Putin: “Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the #SovietUnion was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.” It was a *geopolitical* disaster, not a social one according to Putin. This is highly significant. 
Putin represents the section of the Russian neo-liberal racist capitalist oligarchy that didn’t want to totally sell itself to imperialism and wanted a little bit of respect for itself. Putin leans on the Soviet nostalgia to bolster his rule as a right-wing nationalist.
It’s dangerous for Putin to play w this Soviet nostalgia cos Russian ppl don’t just see it as a nationalist project but a social one that delivered for them. Putin has to counter this by constantly trying to repackage Soviet history as right wing nationalism.
The attempt at Putin to attack pensioners living standards in recent years and the mass movement against Putin that sparked by the very demographic Putin tries to manipulate by his Soviet nostalgia shows how committed Putin is to gangster-capitalism.
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