Chris Doss writes:
> the FSU is overwhelmingly committed to egalitarian and communitarian
> values
Shane wrote:
Is this something that can be demonstrated by any of their policies?
I was refering to the population of the FSU, not their governments. The number of governments in the CIS that operate democratically is precisely zero. Actually, Russia probably has the most democratic goverment in the region -- if you think Russia is undemocratic, you should check out Uzbekistan, or Ukraine, where the president seems to have ordered the assassination of an opposition journalist.
I wrote:
> Of course Putin is serving the interests of a group of highly
> priviliged Russian bureaucrats and wealthy citizens; but the best
> that can be hoped for Russia at present is that the government serve
> the interests of that segment of the elite that is interested in
> economic and social stability; and I think that is what he is doing. I
> will take authoritarian Putin, who actually cares about his approval
> ratings and actually does try to be improving the economy and
> stemming capital flight, over the "loot the stae" regime of Yeltsin
> and his circle of toadies.
Shane responds:
He seems to be using the of fear of terrorism to institute a "strong state," for which I remember (don't have the quote on hand) that he said he would be taking his lessons from modern China. Is this the "best that can be hoped for"?
Me again:
He's hardly unique in using fear of terrorism to strengthen the state.
China is in much, much better shape than Russia. Actually, a lot of Russians I know think the country should have taken the Chinese path. Not that I'm a big fan of China but, damn, you should try living in a state run by the Mafia. It's not pleasant. Russia's options are very few in number. It's so depressing I don't even like thinking about it. Maybe in 10 or 15 years, if the economy keeps growing, there will be a civil society sufficiently well-developed to ground an alterbative, but it is simply impossible now. I would love, love, to be proved wrong. I just don't see any real alternative. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but the Communist Party is no real opposition any more, if it ever was, and resources for alternative political action are meager. Most people in Russia have almost no money and have a hard enough time trying to get enough food to feed their children, let along organize politically. What alternative is there? Limonov (just arrested by the FSB, by the way)? Zhirinovsky? Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places -- it is a good sign that the militant Trotskyist labor rights organization Zaschita Truda (Defense of Labor) has tripled its membership in the last three years and its head is actually on the Duma.
Shane then posts the Guardian piece, which says:
The Kremlin's evidence that Chechen terrorists bombed Moscow is extremely thin. After the bomb outrages, secret police in the FSB handed out Photofit pictures of unnamed Chechens. No suspects were arrested and no convincing explanation was given to the public.
Yours Truly:
I have no idea who planted the Moscow bombs, but I doubt it was instigated by Putin (it would strike me as political suicide to get implicated in crassly murdering your own populace). I think it's more likely that some pro-faction in the FSB or oligarch concocted the scheme, or that it was in fact planted by Chechen extremists. Chechen terrorism is not something the Russian government is making up. The mujahadeen in Chechnya and their funders, who are primarily the Taliban (not something you see mentioned much in the Western press I've seen) have been trying to ignite a jihad in the Caucausus for years. Between 1996-1998, there was a bombing campaign in south Russia and a well-developed Chechnya-based kidnap industry that abducted 1,100 Russian citizens and often tortured and murdered them. Hell, there were bombs just last week that killed 21 people.
Actually, for all the clumsy brutality of its armed forces in their current state, who are not exactly known for being big respecters of human rights, Russia has been much more accomodating to Chechnya than the US would be in similar circumstances. Imagine what would happen if there was an armed Islamic encampment on US borders that had repeatedly expressed its intent to plunge the country into civil war! The Islamic Republic of Toronto would be a wasteland pretty damn quick, I think.
The Guardian goes on to mention Kagarlitsky:
The local police arrested two men that night, according to Boris Kagarlitsky, a member of the Russian Institute of Comparative Politics. 'FSB officers were caught red-handed while planting the bomb. They were arrested by the police and they tried to save themselves by showing FSB identity cards.'
I say:
I spent several days with a friend of Kagarlitsky's in a cabin out in the woods. He's a professor of history at Moscow State University who used to head the Party of Anarchists during the 80s and was a figure in organizing Gorbachev-era economic reforms. They used to gather on Red Square and heckle Gorbachev: "Too slow! More democracy now!" (His current line is "well, it seemed like a good idea at the time." "Perestroika" is a dirty word in Russia.) He has some very interesting insider stuff on the 1991 coup.