Staunton, November 5 – Many commentators are speculating on whether Russia’s elite groups, now threatened by Vladimir Putin’s policies, will find a way to remove him from office and install someone more to their liking. Andrey Piontkovsky has focused particular attention on this issue. But this is only part of a larger issue, Dmitry Gudkov […]
Staunton, June 3 – Centuries do not always correspond to the period between years ending in 00. Most historians argue that the nineteenth century, for example, lasted from 1815 with the defeat of Napoleon until 1914 when World War I broke out. And now a Moscow historian is arguing that “in Russia, the 20th century […]
Staunton, March 2 — Putinism is first and foremost the restoration of the “left fascism” that Nikita Khrushchev launched with his attacks on the cultural avant-garde in December 1962, that spread to Poland under Gomulka, and that was overthrown by perestroika and the 1991 revolution, according to Yevgeny Ikhlov. Influenced by the arguments of Umberto […]
Staunton, March 13 — Thirty-three years ago, Soviet commentator Fyodor Burlatsky published an article entitled “Interregnum” in Novy Mir. Ostensibly about what had taken place in China during changes from one dynasty to another, it was in fact a description of what was occurring in the USSR of his times. As Burlatsky pointed out, people […]
Staunton, January 11 – Mikhail Gorbachev’s current call for the “perestroika” of the international system is just as much a “cynical political scam” as was his original one, something that led many to conclude he wanted something more than just a more effective form of “authoritarian modernization,” according to Yevgeny Ikhlov. With the passage of […]
