XX century and the world. 1995. #1. LIBERATORS

LIBERATORS

Sergey Chernyshev
Uninhibited Pterodactyl

The Secret Power of Abstractions

I am skeptical about political predictions as a genre in Russian reality. The common feature of 99.9% of the forecasts that the press and television feed us is that they hit the mark. Sometimes it seems that the spectrum of predictions, which do not agree with each other in any way, specifies a complete set of all conceivable scenarios, and in this lottery at least one of the predictors is doomed to become a prophet. But no, reality manages to find some kind of mocking twist, and the political flow, having bypassed many prepared ditches, gnaws through the wall of the canal and lays out an unexpected channel. The answer to the question why this is so will say more about today's Russia than any forecast.
At the end of 1991, one person I deeply respected asked me to make such a forecast for him - as an exception, albeit in the most general form. I could not refuse and, reluctantly, dictated three pages, taking on a non-disclosure obligation from everyone involved. Recently, while performing a “sanitary deletion” in my computer memory, I came across a transcript of this monologue. I would like to offer it as an instructive illustration of my observations.

1. The short period of development of our society, called perestroika, has ended. It is possible to indicate with high accuracy the historical boundary of this completion. The clinical death of perestroika occurred during the events of August 19-21 of this year, and this death becomes actual from the moment the economic reforms initiated by Yeltsin’s cabinet actually began.
The death of perestroika came because its subject died. This entity was a group of reformers led by Gorbachev, which in its activities relied on union structures or parts of these union structures. By now, this group has disintegrated, Gorbachev is deprived of power, and the allied structures on which this activity was based have disappeared.
It was clear to astute observers and researchers from the very beginning that perestroika was doomed, because not only did it not have any concept behind it, it was even unable to formulate its own goals, at least in general terms. The actual intention of perestroika, which, perhaps, was not even fully realized by its initiators themselves, was to release - in groups or individually - to liberate, emancipate certain forces, groups of forces and interests hidden behind the shell of a totalitarian system during a period of stagnation. In turn, behind this there were two very important implicit assumptions that were accepted as axioms.
The first was that under this shell there is a ready-made set of political, social, economic forces that can be transformed into constructive productive forces and constitute the potential for transforming society. The second assumption was that a group of reformers and the structures of the center at their disposal would be able to control this element, direct the flow of released forces in the right direction, balance on the system of contradictions between them in the role of an all-seeing, controlling, all-reconciling center.
Both of these assumptions, or rather, both of these hopes were not justified. Firstly, the forces unleashed generally either turned out to be or behaved more destructively than constructively. Secondly, it was not possible to do anything like curbing them or channeling them in a constructive direction. Yes, this was hopeless from the very beginning - in the absence of the concept of perestroika.
Of course, the first thing perestroika should have started with was a detailed concept. But instead of a structural concept, the reformers had only the abstract idea of ​​a gradual, measured release. The new reformers who replaced the old ones are armed this time with the concept of a one-time, landslide, explosive release. Like the concept of perestroika, it is a completely structureless concept.

2. Whether the liberal economic model according to which they are going to reform Russia is good or bad, there are simply no alternatives to it: on the market of ideas and concepts, other models today are either not represented at all, or they are represented by slogans and mantras that have not been brought to working condition at all. The Russian government is doomed to its economic reform - and this reform is again doomed to failure. Again, it is planned to unleash a multitude of economic forces and subjects - only not in doses, but sharply and simultaneously. And again it is assumed, firstly, that the necessary set of these economic forces, interests and subjects is available, and as soon as diversity is released, the Russian administration will somehow manage to curb it, balance the conflicts that arise and direct it all in the right direction .
What forces can be released during the beginning of reforms? Firstly, these are the newborn forces of the new economy, which are two to three years old at most. This is a thin layer of our new industrialists, stockbrokers, and financiers. Secondly, what is implicitly implied, although perhaps not explicitly and not always proclaimed, are the forces of the “shadow economy”, which will be given the opportunity to be legalized one way or another, or the “administrative market”. It is extremely doubtful that these forces, being released, will behave in any constructive way or even be able to come to an agreement among themselves, and will not begin to pull the remnants of the national economy in different directions.
But at the heart of the incipient reform lies an even more serious mistake. This reform will not only release certain forces, but will also at the same time destroy the huge economic and social structures in which the majority of the population of our country lives, works, and exists today. The planned closure of a huge mass of enterprises due to their unprofitability and uncompetitiveness, or closure under the guise of their re-profiling, conversion, etc., or actual closure due to the destruction of the traditional structure of mutual supplies - all this will lead to instant unemployment and, what else more scary, to the marginalization of the masses of millions. And the appearance of masses of marginalized people in our history meant an era of bloody unrest. And finally, this reform must destroy the structure of the so-called military-industrial complex, which contained islands or even entire archipelagos of high-tech production, where we were, or were at least somehow approaching, the level of world standards in production.
A vigorous attempt to implement a liberal model of economic reform would lead to almost immediate large-scale collapse and chaos. And at the same time, the disappearance from the political arena of those structures that initiated the implementation of this model. This, of course, does not mean that some successful politicians, such as Yeltsin, will not be able to survive this chaos. But in order to survive, they will have to completely change their identity and stand under different banners. Therefore, the period of implementation of the liberal economic model of reforms that follows the collapse of perestroika, due to its short duration and collapse, does not even deserve any special name, the name as a historical period.

3. So, in the coming months we will enter a new, completely unknown period of our development, which will begin with the chaos and collapse left to us as a legacy by liberal economic reformers and the Russian authorities who unwillingly trusted them. Therefore, the task of genuine political analysis is to carefully analyze all those real prerequisites from which development will proceed in the coming new era of great changes in our lives.
Such an analysis inevitably falls into three main questions. The first question is what exactly, what kind of changes - as an alternative to complete collapse and death, of course - can be carried out on the territory of the former Soviet Union and in connection with what happened here. The second question is in the name of what, under what banners, slogans, in the name of what ideas can these changes be carried out. And the third question is who exactly, what subject, what socio-political forces will be able to lead these changes, organize or actually implement them. We can say, therefore, that this analysis should be about the subject of the reforms into which we are entering, about the ideology of this subject and, finally, about the forms and subject of his activity...

October 24, 1991

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So, do we have another unfulfilled forecast? Yes, but let's clarify what exactly didn't come true in it.
“Again, there is an attempt to unleash a multitude of economic forces and entities - only not in doses, but once, sharply, at once.”
This attempt at a one-time “breakthrough” did not take place - and in vain the author of the forecast believed in the determination of the new reformers! But you also need to understand them. They hoped that from the wide-open dovecote a snow-white flock would fly up into the market skies. Instead, through the barely open crack, gloomy owls, stinking vultures and wrinkled pterodactyls rushed to their prey. But there are no doves in sight...
Unlike the bright fairy tales of Arkady Gaidar, in life the reactionary Misha Kvakin invariably wins: he put the brakes on the impulse of Timurov’s team and deprived us of the promised successes, leaving them with nothing but dizziness.
"...the period of implementation of the liberal economic model of reforms that comes after the collapse of perestroika, due to its short duration and collapse, does not even deserve any special name..."
Once again I was proven wrong. The period of liberal reform, both in its paradigm formulated in the forecast and in the fundamental methods of its implementation, turned out to be surprisingly indistinguishable from “perestroika.” Therefore, what unites the Gorbachevites and Gaidarites in a touching unity, brings them together against their will, but in full accordance with their unconscious beliefs - and really deserves a “special name.”
There are two ways to create a new park within the city. You can fence off an area of ​​sufficient size, break down and bulldoze everything that has been built there, install reliable security and legally declare this area a national park, then let events take their course. Then - provided that the soil in the wasteland is not poisoned by radioactive waste or dioxin, that acid rain occurs relatively rarely, that somewhere nearby there are forests from where winds or birds will carry seeds of trees and grasses, that security is reliable, etc. , - in a few decades, a forest may emerge in this place.
There is another way, it is well known. You should choose a place in such a way as to break as little as possible, partially or completely replace the top layer of soil, dig reservoirs in places where unpoisoned sources of groundwater remain, design and implement the structure and composition of plantings taking into account the natural topography and microclimate, take care of the fauna , take measures to maintain the ecosystem depending on the load on it...
In the late seventies, I was lucky enough to work in a group of professional systems analysts, where the same alternative was expressed in a slightly different way, pointing to two fundamentally different approaches to managing objects and especially to their design and creation: management of constraints is opposed in this sense to management of structure.
Much can be said about the origins, areas of application, relationship and prospects of these two approaches. The thought is this: the state of Russian cultural soil at present is such that there is no hope of growing anything on it using constraint management. This concerns the economy first and foremost.
Every day there is a more and more clear feeling that all of us taken together do not understand anything about our own society and what awaits us in it. The sphere of meaningful existence of the majority of our fellow citizens has narrowed to the circle of family and a few close friends, while the rest of the world, or rather its accessible parts, has turned into a dangerous and unpredictable jungle, a field of painful acquisition of daily bread.
Abstractions of “good” and “evil”, carefully pasted over all social phenomena in the golden stagnant time, with the victory of glasnost, and then democracy, fell from them like autumn leaves, revealing the unreflected, unchewed essence. Frightened by the abstract freedom that had fallen upon them, fellow citizens rushed for advice to astrologers, psychics, consulting specialists and political analysts, and most - directly to the Grand Inquisitor. Without the reflection of Truth in our consciousness, thanks to which the surrounding objects appear in the usual black and white image, we do not know how to become free.
In vain did Ivan the Fool in the film “Neverbelievable” ask the soldier: “Give me some sense!” Mind cannot be given, it can only be created. Freedom in Russian society cannot be provided; it will have to be painstakingly created and built.