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Putin's Russia: How It Rose, How It Is Maintained, and How It Might End
In this groundbreaking collection, nine of Russia's leading scholars and experts describe and analyze some of the Vladimir Putin regime’s key structural strengths and weaknesses and look at their implications for both the present and the future. As far as the regime’s fault lines are concerned, the evidence presented by the authors shows no reversal, or even narrowing, of these structural dysfunctions in Putin’s third presidential term.Topics covered here include Russia's political economy, political geography, and politics of federalism; the regime, ideology, public opinion, and legitimacy; and potential defeat and radicalization of civil society. Emerging in these pages is a finely textured portrait of a society rife in complexities, contradictions, and postponed but looming crises.
148 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 12, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 22, 2016
Kick back with some Ritz crackers lathered in fish eggs, chain smoke Lucky Strikes, chug a bottle of Stoli and dig on some Russian socio-politco-economics.
Back in the hinterland of the late eighties I was a political science student and I took a Soviet Political Studies class. Our professor had actually made several trips to Vilnius and was considered something of an expert. So this would have been 1988-89 something like that and we did not even have a textbook, we just kept up with the news. It was a fun time and I have been intrigued with those folks ever since.
This was a good representation of the kind of articles I read back then: hard statistics and empirical data with some snarky political comments thrown in. This is a collection of modern essays on how Vladimir is taking care of business. Yes, a little on the dry side, but also timely and relevant and interesting if you’re into this kind of stuff. I can be, but what this really needed was some Slavic zombies and laser beams to spice things up.
Хорошие времена!
Back in the hinterland of the late eighties I was a political science student and I took a Soviet Political Studies class. Our professor had actually made several trips to Vilnius and was considered something of an expert. So this would have been 1988-89 something like that and we did not even have a textbook, we just kept up with the news. It was a fun time and I have been intrigued with those folks ever since.
This was a good representation of the kind of articles I read back then: hard statistics and empirical data with some snarky political comments thrown in. This is a collection of modern essays on how Vladimir is taking care of business. Yes, a little on the dry side, but also timely and relevant and interesting if you’re into this kind of stuff. I can be, but what this really needed was some Slavic zombies and laser beams to spice things up.
Хорошие времена!
July 23, 2021
We often reach a point where our confidence or faith in a person is never the same like before.
There are too many words and pages while the writers could have simply pointed out the core reason for all the troubles in just one word: corruption.
And if it is true, there will be no future for Putin's Russia. He got to make the decision. Is it “Strong Russia whether he's in power or not” or “His Russia whether she's strong or not?” The question definitely reminds me of Admiral Lee, the Mentor of Human Race.
BTW, it doesn’t sound like Putin’s Russia is as centralized as the United States of America or People’s Republic of China. Then why concern that Putin’s been over-centralizing his power? Because it is not the centralized “systematic” authority, but centralized “personal” power in one man’s hands.
Looks like quite a work, but after all, all the reports are missing the most important point of all the Putin's long-term plans for Russia to dominate the globe without a fight: Putin's Arctic Ambition way ahead of that of the United States or any other countries.
The biggest mistake the collection as a whole made is the use of the word “modernization.” What’s modern and what’s not, writers? Or should I call you guys researchers?
Anyhow, right analyses or not, these reports do help the readers interested in future of Russia think a lot about it, so I’d say the book is still worth the money and time for reading (only for the pondering lovers, not skim-and-scanners).
First of all, the Entr’/ Intr’o-duct’ion made me wonder what the secret really is for the US federal government’s “centralized” power despite the direct elections for each state cap’/ gov’ern-or-ship.
Centralized national authority itself isn’t a bad thing. Usually there are problems when the power is not centralized and each province goes its own way without unity as one nation. The writers may be over-paranoid by their predecessors' failures (like Stalin and Yeltsin’s bad examples) and try to find some middle way with Putin, but bitching about him because he doesn’t fly with their “obviously liberal” expectations.
However, there are clear examples of strong “central” control for success: Not to mention the "United" States under Lincoln or the world's most modernized civilization France under Napoleon III's stable rule until the French-Prussian War, back in the 1960s-'70s, the Republic of Korea (ROK) Pres. PARK made it too by heavily investing in heavy industry sectors, which is the core strength of present-day ROK economic prosperity. Plus, ROK has made it more “people-based” since the late-1980s, and now the country is more democratic than any other societies.
The authors worry about the Russian populace who miss the empire-like Soviet global influence, and Putin’s been using it for his political purposes.
The Koreans today, too, miss the glorious era under the unified imperial rule of Gwanggaeto the Great crying out for the lost Manchu territories all the time. The nature of societies likes things that make us the people feel special, and once we adopt the past glory in our own national histories as our proud identities, we naturally value and miss it while bitching about others having done the same lol
An’y society likes the same. You think the French are different? They miss Imperial Napoleonic Era the most. You live in France for years, and you will start feeling it.
I find that the writers made the same mistake like our simpleton world today: wrong lines and boundaries.
For example, “Russia One” society must be classified correctly among different groups of people within “Russia One” like office workers of heavy industries and performers in entertainment industries.
After a thorough read I have found that dividing the country into four societies was wrong.
Like “Russia One”, in “Russia Two” society, there are politically motivated and ambitious union leaders too, a lot of them, who are more like the people in “Russia One”, and somehow this report says the same at some point lol
Lines are drawn wrong just like those between “men” and “women”, not between the “capable” and “incapable” people. I have clearly pointed it out in my books "Admiral Lee and the First Global War" and “Mentor of Human Race - Section B.”
Since the first button was set wrong it keeps going the wrong way. Look.
Report 2: ...Interactions between Russia One and Russia Two are unlikely under any scenario, as their interests diverge in the short and medium term: the residents in major cities are keen to see modernization of the state, while Russia Two values social and economic stability (employment and wages) above anything else...
Wrong. It is the self-claimed liberals with their proud (lol) “shallow” knowledge without any experience in any field-labor careers, like the celebs and media people (including sports stars) along with their brainless followers, whereas the "white-color" office workers, who care their and their families’ living conditions the most, want social stability, safety and good enough wages.
Besides, the celebs' influence over the people of “Russia Two” has been missing. You know Maria Sharapova is Russian too. Russia is not China, where only the pro-Communist Party celebs are on TV (anti-Party celebs and business people "openly" disappear and are removed from the society).
The rise of People's Republic of China (PRC) was only possible because the short- and narrow-sighted money chasers have put a lot of investment resources in PRC with their own hands. Told them to stop for last two decades, idiots. Wasn’t Beijing always a control freak all those years? Yet the globe was busy putting their investment money in the country under Chinese Communist Party (CCP), so the writers agreeing that it is Putin’s excessive control that prevents the world from investing in Russian industries is wrong. It is rather his incomplete control that allows the mid-level officials to remain idle and corrupted.
Report 3: ...As a result, the management of regional socioeconomic processes has been effectively lost. Therefore, the socioeconomic discrepancies seen across Russian regions are huge and growing (Table 1)...
Wanna com-pare/ -pair California and Arkansas on a graphic statistics? What, the writers think it's different in ROK or in the US?
The writers keep pointing out the widening gap between Russia’s leading cities (like Moscow or St. Petersburg) and the other regions, but what country isn't facing the same issue?
Seriously, ROK is the same, but Korea is small to manage while the Russian Federation has the largest territory in the world. Moreover, Russia is ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse. That's why this guy Putin is trying hard to make everyone speak Russian as their mother tongue, just like Beijing has been trying, and to centralize & unite the federation like the United States at her heyday. It isn't solely the political system whether it’s been “modernized” or not, but there are many other reasons to think about as well 'cause obviously countries are in different circumstances, and that includes Napoleon III's France, Putin's Russia and Park's Republic of Korea, despite all the saem'/ sim'ilarities of their governance.
The biggest difference between ROK and Russia is S. Korea's profound mark'et economy and heated social or individual competition, which is boosted by the huge material desire of the people competing each other over who's got a better or newest stuff. Under this clear circumstance the market booms, of course, with strong consumption power.
I don’t think Russians are like Koreans today with their deep-rooted “Che-mion” culture (Shape-face: The appearance on surface determines one’s social status, which, I believe, is the main source of current boom of ROK economy, but will be the very reason of the country’s downfall, unfortunately for the innocent young babes of the country, someday soon). You got to live in the country as a third person to see the society real good.
Technically ROK, too, started its sort of federal system back in 1990s, but drawing lines to define a “federation" or “nation of autonomous provinces” is never easy in reality. The ROK system, too, is literally translated the "Provincial Autonomy", but the country is super-centralized under the President in Blue House and the members of National Assembly while each province, even the lowest levels like hundreds of "heads of small districts and villages" within a city, and all their representatives, are directly elected by the residents. The United Arab Emirates, too, got 7 Emirs (Kings), but it is united with the centralized power in the hands of Emir of Abu Dhabi as the President of the federation, while the Swiss "Federation" is in fact more like a collection of 26 independent cantons.
So trying to analyze real things in words is never to be correct.
The writers say that the well-educated city dwellers like Muscovites have found new values like democratic self-determination as one of the most important citizens’ rights. Alright, their self-determination is that important, but why protests demanding the authority to do something for them?
And I do not understand why the writers keep calling that kind of model “modernized” or “European?” Are we still living in Russian Empire during the early reign of Peter the Great? What’s European? It is in fact more like American, while the European model clearly depends on the authority, far from self-determination, and thanks to this lazy not-so-much-self-determined ment-ality/ mind-set, now the leading wellbeing "heavens" are all facing huge national debts!
Sounds like the authors are all mixed up, and some reports are lost from the very beginning, and since the first buttons were set wrong, no matter how nicely they conclude their reports, they are to self-contradict themselves at their messy ends.
Unlike PRC in a different path, Putin's Russia is taking the typical path that others like Taiwan (ROC), ROK or even French Republic in the mid-19th century also got through: People don't have to worry about feeding themselves anymore, so now we have more “mental-room” to think about different values than hunger and poverty. Today we demand for our rights as citizens and sovereigns of our nations like all other developed countries have gotten through; what’s so special about Russia getting through the “normal” process so they needed this collection of nine reports to talk about it in fancy way?
Protests have been everywhere. There were crackdowns in ROC until the ‘80s. There were crackdowns in ROK until the ‘80s too, and many people died getting through the process. I don’t think Russia is, or ever will be, like PRC or DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: North Korea) like the writers worry so much.
So the writers want a change, and they want Putin gone: Talking too much with so many graphs for a simple conclusion.
The polls and graphs are useless. For one instance, using the U.S. data (that of Yeltsin too lol) with the same results in the following page destroyed their own case. It's the same in the US. It’s the same in France. It’s the same in ROK, too. People complain about their society, but they support the leader they elected as if they better say they are one in this shit together as good, well-educated and responsible citizens.
It is simply like when you find a new place of your dream, and your affection towards it, in general, goes down as time passes by, and you end up wanting another place. It's Human nature: At the beginning all the bad surroundings somehow you do not see them or care about them as you just love the new place so much. But gradually you get sensitive about the annoyances more and more, and you wanna find a new one.
It is so like “I lost confidence in that person, and I don't want that person anymore.” It is really at some point, just one point you FEEL your disappointment in your partner, and that feeling doesn't go away. That is the very point where your relationship with that person is never the same like before.
Yet, you do not say it out loud. You still tell the world that you love your partner as if you have to lie about your feelings not to look like a bad person to the others.
Report 6: ...Although confidence in the Russian economy had improved throughout 1999, the explosive growth of his popularity during that period substantially differed from responses to improvements in economic performance during other periods; in most cases, such a change tended to be gradual, not explosive. Also of note is the spike in the expectation indexes, which ask those polled to consider, “What do you think is in store for Russia in the next few months in terms of political life and in the economic domain?” (See figure 1.) This upswing certainly reflects the political component of Putin’s approval rating. Respondents’ assessments of Russia’s positive achievements (improvements in the economic performance during 1999) were complemented by hopes they pinned on the new leader’s personality. It is probably this combination that produced the effect of “explosive” confidence growth...
The long-lived popularity of Vladimir Putin was only possible "after" his successful economic performance with the people’/ popul’ace who had gotten through a hard time when he first came along. So his economic success was the key after all. CCP and Nazi had the same case. Most recently in America, Trump used the crushed emotion of the American people as well. But he didn't win the majority support and lost the following election because his performance was not viewed as successful as Putin's? Or was that the American system "designed" for political stability by Washington and his colleagues for 3 years in that closed-door meetings before they proclaimed the first US Constitution?
One thing’s clear that our proud “democracy” must use the people's indifference by satisfying us with our material needs and desires, and that's what the US and so-called the “like-minded’ partners such as Japan and ROK have been doing making the people all ignorant or indifferent about reality while loving to talk about what we got in our heads well-tamed by our own heroes “whoever” they are. Our "fake" democracy can’t go far without capitalism and our materialism. Just like I predicted about the future of ROK society, our democracy as a whole will have to go down the toilet due to the same reason after all.
Once our authorities can’t match up with our desires and expectations, they will somehow have to take some sort of extreme way to prevent our expectation from turning to disappointment or anger towards their incompetence. They will seek the extreme solutions outside the borders like the authors talk a lot about Putin’s wars with Georgia and Ukraine.
The Russians, however, do not expect too much from Putin administration anymore.
Real worrisome country is PRC, whose leaders must keep satisfying the people's extreme expectations planted deep in their hearts by the leaders themselves with their "Century of Humiliation." Like Nazi had to, now CCP's got to go through the path with extreme nationalism in its people and extreme measures to satisfy their burning hearts. Mr. Xi already crossed the line when he had “declared” his leadership’s determination for the unification with ROC “by force” if necessary.
I’m afraid to assess that this collection is incomplete, and it is obvious that more works in bas’ic kn’owledge are required to improve the quality of it.
Report 1: ...the threat of potential sanctions immediately affected investors’ willingness to invest in Russia. Capital outflow accelerated (as of September 2014, the official forecast for 2014 net capital flight is an unprecedented $100 billion, or more than 5 percent of annual GDP), the ruble fell to record lows against the dollar and the euro, and stagnation turned into a recession. In this sense, the sanctions hit the Russian economy in the most painful way: they aggravated country’s most severe economic problem—the deteriorating investment climate...
They think Putin didn't expect that? Yet he would push for the annexation despite all the criticism from the world. Why? Because he is not a simple economist. He knows geopolitics, and like they mentioned in the collection, he knew it was for internal unity: Politics 101, folks. He's been working hard to make everyone speak Russian and to integrate all the "republics" with his central authority.
Report 1: ...The Ukrainian crisis also showed both foreign and Russian investors that investment and economic growth are not a top priority for the Russian government. Even though the government understood that the annexation of Crimea and further escalation in eastern Ukraine would result in international isolation and substantial costs from sanctions, it still made this decision. This has demonstrated that the Russian elite prefer to remain in power through imperialistic and nationalist ideology even if the latter is very costly to the economy...
Wrong again. Those ideas kept the West and Japan in power until the 3rd Global War of Hegemony and Powershift, God! And China’s been doing the same still growing fast! Putin and his administration could push it anyway because he knew the US and its European allies couldn't isolate Russia at the end due to the geopolitical reasons: gas lines and China.
It was supposed to be written by a person or people who know economy, geography, military, politics, anthropology, history and more. This is a collection of reports written by experts in many "compartmented" fields, and that’s why each separate report misses crucial points coming into conflict with one another. The overall rate for this collection is three stars.
Intended or not all nine reports admit that it was clearly Putin’s strong leadership that kept the federation united, but they all say at the end that Putin is the source of all Russian troubles in liberal point of view self-contradicting themselves.
Lastly about the form’at quality: One footnote directs its source to Wikipedia. Are we now allowed to use Wikipedia as a reference?
Some typos and weird sentences have been found as well, but not that many for a 1st Edition. Good work.
There are too many words and pages while the writers could have simply pointed out the core reason for all the troubles in just one word: corruption.
And if it is true, there will be no future for Putin's Russia. He got to make the decision. Is it “Strong Russia whether he's in power or not” or “His Russia whether she's strong or not?” The question definitely reminds me of Admiral Lee, the Mentor of Human Race.
BTW, it doesn’t sound like Putin’s Russia is as centralized as the United States of America or People’s Republic of China. Then why concern that Putin’s been over-centralizing his power? Because it is not the centralized “systematic” authority, but centralized “personal” power in one man’s hands.
Looks like quite a work, but after all, all the reports are missing the most important point of all the Putin's long-term plans for Russia to dominate the globe without a fight: Putin's Arctic Ambition way ahead of that of the United States or any other countries.
The biggest mistake the collection as a whole made is the use of the word “modernization.” What’s modern and what’s not, writers? Or should I call you guys researchers?
Anyhow, right analyses or not, these reports do help the readers interested in future of Russia think a lot about it, so I’d say the book is still worth the money and time for reading (only for the pondering lovers, not skim-and-scanners).
First of all, the Entr’/ Intr’o-duct’ion made me wonder what the secret really is for the US federal government’s “centralized” power despite the direct elections for each state cap’/ gov’ern-or-ship.
Centralized national authority itself isn’t a bad thing. Usually there are problems when the power is not centralized and each province goes its own way without unity as one nation. The writers may be over-paranoid by their predecessors' failures (like Stalin and Yeltsin’s bad examples) and try to find some middle way with Putin, but bitching about him because he doesn’t fly with their “obviously liberal” expectations.
However, there are clear examples of strong “central” control for success: Not to mention the "United" States under Lincoln or the world's most modernized civilization France under Napoleon III's stable rule until the French-Prussian War, back in the 1960s-'70s, the Republic of Korea (ROK) Pres. PARK made it too by heavily investing in heavy industry sectors, which is the core strength of present-day ROK economic prosperity. Plus, ROK has made it more “people-based” since the late-1980s, and now the country is more democratic than any other societies.
The authors worry about the Russian populace who miss the empire-like Soviet global influence, and Putin’s been using it for his political purposes.
The Koreans today, too, miss the glorious era under the unified imperial rule of Gwanggaeto the Great crying out for the lost Manchu territories all the time. The nature of societies likes things that make us the people feel special, and once we adopt the past glory in our own national histories as our proud identities, we naturally value and miss it while bitching about others having done the same lol
An’y society likes the same. You think the French are different? They miss Imperial Napoleonic Era the most. You live in France for years, and you will start feeling it.
I find that the writers made the same mistake like our simpleton world today: wrong lines and boundaries.
For example, “Russia One” society must be classified correctly among different groups of people within “Russia One” like office workers of heavy industries and performers in entertainment industries.
After a thorough read I have found that dividing the country into four societies was wrong.
Like “Russia One”, in “Russia Two” society, there are politically motivated and ambitious union leaders too, a lot of them, who are more like the people in “Russia One”, and somehow this report says the same at some point lol
Lines are drawn wrong just like those between “men” and “women”, not between the “capable” and “incapable” people. I have clearly pointed it out in my books "Admiral Lee and the First Global War" and “Mentor of Human Race - Section B.”
Since the first button was set wrong it keeps going the wrong way. Look.
Report 2: ...Interactions between Russia One and Russia Two are unlikely under any scenario, as their interests diverge in the short and medium term: the residents in major cities are keen to see modernization of the state, while Russia Two values social and economic stability (employment and wages) above anything else...
Wrong. It is the self-claimed liberals with their proud (lol) “shallow” knowledge without any experience in any field-labor careers, like the celebs and media people (including sports stars) along with their brainless followers, whereas the "white-color" office workers, who care their and their families’ living conditions the most, want social stability, safety and good enough wages.
Besides, the celebs' influence over the people of “Russia Two” has been missing. You know Maria Sharapova is Russian too. Russia is not China, where only the pro-Communist Party celebs are on TV (anti-Party celebs and business people "openly" disappear and are removed from the society).
The rise of People's Republic of China (PRC) was only possible because the short- and narrow-sighted money chasers have put a lot of investment resources in PRC with their own hands. Told them to stop for last two decades, idiots. Wasn’t Beijing always a control freak all those years? Yet the globe was busy putting their investment money in the country under Chinese Communist Party (CCP), so the writers agreeing that it is Putin’s excessive control that prevents the world from investing in Russian industries is wrong. It is rather his incomplete control that allows the mid-level officials to remain idle and corrupted.
Report 3: ...As a result, the management of regional socioeconomic processes has been effectively lost. Therefore, the socioeconomic discrepancies seen across Russian regions are huge and growing (Table 1)...
Wanna com-pare/ -pair California and Arkansas on a graphic statistics? What, the writers think it's different in ROK or in the US?
The writers keep pointing out the widening gap between Russia’s leading cities (like Moscow or St. Petersburg) and the other regions, but what country isn't facing the same issue?
Seriously, ROK is the same, but Korea is small to manage while the Russian Federation has the largest territory in the world. Moreover, Russia is ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse. That's why this guy Putin is trying hard to make everyone speak Russian as their mother tongue, just like Beijing has been trying, and to centralize & unite the federation like the United States at her heyday. It isn't solely the political system whether it’s been “modernized” or not, but there are many other reasons to think about as well 'cause obviously countries are in different circumstances, and that includes Napoleon III's France, Putin's Russia and Park's Republic of Korea, despite all the saem'/ sim'ilarities of their governance.
The biggest difference between ROK and Russia is S. Korea's profound mark'et economy and heated social or individual competition, which is boosted by the huge material desire of the people competing each other over who's got a better or newest stuff. Under this clear circumstance the market booms, of course, with strong consumption power.
I don’t think Russians are like Koreans today with their deep-rooted “Che-mion” culture (Shape-face: The appearance on surface determines one’s social status, which, I believe, is the main source of current boom of ROK economy, but will be the very reason of the country’s downfall, unfortunately for the innocent young babes of the country, someday soon). You got to live in the country as a third person to see the society real good.
Technically ROK, too, started its sort of federal system back in 1990s, but drawing lines to define a “federation" or “nation of autonomous provinces” is never easy in reality. The ROK system, too, is literally translated the "Provincial Autonomy", but the country is super-centralized under the President in Blue House and the members of National Assembly while each province, even the lowest levels like hundreds of "heads of small districts and villages" within a city, and all their representatives, are directly elected by the residents. The United Arab Emirates, too, got 7 Emirs (Kings), but it is united with the centralized power in the hands of Emir of Abu Dhabi as the President of the federation, while the Swiss "Federation" is in fact more like a collection of 26 independent cantons.
So trying to analyze real things in words is never to be correct.
The writers say that the well-educated city dwellers like Muscovites have found new values like democratic self-determination as one of the most important citizens’ rights. Alright, their self-determination is that important, but why protests demanding the authority to do something for them?
And I do not understand why the writers keep calling that kind of model “modernized” or “European?” Are we still living in Russian Empire during the early reign of Peter the Great? What’s European? It is in fact more like American, while the European model clearly depends on the authority, far from self-determination, and thanks to this lazy not-so-much-self-determined ment-ality/ mind-set, now the leading wellbeing "heavens" are all facing huge national debts!
Sounds like the authors are all mixed up, and some reports are lost from the very beginning, and since the first buttons were set wrong, no matter how nicely they conclude their reports, they are to self-contradict themselves at their messy ends.
Unlike PRC in a different path, Putin's Russia is taking the typical path that others like Taiwan (ROC), ROK or even French Republic in the mid-19th century also got through: People don't have to worry about feeding themselves anymore, so now we have more “mental-room” to think about different values than hunger and poverty. Today we demand for our rights as citizens and sovereigns of our nations like all other developed countries have gotten through; what’s so special about Russia getting through the “normal” process so they needed this collection of nine reports to talk about it in fancy way?
Protests have been everywhere. There were crackdowns in ROC until the ‘80s. There were crackdowns in ROK until the ‘80s too, and many people died getting through the process. I don’t think Russia is, or ever will be, like PRC or DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: North Korea) like the writers worry so much.
So the writers want a change, and they want Putin gone: Talking too much with so many graphs for a simple conclusion.
The polls and graphs are useless. For one instance, using the U.S. data (that of Yeltsin too lol) with the same results in the following page destroyed their own case. It's the same in the US. It’s the same in France. It’s the same in ROK, too. People complain about their society, but they support the leader they elected as if they better say they are one in this shit together as good, well-educated and responsible citizens.
It is simply like when you find a new place of your dream, and your affection towards it, in general, goes down as time passes by, and you end up wanting another place. It's Human nature: At the beginning all the bad surroundings somehow you do not see them or care about them as you just love the new place so much. But gradually you get sensitive about the annoyances more and more, and you wanna find a new one.
It is so like “I lost confidence in that person, and I don't want that person anymore.” It is really at some point, just one point you FEEL your disappointment in your partner, and that feeling doesn't go away. That is the very point where your relationship with that person is never the same like before.
Yet, you do not say it out loud. You still tell the world that you love your partner as if you have to lie about your feelings not to look like a bad person to the others.
Report 6: ...Although confidence in the Russian economy had improved throughout 1999, the explosive growth of his popularity during that period substantially differed from responses to improvements in economic performance during other periods; in most cases, such a change tended to be gradual, not explosive. Also of note is the spike in the expectation indexes, which ask those polled to consider, “What do you think is in store for Russia in the next few months in terms of political life and in the economic domain?” (See figure 1.) This upswing certainly reflects the political component of Putin’s approval rating. Respondents’ assessments of Russia’s positive achievements (improvements in the economic performance during 1999) were complemented by hopes they pinned on the new leader’s personality. It is probably this combination that produced the effect of “explosive” confidence growth...
The long-lived popularity of Vladimir Putin was only possible "after" his successful economic performance with the people’/ popul’ace who had gotten through a hard time when he first came along. So his economic success was the key after all. CCP and Nazi had the same case. Most recently in America, Trump used the crushed emotion of the American people as well. But he didn't win the majority support and lost the following election because his performance was not viewed as successful as Putin's? Or was that the American system "designed" for political stability by Washington and his colleagues for 3 years in that closed-door meetings before they proclaimed the first US Constitution?
One thing’s clear that our proud “democracy” must use the people's indifference by satisfying us with our material needs and desires, and that's what the US and so-called the “like-minded’ partners such as Japan and ROK have been doing making the people all ignorant or indifferent about reality while loving to talk about what we got in our heads well-tamed by our own heroes “whoever” they are. Our "fake" democracy can’t go far without capitalism and our materialism. Just like I predicted about the future of ROK society, our democracy as a whole will have to go down the toilet due to the same reason after all.
Once our authorities can’t match up with our desires and expectations, they will somehow have to take some sort of extreme way to prevent our expectation from turning to disappointment or anger towards their incompetence. They will seek the extreme solutions outside the borders like the authors talk a lot about Putin’s wars with Georgia and Ukraine.
The Russians, however, do not expect too much from Putin administration anymore.
Real worrisome country is PRC, whose leaders must keep satisfying the people's extreme expectations planted deep in their hearts by the leaders themselves with their "Century of Humiliation." Like Nazi had to, now CCP's got to go through the path with extreme nationalism in its people and extreme measures to satisfy their burning hearts. Mr. Xi already crossed the line when he had “declared” his leadership’s determination for the unification with ROC “by force” if necessary.
I’m afraid to assess that this collection is incomplete, and it is obvious that more works in bas’ic kn’owledge are required to improve the quality of it.
Report 1: ...the threat of potential sanctions immediately affected investors’ willingness to invest in Russia. Capital outflow accelerated (as of September 2014, the official forecast for 2014 net capital flight is an unprecedented $100 billion, or more than 5 percent of annual GDP), the ruble fell to record lows against the dollar and the euro, and stagnation turned into a recession. In this sense, the sanctions hit the Russian economy in the most painful way: they aggravated country’s most severe economic problem—the deteriorating investment climate...
They think Putin didn't expect that? Yet he would push for the annexation despite all the criticism from the world. Why? Because he is not a simple economist. He knows geopolitics, and like they mentioned in the collection, he knew it was for internal unity: Politics 101, folks. He's been working hard to make everyone speak Russian and to integrate all the "republics" with his central authority.
Report 1: ...The Ukrainian crisis also showed both foreign and Russian investors that investment and economic growth are not a top priority for the Russian government. Even though the government understood that the annexation of Crimea and further escalation in eastern Ukraine would result in international isolation and substantial costs from sanctions, it still made this decision. This has demonstrated that the Russian elite prefer to remain in power through imperialistic and nationalist ideology even if the latter is very costly to the economy...
Wrong again. Those ideas kept the West and Japan in power until the 3rd Global War of Hegemony and Powershift, God! And China’s been doing the same still growing fast! Putin and his administration could push it anyway because he knew the US and its European allies couldn't isolate Russia at the end due to the geopolitical reasons: gas lines and China.
It was supposed to be written by a person or people who know economy, geography, military, politics, anthropology, history and more. This is a collection of reports written by experts in many "compartmented" fields, and that’s why each separate report misses crucial points coming into conflict with one another. The overall rate for this collection is three stars.
Intended or not all nine reports admit that it was clearly Putin’s strong leadership that kept the federation united, but they all say at the end that Putin is the source of all Russian troubles in liberal point of view self-contradicting themselves.
Lastly about the form’at quality: One footnote directs its source to Wikipedia. Are we now allowed to use Wikipedia as a reference?
Some typos and weird sentences have been found as well, but not that many for a 1st Edition. Good work.
March 17, 2022
This is an amazing book, it's on my kindle and has been for a very long time, only just got round to reading it and although it was written just after the first skirmish/invasion/war with Ukraine in 2014 it is even more relevant today.
The book is divided into I think it was 9 chapters, each written by a different expert on Russia by Russians, and each chapter covers a different aspect of Putin's dictatorship. There were some memorable sentences in each of these chapters which help to shed light on Putin's mindset and the relevance of it today with the war in Ukraine.
Putin wants to be the man who made Russia great again with taking back all the countries which were under Russia's rule many decades ago. He has managed in 20yrs to disassemble (is that the right spelling?) Gorbachev's vision of taking the country into the modern world and meeting the west and it's ideals, technology, economy etc, and looking forward to his country's movement into the light. This was going fairly well until the election (all elections are rigged and there is some amazing date given out in this book, Putin doesn't command a large amount of support in elections but details are given which come out by the people overseeing the polls), Putin is simply another dictator who wants to demonise the rest of the world whilst making him and his friends millionaires, while keeping his people strictly under control by use of tv, radio, newspapers which are all not allowed to say anything negative about him or his regime.
I made something like 170 bookmarks during reading this book, and although it was hard going reading this (I had to read some chapters twice because I couldn't believe what I had just read, why weren't the Russian people rising up against his tyranny, but then you have to understand the Russian mindset). I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in Russia and his satellite countries, it does take some reading though, definitely not bedtime reading!
The book is divided into I think it was 9 chapters, each written by a different expert on Russia by Russians, and each chapter covers a different aspect of Putin's dictatorship. There were some memorable sentences in each of these chapters which help to shed light on Putin's mindset and the relevance of it today with the war in Ukraine.
Putin wants to be the man who made Russia great again with taking back all the countries which were under Russia's rule many decades ago. He has managed in 20yrs to disassemble (is that the right spelling?) Gorbachev's vision of taking the country into the modern world and meeting the west and it's ideals, technology, economy etc, and looking forward to his country's movement into the light. This was going fairly well until the election (all elections are rigged and there is some amazing date given out in this book, Putin doesn't command a large amount of support in elections but details are given which come out by the people overseeing the polls), Putin is simply another dictator who wants to demonise the rest of the world whilst making him and his friends millionaires, while keeping his people strictly under control by use of tv, radio, newspapers which are all not allowed to say anything negative about him or his regime.
I made something like 170 bookmarks during reading this book, and although it was hard going reading this (I had to read some chapters twice because I couldn't believe what I had just read, why weren't the Russian people rising up against his tyranny, but then you have to understand the Russian mindset). I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in Russia and his satellite countries, it does take some reading though, definitely not bedtime reading!
December 11, 2016
An excellent collection of essays which does exactly what it purports to: deepen your understanding of Putin's Russia. My only criticism is that one of the essays needed proofreading as some of the translations didn't make sense, like "ideologram".
November 13, 2015
To understand Russia, better to listen to honest Russian experts. I recommend this series of papers, and after reading, you might want to think twice before reading the international press.
November 20, 2019
Vejo muitas pessoas discorrerem sobre a complexidade do povo russo, com suas miríades de etnias, sem ter o mínimo de qualificações para tal, por isso, um livro que reúne análises de especialistas russos me parece um bom começo.
Para se falar sobre a Rússia e seu povo é imperativo que se tenha vivido lá um bom número de anos além de ser possuir uma mente observadora. Conhecer a Rússia através de livros não me parece ser fácil e se isso for tentado precisa ser através de livros como este.
Putin é um fenômeno da Rússia pós URSS, mas com profundas raízes naquele período e sua popularidade oscila para mais ou para menos não só ao sabor dos sucessos ou fracassos na economia, mas também pelas medidas respectivamente mais ou menos no sentido do imperialismo russo.
O livro nos induz a pensar o que de todo não não surpreende, mas não deixa de ser uma confirmação importante, que o povo russo não foi moldado para ser tão amigo da democracia considerando-a um sistema de governo fraco o que de certa forma explica a popularidade de Putin.
Esta afirmação é significativa:
"In opinion polling data, 80–85 percent of the population believes that a conflict in which the interests of an
ordinary person and the state (or any official) collide is a priori lost by the former.
Para se falar sobre a Rússia e seu povo é imperativo que se tenha vivido lá um bom número de anos além de ser possuir uma mente observadora. Conhecer a Rússia através de livros não me parece ser fácil e se isso for tentado precisa ser através de livros como este.
Putin é um fenômeno da Rússia pós URSS, mas com profundas raízes naquele período e sua popularidade oscila para mais ou para menos não só ao sabor dos sucessos ou fracassos na economia, mas também pelas medidas respectivamente mais ou menos no sentido do imperialismo russo.
O livro nos induz a pensar o que de todo não não surpreende, mas não deixa de ser uma confirmação importante, que o povo russo não foi moldado para ser tão amigo da democracia considerando-a um sistema de governo fraco o que de certa forma explica a popularidade de Putin.
Esta afirmação é significativa:
"In opinion polling data, 80–85 percent of the population believes that a conflict in which the interests of an
ordinary person and the state (or any official) collide is a priori lost by the former.
July 27, 2017
9 articulos, algunos (los primeros en mi opinion) son mejores y otros son peores. Hay alguno que realmente no aporta nada.
November 13, 2017
A nice compilation of texts about this New Russia which is arriving to the international stage.
June 18, 2018
This book is full of insights on Russia that I wasn't even close from knowing. It has helped me understand better what is going on in Russia.
February 3, 2020
Interesting but rather obvious thoughts about Putin's Russia. To me, the book looses all credibility when it has wikipedia or slovari.yandex (collection of dictionaries) as it's source.
April 1, 2016
Insightful
I read this book in small doses so that I could digest what I was learning. What hopeful ideas for the future. I neither like nor dislike differing opinions, but I appreciate the insights into the Russian economic health under Putin.
I read this book in small doses so that I could digest what I was learning. What hopeful ideas for the future. I neither like nor dislike differing opinions, but I appreciate the insights into the Russian economic health under Putin.
November 7, 2016
Very enlightening and engaging, but why was the essay on Russian muslims in there? It felt very loosely connected to the other chapters.
December 6, 2020
Data and limited soul.
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