Alexey Chadayev. Domostroy

Domostroy
The government will survive if someone wants to bring it down

Alexey Chadayev

Date of publication: October 7, 2004

Understanding what power is and what it should actually do is given to few. The majority of the rest think that power is when some big boss commands, and everyone obeys. More sophisticated people believe that power is when everyone is cheated and they rule the process, no matter from what position. Finally, the most “advanced” think that power is when you know better than anyone how to live, and the only task is how to convey this knowledge to others...

The terrible September of this year, which revealed in its entirety the confused helplessness of our national body, raised the question of power. By discussing the “ collapse of the country ” - not as a horror story, but as a real, ambiguous possibility - we are actually discussing the question of why we need the Kremlin at all. Raising the topic of civilian weapons - i.e. By denying the authorities a monopoly right to protect our security, we are, in essence, establishing it. Even in Pavlovsky’s apologetic interviews, the question of the need to preserve the “regime” is presented as debatable, requiring special justifications and explanations. Obviously, this is such a mainstream trend - asking each other the question “why do we need them at all if they can’t do anything.”

Actually, the key concept in this matter is the concept of “they”.

The torment of the foreman

Today it is possible to talk about “them” using the word “we” only in the language of parables.

So, the task. You are a foreman with education and experience. You are assigned to manage the construction of a house for a large number of people. All these people participate in the construction themselves - here they are, standing in overalls, hard hats and house aprons. Almost none of them had ever built anything in their lives other than sandbox palaces in childhood; but now they simply have nowhere to live, and it’s autumn. You understand that the construction is proceeding in an idiotic manner: one lays the masonry so that the wall will not last even three days, another breaks bricks on his head, a third hits the fourth’s face with a trowel...

In your professional opinion, this whole mess is something unnatural. You try to organize them, but this is physically impossible: some are simply unteachable, others are lazy, others fall into ambition and begin to ask “who are you?”, or they offer alternative projects, starting from the foundation, although construction has been going on for a long time. And the fourth ones simply cannot be reached: there are too many people!

You understand that a team of three to five specialists would have dealt with it much better and faster than with this entire herd. If we did everything right, in the best possible way - live, people! And you are trying to drive all these brethren out of the unfinished walls, leaving only those who know how to lay bricks and can work in a team.

However, at this moment other problems arise, much more serious. Those 95% of spectators excluded from the construction of the house do not want to sit silently on the sidelines, smoke and wait for you to erect the building. Even the TV he brought onto the lawn is not of everyone's occupancy. Some carry bricks and cement from you in order to drive them to the side (or to build a small shack out of them for themselves). The second ones go to beat the first ones. Still others simply leave, taking their share of the building materials with them. Still others take crowbars and reinforcement and go to deal with you, professional builders.

You are rushing around the construction site screaming: “ Yes, sit at least a little calmly, it will be better for you! Can you build better than me? You can’t! So at least don’t interfere... ” And they answer you, spitting out the bull: “ We don't care about you, smart guy. If you build everything alone, then it will be your house, not ours. And if we do, we will break all the windows and flood the entrance. In a year we will have to build a new one ."

And you, the foreman, have no choice but to sit on the sidelines and, swearing, begin to figure out what kind of work to give them - and even so that they want to take it from your hands. You don’t know how to do this, and never have been able to - you’re used to commanding and having commands carried out; and besides, I’m used to solving problems with minimal, rather than maximum, resources - so as not to pay extra people money. But you have no choice: either you will be able to occupy the critical majority of people at the construction site, contrary to the logic of saving resources, or these irresponsible people will break your head, and all your effective management will go down the drain.

And the most important thing. You will also be to blame for the fact that people will end up with nowhere to live in the winter, and not those who will send you to the dustbin of history. People are who they are, you have no others. But you, as a construction manager, even though few people recognize this as a role, must solve the problem at all costs. Using not the “minimum of funds”, as in a “normal” business, but the maximum. Because the biggest problem is not even construction as such, but managing excess resources.

Actually, this is what distinguishes the logic of a businessman from the logic of a statesman. A businessman can optimize his staff, liquidate unprofitable divisions, concentrate on certain projects to the detriment of all others... The authorities have no right to do this. The state is not a corporation; its purposefulness is not maximum efficiency and making a profit, but the maintenance and development of the general condition of the living environment. That is, to make sure that all residents of the country can live - and, most importantly, participate in common life and common projects. And this is immeasurably more difficult.

Unfortunately, not everyone in today's government understands this.

Komsomol

Including those who are supposed to understand this by position.

The famous interview with Surkov was good for everyone: reasonable, understandable, intelligible. The only, but serious, stylistic mistake could be considered only the publication chosen as a platform - not even the publication itself, but its name. The name determines the nature of the message; “Whatever you name the yacht, that’s how it will sail.” The interview turned out to be perceived by many as the unquoted Komsomol truth: a veteran tells the younger generation about what an excellent project he and his comrades, despite all adversities, have made, and how great everything will work in it. And the facility where they work is called “RF”.

However, the interview, contrary to expectations, was coldly received even by those whose role should welcome such initiatives from their superiors. It is known what a nervous reaction some critical articles addressed to him caused in the author of the interview. But neither in the interview itself nor in the subsequent steps was there demonstrated an understanding of why no one “understood” these steps.

Instead, the acute form of demiurge syndrome triumphed. “ Now we will organize a real multi-party system, public dialogue, effective government, we will liberate private initiative and civil society, we will attract the church, workshops, trade unions - live, people! ” People answer: you will do this. We'll see. “ You are passive! You don’t even want to participate in your own destiny! ” - the demiurge throws devastating accusations. And they answer him: “ maybe we want to. But without you .” And that's it; end of the dialogue - then a mutual witch hunt begins, with talk about God, fruits and Dostoevsky.

Specialists in organizational games have this interesting principle. As soon as someone appears in the game who clearly has more competence in the issue under discussion than the rest, it is necessary to shut him up somehow. Otherwise, only he will speak - the rest will remain silent and shut out of the game space. And the task of the gaming engineer is to get everyone to turn on and speak - even if he talks deliberate nonsense, and a person sits two meters away who knows the correct answers to the questions. Coming up with something together is more important than coming up with it right.

When the government makes revolutionary decisions “without consulting the land” and blatantly tries to push the idiots into “their own benefit” - it ends up in a clinch. People do not make these decisions not even because they seem wrong to them, but simply because “everything was decided for them.” Invented correctly or incorrectly - question ten; the main thing is that they came up with it in some cunning secret laboratory, and then brought it to light. Which means it is evil.

From the point of view of the corporatist logic of “effective management” (as the Komsomol of today is called), this reaction of people is absolutely incorrect. There must be unity of power and unity of strategy when making decisions; If you endlessly coordinate everything with everyone, then there will be a mess, because people for the most part are incompetent and drag some into the forest, some for firewood. However, the effectiveness of power - not “democratic”, but absolutely any, even totalitarian – differs from the effectiveness of management of an economic structure in that the success of a decision depends not on how you thought it through, but on whether you could or could not explain it to people . So that they understand you and agree with you - references to the fact that they are idiots and will not understand anything anyway are nothing more than a painting of their own powerlessness. Not to “brainwash” (as agitprop people of all times naively think), but to involve them in the plan. And if it turns out that it is technically impossible to explain a decision to people (there are, say, no such words in the language), then it cannot be accepted. Even if it seems right and inevitable to you.

Especially when it comes to systemically important things - such as, for example, the abolition of gubernatorial elections.

Governors

From the point of view of one management logic, Putin’s decision on governors is absolutely correct.

The old system, based on gubernatorial elections, was a monstrous absurdity. The governor received power from the residents of his region, but he took the money under responsibility for spending mainly not from them, but from the federal budget (they were collected there, to the federal budget, in a completely different way - like taxes from the largest federal companies, which were paid either in Moscow, or in “specialized” regional enclaves). The result was the following business machine: invest money, win a position, ride the budget flow from Moscow and calmly master it, without any mechanisms of responsibility - either to your voters or to the federal center.

The idea of ​​sending the main distributor from the center along with the money also seems quite understandable and logical. But besides this budget there is always, albeit small, a local budget and local expenses. For the maintenance of which a separate local government is required - because By the same logic, it is foolish to entrust local affairs to federal appointees. And the next step should be to strengthen such power and its powers.

However, it seems there is no question of this today. On the contrary, the tax system has been created in such a way that regional authorities do not have any incentive to develop their own territories, since an increase in tax revenues from there will only be noticed by the federal Ministry of Finance. It is clear that this fact excludes the “regional elites” from those interested in the reform. The figure of their local leader, the representative of the region in front of the whole country - now this will obviously be the head of the regional parliament - is also not indicated in any way in the reform; it seems as if the Kremlin seriously thinks that people will accept an appointed official as the “face” of the region, just like an elected governor.

Not to mention the fact that the election of a governor is not only the main regional show, but also a ritual of legitimation of the local regime, an act of citizens delegating the right to exercise power. How will the legitimation of leaders take place? Where is the guarantee that people will generally obey those whose authority they have not confirmed in any way? How is it possible to maintain power in this situation?

No; There will most likely be no riots. But there are things worse than riots.

This one, that one and ours

It seems that this is where one of the main points of misunderstanding is.

Today there are two disloyal positions towards the authorities. One is to “overthrow the regime.” The other is to “get out of the country,” and most often without physically leaving its territory. In the Kremlin, judging by Surkov’s interview, for some reason they still think that the first one is worse for them. While in fact the second one is much worse.

“To bring down the regime” means to notice its presence, to recognize its existence as a regime. “Get out of the country” means ignoring it, even when it bothers you: not paying taxes, not serving in the army, not going to the polls, not reading newspapers and not watching the news. This seems to be the position of the majority now. In this sense, even the Duma elections last winter were not a victory for the authorities, but rather quite the opposite.

Why did people elect all single-mandate members only from the “party in power” (which is why they now had to completely abolish the majoritarian system)? It was not administrative resource that worked, but selfish interest. People chose not to elect the person who would write laws for the whole country, but the one who would perhaps supply them with heat and gas. They don't care about that; but I don’t give a damn about the country at all.

This manifested itself even more clearly at Beslan. The reaction is terrible: “let them blow up anyone - even my neighbor, even Putin, even Russia - just as long as it’s not me.” The President was left alone in an open field against Basayev - both the population and the entire state/social system pretended that they were not there and that this was someone else’s showdown.

In such a situation, for Surkov and his boss to continue the fight against those who are “against Putin” is to dig their own grave with their own hands. A living political opposition is a natural ally of the regime in the struggle for survival. Yes, this is an ally who, if he comes into power, can change his leadership, and not necessarily peacefully; but he lives here, thinks in Russia, and not in caliphates. They at least still say “this country” - whereas for the abstinent, breakaway, dropped out majority, the country has long been “that”.

Therefore, the question of survival not even of the regime, but of the state is, paradoxically, a question of the emergence and structuring of a powerful, capable anti-Putin opposition (and within the country, in Moscow, and not in the villages of the Pankisi Gorge). Such an opposition that would draw in a wave of active people eager to participate in politics - and thereby expand the catastrophically narrowed area for state building.

The reality is that at the moment there is only one way to disgracefully participate in politics: by joining the movement to “topple the regime.” It is possible, of course, that someday sane pro-Putin forces will appear in turn, instead of the Duma androids from “Edra” and the enfant-teribles from “Walking Together”; but now things are even worse with them than even with the opposition.

Today we have clearly discovered how the absence of politics in a country can easily turn into the absence of a country. And this is not only the fault of the authorities, but also the common fault of all those who left the political space without a fight, turning into an artel of hired mourners. Let effective managers “get their act together”; The easiest thing today is to blame them from the bell tower. It’s much more difficult to think for them and instead of them. But that is precisely why the only meaningful slogan of the day is not “overthrow the regime,” but “establish a state.”

On the agenda is a new Zemsky Sobor.