Protests in Moscow, St-Petersburg

[Krauter]

Seems as if the public if riled up at accusations that the Medvedev's United Russia party rigged the results of the elections on the 4th of December.

Anyone have any more info or insight into this?

[Oberon]

So long as no-one takes over this ship...we'll be alright.

[soopaman2]

Authoritarian? Not in mother Russia!

Simply a continuation of 1960s to me.

You got rid of a moderate Gorbechev and his commies, and got the second coming of Stalin with Putin, this many years later.

Revolt proud Russia, you deserve freedom.

[Krauter]

Originally Posted by Oberon

So long as no-one takes over this ship...we'll be alright.

Very true, still, I'd rather that then this:

Originally Posted by soopaman2

Authoritarian? Not in mother Russia!

Simply a continuation of 1960s to me.

You got rid of a moderate Gorbechev and his commies, and got the second coming of Stalin with Putin, this many years later.

Revolt proud Russia, you deserve freedom.

I'd encourage a revolt also, but who else is a candidate for a new head of government? A new communist government? Liberal democratic? All the heads of party are reminiscent of the old system.

[Oberon]

There's only one system that works in Russia and that is authoritarian, otherwise it's Yeltsin all over again and nothing gets done. Like him or not under Putin Russia has pulled itself out of the wreck it was in the 1990s and once again become a major power...although the ludicrously high rise in oil prices probably also helped.
Yes, there is a lot of corruption, and yes the Mafia owns most of Russia, but how is that different from the past two hundred years? Even in the years of the Czars the government was authoritarian, so the people rose up and replaced them with another authoritarian government and so on and so forth.
Same old government, different faces, that's Russia.
A word you might hear used a lot in Russia about now is the Siloviki...I had a friend of mine who did a lot of research into present day Russia send me this link and to my shame I still haven't got around to reading it in its full:

http://www.twq.com/07winter/docs/07winter_bremmer.pdf

I imagine that term will be coming to the forefront over the next half-decade.

[Krauter]

Originally Posted by Oberon

There's only one system that works in Russia and that is authoritarian, otherwise it's Yeltsin all over again and nothing gets done. Like him or not under Putin Russia has pulled itself out of the wreck it was in the 1990s and once again become a major power...although the ludicrously high rise in oil prices probably also helped.
Yes, there is a lot of corruption, and yes the Mafia owns most of Russia, but how is that different from the past two hundred years? Even in the years of the Czars the government was authoritarian, so the people rose up and replaced them with another authoritarian government and so on and so forth.
Same old government, different faces, that's Russia.
A word you might hear used a lot in Russia about now is the Siloviki...I had a friend of mine who did a lot of research into present day Russia send me this link and to my shame I still haven't got around to reading it in its full:

http://www.twq.com/07winter/docs/07winter_bremmer.pdf

I imagine that term will be coming to the forefront over the next half-decade.

There is only the authoritarian government for Russia, that I will agree is realistic. The only other form of government I can think of is a breakup of Russia as a whole and being divided into ethnically ruled regions.

My coach, who is a former native of Moldova who moved on to live in St-Petersburg, Moscow, Chelyabinsk and Krasnoyarsk has told me during conversations that Russians do not know the true meaning of the word freedom. Because, as you've said, they've only known authoritarian rule for the past 200 years or so, they cannot yet judge what's so good about freedom and how far it extends. Those who have, are those who rule now in Russia.

As far as I am concerned, Putin, and his monkey Medvedev, as well as the Siloviki is the Soviet Union and the Politburo all over again. For example, whilst reading about the protests and corrupted votes, the EU and the U.S are critical, whereas the CIS (?, Commonwealth of Independant States, the old Soviet Republics basically) state that Russia has followed all procedures and that the U.S is mistaken, rings back to history where Byelorussia and Ukraine fell under the Kremlins thumb.

Edit: Also, thank you Oberon for that link, it's an interesting read so far.

[Kapitan]

personally i am pro putin he did alot for russia i think this spin is to do with the outgoing mevedev as he lost putins approval and is crying like a dam baby about it.


Personally with putin in power russia will come back strong yet again.

[Jimbuna]

Russia billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov to challenge Putin

There was specualation on the BBC news this evening that Putin may be behind this and is using the situation to give his own candidacy some level of legitimacy.

Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov has said he will challenge Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in next March's presidential election.
Mr Prokhorov said it was "the most serious decision" of his life.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16138739

[August]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

Personally with putin in power russia will come back strong yet again.

What put my country on the path to prosperity and longevity was not having a strong and popular leader like Washington. Strong and popular leaders are a dime a dozen. It was the fact that he didn't cling to power when it was time to relinquish it. The precedent was by far the greatest gift he gave future generations of Americans IMO.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by August

What put my country on the path to prosperity and longevity was not having a strong and popular leader like Washington. Strong and popular leaders are a dime a dozen. It was the fact that he didn't cling to power when it was time to relinquish it. The precedent was by far the greatest gift he gave future generations of Americans IMO.

Yes but these silly laws preventing re-election of presidents sure do put a damper on taking over the world in quick and orderly fashion.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by August

What put my country on the path to prosperity and longevity was not having a strong and popular leader like Washington. Strong and popular leaders are a dime a dozen. It was the fact that he didn't cling to power when it was time to relinquish it. The precedent was by far the greatest gift he gave future generations of Americans IMO.

I think in this case we agree completely. That's the problem with Russia, too - the precedent has been such that everybody thinks that the strong man is good. Sadly, many people don't even understand why that's bad. The current government, having the prime interest of hanging on to its own power, is happy to perpetuate the myth of the strong man.

Putin isn't even a particularly good politician TBH. But for lack of alternative, and thanks to thorough government control of the media, he ends up looking like a powerhouse which he is not.

[nikimcbee]

I'm still stuck in 90's Russian politics.

Vote Zhirinovsky. always good for a laugh.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

I'm still stuck in 90's Russian politics.

Vote Zhirinovsky. always good for a laugh.

Funny thing is, the only things that have really changed since 90s politics is a) effective death of Western-style liberal democratic parties like Yabloko; b) effective suppression of extreme nationalist/fascist parties (in large part thanks to Zhirinovsky's LDPR distracting their core supporters); c) partial fragmentation of the Communist support base, part of whom now vote for the softer socialist SR (aka. "A Just Russia") party.

Otherwise United Russia is more or less the same Yeltsin-Chernomyrdin block that has been purged of most actual Yeltsin and Chernomyrdin alumni, along with most progressive oligarchs (though far from oligarchs in general) and has gained a far more solid grounding among Siloviki ('the Power Ministries', i.e. military, police and intelligence officials). But in principle, they still rule by consensus among the wealthy and well-connected. It's been mostly that way since the end of 1993 (when a new constitution gave the president's office sweeping powers), and basically the same as since about 1996 (when most of the key changes happened, like the death of liberal opposition in elections, and return of the Siloviki to prominence thanks to the Chechen War). The man about to get back to the forefront may have a stronger image than either Yeltsin or Medvedev, but in actuality he does not run Russia. The little secret here is that there is no one man who runs Russia, there's merely a face that the public can identify with. Russia is run by consensus of a relatively small but extremely powerful group in which no single person or organization is completely dominant, and the ruling party maintains balance by keeping the disputes and conflicting interests within this group beneath the surface. Membership in this group is fluid and constantly changes, and often depends on individual parties' ability to come to a consensus. When someone goes too far, they are publically humiliated and then quietly purged. Only a few of these cases turn into actual political scandals.

The degree of United Russia ownership of all major industries and state power over media is creepy. There are now more FSB agents per head of population than there were KGB guys at the height of the Soviet regime. However support for United Russia, for all the allegations of fraud, is still unfortunately genuine at least to a large part. Not surprising - people aren't seeing many better options.