Vladimir Putin and the Lubavitcher Rebbe

The Balm of Bleakness

Tzars Class Structure. From the Soviet Play. The people only in the bottom row. You have to admire the craftsmanship and costumes on those dolls.

To continue the theme: Trump and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

“Civilizations are the summer noise of insects between two winters.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a Una Texto Implicito.

Similarities:

• The model for Vladimir Putin and the Lubavitcher Rebbe is the monarchical, absolute power of the Tsars. Not accidentally, Chassidus is obsessed with malchus. It’s something that chassidim could visualize.

• Both Putin and Ramash rely on the cult of personalty and the perception of the sacred nature of their leadership. More so Ramash, naturally. But also increasingly Putin's device. Both rely on the iconography of the ubiquitous portraiture to sustain that cult.

• Both value, above all, the loyalty and allegiance over competence. For Putin, this is implicit, and for Ramash explicit. The Ukraine War laid bare the incompetence and corruption of Putin’s generals. If the Lubavitcher Rebbe had to go to a real war, not children's games צבאות השם, the disheartening incompetence of the חיילי אדוננו would become as obvious.

• Putin relies on the proven instrument to insure the loyalty of the incompetent generals – money. Money is the only tangible value for both cultures. Or is it one culture?

• Chabad core business is selling God to the nostalgic American and Russian oligarchs. Putin's main business is dividing the state and its stolen resources between the same Russian oligarchs, who in turn work for Don Putin. Often the same people who pay the indulgence tax to Chabad. Turns out this was also Biden family business. One global syndicate sucking on the same proverbial public tit (Miller’s Crossing reference).

• Both rely on propaganda, censorship and controlled media that is told or understands what not to say.

• Faced with the Wagner mutiny, Putin ran from Moscow. Ramash ran from France. In fairness to Ramash, he wasn’t “Rosh Bnei Yisrael” yet, he was merely following the time-honored tradition of the Alter Rebbe, Rashab and Rayatz.

• Both frequently employ the same totalitarian toolkit. All the dirty work done by the eager underlings, so there is always a deniability. And when there is a proven “dirty work” (Cunin, one of many examples) there is never justice or punishment. There was no right or wrong in the Ramash court. In Putin's court, there is mostly wrong.

• Both leaders ultimately are enabled by the “slave mentality” of the respective populations. In Russia, the lingering legacy of “serfdom”, in Chabad the theology of total bittul and meek obedience. This mentality has grown on the same giant oak tree, rooted in the same cursed and condemned land.

Differences:

• Ramash has been allegedly dead for 30 years, duh…

• Putin is only street smart.

• Putin has nukes :-)

• Ramash together with Reb Zalman were the last of the Mohicans of the royal family, aristocrats of the spirit. Putin, on the other hand, is what Rebbezin Musya called “shpana” шпана. The Rebbe had the grace of a noble prince. Putin has the distinct peasant gait, the face of a muskrat that escaped from the Leningrad swamp.

• But Putin never competed with Jesus.

• Putin takes care of his family, mistresses, kids. Ramash opened a WWIII against the only surviving einikle of the Rayatz, his nephew.

• Putin is rumored to have a successor. Otherwise, will have to move this to the “similarities”.

Image: Vladimir Rodionov. Chess Champion, Anatoly Karpov, 1978. Tournament during the XVIII Komsomol Congress.

“To salve the pains of consciousness, some people anesthetize themselves with sunny thoughts. But not everyone can follow their lead, above all not those who sneer at the sun and everything upon which it beats down. Their only respite is in the balm of bleakness. Disdainful of the solicitations of hope, they look for sanctuary in desolate places - a scattering of ruins in a barren locale or a rubble of words in a book where someone whispers in a dry voice, “I too am here”.
― Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race.

Shlomo Carlebach, “At the Village Gate”, 1995

הִתְנַעֲרִי מֵעָפָר קוּמִי
,לִבְשִׁי בִּגְדֵי תִפְאַרְתֵּךְ עַמִּי
עַל יַד, בֶּן יִשַׁי, בֵּית הַלַּחְמִי
.קָרְבָה אֶל נַפְשִׁי גְּאָלָהּ