Michael Pugliese quoted Fred Halliday:
> Most significant of all of these is the political character of the two most important states to have undergone the communist experiment: the neo-authoritarian dictatorship of Vladimir Putin in Russia,<
Chris Doss wrote:
> Dear Lord. Putin is the most popular Russian leader in history. How on earth is he a dictator? Because everybody voted for his party, so they have the majority in the Duma?
> This guy [Halliday] is a complete moron. Like most British analysts. Must be something in the scones... <
to my mind [which, BTW, is mostly ignorant of things Russian], Putin's popularity is easy to explain.
Almost everyone outside the anarchist community agrees with Thomas Hobbes, i.e., that the state must monopolize the legitimate use of force in the country (living up to Weber's definition). Otherwise, you get mob rule, bandits, poor-nasty-brutish-short lives, etc. Yeltsin either couldn't pull this off because he didn't have the power or wasn't the right guy for the job. On the other hand, Putin is the Man on the White Horse. It doesn't matter if he persecutes some corrupt oil baron for person political gain (while leaving similarly corrupt oligarchs off the hook) as long as he does "job one," maintaining order.
In this view, the Russians see the "neo-authoritarian dictatorship of Vladimir Putin" as a _good thing_. -- Jim Devine "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.