All of these, in other words, are closely related. Much of my historical work on Serbia, Byzantium and Russia has centered around the necessity of strong, populist leadership aimed at limiting the power of local oligarchies. Stepan Dusan, Basil III (of Byzantium), and Alexander III of Russia were all such leaders, and were true populists. Putin, with many adjustments, may well be found in their company.

The primary concern for the Regime concerning the presidential elections is who they can tap to replace Putin. There are precious few politicians with his clout, and, as things stand today, the man who Putin endorses will be the next president, barring Putin himself. It is precisely this dearth of political contenders that make either a third Putin term necessary, or the return of the monarchy a viable option. Furthermore, the fact that Russian politics is largely conspiratorial is also to blame for the lack of suitable candidates. As Putin's time runs out, both the Regime and the kremlin insiders are scrambling for power.

As of this writing, the Regime has thousands of political operatives throughout Russia, both government and NGO, building support for a new, Yeltsinite president. Ideally, the Regime is seeking a weak, faceless candidate who would do the will of western capital, and, in "opposition," an easily controlled, professional clod such as Zhirinovsky counted on to do political pratfalls at the appropriate times and give western dilettantes something to be afraid of. With this, the kremlin insiders would be divested of power while the old, Jewish oligarchic families would take their places at center stage once again. China would be cut off, as would Iran, and the coming coalition against U.S. imperialism would be thwarted. The Regime is spending hand over fist to make this a reality.

There is only one difficulty, the popularity of Putin and the manifest anti-western stance of most Russians. For the average Russian (or the average Slav, for that matter), the west represents a group of pushy, arrogant rich people who honest to God believe it is their right to rule the world, and who are not afraid to use entire armies to make the world fit their imperious will.

The Regime has found a substitute to imposing sanctions on Russia-imposing them upon Russian companies. Pravda reports that the Regime has slapped sanctions upon dozens of Russian companies doing business with Syria, Iran and North Korea (but won't dare do this to companies in China). Furthermore, Russia's forgiveness of millions of Soviet-era debt to Syria has further angered the System. Though it suggests the question of the validity of Soviet-era debts in general, but that's another question.

Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that a third Putin term makes some sense. Only a strong personality, with roots in the security services and maintaining a strong popular base can control the oligarchical clans and pompous westerners. Whether these clans be among the old power centers such as the Guzinsky's or Friedman's, or the kremlin slioviki, is irrelevant.

The calling of a zemskii sobor, however, has not had a more opportune time than today in many years. The vacuum developing as Putin's second term wears on provides this idea with some force. Further, the rebuilding process accomplished by Alexii II has been impressive, and he remains a popular public figure in Russia, and his support would count for much, as would the saintly and immensely popular Serbian patriarch Paul (Pavle). The regularizing of relations with the Synod Abroad, one of the seminal events of the 21st century, provide Orthodox Russia with that much more ammunition for a calling of a sobor, a sobor to choose the next tsar. This writer knows, though sources I cannot name, that some within the military high command also support the idea of a zemskii sobor.

While monarchist opinion is respectfully divided on this question, it seems the calling of an assembly is the proper means to work out the restoration. All shades of monarchist opinion whether ecclesial, military or popular, need to be heard, and suitable candidate agreed upon. It may even be that a member of the Serb or Bulgarian royal house be chosen, given the evident paucity of suitable candidates of Russian background. If George, great-grand nephew of Nicholas II is chosen, so be it, and I know that he is the favorite among my friends in the Russian Imperial Union Order. But that choice is far from obvious within Russia herself.

There is no question that the Russia of today has many parallels with the Russia of 1613. Economic devastation, foreign penetration, lack of collective vision, political scandal, military devolution and many other issues force serious historians to consider the events of 1613 relative to our own time. History is never really past, it just comes repackaged. A sobor is still a sobor whether it is done in the informal manner of 1613 or through web-conferencing. A suitable candidate could make overtures to China, making sure of Peking's support, and possibly irritating the United States by contacting the royal family of Hawai'i, dumped in the early 20th century by a group of big-money, Masonic American adventurers, for their support of a restoration. That royal family maintains a strong public base in that state, as well as being physically attractive and photogenic. With the further support of the big-oil sheikdoms in the Middle East, the royal election would be politically invulnerable.

Regardless, the succession to Putin is going to be one of the great political issues on the international scene, and it may well be time for royalists to make a stand against the U.S. and that poor Yeltsinite stooge the Americans will invariable put up.

The World Bank, never a cheerleader for Putin, announced that the Russian poverty level has decreased over 50%, from 21% to 9%, and of this 9%, 7-8% are students, which is natural state of affairs, as I was quite poor in grad school.

Now, of course, the Bank couched its report in various ways, one of which was to start the survey in 1999, the last year of Yeltsin's mis-presidency, rather than 2000, the first year of Putin's, obviously in order to avoid the obvious conclusion.

Never mind that the America poverty rate has remained at 13% for a solid 20 years, one can only say that Putin's economic policy, that is, the forcing of oligarchically owned firms to pay up, is responsible for this decline, but I'm deafened by the official silence.

The other way the Bank couched its report is to say that the large increase in Russian poverty that was met by its natural decline was due to the 1997 financial meltdown.

Thirdly, the Bank couched its report by making a mysterious reference to "Eastern European countries," rather than "Russia." "Eastern European Countries" experienced a decrease in poverty in absolute numbers from 102 million to 61.2 million. Of course, these numbers largely reflect both putin's and Kuchma's administrations, something the Bank would rather go out of business than say in public. Presently in Ukraine, most of the kept research institutes are predicting massive falls in GDP growth, and many of them even express a feigned shock at the present turn of events.

Keep in mind that those institutes and foundations who make it their business to fund attacks on Russia as a matter of course routinely under report Russian and Belarusian economic growth. Some of this is merely because the nature of economic growth in these countries is done outside of official channels. Belarus has been growth of 10% officially a year, but this figure is likely double this, largely because so much is done within neighborhoods and villages where bonds are rather different than the tax police would like.

Regardless, the current sharp decline in poverty rates shows, not merely the intellectual dishonesty of those dealing with these figures, but that theoretical constructs of economic growth are pure garbage. Stupid phrases such as "the market' are a mask for power. "The market" refers to the handful of human beings who control interest rates, advertising and the distribution of credit cards. In Russia, the bankruptcy of such phrases are long evident, and it is this bankruptcy that has the overwhelming majority of Russians demanding Putin run for a third term, legality be damned. The fact remains that the market will be a word of insult in Russia for the foreseeable future, and the propaganda of The Moscow Times will not change that.

The greatest examples of economic growth derive, not from economies that can be called "market," but from statist economies. The greatest economic success stories in recent decades have been statist Germany in the 1930s, Japan and Korea in the 1970s, China in the 90s and 00s, and Russia and Belarus today. Only when a clique of CIA funded frauds such as Yushchenko or Yeltisn come to power do economies begin to sputter.

Happily for the west, the attacks spreading across the Caucuses have come precisely at the time when the Bank issued its report, thereby freeing western "Russia watchers"–another stupid phrase that also masks power-from having to deal with Putin's successes.

And speaking of which, the Japanese, far from their former attitude of hostility top Russia, are now begging the state controlled oil industry to build a new pipeline to that successful, statist and resourceless set of islands. Putin's economic success may well have much to do with this surprising turn of events. Japanese politicians, never a dumb group in general, are noticing the counterweight to the New World Order taking place, the emerging power of Russia-China. Much of this power is being channeled through the oil trade, though this is merely the tip of the iceberg, I am pleased to report. Nevertheless, without the (old) cold war to keep Japan in the west's camp, it seems that for the moment, Japan would rather bid its way into that alliance rather than please Washington.

The recent conference in Washington D.C., put on by the American Enterprise Institute, the institution for American neo-conservatism and a major beneficiary for money deriving from American oil concerns, showed the differing, some may say a two-tiered approach, between the oil industry and the American state in dealing with this reality.

The neocon hacks made up th first part of the conference, and merely strung along a litany of anti-Russian slogans too tiresome to deal with. However, the lackey for the Bush administration, an unfortunate soul named, Tom Graham, tried a different tack, making the rather odd claim that Russia did not pose a threat to the U.S., and that her energy resources were far more important to the U.S. than her political system. There are many ways to interpret this strategy, all of which will likely not be dealt with by that sorry group of men called "Russia Watchers." One way is that is part of an emerging "good cop/bad cop" strategy, where Bush permits the oil industry to sound off independently of his administration. Of course, this strategy assumes Putin is as dumb as Bush is, which is definitely not the case. Putin knows full well that the oil industry (among other lobbyists) controls Bush as much as it does AEI. Another way to interpret this is to say that the U.S., facing military defeat in Iraq and a very sick economy at home, does not have the strength to deal with a China/Russia axis, which is a matter of fact whether the White House likes it or not. The strategy would be not to antagonize the alliance, lest is become deeper. Bush's Taiwan strategy will suffer as well, but the Republican view on that one is for another time.

Let me conclude this way: Putin's economic success and the creation of the China/Russia alliance, is the cause for the Regime's never ending stream of anti-Russian attacks. It is the swan song of a dying empire.