--- James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Are you sure that is what you mean? You really mean
> that sovereign democracy
> is the essence of Stalinism? The very idea that
> governments are elected by
> the people is what you take to be the meaning of
> Stalinism?
The point is that the person you are responding to does not want to deal with the actual reasons for Putin's circa 80% approval rating (economic growth, political stabilization, stabilization of the Caucasus, greatly increased wages and pensions that are paid ON TIME, destruction of the political power of the oligarchs, Khodorkovsky in jail etc. etc. etc.). All this is an epiphenomenon, and since Putin is "authoritarian" (whatever that means), and "authoritarianism" is always bad, the Russians, who are supposedly oppressed in some unspecified way, must be somehow deluded, like under Stalin. For was Stalin not also popular?
People say the same thing about Chavez.
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