Читать книгу The Russian Totalitarianism. Freedom here and now - Dmitrii Shusharin - Страница 4

The historical and political impotence is not equivalent to the intellectual one. And the last thing to do nowadays is to writhe in hysterics or fall silent in depression. To live through several epochs in three decades is a gift from God, a sign of his benevolence. Those were the fateful moments, but people failed to use them, waiting for an invitation to the feast, instead of laying the table with their own hands. A sudden three hundred sixty degrees turn instead of one hundred and eighty is a great incentive for mental activity, free from all previous concepts and schemes.

There are rules that cannot be argued, but it is really difficult to follow them.

When you are contemplating the social structure, the political culture and the national mindset, it is necessary to consider how all this works in a certain system, and not the personal qualities of those who are in charge of all this. Obviously, this is the right approach. But when the system is built around certain individuals and depends on their personal qualities, you can’t help but place greater focus on them. Bonapartism is a complex socio-historical phenomenon, but you can’t understand a thing in it without taking a close look at the personality of Napoleon Bonaparte.

If you talk about the country’s historical prospects, the strategy for its development, you shouldn’t pay much attention to conflicts between different people in power, their squabbles and passions. Few people in the country know their names. But if there is no public policy and public examination, when strategic decisions are not discussed and taken according to the personal interests of contending individuals and groups, we have to figure out what is behind the exchange of barbs in the press campaigns, rather than try to understand the meaning in confusing statements of politicians.

If the concepts submitted for public debate claim to sum up the experience of the past few years of the country’s development, than, of course, we need to look into them in detail, and debate in a well-argued manner. But if it is clear that behind them there is nothing but claims to absolute power, to comply with the rules of debate is simply dangerous. In humanitarian context, such concepts deny equality of participants in the debate. Because the debate is aimed at the destruction of this context.

In general, the meaning of a statement cannot be reduced to the meanings of the words used in it. It may be the exact opposite of them.

Or maybe not at all connected with them. And if the text is stylistically repulsive, causes laughter or disgust, then this reaction is to be trusted first. Stylistic differences have long been known to be the most profound and meaningful touchstones in public debate. Aesthetic sensitivity and good taste are the most reliable protection against political baseness. And not just political – any. Ethical values are less reliable: a person can be persuaded. But the disgust that stylistic falsity excites is hard to overcome.

There are all sorts of different conventions, the observance of which disarms decent and positive minded people before the brazen depredators. And so, every time we see that the obvious crooks and even potential villains claim to participate on equal terms in the discussion, we should recall how people of their ilk used such occasions to seize absolute power. And how costly it was to get rid of them afterwards.

The main division, which occurred in Russian society, is not the 86% of “Crimea is ours” crowd and 14% sober-minded. The division did not happen at all. It has always been. Now there is another division: one group believe that the time has come for allegories, omissions, haziness and ambiguity, not even Aesop language, but the utter verbal dregs. The other group believes it’s time for clarity. Few people think it is important and necessary to study the transformation of the political system, the imminent collapse of which has been predicted by the intellectuals since last year of the last century. Here is a selection of some statement of the most notable freethinkers1:

Valeria Novodvorskaya, 2000: Mister Putin won’t outlast his constitutional term.

Boris Berezovsky, 2003: Putin’s political life is not going to be a long one. In politics, there are objective processes. And they have a tendency to be precipitous, because we live under the conditions of condensed time. Therefore, this system is going to collapse within the interval of the current presidential term. In other words, Putin is not going to be re-elected in March, because the time flow in 21^st century is different: what in 20^th century was taking 10 years, will require only one year in the 21^st.

Eduard Limonov, 2005: I do not believe that Vladimir Vladimirovich, with his manners mimicking Sovereign Emperor Nicholas, either the Second or the First, can make it to the end of his term.

Garry Kasparov, 31.10.2008: The Putin regime can’t last more than two years. Once I said that this regime would last only until 2012. I have to slightly adjust my forecast: by 2010.

Garry Kasparov, 18.11. 2008: Medvedev will rule no more than 1.5 years, then he will be overthrown by the masses, prompted by the crisis. Very soon, hundreds of thousands of people will be out in the streets.

Boris Nemtsov, 02.03.2009: A year, no more than a year and a half is left till the end of the current political Putin-Medvedev regime.

Mikhail Kasyanov, 07.07.2011: Such [Arab] spring may arrive in three or four months.

Sergey Belanovsky, 2012: Frankly, I doubt that he will sit in the president’s chair for six years – this is my personal opinion.

Boris Akunin, 19.01.2012: I swear, I have a strong sense that Vladimir Putin’s historical time is running out.

Alfred Koch, 2012: Everyone agrees that he’ll be out before the end of his constitutional term.

Vladimir Voinovich, 2014: As the ruler of Russia Vladimir Putin won’t hold on for more than two years.

Slava Rabinovich, 2014: Putin won’t stay until 2018. Not more than two years left for him.

Mikhail Kasyanov, 2014: I believe that the collapse will happen in a year. This would lead to the end of the entire Putin system.

In July 2015 former Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev said:

“Regime change is inevitable, it is possible in the nearest future.”2

All their predictions failed. The lessons of history demonstrate that it is better to study in depth the current situation rather than prophesize about its demise. However, the prophecies are often more popular than the knowledge of the actual state of affairs. Still, objectively speaking, the winners in this dispute are the ones who base their argument on the knowledge of the present reality.

Those who try to convince themselves and others that the government is agonizing (“just a jab and it will collapse”), are sidetracking from the most important issue – the adequate comprehension of the country’s main fundamental nature. The knowledge of it is valuable by itself, but also has a constructive value as opposed to empty theorizing and utopian pipe dreams.

Forecasts in the literal sense of the word are not in demand by society. A forecast is a commodity; its success is determined by the market, not by its fulfillment. The main feature of the future, as Vladimir Nabokov famously noted, is its nonexistence. That’s why any forecast is pointless, because it applies to a nonexistent thing. Only the present has real substance, and any forecast is nothing but an attempt to influence people here and now.

The forecast sells well if it suits the mood of the buyers. In the 90-ies the apocalyptic predictions were in demand of the progressive and not so progressive public. Trade in them played a significant role in the transition from Yeltsin to Putin and the subsequent development. Now, on the contrary, in spite of the obvious, in everything concerning Russia, the top-selling article is the vain hope. Most of what we call the forecasts is, generally speaking, not even forecasts in the socio-political sense. Quite often these are just a simulation of speech, the imitation of a forecast for the sake of an immediate effect right on the spot. Whether it’s “everything is going to be fine” or “Putin’s regime is about to collapse.” Analysts and even businessmen have no use of projections necessitating a change in their current strategies. In extreme cases, they can go for some modifications. The most accurate forecast has no value; even if it comes true it brings no dividends to the forecaster. The measure of success is the act of selling of the forecast at the moment of its delivery. No fear of repressions and prohibitions since the society has no use of the knowledge about itself.

Dystopias distorted the perception of reality in those who lived or continue to live in the context of the utopia’s implementation. Up to Zamyatin’s “We” the main problem of the society of universal equality was considered a common, evenly distributed satiety. In 1920 Khodasevich wrote:

Same weight of bread for everyone,

The age of justice will supply.

Once in a while a humble man

Will cast a glance at distant sky.

The reality turned out to be hunger, poverty and inequality in everything. And now the images of the future society, created by Alexander Zinoviev and Vladimir Voinovich obstruct the sober look at what is happening now. They believed that technological backwardness, shortages, isolationism and numerous prohibitions would only increase. They saw the future of totalitarianism in its obstinate resistance against the outside world of free, prosperous and self-confident societies.

But it came out quite the opposite. Russia adopted the high tech tools, the instruments of market economy, reached a relatively higher standards of living, doesn’t practice mass repressions and prohibitions, and the main thing, conducts an aggressively offensive policy against the weakening civilized world with its compromised identity, struck by populism and ready to give up its freedoms.

Reflecting on Soviet society and culture, Nadezhda Mandelstam concluded that the Sovok (though this moniker has come later) is not compatible with the tragedy, with a tragic worldview as a reaction to a total derision of human values. Here we see the denial, refusal to acknowledge the defeat, and therefore, the lack of desire for rebirth and the will to win in a struggle for restoration and affirmation of those human values.

Her words constantly come to my mind, when I look at what is happening in the minds of many people of different walks of life. What I am going to say now applies to everyone who believes that Russia is in trouble, whether they are local residents or the Georgians and Ukrainians. The most serious mistake they are making is their unawareness of Putin’s victory and their total defeat. The nation in a state of denial is Kremlin’s triumph.

The ones who can’t accept their defeat never destined to be winners. The longer the losers try to convince themselves and the others that all this is accidental and short-lived, the further they will keep themselves away from the new beginnings, from starting the process all over again in a sound mind and memory. They cherish and aggravate their defeat, refusing to listen to those who tell them about it. They cling to their illusions and their statuses, preventing them from free development of thought and an honest discussion of what is happening.

Their diatribes and insults to Putin and the Kremlin, their prophecies about the imminent fall of the current regime only make them accomplices of those whom they revile. The path to victory begins with recognition of the tragic predicament and its irreversibility in the near future. This is the tragedy of nations who are deprived of the opportunity to develop freely and peacefully.

Above all, it is necessary to abandon the empty hope that all what is happening in Russia is a short-lived period associated with one person. Those who control the discourse are not secret agents of the power, although sometimes they happened to be the ones. Remarkably indicative are the topics that are forbidden to be discussed, not by the power, but the society itself. It is even allowed to vilify Putin and to predict the collapse of the regime in the coming weeks. But you are not allowed to question, how a mediocrity such as Putin has been able to hold power for fifteen years and dictate his will to the world. And you can’t recognize that his power is strengthening day after day. The intellectual and cultural development means constant revision of discourse and the reassessment of hierarchies and cult figures. However, who are the ones allowed to reassess, if the commanders of the discourse don’t listen to anyone but themselves?

Russia can be understood by logical mind. Inevitably, you must, otherwise you can’t survive along with her. This understanding begins with abandoning of democratic concepts of government and society as a yardstick inapplicable to the totalitarian Russia. The totalitarianism requires an alternative political methodology and special instruments of social observation. Most importantly, the uttering of the word itself – totalitarianism – excludes all attempts of a non-judgmental knowledge. The object of the study is the evil. This is the starting point. And it starts with the recognition that evil is never funny; it always gives rise to a tragedy, never a farce.