Yes, I've read it, and it was a real piece of work. The first paragraph alone was magisterial its distortion of reality.
Putin is popular because he saved the country from being destroyed (by, among other, those loveable Chechen rebels that used to be doted over in the West until they sided with Putin), not because of his suit, diction, or whatever fantasies Anderson gets his ideological jollies off of.
Putin and Co. saved Russia, whether you and Perry Anderson like it or not. I think you just don't want to admit it.
(Sorry, I've written this at 2 am in Moscow on
Saturday night, which may explain any overexuberance
:) )
--- andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> 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.
>
Lyubo, bratsy, lyubo, lyubo, bratsy, zhit!
ËÞÁÎ, ÁÐÀÒÖÛ, ËÞÁÎ, ËÞÁÎ, ÁÐÀÒÖÛ, ÆÈÒÜ!
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