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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 14-Sep-04
Putin moving to restore Soviet-style dictatorship in Russia

Web Log - September, 2004

Putin moving to restore Soviet-style dictatorship in Russia

Reacting to the recent horrific terrorist acts in Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced substantially more centralized control of Russia. Last week, a furious Putin announced that he would take drastic measures to curtail terrorist acts, such as the horrific slaughter of children in Beslan, and the downing of two planes in flight from Moscow by "black widows," women carrying bombs.

Putin appeared to be promising revenge. The terrorist acts are widely believed to have been perpetrated with Islamic terrorists in Chechnya. However, in order to avoid inflaming the highly volatile region further, Putin blamed the acts on "international terrorists."

Nonetheless, there have been specific threats as tensions have been Russia's Colonel General Yuri Baluyevsky announced last week that that He added, "We will take all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world."

These threats have unsettling throughout Russia's southern Muslim provinces, including Chechnya and Ingushetia, but they've also further inflamed Georgia, the nation on Russia's southern border which is already threatening war with Russia to expel Russian troops from South Ossetia.

On Monday, Putin announced a drastic restructuring of all levels of Russian government. Many legislators who were formerly elected will now be appointed by the Kremlin, and will be required to follow Kremlin policies.

This is absolutely no surprise, as we've been saying for several months with respect to Yukos, Russia's oil giant. Putin has effectively nationalized Yukos. He began last October by jailing former Yukow CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, right after he announced he would be challenging Putin politically. Since then, the Kremlin has been taking one legal step after another to harvest all of Yukos' wealth.

If there's any principle that this web site supports, it's the principle that history repeats itself, and we see this happening now.

The Kremlin practice of taking any assets it wants is part of the Soviet policy. This practice was used by Nicolai Lenin from the beginning of the Bolshevik (Communist) Revolution in 1917 when he destroyed the Russian Orthodox Church in order to harvest its wealth. In one of his early letters to the Politburo he writes:

We must pursue the removal of church property by any means necessary in order to secure for ourselves a fund of several hundred million gold rubles (do not forget the immense wealth of some monasteries and lauras). Without this fund any government work in general, any economic build-up in particular, and any upholding of soviet principles ... is completely unthinkable. In order to get our hands on this fund of several hundred million gold rubles (and perhaps even several hundred billion), we must do whatever is necessary.

Following the Bolshevik Revolution, there was a massive civil war throughout Russia that killed tens of millions of people before it ended in the late 1920s.

If history is any guide, and it is, then we can expect to see Putin move more and more to nationalize private assets, take more and more control of the government, take harsher and harsher measures against terrorists, and eventually live through a repeat of the civil war of the 1920s. (14-Sep-04) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 14-Sep-04 Putin moving to restore Soviet-style dictatorship in Russia

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 14-Sep-04
Putin moving to restore Soviet-style dictatorship in Russia