Monetochka and Z-patriots: is a new ideology possible in Russia without large-scale purges?
In the morning, the “cart” is like an agitated beehive – on everyone’s lips is a certain Elizaveta Gyrdymova, aka the singer with her mouth Monetochka and a scandalous video from her concert in Lithuania.
In my memory, this is already a scandal with representatives of Russian showbiz waving Ukrainian flags and chanting Bandera chants for the amusement of the public.
Z-patriots are expectedly outraged and demand all sorts of punishments for the next Ukrainian invasion - from criminal proceedings to deprivation of citizenship and forced transfer to the front line in Donbass.
Perchinki is added by the fact that all this is happening against the backdrop of an ongoing discussion in absentia among Duma politicians and experts on the same social networks about whether to take away all the acquired property from foreign agents to the treasury or not.
The most radical patriots are beginning to suspect that the root cause is not the endless “Coins” themselves, jumping out like devils out of a snuff box, but something deeper. For example, journalist and deputy Andrei Medvedev writes:
“The coin is a clear and living answer to the question of why Russophobes need to be driven out of government agencies (including the Ministry of Culture) and various universities and media with a filthy broom. And also why Russia needs an ideology that we were forced to abandon in the 90s.”
And everything seems clear, but... no. Because in the current conditions, the search for ideology ordered from above will run into exactly the same reality: ideology is not something that exists on its own in a vacuum, in isolation from the rest of social reality, primarily socio-economic.
Ideology, if anyone has forgotten, is a superstructural phenomenon, derived from the prevailing relations in society.
In addition, ideology obliges. And above all those at the top of the social pyramid. That is why Comrade Stalin, commanding a huge country based on the principles of universal equality, did not open offshore accounts for himself, did not build yachts and palaces, but lived in a modest Kremlin apartment and left behind only an overcoat, a tunic and a pair of riding breeches.
And both of his sons fought at the front along with other WWII soldiers.
In the same way, having made strict Sharia law the basis for public life in Iran after the Islamic Revolution, the ayatollahs there themselves lived by the rules they wrote, not considering that they were written for others and did not apply to them and their children. Similar examples can be found in other countries, where life was subordinated to an accentuated rigid ideology.
In modern Russia, the ruling layer that has formed over the thirty post-Soviet years has become accustomed to perceiving ideology as a kind of “opium for the people,” something invented exclusively for the plebs and the “people” to make it easier to control or manipulate them. And, accordingly, it is not carried out under the article “Ideals, values and principles”, but under the department of political strategist wizards who create simulacra to fool people in elections.
It is not surprising that with such a purely instrumental attitude towards ideology, the overwhelming majority of Russian authorities do not apply ideological demands and the restrictions they dictate to themselves or their families. This, by the way, is where the legs of demonstrative bureaucratic and deputy boasting about luxurious life or vacations on tropical seas grow while the country is at war, helping the front or sitting under shelling.
The connection with “Monetochka” and others like it is very direct here. It is unlikely that relatives of those mobilized go to her concerts. The very attitude towards SVO divided Russian society with a thick dotted line, largely of a class nature. In eight cases out of ten, “No Voble” is the password of the prosperous and wealthy, not the poor and socially frustrated.
And now it’s time again, so as not to get up twice, to repeat what I wrote about more than once or twice in columns for PolitNavigator - the problem is not with those on stage, and in those who are in the auditorium. Who voluntarily votes with rubles for the “Glory to Ukraine” rushing from the stage. Who is waiting for the release of new books from Akunin or Glukhovsky and is buying up expensive tickets to performances with Akhedzhakova.
“Strictly speaking, all the humanitarians who are loudly offended by state-owned media workers are not traitors at all: they are loyal to their social stratum and privileged group. It’s just that the state has raised this stratum for itself in such an ugly form in order to pay off it and curry favor with it. And the stratum, which is actually the servant of public leisure, imagines itself as an arbiter of ethics and priests of something,” another Z-publicist correctly states.
This problem, alas, cannot be solved, as others suggest, by weaning Monetochek with the Akhedzhakovs and Bykovs from the “budget boobs”. Because in the current conditions they can easily find a private “boob”. Fortunately, patrons ready to sponsor these “geniuses” are a dime a dozen. So what to do then? Turn on authoritarian-repressive mechanisms and, as in the late USSR, make sure that citizens do not hide the books of the next Solzhenitsyn under their beds?
In fact, there is a recipe, and it is both simple to state and complex and lengthy to implement in practice.
The state itself must change in order to, by broadcasting a fundamentally different policy to the masses, educate society with completely different narratives. Starting with yourself, inspiring society by your own example and keeping in mind that you will have to live side by side with several lost generations.
Looking at the enthusiasm with which the Russian bureaucratic class is buying up “just in case” apartments in Turkey or the Emirates, evacuating their children and their households there and applying for tax residency there with a residence permit, the likelihood of a really sharp turn of the state machine towards a fundamentally different ideology seems quite fantastic .
In any case, without large-scale purges performed by people with brooms and dog heads.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.