Putin and Russia: the return of Tsars?

[Mespheber]

An article from The St-Petersburg's Times...

Lately he was made Knight of Legion d'Honneur, the highest french honour, by president Jacques Chirac, while war is raging in Czeczenia and that a journalist were murdered on his birthday.
Truely, I wonder what the fuck is going on.

[L'Etranger]

Putyll and Hyde?

[Mespheber]

A french guy mentionned something about Ras-Putin...

[L'Etranger]

I suppose a huge country that has just emerged from a historical situation in which most people were too timid to sharpen a pencil without permission and others had seemingy unlimited powers as long as they could pretend it served the Party interests cannot be controlled by a "softie". Now the question really is at which point a strong leader secures for himself so much power that he can't be controlled, cannot even control himself and becomes a montrous despot.

What I ask myself is:
Can the man Putin, the former KGB officer, who grew up on the firm assumption that power is all and (Western) Democracy is synonymous with Decadence and therefore despicable really have made such a turn around in his inner beliefs?
The question for the West is: is it worth lending him all help (and hence trusting him) to ensure that he manages to lead the mightiest country of Europe out of the quagmire? Or should they restrain him, and perhaps also weaken him at those ends we do not desire strengthened? Is he the smaller of more evils? Or, finally, have we reached a stage where it doesn't matter anyway what the "West" thinks?


Oh, one question: Does anyone know where the St. Petersburg Times stands? I mean just because it is in English it needn't be free of leanings ....

[Hawksun]

Putin and Russia: the return of Tsars?

Did they even go away?

My understanding of the Russian Revolution is that an autocratic regieme that maintained control of a starving population with a ruthless secret police, and forced deportation of political enemies was replaced by an autocratic regieme that maintained control of.....you get the idea.

Now Russia's being governed by an autocratic ex-secret-policeman, who granted doesn't deport anyone (to the best of my knowledge), and was "democratically elected". But I don't need to go on about how that particular phrase has been abused in the West.

Has anything really changed?

[David Mosley]

What I ask myself is:
Can the man Putin, the former KGB officer, who grew up on the firm assumption that power is all and (Western) Democracy is synonymous with Decadence and therefore despicable really have made such a turn around in his inner beliefs?
The question for the West is: is it worth lending him all help (and hence trusting him) to ensure that he manages to lead the mightiest country of Europe out of the quagmire? Or should they restrain him, and perhaps also weaken him at those ends we do not desire strengthened? Is he the smaller of more evils? Or, finally, have we reached a stage where it doesn't matter anyway what the "West" thinks?

It goes beyond that though I think. You're quite right in one respect (at least) as an ex-hardline KGB (or should that be ex-KGB hardliner?) can the leopard really change it's spots? I suspect that there was more freedom in Russia under Gorbechev than there is under Putin (and for that you can probably blame Yeltsin). But like I say, it's not just about Europe pulling Russia out of the quagmire, but more importantly that Russia supplies 25% of Europe's gas. Hopefully there's some quid pro quo operating here - Europe needs Russia's gas and Russia needs Europe's cash - so Russia won't feel tempted to cut off the gas, but it remains a powerful bargaining chip in Putin's arsenal with the West.

[zilch]

jethro putin

Not meaning to trivialize this but here's something that may raise a smile...or frown

http://www.j-tull.com/fans/surprise/index.cfm
(scroll down)

maybe he's a frustrated rocker at heart.