Drama of the possible

The victory of the Kremlin establishment, the Putin oprichnina or the turn to the west is the forecast from George Satarov

In The New Times No. 17, we began a discussion on how the situation in the country and in power will develop. Obviously, after March 18, when President Putin announced the accession of Crimea to Russia, and the US and the EU announced the first package of sanctions, the paradigm of Russian politics has changed dramatically. Russia entered the open confrontation lane with the West and turned its eyes to the East - to China. It is not news that foreign policy is a continuation and reflection of the policy of domestic. The period of stability - one of the most important trump cards of the regime of Vladimir Putin - is over; The formula - loyalty and freedom in exchange for social benefits - lost its airbag: the economy entered during stagnation, capital is running. Today we publish the second forecast and invite the expert community to the discussion

Photo: Andrey Druzhinin/ITAR-TASS

Putin is a typical child of the Enlightenment, great not only by discoveries, but also with errors. The main of them is a sincere belief in the easy controllability of social processes. Exactly this misconception once again worked in February, when, wanting to stabilize and strengthen the melting power, Putin made and began to carry out aggressive foreign policy decisions that led to the exact opposite result: the political process was not stabilized at the peak of a new hybsty of stupefied people, but, on the contrary, sharply accelerated. The point is not only in the sanctions introduced and ambushed. The fact is that inside the country the script fans narrowed, and any of them is dramatic for Putin, for the country, and for its citizens.

Principal and his clientele

Not news: relations within the ruling coalition are not based on the constitution and laws. They are based on a system of informal vertical feudal contracts. Their essence is simple: those who are below must observe loyalty to those who are higher and use their power resources to strengthen and extend the power of those who are above them, and therefore their power. In return, they gain access to various rents and unlimited illegal enrichment, are exempted from the need to follow the laws and are supplied with informal guarantees of safety and life comfort. And this comfort is little connected with the well -being of the country in which they send power.

Putin’s policy, chosen by him on March 18, was fraught with his clientele with a total collapse of an informal contract with the principal. For some, a tragedy was the inability to continue the familiar way of life, in which the departure of power in Russia was only a temporary shift necessary for obtaining funds for a luxurious existence outside the homeland. Others are shocked by threats of an established business, a large and almost legal part of which is outside the territory where they are forced to pull the strap of power. Still others are unhappy that they were turned into outcasts of European civilization. The fourth found with anxiety that their country was in a catastrophically dangerous state: everyone who has military potential has at least more effective than Russian, and nuclear weapons threaten to move close to the borders of the country. (The list is obviously not exhausted.)

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Only 2.2% of respondents believe that the federal media "completely biased" cover the events in Ukraine. And among the "leaders" there are 10 (!) Times more

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The above considerations are important for the forecast, so you can try to confirm them with sociological data. According to the April survey conducted by the Levada Center, we can compare the answers of the group “leaders” with the answers of all respondents. For example, 4.8% of respondents evaluate Russia's actions in Crimea as “illegal annexation”. And among the "leaders" there are 20.8%of them. Another indicative example: 6.5% of all respondents are “very worried” by the possibility of obstacles when leaving to Western countries, and among the “leaders” there are 19%. Among the entire sample, only 2.2% of respondents believe that the federal media "completely biased" cover the events in Ukraine. And among the "leaders" there are 10 (!) Times more - 24%*. The difference in awareness between “leaders” and citizens is clear. It largely explains the above comparison results. It is clear that the higher the level of the leader, the higher the awareness. It is also clear that the higher the level of the leader, the more significant the damage caused by his well -being Putin's policy. Therefore, if we had the opportunity to representatively compare the answers of managers of different levels, then we would see that at high levels these answers are very unpleasant for the president. But back to the main topic.

Akela missed

So, Putin is rapidly, in some couple of months, it turned for most of the ruling bureaucracy from the annoying unpredictable and capricious patron into the personal source of a direct and direct threat. This fact for some time was the subject of quiet cooking conversations, but quickly enough someone was supposed to voice a simple thought for a pack: “Akela missed!” And this happened on May 7, immediately after how Putin unexpectedly called his rebels in the southeast of Ukraine to abandon the farce of a referendum. A number of commentators who have been broadcasting the Putin's establishment for many years that Putin is our only guarantee from various upheavals, who are sharper, who more carefully spoke about the meaninglessness and futility of the Ukrainian policy of the Kremlin.

From this moment on, political life will have to accelerate even more. For a dissatisfied clientele, the signal “Akela missed” was supposed to sound like a mountain mobilizing to change the patron change. And for the latter, the same horn became an alarming signal, pushing to proactive actions. At the same time, the possible actions of the nasty side are easily calculated by both sides. This means that out of two sides, one will be successful that will solve its problem first. And both sides understand this. So, everything should go faster than before.

These permutations clearly indicate the vector - updating the highest echelon of the ruling group, the introduction of an oprichnina from a mixture of guards and lieutenants of the second echelon who dreamed of becoming generals and ready for everything for everything for everything

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And it went. Putin made the first intermediate move, indicating the possibility of more decisive actions. A week after the signal, “Akela missed” Putin made a series of personnel permutations, advanced to the necessary posts of his cavalry guards from close guards. (The New Times wrote in detail about this in the article “Shoots. Everyone?”, No. 16 of 05/19/2014) These permutations clearly indicate the vector of alleged actions - the renewal of the highest echelon of the ruling group, the introduction of an oprichnina from a mixture of guards and lieutenants of the second echelon who dreamed of becoming generals and ready for everything. Such a catalysis of the political process makes three scenarios to varying degrees.

Script 1: Putin's victory

This refers to that impressive part, whose interests were infringed on by Putin’s new aggressive policy. There are plenty of ways to convince Putin to reduce his stay at the presidential post, and it doesn’t matter what will be elected. The choice of arguments and actions will be determined by which of the groups of the establishment will show the initiative of the first. More importantly, what will happen after or, if you like, instead.

It is generally accepted that Putin protects the country from even worse - from dictatorship, xenophobia, fascism, etc. This is already being said for more than a dozen years. The paradox is that with his last actions, Putin made this thesis almost meaningless. There are two very good reasons for this. The first: those who replace them will have to operate as part of the Russian-Soviet-Putin tradition of changing power-to deny the predecessor. New should build a contrast to the old, trampling it. While Putin took a position in the conditional center, building contrast to his policy allowed different options, including hard -based authoritarian, dictatorial. But he himself shifted to this zone of political space, having deprived possible successors to criticize himself for a lack of rigidity, imperial, anti -war, etc. Therefore, it is ridiculous to assume that the successors will turn over the population, explaining to him that they stole too little under Putin, and now it is possible more that the opposition should not be imprisoned, but burned on fire, etc. The contrast will be built on the contrast. The resuscitation of what Putin buried: right, competition, freedom, etc. The second reason related to the first: the new will have to rehabilitate not only before the population of Russia, but also before the world, and primarily before the West, because there are their business, children, villas, wives, mistresses and enthusias of mistresses.

Scenario 2: Putin's oprichnina

This scenario involves a sharp renewal of the near -Putin environment (already begun, as mentioned above) - and so throughout the vertical. If such a scenario is clearly outlined, then for its victims all the previous threats will seem to be a childish torture, since new and greedy personnel will be set to them, and threats will be shown in the range from full loss of property to loss of life. Just think about what scale of property we are talking about. After all, for 14 years, trillions of dollars have been stolen. In other words, the confrontation between the old and the new elite will not be at the level of the stuffing of compromises-it will be truly cruel, in which Putin will be on the periphery of the struggle. And in the end, it will simply not be needed by anyone. Centralized political control will be lost. The country's isolation will increase, social problems will increase sharply. A spontaneous protest will arise, sweeping both of them. And the country will break up, unable to withstand such destabilization, since all the institutions that could hold and preserve it have long been destroyed.

Scenario 3: Unexpected U -turn

This scenario seems to be less likely than the first two, since it is based on the assumption that Putin may now have enough intuition, common sense and instinct of self -preservation to implement it. Such a scenario provides for the rejection of aggression and a new shuffle of the political deck, within the framework of which the government changes, and a figure is involved as a premiere that could smooth out problems from a sharp change in the course of the country and contribute to rehabilitation in the West. An additional argument in favor of such a scenario is a rapid increase in economic problems in Russia. The country and Putin may find themselves in a situation where Putin has the only way out - the same thing that Gorbachev found himself under similar conditions. He will go west. Most likely, the West will require Putin to ensure the immediate legal transfer of power in exchange for help and some guarantees for himself and his loved ones.

Revolution, as, however, also cardinal social changes, begin with impulses that go from above. But what happens next depends on society

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It is possible that the picture that I drew may seem too optimistic. We are all in response for what we allowed and allow us to do with our country, with all of us. You have to pay for this. But Putin, as already noted above, managed to create a lot of things that (or could) happen in the framework of his third anti -constitutional presidency after his departure. He has already begun to work for those who were hinted at, saying that after Putin it could be worse, and, one must think, has not yet finished this work. As a result, he convinces everyone who is able to see and think: "After Putin, it can no longer be worse." By this, he removes psychological barriers to those who hesitate, reflecting on the completion of the Putin presidency.

In the end, I remind you from what this article begins: the revolution, as, however, also cardinal social changes, begin with impulses that go from above. But what happens next depends on society. Therefore, everything that will happen after Putin and how it will depend not so much on the scenarios painted above, but from us. This is the main lesson, taught to all of us by the outgoing era, from which only a pair of paragraphs will remain in future textbooks.