What to do? Part 1

I know - it’s banal rudeness to hide behind names like those at the beginning of the article. But judge for yourself. Just recently we experienced the death of Anna Politkovskaya. On the Sunday following this, many of you came up to me on Pushkin Square during a picket-rally and said something like this: “Well, stop denouncing me! And so everything is clear. You write what needs to be done! It's time!" And on the forum, here, on “Hedgehog”, and in other places, the same thought flashes more and more often. At Pushkinskaya I said that I would think and write. So I thought, or rather, I continue to think. But I can already write something. But I warn you: I am not an oracle, I am not a monopolist on the truth, my thoughts will be here. In order to convince you, I am obliged not only to say: “Do this,” but also to explain the origin of my proposals, justify them, and also reflect with you on the possible results of the steps that could be taken. Perhaps this is why I will seem didactic and boring to you from time to time. But be patient. What if there is any sense in this?

The consciousness of my like-minded people, asking the sacramental question “What to do?”, is torn by two opposing ideas: hope for a regime change and fear of shocks. Let's take a closer look at how and why this happens.

The government, driven by fear fueled by its own thefts and crimes, is increasingly tightening its defenses. The strengthening defense insanity of the authorities is increasing the mass of protest (but so far passive) sentiments. The redoubts built by the authorities catastrophically reduce the chances of a legitimate change. All this aggravates the split personality of unfortunate critics of the authorities. The further you go, the stronger the desire to change the regime; the further you go, the more difficult it is to do this through legitimate means; and the further you go, the greater the fear of shocks associated with change.

Even worse: Russian citizens, dissatisfied with the current regime and pinning their hopes on democracy as a political and legal instrument for the revival of the country, clearly feel the untimeliness and inadequacy of their hopes. Everything points to this: the lack of decent representation for them in politics; the abomination of power; Putin's consistently high rating; petty fascist rabble raising its head; information vacuum and debilitation of the leading media (television primarily); periodically appearing strange survey results, which are actually a verdict on Russian society. And this is not a complete list of reasons for pessimism.

Does this mean that the situation is hopeless? I'm sure not. It is dangerous, but not hopeless.

It is dangerous because the current regime is very fragile. His muscles are inflated with propaganda. It is unprecedentedly ineffective. He is strong not by his strength, but by our passivity, disorganization, and fears that are completely inadequate to the scale of personal danger. And the country, bearing a weak government and a weak society, afraid of each other, is heading towards collapse. Instability is growing. This collapse is inevitable and, sadly, unpredictably inevitable. We cannot say when this will happen: tomorrow or in a year. It is also unfortunate that we cannot predict the consequences of this collapse. What will happen to the country? What about us? Who will take over power? How? Now the range of possible scenarios is endless. This is instability.

But the situation is not hopeless. I would like to express as a general idea one thesis that may sound paradoxical, but it is so obvious that we do not realize it. But in vain. So here it is:

At different times, in different countries, peoples had to throw off their power. But not a single government has yet managed to overthrow its people. Yes, there have been examples in history of government genocide against citizens. States could perish (the government collapsed, the people dissolved), but as a result of external interventions. Nothing more.

What follows from this? But here's what: almost always the potential of energy, strength, and intelligence contained in society is greater than in power. The question is what energy is needed at the moment, how to extract it, organize it and direct it in the right direction. We will talk about this in future publications.

Now I want to focus on an important point related to the question “what to do?” and to the painful thoughts mentioned above: what is worse, the current government or its change in an unpredictable way? If you strip away the husks, then everything is concentrated around the sacramental word “revolution”. Is it possible? Is it necessary? Is she scary?

My answer is this. Russia needs a revolution. But this should not be the usual revolution of power, which boils down to the fact that one elite group is replaced by another under the slogans that are fashionable at the moment. No. We need a revolution of citizens. This is a completely different revolution. It is not accompanied by clashes between opposing sides. Under it, there is no replacement of some citizens by others. This is simply impossible. With such a revolution, the citizens themselves (more precisely, their constantly existing, potentially active part) change radically. Their basic attitudes, behavioral strategies, forms of activity, and ways of interacting with their own kind change.

The “revolution of power” is carried out from above by a part of the elite, which temporarily mobilizes public support groups. The role of society here is passive. First, in the phase of short-term activity, it demonstrates support for the new elite, forming its new legitimacy. Then, quite quickly, society goes into a passive phase with approximately the following sentiment: “Here! Finally, instead of the bad ones, the good ones came to power (with our help!). Now we will be fine too. These are new, good, and will do us good. Let them do it themselves now. We did our job."

Alas, many can recognize their own thoughts and feelings in the text provided (to the exact wording), if they are at least minimally sincere with themselves.

But let's get back to the plot. So, society (its active part) calms down and relaxes, and then everything returns to normal: you suddenly discover that the new lita on which you pinned your hopes, to put it delicately, did not live up to them. And you begin to look around with anxiety: whether those who will again instill new hopes in you will appear.

Readers are smart people. I believe that the picture drawn has already pushed you to your own conclusions. But still, for comparison with your conclusions, I will give my own.

First. Neither elections nor revolutions lead to the embodiment of the well-known myth: bad rulers are replaced by good ones. (Tocqueville wrote about this about a hundred and fifty years ago.) Here in Russia, this obvious empirical fact is constantly being confirmed. And some conclude: maybe it’s not worth changing the existing government? Maybe the new ones will be even worse? My answer to this is simple: the more the authorities are confident in their irremovability, the more they wallow in theft and crime. And this is also confirmed by the experience of mankind.

Second. Demobilizing and relaxing after a change of power (no matter how this change occurs), we always leave power to itself. This has two consequences. The authorities are deprived of our support already at the first stage, when they are still acting in accordance with our hopes. And this is an extremely important resource. When power, left to itself, begins to work for itself, and not for us, it, due to our passivity, becomes completely beyond our control. That’s why it rusts: it becomes mean, thieving, dangerous. Inevitably.

The last two cases. Yeltsin: we brought him to power through our opposition to the old system, through our support in the elections. And then they began to “trust” in him. His mistakes became his mistakes, and not our common ones; his weakness was precisely his weakness, not our common one. Let's be honest, he was left practically alone with his opponents, and with the whole pile of problems of the difficult transition period, and with his mistakes. And we are pleased: it’s all his fault. One.

The same syndrome manifested itself even more clearly in the case of Putin. It was lowered to us from above. Moreover, with the idea of ​​a strong state. At this point we relaxed to the fullest: “Strong state!? Great! This will definitely do us good!” So we got everything in full from this strong state - to the point of disgust, to despair. And there is nothing to blame Putin. He is what he was, what he is, no more and no less. It was we ourselves who allowed him and his entourage to create everything that we see now. We have to sort it out ourselves.

So, conclusions.

It's time to stop falling in love with yet another idol.

It's time to stop relying solely on them.

It's time to learn to take responsibility and not relax. This is why a revolution of citizens is needed.

We will discuss how you can move to a new quality in the following publications.