Just a few days after his essay in Expert was published, Timofey Bordachev wrote another that was published by Vzglad on 30 April having a decidedly different outlook that also begs the question about where this academic has spent his life when he opines that Empire is only now just beginning to return as an entity.
May I add that China needs to step up, which it looks to be doing in the face of a US tariff offensive. The US wants to impose on other countries to effectively boycott China or face US action. If I'm not mistaken China has also signalled a similar policy towards countries that comply with these US demands. This will sort out who is sovereign and who is a defacto US satellite state, which "hopefully" won't end up splitting ASEAN states. It looks like China will have to be more proactive in both supporting those nations who can assert sovereignty and filling the gaps that would result from shucking US dependency (this is already happening in the financial space).
"There are decades in which nothing happens, and there are weeks in which decades happen." Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin.
Forces of all kinds are rapidly reshaping the world. The tide of history rises unstoppably, and the old sandcastles crumble one after another. For now, we only perceive the collapse of their weakened walls, but the current is already running unstoppably through their foundations. The world, humanity, is on the verge of experiencing a decisive and life-changing transformation. In fact, it is already happening.
Burkina Faso is far far far more important to Russia/RF strategically and economically than The Baltics or any European country for that matter. The Alliance of Sahel States (AES) encompassing BF, Mali & Niger have a new strategic partner to the chagrin of Macron and the French elite.
I think the problem is the lingering anti communism amongst Russia's intelligencia. They are not so old as to have forgetten Lenin's critical work on Imperialism, which is highly precise in definition. Nonetheless, this guy wants to baffle his reader with some intentionally abstract concept of "Empire", which most rightly associate with the ancient world. Just playing with words is not analysis.
And RT’s version further plays with words. I’ve read enough Bordachev now over the past five years to not highlight him so much. I wonder if the Valdai Club received USAID money?
Well, Russia is not Imperialist, but it is a class society and it is founded on an elite opposition to Marxism. So, their elites don't need USAID to motivate them to muddy the waters about critical concepts like Imperialism. After the fall of the Soviet there was an elite belief that Lenin's Imperialism was just a myth, they could work with the US, capitalism has changed, etc. One would think at this stage of history they would at least consider revising that obviously false consciousness.
I tend to go along with Hudson’s appraisal that at the end of the 1980s, most Soviets knew little about Marxism. Then there was the idea that Russia didn’t need an ideology, which was the topic of a Gym entry last year. Now we have the New Russia that looks quite a lot like an Older, 1700s Russia sans serfdom, or perhaps the nascent liberal Russia of the immediate post-Napoleonic period. As I’ve pointed out, Russian leaders now understand Russia needs all its three main Class components to operate as a team—Government, Labor, Business—promoting each other but primarily labor because it constructs everything.
As often the case I see that terminology is the problem. Russia is an imperial state. And before that USSR, Russian Empire and Golden Horde which Russia was a part of were imperial states. That’s not the same thing as what is commonly referred as “Empire” in English blogosphere. Or what European empires were during their heydays.
Russia’s historical experience is unique, but it did acquire lands for exploitation in Central Asia and in its drive to the Black Sea and deep into the Caucuses. Unlike the Americans, Russia didn’t aim to dispossess the inhabitants of the lands it acquired a la the Mongols, although it did exploit them, particularly in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest when furs were the coveted resource. The classic Metropole-Periphery relationship between European Russia and the Stans continued until the USSR broke, which greatly destabilized the Stans, which only began to recover in this decade primarily due to the reinvigoration of the former Metropole. Both Moscow’s focus to the East and South and Beijing’s focus on the West are dependent on developing the Stans.
Russian colonial adventures are a fairly minor part of its history. And although I know a fair share of “Aguirre the wrath of god” kind of stories about Siberian discovery and colonization the state that reached Pacific was still a feudal land empire accepting local populations as vassals in the same way they were vassals to Mongols or Manchus before. And I was rather talking about idea of “Empire” and how this term is used to describe very different kinds of states. Not even about some inherent good or bad associated with them.
Traditionally, us historians define empire as a political entity ruling over disparate groups of people who would otherwise rather be independent.
Thanks for your contribution. Discussion about Empire doesn’t happen here often despite the common use of the term. It would be great if humanity could evolve to the point where distinctions of any sort don’t matter thus eliminating the need for popular sovereignty or self determination.
May I add that China needs to step up, which it looks to be doing in the face of a US tariff offensive. The US wants to impose on other countries to effectively boycott China or face US action. If I'm not mistaken China has also signalled a similar policy towards countries that comply with these US demands. This will sort out who is sovereign and who is a defacto US satellite state, which "hopefully" won't end up splitting ASEAN states. It looks like China will have to be more proactive in both supporting those nations who can assert sovereignty and filling the gaps that would result from shucking US dependency (this is already happening in the financial space).
China’s in the vanguard. There seem to be almost continual gatherings on a weekly basis like this one, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202505/1333352.shtml
"There are decades in which nothing happens, and there are weeks in which decades happen." Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin.
Forces of all kinds are rapidly reshaping the world. The tide of history rises unstoppably, and the old sandcastles crumble one after another. For now, we only perceive the collapse of their weakened walls, but the current is already running unstoppably through their foundations. The world, humanity, is on the verge of experiencing a decisive and life-changing transformation. In fact, it is already happening.
Burkina Faso is far far far more important to Russia/RF strategically and economically than The Baltics or any European country for that matter. The Alliance of Sahel States (AES) encompassing BF, Mali & Niger have a new strategic partner to the chagrin of Macron and the French elite.
I think the problem is the lingering anti communism amongst Russia's intelligencia. They are not so old as to have forgetten Lenin's critical work on Imperialism, which is highly precise in definition. Nonetheless, this guy wants to baffle his reader with some intentionally abstract concept of "Empire", which most rightly associate with the ancient world. Just playing with words is not analysis.
And RT’s version further plays with words. I’ve read enough Bordachev now over the past five years to not highlight him so much. I wonder if the Valdai Club received USAID money?
Well, Russia is not Imperialist, but it is a class society and it is founded on an elite opposition to Marxism. So, their elites don't need USAID to motivate them to muddy the waters about critical concepts like Imperialism. After the fall of the Soviet there was an elite belief that Lenin's Imperialism was just a myth, they could work with the US, capitalism has changed, etc. One would think at this stage of history they would at least consider revising that obviously false consciousness.
I tend to go along with Hudson’s appraisal that at the end of the 1980s, most Soviets knew little about Marxism. Then there was the idea that Russia didn’t need an ideology, which was the topic of a Gym entry last year. Now we have the New Russia that looks quite a lot like an Older, 1700s Russia sans serfdom, or perhaps the nascent liberal Russia of the immediate post-Napoleonic period. As I’ve pointed out, Russian leaders now understand Russia needs all its three main Class components to operate as a team—Government, Labor, Business—promoting each other but primarily labor because it constructs everything.
"What Russia wants is all of Ukraine".
(c) Trump
I saw that Trump rant, which was as bad as Hegseth’s that was aimed at Iran. The Hegemon is being challenged as the Paper Tiger it’s become.
What you have there is the usual Zionist accusation, inverted.
As often the case I see that terminology is the problem. Russia is an imperial state. And before that USSR, Russian Empire and Golden Horde which Russia was a part of were imperial states. That’s not the same thing as what is commonly referred as “Empire” in English blogosphere. Or what European empires were during their heydays.
Russia’s historical experience is unique, but it did acquire lands for exploitation in Central Asia and in its drive to the Black Sea and deep into the Caucuses. Unlike the Americans, Russia didn’t aim to dispossess the inhabitants of the lands it acquired a la the Mongols, although it did exploit them, particularly in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest when furs were the coveted resource. The classic Metropole-Periphery relationship between European Russia and the Stans continued until the USSR broke, which greatly destabilized the Stans, which only began to recover in this decade primarily due to the reinvigoration of the former Metropole. Both Moscow’s focus to the East and South and Beijing’s focus on the West are dependent on developing the Stans.
Russian colonial adventures are a fairly minor part of its history. And although I know a fair share of “Aguirre the wrath of god” kind of stories about Siberian discovery and colonization the state that reached Pacific was still a feudal land empire accepting local populations as vassals in the same way they were vassals to Mongols or Manchus before. And I was rather talking about idea of “Empire” and how this term is used to describe very different kinds of states. Not even about some inherent good or bad associated with them.
Traditionally, us historians define empire as a political entity ruling over disparate groups of people who would otherwise rather be independent.
Thanks for your contribution. Discussion about Empire doesn’t happen here often despite the common use of the term. It would be great if humanity could evolve to the point where distinctions of any sort don’t matter thus eliminating the need for popular sovereignty or self determination.
Yes:
"....its actual thesis is stated in his conclusion."
That's a commonplace these days and I hate it.
But perhaps this very essay is guilty of the same?