His parents used to teach in the same school in Chechnya. His dad was a Chechen, Andarbek Dudaev, his mom a Russian, Zoya Surkova. He spent his childhood in his dad's village where he was known as Aslanbek Dudaev. But then his parents divorced and mom took him to Russia proper
After school he served in army, in military intelligence. Then Perestroika started and commerce was allowed. In 1987 he started working as a marketing deputy for the future oligarch Khodorkovsky - who'll soon become the richest man in Russia. You see Surkov, Nevzlin, Khodorkovsky
What was Khodorkovsky doing back then? This story shows the origins of many largest oligarchic fortunes in Russia. Khodorkovsky was the head of local НТТМ - office for scientific and technological initiatives of the youth. A department of Komsomol - Committee for the Soviet youth
Until Perestroika positions in these НТТМ centres were not that lucrative. But then everything changed. To understand why, we should do a little trip into the Soviet monetary system and how did the Soviet money function
In 1929-1932 Stalin imposed total control over the economy. All enterprises were state enterprises now. And yet, money didn't disappear. Instead Stalin built a new monetary model. In the old, traditional one, there was one circular flow of money. Stalin made two separate flows
The first one was the cash flow. Cash was used by state to pay wages to ppl and by ppl to buy stuff from state. Second flow was noncash. This money was used to do transactions between government enterprises and agencies. Cashing out noncash money was absolutely prohibited
Why would Stalin do that? Largely to pump money into the industry without triggering hyperinflation. Government created as much money as necessary for construction + subsidies, but made sure it won't be used by regular people for buying stuff. Hence prohibition for cashing out
Prices on retail market were arbitrary. E.g. public transport was super cheap, much cheaper than it costed to the state. Meanwhile cars were super expensive, the state selling them with at least 200-300% profit margin. State earned money selling cars and paid for public transit
And yet, within the noncash flow prices were way more arbitrary. They didn't reflect market reality, cuz there was no market. E.g. textile and aerospace industry production was valued in noncash roubles. But actual costs of the latter could be 1000 times as high as of the former
The system was functional as long as the strict prohibition to cash out noncash money remained, and two flows didn't mix. And yet, in late 1980s some agencies got the right to cash them out. Most importantly these НТТМ branches of the Komsomol - committee of the Soviet youth
What did they do? Of course, they started cashing out as much of the noncash money as they could. That triggered hyperinflation, destroying the frailing Soviet economy, but created some enormous fortunes. Such as the one of Khodorkovsky - the future richest oligarch in Russia
This shows why the НТТМ leaders were so overrepresented among the richest people in Russia. They used the crony opportunities Komsomol gave them and cashed out lavishly. Moreover, it shows why former Komsomol leaders are so overrepresented among the contemporary Russian elites
Soviet propaganda portrayed Komsomol as idealistic youth faithful to the Leninism. This was often true in 1920-1960s. However, by the 1980s true believers were selected out. New leadership consisted of incredibly cynical and opportunistic folk - such as Khodorkovsky or Matvienko
Upward mobility within the adult Party was difficult by that time. Frailing gerontocracy occupied all the positions of power and refused to go. So these young smart and cynical ppl waited for their chance, and they exploited the collapse of Soviet system better than anyone else
Let me quote Dorenko:
"We'll live for 130 years. My kids and grandkids will live in my shadow. Only my great-great-grandchildren will see the sky. We'll fuck everyone. Why us? Cuz we've plundered the country. We killed, slandered our fathers. That's why our generation is unique"
So Surkov started working for a crony Komsomol official Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky's star was rising and Surkov's too. Soon he was leading the PR service for the richest oligarch in Russia
But Surkov was too smart too put al legs into one basket. While working for Khodorkovsky he also consulted the government as PR expert. And when Voloshin, one of the closest members of Yeltsin's 'family' leads his administration, Surkov becomes his deputy, leaving his former boss
Thus he became Kremlin's deputy managing PR, political technologies and domestic policy. His most important task was "drowning" Primakov and advancing new Yeltsin's successor - Putin. Putin had full support of the Kremlin, but was totally unknown. You needed to make him electable
But Primakov was still very powerful. Russia had 89 governors and 84 joined Primakov's party. And governors used to have *a lot* of power back then, especially leaders of major cities like Moscow and St Petersburg. Meanwhile the unknown party of Putin "Unity" had zero governors
So in early 1999 nearly 100% of political establishment supported Primakov, seeing him as an obvious successor. Those who didn't were usually outcasts whom he didn't accept in his party for this or that reason. And yet, Kremlin did everything they could to prevent Primakov's rise
Surkov personally talked with governors and persuaded 39 of them to join Putin. So now Putin had 39 and Primakov only 45. How did Surkov do this? Through blackmailing: by that point Putin had dossiers on all of them. Surkov also made clear that Kremlin won't allow Primakov to win
Surkov also did fund-raising. Berezovsky and Abramovich were the two biggest donors for the Putin's campaign, but there were many others, too. On average businessmen would donate just 10 million dollars each - more like insurance in case Putin wins
PS I made a factual mistake in the last thread - misidentifying Surkov on the initial photo. Thus I deleted it. Will post a corrected version a bit later as a blogpost
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Wagner march was incredible, unprecedented to the extent most foreigners simply do not understand. Like, yes, Russia had its military coups in the 18th c. But those were the palace coups, all done by the Guards. Purely praetorian business with zero participation of the army.
Yes, there was a Kornilov affair in 1917, but that happened after the coup in capital. In March they overthrew the Tsar, then there was infighting in the capital, including a Bolshevik revolt in July, and only in September part of the army marches to St Petersburg.
Half a year after the coup. Not the same thing
I think the last time anything like that happened was in 1698, when the Musketeers marched on Moscow from the Western border. And then, next time, only in 2023.
(Army leaves the border/battlefield and marches on the capital without a previous praetorian coup in the capital)
As a person from a post-Soviet country, I could not but find the institutions of People’s Republic of China oddly familiar. For every major institution of the Communist Russia, I could find a direct equivalent in Communist China.
With one major exception:
China had no KGB
For a post-Soviet person, that was a shocking realisation. For us, a gigantic, centralised, all-permeating and all powerful state security system appears to be almost a natural phenomenon. The earth. The sky. Force of gravity. KGB
All basic properties of reality we live in
It was hard to come up with any explanation for why the PRC that evolved in a close cooperation with the USSR, that used to be its client state, that emulated its major institutions, failed to copy this seemingly prerequisite (?) institution of state power
Soviet output of armaments was absolutely gargantuan, massive, unbeatable. “Extraordinary by any standard” , it was impossible for any other country to compete with.
From 1975 to 1988, the Soviets produced four times as many ICBMs and SLBMs, twice as many nuclear submarines, five times as many bombers, six times as many SAMs, three times as many tanks and six times as many artillery pieces as the United States.
Impossible to compete with.
Which raises a question:
How could the USSR produce so much?
It is not only that the USSR invested every dime into the military production. It is also that the Soviet industry was designed for the very large volumes of output, and worked the best under these very large volumes
We are releasing our investigation on Roscosmos, covering a nearly exhaustive sample of Russian ICBM producing plants. We have investigated both primary ICBM/SLBM producers in Russia, a major producer of launchers, manufacturers of parts and components.
Each material includes an eclectic collection of sources, ranging from the TV propaganda to public tenders, and from the HR listings to academic dissertations. Combined altogether, they provide a holistic picture of Russian ICBM production base that no single type of source can.
Overall, you can expect tech moguls to have much, much higher level of reasoning abilities compared to the political/administrative class. But this comes at a cost. Their capacities for understanding the Other (masses count as the “Other”) are much poorer.
E.g. Putin is much, much less of an outlier in terms of intelligence compared to Thiel. He is much more average. At the same time, I am positively convinced that Putin understands the masses and works with masses much better.
One problem with that is that too much of the supply chain for drone production is located in China. The thing with drones is that they grew out of toys industry. Cheap plastic & electronic crap that all of a sudden got military significance
That is also the major problem I have with "China supports Russia" argument. China could wreck Ukraine easily, simply obstructing & delaying the drone/drone components shipments. That would be an instant military collapse for Ukraine.
Both Russian and Ukrainian drone industries are totally dependent upon the continuous shipments from China. To a very significant degree, their "production" is assembly from the Chinese components which are non alternative and cannot be substituted with anything else (as cheap).