

Could Revolution Come to Putin's Russia? - tokenadult
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/could-revolution-come-to-putins-russia/250486/

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jsn
I was there on Sakharova st. yesterday, somewhere in the crowd on the photo.
It's been 3 weeks since these things started to happen. I have to say it was
almost as much of a surprise to the russian opposition as it was to Kremlin.

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huhtenberg
This is an A-grade flamewar material. While it is no doubt interesting, I'd
rather have it kept off HN.

~~~
enko
I don't see why it is so flamewar-ish, unless there are a large number of FSB
sleeper agents hanging around here waiting for a chance to spread
misinformation.

What's going on in Russia is pretty incredible. I have good friends there and
am excited and scared for them in roughly equal measure. I am not sure it will
come to "revolution" - or that anyone wants it to - but it is clear that
things need to change, and change is slowly coming to the forefront of the
national consciousness.

Russia is, after all, the largest country on Earth. What happens there will
affect everywhere else. I'm not trying to boost this particular article, but I
would say it behooves any worldly-minded entrepreneur to at least maintain a
rough familiarity with world affairs.

~~~
huhtenberg
> _I don't see why it is so flamewar-ish_

Because there's always (at least) two sides to each coin.

Putin might be a czar, but Russia under his rule restored much of its
superpower status that was lost in the Soviet Union collapse. His exploitation
of Russia's position of nearly monopolist resource exporter in the region is
very clever, and it put a lot of smaller countries in Europe (Finland
included) under substantial influence of Russia. Understandably this doesn't
sit well with some other countries, and it's in their best interest to
undermine Putin's order and to support and agitate the social unrest in
Russia. So one may argue that the "revolution" is being stirred as much from
the outside as from the inside. In fact, there's an alleged proof floating
around (in a form of fiscal email exchanges between "independent non-profit
pro-democracy" Russian media and social outlets and their US sponsors). That's
not to say that the proof is real. It only means that there's a full-on media
war on, and theatlantic.com might be representing just one side of it.

Now, do tell me this is not flamewar-ish :)

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wavephorm
More importantly, when will revolution come to America? Russia isn't any more
corrupt than the henchmen in control of Washington and Wall Street.

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ph0rque
_Russia isn't any more corrupt than the henchmen in control of Washington and
Wall Street._

Having just been to Russia for six weeks this summer, I am _so_ glad I'm
living in America and not Russia. That said, I agree America is overdue for a
revolution.

