"Crimea liberated the Russian spirit." Alexander Prokhanov on the imperial essence of Russian history and the aspirations of divine justice
“Crimea did not happen due to the national recovery of Russia, but as a result of the strengthening of the state. Now, as a result of the annexation of the Crimea, the chests where the Russian spirit was hidden have been opened. And now this resource should be directed to development, ”said Alexander Prokhanov, a writer and chairman of the Izborsk Club, in an interview with the VZGLYAD newspaper."Newest story Russia is directly connected with the name of Vladimir Putin, but this does not mean at all that only Putin writes this story, ”Alexander Prokhanov, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Zavtra, said Thursday when presenting a series of articles“ Vladimir Putin in the mirror of the Izborsky club ”:
“It’s not Putin who creates this state, he doesn’t add it up, but the mysterious state itself forms both the president and his consciousness, suggesting certain actions. This is not Putin - the master of Russian history, but Russian history is the mistress of everything that has been happening in Russia for centuries. ”
On the eve of the presentation of a series of articles about Putin, published in two issues of the magazine “Izborsky Club: Russian Strategies”, Alexander Prokhanov gave an interview to the newspaper VIEW.
VIEW: Alexander Andreevich, the events of March 2014, associated with the Ukrainian crisis and the annexation of the Crimea, have already received the name of the "Russian spring". The decisiveness shown by Vladimir Putin was a logical continuation of the course he took when he returned to the Kremlin two years ago, or was it predetermined by all 14 Putin years? When did the Russian revival begin?
Prokhanov: Russian revival began in October 1993, when Yeltsin’s Tanks shot the White House. Then Novodvorskaya said that they, the liberals, were sitting in these tanks. Shots of tanks destroyed the liberal myth in Russia. The fact that it was from this moment that the patriotic revival of Russia began, I noticed only now. Then I did not see this, and the monstrous nineties, and in many ways the beginning of the two thousandths, were perceived by me as a hopeless, black crash. However, a way out of it happened, contrary to the efforts of the elite, both patriotic and liberal - it happened because Easter Sunday was immanently laid in Russian history. After black holes and failures, inevitably, as it has already been several times in Russian history, the state is resurrected and Russian civilization in new vestments, in a new guise rises from the dust. This is happening now.
There were several stages when it was possible to say that the state discovered its recovery. From among the unobtrusive, I have already noted tank shots of the 93 of the year. There was Yevgeny Rodionov, who, during a hopeless, shameful and losing first Chechen, accomplished his Christian feat. There was the death of the submarine "Kursk", which was supposed to mark the absolute and total collapse of the state, and instead rallied the people around themselves - both rich and poor - it was consolidation in grief. This showed that the state and the people are present.
When Putin came, obvious, politologically visible phenomena of state restoration were demonstrated. The victory in the second Chechen, which stopped the collapse of the territory of Russia. The termination of the parade of sovereignties, which consolidated the space remaining for the Russian Federation, was an absolute symptom of the fact that the state is present, that it intends to exist and will not lose territory. The defeat of the oligarchs, claiming political power, that is, the absence of the state. There was a whole series of Putin’s metahistorical acts connecting the previous period with the present, an attempt to overcome the ditch of 90: the anthem and banner of the Victory, in general, the whole terminology of the Victory of 45. There was the 2008 war in Georgia, which I call the first imperial war: avant-garde, not rearguard, when Russia pierced through the Roki tunnel and entered Transcaucasia, effectively annexing Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Since then, the state has been rapidly returning to all areas from where it went into the 90-s and from where it was expelled. When did the real roll of the state towards the national-patriotic values and elites become noticeable? After 2011, when the middle class fed by Putin betrayed him, he rebelled. Bolotnaya Square became a boundary, after which Putin realized that he was betting on liberal circles, a bit, that they betray him.
VIEW: Or maybe Putin had earlier abandoned this rate (if at all, he did it), because the liberal public was trying to prevent Putin from returning long before he announced his plans for presidential nomination? They never considered him theirs, and here they felt that he would return to another, clearly illiberal Putin, putting an end to their plans to gradually take all power in the country?
AP: This class wanted to change the power, there was an attempt to cut not just Putin, but power as such. Because these layers are very sensitively fixing the strengthening of the state - and as soon as it is minimally enhanced, we still do not see it, and they already rebel against it and begin to gnaw it. It’s like peasant omens: dew in the morning is to the rain, the liberal environment comes with a hatred of the regime - it means the state is getting stronger. We still continue to hate this regime, but they give us to understand that it is enough to hate him already, because it is connected with the strengthening of the state.
In 2011, a clear building of the patriotic front began in all spheres - it is symptomatic that the Izborsk club appeared at that time. Work began on building a national-patriotic ideology, building power institutions, destroying the “fifth column”, putting pressure on NGOs, stinging everything that contributed to the Orange Revolution. The result of all this was such an increase in the subjectivity of the state, that it found the strength and ability to join, in a moment of the Ukrainian crisis, the Crimea.
The Ukrainian crisis was not predictable, it became an impromptu, but in the depths of this impromptu, when legal authority, the constitution and the state as such disappeared for a certain period, during the constitutional vacuum Putin made the immediate decision to annex the Crimea. This was done by the state, which turned out to be capable of it.
VIEW: When he joined Crimea, Putin thought only about the return of historically owned land, about strengthening Russia, or did he consider it only as the first move in the new round of struggle for Ukraine?
AP: Apparently, when he looked at the developing Ukrainian crisis, when he considered the Russian and Ukrainian potentials, the potential of individual regions of Ukraine, he realized that in these conditions the Crimea is most accessible. And he did what was possible. In the future, he probably realized that Russia is now too hard for the accession of the south-east of Ukraine. But perhaps this is not required, because it is not just a mechanical connection, it is a shaking of the entire geostrategy, not only European, but also global ...
VIEW: But Putin has already shook her ...
AP: You can fight for California, move the capital to Los Angeles. But calculations of resources and capabilities say that the Crimea will have to stop. And now with respect to Ukraine between the Americans and Russia there is a difficult compromise political game. I don’t know how it will end - Lavrov’s demands to hold a referendum and federalize Ukraine are hardly acceptable for the Americans and Kiev. So, most likely, there will be a protracted bargaining. When will the elections in Ukraine take place, does Russia recognize their results? Probably partially recognizes. In any case, it is clear that the Ukrainian state did not take place and will not take place in the future.
Sharp banderization of the southeast is impossible - we see how the Right Sector is shrinking and how the radicals in Kiev are retreating, including in the Russian language. And if it is impossible to integrate the southeast in mobilization, then it will be constantly seething and bubbling, and no synthesis of the state will work. If the decay and decay continue and the Ukrainian state itself ceases to exist again, then Russia will draw military-political conclusions, and I do not rule out that a new general Sudoplatov will appear among Putin's assistants.
VIEW: Does it make sense to negotiate with the West about a certain fixation of the intermediate state of Ukraine - to suspend the situation for a year or two or three, refusing to try to pull it over to your side?
AP: If Ukraine is suspended on thin webs, neither ours, nor yours, East-West, then in the absence of state synthesis there will be no institution, a subject that will implement the will of the Ukrainian people in history, to help create the Ukrainian nation. If instead of the synthesis there is still the same porridge, fragmentation, flabbiness, then this will inevitably lead to the continuation of rotting. I do not think that Russia will help such a rotting Ukraine, rather, it will seek to intensify this rotting so that this abscess, this tumor, will more likely burst.
VIEW: Can Russia in principle come to terms with the division of Ukraine, as a result of which not only the western regions (also Russian, but already long ago surrounded by Belarus), but also the center of Ukraine can go to the West? Is it possible to accept such a loss, forever refuse to reunite?
AP: Nothing happens forever. Borders in Europe will be revised many times. Under the influence of various factors: the European Union itself is an extremely flabby phenomenon. The processes of moderate integration that occur in Europe are what is on the surface, and meanwhile, Europe is being fascized, and the creation of several fascist states is not a utopia, but a reality. The emergence of these fascist states for a time will destroy the concept of a united Europe. And then there may be synthesis processes already under the auspices of the major fascist states, primarily Germany. So everything is so vague and unsteady that the word "forever" is impossible here.
In Russia, there is a Russian factor, and the annexation of the Crimea is in many ways connected not even with the imperial, but with the Russian factor. The concept of the divided Russian people was formulated by Putin - he took it from our lips and made it a doctrine. The task of Russian reunification is very relevant. Connecting with the help of special forces, tank columns and armies is not necessarily and not very effective - 21 century has many other ways of integration. The idea of the Eurasian Union, the Customs Union, the idea of the allied states, the germ of which exists between Russia and Belarus, is one of the ways to unite the Russian world. This is a softer and more refined way to restore community of people. It is not necessary to erase administrative boundaries - you need to create a system of states that would not compete, but would be in symphonic relations with each other. Any form of organization is now possible.
VIEW: The Eurasian project is now beyond any doubt becoming for Putin the main tool for rebuilding historical Russia ...
AP: Crimea was an impromptu for Putin himself. Of course, I would like to include the whole of Ukraine into the Customs Union, to tear it from the West - such attempts were made last December, when agreements were signed with Yanukovych. This did not succeed - a reaction arose, and the spring shook in the other direction, a crisis broke out and the Crimea fell off. If Ukraine had been incorporated into the Customs Union, the problem of the Crimea would not have been so acute. Then all Ukraine would be integrated.
VIEW: In the days of March, people experienced a feeling similar in strength to what the people of 9 experienced in May 1945 and April 12 in 1961 - delight and victory. The unprecedented rise of the national spirit, the consolidation of power and people, the return of faith in their own power, lost over the past quarter century. The meaning and consequences of this, it seems to me, are many times greater than even the fact of the annexation of the Crimea. Will we not lose this huge energy charge?
AP: It will depend on how long this experience lasts, whether it will be picked up by the state, whether it will be directed towards development. In itself, it can not exist for a long time - you can not celebrate endlessly, you need to get up and work. When working, you need to know about these salutes. The Crimea, after all, did not happen as a result of Russia's national expansion, but as a result of the strengthening of the state. The state strengthened without using the Russian factor, it was even afraid of it. He was not manifested, the state did not want to show it. If the state had begun the development which it still has not begun, then it would need to open these chests, where the Russian spirit lurked, because development cannot take place without a passionate takeoff. Now, as a result of the annexation of the Crimea, these chests have been opened. And now this resource should be directed to development.
I think this resource will be spent in two directions. First, hard times for Russia begin - pressure on us, both external and internal, will increase, and the Russian resource will be used to turn on the defense self-consciousness, this good and correct form of national self-consciousness. And the second direction is the consciousness of a new Russia, a renewed society.
VIEW: In Russian society, in fact, there is agreement on fundamental things - the rejection of unjust capitalism, the desire to restore the national cultural codes. Now Putin can move in this direction, using the huge popular support that will ensure his success in the implementation of these truly popular aspirations. But is he ready for such cardinal changes, does he understand their inevitability? He crossed the Rubicon in foreign affairs, but will he be equally decisive in the internal arrangement?
AP: I do not think that he went down this path sharply and radically. He prefers slow and evolutionary changes. After the Crimea, two completely obvious formulas will be claimed and fixed by the authorities and the intellectual patriotic community - the imperial essence of Russian history and the aspiration of divine justice. Both of these formulas will somehow be laid in the post-Crimean period. And if the imperial formula is more or less clear and the Eurasian project somehow implements it, then the formula of divine justice is, of course, shocking for the establishment and for Putin. Although she, too, will have to understand and accept.
Putin has already proclaimed the idea of de-offshorizing the economy, and tough pressure will be exerted on those in power and moneybags so that they transfer their wealth to Russia and direct them to its development. This is the first step - the nationalization of the oligarchic system, they must become the national rich.
VIEW: To make the national rich of cosmopolitan oligarchs, of course, a step forward, and it will lead to the strengthening of the state, but it will not have a big impact on changing the attitude of society towards unrighteous wealth. This is too little both for moving towards divine justice and for eliminating social inequality, which is the main threat to the future of Russia.
AP: There are a lot of threats in Russia. One of the worst is the destruction of Putin. The world is filled with plots. And the recent events will lead to the formation of an anti-Putin conspiracy covering broad areas: these are oligarchic circles, which are essentially Westerners, and that part of the management elite that emerged in the 90s and is very close to the throne, and the liberal intelligentsia, which through the network NPO is in direct communication with the West. So the anti-Putin plot is the main threat to Russia, and not a social revolution ...
VIEW: But such a conspiracy can only be successful in the form of assassination, that is, physical destruction. Because the forces to hold the Maidan or to arrange something like a top coup (like Khrushchev's dismissal by the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) are still not present for dissatisfied Putin.
AP: But Yanukovych didn’t displace the Central Committee plenum — a legal and lengthy organizational procedure was applied to him: Yarosh spoke, Yatsenyuk objected to him, then Yatsenyuk entered into this discussion, Sashko Bilyy spoke out for a legitimate process ...
VIEW: So you think that the orange, force variant in Russia is still possible?
AP: Everything is possible. If it is true that the SBU snipers shot at the Maidan, then this means that Yanukovych has shifted the SBU, or rather the oligarchs who control him. Like in Russia, the FSB is not an integral organization, and our oligarchy feeds, nurtures and controls its parts. Anti-Putin conspiracy - the main threat. And I think he feels it, he must feel, after all, he has snake intuition. The problem of updating elites becomes very acute for him.
It seems to me that Sergey Yuryevich Glazyev will be in demand in the near future as an alternative to the economic block of the government, which is horrified by what is happening now and promises Putin stagnation or even a collapse of the economy because of sanctions. Putin does not intend to listen to this bird bitten and will be engaged in updating the administrative elites. Ideological elites are already changing and almost changed.
And, of course, Putin must meet the people's ideas (not only the Russian people), and the consolidation of power and the people must occur by reducing the social gap.
We nationalize the oligarchs, and send the money into development, that is, they will not leak, but go to schools and universities, cancer centers and roads. And in many respects it would suit the society - as it was arranged by German society after 33, when German capital became national, became involved in industry and roads. One way or another this should happen. And if this does not happen, then a powerful component will appear in the anti-Putin conspiracy, which will break the entire Crimean success, the whole recovery.
VIEW: Putin’s rejection by a large part of the current cosmopolitan elite, formed in 90-s, recalls that of Stalin, which was a large part of the Soviet elite, formed during the civil war in the spirit of serving the cause of the world revolution. But Stalin decided to purge the elite only after 1934 of the year, after the murder of Kirov. Putin began to purge in 2012, obviously counting on a few years, but now time is clearly shrinking ...
AP: Stalin to 1934, the inevitable war was obvious. And for him it was the main mode of all his activities. Under this inevitability of war, he created the military-industrial industry in the five-year plan. Under this industry, he was looking for labor - therefore he was engaged in collectivization, the destruction of villages. Under this inevitable threat of war, he created collective farms, so that later he could use the free grain resource for rapidly growing cities and future wars. Under this threat, he eliminated the fifth column, which prevented him from implementing his pre-war plans, offered other projects and threatened to kill him. And most importantly, what he did and what his genius was - he understood that all these actions could not be done with the help of the NKVD, that a take-off, a giant breakthrough was needed.
Therefore, he launched two technologies. The technology of fear is through terror, death, shooting and violence. It was necessary to mobilize society. And at the same time he created the technology of sublimation of heroes. And these two technologies acted in parallel - the technology of fear allowed to consolidate a fragmented, divided society, and the technology of heroes allowed to win the war, because these heroes threw themselves at the embrasure. And they won the war by dying at 80 percent during it. And 20 percent of the survivors then for three years restored the national economy and flew into space.
And most importantly, what Stalin did, - he returned to the culture of Pushkin. That is, the basic concepts of Russian culture. He returned the art that united the people with its basic, deep cultural and historical codes. Classical music, folk songs, Pushkin as the most popular Soviet poet - all this was open and returned to the people, who thus connected to these keys and wells. Hitler for this used Anenerbe, and Stalin - Pushkin. In World War II, two forces fought - the “Gold of the Rhine” and “Eugene Onegin”. Wagner stepped up to Stalingrad, Moscow and Leningrad, and Pushkin erected the banner of Victory on the Reichstag with Kantaria. That's what Stalin's genius is in - he discovered forgotten, littered, death-scored codes during the communist wave and the civil war, connected people's self-consciousness to them. Putin will do it or not - I do not know.
VIEW: What should be the basis of Russia's economic development?
APA: Two or three very powerful projects. The first is weapons. Modernization of the military-industrial complex will cover vast social spheres - not only those cities where submarines or airplanes are built, but also science and the philosophy of the common cause. The second project is an agricultural one. Returning people to the ground, creating a national agricultural culture. This is a Russian idea - the transformation of Russia into a giant Belgorod region Savchenko, using all of its technologies. New peasant.
VIEW: A Russian person who works on the land and a Russian engineer at a military factory are the two main forms of applying the labor of our people ...
AP: And the third project is East. It is very relevant, because the complication of our relations with the West pushes us towards rapprochement with China. Both Siberia and the Far East are a zone of our joint and very large acts, economic and military. The conclusion of a military-strategic alliance with China is no longer a utopia.
VIEW: Is it possible to transfer the center of development of Russia to the East? Can, for example, Khabarovsk become a temporary, for 50 years, the administrative capital of Russia?
AP: Let Moscow remain, it is a prayer place. Transferring, renaming - these are dangerous, imitation things, they replace real things. But the value of the East is huge. In addition, where the East, the Arctic.
VIEW: Starting with Nicholas II, from time to time our leaders spoke of the enormous importance of the eastern part of Russia - and during these one hundred years the East has really been mastered in a few tricks. But still, it is considered as an appendage to the main, original territory of Russia. Can our attitude towards him change dramatically, or will Kiev, Moscow, Novgorod and St. Petersburg always outweigh?
AP: Much will depend on how the historical Russian self-consciousness will develop. If the awareness of the idea of divine justice, the idea of mystical cosmism increases and prevails, if the rapidly developing Orthodoxy is really filled with this fire and desire to bring heaven to earth, to build the kingdom of heaven on earth, then, of course, all our prayed Russian places will be precious. And in Siberia it is less. But this does not mean that the East will still be the periphery with respect to the center. All economic and military expansion to the East will sooner or later change this. The second Christianization goes along with the second industrialization - everything that I now see in Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Omsk, Novosibirsk is connected with this process. Industrialization and altars. Defense industry and churches.
VIEW: Vladimir Yakunin recently proposed the creation of a Trans-Eurasian development belt that would unite the economies and cultures of the Eurasian continent, connecting Europe and the Pacific region through Russia. At the same time, China is actively working to recreate the Great Silk Road, which pursues, albeit smaller, but somewhat similar trade and economic goals. Is this a historical choice?
AP: The Trans-Siberian route from Nakhodka to Brest and on to Europe is not going anywhere. This is not just a communication path, around it, especially around BAM, a huge amount of deposits: copper, tin, bauxite, everything. All this will require development and transportation, and it will not go along the silk road. These two projects will compete, but in the depths of the Eurasian Union it is possible to establish a balance, and then they will complement one another. There is also the Northern Sea Route.
Now it is difficult to talk about geopolitics - the nodes of contradictions become more and more painful with each passing year. Many believe that we are on the verge of a great, global war, and this threat tightens states into groups and alliances. Therefore, economic geopolitics can cost nothing compared to the geopolitics of a future war.
VIEW: Can our alliance with China be built on principles that are above the economic and even geopolitical community - can we become together thanks to the proximity of our understanding of justice?
AP: The Russian understanding of justice is based on the Russian understanding of the absolute deity. And the Russian ascent to the Tabor light, our Orthodox way will ensure the uniqueness of the Russian understanding of justice. And this understanding of justice, which will arise in Russia, will then be adapted and offered to the rest of humanity. In the form in which it can comprehend the Chinese or Arab. Such an adaptation is, of course, the task of the spiritualists, including the Russians.
Now we are not working on this - we would have to make our way to heaven. The task to break through is set - but it is not implemented. Not implemented either in the Church or in culture or in everyday life. This task is enormous and delightful, and no less, and perhaps more important, than the creation of a new industry or a new Russian geopolitics. Russian civilization in its new guise, in the guise of the fifth empire, of course, must obtain this delightful divine product. The idea of justice should be transformed from social to divine.
I do not exclude that simultaneously with the Russian breakthrough, the Islamic breakthrough, the Chinese breakthrough, will be realized. The work of humanity in 21 – 22 centuries will be aimed at obtaining this divine resource, which will become a life-giving source, fertilize both the noosphere, and the biosphere, transform the Earth.
VIEW: It will replace the idea of globalization, which the Euro-Atlantic civilization has spawned, an idea that is based on the denial of the very fact of people's need for divine justice, on the denial of the possibility of the existence of such a resource.
AP: Western civilization in its medieval incarnation was a mystical civilization, it communicated with the sky. But she never set the task of transferring heaven to Earth, she put off creating the kingdom of heaven for later, saying that it is impossible in earthly life, and perhaps only there, on the other side of life and death. And as this civilization developed, as the liberal component grew in it, the task of building an earthly paradise was transferred more and more to later, and the post-mortem heavenly life itself was increasingly questioned and, eventually, forgotten. The paradise meanings were forgotten at first, and then not simply rejected, but redefined.
And there were counter-satanic, satanic meanings. And Europe, as Dostoevsky said, began with the ideal of the Madonna, and ended with the ideal of Sodomy, which we now observe. The liberal spiritual component of the Atlantic project is, of course, the prince of darkness. This is absolute freedom, which is enjoyed by fewer and fewer people, gaining more and more power and wealth - and ultimately one person rules over all.
Information