Putin is now the way

Alexander Dugin responded to the resignation of M. Kasyanov's cabinet with an article in Komsomolskaya Pravda dated March 1, 2004 entitled "Putin draws a line under compromise with the elites . "

A. Dugin welcomes the resignation of the prime minister and believes that it means "President Putin's exit to a new main position, to a new frontier": "Only now is Putin truly becoming Putin, demonstrating over the past year this determination to become very bright, impressive, understandable to the people and political elites [ ? - ed. ] steps - starting with the arrest of Khodorkovsky, through the resignation of Voloshin, the exclusion of the liberal parties SPS and Yabloko from the Duma, the current resignation of the government ... "

Likewise, according to Dugin, Putin is addressing the people directly. "Now it's ... Putin, who is left alone with his people . " The president found himself "in a completely different country, together with his people ... - and with a scattered, inarticulate liberal-communist-fascist opposition . "

"Such a Putin is, of course, an authoritarian figure ... but this authoritarianism ... is the exact opposite of totalitarianism ," the author notes. The author explains the "opposite of totalitarianism" by the popular support of the president and characterizes the current situation as "a system with a very high degree of freedom": Yeltsin's oligarchy is becoming a thing of the past, ... There is no Duma as such, by and large there are no parties either, there is President Putin and his people " .

All this, according to A. Dugin, is very good: "Putin says goodbye to compradors, oligarchs, Boris Nikolayevich, political strategists, the expert community as an appendage of the comprador Atlanticist bourgeoisie and says: we - I, my people, our country - are going to in another direction, goodbye, don’t dashingly remember who stole or lied, you will pay for it in the future .

Stanislav Belkovsky wrote about the same and almost in the same terms in the article "Putin shot the golden cartridge" , published on February 28, 2004 in Komsomolskaya Pravda.

After analyzing the image of Putin as a leader and finding many contradictions in it (a president who enjoys support - a politician grown in a test tube, an imperialist - a consistent liberal, an authoritarian ruler - a ruler close to the people, a technocrat, a formidable ruler, a traditionalist and a gossip hero, etc.) etc.), S. Belkovsky draws a quite predictable conclusion: "Putin is almost as contradictory as the people entrusted to his care" . And the resignation of the government is the answer to the president's question to himself: "Am I a trembling creature, or do I have a right?"

"The president could not run for a second term without proving - to himself, to the elites and to the country - his deep, internal legitimacy. Since the change of Putin's government, he has been a ruler in himself, self-worthy and self-sufficient," - this is how S. Belkovsky defines the meaning of what is happening .

In these articles, it is interesting not only to praise the authoritarian rule of the traditionalist persuasion and reduce democracy to a plebiscitary regime: after all, Belkovsky in his articles obviously approached this, and Dugin in the not so distant past was known not as a mainstream commentator, but as a radical singer "new right" ideology. It is interesting that extensive articles of such content are published in the not very political, but mass-produced Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Sources

• Belkovsky Stanislav. Putin shot the golden cartridge // TVNZ. 2004. February 28.
• Dugin Alexander. Putin draws a line under compromise with the elites // TVNZ. 2004. March 1.