I'm not going to get into my 999th pointless internet discussion about the Russian state, but yeah, speaking of flawed historical analogies... If Russia were Weimar, it would be in a a deep trough after years of economic hardship, instead of having had one of the world's fastest growth rates from 1999-2008. It would also have a strong, powerful communist movement opposed by a strong, powerful fascist movement, as opposed to Zyuganov and some skinheads, with paramilitaries from both organizations fighting in the streets. It would also be largely monoethnic and monocultural, which is kind of a prerequisite for fascists to come to powers, instead of what it is, fantasmagorically multiethnic.
There are practically no similarities.
--- On Tue, 6/16/09, dredmond at efn.org <dredmond at efn.org> wrote:
> From: dredmond at efn.org <dredmond at efn.org>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] One or two flawed historical analogies (was Re: Stratfor: Western Misconceptions Meet Iranian Reality)
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2009, 1:45 AM
> On Mon, June 15, 2009 5:38 pm, Itamar
> Shtull-Trauring wrote:
>
> > The history is worth remembering, among other reasons,
> because Russia is
> > in many ways similar to Weimar Germany
>
> Russia and the rest of the contemporary semi-periphery have
> no
> similarities to the semi-peripheries of the 1930s. Zero.
> None. In fact,
> the BRICs are sitting on 3 trillion EUR in cash reserves, a
> tiny sliver of
> which Russia recently used to buy GM's Opel car division.
>
> -- DRR
>
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