The Russian Totalitarianism. Freedom here and now. Dmitrii Shusharin

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      “The results of Putin’s biennium are obvious. Relative economic stabilization makes it possible to move to more consistent right-liberal reforms, but in the political life, right-populist trends are clearly prevailing. The watchmen came to power. Not guards and gate-keepers, but people with Soviet watchmen mentality. The stabilization perceived as a risk factor: the danger of the fact that the watchmen will want to realize their main dream – the establishment of a totalitarian regime in Russia – is growing. As before, this has not happened at the peak of the crisis, but at the first signs of stabilization, when there is already something to profit from.

      Speaking of the “biennium”, we are ready to evaluate the current state of affairs historically. However, it is not always productive. When it comes to what has been happening in Russia in the last two years, the clichés most used are “the post-Yeltsin era,” or “the Putin system.” That is, the situation is described in relation to the past, and not on a par with what is happening now in countries whose political system is emulated by Russia in its post-Soviet development. The political processes taking place now in Europe are for the most part ignored.

      Meanwhile, some changes in the traditional political structure can be observed over there, primarily on the right flank. More and more visible and influential are those who are called new rightists, and their ideology and political practice is assessed as right-wing populism, which is seriously different from right-wing liberalism. Most accurately, perhaps, The most famous and influential right-wing populist of Europe Jean-Marie Le Pen is identified as the” right in the economy, left in social policy”. To a certain extent this concept, term or cliché can be called anything, but the “right populism” is the best characterization of the current Russian government’s practices.

      We can happily conclude that Russia finds its way to Europe through populism; only the points of departure are quite different. The European New Right finds itself in a rigid framework of constitutional norms, institutional and public restrictions. In our country the situation is quite dissimilar. First of all, in Russia there is no clear understanding that there must be a direct link between the proclaimed constitutional order and its real institutional embodiment.

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      Two years ago, it seemed as if the movement was clearly forward along the path of liberal reforms. Now everything turned another way. And it is not the vector of movement that has changed. The movement itself is no more.

      Actually, this is the ideal of the totalitarianism.

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      The explicit orientation of certain power groups to a totalitarian experience is obvious. If such an undertaking is realized, the degeneration of state institutions, the acceleration of the erosion of the constitutional order that has already begun, is inevitable. For society, this means the following.

      The system in the making and its growing political culture are hostile to the basic principles of a market economy, since it sees any private, unauthorized success as a disloyal act.

      In its actions the governing class is guided by the firm belief that the behavior of the governed is driven mainly by base motives. Not honor and dignity, but fear and greed, not a desire for self-affirmation, but a desire to survive at any cost, not strength, but weakness. Make no mistake thinking that those actions are typical for the local “down management” concerned with “a narrow circle of limited persons.” The lower level model of governance is totalitarian and it covers all public spheres. Including the economy. Self-censorship exists not only in the editorial offices of newspapers, but also in any person of any walk of life, be it a scientist, a businessman, a politician. But it would be too simple and innocuous if it were merely a manifestation of loyalty. Those who spend a lot of their energy on the passionate denunciation of the “new regime”, I would like to say: “Calm down. Everything is much worse.”

      “The change of epochs” can be reduced to the next drop-out of the Russian nation from history. We are at a point of social development, after which there may not be any events. Because the thing called an event is something that has a subject of action and entails a change in reality. If, as in the last two years, there is the same tendency or several interdependent ones are observed, granted that the personification of these manifestations is indifferent and irrelevant, then they are not events, but merely the reproductions of the static state of society.

      Information sources can be flooded with reports of criminal cases, trials, state visits and statements, but these are all not events. As far as “here and now” is concerned, what is needed are radical institutional reforms aimed at creating a free market (taxes, de-bureaucratization of medium-sized businesses, etc.), a new system of civil service, fundamental changes in the army, law enforcement structures, and the education system – those things could have been called events.

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      The opposition has the same congenital features as the government, and the word “has” here is ambiguous, since all those who operate in the current political space are united not by the existence of certain values, principles and goals, but the absence of such. Everything is clear about the authority: the declarations and the principles are two unrelated separate things. But those wishing to be opposition (constructive СКАЧАТЬ