Open Russia is a "humanitarian" organization which has existed in two incarnations. Both were organized by the infamous oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was arrested for fraud in 2003.
The first incarnation had Henry Kissinger and Jacob Rothschild on its board. The second version has been organizing anti-Putin and anti-government marches like the one in the Reuters article ever since 2014. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Russia)
Alexei Navalny is the chairman of the "Progress Party". The party is pro-EU and attempts to paint itself as the premier opposition party to Putin's United Russia.
Two troubling things about the Progressive Party of Russia:
1. An economist named Sergei Guriev crafted the economic planks of its platform. Guriev is the chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The biggest shareholder of the bank is the United States
So in a time of increasing Russophobia and insane conspiracy theories about Putin intervening in the US election, the year before an election in Russia, the mainstream liberal opposition is coming from a Russian oligarch who has a personal grudge against Putin, whose organization has had on its board some of the biggest Western imperialists, and a political party supported by members of this org which repeats the standard pro-West and anti-"rogue state" propaganda.
The Progress Party will be championed in Western liberal media such as MSNBC as a savior of humanitarian and "progressive" ideals in Russia. It will be supported by the US Deep State and neocons, along with the neoliberal banking and corporate whores. In 2018 there will be an attempt at a "color revolution" like in Ukraine in Russia.
I think it's absolutely retarded for anyone claiming to be a leftist to defend/support Putin. The guy's a Porky oligarch, worth billions.
Gavin Wilson
"Comrade" Putin should just stab Khodorkovsky himself.
David Hall
Why don't they just kill each other?
Juan Young
I'd rather have Russia the way it is now instead of neoliberals in charge.
Jordan Perez
Navalny has many far-right views and wants a 2nd amendment for Russia. Liberals are retarded and haven't actually looked Into this guy's past. There is no danger of this guy getting into power anytime soon.
Juan Sanders
that would be based actually
Gabriel Kelly
I'm not trying to defend Putin at all I'm just saying that the neocon replacement wouldn't be any better and would probably just oppress the people even more or the society would be even more chaotic like in Libya, Iraq, Latin America, Africa etc
Not if NATO/the Pentagon do what they did during Arab Spring and Euromaidan
Luis Walker
To quote Stalin I'd say "their both worse"
Joseph Evans
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Joshua Perry
putin is a comrade
Jonathan Kelly
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Nicholas Parker
Think about what I meant by that which is that on the face of it their both essentially equal. Their both capitalists, not even of the classic social democratic pseudo-socialist variety but promoters of open capitalism. Neoliberals just want to go fast, praise the USA, and privatize everything; Socdems and other capitalists follow the same approach but one that's more realistic and measured but it leads to the same place.
I think its funny you think he's a soc dem bc most libertarians and rightists boost Putin because of the fact that Russia has """"flat tax""""" rather then a progressive one. I'm not even sure what you mean by "right-wing succdem" anyway that sounds kinda like fascism to me tbh but I don't think he's a fascist or a social democrat, just a typical capitalist politician posturing and taking advantage of the present world situation atm
Elijah Parker
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Thomas Taylor
Guys, will the nazbol finally have their day?
Thomas Ward
I've heard Putin was one of the last men in the Stasi HQ when the GDR collapsed. If so he could be privy to Top Secret Document 08/6-86, which was basically dissolving all communist states and handing over control to the security services in these countries until a later date. So basically the Simpsons sketch where they press the button and become the Soviet Union again.
Easton Rodriguez
the only real question is… is Navalniy trustworthy? I'm sure he's genuinely against corruption, but who is he in bed with?
Nolan Smith
Sounds pretty far-fetched to me that the security services would dissolve nominal socialism in order to institute capitalism only to reinstate capitalism. I could believe that the revisionist leadership in the GDR would want to maintain the same power under open capitalism as they had under revisionist state capitalism for lack of a better term but it doesn't make sense to cede ground to capitalism only to reinstate socialism. I don't know much about it but the document could've been planted in order to keep feeding anti-communist fears among the public longer after the failure of open capitalism post-transition became obvious. Maybe some clique in the Stasi felt like they had real socialism, saw where things were going, and honestly believed that they would be able to hold power and eventually restore it post-transition.
As for the leadership? I've heard Honecker once admitted in 1972 that he didn't believe the GDR had ever achieved socialism.
Xavier Jackson
Putin is REALLY good at fucking over the Russian left, anyone neocons replaced him with would almost certainly not be.
Jaxson Young
Russia still has a Left? It appears to be as fragile as America's tbh
Leo Roberts
Russia's Commie Party is your standard in name only organization
