WORLD WORLDWIDE RUSSIA UKRAINE WAR News Journal Update - (en) Russia, avtonom: To the murder of Prigozhin and Utkin - Vladimir Platonenko (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The murder of Prigozhin and Utkin is an event, not saying anything about

it is simply inconvenient. I will immediately note that I do not
consider it a staged act, that is, a staging - it is least beneficial
for Putin to pass off a living Prigozhin as a dead one (he would rather
pass off a dead person as a living one if he could do this), and
Prigozhin and his supporters are simply not able to organize such a
performance and at the same time avoid being quickly exposed by Putin
and Co. Well, what else can be said about the murder of the heroes of
our time?
Eliminating rivals and the consequences of this
First of all, Putin eliminates possible rivals, and therefore possible
successors (for a possible successor, as a rule, is a possible rival).
All dictators do this. Therefore, after the death of a dictator, as a
rule, he does not have an undisputed successor, and a fight for power
begins (the story of Yeltsin is a rare exception, the reasons for which
must be discussed separately, and Putin will not repeat it, because the
conditions are not the same). Often this fight is accompanied by popular
uprisings and unrest. So it was after the death of Grozny, and after the
death of Stalin. But after the death of Peter this did not happen, for
all this happened both before Peter and with him; he brutally suppressed
it, bleeding the people dry, and the people simply did not have the
strength left for a new attempt.

I cannot judge what strength the Russian people will have after Putin's
death. On the one hand, the most active and rebellious Russians are
either killed and imprisoned, or fled, on the other hand, the war can
influence the obedient and passive ones, making a violent showdown so
commonplace that even the last few will decide on it. Finally, I note
that unrest is far from a revolution; it can lead to a revolution, but
it may not.

"Wagner" and others
After the murder of its founding fathers, "Wagner" was orphaned, but did
not die. The Wagnerites will look for new owners. Perhaps over time they
will somehow get used to it and dissolve in other power structures, but
this will take time and, I think, a lot. And if Putin gives up in the
next year or two, the Wagnerites will become another separate force in
the struggle for power. And by military force.

This increases the likelihood of unrest, but at the same time reduces
the likelihood of it escalating into revolution. A Wagnerian either has
no convictions and fights for whoever pays the most, or has convictions
that do not go beyond the framework of the system. The most "advanced"
of them may want Russia to be an empire from the Atlantic Ocean to the
Pacific, or that it be a national Russian state from the Carpathians to
the Urals; so that many languages and races exist in it, or so that all
its inhabitants switch to the Russian language and are baptized
according to the Orthodox rite, or, finally, so that only
representatives of the white race remain in it, and all others are
expelled or exterminated. But none of the Wagnerians doubt the necessity
of the state and the capital they serve. Most of them, most likely, do
not bother with such issues at all, but simply serve the one who gives
them money. Ideologically, they are not much different from the gangs of
the dashing 90s.

The same applies to all kinds of "Rusichs" (by the way, "Rusich", if I'm
not mistaken, is considered part of "Wagner", so to speak, a vassal
organization) and similar military units. In addition, governors were
recently allowed to create local territorial self-defense units to
protect themselves from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but the governors
are in no hurry to do this for an understandable reason - no one wants
to share Prigozhin's fate. In the future, if one of the governors wants
to play separatism, he will need his own combat troops. But so far none
of the governors has dared to do this - they are too cowardly for this,
and the consequences of artificial selection are taking their toll. And
if anyone decides, then they will create detachments from people who are
proven and loyal, among whom potential revolutionaries are unlikely to
be. Although, what the hell is not joking?

Are revolutionary squads possible?
Revolutionary detachments may appear spontaneously from ordinary
Russians uniting for self-defense against such professional warriors,
when these same warriors will not only establish their power, but also
accompany this with all kinds of violence and robberies. But it is still
difficult to imagine where such independent associations could appear.
The Russian countryside has become depopulated, and in large cities the
population is divided.

Of course, the situation is not the same everywhere. Even in the Russian
Federation there are areas where people have retained the ability to
self-organize, for example, the North Caucasus. But these are just
separate parts of the country, and not most of it.

Centers of attraction, crystallization points for the creation of such
detachments can become small existing groups of activists, primarily
those who participate in underground partisan activities, posting
leaflets, setting fire to military registration and enlistment offices,
and disabling sections of railways. But there are also very few such
groups and activists.

By the way, such spontaneous groups can be created around the same
warriors who have strayed from the feeding trough, or from people who
found themselves in a war through mobilization and learned there to act
quickly and decisively. At the same time, mobilizers, in a certain
situation, can become revolutionaries, but professional warriors are
unlikely.

The picture is not very comforting, however, it must be borne in mind
that in the event of unrest, the central government will weaken, and
events on the ground will depend on local situations. Let us at least
remember how during the Civil War of 1918-1924. not only in different
parts of the former empire, but even in relatively close areas, for
example, on the Don, in the Donbass, in the "Makhnovist" and "Petliura"
regions, events developed according to completely different scenarios.
Something similar will happen in the event of the coming turmoil, and,
who knows, perhaps revolutionary centers will appear somewhere that will
be able to hold out until better times. There is little hope for this,
but it still exists. Let me end on this not the most cheerful, but still
not the saddest note.

https://avtonom.org/author_columns/k-ubiystvu-prigozhina-i-utkina
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca