If Russia is so evil, then why is Vladimir Putin Time's "Person of the Year?"

I first heard about this news a couple of weeks ago while looking at Time Magazine while I was waiting to pick a prescription for my girlfriend. I began reading it, but didn't get that far. While reading, however, I decided to create a thread about this topic on ATS. If Russia is so evil, as I am hearing here on ATS constantly (and a point that I might agree with), then why is Vladimir Putin Time Magazine's "Person of the Year?" Shouldn't Time be more critical of him? Here is a link to the news (which is kind of old): Person of the Year: Vladimir Putin. Here are just some of the threads that put Russia in a bad light:

Russia issues warning to U.S. & EU over Kosovo independence...
Russia Issues Nuke Warning...
Russia suspends arms treaty -- The World War III Wheels are in Motion....
New Axis (Russia-China-India)...
Russia Tests "Dad of All Bombs"...

What's up, doc?




[edit on 30-1-2008 by they see ALL]

1938 Adolf Hitler
1939 Joseph Stalin
1942 Joseph Stalin
1979 Ayatullah Khomeini


It's not a "good guy" list. It's based largely on one's influence on the world.

The List

[edit on 30-1-2008 by thisguyrighthere]

I think this is your answer:

TIME's Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest. At its best, it is a clear-eyed recognition of the world as it is and of the most powerful individuals and forces shaping that world—for better or for worse. It is ultimately about leadership—bold, earth-changing leadership. Putin is not a boy scout. He is not a democrat in any way that the West would define it. He is not a paragon of free speech. He stands, above all, for stability—stability before freedom, stability before choice, stability in a country that has hardly seen it for a hundred years. Whether he becomes more like the man for whom his grandfather prepared blinis—who himself was twice TIME's Person of the Year—or like Peter the Great, the historical figure he most admires; whether he proves to be a reformer or an autocrat who takes Russia back to an era of repression—this we will know only over the next decade. At significant cost to the principles and ideas that free nations prize, he has performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of world power. For that reason, Vladimir Putin is TIME's 2007 Person of the Year.

TIME

[edit on 30-1-2008 by loam]

because in soviet russia, Time is magazine of the year...

ok that was bad.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
It's not a "good guy" list. It's based largely on one's influence on the world.

Thank you, I didn't know this.

Originally posted by loam
I think this is your answer:

Thank you. I love ATS, as it is a great way to get answers rapidly. Unfortunately, I wish this could have sparked discussion (I guess it will not, now). I always thought that it was an honor being on Time's "Person of the Year" list .

How little most people know about history is astounding. Do a little"digging". In 1938 TIME brainwashingazines "Man of the Year" was ADOLPH HITLER. He was shoved into every Americans face in a reverse psychology move to get him into the collective consciousness on the eve of WWII. The same thing is being done right now. If history repeats itself.....

Pretty scary stuff.

Interesting times lay ahead......

reply to post by ItsHumanNature


So it's Time Magazines fault we went to war with Germany?

I suppose Time making Bush man of the year 2 and a half times is why America loves him so much? Or was Time trying to make people hate him?

Can you be more specific in your assertion?

If only Time hadn't made Hitler person of the year he'd have taken over the world?

Because "Evil Russia" and for russians "Evil America" is just a ploy, to increase defense spending.

reply to post by they see ALL


No worries.

And it did... you reminded us of a very real force on the contemporary landscape that is worth noticing.

I never read TIME.

Originally posted by they see ALL
If Russia is so evil, as I am hearing here on ATS constantly (and a point that I might agree with

Define evil.

I seriously don't see how anyone can put such a label on Russia. When it comes to geopolitics, it's not much worse or better than any nation of comparable stature. Yes, the human cost of the war in Chechnya is tragically enormous, but so is that of the campaigns that the US waged in the past three decades. My friend went to Belgrade after the bombing campaign and he told me that devastation was much worse than ever alluded to in the media. Who's more evil, Russia or the US, is up to Almighty God to decide.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere

So it's Time Magazines fault we went to war with Germany?

I suppose Time making Bush man of the year 2 and a half times is why America loves him so much? Or was Time trying to make people hate him?

Can you be more specific in your assertion?

If only Time hadn't made Hitler person of the year he'd have taken over the world?

You know Damn well the Chicago Bulls kept winning as long as Jordans face was on the Box of Wheaties in a Reverse Reverse Psychology ha ha ha..

I am wondering why you even bothered to respond to that utter non sense.


- Con

Originally posted by Choronzon
Because "Evil Russia" and for russians "Evil America" is just a ploy, to increase defense spending.

I was just going to say this. Who told us they were evil? Who told them we were evil? Are they wrong because we do not understand them?

Are we wrong to listen to our elders who formed opinions from cold war propaganda?

Give peace a chance. How can we build trust when we don't allow the chance to earn it. Sad.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
1938 Adolf Hitler
1939 Joseph Stalin
1942 Joseph Stalin
1979 Ayatullah Khomeini

That sums it up.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


My post was not an assertion it was an observation. Are YOU asserting that we were not on the eve of WWII in 1938 or something? I dont get it.


[edit on 30-1-2008 by ItsHumanNature]

could this have anything to do with it?

U.S. authorities plan to suggest Russia invest more money from its reserve and national welfare funds into the American economy, a deputy U.S. treasury secretary said.

en.rian.ru...


nothing like a stroke of the ego to get things moving....

I think Lenin was an idiot. He ruined Russian Empire and I think Putin's probably trying to recover Russia from communism b/s and he's doing well on that.

Btw, Bush was Time's "Person of the Year", too.

[edit on 30-1-2008 by TheoOne]

Originally posted by TheoOne
I think Lenin was an idiot.

Based on what? His mental capacity? Or his success as a leader? His theoretical and philosophical perspectives? How much exactly do you know about Lenin, his ideas, his personal convictions, and his attempts to build a people's empire, to call him an idiot? He was doing something that no one before him attempted to do, and he didn't exactly fail. He struggled against opposition from outside his party, as well as from inside his party. Untill his death he was doing everything in his power to prevent people like Stalin from climbing to the top of the leadership position, knowing perfectly well that that would ultimately lead to downfall of communism as he saw it.

Lenin was a disillusioned and arrogant demagogue, but no more so than many of the greatest world leaders, such as Churchill.

Originally posted by TheoOne
He ruined Russian Empire

He did not ruin the Russian Empire, as it was in the final stages of collapse before the Bolshevik revolution started. This was due to internal pressures from the working class, the anarchists, and the aristocracy, as well as external pressures from Western (particularly British) powers. There would have been a violent coup in Russia in the early 20th century whether Bolsheviks or Lenin existed or not. Changing times and political progress taking place throughout Europe ruined the Russian Empire.

And Lenin did not even start the revolution. Trotsky and his assistants can be credited with this for a large part. Lenin was simply a known face and a talented orator, whom the Bolsheviks saw as the most prominent tool for propaganda purposes. Lenin played a major role in shaping the new communist-socialist nation (although most of the progress was rewinded by Stalin), but he did not play a large role in toppling the Romanov dynasty and the post-Romanov provisionary government.

I know this has nothing to do with the topic... so excuse me

Originally posted by TheoOne
and I think Putin's probably trying to recover Russia from communism

Russia didn't need to recover from communism. Russia needed to recover from the Gorbachev's economic shock therapy and the resulting economic, political, and social chaos. This chaos was continued if not exacerbated by Yeltsin's strategy to "do nothing and wait untill the clouds clear". On top of all that the country came to be economically and to an extent politically controlled by Western-backed oligarchs, who has every interest to continue Yeltsin's passive policies.

That is what Putin is trying to recover Russia from. Communism has very little to do with this. Communism ended very quickly in Russia (and practically nothing but memories is left of it today) unlike ex-Soviet republics like Belarus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Turkmenistan. It ended quickly because Yeltsin and a horde of other politicians and generals organized a well planned veiled coup in the early 90's, to get rid of the Perestroika Communists like Gorbachev. Those individuals (who came to control Russia in the 90's) were not interested in Perestroika, they were interested in opportunities that presented themselves in politics and economy.

Communism's last realistic traces in Russia were the GKChP which attempted to wrestle the control of the country back in 1991. The GKChP failed, and its members never presented themselves in any powerful roles in country ever again.


Putin is trying to propell Russia as far ahead as possible economy-wise, so that it may catch up with the rest of Europe. He too uses a sort of shock-therapy, only this time it is the opposite of Gorbachev's. Where Gorbachev focused on decentralization and privatization, Putin focuses on centralization - to have the economy coordinated by the government as much as possible. The same goes for certain political "freedoms" as you would call them, which at first appear to be impeded by Putin's policies. However if you consider that they were never actually there in the 90's, you would see that what Putin is doing is only symbolic, and very little has realistically changed.

Some supporters of Putin are convinced that the changes and backtracking is temporary - in order to jump-start the country's economy. Some are not convinced however that future leaders will willingly return the "freedoms" back once the economy is up and running. That is the question now. Looks like Medvedev is poised to tackle that question.

But whatever people think Putin's intentions are, he certainly deserves the Time's prominent placement. What he is doing is the most sure and quick way to build Russia's economy, although it is risky. Many in the West dismiss and critique everything Putin does, and if anything that shows a lack of comrehension of his actions - especially judging by the ignorant critiques. There are reasons to criticize him, but they are different from the criticism he is getting in the West.

Consider what he is doing an experiment. If it is successful, Russian "democracy" will quickly start changing for the better along with its economy in less than a decade. If it is not successful, Russia will backtrack another decade or so in political development, and after a brief boost the economy will start to decline again.

Medvedev hold the key to what will happen. Medvedev being an economist and a capitalist, and not a professional politician, I think that Putin made the right choice (after all he could have chosen Ivanov).

But if Medvedev is going to continue to receive single-voiced bull**** criticism from the West, it could only hamper progress - maybe that's what U.S. wants after all.

Originally posted by TheoOne
b/s and he's doing well on that.

That remains to be seen. He has taken 8 years to get his strategy started, and made very slow progress in some areas (corruption) - he had the power to speed things up. If he is truly stepping down, then his job is done, and it will take at least a decade untill we can look back and decide whether what he did was good or bad.

For now the majority of people here are too preoccupied with criticizing Putin and fantacising about him being a Great Old Commie or a new Evil Czar. Very few attempt to dissect his policies and interpret them realistically.


[edit on 30-1-2008 by maloy]

If only America had a leader looking out for the American people as well as Putin advances the interest of Russians. While the retreat from democracy is a huge error, you have to admire the guy for taking on the the powers that be and getting Russia back on it's feet again.

Maybe Putin can run for president in the US once he finishes with Russia. Well OK the constitution forbids it. Perhaps they can bring him in as a senior advisor on how to assert one's national interests. It might be a refreshing change from serving international corporate interests.

Originally posted by they see ALL
Here are just some of the threads that put Russia in a bad light:

Russia issues warning to U.S. & EU over Kosovo independence...
Russia Issues Nuke Warning...
Russia suspends arms treaty -- The World War III Wheels are in Motion....
New Axis (Russia-China-India)...
Russia Tests "Dad of All Bombs"...

Those threads doesn't put Russia in bad light except in some minds.