18:55
I like how Putin clarified that Soviet Ukrainianization and indigenization of other areas of the USSR was not a bad policy in principle, makes it seem less anti-communist than his February 24, 2022 speech where he just says Lenin created Ukraine. This time he's close to the Russian leftist view, that it was the nationalists that divided Russia and the Soviets reunited and stabilized the country.
Halfway through, I didn't notice any new interesting information. For anybody who has been paying any attention, his positions are the same as always (maybe a bit clearer on the origins of Ukraine), but now being broadcasted to millions of Statesian reactionaries.
I think the content is far less important than the impact this is going to have on the Republicam base's position on the war. We might have a gosh darn "anti-war republican campaign" this year.
But it was very "interesting" to see Putin trying to explain to Tucker Carlson of all people that Nazis are still around and denazification is important.
Live editing if interesting things catch my eye.
Edit 1: at around 1:09:00 Carlson asks him whether is there any truth of him having ambitions to conquer all of the continent. And Putin replies in the clearest way possible, with live translation, in one of the most warched interviews of the year that: no, that'd be dumb, it's just US military propaganda to get more budget.
Again, nothing new for anybody paying attention, but could do a nice agitation video for tiktok/shorts if anybody here is good with that.
Edit 2: if you want to die from blood alcohol, take a shot every time Putin mentions interactions with other important figures, but adds something like "I'll not give any details".
A new thing was him talking about the entire left bank of the Dneiper being historically Russian, this includes Poltava, Chernihiv, Sumy and Kiev in the north. Recently before this he was talking about creating a buffer zone to prevent Ukrainian attacks on Russian cities.
Show
I've only seen snippets for now, haven't found the time to watch the whole clownshow, but where in heck are you seeing even a hint of "leftism" anywhere in that? It's just a continued shitting on USSR, on Lenin and hints of nationalism
He said that it was a good idea in principle to promote the indigenous languages and culture of the Soviet Republics (Ukrainianization) around 18:55. Im not saying he's a leftist, just that he's abandoned the vocal anti-communism.
KPRF critiqued his speech of February 2022 saying that it was Lenin who united the territories of the empire which were divided by local nationalists. What he said is similar and clarifies whether he believes Lenin made a mistake in shaping Ukraine vs just how things played out in the long run.
He said this time that the Soviet Union lived as a unified state with harmony between Russians and Ukrainians and the fault lied to the governments of Yeltsin, Gorbachev and himself for tearing off Ukraine from this shared space.
He's somewhat right about Lenin though, Lenin pushed very hard for Ukraine, way harder than for any other nation in Russia. His reasons were acceptable at the point, but it backfired hard after 1991.
Real talk what y'all think of this? Someone do us a favor and watch a fat chunk and get back to us (it might be me)
Putin is a clever, intelligent person. He know who Tucker's audience is, he knows he's not speaking to some vast movement of communists in the west but to isolationist reactionaries, paleoconservatives, etc and he's tailored his messaging for this. It's not that different from his own base of traditionalist reactionary conservatives in Russia so it's not that hard.
Putin is not a communist and even if he were, his job in an interview like this would not be best served by defending the image of the USSR. I did find it interesting he mentioned at one point in his historical monologue at the start (first 30 minutes) how he'd looked in the Soviet archives and found the communist party was sincere and honest in its approach to other nations in the period around the Great Patriotic War (WW2). He omits bothering to speculate (or chooses not to for the sake of his audience) on motives of the USSR multiple times, simply putting it down as Lenin did this for reasons and Stalin did this for reasons and so on.
It is interesting as he mentions Stalin he says claims of crimes under him rather than just straight up saying crimes but there is something to be said that Stalin is very popular in Russia even today and bad-mouthing him, even in a foreign media press may go against ingrained instincts he's since developed. Still, more fair to Stalin than just about anyone in the west could be.
As to the OP mentioning, "I like how Putin clarified that Soviet Ukrainianization and indigenization of other areas of the USSR was not a bad policy in principle" I think this is best read as reactionary nationalist stuff. Basically that people of a culture should stick together, that there's a duty to blood there, to preserving culture, to a commonality. You hear the same stuff from many reactionary thinkers.
Edit: At about 38 minutes mark Tucker asks Putin about how US presidents seemed to be open to something then after talking to their cabinets and CIA, changed their tune, Tucker asking if this means basically that the elected US presidents aren't really running the show (deep state narrative) and Putin agrees cautiously with this and then moves on.
Edit2: At 1hour, 23minutes he tells Tucker that it is to his own detriment (US detriment) that they are limiting cooperation with China.
Edit3 At around 1h 32minutes Putin mentions a hypothesis that power centers/think tanks that specialized on the Soviet Union after it's break-up continued their jobs, he mentions specifically their desire to engineer the break-up of Russia and subjugation of its component pieces in order to use their resources against China.
Also just to get back to the very start of the interview, he tells Tucker he's going to give some background and tells him it will take a minute, 90 seconds and proceeds to talk about it for half an hour, lmao. I guess it is nice they didn't cut that.
As to the OP mentioning, “I like how Putin clarified that Soviet Ukrainianization and indigenization of other areas of the USSR was not a bad policy in principle” I think this is best read as reactionary nationalist stuff. Basically that people of a culture should stick together, that there’s a duty to blood there, to preserving culture, to a commonality. You hear the same stuff from many reactionary thinkers.
How is it reactionary and nationalist to have a shared Belarussian, Ukrainian and Russian space where each national identity flourishes but is also interconnected? If Putin wants to live in harmony with Belarus or pre-maidan and to some extent post-maidan Ukraine instead of devouring them, where's the issue?
In the interview he also admitted the superiority of China and it's economy to Russia. He said that Russia is not much of a threat to US hegemony but China is. Having a population of 1.4B to Russia's 140m and growing at 5%, having the largest economy.
There's no issue in that instance but he doesn't approach it from a Marxist point of view clearly. It's good he didn't shit on the USSR there yes but we shouldn't misunderstand what type of a person he is and his political philosophy. He started his political life very naive and to some extent he still is compared to even your average poster here who understands deeply the irredeemable and uncompromising nature of the white supremacist capitalist west and it's imperialist system and how it cannot be reasoned with, bargained, with and under what principles it operates and what it operates in service to.
I was just stating how I think he views it and is trying to sell it and probably how Tucker perceives it.
Oh alr nice, I see how it fits in the broader context of your post.
