Where is Putin Politically?

[BayCityProgressive]

Is Putin left wing right wing or just in it for himself? I don't really like at all what I hear of him, but I haven't heard where he stands on economics. Does anyone know? I know he was KGB and in the Communist Party until it was banned in 91 so it seeme dhe was pretty loyal to them..

[Captain Hilts]

1. His mentor was a real free market advocate.

Much of what Putin has done - arrest Khodorkovsky - is good domestic politics. That was a popular move. After the embarassment of the Yeltsin years, he's an improvement to them.

[BayCityProgressive]

2. Thanks

I had read that the majority of people want some form of the old system back and that is why he invokes the Soviet Union old national anthem and Lenin/Stalin so much now. There is talk the communists may win in 08. In a country that was aplanned economy for 70 years, I think there is still a very realy chance there will be yet another counter-revolution against a system they aren't comfortable with. Hopefully democracy is allowed to bust through though...under Putin they seem to be going backwards in that regard.

[knight_of_the_star]

6. Russia is like that

The country never really went through the industrial revolution in the same manner the West did. Here we had gradual growth and evolution of business and industry from an agrarian economy to a modern industrial and digital one. Russia never went through a gradual shift, under Stalin they went overnight from a partially industrialized country with a political system still stuck in the Middle Ages to a fully industrialized totalitarian dictatorship in ten years without any real time for steady transition and industry and the modern economy setup by that was never built to stand on its own. Without the Soviet government it couldn't work because all that industry was built at the behest of the government not as a natural and steady change in society as it happened here. Because of the nature of the changes the Russian economy never really got into the modern age properly because it was forced to happen and didn't develop its own support systems to keep going, in Russia things always have been difficult and by nature a centralized strong government is needed simply because the country barely even works. Democracy is all well and good in principle, but if it doesn't work on its own then all the human rights in the world won't do an ounce of good if the laws that protect those rights can't be enforced.

[manic expression]

10. I disagree

The industrialization of the USSR was not "unnatural". It may have been done by the government, but that means nothing. It was unbelievable that the USSR went from feudalism to a world power in about two decades. Also, it was totalitarian from 1928, but destalinization helped things a bit.

Moreover, the system was built around the Soviet system, and so it worked pretty well with the USSR structure; when it fell, everything went to hell and back. It's not the fault of the USSR or its industrialization that Russian society crashed as it did, it's the fault of the bourgeoisie (oligarchy) that pillaged and raped the place after the USSR fell.

The USSR support systems worked fine, but they were all destroyed by capitalism.

[knight_of_the_star]

14. You're missing the point

Russia's development was not a slow process from point a to point b that developed its own support structures so that industry could function on its own. The industries Stalin built up were good if you're talking about massive and constant manufacture for a huge war machine and massive public works projects, but if you're talking about goods for people his industrialization fell woefully short compared to what you had pop up in the West.

"The industrialization of the USSR was not "unnatural". It may have been done by the government, but that means nothing."

It means a lot. It means that the industries established by this process had their demand originate from the government not from the people, and when the government doesn't need something then what happens? It's one thing when you're talking about infrastructure improvements that benefit everyone, it's another when you have heavy industry built specifically for large-scale projects and a military force on the scale of which the world had not seen before.

"It was unbelievable that the USSR went from feudalism to a world power in about two decades."

That is an inaccurate statement, Russia had always been a world power of considerable force, less so in the dying years of the tsars and certainly not during the Revolution when the country was coming apart at the seams, but Russia was always historically a force to be reckoned with and shouldn't just be brushed aside as feudalism because it wasn't a country of massive industry in 1914 like the US or Germany.

"Moreover, the system was built around the Soviet system, and so it worked pretty well with the USSR structure; when it fell, everything went to hell and back."

Which was the inherent problem with industry built up in the manner in which it was in Russia. So long as the system is intact it works, when the system goes out the window so does the economy, that doesn't sound like an industrial system that works very well. Just because something works well under controlled conditions doesn't mean its good design, it just works well under those conditions. If you take something out of the controlled system and it fails, then it says the thing in question is not well-designed because it cannot survive in adverse conditions.

"Also, it was totalitarian from 1928, but destalinization helped things a bit."

It still stayed totalitarian after Stalin was cold in the grave, it just wasn't so bloody. Instead of being shipped off the gulags and worked to death the critics of the Soviet Union would be sent off to KGB prisons or diagnosed as mentally ill. You still had the KGB watching the internal workings of the country for those who questioned the government too much up until Gorbachev. That was also the system that helped make the monster called the Red Mob.

"It's not the fault of the USSR or its industrialization that Russian society crashed as it did, it's the fault of the bourgeoisie (oligarchy) that pillaged and raped the place after the USSR fell."

The reason that Russian society crashed so hard is because the transition was so sudden and because the people went from living under a highly controlling regime to what was allegedly a democracy with no understanding of what democracy means. That and again the massive corruption inside the government before and after the transition did not help any, as did the amount of power held by organized crime and former members of the party in Russia, a lot of the industries that were patronized by the government were taken over by former members of the Communist Party just after everything was starting to go over the edge because they knew what they needed to keep in power. The reason the country is suffering is because the transition was sudden and total, not steady and gradual like for example the transition of Spain from a semi-backwards monarchy to the modern democracy it is today that the inbetween period was under the fascism of Franco to make the transition to have a country that was ready for democracy by having things like a stable middle class.

[manic expression]

23. Soviet industrialization

was sufficient in many areas, not just supporting a war effort. The ability for the Soviets to produce in different fields increased, not just in making T-34s.

No, development was done by the government, not by the bourgeoisie. The profit motive was not there, but that does not make anything "unnatural" in any way. And to suggest that Soviet improvements didn't help the people is simply incorrect.

Russia was smashed by the Germans in a matter of months (if not weeks) in WWI. They were certainly not a force on the European stage at that point. Furthermore, Imperial Russia was a power in the past, but it was NOT an industrialized nation, and so it was woefully behind other European nations. The USSR went from being a century behind to being a forerunner in decades.

Yes, capitalism inherently helps the rich and powerful and screws everyone else. That was always going to be the case. The point I'm making is that the Soviet system worked well until you let capitalists exploit them for their own pocketbooks.

Of course there was suppression of dissent after 1954, but you cannot say that it was nearly in the same way. Really, it was an outgrowth of the beauracracy, and so it wasn't positive at all. However, that was countering the force which would eventually push Russian society into the precipice.

"Democracy"? Please. The reason it went so bad so fast is because it was CAPITALISM, meaning the bourgeoisie get everything and everyone else is forced to work their asses off to survive. It has nothing to do with "modern democracy" (which is hopelessly arrogant to assert), it has everything to do with control of the means of production, and the NATURAL path of capitalism is the consolidation of wealth and other things into very few hands; that is EXACTLY what happened. The rise of the oligarchy was NOT because of "democracy", NOT because of "shock", it was PRECISELY because of capitalism and the injustices it inevitably creates.

[Odin2005]

32. Bullshit.

Spare this non-Marxist socialist the Marxist-Leninist BS rhetoric.

[manic expression]

34. Get a clue

Marxism-Leninism has actually DONE SOMETHING AND MADE THE WORLD BETTER. Marxism-Leninism has worked, is working and will work.

Meanwhile, "non-Marxist s:eyes:cialists" sit on the sidelines and whine about movements which are actually making a difference. This is to say nothing of the fact that utopian, idealist socialists base their ideas on their imaginations while completely ignoring reality.

[manic expression]

3. He's a strongman

he's done a lot of things that are more than terrible (an epic understatement). The reason he's not as much of an embarrasment as Yeltsin is simply because he isn't a drunken baffoon.

[knight_of_the_star]

7. I think he's for Russia first and foremost

And knows that Russia can't be forced into a Western style democracy overnight when the government itself barely works and almost half the economy is directly or indirectly controlled by the Red Mob.

[manic expression]

8. For Russia in what sense?

Unless I'm mistaken, he hasn't exactly done a ton to help the Russian people directly. He might be for Russian power, but not much else.

The fall of the USSR is what has given Russia all of these unending problems. It was nothing short of a tremendous disaster and it was possibly the worst of all outcomes. Russia was FAR better with the USSR.

[knight_of_the_star]

11. He's for making Russia a working country

And just to mention it, the Soviet Union when you look at internal documents was slowly crumbling under its own weight before Gorbachev came into power. The state apparatus was too huge, too oppressive for the people to really break out from under it and move things forward on their own accord and the costs of maintaining it while constantly telling the people, "True communism is just around the corner" yet having to keep rationing food and resources to try to get through the day, where you had the common people living in very poor conditions while the party elite, their supposed equals, were driving around in limos.

And as a response to what you are saying about him not doing anything for the Russian people directly, he needs a government that can enforce the laws and breakup organized crime and other difficulties inside the country before the people can really start moving forward on their own. He also has to root out corruption inside the government before he can even do that, and he will have to crack a lot of heads to make that work out, and while it may look like he's turning the clock back, he can't keep going with business as usual cause that is NOT working for the Russian people, not when so many are living in squalor and the laws of the country cannot be enforced so that real efforts at home-grown small business can happen to give the common people a leg up. The previous system did not work well either, the people may have had food and work but they also didn't have the freedom to think and dream, now they do but they lack the means to act on those thoughts or dreams.

[manic expression]

13. The oligarchy is also for that

so what? Making something "work" isn't the question, it's HOW you make it work.

Yes, the USSR was in big trouble, but Gorbachev should NOT have sold the workers down the river. He allowed the bourgeoisie to dictate terms, which is a huge blunder on his part. Furthermore, Trotsky was saying in the 1930's that the beauracracy was the problem, and if it wasn't dealt with, the higher-ups would just revert back to capitalism when it was best for them (which is exactly what happened, look at what the nomenklatura did).

In spite of all the USSR's problems, it was FAR better in many respects than what replaced it. There was actually a community, there wasn't the stark and rampant consumerism that has devoured every aspect of society. School kids helped out the elderly, people went to farming communes to pitch in (and had some fun doing it), there was a semblence of services and support, etc.... It is curious that even in its worst state, socialism is FAR BETTER than capitalism.

"Freedom"? That's rich. First of all, freedom doesn't have any real definition. Secondly, "freedom" to the capitalist means the freedom to exploit and deprive, which is EXACTLY what is happening now. "Freedom" for the communist means freedom FROM these ills. Don't throw around those ridiculous terms that no one can actually validate, when the real meaning is far more sinister.

[knight_of_the_star]

15. I'm not continuing with this

Honestly I have to agree with a thesis someone put forward that Marxism is more of a religion than a political philosophy for some people, and I don't feel like wasting my time trying to explain or work this out with someone who won't concede to other perspectives or consider cold, hard facts. You can talk all you want about opiate of the masses and all that, but to be completely blunt the only difference between you and a religious zealot is the God and faith you are preaching.

ON EDIT: For all you've been talking about how amazing the USSR was about kids helping old people and all that, did you ever actually LIVE there under the USSR, or are you just going with anecdotal evidence?

[manic expression]

22. Fine

But to say that Marxism is a religion is simply insipid. It's an ideology, sorry.

Furthermore, the FACTS show that the USSR was better for the people. I'm going with accounts from people who grew up there and lived to see what Russia became after its fall as well as statistics (decrease in life expectancy, employment, increase in homelessness, etc....). Nice try, but these are reliable sources I'm using.

[knight_of_the_star]

24. The way you and other hardcore Marxists talk about it

It gets hard to tell the difference, considering that Marx's writings have never actually been proven in genuine practice, no country has ever made it past the dictatorship of the proletariat, hell no country that was seen as fit to be ready for the revolution ever underwent a successful revolution as Marx stated that the countries most ready for the revolution and for the next step up were INDUSTRIALIZED CAPITALIST countries. Russia and China certainly don't fit the bill, and a lot of the countries of Eastern Europe under the Soviet bloc had Marxism imposed at gunpoint, not by internal revolution.

BTW, how do those statistics compare with those of non-communist Western nations at the time who didn't undergo the rapid industrialization of the USSR? And how about the utter lack of political freedoms you have chosen not to address? The worst form of government in my mind is one that has the audacity to state they have the right to regulate what their citizens are allowed to think and write in the most intrusive of fashions as we saw with the KGB.

[manic expression]

25. The difference

is that our ideology is a political one, not religious. If that's not enough, consider the fact that liberalism or any other ideology is basically the same.

Lenin said that capitalism will break at its weakest link, not at its strongest, and since capitalism was POLITICALLY developed in Russia, revolution was possible. I agree, although other Marxists may or may not.

Eastern Europe was a buffer zone for the USSR and everyone knew it. The USSR's only interest was using them as a shield and quasi-protectorates, it's no secret.

In Europe, there were FDR-esque reforms in place that are now being overcome by the bourgeoisie; in the US, a half-century of stark imperialism increased the lot of workers, but the existence of poverty in America is shocking on its best days.

Socialism needs to suppress the bourgeoisie. The USSR went overboard, of course, but the idea was to stem the spread of capitalism, which wasn't unreasonable. Furthermore, "freedom" is impossible to define, and so I really can't be brought to care about it. Also, "freedom" in capitalism is far worse, it is freedom for those who can afford it.

[Odin2005]

33. Marxism is definitely a secular religion.

Marxists also seem to fall into circular reasoning, blowing off any criticism of their religion, even from other leftists, as "bourgeois ideology" or some such nonsense.

[manic expression]

35. You need to do better than that

This is one of the great many problems with utopians like yourself, your analysis is painfully nonexistent.

First, DEFINE "religion" (before labelling something you haven't even quantified). Next, try to justify how Marxism is a "religion". Lastly, consider the fact that other ideologies are really no different in the aspects you are trying to cite.

[progressive_realist]

4. He is a nationalist

He'll do whatever he thinks is in Russia's best interest. And he doesn't give a damn who gets hurt (or killed) in the process.

Violent nationalism is generally associated with the paleoconservative faction of the right-wing. That makes him no friend of the left, but no friend of the neocons either.

[manic expression]

5. If you ask me he's in it for himself

he doesn't give a crap about who or what is in his way. For instance, IIRC, it's very likely that he was behind a bombing of a residential complex as a way to get power (and blame it on the Chechens).

He's most definitely NOT a communist AT ALL. He's most definitely NOT a socialist AT ALL. That much is more than clear.

To be honest, he doesn't ascribe to any ideology, he ascribes to power itself.

[BayCityProgressive]

9. I agree they were better under the USSR

but if Gorbachev's reforms would have worked that would have been the best outcome. Gorbachev stated many times he wanted a modern socialist union that was a mix of socialism, small business, and social democracy. He wanted a system more like current Venezuela, Cuba, Sweden, Norway all mixed together...unfortunately, all of the revolutionary changes on top of the economic troubles were too much for the country to handle...it was too late.

[manic expression]

12. I have mixed views on Gorbachev

while I think reforms were definitely in order, he sold the people down the river by folding to the drunk cretin (Yeltsin). He was in a tough position, but his mistakes were allowing the bourgeoisie to scream what they wanted (BIG mistake, one of the biggest parts of socialism is to suppress the bourgeoisie, anyone who knows anything about Leninism knows that) and a few other things.

Cuba's system is based on the Soviet model, they've just managed it better. In fact, Cuba is very much Marxist-Leninist, the only reason there is a very small amount of "small business" is because the USSR fell.

Norway is a welfare state, which has nothing to do with Marxist socialism (a la Soviet Union and Cuba).

Venezuela is still carving its path, although it will likely start to establish worker control and begin to heavily restrict (or, hopefully, end) private property.

[knight_of_the_star]

17. I think the problem was things were going too fast

I think if he had found a way to slowly open up the economy and society instead of how he approached he it's possible we would be discussing his retirement as one of the most beloved leaders in Russian history today instead of how he was forced out years ago. If he had moved more slowly he probably could have avoided the coup that destroyed his government as well as preserved the Union and found a way to slowly slide things over in the direction he wanted. I think the problem was he moved too fast, you can't go from a state that had that much control to something resembling a Western style democracy to any degree too quickly without causing serious shock to the system.

[LeftishBrit]

29. I agree with you - Gorbachev was the one real hope that they had

Russia has had disastrous governments and political systems throughout its history: first the Tsars, then the Stalinist Tsars, and now the Mafia Tsars. Gorbachev *might* have succeeded in changing the country very much for the better (who knows; maybe it was already too late); but Reagan et al, as well as people like Yeltsin, helped to ensure a much worse outcome, by being more concerned with 'winning' than with actually contributing to a better situation in the Soviet Union and the world at large.

[Kelly Rupert]

16. He's authoritarian.

He's in favor of oligarchic "free markets" on one hand, but at the same time thinks nothing of bullying Europe with his single-handed control over Europe's energy pricing and supply. Really, there's nothing to recommend him.

[knight_of_the_star]

18. I think in some ways he needs to act in that fashion

Not in relations to the rest of the world, Gods know we already have enough trouble with one wannabe king running around we don't need another, but he's going to need to crack a LOT of heads to clean out the corruption in his government on ALL levels and clean out organized crime to a degree where he can get things to actually happen in Russia. Now if he does all that and stays on as a Tsar in all but name then he's swine, but right now he needs some muscle to get his country cleaned up.

[Rex]

19. He's about as democractic as Dick Cheney.

Not to be confused with how smart he is. I would say far smarter than the BFEE.

[Kingshakabobo]

20. AND he can beat up the BFEE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdXwu2MXR_s

[Rex]

21. KGB chief, tough SOB

George? Dick?

[Chomskyite]

26. I think the comparison is to Otto von Bismarck

He's trying to consolidate the old socialist republics back under his wing. He's building up his military. He's every bit as subtle about preying on the rivalries around him while stealing away with more power by increments. He's another Iron Chancellor.

[Hekate]

28. That's interesting, and sounds accurate. He's empire-building...

...kind of like someone else we know, only more successful it would seem.

Hekate

[Hekate]

27. Two steps to the right of Ivan the Terrible, that's where

Putin used to be head of the KGB, for crying out loud.

Hekate

[MrSlayer]

30. Basically he's Al Capone.

Russia's government is simply a huge organized crime family with Putin at the head and the KGB as the captains and soldiers.

[salin]

31. Authoritarian

dangerous kind. Imprison, silence and get rid by any means of any political rivals. Try to cut off political power to amass it in his office (he ended the practice of 'electing' senators - and made them appointees, for example.)