Political Scientists From The United States

"Chinese-American political scientist Pei Minxin’s “The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism” (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2026) is an autopsy report on a failing idea that few were willing to address: the belief that markets would weaken authoritarianism, that billionaires would push the Chinese Communist Party toward democracy, and that a rising middle class would seek elections rather than larger apartments. Pei dissects the myth with scholarly precision and the dry humor of someone who has watched Western policymakers cling to the same fantasies for 40 years."

"For the mind to believe in its own decisions, it must feel that it made those decisions without coercion. Coercive measures used by the operative, consequently, must not be detectable by ordinary means. There is no need to resort to mind-weakening drugs such as those explored by the CIA; in fact the exposure of a single such method would do unacceptable damage to MindWar’s reputation for truth."

"I reaffirm my degree as Magister Templi, and I reaffirm the degrees of all those who have won them and honored them according to the standards Satan himself has upheld since the dawn of human civilization. Since you—Satan's High Priest and High Priestess—have presumed to destroy these standards and replace the true Church of Satan with a "Church of Anton," the Infernal Mandate is hereby withdrawn from the organization known as the "Church of Satan, Inc." and you are no longer empowered to execute your offices. The degrees you scorn are no longer yours to administer, but shall be safeguarded according to the Will of Satan."

"Satanists participating in rituals of Black Magic quickly became aware of an "interest" or "influence" in the atmosphere of the chamber that felt somehow alien to their own personalities. The pageantry and the oratory would fade into the background, and the participants would find themselves gripped in a sensory empathy so piercing, so powerful that it would leave them exhausted, drained, and shaken at the conclusion of the rite. It was not a chance occurrence, but an inevitable, recurring one. After such experiences participants were subdued, introspective, and disinclined to exchange comments on their feelings. There was perhaps even a slight feeling of embarrassment, as though one had somehow "slipped" from being a proper psychodramatic atheist."

"Whatever else may be said of him, no one can accuse Anton Szandor LaVey of being uninteresting."

"Mein Kampf is a political Satanic Bible. For control of mass movements of human beings, it is far more important than anything ever written by Jefferson, Locke, Marx, Lenin, or Kissinger."

"LaVey constructed an "audience cult" for sympathizers, an anti-organization designed to let each act in the carnival of life while giving credit to a symbolic Satan, represented by LaVey as ringmaster. Aquino constructed an esoteric order for students of the occult, designed to school new generations of "isolate intelligences" to emulate Set and survive the body. One is an expressive carnival for this life, the other a college for this life—and another."

"According to Satanic criteria, the importance of Nazi Germany is that it succeeded in touching the very core of human behavioral motivation factors. In short, Adolf Hitler knew what really makes people tick, and he formed a political party designed to make those desires legitimate and respectable in German society. As you know from the Satanic Bible, people are motivated basically by crude and bestial emotions - greed, lust, hatred, envy of others’ success, desire for power, desire for recognition, etc. Civilization has repressed such anarchic emotions in order that people may live together with a certain amount of peace. When one deliberately unleashes those emotions,consequently, there is going to be a bit of unpleasantness - war, domestic purges, or the like."

"While LaVey simply saw Satan as a symbol of man's egoism, Aquino believed in the objective reality of the devil. The theurgic rituals of the Temple of Set invoked the Prince of Darkness as a sinister supernatural power."

"I am the ageless Intelligence of this Universe. I created HarWer that I might define my Self. All other gods of all other times and nations have been created by men. This you know from the first Part of my Word, and from my manifest semblance, which alone is not of Earth."

"The Equinox has succumbed to my Solstice, and I, Set, am revealed in my Majesty."

"On the other hand, we lost the war - not because we were out-fought, but because we were out-PSYOPed. Our national will to victory was attacked more effectively than we attacked that of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, and perception of this fact encouraged the enemy to hang on until the United States finally broke and ran for home. So our PSYOP failed. It failed not because its principles were unsound, but rather because it was outmatched by the PSYOP of the enemy."

"Affix now my image as it was given to you, so that all who read of these matters may now look upon the likeness of Set. The Word of the Aeon of Set is XEPER— Become."

"So let us begin with a simple name change. We shall rid ourselves of the self- conscious, almost "embarrassed" concept of "psychological operations". In its place we shall create MindWar. The term is harsh and fear-inspiring, and so it should be: It is a term of attack and victory - not one of the rationalization and coaxing and conciliation. The enemy may be offended by it; that is quite all right as long as he is defeated by it. A definition is offered: MindWar is the deliberate, aggressive convincing of all participants in a war that we will win that war."

"Reconsecrate my Temple and my Order in the true name of Set. No longer will I accept the bastard title of a Hebrew fiend."

"All dominating elites and rulers depend for their sources of power upon the cooperation of the population and of the institutions of the society they would rule."

"The most important single quality of any government, without which it would not exist, must be the obedience and submission of its subjects. Obedience is at the heart of political power."

"The internet has created incentives for warring factions to frame their struggle in global terms in order to attract the widest audience of supporters. This creates greater opportunities for outside states to become involved in the war to try to influence the outcome."

"Scholars know where civil wars break out and who tends to start them: downgraded groups in anocracies dominated by ethnic factions. But what triggers them? What finally tips a country into conflict? Citizens can absorb a lot of pain. They will accept years of discrimination and poverty and remain quiet, enduring the ache of slow decline. What they can’t take is the loss of hope. It’s when a group looks into the future and sees nothing but additional pain that they start to see violence as their only path to progress."

"People are desperate for high quality analysis, especially of complex current events."

"Seeing the collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe after 1989, and the loss of the ruling status of communist parties... the [CPSU] authorized the ... to move money out of the Soviet Union, realizing that if the CPSU lost its ruling status... [i.e.,] access to the state budget without limit, they would need money to live in a . Something that the Polish, East German and Hungarian parties hadn't thought about."

"Gleb Pavlovsky... an extremely important member of the PR team around Putin in 2000, and who has fallen out with the ... stated (and I agree...) that "Putin was part of a very extensive, but politically invisible layer of people, who after the end of the 1980s, were looking for a revanche in connection with the collapse of the Soviet Union.""

"Money started to flood... in such amounts that they virtually bankrupt the Gorbachev regime first, and then when Yeltsin failed to find the Communist gold, they also significantly handicapped the ability of the Yeltsin regime to succeed."

"The Putin system nationalizes the risk and privatizes the reward to loyalists."

"110 billionaires control 35% of the... wealth of this very wealthy country. ...[T]he median wealth in Russia ...(50% are richer, 50% are poorer) ...is ...$871. It is the lowest median wealth figure of any country. A country that is a net exporter of energy has a lower median wealth than India. It... scores below Nigeria in its ability to control corruption, and... its willingness to control corruption."

"The pattern we see now of the redistribution of to the inner core, has been in place since the beginning, and even before . This is not a system in which robber barons create the industrial basis of a robust emerging capitalist economy. This is a system in which barons are robbed by value-detracting state raiding elites whose sole position is determined by their relationship to the current president. Value-detraction is an extremely important part of this picture."

"It is a system that was created with a purpose by intelligent design from the very beginning of the Putin regime. ...[E]ven the 2000 election was fraudulent. Putin would not have won in the first round without massive fraud."

"[F]rom the very beginning the Putin project was... all about guaranteeing to win."

"The argument of the book is that this group failed in 1991, but they succeeded in 2000. It's the same group, ideologically, not everybody, but ideologically."

"This group was seeking also to help themselves. They were a group of trained officers, very interested in economic liberalism, but with political control, and primarily liberalism for them[selves]."

"Putin will not go gentle into the night. ...[L]ess flexible and more bombastic in his public appearances ...those in his inner circle suggest that after the 2011–12 election demonstrations, there is ...fear. Gleb Pavlovskiy, his PR guru... believes that Putin will never leave power and ...hampered by the idea that Russians will always decide ...by violence. Pavlovskiy ...heard Putin say, "We ...know that as soon as we move aside, you will destroy us. ...you'll put us to the wall and execute us. And we don’t want to go to the wall.""

"Baltik-Eskort operated openly as a private security service to protect Putin, Sobchak, and other[s]... It... allegedly acted as a liaison with the criminal underworld in St. Petersburg, including... Aleksandr Malyshev, reputed head of the Malyshev criminal organization, and , the reputed head of the Tambov crime organization. Some... employees were members of criminal groups and... accused of being involved in the assassinations of political figures..."

"[T]hese sanctions represented a public admission by the United States government of what it had known for over a decade... Putin has built a system based on massive predation not seen in Russia since the Tzars. Transparency International estimates $300 billion are paid every year in corruption. , according to official Russian Central Bank figures since 2005 have been $335 billion, and ... stated that Russia now has the highest income inequality of any country in the world."

"Most of the academic world... have spent the last 20 years focusing on democracy in Russia... but not on authoritarianism succeeding, and the basic conclusion... in this book is that Russia is not a system under Putin, of accidental autocrats."

"[T]his was CPSU money safeguarded by the , but when Yeltsin outlawed the CPSU, who did the money belong to? ...[T]o whoever knew what the bank account number was, and this started the scramble for offshore accounts. Kroll International was hired... by Gaidar and Yeltsin. They couldn't find the money."

"...Timchenko's company "was a beneficiary of a large export quota under a scandal-tainted oil-for-food scheme set up by Mr. Putin when he worked as head of the city administration’s foreign economic relations committee in 1991 ..." Timchenko and his colleagues were never prosecuted, and indeed he went on to establish ."

"Vladimir S. Milov......[T]hese guys have benefited and made their fortunes through deals which involved state-controlled companies... operating under... direct control of government and the president... [C]ose friends of Putin... of relatively moderate means before Putin came to power all of a sudden turned out to be billionaires. ...[A]t the same time ...income disparity in Russia had never been worse, with the superrich doubling their wealth and the bottom fifth of the population in 2011 making only 55 percent of ...1991 earnings ...despite Putin’s electoral claims that his rule had brought prosperity ..."

"2014... U.S. government’s sanctions... claimed a direct connection between Putin, Timchenko, and : "Timchenko’s activities in the energy sector have been directly linked to Putin. Putin has investments in Gunvor and may have access to Gunvor funds.""

"Smirnov met Putin in 1990 in Germany... He... headed one of the companies... in the [early 1990s] food scandal... millions being stolen; [beginning in 1994] he and Putin sat... on the board of the... SPAG... accused of laundering money for Russian and Columbian organized crime; and he signed over a monopoly position to the Petersburg Fuel Company, which he co-owned with Barsukov-Kumarin. ...Putin ...appointed Smirnov head of Tekhsnabeksport, one of the world’s largest suppliers of nuclear goods and services to foreign governments..."

"No action was more symbolic of the intention of the group around Putin... than the registration... 1996, of the Ozero Dacha Consumer Cooperative... establishing... Vladimir Smirnov as its leader. ...[O]ther members ...Nikolay Shamalov, Vladimir Putin, , Yuriy Koval'chuk, Viktor Myachin, ...Sergey ...and ...Andrey Fursenko. ...This group ...stayed by Putin throughout his ...period in office, and ...all made hundreds of millions and... billions of dollars. ...[A] cooperative... is a... way for Putin to avoid being given money directly, while enjoying... wealth shared among co-owners. ... Smirnov had long been "closely linked with the well-known 'mafia' businessman Vladimir Barsukov (Kumarin).""

"... in 2005 became head of . In... 2013 Putin announced... $43 billion... borrowed from Russia’s pension fund... to stimulate the economy, including $14 billion to build three infrastructure projects, two... by Russian Railways. The Russian free media... forecast... such... would... stimulate... corruption. ...Navalnyy ...criticized Yakunin’s entry to... Russia’s billionaires... as the head of a state-owned firm ...a salaried employee ..."In all other countries, the railways are used for movement, but we use them for stealing.""

"Gref and Kudrin appeared... drawn to Putin... because of his... liberal economic policies and... ability to... get things done in St. Petersburg... when most... were paralyzed by the "alegal" political situation and the total eruption of criminal activity at all levels."

"By 2013 the ' Russia list of the wealthiest businessmen in Russia was replete with friends of Putin."

"Putin’s relationship with his friends was... of reciprocity: ...supporting their raids on private businesses, providing ...no-bid state contracts ...allowing the courts to legalize their activities and criminalize those of ...opponents. In return ...they became the bulwark of his base ...helped finance and secure his electoral victories ... removed ...enemies... and... paid him . All... began in St. Petersburg in the early 1990s, when he started to promote ...s from ...Leningrad and ..."

"Putin's ...securing a monopoly position for select firms was a feature ...while deputy mayor. While he professed ...economic liberalization and private property, he ...acted to reduce competition ...and maximize profits for ...friends. In St. Petersburg, Åslund reported, "...Swedish and Finnish businessmen complained about Putin squeezing out their companies ...through ...lawless tax police, to the advantage of [friendly] companies ...""

"Putin... allegedly favored a takeover of the St. Petersburg port by the Tambov organized crime group."

"Sal'ye summed up the operation and Putin’s ambition... "...Cook up a legally defective contract ...take a license to the Customs Office... open the border... send the goods abroad... and put the money in your pocket. ...It was ...not put out to tender. They needed their 'partners'... of the shadow economy, criminal and mafia structures, front companies that could ensure this... . ...[H]is ...lamentations about the disappearing firms deserve nothing but contempt.""

"Putin... 1991... was made head of the supervisory council overseeing the... gambling industry in St. Petersburg. ...[H]ow did the city become a majority owner in... [that] gaming industry in St. Petersburg? ..."by relinquishing the right to collect rent for the facilities that the s occupied," the city could claim 51 percent ownership ...[E]stablishing a joint stock company called Neva Chance, which... went on to create over twenty-five different [gambling industry] companies ...many ...headed by ex-FSB officials ..."

"Some... gambling companies were controlled by ex-KGB, and as such ...pushed hard to get the to submit to their authority. ...Several reputed members of the Tambov and Malyshev gangs became acquainted with Putin at this time. ...Reputed crime bosses who might not have easily received visas to Western countries now arrived as members of official cultural delegations and did their business abroad under ...protection of ...delegations."

"... "...Putin’s political philosophy and favorite concepts—managed democracy, administrative vertical, dictatorship of law, a 'control' shot to the back of the head, etc.—are close to this group.""