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Kamil Galeev Profile picture
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Jun 9 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Much of the expertise on Russia has negative value not necessarily because the experts are wrong (they may be right), but because they are right about the unimportant stuff. Lacking the deep understanding of and the deep guanxi in Russia they have no idea what to focus on
That creates an absolutely false and distorted image of Russia in the West. The analysts and the media might not be technically "wrong". They are lying by omission in most cases, not noticing or pretending not to notice a nice herd of elephants in the room. Like the Metodologiya Image
The impact of Metodologiya on politics & governance is well-known in Russia. Consider this very good introduction by a media I don't really like. It may not be 100% correct but it's a great intro to a topic virtually unknown in the West

Станцуем вальс большой войны «Медуза» рассказывает историю «методологов» — загадочного движения, которое сформулировало идею «русского мира» (а чем это закончилось, известно) — Meduza Философ Георгий Щедровицкий и его последователи из движения «методологов», появившегося в 1960-е годы, — первые коучи и политтехнологи в СССР. Они консультировали управленцев-хозяйственников и функцио… https://meduza.io/feature/2022/06/09/stantsuem-vals-bolshoy-voyny
One might object that there are quite a few studies on the methodologists. That's correct. But they're mostly treated as a logical club, rather than a wide and influential expertocracy claiming to possess a monopoly on the objective truth Image
It's not that the Metodologiya is something unheard of in the academia. It's just that almost no one would study their philosophy, business & political activities and integrate it altogether. Why? Well, I fear that the insectoid overspecialisation killed the Western academia Image
A hypothesis. Much of the lie by omission is unintentional and happening largely for two reasons. First, the overspecialisation disincentivizes doing anything even slightly cross disciplinary. Second, the cut throat academic job market disincentivizes the slightest nonconformity
For now I'm done. In the nearest future I'm planning to make a thread on Sergey Kiriyenko, elaborating some of the points I made here. The end

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More from @kamilkazani

Kamil Galeev Profile picture
4h
Regarding the video with a castration of a Ukrainian POW, comments from the Russian ДШРГ Русич may give some context to the story:

"I have seen up to ten such clips. They're usually published 1-2 years after the events though to make perpetrators more difficult to identify" ImageImage
Русич (Rusich) is a Russian Neonazi group fighting in Ukraine. They're reportedly closely associated with the Wagner mercenary company Image
A Rusich fighter who told he had seen "up to ten such clips" is Evgeny Rasskazov (Topaz). Here you see his post commemorating Hitler's birthday:

"Today is birthday of out comrade who became example for many of us... his Word and Deed inspires us to beat the Ukro-Bolshevik scum" Image
Read 14 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jul 27
Die Fürstenstadt

There was a Soviet joke:

- What is long, green and smells with sausage?
- Moscow-Tver train

Why? Well, under the USSR provincials had to go shopping to Moscow. Their shops had no food, often very literally. Today we'll learn an expression "supply category"🧵
Under the centrally planned economy it was the state which supplied food to the localities. It would assign each city one of four "supply categories" determining how much food there will be on shelves. Moscow was supplied far better than anyone while cities like Tver - horribly
Provincial Soviet cities of the lower supply categories might have no food on the shelves at all. Sometimes very literally. Sometimes they would have only the scraps from the table of the higher status city: like some algae, or the disgusting paste "Ocean"
Read 26 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jul 25
I find this line of argumentation illustrative of the general state of Russian discourse, whether "patriotic" or "liberal". Everything Turkic occupies the same place in the Russian debates as everything Irish in the Imperial British. The Inner Other and the source of all the evil
Reading the Russian-Ukrainian debates with both sides accusing each other of racial impurity and having too many Steppe admixtures or influences, I noticed that their argumentation is mirroring each other. See this Russian nationalist material for example sputnikipogrom.com/history/15934/…
This mutuality and almost exact symmetry of Russian-Ukrainian accusations reminds me of a brilliant thread on the British rule over the Ionian Isles. Bach then the discourse was similar. Brits and Greeks were constantly accusing each other of Irishness
Read 14 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jul 24
Russian bureaucracy is *massive*. It's also diverse. Judging from my observations, it's less integrated than let's say the apparatus of the U.S. federal bureaucracy. Different agencies have different cultures and operate by different rules. Avoid sweeping generalisations (not🧵)
I see a very common attitude among the Russian pro-war community. It can be summarised this way:

"We expected dumb and incompetent bureaucrats to destroy our economy. But our glorious army would prevail against all odds. It turned out we were wrong. It's the other way around"
Now much of the Z-community argues that they greatly overestimated the Russian army (and the military apparatus). It's very, very much worse than anyone thought before. But they underestimated the economic bureaucracy. Which is very much better than they could have thought
Read 22 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jul 23
No. Describing Russian regime as "kleptocracy" is misrepresentation. It's not technically false, just absurdly reductionist. Let's be honest, if Putinism was *entirely* about stealing it would not be able to wage wars or produce armaments. And it produces hella lots of them
Keep in mind that public rhetorics work according to the rhetorical logic. Public position doesn't have to be factually accurate, it has to be rhetorically advantageous for it to work. They talk about "corruption" so much because it's rhetorically advantageous. That's it
When you don't have a positive agenda/vision of future or it's too hideous, you talk about "corruption". Examples - Lukashenko or Yeltsin. "Anti-corruption fight" is an ideal topic for a power hungry politician. Because talking about corruption = avoiding the actual conversation
Read 19 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jul 23
Kremlin may not have a grey cardinal. But it has a bald engineer. The Kinder Egg is a major architect of Putinism. In 1998 he made Putin the FSB Chief. In 2000s he dismantled the regional autonomy imposing the centralised rule. Now he manages Putin's domestic policy and Ukraine🧵
Sergey Kirienko was born as Sergey Israitel in a mixed Russian-Jewish family. After the divorce his mother changed his surname from father's "Israitel" to her own "Kirienko". That could be a pragmatic decision. A boy with a Slavic name would have better career chances in the USSR
In childhood Kirienko lived with his mom in subtropical Sochi. Here he started the bureaucrat career as a Komsomol manager (комсорг) of his high school class. NB: the role of Komsomol in Soviet to post-Soviet transition is underrated. Komsomol management were its main benefactors
Read 35 tweets

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