The reason people should cool it with the "Russia is collapsing" mania is quite simple: the bald caterer has done absolutely nothing to organize an actual coup. Let's go through why that is below. π§΅
This will be a pretty long thread in order to disentangle some concepts.
This will be a pretty long thread in order to disentangle some concepts.
Number one: this is the really obvious one. The caterer hasn't even said he wants a civil war or a coup. Last I checked his demands were fairly modest, and basically amounted to resolving a contractual dispute. This is kind of a big problem for those hoping for a civil war!
But, some of you may ask, what about a *coup*, rather than a civil war? Maybe the caterer is hoping to replace Russia with Outer Heaven or Zanzibar Land!
This brings us to problem number two: the total lack of basic "best practices" for coup-makers on display.
This brings us to problem number two: the total lack of basic "best practices" for coup-makers on display.
People are pissing themselves talking about how the caterer now has the nuclear codes and he's gonna use Metal Gear Rex to fulfill Big Boss' dream or whatever. But that's just silly. Even if the caterer has the "nuclear codes", he would need the buy-in from *the nuclear forces*.
This brings us to the real core of the matter: the caterer does not have much buy-in at all. "Coup" comes from the French word for "strike" or "stroke", and a "coup d'etat" is thus a strike on or against the state. A couple of things follow naturally from this.
The #1 rule of a coup is to strike against the capital, and more precisely, the decision-making and information-disseminating centers inside it. To show how things are done, we can thus talk about an early 20th century example: the ten tragic days.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
The ten tragic days was in fact two coups in one. The first one occured on day one of the ten tragic days, when Bernardo Reyes moved on the national palace in order to take it over (but the preparations were spotted and the palace was fortified in advance).
The second coup, the successful one, occured when Victoriano Huerta - who was called in to deal with the first coup - organized a lightning strike against the government. Before president Maduro even knew what was going on, his brother had already been killed by Huerta.
Leading a "coup" from Rostov is just impossible pretty much by definition, because it is not a strike against the head of the state. At best you can hope to achieve what the Decembrists of Russia hoped to achieve.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
But again, saying the Decembrists hoped to just inspire Russia to rise up against oppression would be unfair to their planners, because they did at least try to strike against the government. They hit the capital (weakly, unsuccessfully) before they were beaten.
The caterer, however, is not a decembrist. He isn't preaching freedom or liberty or whatever for mother Russia, he's complaining about a *contract dispute*. Pretty weak tea, and not exactly something you can see inspiring some sort of general uprising.
At this point, ideas of this being a "coup" - again, a *strike against the state* - are reliant on two completely fanciful narratives: 1) the caterer securing Metal Gear Rex and the nuclear warheads and declaring Outer Heaven, or 2) a general uprising based on... uh... something.
What the caterer *has* organized has a term: that term is mutiny. Mutinies do not usually lead to coups, but they can lead to civil wars. But that is only if the tinder is there. The citizens of Rostov telling the wagner soldiers to stop being doofuses tells you it's not there.
We shouldn't call something that isn't civil war a civil war, nor something that isn't a coup a coup. A mutiny is another thing entirely, and follows their own rules and precedents. People should not engage in wishful thinking by confusing these things.
So how serious is a mutiny? The short answer is "it depends". Mutinies *can* be very serious, and again, they can be serious because if the society is deeply divided or dysfunctional they often trigger revolutions. The trienio liberal is a good example:
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
But it seems foolish at this juncture to hope for a Russian trienio liberal. Putin isn't Ferdinand VII, and Russia is not Spain mired in a return to dysfunctional absolutism after having fought a guerilla war against Napoleon that gave spaniards a taste for liberal autonomy.
Like you can come up with a bunch of just-so narratives, like "uhhh the war is going badly for Russia and people are sick of it, therefore revolution, therefore civil war", but if that was the case, the caterer is the least likely guy in the room to carry that torch for you.
It's pretty conspicious that the people westerners now hope will plunge Russia into some sort of civil war based on war weariness are the sort of people who think the war in Ukraine should be *scaled up*, not down.
The other issue of wishful thinking here is just this idea that Wagner, guided by the shining light of the caterer's bald pate and the crimson Z will fight to the last man against the government. But, uh, *why* exactly would they do this? What's in it for them?
Almost all mutinies end in some sort of negotiated settlement. This is especially true if the mutineers are not particularly militant, the society isn't particularly dysfunctional or polarized, and the goals of the leaders aren't far reaching. All three hold true here.
So, to sum up this thread, here are the relevant points:
1) Prigozhin has done 0% of the things required for a coup.
2) This is a mutiny.
3) Mutinies can trigger civil wars, but this happens only rarely.
4) Nothing indicates it will happen here.
5) Most mutinies end peacefully.
1) Prigozhin has done 0% of the things required for a coup.
2) This is a mutiny.
3) Mutinies can trigger civil wars, but this happens only rarely.
4) Nothing indicates it will happen here.
5) Most mutinies end peacefully.
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