Alexander Voznesensky. Eduard Limonov: “Putin will rule as long as he wants”

Eduard Limonov: “Putin will rule as long as he wants”
Alexander Voznesensky

Date of publication: October 31, 2000

At the beginning of autumn, the St. Petersburg publishing house Limbus Press published the memoirs of Eduard Limonov, The Book of the Dead . Memoirs - literary, personal, political and other - are dedicated mainly to people who have already passed away. Hence the name. The author himself was not in the capital for several months, despite the publication of a new book or the regular appearance of his columns in the Limonka newspaper, the organ of the National Bolshevik Party (NBP), of which he is chairman. Limonov appeared in Moscow for a few days only at the end of October - with a “new” face, having grown a beard - he signed books in Moscow stores, and at the same time gave us an interview, talking about the book, his current activities and his immediate literary and political plans.

- Why did you grow a beard? For conspiracy?

- It's easier to live. They will know less. I already grew a beard once - in April. Then, however, he shaved it off. And then suddenly I found something new for myself in this. I like it - something extra has appeared, a certain wisdom in the face. They say he looks like a Chinese philosopher. I probably won’t shave it anymore.

- Regarding recognition - in your book you cite Andy Warhol's thoughts about the crowd and the individual, about the fact that “some people spend their entire lives thinking about a certain famous person . ” This worried him, and apparently it bothered you too? Let's say you write that you don't go outside without a security guard.

- Almost yes - since September 1996. After the attack on me, the cracks in my eyeball remained as a memory - I see them every day involuntarily, there’s no escape. So you start to be careful. By the way, there are cracks in both eyes - and this is forever. Then there was an explosion in 1997 at the party headquarters - and the “authors” of it have not yet been found.

- Case is closed?

- The case, in my opinion, is not closed, but like all Russian “cases”, it does not lead anywhere. At one time they tried to convince us that the RNE blew us up, then some other nonsense (supposedly some Komsomol members)... You never know, maybe in some old or new case traces of “our” explosion will be revealed. Most likely, the intelligence services simply wanted to scare us.

- A couple of years ago, your current publishers, Limbus Press, decided to publish Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” in Russian. Then several organizations - including the NBP - came out sharply against it.

- I don’t remember what we specifically wrote about this, but I attended a press conference of Muslim leaders dedicated to the proposed publication, we spoke. So what? I still stand in the same position today. Perhaps, under our pressure, Limbus Press did not publish the book - why? It's not a cultural phenomenon interesting enough to challenge Russia's 20 million Muslim population. I read the book in English. She's no good. So it was a ridiculous idea.

- Is it so normal that you are now almost the main author of the publishing house you previously reviled?

- Well, I didn’t dispute all their publishing activities. Disputed a specific fact. If they only specialized in publishing anti-Islamic books, maybe I wouldn’t have anything to do with them.

- From your book it seemed to me that you treat very few of your heroes well. From the 1960s, perhaps, only to Evgeniy Kropivnitsky - you write about him almost with tenderness. Of new people, only to party comrades. And even then not to everyone. Is it so?

- I think that you are completely wrong. Recently, guided by reviews in newspapers, I took it and looked to see if it was really written so evilly. Absolutely negative attitude towards only a few characters. Yes, and I’m guilty - I myself wrote an annotation for the book, where I couldn’t resist and wrote “a truly evil book . ” But if you look at it - no.

I even wrote it down - not for our conversation, but for myself: who I relate to well in the book. And in life. An excellent, simply sentimental attitude towards the mass of very simple, unknown people who helped me survive both in America and in Russia. For example, Leonid Kolmogor, Yan Zlobin are mentioned there... I remember with pleasure Countess Jacqueline de Guiteau. And there is also Sergei Kuryokhin, Kostya Lokotkov (Limonov’s guard, who died under unclear circumstances in the spring of 1999 - A.V. ), Arkan, battalion commander Kostenko or, say, Marya Vasilyevna Rozanova - in my opinion, I have a very kind attitude towards her attitude. A more distant attitude, for example, towards Lilya Brik. Somewhat, a little bit, arrogant - towards Volodya Aleinikov, although also good. To Igor Voroshilov - magnificent. As well as to my ex-wife Anna Rubinstein, to Tatyana Yakovleva, to Yura Egorov. An entire chapter is dedicated to Jean-Edern Allier, director of L'Idiot International. There are many others there too.

And, in general, rather negative - to Joseph Brodsky, Anatoly Zverev, Vena Erofeev, well, also to Gubanov, Salvador Dali, Allen Ginsberg. To Rostropovich - truly bad.

- But you seem to have written not only bad things about Leonid Gubanov?

- He was a disgusting guy, he humiliated the guys, it says it all. He behaved like some bad idiot somewhere in prison who chases everyone around and humiliates everyone. A good “supervisor” really puts order in the cell - everyone gets according to their merits, according to what they bring to life. But Gubanov was unfair and vile. Although my attitude towards him is also different. There is one episode - when he is quiet, calm, not drinking, sitting in his parents’ apartment, where he later died... A somewhat tragic fate. I wrote, it seems to me, an easy but difficult book. And all the assessments are not just a whim of my mood, they have developed over these at least thirty years - and perhaps more.

- And Brodsky?

- I treat him differently. I mentioned several of his poems that I would like to write myself. This is already a very high rating! So these texts correspond to me.

- You also mention “wrinkled Rein,” who, as you know, wrote the book “I’m Bored Without Dovlatov.” And you write that you feel “more bored without Brodsky . ”

- Well, I don’t strive to give some kind of harmonious universe. Rain is really wrinkled, and without Brodsky I'm really bored. Because he carefully hid himself - at least from me. Maybe I would have continued to get to know him, at least in those years. It seems like he didn't say something. In my opinion, he was an insincere person - I had the impression that he was leaving, although he often wanted to stay; I left parties very early. Maybe, of course, he did the right thing. I was interested in how a person builds himself, and he clearly built himself.

If I were just a layman watching all these people from the outside, I might be much more delighted. And since I have always considered myself at least equal to them and superior - in talent, in purely human energy - I do not have a bottom-up view of anyone. Therefore, my memories, in a certain sense, suffer from a lack of reverence. They are quite unceremonious.

I tried to honestly express my feelings. Just as I didn’t consider Venedikt Erofeev a significant phenomenon in culture, I still don’t. I'm generally annoyed by the love of crowds... Let's say, for Bulgakov. We have this Bulgakov everywhere. But I think that “The Master and Margarita” is a rather mediocre book. It is from the same area as Heir of Calcutta. Although the average person, of course, is flattered how his bottle of vegetable oil is devilishly exalted in the same artistic fabric with the magnificent Pontius Pilate, with devilry, a tram and Annushka. But I think this is unreasonable nonsense. In the same way, there is another supposed encyclopedia of supposedly Russian life, extremely disgusting - this is “12 chairs”. Anthem of vulgarity! I really don’t like Zoshchenko either... In fact, Zhdanov was right when he spoke out against Akhmatova and Zoshchenko. With amazing taste, he chose two worthy targets. Akhmatova’s vulgarity: between the boudoir and the altar (he put it mildly!), and Zoshchenko, who seems to be a satirist, but in fact is completely the opposite. Even Pushkin has been made vulgar today.

- And if you were at the same meeting, would you support the “branding” of Akhmatova and Zoshchenko?

- I'm not talking about what happened then, in the context of that era. I'm talking about my current view of it. In relation to Akhmatova, I always had a gigantic protest. I thought that she was not a high enough level artist - let's put it that way. When I was a young man, I was not afraid to think about these topics, but perhaps I could not yet understand everything in detail. But now, thank God, I understand. This, by the way, is a possible topic for another book...

- You claim that you didn’t really want to write this one either.

- Certainly. But I'm glad I overcame myself. When I looked at it in its finished form, I realized that I did the right thing by writing all this and in exactly this form.

- There is a fragment of the manuscript on the flyleaf. Did you write it by hand?

- Yes, because my machine broke down - or rather, there was no tape for it. My life, among other things, is unstable - not such that it would be possible to acquire various technological devices and computers. For the last couple of months I have lived in places where there is not even electricity. It doesn't matter where - what matters is that there is no electricity.

- So, social and political activity did not overshadow writing?

“I do what I do, and that doesn’t stop me from writing a book with my left foot.” It turned out to be easy, and I think it’s interesting to read. And in general there was no such thing.

- I saw it at a kiosk in Kitay-Gorod for 165 rubles. In "Biblio-Globus" - it seems there are 115...

- What they sell in the stalls is a good sign. But the price, of course, is wild. True, in the bookstores where I signed books, the sellers themselves said that it was consistently sold every day. This, in their opinion, is also the key to success.

- Have you always had good relations with publishers?

- I had a difficult start. But then - in France, for example - I sometimes managed to publish two books a year, which is almost impossible for an emigrant writer like me. That is, obviously, the books at least paid for themselves. I would say that I even had an interesting, happy publishing destiny. My first foreign publisher was Jean-Jacques Pauvert, of which I am proud - he is a legendary publisher. In 1980, Pover published my first book in a foreign language. In America I was published by Random House. In general, I was consistently published until I became completely politically incorrect, so it became impossible to publish me. By the way, I wasn’t very published here for a while either.

- Well, you published a large three-volume book in Vagrius. But, they say, when you offered another volume, the fee did not suit you. And you allegedly said that it was impossible to communicate with them, that they were “killers.” Is it true?

- The absolute truth! From a literary point of view, everyone agreed - all the editors said that it should be published. The book was supposed to include three of my novels. But when the chief accountant told me the amount - $460, I asked: “Are you serious?” He turned and left.

- They also say that you are going to write a book about Anatoly Bykov.

- Yes, I have already signed an agreement with Limbus. And I saw him, Anatoly Petrovich, on September 26 in Krasnoyarsk, and we agreed. True, he was arrested again after that, but this does not change the essence of the matter.

- Will he call you from prison and tell you about himself?

“I think he already has enough worries.” We talked with him for quite a long time then, on September 26th. And I will try to write an honest book. He is an extremely interesting, extraordinary person, with all the pros and cons, a hero, in a certain sense, of our time. And, unlike many other rich people in our country, he is a man who cares what people think of him and therefore tries to be kind. Specifically kind. He is still not an ordinary person. One fact: he built several temples. Of these, two are Orthodox, for some reason there is also a Lubavitcher synagogue, and now the construction of a mosque is being completed in Krasnoyarsk. In addition, the person gave money to some philological congresses, hospitals, just individually - to pensioners, to anyone. The person spent a lot of money on others! Tell me, who else helped someone here - with their own money?

-Have you known each other for a long time? Is the book your idea?

- The idea is mine, and we met at the same time we met and talked - in September. This will be a book about him, where he came from, who he became. What inspires me most is the rise of a man from the small Siberian town of Nazarov to the owner of the world's second largest aluminum smelter. He - the plant - only has an annual income of 85 million dollars.

- Still, in your opinion, Bykov is a bandit?

- This is not the subject of research. So much has been stolen from us these years. Besides, I am not an auditor to check company accounts. It doesn't even matter to me. I'm interested in his personality. Because - how many rich people do we have? But they are all uninteresting. They don't inspire. There is nothing human about them. What, say, can you write about Zyuganov (let's take an example from another area)? But one day I wrote a book about Zhirinovsky (“Limonov against Zhirinovsky” - A.V. ). At one time, I found him interesting precisely in the human dimension.

- Will it now turn out to be “Limonov too much for Bykov” or, after all, “Limonov against Bykov”?

- I rather agree with Bykov, especially since he is in prison. And then, his biography is close to me, I myself am from some Tmutarakan, the city of Dzerzhinsk in the former Gorky region, then my childhood in a workers’ village on the outskirts of Kharkov... We, I guess, have a lot in common in our biographies.

- Moreover, judging by your books, including “Teenager Savenko,” you have always been drawn to strong people (including bandits).

- Still, about the bandits, this is a big assumption. In the same Krasnoyarsk region, in recent years, 48 ​​businessmen involved in the aluminum business and 27 criminal authorities have been liquidated. If you stop any person on the street and ask: “Do you feel sorry for them?”, the person will say, “No shit! Absolutely not!” But Bykov gives it to people - he opens the envelopes, they write to him a lot (well, of course, he wanted to make a good impression - and who doesn’t? - and he didn’t forge these letters, they brought them to him in front of me), - and now to the girl, who cannot walk from birth, needs some kind of special suit, and that costs something. They ask for help. Some pensioner has problems - she also writes. And there are a lot of such people. It is to him that they turn - it is useless to ask the Lord God, and you cannot reach anyone else. And Bykov reads his letters himself, despite the fact that he received 4,000 of them while he was in Hungary. It is clear that there will always be many humiliated and insulted people in the world. And for those who are strong, it is a matter of honor to help them at least from time to time. You know, I am not a supporter of capitalism at all. But I am pleased to see when someone cares about their own reflection in a human mirror. It rarely happens at all when someone gives something. I know this very well myself.

- Will you still communicate with Bykov?

- I hope that this accusation thrown at him will be dropped. I was told that he should have been arrested the day before he was arrested: on Tuesday, not Wednesday. There was an attempt the day before. He left the house, and the same man, allegedly hired to kill Tsvetomuzika, rushed to him (Bykov’s guards know him, so they let him in) and began to poke this very watch and something else in front of everyone. And shout something like: Tolya, Tolya, here he is, that means it’s me, and I killed Pasha. There are a lot of witnesses to this. Bykov immediately got his bearings and immediately told the security: get him out of here. The “comrades” had to postpone the event. The next morning we burst into the office and “found” that same watch.

By the way, each intelligence service has its own - similar - methods. The Kazakh security service throws Molotov cocktails, as happened with the editorial office of the newspaper "XXI Century". When we had the story with Mikhalkov, they also planted Molotov cocktails on us (apparently they exchanged experience). Russian cops plant heroin or ammunition. Now we decided to try the watch. Each service has its own handwriting - just like each criminal.

- What do you think about the disruption of Yegor Letov’s concert in Riga by the Latvian authorities? Objectively, of course, this only works against them. By the way, has Letov returned to your party?

- And he never left. There was a quarrel or, rather, a misunderstanding in 1996. But since then everything has been forgotten. I see him, he publishes in our newspaper from time to time. Because of this, the Latvian police expelled him: he has party card # 4. This is an example of the horror the National Bolshevik Party plunged Latvia into. There they are more honest, they write about it, they are afraid. Latvian television also once officially tried to invite me. I immediately said that they wouldn’t let me in. They thought that I was exaggerating, they tried - but two weeks later they called and said that I was right, that I was on the black list of the Latvian Immigration Department.

-Has the party been registered yet?

- The party has always been registered. The question is what kind of registration. We are registered as the Interregional Organization of the National Bolshevik Party, registered in 36 regions of Russia. It's a lot. But when we applied for all-Russian registration in 1998, we were immediately refused, then refused a second time, and most recently, in September, a third time. Allegedly, the Moscow prosecutor's office checked us, but then it turned out that they didn't check us after all. Previously there were excuses: the program is not the same. We changed it, presented everything in a softer form, and held congresses. Now there are complaints about the charter, although there were none before, it has already been passed twice - the text is the same... In short, this is just violence. The Ministry of Justice is a repressive organization. In general, it’s absurd: they give permission for a party to participate or not to participate, for example, in elections (and this is what all-Russian registration gives), and at the same time, camps and prisons are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice... The question arises: damn, what right do these rattling boots have? comrades allow me something, what do they have to do with political freedoms? This reminds me of how in the books of the forties it was written at the end: “checked by Major so-and-so.” Major! What, did you check Dostoevsky? In any case, today we have a monstrously unfair judicial system, a terrible prison system, and to this is added the simply arrogant Ministry of Justice.

But the health of the party does not depend on them. We are working.

- Are there any prospects for party work?

- And you should contact the FSB to find out who they are watching most closely, who they are dealing with and who they boasted of destroying within a year. You will understand - they have only one more important direction than us. Naturally, Chechen. Our party today has a record number of imprisonments. We have witnessed brazen actions that swept through Western embassies in the spring. The Sevastopol story is an international scandal, about which little has actually been written and shown here. And the forces that were involved are worthy of it. Even Foreign Minister Ivanov went to negotiate with Kuchma so that our guys would be released. So you see the scale. But one cannot expect normal coverage of the political situation from our media.

- How many members are there in the party?

- About seven or eight thousand. Of course, not much, especially when compared with the fictitious CPSU. But the organization itself of this format is already a great force. There is a strong connection between regional branches and the center, and besides, the party is radical, youthful, and unites people of almost military age. Of course it is a cause for concern. After all, even the largest criminal groups consist of 100 people (that’s how many fighters there were in the famous Uralmash group in better times).

Our circulation of "Limonka" is 9-11 thousand. We think this is not enough. But recently one of the Stern correspondents (there was a conversation) said that this is very serious. In Germany, for a radical organization, they have a couple of thousand - a huge circulation. So Western comrades understand the balance of forces.

-What is the party’s goal?

- Like anyone else - to influence the politics of your country as much as possible. If the opportunity ever presents itself, influence totally. To change the state of affairs in the country for the better - as we understand it. We have our own program, our own political provisions. The main thing: we believe that the political class in our country should be replaced, that now we have the second edition of the Soviet of Deputies, in which all political freedoms are reduced to zero and even those small gains that began in the Gorbachev era are all vulgarized. We don't have politics as such. And it won't. Instead, strict bureaucratic control was introduced. All elections are to some extent rigged (since 1995, the most fair, it seems to me, were the 1993 elections), people of the nomenklatura were chosen, they do not reflect real representation. The country could not cope with the freedoms that fell upon it. And as a result, officials won in the struggle between the “democrats” and the “communists”.

- So what can we do now?

- If they asked me (they won’t!), I would first ensure an equal struggle of ideas, first of all, on the parliamentary field. All restrictions must be abolished - political parties should not ask anyone: can they exist? Now Mr. Veshnyakov has a project. It is planned to tighten registration even more. Now we need not 5 thousand members, but 10 thousand, at least 200 people in each regional organization. Do they mistake themselves for the police department?

And we would like to see a real parliament, albeit multi-colored, noisy and crazy; It is necessary to make it easier for any forces to enter parliament - frostbitten democrats, RNU, us, and anyone, let them express their ideas, let them fight for political positions, and as a result, some kind of ideological majority can be born from this. Not from the stone grip of the police-bureaucratic state, but from this political rabble. This, by the way, was our salvation at one time. The main thing is to give a free opportunity to speak out, without any of this shit, accusing some of fascism, others of communism. Limit the possibility of financing parties “from somewhere,” from someone’s opaque pocket. It is necessary to remove privileges in political life - and they are now flourishing under any pretext. Give everyone equal opportunities. Why do the work for the ministries - what is the State Duma doing now? They existed somehow before and got by without it. We have a young state - and I would like that in a competitive parliamentary field, different ideas and different policies, parties learn to coexist, and then, from time to time, presenting themselves in elections to the people, they would prove to the population what they are worth.

- And what will this give?

- I just think that this won’t give anything. Everything, as they say, is fucked, the train has left. A non-ideological system of power has already been established, let’s call it Putin’s, a system of succession to the throne. And instead of ideology, Putin has a dictionary. The dictionary is absolutely flexible, magnificent. He didn’t create it, it was created gradually, but he actively uses it, and there is everything there for all occasions. “Let’s soak in the toilet” satisfies some - nationalists, patriots, all kinds of liquid communists, and some of the military. If you are a democrat, an entrepreneur, a businessman, please, for you: “Russia will not deviate from the course of reforms!” The submarine got fucked, sat on the bottom - yes, at least two hundred submarines. There is an explanation: “Depreciation of military potential.” You can sit in Sochi and “rule” the country forever. And no one will be very embittered.

Yeltsin acted in a certain sense more radically - he fired ministers. Who did Putin fire? Yes, he doesn’t need that. Because there is this flexible vocabulary that allows you to shift responsibility not even to someone, but to something. To wear out potential, to some kind of dead rust. For historical context. Everyone knows that we are a poor country, everyone agrees with this. The entire “ideology” of today is a vocabulary of unprincipledness, opportunism, it is absolutely not anchored in the world around us, and therefore it suits everyone.

Now you have to dance with what you have. A technology for falsifying elections has been developed, it is very unpleasant to realize this. This was especially evident in 1996. 1999 was also a monstrous year - how any organizations that were not suitable, from the point of view of the authorities, were kicked out of the election campaign. Therefore, unfortunately, in my opinion, this can only be fought with weapons. Now a precedent has been created in the presidential elections. We have seen how the mechanism of succession to the throne has been demonstrated since December 1999, and perhaps even earlier. This is a very dangerous thing. The old tsar takes anyone he comes across - be it from dirt or from shit - and makes him prime minister. The State Duma, in order to save itself - this is our Constitution - is forced to accept such a prime minister even from the third vote. The Prime Minister, of course, appears on all television screens for three or four months - and everyone gets used to him as such. Later, he is literally appointed heir and acting. for another three months hanging around everywhere. They are still getting used to it. And then he is “approved” by a dishonest vote. In fact, this is supposedly a simple operation, but such a “reich” can really be made thousands of years old - from the heirs of Yeltsin, Putin, or whoever... This is against all the rules. And this manipulative, as someone called it, democracy must be destroyed. Perhaps even physically - because who just gives up power? This system is deeply flawed, it dooms us to a dreary and untalented existence. Zhirinovsky once said that Putin would rule for 11 years. I think he will rule as long as he wants. But this will certainly undermine and destroy the country. There are no real changes. Nowhere.

I wasn’t in Moscow for two months - I went to the store and even these fucking hams - and they are now 53 rubles. They were 40 each. Who noticed this? Where?

- My mother, when the budget was discussed once again, regarding the inflation “built into it”, remarked: “Ha! So sugar cost 9 rubles in May, now it’s 19. What 7-10 or whatever percent it is?” inflation per year?

- Right. I am also observant because I go to the store myself. This is a cunning fuck: everything is constantly tied to the dollar, and every day in the newspapers, on the radio, on TV they emphasize that the dollar is not growing. It's clever and smart. It was German Gref, or Gleb Pavlovsky, or one of these bright-headed, fat guys who came up with this idea. The magician's pass takes attention away from the pocket. Once - and they’ve already reached into your pocket!

I think this state is incorrigible. Previously, I spoke about the revolution rather from an idealistic position. And now sometimes I think of it as an absolutely inevitable, terrible, unpleasant surgical operation, without which the patient will die. This is exactly the situation we have.

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