In the postmodern age and politics, neo-colonialism is being played as a hybrid of tragedy and farce, turning politics into theater in which the losers are meant to be audience; the actors are lousy, but there is no other show in town

Собчак: Ну-ка скажите, товарищ Путин, что вы поняли в школе о капитализме от научного коммунизма, Марксизма-ленинизма?

Чубайс: Ну ладно, Вовка. Забудь про учёбу! Все очень просто. В советские времена все хотели только созидать и работать. Сейчас мы их от этого освoбодим. Чтобы собрать биллионы и построить капитализм, мы должны делать всё наоборот. Самый лучший и быстрый метод как нажиться и нажраться и накопить наши капиталы получится разрушая эту великую страну. И для этого нам нужны только три вещи--наша власть, беспечный недостаток совести и способность врать.

Путин: А вы точно не оставите мне в беде, а будете мне показывать мой путь вперёд?

What happened? The early generations of the people in the Soviet Union had a keen desire to build, to construct, to create (though thanks to materialism, with an overwhelming emphasis on action in the material world, for, officially and "scientifically," souls no longer existed).

This zeal and spirit of creating and building (cities, factories, machines, planes, space ships) eventually started to recede and yield to a new spirit, anti-spirit, thoroughly embraced by the "elite"--the oligarchs, which overwhelmed society and most of its culture.

Builders and creators were demoted, devalued, and retired.


The new anti-spirit of anti-creation is the spirit of the locust led by the morbid desire and the goal to devour what the past created, to debase and degrade the present and to rob the future of the future itself. Its motto may be well this: "After us comes the flood anyway."

With gas and oil prices down, Russian oligarchy is now eyeing the meager pensions of the Russian retirees as one of the last sources of their (oligarchs') supplemental income.

Putin is building a new caste society out of Russia: in addition to the ruling caste of oligarchs, which has already entered a stage where their growing children are made billionaires too, while pauperization of Russia is moving fast forward, the other caste built under Putin as the social support of the oligarchs has been the class or caste of government officials and bureaucrats who are paid multiples of average salary. In his new executive degree, Putin decreed that from now on the bureaucrats will also receive another social (almost communist) benefit, which they will share with the military veterans and the handicapped--free medication.

Hard times require bold decisions. It would be good for Russia to reset its developmental path, but this can't be done with the same team that wanted to play with masters, but horribly underperformed in all but two sectors: corruption and Putin's personality cult.

Russische Soldaten, ergeben! Ich bin Ihr Präsident, und Sie werden von mir umgeben! Donbass ist die Ukraine, und ich bin eine Ukraine auch!
Все украдено. Я краду. Я украл. Я одна Украина тоже.

At the same time, one has to use what is available. In this situation, to ensure Russia's new take-off and possible renaissance, a soft landing and way out would be good both for Putin and Russia. A way of how to do it would be to form, let's say, a Eurasian Triumvirate or "Politburo" with Putin, Lukaschenko and Nazarbayev. The chairman and the new actual president would, however, be either of the latter two (not Putin)--provided that a thorough cleansing of the stables will be conceded and initiated. Perhaps bold, perhaps crazy. But better than a civil war and Russia's further descent into hell and chaos in comparison with which even the wars in Iraq and Syria would look only as a preparatory exercise (which, by the way, is also one of their functions). 

In comparison with Putin, both Lukaschenko and Nazarbayev are giants in terms of their character and integrity.