Precisely why Russian action against Saudi Arabia’s proxy militias of fanatics is against western interests is something which nobody in the western elite seems to believe it is necessary to explain. That Russia is bad and evil and must be opposed is another one of those axiomatic beliefs of the governing elite, which they can’t bring themselves to believe the public do not wholeheartedly share. Equally they cannot quite understand why we the people do not see the necessity of backing the Saudi regime.
I am a stern critic of Russia’s democratic deficit, human rights record, and gangster dominated economy and government. But on all these counts it is still a thousand times better than Saudi Arabia, and I am quite certain that 99% of Europeans would be happier living in St Petersburg than Riyadh.
If the Russians turn back CIA and Saudi-backed rebels I for one shall be delighted.
Russian activity in Syria is nothing whatsoever to do with NATO. The Syrian rebels under attack by Russia are not members of NATO. Russia is not attacking Turkey and there is no chance whatsoever that Russia would deliberately attack Turkey. So the suggestion of NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg that NATO will send forces to protect Southern Turkey is absolute madness. In the Iraq War, two of the United States “pinpoint accurate” cruise missiles aimed at Baghdad actually hit Syria. At some stage Russia is going to accidentally hit something in Turkey, it is the nature of war. It is like playing football in the garden – it is inevitable the ball will go over the neighbours’ fence at some stage, however careful you are.
Increasing the amount of military hardware in Turkey – which is already extremely militarised and already full of US forces – just increases the political temperature and chances of something going disastrously wrong, with no possible gain except making the stupid western countries who messed up the Middle East feel less envious of Putin.
NATO countries have caused the crisis in the Middle East through their disastrous and criminal invasions. Russia is not and could never be strong enough to launch an actual attack on western Europe even if Russia wanted to – which Russia most certainly does not. Just like Trident missiles, NATO was no use to the United States on 9/11 and is no use against any actual challenge we face in the world. It exists to perpetuate the dominance of a neo-con elite and ensure massive income to the arms industry.
NATO’s attempts to build up forces around Syria and around the Baltic show that NATO’s over-activity poses the only viable threat of a disastrous world war. Ask yourself this question. Why does the USA, a country which faces no risk of invasion from anybody, account for 44% of the military spending of the whole world? NATO exists solely for client states to assist the projection of US military power abroad. Every decent European should be campaigning for their country to leave NATO.
Beth
“Doesn’t China make the most TVs and laptops?”
You have very limited knowledge of China and its economy (as it is obvious from your obnoxious and somewhat racist comment).
Unlike 20 years ago when Chinese economy was based on putting together Sony and Panasonic TV for you (white and lazy customers in Europe and US) today’s China has developed a lot of its own and still doing it. Chinese government sponsor the largest number of scholarships for Chinese students to study at the best western universities. When they go back to China (and absolute majority go back) and despite corruption and everything else they are trusted the most vital jobs in every sector of Chinese economy. Today China is investing in future which it sponsors by being global workshop, but unlike 20 years ago when they had very little qualified resources, today more and more complicated manufacturing operations are based in China and in few years time their own inventions will take over imported knowhow. And unlike in Europe China has huge human recourses to develop its economy. While in the UK we are arguing about who will take care of tomorrow’s pensioners (whose number is increasing disproportionately) in China (despite poor environment) numbers of 20-40 is three times the size (per 50-70) comparing to the UK. When you think about 700 million people of working age, in the country which put technological development to its foremost important priority, you are not looking to backwards country. You are looking to a very well managed emerging economy. And this is despite one party system. Imagine what will happen when China gets rid of this Mao (f..king) spirit.
I have come to the ,possibly idiotic conclusion, that Russia resented what we now, have stark staring, crazed and dangerous proof of, CIA interference on its doorstep in Chechnya. And that the , possibly racist of me to say it, Zionist world bankers who constructed the financial banking base for China to build on, had sown the seeds of hate against the Muslim Uighers by telling them that the Uighers were terrorists and would rise against their power. After Syria we now know that almost all that ChrisJ linked to is now true in its crazed and dangerous totality.
It’s not that people have multiple personalities but the Zionists have been waging war by deceipt until even the experts are so crazed and dangerous they have become headless chickens. Not sure about the Tartars. Whay I do know is that my Chinese Muslim friend thought he was getting an Islamic education in Al Azhar University, but he was in fact indoctrinated by the CIA’s Muslim Brotherhood, poor thing. Wrong side of history. he should have stuck with China.
Attempts continue to give credibility to the lies.
The Iraq Body Count is a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1444379930.html
“The question of Russia returning to its force first policy was just a matter of time. Russia of today (similar to Russia since Peter the Great) is Empire.”
You’ve spoken some drivel over the years but this takes the biscuit. All the former Soviet states of Europe and many former spheres of influence, like Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary and the Czech Republic are no longer part of Russia. Russia did not even intervene militarily in the Ukraine civil war but worked towards finding a peaceful settlement. You’re totally losing it Uzbek. 🙂
Uzbek – just like to clarify that those are points on which I agree with you. It’s a huge jump from saying that Russia has every excuse to intervene in Syria to saying that NATO is unnecessary, or indeed that Russian imperialist ambitions can’t be seen as a threat to Europe, at least.
However, Craig’s point that we always seem to wind up serving the interests of the US rather than our own, also has merit for me, although, as the European project seems to be dead in the water, and there is no prospect of a co-ordinated military alliance on that basis, we’re stuck with the US.
Je (9.53pm) – Sorry, my summary wasn’t clear. The Yalta & Potsdam agreements carved Europe into spheres of influence, with Russia controlling eastern Europe and the US controlling western Europe, roughly reflecting where their forces had ended up when the Germans surrendered in WWII.
(When the CIA was created in 1947, its first target wasn’t eastern Europe – it was western Europe, bribing politicians and political parties in order to cement US influence and control there).
I agree that being controlled by another country isn’t freedom. In 1945, Britain controlled 74% of the oil resources in the Middle East, while the US controlled 24%. But the UK had been ruined and exhausted by two world wars and the US soon shoved Britain aside.
Russia did not even intervene militarily in the Ukraine civil war… lol…. apart from unilaterally annexing Crimea… but worked towards finding a peaceful settlement….…which would return Eastern Ukraine to Russian sphere-of-influence (at least).
Fixed. Back to Syria.
giyane
“Zionist world bankers who constructed the financial banking base for China to build on, had sown the seeds of hate against the Muslim Uighers by telling them that the Uighers were terrorists and would rise against their power.”
I think one before speaking something one needs to back up their claim but not in this case. If you read little bit of Chinese history (and it has VERY long history) you come across one of the most brutal suppression of Muslims (ever in history) taking place during Chinese expansions. No-one (not even Muslims of Jerusalem during Crusades) have experienced more brutality towards them than my very distant relatives. When Chinas expanded to the West (as it has done so many times with various degrees of success) it had killed Muslims with such hatred that even Crusaders would have been uncomfortable with. And this all happened when there was NOT a single western banker living in China. West itself (as we know it) did not exist.
Even by looking to the most recent page of Chinese history, one could see how Chinese Muslims allied themselves with Chiang and have been hard punished for this by Mao when he took China over.
There is certain degree of similarity between Chinese and Russian western expansion and treatment victims of such expansion receive.
Ba’al, all Russia did in Crimea was retain its naval base, wich it was not going to let loose to mass murderers like Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk and fulfil the will of the Crimean populace to be part of Russia rather than part of a failed state.
John Goss
Can you please remove your pink glasses before you respond to me? Otherwise your comments seem like very childish and not worthy of responding to.
I have told you many times that there are (especially in 21st century) many more sources of information rather than RT. But you (like your distant relatives) continue to claim that Bible (RT in your case) is the only true source of wisdom.
“Ba’al, all Russia did in Crimea was retain its naval base”
With the rest of the peninsula? Or does it come like bread and butter?
“mass murderers like Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk”
If you read Russian history carefully you could see that Putin killed MANY more people in Chechnya (and in Ukraine) than those “mass murderers”. DO NOT forget that Putin OKed Karimov’s butchering of thousands in Andijan (which in your article you solely blamed west for).
A breath of fresh air blogspot. The blatantly vile crass propaganda war is truly disheartening. It never ends decade after decade.
Someone made a comment about ’15 miles outside St Pete’. I wonder f that was a reference to the ramshackle buildings you are likely to see in the country. No doubt with people living in them, especially in the summer. I wonder if this is not the ‘dachas’ of ordinary people. who live in the city. these dachas
are rather common and quite different to those of the wealthy. They are more like allotments with a big glorified shed in them, made from various recycled building materials. These vary according to the owner’s diligence and energy and skills from quite neat and tidy to an utter shambles. I am not sure these are a true reflection of the economy,which i think someone was trying to suggest, although i am sure some of these will be occupied/squatted in by poor people or ‘immigrants’ from elsewhere in Russia, who are trading in the city in stuff like vegetables and may have stalls in street markets.
i am not an economist but i lived for quite a long time with a Russian women and I gained a little insight into the life of ordinary Russians, her family. I saw photos of the dacha often and it was just as described. the family loved going out there in the summer and it was indeed a bit rough in a ‘camping’ sort of way.
They grew vegetables and fruit and it was carried back to the apartment in St.Pete. It was not a sign of poverty but a weekend retreat and provided much in the way of entertainment and diversion and recreation and possibly even contributed to their family economy in terms of food. as for cabbage this was often fermented and salted into a kind of sauerkraut but actually much nicer.
Among many educated Russians , Putin is perceived as a crook. His early working life was a KGB officer. He worked in St. Pete and had responsibility to monitor student activities, which were sometimes viewed as ‘slightly subversive. In the early eighties there was a lot of what must have been seen as challenging behaviour by the authorities. essentially the soviet system of information was viewed entirely as fiction or a joke. On the TV it would be announced there had been a record harvest of wheat, which meant to anyone with a scrap of sense-‘get out to every shop and buy every bag of bread flour you can lay your hands on. There was a lot of black market trading and many people were dabbling in it. Clothes and food but also luxury goods, which were extremely difficult to get. One of my abiding impressions of many Russians i have met is that they are anxious to buy stuff immediately without hesitation which I always put down to the fact that they had grown up with scarcity of decent simple stuff like comfortable knickers or anything with a even little style or decent perfume that lasted longer than 15 minutes. People were extremely inventive in creating stylish or westernised styles
There was also a very active art scene with a trade in art and paintings by a group of artists who were operating and expressing themselves outside the traditionally approved limits. Most of these artists are approaching the end of their lives and the prices of this pre-glasnost material is likely to become valuable( if you can identify it-which is difficult for anyone who was not actually present at that time.
My impression f life in the Soviet era is that it was nowhere near as bad as was often reported I have the impression that the basics were provided for and was about the same as a working class estate in Scotland. about same amount of space, same quality of food( not too bad) ,shortages of stuff like fruit , and vegetable that were distinctly unimaginative( a lot of cabbage). there were some advantages such as copious hot water and heating in the apartments. (My memorY of Scottish council house life was that it was never warm except within a three feet radius of the open fire, and endless visits to the coal bunker in the dark).
I suppose the difference is that I would say that my family was at the lower end of the income range whereas that was about the norm for a greater proportion of the population in St. Pete.
one of the curiosities of the soviet economy is that it was so hopeless at creating consumer goods, but not too bad at huge or heavy engineering projects such as creating space programs, producing steel, tanks and military equipment etc.
One story I remember being told was that of the arrival of women’s winter coats, which were essentially not too bad if you were happy with the fact that the whole floor of a store had endless rows of the same coat-same size,same colour, same style . These would then have to be bought and taken home and adjusted to size, then have all the buttons sewn on properly, the hems properly stitched, and then some adjustments made to give the impression of individuality .(Belt made from scrap cloth etc.)
Anyway-cutting a long story short-the economy of Russia is lamentable-as Craig describes- their agricultural industries are not great at all in terms of production and reliability etc but somehow people muddle through by making allowances and doing a bit of black trading. This is obviously a residue of the Soviet era but is also a reflection of the difficulty that such activities pose for the Russians. It is not a high profit activity (although it is crucial to well being) so it is rather neglected . In the soviet era there was of course a great attempt to organise through centralised planing but this is quite hopeless in being reactive to a very dynamic market conditions or responding to changes in
technique or weather conditions. I have an impression that no attempt has been made to create conditions that would lead to a more efficient food production system – i.e. very little strategic management that would lead to better efficiency. The Putin oligarchy has failed to think strategically and have failed to diversify their economy which would be to the great advantage of the population. however they somehow have managed to retain some of the large scale project capacity and I suspect-concentrated research capacity – that the soviet era managed to create, and this gives them a little more clout than they might otherwise have from a casual analysis of the economic figures.
the other factor that dominates russian life is the petty corruption. i am sure there is high end corruption in this country mainly variants of insider trading but at least we live our lives without having to give a bribe to a host of petty officials just to get some piece of paper approved with a stamp. i.e. in a reasonable time. This lower level type of corruption is a huge imposition on the lives of ordinary people and is endemic. The value of a great deal of the things that people need is eroded substantially by this process. for instance the transfer of property. the value of the property may be halved by the bribes required for the transactions. I am not sure of the effect of this on the whole economy-I suspect it is a very considerable braking effect- but it is a source of huge frustration to many people.
Rather a sick comment from Anon1, but par for it’s course.
I was at a demo in London’s Victoria Street at G4S’s HQ yesterday; I’ve been at a number of demo’s at the same venue.
Organised by ‘Innovative Minds’ (www.inminds.com) G4S secures many Israeli prisons, including the one where Lena Jarboni was tortured for thirty days; sessions lasted for up to twenty hours at a time; deprived of sleep, she was made to stand stationary in stress positions – her joints have never recovered. Between sessions she was caged in a one metre by two metre cell. They brought her younger brother in and brutally tortured him in front of her to pressure her to confess. When she didn’t break, they released him and abducted her younger sister and tortured her, and then they dragged her elderly mother to the interrogation room and threatened to torture her. Her frail mother suffers from heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. To save her family Lena was forced to confess to the fabricated charges and was sentenced to 17 years in HaSharon prison. There is more, but enough.
Sure, Arabs just adore living under the diabolical Zionist jackboots.
“(When the CIA was created in 1947, its first target wasn’t eastern Europe – it was western Europe, bribing politicians and political parties in order to cement US influence and control there).”
I am not claiming that US is an angel, however; the alliance was and still is voluntary. You just need to remember Berlin Blockade and this alone played huge role in western people and elite minds to realise the forces there were facing against. Britain and France were broken, Germany divided and occupied. Russia has had the largest land military force and the largest number of tanks and half of Europe under its firm control. There was no force in Europe that could have stopped Russian expansion further and alliance with the US was the only sensible way in order to survive. Later when nuclear arms came into play it was too expensive and impossible for Europeans to match Russian arsenal and sticking with US was yet again the only sensible way.
Western Europe had benefitted a LOT from alliance with the US not at least for the money they have saved (by not spending them to match with Russian guns) and invested into civil economy instead. And you just need to look in two parts or Germany in 1990th to see how different those societies and economies were.
Ba’al Zevul
“wind up serving the interests of the US rather than our own”
Can you please clarify what do you mean by our own interests? Do you mean British or European? Because if it is former than I see hair thin difference of interests. Most of the British capital are invested in the US and US has huge investments in Britain. Despite EU being UKs largest trading partner per country we have more transactions with US than with any country in the world. And if you like me believe that those who run economy also run the country than you might accept that for the UK is equally important to defend US interests not at least because its investments (in the US) will bring some dividends.
@Fwl
“I don’t see how singing the national anthem at pop and rock concerts could be said to equate to high morale…brain washing yes.”
The youthful audiences love it and participate enthusiastically. They think it’s cool. That is of course a result of successful PR. The Russian brand has been marketed very well to the home youth market, including using music; and using religion, to the broader home market. Russia as a great power, led by a great leader. Morale is high. I have some difficulty understanding why you don’t think that’s what’s indicated. People don’t seem to me to be doing it for show, with gritted teeth, or because they’re scared of sanction if they don’t. Putin has an extremely high level of popular support.
Have a look at this Russian rock concert, for example.
Imagine “God Save the Queen” at Glastonbury.
See also here – this is a rock version of the national anthem, sung by the group Lubeh. It doesn’t show a concert, but it’s interesting what pictures and clips somebody chose for the video. This version gets a lot of Russian youngsters (and not so young people) going.
Some Russian pop music videos are very grandiose – showing aristocratic-style palatial country houses and so on. Looking back, it’s absurd to think the CIA and the US National Endowment for Democracy etc. have tried to use youth music against the Putin government. They haven’t got a chance. This is an example of how the west is at a disadvantage in the area of pysops – and there are others. Femen and Pussy Riot play well to the western market – for 5 minutes at least. In the Russian market, they’re little or nothing.
One issue I didn’t raise is the Putin brand itself. This too has been promoted using TV, video and music among other means. A big question is how important this is as a military asset. Bear in mind the electronic and cyber weapon advantage enjoyed by Russian forces, and it may well make sense for the Russian high command to want the war with NATO begun sooner rather than later.
Very good article, Craig, though still a bit too harsh on Putin for my taste.
I and many others have been saying virtually from day 1 that ISIS/ISIL/IS was a Western puppet organisation, set up, trained, paid and armed by the West and it’s ‘Friends’ in the area; also that the coalition has no intention or desire to stop it, as it is still following their orders and accomplishing the aims of the ‘Yinon Plan’. Two British planes, and at least one US helicopter, have been shot down whilst airdropping arms to IS (I can supply links about both cases and much more).
But to get to Russian airstrikes in Syria and cruise missiles in Iraq; they have done in days what the coalition failed to do (wasn’t trying to do, if the truth were told) in a year.
Now Iraq is said to be encouraging Russian airstrikes in Iraq.
That would really get up the noses of the US, because the last thing they want is for their proxy barbarian mercenaries to be effectively beaten (remember Reagan’s ‘Freedom Fighter’ ‘Contras in Nicaragua? I do; I spent three and a half months in Nicaragua during 1984, when the war was raging. The atrocities the Contra were inflicting on civilians was appalling).
A month of Russian airstrikes in Iraq would see the remnants of the bloody terrorist mercenaries disappearing even quicker than they appeared, back to the safety of Turkey from which most of them made their way, after going there for training, arming etc.
Here is a link to a short video clip (7 1/2 mins) of Putin speaking, and a link to the whole of his speech: do we in the West have anyone who speaks like this, who is open to questions from journalists and answers frankly like Putin?
Watch and read, before commenting, please!: ‘Putin: Who created ISIS?’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbZDyr2LkdI
‘Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club’:
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/46860
Ex-French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas is on record as saying that when he visited London in 2009, two years before the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ and armed insurrection kicked off in Syria, that Britain was going to overthrow Assad with the use of mercenaries.
In 2001, 4* General (Retd.) Wesley Clark, ex-Supreme Aliied Commander Europe, said he went to the Pentagon days after the 9/11 attacks to find out what the US was doing about it. He met and spoke to Rumsfeld briefly; on his way out, he was grabbed by a serving 3* General on the Joint Chiefs whom he knew, and told that the US was going to attack Iraq. Clark asked why, had the US linked him with the 9/11 attacks? The 3* General replied: ‘No, but we are going to attack Iraq’. Clark went home, and after the US started bombing Afghanistan, he went back to the Pentagon and asked the same 3* General if the US was still going to attack Iraq. The 3* General replied: ‘It’s worse than that: we are going to take out 7 governments in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran’.
Interestingly, in the MSM very recently I saw reports that Britain was sending troops to Somalia and Sudan! The 5 year timeline has obviously slipped, but not the ‘game plan’.
Paul Barbara; “Now Iraq is said to be encouraging Russian airstrikes in Iraq.”
Not just Iraq;
http://www.khaama.com/afghanistan-likely-to-receive-russias-support-in-fight-against-terrorism-3974
Perhaps some countries are also trying to use Russia to ease away the TLC attention of some Western “Allies” ?
Excellent post(the rhetorical volume in the opening paragraph, re the Russian state being ‘evil’, is a bit excessive, but not unexpected, given Craig’s Polonophilia)
Deepgreenpuddock- excellent observations about the lack of diversification in the Russian economy post glasnost, and the pervasiveness of low level corruption. Not having grown up in a Scottish council house I can’t vouch for your comparison of the relative comfort of living in one of these as opposed to a Russian apartment block- but I do recall watching ‘An Englishman Abroad’ over 30 years ago, and noting that a Glaswegian peripheral estate was utilised very convincingly as a stand in location for the dingy block where Burgess lived out his last days-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Englishman_Abroad
Uzbek IU has been more European, British and Yank than anyone of the indigenous dissenters, who are being lectured by him! One would expect for such an avowed supporter of the UK, et al he could bloody well learn the language instead of mutilating it; as in “pink glasses”!
First off, it is “rose tinted glasses” .
Second off, your congenital hatred of all thing Russian, disqualifies you to pass yourself up as an informed critic of Russia. As it has been so evident in the numerous pontifications you have plastered around this blog. If it rained ink you will find a reason for it in Russia and would inform the rest of us; it was Putin who ordered it!!!
Your understanding of the UK/US economics and the benefits thereof to the rest of the relevant populace is woefully inadequate and is only based on a feeling in your water, and the notion of; my enemies’, enemy is my friend.
Therefore before taking the high ground to open up the howitzers of indignation on John Goss perhaps it would serve you well to recognise that your hatreds and prejudices have pushed your intellectual marasmus to the extent that you can no longer make any sense to anyone other than yourself!
OldMark
Complete nonsense. It was filmed at Whitfield flats in Dundee. The Bolshoi was the Caird Hall. I was there.
Can you please clarify what do you mean by our own interests?… (Uzbek)
I mean either in the UK’s interest or in Europe’s. Whether it is true or not that the US effectively owns our economy (I would argue that as both our credit and debit accounts are smeared across a range of financial institutions spread globally which acknowledge no functional allegiance to any particular state, that would be a kindly view of the situation in practice)… whether true or not, we are unable to act independently, and that is not a good thing IMO. We have two alternatives, as a country. One is to accept globalisation, wages and standards of living falling to the lowest common global denominator consistent with adequate productivity, being ultimately dependent on stock-market gambling, and incidentally trashing the planet with ever-expanding consumption and habitat destruction. The forces of globalisation are so organised – or self-organised, if you will – as to resist attempts to change their modus operandi.
Or we can at least attempt to improve matters in the bit of the planet over which we can assert some control. Possibly an unattainable ideal, but not enhanced by being joined at the hip to a hegemonic, profligate, ecologically murderous, spendthrift like the USA – or for that matter Russia. We should be free to ally with good sense when we see it. We should not be acting as the US’s European shopfront and unsinkable aircraft carrier, when we are 20 miles from our natural partners, with whom we have difficulty even talking during times of mutual crisis.. We should certainly not be fighting US wars, or its’ proxies’ wars.
It’s allowable, I think to have the same attitude to the UK being effectively embedded in the US as to Uzbekistan being embedded in the USSR, though, obviously there are differences in scale…
…always a pleasure to exchange thoughts with you, anyway, Uzbek.
CM @ 8:22am
“Tony M
It was I that deleted your post, personally. …”
It wasn’t my post you deleted, it was a post by “Chris Jones” made at 1:17am.
I’d appreciate your acknowledging or correcting this.
Perhaps some good news. Saakashvilli will face a war-crimes tribunal in the Hague (hopefully). Like all criminals and oligarchs he may avoid this by emigrating with the stash of cash he has secreted, possibly to London, to join all the other criminals and oligarchs who do their business in the golden mile.
http://en.hunternews.ru/?p=2521
Not made at 1:17am, but immediately prior to his (still there) post at 1:17am. If you’re calling someone plainly racist, better to make sure you’ve got the right person.
” . . . who do their business in the golden mile.” Should read Square Mile (the Golden Mile being in Blackpool). Happy Days!
(deepgreenpuddock – can I encourage you to use paragraphs? Your lengthy above contribution looks well worth reading, but it’s hard to scan. Double carriage-return here creates a new para).
Old Mark
I was trying to point out that there is probably more in common with Russia and Russians than we might care to consider. Both russians and British have been brought up in a high volume propaganda environment. I remember very clearly being told at school and hearing through the them what passed as ‘media’ (no such word in those days), that the USSR was rather backward and did not have such things as the blessings of TV and the freedoms that we enjoyed in the west.
That may have been ‘true’ in one sense that the stuff was there in shops in big cities, but the overarching truth is that most working people had very few choices due to what was actually affordable. The fact that Russia did not produce decent fridges or perfume or other comforts was not important because most of the population could not afford them here anyway. In fact there was a lot of fiddling based around the shops in Russian cities where western luxuries were stocked and could be obtained if you had the money and contacts so not so different to here except maybe being slightly more straightforward .
As in Russia there were cheap alternatives to the real thing. As for food, it was little different,although in certain areas there was more choice and greater affluence. One of the reasons that many people are independence minded in Scotland is the sense that for a huge proportion of the population there was none of the affluence that was reported. i have an abiding impression of scotland being used as a handy source of labour for low level poorly paid jobs or as an exclusive recreational resource. Remember that there was a huge emigration loss in Scotland for decades . McMillan’s ‘never had it so good’ applied to particular segments of the population mainly in the home counties and the midlands. Outside most of these areas it was pretty poor. Poor quality housing and expensive. People remember the era of social housing as something ‘good’ but the reality was that about 25% of a typical net income went on rent.
(I got that from a very elderly friend i was visiting the other day). Now that is actually quite a lot. then there were the rates to pay. so about 40% of income went on the most basic expenses. Electricity was also very highly priced because the infrastructure was in effect being paid for at the front end of its creation.
Anyway quite poor and certainly not so different t the Soviet Union and its satellites.
I also read recently the memories of a Dutch filmmaker who made the film about Joy division and his shock at coming to the UK and seeing what a shitty hole it was in the industrial ‘north’ I actually had had the reverse experience of going to Denmark, West Germany, and Holland and East Germany, Poland and Sweden and being shocked that of all these countries the ones I recognised as most similar to most of Scotland was East Germany and Poland. Sweden at the time was amazingly affluent if slightly weird. Denmark was also impressive in many ways, although some of that may be accounted for by the absence of war damage. However West Germany was extremely vibrant and seemed very much preferable to the places I knew in Scotland.
However it is important that we understand that economics is not actually fully described by the kinds of numbers that are readily available such as GDP and productivity. There are too many essentially unquantifiable factors (or not practical to quantify). Economics is also quite ruthlessly propagandised fro all sides. That is why i am wary of accepting the more extreme posts about the wonders of Russia or the horrors of it. The truth is somewhere in the ‘between’ and we are not so far from that as we might like to think or are led to believe although in the general sense Craig is correct when he says that Russia could not sustain a long term commitment to warfare and in entering this arena, regardless of ‘good’ intentions or a a better analysis, are making themselves quite vulnerable. I think once the pressure starts to mount they will have no alternative but to pull in their horns and will settle for some kind of partition, with Assad much reduced but with a more cohesive group of his supporters.
I think Russia is trying to salvage whatever strategic advantage they can from this appalling humanitarian catastrophe.
Like all criminals and oligarchs he may avoid this by emigrating with the stash of cash he has secreted, possibly to London, to join all the other criminals and oligarchs who do their business in the golden mile.
Not all of them, John. Much as they’d like to….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10984566/Russian-oligarchs-shift-assets-out-of-London-as-sanctions-loom.html
Is Andrey Guryev a criminal oligarch yet or still a mate of Putin’s btw? So hard to keep track of those London Russians…
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/01/house-of-secrets