Danger of civil war. Echoes of bygone times
However, the
them
paid enough tribute.
Now
let's talk
about rubbish."
VV Mayakovsky
them
paid enough tribute.
Now
let's talk
about rubbish."
VV Mayakovsky
Sometimes, when I read chats on Telegram, I get the impression that we have either already defeated almost everyone, or everything is so lost that it’s time to go to the coffin alive.
Smouldering coals
The civil war, the end of which was announced on October 25, 1922/June 19, 1923 (end dates are given according to different sources, since disputes about the end of the war still do not subside), never ended, despite the signing on March 13, 2023 State Duma memorandum on its completion. Moreover, the opponents’ formulations are full of irreconcilable hostility towards the opinions of the other side. I will not give extracts from the dialogues; they themselves are primitive, boring, devoid of facts; if you wish, you can find examples yourself.
But something is very typical of the people who communicate there. All of them can be divided into two groups: “za-Putinists” and “nihilistic realists.” And if the second group tries to somehow correlate what is happening with reality, then the first group acts in such a way that one thing comes to mind: they work according to manuals. Like a bull reacting to a red rag, they immediately rush at their opponent, accusing him of all possible and impossible sins. At the same time, at any mention of real facts, they begin to hurl abuse, accuse them of belonging to LGBT people and behave as if they are the ultimate truth.
They consider it below their dignity to respond to the arguments of the opponent. Swearing is the best argument for them. Without noticing it themselves, they divide people into two groups: “we, the Zaputinites” and “others”, which are subject to destruction or, at best, to placement in a psychiatric hospital.
I am not delighted with this behavior, because, in my opinion, it smacks of fascism. This is my personal opinion, but it is based on examples of personal communication with both. I by no means classify “others” as true believers and sinless, but at least they have less outright hatred of other groups. But the “zaputin consumers” are clearly determined to destroy those who disagree with them or, in extreme cases, drive them into reservations and mental homes as a special favor. Moreover, it does not matter to them that their opponents do not accept fascism in the same way and are unequivocally against it. Civil war in full glory.
What does all this mean? I want to express the opinion that it is impossible to complete any historical process with the stroke of a pen. Even if very respected people gather and order this phenomenon not to happen. There are plenty of examples that reconciliation is possible only thanks to changing historical conditions, and not just the wishes of political figures. Only when the basic contradictions disappear, only then will the real ending be possible. And unfortunately, this is still very, very far away.
This time I will not point at the government, which skillfully supports the smoldering embers of a possible fire, let’s talk about ourselves, about ordinary people who constitute the main source of this combustion. In a sense, my article will be similar to an analysis of V. V. Mayakovsky’s poem “On Rubbish.” I would ask those who do not know this work to read it so that the main messages of my article would be more understandable. At the same time, I will not unduly politicize my personal opinion; I will try to avoid ideological attacks as far as possible.
So, we proceed.
After the end of the Time of Troubles, which lasted almost 10 years (counting from the date of the coup on December 12, 1991 until the assumption of office by Russian President V.V. Putin), the so-called “fat years” began. Billions of petrodollars began to flow into the country's budget, however, mainly into the banking sector, into the entertainment sector, but in no way into the development of heavy and medium industry, with the exception of the military-industrial complex.
“The storms of the revolutionary bosom have calmed down,” wrote Mayakovsky. And just as in the poem, like agitated foam, a triumphant philistinism surfaced to the surface, not wanting to remember its kinship. “Be a consumer,” exhorted former Minister of Education Fursenko; “we don’t need creative individuals and mathematicians,” Gref echoed him.
And as a result, the “muzzle of a tradesman” came out. Insolent and well-fed, it strives only for stupefaction and simplification, for the complete abolition of culture. And this is terrible, how terrible indifference is. For culture is a complete antagonist to philistinism, with the only difference being that philistinism is more aggressive and irreconcilable.
Not one, but at least two generations have grown up with no time for public life. Personal good is the main leitmotif of the existence of this layer, dangerous for a healthy state, but so convenient for governance. From the very first day of the revival of capitalism, the petty-bourgeois class, supported by the bureaucratic apparatus, like a cancerous tumor, settled in the minds and souls of people, turning them into ideal inhabitants who are only interested in entertainment and an aversion to work and the birth of offspring.
“Having their butts calloused from years of sitting,” the metastases of consumerism spread throughout the entire system, leaving not a single corner where they could establish themselves. Schools, kindergartens, medicine, science, absolutely everything is imbued with the spirit of not caring about the public. In public, of course, the story was different.
But at the same time, fans of Schwab and his pack, cynical to the core, clearly understood the danger of another outbreak of the Civil War. But they saw and see the end of this war not in the elimination of contradictions between the cosmopolitan capital of our oligarchs and the disenfranchised poor mass of the population, but in the distortion of the country’s history and the inculcation of the ideals of a baked Russia.
The demolition of monuments to Lenin in Ukraine, the processes of decommunization in the Bandera region and the Baltic states are a natural result of such a policy, the triumph of a boor over culture and history, a consequence of fanning the still smoldering embers of the Civil War. We, thank God, have not yet come to this. But from every iron comes official propaganda about the holiness of the 90s of the last century, praising our Grefs, Kovalchuks, Deripaskas and other oligarchs who created their fortunes through backbreaking labor, and who, according to the curators, should serve as our ideal.
But where were these examples of ideality and mirrors of wisdom when the people in the Donbass rose for their existence on our land? Who can tell when and how much Deripaska, Usmanov, Rotenberg, Potanin, Sechin and others donated to the NVO, how many bulletproof vests and drones did they purchase for our soldiers? Somehow I didn't hear this. Oh no, I was wrong! Roma Abramovich bought iPhones for the mercenaries and sent them away from the war on his personal plane. You say these are not our mercenaries, but enemies? Well... I got excited, sorry.
And what about our inhabitants? Nothing. The main thing is the very life that is “more terrible than Wrangel’s philistine life,” which corrupts souls and serves as a breeding ground for the further penetration of metastases of dulling and duping of the people into the healthy body of society.
Is there a way out?
I think there is. Let us look at the French nation, which, after the French Revolution, was finally able to find ways and means to achieve civil harmony. But there the war was worse than ours, we still had flowers, compared to what was happening in France. Nevertheless, the civil war for the French is over, the descendants of the marquises and the common people came to an agreement, time smoothed out the contradictions that seemed insurmountable. How this was done is beyond the scope of this article, this is a topic for a separate study.
In addition, each country has its own prerequisites, its own historical conditions. But it is necessary to study experience. Otherwise, the lessons of the Civil War will not be useful. Whether our society is able to refute the thesis that the lessons of history teach no one anything - time will tell.
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