It’s because the Russians always revert to being sheep.
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Calling someone a hero is about as targeted and pinpointed a perspective as anyone can take.
Wrt this particular thread, wtf are you talking about? Seriously.
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Because the US has been so successful with this strategy. The US has a demonstrated expertise at selecting “new” leadership, especially for foreign countries.
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hopefully one day Russia can string together a series of minimally corrupt leaders who are neither alcoholics nor paranoid murderers
They don’t respect valor. They respect violence and the willingness to inflict harm.
Shit happens when the means of production get seized and replaced with a profoundly bad ideology. All of the communist power structures that Hitler thought were rotten, requiring only the front door to be kicked down to topple it all, have proven to be quite enduring.
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Is it really communist thought?
The nomenklatura system and whatever putin is doing with oligarchs reminds me a lot of how czars worked with their boyars
You can trace a line of corrupt alcoholics before the Bolsheviks and after the fall of the iron curtain, but I would argue that the power structures that took shape and became entrenched during the 20th century have absolutely endured. Communism and the social conditioning that went along with it is a bell that you don’t get to un-ring with declarations and elections.
Ask a Venezuelan how their revolution has progressed. It wasn’t very long ago when they were being held up as a successful example of the great things that happen when you empower your government to deliver “social justice”.
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You posted a link to Greenwald talking shit about a dead man. Greenwald was trying to make a connection between Navalny and right-wing, ultra nationalist, violent nazi types.
But Greenwald is one of the most famous Nazi collaborators of recent time. Putting it nicely.
And Greenwald called this guy a hero when he went to prison.
At any other time in any other discussion Greenwald would be Dismissed, maybe even called a Soy Boy, not used as a citation.
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The dirty secret of communism is that it’s never really communism. This is why communists keep claiming that it would work if you could just actually do communism.
And in a weird sort of twisted way, they are right. If you could actually do communism, it would work. But that’s like saying that if you could flap your arms fast enough, you could fly. Capitalism and Democracy aren’t the best systems we can imagine. They are just the best systems that we can get to work for actual real people.
But back to the topic of Russia, the Soviet Union was an oligarchy. It had strong meritocratic tendencies at certain levels. But all traces of actual communism were gone by 1930 (if not earlier).
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I actually respect Lenin more than most Russian leaders for this reason
He was brutal and a murderous tyrant, but he was pragmatic, knew how to pick competent people and set a reasonably strong foundation.
For what?
The USSR.
It’s pretty impressive that the USSR survived so long and achieved anything despite murderous policies, a defunct philosophy, rampant corruption and multiple humanitarian disasters (wwii, holodomor)
I’m taking stats classes and some Soviet mathematician’s name gets brought up every other lecture
The “socialist experiment” could easily have gotten snuffed out before the 30s or never started.
I don’t think it would have survived without NEP tbh
Their best chance was probably Stolypin or a functional and moderate provisional government, but whelp… that got shut down → ended up with commies in power. GIven that, a pragmatist was the best they could do
Yes, he did indeed lay a strong foundation for the USSR to take shape. I would argue that the achievements of the Soviets were in spite of, not because of, their dogshit ideology.
And here Russia is today, over three decades after The Scorpions released the naively optimistic Winds of Change, still purging the political opposition with overt violence.
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completely agree. It’swhy I find Russian/ Soviet history so fascinating. It really is somewhat of an anomaly in terms of how much it got done despite everything it went through
TO be very clear, I am not defending the atrocities of the USSR or communism I hate any ideology (political, religious, cultural) when it interferes with economic or scientific reality.
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And now they’re finding reasons to imprison their general population. Desperate for a fighting force, they emptied their prisons on to the battlefield, where they’ve been annihilated, and now need a new forced labor force.
Those are circling the drain maneuvers right there.
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Please post some facts, or fascimiles thereof, for your assertions. Btw, how exactly does someone Greenwald’s age collaborate with Nazis? Greenwald posted an actual video of Navalny himself. Also, I don’t know who that is in the picture you posted.
Granted, the following is from a Socialist site. I disagree with Socialism, but a fact is a fact.
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A very serious charge. I guess Greenwald has really hit rock bottom since his hey days.
Greenwald received, together with Amy Goodman, the first Izzy Award for special achievement in independent media, in 2009,[178] and the 2010 Online Journalism Award for Best Commentary for his investigative work on the conditions of Chelsea Manning.[179]
His reporting on the National Security Agency (NSA) won numerous other awards around the world, including top investigative journalism prizes from the George Polk Award for National Security Reporting,[180] the 2013 Online Journalism Awards,[181] the Esso Award for Excellence in Reporting in Brazil for his articles in O Globo on NSA mass surveillance of Brazilians (becoming the first foreigner to win the award),[182] the 2013 Libertad de Expresion Internacional award from Argentinian magazine Perfil,[183] and the 2013 Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.[184] The team that Greenwald led at The Guardian was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their reporting on the NSA.
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Is there footage oh him referring to Caucasians as “cockroaches?” Because that is not what the footage in the Greenwald video shows.
And yes, the source matters because Amnesty International lies like a rug.
That’s what all ideologies do. They are man’s attempt to contradict nature and play god. This isn’t always a bad thing. Social engineering can be a good thing.