In society

"If only there was no war"

January 9, 2020 Nikolai Svanidze

The year brought two opposite, although interconnected trends. On the one hand, if in Leninsky, activation, revitalization of social life is noticeable in the "bottoms". Young people, primarily a student, were clearly tired of passively observing what is happening in the country. That is, of course, they would have watched with bored faces, but somehow suddenly realized that this is directly concerned, that they are not spectators, but participants in the performance. And, accordingly, behaved as participants. But not only young people with their age -related emotionality and a reduced sense of danger. Silently and deafly grumbled adults in the regions, irritated by rising prices, ecology and total lawlessness.

These sentiments are far from the revolutionary, but the romantic era of falling in love with power, including the central one, as if she had come to an end. That is, the background has changed. This, by the way, is fraught with a change in the behavior of regional leaders: they should now focus not only on the movement of eyebrows in the Kremlin chambers, but also on the mood of the inhabitants of their region. They will not be popular at home - and the Kremlin will not be needed. This is a new alignment and in the future interesting.

As for the “tops”, everything is simpler and more definite here. At the end of 2019, we can already say with complete confidence that the country is ruleed by special services. They are different, and the relationship between them is extremely stringent: the most ferocious struggle, as you know, is intraspecific. But in relation to the rest of the country and to the world, they act as a united front, and the front in the literal sense of the word.

Before the whole history of our country, perhaps since the Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible, the security forces have not had such an uncontrolled and unlimited power. Even under Stalin, there was a parallel party vertical, and after the war there was also an army. Now special services are out of competition. They behave accordingly, not caring any more about decency or legality. Not only their methods and mentality, but also stylistics penetrated all state pores from the media to the Foreign Ministry.

The next year promises to be troubled. If the government gives a reason, the answer from below will not be long in coming. As for the specifics, the year will take place under the flag of solving the problem “2024”. Moreover, it seems that the “successor” option is considered as a reserve, and the unification with Belarus is as the main, that is, the most desirable, but it is just the least real. The most practically feasible maneuver is the type of Nazarbayevsky, when Putin changes the presidential office to another and takes the country's control panel with him. The main thing is that the aggressive-militaristic style related to both politics and history does not switch from a rhetorical level to the level of action. That is, the main thing is that there is no war.

Photo: 1. Special operation of the FSB in St. Petersburg to detain participants in illegal armed groups. Alexander Demyanchuk/TASS
2. Russia. Moscow. 12/19/2019. Director of the Federal Security Service (FSO) Dmitry Kochnev (second on the left), head of the FSB of the Russian Federation Alexander Bortnikov (third on the left), Russian President Vladimir Putin (fourth on the left) and the head of the foreign intelligence service of the Russian Federation Sergey Naryshkin (second on the right in the foreground) at the solemn evening dedicated to the Day of Security Power Plants. Alexey Druzhinin/Press Service of the President of the Russian Federation/TASS