Thank you. Your articles enable me to feel a little optimistic about the long term direction of this war, the brutality of which sometimes overwhelms me.
With thanks to all the brave European resistance fighters, like my young Dad, his family, buddies, and The Allies who saved most of Europe from being colonized by an oppressive German or Russian Empire. The greatest generation! ✌🏻
We in the USA may seem to have a surfeit of politics, but with the Republican party embracing the irrationality of religious habits of mind and absolutist creed while abandoning the constitutional framework of coming to consensus through reasoned debate of empirical evidence - in transferring power, legislating, and deciding the law - the institutions of government have been compromised; they can no longer protect the general welfare of the people through equality before the law and equal representation. With the legally unsupported expansion of the freedom to worship to mean that any expression of 'religious conscience' can take priority of all civil rights protections and all civc law, the entire enterprise of a democratic republic is being repurposed to serve clerical fascism. (A government which cannot enforce the constitutional protections of civic law also cannot enforce government regulations on business, banking, and industry or administer a system of equitable taxation.) Just as the law is drained of justice. Politics is drained of participation in a fair contest. Instead it is a bacchanal of populist fervor serving the American oligarchy. Explicitly on the Right, with the complicity of the Left.
You seem to pack lots of useful questions into seeing and thinking about explicit reconstitution by the 'Right'.
I would agree that conservatives with extremist political views of matters such as personal faith and the personal need to have interests associated with that faith institutionalized politically, as legal normative interests, have chosen consciously to reconstitute political institutional and governmental legislative and judicial conventions; this re-constitutive politics causes or entails abandoning the Constitution as the national constitutive agency. I agree that neo-liberals, or many of them, have gone along with reconstitution that favors various expressions of American oligarchy and of oligarchic or autarchic forms of acquiring and asserting power in governance and power to inform social norms.
ThankYou for your very helpful comment. You use an entirely different vocabulary than I do; it was good to think through it.
ThankYou for bringing in the neoliberal 'contribution' to perpetuating privilege at the expense of caring for the general welfare. I would spotlight the Clintons.
I think that while conservatives have abandoned the Constitution's progressive vision and its institutions, they have retained the notion of 'the Constitution' and the sentiment accruing to a founding document. Through specious rhetoric and the ouija board games of 'originalism' and 'textualism' conservatives have turned the Constitution on its head to drain the law of justice, while preserving its judicial protocols to institute state authorized injustice. Jurists were put on trial at Nuremberg for doing this.
Practically, I am haunted by the Right's ability to unite and the Left's penchant for purity tests, pipe dreams, and Pied Pipers. Politics is the strategy and voting is the tactic of winning power. Instead, on the Left, they're being sold as an opportunity and obligation to express personal feelings.
The exhortation to 'vote your conscience' is in fact a repudiation of ethics because it puts personal sentiment above 'the greater good' and shared goals. Conscience should remind us of the claims others have on us.
I see a profound need to do everything we each can to keep our eyes on the prize, to do everything each of us can to Get Out The Vote for Democratic candidates. No quibbles.
Cool! Thanks, Lin, for your observations in reply.
It seems to me that, once again, you pack lots of appraisal and awareness of specific events and trends into your observations. That is helpful to me to learn to reframe or alter-frame my perspectives and learn new stuff.
Please know that I want to clarify my vocabulary and style; hard to be my own editor and jester, hard for me to rethink about what I jot down. More clarity, more room for conversation and useful appraisal, for change.
Your paragraph beginning "I think that while conservatives..." is factual and coherent, while is serves as a useful critical analysis tool set. I am going to turn each sentence into a question, and then I will see how many specific statements and events I can find in support of the question, how many can be found to contradict it, what others point to distinctly different questions.
Your next paragraph and the following paragraph seem very in touch with current political tool-sets, neither of which, to me, brings into American political discourse and to political policy making and policy doing even a slight amount of democratic innovation and public social benefits that, to me, seem possible with a more frank and unnuanced reading of the Constitution in its delegation of powers and its checks on these. (Elsewhere in Thinking about..., I tried to explain my interest in Madison's contribution to the Constitution, based on his observation that neither majorities nor minorities could benefit from using power against each other. This notwithstanding, Prof Jack N. Rakove is so adept at providing this history; maybe see Rakove's Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Makinging of the Constitution, and his Annotated US Constitution and Declaration of Independence).
I appreciate your observation, "Conscience should remind us of the claims others have on us". Mutual responsibility, mutual respect, many mutual interests....
Interesting remark, your "Politics is the strategy and voting is the tactic of winning power."
Do you mean by that that that is the politics of the Right, the politics of the Left, or the politics of both?
In this context in Thinking about..., I tend to attempt to employ political conventions and definitions as we hear Prof Snyder use them. I see the history of choices, actions and events with somewhat better coherence using his in conjunction with some others, e.g., Tony Judt, Bruce Cumings, Jack Rakove, and James Madison as examples. Ditto current events....
To this day, the disingenuousness of American politicians and other political and political governance leaders takes me off-guard, gives me a shock, makes me ask "really?!". So I need to have novel and alternative sets of political terms, conventions, and definitions just to test the nature of the reality of it.
And the depredations will continue until the opponents of clerical fascism are as united and determined as those who are united in their determination to be unburdened of the rights and responsibilities of democracy.
Seriously. Do you think it is that simple? Where to begin?
I am taking time to respond because you seem unaware of what is going on. And it is exactly this 'what me worry' stance which right wing activists depend on.
Please follow the links provided above. Research recent Supreme Court decisions tearing down voting protections and the constitutional separation of church and state. Read about the use of 'shadow docket.' And the notion of an 'independent legislature' in which elected officials can override state constitutions and supreme courts. Because it deserves your attention.
And on what authority do You command anybody to desapear from hear, may I ask? I hope that you haven't loosed the ability to avoid reading that which you don't like?
Yes you are correct, voting out the troublemakers and voting in more liberal thinkers will definitely help but we have a problem with the Judiciary in this country specifically caused by the Federalist society and Leonard Leo. Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United have allowed dark money to influence so that we cannot really see who is in control. So on a very simplistic level you are absolutely correct. That is step one. But there is a lot more that needs to be done and it is a very murky path that we will be put on to try and straighten things out.
A pivotal convention in our framework of governance, as made clear in the Constitution. As also made clear in so many cases of US Executive Branch elected and appointed officials' attitudes and choices.
I just want to wonder out loud, not to be a problem, just to wonder, why is it that you regard Lin's comments reflecting writing of 'trolls'?
My lack of many social and contemporary metaphors makes for some confusion and uncertainty.
Are we now seeing with the rise of politics in Russia, with the dynamics you describe, the beginning of competition amongst Putin’s likely successors. It seems Yevgeny Prigozhin is positioning himself to gather support from multiple contesting parties for accession to greater power and influence. I can envision him positioning himself as the “savior” amidst rising chaos and competing powers surrounding the Ukrainian conflict that has now crossed the Russian border. While this is all happening in what is realistically a small corner of Russia, the news cannot be entirely masked from the Russian people. In part this is compounded by competing propagandists who seem to have a reach now beginning to rival that of Russian state media. All of this must be weakening Putin’s ability to control the narrative of events and hence weaken his own image. As players like Yevgeny Prigozhin and others see Putin weakened and the rise of political conflict it seems logical they may seek to consolidate their own power and influence. I can foresee a scenario where Yevgeny Prigozhin unites several of the other military powers now competing with each other and declares himself not only a military power but siezes civil authority as well. It seems possible Putin’s Ukraine adventurism may have sown the seeds of his own fall and demise.
What do you see as the likely evolution scenarios of the present conflicts and raise of politics in Russia. I realize there are always multiple paths this may take, but am interested in your views of those most likely.
Dr Snyder -- I appreciate your repeated ability to find an appropriately distanced vantage point -- enabled by your years of scholarship -- to try to interpret current developments. For the sake of Ukrainians, and possibly Russians, let's hope you are seeing this right.
This is the best. Thanks for posting. Your ability to cut through and describe the key, often surprising things that are going on is really useful. I’ve been relaying points to my friends in Ukraine.
Tim, great insights and information on the current state of affairs within Russia. With all the internal strife, at least 3 competing groups within the current regime 1-2 more of Russian groups now crossing the border I have a simple question. “Who is really in charge in Russia?” I ask because clearly if Putin was in full control, Prigozhin and Kadyrov would be brought to heel. MoD clearly is not in control of anything. It would also seem as if Putin has lost control of the situation. Allowing and being unable to thwart border incursions, shelling your own cities, and thoughtless and mindless destruction that also takes out his own people in defensive positions with the destruction of the Nova Khakova dam and cutting off water to Crimea shows there is no control or strategy at all. Is it just as simple as pure nihilism and destruction now for its own sake? Burn it all down if Putin cannot have it? Seems so to me.
I didn't know that, formally at least, Akhmat is a part of Rosgvardiya.
"Kadyrov then found a good occasion to change the subject, suggesting publicly that his men from Akhmat should be sent to Russia's Belgorod region as a response to -- yet more Russian armed formations." Ah, so THIS is why Kadyrov has been talking about being sent to Belgorod. I didn't know it was about a dispute between him and P.
"But it can be taken for granted that the panicked inhabitants of Russia's border regions would not be soothed by the arrival of armed Chechens." Ha! No indeed.
Sir, thank you for a detailed and brilliant commentary on what is happening. But you have not yet taken into consideration the ancient "slave soul" (рабская душа - Vasilii Grossman) of the Russians. DR-L.
Thanks to Prof. Snyder for weaving together some disparate strains of the Ukrainian story around the theme of politics returning to Russia. In the short time since he published the piece, the Khakovka Dam has exploded and stories have surfaced suggesting that it was Ukraine that blew up the Nordstream gas pipelines in the Baltic last fall. Ukraine certainly had the motive except that Germany by then was well on the way toward freeing itself from dependence on Russian gas and had become a committed ally of Ukraine. Some early media reports said Ukraine blew up the dam. This does cut off water to Crimea at enormous cost to Ukraine. Stay tuned.
While the following is not exhaustive, there exists a bit of history pertaining the security of the Nova Kakhovka Dam on the Dnieper River ( Dnieper, also called Dnipro ) in Nova Kakhovka, Ukraine:
thanks... so as was mentioned, this was not something unanticipated. And this catastrophe must be included in UKR plans as a possibility, though the damage was going to be and is catastrophic.
I get the same takeaway listening to Mark Galeotti's "In Moscow's Shadows" (which puts me to sleep at night with minute details about Russian politics).There is confusion in trying to understand this all, and so it seems (to me anyway)this is representative of the actual confusion within. Putin is a juggler keeping so many balls going in the air. The balls, his trusted and tolerated lieutenants, vie for position and power. This set-up must protect him. I visualize this too as molecules bouncing off each other as they are heated up by the war. The war is for the purpose of keeping Putin in power. The stage is Ukraine. The people, Russians and Ukrainians, mean nothing.
Where does Putin get his seemingly firm power from? It grew little by little? But how he keeps it seems tenuous and dependent on everyone else in the various circles around him keeping theirs and vying for it.
In a crowd he's got a very smug look on his face and a faux confidence when he speaks. Otherwise I read the other day he does not want to be disturbed with news unless it's good news. It troubles greatly to hear that Putin has the country on a war footing for the foreseeable future.. if that is so and maintainable.
You wrote, "The war is for the purpose of keeping Putin in power. The stage is Ukraine. The people, Russians and Ukrainians, mean nothing.” I don’t think I’ve read a more succinct description of what is happening. All of Putin’s and his talking heads stories about ancient Christians, Nazis, Satanists, misguided and dangerous Russians, the LGBTQ and other Western progressive collective boogymen (not forgetting the invisible, imaginary, but lethal Ukrainians) are all out to ruin Putin’s legacy, whatever that might be. I wish I could put my finger on Vlad Putin’s reason for being but it’s beyond my imagination. Just when something seems to clear up who, why, when on Putin, it slips away like smoke. I just remind myself that he is 70 years old. He has far fewer years going forward than he had when he took this job. He has many many enemies and his paranoia is warranted. He also does not appear to have a chosen successor so that could make things very interesting in Moscow one day soon. I suppose that all we can do is support Ukraine (and the others that Russia is messing with) the best we are able and maybe just a little bit more because they are fighting for all of us, every day.
Oh, and thanks for the heads up on Mark Galeotti's "In Moscow's Shadows”. He is very good. My go-to podcast is the Telegram's "Ukraine: the Latest” everyday, weekdays.
The commentary prompts review of your book, Black Earth. For me, thinking politically and thinking through the politics of others is difficult; makes me uneasy.
Ms. Ekaterina Schulmann's observations are relevant and useful. (INSIDE RUSSIA: REGIME STABILITY AND DYNAMICS OF PUBLIC OPINION. Lecture at Sciences Po, Ms. Ekaterina Schulman, Apr 20, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=287ErrPoXaI
Recalling events which Prof Snyder describes in Black Earth, I wondered to myself about being a citizen of a nation, the existence of which has been forcibly ended, the character of which is now by the occupier and or new leadership said to be without validity and even a danger to the newly installed leaders and their doctrines. As I understand Prof Snyder, and as recalled in many historical accounts and personal accounts, in such circumstances (for example in Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia in 1939 - 1941) it was unsafe for the occupied people to do other than consent to the terms and conditions of 'citizenship', if it was offered.
Hence my general observation, "questions of any particular person's choices in relation to political and social inclusion and security can become exaggeratedly political. As it seems it is the case in Putin's regime and its imposed Russian identity and international character, exaggeration becomes fabrication, claims to excuse violent exclusion and violent conformism, both serving the negation of self in the service of the exaggerated politically approved..." and also my question, "in becoming exaggeratedly political, can a person's sense of inclusion and security become conditional on contingencies not associated with human personal social responsibility?"
Bob, this does not help me. I could pass but - too many compound and long sentences, numerous complex phrases including adjectival or parenthetical phrases in a single sentence, words and epithets that impede understanding, that are conceptual in and of themselves. This makes it hard to follow or get your point. I am trying to understand.
What does this mean? Translate please.
Quote: Hence my general observation, "questions of any particular person's choices in relation to political and social inclusion and security can become exaggeratedly political.As it seems it is the case in Putin's regime and its imposed Russian identity and international character, exaggeration becomes fabrication, claims to excuse violent exclusion and violent conformism, both serving the negation of self in the service of the exaggerated politically approved..." and also my question, "in becoming exaggeratedly political, can a person's sense of inclusion and security become conditional on contingencies not associated with human personal social responsibility?" end quote
I am in agreement with you; my comment isn't helpful. I will continue the reappraisal of my effort, which reappraisal began with your original criticism and request for clarification.
I am grateful for your criticisms and interest in improved understanding through dialogue. It is one factor among those constituting my interest to contribute to "Thinking about...", in addition to learning much, much more from Prof Snyder and to being better enabled to actually provide assistance to the people of Ukraine., to enter dialogues that might provide these opportunities for the additional of useful information, both fact and interpretation, and for reworking of views each of us holds.
Thanks again for this and all of your posts here. I will break the original comment into pieces, and then rework it in increments.
My sincere thanks to you, Prof Snyder, and others.
My assumption: Any person's choices originate or are constituted from experience, from thought, and from gut sense (some particular amalgam of instinctual and emotional sensitivity), and the human pre-social or at-birth capacity is of a 'being social', of being within a human and living world, rather than existing individually and or apart from these.
It appears from descriptions of political choices, for example in Prof Snyder's Black Earth, that political narratives offered by and actions by people in authority in a person's community can be influential in choice-making. This can include even 'exaggerated' political narratives, meaning containing interpretations of ideas and facts that provide radically different views of people, of society, and of choosing to live.
Note observations from Prof Snyder, from Prof Stanovaya (Carnegie Endowment for Intl Peace), and others regarding Putin's and some other Russians' current political and social tenets, including those which seem fascist, and which include 'claims to excuse violent exclusion and violent conformism, support autocratic stat-ism, ....
Adopting these seems to point to personal choice, choosing to abandon one's humanist personal and social self- and social understandings and inclinations in order to adopt the external tenets for self-understanding and as one's basis of choice-making.
I am thinking about or thinking through the above in making my effort to come up with better choices in support of the Ukrainian humanitarian and self-defense efforts, including factual strengthening of narrative alternatives of postwar choice-making that provide sensible and persuasive tenets for regionally cooperative novel arrangements and efforts.
This is how I see the novelties and reforms taking shape that could sensibly:
produce sufficient demographically broad-based changes among Russians for choosing ending aggression that allow the imposition of the Ten Points Formula;
and, do so in a manner of re-disposing Russians and others in Eurasia to consciously put aside 'either or' perspectives on living cooperatively.
Ms. Tatiana Stanovaya has authored and published another appraisal of the current RF internal State strengths and vulnerabilities, along with the character changes of various elites and factions and of Russian working citizens. As political analysis, it is distinctive in that it comprehends views of distinct and apparently unrelated members of Russian and RF communities, while, at the same time, understands and explains societal changes that reveal similar tendencies and perceptual shifts. Politics return and reshape....
Bob, one of the referrals you gave me has agreed to become our fiscal sponsor! Our project is moving forward. I thought it was a long shot posting on this substack, but figured I'd give it a try. THANK YOU so much!
This is a fascinating piece. Dizzying and awesome in your coverage. Thank you.
Thank you. Your articles enable me to feel a little optimistic about the long term direction of this war, the brutality of which sometimes overwhelms me.
Happy D-Day - June 6, 1944 ☮️
With thanks to all the brave European resistance fighters, like my young Dad, his family, buddies, and The Allies who saved most of Europe from being colonized by an oppressive German or Russian Empire. The greatest generation! ✌🏻
Now, it’s our turn to #ProtectDemocracy! 🌻
King Guards Pay Tribute To Tina Turner 💂♀️💃🏻🎶
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmMDYFePBbA
We in the USA may seem to have a surfeit of politics, but with the Republican party embracing the irrationality of religious habits of mind and absolutist creed while abandoning the constitutional framework of coming to consensus through reasoned debate of empirical evidence - in transferring power, legislating, and deciding the law - the institutions of government have been compromised; they can no longer protect the general welfare of the people through equality before the law and equal representation. With the legally unsupported expansion of the freedom to worship to mean that any expression of 'religious conscience' can take priority of all civil rights protections and all civc law, the entire enterprise of a democratic republic is being repurposed to serve clerical fascism. (A government which cannot enforce the constitutional protections of civic law also cannot enforce government regulations on business, banking, and industry or administer a system of equitable taxation.) Just as the law is drained of justice. Politics is drained of participation in a fair contest. Instead it is a bacchanal of populist fervor serving the American oligarchy. Explicitly on the Right, with the complicity of the Left.
https://www.becketlaw.org/leonard-leo-speech-2017-canterbury-medal-gala/
https://www.propublica.org/article/leonard-leo-teneo-videos-documents
Thanks for these observations, Lin.
You seem to pack lots of useful questions into seeing and thinking about explicit reconstitution by the 'Right'.
I would agree that conservatives with extremist political views of matters such as personal faith and the personal need to have interests associated with that faith institutionalized politically, as legal normative interests, have chosen consciously to reconstitute political institutional and governmental legislative and judicial conventions; this re-constitutive politics causes or entails abandoning the Constitution as the national constitutive agency. I agree that neo-liberals, or many of them, have gone along with reconstitution that favors various expressions of American oligarchy and of oligarchic or autarchic forms of acquiring and asserting power in governance and power to inform social norms.
What else do you see?
Thanks for the two references; I will check them.
ThankYou for your very helpful comment. You use an entirely different vocabulary than I do; it was good to think through it.
ThankYou for bringing in the neoliberal 'contribution' to perpetuating privilege at the expense of caring for the general welfare. I would spotlight the Clintons.
I think that while conservatives have abandoned the Constitution's progressive vision and its institutions, they have retained the notion of 'the Constitution' and the sentiment accruing to a founding document. Through specious rhetoric and the ouija board games of 'originalism' and 'textualism' conservatives have turned the Constitution on its head to drain the law of justice, while preserving its judicial protocols to institute state authorized injustice. Jurists were put on trial at Nuremberg for doing this.
Practically, I am haunted by the Right's ability to unite and the Left's penchant for purity tests, pipe dreams, and Pied Pipers. Politics is the strategy and voting is the tactic of winning power. Instead, on the Left, they're being sold as an opportunity and obligation to express personal feelings.
The exhortation to 'vote your conscience' is in fact a repudiation of ethics because it puts personal sentiment above 'the greater good' and shared goals. Conscience should remind us of the claims others have on us.
I see a profound need to do everything we each can to keep our eyes on the prize, to do everything each of us can to Get Out The Vote for Democratic candidates. No quibbles.
Something else, Lin
You may find interesting: https://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS125/articles/pomper.htm The 2000 Presidential Election, by GERALD M. POMPER, Political Science Quarterly, Summer 2001, volume 116, issue 2, page 201
Cool! Thanks, Lin, for your observations in reply.
It seems to me that, once again, you pack lots of appraisal and awareness of specific events and trends into your observations. That is helpful to me to learn to reframe or alter-frame my perspectives and learn new stuff.
Please know that I want to clarify my vocabulary and style; hard to be my own editor and jester, hard for me to rethink about what I jot down. More clarity, more room for conversation and useful appraisal, for change.
Your paragraph beginning "I think that while conservatives..." is factual and coherent, while is serves as a useful critical analysis tool set. I am going to turn each sentence into a question, and then I will see how many specific statements and events I can find in support of the question, how many can be found to contradict it, what others point to distinctly different questions.
Your next paragraph and the following paragraph seem very in touch with current political tool-sets, neither of which, to me, brings into American political discourse and to political policy making and policy doing even a slight amount of democratic innovation and public social benefits that, to me, seem possible with a more frank and unnuanced reading of the Constitution in its delegation of powers and its checks on these. (Elsewhere in Thinking about..., I tried to explain my interest in Madison's contribution to the Constitution, based on his observation that neither majorities nor minorities could benefit from using power against each other. This notwithstanding, Prof Jack N. Rakove is so adept at providing this history; maybe see Rakove's Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Makinging of the Constitution, and his Annotated US Constitution and Declaration of Independence).
I appreciate your observation, "Conscience should remind us of the claims others have on us". Mutual responsibility, mutual respect, many mutual interests....
What else do you see?
PS
Interesting remark, your "Politics is the strategy and voting is the tactic of winning power."
Do you mean by that that that is the politics of the Right, the politics of the Left, or the politics of both?
In this context in Thinking about..., I tend to attempt to employ political conventions and definitions as we hear Prof Snyder use them. I see the history of choices, actions and events with somewhat better coherence using his in conjunction with some others, e.g., Tony Judt, Bruce Cumings, Jack Rakove, and James Madison as examples. Ditto current events....
To this day, the disingenuousness of American politicians and other political and political governance leaders takes me off-guard, gives me a shock, makes me ask "really?!". So I need to have novel and alternative sets of political terms, conventions, and definitions just to test the nature of the reality of it.
I am grateful for your careful explanation.
America is still a secular republic 😎
It is, until it isn't.
And the depredations will continue until the opponents of clerical fascism are as united and determined as those who are united in their determination to be unburdened of the rights and responsibilities of democracy.
Just vote for the right people 🌊
Seriously. Do you think it is that simple? Where to begin?
I am taking time to respond because you seem unaware of what is going on. And it is exactly this 'what me worry' stance which right wing activists depend on.
Please follow the links provided above. Research recent Supreme Court decisions tearing down voting protections and the constitutional separation of church and state. Read about the use of 'shadow docket.' And the notion of an 'independent legislature' in which elected officials can override state constitutions and supreme courts. Because it deserves your attention.
Re: "just vote"
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/01/1179458897/texas-houston-harris-county-elections
Take your negative word salad elsewhere, Comrade Lin 😎
And on what authority do You command anybody to desapear from hear, may I ask? I hope that you haven't loosed the ability to avoid reading that which you don't like?
Yes you are correct, voting out the troublemakers and voting in more liberal thinkers will definitely help but we have a problem with the Judiciary in this country specifically caused by the Federalist society and Leonard Leo. Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United have allowed dark money to influence so that we cannot really see who is in control. So on a very simplistic level you are absolutely correct. That is step one. But there is a lot more that needs to be done and it is a very murky path that we will be put on to try and straighten things out.
There will always be corrupt judges, unfortunately. But no one is above the law 😎
Thanks for 'no one is above the law'.
A pivotal convention in our framework of governance, as made clear in the Constitution. As also made clear in so many cases of US Executive Branch elected and appointed officials' attitudes and choices.
I just want to wonder out loud, not to be a problem, just to wonder, why is it that you regard Lin's comments reflecting writing of 'trolls'?
My lack of many social and contemporary metaphors makes for some confusion and uncertainty.
Give it a rest. Your rant is uncalled for and certainly not the subject of this article.
A question for Dr. Snyder:
Are we now seeing with the rise of politics in Russia, with the dynamics you describe, the beginning of competition amongst Putin’s likely successors. It seems Yevgeny Prigozhin is positioning himself to gather support from multiple contesting parties for accession to greater power and influence. I can envision him positioning himself as the “savior” amidst rising chaos and competing powers surrounding the Ukrainian conflict that has now crossed the Russian border. While this is all happening in what is realistically a small corner of Russia, the news cannot be entirely masked from the Russian people. In part this is compounded by competing propagandists who seem to have a reach now beginning to rival that of Russian state media. All of this must be weakening Putin’s ability to control the narrative of events and hence weaken his own image. As players like Yevgeny Prigozhin and others see Putin weakened and the rise of political conflict it seems logical they may seek to consolidate their own power and influence. I can foresee a scenario where Yevgeny Prigozhin unites several of the other military powers now competing with each other and declares himself not only a military power but siezes civil authority as well. It seems possible Putin’s Ukraine adventurism may have sown the seeds of his own fall and demise.
What do you see as the likely evolution scenarios of the present conflicts and raise of politics in Russia. I realize there are always multiple paths this may take, but am interested in your views of those most likely.
Dr Snyder -- I appreciate your repeated ability to find an appropriately distanced vantage point -- enabled by your years of scholarship -- to try to interpret current developments. For the sake of Ukrainians, and possibly Russians, let's hope you are seeing this right.
This is the best. Thanks for posting. Your ability to cut through and describe the key, often surprising things that are going on is really useful. I’ve been relaying points to my friends in Ukraine.
Tim, great insights and information on the current state of affairs within Russia. With all the internal strife, at least 3 competing groups within the current regime 1-2 more of Russian groups now crossing the border I have a simple question. “Who is really in charge in Russia?” I ask because clearly if Putin was in full control, Prigozhin and Kadyrov would be brought to heel. MoD clearly is not in control of anything. It would also seem as if Putin has lost control of the situation. Allowing and being unable to thwart border incursions, shelling your own cities, and thoughtless and mindless destruction that also takes out his own people in defensive positions with the destruction of the Nova Khakova dam and cutting off water to Crimea shows there is no control or strategy at all. Is it just as simple as pure nihilism and destruction now for its own sake? Burn it all down if Putin cannot have it? Seems so to me.
I didn't know that, formally at least, Akhmat is a part of Rosgvardiya.
"Kadyrov then found a good occasion to change the subject, suggesting publicly that his men from Akhmat should be sent to Russia's Belgorod region as a response to -- yet more Russian armed formations." Ah, so THIS is why Kadyrov has been talking about being sent to Belgorod. I didn't know it was about a dispute between him and P.
"But it can be taken for granted that the panicked inhabitants of Russia's border regions would not be soothed by the arrival of armed Chechens." Ha! No indeed.
Another helpful essay, Professor Snyder.
Russia is caught between using its military to fight attacks within its own borders and invading Ukraine. - UK Intel 😎 #TheResistance
Sir, thank you for a detailed and brilliant commentary on what is happening. But you have not yet taken into consideration the ancient "slave soul" (рабская душа - Vasilii Grossman) of the Russians. DR-L.
Thanks to Prof. Snyder for weaving together some disparate strains of the Ukrainian story around the theme of politics returning to Russia. In the short time since he published the piece, the Khakovka Dam has exploded and stories have surfaced suggesting that it was Ukraine that blew up the Nordstream gas pipelines in the Baltic last fall. Ukraine certainly had the motive except that Germany by then was well on the way toward freeing itself from dependence on Russian gas and had become a committed ally of Ukraine. Some early media reports said Ukraine blew up the dam. This does cut off water to Crimea at enormous cost to Ukraine. Stay tuned.
Thanks for the comments, Ms. Nakajima.
While the following is not exhaustive, there exists a bit of history pertaining the security of the Nova Kakhovka Dam on the Dnieper River ( Dnieper, also called Dnipro ) in Nova Kakhovka, Ukraine:
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/potential-for-catastrophic-results-if-russia-blows-up-ukrainian-dam-31-10-2022/
2022 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/new-damage-major-dam-near-kherson-after-russian-retreat-maxar-satellite-2022-11-11/
2022 nov https://www.kyivpost.com/post/166 Next Hot Spot? Dnipro River Crossing at Nova Kakhovka
2022 oct zelenskyy request to US and others https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-curbs-power-usage-after-russian-attacks-destroy-some-energy-plants-2022-10-19/
There is other reference tucked away in another strategic assessment of Ukrainian events: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates june 06 2023 updated assessments
thanks... so as was mentioned, this was not something unanticipated. And this catastrophe must be included in UKR plans as a possibility, though the damage was going to be and is catastrophic.
Thanks! Interesting.
Excellent!
I get the same takeaway listening to Mark Galeotti's "In Moscow's Shadows" (which puts me to sleep at night with minute details about Russian politics).There is confusion in trying to understand this all, and so it seems (to me anyway)this is representative of the actual confusion within. Putin is a juggler keeping so many balls going in the air. The balls, his trusted and tolerated lieutenants, vie for position and power. This set-up must protect him. I visualize this too as molecules bouncing off each other as they are heated up by the war. The war is for the purpose of keeping Putin in power. The stage is Ukraine. The people, Russians and Ukrainians, mean nothing.
Where does Putin get his seemingly firm power from? It grew little by little? But how he keeps it seems tenuous and dependent on everyone else in the various circles around him keeping theirs and vying for it.
In a crowd he's got a very smug look on his face and a faux confidence when he speaks. Otherwise I read the other day he does not want to be disturbed with news unless it's good news. It troubles greatly to hear that Putin has the country on a war footing for the foreseeable future.. if that is so and maintainable.
You wrote, "The war is for the purpose of keeping Putin in power. The stage is Ukraine. The people, Russians and Ukrainians, mean nothing.” I don’t think I’ve read a more succinct description of what is happening. All of Putin’s and his talking heads stories about ancient Christians, Nazis, Satanists, misguided and dangerous Russians, the LGBTQ and other Western progressive collective boogymen (not forgetting the invisible, imaginary, but lethal Ukrainians) are all out to ruin Putin’s legacy, whatever that might be. I wish I could put my finger on Vlad Putin’s reason for being but it’s beyond my imagination. Just when something seems to clear up who, why, when on Putin, it slips away like smoke. I just remind myself that he is 70 years old. He has far fewer years going forward than he had when he took this job. He has many many enemies and his paranoia is warranted. He also does not appear to have a chosen successor so that could make things very interesting in Moscow one day soon. I suppose that all we can do is support Ukraine (and the others that Russia is messing with) the best we are able and maybe just a little bit more because they are fighting for all of us, every day.
Oh, and thanks for the heads up on Mark Galeotti's "In Moscow's Shadows”. He is very good. My go-to podcast is the Telegram's "Ukraine: the Latest” everyday, weekdays.
Thanks for this commentary, Prof Snyder.
The commentary prompts review of your book, Black Earth. For me, thinking politically and thinking through the politics of others is difficult; makes me uneasy.
Ms. Ekaterina Schulmann's observations are relevant and useful. (INSIDE RUSSIA: REGIME STABILITY AND DYNAMICS OF PUBLIC OPINION. Lecture at Sciences Po, Ms. Ekaterina Schulman, Apr 20, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=287ErrPoXaI
This is a revised posting.
Can you give a summary of this in plain words? Main points? Thanks.
Thanks for the question, Mr. Potter.
My wordiness is bothersome to me, too.
Recalling events which Prof Snyder describes in Black Earth, I wondered to myself about being a citizen of a nation, the existence of which has been forcibly ended, the character of which is now by the occupier and or new leadership said to be without validity and even a danger to the newly installed leaders and their doctrines. As I understand Prof Snyder, and as recalled in many historical accounts and personal accounts, in such circumstances (for example in Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia in 1939 - 1941) it was unsafe for the occupied people to do other than consent to the terms and conditions of 'citizenship', if it was offered.
Hence my general observation, "questions of any particular person's choices in relation to political and social inclusion and security can become exaggeratedly political. As it seems it is the case in Putin's regime and its imposed Russian identity and international character, exaggeration becomes fabrication, claims to excuse violent exclusion and violent conformism, both serving the negation of self in the service of the exaggerated politically approved..." and also my question, "in becoming exaggeratedly political, can a person's sense of inclusion and security become conditional on contingencies not associated with human personal social responsibility?"
Bob, this does not help me. I could pass but - too many compound and long sentences, numerous complex phrases including adjectival or parenthetical phrases in a single sentence, words and epithets that impede understanding, that are conceptual in and of themselves. This makes it hard to follow or get your point. I am trying to understand.
What does this mean? Translate please.
Quote: Hence my general observation, "questions of any particular person's choices in relation to political and social inclusion and security can become exaggeratedly political.As it seems it is the case in Putin's regime and its imposed Russian identity and international character, exaggeration becomes fabrication, claims to excuse violent exclusion and violent conformism, both serving the negation of self in the service of the exaggerated politically approved..." and also my question, "in becoming exaggeratedly political, can a person's sense of inclusion and security become conditional on contingencies not associated with human personal social responsibility?" end quote
Thanks Mr. Potter.
I am in agreement with you; my comment isn't helpful. I will continue the reappraisal of my effort, which reappraisal began with your original criticism and request for clarification.
I am grateful for your criticisms and interest in improved understanding through dialogue. It is one factor among those constituting my interest to contribute to "Thinking about...", in addition to learning much, much more from Prof Snyder and to being better enabled to actually provide assistance to the people of Ukraine., to enter dialogues that might provide these opportunities for the additional of useful information, both fact and interpretation, and for reworking of views each of us holds.
Thanks again for this and all of your posts here. I will break the original comment into pieces, and then rework it in increments.
That’s very admirable. Thank you!
My sincere thanks to you, Prof Snyder, and others.
My assumption: Any person's choices originate or are constituted from experience, from thought, and from gut sense (some particular amalgam of instinctual and emotional sensitivity), and the human pre-social or at-birth capacity is of a 'being social', of being within a human and living world, rather than existing individually and or apart from these.
It appears from descriptions of political choices, for example in Prof Snyder's Black Earth, that political narratives offered by and actions by people in authority in a person's community can be influential in choice-making. This can include even 'exaggerated' political narratives, meaning containing interpretations of ideas and facts that provide radically different views of people, of society, and of choosing to live.
Note observations from Prof Snyder, from Prof Stanovaya (Carnegie Endowment for Intl Peace), and others regarding Putin's and some other Russians' current political and social tenets, including those which seem fascist, and which include 'claims to excuse violent exclusion and violent conformism, support autocratic stat-ism, ....
Adopting these seems to point to personal choice, choosing to abandon one's humanist personal and social self- and social understandings and inclinations in order to adopt the external tenets for self-understanding and as one's basis of choice-making.
I am thinking about or thinking through the above in making my effort to come up with better choices in support of the Ukrainian humanitarian and self-defense efforts, including factual strengthening of narrative alternatives of postwar choice-making that provide sensible and persuasive tenets for regionally cooperative novel arrangements and efforts.
This is how I see the novelties and reforms taking shape that could sensibly:
produce sufficient demographically broad-based changes among Russians for choosing ending aggression that allow the imposition of the Ten Points Formula;
and, do so in a manner of re-disposing Russians and others in Eurasia to consciously put aside 'either or' perspectives on living cooperatively.
As Kyra noted: it is a fascinating read!
Ms. Tatiana Stanovaya has authored and published another appraisal of the current RF internal State strengths and vulnerabilities, along with the character changes of various elites and factions and of Russian working citizens. As political analysis, it is distinctive in that it comprehends views of distinct and apparently unrelated members of Russian and RF communities, while, at the same time, understands and explains societal changes that reveal similar tendencies and perceptual shifts. Politics return and reshape....
See at Foreign Affairs
or
Ocnus.Net / Dysfunctions
"Putin's Age of Chaos: The Dangers of Russian Disorder",
By Tatiana Stanovaya, Foreign Affairs, August 8, 2023
Aug 10, 2023
Bob, one of the referrals you gave me has agreed to become our fiscal sponsor! Our project is moving forward. I thought it was a long shot posting on this substack, but figured I'd give it a try. THANK YOU so much!