Thread by @MarkGaleotti

“Start with yourself, Comrade Dugin”
A broadside attack on Alexander Dugin appears in Moskovsky Komsomolets. A couple of quotes and thoughts... 1/
mk.ru/social/2024/03…

"People want to have an income, a pension and peace of mind in the future. And they are offered an eternal battle and endless belt-tightening in a dystopian society literally divided along Brahminical lines. There is an elite - and everyone else." 2/

It's not the first time Ekaterina Sazhneva has attacked the nationalist-weirdo philosopher in MK, but that's significant in itself, that no "hands off" warning was given. For all the "Putin's Brain" nonsense, Dugin is clearly not under a Kremlin krysha 3/
mk.ru/social/2023/11…

Bit what's really striking is that this is not really about Dugin - it's a broadside against all of those talking up the need for mobilisation of the nation, eternal war against the West, etc... which is pretty much what Putin is offering. Sazhneva concludes: 4/

"But the easiest way to cover up the desire for carrion is with beautiful words... It will take several generations to restore what was destroyed by the present. They want to steal the time of our descendants’ lives now." 5/

One of the things that has struck me is that as the state gets increasingly Soviet, the Soviet-era practice of expressing disagreement and opening debate through aesopian means is also returning. In other words... 6/

...talking about the issues of the day by pretending you're talking ab out history, or another country or, say, a high-profile nationalist. Even while the media is in the state's grip now - as in the 70s and 80s - people are still finding ways round its dead hand. 7/

So while I don't want to read too much into one article, remember that this appears in a newspaper with, for example, a larger print run than the NYT and a popular online presence. It's not exactly fringe. And... 8/

...when Sazhneva writes that "We are offered a theoretical hodgepodge of a la Iranian Ayatollahs, Boyar Dumas and ancient Greek Sparta," this sounds strikingly like Putin's current vision. Again, not to be over-stated, but an interesting sign of the times. 9/end