ガリーヴ氏による「マリウポリから見るロシアとウクライナの近代的発展」

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

You may raise an objection: ok, you brought up the world-system model in conversation about Russia. But why did you bring up this specific model and not another? Isn't your choice arbitrary? My answer would be: I use world-system model because it demonstrated predictive power

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Consider a Wallerstein's speech read to the startled Russian audience in 1995: Your next presidents will bear epaulets. You can't have anything else. You'll resume the Cold War with America because you are a semi-periphery country specialised on creating new conflicts pic.twitter.com/rhmdEORsGS

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Now we see that Wallerstein was right. But may be he was right accidentally? I don't think so. Factors that determined this kind of future were systemic rather than accidental. Consider that all three last PMs of Yeltsin: Primakov, Stepashin and Putin were intelligence officers pic.twitter.com/5SnMlgmWrS

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

It's not that Yeltsin accidentally chose a KGB guy as his heir. It's that all the candidates he would even consider were from the state security. The difference between Primakov and Putin is that the former tried to escalate the Cold War even *before* becoming the President pic.twitter.com/bXVfn9sVTN

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Foreigners perceive Putin as irrational. From the Russian perspective though, his behaviour looks very rational, cautious, reserved. First get the supreme power, *then* escalate international conflicts. His predecessor might have failed because he did it the other way around pic.twitter.com/JLl005gyeo

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

I think that Wallerstein correctly saw a systemic path of a semi-periphery empire specialised on creating conflicts and whose rulers will bear the epaulets. That's a constant of the Russian history that has nothing to do with a specific regime or a ruler pic.twitter.com/B1bu8P6DpV

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

As Alexander II told: "Russia is neither a merchant, nor agricultural state and its destiny is to be the menace [гроза] of the world" Whom do you see here? I see a guy in epaulets who specialises on creating conflicts. That's not an accident. That's the Wallerstein Constant pic.twitter.com/8EH1EEQ3uy

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

PS Wallerstein is dead but his PhD student Derluguian is very much alive. Back in the USSR his thesis on Mozambique Communist propaganda vocab was prohibited by the Central Committee. After moving to the US he focused on Caucasus and produced my favorite works on that region pic.twitter.com/g7xa8uO9sG

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Let's sum up. Russia has always been and currently is a semi-periphery empire which specialises in creating conflicts and is unable to build a bridge without massive foreign help and supervision. It can only import ready solutions from the core. That's the Wallerstein Constant pic.twitter.com/KYyrTobtYD

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Wallerstein Constant regarding the import of *ready* solutions from the core is very obvious if we consider the history of Mariupol. By 1900 it was an important logistical and industrial centre. It had two large Steel mills: American and Belgian one. Here you see a Belgian plant pic.twitter.com/76yImCfy5r

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

When Russian engineer Pavlov visited the American plant in Mariupol, he noticed a strange pink color of the furnace bricks: - Where does it come from? - From the US - But we could've bought much better and cheaper German bricks - Yes, but our managers don't trust German bricks pic.twitter.com/ZsFTObjtpc

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Indeed, Julian Kennedy who oversaw the construction of this steel mill, didn't trust German bricks. So he shipped all of the equipment from the bricks to the rivets from America. That illustrates the tendency to import *ready* solutions from the core to the periphery pic.twitter.com/D2SHObb29N

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Notice that a Russian engineer didn't question the use of foreign equipment per se. Should we use German or American stuff? That's what was on the table. Russians advocated for the German, but it didn't matter. Foreign supervisors imported ready solutions and wouldn't experiment pic.twitter.com/3r8hmhgArn

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

In the Belle Époque Russian economy was driven primarily by the private initiative. German, Belgian, American, etc companies competed with each other (more or less) freely. After 1917 that changed and the free competition was eliminated. But the Wallerstein Constant wasn't pic.twitter.com/qLspYVSAGL

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Communist revolution temporarily closed Russia for the foreign businesses. Private companies, whether domestic or foreign, were nationalised and foreign investors/experts mostly had to evacuate. That doesn't mean however that the USSR was autarkic. Not at all pic.twitter.com/NTWnOKajzF

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Lenin had a love-hate relationship with American capitalism. Consider his 1914 article "Taylor's system: Enslavement of a human by a machine". American scientific management was inhumane. And yet, it prepared economy for a takeover by the even scientific socialist management pic.twitter.com/EYJhCJpQ15

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Yes, scientific management is brutal. But once society accepted it, it accepted the idea that an enterprise can and should be reorganised according to a rational plan. Which paves a way for a next iteration when the entire society will be reorganised according to a rational plan pic.twitter.com/Td26d9ZmLk

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Taylorism and other core capitalist practices were just the first stages of rationalisation and centralisation of the industrial production. This centralisation&rationalisation process would culminate in building a centrally planned socialist economy. Isn't that great? pic.twitter.com/iYQ4aOqTso

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

And yet, Lenin's plan didn't work out. Yes, Bolsheviks took over Russia, but they didn't want to take over Russia. They wanted to take over the capitalist core of the world. Immediately upon consolidating their power in Russia they launched an expedition westward. It failed pic.twitter.com/JNDPqq36er

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Communists intended to take over the industrial powerhouses of the West which, according to their theory, were advanced enough for the next stage of development - socialism. But they took over a backward country which according to the same theory was totally unprepared for it pic.twitter.com/87ZZyPzAF4

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

In terms of the world-system theory, Bolsheviks intended to take over the core, but they took over the semi-periphery. And Vladimir Lenin understood it better than anyone else. He refused to call the Bolshevik revolution or the Soviet economy "socialist". They were capitalist pic.twitter.com/40tqXOjVoi

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

In 1921 Lenin argued: "We completed a bourgeois-democratic revolution better than anyone else. We will consciously, firmly and implacably move forward to the socialist revolution" According to Lenin 1917 wasn't a socialist revolution and USSR wasn't a socialist state pic.twitter.com/M6XvFkZJpm

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Lenin's refusal to characterise his revolution or his state as "socialist" makes total sense if we assume that he was a smart and genuine believer. According to his theory you couldn't jump through a stage of development. Thus backward Russia couldn't become socialist overnight pic.twitter.com/kJIL8ZkGk6

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

But if Communist Russia wasn't socialist, then what have we built by nationalising businesses and establishing state control over the economy? Well, state capitalism ofc. As long as Lenin was alive official doctrine claimed Russia had state capitalism with some socialist elements pic.twitter.com/xRqgONk7ex

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

That's why Lenin allowed commerce in 1921 - a decision was so widely hated within the Communist Party. I think that Stalin's takeover of power can be better understood if we interpret the inner politics of the Communist party in Gaetano Mosca's terms. But I'll cover it next time pic.twitter.com/sW7bTToD6h

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

But if we have the state capitalism here in the USSR, then we should act as capitalists, shouldn't we? And if we act as capitalists, then we should emulate the best capitalist practices. And where can we find the best capitalist practices? By 1920s the answer was pretty obvious pic.twitter.com/VcuZYB5RXS

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Unrecognised Soviet Russia needed proxies to trade with the West. The All Russian Cooperative Society Limited (Arcos) founded in London in 1920 as a British company operating under the British Law and led by Leonid Krasin controlled nearly all Soviet import and much of export pic.twitter.com/0lRuHcTv5A

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Krasin was one of patriarchs of the Bolshevik party. Like Lenin he was kicked out from the uni for his revolutionary activities, spent time in prison and in exile. Unlike Lenin however, Krasin finished his education and received an engineering degree from the Harkiv university pic.twitter.com/g0lRtgLeam

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Krasin led a double life. On the one hand he was a successful engineer and industrial manager. He was a deputy chief of Siemens AG office in Berlin and then in Moscow. On the other hand he was a revolutionary cooped to the Central Committee of the Party in Brussels in 1903 pic.twitter.com/ReRyK3Kq3g

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Krasin was largely responsible for funding the Bolsheviks. He was accused of murdering his ex-patron Savva Morozov. As a result of family conflict tycoon Morozov lost control over his industrial empire and couldn't fund the Bolsheviks anymore. Still, his life could be insured pic.twitter.com/vbJPsGqGYW

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Bolshevik actress Andreeva (left) had an affair with ex-tycoon Morozov (right). Reportedly she persuaded him to insure his life for 100 000 rubles, so she wouldn't suffer from poverty. Then Krasin murdered Morozov and she collected the cheque. Morozov's wife tried to sue but lost pic.twitter.com/RgwfMMaKTF

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Do we have the evidence that it were the Bolsheviks who killed Morozov? Not really. But we have the evidence that: - They couldn't milk him anymore - His life was insured - ndreeva collected the paycheck - She and her lover Gorky funded the Party school on Capri Island for years pic.twitter.com/xR7Q0r2kiJ

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

After the revolution Krasin was charged with organising the supplies of the Red Army. Then he left to Europe as a de facto economic&financial representative of Lenin. In 1920 he incorporated the Arcos company in London and settled there to organise Soviet imports and exports pic.twitter.com/3ZtDZ45BqZ

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Unfortunately, by the 1920s the UK wasn't the workshop of the world anymore. The US took that role. In order to trade with the US, Soviets created a number of proxies of proxies such as the Arcos America company. In 1924 those proxies were merged to form the Amtorg pic.twitter.com/XeB25fZMlE

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Amtorg was also an American company operating under the American law, but totally controlled by the Soviet government. And it was *the* key agency for organising the Soviet industrialisation. In 1927 Stalin appointed this Odessa-born, Zurich-trained economist as the CEO of Amtorg pic.twitter.com/RcMKHdPwHc

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

As the Amtorg CEO Saul Bron approached the Detroit industrial architect Albert Kahn and commissioned him with organising the Soviet industrialisation. Kahn wouldn't just draw designs, he would organise the entire process. How? By importing ready solutions from America pic.twitter.com/9KIMbuvmEN