> >Masochism seems like an appropriate psychological accompaniment for
> >the transition from communism to capitalism in Russia and the
> >Ukraine. The citizens are being screwed so best that they like it
> >and continue under the whip of the oligarchs, and receive
> >shock-treatment by following the policies of western neo-liberal
> >advisers et al..
couple of points (and thanks, Yoshie, for this thread): (a) Ken Hanly is presumably
being ironic: I never met a single Soviet person who got pleasure from being
deprived of job, housing, health, social security and who now suffers malnutrition,
sickness, family breakdown and the loss of basic services including communal heating
(very important) public transport etc, and who is now stranger in his/her own
country, allowed to remain on sufferance but preferred to die soon and with no fuss.
As for Judith Butler, whatever the relative merits of her work as social theory, (I
have no idea), it has scant bearing on the felt experiences and concrete day to day
lives of people in eastern Europe (the broad masses, not the super-elite and their
thin cohorts of semi-westernised dollar-earning 'professional' servitors). Peope are
not resigned, do not need to be resignified (are we object which bear lables, like
Winnie the Pooh?) and are not attached to their subjection. Their problem is like
ours: TINA. For 75 years there was an alternatived,. now there is not.
Read the latest UNDP figures comparing living standards, HDP, GDP indices etc and
see the dismal story of what happened throughout the socialist world after 1989 with
the solitary and blindingly significant exception of Cuba (it's at:
http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base/
> Those who seek to become the tribune of the oppressed in Russia (&
> the periphery in general) have a difficult task cut out for them: to
> represent the interests of women at the same time as to champion
> residents of small towns & rural regions in practice.
>
I think you can go further and make a distinction between Moscow/St Peterburg and
Everywhere Else. Moscow is a sump into which, after 1993, flowed everying that could
be turned into liquid assets from the accumulation-effort of 75 years of socialism.
The sump drains into the smooth and silent laundries of Zurich, New York and London,
and subsidiary centres: Cyprus, Bahamas etc. From there this huge flow of value,
equivalent in fertilising effect to the flow of gold and silver plundered from the
America after the 16th century, became anonymous investment capital. As they say,
money doesn't have to wash its face.
I think the experience of the 1998 financial crash showed that as soon as (ie within
24 hours) the chokehold of finance capital comes of the Russian windpipe -- because
of some financial emergency or Wall St meltdown: there is immediate political
galvanising effect in Russia. We shall see. They haven't managed to bury Lenin yet,
they are afraid to, and for the good reason.
Mark
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