Originally published at: Russian law would ban "ideology of childlessness" - Boing Boing
…
10 Likes
Tell us again how Ukrainians are the fascists, Vova…
Especially seeing how the previous “anti-propaganda” law against LGBTQ+ Russians has played out. And make no mistake, the Project 2025 crowd is taking notes on this approach in anticipation of the MAGAts winning.
32 Likes
Russia’s demographic collapse has only been heightened by the emigration of everyone who had the means to get out at the start of the war.
More generally, Russia’s population trends are utterly bleak. You have the echo of the 1990s - a generation who were thrown into poverty and economic collapse as the USSR broke up didn’t have many children, so now that smaller generation aren’t having many children either.
No doubt Putin and his inner circle thought that this problem could be fixed by “assimilating” new people from Ukraine, but the SMO has backfired wildly.
27 Likes
I can see how it protects traditional values, albeit those of traditions best taken out back and shot; but I’m not sure that a “breed; the trenches and the mines hunger!” is really protective of children or families.
19 Likes
That will be the subject of a different law, which is still being drafted.
Any time that an authoritarian says “Relax, we won’t do that” it’s a strong indicator that they will, in fact, do exactly that at some point in the future.
27 Likes
When you’ve decided that your continued existence in power depends upon a strategy of throwing young men (and women) into endless war (plus you’re an obvious misogynist) then the horrid Napoleon quote (yes… disputed) emerges:
-sigh-
23 Likes
As a matter of implementation they might go through an intermediate stage of selective enforcement; with patriotic denunciations of anyone who looks or sounds a little too happy without children as being propagandists(the inclusion of a (relatively) modest individual fine, along with the ones for organizations and foreign agents, looks practically tailor made for the purpose: ‘up to 400,000 rubles’ without any potential prison term is pretty weaksauce if you are really worried about Atlanticist conspiracies or Washington dark money bankrolling propagandists; but it’s a meaty hit against even a fairly solid professional salary in Russia; so would do nicely to encourage people from admitting that, actually, not having children is really working out for them anywhere someone with an axe to grind might hear).
I certainly wouldn’t bet against more overt forced-birther efforts, especially if they don’t get the results they want from this; but (especially if any of the backers are drinking their own kool aide about fertility rates being propaganda-driven rather than affected by trickier economic and social factors) it would not be surprising to see an initial period of selective enforcement aimed at encouraging the childless to shut up or act real miserable about it; with further measures taken once that doesn’t have the desired effect.
7 Likes
Basically this. The population decline was already taking place before the breakup of the USSR, though it really accelerated after the collapse.
The reason is the same as everywhere else: childcare is expensive, terrible economic conditions, and a shallow pool of men to share the burden of supporting the family, both economically and through domestic labor.
Prior to the breakup there were economic incentives to have many children. There were additional income, free daycare, preschool, school and post secondary education, free healthcare, free or very minimal cost cultural (ie after school) activities, free or minimum cost housing, etc.
Now, it is very much like the USA: everything costs a lot, but most salaries are a fraction of US minimum wage.
The “culture of childlessness” is virtually non-existent in the FSU. But there is no real desire to have more than one or two kids. The war with Ukraine hasn’t changed anyone’s mind, either. Not that children born today will fight there in 18 years, but Russians aren’t stupid — if not Ukraine, then Poland, or China, or Turkey, or Iran, or Finland or…
22 Likes
For sure. There’s been a return since the war’s start of the old Soviet practise of neighbours and co-workers denouncing people to the authorities as a way to settle scores and grudges. I’m sure that will lead to a lot of problems for people simply overheard extolling the pleasures of their child-free lifestyle choice.
16 Likes
It’s such a multi-purpose law - you can crack down on the gays, contraception, feminists…!
And there were already only 86 men for every 100 women, which isn’t going to be helped by throwing the male population into a meat grinder.
Such laws are highly… flexible in terms of how they actually get enforced. (E.g. their anti-gay laws) They probably won’t need any more legislation on that front, as this could be selectively twisted to fit.
And this suggests they’re looking at 20 years out, and are planning on having wars of expansion even then.
13 Likes
They are currently pals of convenience; but I can only imagine that any (sensible) Russian leadership is really sweating bullets about China. They certainly aren’t happy about substantial chunks of eastern Europe noping out to go hang with the EU; but (breathless conspiracies aside) that is a development that is intrinsically limited by the number of countries whose populations want to go that way.
There are a bunch of treaties with Russia on the list of “Unequal Treaties” that China sees as sore points that must be redressed(including strategically critical goodies like Vladivostok and environs); and the Russian far east in general is pretty sparsely populated but features a variety of interesting resources and tasty water that seems likely to be of interest to a much denser and rather worryingly tight on water and agricultural production capacity(especially if climate change proves unhelpful) southern neighbor. Plus, relatively distant, sparsely settled, semi-colonial regions are the ones that are more likely to flip demographically without a decisive point you can strategic nuke your way out of; while the odds of Moscow being overrun by fecund western Europeans seem exceptionally low; and NATO shows no particular interest in marching on Moscow, or lack of belief that doing so would get them nuked.
15 Likes
Fascists will try anything to make women have more children except making the world a place you’d want to have children in.
41 Likes
Timothy Snyder has written about that.
Whereas the preferred Russian propaganda move is to speak about nefarious American or European plans to seize Russia’s resources, China is the real threat to Russia’s resources, and in the long run to Russia’s sovereignty. China deals with Russia much the way it deals with Africa: supporting a leader it favors, amused by a corruption it can manage with its vast economic power.
The long-term strategic interest of Russia lies in keeping a balance between West and East, so as to be able to pivot from one to the other as necessary. It is China’s interest to pull Russia so far in its direction that Russia cannot exercise leverage by moving back towards the West. Putin’s foreign policy is thus a gift to China, because it makes equilibrium very difficult. By invading Ukraine in 2014, Putin pushed Russia away from the West and towards the East. By threatening to invade Ukraine again in 2022, Putin is denying his country any Western option for the foreseeable future.
16 Likes
It also gives them more ways to target queer people.
22 Likes
Wouldn’t Putin and his cronies be close to the top of the list of people promoting this ideology? In most cultures, taking away your kids and getting them blown up tends to dampen the spirits of the family minded.
5 Likes
Leadership in authoritarian societies always live by a different set of rules.
16 Likes
By implementing conscription, Putin has already gone back on his bargain with the Russian people (“you let us rob you blind, we won’t interfere in your personal lives”). Now that he’s gotten away with that, he feels free to go fully authoritarian with laws like this.
11 Likes
Do you mean mobilisation of former soldiers rather than conscription? Conscription never went away, although those who could get out of it did.
3 Likes
Yes, the full call-up and actually sending people’s son’s, fathers, brothers, uncles to war.
4 Likes
…and rich men’s sons have always had ways to get out of either entering the fray, or serving their country altogether. Thruout history they have done so by buying high enough officers’ commissions that they stay out of harm’s way, paying some poor sap to take their place, paying doctors to lie about their physical condition, or splitting the country. merkin von bankrupt’s grandaddy famously left Germany to avoid the draft, and was exiled when he tried returning; that prick netanyahoo’s son took off for Flaaaarida, where he’s currently living.
14 Likes
