In the opposition

Objection of Boris Akunin

January 23, 2012 Alexander Podrabinek

The article by Boris Akunin “Let's Not Rush to Win in Russia” printed on January 20 in The New York Times (“Let's not hurry to win in Russia”) breathes calm and confidence. It’s nice to read it, how nice to listen to every person confident in the triumph of a just business.

Akunin’s confidence in an inevitable victory is based on the fact that time works exclusively for democracy, and therefore it would be good if the Putin regime collapsed too quickly. Let it be supplied at least a year. ” This time will allow "the sprouts still a very green civil society to grow up and get stronger," and "civil society will learn self -organization, increase muscles."

I must say that various options for the ideology of reconciliation - from partial to total - are discussed today by all commentators of the events. The range of reconciliation is incredibly large-from the readiness to coordinate protest rallies with the authorities (although the law requires only a notification) to the consent to endure any illegally chosen president if he promises to fulfill at least some requirements of the protesters. Against this background, Akunin’s readiness to tolerate Putin still does not even look too sinister.

I don’t know if B. Akunin and Bakunin are related to the secret meaning, but the famous anarchist and Pan Slavist wrote in the century before last that “reconciliation with reality in all respects and in all spheres of life is a great task of our time.” I believe that many people also think today.

I am far from the idea of ​​writing Boris Akunin into secret supporters of the current government, but all the inhibition of protests, from my point of view, is very at the hand of the authorities. The idea that this power can be defeated by the shouting, slowly and enjoying the process is from the field of fiction. The history and practical experience of velvet revolutions testify to the opposite. Only growing public pressure, escalation of requirements and actions, intransigence in defending positions lead to victory. In a different situation, the result of public protests becomes, at best, decorative changes, replacing signs or odious figures in power; The worst is a rigid suppression of protests and the eradication of the opposition.

Akunin proceeds from the assumption that the sprouts of civil society will grow serene, and the authorities will look at it with tenderness or at least indifferently. And I will tell you that while these sprouts have not turned into a violent shoot, the authorities will try to sprinkle them with herbicide, or even burn off with napalm. You cannot underestimate the enemy, attributing him a lack of initiative. This is not adapted to useful matters, for good lazy, indifferent to troubles. As for the salvation of their power, here they are initiative, inventive and energetic. They have no equal!

They have already moved away from the first shock caused by the sudden and inexplicable December rallies. They have already connected the system opposition to the decomposition of public protests, their emissaries from glamorous journalists to unclenched ministers, and special services that merge the press for the leaders of the opposition. They already came to their senses and, I am afraid, decided on a lot, while the opposition is in a hurry to prepare the February rally.

What a year there! The authorities will take a decisive step forward, as soon as the opposition hesitantly retreats half a step. Where the opposition will be ready for discussions, the authorities will remain adamant, and will yield only where the opposition will show firmness and will stand on its own. In power, the psychology of street punks, which retreats, with a tight tail, only when it encounters force or willingness to apply it. Bowing now in time or requirements is to provoke power to strict response measures. Who in his life has come across a petty criminal impression and repressive apparatus of the state, he understands this.

Unfortunately, the experience of Russian life shows that the authorities will not stop for the sake of achieving their goals. Who doubts, remember the explosions of residential buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in 1999, which became the reason for the start of the war in Chechnya and Putin's coming to power.

Small the words of Vice-mayor Gorbenko about the impossibility of ensuring security on a 6-kilometer route of the procession of demonstrators were ominously sounded at a meeting with the applicants of the rally on February 4. They sounded as a threat, as a ready -made excuse for the future: “But we warned!”

No, Grigory Shalvovich, we do not have a year old. If, of course, we want to change something for the better. If we set up in a philosophical way and dwell on the idea that someday society is still self-organized, the regime of the personal power of one person will become impossible and good will win evil, then we really have eternity in the reserve. Then you can not rush.

Photo by RIA Novosti