Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has been trying to return to that state of power.

Its government increasingly resembles the Communist ideal, toned down to a socialist system that admits but controls capitalism.

In defiance of the West, it does not mind autocratic leaders or oligarchs.

And its military power is ratling its sabers.

Russia is planning a “comprehensive rearmament” of its military, President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday.

The country will aim for 70 percent of its weaponry to be “modern” by 2020, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said, according to RIA-Novosti, the state-run news agency.

Russia invaded Georgia, to its south, in August of last year — the first time Russian military forces had engaged in an offensive outside their borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

CNN

Russia is also looking for allies. In addition to making oil-based business partnerships with Venezuela and Cuba, Russia has been courting some old allies — and some new. Among other things, she’s getting cozy with India and China, who like Russia do not identify themselves as European. The new Russian vision is of Russia as a superpower, with strong allies to form a Bloc against the west.

First, look at how all three are preparing themselves for the kind of conflict that can be waged without triggering nuclear war — high intensity conventional air-driven combat. This means that a huge ground force surges in, but unlike past East Bloc strategies, this ground force has a NATO-style air shield over it and overwhelming munitions capacity.

In the last two years, Russia, India and China have all announced or clarified major defense programs that include everything from the development of advanced fighters to upgrading aircraft carriers.

It turns out that adversaries took careful note of the way the United States
and its allies used air dominance in all its operations. They reshaped their defense plans to make inroads on that asymmetric advantage. They are building advanced missiles, aircraft and subsystems, and there’s also a world market for their best wares.

UPI

Next, look at how Russia is shoring up its national borders:

• Russia Scapegoats Migrants in Economic Downturn
• Rabbis’ expulsion worries Russia’s Jews
• Russia to deploy new warheads in December

What does this look like, my fellow students of history and politics? It’s a classic power-concentrating move. First, gain allies out there in the world who will make you look good and provide support. Second, kick out the ethnics and others who threaten the solidarity of culture and values. Finally, bulk up your military and rattle some sabers.

The most interesting things here are that Russia is learning from NATO’s successful strategies of years past, including the knowledge that in wargaming with NATO, Russia lost out because of its diminished air power, and that Russia is determined to meet the West technology-for-technology and force-for-force. See this:

Russia has deployed its second state-of-the-art S-400 anti-ballistic missile system regiment, RIA Novosti reported Tuesday.

Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the regiment had been armed with the new S-400 Triumf air defense missile system and it already had been put into combat service in Russia, the report said.

If the S-400 (NATO designation SA-21 Growler) lives up to its specifications, it could be the most advanced air defense system in the world against low-flying aircraft, cruise missiles and even intermediate-range ballistic missiles. U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles are far more vulnerable to advanced air defense interceptor systems because they fly relatively slowly, at only 650 mph, a subsonic speed. By contrast, Russia’s most advanced cruise missiles fly at three times that speed — Mach 2.8, or 1,900 mph.

UPI

The message is clear: we can stop enough of your missiles, and hit you with enough of ours, that you’re not the only top dog in town. The keyword Russia and its allies want to stress is “multipolar world order,” or one in which there is more than one superpower. They want you to know that one of those superpowers is Russia, that she’s back and she’s bad, and you’d better not cross her or you’ll face the wrath.

Case in point:

We are, in fact, holding this congress in the midst of a major turning point in world history. The collapse of the US housing and credit bubble has rapidly developed into what is widely acknowledged to be the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Governments, central banks and economists can only guess how cataclysmic the consequences of the US financial meltdown will be. But they are forced to recognize that, in the best-case scenario, the world is in for a protracted period of economic stagnation and financial volatility. Whatever the short-term outcome-which must include as a real possibility a financial panic that plunges the world into a new Depression-the current crisis has dealt a massive blow to the credibility of American capitalism, both internationally and, above all, within the United States itself.

The events of the past year have revealed in the starkest manner the vast decline of the United States. Suddenly, before the eyes of the world, the outcome of a decades-long process of internal decay has broken through the surface and revealed a level of financial parasitism and criminality with no historical precedent. Such events deeply penetrate the consciousness of the masses and inevitably lead to profound changes in their political orientation. The rapidity and violence of such changes must have a proportional relationship to the scale of the myths that are being shattered and the scope of old illusions. As the ruling class that most persistently preached the gospel of free markets, private enterprise and individual self-reliance scrambles to bail out Wall Street giants to the tune of trillions of dollars-while millions lose their homes and poverty, unemployment, ill health and illiteracy increase-it becomes impossible to conceal the class divisions that dominate American society.

The ruling class and its ossified two-party system lack any perspective for addressing these problems in a rational and progressive way. Their central concern remains the ever-greater enrichment of a wealthy elite. Elections have been reduced to ritualized and demagogic contests between two right-wing parties of big business, in which the masses of people are effectively disenfranchised. The ruling class does have a response to the crisis of American capitalism: an unending series of wars of conquest and plunder.

World Socialist

While I think the bloviation on the current recession is overblown — it’s a transient issue, brought on by the policies of the 1990s and the consequent over-valuation of America’s “knowledge industry,” and the market is going to undertake a correction for a few years — they have a point: people who thought technology and industry were a firm footing are now opening their eyes to other possibilities.

One-and-a-half years after the Third Congress of the Comintern the conflicts within the German Communist Party (KPD) were not really resolved. After the occupation of the Ruhr by the French army, the conflict between the leadership majority and the left opposition erupted once again in full force. Differences emerged over the support given by the KPD to a left-wing Social Democratic Party (SPD) government in Saxony and the course to be adopted in the occupied Ruhr.

The party was now led by Heinrich Brandler, a founding member of the Spartakusbund. While many former lefts had turned sharply to the right, a new left-wing faction had formed under Ruth Fischer, Arkadi Maslow and—to a lesser extent—Ernst Thälmann. Fischer and Maslow were both young intellectuals who had joined the movement after the war. They had the majority of the important Berlin organisation behind them. Thälmann was a worker who joined the KPD through the Independent SPD (USPD). He was the leader of the KPD in Hamburg.

On January 10, the SPD government in Saxony fell and the KPD conducted a campaign for a united front and a workers’ government. While the majority of the SPD favoured a coalition with bourgeois parties, a left minority was for an alliance with the KPD. The KPD developed a vigorous agitation and published a “workers’ program,” which included among its demands: confiscation of the property of the former royal family; arming the workers; a purge of the judiciary, the police and the administration; calling of a congress of factory councils and control of prices by elected committees.

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In Germany, the extreme right had previously been limited to remnants of the imperial army and small anti-Semitic parties. But in 1923 it started to grow and win a social base, even though it was much smaller than Hitler’s social base in the 1930s. Agitation against the “November criminals,” Jews and foreigners found a hearing amongst declassed petty-bourgeois elements and some impoverished workers affected by the impact of inflation. In the Ruhr, members of the extreme right presented themselves as heroic fighters against the French occupation.

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In the following days and weeks there were numerous discussions and continuous correspondence with the leaders of the KPD, who frequently travelled to Moscow. Financial, logistical and military support was organised to arm the Proletarian Hundreds, which had been set up over the previous months. In October, Radek, Pyatakov and Sokolnikov were sent to Germany to assist the uprising.

World Socialist

Fascinating account of a part of history we don’t hear much about. Germany had several abortive Communist and Socialist uprisings, in 1918 and throughout the 20s and 30s.