Post-Soviet Russia: Life for Russians is worse now!

-DR. ABDUL RUFF

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I

Russia is now under the  poll grip with an impending presidential poll for  which  Russian premier and former president Vladimir Putin is dead focused on returning to the Kremlin as president for a third term only to perpetuate his whims in Russia in the name of a "stronger Russia", fueling unnecessary and illogical fanatic crisis across the nation, while playing second fiddle to world's most  fascist nation the USA which is also under the  similar fanatic-terror grip because of the presidential poll. 

 Obviously, Russia is no different from other terrocracies although it pretends to challenge the imperialist ambitions of USA and NATO. A former super power challenging the western capitalist powers on ideological  basis and controlling the  developing nations by selling arms in order to gain influence  in all regions, the Kremlin has, since the end of so-called cold war, been reduced to a mere power to  oblige the only super power of the day the USA.  People neglected by the new reign in Moscow, developed a parasitic way of life, making illegal incomes  by immoral means.

Soviet leaders has focused on military prowess, especially nuclear arsenals,  and economic power  and welfare of  common people got less importance as years passed by when the US led west accelerated anti-regime  operations by CIA conspiracies to remove communism and socialism. Without state protection people became lethargic. State failed.

Last president of erstwhile Soviet Union, Michael Gorbachev who went for reforms on a large sale, perhaps sought to improve the life standards of average Russians, who have suffered greatly even under the communist rule, by arresting negative trends like rampant corruption, crimes, and extra liquor, etc, gathered in the society for decades of rigid system.  Failed  in his attempt to refine Russian society and system, Gorbachev divided the Soviet Union into 15 constituent nations, hoping that corruption would end and people will have a better life.

Alas, Gorbachev, failed again. The post-Soviet system has not done anything significantly improve the life patters of people. It has only created a big beggar class to serve the oligarchs and other capitalist layers of new Russia.

Soviet system had become rigid controlled by the party apparatchiks- high officials. These big  guys have become main capitalists of new post-Soviet Russia.

But those old “golden” days are over, and Russia needs to reconcile itself to the fact it is no longer an empire.

Rulers in Russia, like their counterparts elsewhere, want to continue to rule by promoting corporate interests and care a damn to welfare of people.

After almost a hundred years of the very complicated Russian history, after the Bolshevik Revolution, after the Democratic Revolution in 1991, Russia is coming back to the civilized world

The leaders of Post-Boris Yeltsin era in Russia, mainly Putin and Medvedev, make people keep lamenting about the “lose of empire” in order to strengthen their hold on power. The collapse of the Soviet Union 20 years ago changed the world’s geopolitical balance.

When the Soviet Union fell, it ended the tenure of a superpower with the resources of more than a dozen countries. The fall left its largest component, Russia, unable to wield anything like the global clout that the Soviet Union had for decades.

In order to divert the attention of people and world from their failures, Russian leaders keep the “great empire” alive.  Empire lost syndrome of Russian elites has been criticized by the west.  Russians are still struggling to come to terms with that.

II

Not even Putin could certify that lives of people have changed for the better. Of course, not!

However, Putin said the opposition has no unified program, no clear way of reaching its aims and nobody who can achieve something "concrete." Putin also said he wants Russia's March presidential election to be absolutely transparent and insisted he does not need vote rigging to win the poll.

The sudden rise of Russia’s democracy movement is posing the biggest challenge yet to his 12-year strongman rule. It sounded like a TV game show. In a tightly choreographed event, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced that he would swap jobs with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ... after the formality of presidential elections March 4.

Alleged voter fraud in the December 4 Russian parliamentary elections has spurred the largest protests since the collapse of the Soviet Union 20 years ago. Activists say Putin's United Russia party illegally won a narrow majority through voter fraud.  They want to throw out the results and hold a new vote.  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a discovery of Putin to play joint operations together, has appointed a top Kremlin official to the post of deputy prime minister, as part of a government reshuffling following the elections.  Vladislav Surkov previously served as Kremlin first deputy chief of staff. Activists also say measures are needed to prevent more fraud in Russia's presidential election in March, when Putin hopes to return to the post he held from 2000 to 2008.

Russia is now land of mass protests for better life while the regime continues to promote capitalist interests of oligarchs and its allies.  The next goal for the democracy movement is a protest rally in Moscow attended by one million people. That presumably could have an effect on the March 4 presidential election, which as recently as three months ago analysts were calling Putin’s coronation. 

Organizers of a protest in Moscow say more than 100,000 people joined the rally in below-freezing temperatures, exceeding the size of a similar protest earlier this month.  At the protest, people threatened to take a crowd and storm the Kremlin if the pro-democracy demonstrators are rebuffed in the weeks ahead.  The Moscow demonstrations and smaller anti-Putin rallies in other cities are the largest show of discontent in Russia since the 1990s.  Medvedev has responded by promising reforms to allow more competition in elections beyond 2012.  He is stepping down in March to make way for Putin's candidacy.

Many speak for Russia’s new, politically active middle class. A critical mass of Russians has stopped fearing the government. They believe that government should serve the people - not the other way around. But three months and one controversial parliamentary election later, about 100,000 people came out in Moscow to chant: “Russia without Putin.” What snapped in Russia?

Russia’s state-controlled TV channels all lie, and the only place to find the truth is on the Internet. People organize entirely through the Internet. Putin recently charged on national TV that some demonstrators are being paid to stage protests. Gerasimov and others see that as an insult. He said Russian protesters are not paid - certainly not by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or President Barack Obama. Gerasimov said people are taking part in protest actions voluntarily, to take part in what they see as a historic moment in Russia’s history.

Russia went through two revolutions in the 20th century - the first to implant communism, the second to root it out.  People now want reform, not another revolution. Drawing on Russia’s turbulent 20th-century history, they say now no one wants to execute the czar or fire tank shells at the prime minister’s office.

For now, the opposition’s goal seems to postpone presidential elections to late April. The opposition wants new strong faces and new parties competing in a free and fair vote. Alexei Navalny, the opposition’s rising star, said he would be a candidate.

An Observation

Contemporary Russia is focused on nuclearism, arms-liquor deals, secret triclomacy with western terrocracies to destabilize Muslims nations- and not at all bothered about people’s real welfare.

In order to further  expand the capitalist structures and perpetuate  their joint regime, the Putin-Medvedev duo  goes all out to split the opposition and weaken the ability of the opposition parties and leaders.  The Kremlin also uses one party against the other so that  its prolongation ensured.

Russian policy has been to outsmart USA and regain super power status but USA makes all efforts to block the Russians form effecting another "come back".  Normally, Russia is considered as a spoiler in international relations. It wants a global role. It wants to sit astride the world stage and act as it used to be able to do. And it can still do that to a certain extent. But for the most part, it acts as a spoiler or a counterweight to the West, at best. Experts say 20 years later Russia’s leaders are facing a choice - try to regain the past glory of the Soviet Union, which could be irrevocably lost, or become constructive partners in the multipolar world the country’s former leaders once envisioned.

Moscow always gains in profits  by selling their terror goods to Iran, Syria and other Muslim  nations. Russia shields Assad’s regime from UN economic terror sanctions and continues to provide it with weapons even as others impose arms embargoes.

And also pretends to be the defender of  humanity. It betrayed both Iraq and Libya and  helped the NATO to destabilize the energy rich  Arab world. Russia’s defiance of international efforts to end Syrian President Bashar Assad’s rule or at least  the crackdown on aimless protests is rooted in a calculation that it can keep a Mideast presence by propping up its last remaining ally in the region.

The Kremlin only protects it trade interests especially in terror goods. The Moscow regime has put itself in conflict with the West for favors. And  Russia, a strong  veto  member of notorious UNSC and controlling  world politics , has nothing to lose if it fails. 

Russia lost nothing when pro-Moscow and anti-US Saddam Hussein was brutally murdered and sovereign Libya was  almost destroyed by the NATO terrorists as per instructions  by CIA agents, when Libyan leader Col. Qaddafi was assassinated in ugly  manner and Libya was destabilized too , looting its b vast energy resources- also by the same CIA agents.

Russia longed, rather crawled, for too long for entry into WTO. And with collaboration on NTO terror wars in Islamic world, it has achieved that temporarily. In order to promote its international interests, the Russians early on talked about multipolarity.  For this reason, Russia continues to try to assert itself in international affairs.

And it recently joined the World Trade Organization, a move Russian delegate Anatoly Chubais said is the first step toward a more prominent international role. But multipolarity became a dirty word in the USA – they do not like it. But in the end Russia and China and India, Brazil, to its own extent, Europe and Japan are all major players on the world scene playing on multipolarism.

Russia’s strong man and Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin keeps fueling the nostalgia about great imperial power status for Moscow because Russians enjoyed that status for centuries.

Putin wants to continue to rule Russia so long as he likes and just blames that the opposition lacks goals and leaders, and he has rejected demands for a rerun of Russia's recent parliamentary elections. The Kremlin leader says he wants the election to be absolutely transparent, and insists he does not need to rig the vote in order to win what would be his third term as president.  However, judging by the rapidly changing mood in Russia, he may now be fighting for his political life.

The Russian empire is gone. And its ‘sphere of influence’ is an anachronism to which nobody else subscribes. Now Russia is an assistant of USA and collaborator of NATO. Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Thomas Pickering said after 1991 the world developed somewhat along the lines Russia expected, and the United States did not want.

The world has changed a lot since the fall of the Soviet Union. China has become a major world power. The European Union as well as USA has expanded into the old Soviet sphere of influence, and may go farther into the former Soviet Union itself. Militant groups have sought new benefactors.  Moscow is trying to play a positive, pro-US fiddle, part.

Russia's democracy claims are as much mischief as of other terrocracies. A terrocracy aims at perpetuation of power at any cost and can never create genuine living conditions for people to live a better life and Russia is no different.

Glory of nation could be measured by their living standards and freedoms they enjoy - and not by the bogus notion of how high is the economic strength of that nation.

People are above the nation!