Path to War

Problem-2024 is not the problem of the incumbent president, but ours, Leonid Gozman is sure. The preservation of the regime threatens with more and more massive repressions and a big war

Decide - stay

Vladimir Putin's hypothetical desire to remain in power after 2024 - and this desire is attributed to him by many - can have a lot of reasons. From his specific ideas about the good of the country and the absence in his environment of a person worthy, from his point of view, to occupy the highest post, to concern for his own safety or just the habit of being where he has been for almost twenty years.

But whatever motivates the current head of state, if he makes such a decision, then the constitutional restrictions will not interfere with him. Three or four ways to get around them will be named by everyone. For example, the transition to a parliamentary republic (and guess three times the name of the irremovable prime minister). Or the introduction of a post similar to the position of the spiritual leader of the nation in Iran - a person more powerful than the president, parliament and court combined, who no longer answers to voters, but directly to Allah. Well, or - more and more people are talking about this - the annexation of Belarus and the re-establishment of the state so that Our Everything goes again for the first term. Or, in a very simple way, to hold a referendum on the presidency for life - sanctions, they say, Russophobia and so on - well, how without a president for life? And you can come up with a dozen or two more ways, and all of them will be absolutely realizable. Yes, and among the authorities, the competition has clearly already begun - who will offer him a more attractive option.

He, theoretically, could be stopped by popular indignation - we just saw how this happened in Armenia . But this, even against the backdrop of falling ratings, seems unlikely. And our security forces, due to many circumstances, seem to be more prepared to open fire on fellow citizens than the Armenians.

Is there a plan

He can stay. But neither he nor his associates know what to do next?

Not only the people, but also those who are called elites do not have an image of the future, unless, of course, the plan to earn / steal some more money and spend it in a certain way is not considered as such.

The desire of the ruling group to remain in power resembles the persistent persuasion of an impotent. What will he do if the girl agrees? Definitely won't be happy.

It is necessary to distribute something real to people - but there is nothing more to distribute, not to tear it away from yourself? There is only one thing left - repression. If you don’t give anything, you must keep it in obedience with fear and force.

But the main thing is that we will not get pleasure. And not only because there will be no positive - it definitely will not be! After twenty-five years of going around in circles of power - and by 2024 it will be a quarter of a century! - and the destruction of everything that they managed to reach, there is no reason to hope that they will suddenly begin to pursue a reasonable policy. If only because a reasonable policy is contrary to their own interests - every day they receive gigantic benefits from corruption, and from the merging of power and business, and from foreign policy adventures. And since they, like the Soviet government in their time, in the broadest sense of the word, do not produce anything, but only spend what they inherited from their predecessors, and this inherited obviously ends, we can expect further imbalance of everything. The deterioration of the situation in education, in the social sphere, failures and disasters in transport, fires and collapses, an increase in crime and the list goes on.

It appears, however, that total collapse is not the only threat posed by the new indefinite term.

Fight against dissatisfied

They will have to do something about the people's discontent. Demagogy and a virtual, fake war, as well as quite real ones, but local conflicts seem to work less and less. The people have ceased to receive masochistic pleasure from the fact that we are a besieged fortress, that the whole world is against us, because we are the best and most correct. So, you need to give something real to people - but there is nothing more to distribute, not to take away from yourself? There is only one thing left - repression. If you don't give anything, you have to keep it in submission with fear and force.

So repression is a possible option. I’m not sure, however, that they have the resources for this - they will need not targeted repressions, but rather massive ones, the dispersal of not just one crowd in Moscow, but many in different cities. When, for example, a few years ago, due to a stupid attempt to ban right-hand drive cars, there were unrest in Vladivostok (and everyone drives such cars there), riot police were airlifted there from Moscow. In general, the reliability of units called upon to shoot at compatriots can never be assessed in advance - the last Shah of Iran, whose guard valiantly "came over to the side of the people," could tell a lot about this.

But of course they will try.

War as justification

But they, and therefore us, will have another problem. People, even the most powerful and rich, remain people. They do not have enough security, they need self-respect, a sense of the meaning of their existence. As soon as our bosses solve the “2024 problem”, they will face the task of overcoming the existential vacuum - why are we here?

After 2024, when there will be no elections ahead - they, in order not to be nervous anymore, will come up with something, in fact, for life - the idea of ​​​​active defense will become dominant, if not the only one

There will be no opportunity to say to ourselves that we, they say, provide the people with a better life, and Russia - development. Although they believe their own propaganda more and more, but still not so much that they do not understand the situation of the country at all. But there is a way out - they can justify their power to themselves, if in fact, and not for the TV, they believe that there are enemies all around and we must respond to their impending aggression with a "retaliatory preemptive strike" (as the attack of the USSR on Finland).

In fact, in recent years they have been moving towards such a picture of the world. But after 2024, when there will no longer be any elections ahead - they, in order not to be nervous anymore, will come up with something, in fact, for life - the idea of ​​​​active defense will become dominant, if not the only one. Moreover, it will not be instrumental, for the sake of maintaining the rating, cohesion and other things, but sincere and self-sufficient. And sooner or later they will start a war. For only war can justify them in their own eyes.

Therefore, the preservation of Vladimir Putin in power after 2024 is not just a continuation of the current decay, but the threat of death. Both for us and for the world.

Can we do something to prevent such a scenario? I think yes. But that's a topic for another discussion.

*Leonid Gozman - political scientist, chairman of the Union of Right Forces movement .