Michael Kirkwood — The End of Communism in Russia Meant the End of Democracy in the West – Alexander Zinoviev

Alexander Zinoviev, along with Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, was one of the three great intellectual giants who became dissidents during the late Soviet period.

This remarkable and prophetic interview was originally published in 1999 in the French Figaro Magazine. Its original title was: ”The West and Russia - A Controlled Catastrophe”

An annual conference attended by Russian and foreign luminaries and Zinoviev fans in memory of Zinoviev's work will be held in Moscow on October 27.

Translated from Russian especially for RI by Sergei Malygin and Andrey Medvedev
Alexander Zinoviev was exiled from the Soviet Union with his wife and daughter on 6th August 1978, principally on account of his writings on the nature of Soviet communism.

They spent the next twenty years based in Munich. On 30th July 1999 they returned to Moscow, principally on account of his writings on the West. Zinoviev died in 2006 and his remains are buried in the Novodeviche convent.

These few lines suggest that he must have been a remarkable man. He was. Born in 1922 to a Russian peasant family, he was the sixth of eleven children who became an international phenomenon in a variety of fields: philosophy (particularly in the field of many-valued logic), literature (novels, novellas, poetry), politics, sociology, and painting. The two books which, for me, best illustrate the reasons for his exile and rehabilitation are, respectively, The Reality of Communism and The West.

This, Zinoviev’s last interview before returning to Russia provides an excellent example of his unmatched forensic gifts as a sociologist.

I look forward to sharing with friends of RI further details of the life and work of Aleksander Aleksandrovich in future columns.

Michael Kirkwood | Leading specialist on Zinoviev, professor emeritus, University of Glasgow.

Zinoviev was quite prescient in his day, but his conclusion that neoliberal globalization is the new totalitarian future may be overly pessimistic in light of recent pushback. Good read anyway, and a warning of the danger to be averted — the illiberalism of "liberalism."

Russia Insider
The End of Communism in Russia Meant the End of Democracy in the West – Alexander Zinoviev

Michael Kirkwood

John Henley — Eurozone's enforcer ready to keep Greece's new leader in line

Dutch economist Maarten Verwey has unprecedented powers as his taskforce oversees the implementation of Greece’s cash-for-reforms rescue package 

Whoever ends up moving into Maximos Mansion, the official Athens residence of Greece’s prime ministers, after Sunday’s election, they will not, in any meaningful sense, be running the country.

That honour might be said to go instead to a besuited Dutch economist in Brussels with the imposing title of director-general in the secretariat-general of the European commission in charge of the Structural Reform Support Service.

Maarten Verwey, a senior civil servant at the Dutch finance ministry who joined the commission in 2011 and led its Cyprus assistance programme, heads what amounts to an EU taskforce for Greece, Greek media have said.

His powers are unprecedented. And if few voters on the streets of Athens have heard his name, many understand that how they cast their ballot in the elections will make little difference to what happens next.

“It’s a done deal,” said Christos Sotirakis, 43, a bank employee. “It doesn’t matter who wins, we know what they’ll be doing. More taxes, more cuts, more austerity. Every party signed up to it. There’s no real point voting.”

Anti-austerity Syriza leader and outgoing premier Alexis Tsipras, who resigned this summer after accepting punishing new bailout terms to ward off bankruptcy and keep Greece in the euro, and Vangelis Meimarakis, of the centre-right New Democracy, are tied in the polls.

But under the draconian conditions of Greece’s third cash-for-reforms rescue package, Athens effectively surrendered control over great swaths of economic and social policymaking to its eurozone lenders.…

In exchange for the bailout funds, Greece, which needs to repay about €1.3bn in loans this December and another €6bn in 2016, has pledged to radically overhaul its economy and make far-reaching changes to the health, welfare, pensions and taxation systems.…

According to the financial weekly Agora, Verwey’s 20-strong staff “will essentially write the legislation for almost all areas of government policy, from corporate income tax and labour market policy to the health and welfare system … and prepare interim reports during the evaluation of the economy”.…

Yannis Stathopoulos, a waiter, said he would definitely not be voting. “I’ve given up,” he said. “Did we really invent democracy?” 

Goodbye Greek democracy. Hello neoliberal transnational technocracy. Of course, as long as European borders remain open, which may not be for long, Greeks can move elsewhere and compete for jobs with the rest of the refugees.

The Guardian
Eurozone's enforcer ready to keep Greece's new leader in line
John Henley
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