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Kamil Galeev Profile picture
@kamilkazani
Jun 6, 2022 • 12 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
Yes, but that's unimportant. Nobody cares about the suffering of the few. It can and will be ignored. What can't be ignored however is the problems in dentistry. You might not give a damn about kidney dialysis, but very soon you'll need to fix your teeth. That gonna be hard
You can see a good overview here. Russian dentistry is critically dependent upon Western materials, tools and anaesthetics. So the prices are skyrocketing and very soon many services will either be unavailable or will have to swtich to Soviet technologies ngs55.ru/text/health/20…
Unavailability of some high tech services like the kidney dialysis doesn't have political significance. Nobody really cares. What does create political consequences however is the general decrease in life standards for everyone. Dentistry >>> Dialysis, politics-wise
You see, any sort of regime however horrendous it might look from outside can exist only as long as it relies on some sort of social contract. Which is generally accepted by the population. And Putin's regime can exist only as long as it fullfills the social contract conditions
Westerners generally misunderstand Putin's social contract . It's not about "gimme your freedom, and I'll give you money". Not at all. Much of Russian population lived in horrendous conditions and that was ok. Cuz it's not what Putin's social contract is about
Putin's social contract is not about securing some life standards or employment or even economic growth. It's primarily about securing FULL SUPERMARKET SHELVES. That's the basis of his legitimacy
Westerners generally underestimate how much Russian population is traumatised by the Soviet empty shelves. It was not "poverty" that damaged the Soviet legitimacy. It was the empty shelves. You kinda have money, but what are you gonna buy? Image
Putin's social contract is not about everyone having something to eat. It's about food being always available in the supermarket and available in variety and abundance, which never really happened in Russian history before, at least since 1917 Image
It's not poverty that damages the legitimacy of the regime. It's the deficit. If you can't buy food cuz you're poor, then well, fuck you. You're lazy or stupid, because if you were smarter you'd earn cash or take a loan. And buy food which is available in a supermarket, just look Image
If you can't buy food cuz you don't have cash, it's your own fault. Putin's responsibility is to provide you with supply. However, if you can't buy food, because there is no (or little/limited choice of it), that's Putin's fault. He didn't fulfil the implicit promise of abundance
Paradoxically enough, poverty or starvation don't damage the regime nearly as much as the limited choice of yogurts does. Starvation is your own fault. The limited choice of yogurts is Putin's fault. Know the difference
Russian people love to consume. They love to consume way more than Europeans do, because they didn't have much chance to consume at least since Stalin took the power. Limiting the consumption choice or consumption dreams is way more painful than it would be in Europe. End of 🧵

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More from @kamilkazani

Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jun 7
In 1927, when Trotsky was being expelled from the Boslhevik Party, the atmosphere was very and very heated. One cavalry commander met Stalin at the stairs and threatened to cut off his ears. He even pretended he is unsheathing he sabre to proceed

Stalin shut up and said nothing
Like obviously, everyone around could see Stalin is super angry. But he still said nothing and did nothing

Which brings us to an important point:

Nobody becomes powerful accidentally
If Joseph Stalin seized the absolute control over the Communist Party, and the Soviet Union, the most plausible explanation is that Joseph Stalin is exercising some extremely rare virtues, that almost nobody on the planet Earth is capable of

Highly virtuous man, almost to the impossible level
Read 7 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jun 1
Growing up in Russia in the 1990s, I used to put America on a pedestal. It was not so much a conscious decision, as the admission of an objective fact of reality. It was the country of future, the country thinking about the future, and marching into the future. Image
And nothing reflected this better than the seething hatred it got from Russia, a country stuck in the past, whose imagination was fully preoccupied with the injuries of yesterday, and the phantasies of terrible revenge, usually in the form of nuclear strike. Image
Which, of course, projected weakness rather than strength

We will make a huuuuuuge bomb, and drop it onto your heads, and turn you into the radioactive dust, and you will die in agony, and we will be laughing and clapping our hands

An old man yelling at clouds Image
Read 9 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
May 2
Fake jobs are completely normal & totally natural. The reason is: nobody understands what is happening and most certainly does not understand why. Like people, including the upper management have some idea of what is happening in an organisation, and this idea is usually wrong.
As they do not know and cannot know causal relations between the input and output, they just try to increase some sort of input, in a hope for a better output, but they do not really know which input to increase.
Insiders with deep & specific knowledge, on the other hand, may have a more clear & definite idea of what is happening, and even certain, non zero degree of understanding of causal links between the input and output

(what kind of input produces this kind of output)
Read 6 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
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
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
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
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
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

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