Putin's Wheel

Stop, I want to get off

This text is from the NEVOINA telegram channel: https://t.me/narodpv

The 140-meter Ferris wheel in the Ostankinsky district of Moscow, which Putin personally came to open the day before, has broken down. Those Muscovites and guests of the capital who decided to take a spin on the wheel - “the largest in Europe,” consecrated by Putin himself - got stuck in their booths. From the windows of a nearby large multi-story apartment building, just a few meters from the wheel, their confused and frightened faces were probably clearly visible.

The inhabitants of this building fought for about three years against the monument to Putin’s megalomania, which was erected right in their yard anyway. Now their struggle has been rewarded. Let this not be the final victory, but its harbinger.

A little more time will pass and everything that Putin has touched will crumble to dust.

But first, we must all together get off the crazy wheel that started spinning exactly 200 days ago, in February. Let us get down, back onto the ground, and stand against the hand that gave the first push.

It is significant that the wheel incident occurred on the very day when the Ukrainian offensive occurred. Not only the Russian troops at the front received a heavy blow, but the virtual “Russian World” of ultra-right propagandists, and the couch-bound garrisons of nationalist shut-ins suffered even more. Not only did their front collapse, but the very foundations of their imaginary little world began to sag. Putin’s Russia is not at all so formidable, and the opera is not as grand as was promised.

The common denominator of turbo-patriotic hysteria is this: they want - demand! beg! - a fix from the very government that has brought the army to the Izyum disaster. This was stated in so many words by Ramzan Kadyrov, the self-appointed spokesmen for this bunch, who threatened to reach the very top if the generals do not correct themselves.

Professional Great Russians are rending their garments online: “The Fatherland is in danger! The elites and the people must unite in the face of the obvious threat to our very statehood!”

The authorities, as if in mockery, answer them with a festive distraction on Moscow City Day. Putin opens the Ferris wheel, and Defense Ministry spokesman Konashenkov dutifully mumbles about the countless number of destroyed enemy soldiers. You think it sounds like a retreat? No, no, the authorities said it was a planned regrouping. Quit rocking the boat!

The patriotic public remains in the grip of the stooge instinct to lick the boots of one’s betters. They whine pitifully, reminding their masters of who is responsible for the abyss that has suddenly opened up before them: “But we, the common people, were never asked if we wanted to start this campaign.” Fair enough, they weren’t asked. But they answer thus: “If we are defeated now, we, in our ordinary quilted jackets, will face prison, humiliation and ruin!” The fascist slugs complain about the situation, but they immediately try to scare the “respectable national elite”: “And you - everyone - will feel the tremors all the way to the top. Winning this special operation is no less important for you than it is for us.”

Let’s explain something to the ultra-patriots. It’s not about the lack of political will on the part of Putin and his courtiers. The problem is in the very social structure, on top of which this Putin of yours sits. This design is incompatible with mobilization. If you conscript and arm a couple of million men, you will get not a combat-ready army, but an armed opposition. In order to mobilize the economy, it is necessary to tighten the belts of the voracious bureaucracy and oligarchy. And they are the support of the throne, the feudal nobility, the masters of the Russian land. The thing is, for some reason you think that you are in the same boat with them. They still consider you just a servant. It is easier for the authorities to shorten your tongues than to upset the princes. Even to remove a dozen or two especially crooked nobles, ministers, state capitalists, or generals is almost impossible. After all, one demonstrative flogging can turn the entire elite against the king-priest. It’s not far from being hit on the head with a snuffbox. Remember what happened to Tsar Pavel? The Kremlin definitely does. It is easier to maintain a formidable Russian silence and do nothing.

“The worst thing that can happen now is nothing,” the patriots whine. They will talk about an empty gesture of goodwill and pretend that it is necessary. There will be no change in strategy, no re-equipment of the army, no reinforcements will be created or dispatched. All the while, the enemy will laugh at us.

So it will be. There will be more and more losses. The shells will run out. The army will freeze, die, and decay. Then the economy will collapse. The authorities will continue to pretend that everything is going according to plan. Putin’s aristocracy is driven to the abyss by its fate. And the ultra-right fellow travelers of this government are rushing to their own fate. Igor Strelkov and other “critical patriots” will sooner or later create a new “Progressive Bloc” and demand their piece of power, as was done in 1917. Kadyrov and Prigozhin will play Prince Yusupov with Purishkevich, trying to save the sovereign from the evil influence of another Rasputin. All this has already happened. The roles are scheduled, the wheel of history, unlike Putin’s Ferris wheel, is spinning.

Did patriots and conservatives dream of reconstructing the Russian Empire? Congratulations, you did it! Here’s some extra little morsels of humiliation: the empire is smaller, and the Black Hundreds are fewer, you are still losing a war, but this time not to anyone as formidable as the Kaiser. But you were warned: history repeats itself in the form of farce.

And remind me, how does this opera end?

Translated by Dan Erdman