Russian liberals attack current regime but defend foundation of regime as such, Birna says
One of the fundamental weaknesses of liberal Russian thought and behavior, Irina Birna says, is Russian liberals are…
Browsing Tag
Soviet imperialism
40 posts
‘The fish is rotting from the head’ for the second time in Russian history, Eidman says
“A fish begins to rot from the head,” Russians say, “and society descends into insanity following its dictator.…
The real reason the Kremlin will never completely disown the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
For Moscow, the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols which divided Eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin…
No foreigner cracked Russians’ top ten statesmen of all times and places
The Levada Center poll concerning whom Russians see as the most outstanding statesmen of all times and places…
The worst Russophobes in the world are in the Kremlin, Kornyev says
Russian leaders like Vladimir Putin routinely denounce others as Russophobes, but most of those they target do not…
Putin’s anti-Ukrainian propaganda playing role state anti-Semitism did in Soviet times, Ikhlov says
Vladimir Putin’s “rabid” anti-Ukrainian propaganda resembles and is intended to have a similar outcome to Soviet state anti-Semitism,…
No one denies Soviet Army defeated Hitler but Russians won’t admit it occupied those it liberated, Tatyana Ross says
For Russians, Victory Day is an ever more important date; but they act as if May 9 was…
Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact revisited, Part 3: The way to European catastrophe
Read the previous parts: 1) The interwar prelude 2) Hitler's Anschluss In the West, much sympathy existed with Hitler…
25 years on, evil empire is less big but no less evil, Yakovenko says
Twenty-five years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev bowed to the inevitable and handed over the nuclear codes to Russian President…
Putin’s Russia for export at odds with his Russia for Russians, Shiropayev says
A major source confusion about Vladimir Putin and his intentions is that the Russia he has been promoting…
Moscow analyst: Britain’s support for Poland, not Molotov-Ribbentrop, caused WW2, and its backing of Ukraine could trigger WW3
Moscow analyst Yury Mukhin offers an historical analogy which says far more than he intends. In a new…
‘Russia is trying to be an empire but it ever more resembles a colony,’ Glukhovsky says
The fundamental contradiction in Russia today is that “externally Russia is trying to be an empire but internally…
Punished peoples fight Putin’s war on history with monuments to their deportations
A new book documents the way that the peoples whom Stalin deported are seeking to preserve the memory…
Kremlin’s losing battle: Next stage of disintegration of Soviet space
Violence in Kazakhstan and Armenia are the clearest sign yet that the post-Soviet space is entering into its…
Lenin statues to stand in Russia, but to fall in its successor states, Shtepa says
Sometimes a brief Facebook post can say in brief compass more than an extended discourse of article or…
Gorbachev’s support for Putin’s Crimean Anschluss – no surprise, Malgin says
Given his own willingness to use violence against people in Kazakhstan, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia and elsewhere, no one…
Moscow’s Victory cult intended to keep non-Russians within an empire and former Soviet republics together, Ukrainian commentator says
Many Russian commentators have pointed out that the way in which Vladimir Putin is exploiting Victory Day is…
Why do many Westerners show sympathy to Russia and Communism – but not to their victims?
Those who study the post-Soviet world and especially its non-Russian parts are often struck by the fact that…
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine reflects its failure to become a state
Moscow officials frequently suggest that the former Soviet republics are “failed states,” implying that the Russian Federation is…
Gorbachev’s ‘greatest mistake’ — Black January in Baku 25 years ago
Twenty-five years ago today, on Mikhail Gorbachev’s order, Soviet troops by land, sea and air invaded the Azerbaijani…