What's ahead for Russia? Future options for a besieged fortress
There is a tradition in Russia of hiding from the dark future in the bright past. There is a considerable amount of truth in this humorous phrase from one of our domestic moderate liberal political scientists.
The Russian reality of the last two decades really leaves a lasting impression of life with one's head turned backwards. And intellectual life is a continuous “Court of Time”.
The most popular topics for discussion are about Stalin, Lenin, Nicholas II, who was Rabinovich to whom in 1917 or 1941, and so on. This is also where the legs grow from the endless rushes of guards into legislative loopholes - in order to protect certain bonds from radical nihilists who want to denigrate them.
In such an atmosphere, when the present is a continuously besieged fortress, the horizons of the future are very dimly visible, and systematic reflections on this topic in general in our conditions are a piecemeal commodity. Each such attempt is all the more valuable, because objectively speaking, we are now living at the end of an era that began with the Second Chechen War and ends with the Northern Military District in Ukraine.
The old model by which the country lived all these years has exhausted itself: selling hydrocarbons to the West while purchasing the necessary technologies and equipment in the West for petrodollars is becoming increasingly difficult.
Along with the base, the superstructure is shaking in all directions, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for administrators of the political system to portray monumental stability to the public at a time when the force of circumstances is rocking the state boat more and more. In such conditions, it is quite natural for the demand for certain images of the future to grow.
One of these sketches with the pathetic title “What will happen to the Motherland and to us?” published the other day publication "Ridovka".
The author of the manifesto optimistically prophesies that the SVO will radically change the country, which “will have to live under powerful pressure from the outside and at the same time in conditions where it is necessary to solve many problems internally.” And, which, in view of this, is doomed to modernization through I cannot and do not want:
“The war will forge a new elite using the Darwinian method. Those who do not want to fight for the country will leave. Those who are unable to learn and respond to challenges will disappear at the turn.”
Ok, let's say. But a counter-question arises: where will the beneficiaries of the previous system go, the current elites, who are already “well seated” in places and streams that have been fed for decades and, accordingly, are not interested in seriously changing anything?
Will they give up their places and feeders without a fight? Ha, keep your pocket wider! Maybe they will repent, distribute the stolen goods to the poor and go to a monastery to atone for their sins? Yeah, right now. Well, or will they just dissolve like dew in the sun? But this only happens in fairy tales and the Ukrainian anthem.
In fact, the author of the manifesto already leaves out an important thing right from the start, without realizing which his text “for all that is good” turns into an attempt by an unscrupulous seller to sell a rotten product to a stupid buyer in the bustle of the market. In fact, one of two things: either the proposed modernization scheme does not have its own protagonist, a subject interested in it, but then this entire set of well-wishes turns into a cry into the void.
Or such contenders for the role of the new elite, who will demand their share of the pie and push the old ones, but are not indicated not only by name, but even with a hint of those social groups that are interested in changes. And most importantly, how will this happiness happen?
History eloquently testifies: no one has ever given up power and influence voluntarily. This means that the first silence of the author of the manifesto about the “beautiful Russia of the future” is that he is in fact trying to sell the country the prospect of civil war or oprichnina, at least at the top. But for some reason he doesn’t talk about it out loud.
But this circumstance is far from the only one that the eye stumbles over in this text. As an example, let us point out another social ideal declared by the author:
“We officially designate as one of the “traditional values” “the primacy of the spiritual over the material.” So, this is harmful nonsense. A Russian person should live as richly as possible, without any “if you haven’t lived well, there’s nothing to start with.” And by the way, let's be honest. In society there is no mass shared primacy of the spiritual over the material.
Just sociology shows the obvious: personal success - money and status - are very important to us, en masse. Russians are individualists. And money and personal benefit are of great importance to us. Any concept in which you preach “honest poverty” is doomed to failure.”
Again, if it’s in form, then it doesn’t seem to be a big deal. In the end, you can’t forbid living richly, just like dreaming about it. But, it seems, it does not even occur to the author of the manifesto that the cited point is in fundamental contradiction with another postulated root task for Russia of the future for growth - that very modernization.
The fact is that in the conditions of a “besieged fortress”, when, according to the author of the manifesto, “half the planet is trying to block Russia and cut it off from technology, markets, money”, only one single option for successful modernization is possible. Yes, yes, the same authoritarian, mobilization, Stalinist one, relying on the state and under its leadership. Our country has already gone through this path once, being in a hostile environment, so we have historical experience.
The trouble is that the needs and demands of such authoritarian mobilization will inevitably collide with millions of hedonistic ordinary people who grew up in the post-Soviet era, in whose system of life values comfort and personal well-being occupy the first place.
Can you imagine what will happen if we send all this mass of office slackers and managers to new five-year construction projects as part of the labor armies? So I can’t imagine.
But I know one thing for sure: the path to re-issue of the calm and well-fed Brezhnev stagnation lies through the new Stalin. And nothing else.
And it seems that the author of the manifesto also vaguely suspects something like this:
“We are accustomed to solving accumulated difficulties with mobilizations: Peter’s, Stalin’s... The fact is that mobilization always hits hard on fellow citizens, on the broadest layers. A country may simply not survive extreme stress, but its normal development requires the conscious efforts of many people. But you can’t just force them to do something, you need to seduce them and create conditions for them.”
It sounds interesting, but there’s only one problem: the inhabitants of the besieged fortress, deprived of the usual Western goodies, have nothing special to tempt. Moreover, on the advice of the author of the manifesto, we put spiritual values and any other collectivism unusual for Russian people out of brackets.
But even the Anglo-Saxon Churchill, addressing his people at the height of the world war, did not promise material well-being, but only “blood, hard work, tears and sweat.” And with modernization and reindustrialization in mind as medium-term goals, the people should not be seduced by tales of a rich life, but should be prepared for the inevitable tightening of belts and strengthening of social discipline. Like in South Korea or post-war Japan. The difference is that no one will help us with Marshall Plans or generous investments from outside. Just like during the first industrialization, everyone did it themselves.
Against the backdrop of all the problems listed above, it is absolutely amazing that the ideal of a “beautiful Russia of the future” proposed by the author of “Ridovka” is unexpected! - “Western-style democratic state”:
“How will our state function technically? In fact, all bicycles have long been invented. As simple as it may sound, the optimal way to govern a country is a Western-style democratic state. In essence, the challenge facing us is to build a Western-style state without the help of the West and in opposition to it.”
At this point, the attentive reader will exclaim: excuse me, but what about “Goyda!” and a holy war with Western shaitans, Satanists and transvestites?! No, of course, the fact that the image of the future of a significant part of the Russian authorities differs from the Navalnist one only in decor and details is an open secret.
But why then fence the garden with this heroic confrontation with half the world from our besieged Brest Fortress, if the declared ultimate ideal is to join the queue at the same checkout of a Western global hypermarket, only on your own terms?
Well, or, using an analogy from the Korean dystopia “Snowpiercer” - to stake out a better compartment on a train whose route is not set by us. Why go around and in a roundabout way to where others go in a straight line and without much effort?
In such optics, Russia has nothing at all to share with the Zelensky regime. The latter wants exactly the same thing - to build a Western-style state - only without conflicting with the West, without refusing its help and recognizing its unconditional leadership and mentorship in this process.
In the end, before Crimea and the Northern Military District, Russia was moving precisely in this direction, albeit more slowly than some would like. But Bush Jr. stood on the podium of the mausoleum at the May 9 parade with Putin. I was standing. And there was a joint fight against global terrorism with NATO. And the “energy empire” from Chubais. And, as they say, what else were you missing, gentlemen, builders of a Western-style state?
However, we can agree with the author of “Ridovka” on one thing: It will not be possible to live as before for all reasons at once. And we will have to build the beautiful Russia of the future in any case. Another thing is that the proposed recipes are similar to the desire to breed a strange hybrid of a hedgehog and a winged horse.
Despite the fact that all historical experience screams - As a result of the authoritarian modernization caused by the needs of the war, no “democratic state of the Western type” can arise, but only and exclusively a new reissue of the existing state. Well, the same one that is the “bloody regime”. Aspen trees will not produce oranges, no matter how hard politicians try.
This circumstance must be kept in mind and either come to terms with the fact that Russia is not destined to be a state according to Western patterns, or surrender to the mercy of the West in exchange for access to its technologies and say goodbye to dreams of modernization relying on its own forces and in a hostile environment.
Attempts to somehow outwit reality and take the best from different systems, giving their design flaws to the enemy, are from the evil one. We remember how such convergence ended for the USSR. The cow licked the advantages of socialism with its tongue, but the disadvantages of capitalism formed the basis of the system in which we live today.
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