Staunton, March 24 – Whenever people are confronted by changes that call into question existing paradigms, their first reaction typically is to deny that anything has happened or that it is significant, but their second is to seek analogies and parallels in the past as guides to understanding. In recent weeks, the murder of Boris […]
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, February 23 — A “new stage” has begun in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, one that involves terrorist actions like those in the Chechen wars but “with this important modification: in this case, a nuclear power is suspected of terrorism” or possibly its “incompletely controlled militants,” according to Ilya Milshteyn. “This in general […]
Staunton, February 4 – A proposal by Federation Council member Zhanna Ivanova to restore a nationality line in Russian passports has sparked concern among many who remember how such a line was used against Jews in Soviet times, worry that it may become a test of loyalty under Putin, and amusement about how Russians might […]
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 […]
Staunton, July 28 – Vladimir Putin is ensuring himself ideologically against a nationalist challenge to himself if Russian militants fighting in Ukraine are forced to return to the Russian Federation where their popularity among many Russians, thanks to the Kremlin’s earlier ideological effort, remains extremely high, according to Yevgeny Ikhlov. The Moscow commentator says that […]
