Many wondered: why during the Chechen wars many families opposed the war, while now almost nobody does? Well, one answer is that during the Chechen wars monetary compensations to families were negligible, while now the "coffin money" (гробовые) are quite good. You can buy a car
Also notice the location. It's Saratov. There is a major gap between more successful Middle Volga regions like Tatarstan, Samara and Ulyanovsk (green) and much poorer Lower Volga such as Saratov (yellow) or Volgograd (red). Socioeconomic situation in the latter is *way* worse
The gap is not only economic, but also cultural. In some respects the Middle vs Lower Volga dichotomy resembles the nanfang vs beifang dichotomy in China. Saratov and Volgograd are paradoxically much more "beifang", Muscovite and Great Russian than regions to the north of them
Strange it may sound, around 1900 Saratov was the third biggest city of Russia proper after Moscow and St Petersburg. It was a big and rich merchant city that still has the memory of its former glory and a certain imperial vibe. It also has a nice old city, horribly maintained
If Saratov is mentally stuck in the age of Russian empire, in terms of local identity and public imagination, then Volgograd is stuck in the WWII era. There is probably no other city or region where the Victory-worshipping (победобесие) cult takes such exaggerated forms
Volgograd doesn't have much of history. In the imperial era it was a relatively small and unimportant Tsaritsyn city, way less relevant than Saratov. After the revolution it was renamed as the Stalingrad and then completely razed during the Stalingrad battle
As a result of subsequent population change, nothing of the old city remained either in terms of culture or in terms of identity. While later renamed to Volgograd in the process of de-Stalinization, the city fully identifies itself with the WWII. It has no memory of the past
Stuck-in-the-USSR Volgograd is repeatedly earning the title of the poorest large (over a million population) city in Russia. Stuck-in-the-empire Saratov is doing not much better having very low salaries or quality of life for a large regional centre
There's a big contrast between poorer beifang Lower Volga and richer nanfang Middle Volga. Tatarstan, Samara and Ulyanovsk form one economic cluster, both in terms of commercial ties and in terms of pursuing a successful FDI-oriented industrial policy. Well, till February 24
In fact, after February 24 the Middle Volga industrial cluster has some of the worst economic prospects in the entire European Russia, at least in terms of employment. They all three get obliterated because in economic (and partially in institutional) terms they were very similar
With this richer Middle Volga cluster going down, some of the neighbouring poorer regions that depended upon the former economically will go down, too. In the previous era, Moscow would act as an arbiter redistributing from winners to losers. Now it won't do that
Kremlin will invest all available resources in maintaining the economy in Moscow. In such a hypercentralized country, Moscow is the only city that truly matters. Economic collapse of Moscow created revolutionary risks, while collapse of province has no risks to regime at all
This however, makes the imperial structure much more fragile. For decades provinces had a big grudge on the imperial metropoly which lived so much wealthier. Now the gap gonna only increase, with the provincials seeing less and less benefits in staying within the empire. The end
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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.