A temporary stabilization (for there is nothing permanent at all) has set in. Whatever the outcome of the elections in Ukraine, there will still be a phony peace that has followed a phony war. The country’s internal development will be influenced by the never-ending external factor, which Russia has in fact been seeking.
In Russia itself, there is a complete consensus – all are happy with life and their own self, and things have stabilized, much to everybody’s joy. The elites have rallied together and will go on building a great empire, while statutory liberals will help them and complain that sanctions are doing harm to them, too. They are already complaining and asking not to bother them. And what are these sanctions for?
Statutory oppositionists will, as before, be at odds with logic. They will go on saying it is unrealistic to restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova even if they, oppositionists, come to power. They will also promise the fall of the regime in the next few months. This all means that they intend to change nothing in the current government’s policy, i.e., in the policy that will quickly bring this government down. But logic does not matter. The message is: isn’t it great that we have gathered here today!
Should the much-feared Russian rebellion occur, it will be under the same slogans that both the government and the opposition use – nationalism and populism. So, it does not matter whether or not you support the government, love or hate Putin. What has occurred is a very smart and reliable consolidation of society. The only object of disputes is the way abomination is manifested, not the way it should be overcome.
To understand this, the Russian intelligentsia will have to drop the centuries-old stereotype that the authorities and their critics have always been villains and saints, respectively. More than a hundred years ago, the authors of the essay collection Vekhi (Landmarks) tried to explain this to the progressive public, but the latter found it easier to cast a customary look at the world. This eventually led to romanticization of terror and complicity – even through resistance – in the construction of Russian totalitarianism which is a socio-cultural integrity that comprises the authorities, their critics, and sometimes even those who wage an armed struggle with them.
At present, the herd instinct and narrow-mindedness of the Russian intelligentsia has resulted in supporting the nationalist and populist Navalny and, now, Putin’s policy in the post-Soviet space. Saying yes to Khodorkovsky and Navalny and, hence, to Putin and “Crimea is ours” freaks, the progressive public has doomed itself to further “realism in formulations.” All it has to do now is giggle at the words “khokhly,” “ukropy” [ethnic slurs for Ukrainians. – Ed.], “rodents” (all the three from Navalny’s vocabulary), “wogs,” “black-assed,” and “kikes.”
However, Putin’s policy does not boil down to nationalist rhetoric only. To see the prospects of today’s Russia, one should carefully study the experience of separatist formations which have never been of interest to the progressive public. They should have been, though, because, starting with Transnistria, these territories are a proving ground for Russia’s future model which features violence as a source of power and law, absence of any, including economic, freedoms, ethnic cleansings, absence of a cultural and intellectual life that crosses, at least a little, the limits of governmental requirements.
Therefore, having not said a resolute “no” to Crimea-is-ours, becoming realists and pragmatists, the progressive public is taking part in the remaking of Russia, in the course of which it will be wiped out.
Intellectuals and liberals in and close to the government are aware that their wellbeing depends on the scum that can do them whatever it wants at any moment. And they call a spade a spade privately. And they laugh at an ignorant Putin, uneducated and shady spies and snitchers who have become, together with this “village club manager,” the masters of destinies. And they wince with disgust. And each of them has long been able to make a comfortable living for himself, and live even better than he lives now – not in Russia but where they keep their children and money.
But the status, the charm of being in power, and kowtowing will give way to hostility at the first signs of disgrace. They will acquire the reputation of a loser, a freak, a halfwit, and a madman if they simply go and keep silent even without calling a spade a spade.
But the main thing for them is the opinion of those who will remain in the previous status. Those who are not in their circle – compatriots and foreigners alike – have long ceased to be humans for them. The most terrible thing is to find yourself next to and on the same level with them, even if you live in a closely-guarded mansion on your own island. No, never. You should hold out to the last breath and help the ones you despise to oppress you.
The responsibility of those who have been feeling nostalgia for Soviet times for 20 years is obvious. Not so obvious is responsibility of the journalists who have made “political writing” a dirty word, as is the case of Kommersant and glossies. They have been persuading themselves and others that journalism has no mission to perform. But in reality it has a very simple one – to help people exercise their constitutional right to receive and spread information. They have de-axiologized journalism, keeping their product free of a direct protection of values. Journalism will not accomplish its mission unless these values are upheld. This is perhaps the main paradox of Russian journalism in the short period of its free development.
Historical memory has had the following particularity in all the times – the least attention is paid to what occurred very recently. The past 25 years in the history of the former USSR’s peoples are not seriously studied or interpreted. If anything is still researched, it is struggle for power, macroeconomics, and relations with the outside world.
Meanwhile, new separatist formations have been nurturing and testing what is now in the center of global politics and to which Russia is marching step by step. It was not a linear process, for it involved different forces at different times. The cliche of an omnipotent Cheka-KGB does not allow adequately assessing the army’s growing influence on the making of a separatist belt in the post-Soviet space. The Kremlin was far from always in raptures over this – suffice is to recall the way Aleksandr Lebed was domesticated. His death, like the death of many other notable people, will always remain a secret. And his political uplift began during the Transnistria conflict.
In Abkhazia, the Russians raised Shamil Basayev and many other Chechen rebels against whom they had to fight later. But still Chechnya is a different story. It was not a case of using separatism to weaken new statehood in ex-Soviet countries. Besides, the de facto seized territories saw the formation of business communities that waged an uninterrupted internecine struggle.
This is a particular – criminal and parasitical – kind of business. There is no end to its subtleties, but the general principle remains the same: the worse the better. Moreover, the local ruling elites parasitize on everything – on Russia, on their own populace, and on the economy of the countries they seceded from. Now, too, some Ukrainian politicians are urging not to sever ties with Crimea and to provide social security to the Donbas population. A new configuration is being shaped: a phony war brings a phony peace. Ukraine is becoming not exactly Ukraine, separatists not exactly separatists, and Russia not exactly aggressor.
Who says that Putin has ushered in a new era? The Transnistria, Crimea, and Abkhazia crises broke out in the first days of a new Russia. To be more exact, they continued. The same applies to mass culture. The only difference is that, earlier, it was the bastard Danila Bagrov from Brother and Brother 2, who shattered everything and killed everybody, captivated America, and avenged the Ukrainians for Sevastopol, and the “flat and soldering iron people” from the TV serial Brigade. The serial discreetly hushed up the fact that they had begun as sadists and butchers. But now movie and television screens, serials, and news programs are rife with all kinds of uniformed officers who shatter everything, kill everybody, and even openly torture people.
But many Ukrainians and Russians are saying this will not last long. The USSR collapsed even though it was larger and stronger than present-day Russia. All empires break up eventually.
Firstly, it is not in principle an argument for the collapse of Russia, as is not the mindless phrase “all empires break up.” Secondly, the Russian Federation is stronger than the now late Soviet Union, and insisting on the opposite is a typical example of linear logic. Larger does not necessarily mean stronger. It is the presence of another 14 republics that made a totalitarian Russian state weaker than the similar present-day entity. On the other hand, imperial expansion destroys empires, but, to begin with, the latter should emerge as such. The Russian empire has just begun to form, so there is nothing to break up so far. All of its real and likely problems are growth-related difficulties rather than a sign of dying. Of course, they can also turn out to be fatal, but this does not change their nature.
As for the sanctions about which the statutory liberals are complaining, they do affect the economy of Russia, but this does not mean they weaken the regime. The powers that be do not care a fig about Russia. And they act without taking into account such “trifles” as the country’s interests and economy, let alone the plight of the populace.
It is a well-known paradox: wars bring peoples together better than peace does. Now, too, oddly enough, Ukraine has come closer to Russia in a strange stabilization that leads both countries to convergence. But for Ukraine it is a rapprochement with a growing muscle-flexing empire and a degrading nation. Russia was foisting precisely this kind of rapprochement by attacking Ukraine. The empire views this as a source of its reinforcement and growth. It is now up to the Ukrainian nation to choose.
Dmitry Shusharin is a Moscow-based historian and political journalist
