There's something wrong with my memory

While Mitrich's chamberlains are squabbling over living space in the Kremlin Voronya Slobodka, our brother Lokhankin, huddled in his little nook, reflects on the homespun truth and the fate of Russia. To each his own...
At the same time, “we” warm ourselves by arguing with each other - a normal perpetual motion machine. One of the main points of dispute is how we can build democracy in Russia.

In fact, democracy, as far as I know, among many other things, presupposes the participation of the majority of the country's citizens. The Democrats have small problems with the “majority”: a couple of hundred people gather at rallies, and 1-2-3% vote for the Democratic Party in elections.

How to attract the majority?

To achieve this, it is always proposed to either unite or disengage. The methods are well-known... There is some confusion only in the fact that the total weight of all the “uniting and disengaging” (including the Union of Right Forces-Yabloko-Limonovites-Kasparovites) does not exceed that same 1-2% of the votes. However, for some reason this nonsense does not bother the heated debaters. They - it is not entirely clear for what reason - are confident that if they do unite (or separate), they will solve not only their personal and group problems, but also somewhat more general problems. So to speak, “problems of democracy in Russia.”

After which an even more meaningful debate begins with each other on the topic: do you actually want democracy?! The implication, apparently, is that all this is of great practical importance: as soon as we agree with each other on this matter (and we reject from our friendly ranks those who “don’t want democracy”), then she, my dear, will fly in...

All this is reminiscent of the famous joke about two old men who sit in the park, looking at women. One says: “See that blonde? She passed - and I already want her again!” Another asks: “Have you already had it?” - “No, I already wanted to...”

However, as you know, wanting is useful. And, by the way, practically: do you have to do something?

Freedom debate
So, realizing the practical significance of the topic, let us turn to the content of the latest heated debates.
Andrei Piontkovsky reproaches Vladimir Milov for the fact that the latter “doesn’t want” democracy enough. As they say, “learn to want!”
The point is that Andrei Andreevich - although for some reason he is a member of Yabloko - is a persistent supporter of the closest possible contacts with the National Bolsheviks (as you know, Yabloko well-intentionedly curses these same National Bolsheviks at every opportunity).
Well, so... But Milov, although not a member of Yabloko, is “bartering” and is not ready, even for the sake of overthrowing the KGB dictatorship, with the National Bolsheviks.
A.A. - the person is extremely hot. This happens with intellectuals... “He is a learned head - it’s obvious, and he’s picked up a ton of information, but he only explains with such fervor that he doesn’t remember himself. I listened to him once: well, for now I was talking about the Assyrians and Babylonians - nothing yet, but when I got to Alexander the Great, I can’t tell you what happened to him. I thought it was a fire. By God! ran away from the pulpit and, with all the strength he had, slammed the chair on the floor.” Yes, not always on the floor! This chair flew in the direction of Milov: “What are we fighting for - for freedom of speech, for free elections, against the shameless embezzlement of the ruling elite, against blatant social inequality? Or for a flat income tax scale, market instruments for controlling inflation and, above all, for preventing the left from coming to power, believing that the main thing now is the development of capitalism, and that new generations of the strengthened Russian bourgeoisie will someday be ripe for political freedoms, and then you can will think about truly free elections...".
Good way to pose the question, by the way! I'll come back to her later. In the meantime, let's listen to Milov.
So, Piontkovsky, involuntarily quoting “Demons,” formulates, so to speak, a dilemma: “Is it a turtle’s move in a swamp or at full speed through the swamp?” (with “demons” under the armpit - or under the armpit of the “demons”?).
Driven into a corner, Milov somehow fights back, not too confidently, in my opinion.
“I’m not afraid of the left in power... Well, they will be in power for 4 years, well, 8 years, but then their policies will inevitably go bankrupt, and they will lose the next elections.” “I’m actually... not particularly afraid of anything.”
This, as they say, is commendable, but it’s still too wide to scatter - planing chunks for 8 years - still too wide, no? Putin has been in power for 8 years - well, another 8 years, so what? “Then it will inevitably go bankrupt...” - why worry then? However, are you worried? So, 8 years is not so little...
But that's okay. What follows is even stranger.
“For democrats, uniting with communists is unnatural, it is a perversion. ...Not everyone is ready for this. Personally, I may be ready, but many of my supporters are not ready.” This piece is so tasty that I won’t comment on it so as not to blur the impression.
This passage is also interesting. “In Russia there is massive potential to support the opposition. He is among people with moderate views. These people don’t like Putin and Medvedev, they want democracy.”
No offense at all! — the immaturity of these words contains deep truth. It is true that she is precisely in her infantile state.
“They don’t like Putin and Medvedev”, “they want democracy”... Aha! Exactly. “They don’t like” and “they want” - this is our typical political thinking, as M.S. put it. Gorbachev. People with such a political consciousness will remain “potential” - kinetic energy will not be born here...
So who do you disagree with - Piontkovsky or Milov? - the reader has the right to ask. “With both,” I will answer, again, quoting the classic.

On behalf of Gershenzon
Andrei Andreevich did not forget me either. Like the heaviest chair, he hurled an accusation at Milov that he would, no matter what, end up in the company of “Gershenzon, Chubais, Radzikhovsky.” These citizens deny the need for democracy, are afraid of free elections, rely on the government as “Russia’s first European” - and they talk about it openly.
Milov, of course, dismissed the monstrous slander: “So there’s no need to casually unite me with Chubais and Radzikhovsky” (did he leave Gershenzon in reserve or something?).
The topic is interesting. What Anatoly Borisych thinks there, he knows better. I believe that now, in the efforts to liquidate RAO, he has no time for Gershenzon, Piontkovsky, Radzikhovsky and Milov... However, he is a living person, maybe he will speak out.
But Gershenzon spoke out not weakly.
“We not only cannot dream of merging with the people, but we must fear them more than all the executions of the authorities and bless this government, which alone, with its bayonets and prisons, still protects us from the wrath of the people” (Collection “Vekhi”, 1909).
For the sake of accuracy, it must be said that this was said in a certain context, that Mikhail Osipovich made all sorts of equivocations there, explaining that, they say, the people, of course, are “karosh”, and the intelligentsia, of course, “byaka”... But this is true today doesn't matter. The context has long been forgotten. The phrase remained - and cleared of context (and perhaps even of the meaning that the author himself put into it) acquired a simple and honest literal meaning.
With this meaning I - of course! — I agree 100%.
It amazes me that there are people (like Piontkovsky) who manage to disagree with this! Well this is true...
There was this cartoon: two Marxists smoking in a logging camp in 1937. And one says to the other: “And the theory is correct!!” This is me about Piontkovsky - about his understanding of the history of Russia in the twentieth century, the role of liberals, the people, democracy and freedom. There were a lot of things - but the liberals, while fighting the damned autocracy, were still right. And the “stupid penguins”—guardians and conservatives—remained cowardly fools.
Gershenzon's words were written under the impression of the dress rehearsal of 1905. At the time it might have seemed like an exaggeration. The “liberated people”, so to speak, made a little... mistake, or something. Happens. Let's not generalize and croak! The people will take into account the mistakes and get better.
But in 2008, argue with Gershenzon!
After 1917.
After 1937, when executions were applauded not only from under the stick. And even now (!) Stalin has 10 times more fans, according to polls, than all democrats.

N-y-ah-ah... Only intellectuals can do that. “They forgot nothing - and didn’t understand a damn thing at all!” True, there is nothing special to understand here.
1917th. February (not October, please note!). Sunrise of People's Freedom.
“Machine guns—that’s what I wanted. For I felt that only the language of machine guns was accessible to the street crowd and that only it, lead, could drive the terrible beast that had broken free back into its den.
Alas, this beast was... His Majesty the Russian People...".
The intimidated Jew Gershenzon, of course, would not have written like that, he was embarrassed. But Russian nationalist, patriot, anti-Semite Vasily Vitalievich Shulgin - it’s possible. He wrote it. The truth.
Well, of course, the Tsar - no matter what a fool he is, surrounded by thieves, a reactionary, sitting on the rotten gendarme Vertical, strangling Freedom,” etc. etc., was 1,000,000 times better than this very Freedom! As much “better” as the real - difficult, ugly, dull - life is better than any death! (By the way, the death of Russia also turned out to be very little highly artistic - it vaguely resembles Delacroix’s paintings.) Bunin wrote furiously after the revolution about the liberals, and “about all of us” - what kind of idiots we were, how we didn’t understand, didn’t value our happiness, we didn’t see that we were living a normal life! And only when we got deep into bloody shit did we realize what we had lost.
And some still don’t understand!
How today can one manage to “forget” that the words of Gershenzon and Shulgin are self-evident truth and repeat the nonsense of the Russian liberal populists who “fought the autocracy”, all these “parties of people’s freedom”? The liberal populists of 1916 are forgivable (yes, they paid for their stupidity...). Liberal Populists 2008 is unforgivable.

New songs
At the same time, it would be stupid to mechanically transfer the image of the “beast people” to our days.
The people, of course, are the same. Great-grandchildren differ from great-grandfathers in details.
Then there was a war. Now there is peace.
Total illiteracy - total literacy.
A young nation is an aging nation.
Families with 5 children - families with 1-2 children.
In a word, aggression in the nation has become much less, and the price of human life has become much greater.
Therefore, there is no theme of “machine guns”, there is no “people’s fury” and “bayonets” are not needed now to save “us” from “them”.
But I really treat the idea of ​​democracy and holy Freedom without any sacred trepidation.

Yes, its pathogenicity has become much less. But it does not follow from this that its benefits for the country and people have become much greater.

Let's take the year no longer 1917. Not even 1993 - although then to save Mr. Yavlinsky, and Mr. Piontkovsky, and Mr. Milov, and Mr. Radzikhovsky, exactly those same machine guns were needed, and the hand of such desperate democrats as Korzhakov and Grachev - and the liberated people (or part of them) for the glory of Parliament would have flooded the streets of Moscow with blood no worse than in 1917! By the way, Yavlinsky understood this very well and loudly demanded then, in 1993, those same “machine guns.” As they were demanded by such “executioners and accomplices of the autocracy” as Akhedzhakova, Basilashvili, Kazakova, N. Petrov and many other normal, adequate people who understood that a major massacre must be stopped - before it is too late - with a small bloodletting.

But, I repeat, let’s leave out the extreme October 1993.

Here are the elections. Free. Semi-free. 1993. 1995 1999 What we are called to emulate today. And it’s true: there was more freedom than there is now. That’s why there were more LDPR. And the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. And the tiny factions of “Yabloko” and “DR” (there was no Union of Right Forces at that time) barely crawled under the Duma rope and did not make any difference in the Duma.

“What's so scary about that?” - Mr. Piontkovsky will ask. Nothing. God does not give a horn to a carnivorous cow—parliament remains powerless. But if they had been given free rein... No, 1917 would not have happened. But nothing “good” would have happened either.

The reaction of Russian democrats to the existing democracy is well known. Here is their assessment of the eternal choice of the people: “Blind! In whom I sought the reward of all my labors! / I was in a hurry!.. flying! trembled! this is happiness, I thought, close./ Before whom I just now was so passionate and so low/ Was a waste of tender words!/ And you! oh my God! Who did you choose?/ When I think about it, who did you prefer?”

Chatsky-1993, Yuri Karyakin said the same thing in short: “Russia - you’ve gone crazy!” So much for the holiday of Freedom...

And in 2008, freedom of elections would have definitely led to the collapse of the hated United Russia (what happiness!). Maybe even - I'm kind! — the “united democrats” would have dragged their tiny faction into the Duma (even greater happiness). Zhirik would have won a little - he was tired. And the Communist Party of the Russian Federation would not have lost too much. So who would withdraw the bank? But at least Rogozin. National populism does not change. Faces change. This would be in fashion today. How do you like these election results?

It is known as: “I’m running, I won’t look back, I’ll go looking around the world, / Where there is a corner for the offended feeling! - / A carriage for me, a carriage!

Well, why the hell is the bat itching? Free elections - go to the studio! Lack of experience - asking for more? One step forward - not visible? Or is it all the same?

What do you want?
Here it’s time to return to Mr. Piontkovsky’s question. What do you say you want: free elections, closing the gap between rich and poor, freedom of speech - or a flat income tax?
Quite a contradiction!
Because with freedom the flat scale will rear up. There will be, as in the 1990s, a progressive tax, which no one, of course, pays, but which, nevertheless, greatly “helps” those same “small businesses” and other “middle class”. However, this is a despicable trifle...
What do the majority of the population need? This is evidenced by surveys, TV voting, just talking to people and simple common sense. People - which is quite natural - need oil bread and patriotic spectacles. They don’t want the System to change - they want it to expand and let each of them into the rental pie. True, this doesn’t happen...
What did you think, Andrey Andreevich? That in conditions of freedom people will begin to “increase labor productivity” and develop those very “nanotechnologies”? What - from freedom of the media - will the competitiveness of the economy grow like wings, and not rent-eating?
I would make a bet, but you can’t check...
If people need exactly what I write about, then the next question is: how will this help the “development of the country”?
I'm afraid it's no better than today's nomenklatura theft.
So 1,000,000 eats up rent and throws away another 10,000,000. And the rest are tolerated.
They will eat rent for 1,500,000 and throw away the stubs of another 12,000,000. And they will tolerate the rest.
A democrat's dream has come true! How - and that's ALL?! Well yes, EVERYTHING. For what else - WHERE CAN IT COME FROM? At least with freedom, at least without it? PETRONOMY, that's what petronomy is. It will remain that way. And if it can be changed by the most free vote, then this is truly a new word in economic science!
There is an answer to this too.
“Whoever seeks in freedom something other than freedom itself is a slave.”
Freedom, including political freedom, is valuable in itself.
Agree.
It remains to clarify what freedom is.
Democracy includes two wings: human rights - and free elections, with the right of the majority.
The second freedom does not touch me at all, does not inspire me, and does not seem valuable in itself at all. It is tolerable - only as a condition that guarantees the first part, those same human rights, including the rights to equal competition, self-realization, etc. If the free choice of the majority turns against human rights - and this happens quite often - then to hell with this free choice! True, unfree choice (more precisely, imitation of elections) often, even more often, infringes on human rights. But we have no equal competition, no opportunities (for many active people) for self-realization. That's right. That's why I'm not a supporter of Mr. Putin. As well as gentlemen Putinophobes. I am equidistant. Yes, very often freedom of elections sooner or later leads to the expansion of human rights. Therefore - and only for this reason - I am theoretically in favor of freedom of elections. But, presenting the matter practically, I quickly turn sour.
I remember firmly: “In Russia there are two misfortunes. Below is the power of darkness. Above is the darkness of power.” And in vain, gentlemen democrats and lovers of the people are trying with all their might to forget about the first, and gentlemen lackeys - about the second. Both are good.
What to do?
In my opinion, it is better to do nothing than to do nothing.
However, this does not apply to conversations.

“This is what we are... Russian politicians. While turning over power, we did not have the courage, or rather, the saving cowardice, to think about the gaping void. My own and other people’s powerlessness looked into my eyes mockingly and terribly!..” (Shulgin. Days).
But let's not exaggerate.
No one is overturning power these days—they can’t, and they don’t seriously think about it. So... la-la-la... Talking is a good thing. “Tattling is our profession.”
Power can only be overturned by itself - with its stupidity. Yes, and she is unlikely. Oil prices are true. But these prices are insidious. They are creating a “honey trap” for Russia: prices will collapse no earlier than the elites and people are FINALLY CORRUPTED WITH OIL FREE. If we consider that Putin “concluded an agreement” in 2000—“mortgaging the soul of Russia” for high oil prices—then a fall in prices should be expected no earlier than the soul has completely decomposed. Well, so that there is no way back, so that there is no strength left to “buy back.” Joke...