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No, You Can't Go Back To The USSR!

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Dmitry Orlov via Club Orlov blog,

One of the fake stories kept alive by certain American politicians, with the help of western media, is that Vladimir Putin (who, they vacuously claim, is a dictator and a tyrant) wants to reconstitute the USSR, with the annexation of Crimea as the first step.

Instead of listening to their gossip, let's lay out the facts.

The USSR was officially dissolved on December 26, 1991 by declaration ?142-H of the Supreme Soviet. It acknowledged the independence of the 15 Soviet republics, and in the place of the USSR created a Commonwealth of Independent States, which hasn't amounted to much.

In the west, there was much rejoicing, and everyone assumed that in the east everyone was rejoicing as well. Well, that's a funny thing, actually, because a union-wide referendum held on March 17, 1991, produced a stunning result: with over 80% turnout, of the 185,647,355 people who voted 113,512,812 voted to preserve the USSR. That's 77.85%—not exactly a slim majority. Their wishes were disregarded.

Was this public sentiment temporary, borne of fear in the face of uncertainty? And if it were to persist, it would surely be a purely Russian thing, because the populations of all these other Independent States, having tasted freedom, would never consider rejoining Russia. Well, that's another funny thing: in September of 2011, fully two decades after the referendum, Ukrainian sociologists found out that 30% of the people there wished for a return to a Soviet-style planned economy (stunningly, 17% of these were young people with no experience of life in the USSR) and only 22% wished for some sort of European-style democracy. The wish for a return to Soviet-style central planning is telling: it shows just how miserable a failure the Ukraine's experiment with instituting a western-style market economy had become. But, again, their wishes were disregarded.

This would seem to indicate that Putin's presumptuously postulated project of reconstituting the USSR would have plenty of popular support, would it not? What he said on the subject, when asked directly (in December of 2010) is this: “He who doesn't regret the collapse of the USSR doesn't have a heart; he who wants to see it reborn doesn't have a brain.” Last I checked, Putin does have a brain; ergo, no USSR 2.0 is forthcoming.

Interestingly, he went on to say a few more words on the subject. He said that the USSR had a competitive advantage as a unified market and a free trade zone. This one element of the USSR is now embodied in the Customs Union, of which Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and several smaller countries are members, and it appears to be a success.

The Ukraine—with over 40 million inhabitants, a major piece—refused to join while continuing to trade mostly with Customs Union members. This strategy has turned out to be, to put it mildly, disadvantageous, with Ukrainian economy now in rapid collapse, having declined over 17% in just the first quarter of this year. Thus, while the theory of competitive advantage may or may not be valid, the converse competitive disadvantage of *not* joining the Customs Union is there for all to see.

* * *

To be sure, many aspects of the old USSR have been happily consigned to oblivion. Among them:

  • The communist ideology: the Communist Party no longer has a monopoly on power.
  • The bloc mentality: the Warsaw Pact evaporated, leaving NATO behind as the one hand clapping. The new system is a multipolar one.
  • Central planning: replaced with a market economy
  • Economic isolationism: replaced with an export-driven economy based on trade agreements with numerous nations around the world
  • Authoritarian governance: replaced with authoritative governance, in which leaders derive their authority from their popularity, which is based on their performance in office, whereas previously the General Secretary of the CPSU was a bit like the Pope—infallible by definition.

These are all positive changes, and very few people regret that they have occurred, or wish for a return to status quo ante.

There are many other aspects of the old USSR which have been degraded, sometimes severely, but nevertheless remain in place. Among them are public health and public education.

The USSR had a system of socialized medicine that excelled at some things and was mediocre in others. The shift to privatized medicine has been a success in some ways, but is very hard on those who cannot afford the care or the medications. The educational system is still very good at all levels, but here too there has been significant degradation, bemoaned by many observers.

The USSR invested heavily in science and culture, and much has been lost during the difficult years of the 1990s—something that many people regret very much. The USSR led the world in basic scientific research, probing into matters that did not have any commercial applications, simply because they were scientifically interesting and led to publishable results. The US led the world in product design, something that Soviet engineers were happy to simply copy much of the time, to save time and effort. Since they were not attempting to export into the western consumer market, a slight lag in time to market was of no consequence to them.

On the other hand, Americans have always had trouble wrapping their heads around the idea of financing scientific research that had absolutely no conceivable commercial applications. In addition, the anti-intellectualism prevalent in American culture caused a proliferation of other sorts of “scientists”: political scientists, social scientists, food scientists... a certificate in “janitorial science” wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Basic science is the premier transnational intellectual endeavor of the human species in modern times, and the damage done to Soviet science has caused significant damage to the pursuit of scientific knowledge throughout the world, and a diminution in the stature of the scientific endeavor. Now even in Russia scientists are forced to chase after grant money by pursuing avenues of research that lead to patentable gizmos and gadgets.

One of the things that has been retained is the living arrangement. Over the seven decades of the USSR's existence, there took place a thorough transformation from an agrarian population dispersed across the countryside to an industrialized population concentrated in major cities. The people went from being log cabin-dwellers to apartment-dwellers. Following the dissolution of the USSR, the housing stock was privatized, and now many families own their residences free and clear. The ability to live rent-free provides them with a very large competitive advantage compared to families in high-rent, debt-ridden countries such as the US.

Along with apartment buildings built in dense, walkable clusters went a system of public transportation. This, too, has remained largely intact, and in many cities has been expanded and modernized. This, again, provides numerous benefits to the population, and gives them an advantage vis à vis people in car-dependent countries, where the people spend much of their life stuck in traffic, and where the elderly, who are too old to drive safely, are often forced to choose between being stuck in their homes and taking their lives (and those of others) in their own hands behind the wheel.

* * *

When something is said to have collapsed, people often assume that it has simply ceased to exist. But the effects of collapse depend on the nature of the thing that collapses. When a hydroelectric dam collapses, it ceases to produce electricity, plus it destroys lots of things downstream from it, plus it may disrupt access to water. When a school collapses, it may kill some schoolchildren, and some teachers, but it doesn't necessarily destroy the knowledge that was being imparted. And when a mausoleum collapses, only its description changes: it can then be described as “ruined.”

Some collapses are common, others not. Economies, especially bubble economies, collapse all the time. Empires collapse with great regularity. Civilizations are said to collapse, but do they really? A civilization can be viewed as a functioning apparatus, but doing so seems to confuse a set of principles with the entity that embodies them. Civilizational principles can be quite durable: the Roman empire was gone for a thousand years when Europe once again became capable of large-scale social organization, but, sure enough, the Europeans dusted off the old Roman legal codes and principles of organization, and started applying them. In the meantime, in the colleges and universities, Latin had remained the language of learned discourse, in absence of any surviving Latins being present to teach LSL classes. It would appear that civilizations don't really collapse; they just become quescent. New developments may spark them back to life, or they may eventually be supplanted—by another civilization.

The USSR is gone as a political entity, but as a civilizational entity it appears to be holding its own, though it lacks a name. The two-part name—Soviet, plus “Soyuz” (Union)—fell apart. The word “Soviet,” used as an adjective, applies only to the past. As a noun, it means “council,” having originated from the revolutionary workers' councils, and this is still used, although cautiously: “to help with council” is, to a Russian, to only pretend to help. But the term “Soyuz” lives on; it is the name of the only spaceship that can still ferry passengers to the International Space Station; the new Customs Union is a Customs Soyuz. And Russian children still grow up in the Soyuz, in a manner of speaking, thanks to Soyuzmultfilm, the Soviet-era studio that produced excellent children's animated films, which are still hugely popular and are now available on Youtube.

Let us think of the Soyuz—as a civilization, rather than of the USSR—which was a political empire. A major effort was made to supplant it with western civilization, through the introduction of market economics and a flood of western imports, both material and cultural. Western civilizational principles dominated for a time, among them such western innovations as granting equal status to homosexual practices, disregarding the role of ethnicity in political organization, and the abnegation of economic and political sovereignty to the imperial center in Washington, DC. All of these were, for a time, masticated thoroughly. Then they were rather forcefully spat out, everywhere in the former USSR except for a few sorry basket cases, the Ukraine foremost among them. But everywhere else, once the full fiasco of western values became clear to all, previous civilizational principles came roaring back to life.

Perhaps foremost among them is social conservatism. The Russian Federation has two major religions: Orthodox Christianity and Islam, and a great deal of effort goes into maintaining their mutual compatibility, so that religion does not become a divisive factor. Introducing constructs that are alien to both, such as gay marriage, is a nonstarter. But polygamy is not off the table, and a senior Chechen official recently took a young bride to be his second wife. This event caused quite a sensation, but was allowed to proceed—in Moslem Chechnya.

Second is the principle that ethnicity is significant to social and political organization. Russia is not a nation—it is a multinational federation. There are over 190 different nations that make it up, with ethnic Russians accounting for a little over 3/4 of the population. This percentage is likely to decrease over time: Russia is second only to USA in the number of immigrants it absorbs, and their country of origin, sorted by the number of immigrants, is as follows: Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Belarus, China, Germany and USA.

During the existence of the USSR, the multi-ethnic composition of the country was given much emphasis. Numerous small nations had their languages written down for the first time, using the ever-expanding Cyrillic alphabet, and endowed with a national literature. National languages were included in school curricula, and various nations used them in their local self-governance, to enlarge their autonomy and improve social cohesion. In essence, the Russian Federation provides for ethnic sovereignty—each nation can claim a measure of sovereignty for itself, rule itself and create its own laws, provided they do not conflict with the larger whole. A prime example of this is modern Chechnya: Moscow is content to let it persecute its own anti-terrorist campaign, to put down the remaining foreign-financed jihadis.

Imagine the principle of ethnic sovereignty being applied to the US, where one's ethnicity is of no consequence provided one looks, sounds and behaves sufficiently Anglo. In the US, ethnicity has been reduced to questions of music and cuisine, with perhaps a festival here and there, but always with the tacit understanding that “ethnic” means “other”: there is no such thing as an “ethnic Anglo.” Since ethnicity is essentially taboo, the completely artificial construct of race is used instead, with artificial, discriminatory labels attached to categories of individuals. The label “Latino” is particularly bogus, since there is very little in common between, say, a Cuban and a Bolivian, except that both are likely to face discrimination, neither being considered sufficiently “white”—Anglo, that is. But imagine if the Mexicans or the African-Americans were to be granted a similar level of autonomy within the US? It would blow the country to pieces!

A country predicated on protecting “white privilege” cannot possibly survive such a corruption of its founding principles. The US fought a revolution to keep slavery legal (it was about to be abolished by the British); then it fought a civil war to change slavery from one form to another (there are more African-Americans in US jails now than there were slaves in the Confederate South prior to the Civil War).

Nobody knows what wars lie in its future, or what will provoke them, but this particular intercivilizational fault line is likely to be very important. For what is a nation? Is it your tribe, or is it a bunch of mercenaries pretending to be Anglo so that they are allowed into the country club? Only time will tell which of the two civilizations will prove to be more durable.

 

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Tue, 05/19/2015 - 23:07 | 6112271 TheFourthStooge-ing
TheFourthStooge-ing's picture

Dead Sea know? Putin killed!
Death Valley know? Putin killed!
Dead end street know? Putin killed!
Dead skunk on middle of road know? Putin killed!

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 23:15 | 6112283 Funny Money
Funny Money's picture

More licking of Putin's ass.

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 23:20 | 6112295 90's Child
90's Child's picture

Amazed you could post when Obama's balls deep.

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 23:22 | 6112300 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

The boogieman is dead. Long live the (next/resurrected) boogieman.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:27 | 6112418 Oh regional Indian
Oh regional Indian's picture

Back to the USSR, where the studentkas are myarkhi....

Everything I read makes me vuw Ma Rooshia more. And the Rushins too. Just what they have had to deal with in the last 150 years....of course they are punch drunk.

Yes, yes, there is no going back. There never is. That is why we re-search, re-deem, re-set, re-view, re-store....

That's right (and left), no going back.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 01:03 | 6112488 McCormick No. 9
McCormick No. 9's picture

I like Orlov, and read most of his stuff. But he's wrong about the slavery bit. England didn't abolish slavery until 1833, or about 57 years after the Declaration of Independence. The Revolutionary War was not about slavery. The Revolution was the only shining moment in the history of Freemasonry. When the Masons thought to betray their ideals for power, they wrote the Constitution, and Albert Pike was created by that document.

The Civil War was more complicated. Ostensibly, the Southern States fought for States Rights, but this is disingenuous- they fought for the State's right to keep slavery. Truth is truth, but in order to be completely fair, it is impossible to imagine Southern slavery (if there had been no war, and no infringement on State's Rights) surviving very long in an industrial revolution.

Yes, the Southern States wanted to keep slavery, and yes, the Federal Government wanted to destroy State's Rights. I guess it would be even except that the Federalists won and the traitor Lincoln destroyed the Repubic, just as Patrick Henry predicted when the Constitution was ratified, since that execrable document was the Republic's death warrant.

There is not much difference between an emancipated serf in 1865 and an emancipated Negro in 1865. There is not much difference today in an apartment-dwelling Russian (of any nationality) and an apartment dwelling American (of any ethnicity). My standard of living in Russia was better than my standard of living in the USA, and that was 1n 1997, at the depth fo Russia's downturn.

 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 03:04 | 6112615 ZD1
ZD1's picture

The northern U.S. states were deeply implicated in slavery and the slave trade right up to the war.  Northern commercial and industrial centers (particularly textiles industries) had a vested interest in the survival of slavery in the South. The reliance of the Northern textile industry on Southern crops was intensified by the invention of the cotton gin.

 

 

 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 08:51 | 6113040 I am more equal...
I am more equal than others's picture

 

 

A country predicated on protecting “white privilege” cannot possibly survive such a corruption of its founding principles. The US fought a revolution to keep slavery legal (it was about to be abolished by the British); then it fought a civil war to change slavery from one form to another (there are more African-Americans in US jails now than there were slaves in the Confederate South prior to the Civil War).

 

BULLSHIT.  Revisionist history at its best.  Wilbertfort wasn't even born when the Revoltuionary War was fought.  Civil War was about State rights vs Federalism.  If the perspective is through the lense of race, everything becomes a neuotic pursuit of offense. 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:18 | 6113304 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Considering that at least 4 of declarations of state secession explicitly mentioned the right to own slaves as the primary reason, I would say that you are full of revisionist bullshit...

Not to even mention the "Cornerstone Speech"...

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:54 | 6113469 SafelyGraze
SafelyGraze's picture

paging Boris.

Boris to aisle three.

paging Boris.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 11:32 | 6113621 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Sorry but Vlad had him assasinated...

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:23 | 6113342 GeezerGeek
GeezerGeek's picture

Wilberfort? Or Wilberforce? From Wikipedia (for what it's worth): "William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 - 29 July 1833) was an English politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade."

The Civil War in the US was probably as much about banker machinations as it was about States' Rights and certainly was not directly related to the issue of slavery, which was on the verge of being rendered uneconomical by advances in agricultural technology. The North and South had very different types of economies - industrial vs. agricultural - and I recall reading (although the details are cloudy) that issues like tariffs, etc. were involved in the issues. The South, after all, was very dependent on cotton exports while the North wanted protection for its industries.

Everything else is the bankers' fault, and the Civil War probably had a large portion of its origin resting on their shoulders.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 08:17 | 6112946 Freddie
Freddie's picture

Who was deeply involved in slavery and the drug trade?  The Red Sheild chosenites.  Who financed wars for the Red Shield - Cameron's dual shit-i-Zen zio side of the family. See his Wiki.

Who were the carpet baggers that the Red Shield flooded into the south to act as their agents to take over the textile businesses and other businesses.   Look at textiles in SC, N. GA and other areas.  The people who ended up with those mills were noy the goys.

Wars are about stealing wealth, land, resources and are almost always backed by banksters.

 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 09:13 | 6113113 lcs
lcs's picture

He's also wrong about the importance of Soviet vs. U.S. scientific research.  Just count the Nobel prizes.  

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 09:43 | 6113188 Freddie
Freddie's picture

Like Al Gore's, Obola and Paul Krugman.  Yeah - those Nobel Prizes are swell.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:22 | 6113331 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Stupid  is as stupid does...

You could not even name one Nobel Laureate in the sciences without  looking it up first...

Ever hear of Bardeen? Do you even know who the fuck he was?

I mention him because he won *two*...

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 09:56 | 6113235 TuPhat
TuPhat's picture

You don't know the history of the civil war very well McCormick.  If you read books written before the gov indoctrination of the 60s you will find it was not about slavery but about excessive taxation and control by the north over the south.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:23 | 6113340 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Clearly you are deluded ignorant fool if you really believe that...

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:32 | 6112427 The Darwin Mode
The Darwin Mode's picture

I wouldn't say the boogieman is dead just yet, CD... they'll break out the false flag cardiac defibrillator and have him alive and kicking, you watch. Clear!

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 23:46 | 6112346 TheFourthStooge-ing
TheFourthStooge-ing's picture

Curb your butthurt reason.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:26 | 6112413 Augustus
Augustus's picture

More licking of Putin's ass.

 

Tht is the most popular dining pot on ZH.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:38 | 6112443 Excursionist
Excursionist's picture

<sigh> Indeed that seems to be the case recently on ZH.

80% turnout with 78% against the USSR's dissolution?  This, in 1991?  After the majority of the Soviet population had to stand in lines for basic staples like toilet paper for decades??

More absurd shit making its way onto ZH from Putin's troll factories.

Tylers -- pretty please... with sugar on top.  Stop re-posting such utter drivel.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 03:50 | 6112651 edotabin
edotabin's picture

Assuming, for a second,  this is true (and I don't whether or not it is), why do you find it strange? Isn't that what the EU did in Ireland? Isn't this what happened with the "Constitution" when it got voted down?  They just changed the name and rammed it through. Isn't this what happened to the Troika? Name changed to "institutions" and voila!

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 14:09 | 6114245 RagnarD
RagnarD's picture

"During the existence of the USSR, the multi-ethnic composition of the country was given much emphasis. Numerous small nations had their languages written down for the first time, using the ever-expanding Cyrillic alphabet, and endowed with a national literature. National languages were included in school curricula, and various nations used them in their local self-governance, to enlarge their autonomy and improve social cohesion. In essence, the Russian Federation provides for ethnic sovereignty—each nation can claim a measure of sovereignty for itself, rule itself and create its own laws, provided they do not conflict with the larger whole."

"Give much emphasis," you say?  Holy sh*t!

Let's go to the Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Soviet_Union

"During the 1930s, categorisation of so-called enemies of the people shifted from the usual Marxist–Leninist, class-based terms, such as kulak, to ethnic-based ones.[8] The partial removal of potentially trouble-making ethnic groups was a technique used consistently by Joseph Stalin during his career;[9] between 1935 and 1938 alone, at least nine different nationalities were deported."  And for those interested, there is more. Oh, so much more.

They wrote down the languages in the name of science because they were exterminating the people who spoke them? 

Tyler, do we need to donate more?   I HOPE you are receiving some Putin cash for posting this.  Anyway, here is no conscionable way you can criticize Goldman for blowing a gas consumption forecast, when your are reporting this sort of ERRANT commie propaganda.  

Will you be replacing the theta logo with a hammer and sickle, or will they be artfully integrated together?


Wed, 05/20/2015 - 14:31 | 6114264 RagnarD
RagnarD's picture

b

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 14:31 | 6114270 RagnarD
RagnarD's picture

a

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 23:29 | 6112314 tarabel
tarabel's picture

 

 

Hey, I know you never visit threads that are of no interest to Russia but there is a guy wandering around pretending to be you.

No "e" on the end of his Stooge.

The thought of a mini-Stoogie running around gives me shivers. Saints preserve us.

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 23:43 | 6112342 TheFourthStooge-ing
TheFourthStooge-ing's picture

.

Hey, I know you never visit threads that are of no interest to Russia

You are in this matter not correctly informed.

 

but there is a guy wandering around pretending to be you.

No "e" on the end of his Stooge

It's just another incarnation of Amerikan Patriot. His last account (iofera) was shitcanned like all of his previous ones.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:01 | 6112365 dsty
dsty's picture

well, that's good news

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 23:15 | 6112284 Normalcy Bias
Normalcy Bias's picture

Christ. I yearn for the Cold War days. They were simple.

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 23:42 | 6112339 HonkyShogun
HonkyShogun's picture

Yeah and we were the good guys.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:10 | 6112386 813kml
813kml's picture

I remember being extremely jealous of the moustaches on the East Germany women's powerlifting team.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:32 | 6112426 Oh regional Indian
Oh regional Indian's picture

Haaaah...for those with long enough memories, there was plenty to be jealous of in the muscles of Jarmila Kratochvilova...

https://www.google.co.in/search?q=Jarmila+Kratochvilova&es_sm=93&source=...

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:40 | 6112457 813kml
813kml's picture

(S)he and the artist formerly known as Bruce Jenner would make a lovely couple.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 07:45 | 6112888 Oh regional Indian
Oh regional Indian's picture

t(he)y wood, woodent they?

Only, there would be no wood in the relationship...

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 04:22 | 6112684 Kirk2NCC1701
Kirk2NCC1701's picture

You need to experience the East German "Power Fluffing" Team.

They'll  boost your... spirits.

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 23:17 | 6112289 A_latvian
A_latvian's picture

C.R.A.P.

And... of course BTFD. USA is more soviet than the USSR could ever dream. Mission Accomplished.

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 23:22 | 6112299 MEFOBILLS
MEFOBILLS's picture

The Soviet Union was run by Collectivist Bolsheviks, who were in league with Zionism.  Zionist money masters out of Wall Street paid for and overturned the white revolution, and then their agents subsequently murdered Tsar Nicholas, as is well documented for those who care to investigate.  The Soviet Union was a money power operation, itself a dialectic of Cabbala Zionist Illuminists.

Putin has kicked out most of the Jewish Oligarchs.  These Oligarchs during Yeltsin years “borrowed” international “credit” from their in-group Cousins overseas to then buy-up Russia for cheap; they did the same thing to Germany after the hyperinflation.  Additional in-group cousins (the Harvard Boys) advised Russia to become an extraction economy similar to Africa.  Many Russian’s stopped having babies as their labor value became ineffective, except if you could dig things out of the earth and sell them on the market for “dollars” or “Euros.”

Today’s Russia has a different brain, one that is not parasitized by international Oligarchs.  Also, Orthodox Christianity is on the rise.  Russia now sees itself as Rome reborn.

Yes, BRICs use Credit Means, hence the Asian infrastructure bank.  This is not the best situation; but the money power in the hands of BRICs appears to be animated by more “good will” than what Western Neo-Con Illuminists are mentally prepared to give humankind.

Putin upsets the Chessboard:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP3dEyk75sc&feature=em-subs_digest

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:02 | 6112367 dsty
dsty's picture

oh of course

it's those damned zionists

every damn thread

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:32 | 6113395 GeezerGeek
GeezerGeek's picture

it's those damned zionists...

except when it's the banksters (who may very well be zionists)

or when it's the illuminati (who may very well be zionists)

or when it's the Luciferians (who may very well be zionists)

or when...well, you get the point.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 03:09 | 6112619 ZD1
ZD1's picture

"Putin has kicked out most of the Jewish Oligarchs."

However, he's failed to kick out the Russian Oligarchs.

http://www.therussianoligarchs.com/meet-the-oligarchs/

 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 05:25 | 6112745 HenryHall
HenryHall's picture

Possibly.

But, crucially, what Putin has done is to make the oligarchs pay their income taxes in full.

Employ clever lawyers and accountants to arrange your Russian business so you owe next to zero tax in Russia and Putin's government will get you for sure.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 08:43 | 6113023 Freddie
Freddie's picture

Yeah but Warren Buffett, Apple, GE, IBM, and Hollywood pay their taxes....oh wait.

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 23:26 | 6112308 Big Brother
Big Brother's picture

Reading Dmitry Orlov has the same effect as watching RT:  if anything, the work offers you a different perspective.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 09:04 | 6113076 August
August's picture

IMHO Orlov bats aroung .800, with a few notable errors of fact, and of opinion.  

He is a full-throated Anthropogenic Warmist of the Old Fire-and-Brimstone School:  we're all going to die soon and horribly, except for those fortunate enough to live in the higher latitudes within continental land masses.  Edmonton, for example.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:06 | 6112374 dsty
dsty's picture

come on now

Russia has no intention of becomming a major power player?

Hey, guess what?, it is.

And Putin was elected president for life, right?

When the time comes, Russia will roll.

It will happen.

The corrupt west is not rotten and febile enough yet.

This fall I expect something big going down in the US

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 02:28 | 6112587 Jorgen
Jorgen's picture

"And Putin was elected president for life, right?"

You must be getting your news from The New York Times, CNN or some other MSM propaganda outlets. FYI, the next Russian Presidential Election will take place in 2018.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:15 | 6112394 kchrisc
kchrisc's picture

"One of the fake stories kept alive by certain American politicians, with the help of western media, is that Vladimir Putin (who, they vacuously claim, is a dictator and a tyrant) wants to reconstitute the USSR, with the annexation of Crimea as the first step."

They lie about everything. Why would they lie about this?

Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 09:48 | 6113207 Freddie
Freddie's picture

I respect Russians.  Americans?  Go into any Wal Mart.   Watch the stupid brainwashing on all of TV and All of Hollywood and the sheep keep watching which allows them to be controlled. 

Americans are dumb serfs.  Many will send their sons off to die or get maimed to "spread democracy."  They would be better off spreading VD because it is far less vile than the banksters looting and murder which they call "democracy." 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:15 | 6112395 Urban Roman
Urban Roman's picture

Can I fly in from Miami Beach BOAC?

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 02:00 | 6112560 raywolf
raywolf's picture

don't know how lucky you are boys...........

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 00:18 | 6112400 DebtTheNewEquity
DebtTheNewEquity's picture

This guy is as worthless as the neocons.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 02:13 | 6112409 squid
squid's picture

Dimitry:

 

While I agree with much of what you have said, you seem to be glossing over the elephant in the room....

The Soviets, the communist party of the USSR, were murdering bastards. You glossed over that as if it wasn't there.

You could argue Bush, Chaney and Obama were murdering bastards and you wouldn't get many arguemnts here but, a concrete example might help to show what I mean.

 

In the USA it has never been a crime to go around with a confederate flag, before, after or during the civil war. Go nuts.

 

In the USSR, in Ukraine, if you presented a flag of Ukraine with a Trezub or just the trezub itself, it was off to siberia.

Similarly in Russia, being found with a Tsarist two headed eagle also sent you off to Siberia. And don't try and shovel bullshit that it wasn't that way, it bloody well was and you know it.

 

Your glossing over of these facts does a disservice to those who died and were murdered in this way.

 

Squid

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 04:31 | 6112688 Max Steel
Max Steel's picture

lol usa the new slave labor camo

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 09:28 | 6113149 PleasedToMeatYou
PleasedToMeatYou's picture

STFU you truth-telling bastard!  :)

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 02:00 | 6112562 Mr. Frosty
Mr. Frosty's picture

Let me break it down, it's all community vs. collectivism. All the successes of the USSR are due to community, all the horrors, collectivism. Every decent human being wants a strong, healthy community. Only power hungry sociopaths want collectivism. The sociopaths love trying to sell you collectivism as community and sometimes they succeed. You can have all the benefits of a strong community without a sociopathic ruling class torturing the population into submission.

 

Those last PC kumbaya paragraphs are hard to read. Diversity is the antithesis of a strong, healthy community. The only people that champion diversity are sociopathic collectivists. Diversity is simply a race war waiting to happen. Yugoslavia ring a bell? Post Saddam Iraq? Muslim terrorism in the West? Rotherham rape gangs? Ferguson and Baltimore race riots? How many examples does it take to prove diversity destroys communities and empowers collectivists?

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 02:23 | 6112582 reader2010
reader2010's picture

The USSR was a labor camp while the USA was a slave camp.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 05:10 | 6112610 FiendNCheeses
FiendNCheeses's picture

This reminds me of a Gallup poll taken in December of 2013. It asked residents of 11 former republics of the USSR if they felt the break up of the Soviet Union was more harmful or beneficial to their country and a majority of respondents in 7 of the 11 countries surveyed said it did more harm.

Perhaps not surprisingly, 55% of Russian respondents said the breakup did more harm, while 19% said it was more beneficial, 18% said neither and 8% either didn't know or refused to answer.

But here's the kicker: In Ukraine, 56% said it did more harm, 23% said more beneficial, 10% said neither and 10% didn't know or refused to answer.

Yep, more Ukrainians than Russians think the dissolution of the USSR was a bad thing for their country!

My take from this isn't that they necessarily miss the whacky hijinks of Joseph Stalin or the funky adventures in the gulags, but it seems to me they do see some value in the strength of unity, for better or worse, found in the former Soviet Union.

Keep this in mind the next time some douche nozzle at the State Department spouts off about how we need to help Ukrainians fight for their "freedoms".

Here's the poll. Enjoy.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx

 

 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 05:00 | 6112714 Firewood
Firewood's picture

Just wait for the breakup of Pentacon Kill Industries, ethnnically segregated, socialist food stamp, police state, slave labor, prison camp bankrupt USSA.

 

To paraphrase Dmitry Orlov "You aint seen nothing yet if it's collapse you're talking"!

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 05:09 | 6112730 Wild E Coyote
Wild E Coyote's picture

Having a Russian family while being a foreigner, I can say, this is a very accurate picture of Russia.
Anyway it is written by Dmitry Orlov. He knows what he is writing.
Good to know ZH publish such truth rather then the usual BS by U.S. government mostly copied from movies.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 05:40 | 6112763 Boscovius
Boscovius's picture

Pretty good read till I got to the racist rant at the bottom.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 07:03 | 6112842 Prober
Prober's picture

more russkie propaganda

just get your ganster invader asses out of your neighbor's countries

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 07:31 | 6112875 Volkodav
Volkodav's picture

better worry about your own country

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 07:43 | 6112856 chubakka
chubakka's picture

protecting white priveledge? what a bunch of happy horseshit. more like protecting every illegal that crosses our borders "privledge."  

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 07:43 | 6112883 Shekels
Shekels's picture

Vladimir Putin, like most western leaders, is a Zionist puppet.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 07:49 | 6112887 Lea
Lea's picture

"Pretty good read till I got to the racist rant at the bottom."

What racist rant? Like, when he says that Russia is one of the most multiethnic societies on Earth and is perfectly at ease with that, as opposed to the USA which are geared for white supremacism? 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 08:17 | 6112948 Mike Masr
Mike Masr's picture

Dmitry, excellent story and good read!  I am a second generation American of Russian (Kuban Cossack) ancestry. American's in general know very little about Russia outside of it's Soviet past. Fewer yet know about our culture and our deep and intimate connection with our Orthodox Faith.

Thanks again Dmitry!!     

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 08:47 | 6113031 gcjohns1971
gcjohns1971's picture

" it shows just how miserable a failure the Ukraine's experiment with instituting a western-style market economy had become. "

 

Market economy?  Ukraine?  That's either some wicked strong dope you're smoking, or you don't understand what the term means.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 08:48 | 6113032 jakesdad
jakesdad's picture

I went to Moscow in spring 93 w/the Friendhsip Force (sort of short-term exchange program for adults) and have always wanted to go back to see how much it's changed over 20 yrs...  the fall of ussr & satellite states was a unique opportunity in human history we could have handled worse but I fear we (us) have poised the relationship...

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 08:54 | 6113048 gcjohns1971
gcjohns1971's picture

"Russia is not a nation—it is a multinational federation."

It seems that Orlov here is confusing the words 'Nation' with the word 'Tribe'.  In English they are very different things.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 09:18 | 6113124 August
August's picture

FWIW the USSA is not really a "nation" now, and probably never was. 

If perplexed, google "nations of North America";  whether there are seven, nine or eleven is debatable, but there are not just three.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 09:30 | 6113152 gcjohns1971
gcjohns1971's picture

Saying a thing, even if you are/were a Washington Post reporter like Garreau, does not make it true.

This is again a confusion of what a nation is.

You can subdivide cultural markers infinitely.

INFINITELY.

Hence his definition is not just mushy, it is nonexistent.

A 'Nation' is a group of people who agree to live under common principles codified into social rules, Laws, and nothing more.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 09:15 | 6113119 IndianaJohn
IndianaJohn's picture

Interesting up to the conclusion where Orlov drinks deeply of that 'white privllege' koolade. He must have inserted that to please his paymaster. He also bans any contrarian discussion of global warming at his webpage.

Anyone know how many Blacks/Mulattos there are in the Russian Federation Council? Or womans? Or Arabs?

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:32 | 6113390 Freddie
Freddie's picture

Orlov stuff is generally very good about how empires implode.   He does come off as a liberal/libtard on the issues you mentioned.  He seems to have been conditioned by CNN style propaganda while living in America.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 13:03 | 6113968 Mike Masr
Mike Masr's picture

Considering that Russia was never part or parcel to the Anglo/French/Spanish slave trade business in West Africa why would Russia have Blacks/Mulattos in the Russian Federation Council? Why Arabs? Why would Arabs be in Russia, or in the Federation Council? Yes, we in the USA now have a lot of Arabs, but this comes as backwash from our neocon middle east foreign policy.

 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:02 | 6113255 Shekels
Shekels's picture

Dmitry Orlov is a marxist, socialist tool. He needs to return to mother Russia and remember Stalin, the Gulag and the Ukrainian genocide.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 13:47 | 6114010 Mike Masr
Mike Masr's picture

What Ukrainian genocide? You mean the equal opportunity murderer Stalin that killed both Russian and Ukrainian kulak farmers?  This is the new bullshit history being taught in Ukraine and supported in the West to falsly villify Russia. Ukrainians believe this lie as George Costanza said, "It's not a lie if you believe it." First of all Stalin was not a Russian, he was Georgian. He did not single out Ukrainians as Hitler singled out Jews. Stalin was a paranoid pyschopath that thought the kulaks were conspiring against him and steeling from him. According to Stalin everyone was conspiring against him. Yes, the majority were Ukrainians but there were also Russian kulaks. Nikita Kruschchev was an ethnic Ukrainian and the party boss of the Ukraine during Stalin's reign of terror. He helped Stalin starve and murder the kulaks.      

Stalin also tormented and murdered my people the Kuban Cossacks. It was the evil Soviet Communist system and the tyrant named Stalin that did the killings. It wasn't genocide any more than was the murder of countless innocent kulaks and tens of millions of others.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 14:49 | 6114494 Volkodav
Volkodav's picture

weak troll

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:09 | 6113285 Comrade de Chaos
Comrade de Chaos's picture

"because a union-wide referendum held on March 17, 1991, produced a stunning result: with over 80% turnout, of the 185,647,355 people who voted 113,512,812 voted to preserve the USSR. That's 77.85%—not exactly a slim majority."

 

That's a lie, in Ukraine, majority wanted independence. In Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia people fought for independence. 

http://www.brookings.edu/research/essays/2015/myukraine

 

If my childhood memories account for anything, the above description is exactly how it went down. Yes, people felt nostalgic about the old times, they regreted breaking economic ties and having multiple currencies. However, they way USSR used to be, could not continue any longer. 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:17 | 6113307 Batman11
Batman11's picture

US foreign policy in the middle east has helped create ISIS and a new Islamic state.

It was Western market reforms in Russia that made Putin.

The West introduced market reforms to Russia that bought chaos, created the Oligarchs and left the majority with next to nothing.

The majority had the Western freedom to do what they wanted but no money to do anything at all (even eat in a lot of cases).

Putin restored order to the chaos and the majority had now seen how hollow the Western freedoms are if you have no money.

The grass is no longer greener on the other side of the fence and Putin has popularity ratings at over 80%, something other Western leaders can only dream of.

God bless America.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 10:59 | 6113484 Quinvarius
Quinvarius's picture

How did this article turn into "kill whitey" at the end?  Clearly the US is multi-ethnic.  There is no area where blacks came from in the US so there is no place that is appropriate to give them for a black only homeland.  It is also a stupid idea to do it.  We have do have Indian land that is run by Indians.  So it is done to some degree here.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 13:42 | 6114052 Mike Masr
Mike Masr's picture

You are correct that there is no area that blacks came from as they were all brought here in chains against their will from West Africa and sold to Anglos in open air auctions.

By the downvote I can see that someone doesn't like to acknowledge the truth!

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 14:41 | 6114447 Volkodav
Volkodav's picture

There were many Black slave owners.

Slavery remained..did not end immediately in the North for Blacks..there were White Slaves

(Indentured Servants) in the North for much longer.

More important is to know who were the Slave Traders,ran the trade, owned the ships, took the huge profits.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 13:42 | 6114113 MEFOBILLS
MEFOBILLS's picture

Stalin did collectivize the countryside.  His objective was to gain foreign currency in order to speed industrialization.

Holodomor took grain from Ukranian Kulaks to then sell on world markets; hence Ukrainians starved and were even reduced to cannibalism.  Personally I can never forgive Communists for their immoral behavior and their psychopathy that sees people as just more Catttle to be parasitized. 

Jews came and went freely in the Soviet Union; they also had high positions in the police/enforcement apparatus.  For me, the best way to think of it is in biological terms...the Soviet/Slavic mind was parasitized and hence it malfunctioned.

The West, via money means, now has their mind parasitized.  The West does not operate to the benefit of its citizens, witness austerity methods being pushed despite the harm Austerity causes.

Many, if not most of the Soviet leaders had Jewish wives, or were Jews themselves.  So, to say that there was low or no Jewish influence is easily debunked.

There is no question that Soviet Russia, due to its malfunctioning brain, committed all kinds of atrocities. Soviets raped their way across Europe during WW2. Soviets fully intended on taking Europe and Collectivizing it.

Read Icebreaker to get a good feel for pre war conditions, and Stalin's perfidy.

 

http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/icebreaker.pdf

 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 14:27 | 6114197 Mike Masr
Mike Masr's picture

MEFOBILLS, Thanks. I will read this book and tell you what I think. However, I refuse to use the term Holodomor or think of this as genocide as I will never believe that Stalin singled out the Ukrainians for death as Hitler singled out the Jews. In my book, Stalin was worse than Hitler and killed many more than Hitler. There was no Mein Kampf directed against Ukrainians and their was no Soviet policy aimed at exterminating Ukrainians everywhere in the Soviet space. Stalin's number one man orchestrating the Kulak deaths was Ukrainian Party boss, Nikita Khruschev himself an ethnic Ukrainian. Yes, Stalin was a paranoid tyrant responsible for perhaps 50+ million deaths, but Stalin's paranoia wasn't focused on exterminating one ethnicity as was Hitler. Stalin was an equal opportunity murderer!!!  

Soviets did NOT rape their way across Europe they freed lands in Eastern Europe under Nazi captivity. The Soviets were brutal and took revenge on the parasite Nazi scum on their way to Berlin. Like the Banderist Nazi scum in today's Ukraine that would do what Hitler did if they possessed the ability to do so. My people the Don and Kuban Cossacks volunteer themselves and help the brotherly DPR to keep the Banderist Nazi scum out!! Luba bratsii luba!!!   

As a footnote, Lenin and Yeltsin were ethnic Russians, all the leaders beween Lenin and Yeltsin were NOT ethnic Russians. 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 14:31 | 6114380 Volkodav
Volkodav's picture

Mike  Good Post....

There is some serious other opinions about Lenin origins.

Breznev and Krushchev were Ukraine nationals.

Gorby half Ukrainian or all depending on source.

I am not sure if there is such thing as an ethnic Ukrainian. Ethnic has divided definitions

That called Ukraine lands was very small until Soviet additions.

Ukraine has never been a sovereign nation.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 15:13 | 6114522 Mike Masr
Mike Masr's picture

Thank you Volkodav.

You are correct about ethnic Ukrainian. 

I am Kuban Cossack, Russian Orthodox and carry a Ukrainian surname, however my family only identifies with being Russian and Cossack.

 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 15:17 | 6114616 Volkodav
Volkodav's picture

You are welcome....Good people

I like this: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdPvaIXxm4Q

Kuban Cossack Choir feat Yevgeniya Dzhevaga

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 15:52 | 6114736 Mike Masr
Mike Masr's picture

 

Thanks like it too, also like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7iI_vsjyqE

 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 15:52 | 6114738 Mike Masr
Mike Masr's picture

 

Thanks like it too, also like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7iI_vsjyqE

 

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 15:10 | 6114579 Volkodav
Volkodav's picture

Kruschev bad, but nowhere near the worst

Stalins most terrible henchman was Yagoda..his deputies, most NKVD were not Slavs

later Kaganovich and more of same

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 14:14 | 6114285 Volkodav
Volkodav's picture

Famines and collectivizations were in Russia, Kazakhstan also

Russians suffered more than any...

 

Icebreaker is controversial..Author even more so..but makes sense for those with extended knowledge of real..

"The Chief Culprit" also by Viktor Suvorov is near same content and normally lower cost

I have both Swabian/Bohemian and Rus heritage, 

Chance meeting Former Waffen SS Officers 35 year ago raised some questions for

which many answers I have found.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!