Private Eye – 22nd January 2020
All,
So much of our Russian work is about levels of autocracy, central control and personality cults. It was once said of Stalin, that “all the past repeats itself, but acts only behind new masks”. We have discussed the place of Putin in the list of Russian rulers a number of times, but many would argue that recent developments have put the threat to Russian liberal democracy at a new level.
Three questions?
- Does it?
- If it does – how valid are parallels with our time period (1855 – 1964)?
- Is the real lesson of our course (and indeed of the chaos of Yeltsin’s Russia) that liberal democracy cannot be effective in a country as diverse and huge as Russia?
Have a look at the links below – what do you think? Please be aware that different positions can be taken on all these issues…
- Click here for an article from The Guardian suggesting that Putin’s ministers were not told of their recent forced resignation plans!
- Click here for Putin challenging Poland about its role in the Holocaust in the Second World War. Is this rewriting history?
Putin “discovering” Roman pots in the Black Sea whilst on a diving holiday.
- Click here for a discussion of the treatment of Pussy Riot.
- Click here for the article What happened to Russian democracy?
- Click here for a list of political exiles Putin is accused of murdering.
- Click here for a discussion of the staged pictures of Putin as an all action hero.
- Click here for Peter Pomeranstev’s “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia”.
Have a read / listen / think, and make your own mind up. We will discuss this in History Society in the near future.
Mr Kydd.
Stop press – that Yeltsin video by way of contrast with Putin.
