“The way Russia is now structured as a political unit, it looks very much like a big corporation…Putin basically, he’s anything but a dictator, he’s more like a chair of a board.” -Boris Kagarlitsky
This special holiday edition of the Global Research News Hour features a speech by Boris Kagarlitsky, delivered at the University of Manitoba September 27, 2015, as the closing keynote speech from the inaugural Geopolitical Economy Research Group Conference.
Boris Kagarlitsky is a native of Russia. A political dissident, Kagarlitsky has been imprisoned twice in his country – once under the Soviet regime of Leonid Brezhnev, and once under Boris Yeltsin. He is director of the Moscow-based Institute for Globalization Studies and Social Movements, a leading Russian leftist think-tank. Kagarlitsky is also the editor of the on-line magazine Rabkor, and author of numerous books, including ”Empire of the Periphery” (Pluto) and “From Empires to Imperialism” (Routledge).
In his September 27 talk, Kagarlitsky devoted his attention to the state of Russian politics and economics in the post communist era. He explained the role played by the oligarchs in Russian and Ukrainian society, the dynamics of political decision making in Putin’s Russia, and how the situation has been influenced in the wake of US and other foreign political and economic decisions.
Video of the talk along with a question and answer discussion is available below.
Footage courtesy of Sean Cain and Nicolas Kochay of Better World Communications
For more on the Geopolitical Economy Research Group 2015 Conference, please visit www.gergconference.ca.
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