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18.12.07
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The Work Of The Successor
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Comment by Alexander Arkhangelsky
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Can Medvedev Reconstruct the System Without Being Broken By It?
The Chekists have their own pride and their own understanding of a common goal. Politics for them is not a freestyle game of public passion, but a coldly planned special operation –somewhere in some secret documents, the end has been clearly defined, all the stages determined and all the funds accounted for. But to make sure the enemy doesn’t suspect anything, doesn’t have a chance to get ready and prevent the blow, the information has to be delivered in doses. It is a system of false moves, deceits, and red herrings.
This is the way the Duma election campaign was organized, and this is how the presidential campaign will play out, too. En route to Dec. 2, the Chekist elements threatened Russia’s neighbors, frightened the liberals, waved a red and black flag in the air, and after all that, they presented the likeable Dmitry Medvedev and the public breathed a sigh of relief. The question of what will happen with democracy and what we should do with the existing system did not arise; the minority was intimidated by such excessive self-defense that even the slightest reduction of pressure evoked a feeling of gratefulness and peace. The day after his name was announced, the Successor had to bend a little and give the system some guarantees: he agrees to play by the rules, he will offer Putin the post of prime minister and he is willing to stay in his place. However, even this could not ruin the impression that this unstable, transitional system is still better than a totalitarian monolith.
Although I fully share the common preferences of moderate liberals, and although I have nothing against the successor personally and even sympathize with him, I can’t help asking what kind of transition this will be. Are we moving from an era of monolith to an era of gradual liberation or is it simply a transition from nowhere to nowhere, in which case, it will not be a transition at all, but rather an endless balancing over the absolute nonsense of Chekist politics. If we are ready to slowly, without any shocks, move forward, toward responsible freedom, then let’s do it. No one is interested in shocks. Certainly there are trials and conflicts that await us on this unhurried path. We will be trip; we will have to fall, but we will learn to get back up, shake ourselves off and start moving again. But if we are facing another smoke screen that serves only to prolong the self-sufficient Chekism, then I am not interested.
The secret services are not inherently bad, but they have become tied up in things in which they have no place, mainly politics. Additionally, they have been misinterpreting their actual job, which is to ensure the safety of the public. In the seven years that the security officers have been in power, the process of blurring the lines between things that are their responsibility and things that are not has reached a catastrophic scale. The endless games for the sake of keeping power, the endless replacements, exchanges and set-ups have already caused the country to lose focus. It is now held together only by external unreliable clamps. And the internal clamps, the system that has steadily and firmly taken over almost all functioning structures, all instruments of influence, is not able to guarantee that it will not self-destruct. The most shameless election campaign in the modern history of Russia, with controlled subordinates, with calls made to superiors about voting results, with agents in civilian clothes counting the ballots, did not bring the desired result. Putin had no choice but to give United Russia his main political capital – his unconditional personal popularity. It helped, but not too much, and it will never work again. The system is incapable of making an independent decision. It keeps hoping that it can go around and wait until it’s over, that there is no need for self-definition or for starting a new process of searching for the meaning of Russia’s existence. It’s enough to hide behind the successor – and his master.
But the system can’t hide forever. All the talk about Putin becoming a strongman, and, like Franco, progressing from a temporary prime minister into a leader for life, run up against one simple objection. The semi-mystical status of such a person has to be substantiated by something more than the immediate short-term goal of maintaining stability or the obvious horror at the though of all institutions crashing if the strongman abandons the power. This status has to be substantiated by values; a ruler for life stays forever not because the system will fall without him, but because he personifies the goal of the national movement, because he is connected with the popular belief that our people are the “chosen” people, that our nation has a historical destiny. In today’s Russia, we don’t know what values, what image of the universe, what meaning of earthly existence or celestial destiny we are preparing to use to substantiate the election of our leader.
The Successor has the most difficult position in this situation. He has to demonstrate weakness so that the system wouldn’t crush him, but he also has to demonstrate strength so that the system won’t crash. He also must try to steer the country toward a new system, with the secret services on the bottom, where they are meant to be, where they would be dealing with their appropriate tasks, for which the country would thank, respect and honor them. In this new system, culture and education would be equal to economics, because the future depends on them. Only if Russia has the strength to make this transition, will it truly reclaim its place in history. |
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