Russia: Nashi Plans To Distribute Fliers
December 03, 2007 13 46 GMTThe Russian pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi is planning to distribute fliers Dec. 3 that accuse the United States of plotting to incite ”thieves and traitors” across Russia to revolt, the group’s organizers said Dec. 2. The leaders added that they are mobilizing against the threat of a Western-inspired rebellion in the wake of the parliamentary victory of President Vladimir Putin’s party. Rebels allegedly will attempt to seize squares and buildings before Dec. 6, when the official election results are expected to be announced.
Nashi is a huge youth organization with over 100,000 members. They are completely owned by the Kremlin, and when they do nationwide mobilizations like this, (Stratfor seems to think that) something significant is going on.
There are certainly many extremely rich Russians who would love to see Putin killed, but their popular support is vanishingly small.
If 100, 000 members of Nashi is not owned by the Kremlin, they will be owned by something/someone else. There’s a highly agitated segment in each society (Students for instance) that could be, with the right effort, influenced to achieve whatever political goals are necessary. It’s a vacuum that needs to be filled. Putin is pursuing the right strategy using youth groups like this.
Alex: I completely agree, and while Putin might be a gangster in our part of the world, I think he has done a masterful job. I was speaking more from a standpoint of, “What would happen if somebody actually did try to set off some bombs and destabilize the Putin regime?”
The downside of accumulating as much power as quickly as Putin has is that it has forced Putin to concentrate power among an extremely small circle of people, so a couple of breaks in the circle–2 very well placed and well timed assassinations for instance–would erupt the peace among Russian elites.
Remember that there is an entire subculture of exiled Russians who would be more than happy to help out an insecure Putin lieutenant like Igor Sechin, whom Putin can’t afford to replace nor kill.
Good point. I am no Putin’s fan, but I do care what’s going on there (I am Russian) – I noticed one thing. The other two parties worth mentioning are Liberal Democratic party and the Communist party. So I guess my question is what is the lesser of two (three) evils? I do suspect that Zhirinovsky is a convenient clown to play with, but the Communists as weak as they are now is definitly not a good choice for Russia… so I guess if you are guessing of a potential outcomes it’s still not the worst one…
Interesting.
My take on the Russian parties, at least Zhirinovsky and almost every other non-Communist party, was that they were “astroturf” (fake grassroots) parties set up by Putin.
For example, here in the United States, there are about 10 people running for the Democratic nomination. I don’t know for a fact, but strongly suspect, that Joe Biden and Bill Richardson are running as tools of the Clintons to splinter the anti-Clinton opposition. Assuming Hillary wins the nomination, expect both Richardson and Biden to get high posts within a Clinton Administration.
I believe Putin used the same tactic with some of these other parties, splintering the vote that would have otherwise gone to the Communists and (possibly) Kasparov. Although my sense is that true liberalism outside of the Putin government (i.e. Alexei Kudrin) is completely discredited among average Russians.
Interesting indeed. I always thought for some reason that Edwards is a tool of Clintons. There’s a popular idea in Russian blogosphere that Kasparov/Berezovsky combo is a scarecrow whos only purpose is to discredit liberal opposition. It is certainly working for me. I used to vote for Yabloko when I was back in Russia in the 90’s (I live in US now) but became more conservative and disullusioned watching the looting of Russia under Boris Yeltsin. Sure the looting is still happening but I know that overall there’s a sense of stability over there along with hope for the future, better wages, more opportunities and the most important – the feeling of purpose and pride.
Funny you say that, I suspected that for a while, but I have come to believe that Edwards is just a useful idiot to Hillary who refuses to believe that he can’t win.
The Clintons love his being in the race, I’m sure. He makes life much tougher for Obama especially in Iowa.
Also, some unions like Edwards in the race, because there is this very pervasive fear of the Clintons among Democratic interest group types (if you aren’t with them you’re against them), and Edwards allows a lot of unions to “make a statement” of voting against Clinton policies (NAFTA etc), without actually threatening the Clintons’ grip on the party and the nomination, and thus getting punished by the Clintons after they win.
Basically the unions in this country are pathetically weak and spineless, as a group. Zero political power.
Unions are pathetically weak? We’ll see about that if their enormous dues = contributions put in any of the Dems – all are for the card check travesty.
Well, that’s certainly possible. Then again, unions have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the Democrats over the past 15 years, and NAFTA was all they got. On top of an artificially appreciated dollar, which to unionized manufacturing was Smoot-Hawley in reverse.
My guess is that a lot of Democrats will discover their inner quisling after enough fancy dinners and free vacations.
Even if the Democrats sweep everything in 08, I am pretty sure card check can just be filibustered. It’s not a budget line item, so it can’t squeak through on 51 Senate votes.