I used to hold similar position on evil west vs. free and for people Russia.... Before I immigrated to the West. I got access to a whole lot more information, I got to live outside of that mentality for a long period of time now.
I saw the 90's first hand. My family struggled through it. I was in one of the top schools (a la Russian MIT), making 20$/month.. Barely enough to cover metro cost and not enough for food 3x per day.
At the same time as my family was struggling, the president and his oligofriends were stealing and robbing the country. As poor as I was, being at one of the top school allowed me to have friends ... Who had friends - kids of the elite. You see, they tend to send their family abroad, kids go to private British schools. They often have dual citizenships, own real estate and investments in the "evil west".
It's a two faced reality, with one face they are critics, with another - they pose for foreign citizenship application.
To your comment on the power grab by the "west" and the international elites - yes, it is real IMO. But be careful - watch who is using who to gain that control. The government over there and the judicial systems are not to be trusted.
The information grab here is obvious - why give up info on Russian citizens for free to linked in , Google etc.? Of course Russian GRU/FSB etc want to have their hands in it too.
The 90's were courtesy of the west, who sent 'advisers' to Russia to help with the transition to capitalism. Most of the issues the west has with Russia today have to do with the fact we wanted them to stay in the 90's... That was the ideal as far as our leaders are concerned.
> I got access to a whole lot more information
No, you just got access to a different kind of propaganda.
You think families don't struggle here, while the elite take in bribes, engage in cronyism, and send their kids to elite schools? The Clinton's weren't worth hundreds of millions before Bill took office, where did they acquire their wealth? All our corporate 'elite' control our governments, they bribe them (sorry, 'lobby'), and get favourable business deals. The only thing the west has going for it is that people are distracted enough by our relative wealth (enough to buy iPads and shit) to be complacent to all these issues...
But the idea that west successfully privatized Russia in the malignant way you describe would require the existence of institutions powerful enough to enact such a change in the collapsing Soviet union. This has no basis in fact. The West did not have this kind of influence, in large measure because the West did not have viable agents or institutions to mediate such power.
The truth is that the kind of plunder that occurred was a natural consequence of the Soviet economic order, as well as the lack of institutions (and norms) required to sustain a functioning market.
If you are genuinely interested in this topic, please do reach out to me via email – it's in my profile. I'd be really happy to talk more about this topic, and even send you a book or two on it!
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/cohen-crusade.html
While I don't think the west necessarily intended for the Russian economy to collapse, they definitely tried to impose certain policies on Russia in an attempt to remake it into an American-style capitalist state, 'shock therapy' and the 'Washington consensus' were real things that were prescribed, and of course there was also military action taken to weaken Russia's influence as well (NATO expansion).
Anyhow, there were a number of American economic advisers who worked for the Russian government during the 1990's, and to say they had no influence is plain wrong.
Russia had a Rust Belt orders of magnitude larger than the United States. It had a factory system optimized on quotas decades out of date. It had no real infrastructure for resolving economic disputes in legal terms. It had a factory manager class with little accountability.
You say these Americans worked for the Russian government. What departments? Do you think those departments had adequate control of their own police forces to enforce such policies? How do you suppose these forces would have been funded?
My point is that you are mistaken about the extent to which a Russian state was a viable entity during this period. Without an effective state, there is no real way for the west to exert the kind of influence you describe. The Washington Consensus was real, and its importance exaggerated by its exponents in the US.
To say Americans had substantial influence on Russian economic policy is indeed plain wrong. I would be honored to send you a copy of some books that explain this, and include abundant primary source documentation of my claims.
Please feel free to email me at my address as listed in my profile. I think you might really enjoy a copy of Armageddon Averted by Kotkin. It is a very enjoyable account of this era, and it quite deftly addresses your contention.
Time will tell.
It is very naïve to think that the CIA is as potent as you do.
I find that quite dubious. For leaders it had Yeltsin who you have to admit was quite incompetent, and a bunch of greedy old Soviet officials who had been responsible for the collapse of the USSR. The liberals were weak and disorganized, and the public was simply lost.
Perhaps I am wrong, but I get the impression that you, like many, believe the West is not only entirely evil, but is the source of all the evil in the world. If I an reading you wrong, please make clear what you do actually believe.
A lot of effort and blood went into building the soviet union and it was very sad to see a lot of that work simply thrown away.
The fact today in Russia is that all power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of a well connected corrupt circle of people. They and their extended families stand to gain from the policies of the current "regime". The rest of the country stands to lose. It hurts me to see this, as I am working hard to get the rest of my family outta there ( its not easy to immigrate despite what Trump and others say)..
As I said this two faced regime with one hand criticizes the west and with another buys up properties and investments abroad to eventually to retire to with their families.
How come Putin sent his own daughter to live and work in Europe for extended period of time? How come members of his cabinet own real estate in London, Spain etc? When Russian mafia was busted in Spain, how come no one from the gov went to jail even though connection was pointing all the way to the top? The judicial system is rotten. Judges are simply executing orders from the top!
Its sad what's happening there and I don't see a good ending any time soon unfortunately. I could stay and fight...but what for? Ruin my life? Jail time for speaking up? No thank you.
The primary use of America for Russia and Russia/Muslims for America is to have some Other to point the finger at and blame for the outcomes of the ruling class' economic policies.
ps -- For every pro-Putin Gopnik voter, I counter with southern white trash on Obamacare, Medicare payments for "disability", and meth who voted for President (I just threw up in my mouth a little) Trump.
BTW, if anyone is interested in the fall of the USSR, Yegor Gaidar, an economist, acting Russian PM from June '92 to Dec '92, and architect of the shock therapy reforms immediately post dissolution of the USSR wrote a book about it. I highly recommend it if you're interested in economic history.
This appears to be a brief summary of the argument: https://thetyee.ca/News/2013/03/13/Soviet-Union-Oil/
book: https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Empire-Lessons-Modern-Russia...
Yegor Gaidar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yegor_Gaidar
My cynical reading of the law was that it was aimed more at having data physically on hand if it needs to be subpoenaed. But IANAL, so maybe I'm just being too cynical. Also what I did or didn't think of the law doesn't matter really, since higher ups decided what was to be done about the law, and I just implemented it.
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2015/10/european-data-on-usa-...
This has a side effect. If LinkedIn wants to do business with Russia it has to allow access from VPN services. Thus allowing for greater piracy for internet users everywhere.
We should not be encouraging laws like this, and definitely not excusing them by saying that advanced users can circumvent them. If the Russian government really wanted to protect citizens, why not put laws in place on data protection requirements as opposed to data location requirements? (hint: it's because they don't want to protect the citizens)
I assume that's a typo for privacy, but expanding vpn/tor usage probably will help make piracy easier for internet users everywhere
Russia is still a large, connected, and tech savvy country regardless of average income in USD.
Corporations think that they can disregard the laws of nations and act as independent entities. They use their financial power to influence legislation and steal freedom from individuals. Unbiased regulation is needed to stop expropriation.
It's a shame that the article depicted this as censorship. Russia has been under heavy and unjust criticism for quite a while now.
On one hand, I fully understand your concern. I'm in Canada and the local governments pressure companies such as Netflix, Google and others to have registered legal entities here so that they can apply Canadian law (privacy, tax and language requirements).
On the other hand, Russia does not have a good reputation with regards to neutral application of the state of law. Furthermore, Russia does not have good privacy laws. Linkedin probably doesn't have the same resources/expertise as they do in the US. (as a Canadian, I never host my client data in the US for this reason.. it's not that the US is so terrible (although it kind of is w.r.t. privacy/NSA-stuff), but if something happens, we don't have the resources to deal with it)
In-country data requirements add a level of bureaucracy to the web that is just bad for users, as well as companies trying to innovate. This is a combination of both censorship and protectionism.