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Samizdata quote of the day – the idea Putin has gone crazy is… crazy My point is: to anyone who understands the reality of Putin’s regime, the idea that he has “gone CRAZY” and is killing people is… well, CRAZY. Vladimir Putin is in power and retains power precisely because he has always been someone who is prepared to lie, manipulate and kill to achieve his objectives. That is literally what the KGB trained him to do.
In his post criticising Putin, Trump went on to add: “I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right”. Finally, it seems, our American friends are beginning to understand who they are dealing with.
– Konstantin Kisin (£)
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Sadly, it’s more like Trump is beginning to understand. The rest of us knew that already; it was IOTTMCO (intuitively obvious to the most casual observer).
Aleksandr Dugin said all Eurasia from Dublin to Vladivostok should belong to Russia, and Putin clearly agrees; and as for the bomb that blew-up Dugin’s daughter, well “It’s not what you’re saying, it’s how you’re saying it”. Guess the windows in his daughter’s Toyota weren’t high enough off the ground for her to fall out of one…
My personal suspicion has been that they (i.e. the decision makers) always understood what Putin was, however there was a political reality of having to go through a process of giving Putin enough rope to hang himself so that they could go to the more truculent members of the MAGA movement / congress and say “See? He’s really gone crazy!”
Seriously, not literally.
Putin has been acting the way he has always acted, so not even figuratively crazy.
Ah, but I wasn’t very clear. I meant, take Trump seriously, but not literally.
He says too much whacko crap that doesn’t withstand scrutiny, but somehow it seems to work out for him when he does. Whether it’s the vaunted 4-D chess, or just luck, I don’t know, but I suspect he’s setting a tone more than communicating facts.
Oh, I see
When there were complaints that Ivan IV (who became known as Ivan the Terrible) was violating traditional liberties (oh yes – Russia always had the concept of traditional liberties) he made a great show of abdicating and leaving Moscow.
Terrified the people (of all classes) begged him to return – as they believed that only a strong leader could save them from such threats as the Mongols-Tartars (shades of the First Book of Samuel – Chapter Eight).
I would argue that this shows a misunderstanding of WHY the Mongols won centuries before – it was not really a matter of a lack of strong leadership (as Russians are taught to believe) – it was a matter of military technology and tactics – and having a strong Emperor ruling the Slavs would (I would argue) NOT have made the difference (centuries before) that many think it would – but this is an argument for another day.
Ivan demanded absolute, unlimited, power as a condition of his return – and the people (in a very Thomas Hobbes style way) granted it – and so Ivan returned and acted in a way that gave him his unofficial title of “the Terrible”.
Ivan committed many robberies and murders – and logically so, for if you steal someone’s property they make seek revenge, the way to prevent them doing that is to murder them, and if you murder someone their family and friends may seek revenge – and so the way to prevent that is to murder their family and friends as well.
But should Ivan be remembered for this? His defenders point out that he took back control of the entire Volga river (the longest river in Europe) – and by so doing, in 1554, made Russia a great power. Fulfilling the dream of the “Third Rome” which Russian rulers had hoped for since the fall of the Second Rome (Constantinople) to he artillery (artillery bought from Christian Europeans) of the Ottoman Turks in 1453 (a century before).
Again I would argue this was more to do with artillery, muskets and wagon forts, making Mongol-Tartar cavalry military methods out dated, rather than any tactical genius of Ivan.
A limited monarchy, or even a Republic (like that of Novgorod) might have done just as just as well as Ivan did – the military reality (technology of warfare) had changed.
Ironically the people around Moscow had, in the past, been known for their hostility to Princes (unlike their fellow Slavs to he south and west around Kiev) – historically they were much like the people of Novgorod, but the tax collectors imposed by the Mongols (originally stooges) had gradually turned themselves into Princes.
They had even imposed Serfdom – first by saying that a contract of employment on the land could only be ended on Saint George’s day (one day every year – you could not leave on any other day) – and then getting rid of even that. Well in some areas – in other areas (such as the far north) the peasants kept their liberty.
Ivan IV did not do this – it had already been done.
What he did was to take away the liberty of the town’s people and the nobility (the Boyars) – the peasants having already had their liberty stolen from them (again in some areas – not all the peasants).
The boyars did not get their liberty back till the 18th century, and the peasants not till the 19th century.
Alexander II (the Liberator) is a fascinating figure – a mass of contradictions.
But best leave that discussion to another day.
As for President Trump – he is a New Yorker, his words, either of praise or condemnation, are not to be taken literally.
If he says someone is “crazy” it is not to be taken as a statement that someone is clinically insane.
And if he says he “likes” or “loves” someone it means that, today, he can get a deal with them – a New Yorker may say they love you one day, and call you a mother fucker the next day (or even in the next hour), it is just the way they speak.
Mr Putin?
Decades ago a young Mr Putin made a speech explaining how Russia did not need Crimea – and that to try and regain Crimea (given away in the 1950s) would be a blunder – as it was dependent for water supplies and for land transport routes on Ukraine.
His speech was quite correct – but by 2014 he no longer held this (correct) position.
Ukraine has nothing that Russia does not already have (in abundance) – victory in this war would gain ordinary Russians nothing.
This war is a vanity project.
And a vanity project that since 2022 has shown alarming weakness in Russian army training and tactical methods – indeed even in the new rifle (the AK12).
It is true that have now been military reforms – but these could have been carried out without getting vast numbers of Russians and Ukrainians killed.
Also Mr Putin has increasingly relied on Central Asian Muslim forces (as well as on manufactured goods from the People’s Republic of China) – even before war there was a lot of this (but it has got worse – much worse).
It was this development that led Mr Navalny to call Mr Putin a traitor to the Russian people.
Mr Navalny meant what he said – he meant the word traitor literally – and Mr Putin knew that.
No one accused Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great of being a traitor – and it is the one charge that Mr Putin truly fears.
Mr Putin fears the charge that he is a traitor because he is a traitor – he knows the charge is true.
A robber and a murderer – well one expects a ruler to be a robber and a murderer, but a traitor is something else.
Mr Putin has sold out the Russian people to their traditional enemies – there is no punishment that is too severe for this conduct.
“Aleksandr Dugin said all Eurasia from Dublin to Vladivostok should belong to Russia”
Did he? When?
karleton – I recommend From Dublin to Vladivostok: A Systematic Look at Alexander Dugin’s Fourth Political Theory by John Cody Mosbey. Stick that in your search engine of choice as it’s probably available in downloadable PDF.