The State of Affairs in Russia

[Zanza]

Alexander Lukashenko is living up to his reputation as Europe's last remaining dictator. The president of Belarus has decided to bring back serfdom on farms in a bid to stop urban migration.

Lukashenko has announced plans to introduce legislation prohibiting farm labourers from quitting their jobs and moving to the cities. "Yesterday, a decree was put on my table concerning – we are speaking bluntly – serfdom," the Belarus leader told a meeting on Tuesday to discuss improvements to livestock farming, gazeta.ru reported.

The serfdom decree would beef up the power of regional governors and "teach the peasants to work more efficiently," Lukashenko said. Governors who failed to ensure timely and efficient harvests in their regions would get the sack, he added.

Lukashenko, who was deputy chairman of a Soviet collective farm before entering politics in 1990, is famous for his obsession with agriculture. Belarus produces large amounts of potatoes and cereals as well as livestock, but farming methods have hardly been reformed since the Soviet era. Low agricultural wages and limited prospects have persuaded many farm workers to leave the countryside to seek opportunities in the cities or in neighbouring Russia.

Serfdom was abolished in the Russian empire by Tsar Alexander II in 1861 but made a comeback under a different guise in the Soviet era. Workers at the kind of collective farm that Lukashenko once ran were tied to the land by travel restrictions and laws obliging all able bodied adults to register as employed.

If Lukashenko signs the serfdom decree, Belarus will be in violation of the 1957 international convention on the abolition of forced labour to which it is a signatory. That didn't stop him adopting a law in 2012 stopping timber industry workers from quitting their jobs and it probably won't stop him now.

It's hard to believe that this isn't from The Onion but from the Financial Times...
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/05/29/belarus-plans-to-bring-back-serfdom/

[The Brain]

Smurfdom?

[Ed Anger]

Diocletian approves.

[Razgovory]

I've been reading some '20s-'30s-era contemporary analyses of fascism, and some Trotskyists made a decent case for treating fascism as an extension of Bonapartism (in the N.III sense).

The Soviet Union could have used a Bonaparte.

[Sheilbh]

Lukashenko has announced plans to introduce legislation prohibiting farm labourers from quitting their jobs and moving to the cities. "Yesterday, a decree was put on my table concerning – we are speaking bluntly – serfdom," the Belarus leader told a meeting on Tuesday to discuss improvements to livestock farming, gazeta.ru reported.

It's hard to believe that this isn't from The Onion but from the Financial Times...
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/05/29/belarus-plans-to-bring-back-serfdom/

]
Well he doesn't try and sugar-coat it.

[Savonarola]

Lukashenko has announced plans to introduce legislation prohibiting farm labourers from quitting their jobs and moving to the cities. "Yesterday, a decree was put on my table concerning – we are speaking bluntly – serfdom," the Belarus leader told a meeting on Tuesday to discuss improvements to livestock farming, gazeta.ru reported.

It's hard to believe that this isn't from The Onion but from the Financial Times...
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/05/29/belarus-plans-to-bring-back-serfdom/

]
Well he doesn't try and sugar-coat it.

The heirs of Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov can rejoice!   

[Sheilbh]

Long but interesting piece:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/21/putin_s_empire_of_the_mind_russia_geopolitics

[derspiess]

Poor Putin, all red-faced from being shunned by the West

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2650730/Obama-publicly-ignores-Putin-leaders-photo-opp-White-House-confirms-pair-lengthy-informal-conversation-D-Day-lunch.html

[Syt]

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_06_07/Putin-says-Russian-city-Volgograd-may-become-Stalingrad-again-5805/

Putin says Russian city Volgograd may become Stalingrad again

Russian President Vladimir Putin does not rule out the possibility of returning the name of Stalingrad to the Russian city of Volgograd located on the Volga River Stalingrad was the epicenter of the most grandiose battle of World War II and was almost completely destroyed by the unparalleled intensity of fighting between Soviet and Nazi troops.

Answering a question of a WWII veteran, Putin said that "in line with our legislation the issue can be settled by the regional and municipal authorities."

"In this case residents should hold a referendum where they will decide on it (the change of the name)," Putin said.

"We'll do as the residents say," the president said, TASS reports.

He recalled that in Paris there is a square named Stalingrad and other cities in Europe keep this name in memory.

"It wasn't me who changed the name," Putin said as a joke adding seriously that "we'll mull over how it can be done" [the referendum].

[Sheilbh]

Homophobia in Russia Is Taking a Kafkaesque Turn

LGBT organizations declared foreign agents in one fell swoop, gays being blacklisted by banks, employers, and landlords—welcome to the new reality of being LGBT under Putin.

We all know things are bad for LGBT people in Russia, right?

In fact, we have no idea. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, Tatiana Vinnichenko, director of the Russian LGBT organization Rakurs, revealed how much most of us in the West don't know about Russia's anti-gay crackdown. And all of it is bad news.

First, official state prosecutions and persecution of LGBT organizations has morphed and intensified. Previously, LGBT organizations were pressured to register as "foreign agents"—spies, basically—but those registrations were subject to judicial review. The results were uneven: Some courts rubber-stamped the government's positions, but others found a lack of evidence and ruled for the LGBT organizations.

Earlier this year, says Vinnichenko, the law was quietly changed. Now the government has the power to declare an organization a foreign agent as an administrative matter. In other words, what was once a matter of law, however imperfect, is now a matter of bureaucracy. With one fell swoop—and one that can come at any moment, without warning—a gay community center, or film festival, or support group can be branded a spy.

The St. Petersburg-based LGBT organization Coming Out has been immersed in Russia's Kafkaesque bureaucracy for months, having endured four hearings to ascertain whether it is a foreign agent. But it has endured, thanks to the rule of law. Without that protection, Coming Out would have no recourse. And once one is labeled a foreign agent, even routine administrative errors can result in criminal prosecution.

"We are being boiled in a pot," Vinnichenko said.

The foreign agents law and the "anti-propaganda law" are really just the tip of the anti-gay iceberg, however. The newest phase of Putin's campaign has been, ironically, privatization.

According to Vinnichenko, Russian authorities are putting pressure on all kinds of institutions—banks, landlords, employers—not to do business with LGBT people and LGBT organizations. Because licenses are required for just about everything in Russia, this "pressure" is existential. Banks are being told, "Dump your LGBT customers, or we'll shut you down," she said.

In Vinnichenko's case, the threat is immediate and personal. A mother of two, she works for the Northern Federal University. Her employers have been pressured from above and have in turn demanded that she stop her advocacy work. "I am going on leave, because you cannot be fired while on leave, but as soon as I return, I expect to be fired," she said. How she will replace her lost income, especially as she is publicly blacklisted, she has no idea.

Rakurs's bank and landlord have come under similar pressure. Vinnichenko says all banks have been told that if they have any LGBT organizations as clients, they will lose their licenses; it's just a matter of time until all of the organizations' accounts are closed. And the local LGBT community center she runs, she says, is in danger of losing its lease and will have nowhere else to go. No one will rent to her.

This subcontracted homophobia has largely escaped the notice of the Western media so far. It is off the books, so to speak, propelled by threats and extortion rather than overt acts like legislation or prosecution. And it has plausible deniability. "Putin is asked about LGBT people whenever he goes abroad, and he just lies or says he doesn't know," said Vinnichenko. "But he knows the situation—he's the homophobe in chief."

Surprisingly, Vinnichenko—like other Russian LGBT activists I've spoken to—insists that Western pressure would be helpful, despite the obvious potential for backlash. "We're going to lose anyway," she said, with typically Russian fatalism. "The only question is whether anyone will know about it."

What she has in mind is for the Russian businesses participating in the privatization of homophobia to be confronted overseas. She points to her own university, which frequently partners with other European and American universities. "The president should be picketed everywhere she goes," Vinnichenko said. So, too, should the leaders of banks and other businesses.

And Vinnichenko is calling for the United States to follow Canada in providing expedited and "favored" review to LGBT applicants for asylum.

Including herself? I asked Vinnichenko what's keeping her in Russia, and she replied: "Everyone I know. Not everyone can leave—there are people without enough money, without specialized skills, women with children. How can I leave them?"

But her altruism does have limits. The Duma is considering a law that would strip children from LGBT families like Vinnichenko's. "This bill is in committee and could be voted on at any time," she said. "They could do it tomorrow." If the bill were to become law, Vinnichenko predicts "a mass exodus" of LGBT families, including her own.

For the moment, she is staying. But even her resilient stance carries a strong sense of hopelessness. "So far," she said, "I have not been physically threatened. No one writes anti-gay graffiti on my door—they write it on the organization's office door. If nothing changes, I think I could stay another two years."

[Syt]

 

[Zanza]

The Duma is considering a law that would strip children from LGBT families like Vinnichenko's. "This bill is in committee and could be voted on at any time," she said. "They could do it tomorrow." If the bill were to become law, Vinnichenko predicts "a mass exodus" of LGBT families, including her own.

I hope we grant them asylum from political persecution then. Russia's anti-LGBT policies are really disgusting.

[Tamas]

Well the dictatorship Putin has built needs enemies to justify its existence. Going after the Jews is a bit out of style nowadays. Homosexuals, however, are easier targets.

[DGuller]

At this point all I'm hoping for is that Putin's insanity stays within Russian borders.  At least the Russian people deserve what they get, as a group.

[Malthus]

The ironic thing is that Putin is getting all sorts of approval from the extreme right in the West - he's like their wet dream come true, with his anti-gay, anti-Muslim and pro-Church policies, not to mention his "muscular" foreign policy - while at the same time, the extreme left loves him for his anti-American, anti-Western policies. It is bizzare.