After Putin’s speech in front of reporters, the reaction of the American Embassy followed, which pointed out 10 false messages in his verbose speech and answers to questions. However, they missed out the main point, the lies were too blatant: Putin talked about Ukraine as if it was not a sovereign state. The major part of his speech was composed of recommendations and directions to the new Ukrainian government, up to which exactly referendums it should hold in the near future. At the same time, Putin was not a bit confused by the absence of logic in the combination of those directions with the non-recognition of the legitimacy of the government he was instructing.
As I say in such cases, the classics foresaw everything. Putin acted like a character from Aleksandr Ostrovsky’s comedy Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man, Nil Mamaev, who was called “the newest self-teacher,” since “he thinks he is smarter than everyone and teaches everyone. Nothing pleases him so much as giving advice.”
There is nothing demonizing in this comparison, on the contrary, Putin’s image which usually lays claims on the role of the leader of the nation, becomes commonplace and ordinary, completely devoid of charisma, which was defined by Max Weber as non-commonplaceness. There is no ideological nucleus in Putin’s speech, he does not set a supertask for the nation and the society. He is Mr. Everyman (I am sorry, I cannot write “one of us,” even though I should, but my fingers refuse to type it), he does not speak from the top of an armored vehicle or from Kschessinska’s balcony. And not even from a rostrum of some historic congress. His format is similar to kitchen discussions, not even the parlor ones. He looks more natural in a sweatshirt, or even stripped to the waist, then wearing a smart suit.
Yet this is no democratism, not even populism, but sheer neo-totalitarianism. Putin’s homeliness masks his contempt for institutional state with its protocols and other conventionalities, such as discretion while discussing other countries’ and nations’ affairs. Of course, this is inherent in the neo-totalitarian style, which has little in common with the grand style of old totalitarianism.
Classical totalitarianism was deeply rooted in the intellectual and esthetic phenomena of elitist culture, and aimed at value-based self-affirmation. It aspired at overcoming en masse the routine, both in wartime and in peacetime, and at mobilization via the atomization of the old society. Neo-totalitarianism, whose perfect (I consciously avoid the epithet “bright,” for there is no brightness involved) embodiment we see in Putin, replaces the triviality of pathos with the triviality of existence; the triviality of a rostrum with the triviality of the kitchen. It originates from mass culture, subjugating it and subordinating itself to it.
There is no point in exposing Putin’s lies. Neither he nor his followers will understand it. They all rely on the syncretic truth of a myth, and their mythopoetic picture of the world is resistant to any information. If Sergey Ivanov, head of Russia’s Presidential Administration, believes that Novosibirsk oblast is a tax donor, while Moscow is a parasite, then so is it. Who cares that in reality everything is just the opposite, moreover, Novosibirsk ranks first in the list of Russia’s top exporters of capital.
It is revealing that the reform of RIA Novosti, which becomes part of a propaganda holding, began with the virtual liquidation of reporter network in Russia. Covering domestic developments is becoming undesirable, putting it mildly.
Putin and Russians are living in a parallel reality, with different rules, values, and principles. When it comes in contact with external world, all sorts of collisions can be expected. And this is where moral assessments are indispensable.
Sending troops abroad without insignia is a disgrace for both the army and the state. Therefore there is every reason to denounce all Russian troops in Crimea as cowards and scoundrel – together with those who sent them, including the supreme commander-in-chief. What makes him and his generals even meaner is that in Crimea Russian soldiers and officers have absolutely no protection. From legal perspective they are nobody, they needn’t be taken captivity, they can be shot on the spot.
Russians are busy again,
Peeing in the neighbor’s soup,
They all turned young again,
And acquired the past power.
Russian troops in Crimea are busy with their chief and favorite occupation: making a mess of it. Exactly like they did in Georgia. Russia’s warriors have a new battle cry, from Fyodor Sologub’s Petty Demon: “Let’s foul it all up!”
But what about rational explanations, interests, profit, this and that? This is actually the rational explanation. The main goal of Russia’s foreign policy, just as of its domestic governance (Russia has already no more domestic policy) is the denial of any “non-commonplace” values. The goal of neo-totalitarianism is to deprive the entire world of “the dreams of something more,” starting with the nearest neighbors. It has succeeded in Georgia: Georgians gladly visit the occupants’ Olympics and supply them with mineral water and wine.
The OSCE and UN missions in Crimea, all visitors to Ukraine, and the entire civilized world face the same situation of historical choice as in the times of the Holodomor. Should we pay attention or turn a blind eye, should we admit or deny the evident: the armed seizure of Crimea by the Russian troops without insignia? Or, in other words, should we admit or deny that Russia’s rulers are liars and rascals.
We would so much rather not admit the fact. What then? How should one do business with these people? And it is not only business, but diplomacy as well. Should we receive them as we did before? Or should we change everything, indeed?
However, there is a way out. In all appearances, the UN and OSCE representatives will not be allowed to work in Crimea, to the mutual pleasure: the diplomats will wash their hands of it and say that they were not able to see anything or to make heads or tails of it. They will be devoid of the necessity to acknowledge Russia’s occupation. That is, the goal of the invasion will be achieved. Ukrainians will have to live with the feeling of inferiority. Such humiliations do not consolidate the nation in a long term perspective: they are followed by depression and disillusionment, and no IMF, no financial aid will help.
European and global credits and any other aid and support would become the civilized world’s attempt to make up for its impotence before the advance of Russian neo-totalitarianism. But you cannot buy a clean conscience. The today’s generation of Western politicians could join the ranks of those who would not see the Holodomor, Holocaust, concentration camps and GULAG. They could join Daladier and Chamberlain, and in the worst-case scenario, Quisling and Petain.
The new formulations of the referendum and shifting it weeks ahead suggest that Crimea will be annexed according to a Hitler-style scenario. Putin’s popularity ratings in Russia are soaring. Russia has undergone irreversible changes, similar to those described by Remarque in his novel Shadows in Paradise:
“The Nazis did not come as a bolt from the blue, and they did not take Germany by force. Only those who had left the country in 1933 can think so. But I lived there a few years longer. And I heard the roar on the radio, the thick, blood-thirsty growl at their gatherings. That was not just a Nazi party, that was Germany self.”
Besides the blood-thirsty growl, you can hear something even worse: the perpetual Russian calls to calm down and realize that everyone is a liar and has his own truth, everyone is to blame and no one in the world is to blame. And generally speaking, gentlemen, these are base matters.
What is sublime is a draft law on criminal responsibility for “anti-Russian” publications. But this is too much, obviously. With a bit of enthusiasm, any critic of the regime could go behind the bars today on extremist charges, and in the future, for high treason.
I would like to conclude with a few words pro domo sua, in defense of my colleagues. I have come across claims that not a single Russian mass information medium, not a single Russian journalist reports true information about Ukraine. I consider such an opinion an offence for Russian journalism and for Russian public, and extremely pernicious for Ukraine and Ukrainians. I would like to ask everyone to keep in mind one important thing. Under the current circumstances any resident of Russia, who will not conceal the difference between his own standpoint and the official (and thus mass) one, realizes that every text he types in on his computer could become the last one his readers will see, be it an article in mass media or a post in social networks. And it is highly likely that soon he will understand that it could become the last text he will ever write.
