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Russians Seem Interested in My Book About How Dictatorships End

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Re: Russians Seem Interested in My Book About How Dictatorships End

#51

Post by _8j50 »

yazzku wrote: post #17
cs702 wrote: post #3

If this is true, it suggests many Russians actually want their country to become a democracy: > Objectively — though it’s awkward to say — the book has become a bit of a phenomenon. But the book, “The End of the Regime: How Three European Dictatorships Ended”, is not about Russia or Vladimir Putin. It’s about three dictatorships — those of Francisco Franco in Spain, Antonio Salazar in Portugal and the colonels in Gre…

Of course there are many Russians that want an end to the regime. At least, every Russian I know. Why wouldn't they?

Democracy is not a one size fits all solution. Even the US endured a civil war while trying to do democracy, it isn't that simple and democraric nations shouldn't be pushing it down everyone's throats. Every country needs to figure out what works for them. Some even debate id countries with two party options like america are even an actual valid democracy and others debate if China is really communist because of it's embrace of market economy and even the D in DPRK stands for democraric. "Follow our ways or else" is b.s. , if well informed citizens of a country, without coercion or exceccisve influence by outside forces decide to have a republican representstive democracy with market economy and federalist government structure then so be it.

Everyone can see how much billionaires in the US decide who even gets to run for office, what kind of influence do you think oligarchs and the russian mob will have over any supposed democracy there? It's silly to presume that everyone wants democracy, communists also believe everyone in the west except the rich want a pro-worker communist regime where everyone equally prospers and they would use the poverty and homelessness in america, the richest democracy, as an example of how bad democracies are. Even if the educated class pick american style democracy, even America's founders were very concerned about the less informed and educated masses would be influenced by a demagogue to vote against their own interests (and lo and behold trump fulfilled their prophecy).

There are many considerations, including how much blood to spill and whose child will spill it when you talk about regime changes like that. Let the people who have to endure the carnage of such change figure out what they want and what fits their cultures and beliefs best.

Ultimately, this "everyone loves democracy" sentiment in my opinion is rooted in the arrogant belief that "everyone must share my ways and beliefs and would like the world I live in"

Re: Russians Seem Interested in My Book About How Dictatorships End

#52

Post by netsharc »

worrycue wrote: post #50
netsharc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting keyword, "regime". Seems like many dictatorships fell in the last decade, in the Arab world, to be replaced by other tyrannical leaders or civil war. Russia seems to have a lot of people in good seats to be a Putin replacement, of course most of them with the same goal of Putin's, i.e. self-enrichment. And to be in such a seat you're usually rich and powerful... And if you're not rich/powerful, you still…

> Russia seems to have a lot of people in good seats to be a Putin replacement, of course most of them with the same goal of Putin's, i.e. self-enrichment. And to be in such a seat you're usually rich and powerful... I wonder if one of them will take a chance at being a benevolent dictator who sets up a democracy rather than do the usual since the typical dictator seem to have a 50/50 chance of enjoying a retirement…

> Setting up a democracy and slowly releasing power

In principle I agree (reporting for Radio Eriwan), cynical me wonders how that would work, the leader would have to cooperate with the West -- because the populace's support seem to depend a lot on how they think their future is looking -- but Western leaders usually visit with business leaders, who say (or tell their puppets ^W elected officials to say) "You want X? We want Y in return.".

Re: Russians Seem Interested in My Book About How Dictatorships End

#53

Post by thriftwy »

HybridCurve wrote: post #47
robin_reala wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Russia ever attempt to apply to join the EU? The real countries in reduce war equation were Germany and France, not Russia.

Putin's view on Russia in the EU was essentially that he never wanted Russia to be on the same level as the member states. He wanted Russia to be at the same level as the EU as a whole if not greater. It stems from a combination of nostalgia for the Soviet Union and a sense of Elitism endemic in parts of the culture.

This is absurd notion since the question of accepting Russia into the EU was never raised even remotely, therefore we have no idea what specific conditions will be negotiated by the parties in this nonexistent scenario. I don't really think Russia could be included in the EU in any form.

It could, however, by 2013 have massive students exchange, Schengen visa waiver programme for short visits, cultural exchange, etc. None of that happened. EU just wanted oil & gas and unilaterally accept some of the brighter students into their universities, ideally having them pay for that privilege.

EU also wanted to "euroassociate" our neighbour countries, where they will get no guarantees or support of being EU member, but would open their markets to the EU and half-shut their markets, and borders, towards Russia. That was a directly hostile move towards Russia, who was completely shut off these arrangements.

EU and USA were also openly nagging Ukraine to boot Russian naval base from Crimea. A directly hostile move which backfired quickly and led to the whole war thing in the end.

Re: Russians Seem Interested in My Book About How Dictatorships End

#54

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

r721 wrote: post #5

It looks like this is a NYT opinion piece republished in someone's blog? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/26/opinion/russia-putin-dict...

> It looks like this is a NYT opinion piece republished in someone's blog?

By someone, I believe you mean the author (of opinion, blog & referenced book).

Re: Russians Seem Interested in My Book About How Dictatorships End

#56

Post by [deleted] »

csense wrote: post #44

> Nevertheless, there is no legal way for the authorities to ban it. I thought Putin was long past the point of being restrained by the law. Can't he just order the law to be changed? Or use a bunch of fancy spy stuff to figure out who owns the book, and arrange for them to fall out of windows?

[deleted]

Re: Russians Seem Interested in My Book About How Dictatorships End

#57

Post by egao1980 »

carlmr wrote: post #35
thriftwy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elephant in the room is that if you invite everybody in your anti-war club, but one country, that remaining country will get really nervous and you might as well get a war (what we are seeing). If the situation is that you can't invite everybody in, then the plan is defective from the start.

The EU is quite liberal in accepting countries to the anti-war club, but they need to adhere to some standards regarding human rights, trade, and democracy. If you crash your own party with some people that don't fit in, you will cause the guests you wanted to have to leave. Any countries not in the EU don't want to be in the EU. And that's fine. And looking at what the EU does you don't have to be scared if you don'…

Latvia and Estonia are allowed to have Nazi parades and repress Russian speaking population i.e. non-citizens, language police and criminal sentences for pro-Russian activists. EU looks some other way all the time. See for example https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/outrage-as-s... or https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/2019-03-16/ty-arti...

This is not how human rights and democracy should look like.

Re: Russians Seem Interested in My Book About How Dictatorships End

#58

Post by r721 »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #54
r721 wrote: post #5

It looks like this is a NYT opinion piece republished in someone's blog? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/26/opinion/russia-putin-dict...

> It looks like this is a NYT opinion piece republished in someone's blog? By someone, I believe you mean the author (of opinion, blog & referenced book).

I don't think he knows about this website (see explanation from OP: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35852599).

Re: Russians Seem Interested in My Book About How Dictatorships End

#59

Post by LapsangGuzzler »

hourago wrote: post #9
thriftwy wrote: post #2

I'm not sure that transition of power is a 'taboo': Yekaterina Shulman have been discussing this topic for a few years for a wide popular audience. It's just that there was never any satisfactory answer to that one. With regards to dictators of Spain, Portugal and Greece. These countries could get rid of autocrats and fall back to Europe's safety net. But in case of Russia it is not an option, as nobody wants Russia…

> especially the EU, which was mostly built on the basis of confrontation with Russia The EU was build to avoid another World War were Germany/UK/France start fighting. Once all European countries are tied economically for any of them to benefit of starting a war is very difficult. And, of course, there is also the idea that a bigger economic area will create more opportunities and make Europe more competitive. If an…

> Russia has nobody else to blame from breaking ties with Europe but themselves.

There are always two sides to every story, and it’s not that hard to find credible western foreign policy experts who are more than willing to point out that decisions by the west going back to the fall of the Soviet Union played a big role in where we are today[0]. Geopolitics, just like everything else, has nuance.

0: https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4

Re: Russians Seem Interested in My Book About How Dictatorships End

#60

Post by credit_guy »

yazzku wrote: post #17
cs702 wrote: post #3

If this is true, it suggests many Russians actually want their country to become a democracy: > Objectively — though it’s awkward to say — the book has become a bit of a phenomenon. But the book, “The End of the Regime: How Three European Dictatorships Ended”, is not about Russia or Vladimir Putin. It’s about three dictatorships — those of Francisco Franco in Spain, Antonio Salazar in Portugal and the colonels in Gre…

Of course there are many Russians that want an end to the regime. At least, every Russian I know. Why wouldn't they?

> Why wouldn't they?

Assuming your question is not rhetorical, some Russians may not want an end of Putin's regime because they perceive that something worse than Putin is possible, and even likely. A lot of Russians experienced the lawlessness of the 90's, and Putin was perceived as the one who brought a semblance of order and stability. If he is eliminated, or simply dies of natural causes (he's rumored to have cancer), then who will follow him? Is there any guarantee that the new regime is going to be better? There were plenty of bad strongmen around the world who were toppled, only to be replaced by even worse guys.

And just to be clear, I'm 100% against Putin. I read every single day about the war in Ukraine, and hope every day that Ukraine will win. I'm quite optimistic that the spring counteroffensive will be a great success (knock on wood).

That said, I just answered your question. I can see why some Russians will be ok with Putin staying in power.

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