Friday, April 15, 2016

Will Russia Break?

Policemen block protest rally at Manezhnaya Square in Moscow December 30, 2014. (Reuters/Tatyana Makeyeva) / Reuters

John Lloyd, Reuters: When will Russia break?

When will Russia break? A rock bottom oil price, Western sanctions, inflation, a demographic crisis… when is the Second Russian Revolution? Next year, on the centenary of the first? 1917-2017?

In the first, workers and peasants and soldiers – not in huge numbers, but enough – rose against the wealthy aristos in their gilded St. Petersburg palaces. The post-Soviet ruling class, led by President Vladimir Putin, has shifted to the gilded palaces of Moscow’s Kremlin, and has made up for not having been born to wealth by thrusting great wealth upon each other. A tempting target for a discontented people, you would think.

Yet no sign of a revolution, not even of serious demonstrations. And the man at the center of the Kremlin web still has sky-high popularity ratings, bouncing merrily between 80 and 90 percent in the polls. It has been like that for two years, ever since Russia annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea in March 2014.

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WNU Editor: Saying when will Russia will break is like saying when will the U.S. break .... the answer is obvious .... because of its history, culture, and people .... both countries cannot break. But for the political class in both countries .... that is a different story .... and we are currently seeing a bigger revolt in the U.S. than in Russia.

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