Russian President Putin with Chairman of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin. Kremlin.ru
Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg: Russian Security Chief Makes Putin Seem Tame
General Alexander Bastrykin, who runs the Russian equivalent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has provided a rare insight into the thinking of President Vladimir Putin's select circle of siloviki, or security men. His vision, published in the weekly Kommersant Vlast, includes Chinese-style Internet censorship and the elimination of "fake democracy" to ensure that Russia can defend itself.
The image of Russia as a besieged fortress is almost always part of the silovikis's rhetoric, though they seldom express their views publicly. The lengthy article by Bastrykin, head of the powerful Investigative Committee, goes beyond the usual cautious pronouncements. It openly calls for eliminating the last vestiges of democracy and civil rights:
"Enough playing at fake democracy and following pseudoliberal values. Democracy, or people's power, is nothing but power wielded in the people's interests. These interests can be attained through the common good, not through the absolute freedom of certain representatives of society to do as they please."
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WNU Editor: The problem with Russian government security officials like General Alexander Bastrykin is that they have been around forever .... their mindset is solidly Soviet .... and they have never accepted the idea that the Soviet Union broke apart .... blaming outsiders and not themselves for why it disintegrated when it did. And while they mask their agenda by focusing on external threats .... their real focus is on suppressing internal opposition, controlling the dissemination of information, and maintaining the status quo as they see it. As to why does Putin keep these people around .... the answer is simple .... because he thinks like them (or I should say ... these officials think like Putin). But Putin is not stupid .... he keeps these thoughts to himself .... something that General Alexander Bastrykin forgot when he published in a magazine his thoughts and vision on where he believes the direction of where the Soviet ... ooopppsss .... the Russian state should go.
Update: There is another reason on why Putin keeps General Alexander Bastrykin around. He is head of Russia's FBI .... he knows who is corrupt, where the money is, what they have done ... in short .... like former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover .... he knows where all the skeletons are.
2 comments:
Putin is not someone that see history in a white/black manner.
Putin keep men like Bastrykin also for their loyalty to the cause of Russia.
And the idea that Russia might be prepared against western enemy is not only a paranoid soviet mindset, but a historical fact.
Soviet regime made his heavy faults, but also I think many in the west want the fall of Russia for their interests.
Russia has always seen itself as having an absolute right to control the status of the "near-abroad", primarily because they have been the subject of so many invasions throughout their history. It appears to be part of the Russian "genetic memory".
As a pragmatist, I normally don't see anything wrong with creating and having a sphere of influence, but Russia is taking it to an extreme, and they aren't behaving by the accepted norms of international relations.
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