Translated material
Populars instead of optimates
The opposition in Russia can only be new and leftist
The recent elections to the State Duma demonstrated that at least half of the Russian population is in opposition to President Putin and his course. Less than 50% of the total number of voters voted for both pro-presidential parties “United Russia” and “A Just Russia”. More than 50% of voters did not vote at all or voted for parties positioning themselves as opposition. Moreover, this happened under conditions of powerful administrative and information pressure from the authorities. If we take into account the numerous proven violations, the number of people who do not support the current government is even greater.The liberal opposition was unable, despite super-tough statements towards the authorities and the almost heroic “march” finale of the election campaign, to gain any significant support from such a large protest electorate. The overwhelming majority of opposition-minded voters either did not go to the polls or voted for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
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Berlin. Autumn 1942. Group of eastern workers. Dirty, greasy jackets with an OST sticker, haunted, expressionless eyes, yellow, unhealthy faces. They work in silence: they dig something, collect dirt, saw branches. In a past life, they were fathers and mothers of families, respected workers, experts in their field. Today they are just working animals, without rights and hope. The silence is periodically broken by the command shout of the foreman: “Schnell, schnell!”
Plump, well-fed, neatly dressed burghers with children are strolling through the park. They look at the workers with disgust and fear.
- You know, these OST-arbeiters are completely insolent, they are shitting right in the park. My little Fritz went into the bushes, and there was this monster... crap!
- O mein got!..
Now replace 1942 with 2007, Berlin with Moscow, the OST sign with the emblem of some Moscow municipal utility, German with Russian, OST-arbeiter with guest worker. The only difference is that in the first case, the workers were driven into the city by German soldiers, and in the second - “the bony hand of hunger.” In both situations - inhuman living conditions, humiliation; hopelessness inside and cold contempt of the well-fed “world of masters” outside.
According to British philosopher, economist and legal theorist Jeremy Bentham's classic theory of utilitarianism, the goal of any social change should be the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people. Another famous thinker, Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, suggested that any change that benefits some people (in their own estimation) and does not cause losses to others is optimal. These are, as Soviet dictionaries wrote, “bourgeois theories” (not some kind of Marxism, God forbid), they do not deny market relations. It is unlikely that anyone will find it incorrect to consider from their point of view the processes that led to the “restoration of capitalism in Russia.”
The changes of the late 80s and 90s in the USSR and Russia were neither optimal according to Pareto, nor utilitarian-positive according to Bentham. They have brought harm to many more people than they have benefited (see the results of numerous sociological surveys). I'm not even talking about the hundreds of thousands who died and became disabled in local wars, the millions of ruined people, refugees, homeless people, and the same powerless “guest workers.” Just don’t say that these are “bloody bones in the wheel of history”, an inevitable payment for moving forward, towards a better future. From such reasoning it is two steps to the Stalinist formula “the forest is cut down, the chips fly.”
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So, who did the “victims of the fourth Russian revolution” pave the way to the top with their bodies? Our liberals love to accuse people of left-wing views of primitive distributiveism, of “Sharikovism”, of the desire to take everything and divide it. However, the reforms themselves, which laid the foundations of the modern socio-economic system of Russia, were also distributive. In fact, they consisted precisely in taking everything (i.e. state property) and dividing it up. Just not equally for everyone (as the primitive communists dreamed), but in a new way. That is, transfer most of the state production assets, natural resources, etc. a small group of people. There is no need to idealize the Soviet system. Yes, she too was unfair, ineffective, doomed. But something else is also obvious: social inequality and the concentration of resources among the status elite have increased by orders of magnitude since then.
When the Yeltsin-Gaidar reforms began, I was among those who believed: “the market will put everything in its place; those who cannot manage successfully will go bankrupt, and the remaining most effective owners will create conditions for a decent life not only for themselves, but for the entire society.” During this time, various reforms and upheavals took place, but by the mid-nineties a new status elite had emerged, establishing control over the country's resources. Moreover, judging by the results of its activities, this elite, contrary to my liberal rosy forecasts, turned out to be not only self-interested, but also incompetent.
It was formed from three sources: the Soviet bureaucracy (party and Komsomol bosses, people from the special services, heads of enterprises), representatives of the criminal world and people from the Soviet intelligentsia (including the famous “lab leaders who became ministers”). Habitus, that is, according to the definition of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, a stable system of values, psychology and lifestyle of the new elite, was formed under the influence of the three groups that made it up. From the Soviet bureaucracy, the new elite took an authoritarian style of leadership, a principle of life - “you are the boss, I am a fool; I’m the boss, you’re a fool,” the habit of living a double life; primitive consumerism, under the guise of loyalty and jingoism. From the criminal world - criminal inclinations, adventurism, cruelty, the habit of resolving issues with the help of violence, contempt for the world of ordinary people - “suckers and fraters”, who deserve only to be used for the benefit of a real person - “thieves”. From the Soviet intelligentsia - moral opportunism bordering on cynicism, an internal gap between beautiful, correct words, impulses and low bourgeois real life, consisting of compromises and “getting” material goods. All these qualities mixed in the melting pot of change and formed the habitus of the post-Soviet elite. Now, if you look closely, these qualities can be read unmistakably in an oligarch, a senior official, or a politician from the systemic opposition.
Many people came to power in the early 90s with good intentions. An ordinary story. Some ideological democrat became a big boss. It soon turned out that none of his cheerful but stupid comrades in the democratic movement could work in the administration. It is necessary to hire, first of all, former communist officials, because they have experience and management knowledge. Well, they steal for little things, but if you kick them all out, who will manage the people? In business in the subordinate region, there are mainly some shady individuals with a criminal past - only they, from Soviet times, have the resources and skills necessary for initial accumulation. But it is necessary to support the market economy, the few points of growth in the nascent private sector. This means we have to help businessmen with a dubious reputation. And if you help them anyway, why prohibit them from helping you (after all, they offer it all the time). Well, they’ll bring a couple of suits from abroad, they’ll help the family set up a new apartment, they’ll hire a relative. So, little thing after little thing, and then you look - serious things have already begun, joint multimillion-dollar business projects.
As a result, after three or four years everything gets mixed up. Around the ardent democrat are Soviet bureaucrats who have come to an agreement with profiteering businesses, and semi-criminal entrepreneurs who have learned to communicate in a language understandable to bureaucrats. And the Democratic politician himself is no longer either a rich businessman or a corrupt bureaucrat.
So, that homunculus, which appeared as a result of the social upheavals of the 90s, looked around, gained self-confidence and finally established itself in power. In the past years and until today, various movements have taken place within this elite, some personalities have dropped out of the elite, new names have appeared, positions have been distributed in favor of groups of people from the special services, “St. Petersburg”, etc. However, all these movements were not of a fundamental nature; they did not change the economic base of the elite, its management methods and social psychology.
Today, the formation of a new elite has generally ended; it has closed itself off from representatives of the unprivileged, poor part of society. The amazed country could only look at its new owners in bewilderment and wonder. Where did they come from, on what principle were they isolated from the masses? If as a result of free market competition, then why are most of them somehow not like efficient owners? Rather, their actions reveal that many of them are swindlers, bandits, bribe-takers, speculators, and adventurers. These people created a state for their criminal social practices, where corruption is institutionalized, high-ranking officials and their families feed on the businesses they lobby for; almost all businessmen evade taxes and do not comply with labor and financial laws; a huge percentage of law enforcement officers themselves break the law, etc. etc. There is a definition that a state is criminal when the majority of its representatives do not comply with their own laws, and our situation fits this definition well.
So, the new elite was formed on the basis of the social potential of its members (primarily the connections developed back in Soviet times and belonging to closed communities, such as the special services). People seeking to enter the elite were also required to have certain qualities of functional potential, that is, the personality traits that are most in demand for advancement in the modern Russian situation. First of all, orientation towards social promotion at any cost, incl. acquisitiveness of material values; the ability to manipulate others for one’s own selfish interests and associated personal qualities.
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Both the government and the official opposition support the myth that Putin’s regime is fundamentally different from Yeltsin’s. The authorities need this so as not to be associated with the negative attitude towards the Yeltsin era that exists among the majority of the population. The opposition is because most of its leaders made a social career during the Yeltsin era. Criticizing the current regime, they have to emphasize its difference from those prosperous times when such wonderful politicians as them were in demand in our country.
In reality, the main task of the Putin regime is to preserve the power, property and privileges of the elite that was formed during Yeltsin's reforms. That is, maintaining the social order that ensures all this. At the top of politics and economics, the majority of people remain the same as under Yeltsin, and the system itself has changed little. Resources and power belong to a handful of oligarchs from business or the bureaucracy. The only difference with Yeltsin’s times is that then in the tandem of power and business, businessmen played the first fiddle, and well-fed officials meekly ate out of their hands. Today, on the contrary, obsequious financial bigwigs bow to officials and security forces. This situation changes certain personal alignments, but not the system of unlimited exploitation of unprivileged sections of the population (not related to either big business or government).
Various ongoing reshuffles, transfer of ownership from oligarch B. to oligarch A, subsequent resale of it to corporation G., etc. - these are significant events for these characters and corporations, politicians and the media that serve their interests, but not for the vast majority of the country's population, whose lives are not affected by all these ups and downs.
Most of the recognized leaders of the opposition - both liberal, left, and patriotic - are flesh and blood of the elite that was formed in the 90s. And although they now do not have state power, property, social connections, and common business continue to firmly keep them among the status elite of Russian society. Their social psychology and value guidelines are close to those that dominate the ruling stratum of our country. Having already become opposition leaders, they build relationships and hierarchy within the opposition in accordance with these values and psychology.
As a result, for career advancement in the systemic opposition, activists are often required to have the same personality traits as those found in government structures.
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The past elections showed that the intra-elite right-wing, liberal opposition has no prospects. Voters believe neither in the opposition nor in the love of the people of the liberals (no matter how many times they promise to increase pensions and salaries). Voters are more likely to support even vague and inconsistent leftists (be it the Communist Party of the Russian Federation or A Just Russia) than hyperactive liberals. People do not believe that the coming to power of the liberal opposition will change anything. Among ordinary voters, it causes even stronger social idiosyncrasy than representatives of the ruling regime. The standard reaction is “these are messing around, apparently they want to steal even more.”
This skeptical attitude of society is largely justified. The return of the current “opposition boyars” to power can only lead to a situational redistribution of resources and personal changes within the elite. All of our systemic political forces (perhaps with the exception of the comatose Communist Party of the Russian Federation) are optimists, defending the interests of various groups within the ruling “aristocracy”. We do not have influential popularists fighting for the interests of the “plebeians,” that is, the unprivileged majority of the population. In Russia, in fact, there are no real left-wing politicians. Most opposition leaders were recruited into the elite on the basis of social and personal qualities consistent with the described state system, and were in no way motivated to change this system, which made their social success possible. Both they and government officials are from the same social incubator.
The existing power of the bureaucratic oligarchy has the features of an extreme right dictatorship - the dominance of state-monopoly capital in the economy, power structures in management, clericalism and statism in ideology.
The real opposition to the current ultra-right bourgeois-bureaucratic government can only be leftist. In order for it to become a reality, we need new leaders with different values, psychology, and human qualities; capable of internally freeing themselves from the vices and temptations characteristic of the post-Soviet social elite. Popular politicians working for the benefit of the unprivileged majority of the Russian people, and not in the interests of the upper social layer who benefited from the reforms. Leaders of the new left opposition, capable of replacing the selfish and ineffective power of the post-Soviet elite, whose interests were defended by Yeltsin, Putin, and the majority of “opposition” liberals.