production. There is an experimental biofactory in Uglich and small laboratories that are trying to do something. But they cover no more than 10%, and actually even less of the total volume of starter cultures that are required., - the interlocutor of RBC notes.

Earlier, Arkady Ponomarev, the founder of the Molvest dairy holding (Vkusnoteevo brand), also expressed concern about dependence on imports of starter cultures: according to him, “ no one imposed a veto on supplies,” but there are risks associated with this. Sourdough is "a microbe that can be genetically modified," and in the future, risks may be associated with this - "for example, we suddenly won't be able to cook cheese ," Ponomarev explained.

The production of dairy cultures in Russia “failed” in the late 80s and early 90s , says Bachin.In Soviet times, every dairy and cheese factory had a biological laboratory that provided the production with the necessary components. The process was quite complicated: “In order to produce a fermented milk product or cheese, it was necessary to go through about three stages. There was a so-called industrial ferment of medium concentration, which had to be grown. It took about three days to create a starter culture that can be placed directly into a tank of milk,” says Bachin.

Then the dairy industry around the world began to switch to concentrated formulations - the so-called “direct-acting” starters, the businessman continues. From the point of view of economic efficiency, such a starter, which was introduced directly into the tank with milk, was, according to him, better: “You save three days of work, and you do not need to maintain a laboratory with highly qualified employees,” Bachin explained.

Butin the USSR, this technological transition was skipped, and dairy and cheese factories in modern Russia were already built according to Western technologies that do not provide for production starter cultures and laboratories. “All these factories, even if they want to, will not be able to switch to the form of production that was 30 years ago. It is necessary to create laboratories again, to train people - this is not a matter of one day, it will take several years , ”Bachin notes.

To provide the Russian dairy industry with domestic starters, Agrivolga plans to build a special biofactory in Uglich:“The factory should start working in two years. This is a serious high-tech enterprise - only the first stage of production will be able to cover 25% of the market demand for starters.” At the second stage, the capacity of the biofactory is planned to be increased "somewhere to the level of 50% of the demand of the Russian market." Bachin estimates investments in the first stage of the project at about 3.5 billion rubles.

Agriculture, according to Bachin, turned out to be more resistant to sanctions pressure than other industries, because back in the 2000s, a state support program appeared for it, which made it possible to receive long-term loans and subsidize the interest rate on loans for the construction of new projects in the agro-industrial complex. Through the regulation of the cost of capital, an industry was created. But it is “in no case impossible” to move away from support, you need to do its “fine tuning”, RBC’s interlocutor is sure: for example, there are enough processing capacities of dairies and cheese factories in Russia, but it is possible to subsidize the production of raw milk or areas in which there is a high dependence from imports - for example, factories for the production of enzymes.“We can’t introduce an average rate for a hospital – we subsidize everyone or no one,” Bachin sums up.

https://www.rbc.ru/business/02/02/2023/ ... rom_main_2 - zinc

Of course, even in the event of European sanctions, the Russian Federation will be able to import the necessary products through other countries under parallel / gray import schemes + gradually create the necessary production, but nevertheless the situation is still unhealthy and sets the task of developing its own production (as, for example, it happens with the production of aircraft engines for civil aviation), as well as in a number of other areas. That is, to do what the USSR did for decades, which lived under permanent Western sanctions and was engaged in the systematic development of its own production base.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8143137.html

Military parade in Stalingrad
February 2, 14:16

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Today, a military parade was held in Stalingrad dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazi troops near Stalingrad.

(Video at link.)

Happy holiday comrades! Happy Victory Day at Stalingrad!

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8143869.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sat Feb 04, 2023 2:30 pm

Attitude towards Yeltsin
February 4, 13:28

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Poll of a foreign agent of "Levada" about the attitude towards Yeltsin in the country.
Negative assessments have become the peak in the entire history of observation, which is not surprising, since the very fact of NWO shows that the country spent many years somewhere in the wrong direction.

But the Yeltsin Center has not been closed yet. For now.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8147991.html

The problem with sourdough. View from Belarus
February 4, 9:32 am

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In addition to the recent disturbing topic about the dependence of the Russian Federation on imported starters.

The problem with sourdough. View from Belarus

Sour cream in Russia is under threat. Do milk processors in Minsk region have problems with starter cultures?

Today, the Russian media are actively discussing an issue that concerns both milk processors and consumers of dairy products - the shortage of dietary supplements. Allegedly, the lack of own biofactories for the production of starter cultures has made Russian producers completely dependent on imports. After all, even the most ordinary kefir or sour cream, which are literally strategic products for any family, cannot be produced without magic bacteria if the highest quality raw materials are available. The correspondent of "Minskaya Pravda" tried to find out whether the processors of "white gold" in the central region of the country faced this problem.

For a comment, we turned to the management of the largest dairy holding, which unites 11 production sites - the Slutsk cheese-making plant. In one day, more than 3 thousand tons of milk are processed here, receiving approximately 130 tons of cheese and butter, and about 150 tons of powdered milk. In total, the enterprise produces more than 100 types of "milk", and the depth of processing of raw materials is 100%.

“ I would like to note right away that none of our production sites, either in 2022 or in the coming year, stopped due to interruptions in the supply of any components and, in particular, starter cultures for the production of fermented milk products, cheeses, cottage cheese ,” says Deputy General Director for the production of Maxim Malinovsky. —As for the directly above mentioned components, we work both with domestic manufacturers, produced by the Institute of the Meat and Dairy Industry of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, and with imported ones. The geography of their supplies is quite wide - from Holland to Australia. Despite the imposed sanctions, manufacturers, realizing how important sales markets are for them, see us as promising and reliable partners, putting business interests above all else.

As for domestic suppliers of starter cultures, we receive components for the production of sour cream, cottage cheese, and cheeses from them, in particular. Therefore, consumers can be calm: fears for the fate of sour cream loved by all are completely in vain.

Of course, these are challenging times and processors have to keep a close eye on market trends and respond quickly to changing operating conditions. We must be flexible and mobile in order to have stability in production. The fate of any enterprise depends on it. So, in 2022, many food manufacturers experienced difficulties with the supply of packaging. I had to look for new partners in China and Russia. But this issue was quickly removed from the agenda. So any problem is solvable, especially since the market offers a lot of replacement options.

https://vk.com/mlynby?w=wall-132589577_54981 - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8147624.html

Nationalization in Crimea
February 4, 7:26 am

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Briefly about the nationalization in the Crimea.

1. Yesterday it was announced the start of the nationalization of property objects that belonged to Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians associated with the Nazi regime in Kyiv. First of all, the nationalization will affect Kolomoisky, Akhmetov, Taruta and smaller creatures. It is noteworthy that the same Kolomoisky is now being undressed both here and in the West. Given that it was Kolomoisky who financed Zelensky, this situation is not without irony. Reaped the consequences.

2. In total, more than 500 objects will be nationalized throughout the peninsula. We can recall that in 2014-2015, under Menyailo, about 15 enterprises in Sevastopol were nationalized, which was then called a "voluntaristic decision." In Crimea, nationalization had to wait more than 8 years.

3. According to Aksyonov's statement and the decision of the State Council of Crimea, this will be precisely nationalization, and not a ransom. All objects will be sold at open auction, and the funds will go to the budget of the republic. In fact, only now Crimea is really completing the process of eliminating residual economic ties with Ukraine, since for more than 8 years the property of persons associated with the Euromaidan and Nazi structures continued to remain on the peninsula directly or fictitiously in Ukraine. It took CBO to finally start the final sweep.

4. They plan to spend on supporting the NWO. Aksyonov said that all proceeds from the sale will be used to provide volunteers and those mobilized from Crimea. This is generally a beautiful solution. Given the promises to distribute land to volunteers and those mobilized in Crimea from April 1, the conversion of nationalized property into providing for the army makes Crimea a modular example of how the region can and should support the army.

In general, the process is necessary and correct. Of course, we must carefully monitor the technical progress of nationalization, since there will certainly be cunning businessmen who want to buy nationalized property for next to nothing and thereby damage the state.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8147363.html

Past time...though the property should be retained by the state for the people. But it's a start, the sanctity of property, which the Russians had complained bitterly about when assets of their oligarchs were seized by the West, ain't so much now. Let this be a 'slippery slope'...


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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sun Feb 05, 2023 2:59 pm

About parallels with the Great Patriotic War
No. 2/78.I.2023

Pro-government bourgeois propagandists in Russia are now very fond of drawing parallels between the special military operation in Ukraine and the Great Patriotic War, as well as with Soviet history as such. Despite tons of slop poured out by the bourgeoisie on communism and the USSR, pro-Soviet sentiments among the people are strong and the “effective managers” of the Russian oligarchy have to reckon with this. Here and there one has to observe the curtsy of bourgeois hirelings towards the pro-Soviet audience: “We need a new GKO, so that as under Stalin”, “We need a mobilization economy, as under Stalin”, “We need a state ideology, so that it is like in the USSR” And so on and so forth. Sometimes you can hear on Russian television phrases like: "Our country already has experience in resisting fascism in the form of the experience of the Stalinist USSR."

Where the bourgeoisie fails to talk about the victories of communism, where the bourgeoisie fails to slander the communists, there the intellectual servants of the exploiting class do their best to erase from history the Marxist, that is, scientific, content of the Bolshevik policy. Bourgeois officials and politicians strive to cling to the achievements of the communists, which cannot be hidden from the population. From the point of view of bourgeois propaganda, the victory of the USSR over European and Asian fascism turns from the victory of a social order based on social property into a victory of some kind of “mobilization economy” over the abstract forces of the “West”, and not over capitalism in its most bestial form. In his sensational film "Red Project" Kiselev (the same one who hinted at the time about the monuments to the fascist Krasnov), praising Stalin, called Iosif Vissarionovich a geopolitician. A bold statement, but a stupid one. Even a cursory study of the experience of Russian foreign policy will provide a detailed illustration of what geopolitics are like in practice. For eight years, geopoliticians have been trying to curb Ukrainian (more precisely, American, but with Ukrainian specifics) fascism and make peace with it; For thirty years, in pursuit of profit maximization, they have been selling their own country, eating away its future. In short, the great geopoliticians of the Yeltsin-Putin period did exactly the opposite of what the great Marxists of the Lenin-Stalin era did.

In modern conditions, it is extremely important for communists to draw parallels with the Great Patriotic War. It is necessary to give the Russian proletariat an appreciation of the superiority of Soviet society over modern bourgeois society.

Why is the contemporary Russian left not doing this? In order to conduct propaganda in this vein competently, you need to understand the essence of Soviet society. The understanding of the left opportunists is on the level of the beautiful, but explaining nothing, and now hackneyed and therefore somewhat vulgar phrase "The USSR is a society of social justice." The Soviet Union was a dictatorship of the working class that reached the lowest phase of communism (colloquially, socialism), and the building of communism is inconceivable without the systematic introduction of communist relations on the basis of public property. This is where the roots of the Left's misunderstanding of the essence of Soviet socialism lie - their democratic illusions hinder the understanding of public property. Public property, as a form of production relations in communism, arises on the basis of scientific knowledge. Social property presupposes scientific planning, as well as a scientific, that is, truly human, attitude of the working people to the production process, excluding selfish interests. Are science and democracy compatible? No, they are not compatible. But the modern left in their propaganda actively presses on the supposedly democratic essence of communism. It is ridiculous to listen to Rudy's reasoning about how democratic planning will be organized under communism. The leftists are afraid of scientific centralism as a final judgment, but a planned economy fulfills its role only if planning is organized scientifically and centrally, otherwise adventures and diversions in the spirit of Khrushchev and Andropov result.

Communist social relations, of course, were not fully introduced into Soviet society - the first phase of communism is not complete communism. But even what was available was enough to demonstrate the total superiority of communism over capitalism during industrialization, collectivization, the Great Patriotic War and the post-war reconstruction of the country. The revolutionary enthusiasm of the Soviet people, their readiness to commit labor and military exploits at all costs, defending the freedom of their socialist homeland, is an example of the manifestation of communist relations in practice, their victorious influence.

Today is the time to talk about the law of profit maximization, as well as about market anarchy in the context of the NWO. The Russian oligarchy provided many illustrations. At the beginning of 2023, for example, there was news that the repair plant needed by the front in the Saratov region was sold for scrap. The nationalist Strelkov spoke angrily on this topic in his Telegram channel. It is a well-known fact that in the Soviet Union in 1941 the evacuation of enterprises to the rear was brilliantly carried out. It is worth suggesting to the thinking proletarians to conduct a thought experiment - to imagine what would happen if in 1941 every factory had a private owner. And if, in making economic decisions, the key factor in making economic decisions was the question of profit, and not social necessity, could the Soviet economy, in this case, survive in the battle with Germany, which controls almost all of Europe? In short, in order to begin to realize the superiority of communism over capitalism, the proletarian should mentally place Putin's "effective" management in the conditions of the Great Patriotic War, and imagine the scientific management of the era of Lenin and Stalin in the conditions of the NWO.

Although the bourgeois lackeys, under the pressure of circumstances, began to treat the Soviet period of history more favorably, slinging mud at Soviet practice did not disappear anywhere. Against the backdrop of the SVO, it is ridiculous to observe how individual patriotic bourgeois pompously talk about the mistakes they made up of the Stalinist military leadership or about its alleged mediocrity. And this inconsistency between bourgeois claims against Stalin and bourgeois actions should be used to denounce the dictatorship of the oligarchy.

The victory of the Soviet people over fascism is unthinkable without the consolidation of the people around the working class, without the vanguard of the working class in the form of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, without the leader and theoretician of Marxism, Stalin, who headed this party .

The proletarians, especially those of them who are in captivity of left-patriotic illusions, need to be explained the role of science in the development of decisions by Stalin and his associates. "Experts" can discuss the need to introduce an official ideology on the air at Solovyov, citing the USSR as an example, but objective reality is not on their side. The only thing that the “luminaries” of idealism can offer Russia is bashful nationalism (it’s good that nationalism discovered by the Russian oligarchy is not welcome) in the spirit of the “Russian world”, Dugin’s Eurasianism and civilizational approach. The ideological work of the Lenin-Stalin period has nothing to do with the modern projecting of idealists, communist theory is a system of scientific truths about the structure of society, and, because of this, communist theory is not an ideology in the strict sense of the word.

The practice of the Leninist-Stalinist USSR has clearly shown that the victories and defeats of the working people are entirely determined by the degree of organization of the proletariat into the working class and the level of competence of the vanguard of this class . The proletarians of Russia need to understand this at all costs. Only through the dictatorship of the working class can the working people of Russia emerge victorious from the clash with American imperialism, otherwise the consequences of the incompetence of the Russian imperialists will fall like a mountain on the shoulders of the working people. Not "real patriots" should lead the masses behind them, but scientists-revolutionaries-communists. As is known, the emancipation of the working class must be won by the working class itself, and the working class is the product of the organizational work of the Party.

It is not a "national idea" or democracy that the masses need, but a scientific program for the liberation of all mankind from the tyranny of the exploiters. In order to explain these propositions to the proletarians under the given conditions, especially to the proletarians deceived by the patriots, it is necessary to draw parallels precisely with the Great Patriotic War, revealing the bankruptcy of the bourgeois system. The parallels clumsily drawn by the opportunists with the First World War, the drawing of an owl over the globe, the actual support of American imperialism against the PRC is another confirmation of the anti-communist essence of the Russian left.

From this understanding, questions arise: what to do? What is the main factor in the formation of such a subject as the working class? The main factor behind the victory in 1917 and 1945 was Bolshevism . And today, the formation of a party of true communists is the first and most important task that must be solved based on the experience of the victories of the CPSU (b) and the defeats of the CPSU.

E. Krovin
04/02/2023

https://prorivists.org/78_analogy/

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