Alexander Dugin. Two towers

Two towers
Alexander Dugin

Date of publication: September 18, 2003

Not long ago, Gleb Pavlovsky introduced an interesting document into the expert community under the long title “On the negative consequences of the “summer offensive” of the minority opposition to the course of the President of the Russian Federation.” A special meeting of the "Civil Debates" club, held on September 4 at the Press Center of the Izvestia newspaper, was devoted to a discussion of this document.

This intricate name hides extremely aggressive - to the point of foul - attacks on a group of high-ranking officials and large businessmen belonging to the so-called. St. Petersburg group and extremely close personally to the President. In Pavlovsky's document they are directly named. We are talking about two deputy heads of the Presidential Administration V. Ivanov and I. Sechin, deputy director of the FSB Yu. Zaostrovtsev, the famous “Orthodox” banker S. Pugachev, head of Rosneft Bogdanchikov, chief prosecutor V. Ustinov and some other high-ranking officials. Pavlovsky calls them a political “group” and essentially accuses them of preparing an “ideological coup.”

Pavlovsky describes the ideology of this group as follows: a strongly expressed patriotic idea, a left-wing social bias in the economy, a priority orientation towards Russian Orthodoxy, a project for the nationalization of natural resource rent, the abolition of the oligarchy, the consolidation of medium-sized businesses, an emphasis on the security forces and forceful methods, and the rejection of a pro-Western orientation. In his opinion, these ideological principles are incompatible with “democracy” and are professed by a “minority” (he forgets to add “a minority of the ruling elite”).

Pavlovsky sees evidence of the seriousness of this “ideological conspiracy” in the use of legal persecution of large Russian businesses (the YUKOS case), in the support by this “group” of Raikov’s “People’s Party” with a “left-wing nationalist” ideology, and the exertion of forceful pressure in the election situation in Bashkiria and Chechnya , Moscow.

The text of G. Pavlovsky's note calls the "group of S. Pugachev - I. Sechin - V. Ivanov" "dissident officials" and clearly appeals to the President with a call to disrupt the "ideological counter-revolution." G. Pavlovsky's status allows us to consider his speech as a symptom of the fact that the struggle between the Kremlin factions ("Kremlin towers", as political strategists say) on the eve of the elections has become extremely aggravated.

It is significant that, while calling “enemies,” Pavlovsky does not name friends, vaguely appealing to the President himself, who allegedly adheres to the exact opposite ideology. This is an interesting point: if Pavlovsky describes the rejected ideology of the “Kremlin conspirators” with extreme specificity, then he says nothing about the “positive ideology” of the majority of officials. However, it is easy to determine it using the symmetry method. This is a call for integration of the Russian Federation into the Western world, acceptance of globalism, rapprochement with the United States, limitation of national sovereignty in favor of transnational structures of the “world government”, recognition of the inevitability of a unipolar world, liberalism, legitimation of the status quo of the results of privatization, preservation of the oligarchy system, etc.

The entire text of the note creates a complete impression of deja vu of the 1996 election period: again the slogan “democracy is in danger” (directly broadcast by M. Urnov at the meeting of the “Civil Debates”), again the “red-brown” threat - and again coming from the Kremlin. However, something else is interesting: how could the leadership of the Presidential Administration, living in a “different tower” than the “group exposed” by Pavlovsky, take such extreme measures on the eve of the elections? However, the almost complete blocking of coverage of this incident by the wider media - primarily meter TV channels - makes it clear that the whole story is nothing more than “reconnaissance in force”, and not a declaration of real war at the top. After all, otherwise there would be no less noise than in relation to Belkovsky-Diskin’s note “on the threat to oligarchy.” That note received progress, but this one, it seems, did not.

However, something else is important: the discovery of an ideological pattern in this semi-adventuristic story with a “new conspiracy.” Putin's rule formula consists of two rather contradictory components - sovereign-patriotic and liberal-Western. They correspond to the two wings of his immediate surroundings - “two towers”. One “tower” is left-patriotic, populist, Orthodox-Chekist. The second is liberal, oligarchic, pro-American, “democratic”. The patriotic “tower” intensifies whenever it comes to addressing the people, the masses, that is, first of all, during the election period. Since our voters for the most part are “sovereign-patriotic”, loving “social justice” and hating oligarchs, the “electoral Putin” shifts the balance towards precisely this “ideology”. It was for this complex of ideas and slogans, as well as cool actions and tough phrases, let’s not forget, that he was elected President. This ideology is actually shared by a minority among the political elite, but among the people the proportions are the opposite.

Another thing is that in the inter-election period, when international problems and agreements come to the fore, the liberal-Western component turns out to be more important. And the balance of the scales of “international Putin” is shifting to another “tower”; the emphasis is shifting accordingly. It was precisely because of the external international factor that Putin did not change the key figures of his team who belong to the “family” clan, which many expected of him. This liberal-Western group (expressing the interests of the majority of the political establishment, but a minority of voters) has its own function.

On the eve of the elections to the Duma and especially the presidential elections, the balance quite logically shifts to the great powers, who make simple but strong PR, shaking their muscles. It is no longer possible to manifest itself in Chechnya, which means that the blow will fall on the internal enemy. You can try to somehow influence the choice of the victim (scapegoat), the model of forceful demarche, the severity of punishment, the correction of basic ideological postulates, the PR of “searches and seizures”, in the end, but it is completely unproductive, in my opinion, to act strongly against this ideology. During the electoral period, the ideology exposed by Pavlovsky is not just a “counter-revolutionary conspiracy”, but, on the contrary, the key to the electoral success of the President himself and the political forces loyal to him. All pro-presidential forces must accept the pragmatic inevitability and usefulness of a sovereign-patriotic idea with a pronounced leftist and at the same time traditionalist-religious component. Those who are inextricably linked with liberal Westernism should clearly quiet down for now and wait a couple of years (however, their situation is also aggravated by the historical seriousness of the 2008 elections). And the best thing is to either come to an agreement with the “patriotic tower” or rush into patriotism on your own.

In general, the impression from the story with Pavlovsky’s note is as follows: this is most likely a “faux pas” of the liberal wing of the Presidential Administration, which they will try to quickly hush up. And this doesn’t make it any easier for poor YUKOS, if not vice versa.