[familyop]

Conservative British opinion on the current state of affairs in Russia Ping.

[CyberAnt]

The answer to the title is: Because it's strange, uncomfortable and unknowable; just the very same way the Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt.

[jess35]

When you've grown up under a state that micromanages every aspect of your life, it's tough to go it alone.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Because people keep whitewashing the Soviet Union and portraying it as a time of Russian greatness, and oh, what a catastrophe that it collapsed.

[onedoug]

Exodus.

[Paul C. Jesup]

They've got used to freedom, so why do Russians still hunger for the USSR?

The Russians don't, it is just the leftist press and the Russian government that want it to look that way, much in the same way that the leftist press in the U.S. want everyone to believe that the majority of Americans are liberal/socialists.

But we know better... ;D

[Cedar]

What with the public buildings being guarded, traffic brought to a standstill for the President, and beer-drinking men loitering the streets, it sounds a lot like the USA.

[struwwelpeter]

No one I've met in Russia or Ukraine wanted to go back to Stalin's purges or Khrushchev's empty shelves, but the few times I've heard what approached a wistful remembrance of the Soviet Union, I've heard it said that they felt something called dostoinstvo back then.

The dictionary defines it as 'merit' and 'dignity', but from the look in my friend's eyes when she said it, I took it to mean something a lot stronger. The same expression she'd use speaking of Yuri Gagarin or when watching the veterans on Victory Day.

More likely, it's the old foggy attitude that 'nothing these days is as good as it was when I was young'.

[Dr.Hilarious]

From my (limited) reading on the subject, and having met several Russians and Eastern Europeans post-USSR, I'd say: The Soviet experiment went a long way towards splintering the idea of the family unit. When it fell, things didn't just go back to being hunky dory; it's as if there was nothing in palce to replace what was lost. I think there is a need for a national identity, the need for pride, for Russia to be identified as great in some way that the people can embrace and rally around. But there is no cause, no goal--their country is in many respects just the place they live, and its recent history is one of suppression--not a lot to be proud of there, and not much that's replaced it.

[Happy2BMe]

ping

[Steve Van Doorn]

maybe it has to do with the corruption is worse now then ever?
DUH!

[RusIvan]

Few small lie so.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company, has just been sentenced to nine years in jail for alleged tax evasion and fraud. Everyone here knows, however, that his real crime was to pose a political threat to Mr Putin. ==

His frauds and tax evasions are not denied by even his payed supporters. The people who took money from him and have to convice everyone that he is saint.
So his crimes are NOR "allerged" and "everyone here knows" this fact.

Second thing. It is true that Putin has to begin his compaign against oligakh crime ring with Khodorkovskii since he is most dangerous criminal.
In Russia criminals was traditiionally forbidden to go into political circles.
It was ame during czar times. So Putin just fulfilled long standing tradition to destroy criminals to try to buy political parties.

"We should acknowledge," he declared in an astonishing speech two months ago, "that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century." ==

It is phaze ciutted from context. In next sentence of his speach Putin said that no one with sane mind wants today USSR back.
The author ommited second sentence to reach propagandistic effect.

Russian Centre for Public Opinion found that 53 per cent of Russians still regard Stalin as a "great" leader. ==

The propagandistic ommition again. In poll the question was longer and different. It sounded like this: "Who was great leader during Great Patriotic War and make dsisive share in Victory?". Poll was conducted in eve of 60th Aneversary of Victory.
SO you see the distortion of this author?

About athor's conclusions made on base of his propagandistic distortions I would say they are misleading readers.

[XEHRpa]

In a related development, in need of pinging:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1426157/posts

[Bear_Slayer]

I worked in a cabinet shop with a Russian. I was pushing wood-filler into joint gaps with my finger. The russian offered a putty knife and I refused.

"God gave me a putty knife." I said and held up my index finger.

He explained that he had served in the Soveit army. Not as a soldier. He was a christian and would not carry a rifle, so they would not let him serve in the glorious role of soldier and made him a painter. They would not give him a putty knife either.

They forced him to fix and paint walls in the barracks. For six months he used his index finger to putty cracks in the cinder blocks. "I'll never use my index finger again." he said.

He also shared that russian has not changed. He turned his ball-cap backward for effect. "They look different, but they still communists."

[Robert A Cook PE]

First:

The people who are really profiting from freedom and economic changes are NOT the "people" but the corrupt officials (many ex-KGB/bureaucrats/military/mafia-Russki's who had corrupt power before through the government, and who would have it easier with the former government back in power.

Two.

The "Russian" people (on average) have had EVERY ONE of those who resisted and sought freedom for the past 800 years (since before the Czars and Mongols and Turks and Cossack invaders!) been killed.

Literally - EVERY person who dared try for freedom was killed, "pogramed" or exiled to Siberia. Those who remained, who survived, and who bred more babies (who rapidly grew up thinking like their parents - or who themselves were killed or exiled - ONLY lived if they accepted a Slave-like ("Slavish" literally) lifestyle and thought pattern.

So, like breeders who select for the trait they want, the Russian population survived ONLY those who did NOT want freedom and opportunity. And, after 500 years of selective breeding, what's left?

People who (on average) distrust economic freedom, independence, and free thought do NOT want real freedom from oppression. They DO trust and believe in the government.

They DO want (above all else) "SECURITY" from worry and "fear" NOTHING more than "fear" itself. To paraphrase Roosevelt, who USED THAT fear to begin destroying our previous freedoms and increase government power and influence.