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Kamil Galeev Profile picture
@kamilkazani
Feb 12, 2022 • 20 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
Thread of threads

Large threads will be published here every Friday and sometimes on additional days. Also I am now working on setting up a substack - gonna post here when done. At this point let me give a guide to navigate through already published threads - from older to newer
1. Chechnya and Dagestan An introductory thread to the federalism (and diversity) in Russia dealing with these two Caucasian republics. I'm gonna do a bigger blogpost on them, but it will be paywalled
2. Introduction to a second cluster of ethnic republics in Russia - Idel-Ural As a native of the region I find it the most interesting. For example it's the northernmost Islamic land in the world and it has the last authentic pagans in Europe
3. Imperiogenesis argument Why living near the border of the Great Eurasia Steppe is a good predictor of living in a very big empire/country
4. A very brief introduction to the origin's of the Putin's regime and political structure of modern Russia. How new elite was born in the corridors of the St Petersburg City Council, how did these guys take power and what did they do after
5. Why Stalin purged the Old Bolsheviks Here I introduce the concept of assabiyah. I find that the idea of assabiyah and its dynamics as described by Ibn Haldun are highly relevant for understanding Russian (and not only Russian) politics
6. An introduction to the concept of 'sources-myths' and 'sources-remains' important for future discussions What can a medal commemorating the annexation of Crimea or a song dedicated to the invasion of Finland in 1939 tell of real intentions of Kremlin
7. Political institutions of the Golden Horde and how did the Horde affect Russia The usual assumption that the Horde was an 'Oriental despoty' is just false. However, the argument that it did contribute to the development of Russian absolutism is correct
That's all for now - I'll be adding new threads here as they are published. Every Friday, may be more frequently. Substack coming soon
8. Assabiyahs in Russian history. Part 1: Praetorians, 1697-1825.
9. Russian-Ukrainian relations in the context of Russian domestic policy

10. On the Polish period of Russian history

11. Russian demographic trends and how they're gonna reshape the country

12. War is problematic because it makes general too powerful. You gonna kill hella lot of them to show dominance

13. A crash introduction to the Ukrainian ethnopoliticao situation
Introduction to the geography of Ukraine

15. Russia and Ukraine: a history

16. On the Putin's elite and the rise of Putin himself

17. Putinism and the rule of state security
18. Three theses on the Russian-Ukrainian War

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More from @kamilkazani

Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Apr 12
There is a common argument that due process belongs only to citizens

Citizens deserve it, non citizens don’t

And, therefore, can be dealt with extrajudicially

That is a perfectly logical, internally consistent position

Now let’s think through its implications
IF citizens have the due process, and non-citizens don’t

THEN we have two parallel systems of justice

One slow, cumbersome, subject to open discussion and to appeal (due process)

Another swift, expedient, and subject neither to a discussion nor to an appeal (extrajudicial)
And the second one already encompasses tens of millions of non citizens living in the United States, legal and illegal, residents or not.

Now the question would be:

Which system is more convenient for those in power?

Well, the answer is obvious
Read 10 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Apr 5
I have recently read someone comparing Trump’s tariffs with collectivisation in the USSR. I think it is an interesting comparison. I don’t think it is exactly the same thing of course. But I indeed think that Stalin’s collectivisation offers an interesting metaphor, a perspective to think aboutImage
But let’s make a crash intro first

1. The thing you need to understand about the 1920s USSR is that it was an oligarchic regime. It was not strictly speaking, an autocracy. It was a power of few grandees, of the roughly equal rank.
2. Although Joseph Stalin established himself as the single most influential grandee by 1925, that did not make him a dictator. He was simply the most important guy out there. Otherwise, he was just one of a few. He was not yet the God Emperor he would become later.
Read 30 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Mar 16
The great delusion about popular revolts is that they are provoked by bad conditions of life, and burst out when they exacerbate. Nothing can be further from truth. For the most part, popular revolts do not happen when things get worse. They occur when things turn for the better
This may sound paradoxical and yet, may be easy to explain. When the things had been really, really, really bad, the masses were too weak, to scared and too depressed to even think of raising their head. If they beared any grudges and grievances, they beared them in silence.
When things turn for the better, that is when the people see a chance to restore their pride and agency, and to take revenge for all the past grudges, and all the past fear. As a result, a turn for the better not so much pacifies the population as emboldens and radicalises it.
Read 6 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Mar 1
Three years of the war have passed

So, let’s recall what has happened so far

The first thing to understand about the Russian-Ukrainian war is that Russia did not plan a war. And it, most certainly, did not plan the protracted hostilities of the kind we are seeing today Image
This entire war is the regime change gone wrong.

Russia did not want a protracted war (no one does). It wanted to replace the government in Kyiv, put Ukraine under control and closely integrate it with Russia

(Operation Danube style) Image
One thing to understand is that Russia viewed Ukraine as a considerable asset. From the Russian perspective, it was a large and populous country populated by what was (again, from the Russian perspective) effectively the same people. Assimilatable, integratable, recruitable Image
Read 32 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Feb 8
Why does Russia attack?

In 1991, Moscow faced two disobedient ethnic republics: Chechnya and Tatarstan. Both were the Muslim majority autonomies that refused to sign the Federation Treaty (1992), insisting on full sovereignty. In both cases, Moscow was determined to quell them. Image
Still, the final outcome could not be more different. Chechnya was invaded, its towns razed to the ground, its leader assassinated. Tatarstan, on the other hand, managed to sign a favourable agreement with Moscow that lasted until Putin’s era.

The question is - why. Image
Retrospectively, this course of events (obliterate Chechnya, negotiate with Tatarstan) may seem predetermined. But it was not considered as such back then. For many, including many of Yeltsin’s own partisans it came as a surprise, or perhaps even as a betrayal.

Let's see why Image
Read 24 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Feb 2
On the origins of Napoleon

The single most important thing to understand regarding the background of Napoleon Bonaparte, is that he was born in the Mediterranean. And the Mediterranean, in the words of Braudel, is a sea ringed round by mountains Image
We like to slice the space horizontally, in our imagination. But what we also need to do is to slice it vertically. Until very recently, projection of power (of culture, of institutions) up had been incomparably more difficult than in literally any horizontal direction. Image
Mountains were harsh, impenetrable. They formed a sort of “internal Siberia” in this mild region. Just a few miles away, in the coastal lowland, you had olives and vineyards. Up in the highland, you could have blizzards, and many feet of snow blocking connections with the world. Image
Read 7 tweets

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