Why authoritarian rule is not Russia’s history — or destiny

WaPo ^ | Daniel Rowland

[NorseViking]

Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett, Lexington Herald-Leader, Nov. 29, 2017. (Reprinted with the permission of Joel Pett) Is this the real Russia? In this editorial cartoon, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Joel Pett draws on what is probably the most common stereotype of Russian political culture: that Russia was, is now and always will be authoritarian, even dictatorial.

Note that Pett signals this by drawing the domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square, built by Ivan the Terrible in the middle of the 16th century. But recent research shows that the czar’s power was more limited, and the nobility’s power greater, than traditional stereotypes would have us believe. This is no dry-as-dust historical controversy but an intense conversation going on now in 21st-century Russia.

[SES1066]

Perhaps this is opinion presented as contra-factual history? The facts are that Russia / Soviet Union has been, at best, an oligarchy, if not an out-right tyranny, for centuries.

WaPo’s continuing effort to normalize Statism!

[Jimmy Valentine]

600 years of rule by the Romanov dynasty would seem to counter that position.

[joshua c]

I would like to see the cartoon but I refuse to click on a Left Media Cartel link.

[goldstategop]

In Russia, the great debate has always been between Westernizers and Slavophiles.

Russians see themselves as unique, a world apart from Europe, with their own history, culture, values and concept of statehood.

Putin is probably the best ruler in Russian history. He will win re-election later this months because he knows what Russians are looking for and what they want.

Its not Communism and not Western democracy. Its a Third Path. How that ends up defining them and their future, time will tell.

Russia is still world’s great enigma.

[MAGAthon]

WaPo trying to influence the Russian election? same as BBC and most of the rest of the FakeNewsMSM.

[Roman_War_Criminal]

When has Russia not been ruled by Authoritarians?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Russia has always been a suspicious, envious, covetous nation.
Individual Rooskies have never had the right to think freely or act in their own interest.

[Mister Da]

Is Peter Pan running the Post now?

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Its not Communism and not Western democracy. Its a Third Path. How that ends up defining them and their future, time will tell."

It's called oligarchy and if Putin could pull it off, I suspect it would go back to communism. It's pretty much what they had before communism with the Romanov dynasty. The only difference is that the Romanovs had no beef with America and didn't treat us as their rival. They believed their rivals were the great powers of Western and Central Europe...

[Oratam]

"The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichians and the Ves then said to the people of the Rus, 'Our land is great, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us.'"

The Russian Primary Chronicle (1113)

[Wuli]

Funny isn’t it that the Washington compost comes up with an editorial that is trying to white wash Russian history as an autocratic state (which it is now, was through the Soviets and going all the back to the Czars), and at the same time put Russia together with the U.S. as similar in that both are “exceptions” to ......... “western Europe”.

The author deals entirely at the periphery and ignores that whether an autocratic self-ruling emperor, or a self-appointed oligarchy, it is still to the largest percentage of the population an autocratic state and not one they have much means at all of shaping or escaping from should they cross the ruler or the oligarchs behind the ruler.

That psyche has not changed in the mass of the common Russian for centuries. They put up with the Czars and the Soviet Czars and they will put up with Putin and whomever the oligarchs pick as his successor.

Mark China the same; a political culture that has not changed in true material ways (in name only) since the ancient Chinese emperors. What the current leader of China is doing to be sure he is the next Mao is not out of the norm for China; it is hundreds and hundreds of years old.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

In the good old days when it took weeks to travel across the USSR, peasants who lived far from the tzar might have had more freedom, just as was the case in China.

However, with advances in communication, travel, policing, monitoring, etc. there is no place to hide from an oligarchic regime.

[sciencewriter86]

A few days ago I Googled Russian church music and chants.

I’ve always admired Russian music and folk songs, especially that performed world wide by the Red Army Chorus. When I saw and heard Russian Orthodox music and chants I began to understand how and why Russian music is so good.

Take some time to see and hear Russian church music. Watch and hear their religious rituals. You will find Russia is very different from what the MSM and our politicians say it is.

Do this, and come to your own conclusions.

As to Russian thinking and politics you will find it based on their church and the religion it espouses.

Do it, then give us your thoughts.

And in parting, read what the Moscow Patriarch says about the Western religious decline. I think he’s largely correct, and we in the Christian West have to correct what cultural Marxism has done to us through abusing our religion.

[rmlew]

When has Russia not been ruled by Authoritarians?
The those in the Novgorod Republic come to mind. Sadly, Russia coalesced around its rival Muscovy, largely because the Muscovite's were tax collectors and collaborators for the Mongols and bribed the other cities, until it controlled the food supply to Novgorod

[Roman_War_Criminal]

Interesting...
Never heard of that Republic. Thanks.