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Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Dec 16

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

Read 10 tweets

Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Nov 30

In his “Clash of Civilizations” Samuel Huntington identified eight civilisations on this planet:

Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Western, Orthodox, Latin American, and, possibly, African

I have always found this list a bit dubious, not to say self-contradictory:

You know what does this Huntingtonian classification remind to me? A fictional “Chinese Encyclopaedia” by an Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges:

Classification above sounds comical. Now why would that be? That it because it lacks a consistent classification basis. The rules of formal logic prescribe us to choose a principle (e.g. size) and hold to it.

If Jorge Borges breaks this principle, so does Samuel P. Huntington.

Read 15 tweets

Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Nov 23

Revolution and the Jews

Literacy rates in European Russia, 1897. Obviously, the data is imperfect. Still, it represents one crucial pattern for understanding the late Russian Empire. That is the wide gap in human capital between the core of empire and its Western borderland.

The most literate regions of Empire are its Lutheran provinces, including Finland, Estonia & Latvia

Then goes, roughly speaking, Poland-Lithuania

Russia proper has only two clusters of high literacy: Moscow & St Petersburg. Surrounded by the vast ocean of illiterate peasantry

This map shows how thin was the civilisation of Russia proper comparatively speaking. We tend to imagine old Russia, as the world of nobility, palaces, balls, and duels. And that is not wrong, because this world really existed, and produced some great works of art and literature

Read 7 tweets

Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Nov 21

How does Russia make marine reactors?

The OKBM Afrikantova is the principal producer of marine nuclear reactors, including reactors for icebreakers, and for submarines in Russia. Today we will take a brief excursion on their factory floor 🧵

Before I do, let me introduce some basic ideas necessary for the further discussion. First, reactor production is based on precision metalworking. Second, modern precision metalworking is digital. There is simply no other way to do it at scale.

How does the digital workflow work? First, you do a design in the Computer Aided Design (CAD) software. Then, the Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software turns it into the G-code. Then, a Computer Numerical Controller (CNC) reads the code and guides the tool accordingly

Read 21 tweets

Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Nov 21

https://twitter.com/Klasssiks/status/1858929954756440567

Relative popularity of three google search inquiries in the post-USSR. Blue - horoscope. Red - prayer. Green - namaz. Most of Russia is blue, primarily googling horoscopes. Which suggests most of the population being into some kind of spirituality rather than anything "trad".

https://twitter.com/Klasssiks/status/1858929954756440567

The primary contiguous red area is not in Russia at all, but in West Ukraine. Which is indeed the only remotely "conservative" (in the American sense) area of the East Slavic world. Coincidentally or not, it had never been ruled by Russia, except for a short period in 1939-1991

In the blue and occasionally red sea, there are two regions that primarily google namaz, the Islamic prayer. That is Moscow & Tatarstan

Read 5 tweets

Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Nov 16

Why the USSR failed?

There are two ways for a poor, underdeveloped country to industrialise: Soviet vs Chinese way. Soviet way is to build the edifice of industrial economy from the foundations. Chinese way is to build it from the roof.

1st way sounds good, 2nd actually works.

To proceed further, I need to introduce a new concept. Let's divide the manufacturing industry into two unequal sectors, Front End vs Back End:

Front End - they make whatever you see on the supermarket shelf

Back End - they make whatever that stands behind, that you don’t see

Front End industries are making consumer goods. That is, whatever you buy, as an individual. Toys, clothes, furniture, appliances all falls under this category. The list of top selling amazon products gives a not bad idea what the front end sector is, and how it looks like.

Read 18 tweets

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