3 ms·
Sadly Russia never really recovered from communist revolution which resulted in a century of negative population selection, especially visible in its “leadershi
by option 4y ago
Sadly Russia never really recovered from communist revolution which resulted in a century of negative population selection, especially visible in its “leadership” today :(
- pessimizer 4y agoIf communism beats anything, it's feudalism.
- stevenalowe 4y agofeudalism had avenues of escape for the serfs
- sofixa 4y agoWhat avenues? Even the freed serfs were landless and indebted.
- stevenalowe 4y agoFreemen could own land, debts could be paid - and many serfs simply walked away to start new lives in the growing towns. Some could exchange military service for freedom.
- andrekandre 4y ago> and many serfs simply walked away to start new lives in the growing towns wasnt that really only possible when their power was largely diminished by the burgeoning capitalism in said towns? it was my understanding that before that there wasnt much anything to run to...?
- refurb 4y agoCommunism just make sure everyone is equally a serf, except the inner party.
- jltsiren 4y agoI've always thought that Russia never recovered from anarchists / nihilists / whatever murdering Alexander II. Finland remembers him as the last good emperor, and his statue is still at the center of the main square of Helsinki, between the government palace, the university main building, and the main cathedral. Under Alexander II, Russia was on its way to becoming yet another European constitutional monarchy. His son Alexander III reversed the course, and Nicholas II continued with nationalistic autocratic rule, which ultimately ruined the backward empire and and paved the way to communism.
- galaxyLogic 4y agoWe cannot trust unelected leaders to share their power with others. Monarchy is really nothing but autocracy. Leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping might as well give themselves the title "King", except they won't because that might make people start asking question like "Why are you the king and not I? . "Why does all power have to be concentrated in one person?"
- sofixa 4y agoAlexander III was already autocratic, reactionary and against his father's reforms even before the latter's assasination.
- nl 4y ago> a century of negative population selection, especially visible in its “leadership” today This makes it sound like there was some evolutionary pressure of something. I hope everyone understands that ~2 generations is insufficent to have any selective pressure (Putin was born in 1952) Indeed, WW2 and the Ukranian famine in the 1930s had much more effect on the population than any political system. And it's unclear what "negative population selection" means anyway. There's no evidence that Russians are in any way inferior to any other population group.
- d0mine 4y agoYeah, look at Russia in 1917 and 1947 under communists (won the war. From wooden plough to atomic piles). Compare with 1991 vs. 2021 under capitalists (banana republic, production is a fraction).