Читать книгу The Russian Totalitarianism. Freedom here and now - Dmitrii Shusharin - Страница 7

Nearly twenty years after the appearance of Vidojevic’s book we may talk about overcoming neo-totalitarianism in two different ways.

Now it is obvious that the so-called color-coded revolutions (the first one was in Serbia) were a continuation of the velvet revolutions that ended the totalitarian occupation, the tank-enforced socialism. Color revolutions were aimed to overthrow the newly established totalitarianism in post-soviet states.

At the turn of the century the major differences in the development of Eastern Europe and Russia became apparent. Step by step Russia has been moving back to a totalitarian mode, reverting to the patterns of classic totalitarianism. The development of civil societies in Georgia and Ukraine has been naturally oriented to the European political culture, which was becoming increasingly alien to Russia. The development of civil societies in Georgia and Ukraine has been naturally oriented to the European political culture, from which Russia was becoming increasingly alienated. Russia declined the historic chance to build the union of democracies in Eastern Europe and wider in Eurasia, which would become one of the centers of the Judeo-Christian civilization. The European choice of the neighbors came to be regarded as a threat not only to the entrenched ruling elite, but also to the Russian identity, the totalitarian Russian civilization, which positions itself as anti-civilization with no positive values and achievements.

This is the second essential feature of totalitarianism. The first, as already mentioned, is its atavistic character – this term is applicable only to countries where a disruption of democratic development occurred along with their secession from the Judeo-Christian civilization. Any totalitarian value is a reversed value, regardless of its ideological design. This is one of the principal differences between totalitarianism and the traditional societies with their self-sufficiency and Latin American dictatorships integrated in the Western world. Antiglobalism and leftist movements of the last decades have significantly strengthened the totalitarian tendencies on this continent, made openly left-wing Venezuela an ally of Russia, where the right-wing ideas – monarchism, clericalism, chauvinism are proclaimed.

The demonization and humiliation of Putin and those around him is a useless and pointless undertaking. People, who came to power in the last years of the last century, did not pursue some insane goals. Vladimir Putin was the homunculus grown in a test-tube of political technology. Nobody wanted him to become a totalitarian leader, but the very selection criteria were totalitarian: it seemed the perfect choice was a man without qualities. This was fully consistent with the spirit and content of the political technologies of that time, totalitarian in its core, since for the Russian political strategists a human being and society have always been superfluous, unnecessary elements.

The rulers of Russia did not set themselves a totalitarian overarching goal. But they did not put other goals either. All they need is their lifelong irremovability in power and their convertibility. The human dimension of politics, state activity, public service does not exist for them. They do not even deny morality, they do not talk about the chimera of conscience – they just argue and act outside of these categories, considering them suitable only for political demagogy.

In October 2004, I described the emerging regime as follows:

“It is wrong to accuse the power in the absence of ideology. Its ideology is simple, has been known since the Soviet era and is reduced to a simple formula: what I protect is what I have. This simplicity ensures high ratings. The public does not want to grow up and this formula is the most germane to the infantilism, so typical for the mentality of Soviet secret police and all other kind of watchmen. Everything is all right with the goal setting and the sense of purpose: the main thing is to secure a comfortable old age with the assets they are in charge of protecting. But the protected object, besides oil, gas, alcohol and still sellable weapons, lives a life controlled by the most incomprehensible manner. And even with one hundred percent approval rating no caretaker, no guard, no watchman can feel completely in control of the situation. Rather, the situation controls them. With the expansion of the control zone the controllers are becoming all the more acutely feeling that they are under control of those “standing outside of life” forces. The higher a person stands in a totalitarian social hierarchy, the more insecure is the position, the less freedom to maneuver is available, the stronger the sense of being a victim, known in psychology as victimization.

That is why we have “the first person”, or Nachalnik (the Boss), as he is called now in his inner circle (not Master as Stalin was referred to or Bat’ka (daddy, or Old Man) like Lukashenka). He is doomed to loneliness, fear, and lack of trust in the closest of his associates, who are also bored and sad. There is no reason to suspect that the people in this circle feel comfortable nowadays. Actually, after the Boss they are the first victims of the coming totalitarianism.”14

Then, something paradoxical came forward in Russia, it was local totalitarianism, which, of course, is contradictio in adjecto, but in fact it had taken place. It was totalitarianism for the elite. And then, by its inner nature and the very essence of the Russian power being totalitarian, the first priority of the government was already to secure its own irremovability and controlled succession, a task that can be accomplished only by totalitarian methods. By means of the destruction of the state, political parties, all forms of social autonomy, the atomization of society and its transformation into a mass. And it could not be done without a sense of besieged country, hostility rings, the Orwellian “five minutes of hatred” and other devices of consolidation and mobilization of the masses.

The current stage of the regime development mode, conventionally referred to as Putin’s regime, is determined by the task of mobilizing the masses. Putin has succeeded in consolidation of the elites. Now there is a need to consolidate the population for the purpose of its further alienation from politics and strengthening of its controllability.

Varlam Shalamov said this about his prose:

“My stories are, in essence, advice to a person, how to behave in a crowd.”

He was talking about his “Kolyma stories”, which are all about the life of the crowd and the person within it in conditions of complete dehumanization.

But who are the ones this advice addressed to, after all that happened in Kolyma camps? A person in a crowd is one thing. A person of the crowd is quite another. And this is not at all a common thief, as Shalamov said clearly: “thieves are not people.” And has not the person for whom the crowd was alien and hostile stayed forever on Kolyma, in Vorkuta, or in other famous camps? And since Kolyma became possible, was there even such type of person in existence?

Hannah Arendt, referring to the former model of totalitarianism, said that the leader was “an official from the masses”, “a leader without the masses is nothing, a fiction.” Nevertheless, the totalitarianism of the past, in Shalamov’s testimony, required a charismatic leader. The long stay in power of Vladimir Putin shows that in the era of mass culture and communication revolution the totalitarian leader finally and decisively turns into a man of the crowd.

The secret of Putin’s success is the lack of charisma of the people in power, their mimicry and essential merger with the majority. The intrinsic trend in the former totalitarian model became a fundamental attribute of today’s ruling class: the mass absorbs power, making it subjectless.

But it does not make it weaker. The facelessness and insignificance of power is the essence of its strength and success. The unusually harshness and powerless hysteria of the critics of power from among the democrats is explained not by their impotence, but by the complete absence of any interest of the authorities towards the opponent.

Putin is the most popular leader in the history of Russia. He is absolutely congruent with Russian identity and its aspirations, which means he needs no ideology and other baloney. And he does not need charisma either. His charisma is the absence of it. This is the leader of the era of mass culture, with no theories, ideologies and great style.

The adulation and praise of the leader are not the same as before. Stalin was deified. The praise of Brezhnev was in fact a thinly disguised ridicule, all parody, but a well-meaning parody as a form of deference. Putin’s veneration is quite different. The man of the crowd is aggrandized together with the crowd. The crowd, falling into a national narcissism, sings the praise to itself in an act of self-congratulation.

The people really have something to be proud of. Totalitarianism is the free choice of free people. All studies of totalitarianism, which are not so many, confirm it. Totalitarianism grows out of democratic institutions and democratic processes. Even the very first model, the Russian one, did not come directly from the autocracy, although it inherited a lot from it. It took a brief period of Russian democracy to bring up the totalitarian rule, although Bolsheviks hadn’t won the Constituent Assembly elections, nor the elections to the Soviets. Well, the Nazis at the elections to the Reichstag were not absolute winners either. It is ludicrous and naive to equate the historical choice with the formal results of elections.

The current model of Russian totalitarianism grew out of democratic attempts of the 1990s, although current regime tries to oppose itself to that time. The continuity was most noticeable in the main thing – in imperial politics. But the power-proprietary relation principles had developed at the same time.

Putin did not commit a coup and did not do anything illegal. Putin returned the country from the nineties with attempts at real democracy to a mock democracy, conceived at the beginning of perestroika. Whatever the progressive public said, the current ruling elite is Gorbachev’s heirs, his direct followers.

Perestroika was an attempt of the totalitarianism’s renewal, its reorganization on a rational basis, with the rejection of the most archaic of its features. Thirty years after Gorbachev’s first steps in this direction, we are witnessing the success of his undertaking.

Let’s remember what Perestroika (the restructuring) was aimed at, and what emerged two decades after. Dismantling the omnipotent domination of the party apparatus is a done deal; the United Russia has nothing in common with the CPSU. There is an appearance of market economy, but there is no free market. The idiotic idea of planned economy is abandoned, it is integrated into the world economic system under complete government control. The same is in politics. The current ruling elite has ensured irremovability with no mass repression and wiping out the opposition elite. The electoral procedures are observed, but there is no electoral democracy, as there is no electorate, only the population.

Power is independent from society. The main source of its legitimization, as in Soviet times, is recognition from the outside world, the world community limited to seven states. No more needed. And America alone is enough.

Such is the political realization of the Russian national identity, no more and no less. Therefore, no changes in Russia could be made with the implementation of political programs, the replacement or renewal of the elite, and infinitely less possible with revolutions and insurrections. We are dealing here with the fundamental, essential, deepest motivations of political behavior.

To overcome this quandary, a man of the crowd should become a man. And this is the only threat to the ever-reviving Russian totalitarianism.