In the latest news from the ongoing comedy skit that is Ukrainian politics, we learn that Mikheil Saakashvili has been appointed governor of Odessa oblast.
Who is Saakashvili?
The son of Soviet apparatchiks with ties to the diplomatic service, which was dominated by Georgians in the late USSR, this onetime university dropout enjoyed a great deal of success in the 1990s, picking up various fellowships, grants, stipends, awards, etc. from respectable European and American institutions. Invited back into Georgia by his friend Zurab Zhvania, he soon went into opposition to Gorby’s Foreign Minister turned Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze. Eventually, this culminated in Shevardnadze’s overthrow in the Rose Revolution of 2003. From then on, it was a familiar story.
Saakashvili was, back then, one of the beacons of pro-Western liberalism and reform in the former Soviet world, the object of regular paeons in the MSM. Some of the lustre has since come off, following his idiotic attack on Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia that resulted in military defeat in 2008, and his own ignominious political end in Georgia itself following revelations of mass abuse in the prison system – under his Presidency, the incarceration rate tripled to become Europe’s highest per capita – relevations that were carefully coordinated by his political opponents. He is now wanted in his native land, which he fled even before his Presidential term came to a formal end, on an array of charges related to corruption as well as possible involvement in various suspicious deaths (including that of Zhvania kek) and murders. Nonetheless, for all his democratic and human rights failings, which all but the most hardcore neocons by now acknowledge, there is still a very widespread impression that he is at least someone who can get the job done – that is, improve living standards, strengthen the country, and root out corruption. After all, did he not liquidate the everyday bribery that is a depressing feature common to the entire post-Soviet world? Did he not make Georgia one of the world’s most attractive places for business? Did he not lay the foundations of, in his own words, “a future Georgian Switzerland, the future Georgian Singapore, the future Georgian Dubai, the Georgian Hong Kong, and of the greatest Georgia of all times”? And would not Odessa benefit from his impeccable credentials and expertise?
The only problem is that his legend is lies, lurid and false; a con for the ages.
The Economy
The economy did grow under Saakashvili. And across a range of institutional indices like the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, and various economic freedom indices it did radically improve its position.
The only problem was that it was doing so from an exceedingly low base, and even today, total GDP per capita (in constant dollars) is still considerably lower than it was in 1990. That’s 25 years and counting! Moreover, the growth rate was virtually the same under the “reformist” Saakashvili as it was under the “Soviet fossil” Shevardnadze. Nor was it any better than that of Georgia’s neighbors. To the contrary, it was far worse than in Azerbaijan, which yes you could ascribe to oil, but was also far worse than in neighboring Armenia and in Belarus. Both Armenia and Belarus are located in geopolitical straits just as trying as Georgia’s – Armenia is blockaded on two sides by Turkey and Azerbaijan, while Belarus is known as “Europe’s last dictatorship” and is under longstanding Western sanctions. Georgia’s performance, including under Saakashvili, only looks adequate in comparison to the total disaster zones that are Ukraine and Moldova. Productivity in the agricultural sector – where around half the Georgian population still works – has remained completely static since the early 1990s, whereas it more than trebled in neighboring Armenia.
Amazing as it might sound, but fanatically-pursued libertarian reforms, US military aid, and a couple of hotels erected by Trump to service gushing Westerners seeking photo-ops with Saakashvili on G.W. Bush Boulevard do not a strong economy make.
Corruption
One of the things that virtually everyone agrees on, even his critics, is that under Saakashvili, Georgia “solved” its corruption problem. If so, this would make it a somewhat unique achievement for the ex-Soviet world, bar only Estonia, and worthy of praise.
Now what does the data say? Certainly Georgia greatly improved its positions on surveys that elites pay a lot of attention to, such as Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, where Georgia increased its rating from an abysmal 18/100 in 2003 to a respectable, Baltic-level 49/100 by 2013. But according to ratings that measure corruption realities as opposed to the perceptions of anonymous “experts” who can be unduly influenced by PR agencies – the likes of Aspect Consulting, Orion Strategies, Public Strategies, and the Glover Park Group, which received millions of dollars under Saakashvili to burnish his reformist image – the improvement on the ground was far more modest. 6% of Georgians reported paying a bribe in the past year in 2004, the first year of Saakashvili’s Presidency, and before his reforms could reasonably be expected to have taken effect; in 2013, the last year of his President, it was 4%. An improvement, sure, but not a particularly radical one. Actual opinion polls by Transparency International suggest that lowlevel corruption was not a big problem in Georgia pre-Saakashvili, and its reduction under him could just as easily have been a simple matter of the general withering away of the state’s regulatory agencies under his libertarian reforms. For instance, the near wholesale removal of university tuition subsidies – essential for democratic access to higher education in a country as poor as Georgia – led to a plunge in tertiary enrollment by almost a third relative to the early-to-mid-2000s. Fewer students automatically translates to fewer bribes for grades. These examples can be extended indefinitely: Less contact with the state automatically leads to “lower” corruption. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s “good” in all cases.
What about institutions? According to the Open Budget Index, an organization that asseses the transparency of state accounts according to objective criteria (as opposed to perceptions), Georgia did improve, but has always lagged Putin’s “mafia state.” Now, true, a low score in the OBI doesn’t necessarily imply institutions are more corrupt; they could be both secretive and honest. But in the virtual absence of objective, quantitative measures of institutional quality – of which corruption perceptions by a bunch of anonymous and unaccountable “experts” are most definitely not – it’s the best we have, at least as a rough proxy of states’ eagerness to tackle corruption and willingness to be forthright with their citizens.
Then, in addition to lowlevel and institutional corruption, we also have highlevel corruption. This is the hardest to gauge of them all, even just by definition (how many American bank bailouts are equivalent to how many Chinese or Russian offshore accounts?). That said, this is the one aspect of corruption in Georgia that many people acknowledge is unlikely to have improved and might have even become worse relative to Shevardnadze’s period. To the contrary, all accounts indicate that Saakashvili merely centralized highlevel corruption around his own figure – allegations that have now been given form by concrete criminal charges against him in Georgia.
Added all up, we likely see real but modest improvements in lowlevel and institutional corruption under Saakashvili, which is of course “good” but doesn’t come anywhere near to justifying the panegyrics addressed towards him by Western elites and their lackeys in Ukraine when we consider that these improvements were seen in most of the rest of the ex-Soviet world in the 2000s as well, including in the dark lands themselves, Putin’s Russia. As for highlevel corruption all that happened was that the pig put on lipstick.
Demography
Surely the ultimate litmus test of a political leader’s performance is in whether people want to live in his realm or not. For a long time, for all his foreign policy failings and overblown economic and institutional achievements, it appeared that in this at least Saakashvili had succeeded, with Georgia’s demographic decline stabilizing at around four and half million people after 2002 due to declining emigration and a rebound in the fertility rate from 1.4 children per woman in the early 2000s to 1.8 today.
Then came the 2014 Census, and it emerged that Georgia’s population decline had if anything accelerated under Saakashvili, with the population hitting 3.7 million relative to 4.4 million in 2002 and 4.9 million in 1989 (all figures are minus Abkhazia and South Ossetia).
Where did all the Georgians go? Most went to Russia: Of the $1.26 billion Georgia received in remittances in 2011 (almost 10% of Georgia’s GDP), more than half – $655 million – came from Russia. Surely quite an embarassment that the economy of “Switzerland in the Caucasus” and “oldest Colchis Europe, the most ancient civilization” was essentially held afloat by Georgian Gasterbaiters in a “barbarian” country with “mongoloid brutality and ideology,” as Saakashvili himself put it.
But even as Saakashvili ranted and raved about Russia’s Asiatic barbarity, using vocabulary that had disappeared off respectable European tongues since 1968, it appears that Georgians continued to vote with their feet and emigrate to Russia in ridiculously large numbers. For comparison, Georgia’s population loss over the past decade is equivalent to what saw in Latvia or Lithuania after their accession to the EU. I imagine it is considerably easier for a Balt to move to Ireland than it is for a Georgian to move to Moscow.
Mishiko in Odessa
Now that the myth has been swept away, we have just the man before us, whose essence boils down to an idiosyncratic combination of iconoclasm, vindictive incompetence, and Western cargo cultism.
Perhaps the best real life metaphor for this was the demolition of a Soviet-era monument to victory in the Great Patriotic War in Kutaisi, in which 200,000 Georgians died. Not a monument to Stalin, or anything like that – though it should be noted that Georgians are far more partial towards Stalin than are Russians – but just a simple victory monument. But they couldn’t even get that right. When it was blown up, two people – a mother and her eight year old daughter – were killed by the flying concrete, and four others were seriously injured. This was noticed, even in the West. As a Western cargo cultist in a position of power you really have to fuck up pretty good to even get American state media like RFERL to criticize you.
It takes true skillz to make all three of these people laugh at you.
On getting appointed to head Odessa oblast, despite having at most just ever visited it as a tourist, Saakashvili smarmily proclaimed “I ❤ Odessa.” A whole range of other people were not that happy. Kolomoysky, the oligarch-lord of Dnepropetrovsk, whose protege Igor Palitsa had previously ruled Odessa and who is locked in a simmering conflict with Poroshenko, said that Saakashvili would betray Odessa to the Russians at the first opportunity: “By the way, how many citizenships does Saakashvili have? Would probably beat even me. American, Georgian, Dutch, and now Ukrainian” (Kolomoysky, for the record, has three. When a journalist told him that double citizenship is illegal in Ukraine, Kolomoysky remarked that while that is true, there’s nothing illegal about triple citizenship on the lawbooks. A bona fide Odessan retort if there ever was one). Lyashko, a caricature of a nationalist politician who is also widely regarded as a faggot amongst all Ukrainians, including even his supporters (much more so for his hystrionic grandstanding and violent denials than for the actual details of his sexual orientation), and is also deeply at odds with Kolomoysky, was also against the appointment: “Of all Ukraine’s 45 million citizens, not a single one could be found to head Odessa oblast? … [Poroshenko] admitted before the whole world that Ukrainians are unable to govern themselves. Maybe we should get a President from abroad too?” Sure… why not. Finally, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s PM and President at the time of the South Ossetian War, undiplomatically remarked: “The comedy show continues. Unhappy Ukraine…”
When you have someone who simultaneously infuriates and/or amuses such an amazingly wide and conflicting range of political forces, you know that the whole thing is a pathetic farce.
Both Western and Russian analysts have linked Saakashvili’s appointment to the mounting blockade of Transnistria, the breakaway Russo-Ukrainian population Moldovan province. With Ukraine now on board as well as Moldova, its position has become very precarious. Short of Russia establishing an air corridor, the garrison within Transnistria is no longer able to resupply. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is now an additional potential flashpoint to an outbreak of overt hostilities between Russia and Ukraine. In this sense, bearing in mind Odessa’s position right next to Transnistria, Saakashvili’s resume is exceptional.
But in reality things are probably somewhat simpler. Odessa is the most unstable province in terms of separatist sentiment along with Kharkov, due to both demographics and memories of the massacre of anti-junta activists in May 2, 2014. Poroshenko needs someone who is able to crack heads if need be, someone who is unrelated to Kolomoysky, his prime rival in Ukraine’s game of thrones, and preferably also someone who as an outsider would be unable to establish his own independent powerbase. Finally, it is a solid “fuck you” to Russia, and fuck what Georgia – one of Ukraine’s putative allies – makes of that. This might not sound very rational to Western ears, but reason and moderation has always been foreign to the Maidan ideologues. That is why they have unleashed a civil war in place of dialog in the first place. That is why they have claimed the not inconsiderable achievement of alienating major figures in the Polish security establishment – traditionally, and understandably, highly anti-Russian – by their maniac worship of Stepan Bandera and his murderous goons.
So in this sense Saakashvili’s appointment is perfectly understandable.
On another level, however, it is also rather sad, and not just in the way it blithely ignores Odessan opinions and lays bare the failure of Ukrainian statecraft. Saakashvili might have been a cargo cultist, obsessed with making the correct gestures – G.W. Bush Boulevards, being the third largest contributor in terms of troop quantity in the occupation of Iraq – to get cargo from the West and even half-succeeding at it – Trump Towers in Tblisi, a few five star hotels in Batumi, copious US military aid, etc. None of that cargo made a difference when Saakashvili’s forces murdered Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia in the expectation that the US would openly intervene on his side, only to face complete military defeat and the permanent reversal of the Stalinist-era borders that gave ethnically distinct Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgia in the first place.
But at least, in his defense, so far as cargo cults go, Saakashvili was the real deal. How much more pathetic is it that Poroshenko’s Ukraine is making a cargo cult of a cargo cultist?
AK Edit: Please take offtopic/ill-informed WN comments elsewhere. Thanks.
The left side of the GDP chart doesn’t look right to me. Ukraine’s GDP per capita (PPP) was half Russia’s in 1990? Armenia’s was a fifth? I find it hard to believe.
Very informative description of Georgia under Saakashvili. The conclusion of modest decrease of day-to-day corruption with little decrease at the top seems realistic. The modest decrease was enough that it was easily noticeable to people I know who had visited both before and during his rule. Repeating this feat in Odessa would be a good and easy to accomplish PR move by the government; it’s something concrete that residents will notice in their daily lives.
I doubt Kolomoysky’s bitter complaint that Saak would betray Odessa to the Russians is very realistic. Saakashvili and Poroshenko have a long relationship; the Georgian studied in Kiev in the early 90’s and was a friend and classmate of Poroshenko’s back then. He is someone who, as Karlin pointed out, has no local independent power base and who also has a long and close personal relationship to Poroshenko. He also has strong personal motivations to oppose Russia’s interests.
Linked article to May 2 was quite biased, neglecting info, though I don’t feel like getting into it now and it is tangential to this topic. The UN report gives a different picture of events that day: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/HRMMUReport15June2014.pdf.
As for “the not inconsiderable achievement of alienating major figures in the Polish security establishment ” – it is one major figure, and someone who is not the main one. Most of the rest of the Polish security establishment as well as Poland’s political elite support Ukraine. Russians are over-emphasizing this guy, or the Polish president not meeting Poroshenko; wishful thinking.
“also has a long and close personal relationship to Poroshenko. “
In a democracy a long and close personal relationship with the local electorate would have carried more weight.
When a medieval army conquered an area, the king gave parts of it as fiefs to his loyal servants. The Russian term for this pan-European practice was кормление, which means feeding. A city could be given в кормление (for feeding) to a member of a khan’s or a grand prince’s entourage. The food on his table, the clothes on his back and many other things would now be provided by the denizens of his fief (вотчина in the Russian context). A feudal lord did not have to be of local stock nor did he have to share in the local culture.
The neocons conquered the Ukraine and Misha is a loyal servant of theirs from way back. So here we are.
Don’t forget this criminal moron is a New York lawyer, that could explain a lot:
https://www.law.columbia.edu/intl/intl_students/m_saakashvili
Shevardnadze could have asked Saakashvili ‘et tu Brute?’ .. but most interesting (to myself) had been the Georgian ambassador to the USA slipping and saying “No one predicted it would go this far” directly referring to Russia’s reaction to the attack on Ossetia; and inferring the strings had been pulled direct from DC. Not that anyone should be surprised…
In Ukraine, governors are appointed not elected.
Which is undemocratic and, in our day, un-European. An ironic combination of qualities in light of Maidanite propaganda.
I’ve always known that Germany is a federation with each state having its own elected government. I’ve assumed that the heads of local government in all the other European countries are elected too. How could they not be? But assuming isn’t knowing. So I just looked it up. On to the Wikipedia:
“France’s departments are administered by elected general councils (conseils généraux), soon[1] to be renamed departmental councils (conseils départementaux) and their presidents…”
“Les listes régionales ont pour effet de permettre quasiment l’élection du président du conseil régional par les électeurs eux-mêmes.” (The regional lists had the effect of essentially permitting the election of the council presidents by the voters themselves.)
Italy: “According to the 2014 reform, each province is headed by a President assisted by a legislative body, the Provincial Council, and an executive body, the Provincial Executive. President and members of Council are elected together by mayors and city councilors of each municipality of the province.”
The UK is an unstandardized mess of local peculilarities, but everyone of any importance in local government appears to be elected.
“The Local Government Act 1972 completely reorganised local authorities in England and Wales…. The post of county alderman was abolished, and the entire council was thereafter directly elected every four years. “
Spain: “All autonomous communities have a parliamentary system based on a division of powers comprising:
A Legislative Assembly, whose members are elected by universal suffrage according to a system of proportional representation, in which all areas that integrate the territory are fairly represented
A Council of Government, with executive and administrative powers, headed by a prime minister, whose official title is “president”,[b][vi] elected by the Legislative Assembly—usually the leader of the party or coalition with a majority in the Assembly—and nominated by the King of Spain
A High Court of Justice, hierarchically under the Supreme Court of Spain”
So the heads of local government in all the major European countries are locally elected. It’s one of many issues on which Russia is more like Europe than Maidanite Ukraine is. Freedom of speech is another big one.
Since the president who appoints the governor is elected, it is not strictly undemocratic. In Poland the head of each province or wojewodztwo is appointed by the Prime Minister, while the council is locally elected. The only difference with Ukraine is that in Ukraine the President rather than Prime Minister chooses the governor.
Russia also has had appointed governors – has that changed?
A few more obvious areas in which Russia is more like Europe than the Ukraine is:
The personal income level, the level of corruption, the crime level (surely since the Maidan the Ukraine has overtaken Russia on that score), the economy’s attractiveness to guest workers (which does create its set of problems), the state’s attitude to minority languages, the state’s attitude to fascist symbols, state control of the media (the Maidanite state is banning movies and TV shows left and right), the number of journalists and politicians murdered per annum, the width of the range of views discussed on political chat shows, the rates of inflation and economic growth, the level of cheap chauvinism as measured by the number of national flags and anthem renditions per capita – I could go on and on. And on most of those issues (or is it on all of them?) the junta has moved the Ukraine further away from Europe than it was before. And the longer the junta holds on to power, the further from Europe the Ukraine will move on most of these issues – that’s a very easy prediction to make.
I didn’t see this when I responded.
Ukrainian oblasts have elected councils; only the governor is appointed by the central government. Poland has the same system, except that in Poland’s case the Prime Minister appoints the governor, whereas in Ukraine the President does so.
Sweden is divided into counties which have an elected local council and a governor (landshövding) appointed by the central government, which is similar to how things are run in Ukraine and Poland (although I do not know much power the governor has relative to the council).
You mention France – well, each department is headed by a prefect who is appointed from the Center, not elected. Per wikipedia, prefects seemed to have had a lot of power prior to reforms in 1982 and much less since then, but they are still technically in charge.
Yes, that recently changed. They’re now elected every 5 years.
Per Wikipedia there is a prefect who’s appointed and a president of the council who’s elected. I don’t know who has more power.
,
This is a silly measure. In this case, UAE or Singapore are more “European” than Ukraine.
Ukraine’s CPI score is exactly one point lower than Russia’s in 2014.
http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results/
Actually the loss of Donbas and Crimea, which were among the highest-crime regions in Ukraine, has probably more than compensated for modest increased crime elsewhere in terms of national crime averages.
This goes back to the economic issue.
Ukraine hasn’t changed its language laws.
Certainly correct with respect to western Europe. Not so sure with respect to the Baltics.
,
Correct.
Well, European countries are not at war now. Neither is Russia – though it still has far more patriotic displays than do western European countries.
You are still using this silly word junta?
BTW, 2014 has been a good year for Ukraine in terms of demographics. Improvement almost everywhere other than in Donbas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine#Birth_data_by_oblast
“Well, European countries are not at war now.”
But that’s by choice. If the British government shelled Scottish separatists instead of agreeing to a referendum, the UK would be at war now too.
Scottish separatists were led by parties that were actually voted into office, winning legitimate local elections, who then ran a referendum. It wasn’t just some marginal activists such as the skinhead Gubarev, as well as foreign jihadist/adventurers like Girkin or Borodai seizing buildings and defying the government.
The seizure of buildings and the defying of the government began with the Maidanites. Who were financed and directed by the US State Department and foreign NGOs. In general in life if one party brings a knife to a fight, the other one brings a knife of its own to the next fight, if one party gets the support of a scary gang the other one does the same, etc. At every step the neocon-Banderite coalition escalated first. It seized the first buildings, it was the first to defy a government, it sent in the first tanks, shelled the first apartment buildings, ordered the first air raid, etc.
You’ve said before that the leaders of the Maidan got a lot of support in parliamentary elections. But the fact that they violently seized power means that they thought they’d lose the next presidential election. Which was going to be held in a few months I think. If they thought that they had the support of the majority, if they thought that they had a good chance of winning the presidency, they wouldn’t have gone ahead with the coup. They would have simply waited for Yanukovich’s term to end.
Beautiful comment, thanks for the old Russian terms for what the West is doing now to Ukraine (Back to the Future), I loved them.
But, why do you think Kolomoysky ran out of favor. His “ethnic” group is dominating this chess game in Ukraine. Was it because of the possibility that he paid for the shooting down of MH17, which is now straining the Western Propaganda Establishment to its credibility limits. IMHO, explaining Kolomoysky’s dropping out of favor by Poroshenko’s endearment with the West is grossly misleading. The West will drop Poroshenko if he does not return war to Ukraine.
There are many times more skinheads on the Maidanite side than on the Novorossian side. Strelkov fought jihadists during the Chechen wars, as did Putin. They are some of the most anti-jihadist people imaginable. Vicky Nuland, who had so much to do with the Miadanite coup, sponsored and directed anti-Assad jihadists in Syria.
Does this appointment indicate the inception of ” one world” or confirm its existence? No boundary for the corporate and its appointees.
Soviet tried but failed after some initial success.
The Netherlands also has appointed governors in their provinces. No idea how much power they actually have. I don’t think this is a good measure of how democratic a country is. Not that democracy is the be all end all for me anyway.
What’s the point of Karlin’s articles except to tell us how tribalistic and corrupt Slavs are? When was this news?
AK Edit: What’s the point of this comment?
is this a recent picture? it seems that he got fat compared to the older days
The point of his comment was the subtext that Western Europeans are better than Slavs, despite their total faggotry and refusal to stand up for their own people in light of massive immigration.
“””””surveys that elites pay a lot of attention to, such as Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index””””
Thanks for mentioning this, I have long grown tired of the use of this Index by the MSM and Politicians. It has no real facts, just opinions of the insiders.
For example the insiders think that giving bankers trillions of dollars in zero or low interest loans from the government is good policy, not corruption.
The same with having the Federal Reserve and Treasury giving special briefings to the bankers, this is not called insider trading but once again passed off as policy.
There is large amounts of corruption in many Western countries but it is masked under policy and is practiced at high levels of government and business. You might not have to pay a bribe to get a passport or get your kid into school but there is huge amounts of corruption among the insiders.
I’ve read that it is relatively acceptable among Russians to swear in any company, but the two words beginning with f in this do not add credibility by my way of thinking.
The appointment of Saakashvili is a deliberate provocation, and probably means that Ukraine has decided to draw Russia into military action.
The similarities are superficial: physical acts of seizing buildings. But on the one hand such acts were blessed by winners of the popular vote in the previous national election, during protests attracting over 100,000 people, with the support of a plurality of the national population and easy majority of the local population. On the other hand, in Donbas, the acts were conducted forces who had never won any election, who had far less national and far less local support. And there is difference between foreign financing and advice, and actually foreigners leading the movement. Donbas actions were like a parody of Maidan.
You do realize that nobody in Ukraine felt that Yanukovich was going to run a free election (that he would certainly lose, and lose to people who promised to prosecute him) and that giving him time would simply allow him to better vet and beef up his security apparatus, or to come up with some other scheme to circumvent the elections.
Do you believe all those polls showing Yanukovich losing to any potential opposition candidate by double digits, with his support dropping every month, were lies and part of a massive conspiracy?
Maybe, maybe not. But only Donbas had one as its People’s Governor rather than as a footsoldier:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/nazi-donetsk.jpg
I used Jihad as an analogy, not literally. But then there is this, spotted in Donbas:
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bx7RdctCEAABzec.jpg
Saakashvili must be the biggest international buffoon thus far bequeathed upon the world, since the start of the post-Cold War era.
The decision to fire Kolomoysky was reportedly made by the US State Department. I think they were trying to install discipline in the junta. They want all their military units to report to the same command and control. Private armies, multiple centers of command and control lead to chaos and confusion. Novorossiya went through the same phase of subjecting individual commanders to central control.
The same logic may eventually even lead to some curbs on oligarchic looting in the Ukraine. One of the biggest goals of the Maidan was to loot the Ukraine some more. But starting a war with Russia was another one. I’m not talking about the goals of the idiots with the placards. I’m talking about the leaders and the sponsors. But you can’t win a war with a completely looted out economy. So we may eventually even see some efforts to punish the worst thieves and to reindustrialize. They’ll be doing it in spite of themselves, holding their noses so to speak.
I am almost ready to agree with judgement
“that Western Europeans are better than Slavs” in some or other aspects.
What I disagree with is the implied corollary of that statement:
that USA has the right to pursue the dismemberment of Russia.
I am pretty sure that under the possible USA colonial administration, my Russian co-ethnics will fare much worse than they do under the present-day (extremely corrupt) administration of Russian Federation. By “fare” I mean not only amount of food to be consumed, but human well-being. See Charles Murray’s ‘Irving Cristoll lecture 2009’ “The happiness of the people”, https://www.aei.org/publication/the-happiness-of-the-people/
Actually, there’s no class of situations in which “profanity” is more acceptable in Russian than in English. You should read more reliable sources of information.
So you’re back with your shabby lies, not even having bothered to create a new sockpuppet this time? Go chew your tie somewhere else, you malodorous little man.
Moreover, it is hard to imagine that the farcical appointment of Saakishvilli in the volatile Odessa was not coordinated with the US State Dept. This glaring stupidity and obnoxiousness is a trademark of the neocons’ realm. The State Dept. is set on creating a festering wound on a border of RF. Saakishvilli, Poroschenko, and Yatz are the perfect puppets to follow the bloody (and globally dangerous) instructions by the US/UK plutocracy.
To me, Kolomoyskyi looks a lot like George R. R. Martin, creator of Game of Thrones. It’s a very apt coincidence.
http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/George-R-R-Martin-Confirms-Fans-Theories-About-How-Game-of-Thrones-Ends-454872-2.jpg
Ukraine is not able to conduct any war considering the draft situation and the ruined economy. You are correct that appointment of Saakishvilli (the damaged goods) is a provocation and a clear sign that the Empire of Federal Reserve needs desperately to weaken RF, by any means possible including “local” nuclear conflict. Plutocracy gives orders, the vassal states and high-positioned servants obey.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/01/28/ukrainians-grow-unwilling-to-serve-in-the-army-media.html
http://www.focus-economics.com/countries/ukraine
True. In fact, this set of attitudes–a bizarre combination of the contempt for Slavs (especially Russians) and complex of inferiority–is a defining feature of US, and, to a degree Anglo-Saxon, “elites”. The genesis of this combination could be a very good subject of the research for some post-graduate paper, but knowing intellectual “level” of contemporary humanities’ “thought” in US, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
The whole Ukrainian mess is a product of US State Dept and White House Administration’s complete loss of touch with the reality, add here Germany and voila’. Ukraine doesn’t have any geopolitical subjectivity–she is a pawn.
Empty insults from someone with nasty obsessions:
http://www.unz.com/isteve/freeman-dyson-scientist-spies-arent-so-bad/#comment-909082
Most Western “indices” and economic data processing “analyses” are fraud. The biggest fraud is the way GDP calculated–an inevitable result of the DE-industrialization and of the dominance of financial and service sectors.
Well maybe it’s outdated but I read some time ago that Russians use obscenities around women more than westerners. Anyway, use of fuck and faggot does not add to your credibility in many people’s book. It makes you seem overly aggressive.
Find the trailer park nearest to you and observe plain white trash communications, especially women.
Ukraine is not able to conduct any war, but it could start escalating and major powers will be forced to give support.
Actually it is much less, although there are class differences. Educated Russians generally do not swear, and if they do it is mostly only in male company.
Correct. That is the plan. Look who is interested in the conflict. A hint: the war is not in RF interests.
GOPNIK PRIDE WORLD WIDE
Lyashko is reliably called a faggot in every single Ukrainian discussion about him regardless of political stripe LOL. I report on it.
Serbia started WW1
Actually, manpower is not an issue anymore for the Ukrainian state thanks to the ruined economy.
Many of the men who lost their jobs as a result of the current de-industrialisation of Ukraine have joined the army or other forces for the sake of pay.
“Many of the men”.
How many ?
What percentage ?
“Many” doesn’t say anything.
In any case, the following sources contradict your rosy assessment of the manpower situation for the Kiev junta.
[Dysfunctional Ukrainian Military]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/dysfunctional-ukrainian-military/5453239
.
[The president raised the age of military reservists up to 57 years]
(in Russian: Google translate does an acceptable job…)
http://www.ostro.org/general/society/news/470688/
{President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has issued a decree number 274/2015 “On Amendments to the “Regulations on the passage of Ukrainian citizens service in the military reserve of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” . This was reported on the official website of the President.
According to the decree, in particular, the age of conscription military reservists increased from 40 to 57 years. }
.
[The Draft Dodgers of Ukraine]
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/18/the-draft-dodgers-of-ukraine-russia-putin/
I am impressed that young Ukrainian men are smart enough not to get into situations where they have to kill their ethnic kin (or be killed) for the glory of PorkyFührer, or Neo-Nazis, or corrupt oligarchs who have 3 or 4 passports (…read: when the fit hits the shan, they’ll pack up and flee to a nice safe country, while young men will be dead or crippled for nothing…. Their liquid wealth is already safely out of Ukraine no doubt).
And the Martians started the War of the Worlds. Many gullible Westerners ran away from their homes when Orson Wales broadcast the radio show.
When did a bully not claim that the victim made him do it? When did not a Western colonialist blame his victim for starting his war of occupation?
Didn’t you see the first comment here?
Do you still think that Karlin is ‘on your side’ or on the side of the West?
AK Edit: Here is his deleted comment if anyone is interested. I am lax about censorship and unlike most Unz articles you don’t even need preapproval to comment here but I do want some minimal level of quality.
Yeah, yeah, Western hypocrisy. The gift that never stops giving. Lucky for Karlin otherwise he might have to come up with something faintly original for once.
Whats exactly is the cause of your irritation with the Karlin paper?
Here are two more points of the paper, on which you seem to agree:
1. explaining the colossal indecency of Saakishvilly appointment by the US puppet Poroschenko
2. highlighting the US desire to have an ongoing conflict on a Russian border, Ukraine be damned
A weak country can expect to get gains from escalating a conflict and drawing in great powers. Ukraine has the choice of accepting things as they are, which would mean accepting lost territory, or rolling the dice to make things fluid. Saakashvili being brought in shows they want to provoke Russia.
What inferiority complex? Mid-grade psychoanalysis is your bread and butter, but this is completely at odds with reality. The Anglo-Saxon elite believes it is superior in every important way to Russia.
If Russia had taken on the cast of mind that Solhenitsyn (I’m well aware of your hatred for him so spare us) had urged it to assume, as a counterpoint to Western materialism in his Harvard Commencement speech, I’d probably have some reservations about this judgement. but as it is a thin gossamer of caeseropapism over a decadently materialistic society isn’t even as spiritually robust as Bible Belt Christianity.
You think Russia is superior, Karin thinks so as well but no member of the Western elite is even the slightest bit troubled by an inferiority complex towards Russia. Why would they be? In every metric that matters to them the West blows Russia away. Maybe those metrics are the wrong ones, but they certainly don’t think so.
This is too much coming from a Russia lap dog. Russia has never taken responsibility for any action in its history. Even Chernoybl it tried feverish to blame on someone else.
Many a gullible Russians bursted with pride when tubby Krushchev slammed his shoe on the table and wheezingly leered “We will crush you.” Poor gullible Russians always so boastful with so little to boast about.
http://mashable.com/2015/06/05/ukraines-poroshenko-supports-pride-parade-in-kiev/
Yup. Homo parade is the victory march of globo-Zio-imperialism.
Ukraine fell under Jew rule, and the first thing it endorses is the homo parade. Another nation fallen to the Soros-Adelson-Nuland Empire.
Victory parade masquerading as ‘victims’ rights’.
Jews are so clever.
“All free nations are vainglorious, but national pride is not displayed by all in the same manner. The Americans in their intercourse with strangers appear impatient of the smallest censure and insatiable of praise. The most slender eulogium is acceptable to them; the most exalted seldom contents them; they unceasingly harass you to extort praise, and if you resist their entreaties they fall to praising themselves. It would seem as if, doubting their own merit, they wished to have it constantly exhibited before their eyes. Their vanity is not only greedy, but restless and jealous; it will grant nothing, whilst it demands everything, but is ready to beg and to quarrel at the same time. If I say to an American that the country he lives in is a fine one, “Ay,” he replies, “there is not its fellow in the world.” If I applaud the freedom which its inhabitants enjoy, he answers, “Freedom is a fine thing, but few nations are worthy to enjoy it.” If I remark the purity of morals which distinguishes the United States, “I can imagine,” says he, “that a stranger, who has been struck by the corruption of all other nations, is astonished at the difference.” At length I leave him to the contemplation of himself; but he returns to the charge, and does not desist till he has got me to repeat all I had just been saying. It is impossible to conceive a more troublesome or more garrulous patriotism; it wearies even those who are disposed to respect it.”
Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy In America, Chapter 3.16 “Why The National Vanity Of The Americans Is More Restless And Captious Than That Of The English”.
P.S. Learn US history, you may get some idea but I don’t hold my breath.
I’m in Split, Croatia at the moment and the gay pride parade only managed a turnout of 100 people, most of whom were politicians and activists from Sweden, Holland, the USA and the UK. 400 cops in riot gear to protect 100 people who for the third year running were IGNORED by everyone in the city.
The gays are upset at the lack of attention that they received and many have declared the pride parade a miserable failure.
The widely-accepted shunning strategy has been successful in Split after some global backlash from a few years back when local families showed up to pelt the professional gays with eggs. The gays were much more provocative that year, wearing Communist Partisan uniforms and iconography.
No one pays attention to them anymore, and they’re upset.
Good to know that you are a psychoanalyst of the whole countries.
Regarding Ukraine, it “lost” territory which one of its own thieves (Khurschev) has grabbed off Russia during the Soviet occupation of Russia, when such territorial thievery was possible and common. Crimea was recently returned to its rightful owner. As long as Russia can defend it, it is not coming back to the U.S. controlled Ukraine. NEVER.
Legally, Ukrane’s ownership of Crimea is as strong as the U.S. ownership of Iraq, for example. occupied is not owned.
Your stupidity is only exceeded by your lack of education. Khurschev was an Ukrainian, Chernobyl is Ukraininan.
One could make an argument that Chernobyl was a result of a sick Soviet political, social and economic system, which would then extend the responsibility over all nationalities of the Soviet Union. But to blame everything that happened in the former Soviet Union on the Russians can only be done by a hate-blinded moron.
If you knew anything about what you are writing about, then you would know that most communist countries suffered from national de-majorization. In other words, a larger nationality was always surpressed in decisions making to favor smaller nationalities in the union. Under such, Russia had much less say about how Chernobyl was operated than Latvia for example. Therefore, I would not lay all the blame for Chernobyl on Ukraine, but if you blame it solely on Russia – see my comments above about the hate-blinded morons.
“You do realize that nobody in Ukraine felt that Yanukovich was going to run a free election (that he would certainly lose, and lose to people who promised to prosecute him) and that giving him time would simply allow him to better vet and beef up his security apparatus, or to come up with some other scheme to circumvent the elections.”
As someone who has whole-heartedly supported a violent coup you have no credibility and no standing to criticize the degree of freeness of any elections anywhere ever. Whatever Yanukovich’s commitment to democracy was, it was higher that of the junta, which you support. Unlike the junta Yanukovich participated in zero violent overthrows of a legitimate government.
And if anyone could have the standing to call Yanukovich’s government illegitimate, it would be some naive, wide-eyed, literal-minded believer in the ideals of democracy and the rule of law, not a supporter of bloody coups, violent crackdowns on dissent and terroristic shelling of civilians like you.
You’re so blind to how your “arguments” might look from outside of the Ukro-echo-chamber that you even included the phrase “to circumvent the elections” in the above comment. The junta circumvented the elections. Yanukovish’s term wasn’t over. And you applauded them circumventing the elections.
Exactly how someone without a counterargument would respond. Appeal to authority. I know history what I can’t figure out is where your unconstrained egoism comes from. You are an Internet nobody who can’t even respond to with an actual argument. Pathetic. Delusions of grandeur and spittle are no substitutes for logic and facts nerd.
Ha love it. Responds to a post about the intrinsic Russian lack of accountability with you guessed shrieking aggression and a refusal to accept accountability. You claim to not be Russian, but you sure have assimilated the national characteristics.
The Soviet Union was dominated by ethnic Russians. That some of the Soviet premiers were not ethnically Russian does not obviate that fact. Something like 75 percent of the Politburo and its successors where Russian. The abysmal failures and unrelenting of the regime fall squarely on the shoulders of the sleepy eyed, empty headed Russians who will aquiese to any evil so long as their bellies are full and pride massaged.
People in the leading US military magazines (and I don’t mean some internet-based blogs), certainly don’t think so, since publish me but, sure, whatever floats your boat.
Yes, exactly. In serious academic world it is called both reference materials and bibliography. This is exactly how you make an argument–appealing to authority on the issue. Just to give you example, if you open any serious work on any subject, in the end of the book you will find bibliography and commentaries. Quotes are used very often to “appeal” to the authority.
Yes, I am nerd. In fact, very often I characterize myself as a book worm. On the issues of warfare, military history and geopolitics I, certainly, am one. I also can tell a lot about these subjects from my own experience but I doubt you will understand. Can you imagine me making a counter-argument appealing to….myself;-)
I love it too. Not only are you so poorly educated to know what belongs to who, then also you spew the standard Western myth that Soviet Union was Russia-dominated. This myth was originally developed by the US propaganda machine during the dissolution of the Eastern Block. It was wrapped up into the victimhood of the “oppressed nations” of the Eastern Block. The purpose of the myth was to explain why they must join EU and NATO – because they are “free” now. This same myth has later been applied to the constituent parts of the former Soviet Union, such as Ukraine and Georgia. After NATO has swallowed and devoured all Eastern Block countries, it has occupied several of the former Soviet Union republics (via Western military advisers and puppet governments) and is now right at Russia’s border.
Your figure of 75% of Politburo being Russian, I strongly suspect, comes from the same propaganda kitchen which cooked up all the other BS that you and the other Western regime lapdogs spew. I do not have such information and would love any Russians or citizens of the former USSR to provide reliable information.
Regarding how oppressed the Eastern Block nations were, it was very interesting to read a few years ago that some 42% of Germans thought that East Germany was a good way to live. On top of this, the economics indicators in all Eastern European countries which joined EU and NATO are absolutely catastrophic. Nobody even bothers to ask those nations now – did you live better under the “oppression” of the Eastern Block or under the “freedom” of NATO (the US tool for the control of Europe, which is evolving into a tool for the control of the World).
Just look at Greece which was not even a part of the Eastern Block. Of course, it is all Greek’s fault, according to Western media.
Absolutely the same “freedom” awaits the Ukrainians. One of the biggest problems of Communism was that it thought people to expect someone else to provide (similar as Western Social Democracy). Many of those dumbwits of Maidan expected that US and EU will share their riches with Ukraine and that only the ethnic Russians of Ukraine stand in the way: go kill those Russians in Eastern Ukraine and you will live happily ever after (Odessa as dress rehearsal). But the West is up to its neck in financial and economic troubles and it has nothing to share, even if it wanted to. Ukraine will have a “30-year-civil-war” during and after which a famine will come, the second Holodomor. Then Russia will be “guilty” again, instead of NATO which turned Ukrainians against each other just like the Nazis did in the previous century.
Before anyone accuses me of defending the Eastern Block, I just want to dispel the mythomania of the Western propaganda. Eastern Block was not good. Soviet Union was not good. Both had huge faults. This is why they are not around any more. Russia was not occupied by Soviet Union, as I wrote, but it did not occupy or always dominate the other national of the Soviet Union. The truth is much more nuanced than a lame Western brain could comprehend. I took an extreme position regarding Russia in both only to contrast the simplistic propaganda BS emanating from the Western Brainwashing MSM. It is just funny how the Western propagandists and their trolls are desperately trying to put an equality sign in the minds of its peoples between Soviet Union and Russia, and are making even Stalin and his pogroms Russian, milking any bad association for propaganda no matter how untrue it is.
The appointment of a completely discredited US agent Saakashvili to a leadership position in Ukraine’s East is a clear sign that the US will continue confrontation in Ukraine. The 30-year civil war is on track, Second Holodomor will follow, Russian “guilt” will be a historical fact (again).
Actually, you have received a good argument but preferred to answer with unnecessary insults. Cannot stomach the obvious results of the “democracies on the march?”
{“I do not have such information and would love any Russians or citizens of the former USSR to provide reliable information.”}
Not sure what the composition of Politburo was prior to USSR dissolution, but Bolsheviks who violently took power in 1917, and subsequently murdered millions of Orthodox Christian Slavs/Russians, including the entire family of Tsar Nicholas II, were mostly non-Slavs.
Composition of the first central executive committee of the Bolshevik party after the so-called “Russian revolution” of 1917:
1. Sverdlov (chairman). Jewish
2. Avanesov (secretary). Armenian
3. Bruno. Latvian
4. Breslau. Latvian
5. Babchinski. Jewish
6. Bukharin. Russian
7. Weinberg. Jewish
8. Gailiss. Jewish
9. Ganzberg (or Ganzburg). Jewish
10. Danichevski. Jewish
11. Starck. German
12. Sachs. Jewish
13. Scheinmann. Jewish
14. Erdling. Jewish
15. Landauer. Jewish
16. Linder. Jewish
17. Wolach. Czech
18. Dimanstein. Jewish
19. Enukidze. Georgian
20. Ermann. Jewish
21. Ioffe. Jewish
22. Karkhline. Jewish
23. Knigissen. Jewish
24. Rosenfeld (Kamenev). Jewish
25. Apfelbaum (Zinoviev). Jewish
26. Krylenko. Russian
27. Krassikov. Jewish
28. Kaprik. Jewish
29. Kaoul. Latvian
30. Ulyanov (Lenin). Russian (matrilineal Jewish)
31. Latsis. Jewish
32. Lander. Jewish
33. Lunacharsky. Russian (matrilineal Jewish)
34. Peterson. Latvian
35. Peters. Latvian
36. Roudzoutas. Jewish
37. Rosine. Jewish
38. Smidovitch. Jewish
39. Stoutchka. Latvian
40. Nakhamkes (Steklov). Jewish
41. Sosnovski. Jewish
42. Skrytnik. Jewish
43. Bronstein (Trotsky). Jewish
44. Teodorovitch. Jewish
45. Terian. Armenian
46. Uritsky. Jewish
47. Telechkine. Russian
48. Feldmann. Jewish
49. Fromkin. Jewish
50. Souriupa. Ukrainian
51. Tchavtchavadze. Georgian
52. Scheikmann. Jewish
53. Rosental. Jewish
54. Achkinazi. Imeretian
55. Karakhane. Karaim (Karaite)
56. Rose. Jewish
57. Sobelson (Radek). Jewish
58. Schlichter. Jewish
59. Schikolini. Jewish
60. Chklianski. Jewish
61. Levine (Pravdin). Jewish
Out of 61 members of the central committee: 5 were Russians (of whom two–Lenin and Lunacharsky–were matrilineal Jewish), 6 were Latvians, 1 was a German, 2 were Armenians, 1 was a Czech, 1 was an Imeretian (a region in Georgia), 2 were Georgians, 1 was a Karaim (Turkic speaking people in Crimea), 1 was a Ukrainian, and 41 were Jewish.
Composition of the first Politburo (formed in October 1917) of the central executive committee of the Bolshevik party:
1. Lenin. Constituted himself Russian. Matrilineal Jewish
2. Rosenfeld (Kamenev). Jewish
3. Apfelbaum (Zinoviev). Jewish
4. Sokolnikov (Brilliant). Jewish
5. Bronstein (Trotsky). Jewish
6. Dzhugashvili (Stalin). Georgian
7. Bubnov. Russian
Out of 7 members of the Politburo, 1 was a Russian, 1 was a Georgian, 1 was a matrilineal Jewish constituting himself Russian, and 4 were Jewish.
NOTE: I shamelessly copied the above lists from a very knowledgeable compatriot, John: at an Armenian-American news site we both visit and comment frequently.
Bolshevik psychopath Stalin, an ethnic Georgian, murdered and exiled (one way ticket) to Siberia millions of people of Soviet Union.
And since ethnic Russians were the super-majority of the Union, his victims were mostly ethnic Russians/Slavs.
Stalin’s right hand man and number #1 henchman, Beria, was also ethnic Georgian.
During the attempted coup against Yeltsin (ethnic Russian) in 1993, the man leading the coup attempt was one Ruslan Khasbulatov.
He had risen to the position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR/Russian Federation.
Essentially the #2 man in the government.
Ruslan Khasbulatov is a Muslim Chechen. Chechens are maybe 1.5 million in a nation of about 145 million (about 80% ethnic Russian).
If the coup had succeeded, a Muslim Chechen would have become the leader of Russian Federation at that time, a predominantly Orthodox Christian nation.
Imagine a Christian being the leader of a predominantly Muslim nation: the Earth would stop spinning.
It goes to show how really – what is the word ? – “too nice”, “naïve”, “too accommodating”, ….Russian/Slav people are to allow themselves to be (mis)ruled by non-Slavs.
Also, that ordinary Russian/Slav foot-soldiers obediently carried out orders of non-Slavs to murder fellow Slavs in such enormous numbers.
As a non-Slav – that one is beyond my comprehsion.
Side note: an attempted Bolshevik/Communist revolution and takeover attempt in Germany (1918-1919) was crushed by German nationalist Freikorps.
As to the original question about Politburo: have no stats, but the above facts should at the minimum strongly question the claimed 75%.
Thanks very much for this detailed summary, which is not official history but is as close as one could get to it. This kicks the Western BS of equating the crimes of the Soviet Union with Russia (do not let me get started on the endless crimes and genocide of US and much worse UK).
I am not Russian, but in my personal opinion the two individuals who have done the worst crimes against humanity (genocide) in the Soviet Union (including the above mentioned Holodomor) and the big massacre in Katyn are:
1) Stalin – ethnic Georgian just like Saakashvili, and
2) Beria – also ethnic Georgian just like Saakashvili.
This does not make all Georgians genocidal maniacs, but it definitely cannot be allocated to Russia or the ethnic Russian Slavs, as the Western Propaganda Industry keeps repeating over and over. On the contrary, it appears that the US is searching the former Soviet Union for a new genocidal maniac to put in power via another “democratic” coup, to repeat this sad history.
What are the genocides you attribute to the UK? Certainly the Amritsar massacre of 1921 (by Indian troops) was bad enough to get General Dyer into trouble back home. A few Union generals after the Civil War committed massacres of native Americans which might be described as genocidal but where are there UK equivalents? I suppose the kind of propagandists who got up The Protocols of the Elders of Zion may have written up the inadequate relief efforts during the famine in Ireland caused by the 1840s potato blight as if it was some similar crime to what went on recently in Rwanda or Srebrenizca or Cambodia (cf. also Burma and Islamic State) and Australian colonies in the 19th century never had an equivalent of New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi but, appropriately perhaps for a people much less advanced than the Maoris, there were “Protectors of Aborigines”. Maybe you are thinking of the fact that, before Canada was a nation, the Newfies largely disappeared. A pity about those Eurasian diseases getting loose in British colonies….
Be that as it may, Saakashvili is not someone who would have been appointed unless the current leadership in Ukraine believed it could gain by provoking Russia.
Well someone who munches on his suit tie does not strike one as a future genocidal maniac, more a village idiot. Saakashvili simply does not have the intellectual capacity (of Stalin) to cause great harm in the general area of the former Soviet Union. His greatest achievement will remain an attempt to start a war on Russia by killing several tens of Russian soldiers in Ossetia in a surprise attack. Yes, his appointment to Eastern Ukraine is a provocation to Russia, but I believe that Russia is much more concerned about the constant shelling of civilians in East Ukraine by the Nazis in Kiev than with a new tie-munching governor of East Ukraine.
I respect the tone of this comment, which is not ad hominem as before. That is a basis of an open discussion about issues. The opposing opinions are the necessary prerequisite for a good quality discussion. Please do not jump to a conclusion that I am trying to patronize you with this statement, I am just stating the obvious.
British genocides are totally off-topic to this article and I have written elsewhere about them. Thus, I will respond only briefly.
The only remote excuse one could give to the British is that one cannot create an empire without braking a few eggs (a nice euphemism for genocide). Being raised in an Anglo culture you are not expected to have been taught about own crimes against humanity. Therefore, most Anglo people I spoke with never comprehended two simple items of information that other nationalities know about:
1) the British invented concentration camps and ethnic cleansing during Boer wars, not the Nazis around WW2, and
2) the British invented the firestorm bombing and carpet bombing of cities (commonly called Total War), not the Nazis.
The strongest argument that this was an Anglo invention is that this type of bombing requires a specific type of bomber which only UK and US had during WW2. Germany had Stuka bombers which were a weapon of terror and destruction but definitely not a weapon of mass destruction (WMD). It takes many, many years to develop a new model of a military plane (look at F35 development), therefore Lancaster and B17 were developed much before WW2. Therefore, a pre-mediated intention to spread war on civilian population, an ultimate war crime and crime against humanity.
So much about the lessons in humanity by the Anglos, given to Russia together with Jews and Poles who may have at least some right to lecture, although Jews less and less considering Palestine.
One example is 1943 Bengal famine. Three million dead. This is why the Indians consider Churchill as bad as Hitler or Stalin.
Trying to answer my own question. We think about GDP per capita as a proxy for the standard of living but I guess you can’t apply that 1990 USSR. The standard of living was about the same throughout Soviet Union, in fact it was higher in Ukraine vs. Russia (probably higher in Armenia, too.) But the GDP is calculated by valuing the produced goods at the world prices (adjusted by PPP in this case, but that coefficient had to be nearly the same for all Soviet republics so it doesn’t matter.) This shows that in the USSR Russian-produced goods were badly undervalued compared to the Ukrainian or Armenian ones. In other words, Russia subsidized other republics.
I never supported a violent coup. What you falsely claim was a coup was a popular revolution involving the support of the winners of the previous parliamentary popular vote, against a guy who after having won an election legitimately, then illegally and without the support of the people usurped all power over the country.
Nonsense. Soon after coming to power the “junta” ran elections in which the winners of the popular vote actually got power. Yanukovich never did that.
“…the winners of the popular vote ..”
These ones?
Victoria Nuland shopping for the “winner:”
“Yatsenyuk Invites American Oligarchs To Take Ukraine’s Assets (if there are any):” https://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/yatsenyuk-invites-american-oligarchs-to-take-ukraines-assets-if-there-are-any/
“Wikileak Cables: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Washington’s Pocket Since 2006:” http://scgnews.com/leaked-documents-ukraines-new-president-works-for-the-us-state-department
Is this the new talking point that your handlers gave you? The Ukrainian election of Yanukovich all of a sudden becomes a “stolen election”? Care to supply any facts, or is it “because Obama say so”, or “because the person paying my salary says so?” The international observers, including from US and UK, did not find any irregularities at the time of this election.
This is the last time I am even reading your rubbish, let alone commenting on it.
But yours is a case study example of how the Western regimes manipulate the reality for a domestic audience with chicken memory. We invaded and occupied Iraq (and killed a million people) because of 911, then because of WMD, and finally because we wanted to rid the World of a dangerous dictator, pick your choice.
Read my comments more carefully and you won’t make such silly replies.
I never claimed Yanukovich’s election was illegitimate. Indeed, I wrote about him: ” a guy who after having won an election legitimately”
Interesting how you utterly failed to understand, and based on your failure to understand you wrote a couple paragraphs, essentially making fun of yourself.
Such irony. You can’t even spell Khrushchev, and of course he wasn’t Ukrainian. He was born in Russia to Russian parents, and moved to Ukraine at age 14:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev#Early_years
The Soviet Union was radically different at different times. During the horrible 1920s and 1930s it was dominated by Russians, Jews, Latvians, and Georgians – an international gang. But even if it was dominated by Russians, it was not chosen by Russians. Bolsheviks (unlike Nazis in Germany) did not win an election. They hijacked the country during a chaotic time, and solidified their grip on power through unprecedented terror. The Soviet Union in its genocidal incarnation (Lenin and Stalin times) was no more a product or “responsibility” of the Russian people than the 9-11 attacks were a reflection of the planes’ passengers.
Lenin’s mother wasn’t Jewish, but half-Jewish. She had a Jewish father but a Swedish mother. So Lenin was 1/4 Jewish and not Jewish according to traditional Jewish law (because his matrilineal descent was not Jewish).
Kamenev had a Jewish father but a Russian Orthodox mother.
It should be noted that while Jews were over-represented among Communists, Communists were still a small minority among Jews. Most Jews in the Russian Empire were either traditional Orthodox ones or they were involved in business (such as Ayn Rand’s parents). Neither group liked Bolshevism.
And Chernobyl is Russian or in Russia, or did I read this statement of yours incorrectly as well?
You will be ignored from now on.
I never claimed Chernobyl was in Russia. Are you illiterate?
“How Britain Denies its Holocausts” by George Monbiot
http://www.monbiot.com/2005/12/27/how-britain-denies-its-holocausts/
Samples:
There are more…
The Soviet Union was radically different at different times. During the horrible 1920s and 1930s it was dominated by Russians, Jews, Latvians, and Georgians – an international gang.
What’s the difference between that gang and the junta? Not as many victims? Give them time. They’re just getting started. This is their 1918.
Vicky Nuland is a neocon, and neocons are old Trotskyists. If you say that the 1920s and 1930s were horrible, why are you supporting the junta? Because today’s versions of Lenin and Trotsky convinced you that the blood bath they’ve started will benefit your people. It won’t.
Oh, please, spare me this US is an “innocent child” subverted by neocons BS. Vicky Nuland is as American as Star Spangled Banner, Apple Pie and Baseball.
Do you really believe such nonsense?
I’ll indulge you. Bolshevik gang never won an election. The parties behind Maidan won the popular vote in 2012, and actually ran elections after the Revolution, winning it.
Bolshevik Revolution was an armed takeover by a minority; Maidan was a popular revolt supported by a plurality of the people.
Bolsheviks ruled through Terror. Real Terror. 10,000s executed in the first few months. When Crimea was taken the streets were full of hanged Whites. Sloviansk? Hint: the crucified baby story was a fake. I wonder if you believed it though? You have to spin a story about the Odessa fire, and still get about 48 victims.
Could you tell us explicitly if you expect there to be millions of people killed by the Ukrainian government, as millions of Russian, Ukrainians etc. were killed by the Bolsheviks? You can keep those numbers in scale – say, half a million to a million murdered. Do you predict this? This would be nice to have on record.
The new Ukrainian government has been in power for over a year. No blood baths. Elections.
Not so. Victoria Nudelman is married to Robert Kagan, co-founder of PNAC, the “think tank” that pushed hard to get the US to invade Iraq. PNAC was (and its successor FPI still is) comprised of Zionists/Israel Firsters, who are the antithesis of the “Star Spangled Banner, Apple Pie and Baseball.”
Why not call a spade a spade and admit that she and they are traitors to the American Republic?
The junta is engaging in terror, yes. It has killed many thousands of people through terroristic shelling of civilians in the Donbass. The SBU is tortuting people in basements. The war that the junta started has killed several tens of thousands. This is only the beginning. They’re trying to widen the war. Obviously, for the junta’s owners Moscow is the real prize and the Ukraine is partly a springboard. The czar is still alive and in power.
By the way, you’re denying the Bolshevik analogy while using Bolshevik terminology. You’re calling their illegal power grab a revolution.
The neocons have killed very large numbers of people in other theaters of operations. Look at the Wiki on the casualties of the Iraq War. Some scientific estimates (surveys where a representative sample of the population was asked how many relatives they lost) go over a million. Hundreds of thousands died in the Syran war. Vicky, her husband and brother in law were involved in both of those wars.
If this gang isn’t stopped or contained, of course it will kill millions of people in the former Soviet space. They want to widen the war, overthrow Putin and Lukashenko, divide Russia into dozens of states and loot, loot, loot. There have been attempts to organize color revs in Moscow and Minsk. They will try again and again.
All they’ve had time to do in the Ukraine so far is illegally sezie power and start a civil war. Where they, the ideological descendants of Old Bolsheviks, were at one point primrily opposed by Strelkov, an ideological descendant of the White Guard.
They haven’t yet had time to redraw the Ukraine’s economy. Libertarianism is exactly the same thing as communism and neoloiberalism is socialism, a softer version of the ideal. They say that communism and libetarianism are opposites, but they also say that their squalid coups are revolutions. They lie a lot.
Anyway, the Ukraine is already an economic disaster zone and they’ve only just started. If you don’t see the parallels it’s because you don’t want to see them.
You really compare the estimated 7000 civilian deaths during a Civil War that would have been over if not for Russian support, to the 10,000s murdered by the Cheka? If you want to include civil war deaths, than the Bolshevik death toll would be in the 100,000s. Compare to 7,000 here.
Compare Poroshenko to Yeltsin. 7,000 Donbas civilians dead out of a prewar population of about 5 million, vs. 50,000-100,000 Chechen civilians dead out of a population of 1.3 million.
Funny you should mention Syria. A civil war that would have been over if not for foreign support and volunteers. Does that sound familiar? Your side should be grateful that Poroshenko is no Assad, or Yeltsin.
If this gang isn’t stopped or contained, of course it will kill millions of people in the former Soviet space.
I didn’t realize Bolsheviks had a monopoly on the word “Revolution.”
I didn’t realize that Old Bolshevik ideology supported free markets, multiparty elections, sell-off of state assets, and integration with western capitalist states.
Yanukovich was overthrown in February 2014. It’s been about 16 months. We are well into 1919 now. So where are the 10,000s arrested and murdered? Where are the lamp-posts full of hanged enemies?
Please be more specific in your prediction. If Poroshenko stays in power, do you predict, say, half a million dead Ukrainians via repression/starvation etc.? Maybe a million including wartime deaths?
AP, I just noticed that you typed “No blood baths” in your response to me. Are you denying that the junta has killed thousands of civilians in Donetsk, Gorlovka and other cities? Are you denying that it deliberately targets civilians in a terroristic manner? Why don’t the pictures of women, children, old people torn limb to limb lying on the streets of the cities of the Donbass move you? Why is that not a blood bath to you? Because you’re a hardcore nationalist. These people aren’t your people, so they might as well not exist. And things that happened to them, like the bloodbath that’s being perpetuated by the junta against them right now, might as well not be happening as far as you’re concerned. And in the same breath you tell us that nationalism is a social construct invented in the 19th century.
Anyway, there is a bloodbath going on and unless the junta is stopped or contained it will get worse. The junta’s owners also have a radical plan for remaking society. Just like the communists did. The economic dimension of that plan is described by the libertarian-neoliberal continuum of ideas. It’s possible to kill a lot of old people by cutting them off medical care and central heating. By privatising the system, stealing all the equipment and selling it abroad, jacking up the prices. If you want to know what the junta’s equivalent of the famines of the 1920s and the 1930s will be, that’s the best guess right now.
Privatisation sounds like the opposite of collectivisation to those who don’t know any Soviet and post-Soviet history, but the 1920s and the 1990s were actually quite similar. The ideological fervor, the kind of people pushing radical change, the results. What’s happening to the Ukraine right now is the 1990s squared.
Concerning your talk of majorities and pluralities:
Obviosuly, if the Maidanites thought that they could win an election, they wouldn’t have mounted a coup. If they could have, they would have. Since they didn’t, they couldn’t. At this point however they do appear to have majority support in the country. Perhaps not in Odessa or Kharkov but that’s impossible to know now.
To get majority support in the country they had to crush dissent. All anti-junta journalists have either fled the country or been killed. Elections held in an environment of rigid control over the media, of deadly violence against the regime’s opponents, of widespread intimidation are not democratic. The Bolsheviks could have also mounted elections in the 1920s and 1930s. And they would have won them. The brainwashing was near-total.
Could you tell us explicitly if you expect there to be millions of people killed by the Ukrainian government, as millions of Russian, Ukrainians etc. were killed by the Bolsheviks?
I expect that in the parts of the former USSR that color-rev regimes control the percentage of the population that will die due to preventable causes per year will be similar to the percentages achieved by the Old Bolsheviks. The mechanisms will be continuing wars, continuing massive political repressions and economic collapse induced by looting and privatization.
The vast majority of the civilian deaths occurred on the Novorossiyan side.
I hate Yeltsin and his legacy and won’t defend anything he did.
I made my prediction in my previous comment, before I saw your last comment.
On privatisation:
Both communism and libertarianism are radical schemes to remake society according to very simple, very rigid ideological rules. All attempts to put either of them into practice are bound to increase human suffering.
Plus any major repartitioning of assets is bound to involve major amounts of theft.
that would have been over if not for Russian support…
The war wouldn’t have started without the support of the US State Department and Western NGOs. They financed the Maidan coup. The war would have ended long ago without the military and financial support of the US. From what I’ve read a lot of the junta’s heavy military equipment is being supplied by Eastern European NATO members.
Putin’s offer to the junta’s owners is a neutral, federalized Ukraine. They haven’t accepted it. The people he’s dealing also want to organize a Maidan in Moscow in order to loot and partition Russia. It’s not a fight that Putin started, but once it began he can’t capitulate to them.
American exceptionalism, messianic ideas and imperialism started long ago, before Trotsky was even born and no one heard anything about neocons. Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny are not products of Zionists. While influence of neocons on the US foreign policy is baneful and, often criminal, while the neocons have mostly their tribe’s interest at heart, constant, ad nauseam references to them as some kind of omnipotent conspiracy kings pursues merely two things:
But in the end, and I know it sounds cruel, but neocons merely utilized what was already there and any nation deserves the politicians it elects. Until neocon ideological and pseudo-academic institutions are demolished (which I think is not in the plans–too many non-Jewish actors are well satisfied with their existence), there is nothing to talk about. So, yes, spare me this narrative.
Thousands of civilians dead, in a civil war due to anti-government fighters and foreigners hiding among civilians.
If they truly moved you, then you would condemn the Russian wannabe Rambos who chose to use civilian areas as cover. Ukrainian government response is was fairly predictable. Poroshenko is doing nothing that other post-Soviet leaders such as Putin or Yeltsin did under similar circumstances. Actually, he was milder than them: his war only cost 7000 civilian lives. Yeltsin’s resulted in 50,000-100,000 dead, Putin’s war 25,000-80,000 dead.
I am not any sort of nationalist. I am anti-Soviet, for what it’s worth. But for a Russian nationalist, someone who opposes Russian nationalist goals becomes a “nationalist.”
So, since you compared them to Bolsheviks, what is your prediction? 500,000 deaths? More?
Well, we’d expect a massive jump in the death rate then. 2014 showed a slight increase in death rate (to 14.7 from 14.6) – not in all oblasts – but it is still lower than it had been from 1994 to 2010 (other than one year, 1998). Given that Ukraine’s population has aged, this suggests no real difference.
So in your world dying a few years earlier due to poorer health care is the equivalent of starving to death? Because in both cases there is an increased death rate? Amazing.
Obviously, few people in Ukraine thought that Yanukovich, given time to prepare his forces, would have allowed free and fair elections. Sorry that they chose not to wait so that with clean hands, in exile or prison, they could say that President Yanukovich cheated.
Good that there is some understanding of reality. Odessa is probably evenly divided, Kharkiv is the only place in Ukraine that is certainly anti-Maidan. It is not completely “impossible” to know opinions there. In the last election, for example, one can compare votes to pro-Maidan Parties, votes for anti-Maidan parties, and compare 2014 turnout to 2012 turnout, with whatever lower % turnout in 2014 being attributed to disaffected anti-Maidan voters. Or examine poll results, and assuming that most “don’t know” or “refuse to say” answers indicated clandestine anti-Maidan attitudes. It is not exact, but one can get a good picture of public opinion in Ukraine.
Well, for some reason pro-Maidan parties won the popular vote in the 2012 election. Polls conducted during Maidan – when Yanukovich was still in power – showed about twice as much support for Maidan as for Yanukovich. Remember that Ukrainian elections always used to be close. Remove the pro-Russian heartland of Crimea and urban Donbas and that alone would account for an easy pro-Western advantage, pushing the pro-Western electoral “floor” from 45% to 55%, at least.
You also forget the effect that the Russian annexation of Crimea and support for Donbas rebels has had. This has probably turned previously Russia-friendly ethnic Ukrainian areas such as Dnipropetrovsk into pro-Maidan ones. Thus further boosting pro-Maidan support in the country.
The idea that support for Maidan is a post-Maidan phenomenon, or that its increased support is primarily attributable to repression, is absurd.
Control over media is not as rigid as you imagine it to be and be easily circumvented through internet or satellite. And be careful about attributing causality with respect to flight of pro-Russian mouthpieces and attitudes towards Russia vs. the West. Did people turn towards the West because pro-Russians weren’t allowed to speak publicly and openly? Or were pro-Russian public figures faced with harassment because the people had turned against them?
Correct. And, much of such behavior actually predates America. The Scotch-Irish who provide the backbone for much of this were the same ones who were killing the Irish Catholics and settling their lands. The WASP elite planners and financiers are not unlike their British counterparts and have essentially taken on their role, now that Britain has faded. Neocons are helpers, not drivers.
Neocons are helpers, not drivers.
I wish I could believe this. It would certainly make me feel better. But I don’t think that’s true.
Just one piece of evidence out of many:
The Christian community in Iraq was hurt by the US invasion even more than the Muslims. I think they’ve all had to flee the country. Now, G.W. Bush is a devout Christian. If he was the real driver of his administration’s Iraq policies, then presumably the Christians’ almost-2000-year-old history in Iraq would not have ended under his watch.
Same thing about the Syrian war. The Christians there support Assad.
You’re right… forgive me, “Vicky Nuland [along with the other neocons/Israel Firsters] is as American as Star Spangled Banner, Apple Pie and Baseball.”
There are two schools of thought on this issue: “the dog wags the tail” and “the tail wags the dog.”
The first school is led by Prof Noam Chomsky, the second by Profs. Mearsheimer and Walt (authors of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy).
While Chomsky’s thesis of American imperialism appeared to be a plausible explanation of events in the ME during the Cold War years, it has fallen into disrepute since 9/11 and the thesis put forward by Profs. Mearsheimer and Walt has become the dominant one.
The Middle Eastern Christians whose communities have been destroyed thanks to American intervention are traditional Christians – the type that Protestants such as GW Bush don’t care much about (indeed, read Protestant leader Hagee’s anti-Catholic diatribes).
It would be interesting to see if Jeb Bush, a convert to Catholicism, would pursue similar policies.
Yet, America’s military-industrial-complex owners, the owners of its energy companies, and its political leaders are mostly WASPS.
Read the M&W book and tell us if you still think the WASPS are responsible for all the wars in the ME.
btw – have you read PNAC’s Plan (A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm) or Oded Yinon’s Plan (A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s)? If you have, your views might be a tad different.
American WASP elites “fought” and lost to neocons. They lost because they were corrupted and neocon narrative fitted really well into the American old narrative of exceptionalism and American version of history. It doesn’t matter who was BSing whom–what matters that both were and are BSers. Same sh.t, slightly different smell. It WAS a good point for compromise, it is akin to singing praises to the enemy which was always very desperate for praise, so–voila’. As Clausewitz stated in Vom Kriege–it is prudent to judge the event by its outcome. The outcome is already in the open. Again, American exceptionalism was created by WASP elites way before neocons sprung into existence. In fact, in very many important aspects it precipitated neocons’ emergence. As I already stated, American WASP’s version of history and that by neocons differ only in small details–in both cases they are detached from the reality and are pseudo-academic. While neocons are disgusting traitorous demagogues and, in many cases, simple criminals, for WASPs it is a good idea to start looking in the mirror before trying to correct the situation, if it is possible at all. I know and knew many WASP (and simply European-descent) evangelicals, some with very serious political wherewithal, their views and views of neocons are virtually indistinguishable. I can break you some news here–these are the people who are GOP’s base.
if armenia has more GDP than Georgia…kim jung un is a truly great leader. This article has just a lot of untrue information, I’m not a fan of Saakashvili but come on, this is ridiculous. University dropout? really? really? are you kidding?
“Trump Towers in Tblisi” is probably not cargo. Even worse it could be the export of capital.
Trump likes to license his brand. The Trump Towers are possibly an investment sourced possibly even from domestic capital by Georgian owners who pay Trump a fee for using the Trump brand.