Ed T: Curious, Rob Naylor, since you seemvto have direct knowledge.

Would you say that Russia is still a communist state? If so, how is it different from the pure communist state it used to be ((if different at all). Do people now have accessto information as other do in tge West. Or, is "the state"still the main infirmation source versus the "free press" (recognizing there are limits to what that constitutes everywhere).

Not been on Mudcat for a while as I was on vacation, climbing in the mountains, then in Moscow. Now I'm back on Sakhalin.

I'm not going to argue about whether the USSR was ever a "pure communist state". It's telling that over the years many people who have enthusiastically supported communism and in turn various communist states, whether run by Mao, Stalin or lesser figures, turn to the "well it was never really a proper communist state anyway" excuse once the failures, atrocities etc come to light.

However, having spent a considerable time in Poland in the 1970s when it was still in the Warsaw Pact, less but significant time in East Germany around the same time, and then a fair bit of time in the USSR (specifically Estonian SSR) in the early 80s, there's just no comparison.

In Estonia in the early 80s our rooms were definitely bugged. As independent visitors (ie not travelling as part of a controlled group) we were followed, not always very discreetly, everywhere we went and locals, both ethnic Russians and Estonians, were quite wary of speaking to us, and certainly wouldn't discuss political issues or even think of commenting negatively on their governments or leaders. Estonians could get (and understand) Finnish TV but it was often jammed.

As a foreign student in Torun, Poland, in 1974, I could access the "Foreign Club" which had English papers...but ONLY the "Morning Star" and "Socialist Worker"! (essentially organs of the Communist Party of GB and Socialist Worker's Party at the time).

Now, there's just no comparison. There's free access to the internet here (Russia, where I am now) and foreign papers and magazines freely available everywhere. Whilst most of the press is controlled to a greater or lesser extent, there ARE non-government-controlled publications, though their staff do sometimes suffer levels of intimidation...indeed, some have died in mysterious circumstances.

You can argue that the place is essentially run by gangsters....but then it was to as the USSR, too!....Putin and many of his cronies came up through the old USSR system, KGB etc. From what I hear, conditions in jails etc, while still appalling by European standards, are nowhere near as bad as they were under the USSR.

I can now have political discussions with my local friends and acquaintances, and these seem to be very free, with people criticising their government frequently. Local friends here are appalled at some of Putin's rhetoric on Ukraine, and are happy to say so. Discussions can get quite heated when pro and anti people get together!

Not sure how much it was reported in the foreign press (it was reported in the state media here as a small demo of a couple of thousand people!), but there was a huge peace demo in Moscow last week....at least 50,000 people, carrying alternating Ukrainian and Russian flags, with signs saying that Russia should leave Ukraine alone and one that I have a photograph of saying (in Russian): "Putin: he stole Russia and now he wants to steal Ukraine too".

I went for a walk round Victory Park in Moscow on Saturday and the statue representing the Ukrainian soldier was covered in red roses.

Either of those things would have been totally inconceiveable under the USSR.

One thing that is slow to change though is people being unwilling to take responsibility or to "go outside the box" to get things done. Everything has to be done strictly by the rulebook here, no matter how inconvenient it makes things. For example, one project I'm working on now is completely stalled waiting for visa applications to be allowed. It's going to have a knock-on effect onto a whole gas project (which is Russia's main source of foreign income) which will be held up for weeks or months and will cost the Russian economy hundreds of millions of dollars. But the local Visa Dept isn't accepting work visa applications because the forms have been changed and they don't have a supply of the new forms yet. No-one there is in the least interested in getting forms couriered here from Moscow, or sending images for local printing or whatever....they'll "come when they come" and until then the project's stalled as we can't get the required engineers in. No-one gives a damn...very similar to USSR days when "the government pretends to pay us so we pretend to work".