Premium Episode 150: Bannon, the Precinct Strategy & 1917 Russia (Sample)
In this episode we explore the far-right "precinct strategy" in contemporary America and use it as an excuse to do a history episode on the (multiple!) Russian revolutions of 1917.
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Welcome, listener, to Premium Chapter 150 of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, the Bannon, Precinct Strategy, and 1917 Russia episode.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rakitansky, Liv Ager, Julian Field, and Travis View.
This week we're being led by Liv, who for some reason is wearing full Joker makeup with
a hammer and sickle in the middle of her forehead, down into the catacombs of the two Russian
revolutions of 1917, to see if this period can grant us some insight into how far-right
populists in the United States are destabilizing and in some cases overrunning institutions.
Specifically we'll be looking at the role Lenin played within the complex set of factors
leading up to the unseating of the Russian post-Tsarist liberal provisional government,
and how some of his strategies may have informed the far-right schemings of people like Steve
Bannon decades later.
Now, I am sure at this point various ears have perked up for various reasons, but our goal here is not to make an equivalence, to be clear, or even to put forth some sort of horseshoe theory.
Instead, we'll be looking at how power has historically shifted during times of extreme popular distrust in the existing political order, and how these shifts failed or succeeded to threaten the existing political structures, and in the case of the Russian Revolution, overthrow the government entirely.
Now Liv, good luck in this difficult and nuanced endeavor.
I will be right behind you holding a torch until things get controversial, at which point you're on your own and you may need a flashlight.
He's like Littlefinger.
He's just there until you need him.
Yeah, it's like the horror movie scene where you're getting like one character who's already possessed is getting the other one to walk down into the basement.
No, keep going.
I can't see anything.
Keep going.
And then you just hear the door slam.
But no, I'm excited.
I'm excited.
You know, we just all need to put our brains on and not, you know, like immediately judge us or write in at all, ever.
Yeah, Julian is still playing his cards and seeing whether it's the Libs or the Leninists who are going to get mad, and then he's going to take whichever.
That is a good debate, actually.
I don't know who is going to be more ticked off, but hopefully they'll understand the various subtleties of this wonderful onion.
I, on the other hand, have already sent the script to this episode to my CIA handler, so both of you should watch your step.
You know, the CIA gets very worried when academics make subtle arguments or have analyses of anything.
They're just like, what the heck?
I read all of this.
The CIA just sends back to Travis that thing where it's like, didn't read this, but good for you or sorry that happened.
Which is, in fact, exactly what happened when Travis tried to warn Lib Media about, like, you know, far-right QAnon candidates running for election.
It's the exact same thing.
Yeah.
This is a horseshoe theory.
Well, who is the Travis of 1917?
That's what we have to figure out this episode.
It was a man named Augustus Gloob.
I'm going to tell you a story about how a liberal democratic government collapsed through takeover by radical groups.
It is one that is radically different from anything that could or will happen to the American government any time in the future.
Nor are the radical groups in any way similar to the ones actively organizing in America today.
Yet I think it's demonstrative of how power has worked historically.
There are many patterns that one ought to take note of.
When listening to Travis's explanation of how QAnon and QAnon-adjacent groups are taking over school boards and Republican precincts in America, I noticed some striking similarities to how the Bolsheviks and other revolutionaries successfully seized power in 1917.
Very particularly, I noticed how similar Steve Bannon's attempts at getting the far-right to influence the Republican Party are to some of Lenin's organizational tactics in the Soviets.
This is certainly fitting, given that Bannon has openly claimed to have read Lenin.
Now, Leninists listening, do not fear.
We should open every episode like that.
Now, Leninists listening, do not fear.
Welcome to the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
I do not want to compare the ideology of Lenin.
who in State and Revolution attempted to create a non-bureaucratized people's democracy,
to QAnon and the alt-right who wished to do something radically different.
I merely wish to show that Lenin was a man who understood how power worked and organized
extremely effectively to use the Soviets to destroy the Russian provisional government
and take over.
I think from this angle, regardless of the political viewpoint you subscribe to, you
can notice some similarities in tactics and planning.
One can still have radical politics while admitting that revolutionaries from radically different positions can still exchange notes on how to destroy institutions of power and take over.
I would not be surprised if much of what Bannon and other mega-adjacent extremists have done recently in America is a product of this.
On March 8th of 1917, thousands of angry housewives and women workers poured out onto the streets of Petrograd, the then capital of Russia, now known as St.
Petersburg, for International Women's Day.
Despite calls by many labor activists for them to be calm and wait, the protests radically escalated to such an extent that on the next day, there were 200,000 Petrograd workers out on the street protesting the terrible conditions they were placed in following the worsening economic conditions in Russia.
And so, with German soldiers advancing on the Eastern Front and grain shipments into the cities wholly inadequate to feed Russia's working population, the Tsarist autocracy collapsed in the next 12 days.
This revolt was not exclusively done by the Bolsheviks, as one may generally have assumed, given I am speaking of a Russian revolution.
This February revolution that deposed the Tsar was carried out by an alliance of liberals, socialists, disaffected soldiers, industrial workers, and unhappy serfs.
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