Soviet war machine was not created autarkically. It was built by the American businesses through the 1920 - early 1930s. Detroit-based Albert Kahn Associates company was a key organiser of the Soviet military industrial buildup
The thing about Soviet military buildup is not that they imported stuff. That's pretty obvious. The thing is that they outsourced the planning. When we are discussing the Stalinist planned economy, we should keep in mind that the planning was done in the US
Albert Kahn Associates was the most important *planner* of Soviet industrialisation. They were not alone though. It was conducted by the joint efforts of the US industrialists
"On the way to automobilize the USSR": Henry Ford signing a contract to built a GAZ automative plant
Some described the WWII results as the "Victory of Magnitogorsk over Ruhr". Not wrong. Still, we should keep in mind that the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works were planned by the Arthur McKee company over the US Steel Mill in Gary, Indiana
Whereas the Wagner's shell hunger is real, ascribing it to the ill intentions of bureaucracy may be somewhat simplistic. It reflects the peculiar structure and the peculiar history of the Russian military manufacturing base
(not a 🧵)
What you should know of the Russian military industry:
1. After 1991 the output collapsed, often by few orders of magnitude 2. In Putin's era it bounced back, but not to the Cold War era levels 3. Both the collapse and the revival affected various types of weaponry unevenly
It would not be *too* much of a simplification to present the demand on the new weaponry in the following way:
Demand = State Defense Order + Exports
Now the thing is that in the 1990s the State Order was usually non-existent. If it was existent, it was often not paid for
The managed system more often than not appears as a black box to its upper management. It is not transparent. I do not quite understand how it works. All I have are the output signals of the very uneven quality. And that is all I can base my judgement and my decisions upon🧵
This explains much of the perceived "irrationality" of top decision makers:
a) The system isn't transparent. It produces signals of uneven quality
b) Choose the presumably higher quality signals *you are able to process*
c) Base your decisions upon them
Hence "irrationality"
Reality is incomprehensible in all of its complexity (and we tend to very much exaggerate how well we do comprehend it). It is covered by the fog of war. And perhaps nothing else illustrates it so vividly as, well, the war
Medvedev's diatribes make sense if we consider that from Putin's standpoint the real threat must be coming from those already in power, rather than from the cartoonish & powerless opposition. And among those already in power, his own courtiers are by far the most dangerous
Like where else the threat may be coming from? From nowhere. People can never beat the army
1. Street protests? Well, they can't beat the army 2. Rebels (e.g. Caucasus). Same story. They can't beat the army 3. Regional barons. Same story, unless they have their own armies
4. Army itself. YES! Absolutely, yes. And that is a major reason for the Russian military setbacks. The army in Russia is not optimised for winning a foreign war. It is optimised for presenting as little threat to the regime as possible. At cost of the fighting power, of course
From a third worlder’s perspective this classist dimension used to be even more pronounced. Until recently you needed to either have lived in this culture to have mastered all the required shibboleths (= upper class) or hire people who did (= also upper class)
God created people, TikTok made them equally familiar with modern American discourse. I know many Americans are concerned about TikTok being a tool of Chinese espionage. But when it comes to softpower, it primarily is a tool of American rather than Chinese cultural influence
TikTok is how American upper class memes diffuse to the Global South. In particular, nothing upper-class-Americanised the discourse of the Russian youth as much as TikTok. In 2020, I returned to Moscow after a long time abroad and was astonished at how deeply it had transformed
Regarding Darya Dugina, I think that foreign observers tend to wildly exaggerate significance of ideological alignment (like are you pro/against Putin). That is 99% rhetorics and can be changed overnight
But they just as wildly underrate the significance of class and status
Condolences published by the "opposition" figures are very telling. "Innocent", "child [30 y.o.]", "victim". Singling out Dugina and whitewashing her, absolving from responsibility for her actions makes sense if:
What is important about Dugina is that she leveraged the *international* fame of her dad to get into the circle of Moscow establishment -> become noble. After that the Moscow establishment (= Russian nobility), "oppositional" or not will stand for her like a Spanish tercio
Many thanks to everyone who chose to donate last time. Some donors were *outrageously* generous, allowing soldiers to purchase new communication equipment, thermal binoculars, etc. A new round of donations on the Ukrainian military and volunteers starts now🧵
1. Fundraising for the PVS-14 night vision monoculars