Daily magazine: Fear

Russia will have the next elections. And the next falsifications. The fact that they will be there can be no doubt. In one way or another, but they will. These are the “carousels”, and the stuffing of the ballots by members of the precinct commissions, and it is not known where the growth of the number of voters on the eve of the elections, which then miraculously disappears, and the direct subframe of the voting results, and also a lot of tricks to which election commissions of different levels are miraculously. But it’s completely different. A huge number of Russians are involved in fraud and falsification. These are members of the precinct and territorial commissions, which mostly consist of teachers and other state employees, in essence of the forced people. These are all kinds of municipal officials, from which the necessary results require a higher authorities, tense, in turn, by the authorities at the level of regions that are crushed from Moscow. These are numerous police officers who are ordered to protect those who are engaged in falsifications from those who are trying to grab their hand. These are prosecutors who refuse to initiate cases related to falsifications. These are judges who derive from the punishment of those who nevertheless managed to catch the hand by observers in the elections. Hundreds of thousands of people. And what makes them carry out falsification or cover them, actually committing criminal actions? Fear.

Fear of losing work and not to find another, to be outcast, to lose their livelihood. And the fear is quite reasonable. The system not only defends from external attacks, but also punishes the apostates. It is enough to recall the history of the St. Petersburg teacher, the former head teacher of school No. 575 Tatyana Ivanova, who told about fakes in the elections on December 4, 2011 and how the chairmen of the district commissions “instructed” in Tik in the presence of the head of the Department of the Vasileostrovsky District, Natalia Nazarova. As a result, Ivanov was not only without work, but also in court, who decided to recover 30 thousand rubles from her for slander against Nazarova. Petersburg is a big city, there it is possible to find another exiled from work. But in medium and small cities, a person who disobedience the power that went against her becomes an outcast. Both the heads of budget organizations and businessmen are afraid to hire it. Otherwise, they will be punished, they know. Their behavior also determines fear. Lose your very comfortable place of the leader, get problems for your debugged business. A very real threat in our time, and quite justified fear. A long and permanent companion of a resident of Russia.

Fear lives in our people. He is from the past. What is the main feature of our people? Hope for "maybe"? Unwillingness to take responsibility? Inability to work painstakingly? Pathological laziness? Love for lies? All this is present. But what is the main thing? Fear. He is the deep that kept us in the past, which holds now, which determines the soul of the people. Fear that manifests itself in different ways, but it is. It is present in our life as inevitability, as a basis. His peak fell on the Stalin's time. But even in later times, Soviet people were afraid of the same possibility of what would not be thought of, suspected of illiability, in the presence of evil intent. It was an eternal torture.

Yes, there were people who managed to overcome fear. Let's say that glorious seven who, after the commissioning of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia in August 1968, went to Red Square, which condemned itself to camps and links, but defended its dignity. Their names are worth remembering: Larisa Bogoraz, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Konstantin Babitsky, Vadim Delonya, Vladimir Dremluga, Pavel Litvinov, Victor Finberg. There are many other examples of civil courage in our history, but all of them are the very exception that confirms the rule. Hundreds of millions of Soviet people lived under the press of fear, often not even understanding this. Or not wanting to understand.

Fear began to retreat during the years of perestroika. And on August 19, 1991, it seemed to us that we were generally getting rid of him. Forever. It was a mistake. Several years passed, and it became clear - the fear did not disappear, he only hid for a while.

Fear still holds the overwhelming part of the Russians with his tenacious hand. Turns us into slaves. This suits the current government - it is much easier to manage the intimidated people. Moreover, the current government at all levels actively cultivates this fear. At all their levels - at the local, brutally pursuing anyone who criticizes or will tell you that the leadership of the city, the settlement is acting correctly and does not think about its own benefit. At the level of the constituent entity of the federation, the factory of court cases against everyone who revealed the fraud of those in power or law enforcement officers, who showed obvious illness.

Recently, the federal government has gone the same way. Is it not at the multiplication of fear that all the loud judicial cases of recent years are directed: the condemnation of Sergei Mokhnatkin, girls from Pussy Riot, Polina Osipova, Ilya Farber, Alexei Navalny, the persecution of Evgeny Roizman. And the crown of the intimidation campaign is a police specialty on the beating of demonstrators on May 6, 2012 and the subsequent “swamp process”, which should end in a long time for three dozens of children, for no means planted on a bench. The laws on rallies and foreign agents hastily adopted in 2012 are sent to intimidation. What else to expect from those who think only about their own enrichment? And at the same time experiences fear.

In the Kremlin, everything is saturated with fear. Those who in the old days enveloped everyone, even Beria, even an all -powerful “father of peoples”. He is still alive, this fear still flows into souls and hearts. You can distinguish his old shades: fear of losing power, fear of a conspiracy, a shot in the back, fear of arrest, fear of loss of everything, fear of loved ones, fear of death. The fear of what will be betrayed, bypassed, pushing, the fear that they will pursue, that they will put them will be put on the wall is overwhelmed. And behind all this is a primitive fear of the unknown, before the future, before everything and everything.

It is time for Russians to understand that a great country cannot stand on fear. This is a bad foundation. Fear holds us in the past, constraining the will of the people, their creative forces, energy. What development can we talk about if fear kills the initiative, deprives self -esteem, brings up pessimism and disbelief in his own strength. Hence the stupid, mechanical worship of the authorities, hence the false wisdom, hidden in the usual sayings: “You are the boss, I am a fool”, “The initiative is punishable”, “Make a rag”, “Our business is small”. All this is a manifestation of slave psychology, humiliating for the people of a great country.

It's time for us to get rid of fear. It’s easier to do it alone. Those tens of thousands of protesters against falsifications in the elections on December 4, 2011, which took to the streets of Moscow, St. Petersburg, other cities, were able to overcome fear. Those young businessmen who were not afraid to give money to the election campaign of Alexei Navalny this summer, were able to overcome fear. And regain self -esteem. It is very important to experience self -esteem. For we are free people, not slaves. This is what the current government is afraid - that a significant part of the country will feel like free people, want to experience self -esteem.

Sooner or later, the time will come when fear ceases to control us. And we will only be afraid of one thing - to go against our conscience. In our interests, that this time comes faster.

Photo by ITAR-TASS/ Alexander Ryumin