No feeling of freedom

I remember, being impressed by the first rally on Bolotnaya, I had a dream, which I described in the article “Don’t lean.” I imagined that all this opposition action was taking place not on Bolotnaya, but on Red Square, along which columns of the democratic public marched with anti-government slogans, and from the mausoleum they were warmly greeted by the leaders of the party and government, standing in an embrace with democratic leaders.

Since then, at similar rallies - and I was at all of them and even made a whole film about it - I was struck by the same inexplicable contrast: citizens worthy of all respect applauding crooks... or, let's say, very dubious characters in the stands .

Why is this?.. Why do intelligent people who have lived long lives, scientists, specialists, hard workers, respected fathers of families, so recklessly believe in television and other nonentities who pretend to be Carbonari, freedom fighters?! I don't have an answer. Citizens, and, in my opinion, the best part of our society comes to rallies, do not see that all the Parfenovs, Kandelakis, Sobchaks and other partygoers are, at best, clever careerists who make good money from protests, and at worst, they are simply a fifth column, Azefs, infiltrators and spies of the power structures from which they all came and don’t even hide it much? There is no need for a microscope here; it can be seen with the naked eye, even with severe intellectual myopia.

This is some kind of eclipse, just a film by Antonioni! What incredible advantages have citizens found in them who want to somehow change our hateful reality? Do they like Parfenov’s ineradicable provincial accent? Do they like that these are people from TV, which they themselves contemptuously call the zombie box? Where do educated people, I emphasize, have such savage admiration for arrogant, pushy dummies? Hey, Grandpa Sigmund, explain this Freudian nonsense to us! Or will only Kashchenko help here?

“The protest movement did not gather to help Leonid Parfenov financially,” said former member of the Coordination Council A. Piontkovsky and loudly left the Constitutional Court. You can understand, because you just have to be exceptional crooks to simply raise the question of raising money for some TV program in the Constitutional Court, and on Prokhorov’s, read, Putin’s “Rain” (have they already sold all the aluminum?), while the guys in the May 6 case, they were taxed like wolves and they sit without money, without lawyers and without hope. Fantastic! But I understand that all this glamorous party on May 6 was spent at the resorts and this story does not bother her. Yes, and it’s dangerous for your health!

So why did the protest movement gather then, if not to raise money for Parfenov, to whom NTV and Channel 1 no longer give it? In order to, according to the glorious national tradition, choose the most wretched leaders from among your midst, then walk the streets for many years shouting “Don’t stop Yeltsin from working,” and then betray your idol with a shameful anathema and choose another people’s favorite even worse?

Even when the KS was only in the project, all normal people, and Piontkovsky too, came to the conclusion that this was an absolutely stillborn child. Unless this is Müller's cunning pub. And what? As in the joke - you feel sick, but have nowhere to go? I’ll join the CPSU so that there’s at least one decent person there, right? So, how did you join? Now will it take you a long time to clean something smelly from your soles?

I understand that everything is arranged in such a way that we cannot choose the official government to our liking. But it turns out that the opposition does too? Who can we do? Wife? Or is approval from above required?

Personally, this whole CS party strongly reminds me of the “fighters” for the freedom of Italy from the old film “The Gadfly”, who, if you remember, were exclusively engaged in delivering impassioned speeches at magnificent balls. And ours lost all their steam in the Gudkovs, excuse me for a rather average joke. Wasn’t it immediately clear that everyone there was Parfenov’s?

Apparently, the main problem is that many of our citizens have absolutely no sense of freedom. More precisely, feelings of lack of freedom. This feeling is somehow underdeveloped among them, and therefore this lack of freedom of citizens does not press, does not prick or press. In short, it doesn't float. And it is in no way associated with self-esteem.

And the saddest thing is that, to paraphrase Letz, they do not only have no feeling of unfreedom, but also the feeling that they do not have a feeling of unfreedom, and I am not sure that this can somehow be cured in the foreseeable historical perspective.