Jacobin Radio: Putinism w/ Ilya Budraitskis

Jacobin Radio

Jacobin

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🗓️ 27 April 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

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Summary

Suzi talks to long-time political activist and theorist Ilya Budraitskis about the transformation of Russia into a dictatorship and the nature of Putinism more than a year after Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Independent media has been replaced with censorship and propaganda. Expression of dissent is met with repression and long stints in prison. In fact, Ilya's vocal opposition to Putin's rule and this war forced him to flee the country. In an article for the journal Spectre, Ilya argues that the war has cemented a decades-long transformation of the Russian regime into a qualitative new form.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Jacobin Radio, I'm Susie Weissman. On today's program, we have an extended conversation
0:19.2	with veteran political theorist and activist Ilia Boudreitzkis, formerly based in Moscow
0:25.0	and now a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. We talked to Ilia about the nature of Putinism
0:30.7	and the state of Russia more than a year after Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine.
0:35.4	Russia's cracked down on any expression of dissent at home, shut down independent media,
0:40.7	imposed ridiculous censorship, and ramped up its crude propaganda. Ilia argues that the war has cemented
0:48.0	a decade's long transformation of the Russian regime into a qualitative new form,
0:53.3	an open, repressive dictatorship that borrows from the playbook of both Stalin and Hitler.
0:59.1	Indeed, Ilia calls Putinism a form of fascism. We get his analysis when our program returns in just a moment.
1:06.8	This is Jacobin Radio, I'm Susie Weissman. I'm very pleased to have Ilia Boudreitzkis back with us.
1:26.9	We're going to be discussing Russian politics, Putinism, the war in Ukraine, and almost anything
1:34.4	that comes from that. Russia's invasion of Ukraine began over a year ago, and it caught nearly
1:41.2	all observers by surprise. The idea of a full-scale war was unthinkable, and it stated aims of
1:48.1	wiping out a country and eradicating its population. We're not just irrational, but really inconceivable.
1:55.2	Russia's brutal exterminest war conduct has shocked the world, recalling more tactics from another time.
2:03.4	The mass slaughter of World War I, making it seem as if history is running in reverse.
2:09.0	Ukrainian resistance to Russia's imperial onslaught has made Russia double down on destruction,
2:15.2	since it cannot advance or accomplish its ill-stated war aims.
2:19.6	Entire cities in Ukraine have been reduced to rubble. Russia has cracked down on descent at home,
2:25.3	has imposed ridiculous censorship and ramped up its crude propaganda. Millions of left the country
2:31.9	to avoid being conscripted, or because they have posed Putin's war. The war has changed the
2:37.5	trajectory of the 21st century and indeed the world. Putin's propaganda efforts at home to
	...

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