Thread by @kamilkazani

Great question. You see, many scenarios that kinda seem plausible ("Dagestan Rebellion") are unlikely to happen exactly because they're just too foreseeable. Muslim rebellion in Caucasus seems plausible not only to you, but also to Kremlin. So it took certain precautions (not🧵)

https://twitter.com/PegoEmpresa/status/1548451282540670977

Regarding Dagestan, Kremlin identified potentially disloyal settlements. Such as Gimry for example. At the entrance to any of them they put a checkpoint with an armoured vehicle standing there 24/7. They check documents, don't allow any outsiders and kinda show they keep control

To my best knowledge, they tended to put the National Guard from Tatarstan to guard potentially disloyal settlements in Dagestan. Kinda control Muslims with Muslims. These guys stand at the most risky positions, but overall Dagestan was full of federal forces when I visited it

Scenario of rebellion on the ethnic periphery seems plausible to the government. It took so many precautions against it and is monitoring the situation so closely, that I estimate a possibility of (somewhat successful) rebellion there as nearly zero. It's very well controlled

I think that the disintegration of Russia should it take place, gonna start in predominantly Russian regions. And ofc it won't do anything with the "popular rebellion", more with the separatism of the interest groups, once they find that being in Russia doesn't pay off anymore

I think that many analysts focus on wrong stuff, when discussing the political situation in Russia. Like "How many people support Putin?" or even worse "How many people in X. region want independence?". That's absolutely irrelevant. Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers

The thing to understand about complex sociopolitical processes is that they happen by iterations. Agenda, goals, views change on every iteration. On iteration 1 almost nobody has any idea where it all gonna lead. Almost everyones gets it wrong, including the political leadership

The question "How many people support independence?" implies that first you build the consensus for it and then based on this consensus you pursue a policy for it. But that's not how it happens in reality. In reality the process takes many iterations

Consider the American Revolution. In the beginning, those who wanted to separate from the Great Britain for real were probably a tiny minority. To the contrary, most leaders and most Founding Fathers strongly believed in the British monarchy until almost the very end

It was the British parliament that was seen as the true enemy. In 1774 Thomas Jefferson advocated for *increasing* the royal power over parliament. During the war members of Continental Congress addressed their lobster enemies as the "Ministerial Army" or the "Parliament Troops"

Radicalisation of the American protest happened *during* the revolutionary war, after so many blood was spilled and all American attempts for reconciliation such as avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/c… rejected by their beloved Sovereign. Only then Founding Fathers turned away from the king

That doesn't necessarily mean that they all were sincerely loyal to the British monarchy. It just means that they were hesitant to break up with the British Empire till almost the very end. Declaring loyalty for the king = we don't want to cut the ways for reconciliation

In the course of war the Founding Fathers did indeed radicalise. And they adopted much of the English radical agenda and mythology. Jefferson suggested putting on the Great Seal of the U.S.

1. Children of Israel (= Christianity)
2. Hengist and Horsa (= English radicalism)

Saxon England played a special role in the historical imagination of the English radicals. Since the 17th c. they would picture the Saxon England as kinda egalitarian and democratic society destroyed by the Norman invasion. Monarchy = continuation of the Normans

This racialisation of political divisions occasionally continued for very long. As late as in 1911, a pamphlet of the last Liberal government questioned "Who shall rule: Briton or Norman?", painting the southern Tory strongholds as "Normans"

explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collec…

By the end of the war Jefferson and Paine already acted within the old tradition of English radicalism, portraying the monarchy as the foreign Norman institution imposed upon the freedom-loving Saxon race. That meant they indeed were ready to break with the monarchy. The end