The Shape of the New Russian Polity

In the Pilot’s Seat: Flying to Chechnya
and Unchecked Power*

Today’s New York Times has some insightful coverage of the shape of “politics” in Russia, “A New Parliament, but Still All Putin?”

I had a heated discussion last night at my gym with a generally intelligent lefty-oriented anti-American immigrant. I mentioned what is happening in Russia and he informed me that foreign criticism of developments in Russia was just all an attempt to steal Russia’s assets, that what Putin is doing is no different from what the US has done in Iraq (as stupid as that has been, I think that the difference is between an incredibly destructive act of foolishness and stupidity and a calculated grab for power), etc., etc. There was also some astonishing attacks on “the British.” What I found most disturbing was not that the USA and the UK are criticized, even in strong terms, but that the justifications tracked astonishingly closely to the defense of the Third Reich’s grab for power in Europe — the British have an empire, the global reach of British capital and banks is robbing everyone else of their resources, etc., etc., so the Germans are just responding to aggression against them, blah, blah, blah. (A classic statement of the view is in Carl Schmitt’s 1932 intelligent, but evil, book The Concept of the Political.)

*Just a reminder that offensive and militaristic images of political arrogance are not limited to Russia: