The Procedurality

May 24, 2022

Captain Farid Chitav and 11 his subordinates from Russian National Guard (Росгвардия) refused to go to Ukraine. Their regiment from Krasnodar was ordered to Ukraine and they objected. They said that they don't have a foreign passport and thus can't cross Russian border legally

They said that crossing Russian border without a foreign passport (you need for travelling abroad) is illegal and constitutes a felony 322 УК РФ. Thus they can't go. What happened to them? They were all fired. Now they are suing their commandment for firing them illegally

That's very important case for understanding Russian state and well, almost any state in this world. When we are analysing its practices we often use imbecile, meaningless categories like "legal/illegal". Let me introduce much better term - "procedural"

Practices of state, including the Putin's state may not be legal. They absolutely can break Russian law on every level. But that does *not* mean they're random or chaotic. Nope. They're very procedural, to the far greater extent than most people can imagine

We often describe Kafka's works as absurdist. But they're not absurdist at all. Kafka was a highly competent and successful bureaucrat valued by his superiors. His narratives are logical. Except it's not human logic, it's procedural logic, logic of a machine

Consider Stalin's purges. They're often described as illegal. Yes, Stalin's state security broke Soviet laws on every level, constantly. But that doesn't mean their actions were chaotic or fully capricious. Nope. They followed the procedural logic of bureaucracy