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I think it's time to do a series of threads on Russian sleeping institutions. I'll start with political parties and parliamentarism. Let's take a glance on how did Russians living abroad vote during parliamentary elections of 2021. Blue - United Russia (Putin), Red - Communists🧵 
Putin's party United Russia won pretty much everywhere around the non-Western world except for East Asia. It showed the highest result in the unrecognised state of Abkhazia, which is the Russian satellite - 93%. The lowest - in Washington DC, here it got 0% 
The Communist party won by landslide in the West and in East Asia. It got highest results in Vietnam - 42,9% and in Denmark - 41,9%. It's leading in pretty much every developed country except for Belgium. Here it got exactly the same share of voted as the United Russia - 24,6% 
Finally a smaller Liberal Democratic Party, radical Russian ethnonationalists, got the highest results in London - 20,3% (= they are probably supported by many rich Russian kleptocrats there) and in Rwanda - 18,2%. Other parties are either too small or too fake to discuss them 
NB: how to interpret the US results? I was asked if nobody in the embassy voted for United Russia. Not quite. As you see, votes from DC were counted together with the votes from the entire Old South and both Dakotas. Few votes for Putin were drowned in a flood of Communist votes 
Now let's go a bit deeper. If you are unfamiliar with Russian political system it's just too easy to misinterpret these results. So I need to make a small introduction into a recent political and parliamentary history of Russia
When Yeltsin came to power, he was super popular. But the socio-economic catastrophe of 1990s obliterated his image and reputation. Overwhelming majority of the country wanted to go back and voted for the Communists. Here you see the results of parliamentary elections, 1995 
In 1990s Russia always had Communist-dominated parliament. Which angered Yeltsin, siloviki and "systemic liberals" such as Chubays. He organised privatisation giving the government property to oligarchs and wanted to do further "market reforms". But Commies were simply vetoing it 
Entire Kremlin staff was angry at the perceived Communist sabotage. As a result they decided to dismantle the parliamentary system. Fortunately, all-powerful Petersburg economist Chubays had good pals in that city. Through Chubay's network Putin was first hired to Kremlin 
The ruling clique had to act quickly to survive. The political balance looked like this. People supported the Communists. But nearly 100% of political establishment supported ousted prime-minister Primakov. 84 out of 89 Russian governors joined his party Fatherland: All of Russia 
It was a dead end situation. If Communists win, ruling clique is done. If Primakov wins, they're done (of course an ex PM gonna take revenge). Moreover, even if they somehow push their own candidate as a President he again can't do anything cuz opposition controls the parliament 
By that time Yeltsin's son in law Valentin Yumashev who was the Chief of Presidential Administration already made a choice. Putin will be our next President. He's loyal, reliable, he'll never let us down. And the entire Kremlin apparatus worked hard to push Putin forward 
But we just secure the transfer of power to Putin, we save our lives and status. But. The opposition-led Parliament sabotaged Yeltsin and surely gonna sabotage Putin. Unacceptable. Media tycoon Berezovsky (left) decided - we'll make a new party for Putin. Voloshin (middle) agreed 
Berezovsky called for his henchmen Dorenko and Leontyev. These two guys sat near his bed for a brain storm. Berezovsky and Dorenko made up and dictated the agenda of a new political party for Putin - the Unity. Leontyev wrote it down. Dorenko was the best of them, amazing wordcel
Then deputy chief of Kremlin's staff Surkov personally talked with dozens of governors to join the Unity. Probably he used dossiers Putin collected for blackmail. Anyway he talked 39 of Primakov's governors to join. Now Primakov had 45 + popularity, Putin 39 + FSB + Kremlin lobby
That's how the Unity was established. It wasn't really a party. Kremlin clique was tired of dealing with parliamentary opposition so they made a plug that would cancel parliamentarism at all. Make our own pseudo-party, hijack the parliament and it rubber-stamps any our decisions
Through blackmail and Chechen war they boosted this pseudoparty out of nothing. In 1999 the Unity (blue) got 64 MPs, and Communists (red) - 67. Light blue are Moscow, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan where regional elites rejected their offers and stood by Primakov till the very end
The victory of Putin in 2000 marked the consolidation of the new regime. New rulers started quickly centralising all power, all authority and all the money in their hands. The formula of Putinism is: President rules, parliament rubber-stamps, regions have no cash and no power
And you know what became the Achilles heel of Putinism? The parliament which is supposed to rubberstamp. To rubber-stamp you need the Unity to get majority. But Unity is unpopular. Everyone knows they're corrupt puppets. Putin's approval was high, approval of Unity in the toilet
In 2001 "Unity" unites with "Fatherland: All of Russia" and "Our home is Russia". What's common between these parties? They were three personalist parties of three different PMs: Putin, Primakov and Chernomyrdin. All three first became PMs and only then established their parties
Putinism wasn't aberration but a historical trend. A random guy is appointed as the PM by the Tsar. And then establishes a personalist party to facilitate his rule. Putin did what everyone was doing. And in 2001 his Unity forced others to "unite". That's how United Russia emerged
Unlike Putin who was very popularity and even now is, United Russia never had popular support. How would it get a majority then? Through election fraud. Who did the fraud. The governors did. Why? First, Putin's Finance Minister Kudrin centralised all budgetary decisions in Moscow
Moscow would first collect all profitable and collectable taxes and then decide how much each region gets. Thus governors were reduced to beggars who spent half their time in Moscow: please give me a transfer. Beggars can't really say no. And all the blue regions became beggars
Moscow also used the sheer force. The governors who would show bad election results for Putin and United Russia would lose their status or worse. Consider Furgal, governor of Khabarovsk (Far East). He didn't fake elections in Putin's favour, showed real results and here he is
Governor Furgal's arrest sparked massive protests over Khabarovsk region in 2020-2021, but Kremlin just ignored them. Like the fuck they're gonna do? Over the time they just stopped. Putin's principle is to never ever submit to the popular demands or mass protests
United Russia is not a ruling party. The Old Communist Party actually ruled the state. Meanwhile the United Russia is simply a bunch of cowardly opportunist rubberstampers. Putin didn't even technically join his own party because association with such weasels would hurt his image
The only *somewhat* real, somewhat independent and very electable parliamentary party in Russia are the Communists. However it would be wrong to imagine them as a party in European or American sense. It's not so much a cohesive party as an umbrella for many, many movements inside
You can't just go and do politics in Russia. You'll end up in jail. You also can't really set up your own party, because the rules are designed in a way you won't be able to complete all the procedures. If you wanna do any politics or any activist you must join an existing party
Whom to join? United Russia and its smaller clones, the Just Russia, the New People won't allow you to show even a little bit of dissent. You can only praise everything the government is doing. So you can either join the liberals "the Apple" or the Communists. No other options
The major difference between these two is that the Apple is unelectable and the Communists are. I learnt it myself. This summer I tried to help 2 candidates on elections to Moscow Parliament. They weren't professional politicians just smart intelligentsia guys aiming for politics
Officially both lost and the United Russia candidates won. But I know that the guy who joined Communists has actually won and the guy who joined Apple has actually lost. How do I know it? Well, from the official data, discrepancy between the online and the offline voting results
The Committee sor supervising the elections in Moscow was presided by Alexey Venediktov, the director of Radio Station "Echo of Moscow". Very brave, very oppositional very liberal. It's also 66% owned by the state owned corporation Gazprom, but who cares
Venediktov supervised online voting that supplemented offline. Look at the election results of opposition (green) and United Russia (blue). During the offline voting (left) opposition took most seats. But once online results were added (right) United Russia took every single seat
Opposition called for cancelling online results. But Venediktov refused to do it, declaring that he wants to expand the system of online voting further, scale it up. Well, if such a prominent oppositional journalist told so, then online voting is surely legit and results are true
Btw that's Venediktov interviewing Putin back in 1997, when Putin was just an officials of Presidential Administration. His skyrocketing career commenced later. The thing about Putin is that he prefers to work with people he knows for very long and doesn't trust new acquaintances
So let's return to the Communists. As I said modern Communist party is more an umbrella for very many movements, initiatives, activists in modern Russia. More like a magnet for all the protest voting and protest activities. Hence it looks kinda idiosyncratic.
Communists leadership pretends to be very religiously observant, attends church services and sermons. Why? Largely because Orthodox clericalism is part of a new state cult now. Previously Russia had a Marxist state cult, now it has Christian one. Not much difference
Communist leadership also stands against immigration, with obvious xenophobic overtones. Consider this poster on a by a Communist MP: visa regime stops the flood of illegal immigration
To put it in other words, the central leadership shares most of the assumptions and believes of the ruling clique. And yet, the party is not cohesive and not integrated. It's rather a legal "umbrella" to avoid jail and a brand for pretty much any dissent in modern Russia
It seems that most of the dissent within this party is not a decision of higher ups (who are totally controllable) but of grassroots movement which has very little connection with their supposed HQ. They launch pretty much all the socio economic protests in the country
Communists were the only ones protesting against the vaccine mandates. Again not because it is the decision of the leadership (leadership wouldn't do anything without an order from Kremlin), but because there are huge isolated grassroots movements acting on their own initiative
It's also telling that the only 3 MPs who protested against the invasion of Ukraine were members of the Communist party - Mikhail Matveev, Oleg Smolin an Vyacheslav Markhaev. The rest 447 MPs agreed and praised this decision. Protesting now is indeed very, very risky
Let's sum up. In 1990s Kremlin was so disaffected by parliamentary opposition that they decided to abolish parliamantarism and public politics at all. Hence the rise of Putin and building of Putinism. Systemic liberals needed Putin so they wouldn't have to deal with opposition
United Russia is not a ruling party. It's not a political party at all. It's just a fake pseudoparty whose only role is to rubberstamp all Putin's decisions so that he wouldn't have to deal with the opposition. It's the plug on the parliamentarian and on public politics in Russia
Genesis of United Russia isn't political, it's administrative. Putin was first appointed a PM and then got a party. That's typical. Other two parties later consumed by Putin's evolved the same way, as personalist parties of appointed PMs. Putin just followed the historical trend
Communist party is the most real and the most electable in Russia. But it's not a cohesive party. It's poorly integrated. Its leadership is totally conformist. Meanwhile the grassroot cells lead whatever protest and dissent there exists in Russia
It might seem that the Communist party is a subject, while United Russia is the object. Not quite. I'd say that all parliamentary establishment able for independent thinking, dissent and action enlisted to the communists long ago, no matter what they really believe in. End of 🧵
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