Voice from the past

The events that took place on the Russian political scene in December 2011 seem to have taken almost everyone by surprise. The scale and activity of the street protest, directly caused by irregularities in the last parliamentary elections, but directed against the existing political system as a whole, came as a surprise both to observers within the country and around the world, and to the protesters themselves. Even those experts who predicted an inevitable political crisis in Russia did not expect such a rapid onset. But, apparently, all this turned out to be the biggest surprise for the authorities themselves. No matter how hard she tried to “keep her face up,” surprise and confusion were clearly visible on that face.

The regime revealed its categorical unpreparedness for such a development of events, and only the generally peaceful mood of the protesters and the passivity of their leaders prevented the development of much more violent protest scenarios, which we can observe in news reports from many foreign countries. However, the crisis has still not been resolved, and the protesters’ grievances have not diminished at all, and the authorities have not increased the means to overcome the situation. In fact, the ruling regime continues to resort over and over again to the same old tried and tested methods that it has been using for the past 12 years. But how effective are they?

In addition to the eternal and thoughtless incantations about stability, which in themselves are unlikely to be able to distract people from acute and pressing problems for a long time (who, on sober reflection, can be seduced by the “stability” of economic decline and total corruption?), power with a constancy worthy of the best application, exploits the same propaganda technique - creating an image of an external threat. Actually, this classical political technology is as old as the world, and has been used many times in our country in various periods of its history. The current ruling regime has consistently used it from the very beginning of its existence, only gradually changing its emphasis depending on the circumstances. Over the past years, the main external threats to Russia have included Islamic fundamentalism and international terrorism, as well as the insidious machinations of NATO and the United States. Moreover, the latter were expressed in various forms - both in the form of a direct military threat (as in the conflict with Georgia and in the case of the notorious missile defense system), and in the form of subversive political activity (the threat of the “Orange revolutions”).

This is not the place to discuss how real these threats themselves are. What is more important to us is how the foreign policy factor was used by the Russian ruling regime to achieve its domestic political goals.

And it was used in two ways. Firstly, by directly pointing out a certain external threat, the mobilization and consolidation of Russian society was carried out. Secondly, by demonstrating the bright and spectacular foreign policy successes of the regime, the inspiration of this society was achieved. All together helped to distract the people from internal problems, reduce the intensity of social contradictions and increase the rating of the regime.

The greatest success of this technique was, of course, 2008, when a successful military conflict with Georgia, which broke out just on the threshold of an unprecedented financial crisis, greatly contributed to the consolidation of Russian society, which, of course, subsequently helped to maintain calm in a difficult economic situation and avoid serious social fears and excitement. We are far from speculating about hidden relationships between the escalation of the conflict and the forecasts and expectations of a global economic crisis that existed at that time. However, the fact that their close chronological coincidence was masterfully used by the Russian ruling regime to achieve maximum propaganda effect is beyond doubt. This effect far exceeded the generally very modest and dubious benefits Russia received from the military campaign itself.

The strategy of consolidation in the face of an external threat was so successful that the authorities’ turn to it in the context of the current internal political crisis seems completely logical. All the main components are present: the population is simultaneously presented with both the threat itself (and in both guises at once - both the threat of missile defense and the threat of the externally inspired “Orange Revolution”), and a report on foreign policy successes. The latter include, firstly, the confrontation with NATO formulated in harsh terms, and secondly, the next steps taken towards integration in the post-Soviet space (Eurasian Union, etc.).

However, all political strategies without exception have one common drawback. If repeated too many times, they noticeably lose their effectiveness. This effect is reminiscent of the story about the shepherd boy who loved to cry “Wolf!” - which, as you know, did not lead to anything good. So the Kremlin’s favorite method, apparently, no longer gives the expected result. It seems that people are simply tired of foreign policy. Against the backdrop of very real and tangible internal problems that directly impact the lives of many ordinary people, NATO threats look distant and not so scary, and the bellicose rhetoric of government officials seems unconvincing. This is noticeable at least from the very modest effect that the latest public confrontation over missile defense had. People followed her sluggishly, without showing much interest, and many comments were openly sarcastic.

An important role here is also played by the fact that the foreign policy successes that the Russian authorities are trying to boast about are, upon closer examination, completely unimpressive. The most menacing tone of the president's statements is not able to hide the simple fact that Russia's policy towards NATO, pursued in recent years, has essentially failed. NATO dutifully and politely listens to all objections, outrages and threats from Russia regarding the deployment of a missile defense system - and then completely ignores them. After a certain number of repetitions, this fact becomes impossible to hide from one’s own population. And this causes a corresponding reaction. If visible successes in foreign policy can strengthen the authority of the authorities, then obvious failures, strenuously but clumsily disguised as successes, lead to the exact opposite effect. Simply put, people are generally indifferent to what they are trying to scare them with (not because they suddenly have a deep love for the United States and its allies, but simply because they have much more pressing problems), and they do not believe at all that that today's Russia is capable of seriously frightening someone in response.

The Russian people are very insightful and are quite capable, without additional prompting, of projecting at least the same series of high-profile scandals and failures in the rocket and space industry onto the state of the domestic strategic military potential as a whole. Against this background, loud foreign policy demarches are quite logically perceived by a significant part of the people as not very well-veiled attempts to divert attention from their own problems, which are much closer to home than the Americans’ missiles.

As for the terrible and terrible threat of the “Orange Revolution,” it is impossible not to notice that for the ruling regime it represents a classic case of self-hypnosis. Having itself experienced an all-consuming, irrational fear of it, the regime for some reason believes that the population should experience the same fear. In fact, people are for the most part quite indifferent to this threat.

Russian people are accustomed to treating stories about the machinations of overseas special services with considerable skepticism - this topic has been exploited too often, and not very much to the point. The democratic revolutions themselves in neighboring countries do not cause a clearly expressed negative reaction. The fact is that many ordinary citizens, on an ordinary human level, understand quite well the emotions of the same ordinary Ukrainians or Georgians, outraged by the corruption and inefficiency of their state. Moreover, information leaking through the information vacuum about the situation in Georgia - about the successful fight against corruption, about the radical reorganization of law enforcement agencies, etc. – cause a very definite positive response, because they largely correspond to the long-standing dreams of our people. And the fact that the mentioned revolutions were not accompanied by serious unrest and bloodshed, in itself sharply reduces the degree of fear of social upheaval. In order to turn a revolution into an effective bogeyman to intimidate the people, it is necessary to present to the people the unequivocally terrifying consequences of this revolution - blood, destruction, chaos, collapse of the state. It is impossible to present anything similar in relation to the “orange revolutions”, which means that one cannot count on a strong emotional reaction.

Let us note that those of the democratic revolutions that actually led to large-scale violence (the Arab ones) are very few people associate with the possible development of events in Russia - the differences in political culture are too obvious.

Thus, it can be stated that the phrase “orange revolution” as a whole does not evoke in the people the purely negative emotions that government officials feel towards them. It does not evoke warm mass support, of course - rather, some bewilderment and cautious interest. The fiery rhetoric of pro-government speakers is driven by their own fear, the motives of which are understandable, but are they able to convey these emotions to their audience? So far this is more than doubtful.

As for the other foreign policy “sacred cow” of the ruling regime - integration in the post-Soviet space - here, too, the situation is not as simple as it seems.

In fact, the ideas of restoring the USSR in one form or another, which seem to the authorities to be such effective trump cards for winning public sympathy, are not such at all. The peak of their relevance has long passed - in fact, it occurred in the first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the psychological, social and human trauma from the geopolitical catastrophe that occurred was still fresh. It seemed to many then that what was happening was some kind of temporary darkness, an accident, a deviation from the natural course of events caused by some external reasons (the machinations of enemies, the stupidity of politicians, etc.). It seemed that a few years would pass and everything would simply return to normal.

Didn't come back. Instead, the new countries learned to live independently. For some it was easier, for others it was more difficult, but in general everyone found their own balance of normality. In addition, over the past years, a whole generation of people has grown up who have not experienced the former Soviet unity at all and are already accustomed to perceiving our closest neighbors as independent and equal states, and not temporarily breakaway fragments of the empire that need to be returned. Gradually, this view began to dominate society. Moreover, it unexpectedly turned out that independence often paradoxically improved the attitude of peoples towards each other, eliminating the main reasons for the persistent hostility that smoldered latently even in the most peaceful Soviet times. This phenomenon was best expressed in a personal conversation by an educated Ukrainian. When asked how the modern Ukrainian public would look at the proposal to reunite with Russia, he replied: “Reunite? “But we just started to treat Russians normally, we don’t want to start quietly hating them again.”

What’s most interesting is that similar sentiments are widespread in Russia, especially among the younger generation. With the exception of narrow groups of political fringes, the Russian people are currently completely indifferent to the ideas of reunification even with the culturally and ethnically closest Ukraine and Belarus, much less with the countries of Central Asia or Transcaucasia. If among the older generation one can still detect nostalgia for the Soviet “family of nations”, then middle-aged people look at this issue extremely calmly and pragmatically, and for young people the idea that Ukraine or Uzbekistan were once part of one state is rather exotic with Russia than the fact of their independence today. The real problems that stem from the existing integration initiatives of the Russian authorities - and which, unlike ephemeral economic benefits, are visible to the naked eye of every resident of Russia, do not at all add to the desire to reunite. These include, for example, the uncontrollable flow of labor migrants, drug trafficking, ethnic crime, the refusal of the European Union countries to simplify the visa regime with Russia... Few residents of Russian cities can now name real advantages even from the degree of integration with the former Soviet republics, which now exists - but almost everyone will list several significant disadvantages.

Against this background, hoping to capture the imagination of people with the prospects of even greater integration, to inspire them and rally them around the regime that is carrying out this integration is, to say the least, naive. The favorite brainchild of recent months, the Eurasian Union, about which the authorities talk more than about the long-awaited and long-suffering entry into the WTO, does not cause a rise in patriotic enthusiasm among the majority of the educated urban population, but rather dull wariness. Nothing good is expected from him. The population outside the educated urban strata has hardly heard of him at all, because they are immeasurably far from foreign policy issues.

As we see, all the foreign policy “lures” offered by the authorities to dissatisfied people, with all their diversity, have something in common. And this commonality is their complete anachronism. In essence, they all represent an attempt to talk to the people and convince them of their correctness and indispensability, using arguments not even ten, but almost twenty years ago. The peak demand for these arguments (a military threat from the West, an international conspiracy to collapse Russia from within, the need to restore the empire in one form or another) occurred in the early and mid-1990s. That's when they would have gathered the most active supporters. But since then, changes have been continuously taking place in Russia, and by now so many of them have accumulated that we are, in fact, facing a completely different country. The range of problems troubling society has changed. Society itself has changed, both socio-economically and ideologically. Finally, a generation of people simply changed. And the inability of the authorities to see and understand this, their inability to speak with their people in a relevant language, and not extracted from the dusty depths of the archives, very clearly illustrates the isolation and alienation of this government from the people and, perhaps, helps to better understand the nature and underlying causes of today's mass protests.