If you have any interest at all in Russia in the 21st century I urge you to read Justin Lifflander’s article in The Foreign Service Journal. Here’s a snippet:
My friend Mikhailovich is a middle-aged entrepreneur who moved to Moscow from Kyiv as a young man. He believes that the factors contributing to an individual’s mentality are both experiential and hereditary.
“Look at the past 400 years. The Romanov dynasty started in 1613 and lasted 300 years,†Mikhailovich says. “The communists were in power for 74 years, and we’ve been free of them for 25 years. It is not a coincidence that 75 percent of the population are content to live under authoritarian rule; 24 percent think like communists—either thieves or despisers of private property and individual success; and only about 1 percent we can call ‘neo-Russian’—those with a balanced view of the external world and a desire to live and function in a progressive society.â€
Today’s Russia is very different from the Soviet Union. If you assume that nothing has changed, you’re making a grave error.
And yet, the Russians remain the Russians. Just as backward, as brutal, as incapable of self-government, as cruel and dishonest and peasant-stupid as ever.
Quick quiz. What is the most influential Russian literature of all time. Is it:
a) War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy.
b) Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
c) The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, by the Okhrana.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Yes, the winner by a country mile, is the anti-semitic forgery produced by the Okhrana which is totally different from the Cheka, which is totally not the KGB, and nothing at all like the FSB, now ruled by a former KGB colonel.
It’s permissible to be more Russophobic than Hitler on this blog apparently and in much the same vein.
But Germans are far more friendly to Russians now.
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/russia-germany-two-nations-want-peace/ri14580
This apparently bothers the “hate Russia” crowd in the Democrat Party who are eager to work with McCain and Graham against Trump.
The USSR in its prime published more anti-Zionist material than any other source, probably in fact more in volume than the entire Muslim-Arab world, which, however made use of some of it.
But to the protocols, the charge is of its historical influence.
How does a Russophobe determine that? I mean Jewish historians
claim anti-semitism/ anti-Christianity for example has been a two way street, Prof. Shahak certainly claims that the Talmud and related literature had a key influence in the development of hostility.
https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-History-Religion-Israel-Shahak/dp/074530818X
Obviously the inference is because more peasants read the Protocols than Tolstoy, the Protocols have had more influence.
I wonder what is the most “influential” American literature and music since hip hop came to fruition, or since circa 1990.
Is there a Russian city as incapable as Chicago of self-government?
Well, if Trump is as bad as Reynolds claims, Americans in general are becoming incapable of self-government.
At any rate, good luck in fomenting war teamed with the Graham, McCain gang , all you Democratic Joe McCartthyites.
I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but I was in the USSR as a student during the Gorbachev coup in 1991. I was in a summer program studying Russian culture and history and language at Moscow State. We took a weekend trip prior to the coupe to what was then Leningrad (St.Petersburg) and returned to Moscow on the night train Monday morning find the radio announcing that Gorbachev was “sick” and some cabal of senior officials had taken over the government. The city was in a quiet panic and no one really knew what was going on.
One of the ironic aspects is that this was the time when CNN was king and we didn’t get CNN in the USSR. For you kids out there, the internet did not exist, so the only information we got was from official Russian sources (taken over by the coup-plotters), street rumors and the embassy. Compared to the outside world, we had very little information on what was going on – something I only learned much later.
Anyway, our teachers spent every night manning the barricades at the Russian White House where Yeltsin and others were holed up. Our teachers would come back in the morning and instruct as best they could. which was not very good A few of us eventually snuck out of MGU at night and joined them.
I had brought a ton of Marlboros with me and a few pairs of Levi’s because we thought those would be better than hard currency in the Soviet economy. It was a poor choice – I ended up giving away most of the cigarettes for nothing, mainly to the guys on BMP’s and T-72’s who chose to defy the coup plotters and defend the Russian White House.
Unfortunately I haven’t been back since. Not sure if I can ever go back. People with my employment history are not generally granted visas and frankly I wouldn’t feel safe. Russia Today (irony alert) is certainly much different that the USSR.
No, I didn’t know that. I’ve mentioned it before but many, many years ago I studied Russian language, literature, culture, history, culture, politics rather intensively. I was offered a job by the federal government as a Soviet analyst. Ultimately, I turned them down and took my life in a different direction. We might have ended up as colleagues of a sort.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/04/new-mccarthyism-targets-trump/
not a bad piece from the left.
Query- It is not clear to me how much the Russian government actually controls the press. Any idea on how to quantify it?
Steve
I can’t quantify it but Freedom House has. The Russian government has less control over the press than the Soviet government did. Press freedom has declined drastically over the last decade or so:
and it is widely believed that the government, government officials, or military officials have had journalists murdered.
Thanks.