Runat dilemma
(runat - the word which refers to Russian nationalists - imperials)
The current guilty pleasure is to read all sorts of "disappointed militias" and just runats, like Girkin and company. This level of criticism of the ill-fated Russian military is hard to come by, even among Ukrainians. But at the same time, they all seem to imply that everything could be different. If real competent patriots, and not crooks and "plywood marshals", were at the head of the RF Armed Forces, then the latest drones would proudly fly over Ukraine now, and Kyiv would be taken in three days. All this, of course, is the first signs of an emerging new wave of resentment, the next fairy tales about a "knife in the back" - they say, volunteers, grassroots and middle staff of the Armed Forces showed miracles of heroism, but swindlers and traitors from the top leaked everything. What, of course, Runat will never recognize is that the current state of affairs is the literal embodiment of its ideals.
After all, what does this whole audience stand for? There, of course, there is some variation of opinions: someone likes to crunch a French bun, someone wraps himself in a red rag. But the essence is the same: they are in favor of a kind of hierarchical, command-administrative system, as opposed to the rotten West with its soy cuckolds and a million genders. The essence of their ideas about society is the "table of ranks", which the late Prosvirnin zealously shuddered at. However, the idea of an artificially constructed meritocracy ("let's come up with a system where only good people will get to the top") is a maniafantasy many times refuted by history. In reality, for some reason, it turns out that it is not the “best” who advance in a rigid hierarchical system, but those who know how to lick the ass of the authorities, intrigue, draw good reports. At all levels of such a system, collusions of elites are formed, which begin to redistribute resources in their favor. Therefore, the level of competence of the elites of the Russian Empire or the USSR was not much higher than the current ones. It's just that the times were different, there was an endless peasant resource with the appropriate demographics (in the Republic of Ingushetia), and technologies made it possible to engage in mass propaganda (in the USSR). But, nevertheless, the Republic of Ingushetia periodically got on the horns and then she had to carry out reforms, create zemstvos and allow the public to govern the state. The USSR eventually collapsed precisely as a result of the collusion of the elites, which permeated the entire system.
The only way to ensure long-term economic and technological development is to ensure the rule of law, transparency and market competition. The West is ahead of Russia by a head, not because there are people from some other test, but because these egalitarian mechanisms work there, which keep human opportunism at an acceptable level. Therefore, there is the only real way to get a strong Russia with the latest drones and a powerful army. We just need to release Navalny, start holding open elections, return powers to local authorities and regions, ensure the rule of law and fair market competition. Most likely, in a couple of decades, such a Russia would indeed have an army capable of sweeping its neighbors. But here's the thing: the authorities and society in such a Russia would never have thought of doing this, and the popularity of revanchism would have been at the level of a statistical error.
Here is the "dilemma of Runat" for you: you want a strong Russia, but it can be strong only when it is free, and there the imperial Wishlist would not go beyond the marginal field. And that Russia, where these wishes become the basis of politics, can only be a Russia of a closed hierarchy, which, by definition, will be rotten, incompetent and thievish. So, the "plywood marshal" is just flesh from the flesh of the Runat ideal. There weren't, there aren't, and there never will be others.
