Agone et Chomsky en Ukraine : errances et complaisances de la gauche française

Ce qui ne peut plus durer dans la gauche française, considérée du point de vue de la guerre en Ukraine. Des analyses de Jean-Mélenchon ou de son fondé de pouvoir Manuel Bompard aux colonnes du Monde Diplomatique, les occasions de s’affliger de la complaisance et de l’ignorance de la gauche française quant à ce qui […]

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Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future?

Published by Hurst Publishers in the UK, and Oxford University Press in the US. A Financial Times Politics Book of the Year 2021 A Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2022 Shortlisted for the 2022 Pushkin House Book Prize. Translated in: Dutch (Xander); Finnish (Bazar) French (Tallandier); Hungarian (Alexandra Kiadó); German (Hoffmann und Campe); Polish (Zysk […]

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‘Putin did Navalny’

When anything bad happens in Russia, you’ll usually find there are two types of Russia-watchers: the ‘believers’ and the ‘sceptics’. The believers will immediately see the hand of Vladimir Putin, his direct, personal involvement, his orders. The sceptics will not rule out his involvement, but like Yana Gorokhovskaya, they’ll argue that Russia is not ‘a highly centralised system that he controls manually’, that Putin is ‘certainly Russia’s most important decision-maker’, but ‘the political system is not his personal well-oiled machine’. There are many groups and individuals with political agency, operating without Putin’s knowledge, and sometimes against his own interests.

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The Russian Liberal Opposition: ‘Nothing Has Worked’

‘Democratically oriented’ Russians had basically three strategies left to them in these elections. To vote for one of the two liberal candidates: Ksenya Sobchak or Grigori Yavlinsky. To boycott the elections. To rally around the main opposition candidate, the communist Pavel Grudinin. The results are in and Max Katz, a political organizer and consultant , has nailed it: ‘Nothing has worked’:

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