This remark may sound as an exaggeration but I find it astute. Russia is more personalist than the (post-Stalin) USSR. It is also in many respects more centralised. For example, a separate Siloviki hierarchy unanswerable to the regional authorities is the post-Soviet innovation
In Russia all the people with guns/badges are answerable only to Moscow. Police, Investigation Committee, Prosecutors, FSB and the National Guard of course. All the law enforcement/warrior cops are 100% centralised, governors have no authority over them
Not the case in the USSR
In the (post-Stalin) USSR nomenklatura hold a tight grip over the ppl with guns and often did it on the regional level. Not only were the regular cops answerable to the regional/republican Party committee, but even the military commanders could be integrated into the latter
In other words, in the USSR the civilian hierarchy (nomenklatura) was not separated from the ppl with guns. Cops, prosecutors, etc. were answerable to the *local* Party committee, who basically owned the cops. And even with the military there could be a degree of integration
In modern Russia however, the government made sure that the regional authorities have 0 ppl with guns under their command. Like absolutely zero. In the last year, even the last gubernatorial bodyguard services were disbanded. Now every governor is guarded by the National Guard
The full separation of the people-with-guns hierarchy from the civilian hierarchy with the full centralisation of command over the former is not a Soviet, but a Russian innovation. Non-ideological, low trust and personalist regime won’t allow anyone to have a single gunman under
When you think of nomenklatura, think of Krang and of a fractal kind of Krang. In every city, region, republic, etc. there sat a Krang who ran everything including the gunmen. Yes, dictatorial rule. But also collective, institutionalised and relatively decentralised
Now the funny thing about modern Russia is that there is no nomenklatura anymore. The Krang is dead. Yes, the state security took over but it did not take over in a same way. Modern Russia is extremely personalist -> fragile. It just cannot afford a shadow of decentralisation
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
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 about
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.
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.