Are the libs right when they call Russia an authoritarian dictatorship? I know there have been political assassinations and other such things, but that's not special to Russia. Are the libs just overreacting or am i overcorrecting myself?
No, Russia is like the US - controlled by oligarchic factions.
In fact, Russia is just what the US will become in 10 years if Republicans continue to rule the country: neoliberal, socially reactionary and borderline fascist.
So the US is not already neoliberal, socially reactionary and borderline fascist?
I thought it was the other way around. The US is the future of Russia, assuming no major changes in the global order.
In terms of anti-LGBT and other anti-progressive rights, Russia is way ahead of the US. Not even comparable.
That's probably fair. I was thinking that the US is ahead of Russia in regards to erasing any class consciousness in their population.
Because Russia is on the outskirts of the empire, while the US is the empire.
Liberal political scientists would call it an illiberal or managed democracy - substantially oligarchic or authoritarian, but maintaining the forms of democracy. The democratic forms legitimate the government but don't significantly affect policy.
I think that's accurate, but they tend to ignore how accurately the same framework describes the US as well.
Russia is an interesting case in the "democracy vs authoritarian" liberal doxa. The US more or less created the constitution of the Russian federation, so in terms of how the system works, liberals were supposed to say that Russia is democratic. However, since Putin made his anti-west turn, they just have to call him authoritarian, because liberals can't antagonise a country if it is "democratic".
But yeah in Marxist terms, it's a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie that plays tougher than imperial core ones
No, but it's not uniquely dictatorial either. It's a very similar setup to the US, where your vote doesn't really mean anything because a small circle of the rich elite decide everything that happens. If anything, it seems like Russians care more about violence against Putin's political enemies because it is at a talking point in Russian politics. Americans watch anyone who could be a threat to the American elite get imprisoned and killed and forced into poverty or hiding and don't give a shit
The mentalities of the people are very different between Russia and the US.
If you ask any Russian how would they feel if the Soviet Union were to come back tomorrow, at least half of them would be fine with it. They may not love it, but they’d be OK with it. You’d be hard pressed to find one out of ten Americans who would even entertain the idea of a Soviet America. They’d rather have fascism than having the thought of becoming a “commie”.
It is as democratic as any other liberal democracy, they are just more blatant with their corruption
I don't know if that is true. I think we are just as blatant and we are just like rascist about it when they do it
Yes, it is basically the same as the US. They have material interests that diverge from ours so we hate them. They might also not like us because they don't trust us. However I don't think that would hold up if we just bought them out. I think that just by accident of not likening us they do good work sometimes, however I think they are basically a fully modern neoliberal democracy.
Wtf does "democratic" mean anyway, the deeper I look into it the more I want to just give up on it
Are the libs right
No.
We're still right because we never claimed it was a democratic, AES state. Leftists have always identified it as a reactionary liberal bourgeois state, at best.
