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
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
What I am saying is that "capitalist reforms" are a buzzword devoid of any actual meaning, and a buzzword that obfuscated rather than explains. Specifically, it is fusing radically different policies taken under the radically different circumstances (and timing!) into one - purely for ideological purposes
It can be argued, for example, that starting from the 1980s, China has undertaken massive socialist reforms, specifically in infrastructure, and in basic (mother) industries, such as steel, petrochemical and chemical and, of course, power
The primary weakness of this argument is that being true, historically speaking, it is just false in the context of American politics where the “communism” label has been so over-used (and misapplied) that it lost all of its former power:
“We want X”
“No, that is communism”
“We want communism”
Basically, when you use a label like “communism” as a deus ex machina winning you every argument, you simultaneously re-define its meaning. And when you use it to beat off every popular socio economic demand (e.g. universal healthcare), you re-define communism as a synthesis of all the popular socio economic demands
Historical communism = forced industrial development in a poor, predominantly agrarian country, funded through expropriation of the peasantry
(With the most disastrous economic and humanitarian consequences)
Many are trying to explain his success with some accidental factors such as his “personal charisma”, Cuomo's weakness etc
Still, I think there may be some fundamental factors here. A longue durée shift, and a very profound one
1. Public outrage does not work anymore
If you look at Zohran, he is calm, constructive, and rarely raises his voice. I think one thing that Mamdani - but almost no one else in the American political space is getting - is that the public is getting tired of the outrage
Outrage, anger, righteous indignation have all been the primary drivers of American politics for quite a while
For a while, this tactics worked
Indeed, when everyone around is polite, and soft (and insincere), freaking out was a smart thing to do. It could help you get noticed
People don’t really understand causal links. We pretend we do (“X results in Y”). But we actually don’t. Most explanations (= descriptions of causal structures) are fake.
There may be no connection between X and Y at all. The cause is just misattributed.
Or, perhaps, X does indeed result in Y. but only under a certain (and unknown!) set of conditions that remains totally and utterly opaque to us. So, X->Y is only a part of the equation
And so on
I like to think of a hypothetical Stone Age farmer who started farming, and it worked amazingly, and his entire community adopted his lifestyle, and many generations followed it and prospered and multiplied, until all suddenly wiped out in a new ice age
1. Normative Islamophobia that used to define the public discourse being the most acceptable form of racial & ethnic bigotry in the West, is receding. It is not so much dying as rather - failing to replicate. It is not that the old people change their views as that the young do not absorb their prejudice any longer.
In fact, I incline to think it has been failing to replicate for a while, it is just that we have not been paying attention
Again, the change of vibe does not happen at once. The Muslim scare may still find (some) audience among the more rigid elderly, who are not going to change their views. But for the youth, it is starting to sound as archaic as the Catholic scare of know nothings
Out of date
2. What is particularly interesting regarding Mamdani's victory, is his support base. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that its core is comprised of the young (and predominantly white) middle classes, with a nearly equal representation of men and women
What does Musk vs Trump affair teach us about the general patterns of human history? Well, first of all it shows that the ancient historians were right. They grasped something about nature of politics that our contemporaries simply can’t.
Let me give you an example. The Arab conquest of Spain
According to a popular medieval/early modern interpretation, its primary cause was the lust of Visigoth king Roderic. Aroused by the beautiful daughter of his vassal and ally, count Julian, he took advantage of her
Disgruntled, humiliated Julian allied himself with the Arabs and opens them the gates of Spain.
Entire kingdom lost, all because the head of state caused a personal injury to someone important.