End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration

When Stalin joined the Bolshevik Party, Russia was suffering from a huge problem of elite overproduction, which was a fundamental cause of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917.[4] By 1941, when the Soviet Union entered World War II, Stalin had taken care of this problem by ruthlessly exterminating this elite “surplus.” He essentially created a

Battle of Ayn Jalut

Our analysis points to four structural drivers of instability: popular immiseration leading to mass mobilization potential; elite overproduction resulting in intraelite conflict; failing fiscal health and weakened legitimacy of the state; and geopolitical factors. The most important driver is intraelite competition and conflict, which is a reliable