To understand how Europe ended up in its current dire predicament, we must first take a short trip down memory lane. Way back in 1917 the Russian Revolution happened. Bolsheviks came to power in Russia and created the USSR, which became the world’s first social state. The term “social state” is preferable to the term “socialist.” “Socialism” relates to ideology, which can be communist or socialist or even capitalist and is a question of intentions, not results, while “social state” relates directly to observable economic structures.

A social state provides all of the most important things for free: free housing, free medicine, free child care and education. If it can, it also provides some frills: free music schools, ballet classes and summer camps for the children and free spas and sanatoriums for the elderly. What isn’t free — food, clothing, furnishings, public transportation, etc. — is, in a social state, affordable for just about everyone. A social state does not fight poverty; it refuses to tolerate it.

In the USSR, some of the free stuff was quite excellent — education, primary health care, arts and sciences — while the rest wasn’t always of the highest quality, and it wasn’t always available. But it was free, and what sort of an ingrate would ever complain about a gift? Thrown in with the socialist program were equal rights for women and ethnic minorities, a meritocratic system of social lifts that pretty much demolished all remnants of a class hierarchy and lots of other good stuff. Some people who didn’t get with this program fast enough ended up felling trees in Siberia. A class system of sorts eventually formed out of the Soviet communist party hierarchy, and it eventually wrecked the Soviet social state for the simple reason that it interfered with them getting rich.

Along the way World War II happened. Hitler invaded Russia and as a result the Soviet sphere of control swelled to include all of Eastern Europe, including a generous chunk of what had been Nazi Germany. After the war, the Soviet leadership set about refashioning its new domain in its own image — by providing lots of free stuff and by installing socialist regimes that built up the social state throughout Eastern Europe.

Meanwhile, Western Europe remained mired in some sort of semi-feudal class system, lorded over by a degenerate aristocracy and a capitalist oligarchy, with private ownership of just about everything and access to just about everything based on one’s ability to pay, with no equal rights for women, with lots of ethnic and racial discrimination and plenty of other medieval horrors. The obvious shortcomings of this retrograde system fomented a constant drumbeat of social discontent. Socialist and communist parties periodically threatened to rise to the top in spite of all efforts at suppressing them.

What’s worse, Western Europe was now under American control, and Americans happen to suffer from a certain congenital deformity of the mind: they are unable to comprehend any system other than their own. And so they blindly insisted on some semblance of democratic governance wherever they could reach, complicating the process of suppressing socialist and communist parties. This didn’t work everywhere: Spain, Portugal and Greece remained as dictatorships for quite a long time.

Needless to say, the Americans were ever so chagrined whenever Western Europeans, looking at all the free stuff being handed out just to the east of them and feeling rightfully jealous, set to voting for communist and socialist parties. Another American congenital defect is their implacable hatred of anything that smells of socialism or communism. But to placate the populace they were forced to turn a blind eye to the introduction of socialist policies throughout Western Europe. And over time even the Americans were forced to introduce some socialist policies, such as guaranteed maternity leave — unpaid leave though it is — and meager, barely survivable old age pensions. But they did so in a maximally halfhearted way, backsliding at every opportunity. Famously, they never found it within themselves to write equal rights for women into their constitution.

Some decades later the USSR folded. Proponents of the Soviet social state saw this capitulation as an act of treason by the hierarchy of the Soviet communist party with Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin as the chief traitors. Cut off from Russian largesse, much of Eastern Europe lapsed into poverty. So did Russia: following the collapse, it shifted from an estimated 2% of the population living in poverty in 1989 to nearly 24% by 1998. But then, under Vladimir Putin, it recovered quite swiftly and is now doing better than ever. It even managed to salvage quite a bit of the Soviet social state, preserving free basic health care and mostly free education, subsidized mortgage rates for families with children and numerous other benefits. The Russian economy is now decidedly entrepreneurial and capitalist, with minimal bureaucratic impediments to starting a private business, but with as much as a 50% share of government ownership, mostly of large enterprises and industry champions.

After the USSR collapsed, the Americans suffered a bit of brain damage. They convinced themselves that the voluntary disbanding of the USSR by some communist traitors was in fact their Cold War victory and that they could now run the whole planet as they wished. They overextended themselves in trying to do so and are now heading toward a USSR-style collapse themselves, but that’s a topic for a different article.

Meanwhile, in Europe, it came time to dismantle the social state. We will return to the economic conditions which made this necessary, but first let’s address the issue of the day: protests. The prospect of dismantling the social state has been greeted with considerable protest throughout Europe, stretching from Paris to Milan, Barcelona and Brussels, all the way to Tirana. These protests are commonly described as a reaction to rising prices or demands for specific policy reforms, but such characterizations are far too superficial. What underlies the protests is a deeper structural shift: a transition from a social state to state-managed discontent.

Those in power are no longer concerned with attempting to address grievances, because that would be futile, and are now focused on managing how those grievances are channeled politically. The demands of the protesters and the responses to them formulated by the authorities have diverged. Essentially, the protesters and those in power do not share the same concerns. The protesters call for such things as higher minimum wages, price freezes, and funding for schools and hospitals. The authorities respond with a policing doctrine that includes generous use of tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, of extended detentions, of expedited judicial proceedings, and the construction of a digital gulag. This is not about achieving justice; this is about managing the symptoms of impending social breakdown.

The divide between the protesters and the managers has an economic foundation. The share of the manufacturing sector in the EU economy has fallen to approximately 14% of GDP. The automotive industry is falling apart. The chemical industry has seen the closure of nearly a hundred facilities in a single year. Europe lacks key industrial resources: more than 90% of its rare-earth elements come from China, roughly half of its gas is imported from the United States, and energy costs in Europe are approximately four times higher than in the US.

Against this backdrop of economic decline, income distribution is shifting toward the top: the wealthiest 1% of the population holds nearly a quarter of all wealth, while the poorest half owns only 3%. Furthermore, the wealthiest 10% of households in the Eurozone account for approximately 57% of total net wealth. This is a solid majority, and it decides where the money gets spent. Consequently, corporate profits and dividends are growing, while the real wages of ordinary workers are declining. These are not isolated problems, but rather a single, unified catastrophe: economic surplus is extracted from the real economy and concentrated at the top, while the social state is being dismantled.

As a political consequence of this development, wealth is converted into power. In France, the political preferences of the affluent carry roughly 1.5 times more weight than those of the poor when it comes to the formation of the government — a gap that has been widening ever since 2017. While a pseudo-democratic façade is still being maintained, the actual distribution of political influence has become decidedly undemocratic. Oligarchy has become entrenched not through the abolition of elections, but through the erosion of the checks and balances — such as the judiciary, the media, and independent agencies—that are supposed to hold the oligarchs accountable.

As the poor grow poorer and the middle class dwindles, anger is redirected — toward anyone except those who actually benefit from this wealth redistribution. At the same time, there expands a parasitic subclass whose income depends on preserving the status quo rather than changing it: security personnel, recruited from the same social strata as the protesters, have a greater stake in maintaining stability than in pursuing justice. Discipline and mobilization are framed not as coercion, but as a necessary response to various threats.

The European model is evolving away from democracy and a social state, but not in the direction of a classic dictatorship. Instead, the new model is a regime that is formally, superficially democratic yet effectively oligarchic: elections are still held, but their outcomes are systematically manipulated; the rule of law exists in name, but the institutions capable of holding the oligarchy accountable are neutralized; “order” is maintained through force, while social demands are dismissed as impractical or extremist.

There is a single, overarching objective to this entire process: the preservation of wealth by the wealthy minority. This objective goes hand in hand with ensuring the overall stability of the global financial system. Here, what is required is to curtail further deficit spending and state borrowing that is no longer being supported by economic growth. Such fiscal tactics can only be sustained if economic growth outpaces growth in government debt. When it doesn’t, it paves a direct path to national bankruptcy. Debt growth in the EU has outpaced economic growth during the 2008–2009 global financial crisis and the ensuing European sovereign debt crisis, when public debt-to-GDP ratios surged dramatically while economic output contracted or stagnated.

Research on EU economies shows a nonlinear, negative relationship where high or rising government debt-to-GDP ratios tend to suppress long-term economic growth once specific thresholds are crossed. Experts still argue about the exact moment these thresholds were crossed. An influential 2010 study by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff pointed to a 90% debt-to-GDP ratio as a tipping point. Compare this to latest data from Eurostat: as of the second quarter of 2026, the average general government gross debt-to-GDP ratio for the European Union was 82.9%. For the narrower Eurozone, it was 88.8%. Now, in the fourth quarter of 2026, it seems safe to assume that EU’s fiscal position has degenerated further and that Europe is now past the Reinhart/Rogoff tipping point and heading downhill in a nonlinear fashion.

And so, the European social state will be dismantled. Widespread public protests will lead to repression, not reform. European voters do not wish to be deprived of all of the wonderful services which they have become accustomed to receiving from the social state, but their opinion is of no interest to the ruling oligarchy.

Furthermore, from the point of view of the European ruling oligarchy, just passively letting the social state melt away into nothingness would not be enough. In the immortal words of Friedrich Nietzsche, “That which is falling must also be pushed.” Let us look at the concrete steps they took to make this process inevitable and self-perpetuating.

Step one was to flood Europe with migrants. These were not immigrants willing to learn the language and the local culture, to integrate and to play a productive part in European society. That would only prolong the agony. The ideal newcomer is a pure freeloader, antagonistic toward all things European, idle, alienated and vicious. The newcomers would compete with the locals for state services, maximally overburdening the social state and pushing it into a failure mode.

Step two was to introduce a number of supposedly environmentalist measures which replaced traditional fossil fuel-based power generation with short-lived and intermittent, but supposedly renewable and environmentally benign sources such as wind and solar. These sources are not able to provide for the base load which is necessary for industrial production. In addition, Europe was cut off from access to affordable and stable sources of Russian energy, including oil and gas pipelines.

Attempting to compensate for this loss, the European Union imported a record 12.18 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas from Russia during the first nine months of 2026. This represents a 9.5% year-on-year increase, resulting in total EU payments of approximately €7.88 billion to Russia over this nine-month period. Russian LNG currently accounts for approximately 20% of the EU’s total LNG import mix. This makes Russia the second-largest LNG supplier to the EU behind the United States.

Although, given the situation in the Persian Gulf and the loss of LNG from Qatar, this may seem like an insane move, the EU saw it fit to block all Russian LNG imports as of the start of 2027. While Qatar previously supplied nearly 20% of the world’s LNG export capacity, much of its production capacity has been damaged or destroyed in the course of the ongoing regional war involving Israel, the US and Iran. If hostilities were to end, rebuilding it would take the better part of a decade. From the EU’s point of view, cutting off 20% of its LNG imports in the dead of winter is an excellent way to further enhance an already desperate energy crisis.

Step three was to take other forceful measures to bankrupt the government. An excellent way to do so is to take all of the money that could be used to reinvigorate economic growth or to shore up the social state and to throw it into a black hole. But how does one find a black hole to throw money into? This turns out to be quite easy: there is just such a black hole lurking right there in Europe. Some still call it “Ukraine” while others would prefer not to call it at all.

To date, the European Union and its member states have squandered €231.5 billion in overall financial, military, economic, and humanitarian support for the former Ukraine. A good third of that sum was embezzled by corrupt Ukrainian officials or evaporated as kickbacks to EU officials who made multiple pilgrimages to Kiev, hauling back suitcases full of cash in their diplomatic baggage. Much of the rest was wasted on futile military action against the constantly advancing Russian forces, in the course of which over a million and a half Ukrainian soldiers have been massacred for the sake of enriching EU officials and the Kiev junta. The former Ukraine offered a simply splendid opportunity to burn huge sums of money.

Step four was to prepare Europe for war, squandering whatever money remained on weapons procurement and rather unsuccessful military recruitment. But here the former Ukraine can lend a hand: its recruitment officers, known as the TeTseKa, have become quite expert at press-ganging civilians into military service by kidnapping them off the streets, then beating them into submission. In the best traditions of the British navy during the colonial era, the beatings continue until morale improves. But instead of daily rations of half a pint of brandy or rum, the Ukrainian cannon fodder is now dosed with specially formulated methamphetamine-based drugs that deaden fear, hunger and pain. Such Ukrainian best practices will no doubt prove effective during Europe’s forthcoming wars.

Although Europe’s notional enemy was, is and always will be Russia-Russia-Russia, this is a rather transparent ruse. Russia has no interest in attacking or invading Europe: it has no use for half a billion pensioners, migrants and spoiled brats. And if Europe were to do the stupidest thing imaginable and attack Russia, its fate would be sealed in a great hurry. Russia has plenty of means at its disposal and is absolutely certain to resort to nuclear weapons if this ever becomes necessary.

The EU no longer enjoys the protection of America’s nuclear umbrella because the US has no interest in starting a nuclear war with Russia over Europe. Britain’s nuclear weapons are, in fact, American, and can’t be used without American permission, which will not be forthcoming; see above as to why. And Russia can neutralize the French nuclear deterrent as soon as the French military bureaucracy swings into action to authorize the use of its rather boutique nuclear stockpile. In view of the above, Europe’s war with Russia is out of the question.

War among European nations, on the other hand, would be quite traditional and will be ready to resume once the preparations for it are complete. When a certain region of, say, France, becomes ungovernable because rioters occupy city centers while the police flee the scene, the German army can move in and clean the place up much more easily than the French army, which would naturally be opposed to being deployed against their own, French civilians.

When the Russians simply abandon Western Ukraine to its own devices and it becomes infested with criminal cartels, Poland, Hungary and Romania can attempt to clean it up, then start fighting each other over these scraps. These are, after all, territories that once belonged to them. There are numerous other irredentist fantasies and historical grievances throughout Europe that can be exploited in a similar fashion.

A rather large question looms over all of these preparations: Will they be sufficient to ensure a smooth transition to a stable and controllable post-social-state Europe in which the international financial order will hold and the European oligarchy will preserve its wealth and power? Only time will tell, but the rest of the would certainly do well to start stocking up on pop corn, because this is sure to be interesting to watch from a safe distance!