Comments by "Emir" (@irongron) on "Naval war is back after grain deal collapse" video.

  1. Russians think like slaves i.e. they are used to a "big leader" (Veliki Vozhd) making the big decisions for them and this ingrained submissive thinking has its roots in centuries of Serfdom, almost uniquely due to the entire Russian population being ostensibly the "property" of their Tsar. Many countries and cultures practiced slavery & countries had slaves, but no country or culture ever enslaved the entirety of their people like the Russian Tsar did. not since at least Roman times, you'd have to probably go back to Egyptian Pharaohs ? (but that 3,000 years before Russia) I think Pharaohs they treated a large proportion like property, but most likely not even to the extent Russian Tsars did (making Russia more backwards than Egypt 3,000 years prior!!!). It's just the way the socially backwards system developed so it's got to do with the hundreds of years the entire Russian population were slaves of the Tsar (and by extension the state) under Serfdom. Ask any Ukrainian that question and you'll this similar answer. e.g. a Russian will take a beating form his master and maybe shrug it off, thinking they might have deserved it, a Ukrainian would not even entertain the thought or reality of someone being his master and resist that with a perpetual struggle to oust the oppression, let alone the humiliation of a punishing beating. The Ukrainian. strives to be free, the Russian, makes do with the bad situation and hopes it might get better sometime down the track.
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  2.  @dixonpinfold2582  Yes indeed, the Soviet era, was a continuation of the old Tsarist system in essence "re-branded" as Soviet socialism It's not fully realized by most that mention collectivisation - usually about the negative affects of the implementation by Stalin - and move on in the discussion, that the Kolkhoz's (collective farms) & Sovkhoz's (state farms) were ostensibly a continuation of Serfdom by stealth. A worker on these farms was bound to the land like a Serf in that they had to get permission to leave the Town or Village the farm was based around. If they sought this permission, it was of course, rarely, if at all, granted. You make some interesting observations, and I agree with the comparisons to tinpot dictators that were so prolific in post colonial Africa. I note with bemusement, Nguema was actually the Uncle of the current President of Equatorial Guinea, Obiang, whom Captain Simon Mann and other former "Executive Outcomes" (world first PMC essentially) mercenaries tried to over-throw in the failed Wonga Coup attempt in 2005.
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