Alexey Chadayev. Everyday life of Caligula

Everyday life of Caligula
Alexey Chadayev

Publication date: March 3, 2004

Like the overwhelming majority of representatives of the Russian elite, as well as ordinary Russians, I fully approve and fully support the president’s proposal to nominate M. Fradkov for the post of Prime Minister of Russia. No, but how?

Indeed. A truly unique advantage of the new prime minister is thatmost of the institutions where he was previously appointed head were disbanded and abolished after a year or two. In a situation where the main task of the authorities becomes administrative reform and reduction of the state apparatus, this is precisely the decisive advantage. Any candidate from the staff solitaire for this position, against his will, would begin to enlarge and strengthen the position of the White House, again returning Russian power to the vicious circle - the eternal confrontation between the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers. The hardware-incompetent Fradkov won’t be able to do it, even if he wants to. Here's a judo trick for you: weakness turns into strength...

And besides: who will now remember the elections, Rybkin and Malyshkin? That's it, we're done: the party will now play solitaire until they're blue in the face and appoint ministers, making mistakes in their forecasts over and over again. The most acute crisis, which had been brewing throughout the campaign, was averted by one simple and elegant move: all that was needed was to sign out of Brussels a man with the face of Bilbo Baggins .

Quite a version, no worse and no better than others.

And again: the brilliant administrative plan of the head of state, as always, met with complete misunderstanding among our catastrophic elite. The chorus of on-duty delight does not mean anything other than a collective game of “Guess the Melody,” where any player puts himself in a deliberately losing position in relation to the clowning DJ-host. And the melody does not want to be guessed - because it is too difficult in our time to hear the music of the higher spheres, which replaced the old regime "Kalinka". All that’s left to do is bang your forehead on the floor until you’re blue in the face.

But to hell with her, with the elite: no one has been expecting manifestations of the spirit from them for a long time. Tired, having lost the last remnants of his former drive, the president finally switched to the “actions of a resident in a hostile environment” order in relation to her, increasingly looking longingly at the radio operator - when will the Center finally announce that the mission is accomplished? Or at least failed; the main thing is to go home. But the Center still doesn’t get in touch: its bosses are lined up and are waiting for orders from the (p)resident. And here no one can guess the melody.

...There is nothing more terrible for a princeps than the sticky clay of universal submission. In such a situation, the rulers go crazy through one person - they introduce their favorite horses into the senate (sometimes in whole herds), then they order to fill up mountains and turn rivers , then they act on stages and set fire to capitals . They are seized by a nightmarish, irresistible temptation to find the limits of power - and the rulers seek and seize these limits, committing one savagery after another, until they receive a sword in the back from their own praetorians. And only after two or three generations of such garbage come the beneficial times of the Antonins , who no longer need anything like that and who die a natural death in due time.

At the same time, the “oppositionists” who are trying to blather something loudly against the background of the growing loyalty of others never evoke sympathy from the emperors. And deservedly so: they, with their “opposite commonplace”, look like arrogant upstarts, only aggravating the overall picture. They act like fools, but this is not the foolishness of saints, but the antics of actors - and therefore sooner or later they either fall under the ax, or, tired of fighting, they are sent to a mediocre sinecure in the very system with which they fought so painfully. Pathetic, worthless people.

Their twin brothers are influential dignitaries with a bent back and a fig in their pocket, also foolish in their own way. These despise the princeps with all his minions almost more than those who shout about it in the squares; but their style is a squeamish expression and a backstage whisper: “Old man, well, you understand...” Looking at their faces, any self-respecting princeps feels a growing desire to shove a dagger into their anus - but, as a rule, he restrains himself, limiting himself to , which forces them to walk in front of the public on all fours.

What is it like vladimir.vladimirovich.ru ! Much like the real story that happened to the current candidate for the presidency of Russia , who also heads the upper house and the party of muskrats. He himself tells it on the same sidelines, and with tenderness and almost sovereign delight:

“It’s Holy Saturday, that means. I arrive with my wife at the dacha, pick up the first hundred grams - the bell rings. “Hello.” - “Hello, Vladimir Vladimirovich.” - “What are you doing?” - “Well, so, Christ is risen...” - “I see.” Then, after a pause: “Listen, why is there no one in the church?” - “So?” sugar, you get into a car and go to HeHees - you will stand there with a candle." I got dressed and drove off - and what to do, the will of the sovereign..."

You will become a sadist here. A normal, within the framework of human relationships, reaction to such a proposal to stand with a candle is “wouldn’t you go yourself...”. But the corridor muskrats had long ago taken the princeps beyond the boundaries of human relations; for them he is something like a vengeful Old Testament deity, upon whose appearance everything human is subject to oblivion and concealment. And the trouble is that in their position this is normal, sensible and logical.

Many of them are not buffoons at all. For them, such loyalty is the source of a whole internal drama: they are constantly looking for its justification in the fact that they can do something obviously useful using the resource of delegated power. Regardless of whether this is actually so, they always internally consider themselves stronger and smarter than the princeps - and therefore constantly walk under the threat of disgrace, which is the greater, the stronger and smarter the dignitary himself is actually. That is why, and not at all because of court intrigues, incidents like the one that happened four years ago with the appointment of the prosecutor general happen.

And no one understands the main thing: all this is not from a good life, but from inevitability. The princeps is always a hostage to the inexorable logic of the principate, when history requires the maximum concentration of the resource of power, otherwise threatening the destruction of the state. And it turns out that if you honestly play by the rules of popular government, which are carved in gold letters on the walls of churches and government institutions, you end up with stupid vanity, deception, theft and lack of will, and in the end , “ invasion of foreigners and internecine warfare .” And the principate is, although bad, at least a united and consistent will. Even if from the scorching gaze of the princeps all living things for a hundred miles around wither and wither.

In other words, as they said four centuries ago, “a formidable king is better than seven boyars.” It is characteristic that everyone who said this understood that this was precisely a choice between two evils.

So let us once again unanimously approve the candidacy of the head of government proposed by the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin. It will certainly not be worse.