Most here certainly don’t keep track of such things but the Russian Duma is completing its eighth iteration with elections to determine the composition of the ninth occurring in September. Today, Putin addressed the Duma in the St. George Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace providing a summation of its accomplishments over the past five years prior to awarding state awards to legislators. Several tracts by Putin and some from awarded legislators merit reading, and the official English transcript is almost finished and is completed to the point where those main tracts can be read. However, the following tract IMO merits being reproduced for Barflies to learn some important aspects of Russian governance and its primary goals the Info War attempts to obfuscate and denigrate:
Our multinational people responded to historical trials and external aggressive pressure with internal unity. This has always been the case, and it is happening again today. The deputies of the State Duma have fully justified their high status as representatives of the people, demonstrating their unwavering loyalty to their homeland, their competence, and their determination to quickly and effectively develop and implement complex decisions and laws that are essential for our soldiers and commanders, defense enterprises, factories, the domestic economy, the social sphere, and, of course, society and the state.
In difficult circumstances, you acted professionally and confidently together with your colleagues from the Federation Council and the Government, the Presidential Administration, and the regions of the Russian Federation.
All the deputies and all the factions of the State Duma have made a significant contribution: the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, A Just Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, New People, and, of course, United Russia, the party of the parliamentary majority, which, as the party of the majority, has a special responsibility for organizing the legislative process and ensuring its rhythmic, constructive, and consolidating nature. [See State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin’s words on this matter.]
In this regard, I would like to emphasize the unity of representatives of various political forces. For example, two-thirds of the nearly three thousand legislative acts adopted over the years have been supported by all factions.
A comprehensive system of legal guarantees has been established and continues to develop for participants and veterans of the special military operation, as well as for the families of defenders of the Fatherland.
The parliamentarians also acted as a united front, passing laws on the reunification of Russia and our four historical regions: the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts. They have been integrated into a single, native country as full-fledged federal subjects.
The genuine choice and will of the people, the citizens of Russia, lie at the heart of all our strategic decisions. We have no other goals. This is precisely what those who deny other nations their right to self-determination and their own free path do not like. When it suits them, they always remember the Charter of the United Nations, but they prefer to forget the first article, which guarantees the right of nations to self-determination. Those who view other countries not as equal partners, but as submissive and voiceless vassals, always benefit from such double standards. But we understand perfectly well what is happening.
We have been facing illegal restrictions, attempts of containment and pressure for a long time: both after the Russian Spring of 2014 and before that. But since 2022, the West has already launched the Russophobic machine at full speed, just setting “world records”. Moreover, according to two criteria at once-both the number of so-called sanctions and their uselessness. The damage that these sanctions cause, first of all, to their authors and initiators, to the peoples of some European and other countries.
Wanting to shake the Russian state and provoke a social split in our country, they tried to strangle our economy, financial system, and banking sector, and undermine the potential of science, industry, and education. Moreover, unable to defeat Russia on the battlefield, they are already resorting to openly terrorist methods of fighting our people. But no one will ever be able to break the people of Russia. This has never happened and never will happen. [My Emphasis]
The overarching theme emphasized by Putin and others who spoke is support for the wellbeing on the Russian people and their society. Unlike Trump and other Western politicos, those true words actually have meaning and can be honestly reported by media. As Putin said yesterday to Navy personnel and many other times, there will always be problems that need to be solved, which is where the public participates in its governance by reporting those problems so they can be solved, which is the entire point of good governance. IMO, Russians have learned much from their past experience and will continue to make Russia a better place for Russians and those wanting to join them.
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I think Putin speaks for many nations when he talks about what the USA and the rest of the west are doing.
"IMO, Russians have learned much from their past experience and will continue to make Russia a better place for Russians and those wanting to join them."
Totally agree and it's important to remember that this is a country that systematically employed a Marxist historical materialist philosophy, with varying levels of reliability of course, from 1917 to at least 1990.
As I've said before, like China, the secret sauce in Russia is it's revolutionary Marxist history. They are both now Capitalist countries and neither can be called revolutionary or Socialist by Marxist criteria. Nonetheless, those historical lessons and experiences no doubt strongly inform and influence the strategy of these powerful nations today.
The US has never had a modern revolution. The war of Independence was a revolutionary overthrow of Imperialist England and the civil war ended chattel slavery-alresdy a thoroughly backward economic system even at the time. But, shortly after that the US became Imperialist. The anti Imperialist social revolution is long overdue in the US. Consequently, the country today is the most rotten, lawless, anti worker, anti human, genocidal state in human history. It is overripe, rotten even, for a radical socioeconomic/philosophical change.
Then the question arises as to how. There I would say study the history of Russia, the RSDLP and the Bolsheviks. If you are expecting war, you look to the history of the last major conflicts. Revolution is no different.