The Russian Totalitarianism. Freedom here and now. Dmitrii Shusharin

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СКАЧАТЬ rel="nofollow" href="#note27" type="note">27.

      While part of the society, which calls itself advanced, discussed the prospects of ban on going abroad, a law was quietly adopted, which not only subjected the entire society under police surveillance, but also amalgamated the power and society under unifying police control, essentially introducing the principle of citizen’s loyalty as a condition of safety at the discretion of not only the state, but also the members of society. This is the law “On the Basics of the Prevention of Law Offenses in Russia”28. It introduces the concept of “antisocial behavior”, which is defined as” the actions of a physical person, not liable to the administrative or criminal responsibility, but violating the generally accepted norms of conduct and morality, the rights and lawful interests of others.” Therefore, there is a category of actions identified as “violating the generally accepted norms of behavior and morality.” The new law gives the right to employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to collect data on citizens who were not previously held liable for any offence. And it opens wide opportunities for the public to cooperate with the police in this matter. Morality and law merge into a single system of control of power and society over individuals. And we should add to this the law that allows banks, that is, private institutions, to collect debts using the Federal Bailiff Service as their enforcement, without a court decision29. The situation is unthinkable in a civilized state: imagine US federal marshals acting without a court decision upon request of some bank. But such a breakdown of institutional relations is normal for a totalitarian structure. As well as the fact that the Russian federal marshals are being assigned to the collection business. Similarly, the same thing happened with the newly created Russian Guard directly subordinated to the president, formed on the basis of Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Taking over the security business of the ministry the Russian Guard was vested with a wide mandate30.

      The Ministry of the Interior is all but destroyed. Long before its economic (including shadow) and power components were taken away. Currently it is reduced to FSIN (Federal Service for Execution of Punishment). The creation of the Russian Guard took away from the Ministry of Internal Affairs its security business – both legal and protection of private security firms, and not only PSFs, the ministry lost all its more power resources; the SOBR (Rapid Deployment Force) is no more, gone are the OMON (Special Designation Police Detachment) and Internal Military force. All these developments show not only an intraspecific competition, but also a new place for the police in the emerging socio-political structure: an executive department, designed to protect the population, is deliberately weakened and humiliated; public security of the citizenry becomes a matter of low priority.

      Summing up the results of lawmaking during Putin’s reign, one must admit that it has a totalitarian character, destroys the state-society dichotomy, replacing it with the unity of power and society. First, there was isolation of society from power, denying it the participation in decision-making, and then, on the contrary, the society began to get recruited in a controllable governance process – from participation in extra-institutional violence to the collaboration with punitive institutions.

      It is ridiculoIus to condemn Absurdistan for absurdity. Criminal cases against physicists, bloggers, ordinary people, suddenly caught up in politics, are built on the principle that the more absurd the better. Wood carvers were fined for an element resembling the swastika, a motive normally found in ancient folk ornaments31. Roskomnadzor (Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications) blocked the retelling of the 1837 satirical publication “How to take bribes correctly” on the educational site32. The purpose of all this is to let people know that they are not subject of prosecution for something they have done, but because of the authorities’ innate necessity to prosecute, and they will do that for sure – who cares about justifications! This is not an absurdist play, but a criminal and mean method of management. Therefore, it is incorrect to characterize what is happening as absurdity, stupidity and idiocy. This is just plain evil, crime and meanness. And you must call things by their proper name: evil is evil, a crime is a crime and meanness is nothing but mean.

      Might and Wealth

      Totalitarian regimes do not need support coming from a conscious choice of a person and a citizen, because they need neither a citizen nor a person. The very existence of choice, the thought of its possibility is deemed to be an offence. The social support of totalitarian power is the absence of any strength on which one could rely. Nowadays the absolute majority of Russian population is happy that their government not only does not encourage it for anything, but, on the contrary, asks not to make any effort. The population does not ask questions, and loves Putin very much. But loyalty to the regime is not limited to this.

      In the course of the election campaigns, the word “puting” was coined, which meaning is a mass event in support of power, organized according to the Soviet model voluntary-compulsory gathering of participants with pre-fabricated slogans and rehearsed ovations.

      Many observers were sure that the putings’ participants, after experiencing coercion and humiliation would vote against Putin. The result was exact opposite.

      Putin affirmed a totalitarian solidarity in Russia, which goes back to the previous Russian version of it. People who demanded to shoot the enemies of the people in the thirties and who went to more peaceful marches and rallies in later years were not so exalted and sincere as German and Italian crowds. But, come to think of it, is there any other choice? They cursed Soviet power, but they went to those marches anyway. They cursed the power the way the wife curses her ever-drunken husband, while the husband curses his mother-in-law with whom he shares the same room of a communal flat in Khrushchev slums. But they genuinely hated those who dared to live differently even in the simplest, everyday sense.

      They also hated those who dared to go out to the streets not on the government assignment. They could easily be convinced that these renegades act on the orders of the State Department and the CIA. Or for reason of their mental illness. For only the lunatics and traitors can betray the solidarity of the humiliated, on which the Soviet regime was firmly holding its ground.

      Putin revived this solidarity. The people who were taken to those rallies never admit to themselves that the authorities treat them like cattle. For them, those who go to rallies against Putin’s omnipotence are mortal enemies. Which does not prevent them from hating and despising Putin.

      This is the result of humiliation, not perceived as humiliation: such mental condition makes a person be able only to hatred and contempt. Putin and his team knew what they were doing when they herded people to putings. They have always been and remain masters of grassroots control that is built on the appeal to the lowest impulses of the human personality and human communities. This is also applied to the business community.

      The modern Russian bourgeoisie (with all the conventionality of this term at the beginning of the 21st century) is not a victim of the foray of the nomads from various government departments. The Russian bourgeoisie itself created the system. Together with their comrades from the government agencies.

      And this is not the first time for them. After all, when the time came for the Russian bourgeoisie to assert itself, it failed to go ahead with its own bourgeois revolution, willingly accepting the services of autocratic power agents in resolving conflicts at their enterprises and mines. They preferred to bribe the government officials in obtaining state contracts, without really understanding why Russia needs all this European foolishness like trade unions and parliaments. Power was always more important to them than wealth.

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