Cinema against the background of disaster

Leonid Gozman - about the reaction of the protest part of society to the "traitors" of Maria singers

The editors may not share the opinions of the author.

The reaction to the event is more often more important than the event itself. No matter how they evaluate the film “Master and Margarita”, it is clear that the disputes around it are an independent social phenomenon caused not only and not so much by the film as the tension accumulated in society. The same thing about the film "Traitors" - the reaction to it is more important, and even more interesting than the film itself. He speaks not so much about the film as about the state of the protested part of the society.

Assessments-according to the U-shaped curve. A lot of admiration, a lot of sharp denial and there are almost no neutral-calm reactions. Devoted Supporters of the FBK are delighted (by the way, that no one or almost none of them criticizes, it seems that as many said before, a variety of opinions is not welcome in this group). People who lived in the nineties, for the most part, treat the film quite critically - everyone says that it was not so or at least more complicated. Although among this category of spectators there are those who approve, and very emotionally.

I didn't like the film. In my opinion, there is no new information or almost no, with the exception of details that do not always look 100 % reliable.

The stylistics of the presentation causes me a sharp rejection - associations with the style of official propaganda, as can be seen from the discussion, did not only arise.

Argumentation and sources sometimes just horrify-well, how, for example, you can use at least some extent information coming from Korzhakov? Yeltsin’s perennial footman, who, having quarreled with the owner, began to pour the mud of himself and his family and who, knowing the secrets of this family (not corruption, but human, which in any family) began to betray their publicity, even giving out the secret of the birth of the child Tatyana Dyachenko-this is somehow completely outside the categories. The boy then, by the way, still studied at school and, they say, learned everything from classmates. And we are offered to trust the testimonies of such a person.

But my opinion is not so important - I am addicted. I was - I had the honor to be! - A member of the Gaidar team, my negativity can be attributed to the desire to protect your friends and myself. And I'm not a film critic to evaluate this work. They argue, discuss, which means they look, and in PR, including in the political, "everything except the necrologist." You can congratulate.

But this film can and should be evaluated not as a work of art or historical analysis, but as an act of political struggle. The authors are trying, relying on the formed core of supporters, to expand the support base at the expense of people who are negative about the nineties. Here they act as in eastern martial arts - use the enemy’s body energy. A negative attitude towards the nineties is largely formed by the same Putin authority with which they are fighting, but at the same time they repeat the arguments and formulations of their enemies.

And here I have at least two objections. Maybe purely personal.

Firstly, I cannot support the fight against evil, which is carried out with the help of lies. And the simplification and message only of the information that corresponds to your concept is also a lie. Sometimes more terrible than direct lies. Yes, the Putin years stem from the nineties, if only because they are after. But from the eighties, the thirties, from the "lost reign" of Nicholas the Great, from centuries of autocracy and from the Horde. As our today is predetermined not only yesterday, but also for what happened to us for a year, ten, twenty years ago.

To see Putin by the product of Yeltsin and only Yeltsin is not just a simplification, but an unforgivable simplification of reality.

Yes, corruption around Yeltsin, of course, was. Yes, among people who came to power under the slogans of the construction of the market and democracy, there were different characters, including weak ones, who could not withstand the temptations, including frank cynics, which, in fact, came for enrichment. Although there were not very many of them - most of them withstood the audit. Gaidar did not take a dime and lived very modestly until the end of his days. Many deputies of the “Choice of Russia” after the end of authority returned to their cities, to the same small -sized ones from which they left for Moscow.

But more importantly, the authors of the film simply ignore everything that does not fit into their concept.

It was in the nineties that a market economy was created, which, despite all the distortions, exists now. It is thanks to her that in Russia there is still no hunger and shortage of essential goods. There is, I know, and the point of view that this is the root of evil - if they did not create a stable market economy then, everything would have had a long time to fall apart, having buried the Putin regime. Yes, but buried and tens of millions of people. Someone like, but I can’t look at the fellow citizens, at my neighbors, as intended to die in a purifying fire, a renewable resource.

And they ignore the main thing - freedom.

In the nineties, they did not close the media that were objectionable to the authorities. Yeltsin was worried about ridicule and critical statements, but did not allow his courtiers to "restore order."

And maybe that corruption was not so terrible - terrible, but not so terrible - since so little wrote about it then. Nevertheless, there was a press, and opposition factions, and fronting governors. Even the impeachment was nearly announced. Then, for the investigation of corruption at the very top, not the prison of the luminary, but a place in parliament. Maybe those who could conduct such investigations then saw the situation not as black and white as politicians trying today to intercept the concept of “dashing nineties” in power?

Then theaters opened and books were published, then there were no censorship, and the initial military training was canceled in schools - the children stopped walking in construction. The fierce critics of the nineties were brought up precisely then, in conditions of unprecedented freedom in Russia. This is Gorbachev, Yeltsin and their supporters provided the possibility of such a tough attitude towards himself and their time. "Halfest generation"!

I also have claims to Yeltsin (by the way, I voted for him, which I do not regret). In addition to the obvious - Putin and the Chechen war, which indirectly predetermined the choice in favor of Putin as the successor - my claims that he did not disperse the KGB and did not give out according to the merits of at least those employees who directly participated in the suppression of freedom and other lawlessness. For example, he did not take out, for example, Lenin from the Mausoleum, in the fact that he did not take extremely necessary symbolic steps. What was allowed by the loss of the "court over the CPSU." What brought the case to Decree No. 1400 ( to terminate the activities of the Supreme Council in 1993. - Approx. Ed. ). And he, in my opinion, is responsible for the fact that after the defeat of the putschists, the events of October 1993 began to be marked with an absolutely irrelevant phrase “execution of parliament”. And in general, an ideological defeat - his own and supporters of the European path - is also largely his responsibility (as, indeed, all of us). And these are serious claims, and not the “House on Autumn Street”-accusations at the level of the once famous radical communist Anpilov. Yes, there are serious claims to Yeltsin, but I remember what he did for the country, and is grateful to him for that.

Secondly, the political action-and we talk about the film in this capacity-cannot be evaluated without the analysis of the consequences to which it leads.

In this case, it contributes to the ultimate primitivization of the picture of the world and consolidation against internal enemies, among which each disagreement falls.

Democracy and freedom may not be approved on this base, but only a new demagogic dictatorship. And Putin should award the authors of the film. Secret decree.