Michael wrote:
>I just screwed up and sent the message subbing Boris Kagarlitsky to the
>list. I was hoping that we could get some intelligent discussion going
>concerning what is happening in Russia. Maybe one of you would like to
>take the opportunity to start the ball rolling.
Okay, the big question that has been raging on and off on the Marxism list
is whether Putin represents some kind of nationalist opposition to
imperialist plunder of Russia. The comrades who argue this position tended
to identify strongly with the outlook of people like Michel Chussodovsky
and Diana Johnstone on the war in Kosovo. Milosevic, willy-nilly, was seen
as defending Titoist type social institutions. So when Yeltsin gave verbal
support to the Serbs as fellow Slavs, there was a tendency to see a new
anti-imperialist alignment. The shadowy think-tank Stratfor also made this
analysis and threw China into the mix. Some of this seems plausible in
light of the Nato bombing of the Chinese embassy.
However, I believe that Putin is not an anti-imperialist by any stretch of
the imagination. Alex Cockburn alluded to some agreement made between the
US and Yeltsin that in exchange for easing up on opposition to Nato
bombing, the west would allow the Russians to go in and give the same kind
of medicine to the Chechens. I asked Jeff St. Clair, Cockburn's partner, if
he could furnish some kind of documentation on this, but he couldn't. At
any rate, I found your analysis of the Chechen war most useful and look
forward to your participation on PEN-L.
Louis Proyect
The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
