Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Sep 3, 2022 27 tweets 8 min read Read on X
Now we associate Gorbachev with Perestroika, which in its turn is interpreted as nice Gorbachev being nice. In reality, in the beginning of his rule Gorbachev continued Andropov's Neo-Stalinist policies. But then the oil price dropped and didn't bounce back. Hence, Perestroika🧵 Image
Brezhnev's era is usually referred to as Застой, the Stagnation. If Khrushchev unironically aimed to build Communism, Brezhnev dropped any attempts to do so. High oil prices of the 1970s created illusion of prosperity, while in reality system was becoming less and less efficient Image
Khruchev saw Communism as a realistic goal. He even set a specific deadline - 1980. Brezhnev however, cut all the specific deadlines from the Party program. Future oriented paradigm (building Communism) died and the new, past-oriented one emerged. Worshipping the Great Victory Image
Even though the Victory-worshipping took its most absurd forms under Putin, it originated under Brezhnev. Since the country was not oriented to the future anymore, it was now oriented to the past. Propaganda accents were gradually shifted from the October Revolution to the WWII Image
The KGB Chief Andropov who accumulated the immense power under Brezhnev was critical of where the system was going. KGB created a number of formal and informal economic think tanks working on how to overcome the crisis. Many future radical reformers of the 1990s originated there Image
Upon succeeding Brezhnev, Andropov tried to reinvigorate the USSR. He started a crusade against corruption, all forms of private commerce & business, and idleness. KGB was literally doing raids in cinemas or in stores at the daytime, catching those who were supposed to be at work Image
Andropov also did a number of cadre changes, promoting younger officials to fight with established gerontocracy. And Gorbachev was probably his favourite, since the 1960s. He tried to lobby him into the higher echelons of power, first unsuccessfully
In 1978 Andropov had a chance. A Central Committee secretary for agriculture died, so they had a vacancy. Andropov organised what would be later called "A meeting of four General Secretaries": Brezhev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev. Brezhnev accepted Gorbachev's candidature Image
Gorbachev's career was incredible and breaking all the established rules. In 1978 he becomes a Central Committee Secretary. In 1980 a Politburo member. He was not even 60 then, only 59 years old! Absolutely incredible.

In the late Soviet gerontocracy, Gorbachev was a Boss Baby Image
The Boss Baby promoted thanks to Andropov's patronage outlived his superiors. In the 1980s Soviet leaders started dying one by one (=gun-carriage races)

1981 - 75 y.o. Brezhnev
1984 - 64 y.o. Andropov
1985 - 73 y.o Chernenko

Baby Boss outlived them all and succeeded the throne Image
Upon inheriting the throne, Gorbachev largely continued Andropov's policies:

1) Neo-Stalinist politics
2) Strong industrial policy
3) Technological import from the West

He didn't aim to liberalise the system. To the contrary, he aimed to harden and reinvigorate it Image
Agenda of the 27th Party Congress, held in February 1986 was Neo-Stalinist. Under early Gorbachev, Soviet repressions against any form of private enterprises peaked. In May 1986 they issued an order:

"On measures to increase the struggle against the unearned incomes" Image
To put it simply, only your salary from the state was the "earned" income. All your private hustles were unearned and had to be uprooted. A wave of repressions against all forms of private businesses followed. Small repairment shops or workshops were closed en masse Image
Rural population suffered, too. Private hothouses, livestock barns were destroyed en masse. You obviously don't need this hothouse for yourself, it looks like you are *selling* what you grow. That's unearned income. Markets on which one could sell the harvest were closed, too Image
Let me give you an example. Soviet law made a distinction between legal "personal property" (for your own needs) and illegal "private property" (means of production)

So if you rode you car, that's ok. But if you are doing taxi service, it becomes means of production = illegal Image
In early Gorbachev's era policemen would ambush drivers who were suspected of taking passengers for money. If you act as a taxi, you use you car as the means of production to get the unearned income. Only what you get from the state is earned, any other hustle is a crime Image
Draconian measures against private entrepreneurship, commerce, etc. were combined with the strong industrial policy. Gorbachev aimed for a new Industrialisation, now with a specific focus on machinery and IT, but totally controlled by the state Image
See cia.gov/readingroom/do…

They planned "technological renovation", aiming to renew the 1/3 of Soviet industry by the 1990s. They planned to increase investments in the machinery by 80%. They also put a special focus on computers and automation. All under the state control
Early Gorbachev =/= "liberal"

Early Gorbachev = suppress the private sector + pursue a statist industrialisation project with the focus on complex machinery and IT at the cost of the mass suffering. They knew very well that consumption standards gonna drop and planned for it
Crusade on the private business should be regarded in the context of industrial policy. If we plan to invest all the money into industry and drop the consumption, lots of people may say fuck it and just switch to side hustles: hothouse, taxi service, workshop. Don't allow them to
Soviet/Russian anti-business policies were not "madness" as so many presume. They were absolutely rational. Destroy 100% of the private sector, so people would have no other choice but to sell their labour to the state. That allows to keep the real salaries as low as possible
Neither in Soviet Union, nor in Russia low salaries are natural. In both cases, it is the deliberate policy of the state to minimise the cost of labor. In modern Russian (provincial) employers are often punished for paying too much. Gonna elaborate this later
In the early 1986 Gorbachev pursued a Neo-Stalinist policy of suppressing the private sector, reducing consumption and investing it all into the state-owned industry. Much like Stalin did, like Andropov aimed, but did not have a chance to

By the late 1986. the USSR did the U-tun
U-turn of 1986

May 1986 - "On measures to increase the struggle agains the unearned incomes". Extremely statist and anti-market

November 1986 - "Law on Individual Labour Activity". Basically people not obliged to work for the state can do private hustles. Extremely pro-market
If in the early 1986, Gorbachev pursued Neo-Stalinist statist projects, by the late 1986 he did an U-turn and switched to the pro-market policies that only deepened and accelerated till the end of his rule. What did motivate this sudden and unexpected U-turn?
In 1986 oil prices crashed and didn't bounce back. The USSR could not fund the increase in technological import anymore, thus all the Gorbachev's plans for "technological renovation" went to the bin and his industrial policy, too. Thus he did a U-turn towards liberalism. The end Image
PS When discussing Soviet/Russian policies we tend to focus on irrelevant crap, like which ruler is "liberal"/"democratic" (no one). But the oil prices are a much more important factor behind Kremlin's policy.

Expensive oil -> Aggressive
Cheap oil -> Docile

Now it's expensive

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More from @kamilkazani

Jul 7
Victory has a hundred fathers, defeat is an orphan

Everyone is trying to appropriate the rise of China for their own purposes, like it proves their theory, ideology whatever

No one, however, wants to appropriate the post-Soviets, who, by the way, also made capitalist reforms
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

That was almost entirely state's job
Read 4 tweets
Jul 1
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)

So, yes, living under the actual communism sucks
Read 5 tweets
Jun 28
Some thoughts on Zohran Mamdani’s victory

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 Image
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
Read 8 tweets
Jun 28
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.
Theory: X -> Y

Reality:

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
Read 6 tweets
Jun 26
Some thoughts on Zohran Mamdani's victory:

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
Read 12 tweets
Jun 21
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.Image
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 Image
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. Image
Read 4 tweets

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