Have you read Perry Anderson's typically magisterial survey of Russia today in the London Rev of Books? Putting it crudely he views Putin as a Thermidorean strong man in the old Russian manner with a nice new suit who mainly looks good because of the contrast with Yeltsin, both in terms of his style and the fact that after Yeltsin the economy had nowhere to go but up, and the oil money. Also the fact that for the first time since Lenin the Russians have a leader who can speak educated, polished Russian in complete grammatical sentences. Anderson is of course far more subtle and nuanced, and he is fluent in Russian. His view, again putting it crudely, is that today Russia is basically a platform for export of raw materials, not a real industrial power.
--- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
> Re: standard bearer of anti-imperialism: what else
> is
> there, outside
> of maybe Castro and Chavez (each flawed in their own
> ways)? Tom
> Friedman's India? Putin's Russia? (actually, yes
> perhaps the latter,
> for much the same reason as Iran).
>
> I'm not sure what "anti-imperialism" really means
> anymore. But anyway I'm a big Putin guy (like most
> people in Russia) because of the rapidly increasing
> living standards. Russia has a large middle class
> today. That is the first time it has ever happened
> in
> history. Consumption is now higher than the Soviet
> level -- this after the '90s collapse. We've had 10%
> growth in real wages every year for the last 7. It's
> amazing.
>
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