Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Thursday, September 06, 2012

Ahead to the past?

Is this just another of Putin's unfortunate analogies? Or is it really his desired path to the future? Let's hope it's not a reference to Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward.

Vladimir Putin stirs memories of Joseph Stalin as he urges 'leap forward'

Russia needs a "leap forward" to rejuvenate its sprawling defence industry, Vladimir Putin said on Friday, harkening back to the ambitious industrialisation carried out by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in the runup to the second world war.

"We should carry out the same powerful, all-embracing leap forward in modernisation of the defence industry as the one carried out in the 1930s," Putin told his security council, without mentioning Stalin by name.

Stalin, who ruled the Soviet empire for 25 years, is blamed for the death of about six million people but also is praised by many Russians for winning the second world war and industrialising the country.

Russian drone

Putin has made renewed industrialisation a priority during his third term in the Kremlin…

In the 1930s Soviet leaders transformed a rural country devastated by civil war into an industrial superpower, using terror and executions to impose strict discipline at new plants built across the vast country…

Putin plans to spend £430bn in the next eight years modernising the military, with the bulk of the money going to 1,350 defence plants which employ about two million Russians. Many defence sector workers backed Putin during the election.

He sees the sector as a new growth driver for the stagnating economy which can help wean Russia off its dependency on energy. He promised to open up the sector to private businesses.

Putin's critics argue that the arms industry is too backward and corrupt to be given such money and point to numerous recent failures and delays such as space satellite crashes or failed test launches of new intercontinental missiles…