Programs - Round Table

Lev Roitman:

Let's talk about dignity in politics and the dignity of politicians. But, and since the radio is not a very suitable place for scientific treatises, we will immediately determine for ourselves - we will talk about the readiness and the ability of politicians not only to use the authorities, but also to bear, to take responsibility. Example: the Federal Chancellor then West Germany, Willy Brandt, retired in the 74th year, when it turned out that a certain Guillaume was one of his employees, was an East German spy. Another example: Bruno Krai - the Austrian Chancellor, retired in the 83rd year after the fact that the majority of the population spoke out against the construction of nuclear power plants in Austria. So, about dignity in politics. Participated, all by phone: Professor-historian Andrei Zubov; Ilya Milstein - weekly "New Time"; And our Parisian correspondent Semyon Mirsky.

It will be about dignity in politics and the dignity of politicians, about their ability to bear responsibility for using the authorities, for the results of their own decisions. Perhaps we will start with Ilya Milstein, since the idea of this transmission was submitted to them.

Ilya Milstein:

In my opinion, it is as difficult to determine politically worthy behavior as determining the concept of dignity in general. You can’t touch it with your hands, and this is rather at the level of sensations. For example, I recall how President Reagan left politics. He, as you know, fell ill, fell ill with a severe, incurable, Alsheimer disease. And he found the strength to inform the American people about this. It was an act of a courageous, strong and worthy person. For me, dignity is often associated with how the politician keeps himself, literally with his posture. Well, this was Margaret Thatcher. In my opinion, Galina Vasilievna Starovoitova owned a remarkable talent for decent political speech and political behavior. And I think that a person with such royal manners as her, in general, at least out of pride, was not capable of small and unworthy for the act. But, of course, posture and speech is not all. Say, neither Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, nor Sergey Adamovich Kovalev are born with such tribunes, they have confused, sometimes even a tongue -up speech, but you listen to it, because behind their words there is always character and fate. And the living life is always visible in the appearance of a person - if it is lived with dignity, then this will be heard for the most confused speech.

Lev Roitman:

Ilya, but this is all a certain external paraphernalia. I set a slightly different framework for our conversation and set some milestones - this is the ability of a policy to bear responsibility for the decisions that he makes as a result of the use of his power. And from this point of view, as you, for example, you evaluate, well, say, the figure of Boris Yeltsin, his decision to start the Chechen war and the consequences that he drew from this decision for himself.

Ilya Milstein:

Leo, you are asking a question, which is called with a pre -paid answer. If we talk about Yeltsin, then I recall his completely different act, the act of the early Yeltsin, who can be responsible even for three lost lives. This, of course, is August, when he asked for forgiveness from the nation for not protecting these three guys who died in August 91st. As for the Chechen war, it was, of course, the act is politically irresponsible. After the death of about one hundred thousand people, he did not ask for forgiveness and he did not go into any resignation, but in general he had to leave. But it was already, if you remember all sorts of 38 snipers there, the case is already out of the framework of good and evil. Since then, in my opinion, about Yeltsin as politics in general, and even more so, it has become very difficult to talk about a person with political dignity.

Lev Roitman:

Andrei Borisovich Zubov, somehow the post-October politicians in Russia, including today's Russia, which voluntarily resigned, probably were probably, I probably were not sure I'm not sure.

Andrey Zubov:

As for the politicians of the Soviet era, they probably really were, but they do not occur to you or me. It is quite obvious that they did not make a tone, they did not ask the rules in our politics, if it can be called our politics after the 17th year. And in connection with this, I would like to say that apparently for a politician there are three levels of motivation why he goes into politics, for which he begins to engage in such a difficult, so difficult and very responsible business, for which he becomes a public person and thereby ceases to enjoy the usual right of each person to his hidden private life. These three are the following: the highest and most worthy level, when a person goes into politics in order to realize some ideas and in order to help others to gain some high, from his point of view, good values. Maybe such a politician was comrad Adenauer in Germany, and I, perhaps, cannot recall such a policy in Soviet Russia, unless, of course, it is possible to call politicians such as Lenin “ideas politicians”. But then Hitler is the “politician of ideas”. And here we are immediately involved in the system of a moral assessment of what he wants to offer and at what cost wants to offer his values to the society this or that politician. The second level, lower than the level of this ideal self -sacrifice, is the level of ambition, desire to be glorified and to become famous, the desire to even die, but to die beautifully, as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky wanted to die in the eyes of the sovereign on the Austerlitsky field with a banner in his hands. And this level, although it is already vicious and somewhere pride is easily exploited into evil, nevertheless it makes a person sometimes deny himself, at least for the sake of glory and do some actions that will be appreciated by descendants and contemporaries positively. And finally, the third level, the level is the most low, disgusting, but nevertheless so common now that it is believed that this is almost the only motivation for politics - this is francsion, it is an entry into politics for the sake of stuffing their pockets, to ensure their relatives, as we used to say, benefits. This motive, alas, was dominant in our Soviet era, no matter how scary to say. And these secret distributors of goods worked in full, and people went for a lot for them and units refused. And, unfortunately, the same motive even more dominates in our politics now. I can hardly name people of the first rank of political power, who did not accumulate wealth that abandoned anything material, for the sake of their ministry, for the sake of their work. And the last vote in the Duma to increase the benefits of the Duma deputies themselves at a time when a really significant part of the people physically starve, in my opinion, the most shameful, but also the best illustration.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Andrey Borisovich.

Semyon Mirsky:

The story of dignity in the politics that I want to tell, I heard, with my own ears, from the writer Francoise Sagan. By the way, many know this story in France. So, in the presidential election of 1965, Charles de Gaulle put his candidacy for the second time, and a man named Francois Mitteran ran against him from the socialists. And then her friends, activists of the Socialist Party, to ask for signatures under the petition in support of Francois Mitteran came to Francoise Sagan. “I refused to sign a petition,” Francoise Sagan will tell you years later. And in response to the perplexed questions of friends and like -minded people, she said: “Of course, I did not support de Gaulle and always supported the“ left ”, but I simply can’t vote for Mitteran. If I had put my candidacy Pierre Mendes -France, I would vote for it, which is called both hands. Mendes France - a person who understands what place should be occupied in politics, human morality. Human dignity. " So said the writer Francoise Sagan, and the hero of her story was, as we see, neither Mitteran, and neither de Gaulle, but Pierre Mendes-France. But this is, as it were, only half of the story. The second half is as follows: Pierre Mendes-France, as you know, is the heroic figure of the French resistance movement, is known for resisting the prime minister of a record short time-a little more than 8 months. It was in the 54th year, which, incidentally, was the year of publication of the famous novel by Francoise Sagan "Hello sadness." So, since the death of Pierre Mendes France has passed, and his name to this day has been mentioned in France with a mixture of admiration and, I would say, some kind of tenderness. What is the moral of this story? The French, and not only Francoise Sagan, attach incredibly great importance to the dignity in politics, but when it comes to elections to high and higher posts, preference is not necessarily the most worthy, but those who are most able to, for whom the dignity is not an immunity part of the personality, those who know how to impress the public, the impression of people worthy. We call it hypocrisy. If for some reason it is customary for the "inventors" of this quality, that is, I am talking about hypocrisy, then the French are the masters of its use in the political life of the real, I think the French are.

Lev Roitman:

Semyon Mirsky, you mentioned in this context of de Gaulle, but you can recall the de Gaulle that in the 69th year, after the defeat at the referendum, which was not so significant, ultimately, about the reorganization of the Senate, the reform of the territorial-and-administrative structure of France, he, dear, loved by the French, the president of the elected resignation-so. Andrei Borisovich, you are a professor-historian, so let's use your qualifications, what you could not find in the post-October period, maybe you will find in the pre-October period of Russia?

Andrey Zubov:

For the pre -revolutionary history of Russia, the expression "I have an honor." A person, in general, kept honor and it was his greatest dignity and for so many it was not only a word. We all remember perfectly the words that the young Grinev’s father in the “captain’s daughter” admonished that it was necessary to keep the honor of a young man. And this storage of honor, it really distinguished many Russian politicians, of course not all, and many Russian military leaders and state people. Two examples come to my memory: firstly, our one of the most glorious and smartest prime ministers is Witte, Count Witte, who brought Russia out of the catastrophe of the first revolution not to the revolution, but of a certain political stabilization, which in many ways could convince the sovereign to give representative institutions of the Russian Empire, when stabilization occurred. He felt that the sovereign began to call him less often, began to bring him closer to himself and consult with some people, albeit respected, but standing outside the state system, as if with his private friends, as we are now accepted in our current state. And then he simply turned to the sovereign with a letter, where he wrote that he feels that the sovereign's trust in him is decreasing, he cannot more actually fulfill the duties of the prime minister and ask to satisfy his request for resignation. He leaves the post of prime minister, not because the people demanded this, not because he lost the elections, but because he felt that he who carries the main supreme power, as if preventing him from fulfilling the principles of the arrangement of state life, for which he at one time agreed to come to the big policy and agreed to take the post of chairman of the Council of Ministers. This is one example. It must be added that the resignation was satisfied and this, I would say, the shame of Nicholas II, after that, having learned that Witte writes memoirs, in his absence in the drawers of his table, the secret police arranged perelustration in order to find the materials of the diaries. But Witte was not a fool and for a long time all his materials were stored in the safes of God's sleeping France. The second example, when Alexander the third after the tragic death of his father had just ascended the throne of the Russian Empire, he was absolutely bewildered and not ready to govern the country, because his father was not going to die before the attempt occurred. He addressed the question, with a written question to his mentor and teacher Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev: "Konstantin Petrovich, what should I do, how to manage me, I am not ready for this." And Pobedonostsev answers him, and this, by the way, is the answer to those who believe that the politician must first be a professional, and not a moral and moral person: "Your Majesty, the most important thing in the government’s management to do what the Creator did at the beginning of the creation of the world is to separate the light from darkness." Here we often do not know how to do the separation of light from darkness, good from evil because with our selfish and greedy thoughts addressed to power, we cannot understand what the country really needs and who is good and who is bad.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Andrey Borisovich. Speaking about the material side of the stay in power, the departure of the position, you spoke about Sergey Witte. Here Sergey Witte was not a wealthy person, after resigning, he filed a petition for material assistance. I will not go into details now, but such is a historical fact.

Ilya Milstein:

We can say that a certain tradition in Russian politics is preserved, most often a person retains in politics dignity without committing a certain feat, but abandoning the act or award. If you return to Boris Nikolaevich, then, probably, today few people remember that after August they tried to reward, and he refused and it looked very worthy. Gorbachev’s resignation also looked worthy, it was already a rejection of power, albeit forced, but Mikhail Sergeyevich then managed to maintain such a tragic dignity. And, finally, the refusal of General Rokhlin, no matter how you relate to this general, his rejection of the star of the Hero of the Chechen War - it was an act worthy of respect. It can therefore be assumed that in a sense of dignity there is sometimes a feeling of shame, and this is a very useful feeling. I even think sometimes that our many troubles and failures are explained by the fact that both the Gorbachev perestroika, and economic liberalization went somehow in a bustle and rush, and somehow there was no time or desire to feel shame, well, for example, for their past. And maybe in this case, abandoning the past and having returned self -esteem, in this case it would be easier for society to worthy to survive the latest idleness, I do not know. But now in Russia, of course, is not the time of dignity, but the time of humiliation of both economic, and political, and moral. And there are two ways: either to perceive humiliation as a deadly insult and return by the 17th year, that is, to a broken trough, or to recall a sense of dignity and, ashamed, return to civilization.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Ilya Milstein. Well, it turns out a little as if only moralizers are involved in our “round table”, and politics is the activity and sometimes it is necessary to compromise in this activity, which, with, say, the moral bell tower, sometimes do not look completely moral, but this is life and such is a policy in the real world.

Semyon Mirsky:

From the story of Francoise Sagan, which I retold in my own words, it may seem that the French are cynical politics, who do not attach much importance to human dignity. After all, I said that Pierre Mendes-France is worthy of the worthy, and lasted only 8 months in power. Does this mean that politics and human dignity in France, in a country that I love very much, but which I belong very critically, does this mean that in France dignity and politics are two categories of mutually exclusive? Answer: No, no, no. And just a relationship between politics and dignity or politics and morality in this country, in which politics is a very, very old game, these relations are infinitely complex and contradictory.