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Comment by hprotagonist | Hacker News Reader

I'm increasingly convinced that the short and sweet answer is: because they've had a tsar and serfs since the fall of the kievan rus and the establishment of the muscovite power, and nothing has meaningfully changed since that time, except that sometimes the tsar is called "general secretary" and sometimes the serfs are called "comrades".

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Serfdom became the dominant form of relation between Russian peasants and nobility in 1649, and was abolished in 1861.

Ivan IV became the first Tsar in 1547.

Kievan Rus ceased to exist in ~1240.

>nothing has meaningfully changed

Khruschev was born to poor Russian peasants. Brezhnev's father was a Ukrainian metalworker.

Nicholas II's cousin was King of Great Britain. Catherine the Great's native language was German, with her cousin being King of Sweden.

Pretty sure a thing or two changed, and you're oversimplifying things.

Also the Novgorod Republic from the 12th to 15th centuries. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novgorod_Republic

There are many things to dislike about a soviet republic, but lack of democratic representation isn't one of them. I wish we could recall MPs via a vote like they could.

Is it representation if there’s only one political body that can even in principle represent?

Interesting interview on this subject: https://www.rferl.org/a/puti-russia-zorin-modern-tsar-mythol...

IME though this argument is used to rationalize the behavior of Russian leaders (I’ll call it “tyranny” and “oppression” as a Westerner, acknowledging that we have some of our own trash to clean up).

Interesting, I've heard a similar theory used to describe the Kim regime of North Korea. In that the Kim regime is basically an extension of the Lee dynasty of Joseon and the three generations of Kims are basically kings in all but name.

And what exactly convinced you that it's the answer?

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