No. Describing Russian regime as "kleptocracy" is misrepresentation. It's not technically false, just absurdly reductionist. Let's be honest, if Putinism was *entirely* about stealing it would not be able to wage wars or produce armaments. And it produces hella lots of them
Keep in mind that public rhetorics work according to the rhetorical logic. Public position doesn't have to be factually accurate, it has to be rhetorically advantageous for it to work. They talk about "corruption" so much because it's rhetorically advantageous. That's it
When you don't have a positive agenda/vision of future or it's too hideous, you talk about "corruption". Examples - Lukashenko or Yeltsin. "Anti-corruption fight" is an ideal topic for a power hungry politician. Because talking about corruption = avoiding the actual conversation
"Fight on corruption" is so rhetorically advantageous for three reasons. First, you avoid talking about your positive agenda. Second, because it's an ideal tool to concentrate power, destroying all other interest groups (like Xi Jinping) and grab an absolute power for just one
Third, because normal people on street have no idea about the motivation of those higher up. They're so stressed with the constant need to pay their bill and fight for survival, that they simply can't imagine the motivations of people who just don't have these concerns at all
Almost everyone in this world is living on the edge of poverty. Fear of poverty and struggle for money largely shapes the motivations of almost all humans. Ergo, the motivations of people who just don't have this fear are unimaginable. Like ofc they just want money, what else?
I strongly believe that the higher you go on the socio-economic ladder, the more does the structure of motivations change. Yes, ofc they grab money, lots of it. But it's very, very easy. You probably very much overestimate how much of a concern it is for those higher up
One guy (he'd later become a Russian Deputy PM) responded to a similar remark:
- Yes. Power is substantial (субстанциональна). It's not a means, it's a goal
I 100% believe him. Those who claim that rulers of Russia are there to steal are either ignorant or lying intentionally
The entire discourse about "corruption" and attempts to portray absolute rulers as just thieves are so successful, because they're factually wrong. They relate with the common's man neverending concern about money and paying the bills. But the rulers don't have this concern
Let's be honest, if Putin was all about money, this war wouldn't happen. My friend recently admitted he was wrong about Putin:
"I thought Putin regretted that he involved in Ukraine in 2014. Now I understand that his only regret is that he didn't go all the way back in 2014"
Also. Russian regime can be very functional in those few spheres it priorities. In the piece time it was obvious with railways. In a largely dysfunctional country they worked perfectly. Because it was a priority
In the war time, that is obvious with missiles. They prioritised quantity of them, sacrificing most of the R&D, home production and equipment and components and just fully switching to imports. They also sacrificed variety, keeping just very few models, far less than the Soviets
Putin's war machine is a very reduced version of a Soviet machine. It's far more centralised, more vertical integrated. It has little of the Soviet variety of models and almost zero of the Soviet technological chains. It fully depends on import. Because it prioritised *quantity*
Putinism is *efficient* when it wants and needs to be efficient. In the war context it needs to produce hella lots of shells and missiles here and now (fuck the future, fuck R&D, fuck import substitution). That's reductionist. But it's efficient. And it's not just a "kleptocracy"
Picturing Putinist regime as just a "kleptocracy" and "corruption" as the single most important problem sounds brave. But it's intentional or unintentional misrepresentation of a real situation while systematically avoiding the discussion on how are we gonna get out of it
There are indeed extremely kleptocratic elements among the Russian elites. These are:
1) Siloviki (FSB, MVD, prosecutors, investigators). Much of it just business 2) Many of Putin's friends
The level of corruption of the bulk of bureaucracy is hugely exaggerated in my opinion
Example. A major bank CEO is looking how can he get in contact with some ministry official. He makes decisions of life and death for his business. But he doesn't know how to get closer to him. Then he tells about his problem to one of his secretaries:
"Not a problem at all. Every Friday we drink at the same bar" resounds secretary
Official has a huge power over a bank CEO. But his incomes are more like CEO's secretary than a CEO himself. CEO just doesn't go to such cheap bars as a person who has power over him
There's a massive power Vs money asymmetry in Russia. It may be less visible than let's say in England but still shows that the power is not cashed out nearly as massively as some journalists or politicians would suggest
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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.
The first thing to understand about the Russian-Ukrainian war is that Russia did not plan a war. And it, most certainly, did not plan the protracted hostilities of the kind we are seeing today
This entire war is the regime change gone wrong.
Russia did not want a protracted war (no one does). It wanted to replace the government in Kyiv, put Ukraine under control and closely integrate it with Russia
(Operation Danube style)
One thing to understand is that Russia viewed Ukraine as a considerable asset. From the Russian perspective, it was a large and populous country populated by what was (again, from the Russian perspective) effectively the same people. Assimilatable, integratable, recruitable
In 1991, Moscow faced two disobedient ethnic republics: Chechnya and Tatarstan. Both were the Muslim majority autonomies that refused to sign the Federation Treaty (1992), insisting on full sovereignty. In both cases, Moscow was determined to quell them.
Still, the final outcome could not be more different. Chechnya was invaded, its towns razed to the ground, its leader assassinated. Tatarstan, on the other hand, managed to sign a favourable agreement with Moscow that lasted until Putin’s era.
The question is - why.
Retrospectively, this course of events (obliterate Chechnya, negotiate with Tatarstan) may seem predetermined. But it was not considered as such back then. For many, including many of Yeltsin’s own partisans it came as a surprise, or perhaps even as a betrayal.
The single most important thing to understand regarding the background of Napoleon Bonaparte, is that he was born in the Mediterranean. And the Mediterranean, in the words of Braudel, is a sea ringed round by mountains
We like to slice the space horizontally, in our imagination. But what we also need to do is to slice it vertically. Until very recently, projection of power (of culture, of institutions) up had been incomparably more difficult than in literally any horizontal direction.
Mountains were harsh, impenetrable. They formed a sort of “internal Siberia” in this mild region. Just a few miles away, in the coastal lowland, you had olives and vineyards. Up in the highland, you could have blizzards, and many feet of snow blocking connections with the world.
Slavonic = "Russian" religious space used to be really weird until the 16-17th cc. I mean, weird from the Western, Latin standpoint. It was not until second half of the 16th c., when the Jesuit-educated Orthodox monks from Poland-Lithuania started to rationalise & systematise it based on the Latin (Jesuit, mostly) model
One could frame the modern, rationalised Orthodoxy as a response to the Counterreformation. Because it was. The Latin world advanced, Slavonic world retreated. So, in a fuzzy borderland zone roughly encompassing what is now Ukraine-Belarus-Lithuania, the Catholic-educated Orthodox monks re-worked Orthodox institutions modeling them after the Catholic ones
By the mid-17th c. this new, Latin modeled Orthodox culture had already trickled to Muscovy. And, after the annexation of the Left Bank Ukraine in 1654, it all turned into a flood. Eventually, the Muscovite state accepted the new, Latinised Orthodoxy as the established creed, and extirpated the previous faith & the previous culture
1. This book (“What is to be done?”) has been wildly, influential in late 19-20th century Russia. It was a Gospel of the Russian revolutionary left. 2. Chinese Communists succeeded the tradition of the Russian revolutionary left, or at the very least were strongly affected by it.
3. As a red prince, Xi Jinping has apparently been well instructed in the underlying tradition of the revolutionary left and, very plausibly, studied its seminal works. 4. In this context, him having read and studied the revolutionary left gospel makes perfect sense
5. Now the thing is. The central, seminal work of the Russian revolutionary left, the book highly valued by Chairman Xi *does* count as unreadable in modern Russia, having lost its appeal and popularity long, long, long ago. 6. In modern Russia, it is seen as old fashioned and irrelevant. Something out of museum