Prigozhin's mutiny looks shady. And that is fine. Many coup stories sound shady even in retrospective, as they often included some elements of 4D chess by the political leadership. Still, their consequences were real.
So let's talk of the consequnces🧵
Raising a mutiny in the south, far off from the capital may sound like a dumb plan. Unless this was not a plan at all. My hypothesis: it looks like a false start
23 June - Wagner mutiny
24-25 June - "Scarlet Sails" in St Petersburg
Both Putin and Medvedev were expected to come
The ruling gang is first and foremost a St Petersburg gang. The core of the Russian leadership including Putin, Medvedev and many others including Prigozhin were originally an extensive crony network from St Petersburg. With Putin's succession in 2000 they became the regime
Raising a mutiny in the south is a suboptimal plan for a coup
Seizing both the emperor and his heir apparent (seen as such by the elites) is the best plan ever
I don't have any evidence for it. It is just what makes sense. This is what any reasonable person would think of
A somewhat suboptimal plan to march from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow makes more sense if this was not a plan at all, but rather a backup solution once the Plan A did not work out
The best Plan A for a coup in a hypercentralised country would be seizing both the ruler and his heir
The Scarlet Sails is the yearly celebration culminating the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg. Its symbolism is based on the Alexander Grin's novel everyone in Russia knows
Putin usually *does* visit it. He came in 2022. In 2023, he was expected to come with Medvedev
Long story short, this looks like a false start operation that had to be launched earlier than planned. Perhaps, just one day earlier
At least that is what I think of
This mutiny could involve elements of 4D chess. Events like these often do. In this case, Putin could have a motive to stage an internal conflict to justify getting out of the external one
But 4D chess like this is extremely risky. Everything can go wrong and it very often does
It is highly probable that Kornilov's rebellion in September 1917 involved 4D chess play by Alexander Kerensky. It worked out in a sense they suppressed Kornilov. And by doing so, they paved the way to the Bolsheviks
September 1917 - 4D chess
November 1917 - October Revolution
Interestingly enough, Putin himself is drawing the parallels with 1917 :
"Actions undermining our unity constitute the apostasy of the nation... This is a backstab of our country and our people. Exactly this kind of backstab happened in 1917, when our country fought in the WWI"
These parallels are no accidental. What is happening is Russia is much alike 1917 than 1991. While most observers discuss the potential fall of Putin's regime, it would have been more accurate to frame it as the end of Lenin's regime. Or even better, of Lenin's assabiyah
According to Ibn Khaldun, an assabiyah typically lives for four generations: from the conquest to the downfall. It very, very rarely outlives this span. If I remember correctly, Ibn Khaldun himself could name only one single exception to the rule
Four generations, and that's it
For the current Russian regime its founding conquest happened in 1917. Revolution was a radical break, in a sense that it fully replaced the pre-existing elites. The old ruling classes were persecuted into the oblivion and often physically exterminated
A feth accompli
What followed next was again the typical assabiyah dynamics. The initially democratic assabiyah, once a broad coalition of heterogenous forces, consolidates into a centralised, hierarchical structure with the codified dogma headed by a semi-divine Supreme Ruler
Supreme ruler usurps all the glory of the conquest just for himself and gets rid of his old comrades
Very, very typical
But with all the countless old party members slaughtered, 1937 does not constitute a break anywhere comparable with the 1917. Elites massacred, but not fully replaced. So once the usurper dies, you may have a successful attempt of an aristocratic restoration
I would even say that the public discourse on Stalin and Stalin's repressions has a strong aristocratic flavour. Much of it is just the aristocratic criticism of an absolute monarchy. Hence the exaggerated focus on purges against specifically the Old Bolsheviks, etc
Putin may be critical of Lenin and his legacy. But the origins of the current regime derive from 1917. Lenin's regime has organically evolved into Stalin's, Stalin's into the Khruchev's and all the way to Putin with no radical breaks or replacement of the elites
Evolution
Consider this video of 1998. Prime Minister Kirienko introducing the newly appointed FSB director Vladimir Putin to the Federal Security Service he is now to lead
(Btw: He did not just introduce Putin. According to Yumashev, Kirienko had actively lobbied Putin's candidature)
Putin was grateful. He has a reputation for being grateful (an exceedingly rare quality). That is why he was chosen in the first place
Kirienko now effectively became a czar both for the domestic policy and for Ukraine
The closest we have to the Prince-Caesar Romodanovsky
What you should know, but probably did not:
46/85 of the Russia's governors graduated from the Kirienko-led "school of governors". More than half of Russian regions are directly managed by his men
Regional elites hate them all, of:
"Damn zombies" is a very typical feedback
"Zombies" should be read as a metaphoric description. Zombies (in this context) = people so brainwashed with a certain pseudo-scientific teaching and so trained into the meodologiya practices, that you just cannot deal, communicate or even negotiate with them
So what do:
a) Putin
b) the guy who promoted Putin in 1998 and whose appointees control more than half of the Russian regions in 2022
share their origins and genealogy-wise?
The work in Gorki. Gorki was Lenin's country residence in Moscow region
Putin's grandfather worked at Lenin's canteen as a cook
Kirilenko's great-grandfather headed this canteen
In a country like Russia they had the highest privilege one can have. The Access to the Body
If you do not fully comprehend what does the Access to the Body mean, then you should:
a) take yourself by the hair and smash your head on the table. Repeat 3 times
b) read this poem, especially focusing on stanza 3
"My grandfather did not sell the pancakes,
Did not blacken the Tsar's shoes,
Did not sing in the court chorus,
Did not jump into princes from the khokhols...
... So how can I be an aristocrat?"
Very accurate description of how does the social mobility work in the empire
Putin and Kirienko descend from the Lenin's assabiyah. Their ancestors were minor, servant-status members of the assabiyah, serving food to the Lenin's table. But the members nonetheless. Serving at the table = recipe for the upward social mobility
That's how it works
The assabiyah evolved from 1917 to 2023 largely uninterruptedly. There was no major replacement. And by now it is really old
Putin is the third generation
Kirienko is the fourth
And most likely, there will be no fifth one
What awaits Russia is the radical replacement of elites
Discussing the political developments in Russia as "the fall of Putin's regime" is spoiling the frame. It is not about the fall of Putin. It is about a demise of the entire assabiyah
Post-1917 replacement of elites was limited in scale. Post-1953, it was largely cosmetic. The 1990s to a significant extent were just the Komsomol leadersh changing a sign on their office door: "community-owned" NTTM -> private owned AMK
Same people, different circumstances
It is highly probable that in the coming years we will see a radical replacement of the ruling classes far exceeding anything we saw in the 1990s. The 1990s did not interrupt the continuity of the Soviet era elites. But the 2020s most probably will
The Western policy community used to discuss whether the fall and collapse of the Russian regime would be advantageous or risky. What they probably should be discussing however, is whether they are ready for this scenario if it just materialises without prior notice. The end🧵
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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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
One thing you need to understand about wars is that very few engage into the long, protracted warfare on purpose. Almost every war of attrition was planned and designed as a short victorious blitzkrieg
And then everything went wrong
Consider the Russian war in Ukraine. It was not planned as a war. It was not thought of as a war. It was planned as a (swift!) regime change allowing to score a few points in the Russian domestic politics. And then everything went wrong
It would not be an exaggeration to say that planning a short victorious war optimised for the purposes of domestic politics is how you *usually* end up in a deadlock. That is the most common scenario of how it happens, practically speaking
Global politics are usually framed in terms of kindergarten discourse (“good guys” vs “bad guys”) with an implication that you must provide “good guys” with boundless and unconditional support
BUT
Unconditional support is extremely corrupting, and turns the best of the best into the really nasty guys, and relatively fast
Part of the reason is that neither “bad” nor “good” guys are in fact homogenous, and present a spectrum of opinions and personalities. Which means that all of your designated “good guys” include a fair share of really, really nasty guys, almost by definition.
Purely good movements do not really exist
That is a major reason why limitless, unconditional, unquestioning support causes such a profound corrupting effect upon the very best movement. First, because that movement is not all
that purely good as you imagine (neither movement is),