Edit: I didn’t post the following quotes to say he’s a communist. He’s pivoting to centre-left positions with his rhetoric and 6 year plan. He called for reducing poverty by 2% in 6 years and for progressive taxation on the rich.
The true elite are all those serving Russia. Workers and soldiers, reliable, trustable, who have proven their devotion to Russia, the worthy people.
“The very word ‘elite’ has largely been discredited by those who, having no merit to society, consider themselves to be some kind of a caste with special rights and privileges. I specifically mean those who, in previous years, filled their pockets through all sorts of processes in the economy of the 1990s. Those are definitely not the elite,” the president said.
I just want to make it clear that if anybody thinks Putin will put Russia “on the road to communism” you are a reformist and to be consistent you should push Biden left and vote Blue.
It’s a ridiculous idea. The ruling class does not suddenly have a change of heart. They give concessions to stay in power.
I may or may not make a separate post about discussing this video, but this stream by Garland Nixon just ended (relistening from the start to gather what I missed, now- I entered the stream probably 20-30 minutes in) and covers a great deal regarding this speech.
Here’s it timestamped, specifically where they started talking about Putin’s speech- https://www.youtube.com/live/lRRwnHUi7Uc?si=uJY71CjE5MawuEf4&t=1785
I’ve been watching quite a few YTers/analysts/etc out of personal interest, to see how the war is going, and to see the economic and political changes coming from it- and I feel that from a socialist perspective, it covers the topic of this speech and how it relates to the changes currently underway in Russia particularly well.
Is Putin a communist? Of course not- and it would be wholly incorrect to see Russia’s present system as similar to China’s “socialist market economy”- there is no dictatorship of the proletariat, as far as I know (I wouldn’t know, though I’m open to learning) what organization of labor existed evaporated after the Soviet dissolution, and while Putin has curbed the excesses of the “oligarch era” and shock therapy, the oligarchs (Putin included to my understanding- though I’m no scholar) retain significant influence (albeit somewhat neutered in comparison to the state in recent years due to the western sanctions, funnily enough) and the society at large remains liberal- if retaining some solid foundations from the Soviet era, for instance in regards to the state of public housing, education, healthcare, etc.
But seeing this speech just dismissed altogether in this thread left a bad taste in my mouth- because while talk is cheap, and this is primarily talk, what I’ve seen mentioned and described in blips here and there in channels I watch- not all socialist or even leftist- (the Duran, the New Atlas, Danny Haiphong, Sean Foo, Dialogue Works, Neutrality Studies, Gita Wirjawan, Geopolitical Economy Report etc. come to mind) did seem to combine together to describe some very meaningful, and distinctive changes underway. Not due to ideological reasons on Putin and Russia’s part- but due to pragmatic reasons.
It has been in Russia’s state interests (frankly, like it would be anywhere else) to curtail the influence of the oligarchs, for instance- and that is presently underway. It has been in Russia’s interests to keep its indigenous arms industry under state control, similarly- and this is why they are outproducing the entire west. As western capital and goods have receded from Russia in the wake of sanctions and worse- naturally, there has been a revitalization- with state backing- of the industries that existed in Russia prior to shock therapy and which had been neglected under neoliberal looting. As a state now under siege from the global imperialist order, it has also been in Russia’s interests to rally the people around the flag through providing tangible material benefits, from infrastructural development, social welfare programs (as announced also in this speech), etc… these are not the actions of a socialist state, perhaps, but they are the actions of a capitalist (or perhaps more accurately- nationalist capitalist- rather than comprador capitalist) society reverting to the imitation of tried-and-true Soviet methods of surviving, prospering, industrializing (or re-industrializing), and building a healthy, unified, anti-imperialist foundation for the population.
None of this is insignificant, though I expect that, with no proletarian rule, the necessity of revolution still exists and will rear its head sooner or later. And of course, I believe that we should wholeheartedly support these changes, for anti-imperialism’s sake and the development of multipolarity and revitalization of another economic core from which peaceful Eurasian economic integration will bloom.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
ah yes, the “true elite” will be hardworking patriotic troops and cops, not the decadent rootless cosmopolitans. such worker, very proletariat.
Even calling this “socdem” is rube shit. this is totally standard socially conservative liberalism. Recognizing the progressive role Russia plays in the current imperial world system shouldn’t excuse wishful thinking about the administration’s domestic politics. Nobody would credit Mitt Romney with a “center left pivot” for saying he prefers a “fair and simple” tax system in which “higher-income individuals pay a higher rate than lower-income individuals”.
Officers doesn’t mean cops, military officers. 1M Patriotic Russians participated in the SMO, a lot of whom are ordinary workers with simple lives before the war.
This was also the system in the Soviet Union where front line soilders occupied key managment positions after the great patriotic war.
The Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union. This is ordinary bourgeois nationalism from the leader of a committed liberal anticommunist party. An insistence on reading secret revolutionary character into ordinary conservative rhetoric comes across as fantastical at best. “Nation, troops, family, flag!” doesn’t mean something different here than it does coming out of Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, or any other head of state since the advent of liberal democracy.
What is the purpose of this comm if complete BS propaganda is posted here?
@FamousPlan101@lemmygrad.ml, thank you for editing your post to add context/analysis. Without it, I worry people coming here from other Lemmy instances might get the wrong idea.
Not sure the difference between propaganda and BS propaganda, but I would hope my comrades could post anything here because we should be able to critically analyze any propaganda from any source.
What’s the point of this community if we blindly parrot anti-russia talking points that everyone to the right of us already says?
Lying