Dima Vorobiev

“Weak Strongman” by Timothy Frye: why you should read this book

If you want to understand Russia better, here are the reasons why you should read this book .

1. Deflating Putinology

Putinology, i.e. the approach “Know Putin, Know Russia”, has dominated the newsfeed from Russia and research about it. This Putin-centricity assumes that the man is motivated by a core set of beliefs—and if you can decipher them, you can make sense of his policy, as well as predict what’s the future has in store for us.

Tim Frye demonstrates that the worldview of President Putin and his personal power is hugely exaggerated as a policy factor. He faces a wealth of constraints we can’t even imagine. Studying his tactical thinking and his reactive frame of mind is much more relevant.

2. Stress on quantitative research

The author doesn’t go down the beaten path of profusely quoting newsmakers, activists, media persons, dissidents, and tidbits from past newsfeeds to prove his points. Quantitative research, with a lot of figures and summaries of opinion polls, takes much place in the book. I wish this would be a golden standard for those who make a claim to explaining Russia’s current policies to the public.

3. Cross-cultural context

Tim Frye pulls together much international research about countries with political traditions comparable to Russia. It shows that what happens here is rather mainstream in the global context. If you believe the author, Russia is no longer the “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” like it was in the era of Churchill and Stalin.

My favorite quotes:

Former leader of the Soviet Union Khrushchev… described governing Russia to Fidel Castro as follows:

“You’d think I could change anything in this country. Like hell, I can. No matter what changes I propose and carry out, everything stays the same. Russia is like a tub full of dough, you put your hand down in it, down to the bottom, and think you are master of the situation. When you first pull out your hand, a little hole remains, but then, before your very eyes, the dough expands into a spongy, puffy mass. That’s what Russia is like.”

Russians have long since abandoned hope that the government will help solve their problems… Russians continue to rely heavily on friends and family to find jobs, earn a living, and solve their daily problems. They turn to the state and politics primarily when all other options have failed. As Greene argues, “The general quiescence [of the Russian public] coexists with a deep-seated antipathy toward the country’s ruling elite.”

“As late as June 2002, Putin stated that NATO enlargement to include the Baltics was “no tragedy” so long as no new military infrastructure was introduced.”

Three reasons not to read Tim Frye’s book

1. The yawn factor. The language is approachable alright, the topics are fully in trend. But the more you read it, the less exceptional modern Russia looks to you. If you believe Mr. Frye, almost all that’s going on here in our neck of the woods, has been observed someplace else in the world, time and time again.

2. Ideological non-alignment. If you belong to Putin’s fan club or are a Putin-hater, little in the book really gets you excited. Our beloved President mostly comes across as a shrewd guy who just minds his own business of getting the best out of his stay in the Kremlin for himself, his friends, and his family.

3. The book is a bit too light on Russian sources for empirical research data. I would expect more from someone with “fluent Russian” as his CV has it.

The picture below shows a half pint of dark ale at the bar Pig and Rose in Moscow. It teaches us to better tell foam from beer in President Putin’s policies—the way Tim Frye does in his book.

Tim Frye tells foam from beer in President Putin’s policies.

What can you learn in one minute that will be useful for the rest of your life?

Keep your body moving and

… doing burpees.

We eat too much, often the wrong kind of food—and move around too little. Most people neglect their bodies to the degree where the body can’t take care of itself anymore. One day, it gets out of shape so badly it goes into a tailspin, and then only the most strong-willed of us can put it back on track.

Burpees lower the threshold back to salvation more than anything else. I hate burpees and I love burpees—for three reasons.

1. It’s simple

You can do it everywhere: in your bedroom, at the roadside, in a hotel room, even at the back of the plane on transcontinental flights. And you need no trainer to teach you the technique.

2. It’s effective

Burpees is your ticket to the Hell of Anaerobic Exercise. This is the place for lazy bags like me who hate wasting time on unproductive things like exercising. Just a few minutes of pain and sweaty misery sprinkled throughout your daily/weekly routine will burn your calories and build your muscle mass like nothing else.

3. It’s scaleable

Even if you’re extremely out of shape, burpees are scaleable enough to accommodate you.

The founder of the Soviet state Vladimir Lenin was amazed to discover the magic of burpees when he was grounded in a police lock-up. Being an atheist vigilante, he called the variation of this exercise “prayer bends”. In one of his letters, he wrote of his “50 prayer bends challenge” (В.И. Ленин. Полное собрание сочинений. Том 55, стр.72).

The secret

The key to success is to use your heart rate for steering the exercise. You’ll need an HR measuring device that shows you the HR continuously while you’re torturing yourself.

I always include the anaerobic self-torturing at the start of every training session. I’m pushing 60, so my safe anaerobic range is between 142–160 BPM.

Routine

I do 5 anaerobic sets that take me about 10 minutes.

I spurt (or use the elliptical) to push my HR to 150.
Once my HR gets up to 150, I keep up the effort so that it stays between 150 and 160, and do this for 1 minute.
After 1 minute, I cool down to get the HR to under 130.
Once under 130, I spurt again up to 150, take 1 minute, then cool down again.

These 10 minutes are usually the most miserable ones of my day. But that’s exactly what they are supposed to be. I take these minutes as a reasonable penance for enjoying myself the rest of the time.

Precaution

No pain, no gain is exactly what’s at play here.

However, the heart rate according to the table above is something you shall never, never, never challenge. Even with a strong heart, there’s always a risk you can push it too far if you go beyond the hot red zone.

This is why you must progress slowly, and always have the HR displayed in front of you. Talk to your doctor, start in humility, observe your body’s reaction, stay safe. Best of all, find yourself a good PT for the first few sessions: it gives you both better motivation and builds up a safe routine that you can start tweaking to your heart’s content.

Gauge

For measuring your HR you can use any belt device you fix to your chest. For example, this cheap Wahoo thingie can pair with the iPhone you keep in front of you.

Footnote: I’m a certified PT.

As a conservative, how do you stay in shape?

Short answer: Rucking and burpees.

Longer answer:

The Covid pandemics and the recurring lockdown let my inner conservative spread his wings like never before – and rucking and burpees have become a very prominent role in my body’s maintenance routine.

Historically, these two are very conservative exercises.

Below, me bathing in sunset shines in my gym this summer. Over the last year, despite certain overconsumption of red wine and chocolate, I went down in weight from 86 to 78 kg. (My height is 182 cm).

What I did was taking into use two basic body exercises known to the pious and God-fearing for thousands of years.

1. Rucking

Rucking is a heavy-duty, lower-intensity workout that consists of walking or slowly running with a weight for a set distance. Usually, it happens with a weighted rucksack. I use a weighted 30 kg vest:

I pace the walk to keep my average heart rate at about 80–85% of my maximum HBM for 30–45 minutes. Almost the entire body working under the pressure of additional kilograms makes me break in sweat during the first few minutes of the exercise. Usual walks bore me to death. Rucking at about 6 kmh with an additional 30 kg is the opposite of boring, I assure you.

Saint Peter was the most known practitioner (albeit involuntary) of rucking. In his time, people used chains for weight. St. Peters device is kept on display in the reliquary of San Pietro in Vincoli.

Many Christians have been practicing this ever since. Some of them even made it a lifestyle item. Below is a part of a large painting “Boyar Lady Morozova” with a fool for Christ sporting a massive metal cross with an industrial chain over his shoulders.

Below, a modern-day Russian lady in an Orthodox procession disciplining her body and spirit with a similar device.

2. Burpees

Burpees are ground bows extended to lying down flat on the floor at the low point and jumping jacks at the high point. You can take burpees at your own tempo. Fast or slow, they are taxing anyway.

The classic of Marxism-Leninism Vladimir Lenin discovered the magic of burpees in Tsar’s lock-up. This illustrates one major great advantage of burpees. You can do them whenever pandemics, angry parents, or court orders ground you in some cramped space.

Once you start doing burpees, it doesn’t take too many of them before you find out how much you hate them. I hate them, too. But my inner conservative is merciless. Millions of Christians, Muslims, and others who practiced the deep bows through centuries — and the founder of Soviet rule is also among them —can not be wrong. I abide.

Below, a woman in old-era Russia performs deep bows in the small living room of a peasant cottage in front of her mother-in-law. Combining your burpee routine with relationship-building with your in-laws, how about that?

What are the best films with conservative themes?

Conservative Themes on Screen in nutshell.

My Top Three Films to turn you into a conservative.

(The list below is based on my understanding of conservatism as a life strategy focused on detecting incoming threats and defending your perimeter.

As a conservative, I don’t believe in “good news”. The good news is no news. No news is good news. Change is mostly about things turning bad, or worse. Death is the ultimate Change Agent. Nor do I trust progress. “Progress” is an illusion, a mere projection of spiraling complexity of the outside world, cold and indifferent to man.)

1. “Black Hawk Down”, by Ridley Scott

The tale of President Clinton’s misfired “humanitarian mission” in Somalia in 1993. A brilliant exposé on how the best of plans to help out people in need turns into an orgy of death and destruction, where the bravest and the innocent are the first to get killed.

The bluish color palette is bled for light. The ageless ethnic-inspired musical theme is soaked with pain and sorrow. The final scene where heavily armed Americans run home to their base through a devastated cityscape peppered by rounds from ghost-like locals clearly tells you the bottom line. In this world, consider just staying alive for another day as a success. Anything above that is a precious blessing that won’t last long.

2. “The Wire” (TV series)

It’s the best TV series of all time to me. It’s a paradox how strongly the team of its liberal creators projects the central message of conservatism: the mission of man is to keep the Devil down in the hole, for as long as possible. At the end of the day, the Devil always breaks out—but don’t let it happen on your watch!

The iconic Clay Davis’ line is a hilarious soundbite to illustrate how progressives almost always play the Devil’s hand in the best-intentioned of their endeavors. Sorting out their mess falls on the conservatives. But never mind. As Murphy’s Combat Laws postulate, “Anything you do can get you killed. Including doing nothing.”

3. “Hard to be a god”, by late Alexei German

A dark, depressing piece for select film connoisseurs.

A progressive Earthling tries to save few feeble shoots of science and enlightenment among humanoids in some medieval extra-terrestrial universe. People there live unhappy lives in squalor and dirt. The black-and-white scenery reeks of stale sewage, an unkept slaughterhouse, smoke from damp firewood, and vintage BO.

It takes a particular passion for art movies to sit it out for the movie’s entire length. In keeping with Russian storytelling traditions, it’s protracted, verbose, loaded with attempts at collateral storylines and obscure cultural allusions. “If you’re bored, this is not made for the likes of you”.

What the movie does though, is vividly show life through the lenses of Russian progressives. Over many centuries, they’ve been agonizing finding themselves in an ocean of poor, uneducated, apathetic, often hostile and downright sadistic commoners, and their thieving, arrogant, ruthless rulers. A few bold attempts to profoundly make a difference ended in misery for millions, like in 1917 and 1991.

This slow-moving train wreck of a universe is suffused with conservative wisdom. Some houses cannot be put back in order, no matter how much resources and firepower you have. Let them burn if they want to. But for God’s sake keep them from burning your house!

How can patriotism be expressed today?

In Russia, patriotism means government-approved nationalism.

Our preferred way of showing patriotism is to augment the loyalist narrative we find in the mass media. A small selection of photos below from a few years back demonstrates what it looks like at out place. This was the zenith of national pride after the reconquest of the Crimean peninsula.

Russia in defiance of the Russia-hating narrative of Western powers: “Obama and Angela of Death: get your bloody hands off the Russian World!” (Angela of Death is a reference to Angela Merkel)

“Führer Obama, get your bloody hands off Novorossyia” (Novorossiya is the southern part of Ukraine with a large Russian majority)

The sad girl below holds a poster that says “Fascington, sign off the act of capitulation: Russians are coming!”

The patriotic tattoo at the waistline of the man below shows an outline of the Crimean peninsula, the symbol of national pride:

View Post

Below, a car owner celebrating the opening of the bridge linking Crimea to mainland Russia. The sticker says: “Crimea is ours. Trump is ours. Alaska [next].”

How much do Russians trust their government?

About as much as our weather.

We trust our weather to be:

Unpredictable
Often brutal
More benign to us—who know how to adapt to it and see early warnings of approaching tempests, snow storms and icy spells—than to our enemies. Our weather famously defeated Napoleon and Hitler’s plans of conquest. This makes the parallel to our government obvious to even the hopelessly obtuse.

The motif in the picture below is inspired by the British Peaky Blinders TV series. It resonates with the deep philosophy of our mighty State in treating its subjects. Gems form under scorching temperatures and unimaginable pressure, geologists say. This is exactly Russia’s secret recipe for producing so many talents at most critical turns of history.

Putin-haters among our Stalinists and radical nationalists loudly bemoan the lacklustre performance of modern Russia on the global scene. They ascribe it to the calm, comfortable life of our generation. Consumerism and the cult of self-gratification spoiled men who no longer seek glory and conquest, they say. The innate ability of our State to corral the populace into epic projects is their last hope that another world is still possible. The great mass of my compatriots also trust that if someone of Stalin’s caliber takes the Kremlin after Putin, the spirit of Biblical endeavours might well rise and shine again in Moscow.

Which is why few of us really want President Putin to leave.

Does black privilege exist?

Short answer:

“Black privilege” definitely existed in the USSR. Up until the late 1980s when the crumbling of Soviet rule threw open our borders to a huge variety of international travelers, a black person in the streets of Moscow almost always belonged to a tiny privileged minority.

Long answer

Below, a front of a Beryózka grocery shop in Moscow somewhere in the mid-1970s. Those in lawful possession of Western money could buy at such places most of what was available at the time in Europe or the US. Beryozkas were for foreigners and those of Moscovites who had savings from their overseas visits and stays as diplomats, sailors, trade reps, spies, and suchlike.

Invalyúta (“hard currency”)! The salt of the earth, the key to all riches, the joy of their lives! The rest of us were relegated to the sad, crowded, chronically understocked places for lowly ruble commoners.

Together with foreign tourists, the total market of Beryozka shops consisted of some tens of thousands of lucky guys with their families and friends. But an imported car like the 1963 Ford Galaxy in the photo was something else altogether! A very, very rare bird.

The car carries a plate that says “D” (diplomatic staff) and “061” (Republic of Sudan).

Moscovites interested in Western cars whispered to each other the names of a few Soviet Olympians (like Secretary-General Brezhnev or the gravel-voiced actor and singer Vladimir Vysotsky) who held such imported beasts in their garage. Even for the nomenklatura elite, this was out of this world. For mere mortals, the wettest dreams stopped somewhere at a spanking new GAZ-24–95, the vehicle you see at the back of the photo.

But for the blacks we used to see around in Moscow, driving such cars seemed to be as natural as for us a trip in the metro.

Below, black students in the USSR learn how to throw snowballs. The Western clothes they wear would turn any male Moscovite Blenda-white with envy. I was a teenager in the 1970s. A getup like this would make me an instant star in the dating scene. (Don’t even get me started about their stylish tan and pearly teeth. Mine sucked big time.)

What screams: “I am racist but won’t admit it”?

Short answer

Sexual preferences.

Longer answer

The thing is, you can’t take people’s word about them being white/black supremacists or not being racists just like that. We humans are social animals. We’re tribal creatures. Often, we’re conditioned to say things and act the way that deep down inside we don’t like at all.

Remember all these priests, prominent Evangelicals and other Conservatives who were blasting sodomy and loose morals—only to be caught out privately enjoying carnal bliss with members of the same sex?

Especially in modern world, proclaiming yourself an anti-racist, WASP nativist, Antifa, or white/black supremacist is a declaration of allegiance to your tribe. We want to belong, so we often parrot what our reference groups say.

“Hold with the hare and run with the hounds”, how about that? Deep down inside, we may hide something very different, invisible to everyone else. I spent half of my life in the USSR, this was how things worked for almost everyone back then.

This is why I believe in horny. That’s your touchstone. Nature made it rock solid against social conditioning. Even buried deep and hushed down by all the voices in your head, it’s still down there, alive and kicking. That’s the surest identification of your true self.

Hey, there’s even some research about it. For example, Tal Nitzan from the Hebrew University linked the low rates of rape of Arab women by Israeli soldiers to their sub-human, abject status in the Israelis’ mind.

Below, a scene from a Stalinist propaganda musical “Circus”. It’s about an American show girl who got a child with a black man and was harassed for it by evil Capitalist Westerners. In the movie, the lady found refuge and happiness in the USSR. Yet somehow, her new love interest happened to be a snow-white Soviet man.

In a way, the Soviet Union didn’t really pass the gut test for non-racism. For all the anti-racist propaganda, our mass culture never managed to produce a compelling love story that would involve a black person of either sex with a Soviet citizen.

In post-Soviet Russia, our sexual preferences haven’t changed much, if we trust the stats provided by PornHub. Below, their stats for the last decade:

As you see, “interracial”, “ebony” and suchlike are nowhere to be found, in a clear contrast to East Asian content. How about regional differences?

Our Muslim compatriots in North Caucasus seem to have a preference for Mediterranean/Middle Eastern ethnic types. The Far East, with a visible presence of local Asian minorities as well as guest workers, demonstrate a taste for East Asian flavor. But Black is absent.

How about about the most popular stars?

Not being an expert myself, I see that ethnic diversity here doesn’t go beyond Mia Khalifa (Lebanese) and Asa Akira (Japanese). Both seem to be rather white in skin color.

What are the differences between liberals and communists?

Short answer

(1) The desired pace of progress and (2) views on minorities.

Longer answer

Both Libs and Communists want to proactively change the way we’ve been doing things, our culture. In their heads, this also will make humans better, wiser, kinder to each other. This is why they both are progressives.

Communist hares and liberal turtles

However, there’s a huge difference between the two of them. Communists want to improve the world in a giant leap, by abolishing private property. Meanwhile, Libs have more faith in incremental changes. In a way, Libs are “Kaizen Progressives”.

This is theory. In real life, from the right half of the ideological continuum—especially if you belong to the Trumpists, paleocons, right libertarians, hardcore Evangelists and alt-righters—it’s often hard to tell them apart.

But don’t despair! I’ll teach you a trick how to do it, solidly tested by us, the old practitioners of Soviet propaganda.

Identity politics

Communists don’t believe in identity politics. They believe in classes. The question is, do you possess the means of production—which makes it possible to exploit other people? If yes, you’re an enemy. If no, you’re a good guy, maybe one of us.

As to “identities” that people might stick to you, it’s a figment of bourgeois mindset. It’s there to confuse you. “Identities” distract you from your fundamental class association with the working class and your historic mission of defeating Capitalism and abolishing private property.

As Lenin said:

“People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be, until they have learned to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises.”

Tactics

This is why Communists hate organized minorities—if it’s not the Communists themselves who organize them. It happens that Communists strike tactical alliances with the most influential and active minorities, like leftist libertarians. But these rarely last long. And they never survive Communist power grabs.

“Minority” itself is a dirty concept for practicing Communists. They are passionate “99 percenters”. There’s strength in numbers for them. The central point to their faith in themselves as a vanguard of the working masses is their ability to lead the proletarian majority (not necessarily electoral one) against the tiny clique of exploiters and bloodsuckers.

Conclusion

Look at their view on “identity politics”. No matter how far to the left they go, if they encapsulate their supporters within a narrow cocoon of shared lifestyle, or ethnic and cultural values—they are not Communists.

Below, some examples of visual propaganda that may help you tell Communists from the rest of the progressivist pack. First, a drawing of Gay Pride parade shared with me by Stephen F. Condren. Through the lens of Communism, this is a patently parochial, ideologically wobbly, Liberal approach to politics, revealing a “confused, petty-bourgeois mind”:

As a contrast, look at the Soviet propaganda poster below. It’s dedicated to the Olympic games in Moscow in 1980. The Olympic colors making the teddy bear’s belt and the word MИР (“peace”) symbolize human diversity, just like the rainbow flag above.

However, the Communist teddy bear Mísha to the right refuses to let the diversity run its own course. The flag in his paw is distinctly red. The Olympic symbol on the flag mimics a tower of the Kremlin, the beating heart of world Communism. It has the same golden color as the hammer and sickle on the USSR’s banner. The flag is raised high above the cacophony of apolitical colors. There’s no doubt who runs the show.

The text says: “Our main motto is peace”.

Below, a Stalinist poster from the early 1950s, “We won’t allow to sow discord between peoples of the world!” Variations of this motif with small additions used to adorn many a gay club in Moscow in the 1990s. The stern faces, close body contact and a distinct sense of hierarchy reveal a clear-eyed Communist mind behind this piece of progressivist art.

Three reasons to read “Weak Strongman. The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia”, by Tim Frye.

1. Deflating Putinology

2. Stress on quantitative research

The author doesn’t go down the beaten path of profusely quoting newsmakers, activists, media persons, dissidents and tidbits from past newsfeeds to prove his points. Quantitative research, with a lot of figures and summaries of opinion polls takes much place in the book. I wish this would be a golden standard for those who make a claim to explaining Russia’s current policies to the public.

3. Cross-cultural context

Tim Frye pulls together much international research about countries with political traditions comparable to Russia. It show that what happens here is rather mainstream in the global context. If you believe the author, Russia is no longer the “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” like it was in the era of Churchill and Stalin.

My favorite quotes:

Former leader of the Soviet Union Khrushchev… described governing Russia to Fidel Castro as follows:

“You’d think I could change anything in this country. Like hell I can. No matter what changes I propose and carry out, everything stays the same. Russia is like a tub full of dough, you put your hand down in it, down to the bottom, and think you are master of the situation. When you first pull out your hand, a little hole remains, but then, before your very eyes, the dough expands into a spongy, puffy mass. That’s what Russia is like.”

“As late as June 2002, Putin stated that NATO enlargement to include the Baltics was “no tragedy” so long as no new military infrastructure was introduced.”

Three reasons not to read Tim Frye’s book

1. The yawn factor. The language is approachable alright, the topics fully in trend. But the more you read it, the less exceptional modern Russia looks to you. If you believe Mr Frye, almost all that’s going on here in our neck of the woods, has been observed someplace else in the world, time and time again.

2. Ideological non-alignment. If you belong to Putin’s fan club, or are a Putin-hater, little in the book really gets you excited. Our beloved President mostly comes across as a shrewd guy who just minds his own business of getting the best out of his stay in the Kremlin for himself, his friends and his family.

3. The book is a bit too light on Russian sources for empirical research data. I would expect more from someone with “fluent Russian” as his CV has it.

The picture below shows a half pint of dark ale at the bar Pig and Rose in Moscow. It teaches us to better tell foam from beer in President Putin’s policies—the way Tim Frye does in his book.