Charles Lane speculates on just what collapsing oil prices will mean for Russia and Vladimir Putin’s grip on power. This depends, Lane writes:
… on who has the more accurate view of authoritarian power dynamics: Yegor Gaidar or Emmanuel Goldstein.
Gaidar was an economist so his field of study was based on reason. In his view, the Soviet Union couldn’t survive:
… a sharp drop in oil prices, brought about by Saudi Arabia’s decision in September 1985 to increase production.
Goldstein is fictional. A creation of George Orwell. In 1984 he serves as a conduit for Orwell’s views on state tyranny and the factors that can lead to its fall and:
… in Goldstein’s schema nothing was more important than the will of the dictatorship to cling to power by any means necessary, which could trump all other threats to regime survival: “Ultimately the determining factor is the mental attitude of the ruling class itself.”.
There is no sense of vulnerability in Putin as was evident in Gorbachev. To the contrary. And there is the old standby for totalitarian regimes sensing discontent at home – insight the passions of the people against an external enemy.
Real the whole Lane piece.
