Russia in the global crisis: Geopolitical dilemmas, strategic responses
Video of public forum in Toronto, Canada on October 1, 2015 at the Beit Zatoun Community Center, featuring Boris Kagarlitsky and Sergei Plekhanov. The forum was sponsored by the Centre for Social Justice, the Socialist Project and the Canada Research Chair in Comparative Politics at York University. The video of the evening was produced by Left Streamed.
- Presentation by Boris Kagarlitsky, here on YouTube, 27 minutes. He is Coordinator of the Transnational Institute Global Crisis Project and Director of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements (IGSO) in Moscow. (You can also view a presentation by Boris Kagarlitsky in Toronto in April 2008: ‘The left and labour in Russia under Putin‘.)
- Presentation by Sergei M. Plekhanov, here on YouTube, 25 minutes. He is Associate Professor of Political Science at York University and a former Deputy Director of the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies in Russia.
- Introduction by moderator Judy Deutsch, here on YouTube.
Introduction by ‘Left Streamed’:
Geopolitical conflict produced by NATO expansion is taking place in Europe. It is the neoliberal model that stimulates NATO expansionism. This is very similar to what we saw in the late nineteenth century with the new wave of colonialism produced by the so-called Late Victorian Depression: to stabilize the system without changing it.
The dream of Russian elites is to have good relations with the West. The elite’s money is in the West, their children are at Oxford and Harvard, their property is in Switzerland and England. They are ready to make almost any concession that will not destabilize Russia itself. But the West is not accepting these offers. Ruling circles in the EU prefer to speak of a Russian threat instead of cooperation with Russia. This is all complicating the wider geopolitical setting around the Black Sea, in the conflicts in Syria and the Middle East and in Russia’s relations with China and East Asia.
These are all crucial issues for understanding the new political divisions between West and East shaping global politics.
