Autumn Patriarchs

SI and Putin in the Moscow Zoo. June 2019.

Against the backdrop of Joseph Biden and Donald Trump, to talk about the age of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping is somehow inappropriate. Compared to the former and current American presidents who can meet in the new cycle of the election campaign, the Russian president and Chinese chairman look, of course, not boys, but by middle -aged politicians - and why be shy of Russian or Chinese gerontocracy against the background of American? An indecent question, but how many years was Nancy Pelosi on the eve of the departure from the post of speaker of the House of Representatives? Yes, and Chuck Schumer is older than Putin ... You do not need to be Margarita Simonyan to blame me for double standards and unwillingness to notice a log in the American eye.

But the fact of the matter is that in a democratic country, it is not the age of the ruler, but the term of his stay in power. Biden's capabilities are limited by four, well, a maximum of eight years in the White House. And in this sense, the relatively elderly Biden does not differ in terms of planning from relatively young Obama, as relatively elderly Reagan did not differ from the relatively young Bush Jr.. In electoral politicians who fight for power and leave it (even so reluctantly as Trump), a clear horizon of planning and an accurate understanding of responsibility for errors, and even more so for the usurpation of power. The term of stay in the White House is inevitable to an end, and the American state with its independent judicial system, meticulous media and parliamentary investigations will not go anywhere. Donald Trump can tell you more about this.

The dictator has a completely different task - to stay in power forever and go down in history. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has a phantasmagorically described this state of an aging ruler. "Autumn of the Patriarch" - just the period that began both in Russia and in China. Putin and Xi Jinping already over 70. Both rurals have achieved a change in the rules of the change of power - albeit each differently, but secured their actually lifelong being in power. The policy of both led Russia and China to the most serious economic crises and failures over the past decades. At the same time, everyone needs to justify their eternal rule and strive to take a place in history, which, according to the dictator, will precisely become evidence of the expediency of the third, fourth, fifth - but any deadline. After the occupation of Mariupol and Berdyansk, Putin praised the fact that he turned Azov into the inland Sea of ​​Russia, and compared himself to Peter I. Xi Jinping went on - he achieved his ideas to the PRC Constitution and the charter of the CPC next to the ideas of Mao Zedong. And this is only the beginning.

At the same time, dictators feel a shortage of time. The relatively young Putin and Si at the beginning of their reign could think about current affairs. At the age of 70, the dictator cannot but understand that there were some ten, well, a maximum of fifteen years left to decorate the "historical role". And the "patriarch" begins to fuss.

The aged Stalin could be satisfied with the role of the winner in the war, the uniform of the Generalissimo, monuments, residents and unlimited power. But no! The monster was preparing for a new round of repressions, provoked a war in Korea, perhaps even strove for a nuclear war - that is why on March 5, 1953 it became a holiday for all of humanity, and by no means for the progressive one. Mao was already for 70, when he began his crazy "cultural revolution." And such examples can be multiplied and multiplied. The loss of adequacy, suspicion, manipulation, belief in the rationality of “loyal” crooks from the nearest environment - not even officials, can be just Kovalchuki, mania of greatness and the desire to demonstrate their historical role, coupled with an increasing crisis, the attention of which needs to be distracted by the victorious war - all this is a deliberate mixture. The same mixture that led Putin to the war with Ukraine and makes SI with increasingly attention to look towards the Taiwanese Strait.

Of course, you are interested in knowing if this depressing autumn of the patriarchs of the nuclear winter will end? Much will depend on the prudence of the West and its understanding by the leaders of the entire degree of risks, on the moods in the Russian and Chinese elites, who handed Putin and SI the keys to the casket with their own future, in the end, from fear for their own life, which is characterized even by authoritarian rulers. But there are prerequisites, what is it there.