Evgeny Shklovsky. November 1998

November 1998
Evgeny Shklovsky

Publication date: November 16, 1999

Few people seem to doubt that Russia is still destined for trials (the current prime minister said so in one of his television interviews). Looking back is not the best thing, but I still remember November last year. Somehow, real winter suddenly and abruptly turned, down to minus 20, snow and wind. Maybe it’s for the better - there is less autumn dirt on the streets. But in politics, as usual, it’s (off-season) up to its ears: Makashov’s anti-Semitic stench will take your breath away, even if you try very hard not to sniff. However, what else, it would seem, can be expected from the general who stormed Ostankino in 1993 ? Why suddenly fall in love with the Jews who seem to him everywhere - even among the Russians, some of whom, as he put it, bravely looking into the pupil of the television camera, are even worse than the Jews.

To NTV correspondent Pavel Lobkov, who asked him another “pleasant” question, the general sternly and imperiously said: “Come, don’t be afraid!” This rough poking, this “Don’t be afraid!” apparently meant “I won’t touch you,” which for some reason did not inspire much confidence in Lobkov, so he preferred to stay at some distance from the unpredictable warrior.

Makashov, however, did not even think of pretending to be a gentleman. And is it necessary? This could be said by a man who suddenly felt impunity. I realized (or they suggested) that it is now possible. You can say it, or even do it. And it turned out to be almost right: it’s possible.

Despite the outcry and outrage of the media, it is not still in the hands of the left.

Bye.

What, did the State Duma condemn his statements? Wake up, the majority of the Duma shamefully stood in solidarity with their colleague.

Something The prosecutor's office opened a case against Makashov for inciting ethnic hatred? May it be for you!

Only after some time, when the circles of indignation began to grow and acquired an international scale, and voices began to be heard around the need to ban the Communist Party, in whose ranks there was a Jewish general, only then did Mr. Zyuganov, with a deathly gaze, mutter something through his teeth about incorrect, thoughtless statements his party comrade.

The test balloon was launched.

First.

The general spoke out of sincerity (he doesn’t look like a Fuhrer - his appearance let him down) - great, there are figures who really benefit from this. Who are itching to quickly play the most dangerous card in Russia: interethnic relations.

The second test case was the murder of Galina Starovoytova . The blood was not the last (and not the first), but everything was so vile and disgusting, so almost unbelievable that I wanted to pinch myself - to wake up...

However, there is no person, there is blood on the stairs in her house, there is fuss and shouting around: how did they let this happen? But they allowed it, or rather, let it go, a long time ago. It was not yesterday or the day before that Russia entered a period of political terror. This is the calculation: to split, pit, flood the country with blood, provoke a dictatorship or war. The NPSR (People's Patriotic Union of Russia), whose unification congress was held in the Hall of Columns the day after the murder, demanded emergency measures, and without any hesitation immediately organized balalaika dances “with laughter and whistling.”

So you can’t help but think about what country, with what unpredictable past and future we live in? Who among us has not at some moment felt with anguish: it is impossible to live where all this was (dungeons, Kolyma, lies, general denunciation, etc., blood, blood and general descent). It’s hard to imagine that something irreversible didn’t happen to you at the same time - after all, what a heavy aura, what a groan that must hover over the tormented earth, what a spasm!

But we live...

Starovoitova was an intelligent, talented, bright person - unlike many of those around the Duma. A prominent politician, she dealt with interethnic relations for a long time (she was, in particular, at one time Yeltsin’s adviser on national issues). She protested against the war in Chechnya. Recently, she has been involved in the consolidation of democratic forces in St. Petersburg, a city with an old Judeophobic complex, where local elections to the Legislative Assembly were to be held in the near future.

She was worried about the growing threat of fascism in Russia, the loyalty of the Ministry of Justice to Barkashov’s militants seeking to register as a party (now “Spas” was successfully registered as one of the socio-political blocs marching - die erste Kolonne marshiert! - for the Duma elections, however, then registration was canceled by court order).

She understood that the matter was not only and not so much in the Jews, but in the attempts of interested forces to play on the frustration of a large part of the population, giving them the most primitive, accessible, it seems, even to Pithecanthropus, an unmistakable trump card: anti-Semitism. They say that it is they, the Jewish Freemasons, the Jews, who are forging sedition by surrounding the sick president, who is no longer good for anything. They destroyed the empire, seized the largest banks, destroyed the domestic industry, created a crisis, etc. What can I say, blame it all on...

But not only Judeophobia, but xenophobia in general is an exhaust of the same humiliation and depression that the country is in, where economic reforms have encountered fierce opposition from the same pro-communist Duma. Haven’t the accusations repeatedly made by Duma politicians against Western intelligence services, and primarily Americans, been grist to the same mill?

To attract to oneself, you need, of course, an enemy who is secretly weaving intrigues, a conspiracy of the Elders of Zion, the machinations of the CIA, the Freemasons, God knows what else... Because there is no way to explain to people, especially in the provinces, who, perhaps, do not have a single Jew they haven’t seen it (except Berezovsky), and soon they definitely won’t see it anymore, everyone will leave (the joke about Makashov being an agent of world Zionism is not so stupid), complex economic matters.

It is simply necessary - the image of the enemy! After all, this image can then be matched to anyone, even a “person of Caucasian nationality,” even a Tungus, even a Kalmyk friend of the steppes led by the President of Kalmykia Ilyumzhinov, even a Russian with a certain share of foreign blood or even without a share.

Starovoitova was able to explain sometimes very complex things simply and clearly, intelligibly even to the dull. She knew how to argue. Calmly, as if she was putting everything in its place. After the brutal murder of Fr. Alexandra Perhaps no death has ever made such a painful impression on the intelligentsia. It was as if some historical knot had been untied that could not be touched, no matter how intense the political struggle.

Starovoitova spoke about a miracle - that the collapse of an empire like the USSR happened and is happening relatively bloodlessly. It's like that. But the story is not over. It continues. And you inevitably ask yourself a bitter question: will poor Russia never escape the clutches of its criminal past and, alas, present, even if it concerns the tragic death of one person. Especially someone like Starovoitova, who passionately defended a different, new, democratic Russia. Civil society.

Oh, how I would not want the lines of the poet Alexander Kushner to turn out to be true : “Come what may, we will have in front of us something that neither the poet, nor the philosopher, nor God knows. Every time Russia chooses such paths that the West is afraid, face closes the East!

The funeral ceremony for Starovoitova in St. Petersburg was delayed for many hours, because people kept coming and going to say goodbye to the deceased. In Moscow, the Democratic Choice of Russia party, one of whose leaders was Galina Starovoitova, called on those who cherish her democratic beliefs and her memory to turn off the lights in their apartments for three minutes at 8 pm. With some palpitations, I peered at the surrounding houses: over there, it seemed to have gone out, there...

I would like to be wrong, but, alas, most of the windows remained unextinguished.