How to defeat the “fifth column” in Russia without turning into Ukraine

Since the beginning of the SVO in Ukraine, the topic of the “fifth column” or, as they are commonly called, “national traitors” has gone beyond the marginal jingoistic media and the kitchens of conspiracy theorists, sounding at the highest level, from the lips of the president, the minister of defense, the secretary of the Security Council and his first deputy.

Now this topic has become a common place on the official media agenda, “national traitors” are actively “rolled out” in a thin layer by presenter Soloviev in his monologues, and a host of patriotic bloggers write about them on Telegram. They are also, but in a different context, dealt with by intelligence agencies - from Roskomnadzor to Sledkom and the FSB. Since February 24, the punishment for fakes regarding the Russian army and the course of the campaign in Ukraine has been tightened several times, and the requirements for the activities of so-called “foreign agents” have been similarly tightened.

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Thanks to the measures taken, many publications and websites that promoted a pro-Western agenda or received funding from Western foundations were forced out of the media field. Many public figures associated with the popular term “liberals” left Russia for the border, settling in Georgia, Armenia, Latvia, Israel and other countries.

However, Russian society has not yet developed a clear understanding of who Russian officials mean when they talk about the “fifth column” and “national traitors.” There are a whole fan of versions. Even the foreign agent Levada Center asked itself to clarify this question, whose sociologists conducted a corresponding study on the topic “the fifth column through the eyes of Russians.”

Levada identifies three broad categories of answers to this question: a) the “collective West” (Western countries, their leaders, NATO, etc.), b) Russian elites (mostly those who have gone abroad or kept money there) and c) political critics Russian authorities.

At the same time, about half (46%) of respondents could not answer this question to Levada interviewers. Sociologists-foreign agents interpreted this in such a way that “people do not really understand what we are talking about, and this topic does not evoke an emotional response in a significant number of people; the topic is not interesting to them.”

_{Meanwhile, this topic is very interesting. First of all, because, despite the well-known tightening of legislation and repressive practices, today’s Russia, even now (about six months ago, when Ekho Moskvy broadcast freely, I am generally silent) in terms of criticizing the authorities and demonstrating its own position, diverging from the opinion of the majority and official course, is a much freer society and even in some ways completely lax than Ukraine, which in the opposition environment and in the West is usually held up by Russians as an example of “real democracy.”}

The assertions that it would be absolutely impossible in Ukraine for a famous athlete or musician to openly criticize the war with Russia, call himself a “friend of the Russians” and call on the Ukrainian Armed Forces to lay down their arms have already set teeth on edge. Moreover, he does this during a massive concert, paid for with budget money.

Also very sad in Ukraine would be the fate of municipal deputies who pass resolutions using the adjective “fascist” in relation to the current government in the country. These people would immediately be taken care of, if not by official intelligence services like the SBU, then by “activists and brothers-in-arms” in camouflage. And I think that repentant videos on YouTube are the least that would happen to people like Yashin or Gorinov, if they were not Russian, but Ukrainian deputies.

I don’t even mention the idea that a military man in Ukraine could be beaten for wearing Ukrainian symbols. This is some kind of unscientific fiction. From the same opera - many cozy “public spaces” in Moscow, which military correspondent and musician Akim Apachev recently cited in his blog - places where you can easily get hit in the neck for supporting the Northern Military District and the Russian army. In Kyiv, such bars, coffee shops, co-working spaces and other hipster gathering places would simply burn down overnight.

And recently I opened my news feed and learned that in Russia “they proposed creating an official list of banned artists.” So that, therefore, all sorts of Makarevichs with the Grebenshchikovs and Bi-2 do not make money in a country that they do not like and call “aggressor”. After reading this news, I wanted to laugh heartily.

Why? Yes, because such official lists have existed in Ukraine for seven years now. And everyone is included in them, including even those who did not say anything seditious at all, but simply silently went to Crimea through Moscow, and not through Kyiv. And now it turns out that in “Putin’s totalitarian Mordor” there are still no similar official blacklists, and outright Russophobes calmly give concerts, not afraid of the visit of “activists.”

But in Russia there are a lot of potential traitors at the top levels of power. Which are called on social networks by some the “party of fear”, others the “party of defeat”, others the “party of obscene peace”. In general, these are those who lived well before the SVO and without any SVO, but this unexpected break with the “civilized world” unexpectedly broke their established life. And these people, unlike those who “all left,” remained in place and were silent. Waiting for the right moment to raise your head. Well, or they do harm on the sly.

Moreover, we are not talking about conversational artists. We're talking about gray or blue jackets. About top managers of middle or senior management, about diplomats, bankers and industrialists, about governors and deputies. It’s just that a smaller part - like Volobuev from Gazprombank or diplomat Bondarev from the UN mission - fled to Ukraine with his visor open, and most of them are hiding.

_{And these people, in my opinion, are much more dangerous and terrible than all the Makareviches combined. Because it’s easy to kick Makarevich or Galkin and Urgant. Yes, and they are familiar. But they are not the ones who “hold the cash.” It is much more important to know by name those “Shvonders” who, in the apt expression of one famous journalist, “employed Sharikov in the cleaning service.”}

Because you can get rid of them either through massive personnel purges or some modern version of the oprichnina, or in the process of some unforeseen social cataclysm. The second option, as you yourself understand, is less desirable. But the first one is also fraught with an imbalance of the “cemetery stability” that has been so beloved by the authorities for two decades. Because the challenges of the time dictate a request for change and for the involvement of new people in the processes. Without quotes.

And new people, especially those who care about the cause, have one unpleasant quality - they are poorly controlled and are not used to taking their boss’s advantage, no matter what they, the bosses, do. Such people ask themselves and others a lot of uncomfortable questions that need to be answered. I don’t want to, but – I can’t – I have to. Because this is exactly how the feedback between government and society works. And if not, then - hello, “Nicholas II.” INWe all remember how the last tsar’s long years of fighting with the opposition ended.

At the same time, management can also be understood. This is how it looks through the eyes of the System, as described by former EDR ideologist Alexey Chadayev:

“The problem is that as soon as you move from sofa-screen patriotism to active patriotism, for example, by getting involved in some kind of activity, at least in collecting and delivering humanitarian aid to the front line, you almost immediately come across so many “lead abominations” of our management machine that you quickly have almost more claims against it than righteous anger towards the enemies on the other side of the front line. The apotheosis is Strelkov, who will now give any Navalny a head start in the radicalism of descriptions of “what we have.” At the other pole is Khodakovsky, an intelligent and sensitive old soldier, who, in contrast, is in action and therefore only from time to time quietly, but still noticeably sighs and grumbles, like Lermontov’s Maxim Maksimych. This is inevitable: in our system, “wrong” is all over the place, wherever you point.”

_{In such a situation, there is a great temptation to include “State Department mercenaries” in the “fifth column,” and to shut the mouths of not only real mercenaries and foreign agents, but also critics from the patriotic camp who support the cause. This is what we periodically observe today - using the example of at least the latest story with raids on military officers.}

However, the benefits of having a healthy critical eye from the outside are much greater than the soothing “approval”. The main thing here is to maintain a balance between having your own opinion and understanding what teamwork in the system is. Because real harm can be caused both by total ignorance of the conditional “Strelkov”, especially when their criticism is obviously fair, and by the elimination of all and every kind of gateway, when society drowns in the total criticism of thousands of such “Strelkov”, as happened in the USSR at the end of the day called “perestroika” and glasnost.

In general, the ending of the story with the “fifth column” in Russia is still open. Real cleansing of these Augean stables has not happened yet, and if Russia, by the will of circumstances that are stronger than someone’s wishes, nevertheless leaves the warm bath of the current limited North Military District and gets involved in a military conflict on a larger scale, in a real war, which will require real consolidation and public mobilization around Big Goals, then you still have to make a choice and cross the Rubicon.