Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jan 20, 2023 14 tweets 6 min read Read on X
Moscow liberal's logic:

1. There were (allegedly) hundreds of thousands Chechens willing to be a part of Russia
2. Yeltsin bombed them to ashes Mariupol-style
3. "Not clear what was an alternative"

How exactly are these guys different from Putin? Same crazy, murderous mindset Image
Fact

Modern Russia is more of a product of Chechen Wars than of Putin's personality. Remilitarization, buildup of security state, they all started due to the First War. By the late 1990s Yeltsin was actively looking for a KGB heir. All his three last PMs were from state security Image
Moscow liberals want to portray Putin as an "accident". He was not. The system chose Putin, not the other way around. Yeltsin elevated Putin from nothing, started another war to facilitate his succession and used the lowkey nuclear blackmail when Clinton tried to argue Image
Putin's brand became too toxic. He made too many mistakes and continuation of his rule puts the entire system under risk. So @navalny's succession became the hill to die on for the entire little Moscow race of overlords: "liberals"/nationalists who benefit from empire's existence Image
@navalny Moscow liberals and nationalists do not support @navalny because they see him as a "candidate for change". It's the other way around. They stand for him because they see his succession as a "return to normality". Pretty disgusting normality I must say Image
Facts:

1. Global narrative on Russia is shaped by the major Western media/scholars
2. Both journos and scholars are (mostly) clueless. Most have no other sources in Russia other than the Moscow establishment
3. The Moscow establishment is interested in minimal, cosmetic changes
4. Moscow establishment is mortally terrified of the system being dismantled. It would undermine their privilege
5. They provide Western media/academia with facts selected and interpretations constructed to justify the minimal change narrative. They must be cosmetic, they argue
6. Since most of the Western media/academia have no other sources than the Moscow establishment they form their opinion based on facts selected and interpretations constructed by the latter. Respectable Western institutions do perspective laundering for the Moscow establishment
7. Since the narrative promoted by the mainstream Western media largely amounts to the laundered perspective of the Moscow establishment, the Westerners are genuinely astonished with either Ukrainians/Russian minorities/regionalists questioning the said "objective" narrative
8. Hence the differing views on @navalny's imperial succession. Those who see the imperial system as an asset will fight for him till the last breath. That's their only chance, realistically speaking. Those who see it as a liability or threat tend to hold very different opinions
9. @navalny'st platform is the platform of the cosmetic changes. Since the Moscow establishment interested in only cosmetic changes hold the monopoly of representation, their perspective becomes the mainstream Western perspective. Nobody else is given voice, for the most part
@navalny 10. The question of @navalny's succession is the question of cosmetic vs fundamental changes of the Russian sociopolitical system. If you don't get it, you won't get why so many Ukrainians/Russian minorities stand against it while the Moscow "liberals" - for it
11. In my next thread I'll show how @navalny and his team are weaponising the "anti-corruption" rhetorics (mixed with factual lies and the wildest claims) to buttress the imperial system. I will also show their strategy of putting the blame for Putinism on minorities

Cheers
PS @k_sonin "There are many pro-Russians there. I don't see what choice we had except for bombing the hell out of them" is a @UChicago Professor. Good example of what kinds of perspectives are being routinely legitimised by the authority of the Western academic institutions

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More from @kamilkazani

Apr 12
There is a common argument that due process belongs only to citizens

Citizens deserve it, non citizens don’t

And, therefore, can be dealt with extrajudicially

That is a perfectly logical, internally consistent position

Now let’s think through its implications
IF citizens have the due process, and non-citizens don’t

THEN we have two parallel systems of justice

One slow, cumbersome, subject to open discussion and to appeal (due process)

Another swift, expedient, and subject neither to a discussion nor to an appeal (extrajudicial)
And the second one already encompasses tens of millions of non citizens living in the United States, legal and illegal, residents or not.

Now the question would be:

Which system is more convenient for those in power?

Well, the answer is obvious
Read 10 tweets
Apr 5
I have recently read someone comparing Trump’s tariffs with collectivisation in the USSR. I think it is an interesting comparison. I don’t think it is exactly the same thing of course. But I indeed think that Stalin’s collectivisation offers an interesting metaphor, a perspective to think aboutImage
But let’s make a crash intro first

1. The thing you need to understand about the 1920s USSR is that it was an oligarchic regime. It was not strictly speaking, an autocracy. It was a power of few grandees, of the roughly equal rank.
2. Although Joseph Stalin established himself as the single most influential grandee by 1925, that did not make him a dictator. He was simply the most important guy out there. Otherwise, he was just one of a few. He was not yet the God Emperor he would become later.
Read 30 tweets
Mar 16
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.
Read 6 tweets
Mar 1
Three years of the war have passed

So, let’s recall what has happened so far

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 Image
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) Image
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 Image
Read 32 tweets
Feb 8
Why does Russia attack?

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. Image
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. Image
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.

Let's see why Image
Read 24 tweets
Feb 2
On the origins of Napoleon

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 Image
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. Image
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. Image
Read 7 tweets

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