The lord of the prisoner near the Copper Mountain

*But the boss cannot be smart,

Because it cannot be.*

Alexander Galich a flurry of literary images caused me in the recent article by Irina Pavlova the opinion of the American historian Richard Pipe that Russia needs Peter. But I'll start in order, without emotions and not with Russia.

Fans of the theory of authoritarian modernization, which destroys the foundations of traditional society and uproot feudal remnants, often lead to Germany and Japan of the 19th century as successful examples. But the semi-absolutist-after-parliamentary German Empire created by the "iron chancellor" of Bismarck collapsed as a result of the revolution, losing the world's unleashed world. Democracy born in this way was a frail and sick and soon became the easy prey of a Nazi totalitarian monster, which arranged a new world massacre. The trajectory of Japan turned out to be similar.

Where is the success here? "Uncle in cork helmets" had to introduce the legal state in Germany and Japan. The path to democracy of countries that have passed authoritarian modernization turned out to be through a national catastrophe. Of course, this path is not excluded for Russia. But we must realize that it is this path that is the most painful, tragic, fraught with severe and difficult to heal historical injuries.

But why authoritarian modernization endure failure, it is clearly visible in the example of Russia. The reforms of Alexander II did not prevent a revolutionary disaster for two reasons. Firstly, peasant reform was oriented primarily to create the most gentle conditions for the "transition to the market" for landowners. For the peasants, these conditions were as painful as possible. Secondly, Alexander did not dare to allow society to manage, that is, to limit his authoritarian power. He was not a stubborn fanatic of "truly Russian autocracy." But any public control, public intervention in their affairs categorically did not want the ruling bureaucracy, including its "progressive-reform" part.

Reforms could become historically successful if they provided a more fair balance between the interests of various social groups. To do this, it was necessary that the pressure on the king-referector of the conservative elites was balanced by the influence of society. But it was the pressure of society that turned out to be too weak.

With some amendments, the same can be said about the "Russian Bismar" Peter Stolypin. The 1905 revolution pulled out a bastard half -partle from tsarism without the right to control the government. In this last question, the Russian bureaucracy was ready to lie in bones, but not to give in. And in order to overcome her resistance and take this barrier on the way to the parliamentary monarchy of the European type, the revolution was slightly not enough pressure. Stolypin consistently defended the political system from any attempts to democratization.

As for the famous Stolypin agrarian reform, which assumed the gradual formation of effective farms by allocating them from the peasant community, it may theoretically were good. But any reform in order to become successful must be accepted by the people. The peasantry could not make a solution to the agricultural issue, in which the landowners were not made by anything. Stolypin, on the other hand, defended the inviolability of Russian Latifundia, although he realized that they "outdated their century."

By the way, the dominant elites answered their savior with black ingratitude. It was they who blocked any attempts by Stolypin to introduce into the practice of a semi-sulfur monarchy at least some principles of the rule of law. They dug under him at court, the king was waiting only for a convenient moment to get rid of the restless prime minister. The authoritarian system rejected the authoritarian modernizer. Even if you do not accept the conspiracy the version of the murder of Stolypin as a result of the conspiracy of the upper reaches, the double agent of the Bogrov was no longer “at the very heart of Russia”, as Solzhenitsyn writes, but in the “political corpse”, as Yanov writes.

The trouble with all authoritarian modernizing regimes in their close connection with the elites that have taken from the past. Whatever the personal aspirations of their leaders, such regimes do not strive to facilitate modernization, but to the most comfortable embedding of these elites in the society modernizing in addition to their will. At the same time, the interests of everyone else are neglected. Such modes do not accelerate the modernization process - on the contrary, slow down it. They cannot be interested in the formation of civil society, because the ripened civil society seeks to lose his authoritarian power.

Civil society can implicitly ripen under the lead lid of authoritarianism. But not an authoritarian regime creates a condition for this. He does not create anything at all, how unable to create the good-embodied unlimited power and power of the heroes of the “master and Margarita”. They can punish evil, destroy the villain, but are powerless to save the innocent even from themselves.

Authoritarianism is a bad disease of an insufficiently developed civil society, and not a stimulator of its development. Nothing but the selfish interests of parasitic groups for modern Russian authoritarianism are not worth it. He can only strangle civil society, corrupt him with his own venality and cynicism. And today it is not justified at all. Because Russian society has long been worthy of the best.

Behind the sentimental fairy tales of the guardians about the people and his special collegiality, in fact, there was always a squeamish fear of their own country, the “icy desert, which the man walks through (the victorious people). This fear was also transmitted to parts of the liberals. But Russia is not an ice desert.

Already in Soviet times, Russia was a country with a predominant city lifestyle, a rational type of consciousness, a citizen who independently determined their life strategy, with a high level of horizontal and vertical social dynamics and with a fairly homogeneous cultural environment. The stupid “Hegemon”, which is only interested in the wine store, is largely buzzing the snoby -intelligence consciousness. By the way, this Hegemon knew Russian classical literature well, at least within the framework of the school curriculum. And in factory smoking, he discussed the advantages of parliamentarism and multi -partyism before perestroika. We will not go into the dispute, thanks to or contrary to Soviet totalitarianism, but modernization in Russia has already been a failed fact.

It was this people that made a bogger revolution of 1991. You can, of course, say that he turned out to be a statist in the hands of nomenclature groups fighting for power. But this is only partly true. The appearance of the revolution is given by those who do it, and not those who manipulate them. The fact that a velvet revolution came out, and not a meaningless and merciless riot, is the merit of the people. The tops just (as further events showed) did not have allergies to blood.

Yes, the people were once again deceived by the elite. He did not have enough political experience, which there was really nowhere to take from the dominance of the CPSU. He was disappointed in the parliamentary system, which degenerated into the oligarchic dominance, the click of the embezzlers, and parted with it without regret. He supported authoritarianism, in fact these clicks from him and protecting him. But there is nothing non -European in this. Not a single dog pulled in England when Cromwell dispersed the "fucked" of a long parliament. And when Napoleon wrote the Constitution, which took the deputy party a funny place of the fig leaf on his sole power, the French experienced gloating.

The aftertaste of the incomplete early bourgeois revolution will pass. I don’t know when and for what reason - because of this, that oil prices will collapse, or people will simply become sickening from the general cynicism cultivated and planted by the authorities - but the country will wake up and sweep away the ruling kleptocracy, fill up the authoritarian bear. And the only productive strategy for adherents of the rule of law is to work for this future revolution. And do not be afraid that protest movements sometimes look different from the theory.

In Russia, they are often dressed not in their clothes. It happens that movements, objectively aimed at approving the principles of civil society, look completely anti -Western. Especially if the sworn enemies of civil society are rising into European camisole and what they carry, begins to be identified in the heads of many with the West in general.

Indeed, it is difficult to discern a radical folk reformation in the fundamentalist Old Believers, unfortunately, the Protestant radicals of the early Reformation in Russia were no less fundamentalists in Russia than Abvakum). But is it possible not to recognize in the asy -like totalitarian despotism in the murmur with its eternal claim to the full control of the private life of subjects, up to the appearance of their face? And here I want to return to what I started - to Peter.

Peter took Russia from Europe much further than the sleepy Moscow kingdom with its semi -blown zemstvo cathedrals stood from it. Suppose the boyar beards are a funny curiosity. But the state -owned giants of the Petrine industry are already more serious. Europe walked along the path of private entrepreneurship and civilian labor.

Peter, along with his personal state oligarch Demidov, are the creators of the Gulag. What hopeless hopelessness the world of Ural tales is filled, the world of the unfastened heirs of those who under Peter were caught on the roads and closed to the cars in the mines of the stone belt, who was destined to stay forever "at the copper mountain of the host!" These people came up with that in addition to the tormentor, there is a fair mistress who punishes the villains, but does not bring happiness to people either. For some reason, no one can take advantage of her kindness, and only fate break from contact with her power. Barrow stone woman. Her Majesty is a white lice, the lord of the prisoner.

Many times have ruined Russia in the good intentions of the kings. And not adherents of Western values ​​to support it. But the Ural artisans who created the folklore collected by the Bazhov folklore better than another modern intellectual understood everything about authoritarianism. The heart was sensed.