Hey Vlad, very curious what you make of this:
Vladimir Putin’s apologists spread dangerous message
It's written by a historian who specialises in post-USSR Russian nationalism... and he's the guy who actually really got me into history. I took one of his courses as a second-year undergrad when I still didn't know if I was going to pursue political science or history further, and he swayed me towards history. It was also the first time I wrote about New Zealand history, oddly enough. So I think very, very highly of him, and he's one of the first people I thanked in both my Honours and PhD theses.
That's interesting, thanks. I'll give you my thoughts.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's onslaught against the Ukrainian city of Mariupol should have dispelled the last illusions of even his most ardent defenders. Once courted by Western leaders as "a perfect democrat", Putin now stands exposed as a dictator who has wrecked his own country's democratic institutions, violated international treaties, invaded a neighbouring state, and fomented a civil war that has claimed thousands of lives.
I agree in that I'm a very ardent opponent of Putin, naturally, but I find a few issues with this opening paragraph. I'm not sure if I've seen any proper evidence regarding the perpetrators of the Mariupol bombing so I can't comment on that.
The idea that Putin wrecked his own country's "democratic institutions" (whatever the hell that really means) is preposterous given that they never really existed under Yeltsin!
I'll also add that after having followed all the events leading up to this mayhem, a civil war would've likely begun even without Russian interference, such was the nature of the times.
Despite this dismal record, Putin enjoys the sympathy of a small legion of apologists in the West. The majority come from the extreme left and the extreme right, which share Putin's anti-Americanism, his penchant for bizarre conspiracy theories, and his visceral contempt for liberal democracy. But Putin's most influential defenders are the "realists", a group of academics, former diplomats and opinion-makers whose ideas are treated seriously in the corridors of power.
There are a few on the left who have quite partial feelings towards him, but those are a few (we call them tankies), and they are in the vast majority of cases partial towards him due to some vague reasoning of "anti-imperialism," which is silly of course.
The real sources of Putin's recklessness are to be found not in Western diplomacy but in his terror of democratic revolution, a terror that has shaped the contours of his regime since 2005. As an uprising against a corrupt dictatorship, the Euromaidan represented an existential challenge to Putin's rule. Like the ousted Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovich, Putin nurtured a kleptocracy that brought incredible riches to a circle of cronies. Putin had good reason to dread the effects on his own people of an uprising against a similar regime with a large Russian minority. His anxieties were compounded by the trauma of the "Bolotnaya" protests of 2011-12, when hundreds of thousands of Russians protested under anti-corruption banners against election fraud and Putin's return to the presidency.
That's all well and good, but Euromaidan resulted in the same thing (hell, were the likes of Yushchenko and Tymoshenko really all that different?) that the people were supposedly fighting against, except with a shiny EU sticker on it.
For Russian democrats like Aleksei Navalnyi, it is self-evident that the purpose of Putin's onslaught against Ukraine was to show to his own people that democratic revolution is a path to national catastrophe. If you overthrow me, you can expect civil war, state collapse, and mass impoverishment.
Now this is plain ridiculous, it's fucking disgusting how the West portrays Navalny as some respectable "democrat" when the guy marches with Russian nationalists who froth "Russia for Russians" and holds various reactionary views. He's not at all that different from Putin, but it just seems that the shiny "West friendly" sticker makes him oh so loveable. I'll also add that no Russians really like him apart from Moscow middle-upper class types. If you're going to hype up an opposition leader, why not Udaltsov?
The anti-Western hysteria raging in Russia's state-controlled media is an integral part of the Putin regime's anti-revolutionary strategy.
It's relevant to criticise Russian state media, but don't act that the West's is any different.
Now Ax, I understand this guy has had a positive influence on you, and that's fine, but I can't really share your enthusiasm for his work (based on this). The problem for me is that it's not easy to find articles that seem balanced, in the sense that it's not largely pro-Russian or not largely "RA RA RA it's all Putin's fault" like this one is.
I'm going to guess that politically he identifies as a liberal?
but the pictures below are amazing. Can't believe the difference between the two from a school hall taken in 2008 and 2009. Some of those pictures are ghostly, and those grand castle-like apartments and houses just crumbling and subsiding - wow.
axver, you would've loved where i worked ages ago! back in the beginning of the superthread, i worked in this building from 06-08 (i think i'm remembering the years correctly?) and it had four floors. the only ones in use were the ground floor (and even then there were no offices, no secretary, it was as if it were one huge atrium or something) and the floor i worked on, the second floor (first floor for you aussies). the third and fourth floors were totally disused. i'd sometimes sneak around them during my breaks. the third floor was just basically huge rooms that would have been cubicle farms, but as they were unoccupied, they were huge rooms with like cubicle stuff scattered on the floor.
