Why do I — definitely, unconditionally — like President Putin?.. No, not like that: what do I definitely like about Putin? I'm not joking, I'm not joking - not my God. Not to mention: I do not encroach on the sacred right of actress Smirnova to admire the presidential ...

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Do I — unconditionally, unconditionally — like President Putin?.. No, not like that: what do I definitely like about Putin?

I'm not joking, I'm not joking - not my God. Not to say: I do not encroach on the sacred right of actress Smirnova to admire the presidential gait. I explain myself, starting not only from the opposite, but from the terrible.

“Suddenly Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Andreev, Zhdanov and Stalin appear. What happened to the room! And HE stood, a little tired, thoughtful and majestic. I felt a huge habit of power, strength and at the same time something feminine, soft. I looked around: everyone had loving, tender, soulful and laughing faces. Seeing him—just seeing him—was a blessing for all of us.”

We will not appreciate the terrible power of this charm of power - not only for slavish natures, but for the slavish drop in the natures of the elect (for the very Chekhov drop that they did not squeeze out of themselves), without knowing who makes the diary entry: Korney Chukovsky. And - who else was one of "all of us", as if involuntarily ennobling "moral and political unity": "Pasternak whispered enthusiastic words to me about him all the time ... Pasternak and I walked home together and both reveled in our joy ... »

Konstantin Simonov called Stalin "a great actor". Challenging an eyewitness is risky, but, perhaps, Stalin's ability to charm was not based on the talent of an actor's impersonation. For that matter, Yeltsin was the actor - it was not for nothing that his former press secretary Voshchanov said this on TV, adding, however, that he was an actor for very specific roles. It is not for nothing that Yeltsin's puppet - respectively, in "Dolls" - is the most charming, no matter what nonsense he grinds; and the original, I vividly remember, at the time of the very anger at him will say something like that - and if you don’t want it, you’ll laugh. Laughter, it is known, has a conciliatory effect.

But Stalin... No. From Mochalov to Kachalov, all the truly great mummers prevailed over the stalls and the gallery, not adapting to them, but bravely, riskily plunging into new sensations. To please the public, especially the whole, is easier just for the adherent of the stamp. To do this, you just need to know which simple valves of our souls should be pressed.

In the end - who is more infallible than a clown with a set of elementary tricks that will make us laugh until we drop? What is more trouble-free than a simple melodrama that will shed a sea of ​​​​tears? What art knows all the vulnerable places of our bodies, if not the art of a professional executioner?

What Stalin had was a directorial, staging gift. Starting with the most reasonable decision - rarely, less and less often to show your divine face to the public: an exception was made, so to speak, for the first chairs of the stalls, while the gallery, that is, the people, should be content with photographs of winning mise-en-scenes. By the way, from here and in comparison with this, the actor's failure of the talkative Khrushchev, in essence, much more charming and, all the more so, texture close to millions; what to say about Brezhnev? We got used to something else, to the aesthetics of a completely different theater. I repeat: director's.

There is an anecdote that seems to be reliable: how Stalin, who was the first to watch all the films, lingered with one - whether about the academician Pavlov, or about the inventor of the radio Popov. However, the anniversary was approaching, the egg did not keep up with Christ's day, and the film directors released the film on the screens at their own peril and risk. Immediately confirmed.

The leader called the arbitrators: “Who allowed it ?!” “You see, Comrade Stalin, we ourselves ... consulted and decided ...”

The mustachioed cat began to walk around, repeating thoughtfully: “They themselves consulted and decided themselves ... They themselves consulted and decided themselves ...” Shoulder: "That's right..."

What a mise-en-scene - and, apparently, still not legendary. The same Simonov recalled how, publicly deciding the fate of the award of his name for the prose writer Stepan Zlobin, Stalin allegedly heard for the first time that Zlobin had been in captivity and behaved “unworthily” there (the first was true, the second was a slander). And - the same direction, no less effective from its sadistic elementality: "To forgive or not to forgive? .. To forgive or not to forgive? .. To forgive."

The eerie charm of power, as if unpredictable (and therefore especially charming). A force that costs nothing to destroy you, but which for some reason - for the time being - lingers. How can you not be grateful to her?

Of course, for this, a kind of gift was still needed, but, as Mikhail Bulgakov unobtrusively proved in the comedy "Ivan Vasilyevich", on occasion the manager of a house can play the role of a terrifying tsar. And this is our serious luck, albeit private, albeit one that not everyone is able to appreciate - that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is by no means an actor. (What is the recent remarkably ingenuous saying about the fact that the ex-governor Nazdratenko, as a well-deserved person, cannot be discharged from the “elite”, that is, “thrown into the trash” ... You understand what, then, our ordinary life seems to be from the elite heights ?) And not a director at all - what is the retinue playing the president with the faces of Ustinov and Voloshin worth ...

Here is what I would like to point out again. I don't scoff. In general, I speak on behalf of those who are in no hurry to join the opposition, believing that it is not yet a position.

That is, what I personally do not have is anti-presidential excitement: for me, only professional servility is worse than professional revolutionism - that's what we are talking about. Because right now, and precisely for the reasons indicated, we have a chance to maintain a careful sobriety, not reproducing the destructive Russian habit of seduction by power. For being power, for being seductive.

By the way, Pasternak, who did not escape falling in love with Stalin, nevertheless, speaking at the congress of writers, advised his colleagues to evade the hot state affection, so as not to turn into literary dignitaries.

Or - from Gogol: "Further, for God's sake, further from the lantern!" Otherwise, "your dandy coat will flood your stinking oil." After all, really - you won’t wash off for a long time.