The future has passed

There is such a common phrase: "This country has no future."

Now this erased formula is somehow almost legalized. And at the highest level. The category of the future in official rhetoric is practically absent.

In the USSR, once with all its might, the myth of the "bright future" (and symmetrically - the "damned past") was cultivated with all the clans of weapons, and for many years, abundant sacrifices, including human ones, were made for many years.

But the same myth, this utopia managed to spur to very real and sincere creative impulses of many young and middle -aged people, seduced and obsessed, even not entirely intelligible, but from this the even more intriguing idea of ​​the “new world” and convinced that both the form and the content of this coming world will largely depend on their efforts, on their personal and collective enthusiasm.

The propaganda rhetoric of those years, based on Marxism adapted to our inevitable originality, operated, on the one hand, on the one hand, such ominous categories as dictatorship, even the proletariat, on the other, such as, for example, a scientific worldview. Therefore, a respectful attitude towards science was cultivated in general, and to culture too. And if one or another direction in science was ongoing as a “pseudoscience” or even a “sales girl of imperialism”, this only confirmed the genuine interest and paternal care of the state about the “most advanced science”.

Well, and the future, of course. And it, the future, has always been more important than the present, no matter how much this present is presented from the pages of newspapers and in the newsreel. The present has always been only a prologue to the already finally perfect future, constantly looming in a historical perspective, like a coveted carrot in front of the muzzle of a donkey.

At first, the “future” was socialism, which was built in one individual country. At some point, he was tired of building him, and it was announced about his complete victory, as well as that living became better, to live more fun. This is a violent fun, which was launched from above, revealed in the form of the Volga-Volga film and the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, was eagerly combined with energetic measures associated with the exacerbation of the class struggle, which was so much aggravated every year that there were no longer enough places for new camps in a huge country.

This time, however, I know mainly from the books, films and memories of my parents.

But the beginning of the 60s, when the poster “The Party solemnly proclaims the general background of social life: the current generation of Soviet people will live under communism”, I already remember clearly.

There were many discussions about communism. Not only public, but also, so to speak, private. Of course, they argued about, of course, whether he would come or not really - it was just not discussed, but was implied by itself - but about what it will be.

Some (there were a majority) saw communism as a universal and comprehensive freebie, where everything is up to the crap and everything is free. Others (their minority) understood him as the final and irrevocable triumph of the mind, moral principles and free creative work, as a deliverance from the prejudices and birthmarks of the "damned past." In a word, neither illness, no sadness, nor sighing, as was said much earlier and, in general, for a slightly different reason.

The science fiction writers of those years - those from the "progressive" - ​​depicted the future as a world inhabited by exceptionally smart, honest, strong, brave, while cheerful and witty people, skiers and tourists with backpacks and guitars. The future humanity looked there as a friendly team of some research institute of the 60s that grew to the global scale.

There were also many witty jokes about communism. Especially attractive to oral folk art was the widespread formula, denoting the basic principle of a communist society: "From each according to his abilities, to everyone according to his needs."

Of course, there were more jokes not about the ability, but about the needs, which is understandable, given the modest, to put it mildly, the level of the then commodity - “supplies”, as they said then.

I remember such, for example, a joke. Under communism, a person goes for products in order to satisfy his needs. He sees an ad on the door of the store: "Today there will be no need for oil."

Or another. The Greater factory is a lecturer who tells about the near beautiful future. "Five years later, comrades, every Soviet family will have its own car. (Applause.) And in ten years, comrades, each family will have its own plane!" Voice from the audience: "Comrade lecturer, why do every family need a plane?" “I explain with an example,” says the lecturer. “Imagine that you live in Khabarovsk. And in Krasnoyarsk they threw flour ...”

By the 70s, to the “communism” somehow imperceptibly cooled down and he finally turned into a ritual, non-binding figure of intra-party etiquette. The Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee Comrade Brezhnev is its many hours, monotonous and loving, like the eastern epic, the report at the next congress invariably ended with the words "Long live communism!" Then the delegates got up and applauded exactly as much as it was supposed to be according to the regulations. And then, tired, but satisfied, with a cheerful gurgal, they went to boil "according to the needs" as part of the Congresses of Communism temporarily built in one single palace.

But "communism" has already ceased to be the future. It was preserved only in the everyday speech of citizens as a rudimentary synonym for satiety and commodity-money well-being. They talked about someone like that - "lives as under communism." In the sense that he has "everything."

And the present and future were crumpled into one pile in an indistinct and timeless “developed socialism”, creatively enriched with a food program and economy, which for some reason was ordered to be economical.

With the onset of new times, when a gaping ideological vacuum formed, a captivating prospect was lost. It suddenly became completely incomprehensible to what and where to direct the ownerless energy of the masses.

It was easier with communism: no one saw him. But the simple, seemingly task - to take and direct a certain amount of efforts as well as civil and political will to simply join the modern civilized world - turned out to be impossible.

The category of the future went somewhere. Or in extreme cases, the future is seen as forever consuming the present, which can simply not be more beautiful. Well, what, tell me, is our present bad? They achieved in total, achieved everything, they were safely quarreled with everyone. Yes, and enough to learn from anyone! Not small, thank God! Teachers were also found. Let them look at themselves. We will also teach them.

What is the future if we already have everything. And they have no horseradish there except same -sex marriages. For example, we have Putin. Do they have Putin? That's the same. Do they have Crimea? And we have. And he is ours.

And what a future, if we have such a past! No one has such a past. And if we have to work on this past through unified textbooks, then we are not such a past - the past is the past, you will lick your fingers.

But there is no future. Not at all. No. It is not at least already in the sense that they simply try not to think about him. No one - neither the authorities, nor the so -called ordinary citizens, including those who managed to maintain a sober attitude to reality and history today.

I don’t want to think about the future terribly, it's true. However, it is necessary, there is still nowhere to go. Because if you don’t think about him, he certainly will not be.