7 Reasons That Russia Is Not The Soviet Union

Forbes ^ | 12/31/2013 | Mark Adomanis

[cunning_fish]

National Review published a rather overheated piece the other day that contained an entertaining line: “Russia has become the Soviet Union with a better suit”. The idea that Russia is fundamentally the same as the Soviet Union is a popular one, particularly on the political right where “Soviet” has for decades served as a synonym for “bad.” Barely a day goes by without someone bemoaning Putin’s “Soviet” character or the “neo-Soviet” policies that Russia pursues in its part of the world.

However this idea is deeply mistaken and extremely misleading, and can only be held by deliberately ignoring a huge amount of contradictory information. Indeed, by focusing on the minor and superficial similarities between present-day Russia and the USSR we ignore a great deal of what actually makes Russia unique.

I’m under no illusion that I will conclusively end peoples’ habit of substituting “the Soviet Union” for “the Russian Federation,” but I thought I would draw attention to some of the most glaring differences between the two. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are seven important reasons why the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union are not the same:

[cunning_fish]

Ping!

[Vendome]

LOL

[Repeal The 17th]

From the article “7 Reasons That Russia Is Not The Soviet Union”:
1) Parts of the Soviet Union are now members of NATO and the EU –
2) The Russian federation is much more Russian than the Soviet Union -
3) No single political party has a complete monopoly on power -
4) Russia is not a garrison state -
5) Russia has a convertible currency -
6) Russia’s economy is (mostly) a free market -
7) Russia has open borders -

[SeminoleCounty]

Pretty basic summary of the difference between USSR and current Russia

And, with Soros and USAID, both extreme Liberal Globalists, bankrolling the riots in Ukraine....It may be better off Ukraine stays linked to Russia and not the EU.

The two biggest crtitics of Russia these days are Globalists and Gays

[varmintman]

Lotta folks need to get their heads around this one.

[Vendome]

I wonder how one could apply those 7 qualifierers to China or India and compare on some bell curve.

[ETL]

You Putin butt lickers must all sleep in the same bed together. You’re all there on the spot when one of these pro-Putin, pro-Russia propaganda threads are posted.

[SeminoleCounty]

You Putin butt lickers must all sleep in the same bed together. You’re all there on the spot when one of these pro-Putin, pro-Russia propaganda threads are posted

---

You prefer George Soros and his Globalist Goofballs in Ukraine? That anti-Semite is the one pushing the riots there. Even Hanoi John McCain and the USAID folks are helping Soros in Ukraine

The biggest enemies of Putin and Russia seem to be the biggest enemies of America, too

[SeminoleCounty]

You Putin butt lickers must all sleep in the same bed together. You’re all there on the spot when one of these pro-Putin, pro-Russia propaganda threads are posted

---

You prefer George Soros and his Globalist Goofballs in Ukraine? That anti-Semite is the one pushing the riots there. Even Hanoi John McCain and the USAID folks are helping Soros in Ukraine

The biggest enemies of Putin and Russia seem to be the biggest enemies of America, too

[ETL]

From theTrumpet.comNovember 13, 2013

Moscow Puts the Soviet Squeeze on Neighbor Nations
By Jeremiah Jacques

Putin’s goal of reversing the ‘greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century’ underpins the bulk of Russian policy. Europe is taking note.

The European Union will hold a summit in Lithuania on November 28 to offer several former Soviet nations economic and “association” deals under its Eastern Partnership program. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants these nations to instead join the Eurasian customs union that Moscow created with Belarus and Kazakhstan. And he is not above bullying them into joining up.

In August, Russia halted all Ukrainian imports crossing the Russian border for tedious customs examinations. After a week the Kremlin removed most of the restrictions, but said it might permanently reinstate them if Ukraine accepts the EU deal.

Armenia has long been dependent on Moscow for security, and the country’s President Serzh Sargsyan was apparently reminded of this during a September meeting with Mr. Putin. He emerged from the talk saying Armenia would ditch years’ worth of efforts it made toward joining the Eastern Partnership program, and instead join Russia’s group.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, Russian forces have worked over the last few months to build barricades along the border of South Ossetia, the breakaway region that Putin’s forces have occupied since the 2008 war. Georgia sees the barricades as a gradual annexation.

Last month, the Kremlin banned Lithuania’s dairy products, and temporarily doubled up customs inspections on the nation’s other goods. Since Lithuania is already an EU member, the moves are apparently just punishment for its decision to host the upcoming summit.

Then there’s Moldova. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin recently said it would be “a grave mistake” for Moldova to try to build warmer ties with Europe. The impoverished nation is completely reliant on Russian gas for heat, and Rogozin threatened to cut off that supply, adding, “We hope that you will not freeze.” Russian then outlawed Moldovan wine and brandy, some of the nation’s chief exports, and said it may ban apples and other produce too. Rumors have also circulated that tens of thousands of Moldovans who hold jobs in Russia may be kicked out, severing the financial lifeline for myriad Moldovan families.

The 20th Century’s Greatest Catastrophe?

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 reversed a development that had been in the works since the 17th century when the Russian Empire first emerged. This development was the systemic integration and centralization of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Siberia and the Caucasus. Its core was Moscow. Its goal was challenging European powers.

Although economically brittle, Russian forces were militarily powerful enough to heavily contribute to Napoleon’s and Hitler’s defeats. Russia even held its ground for more than four decades against the mighty United States during the Cold War.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Western world rejoiced, heralding it as a victory for liberty, a triumph for democracy, and evidence of the supremacy of capitalism over socialism. Most of the former Soviet nations were optimistic and inspired by goals of rebuilding and democratizing.

But not everyone saw the collapse as a positive event.

“[T]he demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” Putin said in 2005.

The aftermath of the collapse presented hardships, not just for Russia, but also for several of the former Soviet states that initially rejoiced when the ussr fell. Those countries without energy to export suffered a colossal decline in standard of living, followed by a period of economic stagnation.

The strain was enough to nudge some of these nations back into Russia’s arms, as demonstrated most plainly by the establishment of Putin’s Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan trade union. Mr. Putin intends the partnership between these three countries to be a permanent feature within the sphere of the former Soviet Union, and is bent on absorbing other nations into it.

Under Mr. Putin’s reign, Moscow is laboring to recreate the geography of the Soviet Union, and to reassert Russia’s influence in the region. The goal of reversing the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” undergirds almost every facet of the Kremlin’s foreign policy. And Russia’s focus is not lost on Europe.

The ‘Spark’ to Unite Europe

An increasing number of European leaders recognize Putin’s determination to recreate the Soviet Union’s former glory. Last week, 6,000 nato soldiers participated in drills in Estonia to defend the nation against invasion from a fictional country called Bothnia. The fact that the drill—nato’s largest in seven years—took place in one of only three former Soviet states now in the EU demonstrated Europe’s ongoing suspicion of Russia.

The nato exercise came weeks after Russian troops simulated fending off an invasion of Belarus, a former Soviet country still under Russia’s sway.

Russia and Europe wield critical influence over each other, which forces them to choose either to respect each other as friends or to compete as foes. For now, the two are mostly cooperating, but Europe is increasingly anxious about the squeeze Russia is putting on its former satellites. This anxiousness was evident in the drills in Estonia. The more pushy and power-thirsty Moscow grows, the more the European nations feel forced to forfeit political and economic autonomy in exchange for the EU’s militarily assurance.

“What Russia is doing will be the spark to bring the heads of nations in Europe together with the Vatican to form a ‘United Nations of Europe,’” wrote Herbert W. Armstrong (co-worker letter, Jan. 23, 1980).

Russia’s belligerence is spawning fear among Europeans that will hasten the rise of a European Union sufficiently unified to confront Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The more Putin squeezes the former Soviet states in his quest to recreate the former empire, the greater Europe’s urgency toward this unification will become.

Putin said the re-creation of the Soviet empire is “inevitable.” ..."

http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/11102.30640.0.0/asia/moscow-puts-the-soviet-squeeze-on-neighbor-nations

[varmintman]

Lithuanians were still worshiping Odin at the time of the Crusades...

[cunning_fish]

>>Putin said the re-creation of the Soviet empire is “inevitable.” ...”<<

“Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.”

“History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior.”

“Sometimes it seems to me that certain European leaders want to be more Muslim that the Prophet Mohammad,”

“Political activities in Russia should be as transparent as possible. Financing political activities from abroad is something the state should keep an eye on,”

“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”

Putin.

http://www.therightperspective.org/2009/02/11/putin-warns-us-about-socialsm/#sthash.0WvLFXid.dpuf

[ETL]

The biggest enemies of Putin and Russia seem to be the biggest enemies of America, too

The biggest enemies of AMERICA seem to be ALL be supported by and allied with RUSSIA, under your boy KGB Putin. They are, the ChiComs, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, other latin american marxist-socialist dictatorships, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, on and on. The fact that NONE of this bothers any of you Putin butt lickers is proof enough who and what you are. If this were my site I would have booted you off of here years ago. I can't understand how it is that you are allowed to stay.

[ETL]

Putin, the ‘former’ KGB thug, like the rest of his kind, is a master at the art of deception. And it doesn’t seem to take very much to pull the wool over the eyes of some people, particularly those who aren’t too bright.

[cunning_fish]

They are heading in a right direction too.
The difference is China still ruled by a one-party communist government and Indian currency is a joke.

[JoeProBono]

[ETL]

From a 2007 article titled "Putin's Russia"...

"KGB influence 'soars under Putin,' " blared the headline of a BBC online article for December 13, 2006. The following day, a similar headline echoed a similarly alarming story at the website of Der Spiegel, one of Germany's largest news magazines: "Putin's Russia: Kremlin Riddled with Former KGB Agents."

In the opening sentences of Der Spiegel's article, readers are informed that: "Four out of five members of Russia's political and business elite have a KGB past, according to a new study by the prestigious [Russian] Academy of Sciences. The influence of ex-Soviet spies has ballooned under President Vladimir Putin."

The study, which looked at 1,061 top Kremlin, regional, and corporate jobs, found that "78 percent of the Russian elite" are what are known in Russia as "siloviki," which is to say, former members of the KGB or its domestic successor, the FSB. The author of the study, Olga Kryshtanovskaya, expressed shock at her own findings. "I was very shocked when I looked at the boards of major companies and realized there were lots of people who had completely unknown names, people who were not public but who were definitely, obvious siloviki," she told Reuters.

Other supposed experts — in Russia and the West — have also expressed surprise and alarm at the apparent resurrection of the dreaded Soviet secret police. After all, for the past decade and a half these same experts have been pointing to the alleged demise of the KGB as the primary evidence supporting their claim that communism is dead.

From the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the Russian security apparatus Cheka (and its later permutations: OGPU, NKVD, MGB, KGB) had been the "sword and shield" of the communist world revolution.

"We stand for organized terror," declared Felix Dzerzhinsky, the first chief of the Cheka for Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin. In 1918, Dzerzhinsky launched the campaign of arrests and executions known as the Red Terror. Krasnaya Gazeta, the Bolshevik newspaper, expressed the Chekist credo when it reported approvingly in 1918 of the terror campaign: "We will make our hearts cruel, hard and immovable, so that no mercy will enter them, and so that they will not quiver at the sight of a sea of enemy blood."

Unflinching cruelty and merciless, bloody terror have been the trademark of the communist secret police, from the Cheka to the KGB. Obviously, the demise of such an organization would be cause for much rejoicing. Hence, when the KGB was ordered dissolved and its chairman, General Vladimir Kryuchkov, was arrested in 1991 after attempting to overthrow "liberal reformer" Mikhail Gorbachev in the failed "August Coup," many people in the West were only too willing to pop the champagne corks and start celebrating our supposed victory over the Evil Empire.

But, as Mikhail Leontiyev, commentator for Russia's state-controlled Channel One television, recently noted, repeating a phrase popular among the siloviki: "Americans got so drunk at the USSR's funeral that they're still hung over." And stumbling around in their post-inebriation haze, many of these Americans have only recently begun noticing that they had prematurely written the KGB's epitaph, even as it was arising vampire-like from the coffin.

However, there is really no excuse for Olga Kryshtanovskaya or any of her American counterparts to be stunned by the current siloviki dominance in Putin's Russia. For nearly a decade, even before he became Russia's "president," THE NEW AMERICAN has been reporting on Putin's KGB pedigree and his steady implementation of a long-range Soviet deception strategy, including the public rehabilitation and refortifying of the KGB-FSB. ..." (continues at link)

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/8420-putins-russia

[cunning_fish]

>>>Putin, the ‘former’ KGB thug, like the rest of his kind, is a master at the art of deception. And it doesn’t seem to take very much to pull the wool over the eyes of some people, particularly those who aren’t too bright.<<<

What he or another Russian leader has to do to make you happy with their politics?

[ETL]

Putin praises Cold War moles for stealing U.S. nuclear secrets
Reuters ^ | Wed Feb 22, 2012 5:04pm EST | Steve Gutterman

Vladimir Putin praised Cold War-era scientists on Thursday for stealing U.S. nuclear secrets so that United States would not be the world's sole atomic power, in comments reflecting his vision of Russia as a counterweight to U.S. power.

Spies with suitcases full of data helped the Soviet Union build its atomic bomb, he told military commanders.

"You know, when the States already had nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union was only building them, we got a significant amount of information through Soviet foreign intelligence channels," Putin said, according to state-run Itar-Tass.

"The were carrying the information away not on microfilm but literally in suitcases. Suitcases!"

Putin's remarks referred to the dawn of the Cold War more than half a century ago, but they echoed a message he has made loud and clear more recently: that the United States needs to be restrained, and Russia is the country to do it. …

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...