The REAL Reason Russians Support Vladimir Putin

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There is no "gold standard" of democracy, although the U.S. tries to foist its model upon the world, a corrupt duopoly. To me democracy means govt of the people, by the people, for the people, and Russia's current status is as close to that ideal as any other nation.

Very interesting. Not sure your view but I would think it fair to say Russians also see Putin as the man or force to return Russia to the revere and respectability of before 1991, perhaps not to a Communist state but to the ideal of life before the chaos of capitalism.

The collapse of communism in Poland did not look any better and no one here ever had any doubts that our struggle against this absurd system must hurt and that there was no other way but sweat and tears. In such the way we have fertilize the soil on which Polish success has grown

This is an accurate monologue. However, it’s really frustrating when Russians try and explain to westerns that they have never had “democracy”. Westerners, have also never had democracy. It’s only the oligarchs moving the carts of power around.

I visited Russia twice during this period, once arriving the day after they floated the Rouble, and although I certainly saw signs of poverty, I saw no sign at all of ‘rampant crime.’ I also met many Russians who were palpably relieved to see the end of decades of communism.

I remember when the wall came down in East Germany, my older East German relatives hated the way things changed, all those certainties they had grown up with evaporated. Fast change is just unsettling, even from a less than ideal system.

dark little secret: many Ukrainians support Putin too

@davidboxenhorn Important to mention according to independent economic studies Putin’s regime only transferred about 10% of oil revenues gain to the real economy and population during that period of “stabilization” (the absolute majority of gains still only profited him and his oligarchs).

@davidboxenhorn I love you, Konstantin, but you're missing one thing: the same collapse, or worse, happening all around the Eastern Block, when communism fell. We also had rampant crime, gangs, and mafia, we had huge unemployment that happened overnight, we had inlation that ate all of savings