VK CEO Fired, Says Company Under Kremlin Control 149
An anonymous reader writes "The embattled founder of VK, Russia's largest social networking site, said this week that the company is now 'under the complete control' of two oligarchs with close ties to President Vladimir Putin. In a VK post published Monday, Pavel Durov said he's been fired as CEO of the website, claiming that he was pushed out on a technicality, and that he only heard of it through media reports."
Re:Surprised? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Surprised? (Score:5, Informative)
There is no meaningful difference between totalitarian regimens in practice. The only real difference are the excuses. Fascism, Communism and Nazism are one and the same, and no it s not possible to have a non totalitarian communist country. Communism needs big and all powerful governments and those governments as they grow become more and more totalitarian. There is no way to avoid it.
I agree with that for the most part (and history bears you out with regards to Communism). However, Fascism doesn't tie itself to a specific, unworkable, economic theory; it accepts capitalism so long as the state maintains control. Which is is a very prominent factor in Russia of late, possibly even more than in China.
Re:Surprised? (Score:4, Informative)
If it was Soviet Estonia then your parents or grandparents weren't among the victims of repression or deportation, although they might be among the ethnic Russians moved there by the Soviet Union. (Ethnic Russian by any chance?) Those would be among the ethnic Russians that Putin has threatened other countries over.
Just a snippet of history: Soviet deportations from Estonia in 1940s [estonia.eu]
The Soviet Union had started preparations for the launch of terror in Estonian civil society already before the occupation of Estonia. As elsewhere, the purpose of communist terror was to suppress any possible resistance from the very beginning and to inculcate great fear among people in order to rule out any kind of organised general resistance movement in the future as well. In Estonia, the planned extermination of the prominent and active persons, as well as the displacement of large groups of people were intended to destroy the Estonian society and economy. The lists of people to be repressed were prepared well in advance. From the files of the Soviet security organs, it seems that already in the early 1930’s the Soviet security organs had collected data on persons to be subjected to repressions. Pursuant to the instructions issued in 1941, the following people in the territories to be annexed into the Soviet Union and their family members were to be subjected to repression: all the members of the former governments, higher state officials and judges, higher military personnel, former politicians, members of voluntary state defence organisations, members of student organisations, persons having actively participated in anti-Soviet armed combat, Russian émigrés, security police officers and police officers, representatives of foreign companies and in general all people having contacts abroad, entrepreneurs and bankers, clergymen and members of the Red Cross. Approximately 23 percent of the population belonged to these categories. In fact, the number of those actually subjected to repressions was much greater, for a large number of people not included in the lists also fell victim to the settlement of scores.