Russian Politics
Their Modernization and Ours
By Sean at 28 February, 2010, 2:45 am
In Russia, the time of great campaigns has returned. In Soviet times, we broke new ground and planted corn. Then we fought against drunkenness and concerned ourselves with economic acceleration. We were not always successful, but certainly in the real world. Today’s Russia proclaims the slogan of modernization. But so far this modernization is only in cyberspace.
Read More >>Black PR vs. Black PR?
By Sean at 7 February, 2010, 11:03 pm
As the Power Vertical’s Robert Coalson explains, this is the way the game is played. Anyone familiar with Russian politics over the last 20 years, if not the last century, will not be surprised by the revelation a United Russia hatchet-men hired “spin doctors” to spread black PR to smear political opponents of UR power broker and Saratov deputy Vyacheslav Volodin. But is this latest revelation merely black PR about black PR? Yet another example of the Russian elite cannabalizing itself?
Read More >>The Kirov Law at 75
By Sean at 2 December, 2009, 2:07 am
Yesterday, December 1, was 75 years since the assassination of Sergei Kirov, the first secretary of the Leningrad Party Organization, and Stalin ally. It was on the night of December 1, 1934 that a certain Leonid Nikolaev, a disgruntled party worker, shot Kirov in the secretary’s third floor office. Nikolaev was immediately caught and interrogated [...]
Read More >>Luzhkov the Weather Warlock
By Sean at 18 October, 2009, 12:25 pm
I think I finally understand why the Kremlin was so hell bent on securing Yuri Luzhkov’s continued domination over Moscow politics: the weather. Yuri Mikhailovich can control the weather. Or so he promises. According to Time,
For just a few million dollars, the mayor’s office will hire the Russian Air Force to spray a fine chemical [...]
Electoral Rerun
By Sean at 16 October, 2009, 10:12 am
Last Sunday’s municipal elections in 75 of Russia’s 83 regions were like a bad rerun. Everyone played their role well in the latest stage production of managed liberal democracy. United Russia trounced its rivals, most importantly in the coveted Moscow city government where UR took 32 of 35 seats. The country’s real opposition, the Communist [...]
Read More >>“The leading fighting brigade of our political system.”
By Sean at 5 October, 2009, 10:49 pm
It looks like Nashi might have crossed a line in their campaign against Alexander Podrabinek. According to Vremya, the Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation made an official appeal calling for an investigation of Nashi’s “illegal and amoral” campaign to hunt down the journalist. The appeal reads:
The [...]
