Landscape after the battle

For many analysts, the situation in Russia today is an observation of the counter-motion into which the country is being dragged by its leader and the ruling class, frozen in an offended stupor. And just as in the Strugatskys’ wonderful story, this is a discrete counter-motion, and selective and irregular.

And just like “rude Vitka Korneev,” many observers want to say: “This is flat and banal, it’s not even interesting to tell.” The result of the socio-political “reverse move”—with all possible options for moving to “point X”—is predictable and uninteresting; at some point in time, the first person will physically change, maybe two, and the standard development model will be restored.

It’s also interesting for playwrights and political scientists: which of the classic plots of the play’s finale will history choose this time? For me, for example, what is interesting is not how this will happen, but what the “landscape after the battle” will look like and what society will have to do in the process of returning to normal. This future is already programmed; It is relatively important where the physical border of Russian territory will be at the moment when the chaos subsides - both in the west and in the east - but the state of the external contour, the “regime of attitude to the regime” (whoever comes after Putin) is already becoming clearer. This “regime of relationship” will largely determine the opportunities that will remain for Russia as a state and for Russian society as its sovereign; It seems to me personally that this future price for “getting up from your knees” has already been determined.

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Judging by the strange statements of Vladimir Putin in Yalta on August 14, in the fight for some “Russian cause” he is ready to withdraw from basic international agreements that describe the structure of the world. The State Duma is discussing the withdrawal of the Russian Federation from agreements on the ECHR, because the Strasbourg court is “too politicized.” De facto, by annexing Crimea, Russia abandoned its obligations under the Budapest Agreement of 1993 and, probably (more serious legal examination is required here), went beyond the framework of the Helsinki Agreements, which established the regime of European borders and the structure of relations on the continent and in the world. Vladimir Putin’s wandering resentment towards international partners has led to a situation that will remain “on the table” in any case - no matter how the current round of history ends. And not only in relation to Russia, by the way.

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Ekaterina Shulman, in her article on “hybrid (imitation) regimes,” very accurately noted the features of “non-liberal non-democracies”; the emergence of such regimes and their establishment in the post-communist world is becoming an increasingly noticeable trend. The reasons for the emergence of “imitation regimes” lie both in the imperfections of democratic institutions and in the difficulties of transitional societies (low levels of mobilization, a tendency towards paternalism, old wounds of nationalism in its previous, industrial version).

Simply put, many transitional societies are like a family in which both spouses cheat on each other; mutual deception is convenient and satisfying - for the time being, as long as it’s “comfortable”, everything somehow holds together.

Lies and imitation within are acceptable and even necessary; but sooner or later (more precisely, always) it leads to external lies. And as soon as “high feelings” interfere with this imitation of a family, the structure goes awry.

Since “high feelings” have already come into play, for example, in Russia and Ukraine, it is important to understand that squabbles within “families” inevitably affect relations with neighbors in the “house”.

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When in 1975 the neighbors of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact agreed to fix the principles of coexistence on the continent, they, among other things, proceeded from at least the relative pragmatism of the then communist regime. The Politburo, in turn, proceeded from the need to trade with the “capitalists” (the USSR needed what the planned economy could not produce), although it began to deceive them (or rather, continued) right in the same 1975, sending “advisers” to Angola and Mozambique, supporting pro-Soviet communist parties and movements with clearly illegal injections of foreign currency (the protocols of the Politburo and the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee on issues of “material support for fraternal parties” were classified as “top secret”).

The collapse of the USSR and the formation of the Russian Federation and other post-Soviet republics as states, the unification of Germany, the Yugoslav bloody “divorce” - despite all the difficulties, remained within the framework of Helsinki; even the “Kosovo precedent,” despite the “dissenting opinion” of Russia and Serbia, still remained within the framework of what was allowed then.

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The Helsinki regime of relations was based on the fixation of borders; countries and blocs could keep troops along conventional lines and prepare for war as much as they wanted, but the question of “disputed lands” was closed once and for all. Local (within the “blocs” - NATO and the Warsaw Pact) intervention - similar to Budapest 56 and Prague 68 - became, as it were, an “internal matter” of the blocs, but even in 1981, USSR troops did not enter Poland thanks to the wisdom and determination of Jaruzelski .

The war in Yugoslavia was a difficult test for the “rules of European coexistence” - and, at the same time, a practice in determining Russia’s “place” in this new “one-bloc” system. It turned out that Russia, although it was the legal successor of the USSR, did not inherit the “coolness” of its predecessor in the eyes of its neighbors on the continent (and even more so in the eyes of the United States). By the time the pact was concluded in 1975, the USSR was an “adult” state, which with its own hands created a nuclear shield, a space program, and a planned economy. The Russian Federation, in general, is still a strange minor heir of the deceased, who, from the point of view of other Europeans, has not even completely cleaned his house.

A kind of rentier state with bad manners, but without a bloody reputation, to which, on occasion, one can point out both its flawed (and offensive) status and significantly lesser rights.

The “grievance” inflicted on him in Yugoslavia is constantly cited by Russian politicians as the root cause of their anti-Western, anti-American position. After Crimea, the “overgrown heir” will no longer have a discount for his age and his characteristic stupidity: the attitude towards him will be transferred to the adult format of “justice”, and sooner or later punishment will follow, in full.

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Russia’s future place in European systems and the conditions that will be offered (or dictated) to it “after Putin” are unlikely to be comfortable. The images of poor starving babushka, puny drunken chap, which helped in the early 90s to avoid a difficult upbringing by an international team, will no longer work. Through the efforts of the current government, the image that “controls” the consciousness of Europeans and Americans and programs the future attitude towards Russia is a man hiding his face with a machine gun in a uniform without insignia. Neither babushka, which has not gone away, nor chap, who switched from brake fluid to ersatz vodka, nor the cute hipster from Gorky Park, nor the ballerina Diana Vishneva, nor the freak deputy Milonov - just a hole for the eyes in the balaclava.

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It is obvious to me that the “Pandora’s box” opened in Crimea will cost Russian society very dearly - not at all in terms of sanctions, economic and social problems, budget deficit, etc. The peculiarity of our neighbors is that their societies are accustomed to solving not a “specific situation”, but formulating conditions under which “situations” do not arise. If today the source of the problem is Russia, then, most likely, the future post-Helsinki concept will at least be based on limiting Russia (see, for example, the interview with the NATO commander-in-chief). Moreover, it seems to me that it will be aimed at preventing the emergence of “hybrid regimes”, at their early detection and - the nightmare of a Russian patriot - interference in internal affairs, excluding the emergence of malignant politicians and tendencies.

“Bad neighbors” not only reduce the comfort of a home, but their presence reduces its value; joint institutions are deteriorating.

For private life, shared institutions are schools, police, courts, municipal services; for state relations - diplomatic relations, international organizations and the same Helsinki regime of “openness”.

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The desire to be a threat and a “thunderstorm” in the modern world, which is solving problems of comfort and harmony, drought and El Niño, Ebola and the quality of education, is a rather stupid position. States, like people, are social beings; When faced with isolation, they reflect on both other people's attitudes and their own behavior. The new international architecture that is already emerging around Russia (especially on the western side) is precisely the architecture of isolation. Its goal is to provoke reflection, to make society concern itself with the question of why people stop communicating with them. Either because of lies and hypocrisy “within the family,” or because of the squatting of a room in a neighbor’s apartment. As mentioned above, sooner or later you will have to negotiate; the conditions for restoring relations will not and cannot be respectful for the country and society, which have violated, albeit hypocritical, but universally recognized rules.

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“Putin’s successor” - no matter how he comes to power - will have to face well-founded demands from his neighbors, which will range from territorial claims to special security conditions on the borders (demilitarized zones, requirements for information transparency of the armed forces, etc.). The “replacement” will have to deal with the obligatory condition of ratification of the Energy Charter, direct and indirect conditions for the demonopolization of energy and the creation of competitive conditions in energy markets. Putin’s replacement will have to familiarize himself with many international conventions, because he will be required to comply with the rules of community life to the letter. Even worse: he will have to guess this list himself, faced with the cold attitude of his neighbors and the outright icy contempt of distant participants in the “race.”

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How will this relate to the traditional Russian attitude towards restrictions and prohibitions? (Do you want a Russian to jump off a bridge? Put up a sign that says “Jumping from a bridge is prohibited.”) It’s bad, but you have to study - not for the sake of Parmesan and visa-free regime, but for the sake of at least the hope that they will talk to you without looking through the crosshairs sight.