Medvedev - progressive involuntarily

From the editorial office. The presidency of Dmitry Medvedev is marked by a certain turn in ideology. A new system of views arose - progressism as a political attitude to the development of society and its accelerated advance into the future. Why in Russia and in the West they interpret the word “progressism” so differently? Is the “progressism” of a new ideology for the Russian political landscape, fundamentally different from the liberalism of the 90s era? And is the rapprochement of Russia and the West is possible on the basis of the ideology of “progressism”? To these and other questions, the famous writer, author of numerous fantastic works by Boris Strugatsky , answered the chief editor of the “Russian magazine” Boris Mezhuev.

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RG : Boris Natanovich, do it not seem to you that in postmodern Europe the term “progressism” was compromised and is now subject to rehabilitation?

Boris Strugatsky: In time immemorial, I read the word “progressive” somewhere, and it had an obviously disrespectful and even derogatory shade there. According to the laws of imprinting, with this shade, I perceive it to this day. “Progressive” is a kind of person who noisily rants about progress, but has no more attitude to progress.

I don’t know how this term is used now. Apparently otherwise. Apparently, today the progressive is a person who professes the idea of ​​utility, necessity and even the inevitability of progress. And by progress, at the same time, something purely positive, a certain good goal that should pursue, experiencing history.

But according to my concepts, progress is “just” an increase in the amount (and quality) of the knowledge and skills of mankind . Everything that leads to the growth of knowledge-humus is progressive. Everything that leads to the loss is counterprogress, and therefore, rather, undesirable. The laws of society work in such a way that knowledge-umbers from century to century accumulate on average, and faster. This is an objective fact that does not contain and does not require any moral assessment. Progress is not good and not bad, it is .

Counterprogress - there is a violation of the natural course of history, and he is alarming: is everything in order in the Danish kingdom? A person who professes any progress as a phenomenon, apparently, should now be called progressive - seems to me a person who is careless in judgments, inclined to neglect evidence, and a representative of a certain “true” direction cannot serve in any way. I'm not sure that such even exist among the more or less reasonably thinking people. And I don’t know anything about their situation in “postmodern Europe” and in general anywhere. Probably, your question should be understood differently: do people exist, and until now, people who are ready to consider progress, as a historically positive phenomenon, after an atomic bomb, after a militarized space and a dangerous invasion of the gene?

Or there are no such ones left at all, and everyone spread to the camp of “counter -proprogress”, under the banners, on which it was drawn: “God be completely with him, with such progress! Is it time to start curbing, limit and prohibit it? " The point of view, quite common and understandable. Yes, only here we can neither be curdled, nor to limit, nor more to prohibit progress, we are in no way able to prohibit the law of conservation of energy or the multiplication table . “History is an unusual millions of will,” and these will, all these multimillion -dollar desires and aspirations, develop so that progress arises - which was neither in aspirations, nor in aspirations and spirit.

RG : What is most associated with the idea of ​​progress in Western society to the greatest extent today? Is it possible, for example, to be attributed to the progressive phenomena "state departure from the economic sphere", "unlimited freedom of financial transactions", etc.?

BS: I really do not know anything about Western society. As for the economic and political actions you have named, they seem quite reasonable, although not in such an “absolute” formulation. “The state departure from the economic sphere”, yes, of course, but only from the areas of the economy that can make profit. Everything is unprofitable and unprofitable should remain in the jurisdiction of the state, whether it be the army, police or diplomacy . (Medicine, science and education should be organized in both forms of management - both state and private - for specific circumstances).

"Unlimited freedom of financial transactions," apparently not; Apparently, reasonably limited, but still, freedom is necessarily. Apparently, in general, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that the state, in itself, does not know how to “produce” money (inflationary methods are not considered). Neither workers, nor peasants, nor the intelligentsia are able to make money - all of them are only capable of producing the product. Only entrepreneurs make the money, and the state is only obliged to ensure that the conditions for entrepreneurship are created optimal.

RG: Do you think that “progressism” in Medvedev’s understanding is a new ideology for the Russian political landscape, which is fundamentally different from the liberalism of the 90s era ?

BS: Medvedev, judging by his public statements, of course, the “progressive”, he certainly wants the number and quality of knowledge-humus in Russia to grow. But he wants to (forced to want?) This, remaining within the framework of the all-existing omnipotent administrative-bureaucratic management system. In this situation, it is extremely difficult to carry out progress, and maybe even impossible, because the all -in -performance bureaucracy is completely not interested in progress. Progress is a complication, change, movement, risk, and bureaucracy is necessary, on the contrary, stability, immobility, confidence in the constancy of the “rollback”. And she will slow down any progress with all her considerable forces, like sand in the mobile joints of the locomotive of history.

I think that almost all of the “conservatism” of the “United Russia” is reduced to the same desire of the administrative-bureaucratic system to preserve the steust-quo. I suspect, such conservatism is now the ideological installation of a huge majority of politicians (and just inhabitants) of Russia. If you like, this is even a certain “national idea” that determines the behavior of huge human masses.

Medvedev, I think, understands this no worse than you and me. Maybe he even refers to this conservatism with the sympathy of a person of his country and his time. But after all, among other things, he is also “responsible for everything”, and as a reasonable person he cannot help but see where the path of this conservatism can lead Russia (“Burkina-Faso with nuclear missiles”), and he involuntarily becomes “progressive”.

The liberalism of the 90s was built on the idea of ​​completely dismantling the old system and replacing it with a new, democratic one. The current progressism does not touch the current system at all, he is trying to embed new elements into it, which are not at all inherent and even contradicting it. The language of power may have changed, but the power itself has changed little: immersion in the scoop continues safely.

There was still too little time to evaluate Medvedev. So far, he is most reminiscent of Gorbachev, and not even by a charge of his ideas, but by the position, as it were, an omnipotent leader who seeks to rebuild the system, whose arms and legs are tightly braided with tentacles of this very system. As for new ideas, I do not see them.

RG: Do you think the ideological rapprochement of Russia and the West is possible on the progressism platform?

BS: The rapprochement of Russia and the West does not need some new ideological platform. There are enough ideas for this. Not new ideas must be sought in the name of rapprochement, but to get rid of some old ones. For example, from the idea of ​​anti -atlantism and in general from the mentality of "great, unrecognized and surrounded by enemies."

RG: What sources of Dmitry Medvedev’s performances can be allegedly called about progress? Can such sources be: Soviet ideology, liberalism of the 90s, fantasy of the Strugatsky, Toffler's work?

BS: I don’t know how about the Strugatsky, but all other sources, I think, are familiar to him. And they undoubtedly played some role in the formation of the mentality. Yes, only real life is stronger than any theory. Any politician, and above all, the politician is large, should be a pragmatist. All other components of the mentality "nervously smoke on the sidelines."

RG: Can the ideology of Medvedev’s progressism become the basis for the formation of a new political party, within which it will be possible to combine, relatively speaking, Anatoly Chubais and Maxim Kalashnikov with their general commitment to technical innovation?

BS: Of course, in politics, sometimes truly fantastic combinations and unions are formed, but I don’t see Chubais next to Kalashnikov. This is already something prohibitive. And to build a political party outside political ideals, in my opinion, is also impossible. That is why such (seemingly potentially powerful) parties as a party of pensioners or, say, lovers of beer, hopelessly wither. I can imagine a batch of progressives, but the idea of ​​perestroika and breaking the administrative-bureaucratic system, the idea of ​​violation of the status quo, and these ideas are certainly not able to “master the masses”, which means a batch of progressives is doomed to marginality and to hopeless trample next to a 5 percent barrier should be the central idea.

Boris Mezhuev talked