All hierarchical mass societies from ancient to modern (whether authoritarian or democratic) have been riven by conflicts which are products of the occupational and class-based contradictions within them. The ruling elites within them can only continue to rule as long as sufficient numbers within society in general or within their own class in particular, are relatively content or if not, are unable to rebel. The ruling elite individuals themselves can only continue to rule as long as the elite clique which supports them are sufficiently united and have control of the main means of repression.

Splits in the ruling elites can threaten the domination of the faction in control, but any such cleavage of itself, does not present revolutionary opportunities. Divisions occuring purely within the elite do not represent anything other than the possibility of a change in the personnel who will dominate in future or in the consolidation of the existing one. Clearly such active splits in ruling elites can take the form of political or military manoeuvring to test out or achieve some kind of resolution. However, in the case of extremely authoritarian elites, such as Russia, where political solutions are restricted or absent, military solutions become the dominant means of change or resistance to change.

The fissures in the ruling edifice of Putin’s Russia are probably many, but mostly opaque to the outside observer. However, the one that has opened up between the two war criminals, Prigozhin and Putin, has undoubtedly widened. The first named heading the Wagner group and the second one heading the Russian Federation. The cracks that widened during the the Special Miltary Operation (War) in Ukraine however, are not confined to these two criminals. The earlier anti-Putin and anti-war tendencies in Russia were silenced in the predictable totalitarian manner.

In order, to engage in a predatory war against Ukraine, Putin has not only jailed opposition characters but has physically eliminated many of them and like Lenin and Stalin before him has effectively silenced any form of public criticism. Yet the cracks in the social system are still there and more are appearing. The war effort itself has further impoverished the ordinary Russian citizen and taken the lives of many family members. As was the case under Stalin, what cannot be said publically can be thought privately. How wide this public rift now becomes and how it is resolved remains to be seen, as will the ideological expressions utilised by each side to justify their actions.

However, for the two ‘leading’ characters in this Russian ruling elite drama, the rift is increasingly existential. If this acrimonious division is not quickly resolved, the results will be catastrophic for one or the other or even both and will be detrimental those who get caught up in the dispute. This ‘rebellion’ of the Wagner group, with its seizure of cities, assets and sorte toward Moscow, was no Battleship Potemkin moment heralding a revolution of the lower classes, as occurred in 1917. If this manoeuvre was not a ruse to secure a deal between the two agents of Crimes Against Humanity, it may be phase two of a struggle among rivals for ultimate control of the Russian war machine.

Of course if the schism between the two escalates it will further exhaust the resources of the state and further alienate the suffering population of Russia from the ruling elite. However, it should be remembered that the complaint by Prigozhin all along was not against elite power, or against the war on Ukraine but the fact that it was being mismanaged by the Russian military elite. He considered that the Russian armed forces were so badly supplied and led that they were being treated as ‘cannon fodder’. An allied complaint being that his own troops were bearing the brunt of the fighting.

Whilst we do not know the detail of the deal brokered by Lukashenko of Belarus it is possible that Putin has agreed to shake up the Russian Military establishment and intensify the attack on Ukraine, providing Prigozhin exits and ceases to be involved. The fact that the mobile advance toward Moscow by Wagner troops was called off and its leader given exile in Belarus suggests that Prigozhin’s initiative did not attract sufficient support within the Russian military establishment or among enough of the rank and file soldiers. This is despite the widespread disatisfaction of Russian troops with how the Special Operation is being conducted.

If the above was the case, for Prigozhin, therefore, a negotiated retreat was a better alternative to outright civil war or defeat. If Putin has not been sufficiently weakened by the failure of this war to achieve its objectives and also by his failure to prevent or counter this highly visible ‘rebellion’, then Prigozhin’s future exile may be short lived. Putin is weakened if he carries out this threat against the Wagner Group mutiny and weakened if he doesn’t.  As we know, anyone who crosses Putin, on less serious or public issues, tends to fall out of buildings, have heart attacks or have their coffee or door handles poisoned – no matter where they seek exile.

Putin’s public declaration of dealing severely and quickly with this  mutinous ‘stab in the back’, has ongoing implications. At this level revenge is possible by any number of indirect means. This entire incident demonstrates that the control of power in unpopular totalitarian regimes is often weaker than it appears on the surface. It is often secured by a delicate balance between many interested and influential forces. It only takes one important source of regime support to be removed (or reinforced) to cause either a collapse or a strengthening of totalitarian power. The ‘balance’ between the many conflicting needs in Russia is so precariously constructed that it will take very little shaking to destabilise the existing establishment.

In the short term, either Prigozhin or Putin could ‘fall’ (literally or metaphorically) or even prevail in an uneasy truce or in a superficial reconciliation, but it is unlikely that the Russian state will continue its present trajectory for much longer before further fissures widen and other divisions break out. This truncated rebellion has demonstrated that rebellion is possible against Putin but requires more strategic planning. When the dust has settled around this dispute between these two Mafia style oligarchs, the reality of the global socio-economic crisis will reassert itself. Like all hierarchical mass societies, Russia is in a profound social, economic, financial, political, environmental and ecological crisis.

The Special Military Operation authorised by Putin was in many ways a distraction to deflect from the growing socio-economic crisis in Russia and to gain some extra resources by control of the Ukraine economy. It was bound to fail against Ukraine and in fact this adventure to make him and the Russian State ‘Great Again’ has done the opposite. It has exposed Russia’s  totalitarian fragility.

Every hierarchical mass society country, large or small, faces the problem that the needs and excesses of sustaining their elites, are draining the wealth created by the working classes away from those at the bottom of the hierarchical structure and depositing it in the accounts of the already rich. The productive capacity of industrial countries is now so independent of mass labour and so dependent upon high intensity machinery that the gap between the increasing volume of mass production and the decreasing purchasing ability of mass populations, has created an unbridgeable gap. Consequently, a severe socio-economic social crisis looms everywhere.

All the world’s elites are unstable, because the hierarchical mass society system itself is unstable and the modern versions, based upon the capitalist mode of production, have accelerated and intensified that instability. Russia’s territorial size will not shield it from the global malaise. Its removal as a global competitor for production will not save the western capitalist alliance. The culture of entitlement to unlimited consumption engendered by the capitalist system is so embedded in mass society consciousness – particularly in the west – that very few are prepared to even cap their consumption at present levels let alone consider reducing them for the sake of other underconsuming global citizens or for the ecological or climatic health of the planet.

Furthermore, the possibility of mass society living without hierarchical structures based on occupation and class, has failed to register as a possibility, within all classes. The current consensus among politicians, economists, bankers and media that by finding the holy grail of some future ‘clean energy’ and increasing production and efficiency this will solve most problems is naive to say the least. In theoretical speculation on paper and in imagination, this proposed ‘economic’ solution will satisfy elite wealth accumulation and stave off civil unrest by the discontented masses, but in reality it will only increase the current problems not solve them. World Wars dominated the 20th century, Civil Wars may well dominate the 21st.

Roy Ratcliffe (June 2023)