Dmitry Bykov. Bykov-quickly: look-45

Bykov-quickly: look-45
Dmitry Bykov

Publication date: November 18, 2002

Right midfielders

One of the readers recently reproached me for the fact that in the latest quickies, essentially rearguard battles are being waged. The positions have been determined, everything has long been clear, and how much can you water the liberal intelligentsia, which is already up to its neck in a certain substance? Especially when you consider that two to three percent of the population sympathize with it, and therefore the danger of these views is negligible.

Well, let's start with the fact that the entire intelligentsia in general - if we take people concerned about the future of the world, and not just everyday survival - today constitutes no more than three percent of the population, which has degraded to the extreme and does not think about anything at all. So the struggle is precisely for these three percent, which ultimately determine the intellectual level of the nation. As for rearguard battles, in a sense, all activities aimed at understanding recent history fall under this definition. just published book Viktor Shenderovich’s “NTV Was Here,” which will also be discussed today, was written in full accordance with Slutsky’s motto - “Let’s wave our fists after the fight,” and I have nothing against this approach. I am sure that we are on the eve of large-scale cataclysms - it would be good only ideological ones; it is necessary to define ourselves, including in relation to the recent past.

In this sense, it is deeply natural for the newspaper “Konservator” to address the topic of human rights protection. “The Conservative,” as I already wrote when he first appeared to the reader, amazes with his verbosity and ability to babble on almost any topic. Intellectual speculation is good in the monthly press (and not always) - in the weekly it is tedious; throughout the vast space of the conservatory spread, the articles by Gleb Pavlovsky (in my opinion, his text breathes too much vindictiveness) and Boris Lobanov look more or less intelligible. It’s the latter that I want to argue with first; although I am well aware of the true gender, age and name of the person who called himself Boris Lobanov, we will respect his secrecy, which is probably not without reason. Like any real liberals, the creators of “The Conservative” strictly observe the division between friends and foes (and not at all between the talented and the untalented, which criterion is only suitable for outdated and closed-minded people).

Lobanov is called upon to balance out the verbose attacks on human rights defenders that fill the spread, and thereby create the appearance of objectivity. Human rights activists in our time (without any particular reason, as Pavlovsky showed) mean like-minded people of Sergei Kovalev. It is not easy to find a criterion that would unite all these so different people, who have very different beliefs, not to mention political sympathies; their pasts are different (for example, under Soviet rule, Shchekochikhin collaborated in the Komsomol press, and Kovalev was imprisoned), their talents are dissimilar (Alexander Tkachenko is absolutely incompetent as a poet and publicist, and Piontkovsky is anything but not mediocre), their roles are incomparable (Valeria Novodvorskaya For a long time now he has not defended anyone’s rights, having become firmly established in the gossip columns and deliberately shocking the public; Andrei Cherkizov, of course, also sins with shocking behavior, but sometimes he says something seriously ) . In other words, the community is rather vague; all these people behaved differently “under the Soviet Union” and want different things, so it would be wrong to represent them as a monolithic group. Not all of them are former dissidents (and not all former dissidents today consider terrorists to be fighters for peace, and riot policemen to be murderers of sleeping women). Perhaps they have only one thing in common: the desire for holiness. For them there is nothing more valuable than the whiteness of their own clothes. Their own a priori rightness is much more valuable to them than someone else’s good and life itself; Dmitry Furman, who sincerely believes that Zyuganov’s victory in 1996 would be more democratic and legitimate than Yeltsin’s victory, has already come close to the formula “Let the world perish, but justice will prevail.” Or democracy. Or legality. In other words, today's human rights activist is a person to whom reputation is more valuable than truth, reality and base "common sense." And let the world perish.

So, Lobanov doesn’t understand why fight and argue with these people. After all, their circle is narrow, and they are terribly far from the people. And in a totalitarian society like ours (a totalitarian society is always and at any moment ready to habitually take the form of a boot), a certain number of antibodies, marginal characters are needed, who, if necessary, are ready to stand up for the unjustly offended... But there is no political harm from them.

At first glance, the position before us is quite chivalrous - especially considering that Lobanov himself does not at all share the views of his clients. Cunning (or misunderstanding? I doubt it) becomes obvious after some reflection: well, first of all, who said that our human rights defenders in their current modification are ready to stand up for the unjustly offended? Remember the vigorous activity of the PEN Center for the release of Vitukhnovskaya (don’t think, I fully approve of this activity) and the extremely sluggish, belated reaction of the same Russian PEN to the arrest of Limonov. French writers were much more restless. Meanwhile, the literary significance of Limonov and Vitukhnovskaya does not seem to require comparisons. When Luzhkov “killed” the Moscow press with a score of “forty-zero”, not limiting himself to civil cases and initiating criminal cases for libel, none of the human rights activists opened their mouths, and as soon as the authorities clamped down on NTV, a grandiose campaign began. The current human rights movement is very selective in its sympathies and actions; she will never seriously defend anyone who disagrees with her. Although these dissenters are by no means immune from clashes with the authorities (moreover, they are doubly vulnerable, since they criticize this government not from the left, but from the right; such criticism traditionally looks offensive in Russia, and Purishkevich seemed to the royal family much more dangerous than some others there Bolsheviks, whose circle was narrow and whose influence was negligible).

But let’s even assume that our human rights defenders are impartial. We also agree that their influence on minds today has weakened significantly: in fact, tea, not the year eighty-nine. Everything could be left as it is - only one thing remains to be done: take away from the words “human rights activist” and “dissident” their unambiguously positive modality, turn them from an indulgence for all sins into neutral, calm definitions. In a word, to take away from today’s human rights activist (who, according to Pavlovsky , has degenerated and degenerated) the very halo of holiness on which this human rights activist so desperately speculates.

I have already written that the result of precisely such speculation was a political technology code-named “Death of a Hero” (when, in order to overthrow a certain politician, a journalist considered his enemy is killed). Then they speculate on freedom of speech. Sometimes they play on the dissident past, which seems to verify in advance all the words of the next fighter for the destruction of Russia. No less often, humanism becomes the object of speculation: human rights activists constantly emphasize that they “protect people’s lives.” According to the Russian tradition, a statist is always a satrap and bloodthirstyly justifies violence, while a liberal idealist stands fiercely for human life, even if it is purchased at the price of betraying all possible ideals. There is no way to argue against such a triad - freedom, humanism and personally experienced repressions; you really have to be without conscience; and therefore I understand Lobanov well, who does not want to take this last step and call betrayal - betrayal, cowardice - servility to force, and modern liberalism - a somewhat archaic way to please the West. They'll peck at the FIG.

With approximately this set of objections, I called Lobanov, who loudly objected to me: but that’s what we’re talking about: you can’t fight these people at the state level ! It is our business to argue with them, and the state should not be allowed to persecute them. They must be protected at all costs, otherwise the authorities will quickly turn them into saints!

But alas, this is where our author fails. Because, as Russian historical experience shows, polemics with “human rights activists” (or Bolsheviks, as they were called in another era) are impossible by definition. A dispute is possible if both sides seek the truth; For human rights activists, as we remember, the truth is the least important thing today. Status and reputation are important to him. At least our liberals are afraid of the state; With their selective instinct, they sense in him a rather undermined, but still strength. You can demand something from the state, you can angrily blame it, but statists can only be disdainfully despised, seeing pure self-interest in all their activities. There cannot be sincere statists. One cannot sincerely desire the Gulag (the identification of statism with the Gulag is a separate merit of the liberals). You are all fed, you are thriving - what is there to talk about? This was exactly the same tactics of the domestic underground when it got out of its boiler rooms and traveled across Europe - to talk about what scum all the published writers were and how good all the unpublished ones were. Fortunately, the reader quickly figured out what was what.

I am not at all calling for state reprisals against dissidents. I just want to emphasize the futility of polemics with them - since this polemic will sooner or later come down to distortion. At one time it seemed to me that the state should not take any measures against Gusinsky - so as not to deprive his ideological opponents of the opportunity to ideologically fight against him. The trouble is that an ideological struggle with Gusinsky is impossible, since he has no ideas. This is a man who hides behind freedom of speech as a hostage. I suspect that for the same reasons today it is unthinkable to argue with Sergei Kovalev - whose sincerity I, however, do not doubt: he, unlike Gusinsky, certainly has ideas. It’s just that he is no longer able to doubt these ideas and revise them - and in these circumstances, what kind of dispute is there? So the only thing that needs to be done with human rights activists is to take away their aura of holiness. So that not every word they say is perceived as the ultimate truth, bought with blood. This will overcome one (alas, not the last) of the consequences of the global zombification of our population by liberal propaganda in 1986 - 1991.

An example of one of the intellectual speculations on the sacred concepts of freedom of speech and corporate honor is Shenderovich’s brilliant book “NTV Was Here”; It turned out all the more successful because Shenderovich was completely sincere. He is honest even when he distorts; and therefore “NTV Was Here” is indeed a very funny book, sometimes even funnier than the author would like. It proves once again that being sincerely convinced of something is very useful for creativity: it increases energy. Look, Nikolai Ostrovsky was not a talented person, but he wrote a wonderful book. But the author of “NTV Was Tempered Here” is a much more gifted person. So it turned out to be doubly useful for him to abandon the liberal skepticism of the Parfenov type and join the ranks of the fighters.

Shenderovich is my friend, and I sincerely hope that this review (essentially unalloyed laudatory) will not provoke him to write another open letter. This is still too pretentious a genre. It is quite difficult to blame me, like Koch, for financial fraud. And although I would be interested as a reader in enriching Russian literature with a new journalistic masterpiece, it still seems to me that already open letters will suffice. It's time to have a friendly conversation about the counter-propaganda essay that came from the pen of the creator of Free Cheese . I repeat for those who are incredulous: the book is indeed very good. I am even angrier at Gusinsky, who managed to deceive even such a talented and subjectively honest person as Shenderovich as a complete sucker with seventies romantic beliefs. Because I don’t allow self-interest in Shenderovich - he didn’t win villas and mansions for himself, but he spoiled a lot of blood.

The epigraph to this work could be the charming phrase of Vyacheslav Rybakov: “Your killers are scoundrels, but our killers are great.” Shenderovich so sincerely and widely admits all the sins of Gusinsky and his team that I don’t even want to rub obvious overexposure, blackmail, information racketeering and other exploits in his face. Yes, it all happened. But all this has been redeemed many times over. No matter how bad Kiselev was, everything that was done to him in 2000 - 2002, according to Shenderovich, has long overshadowed his sins. And Gusinsky paid for everything in full - he was deprived of the right to live in his homeland, which he loves so much. (I admit that he really loves - after all, the worm, presumably, loves apples.) When we are in solidarity, then we are a team, and when our enemies are united, then they are a gang. Shenderovich goes so far in his sincere misunderstanding of the Guseputin conflict that he gives out frankly false interpretations. Thus, he describes his dialogue with Koch, who invited him to stay on the channel. Shenderovich objects: his reputation does not allow him to agree. "Reputation! Mother fucker! Reputation!" - Koch exclaims, laughing sardonically. Shenderovich interprets this in the spirit that for the hardened cynic Koch, the concept of reputation is ridiculous in itself (imposing base motives on the enemy is a very common and effective technique). The author does not even imagine that Koch might be amused by the word “reputation” in the context of Gusinsky’s struggle for his channel. Everyone who worked at NTV then and fought for it had a reputation as brilliant professionals - but they did not have a reputation as objective journalists even among their colleagues.

Here is one funny quote: “Money was only a pretext, not a reason for the attack on NTV. The ill-fated loans from Gazprom were loans only on paper. The gas monopolist allowed himself from time to time to transfer money from one pocket to another: an easy payment for the opportunity of information influence. This opportunity was useful not only for Gazprom. In the winter of 1996, one of the owners of NTV, Igor Malashenko, headed Yeltsin’s election headquarters. A group of oligarchs saved “Grandfather”, while simultaneously drowning Zyuganov, like Mumu. Then there were elections - and new loans from Gazprom "NTV television company. All participants in those events: both the oligarch Gusinsky and the Kremlin, whose wallet was Gazprom, - I emphasize, EVERYONE knew that these loans were a form of bribe for Yeltsin’s second presidential term. A pre-agreed kickback for organizing “voting with the heart" ". In 2000, Gusinsky's services were no longer needed. NTV found itself in the opposition, and it was then that it became clear that the loans had to be repaid. Returning a bribe through the court is the know-how of the new Russian government."

This fragment (forgive the long quotation, but it’s a pleasure to quote Shenderovich) is fantastically indicative: this is how the whole book is made. Here a move of a millimeter, there a change of a penny, but in the end the required amount, the desired view of things. Well, first of all: the term “bribe” itself is not entirely correct here, since a bribe is given in exchange for future services. Shenderovich claims that we were talking about the past - about 1996. Therefore, it would be appropriate to talk about remuneration. But Shenderovich uses precisely the word “bribe,” and nothing happens by accident with a writer. Therefore, we are talking about an advance. For future, so to speak, fidelity. NTV then actually received an unprecedented advance. And up to a certain point it worked honestly - until it suddenly found itself in opposition to the Kremlin without, by the way, any ideological reason. It was not during the Chechen war that Gusinsky became tempered and dissident (the Chechen war began two years before the elections and by July 1996 had already been going on for a year and a half), but during the skirmish around Svyazinvest. Under the same skirmish, the “writing business” and a powerful anti-Chubais campaign emerged - Gusinsky wanted the deal to end in his favor, but the Kremlin privatizers were interested in money. They had nothing to pay state employees. This is how NTV found itself in opposition to the authorities.

And in 1999 this opposition was no more ideological than in 1997: Gusinsky was simply not far-sighted enough. Maybe he overestimated Luzhkov (who helped Most not only with kind words, but when the wind changed, he quickly demanded his loans back; you still had to think about who you were dealing with). Perhaps he loved Primakov too much, for whom Kiselev and the company had obvious sympathy. Except that Shenderovich didn’t like Evgeniy Maksimovich. Or maybe Gusinsky underestimated the Kremlin, but one way or another the bet was made. And you have to be able to lose. The loser does not have the slightest right to think about freedom of the press, since if he wins, such a stone dictatorship would settle in Rus' that freedom would not have to be remembered for a long time: it is worth recalling entire meetings of Primakov’s Council of Ministers devoted to individual programs of Svanidze, or the tactics of Luzhkov’s press -services regarding objectionable publications. Primakov and Luzhkov, when Kiselev and company invited them to their programs, even the presenters were unambiguously put in their place, demonstrating in advance who was boss. And if this pack had won, NTV would have received credit again - the technologies were all the same, tested. Even the Chechen war was nothing more than a pretext to finally overthrow the bloody Yeltsin regime (although Luzhkov is as much a friend of the Chechens as I am an anti-Semite)... So there is no way to make Gusinsky a knight of freedom: he spoke about freedom only when needed to escape from obvious loss. Typical thieves' morality: we can do everything, you can do nothing. The grand jury of the Union of Journalists expelled Dorenko from the Union of Journalists (of which he was not a member) at the same time as on NTV, in the free and democratic program “Dolls,” Yeltsin was shown in a coffin and the rubber Dyachenko sobbing over him. And no one excluded anyone. Your killers are scoundrels, but our killers are great.

People who openly and clearly supported the OVR can easily claim to be strong business executives. Or the role of restorers of the empire. Or, finally, to the role of aesthetes who contribute to decorating our capital with new and new monuments of Zurab Ts. But they cannot lay claim to the role of defenders of freedom and openness under any circumstances, because they need freedom and openness only as unfortunate ragged hostages. What degree of freedom and openness was present in the leadership and style of communication within the NTV television company itself has been written and rewritten before me. Shenderovich himself shed some light on this - in “Kukliad” , and in a new essay. True, the unpleasant leader there is Dobrodeev, who later betrayed the cause of freedom and publicity. That is, he already had such inclinations then. All these Putin supporters are terribly bad people. And Parfenov is a bad person, and Lobkov now lives a plant life...

This is the tragedy that Shenderovich sincerely believed in all those things that for ninety percent of his bosses and half of his colleagues were bargaining chips and a banal cover. A subject of speculation, roughly speaking. This does not mean that Parfenov’s cool cynicism is more attractive to me: I love wrestlers much more, my passionate nature dictates so. I just want fighters to be able to sometimes look at the situation from the outside and honestly ask themselves: what were they actually fighting for? And I’m also in favor of them not being so zealous about labeling things. So that people who think differently do not become in their eyes a fiend of the world's evil. Shenderovich, it seems, even a year later has not reached the degree of objectivity at which such an approach is possible. He doesn’t want to see Revenko’s tragedy, but he doesn’t doubt his corruption. He is still delighted with the behavior of Vladimir Kara-Murza. He does not miss the opportunity to notice that one of the NTV journalists, who called himself a “latent statist” and ran to RTR after Dobrodeev, has become very fat and now enters the elevator sideways. That is, all statists are ugly, fat people, they eat a lot. Kiselyov is probably a statesman...

In general, all this is already a yard level. And Shenderovich cannot help but feel the gap between this courtyard level - and the real drama, which he witnessed and participated in. This drama hurts him, and it forces him to write. But resentment clouds your eyes, and then you definitely want to see all your opponents as very bad people. Killers of our boys and rapists of civilians, stranglers of a wonderful television company that wanted only freedom and peace!

However, I am not a pointer here. It was easier for me. I did not go from the general to the specific, but vice versa. There were a number of people I actively didn't like. They loved themselves very much, greatly despised those around them, curried favor with foreign journalists, lied constantly and uncomplicatedly, allowed themselves a lot, and nothing for others. They used easy recipes, despised principles, and absolutized the value of human life (first of all, their own). With the eternal instinct of offended children they felt where the real power was, and they did not say a word against this power (at first the West was such a power, then the native OVR, now, it seems, they have become terrorists). All these people knew how to manage well and were distinguished by that fantastic pompous falseness - both in writing and in behavior - which Shenderovich speaks so convincingly about in relation to his former allies.

It was these bad people that I didn’t like. And then suddenly it turned out that they all consider themselves liberals. So it turned out that I became a statist because of the opposite. From Parkhomenko and Albats, Politkovskaya and Kagarlitsky, Kiselev and Sorokina. And that’s why it’s so painful for me to see good people in their camp who are not immune to speculation, blackmail and lies.

Or maybe I'm wrong. And Russian statehood will very soon prove this to me, of which I have almost no doubt. After all, in our country only liberals are always right, and statists - from an intellectual point of view - are wrong under any circumstances.

But I don’t want to be right if Vladimir Gusinsky or Pavel Gusev are right. If they are against collective farms, then I am for it. Just for the pleasure of being on another hectare.