Analysis: Prigozhin Is A Russian

My first thought upon reading of Prigozhin’s little insurrection, coming so quickly after the Ukrainian counter-offensive failed, is that it was a Russia-planned event to smoke out Neocon sympathizers. I didn’t like the idea even as I formulated it, because who circles the wagons after victory is secured? Also, high-level agents provocateur have a tendency to do it for real should they smell victory, something Russia knows better than most nations.

Then Vox Day claimed Prigozhin and his relevant lieutenant are Russian Jews, possibly even direct-descendants of the Tsar’s murderers, and were acting as a highly-placed sleeper cell. I didn’t like that idea either, because the time to turn Wagner and/or sow dissention along the Russian border was during the counterassault, not afterwards. Also, it implied that Russia was so foolish that it put a known Kagan-cousin in charge of the military force sent to fight the Kagans, and was then surprised by treachery.

Big Country Expat looked at a map and noticed that Prigozhin’s turn towards Belarus just happens to also be a turn towards Kiev. This COULD be a way to position troops for the deathblow, and framing it as “Wagner coup against Putin” might convince the Kagans… out of their minds with bloodlust… to not see a threat coming down the highway that even a deer in the headlights would avoid. But why the theatre? After that counter-spasm, UKR’s down to blanks and bayonets in the hands of babes.

This comment at Zman got me thinking in a new direction.

On the contrary, I say that Prigozhin is a Russian and that he is acting within the Russian historical tradition.

The analogues of Prigozhin’s Rebellion are not to be found in 1917 or 1905, but much further back, in the uprising of Stenka Razin (1670) and in Pugachev’s Rebellion (1773).

That curious mixture of brigandry with populist politics (so misunderstood by people in the West); those ill-fated and quixotic marches upon Moscow, chanting death to Tsars and bureaucrats; the gathering and then exile of mercenary forces sympathetic to the reform but equally and patriotically in love with the motherland—it has all happened before. This seems to be the way in which the Russian soul expresses itself in tense moments, just as surely as no American can get angry at his government without the echoes of the Tea Party and Declaration of Independence ringing in his ears.

Prigozhin gave voice to broad undercurrent in Russian society that, while very loyal to the government, wants to see the war prosecuted harder and burns with indignation at every brother Russian who dies in battle while the government plays it safe. Not wanting to appear contentious, they keep their thoughts to themselves until they explode in a great swing in the opposite direction, bringing vengeance and chastisement upon Moscow whom they view as a prodigal son. It is the style of the sudden catharsis, the style of the pogrom, the Russian style.

h ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenka_Razin

Razin originally set out to loot villages, but as he became a symbol of peasant unrest, his movement turned political. Razin wanted to protect the independence of the Cossacks and to protest an increasingly centralized government. The Cossacks supported the tsar and autocracy, but they wanted a tsar that responded to the needs of the people and not just those of the upper class. By destroying and pillaging villages, Razin intended to take power from the government officials and give more autonomy to the peasants. However, Razin’s movement failed and the rebellion led to increased government control. The Cossacks lost some of their autonomy, and the tsar bonded more closely with the upper class because both feared more rebellion. On the other hand, as Avrich asserts, “[Razin’s revolt] awakened, however dimly, the social consciousness of the poor, gave them a new sense of power, and made the upper class tremble for their lives and possessions.”

h ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pugachev%27s_Rebellion

Pugachev’s success in holding out against suppression for over a year proved to be a powerful incentive for future reforms. It made apparent to the government several problems with their treatment of the provinces. They were left weakly controlled and consequently, susceptible to outbreaks of peasant violence. The most crucial lesson Catherine II drew from the Pugachev rebellion, was the need for a firmer military grasp on all parts of the Empire, not just the external frontiers. For instance, when the governor of the Kazan guberniya called for assistance against the approaching Pugachev, there was no force available to relieve him.

This seems the right track. Prigorzin was a maverick, a disgraced nobleman if I read his past correctly, who had a lot to gain from leading Wagner to victory and not much to lose. Wagner itself was founded as a paramilitary group to do what the formal Army couldn’t, comparable to Blackwater or Bellingcat but without the fiction of independent operation.

And he succeeded. The 404 war will be studied for centuries, no question. Unfortunately, he succeeded, and now that Russia’s claims to the occupied areas are established, it’s time (and politically safe) for the Army to step in. Having beaten the existential threat of NATO, Prigozhin’s reward was to be removal from the top slot.

He decided to protest, and was free to make a dramatic gesture once the counterattack had failed. Many Russians are unhappy with Putin’s slow handling of Ukraine, and I myself have grown suspicious that Putin is quietly cooperating with the Neocons’ genociding Ukraine via conscription into hopeless artillery cauldrons.

Maybe he doesn’t want to take in any refugees.

Razin and Pugachev were both minor noblemen and sort of rags-to-riches-to-rags stories. Neither ultimately succeeded in their military expeditions, yet both of them improved the fates of the serfs and other commoners during the effort.

I can see how Prigozhin’s mini-charge towards Moscow might have been calculated for a similar effect, expressing the peoples’ frustration by making a doomed advance upon the capital. That, and his carefully not singling out Putin, explains why Putin offered a soft exile despite having executed opponents for much less offense. It was a resignation-under-protest, delivered in a culturally acceptable format.

Them Russians. Huh.