What's the point of disagreement? I didn't disagree with any of this. I believe that Russia is developing into a stabilized state capitalist society with a lot of unique characteristics, moving away from the anarchic oligarchic model into one governed by the bureaucracy. Did I say anything different?
Of COURSE it's a plus -- as compared to oligarchic capitalism. Actually it is hard to place the Russian chinovniki into a class analysis, at first examination. They are an odd bird. BTW the "painfully" comment is a bit arrogant. --- Chris, it is painfully obvious that you don't speak "Marxism-Leninese", if by this you mean the method of analysis pioneered by Karl Marx and adopted by many intellectuals and activists over the past 150 years or so. Russia's path will not be determined by who is the chief executive, but by the underlying class dynamics. The fact that the CEO of Yukos is in jail will have little impact on class formation in Russia, which has essentially gone through two phases. In the first phase, Yeltsin presided over a "crony capitalism" that undermined the geopolitical aspirations of a layer of the former bureaucracy that was for capitalism but opposed to the weaking of Russia's position in the world. Putin came to power with the expectation that he would rein these forces in. This he has done. But in the long run, a Russia bourgeoisie will continue to coalesce because the economy is based on the private accumulation of capital, no matter whether Gazprom is owned by the state or private investors. Since this question of state ownership can be very confusing, I urge PEN-L'ers to look at a piece I wrote on Algeria that was meant to rebut "State Capitalist" theory. The interesting thing is that where they place a minus, Chris places a plus.
