Cracking Putins Egg (Does It Stand on Its Head or on Its Feet?) Putin: Bolsheviks were complete traitors! According to Vladimir Putin (an interview given on August 29 to a national youth camp), Bolsheviks of 1917 were complete traitors to the motherland and her national interests. Of all observers and commentators, only good old imperial and anti-Russian BBC picked on this in its September 15 article (just ten days after the Minsk Protocol was signed), Traitors in Vladimir Putins Russia: Last month, in a live TV broadcast from a political youth camp, Vladimir Putin warned that some people in Russia were prepared to fully betray the countrys national interests. He compared them to the Bolsheviks, who had exploited Russias weakness in World War One to carry out revolution back home. Here, from the official transcript, is the full passage which contains Putins indictment of Lenin and the Bolsheviks on the account of complete national treason. Regardless of how hurtful it might be to hear, perhaps, even to some of this audience, people who hold leftist views, but in the First World War, the Bolsheviks wished to see their Fatherland defeated. And while the heroic Russian soldiers and officers shed their blood on the fronts in World War I, some were shaking Russia from within and shook it to the point that Russia as a state collapsed and declared itself defeated by a country that had lost the war. It is nonsense, it is absurd, but it happened! This was a complete betrayal of national interests! Is Putin right? Does this Putins position have any relevance to what is going on or what has happened in Novorossiya? With respect to Putins charge of Bolsheviks (hence also Lenin, the founder of the USSR) with a complete treason. My original Facebook posting on this yielded a great amount of collective wisdom. My own personal pick is the comment made by De-li Wei: Thanks for posting this as it helps us to understand Putin better. I think Putin is speaking more to his current / potential future domestic situation fearful that trouble will start within Russia which will shake what is otherwise incredible unity at this point. As he is the authority that interprets national interests his discussion of what the Bolsheviks did vis-a-vis the ruling power at the time during a war against a foreign power is telling. A more sober assessment tells us that it was not in any parties best national interests to be involved in WWI. As the burden on society caused in part by that war helped fuel the Bolsheviks dissent , even if one disagrees with them ideologically or in other regards, it is not reasonable to state that their actions were a betrayal of national interests. Even in authoritarian societies sovereignty resides with the people and obviously the people were sick of war at that juncture and acted to extricate the nation from that war in the interests of the nation. This statement is even more ironic given the lengths to which Putin has gone to avoid an open conflict with Kievs Western allies. Reversing roles, some could easily say Putins insistence on non-confrontation is the same betrayal of the national interests that he identifies in the Bolsheviks actions. Ethnic Russians are this moment on the battle front and the powers that be are extricating its self from blame, making peace oblivious to their consideration. We can understand more clearly how he defines both his nation and its interests and also takes a relativist (is there such a term?) position, re-interpreting similar events with nearly diametrically opposed labels. What lends support to De-li Weis assessment is also this Putins curious explanation of his or Moscows secret, secret strategy, which does explain a lot about his and Lavrovs apparent weakness for Poroshenko (as I tweeted it the other day), Putins stated goal to create the best possible conditions for legitimizing Poroshenko and his elections, Putins, and especially Lavrovs, continued support for the capitulation agreement signed by Yanukovich under the direct pressure of France, Germany, Poland, Maidan, the EU, (and the US), which inevitably led to the unconstitutional coup (both Putin and Lavrov kept insisting that the February 21 agreement should have been fully implemented), the Minsk Protocol, Putins and Lavrovs aversion to the idea of revolution and any new revolutionaries, and the lack of genuine political and social strategy on the part of Putin and his leadership. Putins revelation of his strategic and political secret happened at the same youth camp, and I already drew attention to it before, for it shows Putins evident deference to and reverence to the ruling authorities, even if they are are avowed enemies of Russia or the Banderite, Nazi junta in Kiev. In contrast with the US which is always putting their eggs into multiple baskets, as Putin indicates, the main political rule of his leadership was to try to warm the one egg--the egg of the existing authorities. The key formulation of this conservative strategy comes in these Putins frank confession: Russia always supports the acting authorities ... I have an inner conviction that that’s how it works. ... it’s as simple as that. And naturally, we always rely on the current government and always support it.we treat everyone equally, but we cooperate with the government in power. It’s not even a secret, just a story--The story of Ukraine, Putins Russia, and Novorossiya The sad thing is that, evidently, Putin himself does not still see what this very strategy of supporting even ones own enemies and most thieving and prostituting oligarchs, who grossly sin against their own people and actively work with NATO against Russia, has done to Ukraine and to Russia and its own security after pursuing this not-so-secret strategy for all these years. So, since clearly this seems to be a crucial passage, I am giving it here fully and completely as transcribed in Putins official transcript right from his own site: I will let you in on a little – it’s not even a secret, just a story. There is nothing special here, I will tell you about it as it has to do with former president Viktor Yanukovych. We did not push or thrust Yanukovych anywhere. I want you to know, and for Russia to know, and for everyone in Ukraine to know: nothing of the sort ever happened. Russia always supports the acting authorities. We are not like some of our partners. Maybe, in this regard, they are even being more pragmatic, they are always putting their eggs into multiple baskets. Moreover (the Americans do this), even if a government somewhere is loyal to them, they always work with the opposition. Always! And they even set it against the current government a bit, so that even if that government is loyal, it will stay even more loyal, and to show that yes, we have someone else to work with. I suppose that’s a pragmatic position. And I see that it was used for centuries by Britain as well. This Anglo-Saxon approach migrated to the United States and is used by them today. Regardless of how they might respond to me (they will certainly respond and discuss it now), I have an inner conviction that that’s how it works. But in Russia, especially in the post-Soviet space, we cannot do that. Things are different here, it’s as simple as that. And naturally, we always rely on the current government and always support it. This does not mean that we are indifferent or even antagonistic towards the opposition. No, we treat everyone equally, but we cooperate with the government in power. That was true during Kuchma’s presidency as well. And when his presidential term expired, I asked him directly: “Mr Kuchma, who should Russia support in the next presidential election?” And he told me: “Yanukovych.” I had some doubts as to whether Kuchma felt certain about Yanukovych’s candidacy, and I asked him about it during the final preparations for the presidential election campaign. He told me: “That’s it, it’s decided, a decision has been made; we will support and promote Yanukovych, and I am asking you and Russia to support him through information resources and support him politically.” And that is what we did. Later, when they made a complete mess of the third round, I cannot call it anything else, I was certainly surprised. I asked Mr Kuchma again, “What is going on? Are you supporting him or not?” Yanukovych was not able to use his result in the elections. After all, he won in the second round. All this turned into a fairly sharp political struggle. Mr Yushchenko, who became President, and Ms Timoshenko, who became Prime Minister, apparently didn’t have great success either, since Yanukovich won in the next election. Incidentally, I always ask: “So why didn’t you sign an association agreement with the European Union back then? Who was in your way? All the power was in your hands.” But the fact is that they did not do it. The question is: why not? I suspect they did not do it because it is fairly dangerous socioeconomically, because the consequences could be quite grave for Ukraine’s economy and, therefore, for Ukraine’s social sphere and politics. But we have never pushed through any candidate, we do not do it and we will not do it, and this is true regarding Yanukovych as well. This was exclusively the choice of the Ukrainian people and the logic of internal political processes. Incidentally, we would have cooperated fully with Yushchenko, who is considered a pro-western politician, and Timoshenko, who has that same image. As you know, even when Ms Timoshenko found herself in jail, our position was quite clearly stated. I said and felt that it is unacceptable to use a policy of criminal prosecution in politics. Those developments were damaging for Russian-Ukrainian relations; we did not feel there was anything criminal in her signing gas contracts with Russia. Incidentally, her fellow party members, who were present when this contract was signed, including the current Energy Minister, Mr Prodan, for some reason today do not want to comply with the documents that they themselves signed, but that’s a separate issue. Let’s talk about demographics; there is a proposal on boosting the birth rate, which is interesting. Go ahead. I would also like to note that I took Putins statement on the Bolsheviks directly from the official transcript posted on Putins official site. BBC quoted in its article only its partial, cut-off segment.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:56:54 +0000
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