True Left

Politics => Questions & Debates => Topic started by: Zhang Caizhi on August 23, 2021, 05:35:41 am


Title: Is Putin's Russia Duginist autocracy?
Post by: Zhang Caizhi on August 23, 2021, 05:35:41 am
I read how Putin uses his power and I think Russia is not a democracy.
Could it be that Putin is powerful enough to implement Duginism without taking many opinions from his allies or Russians?
Title: Re: Is Putin's Russia Duginist autocracy?
Post by: guest55 on August 23, 2021, 12:28:18 pm
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I read how Putin uses his power and I think Russia is not a democracy. Could it be that Putin is powerful enough to implement Duginism without taking many opinions from his allies or Russians?

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Criticism of recent elections

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia's party system has been characterised by the presence of a ruling party which is financed and staffed by the presidential administration, and in return, it provides support for the ruling administration.[16]

One study from Reuter et al. referred to criticism of mayoral and local self-government election in Russia. Findings being indicated that mayor candidates opposing the present ruling party, United Russia, had their elections cancelled more easily than those that could promote support for the ruling party.[12]

Another study from Enikolopov et al. performed an investigation where observers were strategically placed at polling stations to see the effect of their presence on United Russia's vote shares. Findings reveal that with observers, United Russia experienced an 11% loss in share of votes for the poll chosen.[17]

Since Vladimir Putin became President of Russia there has been increasing international criticism of the conduct of Russian elections.[18] European institutions who observed the December 2007 legislative elections concluded that these were not fair elections. Göran Lennmarker, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), said that the elections "failed to meet many of the commitments and standards that we have. It was not a fair election."[19] Luc Van den Brande, who headed a delegation from the Council of Europe, referred to the "overwhelming influence of the president's office and the president on the campaign" and said there was "abuse of administrative resources" designed to influence the outcome. He also said there were "flaws in the secrecy of the vote." "Effectively, we can't say these were fair elections," he said at a news conference.[20]

In February 2008 The human rights organisation Amnesty International said that the presidential election on 2 March would not be a genuine election: "There is no real opposition ahead of the election. There is no real electoral campaign battle," Friederike Behr, Amnesty's Russia researcher, was quoted as saying. In a report on the elections, Amnesty said laws restricting non-government organizations, police breaking up demonstrations, and harassment from critics were all part of "a systematic destruction of civil liberties in Russia."[21] Another human rights organisation, Freedom House, said that the victory of Putin's party in the 2007 elections "was achieved under patently unfair and non-competitive conditions calling into doubt the result’s legitimacy."[22]

The Russian government has acted to prevent international observers monitoring Russian elections. In 2007 the OSCE was prevented from monitoring the legislative elections held in December.[23] In February 2008 the European Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights announced that it would not send observers to monitor the presidential election on 2 March, citing what it called "severe restrictions" imposed on its work by the Russian government. "We made every effort in good faith to deploy our mission, even under the conditions imposed by the Russian authorities", said Christian Strohal, the organization's director. "The Russian Federation has created limitations that are not conducive to undertaking election observation".[24] The OSCE has also withdrawn its attempts to monitor the elections.

The 2011 Russian legislative elections were considered to be rigged in favor of the ruling party by a number of journalists and opposition representatives.[25] However public opinion-polls prior to the election suggested that the ruling party could count on the support of 45–55 percent of voters, which may suggest that there were no mass falsifications, despite isolated cases of fraud.[26] Nationwide exit polls were very close to the final results.[27]

In 2015 OSCE called the Russian government to respect and support the work of independent election observers, following a number of incidents where citizen observers were beaten or harassed in regional elections.[28] There is a widespread practice of increasing attendance on unpopular or controversial votes using financial bonus for everyone attending, free food, toys, etc.[29]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Russia

According to Lord Acton, another rightist himself, described above is exactly how democracy functions:
(https://restoreliberty.us/images/Lord_Acton_Quote.jpg)

As far as Putin implementing Duginism himself, sounds viable, as long as it is not declared as an "official Russian ideology":
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What is Russia's political ideology?
The 1993 constitution declares Russia a democratic, federative, law-based state with a republican form of government. State power is divided among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Diversity of ideologies and religions is sanctioned, and a state or compulsory ideology may not be adopted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Russia

Lest we also forget Dugin is named "Putin's Rasputin" by many:
Putin’s Rasputin
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n20/peter-pomerantsev/putin-s-rasputin
Title: Re: Is Putin's Russia Duginist autocracy?
Post by: Zhang Caizhi on August 27, 2021, 12:58:59 am
Xi's China gave Putin the Order of Friendship, which could be an attempt to have others see them as allies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNCti2NsFVk
Title: Re: Is Putin's Russia Duginist autocracy?
Post by: 90sRetroFan on August 28, 2021, 04:35:12 am
Xi should learn some history:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/diplomatic-decolonization/msg1207/#msg1207

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/colonial-era/russia-the-last-colonial-empire/msg7661/#msg7661

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Kulja

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Aigun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tientsin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_of_Peking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tarbagatai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Livadia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Saint_Petersburg_(1881)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li%E2%80%93Lobanov_Treaty

Russia is the only Western colonial power which has not yet given back the land it stole from China! But you won't hear Xi talking about this. Look at how Westernized he is:

(https://i.insider.com/5b6c5f938905f218008b520e?width=1000&format=jpeg&auto=webp)

(https://i0.wp.com/asiatimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/China-Xi-Jinping-Wine.jpg?fit=1463%2C936&ssl=1)

(https://al-khaleejtoday.net/content/uploads/2020/10/24/b3b2527a0e.jpg)

(https://www.thatsmags.com/image/view/201711/xi-jinping-trump-gala-11.jpg)

(https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.prod.s3.amazonaws.com%2F89fb2172-a08d-11e4-9aee-00144feab7de?fit=scale-down&source=next&width=700)

As if the clothes and hair aren't bad enough, he insists on using a wine glass FFS!

Title: Re: Is Putin's Russia Duginist autocracy?
Post by: Dazhbog on August 28, 2021, 06:19:35 am
I read how Putin uses his power and I think Russia is not a democracy.

I haven't yet researched the inner workings of Putin's Russia in detail, however, so far his system strikes me as more similar to the rightist democracies in Hungary or Poland than to any autocratic system I know. Could you point me to specific traits of Putin's Russia that make you think of it as an autocracy?
Title: Re: Is Putin's Russia Duginist autocracy?
Post by: Zhang Caizhi on August 28, 2021, 07:14:52 am
I read how Putin uses his power and I think Russia is not a democracy.

I haven't yet researched the inner workings of Putin's Russia in detail, however, so far his system strikes me as more similar to the rightist democracies in Hungary or Poland than to any autocratic system I know. Could you point me to specific traits of Putin's Russia that make you think of it as an autocracy?

It's about how he can maintain his power even with protests for 20 years, unlike Trump.
Title: Re: Is Putin's Russia Duginist autocracy?
Post by: Dazhbog on August 28, 2021, 07:44:39 am
It's about how he can maintain his power even with protests for 20 years, unlike Trump.

Keep in mind that the constituent element of any democracy are elections by majority vote, not street protest movements. Otherwise, we might also start calling Biden an autocrat, as he managed to assume office despite extensive Trumpist rioting.
Title: Re: Is Putin's Russia Duginist autocracy?
Post by: Zhang Caizhi on August 28, 2021, 09:32:18 am
It's about how he can maintain his power even with protests for 20 years, unlike Trump.

Keep in mind that the constituent element of any democracy are elections by majority vote, not street protest movements. Otherwise, we might also start calling Biden an autocrat, as he managed to assume office despite extensive Trumpist rioting.

I think the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation guarantees Putin's wins.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Election_Commission_%28Russia%29

Controlling any election commission means controlling voting results.


North Korea has mandatory voting every 5 years without other candidates than those who are approved by the government.
It is used to check people's approval of the candidates and population change.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_North_Korea
Title: Re: Is Putin's Russia Duginist autocracy?
Post by: 90sRetroFan on August 28, 2021, 09:55:52 pm
"Controlling any election commission means controlling voting results."

Yes, but having elections at all reinforces the democratic premise that leaders must be elected in order to be legitimate. This point has already been explained exhaustively:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/western-democracy/msg2807/#msg2807

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Now that mainstream leftists are finally able to accuse Trump of a coup, False Leftists are once again completely screwing up their framing of the scenario. They accuse Trump of being anti-democracy while portraying Trump critics as pro-democracy, as if only pro-democracy people could oppose Trump.

Firstly, is Trump anti-democracy? No. Trump (who loves being popular) would surely prefer to have won the election cleanly than have to resort to trying to invalidate the election results. It is only because the results did not go Trump's way that he is falling back on invalidating the election results in an attempt to retain power. And even then Trump is claiming to be the winner of the election, in other words he is still reinforcing the notion that winning the election is what should determine leadership; he is merely lying about who won. In other words, Trump is fundamentally pro-democracy, but just in a dishonest way. (In contrast, an actual anti-democrat would argue that it is wrong for popularity to determine leadership.)

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/news/red-coup/msg3147/#msg3147

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If we have three countries A, B and C whose people have the characteristics:

A: agree to not have elections
B: agree to have elections and then respect the election results
C: agree to have elections but then do not respect the election results

it is perfectly possible to consider B (which displays commitment to keeping contract) superior to C (which fails to keep contract) without considering B superior to A (which does not fail to keep contract, but merely has better contractual content). So here is how the split works:

False Left worldview: B > C > A
True Left worldview: A > B > C
Title: Re: Is Putin's Russia Duginist autocracy?
Post by: Zhang Caizhi on August 29, 2021, 04:04:16 am
I see that most non-Western autocrat are officially elected as described by their constitutions.
Title: Re: Is Putin's Russia Duginist autocracy?
Post by: guest55 on September 22, 2021, 11:01:11 am
Russia's Parliamentary Election: Just Another Rigged Vote For Putin?
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Over the weekend, Russia held an election for the Lower House of their parliament, but to the surprise of few, it has been fraught with allegations that the election was rigged. So in this video, we'll discuss the results, the reasons commentators are calling it rigged, and what this means for the future of Russia and Vladimir Putin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5AS9a2xrec

Comment:
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As a Russian, this entire circus has been rather mentally exhausting. I thought that with the constitutional "reform" done, pension "reform" done, they will allow themselves to decrease their number of seats, but keep a simple majority.

But holy ****. The sheer amount of rigging and just how they stopped caring...just sad.

The pro-Kremlin bot farms are also running wild. Because of Smart Voting, CPRF are, apparently...CIA-sponsored? This timeline is so dumb.