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Kamil Galeev Profile picture
@kamilkazani
Jul 11, 2022 • 9 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
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"Jewish wife is not a luxury, but a means of transportation"

Old cynical Soviet joke. It makes more sense for those familiar with the Russian literature beyond Tolstoyevsky
If you want to understand *modern* Russian culture, don't read 19th c. aristocrats. They're all dead and their world is dead, too. Read the "Twelve Chairs" and "Golden Calf" instead. Picaresques on Ostap Bender's adventures may be two most influential books of the Russian 20th c
And they are certainly the most quotable in normal talk, in every day situations
Quoting the 19th c poetry is classy for Russians for the same reason it is classy for Europeans to quote Roman or Greek authors. It is a dead language of a dead culture. 19th century is the Russian antiquity. That world died and modern Russia doesn't have much continuity with it
1921-1929 - that's when modern Russian culture started for real. Retrospectively the roaring twenties may look as a flash of light in the darkness. Old pre-revolutionary culture is honestly not that relatable. Regarding the Soviet culture of 1930-1980s, few want to relate with it
Crazy yet witty Galkovsky made a good observation. Muslims described Christians and Jews as "People of the Book". Soviets could also be described this way. Except this book would be the Twelve Chairs rather than Bible or Torah. Yuri Andropov reportedly learnt this book by heart
The high to late Soviet literature turned out to be sterile. Writers were not all bad, it's just that the world they lived in and described is unattractive. Stalinism what nightmarish, Khrushchevism absurdly delusional, Brezhnevism just outright dull. Who reads Trifonov nowadays?
In spite of all their hardships and horrors, the 1920s turned out to be a breath of fresh air before the darkness fully gathered. And few want to relate with the art created under the Necropolis of Stalinism. That's why it is so unreadable today
1920s were probably the highest point of the 20th c Russian literature, at least in terms of their long term cultural impact. These books are so readable and quotable largely because of the world they picture. This world might be horrifying. But it is certainly not dull. The end

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More from @kamilkazani

Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jun 7
In 1927, when Trotsky was being expelled from the Boslhevik Party, the atmosphere was very and very heated. One cavalry commander met Stalin at the stairs and threatened to cut off his ears. He even pretended he is unsheathing he sabre to proceed

Stalin shut up and said nothing
Like obviously, everyone around could see Stalin is super angry. But he still said nothing and did nothing

Which brings us to an important point:

Nobody becomes powerful accidentally
If Joseph Stalin seized the absolute control over the Communist Party, and the Soviet Union, the most plausible explanation is that Joseph Stalin is exercising some extremely rare virtues, that almost nobody on the planet Earth is capable of

Highly virtuous man, almost to the impossible level
Read 7 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jun 1
Growing up in Russia in the 1990s, I used to put America on a pedestal. It was not so much a conscious decision, as the admission of an objective fact of reality. It was the country of future, the country thinking about the future, and marching into the future. Image
And nothing reflected this better than the seething hatred it got from Russia, a country stuck in the past, whose imagination was fully preoccupied with the injuries of yesterday, and the phantasies of terrible revenge, usually in the form of nuclear strike. Image
Which, of course, projected weakness rather than strength

We will make a huuuuuuge bomb, and drop it onto your heads, and turn you into the radioactive dust, and you will die in agony, and we will be laughing and clapping our hands

An old man yelling at clouds Image
Read 9 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
May 2
Fake jobs are completely normal & totally natural. The reason is: nobody understands what is happening and most certainly does not understand why. Like people, including the upper management have some idea of what is happening in an organisation, and this idea is usually wrong.
As they do not know and cannot know causal relations between the input and output, they just try to increase some sort of input, in a hope for a better output, but they do not really know which input to increase.
Insiders with deep & specific knowledge, on the other hand, may have a more clear & definite idea of what is happening, and even certain, non zero degree of understanding of causal links between the input and output

(what kind of input produces this kind of output)
Read 6 tweets
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

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