The echoes of the death of Evgeny Prigozhyn, leader of the ‘Wagner group’, who died in an air crash under Kużenkino in the region of Thirsk, will not stay silent. Accepting the most popular version of events, that is, the assassination of specified or another authorities of the Russian Federation – this fits into the logic of statehood. Everyone.
The State has inalienable attributes, and if it decides on even partial assignments, it is doomed to degradation and failure of state status. Regardless of what the will of Evgeny Prigozyn was on June 24, 2023, he entered the way from which there was no turning back.
State as a rightholder
Already before planet War II, the Polish Criminal Code II provided for severe penalties for "trying a coup." Why is that? due to the fact that law is the function of power, and a successful coup is its change. It is so possible to make a kilometer-long, idealistic evidence for legal positivists, but in practice they will not be applied if there is no political will. The reverse of this phenomenon we see in Poland the regulation of the Law and Justice erstwhile people from the surroundings Jarosław Kaczyński are above the law, and no of the smaller or larger scandals revealed by licensed, opposition media consequence in actual investigation or any action of law enforcement. Power is unpunished.
Let us not limit this to a “state”. It's just a form, but a form of organization. As such, it does not disagree from other, even private companies, where their owner besides remains unpunished. The position may lose the director, may lose the manager, you can throw distant the individual (and frequently pretend it is due to the quality assessment of their work), but no 1 "calls off" the owner. It's precisely the same with power. Theoretically, the Republican government describes the state as the property of citizens, but in practice – especially in presidential systems – power becomes a property concentrated in the hands of the presidential camp and its various branches. The longer the camp remains in power, the more it becomes its property. Even if it is “supported” or “wins the election”, it does not change the fundamental conviction of the actors of the phenomenon, that governance is their quality. There is no point in fetishizing the methods of reproducing power in democratic systems. We would gotta presume that voters are nonsubjective participants in the process, and that would be highly naive. Let's leave it at that.
Who's allowed to usage violence?
The state is simply a collection of different characteristics. There's quite a few them in political science. Let us focus here on the "monopoly on violence", which comes not only from the logic of the law at all, but besides from the belief that only you can usage force to accomplish immediate or long-term objectives. From this perspective, Wagner's conflict with the Russian Federation was indeed unavoidable. The very thought of private military (but besides security) companies is simply a privatisation of public services, at best a "public-private partnership", or average money laundering. In this case, the state decides to cede into any private group its monopoly, so it shares its attribute. And it creates a conflict of interest. There is no warrant that the PFW will at any point not start making demands: economical (e.g. increases in wages) or yet political (increase in influence on decisions taken in their case), so state relations The PFW are doomed in advance. It is hard to presume that the PFW will not push for an increase in its own importance, especially erstwhile it has tools of force to do so, and there is truly no better "method of negotiation" than firearms.
In the case of Wagner Group, the effect accelerated due to the fact that it was Prigożyn who appeared among the soldiers fighting in Artiomovsk. He's the 1 who told the nation to get another 1 of the cities of Donbas. It was Wagner's violin that played the triumph song, not the state's organs. So the PFW gained authority in the eyes of society. And she tried to usage it. Evgeny Prigozhyn has recorded many films in which he complained about working with Russian MON. His conflict with Sergei Szojgu it stopped at any point being a secret of polyquinel and became the subject of public debate in Russia. And that has already undermined the authority of the state. The phenomenon was doomed to dynamics, there was no area for compromise.
The Game of Everything
Prigozhyn played 2 months ago. va banque. He decided to usage his resources to influence the authorities no longer by negotiation, but by force. He began his march on Moscow with his military columns. In 1 statement, possibly in emotion, he challenged the President's position, which is the most crucial individual in this system. That meant he'd either win or he'd be punished. He yet gave up the first plans, but it was only a postponement during the sentence. Not even for Vladimir Putin Or the Shojg, but for a country he did not win, and which he depleted by another attribute. The state had to recover it so as not to lose its essence.
So if it turns out that the plane with the Prigozhyn on board was shot down by the Russian S-300 army, there's truly no reason to be surprised. Yeah, it's brutal, but that's how it was expected to be. It is only from that minute on that that the Russian Federation returns to state status. From the point of view of the logic of power, Wagner’s group was a rebellious praetorian, so it could no longer be in this form. Especially in Russia itself, or straight at the border with her. As long as Wagner was active in Africa or Syria, he had the chance to play the function of “contractor” with the “employer” of the Russian Federation. Entrance to play during peculiar Military Operations was tantamount to starting the process of losing this status. And following the war way against the government. The greater the successes on the front of the PFW, the more he lost his authority to the Russian military ministry, and it is on which all political power in the planet is based.
So without getting into the assessment whether the Shojg or the Primogyn were right, due to the fact that we are not Russians, let's just learn from a conflict typical of situations in which the state gives its attributes, throwing a noose around its neck. There's no area for agreement here, and it'll always end in failure. The minute Wagner's armored vehicles hit Moscow, they could only have taken the Kremlin or lost. The Primogyn totally irresponsibly decided to travel around Russia, which he had previously wanted to take over. Or possibly he didn't care and just wanted to "regroup in Valhalla"?
Tomasz Jankowski