Novaya Gazeta, Russia
June 13 2012
Frenzy and Solidarity
by Dmitriy Oreshkin
[translated from Russian]
Diagnosis
Putin has driven himself into a corner. His social support is
shrinking away like the magic wild ass’ skin in Balzac’s Peau de
Chagrin; the economy is creaking, the vertical hierarchy has given up
drawing pictures of a bright future and is occupied exclusively with
self-defence. All very predictable.
It could not have been otherwise. At the basis of Putin’s strategy
lies the bogus thesis of the “great and mighty USSR,” which in fact
was a propaganda bubble for the “broad popular masses” that was doomed
to burst sooner or later. And burst it did – spraying and wounding
millions of people accustomed to living in the crooked Soviet world
and to achieving any success in life within a spurious system of
coordinates.
The system collapsed, but how are they to blame?
Apart from anything else, its falsity was underlined by the rapid
retardation of advanced territories that had been joined by force to
the “great and mighty” [Soviet Union]. Bourgeois Austria always felt
better than socialist Czechoslovakia and Hungary; the pieces of the
Karelian isthmus severed from Finland [absorbed into the USSR after
1944] slid into profound stagnation in contrast to the pieces that
remained beyond the border; East Germany fell catastrophically behind
West Germany. To such an extent that they had to hastily build the
Berlin Wall when the number of refugees from the socialist paradise
began to approach 1 million.
Some people actually liked this very much – for example, the guys from
the Stasi. They received new stars, status, influence, and coupons for
special services. But the territory as a whole – no, it did not like
it. It choked and fell behind to the thunder of triumphant propaganda.
Of course, the propagandists were still pleased. The fighters on the
ideological front!
Such is the dreary practical reality. But what is reality before the
might of Her Majesty, propaganda? Her Majesty explained that the wall
was protecting us from the fascist Bundeswehr. Many believed. As they
believe now – about rising from our knees, about the State Department,
and about the fifth column. The difficulty is that, to preserve one’s
faith, it is necessary to screw up one’s eyes ever more tightly. Until
you get a pain in the back of your head. Those who do not want to
screw up their eyes, the authorities are ready to treat with
truncheons. They are simply doomed to this. Otherwise the legitimate
question arises: And why, in point of fact, do we need these chiefs
(for example, from the Stasi), who keep the tasty roots for themselves
and invite us to enjoy cheap propaganda vegetable-tops?
Putin’s propaganda has managed to present the natural successes of the
market economy connected with the appearance of private property, a
normal rouble, the reorientation of production towards the solvent
demand of the population, and free trade – as the meritorious
achievement of the “vertical hierarchy.” Even though, in practice, it
is entirely the other way around: It is not the vertical hierarchy
that created an efficient economy, but the efficient economy that
created the resource prerequisites for the appearance of the vertical
hierarchy. The end of the NEP [New Economic Policy – limited
introduction of capitalism in the 1920s after the Civil War] era comes
to mind. In an impoverished country tangible assets suddenly appear
from somewhere or other (produced by the private entrepreneur) within
a few years. Which tangible assets it is a sin for statesmen not to
take away – to the din of talk about strengthening the state and
establishing order and justice.
A Soviet restoration after an anti-Soviet revolution is a logical,
and, most likely, inevitable affair. With predictable, but delayed
consequences: A renewed Chekist and party nomenklatura, expertly
exploiting the energy of the post-revolutionary disenchantment, moved
onto the counteroffensive, clambered onto the neck of the growing
economy, and set about telling those fairy stories so familiar to the
Soviet ear. Meanwhile neatly squeezing competition, reinforcing its
monopoly in the most profitable (naturally, the raw material) sectors,
elevating the siloviki to the top of the pile, killing off independent
private initiative, and, little by little, driving the country
backward – into the channel of what economists call procyclical policy
and political scientists call authoritarianism.
Time has passed. The gap between propaganda and practice, between the
official values and real nomenklatura interests, has once again
reached critical level. As it did on the eve of the USSR’s collapse.
Of course, once again it was the most advanced and best informed
social groups and territories that realized this first. In our case –
Moscow, St Petersburg, and Kaliningrad Oblast. This was shown in the
presidential elections – despite the thick, thick layer of falsifying
chocolate.
The minimum results (according to the official figures) recorded in
Moscow were 47 per cent and in Kaliningrad Oblast – 52.6 per cent.
Next, according to honesty, should come St Petersburg. But there,
thanks to padding, they managed to stretch 8-10 extra percentage
points and feign 58.8 per cent. In point of fact, they did the same in
Kaliningrad Oblast too: A good one-fourth of voters there are military
persons, with compulsory turn-out, and just as compulsory a result. In
districts where civilian monitors managed to monitor the counting of
votes, the average result was around 42 per cent. Which, it must be
admitted, is quite a lot. But all the same, not 50 per cent.
But the maximum results, as it is not hard to guess, came from
Chechnya (99.8 per cent), Dagestan, Ingushetia,
Karachayevo-Cherkessia, and Tyva. Everywhere 90 per cent and above.
Well, who would have doubted it! The real question: Of WHAT is V.V.
Putin, whose victory was ensured by [Central Electoral Commission
Chairman] V.Ye. Churov in the first round, now the president? Of the
North Caucasus, where the electorate, controlled by the local elites,
is prepared to give their favourite leader “even 120 per cent” – as
Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, speaker of the Chechen parliament, aptly put
it? Or is he president of the more urbanized, modern, and therefore
critically minded central territories?
The picture is unpleasantly reminiscent of the referendum on keeping
the Union in 1991. Which, of course, was also not a model from the
point of view of counting. But that is not the point; rather, it is
the asymmetry! Expressing themselves clearly “against” at that time
were the Europe-oriented republics of the Baltic, and also Armenia,
Georgia, and Moldova. They basically ignored the ballot. On the other
hand, the most votes “for” were cast by Abkhazia – 99.06 per cent,
Turkmenistan – 97.9 per cent, Karakalpakia [autonomous republic within
Uzbekistan] – 97.6 per cent, Kyrgyzstan – 96.4 per cent, and
Tajikistan – 96.2 per cent.
Let whoever wishes to do so work out how the triumphant result in the
Turkmenistan of that time differs from the even more triumphant result
in today’s Chechnya. It is more important that not even the Putinian
propagandist who has gone crazy from state-mandated rapture would risk
describing either Turkmenistan or Chechnya as “an innovative cluster.”
But a buttress of the feudal-sultanic regime – why not.
The Forecast
The trajectory is obvious. The Soviet bosses, having squandered, for
the sake of their own ambitions, Russia’s economic, demographic, and
sociocultural resources under the cover of a campaign for World
Justice, slid towards catastrophe over a period of several decades.
Without ceasing for a second to drum the population’s ears full of
bullshit about the planned economy, the nationwide character of the
state, scientific and technical progress, and the higher productivity
of socialist labour. And again, many believed it. Well, of course,
nationwide! Surely the dynasty of the Kims or, say, [Turkmenistani
President] Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow would not tell their subjects to
whom power really belongs and in whose interests it functions?
The question is the readiness of the population (and the elites!!!) to
put up with these fairy tales indefinitely. That is to say, to screw
up their eyes until they feel a pain in the back of their heads. The
Russian Federation, unlike the USSR, is informationally transparent.
The Internet, radio, foreign travel, the ability of people apart from
the nomenklatura monopoly to earn a living… This is why we will not
be able to sink so deeply or so hopelessly as the DPRK, Cuba, or
Turkmenistan – for all the desire of the Collective Putin to introduce
a constitutional order in Russia along the lines of the Chechen model.
On the contrary! The realization of the vertical impasse, which in the
USSR took three generations to arrive at, for us fitted comfortably
into 12 years. Well, maybe another year or two, while it creeps all
the way to the Urals Wagon Plant [symbol of Putin’s ultra-conservative
industrial support base]. Some people earlier, here and there later.
But the process has begun again. And this is associated with the
series of threats that developed Putinism has placed before Russia. In
exactly the same way as developed Brezhnevism did.
The first threat, which selfishly liberal Moscow cannot see, or does
not want to see – is the latest cycle of the territorial squeeze. We
turn away somewhat too easily from the difficult question of how
“freedom” has turned out for smart citizens (not only Russians) in
sovereign Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and so forth.
But this is only half the trouble. How will the same Kadyrov behave if
Putin’s departure becomes a reality? He has two options. Either final
sovereignty, the consolidation of sultan-like powers, and
“nationalization” (in reality, this means privatization in the
interests of the sultan) of the local oil fields. With a sharp tilt in
the direction of sharia as the ideological basis of stability. Or,
according to the logic of feudal loyalty – sending members of his
personal retinue (= “peasants” from the Ural Wagon Plant [here
obviously figuratively; “manual labourers, loyal to the regime”]) to
impose order.
This would no doubt be more colourful than the sapper spades in
Tbilisi or tanks in Vilnius. In these conditions, the frenzy of
citizens against “their own” siloviki no longer seems like the most
constructive position. Though it is understandable in human terms. Who
is without sin?
The second threat stems from the Kremlin per se, which in its
mentality is sliding ever closer towards Groznyy. In a similar
situation, Gorbachev, first, did not have the resources to feed the
siloviki and to send them against the people; and, second, on the
other hand he had a clear understanding of the pointlessness of
actions of this kind. For the sake of what – preserving a dead-end
economic model capable only of reproducing stagnation? He, at least,
being perfectly familiar with the structure of the Soviet
collective-farm order, was not deluded on this score.
For the Collective Putin, there are none of these restrictions. There
is plenty of money, the siloviki are willing, and the decade-long
habit of addiction to oil creates the illusion that there is something
to feed oneself with and something to fight for. Against this
background, the desire to trample the herd of hamsters who have become
too bold into the sidewalk could easily gain the upper hand. So
Putin’s guys will not go away simply and quickly. Do not flatter
yourselves.
The danger is not so much of physical violence, as that AFTERWARD some
clever people will once again wring their hands: As if to say, “they
took aim at Communism, but they hit Russia!” Tell me how the one is to
be separated from the other, seeing that the regime is totalitarian,
that no alternatives are even near, and that there no legal procedures
for the public handover of powers. Even now, the architectonics of the
regime are such that the entire vertical hierarchy is more likely to
collapse than attempts to sever the national leader [Putin] from it
are likely to succeed. If it is not possible to replace the chief via
legal elections, sooner or later he will be replaced together with the
system that he built in his image. But apart from the “vertical” –
once again because of its essential monopolist nature – , we have no
alternative mechanisms for maintaining the integrity of the state.
Within the 12 years of Putin’s rule a structure has been built that
combines a state with a specific set of individuals to the degree of
total amalgamation. Hence the entirely understandable results: They
took aim at a time-encrusted monarchy, and hit Russia… They took aim
at Communism – and once again they hit poor old Russia… And now
authoritarianism is in their sights, but it will be Russia (sooner or
later) that cops it again. This is bad.
Maybe it is not the riflemen who are to blame, but those who so
whimsically position the target in front of a historical process? As
in a gangster movie – as soon as something happens, the gangster uses
a hostage as cover…
The third threat lies in the ardour of the street opposition itself.
They are young and hot-headed. Someone has told them (or did they
think of it themselves?!) that on the cusp of the nineties it was the
masses who decided the outcome of the affair. It would appear that
this is the logic of the Soviet textbook that put into the heads of
children the false thesis of the “popular revolution,” only turned
inside out. In fact, in Moscow in the nineties, in Kiev in 2004, and
indeed, in Petrograd in 1917, the first and main condition for changes
was the preceding schism of the elites.
A vertical hierarchy is stable precisely because (according to the
Soviet ideal) it is always ready to purge itself of schismatics. Only
not under Putin. With him, loyalty has been defined not by the threat
of being purged, but, on the contrary, by the sweetness of corrupt
income. Attempts to follow in the footsteps of Stalin and remove
someone from the feeding trough and send him into disgrace (but at the
same time, not to destroy him!) only exacerbate matters. Something
that in the Double Dutch of political science is called “a
counter-elite” is rapidly forming and consolidating itself.
The problem, strictly speaking, has no solution. If you really do
attempt to recreate the Soviet model of totalitarian management, you
cannot avoid terror at the top and at the bottom, machine-guns on the
street, censorship, “the philosophers’ steamboat” [nickname for the
ship on which dissident members of the intelligentsia were deported
from Russia after the Civil War, and also, by extension, for the
further expulsion of intellectuals that followed], and “the iron
curtain.” For the simple reason that a false system of values and
mendacious propaganda are doomed to defeat in an encounter with the
facts and with qualified experts. And you – if you are honest – are
perfectly aware of this. Otherwise why scour competent opponents from
elections and falsify the results of even this malformed race to boot?
However, no one wants terror. They want to do it cleanly. So that it
should be like under Stalin, but without firing squads. Now, if they
were to start it first, and we were only forced to respond… Well,
for the sake of maintaining law and order…Have you understood me,
colleagues? Or else the number of oppositions has multiplied a bit too
much.
Losers clinging onto power have no other recourse than to set various
social groups at loggerheads. And then to play the role of the
exclusive conciliatory, mobilizing, and pacifying force. “You see…
We did warn you!” Music by Aleksandrov [composer of the Soviet/Russian
national anthem], words by Pushkin: “The government is the only
European in Russia.” Once again, straight from the Soviet
spin-doctoring roots: Endless purging of external and internal
enemies. Until all that is left of a rich, diverse, and contradictory
people is the single, sterilely clean skeleton of a new historical
community of individuals … Well, and an irreproachably pure and
magnificent ruling regime above it. Only with its hands and boots
somewhat caked in blood.
No, this will not fly either.
Pace Pushkin, the current “Collective Putin,” the heir of Stalin and
the Lubyanka, is actually the main Asiatic (the main sultan) in a
rapidly Europeanizing Central Russia. Churov’s elections are an
accidental proof of that.
They would like to set people at loggerheads – but this is possible
only in a primitive sociocultural milieu that is accustomed to
thinking in categories of “us” and “them.” In Chechnya, let us
suppose. But not in Moscow. Its cosmopolitan milieu is too variegated.
Even in the Urals Wagon Plant, it is not particularly likely. Unless,
of course, the instigators of the protests help from below…
The temptation to help from below is great. The more rigid and more
haughty the regime – the more radical the street protest movement. As
long as there exists a clear asymmetry of resources (including
propaganda resources), you will grasp to whose advantage the growing
frenzy largely is. In December-March rallies were held without a hitch
– but in May, things reached the point of a violent brawls. It is
obvious that this was organized by the authorities – but the
interpretation machine is so far still in their hands – so here is
your explanation: The protest movement is dying, its leaders need
radicalization… Lies, of course. But some people will believe it.
And some people are taking fright and will no longer go to rallies.
And for some people it is indeed unpleasant to be the ball in someone
else’s game. Mission accomplished…
In fact, the protest movement is not dying, but growing wider and
deeper. It attracts various people and various methods. Among other
things, it forces the elite groups to adapt. Albeit more slowly than
the impatient [opposition] fighters would like. And it is precisely
here that there may be a chance of escaping the unintelligent frenzy
and the Soviet logic of “who is not for us is against us.”
Why is [rock group leader and sometime oppositionist] Yu. Shevchuk
playing the guitar, and not getting his brains bashed out on the
sidewalk, like a decent person should? Well, because for Shevchuk,
playing the guitar is more effective than for his gallant critic.
Why do the Gudkovs, father and son, sit in an illegitimate Duma, not
laying down their mandates, rather than getting their brains bashed
out by hurling themselves at the OMON [Special-Purpose Police
Detachment]?! Because the Gudkovs with their mandates can do a little
bit more (and do it a little bit differently) than daring street
toughs.
Why do Kudrin, Prokhorov, and Chubays scheme and while away their time
in high offices instead of repenting and getting their brains bashed
out alongside the people?! Because they have interests that are a
little (or not so little) different, and different ways of influencing
the situation. They very much have something to lose apart from their
chains – and it is precisely in this that they are useful. Any general
would drop everything and pay attention to Kudrin, let us say. And any
businessman, even more so. But to you and me getting our brains bashed
out – oh, hardly. It is a somewhat different sphere of competence.
There is nothing easier than demonstrating intransigence. For which, a
separate thank-you to the fighters of the nomenklatura front, who
resolutely defend their vertical feeding-trough from the irresponsible
population.
But a bourgeois (in the pure sense of the word, URBAN) revolution is
made precisely by people who have something to lose. City folk.
Burghers. Or, in Soviet terms, the bourgeoisie. Not by Prometheuses
with hypertrophied livers, not by stormy petrels, who in profile look
more like geese fattened for foie gras, but by normal citizens with a
sober understanding of their bourgeois interest, who demand, not an
abstract bright future, but the specific observation of today’s laws
and rights.
The game is simple: The authorities, who have no intention whatever of
sharing their monopolistic rights, are trying to shove pro test out of
the legitimate sphere so as then to strangle the protestants [as
published] one by one. To reduce matters to the familiar level of
ours-and-theirs and to the brawl that is logical in such a situation.
The Russian is a Caucasian. The over-fussy Muscovite is a hungry
resident of Chelyabinsk. The bright Orthodox believer is a nasty
atheist. The office hamster is the labouring proletariat. The Central
Army Sports Club is Spartak [soccer team]…
The protestants, sensing the trick with their city instinct, are
endeavouring not to succumb to the provocations. They understand what
is happening is the multiplication and addition of various forms of
LAWFUL opposition. “Solidarity” – that is the key word here. Once
again, not in the Soviet sense of unity with one’s own people, but on
the contrary – in the anti-Soviet sense. Solidarity with strangers,
with other, unfamiliar people – this is more difficult, and less
familiar.
Everyone needs freedom – apart from the privileged denizens of the
vertical hierarchy. But they need it in different ways. It is never
otherwise in a big city. It is otherwise only in a barracks, a prison,
or a cemetery: ideal social milieus for a vertical hierarchy.