Big surprise. /s
Lots of boring and repetitive takes out there, so I’ll write about something different; maybe this too will be boring, but at least it’s probably unique.
Here is how three of the leading lights of the Russian nationalist movement, the Two Egors and Igor Strelkov, reacted to this news.
Egor Kholmogorov approves, as one might guess from the very title of his Tsargrad article: “Twenty years of peace.” This is, of course, a reference to Stolypin’s comments in 1909 on the state of the Russian Empire; ultimately, of course, it only got five. He notes that Putin came to power in a country that had been practically destroyed by two massive “social defaults,” the first one being the Bolshevik Revolution, and the second one the liberal reforms that undid its legacy. Each provoked a wave of Russophobic nihilism that denied Russians the right to their own existence.
Instead of a new utopian project, Putin gave Russia breathing room to recuperate itself economically, politically, and spiritually; today, “we see a Russia that is not only richer, better fed, stronger and more confident,” but also one “that is truer to its real self,” having rejected both “liberal globalism” and sidelined “the post-traumatic syndrome of neo-Bolshevism and neo-Stalinism.” Putin has proved an attentive pupil of Solzhenitsyn, who insisted that the best choice for Russia would be “calm authoritarianism, dedication to Russia’s Christian foundations, and putting the interests of the Russian people above that of any utopia.”
If there’s one thing to be regretful about, it is that Russians are still talking about “Presidential terms,” and in so doing paying their dues to a political system that is alien to their nature. But perhaps it is a positive testament to Putin’s gradualist spirit that he hasn’t done away with it.
Egor Prosvirnin has a rather dimmer opinion: “Another 6 years under the thumb of a pensioner who doesn’t use computers or the Internet. Another 6 years of new restrictions and idiotic criminal cases for posting images to Vkontakte. Another 6 years of paranoia and searching for spies and enemies… of trash-patriotism… of “clever plans” and 666D chess… of helping Syria, Sudan, and whoever else they find… of anti-intellectualism… of devouring the private economy and raising the state’s share of GDP in tandem with a lowering of social welfare… of neo-Soviet revanche… of war against russki fascism and our replacement with rossiyane… of multi-nationality and unrestricted immigration from Central Asia… of Latin Americanization and cultural degradation… of lies and offshore firms… of ever richer judo partners… of selling oil and importing hi-tech products… of blathering about moral values, while their real values are a London mansion… of this schizophrenic state where we are “fighting the West” but “sending our families to the West,” where the regime has “popular support” but “there exists the risk of a Maidan,” where there is “stability” but “no money, but you hold tight“… Another 6 years of Kadyrov… of Serdyukov… of Bobokulova… the Rotenbergs… the Minsk Accords… Mutkos… Medvedevs… SORM… FSB…”
Well, you get the point. Prosvirnin doesn’t like Putin or the Russian regime very much at all. And one can sympathize, I’d probably dislike him a lot more as well if I was to have my apartment searched and my computer seized, and my website blocked for “justifying the Islamic State” amongst other ludicrous accusations.
He comes to a pessimistic but grim conclusion: There is no chance of stopping Putin, nor of converting a fundamentally hostile elite to their side. As he clarifies in the comments in response to a question, even politics as such is useless, since the Kremlin simply refuses to register nationalist parties. Furthermore, he believes authoritarianism is only going to get worse: “In the past 20 years, the people in charge have decided on a strategy: Families and capital to the West, building a Venezuela here; or an Iran, if the population is sufficiently stupid to allow it; and North Korea in the worst case.” As such, with conventional politics out of the question, the nationalist strategy should be to intensify their informational work.
Igor Strelkov doesn’t have anything good to say of Putin either, though his antipathy is one of fatalism rather than anger: “For a person who has managed to screw up everything that remained working in Russia (after the traitor Gorby and the alcoholic Borya), plus get on the wrong side of his “dear Western partners,” remaining in power is a matter of “life or death.” But the Nanogenius wants to live long and happy… and not just himself, but his entire “Ozero Coop” mafia.”
He compares the Russian Federation that Putin has “raised from its knees” to the “oligarchic monarchy” that was the Roman Principate, in which Emperors were made consuls in meaningless elections. After the Principate there came the Dominate, where you would have to bow before the statues of the “godlike” Emperors… and then came the barbarians, “masses of whom Vladimir Vladimirovich has already invited into the country.” And Russia will also have “coups and civil wars” to look forwards to, as the “inevitable accompaniment to life in a great decaying empire.” None of which concerns Putin, because “after Him, the deluge.”
Putin is a manlet.
Thank you very much, AK, I greatly appreciate getting the perspective that matters most to me, but which is near-impossible to get access to in the elite Western media or even in the Polish media: that of the pro-russkie nationalists.
I do have to say that some of the pessimism is a bit hysterical, especially Prosvirnin’s. Putin is not going to create a Venezuela out of Russia any time soon. The latest fiscal rule has been remarkably stringent by assuming a $40 oil price for a long time horizon, even as it is moving towards $60 as I write this. The lows of 2014-2016 were never going to be maintained, but any extra difference will now be put into wealth and sovereign funds.
No, I think a more likely possibility is that it is precisely Russia’s success which is the danger here. The worst is now over and the world will see that Russia is no Brazil, South Africa or not to mention a Venezuela. We’ll likely get relative stability and as such Russia will continue become a magnet for Central Asia, especially since the labour market is decent these days.
Any ethnic collective organising by russkies can be counter-acted by spectacular hurrah-type patriotard stunts, like doing more foreign interventions. (And I say that as someone who strongly supported Russia’s defence of Syria against the neo-Cohenist pro-ISIS/pro-Al Qaida attack). The experience of America shows that these cheap thrills are very effective to easily seduce the greater populace and slowly lulling them into complacency even as their country slowly transforms to a mongrel mix of third worldism.
If the US is a guide here, then it is important to learn from the white nationlists’ mistake from that country, too. Politics flow from culture, not the other way around. Politics is reactionary, in the most literal sense of the term. It always reacts to social trends, not leading them. Politicians are experts in managing various groups and maximising their own political survival, which of course also involves doling out benefits to cliques and interest groups.
Therefore, the main mistake of the white nationalists in the US was to put the cart before the horse. To think that you make social change by electing a candidate(this is why Trump was never going to be /ourguy/ either, but most of the US white nationalists are now too deep in Trump-defence mode to see that. Many are still bizarrely claiming 4D chess narratives, many are still, foolishingly, holding out hope that a wall will be built and that the DACA folks will be deported).
As such, I can only think that the main way is to begin to do the cultural/social organising first. Politics will come later. In Russia, if my prediction of relative, if unspectacular, stability comes true then it will mean that it will be harder. People are easier to rile up against a system that has failed. But most people are apolitical and will go to any lengths to just fit in, and will find excuses for doing so. Therefore, the only solution to my mind is to throw away any delusion that a ‘mass awakening’ can happen and instead focus on a committed core of individuals who will work towards a goal for a long-term with patience and no illusions about the hard work that is required, who do not buy the idea of a short-term political saviour, á la the delusion of Trump or even a Le Pen, Wilders etc.
I certainly hope to read more from a pro-russkie viewpoint in the coming months up to the March election, since it is nearly impossible to do so in any other venue than this blog, at least in the English medium and which does not take sides in the various nationalist factions.
On the importance of culture over politics, one example would be India. The RSS began long before the now-ruling BJP was formed as a political umbrella. The RSS was supressed by the socialist establishment, spearheaded by Nehru, during the first decades of India’s independence. So they toiled in the dark for years and years without any payoff, without any power whatsoever. There were different parties before the BJP.
The BJP was only formed in 1980, over 33 years after India’s independence but the RSS had already been active for 50(!) years by then. Modi, the current Indian prime minister, began as a RSS prachak in his early years and only then became politically active. That is a good example of how politics flows from culture.
Not only did the RSS cultivate their own leaders – taking their fate into their own hands, instead of waiting for an outside ‘saviour’ which would betray them – but they also did and still do a lot of communal organising, which provides Modi with a strong political base.
This work was done over the course of many decades. And even in the event of a possible demise of the BJP, the work of the RSS goes on. So they are not bound to the fate of a political party. If that party becomes corrupt or betrays their social objectives, they merely discard it and go onto another party, and take their base with them.
Therefore, this is a model I am most in favour of. It is also something I’ve seen missing in most European nationalist discussions, which is overly obsessed with short-term elections and does not seem to understand the primacy of cultural supremacy(curiously enough, the left does) over politics in the long run.
This is also why the term ‘cuckservative’ exists, precisely because in an arena where your opponent has invested tons of effort to translate into cultural hegemony, but your side invests in short-term political saviours, they will win even if your candidate gets into office because they control all the operating assumptions. That’s the work that RSS changed and they spent decades under repression with a patient long-term goal. That, to me, is the sign of a serious nationalist movement against an online/4chan-based troll factory which thinks it can change the world by memes, only to be surprised/shocked when their candidate betrays them. If they had any real understanding of how political change works, how it must flow from culture, they wouldn’t have been. Let’s hope that the Russian nationalists do not make the same mistake the American ones did.
A refreshing article in this deluge by “Great Putin’s Russia” around here.
At last some attempt to balance the propaganda.
Points I found interesting:
and
Not quite that better model people around here are so desperate to find and look up to.
What a whiner.
West won’t allow families and capital to the West and Venezuela/Iran/North Korea in Russia.
Only one of them, not both at the same time.
The former would be used to prevent the latter.
Has Russia in the last 100 years ever not being “a great decaying empire”?
Russia is not America.
Even if the Russian state wanted, they could not rely on such policy.
It costs too much fiscal and political capital.
Isn’t he limiting migration to America?
What do you think of Thierry Baudet’s FvD in the Netherlands?
Strelkov is as ridiculous a person as can be short of wearing a clown suit and barking on all fours.
Putin bad because more than 65 years old and exists IRL.
The hope of the Russian New Right, ladies and gentlemen.
I had the same thought but could have never put it quite as coherent. I always thought, if Russia was like America, would I be someone like Hedges or Buchanan, or someone like Kristol. When your country is successful, the temptation to start delivering other nations from the errors in their ways must be almost irresistible.
Btw, there’s a country for which this applies doubly (hope I won’t p*** off another commenter here.) They maintain they have no history of imperialism but everyone knows appetite comes with eating.
I wonder if they have made the Faustian bargain yet – become a colonial enforcer for the .1% in exchange for goodies. Perhaps a good thing is that the likes of Kristol, Krauthammer, Boot etc can’t crypto as easily there as they could in America.
I would call them the Russian “fake-right”…just a bunch of imbeciles. The meaningless garbage about “sending their children to the west” is just that. In the 90’s and 2000’s ,people who have sent their kids to the then hallowed west during a time when Russia was in chaos and experiencing wars on it’s territory and mass criminality…… they cant suddenly pull out their children ( who may now be adults) from the west now, because of the change in relations. There they can ,mingle with Poroshenko’s son….son of the retard…and a kid who wears shirts inscribed with “Russia” in front of his English mates. This confirms the well-known fact that 95% of Ukrainians abroad don’t have any problem with being referred to as Russian…because they view themselves as such.
Putin has done a brilliant job on the Oligarchs…but there is a limit to how much he can do given the many of them escaping justice and residing in the west. The protection from extradition of Gusinsky,Berezovsky, a couple more Yukos executives, the “outrage” from the west of the jailing of the scumbag Khodorkovsky and escape from russian justice of many of these crooks is not because of Russia or Putin…but because of the west.
On social welfare….much of this spending comes indirectly from Oil revenues.. a good thing. Cost of energy consumption in households in Russia is quite low, and obviously there is the low rate of tax ( when it is actually paid to the government)- so there are many things to consider…and we all know the excellent plans ( together with the previous successful and excellent plans on supporting maternity in the last few years) announced by Putin last week.
You cant talk social welfare and leave out that Putin is resisting increasing the retirement age.
I’ll just note that both Prosvirnin and Strelkov sound caricatural and hyperbolic in their criticism while Kholmogorov is more temperate in his praise. Being personally aggrieved does that, I suppose, but it doesn’t make their takes very useful compared to a more dispassionate critique.
Putin’s >9000 yachts and palaces, too.
we don’t realize it but most liberal memes (obscene riches etc) have been around since Ludovic XIV at least. The shitlib mythology is very consistent.
(that’s not to deny that cronyism is a real problem)
I don’t think you can claim Trump hasn’t delivered a great deal on immigration, especially considering the obstacles. Quite a radical depature from Western norms and I can only look on with envy. Shades of grey, Putin has his good and bad points, I expect he is hoping for a more stable geopolitical backdrop to quit.
The decay appears to have been excised over the last 20 years.
No. Mexicans continue to run across the border.
Family reunification and chain migration proceed apace.
People continue to fly here from china to give birth to babies here who will then automatically be US Citizens.
Job sites and day labor points are not raided for illegal aliens, who could easily be found by the dozens at each site and in the tens of thousands nationwide in a single day.
Most telling, things that could be done by executive order, I.e. reversing anything that King Obama did by executive order, have sometimes NOT been done, like ending the DACA dreamer scam. No need to get congress on board there, but trump still hasn’t done it. Tells me all I need to know about him and who is in his ear.
Yeah, just read that Russia’s federal budget budget deficit for the first 9 months of 2017 is at 0.3% of GDP (!). That’s with an average oil price of… $50 (?) per barrel. While inflation is at 2.5%. But hey, Russia can’t into “reforms” (the budget rule obviously doesn’t count…).
Also, if my calculations are correct (OK, that’s a huge if), the share of oil & gas in the federal budget will more or less go below 30% by around 2020, and I’m not even talking about their share in the GDP or consolidated budget (which according to Helleving were 10% and 17% in 2016, respectively, IIRC). That’s no Venezuela, that’s for sure.
What is IRL?
This was rather a mistake of our forebears in the conservative and Southern segregationist movements who were active in the 50s and 60s before (inexplicably) throwing in the towel after losing the political struggle.
All of us agree with Andrew Breitbart’s saying that, “Politics is downstream of culture.”
Fighting the culture war is essential, but it does not mean that we should abstain from politics. The fundamental difference between us and any country in Europe is TIME (even Sweden Yes!).
We are running out of time to save our country peacefully. We certainly don’t have 50 years to change the culture. We have only 10-20 years left. This means we must seize at political opportunities as they present themselves now.
That does not, of course, mean that we can ignore culture nor that we should rationalize betrayals with rubbish 4D chess narratives as the personality cultists at r/The_Donald do.
And as for the OP…all three pieces are quite depressing. Even if the Russian nationalists do come to power after Putin retires, they face the challenge that Russia has completely failed to modernize and transform its economy. And of course the sex problem is not being addressed in any industrial country at all–families are destroyed, women are feral, and men are weak everywhere.
in real life
There has been some genuine change.
The refugee cap for instance was cut from 100,000 people to 45,000, and the mix of refugees has been shifted to more Christian ones.
Workplace raids are in fact happening…the Otis Spunkmeyer Bakery in Chicago had one-third of its workforce deported.
Trump backs passing the RAISE Act. This ends chain migration, the diversity visa, and cuts legal immigrant visas in half.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/how-trump-is-building-a-border-wall-no-one-can-see/2017/11/21/83d3b746-cba0-11e7-b0cf-7689a9f2d84e_story.html
I don’t think it can be said his program for THE WALL is a bluff either. He constantly pushes for it and hundreds of prototypes have been built.
The problem is that even if the entire Trump immigration agenda is enacted, which is not likely given that many Republican officeholders do not support it, is that is insufficient. Enaction of such an immigration agenda in the 1980s may have been adequate, but it is not today.
At this point in time not only must we reduce non-white immigration to near zero and deport all illegal aliens, but we must also target many perfectly legal immigrants and even citizens for deportation.
No “civic nationalist” or baby boomer politician will support such an agenda, so the best case for Trump is that he simply moves the ball in our direction while we get more organized.
The Empire missed again. Those who orchestrated shameful decision by IOC to ban Russia from 2018 Olympics, based on the presumption of guilt (how else can one interpret the statement that sportsmen must prove that they are doping-free), did not cause any anti-Putin sentiment in Russia. Instead, they caused a lot of anti-Western feelings and forced Putin to declare that he is running for president again earlier than he planned. His support stands at ~68% today (according to the polls), so any Western politician can only envy him.
Funnily, the latest string of events could be interpreted as an indication that the US is run by Russian agents bent on destroying the country. First, both versions of recent tax overhaul passed by the US House and Senate give tax breaks to corporations and the wealthiest Americans, while speeding up the financial ruin of the US. Second, Trump’s announcement that the US recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel sharply degraded US standing in the ME and the rest of the Moslem world, for no good reason. Besides, the US shot itself in the foot just when it is becoming increasingly obvious that the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and a few allied satrapies created, funded, armed, and trained ISIS, which is now losing the war in Syria. Third, this obviously biased IOC decision destroyed the remains of its credibility, especially considering that Putin predicted exactly that in his speech at the Valdai forum recently. One can continue the list, but what’s the point?
Thus, either the US is run to its ruin by Kremlin agents, or the US elites have degraded so much intellectually that their greed blinds them to the obvious consequences of their actions. Take your pick.
”and slowly lulling them into complacency even as their country slowly transforms to a mongrel mix of third worldism.”
I know people have this tendency to look down on the so called ‘third world’. But this third world was once first world too. For eg: Egypt was like a granary to rome. And during the time of the pharaoahs was one of the richest also at that time. India was the second largest country in the world in gdp for hundreds of years.
Therefore, the main mistake of the white nationalists in the US was to put the cart before the horse.
Alt-right + Trump + Bannon = possibility of political change.
American WNs = 0
Recently duped by Terry McAuliffe into jazzing the SJW and black vote in the Virginia Governors race.
If you think that Prosvirnins of this world, same as Kholmogorovs, and the author of this blog are “pro-russkie”, I guess you are a bit out of touch with real Russia.
Politically, pursuing tax cuts prior to the signature issues of immigration and trade is foolish. It also would be better to pass a large infrastructure bill first.
Peter Brimelow explained well why tax cuts are not presently a vote winner: http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/04/taxes-wont-work-for-trump-trade-and-immigration-will/
However, were any of these other goals possible? The RAISE Act remains stalled in the Judiciary Committee, and many Republican officeholders oppose immigration restriction.
The GOP has been more open to reconsidering its traditional support of free trade (witness Paul Ryan’s border adjustment tax plan), but I’d reckon most GOP Congressmen still support it. Bipartisanship may be possible here…Chuck Schumer for instance is a longtime protectionist who even worked with Paul Craig Roberts to push the issue in the naughties.
The Executive Branch can unilaterally withdraw from the WTO and our trade agreements, but the outcome of this would be that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1929 would become law again. I doubt this would have immediate positive effects for most voters.
I have no idea how a major infrastructure spending bill would do in Congress. Probably not well owing to deficit hysteria…which gets us to the tax cuts.
Whatever emerges from reconciliation, it will probably reduce tax revenue. I doubt, however, that the impact will be dramatic. Many deductions are being eliminated (most famously the the SALT deduction), and as the effective corporate tax rate is low (largely owing to large cap tech companies, but some traditional industrial companies like GE have figured out how to game the system as well) the corporate tax cut will not have a dramatic effect on revenues.
The corporate tax cut is politically unpopular (because THE CORPORATIONS ARRRGHGGHH), but needs to be done. It will put an end to tax inversions and result in the repatriation of offshore profits, which the US currently taxes–almost uniquely. Where investment considerations are not dominated by labor costs, it should have a beneficial impact as well.
The idea that it will make America “broke” is ridiculous. A public deficit is a private sector credit. An increasing public debt by definition means increasing private sector net worth. With interest rates historically low, debt service certainly does not threaten to overwhelm the federal budget.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-effect-agriculture-automation/as-trump-targets-immigrants-u-s-farm-sector-looks-to-automate-idUSKBN1DA0IQ
Will people like you ever be satisfied?
Just a bit?
Agree.
So you’d prefer that our country be owned by the likes of Paul Singer, as opposed to, say, the American people? A much better policy, IMHO, would be to have that Treasury debt held by another arm of the government. They already do this to a certain extent, having the Social Security Administration heavily invested in t-bills. The Chinese finance themselves this way almost entirely. That’s why, whenever the Wall Street Journal starts up with their ludicrous ‘China is a big debt bubble ready to burst,’ you should take it with a grain of salt, and remember that virtually all of the Chinese government’s debt is held by … the Chinese government.
Olympics? Is that still a thing?
As long as it happens to somebody else, and not you, eh Anatoly? BTW, your obervation here might be construed as a litmus test of what constitutes the reasonable and wise leader in Russia?…
Not a very flattering image of the ‘pro-russkie’ thinking (or lack of it). Are they really pro-russkie? Sounds like Masha Gessen.
I think a review of some descriptive statistics suggests two of these men are responding to their own interior emotional states or to what’s up in their social microclimates.
Not sure where you get the surly hostility from.
While objectivity is always to be strived for, it is the most natural thing in the world for personal perspectives to be skewed by personal experiences.
All of us agree with Andrew Breitbart’s saying that, “Politics is downstream of culture.”
Everyone says this with such confidence. I used to believe it too but now I’m not so sure. A lot of what passes for culture is itself the result of the institutional political power that preceded it. IOW the culture may merely reinforce elite interests rather than act as an agent of change itself. Anyway, here’s a different take on it: Culture is downstream from politics
The Olympics, however discredited, still matter. However, the US and its vassals via wholly owned IOC and WADA are doing their level best to destroy the Olympics. A pity.
OT but China as potential Intermarium ally?
http://dailysignal.com/2017/12/08/as-china-invests-in-ukraine-russia-stands-to-gain/
Article presents China as a Russian proxy but there are many ways that this could play out.
But the argument seems to be that because people voted conservative in 1968 and 1980, culture had to follow, and so TV shows started to move in a more rightist direction.
Now I don’t know if “politics” could be confined to elections, especially just presidential elections. The Nixon administration furthered and entrenched affirmative action policies instead of rolling them back. He also did nothing about third world immigration. MLK Day or toughened sanctions against South Africa as well as a huge amnesty were the products of the Reagan era. Not necessarily the personal responsibility of the respective presidents, but that’s my point: the dystopian project marches on in politics irrespective of presidents. Political correctness also started I think in the eighties (please correct me if I’m wrong), which was a product of culture and the media and was more important than any presidential election.
I haven’t watched many TV shows, especially from these eras, but what I know about Archie Bunker is that he was a propagandistic depiction of the dimwit racist, who was only racist because he was ignorant, and over the course of the show slowly learned and became thoroughly anti-racist. It probably worked on some of the audience, just as the Magic Negroes shown in movies and TV shows worked, convincing people that eventually racism was nothing but ignorance.
In other words, elections were spectacularly ineffectual for the electorate to stop the leftist dystopian project, but they managed to force the media and entertainment industries to introduce some subtlety to their propaganda efforts. That’s not a great argument that culture is downstream from politics.
I’ve long said a lot of Russian nationalist content is so blackpilled it becomes silly and it goes out the other end and starts to sound like The Daily Beast or something. “Chekist gangster Putin starves the regions”, etc etc.
Trouble with Russian, and as a matter of fact Slavic mentality is that they are too content. They are content with their lives, content with their environment, and content with their government.
They have no drive for better life, richer life. There is no enterprising spirit in them.
They lack small business, particularly in smaller town and villages. They do not make their own decisions.
They wait for government to make decisions for them.
This is bad. Very bad. And I do not think that it will ever change.
Let’s say that we observe a big old blob of something or other, maybe even a huge blob, would the leading edge of the blob, at any given time, be the downstream part while the opposite edge would be the upstrem part? And would the center be the culture and the edges be the politics? Or would it be the other way around?
At this point in time, would the Great Pacific garbage patch (aka Pacific trash vortex) …. would that be the whole enchilada of USA’s culture-politics?
Gogol’s Dead Souls
The national debt is higher than I would consider prudent. But it doesn’t mean that we’re at risk of going broke.
There is no “right” level of national debt exactly, but some national debt is beneficial as it provides risk-free securities which form the highest quality capital you can own (other than cash).
About one-quarter of the federal debt is also owned by the Federal Reserve. All profits of the FED’s operations are paid directly into the United States Treasury.
I tend to disbelieve doomerist narratives as a matter of course, and I especially disbelieve doomerist narratives on China.
The Chinese market isn’t really accessible to me, so I can’t assess their debt problems or lack thereof.
I don’t see any reason they’d be immune from financial crises, but a financial crisis doesn’t doom your country.