Post ATbbCYglmcSqxu1Olc by anderspuck@krigskunst.social
(DIR) More posts by anderspuck@krigskunst.social
(DIR) Post #ATFC5Bw72iVGuXGoPQ by anderspuck@krigskunst.social
2023-03-03T11:35:25Z
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The tone about ordinary Russians has become increasingly hostile in the West. They are portrayed as terrible people, incapable of independent thought, and genetically predisposed for imperialism and autocracy. This is understandable, but at the same time it strikes me as utterly unproductive if we want #Russia to change. For that reason I decided to have a conversation with Maxim Katz about his experience as a prominent Russian opposition politician and YouTuber. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmtqXovLhv4
(DIR) Post #ATFV7oaQDBiYUT5ZfU by don@liberdon.com
2023-03-03T20:03:06Z
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@anderspuck #Katz is prominent russian imperialist who's job is to whitewash war crimes. So after all that happened, the West will continue to buy fossils from russian colonies, and it will help to preserve the empire. It's easy to prove, just ask him should #Tatarstan or #Chechnya be free from russian occupation
(DIR) Post #ATZc3f6YGsTxtZTzYe by knud@mastodon.social
2023-03-13T12:54:57Z
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@anderspuck Can't second that. Whenever I see a discussion here in Germany I hear a lot of distinguishing between Russian gov and Russian people. With differentiation of nationalists and suppressed opposition, Oligarchs and poor ordinary population, etc.So discussion can be about "Russian aggression", but it is always clear that this is not a monolithic block of people.
(DIR) Post #ATZd4vdSObBfPN2eMC by Left_Indy@ieji.de
2023-03-13T13:06:23Z
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@anderspuck That Russians are actually independent-minded and fully aware of their nation's history and that of the West constantly trying to overthrow their government since 1917 never enters into your thoughts, does it?
(DIR) Post #ATZlAYFj2osGG68Llg by anderspuck@krigskunst.social
2023-03-13T14:37:04Z
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@knud I think you are right that there is a different discussion in Germany. Seen from the outside it looks like the German problem is more the opposite, that there is a lack of understanding of the need to actually win the war.
(DIR) Post #ATZmV0NGIaMbDoyYEq by anderspuck@krigskunst.social
2023-03-13T14:51:57Z
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@Left_Indy Since 1812. You almost lost an entire century of Russian victimhood there.
(DIR) Post #ATZvG8sRInnupwXvxQ by knud@mastodon.social
2023-03-13T16:30:05Z
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@anderspuck That again would be very selective perception. There is a fraction that doesn't realise that sadly there's no way to negociations without more warefare. But that is by far neither a majority in media nor population.
(DIR) Post #ATZwSnvgb1s7aUfOBU by anderspuck@krigskunst.social
2023-03-13T16:43:37Z
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@knud I'm not sure. Last week I was interviewed by ntv, and the journalist remarked that using the phrase "Russia is losing" is noteworthy in a German debate and immediately leads to discussions about whether that is desirable or dangerous.
(DIR) Post #ATaGin3za96McOS4ps by knud@mastodon.social
2023-03-13T20:30:34Z
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@anderspuck Maybe some journalists should aim more for reporting and not so much false balancing. "Immediately leads to discussions", yes if one asks the right people. Complete b.s., doesn't reflect the bulk of discussions.
(DIR) Post #ATbUmGVGAuVzJEiWRM by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-14T10:42:44.415661Z
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@anderspuck @Left_Indy From 1612! They even introduced a holiday to celebrate their victimhood :)
(DIR) Post #ATbV0VTLJie1mzbxXk by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-14T10:45:08.809047Z
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@Left_Indy @anderspuck As for someone who describes himself as a “leftist” you’re presenting surprisingly right-wing interpretation of the October Revolution. Among Russian left, especially communists, 1917 was a proper proletarian revolution which led to construction of a Marxist-Leninist state, which was then dismantled as a result of conspiracy in 1991. The interpretation where 1917 was “Lenin sent from the West with gold to destroy Russian Empire” is widespread among Russian nationalists on the other hand.
(DIR) Post #ATbXEeVGjiMHlFNwAK by t_mkdf@ruhr.social
2023-03-14T10:46:59Z
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@kravietz @Left_Indy @anderspuck why is nobody mentioning the Golden Horde?
(DIR) Post #ATbXEf5QZHHXZOIoWe by anderspuck@krigskunst.social
2023-03-14T11:10:20Z
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@t_mkdf @kravietz @Left_Indy Because it came from the east. Wrong direction.
(DIR) Post #ATbXPZ6X9LpmCa1F6O by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-14T11:12:06.533161Z
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@knud @anderspuck Russia certainly is not monolithic, because no country is. What is important is the balance of values in society, and in #Russia the key value that unites nationalists, communists and even moderate “liberals” is a complete disrespect to other nations, that is frequently described as “imperialist thinking”. Russians are culturally unable to accept someone else’s subjectivity not only to be equal to theirs, but even to exist.Another key value is a sacred, almost religious attitude towards authority. This one is completely incomprehensible not only in the West, where authority is perceived as elected management structure operating within a social contract, but also in Central-Eastern Europe such as #Poland and #Ukraine. In Russia you simply don’t question authority, because the authority is always there and you’re only a small cog in the wheel, this is how the world operates for them. For Russians, #Euromaidan was a very disturbing event because it questioned their whole system of values - Ukrainians not only actively resisted to the authority, but had successfully overthrown it!Interestingly, this respect for authority operates on all levels: when you’re a middle class person you don’t question not only the authority of a public official (“the authorities”), but also an oligarch or any other local privileged caste. If a son of a local well-positioned businessman kills your relative driving 160 km/h in their Ferrari, and gets acquainted by a court thanks to his ties, you can complain to your friends, but you’ll never pursue that decision in a court, because if they have this privilege, it means they are entitled to it.Inequality in both economical but also legal privileges is not only widely accepted in Russia, but ostensibly displayed. Actually, if you want to find a single most distinguishing difference between Russia and Ukraine which explains why the latter doesn’t want to be part of the former, look at the Gini index: Ukraine is 6th most equal country in the world (Gini 0.256), Russia is 85th (Gini 0.375).These are the common values of the Russian culture that are shared by nearly all social and economic groups in Russia. There’s also an attitude that could be called an anti-value: a complete and almost depressive passiveness, displayed by majority of population and disbelief that any change is possible in their lives. This is precisely why they will for years live in houses without sewage system, with outside toilets, with dirt roads, with leaky roofs, with water and electricity switched off on weekly basis, but never complain about it in a way that could make the decisive people somewhat angry. And this is also reason why they accept being mobilized and sent to the front line with no equipment and no training, for certain death, and the most sophisticated form of protest their relatives can organize is to record a video where they are on their knees begging “someone” to return their husbands home.
(DIR) Post #ATbXvdU0PDqP34I3gu by t_mkdf@ruhr.social
2023-03-14T10:53:11Z
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@Left_Indy @anderspuck Russia has a proud history of anarchist thinking.It does seem to me that was a bit more of a reaction to suppressive regimes and not some (perceived) external threat though...
(DIR) Post #ATbXvdzCXEnWbosyJc by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-14T11:17:55.035973Z
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@t_mkdf @Left_Indy @anderspuck Well, the whole history of Russia can be described as a negative selection: when I talk to my friends in Northern Caucasus, I cannot but realize that they represent the heirs of 5% population that survived the Russian conquest of Caucasus, while 95% was physically exterminated or exiled. When you talk to today’s Russians, you need to realize that they represent the heirs of people who survived the Revolution, Red Terror, Stalinism, Soviet depression and then 20 years of Putinism. The values they represent are values of survivors of oppressive regimes because those who disagreed were either physically exterminated or exiled.
(DIR) Post #ATbYZim09jmb2Up1FI by RWerpachowski@mastodon.green
2023-03-14T11:25:19Z
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@anderspuck Maxim Katz is one of those Russian liberals whose main line of effort during the Russian aggression against Ukraine is to keep portraying Russians as victims.
(DIR) Post #ATbZTbSIYBreYnFi64 by anderspuck@krigskunst.social
2023-03-14T11:35:28Z
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@RWerpachowski Really? I don't see that. Except of course he does believe that Russians too are suffering under Putin, if that is what you mean.
(DIR) Post #ATbaVXnzC0YHlxt0F6 by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-14T11:46:47.371310Z
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@anderspuck @RWerpachowski The “Russian suffering under X” is probably best illustrated by this short video, made of course by a Russian animation professional Aleksandr Semenov:https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=TfydR4ra4U0What I do question in Katz narrative is whether you can really talk of “suffering” if the misery is entirely self-inflicted and continued only by the fact that nobody really wants it to stop? It’s pretty much the same idea as “Britons suffering after Brexit” (which they voted for) or “under Tories” (which they continuously elect).
(DIR) Post #ATbaY7c91i9JPZZo00 by johnelalamo@mcr.wtf
2023-03-14T11:38:16Z
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@kravietz @anderspuck @knud “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us”. Told to me on a visit to Russia in 1989. Apologies to those who saw this previously.
(DIR) Post #ATbbCYglmcSqxu1Olc by anderspuck@krigskunst.social
2023-03-14T11:54:47Z
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@kravietz @RWerpachowski But that is not something he is disputing, though. In the interview he is directly addressing the problem that the Russian population is politically immobilized.
(DIR) Post #ATbdbrFu5cJzhFe9aK by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-14T12:21:10.745154Z
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@anderspuck @RWerpachowski It’s a valid question that I have been asking myself of the last 20 years of spending time in #Russia 😂 I think the answer is complex and multidimensional. The immediate thing you notice is that most Russians consider “politics” to be someone else’s responsibility, just as they consider it cleaning a shared stairway, communal garden or street. They simply don’t want to take responsibility to the extent when it starts to looks childish - they would maintain a luxury flat behind a thick steel door, but to get into it you need to get through an stairway or lift with stench of urine and centuries old sticky dirt. But then you’d ask yourself - why? Well, the cult of authority has created a system where any individual initiative is ultimately always punished, that was the same thing under Russian Empire, USSR and now under Putin. It works the same way in a multi-apartment block and in the army invading Ukraine - Russian military experts are pulling their hair watching the levels of incompetence in command of their armies getting decimated at Vuhledar and come up with a dozen of rational ideas on how to improve their offensive capabilities… but ultimately they only get punished for even raising these ideas in public.A rational explanation for that is that any attempts at meritocracy would be always at conflict with tribal hierarchies simply because it exposes the inefficiency of the latter. If you crowdfund UAVs for Russian army, you of course help individual soldiers but at the same time you expose incompetence of the MoD and negatively impact lucrative business of “official” military industry. If you propose cleaning a shared stairway or fixing pavement, it immediately raises inconvenient questions what happened to the budget officially allocated for these tasks. This happens on all levels, and you always get punished in the end.And because Russians have that cult of authority imprinted into them from the moment of birth, they are unable to step outside of it, because the systems inflicts a strong positive feedback loop: ultimately you will always get punished for innovation and non-compliance. So first you accept the rules of the society, and you engage e.g. in drawing private profits from a communal repair budget “because that’s how the system works”, and then, logically, you will be yourself bashing any naive newcomer who proposes actually cleaning the stairway.I believe within this framework, it’s practically impossible for Russians to change the system from within in an evolutionary manner, which explains why social change always happened in the form of a very violent social collapse followed by a form of reconstruction into a slightly improved model.
(DIR) Post #ATbddNDgjUP17bKiBM by t_mkdf@ruhr.social
2023-03-14T12:21:41Z
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@kravietz @Left_Indy @anderspuck yeah. In view of Timothy Snyder's lectures and Vexler's comments on Putinism I got the understanding that russian political culture is rooted in a history of repression and russian's expectations and behaviours reflect that.As do the russian Anarchist's writings.
(DIR) Post #ATbdiPJ8Oi8z2qHSzI by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-14T12:22:52.720746Z
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@t_mkdf @Left_Indy @anderspuck And this 1922 dramatic appeal is the best illustration of what happens with the latter in Russia 😉https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-alexander-berkman-bolsheviks-shooting-anarchists
(DIR) Post #ATbfqFmVtoUZj0tLcG by RWerpachowski@mastodon.green
2023-03-14T12:46:39Z
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@anderspuck It's a phenomenon easiest to observe over time. Last year, these people devoted much more time to complaining about the EU visa ban for Russians than to calling for sanctions against Russia, calling for arming Ukraine, etc.
(DIR) Post #ATbgEj2wkC0nRHFOLI by anderspuck@krigskunst.social
2023-03-14T12:51:11Z
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@RWerpachowski Maxim definitely was against closing the borders to Russians who wanted to avoid mobilization.
(DIR) Post #ATbgj2dmSSwctdvq7s by t_mkdf@ruhr.social
2023-03-14T12:53:02Z
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@kravietz @Left_Indy @anderspuck which was totally not unexpected in view of Bakunin's warnings fifty years before...
(DIR) Post #ATcIykhciQB89ceEDY by Runyan50@newsie.social
2023-03-14T19:02:37Z
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@kravietz @knud @anderspuck Losing a half million soldiers may not make them question authoritarian rule, but it sure will make them question individual authoritarians and their decision making.
(DIR) Post #ATcJT0Bvh1VqsaFPGq by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-14T20:10:34.974087Z
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@Runyan50 @knud @anderspuck Maybe yes, maybe not. The cynicism of Russian social system is in that there are massive income inequalities between different social groups and different regions. What you wrote about questioning was certainly true in the large cities - and the reason why mobilization was lukewarm and quickly stopped - but half of the country lives in a completely different reality. Majority of the soldiers were drafted from deprived Far East republics, where going to the war was the only viable chance of changing your family’s life, even at the cost of you getting killed.
(DIR) Post #ATdNo6Xem1xPkZjCXA by t_mkdf@ruhr.social
2023-03-15T08:29:56Z
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@kravietz @anderspuck @knud this is also something I observe in (some, especially older ones) russo-Germans: little trust in government whilst having no believe that something can change.
(DIR) Post #ATdO8mKX7DCZ97Rp44 by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-15T08:37:40.180269Z
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@t_mkdf That’s 100% Homo Sovieticus attitude, build by generations of the government not only lying to people against all the obviously visible reality, but also demanding that people pretend to believe in these lies. There’s an excellent book “Cogs in the Wheel: The Formation of Soviet Man” by Mikhail Heller that goes into great detail on how that mentality was formed.@anderspuck @knud
(DIR) Post #ATdeYcHeglNemdRat6 by acb@mastodon.social
2023-03-15T11:41:04Z
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@kravietz @cstross They used to say similar things about the German people (that they are militaristic authority-followers constitutionally unsuited to liberal democracy and such), and one could see the point. They don’t say that now, though. As such, I have hope for some future Russia.
(DIR) Post #ATdejkCtZRYiXgWXGS by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-15T11:43:38.825225Z
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@acb Of course, because the society is shaped by its culture, but it’s not carved in a rock. Germany made an enormous effort to get rid of this “Prussian discipline” legacy and it worked. @cstross
(DIR) Post #ATdjABPzQF34HYVkRs by angusm@mastodon.social
2023-03-15T11:49:29Z
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@acb @kravietz @cstross Well, the Russians did manage to have one revolution (or several in short succession, if you prefer), so apparently their passivity and deference to authority can occasionally give way to something else.Although since then everyone who has held power in Russia has done their best to quell the revolutionary impulse and teach the people to become submissive again.
(DIR) Post #ATdjADCEoLEjnU5nI8 by chowderman@universeodon.com
2023-03-15T12:00:45Z
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@kravietz @cstross @acb @angusm Yes. Germany was throughly beaten and civilisation imposed upon it by occupiers.After Stalin things got better but not good. That could be post-Putin Russia. Or it could remain as a new North Korea. There the government manages to kill millions through famine and still survive in glorious comfort.Revolution can just replace dictator.Western democracy? One lives in hope but not expectation.
(DIR) Post #ATdjADvG6xFW379kSu by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-15T12:33:11.668999Z
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@chowderman And Northern Korea was able to exist mostly because it’s not really aggressive on the international scene. They make verbal threats, pursue their nuclear program and rocket testing but I have an impression they do it strictly within the boundaries set for Kim by China and US, and very careful not to step over it.Putin could happily continue degrading Russia into the North Korea state… if he didn’t start the war. That’s the part of Kim’s wisdom that Putin lacked.@cstross @acb @angusm
(DIR) Post #ATdn4etXJe1pmUx76e by chowderman@universeodon.com
2023-03-15T12:59:31Z
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@cstross @kravietz @acb @angusm Stalin started with a plan to work alongside Hitler in starting a war, but survived despite that plan blowing up in his face (when Hitler betrayed his trust).Putin will happily degrade russia in order to entrench his position.E.g. The Nord Stream sabotage (I assume it was Putin unless there is proof positive to the contrary)…
(DIR) Post #ATdn4famiqchwdBeW8 by chowderman@universeodon.com
2023-03-15T12:59:31Z
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@cstross @kravietz @acb @angusm Europe stops NS 2, nationalises Gasprom Germania, builds LPG terminals etc.The russian elite are upset at the loss of income.Several Gasprom executives fly out of windows.NS gets blown up, the bridge back to russian prosperity is destroyed, the incentive to oppose Putin’s war reduced.Thus the only way is Putin’s way, a population distracted by war as their ability to oppose is degraded.
(DIR) Post #ATeP9WFsf5B2gy9H6G by flaviusb@mastodon.social
2023-03-15T20:20:52Z
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@kravietz @anderspuck @knud Man, this is some bullshit. When painting with this kind of brush, it also applies to Americans, Chinese, the English, Australians, Canadians, and probably many others, and all to about the same approximate degree, with about the same amount of 'well those exceptions don't count'...
(DIR) Post #ATeP9WytxhBowbDEH2 by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-15T20:23:36.916493Z
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@flaviusbWhile that “imperialist thinking” is certainly prevalent among citizens of the US and to some extent UK, that nearly religious respect of the authority and complete political passiveness are quite unique to Russia. @anderspuck @knud
(DIR) Post #ATePiJ9PNKeSBWi3yi by joao@social.pinheirodeabrantes.pt
2023-03-15T20:29:32.459943Z
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@kravietz @anderspuck @flaviusb @knud They go further... They support it! They are accomplices in the atrocities the Russian government is doing!
(DIR) Post #ATeVWjVi905sBj0P8y by flaviusb@mastodon.social
2023-03-15T21:09:15Z
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@joao @kravietz @anderspuck @knud Look, the US, The UK, China, Canada, and Australia are all currently doing and have all historically done atrocities with about the same level of 'broad support' from their populace as what Russia is doing. Like, there were anti-war protests in the US against the Iraq war, to the extent that there were mass arrests and torture by the police? Sure, and Russians were also doing anti-war protests and being mass arrested and tortured for it.
(DIR) Post #ATeVWk7zqeic6Suyoq by flaviusb@mastodon.social
2023-03-15T21:12:04Z
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@joao @kravietz @anderspuck @knud There is resistance to war everywhere, there is state repression everywhere - like, even the more extreme elements! During the Vietnam War in the US the Yippies did a bombing campaign and successfully took out the mainframes used for mass bombing logistics and targeting multiple times, resulting in some of the stalls in bombing of civilians. But that history is whitewashed, we only publicly remember the Yippies as 'trying to levitate the Pentagon'.
(DIR) Post #ATeVWkhRir4hsPVI4e by flaviusb@mastodon.social
2023-03-15T21:13:31Z
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@joao @kravietz @anderspuck @knud And in the same way, Russians are burning down and bombing military recruitment centers, they are trying to derail trains carrying military supplies, and they are trying to defect from the army en masse so they don't have to kill Ukranians.
(DIR) Post #ATeVWlTIqvM8GptVfU by flaviusb@mastodon.social
2023-03-15T21:15:42Z
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@joao @kravietz @anderspuck @knud The problem though is that non-democratic states (by which I mean basically all current states to a fairly large degree) can largely just ignore what people want and impose a 'will of the people' top-down, which they do in order to go to war as part of dealing with internal political problems or the internal psychological issues of some in the ruling class.
(DIR) Post #ATeVWm4AdqqY7B8x8K by flaviusb@mastodon.social
2023-03-15T21:19:52Z
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@joao @kravietz @anderspuck @knud *You are helping Russia to do this* when you play along and say 'so actually those Russians trying to resist don't count, Russians are actually All Just Like The Russian Government Says They Are because they all agree with the government and love war'.It makes it harder for Russians to resist the government when those outside of Russia help the Russian government with its internal propaganda that 'actually all Russians do believe this stuff'.
(DIR) Post #ATeVWmdGXMv3s1Yyps by flaviusb@mastodon.social
2023-03-15T21:26:59Z
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@joao @kravietz @anderspuck @knud And like, replying specifically to "that nearly religious respect of the authority", you do know that in the US almost all children are required to say a loyalty oath every weekday as part of schooling where they stand and salute the flag, and they have a special flag with a blue line in it for the ones who want to lick the boots of the state even harder.And re "complete political passiveness" we have all seen US politics man, don't lie to my fucking face.
(DIR) Post #ATeVWn4YtsknEgKmNk by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-15T21:35:03.861528Z
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@flaviusb 2011-2012 Russia, protests against Putin’s “eternal presidency”, three large demonstrations in December 2011 and February 2012. Participation: 160k people out of ~130m country.2013-2014 Ukraine, Euromaidan, permanent demonstration and violent protests from November 2013 to February 2014. Participation: 1 million out of ~40m country. Do you see the quantitative difference?@joao @anderspuck @knud
(DIR) Post #ATeWTPjJKcblvPLdQG by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-15T21:45:43.973306Z
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@flaviusb The “religious approach to authority” is not in children reciting loyalty oath, but what they do in their adult life. Overwhelming majority of Russians I know personally (~20 years going to Russia since 2000’s) will never confront the authorities, not even in the court, not to mention on the streets.The most desperate and courageous act of protest they can undertake is to record videos begging Putin to do something while on their knees and holding holy icons.@joao @anderspuck @knud
(DIR) Post #ATeWeHysTxXV4roaGG by flaviusb@mastodon.social
2023-03-15T21:42:27Z
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@kravietz @anderspuck @knud @joao Cool story bro. I love how you showed that there have never been any other protests in Russia, and especially that the anti-war protests that I have seen never happened. That really makes me feel like you are actually reading what I'm writing and responding to it.
(DIR) Post #ATeWeIcE7f0z2uE0au by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-03-15T21:47:41.904089Z
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@flaviusb Do you understand what “quantitative” means in English?@anderspuck @knud @joao