Having grown up there, I understand your sentiment. However, the framing you use, good vs evil, is unhelpful. There is a basic orthogonality thesis: morality of actions is not positively correlated with their success. Most uprising fail because of strategic and tactical reasons, not because the other side was more evil (though by many metrics it often tends to be). Lenin, who employed extreme and evil means without hesitation to achieve what he perceived to be good ends, wrote the book on how to do it right, and then triumphantly followed it in October 1917 when no one else believed that a successful revolt was possible. We may question whether it was a net good (but that relies on inaccessible counterfactuals) but it’s hard to question its effectiveness. It pays to review the lessons of the 1905 Moscow uprising that led to success 12 years later:
we should have taken to arms more resolutely, energetically and aggressively; we should have explained to the masses that it was impossible to confine things to a peaceful strike and that a fearless and relentless armed fight was necessary.
we must carry on the widest agitation among the masses in favour of an armed uprising and make no attempt to obscure this question by talk about “preliminary stages”, or to befog it in any way. We would be deceiving both ourselves and the people if we concealed from the masses the necessity of a desperate, bloody war of extermination, as the immediate task of the coming revolutionary action.
That we must work among the troops goes without saying. But we must not imagine that they will come over to our side at one stroke, as a result of persuasion or their own convictions … at a time of uprising there must also be a physical struggle for the troops.
ruthless extermination of civil and military chiefs was our duty during an uprising
insurrection is an art and that the principal rule of this art is the waging of a desperately bold and irrevocably determined offensive
We must proclaim from the house tops the need for a bold offensive and armed attack, the necessity at such times of exterminating the persons in command of the enemy, and of a most energetic fight for the wavering troops.
The third great lesson taught by Moscow concerns the tactics and organisation of the forces for an uprising … [An essential part is] tactics and organisation raised by street fighting under the conditions imposed by modern military technique [he goes on to talk about the conditions of 1905, they may be different over 100 years later].
He goes on to say “if mass attacks are launched on the enemy, if a determined and skillful fight is waged for the troops, who after the Duma, after Sveaborg and Kronstadt are wavering more than ever—and if we ensure participation of the rural areas in the general struggle—victory will be ours in the next all-Russian armed uprising.” He finishes with
Let us remember that a great mass struggle is approaching. It will be an armed uprising. It must, as far as possible, be simultaneous. The masses must know that they are entering upon an armed, bloody and desperate struggle. Contempt for death must become widespread among them and will ensure victory. The onslaught on the enemy must be pressed with the greatest vigour; attack, not defence, must be the slogan of the masses; the ruthless extermination of the enemy will be their task; the organisation of the struggle will become mobile and flexible; the wavering elements among the troops will be drawn into active participation. And in this momentous struggle, the party of the class-conscious proletariat must discharge its duty to the full.
Other than the incidental mention of “the party of the class-conscious proletariat”, Lenin’s lessons are pretty universal and unambiguous, though desperate, brutal, violent, and, well, evil. Is there a part of the Russian underground that is prepared to fight for the minds, hearts and ammunition of the troops? If there is, it is not visible from outside. And if they win, will they be able to switch from brutality to a civil society, once they are in power? The evidence from Russian and other successful revolts is overwhelmingly against. Does this mean that Russia is screwed either way? Most likely. Moscow 2042 might yet prove prophetic.
This is a very good answer, but it seems like it is not answering the original post. (Or maybe my perception is biased and I am reading something that is not there… I apologize if so).
The main point I took from the post (and with which I wholeheartedly agree, so I am not approaching this topic as rationally as I probably should), is that, when talking about “buying off” Russia with a bit of Ukrainian land, the attention somehow avoids the people living there, and what will happen to them if such a compromise was enacted.
Is there a part of the Russian underground that is prepared to fight for the minds, hearts and ammunition of the troops?
Probably not. And the existing system does everything it can to make sure no such underground will arise, by destroying the agency of the people living there. Chances are the system will succeed and there won’t be any change, forever.
And when talking about ceding, say, Zaporizhzhia Oblast to Russia, you must not forget that the people living there will get the same choice as the rest of Russia does now: get tortured, or become a zombie, or become an NPC.
Damn, this reminds me of a fiction story I read a long time ago, of a parallel timeline where Gandhi tried to use nonviolent resistance on Nazi occupants. Spoiler:
Nazis simply kept exterminating the Indian population, just like they wanted to, with zero remorse. The only effect of the nonviolent resistance was that it made their job slightly easier, otherwise everyone ignored it. (The moral of the story: you can only appeal to your opponent’s conscience if he has one.)
*
But then, why is the entire world not like Russia? Missing a genius psychopath like Lenin cannot be the whole answer: psychopaths are everywhere, sooner or later someone would stumble upon the right strategy. Also, I think that Russia was quite… dark… long before communism.
There are two hypotheses I am aware of. First, the hypothesis of a huge indefensible steppe, where the geography makes “build something and protect it” a losing strategy, and the only way to be safe is to proactively destroy everyone else, as far as you can. That of course keeps the population in constant misery and conflict.
But the Chinese seem to have had a similar problem, and they solved it by building a wall. Why haven’t Russian Tzars done the same? Maybe the situation was not as similar as it sounds, or maybe building a wall of that size is a project super unlikely to succeed, so it’s the China that requires explanation, not Russia.
Second, the hypothesis of a resource curse (a.k.a. The Dictator’s Playbook, The Rules for Rulers), according to which the places where “the population generates wealth” incentivize democracy, as people who are happy, well fed, and well educated, can generate more wealth, and if you hurt the people, you destroy the most precious resource you have; and the places where “the natural resources generate wealth” incentivize dictatorship, because you only need a few slaves to extract the resources, and an army to keep them working and prevent someone else from taking over your business, and everything else can go to hell. Is Russia similarly cursed by having a lot of oil today (and other resources in the past)?
The problem with this hypothesis is that in current world, an army requires modern weapons, which require having an industrial base; the industrial base requires education, so the people become important again; you cannot go full Pol Pot when surrounded by developed countries. Then again, “some industry and some education” do not require general well-being of your entire population; you could simply elevate some selected cities (such as Moscow and St Petersburg) to modern era and keep the rest at the stone age level. Maybe Russia recently went a little further towards the dictatorship end of the scale than would be optimal, hurt their population a bit too much, and as a consequence now its army became too dysfunctional?
Depending on which hypothesis is right, a possible solution might involve some artificial barriers (being surrounded by NATO members, who do not proactively attack the territory of Russia proper, is a kind of such barrier), or finding alternative sources of energy so efficient that oil would become virtually useless. Too optimistic, I know; I am just brainstorming here.
Resource rich countries don’t decide “how much of a dictatorship should I be?”, it’s rather that an organization with very strong moral mazes dynamics can manage to do resource extraction but they don’t manage more complicated processes.
You can’t easily move to a less corrupt military in peacetime just because you think you need a functioning military because the military lacks good feedback cycles.
Complete focus on military strength is how you get to the kind of governance that North Korea has.
>> Most uprising fail because of strategic and tactical reasons, not because the other side was more evil (though by many metrics it often tends to be).
I don’t disagree? I’m not saying that Russia is evil because the protests failed. It’s evil because it fights aggressive wars, imprisons, tortures and kills innocent people.
It’s evil because it fights aggressive wars, imprisons, tortures and kills innocent people.
Well, that’s not unique to Russia by any means. The US and virtually everyone else did all of the above as well, again and again. It’s more of a question of the scale/degree of evil. Not defending Russia, it needs to be stopped, but this is a sad reality of this world.
Having grown up there, I understand your sentiment. However, the framing you use, good vs evil, is unhelpful. There is a basic orthogonality thesis: morality of actions is not positively correlated with their success. Most uprising fail because of strategic and tactical reasons, not because the other side was more evil (though by many metrics it often tends to be). Lenin, who employed extreme and evil means without hesitation to achieve what he perceived to be good ends, wrote the book on how to do it right, and then triumphantly followed it in October 1917 when no one else believed that a successful revolt was possible. We may question whether it was a net good (but that relies on inaccessible counterfactuals) but it’s hard to question its effectiveness. It pays to review the lessons of the 1905 Moscow uprising that led to success 12 years later:
we should have taken to arms more resolutely, energetically and aggressively; we should have explained to the masses that it was impossible to confine things to a peaceful strike and that a fearless and relentless armed fight was necessary.
we must carry on the widest agitation among the masses in favour of an armed uprising and make no attempt to obscure this question by talk about “preliminary stages”, or to befog it in any way. We would be deceiving both ourselves and the people if we concealed from the masses the necessity of a desperate, bloody war of extermination, as the immediate task of the coming revolutionary action.
That we must work among the troops goes without saying. But we must not imagine that they will come over to our side at one stroke, as a result of persuasion or their own convictions … at a time of uprising there must also be a physical struggle for the troops.
ruthless extermination of civil and military chiefs was our duty during an uprising
insurrection is an art and that the principal rule of this art is the waging of a desperately bold and irrevocably determined offensive
We must proclaim from the house tops the need for a bold offensive and armed attack, the necessity at such times of exterminating the persons in command of the enemy, and of a most energetic fight for the wavering troops.
The third great lesson taught by Moscow concerns the tactics and organisation of the forces for an uprising … [An essential part is] tactics and organisation raised by street fighting under the conditions imposed by modern military technique [he goes on to talk about the conditions of 1905, they may be different over 100 years later].
He goes on to say “if mass attacks are launched on the enemy, if a determined and skillful fight is waged for the troops, who after the Duma, after Sveaborg and Kronstadt are wavering more than ever—and if we ensure participation of the rural areas in the general struggle—victory will be ours in the next all-Russian armed uprising.” He finishes with
Other than the incidental mention of “the party of the class-conscious proletariat”, Lenin’s lessons are pretty universal and unambiguous, though desperate, brutal, violent, and, well, evil. Is there a part of the Russian underground that is prepared to fight for the minds, hearts and ammunition of the troops? If there is, it is not visible from outside. And if they win, will they be able to switch from brutality to a civil society, once they are in power? The evidence from Russian and other successful revolts is overwhelmingly against. Does this mean that Russia is screwed either way? Most likely. Moscow 2042 might yet prove prophetic.
This is a very good answer, but it seems like it is not answering the original post. (Or maybe my perception is biased and I am reading something that is not there… I apologize if so).
The main point I took from the post (and with which I wholeheartedly agree, so I am not approaching this topic as rationally as I probably should), is that, when talking about “buying off” Russia with a bit of Ukrainian land, the attention somehow avoids the people living there, and what will happen to them if such a compromise was enacted.
Probably not. And the existing system does everything it can to make sure no such underground will arise, by destroying the agency of the people living there. Chances are the system will succeed and there won’t be any change, forever.
And when talking about ceding, say, Zaporizhzhia Oblast to Russia, you must not forget that the people living there will get the same choice as the rest of Russia does now: get tortured, or become a zombie, or become an NPC.
Damn, this reminds me of a fiction story I read a long time ago, of a parallel timeline where Gandhi tried to use nonviolent resistance on Nazi occupants. Spoiler:
Nazis simply kept exterminating the Indian population, just like they wanted to, with zero remorse. The only effect of the nonviolent resistance was that it made their job slightly easier, otherwise everyone ignored it. (The moral of the story: you can only appeal to your opponent’s conscience if he has one.)
*
But then, why is the entire world not like Russia? Missing a genius psychopath like Lenin cannot be the whole answer: psychopaths are everywhere, sooner or later someone would stumble upon the right strategy. Also, I think that Russia was quite… dark… long before communism.
There are two hypotheses I am aware of. First, the hypothesis of a huge indefensible steppe, where the geography makes “build something and protect it” a losing strategy, and the only way to be safe is to proactively destroy everyone else, as far as you can. That of course keeps the population in constant misery and conflict.
But the Chinese seem to have had a similar problem, and they solved it by building a wall. Why haven’t Russian Tzars done the same? Maybe the situation was not as similar as it sounds, or maybe building a wall of that size is a project super unlikely to succeed, so it’s the China that requires explanation, not Russia.
Second, the hypothesis of a resource curse (a.k.a. The Dictator’s Playbook, The Rules for Rulers), according to which the places where “the population generates wealth” incentivize democracy, as people who are happy, well fed, and well educated, can generate more wealth, and if you hurt the people, you destroy the most precious resource you have; and the places where “the natural resources generate wealth” incentivize dictatorship, because you only need a few slaves to extract the resources, and an army to keep them working and prevent someone else from taking over your business, and everything else can go to hell. Is Russia similarly cursed by having a lot of oil today (and other resources in the past)?
The problem with this hypothesis is that in current world, an army requires modern weapons, which require having an industrial base; the industrial base requires education, so the people become important again; you cannot go full Pol Pot when surrounded by developed countries. Then again, “some industry and some education” do not require general well-being of your entire population; you could simply elevate some selected cities (such as Moscow and St Petersburg) to modern era and keep the rest at the stone age level. Maybe Russia recently went a little further towards the dictatorship end of the scale than would be optimal, hurt their population a bit too much, and as a consequence now its army became too dysfunctional?
Depending on which hypothesis is right, a possible solution might involve some artificial barriers (being surrounded by NATO members, who do not proactively attack the territory of Russia proper, is a kind of such barrier), or finding alternative sources of energy so efficient that oil would become virtually useless. Too optimistic, I know; I am just brainstorming here.
Resource rich countries don’t decide “how much of a dictatorship should I be?”, it’s rather that an organization with very strong moral mazes dynamics can manage to do resource extraction but they don’t manage more complicated processes.
You can’t easily move to a less corrupt military in peacetime just because you think you need a functioning military because the military lacks good feedback cycles.
Complete focus on military strength is how you get to the kind of governance that North Korea has.
>> Most uprising fail because of strategic and tactical reasons, not because the other side was more evil (though by many metrics it often tends to be).
I don’t disagree? I’m not saying that Russia is evil because the protests failed. It’s evil because it fights aggressive wars, imprisons, tortures and kills innocent people.
Didn’t mean to imply that, sorry.
Well, that’s not unique to Russia by any means. The US and virtually everyone else did all of the above as well, again and again. It’s more of a question of the scale/degree of evil. Not defending Russia, it needs to be stopped, but this is a sad reality of this world.
Scale/degree of evil matters a ton tho.
It does! Just not always easy to evaluate.
Your link just points back to this post.
Oops, thanks, fixed! The link is http://lesmaterialistes.com/english/lenin-lessons-moscow-uprising-1906