russia Regressing from Feudalism to a Military Slave-Owning System

Following a meeting with putin, russian oligarch oleg deripaska has proposed that russians switch to a 12-hour workday, six days a week. Such a change completely nullifies all the rights and freedoms of russian workers and employees and contradicts the ILO (International Labour Organization) Convention, which establishes an 8-hour workday and to which the rf is a signatory. In other words, russian employers view hired workers solely from the perspective of maximizing profits by cutting costs.

A representative of the oligarchy justifies his proposal by citing the need to save the russian economy from the consequences of the global crisis and the desire to undergo a “transition from the global opportunities to regional ones, with all sorts of restrictions”. “We don’t have that many resources. To be more precise, we have only one, and it is tied to our national trait: in difficult moments, we know how to pull ourselves together and work more,” Deripaska concluded.

“Unexpectedly,” russian “scientists” have supported the initiative. academician of the russian academy of sciences gennady onishchenko has pointed out that such schedules are already being used in some sectors of the economy. According to him, workers in the extractive and processing industries could also join the proposal to work longer hours.

This shift in mindset occurred following putin’s meeting with large business. Given this initiative and the oligarchs’ “willingness” to finance government spending on the “special military operation”, it is hard to even imagine just how steeped in “patriotism” and other arguments this summit was. kerimov promised to allocate 200 billion rubles to the state budget, potanin – 130 billion, and deripaska – 100 billion. Therefore, the story about the 12-hour workday is simply the russian large business’ attempt to recoup the money through cheap labor.

At the same time, against the background of russian oligarchs’ desire to become even “greater patriots” and support moscow’s aggressive policy, the level of corruption in russia has risen significantly. By the end of 2025, the average bribe in the country had risen to 1 million rubles, while the number of corruption cases (over 36,000) had increased by 12.4% over the year – 60% of which involved bribery.

It should also be significant for russians that the so-called elite no longer masks or hides its exploitative plans. Chairman of the federation council committee on constitutional legislation and state building andrei klishas has pointed out that in russia, after the end of the war against Ukraine, the laws and restrictions adopted during the hostilities will remain in effect. The authorities will revise the legislation and lift restrictions only “if they lose their relevance”.