Putin supported me

In his last lifetime book Two Together Alexander
Solzhenitsyn in two places refers to my articles in the mid-1980s. He refers inconsistently, even extremely disapproving, as a model of false and harmful views, overcome by time.

In those ancient times, in the "Tamizdat" press, a lively polemic was conducted around the problem that seemed urgent, but turned out to be quite far -fetched: to what extent communism in Russia was domestic, original, and to which alien, brought from the outside, implanted evil force? I shared the point of view of many liberal authors: in Russian national being there were plenty of condo traditions, skills, views, which, together formed well -reliable soil, on which communist ideas easily took root. There is an organic unconscious collectivism of the peasant community, which does not allow human independence ("we are Vyatka"), and historical Caesarepapism as a voluntary subordination of the Church of secular power, and the Uvarovsky triad as a philosophical basis of the system, and faith in the good king and bad boyars, and the habit of deriving its own significance from superpowial power - all this and much more contributed to the smooth buildings Western communist utopia in Russian soil, the emergence of power, nicknamed the people, although contemptuous, but quite in Russian, Sofia Vlasyevna.

Solzhenitsyn adhered to the point of view of the exact opposite: communism, which grew up on the tree of Western thought, was infinitely alien to the Russian national character and was not just a stray phenomenon in Russia, but was planted by a rough force, brought on bayonets of a foreign army - all these Latvian shooters, Red Magyars and Chinese. The Soviet government, the consistent anti -communist Solzhenitsyn hated fiercely, considered it anti -people, and considered its primary victims it was the Russians and already in the second head of the foreigners. Throughout his life, the author of the epic "Archipelago Gulag" fought with her passionately and talented. Stalin was for Solzhenitsyn the largest war criminal of the 20th century, the genius of villainy, in no way compatible with the Russian spirit. And from the gallery of Russian types, Solzhenitsyn especially revered "Stolypin" strong men and merchants, people good and disputed, on his mind, heatmen, working and rags, poorly and able to increase wealth, while generously gifting the poor in the porch, which are not devoid of faith in indifferent grace.

This dispute has long lost its severity and topicality, but it was resolved in the most unexpected way. The Ukrainian parliament adopted a package of laws condemning totalitarian regimes as criminal - even communist, even Nazi. Their symbolism - signs, monuments, names - should disappear from the territory of Ukraine. Not overnight and not spontaneously, but in an organized manner. Then Russia entered the dispute, and here it came to an end to philosophical bickering, dots over "i" were placed. In a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry, attacks on communism are recognized as a manifestation of Russophobia. Nazism here Ukrainians, they say, drank laws to conceal the anti -Russian nature of the laws, but from the legislative act it is still rushing, like straw from a tattered mattress.

There are no such pharmacist scales to weigh historical merits on one bowl, and atrocities to the other, to understand which will outweigh!

During the direct line, Vladimir Putin explained to the incomprehensible that the Soviet period could not be removed from the whole array of Russian history, and even more so cannot be called criminal. There were certain violations of socialist legality, yes, there were, but there were also numerous examples of unprecedented successes, labor achievements and heroism. For the Soviet period, there are accomplishments, which the Russians are proud today. And if the Soviet regime treats the mockery, like Sofya Vlasyevna, then you will order to demolish what part of the merit in the Great Victory falls on her opponents, and what personally in Comrade Stalin? There are no such pharmacist scales to weigh historical merits on one bowl, and atrocities to the other, to understand which will outweigh!

The new concept of Putin's historiosophy does not allow thoughts about "gaps" in the history of the Russian state. The story of Putin is not a dance school "Step forward, two steps ago." There were no retreats, hesitation and scatter, there was a continuous ascending movement towards a radiant goal, to the very future that "surpasses all imagination." Some violent events could seem like a struggle of opposites, a mortal battle between the forces of yesterday and tomorrow, but from the height of the current understanding they are all seen as a continuous and continuous path from victory to victory, from one triumph to another.

That's why it is necessary to rewind the historical actions and phenomena in a positive spirit, which have recently been perceived purely in the critic. In many chapters and pages, it is necessary to change evaluative signs to the opposite. Today it became clear that both the guardsmen of Ivan the Terrible and the Chekists of the "Iron Felix" were like the twins - both were people with cold minds, clean hands and hot hearts. Despite the superficial differences, this approach allows us to understand that the Soviet leaders were in the soul of the same patriots as the members of the royal family killed by them. The Red Commissars were rotted innocent and themselves died in the nominth shower of sacrifice than the White Guard officers who showed them heroic resistance. Both those and others were led by selfless love for the homeland. No need to artificially separate and contrast them!

With the right approach to history, Vladimir Putin turns out to be a worthy successor of his predecessors-Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Second, Lenin-Stalin. Putin is Brezhnev today, he is Stalin yesterday. There is no Soviet past in such a concept, there is only one continuous present. And the communist idea and the Soviet government are native blood. It is not surprised that someone's desire to overthrow the monuments of the Soviet period can be perceived only as blasphemy and that as Russophobia.

When in the early 1990s, Alexander Solzhenitsyn triumphantly returned to Russia from his vermontian herring, for a moment it seemed that with his work and the way of thoughts he would have a significant impact on the development of events, at the worst-on the state of domestic minds. These were just unjustified expectations. Have you noticed that the great writer of a conservative sense in today's Russia, ready to allegedly measure for traditional values, completely disappeared from a public discourse? His name is not mentioned, his ideas are not discussed. The accident is excluded - in the homeland Solzhenitsyn did not come to the court. He did not fit into the Putin's turn. All because he never fell in love with Stalin, but respected everyone who stood in the way of the Stalinist dictatorship, often at the cost of life.

Shavki of the Soviet press called him only as the "literary Vlasov": he was the first to remind the forgetful compatriots of the fate of the anti -Stalinist general and his Russian liberation army, the role that ROA played in the liberation of Prague in the last days of the war. He recalled the Holodomor, of the fate of the Russian peasantry, destroyed by the methods of class genocide. I remember the day when in the State Duma Solzhenitsyn uttered the incendiary apology of the zemstvo structure of Russia. With the regime of personal power, with the current vertical, the idea of zemstvo self -government is incompatible. Many other thoughts of the founding father of modern Russian traditionalism were not heard: about the new settlement of Siberia according to Stolypin samples, as well as prophetic warnings regarding a stupid flirting with China. But his main sin, punished by ostracism and oblivion, is associated with a refusal to recognize the identity between the Soviet and Russian. In that long -standing dispute, Putin took my side. It would be better if I was wrong.

Efim Fishtein - Radio Observer Freedom

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