The General Russia Thread

For a dictator to fall, you need two things:

• He must be unpopular enough for the people (or rather, a numerically or socially significant subset thereof) to want to remove him.
• He must be weak enough that he can be removed.

For his regime to fall also, we need a third:

• His regime or ideology must be in such a state that it cannot simply replace him with another figurehead.

None of those conditions are in place as far as Putin is concerned, and I don't foresee them being so for some time. Even if they were, the next biggest political movement in Russia is even worse. The West needs to abandon its view of Russians as "defective Europeans", ie, a people whose outlook is the same as ours but who are always being held hostage by the lies of various ideological or kleptocratic elites. Russia's political outlook is fundamentally different to our own - a product of Russia's remoteness and history. To bring Russians around to a Western way of thinking can only be achieved with soft power, and the West is well behind Russia in this respect.

Quite. The whole reason for the rightward turn (previously Putin was decidedly socially centrist, until 2012) is because of the 2012 elections and subsequent protests. They demonstrated that his grip on power is much more fragile than he imagines.

Probably stronger now given the rightward turn, but not insurmountable.

Edit: The most recent Russian Communist Party manifesto seems rather agreeable to me. Or are they darker than their program suggests?

edited 21st Sep '14 8:06:46 AM by Ogodei

One thing to keep in mind is that should Putin fall, it is very unlikely that someone more pro-western and/or liberal would step in power. So don't get carried away with wishful thinking. There is no such person close to the powers that be right now - on the contrary, other high ups are much, much more crazy (Putin is sane, at least), even more isolationist (again, he is sane, at least) and so on.

Their foreign policy agenda is essentially the same as Putin's, except their nostalgia for returning the Baltic republics and Ukraine to their "rightful" places under Moscow's heel is possibly even stronger than his is. Their social agenda is essentially the same as Putin's, except they like to talk about "international financiers" imposing decadence on Russia, which is a dog-whistle for Jews.

Only in the economic sphere to they differ, and their economic policy is Venezuelan; the only saving grace of a CPRF takeover of Russia is that everything would quickly stop working so they would be unlikely to be able to seriously threaten Europe.

IIRC, the CPRF has been accused of providing silent support to the Kremlin.

That's the other thing. It's not clear to what extent they actually are a distinct movement and not a political tool of United Russia's. Certainly, I would be very surprised if they aren't extensively penetrated by UR activists. A lot of Russia's "multi-party democracy" is heavily astroturfed by the Kremlin.

The thing is, by this point I wouldn't be surprised if some clandestine organization or association pulls a lot of Russia's strings, a la Propaganda Due or the Afrikaner Broederbond.

Something else about the CPRF: They deny the Ukrainian genocide/famine, Stalin's purges, the occupation of the Baltic States, and the Katyn Massacre, which makes them scarce better than Nazis, in my opinion.

@Beholderess

My point. Russians are not politically European anyway, and the strength of the nations revanchist elites will only reinforce that in further.

edited 21st Sep '14 8:44:20 AM by Achaemenid

I'm still waiting for Medvedev to reveal he's a secret political mastermind and stage some glorious coup and lead Russia to a new age or something

It would be scary if the Communists were Kremlin astroturf (at least on the surface), since that would be the top three under the Kremlin's thumb right there (United Russia and the hilariously-named neo-nazi Lib Dems)

I know who can replace Putin!

/sarcasm

I actually would be perfectly happy with a constituitional Romanov monarchy...

As for Medvedev, he's only been on the scene for...ten years? If he'll start anything it'll only begin now.

Eh, point.

edited 21st Sep '14 9:34:56 AM by FFShinra

If conditions were right for a Romanov constitutional monarchy, then they would likely also be right for a standard democratic government.

—

Vladimir Zhirinovsky really is a ridiculous Julius Streicher figure, isn't he?

Everythings Better With Princesses

edited 21st Sep '14 10:45:46 AM by Achaemenid

Why her and not this guy?

You mean this guy. Nicholas is dead.

... Whoah, he died just last week?! Why didn't he make the headlines?? I mean, one major celebrity dies in 2009 and the story swarm the news (and that's before the wave of other celebrity deaths hit).

Pretenders to a title that has been defunct for nearly a century are probably not on the public's radar. At least that's my guess.

Sounds like he kept to himself for the most part as well.

He's not like Maria Vladimirovna either in that he didn't actively campaign for restoration. Hell, he never even really claimed pretendership to the throne so much as leadership of House Romanov.

If I remember, the strongest dynastic claim is Prince Michael of Kent or something. Frederick Forsyth actually had a novel in 1995 proposing a constitutional monarchy with him as Czar: gives the Russians something to rally around while avoiding the dangers of ultranationalism.

Not that it's remotely likely to work now what with all the anti-Western sentiment, but one can dream.

Also, no-one liked the Tsar. That's why they shot him.

Don't think the Bolsheviks shot him with that in mind...

No one liked the Party either, but there was a surprising amount of nostalgia for them of the "at least they kept order" variety. Ostalgie a la Rus (and linguists may never forgive me for that). The Czar's got the whole romantic Empire days thing going for him—which, admittedly, is less than ideal when Russia is currently doing its best to be the Russian Empire Mk II under Czar Vladimir the Shirtless...

Russia passes law to allow the seizure of foreign property in it's territory. If I recall correctly,the west only froze Russian assets,not actively confiscated them.

tit for tat only holds for amount of effect, not exact action. Russian sanctions don't have same effect. Confiscating property has more effect.

Does this mean we can take all those fancy Russian houses in London into public ownership? Great.

Russian houses in London? UK confirmed for having Russian minority. Get hyped.

WW3: Anglosphere Edition.

I down for that.