Could Revolution Come to Putin's Russia?
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
What's going on in Russia is pretty incredible. I have good friends there and am excited and scared for them in roughly equal measure. I am not sure it will come to "revolution" - or that anyone wants it to - but it is clear that things need to change, and change is slowly coming to the forefront of the national consciousness.
Russia is, after all, the largest country on Earth. What happens there will affect everywhere else. I'm not trying to boost this particular article, but I would say it behooves any worldly-minded entrepreneur to at least maintain a rough familiarity with world affairs.
Because there's always (at least) two sides to each coin.
Putin might be a czar, but Russia under his rule restored much of its superpower status that was lost in the Soviet Union collapse. His exploitation of Russia's position of nearly monopolist resource exporter in the region is very clever, and it put a lot of smaller countries in Europe (Finland included) under substantial influence of Russia. Understandably this doesn't sit well with some other countries, and it's in their best interest to undermine Putin's order and to support and agitate the social unrest in Russia. So one may argue that the "revolution" is being stirred as much from the outside as from the inside. In fact, there's an alleged proof floating around (in a form of fiscal email exchanges between "independent non-profit pro-democracy" Russian media and social outlets and their US sponsors). That's not to say that the proof is real. It only means that there's a full-on media war on, and theatlantic.com might be representing just one side of it.
Now, do tell me this is not flamewar-ish :)
Having just been to Russia for six weeks this summer, I am so glad I'm living in America and not Russia. That said, I agree America is overdue for a revolution.