The Russian Totalitarianism. Freedom here and now. Dmitrii Shusharin

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СКАЧАТЬ required them not so much to praise the authorities as not to have a loose tongue.

      And then everything went only downward: via Bolotnaya Sqare to Navalny, Roizman, and the lucky ones got their pass to Putin’s Valdai talkfest and on TV screen. Medvedev’s waht was the final stage in the formation of a totalitarian society, which was still masquerading as civil society. Now nobody remembers that in the very beginning of Putin’s rule, in November 2001, the presidential administration chose five thousand people to represent civil society at the Civil Forum58. The fact that the very principle of selection contradicted the nature of civil society did not bother anyone. In the future, all these gatherings turned exclusively into a means of budget disbursement. Actually, the very first forum was already a budgetary entry. It has initiated the formation of a totalitarian society, which was getting increasingly autonomous. About Putin, The Russian intelligentsia believes that Putin was imposed by Yeltsin. But Navalny as a leader was definitely chosen by intelligentsia, which gradually, step by step, adopted itself to his way. Yes, it’s OK to harass the migrants, if it serves the purpose, and about the Crimea, well, it’s discomforting to consider its return, and the Ukrainians should understand that they must not push too far. As for Georgia, you know, we should make no bones of this. Not to mention the populism and social voyeurism, and the contamination of Russian intelligentsia with ideas of vulgar socialism the way it is interpreted in Bulgakov’s novel from the mouth of Sharikov (the stray dog turned human).

      Go Russia!

      This was the title of the article (allegedly by President Medvedev himself), published in September 200959. Agitprop played the cards of thaw and modernization concurrently. At the same time, the limits were defined straight away. There were comments from the author of the collection of anecdotes “His ideology” – about how good Putin is. It would be long and tedious to quote it. The boy, like all the narcissistic, half-educated from Vladislav Surkov’s retinue, was prone to excessive and pompous verbosity. But it is these people who usually spill the beans. In this case, he was very sincerely indignant. In his opinion, it was necessary to change the defining economic structure, not the political system. Like, it is more important to stop the impending collapse, rather than mess around with political reform60.

      But this was and is the political platform of power: do what you want, but do not question our irremovability. And our right to do anything with you. And start wars with enemies of our choice. And do not interfere when Russia clashes with close or distant neighbors. All the institutional innovations of Putin’s decade led to the degradation of the state as a creative subject, to its transformation into a life support system for a “narrow circle of limited persons.”

      The core of the new Russian statehood was the institution of the presidency, which was destroyed by tandemocracy. In its recent history, Russia has experienced a period of parallel functioning of diverse state structures. It is not a question of the coexistence of the organs of the whole union and its constituent republics power in the RSFSR-USSR. The new Russian statehood still in the framework of the Soviet Union began to be built with the emergence of the institution of the presidency, confronting – which was not evident from the very beginning – to the system of Soviets, in fact, to Soviet power.

      This coexistence lasted two years and couldn’t be done without shooting. Since the beginning of the 21st century, with the de facto replacement of free elections by succession, all the achievements of those years – and the liquidation of Soviet power (which is of course, a historical achievement) have been brought to nothing, and the institution of the presidency, which can function and develop successfully only under competitive conditions, rather than clan consensus. And this meant that the main instrument of modernization was incapacitated.

      Yes, whether we want it or not, but in Russia such an instrument can only be a capable and responsible executive power. But none of the tandemocrats needed modernization. As far as modernization was concerned, both of them were demotivated. So, the entire vertical was demotivated.

      Everyone understood that Medvedev’s article was baihua yundong – “let hundred flowers blossom, hundred schools compete” – the Maoist campaign that ultimately led to the cultural revolution. After the article appearance, it became clear that the modernization was called off.

      The great Stalinist achievements, now celebrated at the highest level, were not victories won in the offensive, but successes in defense. All forces were thrown to isolation and inhibition, and not to open development. The Soviet regime was deeply Russian nationalist, like the regime of Peter the Great, really the first Bolshevik, who cut a window to Europe, instead of simply opening the door. This became evident in the last twenty years, especially in the Putin decade.

      Again, as in the days of Peter I and Stalin, defense began to be built against the surrounding world with national development hampered. The Medvedev article can be boiled down to the wishful notion that it would be nice to build the defense not at the same price as under Peter and Stalin. However, he called this defense modernization. That is why the article should be considered a provocation. People were called to speak out about the country’s modernization, while the authorities understood under modernization only their own preservation and strengthening. And for Russia, the decisive issue is the formation of a modern nation and a national identity.

      Modern civilized nations, conventionally called historical, passed in their formation three important stages.

      The first is the recognition of the principle of nation’s sovereignty overcoming the class isolation in favor of national unity, which turns all social differences and conflicts into situational ones.

      The second is abolishing the imperial model as a form of supranational organization.

      The third is the creation of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multicultural civic nation, anchored both by the historical stability of political institutions, and the latest information and communication technologies.

      Actually, these are the three stages of modernization, the content of which in Russia is still interpreted not so much in terms of economy, but rather as in industrial and technological ones. With this approach, Lenin and Stalin called modernizers, although they have returned Russia in its development by centuries back. But only as a result of the uniformity of development, the presence of integrating values, the possession of modern communicative systems arises a constructive positioning of a nation in the external world. Which cannot be replaced by a nuclear threat or country’s monopolistic position in the energy market.

      The Russian civil nation has never completely gone through these. Russia must solve tasks that were addressed by other nations centuries ago, and at the same time adapt to changing forms of life.

      The formation of a modern nation starts by recognizing it as belonging to something greater than itself, which can be expressed institutionally or in everyday consciousness. The symbolic significance of such institutions as the EU and NATO is, of course, great, but in the end, the main thing is not in them, but in understanding the commonness – no more and no less – with the whole humanity. Without such openness, no modernization is possible in today’s world. Borrowing technology is an inadequate and inferior substitution, since the use of it will always be limited, as they are an alien element in closed societies.

      I give one example: two Koreas show two models of relations with the outside world. After the war, unleashed by Mao (he was the initiator) and Stalin, two states were formed. Regarding Asia, it makes no sense in reasoning based on the opposition of capitalism СКАЧАТЬ