OT: RUSSIA
Believe it or not what happens in Russia doesn't always stay in Russia. Even our little mine that could has links to Russia which rockhound3 seems to know about. Turbo is full of it, but I had some time to kill so I clicked on his favorite mouthpiece, armstrong economics. I learned that Lenin and Stalin clashed personally and on their vision for Russia. Putin is not a follower of Stalin but many waiting in the wings are. I'm pressed for time this morning so I'm going to provide a quote from Mr. Armstrong:
"We must understand history for there has always been a question of where Russia begins and ends and who constitutes the Russian people. These questions have been debated by Russian thinkers themselves for centuries post-Russian Revolution which ended more than 300 years of tsarist rule. Believe it or not, Putin is not trying to resurrect the Soviet Union for that was not even the vision of Lenin – but Stalin.
Lenin dictated his famous thoughts on the nationality question in a document he sent to the party leadership. It was a letter titled “On the Question of Nationalities or ‘Autonomization.’” On December 31st, 1922, he attacked Stalin’s policies criticizing the rights provided to the republics by the Union treaty....
Lenin believed that Stalin, who was not Russian but Georgian, posed a major threat to Russia. He viewed Stalin’s dream of the USSR as a threat to the unity of state. Lenin’s idea of a union of independent states would be sustained by local autonomy taking into account their local customs. Lenin was prepared to replace the Union he had originally proposed with a looser association of states with the centralized powers to be confined to matters of defense and international relations exclusively. Lenin also maintained that the republics should retain the right of secession to prevent Stalin’s central dominance of authority."