Lev Segal. Russia

Russia is Putinless!
Leo Segal

Publication date: March 12, 2004

Moscow has a busy schedule of election events. Journalists never get bored. On Pushkinskaya Square there was a cheerful anti-Putin rally with a paradoxical composition of participants: the National Bolsheviks and the youth branch of the Union of Right Forces, the Union of Communist Youth and the youth Yabloko. Following this, there was a demonstration in the House of Journalists of the “Trepashkin-video”: the documentary film “Distrust”, in which former FSB investigator Mikhail Trepashkin, now thrown into prison on charges of espionage for the British Mi-5, talks about what happened with the explosions of houses in Moscow and Volgodonsk in 1999 there was “something unclean”.

The closeness of this colleague Alexander Litvinenko to the famous emigrant Platon Elenin is undeniable. The day before, another joint pre-election rally of Putin’s assorted opponents took place on Pushkin Square in Moscow.

They are all nice people in their own way and have every constitutional right to do what they do. But if we talk about political strategy, then for some reason it keeps spinning in my head: “In one bag - and in the water!”

Yesterday's rally was prepared especially long and carefully, and with it came complete embarrassment and a remake of the Russian folk tale about porridge from an axe. Initially, the conversation was about a Khakamada rally. Then it was presented as joint with Rybkinists and boycotters. Finally, it was announced that the so-called youth wing of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation would join. Among the famous speakers, the public was promised Irina Khakamada and Valeria Novodvorskaya. As a result, about three hundred (!) anti-Putinites came to the event. Both political grand ladies, Khakamada and Novodvorskaya, ignored the holiday of disobedience. The first - apparently, having guessed that the audience would be sparse. The second is following my principle of not joining the same banner with the communists.

All the organizers poured their themes into the common pot: “general democratic” (the “For Human Rights” movement by Lev Ponomarev), the usefulness of establishing a temporary UN administration in Chechnya (the “Russian Radicals” movement by Nikolai Khramov) and the protection of “political prisoners” ( the “Conscience” group ) . By “political prisoners,” the organizers mean Mikhail Khodorkovsky ( Amnesty International , by the way, officially refused to consider this billionaire, accused of tax evasion, as a political prisoner), Platon Lebedev (accused of theft of shares in a state-owned enterprise), Alexei Pichugin (accused of contract killings), Igor Sutyagin (accused of spying for the United States) and, finally, the above-described Mikhail Trepashkin.

Yesterday’s event was remarkable not only for its small number of people amid the general anti-Putin mobilization, but also for the fact that for the first time the super-liberals solemnly fraternized with representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. However, this party was represented very modestly: about a dozen young people without banners, led by 32-year-old Ilya Ponomarev, the self-proclaimed “leader of the youth wing of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.” Previously, this very energetic gentleman served in YUKOS - and now, by the way, he is an assistant to communist deputy Alexei Kondaurov, a former Yukos member and KGB major general. The very fact of the unauthorized appearance of “wings” in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (contrary to the resolution of the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) “On Unity”) speaks very eloquently about the state of this party. And this is what our entire opposition is like now: ridiculously few in number, but expressive and dynamic.

Objectively active anti-Putinists (including even boycotters) greatly enliven the election landscape, which would be dull without them, and thereby do “a matter of great importance to the state” - they help increase the turnout, which the authorities so desperately need now.

At the same time, all anti-Putinists have the same slogans. Sometimes the methods differ depending on age and cultural background. If dissidents of the old school, led by Elena Bonner, most of whom are in the “beautiful far away”, write boring collective letters , which, however, are conscientiously popularized by the Berezoid media, then the National Bolsheviks stage colorful shows with handcuffing themselves to the doors of the United Russia office and shouting: “Russia - without Putin!”

“Ukraine - without Kuchma!”, Now here’s “Russia - without Putin!” Around these slogans the seemingly incompatible are united. Only our southwestern neighbors had an alternative: “Ukraine - with Yushchenko!” And the scale, to put it mildly, cannot be compared.

I remember Stalin’s vivid speech against the right-Trotskyist opposition with its refrain: “They have emasculated themselves.” They castrated, connecting the incompatible. (Another question is whether such an opposition existed. Was it modeled by Stalin precisely for the purpose of emasculation?)

But self-castration is depriving oneself of a future. Nevertheless, I am quite ready to imagine that one day world oil prices will fall and, along with them, Putin’s rating. And then, perhaps, these strange, motley informals, as in the late 80s and early 90s, will suddenly find themselves at the head of impressive revolutionary crowds. And what? Let's say Russia is without Putin. What's next?

Putin is a product of social compromise, whether we like him or not. What is the state of society, such is the power. Rights and lefts connect to take down the center. What for? To then butt heads with each other? And this will inevitably happen. Yesterday, one of the few participants in the anti-Putin demonstration threw a cake at the banner “For the UN interim administration in Chechnya!” That is, this handful of marginalized people are already hostile to each other. It turns out that Putin must be overthrown in order for... a new “Putin” to come to power, who will no more satisfy these eternal rebels?

The Western press is now full of columns saying that there is no democracy in Russia, because the president in Russia is too popular. Is it really possible that the responsibilities of the presidential administration also include forming an opposition? But what about the Russian politically active intelligentsia? Nods again to power?

Instead of building full-fledged political and human rights institutions designed for the long term, we continue to shout that we are against the authorities. A heterogeneous intelligentsia that has not matured to normal party affiliation against a government that has not matured (but is maturing!) to normal party affiliation . This is our society! And we say that the government is bad. Hmmm... Russia is Putinless. And it seems that, just like under Pushkin, our government is still the only European one.