His parents used to teach in the same school in Chechnya. His dad was a Chechen, Andarbek Dudaev, his mom a Russian, Zoya Surkova. He spent his childhood in his dad's village where he was known as Aslanbek Dudaev. But then his parents divorced and mom took him to Russia proper
After school he served in army, in military intelligence. Then Perestroika started and commerce was allowed. In 1987 he started working as a marketing deputy for the future oligarch Khodorkovsky - who'll soon become the richest man in Russia. You see Surkov, Nevzlin, Khodorkovsky
What was Khodorkovsky doing back then? This story shows the origins of many largest oligarchic fortunes in Russia. Khodorkovsky was the head of local НТТМ - office for scientific and technological initiatives of the youth. A department of Komsomol - Committee for the Soviet youth
Until Perestroika positions in these НТТМ centres were not that lucrative. But then everything changed. To understand why, we should do a little trip into the Soviet monetary system and how did the Soviet money function
In 1929-1932 Stalin imposed total control over the economy. All enterprises were state enterprises now. And yet, money didn't disappear. Instead Stalin built a new monetary model. In the old, traditional one, there was one circular flow of money. Stalin made two separate flows
The first one was the cash flow. Cash was used by state to pay wages to ppl and by ppl to buy stuff from state. Second flow was noncash. This money was used to do transactions between government enterprises and agencies. Cashing out noncash money was absolutely prohibited
Why would Stalin do that? Largely to pump money into the industry without triggering hyperinflation. Government created as much money as necessary for construction + subsidies, but made sure it won't be used by regular people for buying stuff. Hence prohibition for cashing out
Prices on retail market were arbitrary. E.g. public transport was super cheap, much cheaper than it costed to the state. Meanwhile cars were super expensive, the state selling them with at least 200-300% profit margin. State earned money selling cars and paid for public transit
And yet, within the noncash flow prices were way more arbitrary. They didn't reflect market reality, cuz there was no market. E.g. textile and aerospace industry production was valued in noncash roubles. But actual costs of the latter could be 1000 times as high as of the former
The system was functional as long as the strict prohibition to cash out noncash money remained, and two flows didn't mix. And yet, in late 1980s some agencies got the right to cash them out. Most importantly these НТТМ branches of the Komsomol - committee of the Soviet youth
What did they do? Of course, they started cashing out as much of the noncash money as they could. That triggered hyperinflation, destroying the frailing Soviet economy, but created some enormous fortunes. Such as the one of Khodorkovsky - the future richest oligarch in Russia
This shows why the НТТМ leaders were so overrepresented among the richest people in Russia. They used the crony opportunities Komsomol gave them and cashed out lavishly. Moreover, it shows why former Komsomol leaders are so overrepresented among the contemporary Russian elites
Soviet propaganda portrayed Komsomol as idealistic youth faithful to the Leninism. This was often true in 1920-1960s. However, by the 1980s true believers were selected out. New leadership consisted of incredibly cynical and opportunistic folk - such as Khodorkovsky or Matvienko
Upward mobility within the adult Party was difficult by that time. Frailing gerontocracy occupied all the positions of power and refused to go. So these young smart and cynical ppl waited for their chance, and they exploited the collapse of Soviet system better than anyone else
Let me quote Dorenko:
"We'll live for 130 years. My kids and grandkids will live in my shadow. Only my great-great-grandchildren will see the sky. We'll fuck everyone. Why us? Cuz we've plundered the country. We killed, slandered our fathers. That's why our generation is unique"
So Surkov started working for a crony Komsomol official Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky's star was rising and Surkov's too. Soon he was leading the PR service for the richest oligarch in Russia
But Surkov was too smart too put al legs into one basket. While working for Khodorkovsky he also consulted the government as PR expert. And when Voloshin, one of the closest members of Yeltsin's 'family' leads his administration, Surkov becomes his deputy, leaving his former boss
Thus he became Kremlin's deputy managing PR, political technologies and domestic policy. His most important task was "drowning" Primakov and advancing new Yeltsin's successor - Putin. Putin had full support of the Kremlin, but was totally unknown. You needed to make him electable
But Primakov was still very powerful. Russia had 89 governors and 84 joined Primakov's party. And governors used to have *a lot* of power back then, especially leaders of major cities like Moscow and St Petersburg. Meanwhile the unknown party of Putin "Unity" had zero governors
So in early 1999 nearly 100% of political establishment supported Primakov, seeing him as an obvious successor. Those who didn't were usually outcasts whom he didn't accept in his party for this or that reason. And yet, Kremlin did everything they could to prevent Primakov's rise
Surkov personally talked with governors and persuaded 39 of them to join Putin. So now Putin had 39 and Primakov only 45. How did Surkov do this? Through blackmailing: by that point Putin had dossiers on all of them. Surkov also made clear that Kremlin won't allow Primakov to win
Surkov also did fund-raising. Berezovsky and Abramovich were the two biggest donors for the Putin's campaign, but there were many others, too. On average businessmen would donate just 10 million dollars each - more like insurance in case Putin wins
PS I made a factual mistake in the last thread - misidentifying Surkov on the initial photo. Thus I deleted it. Will post a corrected version a bit later as a blogpost
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In August 1999, President Yeltsin appointed his FSB Chief Putin as the new Prime Minister. Same day, he named him as the official successor. Yet, there was a problem. To become a president, Putin had to go through elections which he could not win.
He was completely obscure.
Today, Putin is the top rank global celebrity. But in August 1999, nobody knew him. He was just an obscure official of Yeltsin's administration, made a PM by the arbitrary will of the sovereign. This noname clerk had like 2-3% of popular support
Soon, he was to face elections
By the time of Putin's appointment, Russia already had its most favoured candidate. It was Primakov. A former Yeltsin's Prime Minister who broke with Yeltsin to contest for power. The most popular politician in Russia with massive support both in masses and in the establishment.
In Russia, the supreme power has never ever changed as a result of elections. That simply never happened in history. Now that is because Russia is a (non hereditary) monarchy. Consequently, it doesn't have any elections. It has only acclamations of a sitting ruler
Obviously, there has been no elections of Putin in any meaningful sense. There have been only acclamations. And that is normal. His predecessor was successfully acclaimed with an approval rate of about 6%. Once you got the power, you will get your acclamation one way or another
Contrary to the popular opinion, Russia doesn't have any acclamation ("election") problem. It has a transition of power problem. Like Putin can get acclaimed again, and again, and again. But sooner or later, he dies. What next?
My team has documented the entire Russian missile manufacturing base. That is 28 key ballistic, cruise, hypersonic and air defence missile producing plants associated with four corporations of Roscosmos, Almaz-Antey, Tactical Missiles and Rostec
The link is in the first comment
Our report How Does Russia Make Missiles? is already available for download
By the next weekend, we will be publishing the first OSINT sample, illustrating our methodology & approach. The rest of our materials will be made available laterrhodus.com
Key takeaways:
1. Missile production is mostly about machining 2. You cannot produce components of tight precision and convoluted geometry otherwise 3. Soviet missiles industry performed most of its machining manually
That was extremely laborious and skill-intensive process
No one gets famous by accident. If Alexey @Navalny rose as the unalternative leader of Russian opposition, recognised as such both in Moscow and in DC, this indicates he had something that others lacked. Today we will discuss what it was and why it did not suffice 🧵
Let's start with the public image. What was so special about the (mature) @navalny is that his public image represented normality. And by normality I mean first and foremost the American, Hollywood normality
Look at this photo. He represents himself as American politicians do
For an American politician, it is very important to present himself as a good family man (or woman). Exceptions do only corroborate the rule. Notice how McCain defends @BarackObama
Should Putin just suddenly die, @MedvedevRussiaE is the most likely compromise candidate for the supreme political power. He is the inaugurated President for God's sake. Which means, the anointed King.
"Not a real king", "Figurehead", "Nobody takes him seriously" is just intangible verbalism. Nothing of that matters. What matters is that he is the inaugurated President, consecrated by God. Opinions are subjective, anointment is objective
It is the fact
Medvedev may be one single person in the entire Russian establishment with a decent chance to keep power, should Putin go. For this reason, he may not even need to fight for power. The power will very probably be handed to him
On Friday, @navalny died (most probably killed) in prison. This is a good time to discuss the prospects of Russian opposition and the future transition of political power, once Putin is gone. This is also a good occasion to debunk some pervasive myths on the mechanics of power🧵
First, getting rid of @navalny was probably a correct decision on behalf of Kremlin. Execution of this murder may have been suboptimal (unprofessional, etc.). But the very idea to eliminate him was reasonable and makes total sense. There is nothing crazy or irrational about it
This remark may sound as cynical or paradoxical. So let me present you another paradox, which is yet to be fully processed by the political theorists. And the paradox is:
Bloody tyrants rule longer
The Russian history may possibly demonstrate this better than any other