');
The Unz Review •�An Alternative Media Selection$
A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media
RSS
Show by ⇅�
Email This Page to Someone

�Remember My Information



=>
� Earlier Items �
BlogAnatoly Karlin Archive
/
Color Revolution
�BlogAnatoly Karlin Archive
/
Color Revolution

◄►Bookmark◄❌►▲ ▼Toggle AllToC▲▼Add to LibraryRemove from Library •�B
Show CommentNext New CommentNext New ReplyRead More
ReplyAgree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
AgreeDisagreeThanksLOLTroll
These buttons register your public Agreement, Disagreement, Thanks, LOL, or Troll with the selected comment. They are ONLY available to recent, frequent commenters who have saved their Name+Email using the 'Remember My Information' checkbox, and may also ONLY be used three times during any eight hour period.
Ignore Commenter Follow Commenter
Navalny's Popularity on the Wane
•�July 11, 2021
•�100 Words •�154 Comments
That's what I counselled people hoping for (or fearing) that a color revolution was imminent a few months ago: Look at the numbers. Well, since then, they have if anything plummeted further. 14% approval vs. 62% disapproval. Down from half a year ago. Furthermore, while young people are relatively more pro-Navalny (this is not surprising:... Read More
Crimea & Donbass Tell Navalny to BTFO
•�April 19, 2021
•�500 Words •�108 Comments
The Navalny campaign is calling for nationwide protests on April 21 after the failure of their campaign to even get half a million people (quick arithmetic: 0.3% of Russia's population) to register and commit to coming out and protesting on their website. I don't see much coming out of it. I correctly said that the... Read More
Opinion Poll: Belorussians Favor Union State with Russia Over EU
•�March 15, 2021
•�1,400 Words •�197 Comments
Been a while since the last Belarus update. It looks like progress towards implementing Union State provisions continues, with some accomplishments including: Mutual recognition of visas from third countries. (So getting a Russian visa will now enable you to visit Belarus as well). Moves towards removing cell phone roaming. Russia to recognize results of the... Read More
HABBENING: the Iskander Revolution?
•�February 25, 2021
•�500 Words •�43 Comments
Armenian General Staff is demanding a Pashinyan resignation. Summary from /r/armenia: In a statement issued on the afternoon of February 25, the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces demanded the resignation of Nikol Pashinyan and his Cabinet., expressing strong disapproval of Pashinyan's sacking of Tigran Khachatryan, the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff.... Read More
Don't Waste Time on Hacks. Look at Numbers.
•�February 4, 2021
•�200 Words •�163 Comments
Western media: Angry Russians fed up with Putler's corruption pour into the streets. But now the first post-"palace" video opinion polls are coming in on Putin's approval rating and related questions: Levada: 65%→64% VCIOM: 60%→61% FOM: 61%→60% Levada is a private, opposition-leaning pollster. VCIOM and FOM are state-owned pollsters. Other polls: FOM: Did the actions... Read More
HABBENING: #FreeNavalny Protest
•�January 30, 2021
•�200 Words •�269 Comments
Second Free Navalny! protest will take place in 10 hours. The location, Lubyanka Square, is an escalation, being adjacent to both the Lubyanka Building that hosts the FSB HQ: ... and the even more critical "regime object" that is the Presidential Administration. As of the present time, a total of 1,800 people say they are... Read More
The Kremlins Aren't Falling - But Relations with the US Are
•�January 24, 2021
•�1,100 Words •�188 Comments
There is a lot of rhetoric floating about in the usual Reddit/Blue Check crowd that these were the largest demonstrations in Russia of the Putin. This is not really even true - the Bolotnaya/Prospekt Sakharova "meetings" against electoral fraud in Moscow drew more people, though one may argue this is an unfair comparison since they... Read More
HABBENING: #23январяЗаСвободу Protests
•�January 23, 2021
•�200 Words •�245 Comments
RT journalist Bryan MacDonald collating protest turnout data - mostly from Kommersant, a paper that is marginally opposition-leaning, but by not means pro-regime. Data from Far East and now from the Volga suggests 0.2% of population is protesting in the more "agitated" cities, this tallies with my prediction this will be bigger than ~7,500 at... Read More
Navalny Children's Crusade
•�January 22, 2021
•�1,200 Words •�59 Comments
Plus ça change... Just like three years ago on March 26, 2017, the protest "Freedom to Navalny!" tomorrow is to start on Pushkin Square (see above) and march down the central Tverskaya Boulevard down to Manezh Square, which is right next to the Kremlin. I attended that prior protest (as an informal observer, not a... Read More
Putin's 5 Star Hotel in Gelendzhik
•�January 22, 2021
•�1,200 Words •�286 Comments
Good taste, not overly tacky (e.g. too much gold like with Trump). I'd probably build something like that as a strongman. There's nothing cardinally new about Navalny's video. The construction of a palace at Gelendzhik in Krasnodar Krai linked to friends of Putin was "leaked" to the world more than a decade by Sergey Kolesnikov,... Read More
Sealed Airplane from Germany
•�January 17, 2021
•�67 Comments
Navalny didn't pass through Berlin Airport on his way to Moscow. Sealed train in 1917, sealed airplane in 2021. Plus ça change.
HABBENING: US Capitol Being Stormed
•�January 6, 2021
•�211 Comments
If you gaze long upon the Ukraine... The Ukraine gazes back into you.
Lukashenko Wins, Zmagars Lose, Russia Left on the Sidelines
•�October 31, 2020
•�1,200 Words •�16 Comments
So as of today there is an 88% chance on the Metaculus predictions market that Lukashenko remains in power to January 31, 2021, which is up from less than 50% at the lowest points this August. By all indications, Tikhanovskaya's call from her Lithuanian exile for a general strike has resulted in a damp squib.... Read More
Russian & Ukrainian Attitudes to Belarus Maidan
•�September 28, 2020
•�200 Words •�15 Comments
KMIS poll on Ukrainian attitudes to Lukashenko vs. protesters from: It was carried out on 12-16 September, i.e. after the breakdown of Belorussian-Ukrainian relations following Lukashenko's about turn on extraditing the Russian mercs to Ukraine. Across the Ukraine, 31% support Lukashenko while 45% support the protesters. I would actually probably similar to figures for Belarus... Read More
Russian Bioleninists Come to Belarus
•�September 23, 2020
•�400 Words •�115 Comments
As the protests become more marginal and zmagar-dominated, they are also drawing an ever increasing mass of Russian Bioleninists. Not very important in the grand scheme of things, but it's amusing to observe. *** The Encounter: The liberal hipster Yuri Dud', who was recently in Poland, also ran into some Based Polish Nationalists there: But... Read More
Belarus Sitrep 8: End of Multivector FP
•�September 22, 2020
•�600 Words •�51 Comments
There have been no important developments since the last Belarus Sitrep. The protests continue to periodically simmer, but they are massively down from their peak several weeks ago. The pro-Russian orientation has become progressively clearer: Chairman of the Standing Commission on International Affairs Andrey Savinykh has openly stated that Belarus' prior "multivector" foreign policy no... Read More
Belarus Sitrep 7
•�September 14, 2020
•�800 Words •�59 Comments
Lukashenko and Putin are meeting today in Sochi to hammer whatever it is they are going to hammer out. I assume that the Kremlin denial that the talks will focus on "mergers" is an obfuscation. There were two valid approaches to Lukashenko's recent problems in Belarus: Non-interference based on sanctity of the (Soviet) state borders,... Read More
Belarus Sitrep 6: Reserve OMON
•�August 27, 2020
•�900 Words •�56 Comments
I was saying from the beginning that managing Belarus in the next few months will be a delicate balancing game for Russia, consisting as it does of the following components: Weakening Lukashenko, which is happening of its own accord, which strengthens Russian negotiating positions in pushing for reintegration. But preferably not so much that he... Read More
Belarus Sitrep 4
•�August 20, 2020
•�600 Words •�150 Comments
Lukashenko's situation has stabilized - key observation is that siloviks are still not peeling away - while the crowds remain, large and peaceful but leaderless. So we're now at a stalemate. * Overall, I am again increasingly confident (>50%) that Lukashenko will survive as President this year. The pro-regime rallies in places like Gomel have... Read More
Faces of Zmagarism
•�August 20, 2020
•�200 Words •�45 Comments
This young woman of mixed heritage (Ethiopian father, Belorussian mother) is on the "Coordinating Council" set up by the Belarusian opposition to manage the transition from Lukashenko until new Presidential Elections. "Alana Gebremariam is an activist of the Youth Bloc" according to her bio on the official site. She was at one point arrested for... Read More
Belarus Sitrep 3: Zmagarism Intensifies
•�August 17, 2020
•�1,100 Words •�193 Comments
Not really sure about Lukashenko's strategy at this point. In the morning, he was telling booing factory workers that they would have to "kill him" if they wanted new elections. Which is admittedly a very Chad move, if tempting of fate. A few hours later, he was promising elections after a nationwide referendum on a... Read More
Shadow Zmagarists
•�August 16, 2020
•�900 Words •�43 Comments
From the beginning I have stressed that the opposition protesters in Belarus - the masses of people out on the streets because they have issues with electoral fraud, economic stagnation, and/or Lukashenko having overstayed his welcome - are not anti-Russian ideologues. These "zmagars" do exist, and their influence has grown since 2014, thanks in significant... Read More
Belarus Sitrep 2: Battle of the Rallies
•�August 16, 2020
•�300 Words •�36 Comments
Despite Westernist hopes that the Lukashenko rally would end like Ceausescu's last one, where the unexpected booing of the masses signaled the end of the regime, there was no such reaction here. Despite claims of many of them being state workers who had been coerced into turning up, there was even some limited enthusiasm. You... Read More
Belarus Sitrep 1: Lukashenko Sends Feelers to Russia
•�August 15, 2020
•�600 Words •�169 Comments
In his domestic rhetoric, Lukashenko is blaming forces from Poland, Holland, Ukraine, and various liberal groups from Russia (Open Russia and Navalny were named) for using "Belorussian children as cannon fodder" to carry out a color revolution. The Belorussian elites remain consolidated for now, but there are now signs that many of them are hedging... Read More
Lukashenko Regime Is Flailing
•�August 14, 2020
•�300 Words •�60 Comments
General Strike: Ironically, this wouldn't have happened if Lukashenko had pursued neoliberal reforms. ~90% of the Belarus economy is state-owned. Prediction Market: The only prediction market I'm aware of on whether Lukashenko remains President of Belarus (as of Jan 31, 2020) is on Metaculus, it is now at 60% (down from an initial 75-80% until... Read More
Political Compass on Lukashenkophilia
•�August 13, 2020
•�900 Words •�2 Comments
Stunning age differential on Russian view of events in Belarus, according to VCIOM poll. 33% of 60+ y/o's believe Lukashenko's 80% result was fully authentic, vs. just 3% of 18-24% y/o's. General background note: The past couple of years have seen an awning divide in chronological terms. While Putin was actually marginally more popular amongst... Read More
HABBENING: Belarus Elections 2020
•�August 8, 2020
•�700 Words •�117 Comments
I have said most of what I wanted to say about Belarus in two recent threads, which have since been enriched by many informative comments: The Belarus Horseshoe Why Belarus Isn't Ukraine Hopefully this constitutes a useful background what looks to a pretty dramatic turn in Belorussian politics, as voters head to the polls on... Read More
The Belarus Horseshoe
•�August 3, 2020
•�1,500 Words •�234 Comments
Protest meeting in Minsk on July 30. The images of massive protests coming in from Belarus on the eve of their Presidential elections on August 9, in which Alexander Lukashenko is widely expected to rubber stamp himself another term, have provoked talk of a new color revolution/Maidan. The original social contract offered by Lukashenko since... Read More
Belarus Arrests 32 Wagnerites
•�July 29, 2020
•�300 Words •�65 Comments
Belarus was being used as a transport hub by Wagner - in this case, to Sudan - because Russian airports are currently closed to most international foreign travel, with the Belarus leadership and KGB was appraised of it. The arrest of the 32 Wagner mercenaries and publication of their identities is a very hostile move... Read More
The Khabarovsk Protests
•�July 25, 2020
•�500 Words •�56 Comments
What happened: Russia arrested the popular LDPR governor of Khabarovsk oblast, Sergey Furgal. He won against United Russia's Salva Schport in 2018 and has been governor since, making it one of the few (nationalist) opposition-ruled regions in Russia. He is alleged to have ordered hits on local businessmen in 2004, when Russia was still rife... Read More
The Bolivarian Revolution Has Staying Power
•�May 15, 2020
•�200 Words •�45 Comments
I am not an uncritical supporter of Venezuela. Asserting sovereignty is good, at least for Venezuelans - the following, presumably, is not: Financing the budget by printing money Asset stripping your state oil company and replacing everyone competent there with cronies. Ad hoc nationalizations of supermarkets. All of which led to hyperinflation and a GDP... Read More
Last Stand in Montenegro
•�February 8, 2020
•�500 Words •�272 Comments
Underreported in the Western media, in the past few weeks there have been massive protests in Montenegro, involving as many as 150,000 people (that is, a quarter of its population). What are they protesting about? Late last December, the Montenegrin parliament approved an EU-supported law allowing the state to seize church property in the absence... Read More
So What About Those Iran Protests?...
•�January 17, 2020
•�300 Words •�38 Comments
Some people on here and Twitter were sure they'd succeed. But they seem to have vanished off the radar in the past couple of days. Few news stories, no updates on /r/worldnews. What happened? In reality, as I pointed out, they were almost certain to fail. To get a color revolution going, you need a... Read More
Iranomaidan II
•�January 11, 2020
•�400 Words •�151 Comments
To do a color revolution, you generally need: Significant proportion of the population going out into the streets (not just university students and office plankton). Some degree of elite defection. Trump's bombast regardless - congratulations to him on learning Farsi and becoming an Iran expert in the past 48 hours - I don't see either... Read More
Hong Kong Is a Surprisingly "Poor" City
•�August 26, 2019
•�300 Words •�236 Comments
The mean wage in Hong Kong not much more than $2,000 per month (a Croatian acquaintance who works there cited the same numbers half a year ago). Its surprising come to think of it, but that means that Muscovites - where salaries are $1,500 per month but multiplied by almost twice - are substantially more... Read More
Titushki Triads
•�July 21, 2019
•�300 Words •�88 Comments
So apparently the Hong Kong authorities have had the Galaxy Brain idea of unleashing their equivalent of titushki against the Hong Kong demonstrators. It is extremely bad optics. An article about the assaults is the top headline on /r/worldnews, probably the world's single biggest international politics forum. A pregnant woman had a miscarriage as a... Read More
Color Revolution in Georgia
•�June 21, 2019
•�500 Words •�131 Comments
So protesters have stormed the Georgian Parliament in Tbilisi after a protest over Russian MP Sergey Gavrilov being allowed to address an international assembly of Orthodox Christian MPs there. The local svidomy came out with placards demanding that "Russian occupiers" go home. And soon after Georgia's President Salome Zurabishvili has called Russia an "enemy and... Read More
Venezuela Aid Scam
•�February 24, 2019
•�400 Words •�59 Comments
As I have made clear, I am not any sort of fan of Maduro/Caballo's regime. When you have the empty shelves of the late Soviet Union, the inflation rate of Zimbabwe, and the murder rate of Honduras, it's safe to say that things have gone wrong somewhere. Nor am I blaming the US for it.... Read More
Map of Maduro Recognition
•�January 24, 2019
•�100 Words •�38 Comments
Source: Wikipedia. China has finally come out (functionally) in support of Maduro. With tens of billions of invested in Venezuela, it has more absolutely (if not relatively) at stake there than Russia. It is good to see China taking a more assertive stance. The EU hasn't overtly supported Guaido, but it has called for new... Read More
Venezuela Thread
•�January 23, 2019
•�100 Words •�88 Comments
I suppose we will now see whether the failings of half-assed socialism and the tried and tested techniques of color revolution by way of Uncle Sam will win out over Cuban intelligence officers and a nascent social credit system by way of Uncle Chang. Idiot Sechin has trouble getting back money even now (unlike the... Read More
The Pensions Protests in Russia
•�September 10, 2018
•�600 Words •�17 Comments
1. There were no more than 2,000-3,000 people protesting in Moscow about the raising of the retirement age (at most). This is the definition of "storm in a teacup." 2. Navalny bandwagoning on this issue is particularly implausible, since he is an economic neoliberal. Which, to be sure, is one of the exceeding few good... Read More
Armenia Update
•�April 22, 2018
•�200 Words •�327 Comments
There is a non-trivial chance of a color revolution in Armenia in the next few days. I don't follow domestic Armenian politics, but the basic gist of it is that the two-term President Serzh Sargsyan - who is highly unpopular due to increases in utilities tariffs - has recently transitioned from the Presidency to the... Read More
Russia Elections 2018: Navalny's "Elections Boycott" Protest Fizzles
•�January 29, 2018
•�400 Words •�36 Comments
Western media: Opposition leader Navalny is "tapping into the anger of a younger generation yearning for change", and devotes frontline coverage to his "elections boycott" protest. Reality: Putin is polling 62% amongst young people, versus 76% amongst the elderly (FOM poll, including people who don't know/don't intend to vote), and the event was itself boycotted... Read More
Freedom House: Human Rights Abuse Against Satirists
•�January 17, 2018
•�400 Words •�29 Comments
Freedom in the World 2018 is out now: "Democracy in Crisis." This makes the deep state neocon goons who run that outfit very sad. My prediction from 2017: Last minute misgivings aside, this has indeed happened. While FH still thinks Civil Rights in the US are at 1/7 (where 1 is best and 7 is... Read More
The Mullahs' Mnogokhodovka
•�January 2, 2018
•�600 Words •�76 Comments
Commenter German_reader summarizes an anonymous Iranian journalist about the protests there. Hilarious if true. And it just might be: Comment from an Iranian on Patrick Lang's blog: Evidently, the protests were initiated by political enemies of Rouhani in Mashhad. That city is referred to in Iran as a "hizbollahi city" - "Party of God City".... Read More
Iranomaidan
•�December 31, 2017
•�800 Words •�300 Comments
Epistemic status: Low. I don't know Farsi. I don't particularly follow Iran. That said, I am hardly alone in this. Bryan MacDonald: "Even I’m kinda astonished by how many American “Russian experts” have suddenly become “Iran experts” in the past 48 hours. молодцы товарищи!! #ачтивмеасурес" 1. Widely divergent reports about how many people are protesting.... Read More
A World of 1,000 Nations
•�October 18, 2017
•�2,200 Words •�94 Comments
Though it is Catalonia and Iraqi Kurdistan that have dominated the news these past two weeks, this month also saw a flare-up in separatist sentiment in Brazil. This region apparently has a have a fleeting historical experience of independence: They are the the whitest states:
The Catalonia Thread
•�October 1, 2017
•�900 Words •�148 Comments
Final results: YES: 90.1% NO: 7.9% Turnout: ~42% of those counted (2,262,424), ~56% if including the confiscated ballot boxes (~770,000) out of 5,343,358 registered voters. Assuming that the vote in "repressed" polling stations was similar, you can turnout * YES = ~51% support for independence, which tallies exactly with the last poll on the basis... Read More
Equality Before the Law
•�June 14, 2017
•�200 Words •�34 Comments
The American Interest's Karina Orlova writes: (Original). His protestations of his "innocence" in the police van went unheeded. Predictably, this video evokes a gushing flood of Schadenfreude amongst anti-Putinists, while pro-Putinists experience a jittery "there but for the grace of God go I" feeling. But from a neutral perspective, how exactly does this reflect badly... Read More
Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Navalny
•�June 13, 2017
•�1,300 Words •�63 Comments
The Russia wide protests organized by Navalny on June 12 were a flop. This was not unexpected, given the lack of enthusiasm on social networks - in Moscow, there were 20% fewer people expressing interest in going to this event relative to the March 26th protest on Facebook. The earlier event had translated into 8,000... Read More
� Earlier Items �
"Color Revolution" Items Across Entire Archive
Anatoly Karlin
About Anatoly Karlin

I am a blogger, thinker, and businessman in the SF Bay Area. I’m originally from Russia, spent many years in Britain, and studied at U.C. Berkeley.

One of my tenets is that ideologies tend to suck. As such, I hesitate about attaching labels to myself. That said, if it’s really necessary, I suppose “liberal-conservative neoreactionary” would be close enough.

Though I consider myself part of the Orthodox Church, my philosophy and spiritual views are more influenced by digital physics, Gnosticism, and Russian cosmism than anything specifically Judeo-Christian.