Archives for August 2009

The Nazi-Soviet Pact as Second Munich

This in about History, and tagged , , , , , , , was written by on August 24, 2009 . 65 Comments

On the 70th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of non-aggression between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, signed on August 23, 1939 (also my birthday!), historians, ideologues and everyone in between inevitably fall into a game of recriminations, revisionism and relativism. The anti-Soviet side maintains that the Pact gave Germany a free hand in the […]

Perils of Water

This in about Geopolitics, and tagged , , , was written by on August 22, 2009 . 7 Comments

Three interesting stories, all tied with Russia and water. 1. The explosion at the Sayano-Shushenskaya dam in Siberia. Though the official Russian version is that it was a blown transformer, the Chechen separatists / terrorists are claiming that it’s their work: A decision was taken at the start of the year at a meeting of […]

Translation: Ksenia Larina – Radio Liberty, The Liberty of Mendacity

This in about Media, and tagged , , , was written by on August 16, 2009 . 14 Comments

One of my readers, Fedia Kriukov, kindly pointed me to a LiveJournal blog post by Ksenia Larina from August 13th, 2009. She’s been working with the liberal “Echo of Moscow” radio station since 1991 and her husband, Rinat Valiulin, had accepted a position with Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty in February 2009. In uncompromising […]

One Nation under CCTV

This in about Society, and tagged , , , was written by on August 10, 2009 . 16 Comments

Now we’ve all known for some time that Britain is degenerating into a neoliberal version of East Germany, with its endemic surveillance and database wet dreams, and few things really surprise me any more, but every so often it manages to plumb an even deeper level of insanity. This time the thieving crooks and totalitarian […]

New Russia-Georgia War?

This in about Geopolitics, and tagged , , , , was written by on August 4, 2009 . 45 Comments

Whispers of war are heard in the Caucasus, as the anniversary of last year’s South Ossetian War approaches. Will the guns of August be fired in anger to mark the occasion? Here are some things we need to keep in mind when analyzing this: It was Georgia that attacked South Ossetia last year, mere hours […]

Reconsidering Parshev

This in about Economy, and tagged , , , was written by on August 4, 2009 . 14 Comments

In most Russian bookstores, there is a bookshelf or two dedicated to so-called “patriotic literature” – reappraisals of Stalin against “liberal revisionism”, overviews of Russia’s secret super-weapons, the exploits of its special forces and Russian theo-philosophy. Much of it is (apparent) nonsense, but the economic crisis has forced me to reconsider one particular “patriotic” thesis […]

Missing the Forest for the Trees

This in about Economy, and tagged , was written by on August 1, 2009 . 6 Comments

Russia is commonly represented as one of the most corrupt countries in the world in the Western media, ruled over by Kremlin clans who sugarcoat their kleptocracy with bombastic nationalism. The most oft-cited evidence comes from Transparency International. This is an organization which aggregates surveys of foreign businesspeople and regional analysts to compile a Corruption […]