But What Does It All Mean, Really?

Let us speak plainly, today.

A friend passed on this good analysis of the overall situation from a Russian TG blogger and I thought I’d share:

The conflict between Prigozhin and the leadership of the Defense Ministry, represented by Minister of Defense Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov, highlighted all the problems of the management system built over 30 years of liberal capitalism in Russia. This is the level of strategic thinking, and management skills, and the system of selection and placement of personnel, and criteria for assessing their effectiveness and suitability for their position.

And the most important thing is the problem of educating the population. Is it prepared for something or not, who does it, what goals does it pursue, how and why does this happen, what can the authorities count on when dealing with this population grown by it in this dangerous situation? In other words, how are the issues of good and evil understood in the country, how are friends and foes defined, who serves as an example to follow? Do the people understand what they are fighting for?

Okudzhava wrote about our current problem back in 1968: “Ecumenical experience says that kingdoms perish not because life is hard or ordeals are terrible. And they die because (and the more painful the longer) because the people of their kingdom do not respect their king anymore. It was the problem of people's respect for their kingdom that was highlighted by the conflict between Prigozhin and the leadership of the Ministry of Defense.

Behind Prigozhin there is a huge number of sympathizers from among the people. And behind the MoD is an army of managers, who feel in their spinal cords that these criticisms of the MoD are also aimed at them. That they are next. After all, the MoD does not exist in a vacuum and the country simply gave the army the weapons that it could make. It was these managers, who at one time someone found, appointed and who then made decisions. The soldiers and officers were educated by a system as well. These are the citizens that the managers raised.

Now, everything that was systematically created and planned out for many previous years is being implemented. All that is, and all that is not - this is the result of previous years leading up to this moment. A year of the SMO has passed and it turned out that the main problem is the level of military-political control of the country, the ability to create and spend reserves, adequately assess the situation and plan further actions. Problems require a systematic solution, they are not quickly resolved, and there is no time for long processes. And every day there is less and less time.

The time factor is generally decisive in this war. The one who was late with making the decision, even the right one, lost. Lost the action, lost the operation, lost the war. Losses due to late decisions accumulate, like missed punches in a boxing match, and affect the following rounds. The main problem of the army is not that there are no shells, tanks, communications, fire control systems or UAVs, but that there is no skill in pre-emptive decisions and actions. A late decision is the absence of a decision. And this is a management problem that will manifest itself literally in everything.

What Prigozhin says and what the MoD does is a direct reflection of this overripe problem. The main, pivotal issues of the Russian state have not been resolved. Why does one part of the government criticize migrants, while the other brings them in? Should Russia have a national or social ideology? Is there a mechanism for accountability for decisions that lead to failures? Who will be accountable and to whom? And why does responsibility always give way to some other consideration? How justified is this in the current situation?

That's what Prigozhin's cry of "give shells to Wagner!" is really about. A general problem always looms behind a particular problem. While we are afraid to formulate it and say it out loud, we will always lag behind. We have rid ourselves of many illusions this year. What will the next one bring? Is it acceptable to be late with necessary decisions again? And what will happen if the people lose faith in the ability of the authorities to win and cease to respect their kingdom? Is it necessary to diligently continue stepping on the same old rake?

And Prigozhin and Shoigu are just an excuse to start talking about it. Behind their personal conflict lies the conflict of the social system, its contradictions. Will there be a constructive solution? Or will it again be “We wanted the best, but it turned out as always”?

Good questions, but no answers are provided and the whole post reads like an exercise in philosophy and not a real analysis of anything, frankly. Allow me to go where the author won’t, for one reason or another, and yank us out of the world of philosophical musing by providing some hard, concrete answers.

Russia is facing many questions that have been ignored for 3 decades now. This is because the leadership of the country did not want to address any of the problems that Russia faced. And this because they were the cause or the beneficiaries of this unnatural status quo.

Question: why are so many non-Russians in positions of economic and political power in Russia?

Official answer: because Russia is committed to multiculturalism and the specter of nationalism that the heroes of WWII fought to defeat is antithetical to the ideas held dear by the Russian state.

Real answer: because hostile, anti-Russian ethnic mafias are busy sucking the blood of the Russian people, and fear a populist uprising that would dislodge them. This is also why Russia is importing tens of thousands of Muslims and dirt worlders. Sure, people with Liberal leanings might be convinced that this is out of some ideological, moral commitment to tolerance and Antifa ideals or whatever, but that is simply propaganda slop served up to the peasants dumb enough to believe in it and who want to posture and preen in front of their intellectual and spiritual betters.

Moon of Alabama’s commenters support Russia, but believe that the Russian nationalist fighting for Russia’s survival against NATO are racist.

It is, above all, a commitment to keeping the Russian people suppressed and weak and disunited. Importing a hostile ethnic underclass and forcibly mixing them with the others is a millennia-old oligarchic strategy to solidify their own hold on power. For there to be a concerted resistance, there has to be a concert for the rebellion - people need to be able to have trust and solidarity amongst themselves. So, to undermine this, untouchables are imported from all over the world into all of our countries, and rejection of self-serving oligarchic multi-kulti propaganda is treated in the same way as denial of the divinity of Jesus used to be in medieval times.

Now, the government in Russia is not as oppressive as Western governments when it comes to this issue of issues, true. And the Russian people are far more “racist” than Westerners, thankfully. These two factors allow for dissident discourse and soft/implicit resistance on the part of the Russian peasantry. But, Russians’ concerns about the government and oligarch’s plans to ethnically replace them are not allowed to be voiced in state media. Occasionally, however, opposition politicians or parties will voice these concerns, such as LDPR, the Communists, Just Russia, and the older, now-defunct nationalist parties that preceded them and this polls well with voters. Unfortunately, the Duma elections are rigged in many parts of the country, so UR always wins.

Question: Why doesn’t Russia’s elite come up with some sort of civilizational mission statement?

Official answer: Russia is a “normal” country and normal countries focus on buying and selling things with other countries and propping up real estate prices at home. Having an ideology is what led to the collapse of the USSR.

Real answer: Russia’s elites don’t want to commit to actually using Russia’s resources in the form of raw materials, human capital, energy, and so on. They only want to steal money, and then move to the West or Israel. And the better ones want to stay in Russia and use their stolen money to lord it over the peasants. Committing to anything except stealing would require a different skillset and actually talented people rising up through the ranks, eventually.

If you, say, commit to colonizing Titan, you would need to actually commit resources towards this goal and that means less resources in the pockets of the oligarchs. Furthermore, most productive or beneficial civilizational projects that Russia could undertake would run contrary to the Globalist agenda, and so are squashed by their viziers in Russia. Finally, when results actually matter, competent people suddenly are valued by society, which makes the oligarchs, who have a rodent-like cunning, true, but very low IQs and no proven track records of success otherwise, look bad.

So, we can’t have it. Sorry!

Question: why is Russia’s army fighting so badly? Why is the MoD so incompetent?

Official answer: Russia didn’t know that it would be facing down NATO, which is a tough opponent, so allowances have to be made. This is a result of Russia’s goodwill and desire for world peace that the West exploited.

Real answer: the military used to be a bastion of patriotism and conservatism and reactionary sentiment in Russian and Soviet society. As a result, it had to be systematically dismantled by Andropov’s KGB, his protégée Gorbachev, then Boris Yeltsin, and, well, I’ll leave it there. What started then is what Shoigu and his predecessor were tasked with finishing now, and they succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. In particular, Shoigu’s uncanny ability to leverage the power of corruption has led to entire warehouses of missing equipment and war machines/tech that only exist on paper.

If the military were staffed by competent, patriotic Russians, the oligarchs and the spooks would not be able to sleep as easily at night. So, the military was systematically purged of anyone worth a damn.

The only problem with such an approach was that it was predicated on the assumption that the West would eventually allow Russia into the club, and so, there was no need for a real military other than to posture and play hardball during negotiations with NATO for a seat at the big boy’s table. Now, the post-Soviet elite is between a rock and a hard place. They did everything they could to destroy Russia’s ability to defend herself and now the West wants to destroy them. They are hoping against hope for mercy or some sort of deal, which it doesn’t look like they will get. What is worse, they are terrified of the Russian people ever finding out what they have done, so they will start lashing out at anyone who speaks out against them more and more thereby digging themselves, and the country deeper and deeper into the hole.

Question: why are so many Russians so vehemently anti-Russian (the big city types) and unwilling to fight or die for their country?

Official answer: Russia is a free country with a plurality of opinions. The rise of the middle class in Russia has led to classic liberal-bourgeois sentiments and attitudes.

Real answer: turn on the TV and see for yourself. Russian media is, if not overtly hostile to Russians and the ideas of patriotism, nationalism, conservatism, etc. constantly promoting Western-style degeneracy. This is largely because the cousins of the people who run the entertainment industry in the West also run it in the Slavlands.

Also, the average peasant in any country is hardly any better than a hungry guinea pig.

You serve him whatever slop you want on the TV or the media, and they will gnaw into it like my friend’s pet Spotty did on his ethernet cable. With the pigs, the *zap* comes quick and death usually follows soon after. With humans, the process is far more drawn out, unfortunately. You come home to your commieblock or house in the suburbs to the sounds of screeching and *bleep* *bleep* coming from the TV with your granny and uncle sitting there, glued to it, watching the dregs of society hurl obscenities at each other while munching on sunflower seeds.

These same people will pine for the good old days of the USSR, mind you, when this sort of thing wasn’t allowed.

But, they willingly turn on the channels dedicated to poisoning their minds and scarf it all down anyways. What they are trying to say, if you can decode it, is that they need someone to ban this sort of thing for them from on high. Sure, they could simply not watch it themselves, but, well … it is like the whole drug debate. Sure, you could simply not buy or do drugs. But, most people, if they can, will, and then suffer and beg for someone to save them. The government could simply apply decency laws to the kind of stuff that is allowed in media. But will they?

Nope.

Question: why does Russia have such a sprawling spook state?

Official answer: Russia faces many threats within society and needs the hard work of the FSB to root out extremists, criminals, and keep the citizenry safe.

Real answer: The FSB is allowed to muscle out businessmen, distribute drugs, sell state secrets abroad in exchange for keeping the elites in power. They are allowed to do whatever they want in their free time because there is no counter-balance to them in society. As a result of this, you get stories of the FSB stealing supplies heading to Donbass, engaging in hare-brained schemes abroad that only waste taxpayer money, allowing terrorists to kill whoever they want with impunity within Russia, and so on.

And, when the new satrap occupation government of the West is installed, a similar situation to what unfolded in occupied Germany will occur. There, the Gestapo simply changed uniforms and became the vastly-expanded Stasi. The same will occur in Russia with the FSB, which will become even more of an extension of the FBI and CIA than it is now.

**

The philosophical questions that the original TG analyst posed aren’t that hard to answer from a technical perspective at all. Most of these people know the answers, but won’t provide them openly though, for obvious reasons.

But, a truth left unsaid for a long time becomes a truth forgotten.

Hopefully, as the situation continues to deteriorate, more people will start speaking out and stating things as openly and plainly as Prigozhin, Strelkov, Murz and others do.

We need the harsh, hard truth now more than ever.