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Recent Posts Tagged With 'russian capitalism'
Smelly Russia
There is something uncanny about smells in Russia. Not just the musty vapors that arise from the unwashed or improperly deodorized metro rider next to you. Stink is just a fact of metropolitan life. It’s the supposed “good” s...
United Russia Deputy Murdered
Here’s a murder you probably won’t hear about in the Western press. Grigory Nosikov, 48, was found dead on Wednesday of stab wounds outside the gates of his house, which is located in the Naro-Fominsk district some 60 miles west of Mos...
Zyuganov on Lenin
Kagarlitsky: “Nationalize Everything!”
I rather like Boris Kagarlitsky. And his retelling of his recent appearance on a Russian political talk show makes me like him even more. Kagarlitsky was invited to participate as the “expert” in a discussion on the relationship betwee...
Za zdorov’e Gazprom!
Gazprom’s corporate anthem from Wired’s Danger Room. Nuff’ said....
Presidential Piggy Bank
A few weeks ago, Dmitry Medvedev announced that Russia’s top officials would reveal their incomes as part of an anti-corruption campaign. When I heard this I wondered whether that disclosure would include any of the money they’ve most l...
Leeching onto Success
If Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin’s warning last week that Russia’s recent economic bump will most likely be short lived got you down, don’t fret there are some economic spheres besides McDonald’s that are going strong...
Hungry for Back Pay
Unemployment in Russia has hit an estimated 6.4 million or 8.5, the Moscow Times reported on Friday. More dismissals are expected in April and government officials fear that joblessness might hit levels of the 1990s. Unemployment in that turbulen...
Thinking Privatization Allowed
Laurie Taylor briefly interviews the authors of the controversial Lancet article on BBC-4’s article on BBC-4’s Thinking Allowed. His discussion with Megan Comfort that follows on women who have boyfriends and husbands in prison is worth a listen ...
The Poverty of Russia’s Protests
Protests flared around the world last week in response to the global economic crisis. Last Thursday, a one day general strike of 2.5 million people brought France to a standstill. Wildcat strikes hit Britain as workers at two nuclear power plants p...
Economic Shock Therapy
The New Year has brought little economic cheer to Russia. The estimated number of unemployed has hit 6 million. Industrial output has fallen by 10.3 percent. Car imports in the Far East have dropped by 95 percent in response to new tariffs. The rubl...
The Private Killer
The British medical journal Lancet is no stranger to controversy. Many will remember how in 2004 and 2006 the journal published studies on Iraqi casualties resulting from the American invasion. Its estimate of 654,965 excess deaths related to the war...
Memorializing Market Bolshevism
David Woodruff gives a brutal assessment of Anders Aslund’s How Capitalism Was Built in the Jan/Feb 2009 issue of the New Left Review. It’s unfortunate that the review is only accessible to subscribers. Readers should know Aslund’...
Russian Unemployment Rising, Fast
Russian employment is growing fast, especially in Moscow. Mikhail Nagaitsev, the chairman of the Moscow Federation of Labor Unions, reported on Ekho Moskvy that during the holiday period the number of people registering for unemployment doubled. ...
In Lieu of an End of Year Rundown
The first thing on order is to wish everyone a happy New Year! I sincerely thank all of you for reading SRB over the last year and I hope you continue into the next. The news about Russia certainly promises to heat up in 2009 as the economy, by all...
Let the Russians Eat (and Serve) Big Macs!
Russia’s “oil-fired economic miracle is unraveling,” the protests over the car tax is being hailed as a sign of “broad discontent,” unemployment grows by 400,000 in November with an extra 70,000 this past week alone, Rus...
Russia’s Protest Armageddon Averted
The barrage of mass protest fired in Russia’s far east ten days ago echoed with a whimper as opponents of the import car tax hike staged actions across Russia. Today’s protests lacked the manpower of the previous ones, and in Vladivostok,...
Russia’s Far East says: “No New Taxes!”
In Russia, December 14 is remembered as the day of the Decembrist Uprising of 1825, but today’s dissenters are marking it as a annual day of protest. While most international reporting has focused on the arrests of some 90 demonstrators at th...
God’s Army
Here’s a new one. The Moscow Patriarch announced that it plans to create an “Orthodox People’s Militia” under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Church. The militia, according to Father Vsevolod Chaplin, will be Small grou...
Russia’s Average Joe No Longer Spared
Oil drops below $50 a barrel. The global auto industry slashes jobs in France, Thailand, Japan, and the United States. The world’s investors look for a safe haven to run to but none is to be found. Perhaps it’s time to stop referring to...
Russian Unionists and Activists Attacked
As American automakers prepare to lobby the US government for their share of the $700 billion rescue corporate redistribution fund, GM, who is heading the effort, opened a new $300 million factory in Russia “to compensate for slumping sales in ...
Russians and their Money
Richard Wolff “Capitalism Hits the Fan, A Marxian View”
Dima Medvedev, Vblogger
Will the Russian Economic Crisis Create a Political One?
Livin’ on the Russian Poverty Line
Who is leading the tandem dance? Is it Medvedev’s or Putin’s turn this week? The answer to who is at top in Kremlin Inc. is superfluous to those who live at Russia’s poverty line. Like in most places, the little guy is mostly a c...
“Natural-Resource Curse”?
Is oil a boon or a blessing? When it comes to Russia, more and more analysis are seeing it as the former. As Konstantin Sonin argues, the “natural-resource curse” is now a favorite among those who seek to explain Russia’s skewed tr...
“Most Russians do not love Putin per se, but they love Putin’s Russia.”
Russian Election Day has come and gone. Finally. Nevertheless, the mandarins of the American media are dutifully filling column inches with reports about Russia. Sadly, like most reporting on the Slavic nation, one you read one, you’ve pretty...
Monetary Middle Class
The Russian “middle class” remains an elusive and rather unclear category. It’s an entity that is recognized, but what exactly are its contours is rarely clearly defined. Kommersant has fitted one piece into the Russian middle cla...
