Striking story from the New York Times. Normally, I wouldn't even glance at this paper given its liberal slants, but this article peaked my interest.
From Russia with suck
While it is a generally accepted world view that Putin still runs Russia with an iron fist, despite no longer being president. (Speaking of which, why do they need a president and a prime minister?) However, the recently stated views of high ranking Russian government officials (all members of United Russia) that they wish to learn from the Chinese communist party how to use the one party system to put a stranglehold on the economy and other areas. If this doesn't send alarm bells ringing in everyone's head, maybe when a new Soviet Union emerges people will listen. There already exists a powerful figurehead, a staple of the Soviet Union while it held significant power, and now with the goal of the powerful United Russia to tighten its grip on the economy even more, what is to stop it from reverting back to some of the Soviet ideals. While the article makes me nervous, it also makes me red with rage at the naivete of the author, a Clifford Levy, when he states, "In truth, the Russians express no desire to return to Communism as a far-reaching Marxist-Leninist ideology." How can he know this? There is only one person in the world who knows what view the Russian government will take, and that is Putin. This man obviously has no concept of the realist perspective of foreign policy relations. We need to act quickly on this, (not militarily in the classic realist sense, but more socially and economically) in order to secure our security and interests across the globe from a potential new Soviet World Order.
The best remedy for this would be a revival of McCarthyism. I'm the perfect one for the job. I would have thrived during the Cold War. Instilling fear in the hearts of Americans, yelling about Commies. Awesome.
Bush Third Term
Just so we are clear...
10 years ago
On Clifford Levy: looking at the relevant spot in the article, the point seems to be that Russia is not going back to Marxism-Leninism, not that Russia is avoiding authoritarianism (which is quite a different issue). The fact that they are seeking to learn from China would provide evidence of this, because China would be a TERRIBLE place to look for Marxist-Leninist pattern of rule. To call Beijing's Marxism "much attenuated", as the author does, is generous at best. China's version of "Communism" is ever more capitalistic, to the point where Communism exists in name only. (Authoritarian rule continues to exist, of course, and the governing authoritarian party happens to call itself Communist, but then authoritarians routinely have misleading names for themselves in their attempts to garner legitimacy.)
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense that Russia is looking to China for ways to "keep tight control over the country while still driving significant economic growth". That is what China's Communist Party has been exceptionally successful at: growing rapidly and governing in authoritarian fashion. It has NOT been any good at showing Marxism-Leninism works because it stopped being Marxist-Leninist-Maoist about 30 years ago.
This reminds me, I must find the video interview of an American journalist asking the Chinese finance minister (about 5-6 years ago) about the need to "protect American jobs", whereupon the Communist Party minister basically began giving the American journalist a lecture on the need for free trade and open markets. Bizarre, but telling.