Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West, by Catherine Belton

[inverarity]

How a nobody became the new Czar and the West got played.

Comments

[starkalexandru]

To the people of russia: " Fight and Show your Opposition to your Fucking Shitty DICTATOR across your country, don't just be Cowardly, Drunken Spectators. To putin: "GO TO HELL. AMEN." 🖕 "Glory to Ukraine" -💛💙 " Слава Україні " ! 💛💙
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Народу России: «Борись и показывай свою оппозицию своему гребаному дерьмовому ДИКТАТОРУ по всей стране, а не будь Трусливым, Пьяным Зрителем. Путину: «Иди К черту. АМИНЬ." 🖕
"Glory to Ukraine" -💛💙 " Слава Україні " ! 💛💙

https://youtu.be/TONvyvjQNnM

To the people of russia:

[starkalexandru]

To the people of russia: " Fight and Show your Opposition to your Fucking Shitty DICTATOR across your country, don't just be Cowardly, Drunken Spectators. To putin: "GO TO HELL. AMEN." 🖕 "Glory to Ukraine" -💛💙 " Слава Україні " ! 💛💙
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Народу России: «Борись и показывай свою оппозицию своему гребаному дерьмовому ДИКТАТОРУ по всей стране, а не будь Трусливым, Пьяным Зрителем. Путину: «Иди К черту. АМИНЬ." 🖕
"Glory to Ukraine" -💛💙 " Слава Україні " ! 💛💙

https://youtu.be/TONvyvjQNnM

Russia after 1991

[fpbarbieri]

What made the disaster of Putin's rule inevitable is that the Russian power structure was not reformed after the fall of the Soviet Union. People often compare the fall of Communism with the end of Nazism, and complain that there has been no Soviet Nuremberg and thus no real dealing with the Communist darkness. But without a real change in political, administrative and social structures, a Nuremberg as such would have done little except setting up a roster of ancient and mostly dead scapegoats. And that has happened in any case - Putin likes to criticize the "bolsheviks". He is not enamoured of the Leninist past, and blames it for anything he does not like, including the existence of an independent Ukrainian state

[fpbarbieri]

One of the evil effects of communism was the existence of an entire unadmitted scheme of power and power display. Where equality was meant to be absolute, and achievement and position could not be signalled by wealth, they were signalled by other things. Online Russian acquaintances told me long ago, what I suspected already, that the specialist schools for sports, ballet and other arts, are also and at the same time the training places for the "girlfriends" of provincial and national hierarchs. Having a number of young female lovers from that kind of stock is not just something that hierarchs do because they like it, but because it is necessary to be recognized as one of the elect. It does not seem casual that Putin's own current companion is a former gold-winning olympic gymnast. After the fall of the Soviet Union, more direct displays have become universal: everyone who is part of the top class just has to have a monumental yacht, even if he suffers from seasickness and has never been at sea. It's not about enjoying yourself, it's

When tyrannies end

[livejournal]

User fpbarbieri referenced to your post from When tyrannies end saying: [...] least, with the institutions of Communism. (Coninued..)Edited at 2022-07-17 08:09 am (local) Link [...]