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[smeeprocket]

ooh. I have read 1984, when I was a teenager actually, and I think I did a good job of getting the point, knowing that he was a socialist.

But none of Orwell's works are on Kindle, they were swiped from it. So I have to get physical copies, which means not stealing .txt documents from online.

I will check the other ones out, though.

I doubt I can find them here, and this is how I dig up most of the texts I can't otherwise get:

http://marxist.net/

[Baffler]

I'd second Helgo's recommendation of Tucholsky, but other than that I don't really have anything to add. On the mensheviks, I don't think they would have gotten any farther than "bourgeois revolution." Still a step up from feudalism I guess, but no communism to be found there.

[Owlbread]

Wasn't the provisional government the result of a sort of bourgeois revolution?

[Dutchling]

No, if it were it wouldn't have failed so miserably.

[smeeprocket]

Sadly, middle class revolutions fare better, even if they are oppressive pigs.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[DJ]

So this article came up on my FB feed today, and I thought it was an interesting reads. I'd like to hear from our resident Russians how much of that is accurate, and how much is just following the media trend of "Russia is doomed due to sanction" we've had lately.

[Sergarr]

One thing it gets right is that Russian scientist do not want to become entrepreneurs.

That's because "entrepreneur" in Russian consciousness is basically a robber, a con man who tricks the high officials into giving him the money and who will run away with them at the first possibility.

Somebody who works for himself cannot be a good person, in Russia.

[Comrade P.]

Somebody who works for himself cannot be a good person, in Russia.

Not like he cannot be a good person, he has to prove via uncertain means that he is a good person, while someone working for common good is considered a good person automatically.

[Sergarr]

Somebody who works for himself cannot be a good person, in Russia.

Not like he cannot be a good person, he has to prove via uncertain means that he is a good person, while someone working for common good is considered a good person automatically.

Yeah, like that.

[Knit tie]

So this article came up on my FB feed today, and I thought it was an interesting reads. I'd like to hear from our resident Russians how much of that is accurate, and how much is just following the media trend of "Russia is doomed due to sanction" we've had lately.

It gets absolutely nothing about Russia correct aside from the fact that most of the Russian scientists indeed do not want to become entrepreneurs, as Sergarr has correctly said. Otherwise, it just tells an anti-Russian scaretale to capitalise on the recent Russia-bashing trend in the anglophonic media. There is no actual analysis of the various sociopolitical factors in Russia that obstruct its people's attempts at capitalising on the new technologies being developed by Russian scientists (one of which is the very simple fact that it's far more profitable for us to import foreign-produced high-tech goods than to make our own ones, thanks to the 90s leaving us with an absolutely rubbished industrial base), instead all we get is an old song of "look how Russia's bad, it's ruled by evil oligarchs and evil Putin who cause all of its problems, hurr durr."

[Erkki]

So this article came up on my FB feed today, and I thought it was an interesting reads. I'd like to hear from our resident Russians how much of that is accurate, and how much is just following the media trend of "Russia is doomed due to sanction" we've had lately.

It gets absolutely nothing about Russia correct aside from the fact that most of the Russian scientists indeed do not want to become entrepreneurs, as Sergarr has correctly said. Otherwise, it just tells an anti-Russian scaretale to capitalise on the recent Russia-bashing trend in the anglophonic media. There is no actual analysis of the various sociopolitical factors in Russia that obstruct its people's attempts at capitalising on the new technologies being developed by Russian scientists (one of which is the very simple fact that it's far more profitable for us to import foreign-produced high-tech goods than to make our own ones, thanks to the 90s leaving us with an absolutely rubbished industrial base), instead all we get is an old song of "look how Russia's bad, it's ruled by evil oligarchs and evil Putin who cause all of its problems, hurr durr."

So, the claim about there not being any investors to kickstart things thanks to the way things are economically and politically is true, but its not true because such claim is anti-Russian?

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Meanwhile Brent Oil costs $53 per barrel. While Russian 2015 budget assumes average yearly price to be $96.

Hope nothing will happen to  raise oil price back to absurd levels.

[Baffler]

I gotta admit though I'm enjoying the low gas prices. We haven't seen it so cheap since before the Great Clusterfuck of 2008. How much of that's down to cheap Brent Oil is up in the air, but $2.00 > Gas Price => Good.

[Erkki]

Meanwhile Brent Oil costs $53 per barrel. While Russian 2015 budget assumes average yearly price to be $96.
---

I thought they fixed that to some considerably lower value in December - do you have a source?

I gotta admit though I'm enjoying the low gas prices. We haven't seen it so cheap since before the Great Clusterfuck of 2008.

Unfortunately no considerably lowered gas prices here yet. Some new EU directives on sulfur emission limits(for naval traffic and industry apparently) kicked in January 1st that are apparently through some mechanism keeping benzine and diesel prices where they were.

[mainiac]

instead all we get is an old song of "look how Russia's bad, it's ruled by evil oligarchs and evil Putin who cause all of its problems, hurr durr."

Pot.  Kettle.

If you go around posting conspiracy theories about how anyone who doesn't like Russia is actually a CIA agent living in Washington or Ukrainian jets shot down MH17 you have exactly zero legs to stand on here.