I am right now visiting my motherland, haven’t been here for a while. I talked with some of my friends/pals and we came to one interesting conversation. Somehow Russian population seems to have no interest in politics of their country and USSR has some part to play in the problem. In the USSR involvement in the politics by an average citizen was low compared to other countries, some just blindly trusted their leaders, while some were just not interested in politics. Those who blindly trusted their leaders were so sure that no one in the party would fumble something, that they simply became also not interested in the politics. In result we now have a population of people letting a guy to rule for 20+ years, basically allowing the same guy to hold power after the fall of USSR. In turn we now have a population whose interest in politics higher than the “that candidate bad cause he is X” is practically non existent. We as Russians should be blamed for our politic inactivity. While Americans are playing the two faced-same coin politics, they at least have something to choose and discuss. While Russians have only one faced plane of United Russia that holds the majority for whatever the fuck amount of time passed since it’s inception in the 90s(I guess??)
Yeah this is low quality rant from me while I was standing in a line for a museum. So please say if I am wrong in some parts. Which am probably am. I will be thankful and also interested in your replies.
I hope you’re not visiting from America, because it sounds like typical US rhetoric when you say “letting a guy [rule] for 20+ years”, and comparing it to dogshit American elections.
Of course not, I was born in Siberia and since 4 have never lived long in the country. I mostly spent my time growing up in China and now live in Spain. But the US is a hell hole that I don’t have much enthusiasm to travel to.
Sad to hear that you’ve been around a few countries and still think American elections are better.
Never lived in the country for long periods of time since 4.
“We as Russians…”
Makes conclusions based on personal experience as if it’s statistically relevant.
You’re right, this is a low quality post.
Edit: right, about the main point. Yes, CPSU did make a mistake of allowing the high level administrators detach from the workers instead of having something like what WPK practices with people on SPA having actual jobs in between sessions (whether it was an honest mistake is another matter). No, Russians aren’t “allowing the same guy to rule” out of apathy. Have you considered that, le gasp, Putin is the best game in town, considering the only other people close to power are even more liberal than him and definitely more pro-western? Not to mention that “letting” is a curious choice of words. Do you believe it’s always in people’s power to just overthrow a government? I’m afraid it needs to be a fair bit more unstable than it is for that to have any positive results. AND THEN we get to the political climate outside the country and inevitable interventions if people activly destabilize the place from within, which is obvious these days even for Russians that have been living under a proverbial rock.
Thanks for the critique! I agree with you on the part about Putin being the most adequate choice on town. But it still shouldn’t be taken as the normality. I think that my country could grow immensely if it had more candidates that were presentable. I simply dream of some change and of better future for Russia. I of course am against all the pro western guys now, and quite ashamed of supporting Navalny in the past. I am saying honestly that I am not very smart in the region of Russian politics as my time spent outside of the country and far away from political concepts make my ideas skewed or outdated. I really should invest some time in investigating the political ecosystem of Russia. Summarizing, I think Russia should focus on healing the political landscape and introduce some competition between the parties. United Russia is holding a big part of the gos duma and if a new more left leaning player would enter the landscape it would add more choice. Now I should invest some time reading about the politics in Russia and catch up on the recent events. Thanks again for your critique and i would love to hear from you again.
I think that my country could grow immensely if it had more candidates that were presentable.
Do I smell electoralism? More importantly, that sounds like a great climate for color “revolutions” these days. I sure don’t want pro-western capital having any more voices in Duma than it already has. Also, UR itself has plenty of cucks that want to keep trading with the West already, and if it starts falling off, it’s better if other libs are still nowhere near power thanks to UR and CPRF is still number 2.
I think Russia should focus on healing the political landscape and introduce some competition between the parties
Not to the detriment of the war effort it shouldn’t. Also, see previous point.
I think your critcism is valid. I do think the USSR had political rot, that’s why it collapsed. Whether it was the citizens not being properly motivated to participate in politics or some other rot, I don’t feel educated enough to comment on.
As far as “free speech” and our “open elections goes”, you seem to long for them anyways? It’s kinda weird, like we don’t actually get to discuss them, if we advocate for actual change and get popular enough we get arrested/assassinated, and the ruling class decides who gets to be the candidates for us to elect. It’s really not any different
When I was saying about that, is the small but somewhat existent choice of racists and past racists. It is not significant in the bigger picture but at least imposes a view of a politically involved country.
Except we aren’t politically involved, only 66.8% of eligible voters voted in the 2020 elections (highest ever btw, and only because of COVID and how easy they made it to mail in votes). Our participation rate in elections other than presidential are way way way lower
While Americans are playing the two faced-same coin politics, they at least have something to choose and discuss.
Is that actually better?
Yeah, there’s furious debate about the small differences between the two parties, but the political discussion outside of those two narrow visions is still extremely limited. People who are motivated to care about and participate in politics are mostly kept within the confines of two bourgeois parties (capitalism liteTM and capitalism deluxeTM) so outsiders are either recouperated into the two parties, ignored when possible, or killed when not.
You’re almost there man. Let me take you another step.
When people have no personal investment in the systems and institutions they live under, they detatch. If that goes on long enough, it becomes cultural.
Oh how I love these “Russians are cultural/genetic slaves” takes…
What do you love about them?
Is that an admission?
Nope. I never said the word slavery. Is that how you’d characterize life in a communist state?
