Notes on the News

By Gwydion M. Williams

False Fears of Russia

Russian Nationalism Killed the Soviet Union

From NATO to NUTO?

Decentralised China

Snippets

Privatisation Blight in Denmark

Kurds Admitting a Tragic Defeat

Revolting Long-term Results of the Anti-Marcos Democratic Revolt

You Want the Moon? You need SpaceX

Why Workers Tried Trump Again

“Not being the United States is why Canada exists”

False Fears of Russia

Why on earth should Russia wish to make a third effort at ruling Poles?

The call for massive West European militarisation is based on this being realistic. But Russia has made it clear it will settle for an ending of Kiev’s aggression against territories it inherited from the Soviet Union. Regions which no longer feel Ukrainian when wartime fascists are set up as official heroes of Ukrainian nationalism.

A Russian path back into Continental Europe would have to be through Poland. But could any Russian leader seriously wish for this?

Tsarist Russia joined a late 18th century partition of a Polish-Lithuanian empire that had never treated all of its subjects equally. The persistent hatred of Poles and Jews in the western parts of Ukraine was caused by centuries of oppression by Poles, and with Jews just seeking refuge and occupying the middle-class role.

Empires clash and try to expand: that’s true the world over. The partitioners of the Polish empire took territories that were not expected to have national feelings: simply obedience to a dynasty.

The Tsarist state got a mix of ethnic Poles and others, mostly classified as White Russians. Different from those shaped by Moscow, sometimes called Great Russians, though this insults Ukrainians who were officially Little Russians. The Tsars called themselves Emperors of All the Russias, and largely were, though there were Ukrainian revolts. But Poles were never assimilated.

I happened to notice in Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed that he has no sympathy for Tsarist subjects who were Poles. I asked on Quora and a Russian replied that the Poles had misbehaved when they were an empire. That they had been aggressors inflicting great suffering on Russia during their Time of Troubles.

Finland makes a contrasting case. Russia took it from Sweden, with British agreement. And it settled down as a Tsarist possession with some autonomy. Most of its working class participated in the October Revolution, but lost a regional civil war. It was a willing ally of Hitler when he invaded the Soviet Union, but made an early peace. Contentedly neutral throughout the Cold War. ‘Finlandisation’ used to be something right-wingers warned about, but it was a rational desire not to be on the front line in World War Three.

Stalin after World War Two changed Poland’s borders. The line he drew for its eastern border was close to what the West had defined as fair after World War One.^[1] And an ethnic-majority line was necessary for what was now Soviet Ukraine, where many Poles had been massacred by the right-wing Ukrainians that the West now treats as heroes.^[2] Poles in Soviet Ukraine sometimes dominated the cities, but apparently they were encouraged to move to Poland.

Stalin also allowed Germans to be evicted from East Prussia, where they were a clear majority. Likewise in Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, and the West was quite comfortable with this. I’ve never seen it included among ‘Soviet crimes’, because the mass of evidence of Western guilt or inaction is just too enormous to evade.

It was continuing Polish resistance to Soviet values that made the system untenable. And I’m sure no Russian wants a third attempt at ruling them. If they get what Trump is trying to deliver, they will logically respond by a big winding-down. Suggest buffer zones.

For Ukraine itself, Putin in 2022 thought Ukraine as a whole might be won over. Since 2014, the parts of Ukraine still ruled by Kiev have kept electing Presidents who were presented as moderates. They either faked or were won over by some mix of bribery and threats. And Moderate Ukraine became hostile when the troops burst in.

Russia actually pulled back from regions it might have held, and I see this as abandoning regions where too few of the inhabitants would have been content to be ruled. Unready to be cut off from the West.

Russian Nationalism Killed the Soviet Union

Bolshevism within Tsarist Russia was never narrowly Russian. In the Western-style Russian Constituent Assembly elections of 1917, the Bolsheviks got 75% in Livonia.^[3] And were the largest party in Estonia, with 40%. Which must have been why Stalin thought he could re-incorporate them.

Faced with a mixed bag of nations taken by the Red Army, Stalin had a scheme for a united and neutral Germany. ^[4] Had this come off, the Soviet Union could have relaxed and let Poland go much more its own way. Be ‘Finlandised’ rather than Sovietised.

One of Khrushchev’s many blunders was to reject this scheme, which would have made détente much more real. He was in substance a Russian Imperialist. Born in Russia and growing up very Russian in the Donbass, and not sympathetic to other sorts of nationalism. He invaded Hungary, which had been another ally of Hitler, but still a vast blunder. Brezhnev as Khrushchev’s follower and successor did far worse in invading Czechoslovakia, where the home-grown Communist movement had been strong.^[5]

Between them, they doomed the system they were trying to preserve. It was a failure of Russian hegemony within the last survival of Europe’s empires, rather than a failure of socialism.

It was much more genuinely international under Stalin, and he was no ‘Tankie’. He had the good sense not to try invading Yugoslavia. He kept friendship with Mao’s China. In Middle Europe, including Poland, he hoped that working-class feeling might overcome nationalism. But Khrushchev undermined Soviet authority by suddenly declaring Stalin a criminal, but assuming that he as boss of Russia had a right to dominate everything Global Leninism had won under Stalin’s leadership.

Soviet hegemony survived because of the Soviet army, until Gorbachev clumsily threw away that hegemony by not anticipating how much hostility had accumulated. He missed the option to negotiate something freer but not anti-Russian. He could certainly have secured a binding agreement not to expand NATO eastwards. Maybe an agreement to disband NATO once the Red Army went back to its homeland.

Worse happened when Yeltsin as President of Russia tried pulling back completely from the Soviet Union, imagining a friendly union of Russia with the other two sovereign Ruthenian states. It might have happened, had not both he and a string of leaders in Ukraine made a total hash of winding down the Soviet system. Belarus (White Russia) did much better, by hanging onto a working system and changing it only slowly. The continuing Soviet-era leader gets called a dictator, but the West has been doing that all over when the voters don’t give a majority to the West’s pets. Blatantly in Romania, and just now renewed in Serbia and Slovakia. Both protests by the parties that lost both the Presidency and Parliament last time there was an election.

From NATO to NUTO?

Brooker T. Washington made a grand insight when he warned the US South, you can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.

The Cold War ended with Russia deciding it could not in fact make a World State centred on Moscow.

Trump is foolish on many things, but sensible in abandoning what Bush senior began in the 1990s: an armed aggressive and dishonest bid for Western hegemony.^[6] Republicans also recognise that Putin’s Russia shares their conservative and Christian values. Note that the USA and Russia are by a large margin the two largest nation-states run by what they’d define as the White Race.

Well into the 1980s, NATO and the Warsaw Pact were face to face. But when the Soviet Union was wound up and troops from the various ex-Soviet nations went home, NATO stopped being necessary. Could have been called NUTO, Now Unnecessary Treaty Organisations, and it would be worth using this name for the Europe + Canada entity that is being considered.

Given the utter failure of Brexit, I can’t see things going the other way, with the European Union breaking up. Fears of a Russian invasion are helpful here, and I can’t help wondering if some European politicians play a dishonest game to free Europe from the USA.

The justification for now is to prevent Ukraine being oppressed, ignoring that what Russia currently holds is less than the regions with a majority against the Orange Revolution. Here as elsewhere, the West defines ‘democracy’ as just those it wants to submit to them.

It’s not ‘International Law’ that Democratic Secession must be prevented. The UN charter never says whether territorial integrity overrides self-determination. Many countries have switched viewpoints, mostly from selfish power politics. And make no serious sacrifices to enforce a General Assembly ruling. They do it only when they have a selfish advantage.

Crimea claimed right of secession in 2014. The Donbass sought autonomy, given that a government had seized power that was determined to purge Ukraine of all of its Russian and Soviet connections. And Kiev showed no interest in a second internationally-supervised vote in Crimea. Or any vote at all in the Donbass, though they signed up to it with the Minsk Agreement.

The UN has always run on amoral power politics. In the 1990s, the Baltic States claimed independence, which was undoubtedly their right under the Soviet constitution. Lithuania’s Supreme Soviet declared independence on 11th March 1990. Estonia followed on 30th March, and then Latvia on 4th May.

A smaller and looser Soviet Union might have survived. There were serious moves for a New Union Treaty:

“On 17 March 1991, the nine republics (Russia, Byelorussia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenia, and Uzbekistan) which participated in the drafting of the treaty held a popular referendum. 76% of voters supported maintaining the federal system of the Soviet Union, including a majority in all of the nine republics.”^[7]

The August 1991 coup by hard-liners wrecked this possibility. Yeltsin shoved aside Gorbachev as ruler of Russia, and Ukraine switched to demanding independence. The UN finally admitted the Baltic states as members once it was clear that the Soviet Union would soon be abolished.

No morality, and no respect for law or custom when it gets in their way. The UN would work better if this were frankly admitted.

Decen tralised China

Books about business in China explain that the Central Government permits, but it is regional governments that enables. I found this confirmed by someone on X, previously Twitter:

“China’s success is due as much to a highly decentralized state structure as to centralized direction. The proportion of central government transfers to local government are more than double (36%) what they are in the US (17%.) In just Hangzhou alone breakthrough startups such as DeepSeek, Unitree, Game Science, DEEP Robotics, BrianCo, Manycore and countless others are emerging from an ecosystem rooted in a Zhejiang’s small-enterprise culture. That entrepreneuralism and provincial structure predate capitalism, the United States and maybe even the internet.

“Just stop with this new genre of techbro sinology it’s embarrassing.”^[8]

In the West, it is increasingly a central state that’s been hijacked by big business. And where finance takes priority over real work and local interests.

“The main reason that Elon Musk chose to build a gigafactory in Shanghai was not because of government subsidies or policy support—after all, many countries can offer similar incentives. Rather, it was because of China’s large domestic market, supply chain advantages, large pool of engineering talent, and a highly efficient workforce.

“Western business leaders have long recognized these characteristics, yet Western journalists, politicians, and commentators often choose to ignore them—perhaps because such an explanation seems rather dull and does not open up any space to criticize China.”^[9]

That post also points to an interesting on-line article by a Chinese who had studied in the West:

“Many people at the time claimed that ‘state-owned enterprises distort China’s economy’ and believed that China must sell off its state-owned enterprises to increase its economic competitiveness. To me, this view seemed overly simplistic, so I used French state-owned enterprises as a counterexample. After all, some of the most globally competitive products the French economy produces (like nuclear power, high-speed rail and aviation) come from state-owned companies.”^[10]

I joined a Twitter-revival called Bluesky when it got going, but also remain with Twitter / X. I had found that there was suddenly a lot more news there that you’d not find elsewhere. Much of it Far Right nonsense, certainly. But also real things that the liberal-imperial elite don’t want you to know.

Even without X, I knew that two-level government control meant that ordinary Chinese benefit. I knew that the New Right claims were false.^[11] That governments actually do look after the interests of those they govern, in as far as they understand them.

Snippets

Privatisation Blight in Denmark

“Denmark postal service to stop delivering letters…

“The decision will affect elderly people most. Although 95% of Danes use the Digital Post service, a reported 271,000 people still rely on physical mail.

“‘There are many who are very dependent on letters being delivered regularly. These include hospital appointments, vaccinations or decisions regarding home care’…

“The introduction of a new Postal Act in 2024 opened up the letter market to competition from private firms and mail is no longer exempted from VAT, resulting in higher postage costs.”^[12]

Part of a wider pattern. Cut taxes for the rich. Declare a sudden financial crisis. Privatise and cut services to the needy. Then give the rich another tax gift

Sadly, the main reaction has been right-wing populism.

Kurds Admitting a Tragic Defeat

The Kurds of Turkiye have admitted defeat. The imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party calls for a cease-fire and for the group to disband.^[13]

Just survival for secularism among Kurds must be the aspiration.

They were almost the last big secular radical movement among Muslims. It was once a viable alternative to a revived and hard-line Islam. The alternative that the USA thought they could safely promote.

Now Kurds in Syria are seeking a compromise with the new Turkish-backed government. Possibly clearing things for pushing Israel out of Syria. Or even to help Palestine.

Revolting Long-term Results from the Anti-Marcos Democratic Revolt

The ousting in 1986 of Ferdinand Marcos was a triumph for the USA pushing its values. Part of a process that accelerated with the Soviet collapse.

And which was no real answer. Sukarno in Indonesia was smoothly kicked out, but Zaire / Congo had a terrible war and remains war-torn. Romania switched to Western values, but disqualified the likely winner of the forthcoming Presidential election. A sudden flood of hard facts about the long-suspected corruption of Italy’s Christian Democrats produced incoherence, and now the rise of independent-minded right-wingers. It took a war to remove Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who had been rescued from his war against Iran in 1987 when he was still seen as useful.^[14]

In the Philippines, the Marcos dynasty returned. And ‘International Justice’ helps them consolidate by arresting Rodrigo Duterte. He’d dared to be effective against the plague of addictive drugs that hurts so many Western or Western-orientated countries.^[15]

It reversed the ousting of Marcos Senior, which had been an apparent success for Western-style democracy. The country remains corrupt and violent: typical of places reshaped by the USA. And with the Duterte dynasty rejected, the drugs gangsters continue to flourish and kill people.

You Want the Moon? You need SpaceX

On X, the social forum once called Twitter, I see people denouncing Musk for getting subsidies for SpaceX and Tesla.

It seems fair on Tesla: it is no longer the superior brand it once was. China is producing much better. But the USA cannot do without SpaceX, unless it wants to abandon human spaceflight and give up any plans to return to the moon. Boeing was supposed to be the alternative, but Boeing got hijacked by cost accountants and its once-admired aircraft are now dangerous. Its private rocket business seems no better.

Yet SpaceX may be failing with Starship, its promised Great Leap Forward. So far, the upper stage has managed a suborbital flight just three times: but only once high enough to be officially defined as in space.^[16] The beefed-up version that was intended to orbit has now twice exploded. And that’s much more significant than catching the lower stage: a breakthrough only if the entire craft does what it was intended for

Why Workers Tried Trump Again

“Propaganda constantly claims the US economy is doing well, but that’s because it’s doing very well for the rich.

“The richest 10% of Americans account for 49.7% of all spending (up from 36% three decades ago).

“Spending by working-class households is falling.

“The Wall Street Journal notes that ‘economic growth is unusually reliant on rich Americans continuing to shell out’, estimating that spending by the richest 10% makes up almost 1/3rd of US GDP.

“Neoliberal economists constantly claim that the goal should be more GDP growth, but the benefits of that growth are accruing to the rich, while the majority of the population is actually getting poorer.

“Meanwhile, the Trump administration is run by billionaires, and the richest oligarch on Earth is the de facto co-president. There are 13 billionaires creating policy in the Trump administration. They have absolutely no solutions for this. They will only make it worse.”^[17]

But as I’ve said before, the problem is not just the billionaires, or even the 1%. About a tenth of the society is doing OK, and most of them support the current unfairness. Dominate the media, and deceive many of the losers.

Things are probably not as bad in the UK. But even before Trump, the USA was no model to copy.

“Not being the United States is why Canada exists”

That’s from the Daily Telegraph, the voice of thinking Toryism.^[18]

The article is behind a pay wall, so I don’t know if it looks deeper. French Canada was annexed to the British Empire, and was traditionalist. English Canada was indeed founded by Loyalists who rejected the new USA, where they had been treated unfairly. But Western Canada is much more like the USA, and not so hostile to Trump’s ideas.

He may actually be playing for a break-up. It could work.

Old newsnotes at the magazine websites. I also write regular blogs – https://www.quora.com/q/mrgwydionmwilliams

^[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curzon_Line

^[2] https://mrgwydionmwilliams.quora.com/West-Ukraine-The-Bitter-Past

^[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_1917_Russian_Constituent_Assembly_election#Baltics

^[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin_Note

^[5] https://labouraffairsmagazine.com/very-old-issues-images/magazine-001-to-010/magazine-007-july-1988-2/the-1968-invasion-of-czechoslovakia-doomed-the-soviet-union/

^[6] https://mrgwydionmwilliams.quora.com/Trump-Leads-a-Less-Ambitious-Overclass

^[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Union_Treaty

^[8] https://x.com/jynpang/status/1902185527224230035

^[9] https://x.com/kejimao/status/1902441415155847404

^[10] https://thechinaacademy.org/western-ignorance-failure-to-see-china-beyond-the-party/