Talk:Silovik

Bias

This article has an extreme anti-Siloviki slant (especially in the "Description" section). I do not have sufficient knowledge on the topic to edit it, but maybe someone more familiar with Russian language, politics, and history could?

POV

"There are clear nationalistic and xenophobic elements and sometimes even anti-Semitic views on public display by leading siloviki members, as well as widespread support for the Russian Orthodox Church. The siloviki “national project” can somewhat sharply defined be summarised as follows: patriotism, imperialism, Orthodox clericalism; militarism; authoritarianism; cultural uniformity; xenophobia; economic dirigisme; and demographic pessimism."

What about another points of view? Are they ALL - clear nationalistic and xenophobic elements etc.? If someone works in "power ministries", but he havn't "demographic pessimism", or he is an atheist, isn't he a silovik???--Niggle (talk) 20:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Seriously; I must admit I don't know anything about this topic (I came to it from looking stuff up on the Russia-Georgia war) but to say that their "'national project'" (put in quotes despite it being totally unclear what this cites) can be defined as "imperialism...clericalism, militarism, authoritarian, cultural uniformity, xenophobia, economic dirigisme, and demographic pessimism"can't possibly be argued to be a neutral point of view. It reads as a list of accusations made by the political left against them, with virtually all of the components as concepts that have extremely negative connotations which, apart from perhaps economic dirigisme and clericalism, virtually no one would self-ascribe. This section is basically an attack page and whatever you think of their politics thats not what wikipedia is about. I'm not even sure what "demographic pessimism" actually means, it just sounds bad. Given that this has no citation it should be removed. Remember, this is about a small group of living people. S.Buckly (talk) 02:56, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

• An excellent comment about "siloviks" (Russian). No objections to include?Biophys (talk) 04:02, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
  • No, Biophys – I'm sorry, but I object very much: including the opinion of an extremist (who lamented the end of apartheid among other stunts - a neoliberal Zhirinovsky, but without much clout) seems a bit undue. Aren't there other people besides this whacko to say the same thing? PasswordUsername (talk) 03:43, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
    • Almost every independent observer tells the same.Biophys (talk) 14:44, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
      • So why are you interested in Novodvorskaya as a source? PasswordUsername (talk) 21:50, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Not corrupt? Pro-law and order? Work ethic?!

I call bullshit. So, their PR campaign managers finally caught on, figured out that they were incapable of producing anything legitimate-looking in articulate English, and hired some Willerton bloke to do it for them - how exactly does that make this crap any more valid? Aadieu (talk) 14:35, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Neutral POV needed

I came across this term reading about Soviet history and it definitely wasn't used as a positive description. While the meaning of the term might have changed over time, there should definitely be a History section that accounts for how this term has been used over the past 100 years. Right now, it is very self-promotional and pro-government. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 18:15, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Subjective tone

Example:

"Siloviki hope, that a common view in Russia is that they were generally non-ideological, were not corrupt, have a pragmatic law and order focus and have Russian national interests at heart. They pretend to be generally well-educated and bring past commercial experience to their government posts"

This and other statements need to be rewritten to attribute such claims rather than just present them as fact, eg. "Observers such as [X] describe the Siloviki as..". Otherwise they just read like a crude attempt to push a particular point of view. Note I came to this article with an anti-Putin perspective.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.28.21.7 (talk) 13:53, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Learn Russia, simple, and then write about

" appointed several siloviki to prominent positions in the government: Sergei Ivanov to chief of staff of the presidential administration; Dmitry Rogozin to deputy prime minister; and Vyacheslav Volodin to deputy chief of staff." - Rogozin (former clerk from soviet youth organization, since 90's - a puppet nationalist) and Volodin (former regional shadow boss) are NOT siloviks.