Russia needs two conditions for a breakthrough
The current economic crisis in Russia is a completely new reality, and in order to survive and overcome it, one must understand and accept this reality. Essentially speaking, this is not a crisis as such - as a natural, albeit unexpected, consequence of objective factors - but the result of rough economic pressure from the West. We were dragged into an economic war in which the West is the aggressor and Russia is the victim.
And here the laws of the market, to which we were accustomed to all the post-Soviet years, no longer apply: they manifested themselves in a particularly wild form in previous crises, when everyone is for himself and the one who grabs the most survives.
No, now the laws of the Patriotic War are more and more relevant, when it is possible to survive and win only by uniting and acting in solidarity in the name of victory, when social justice does not contradict efficiency, but is its integral part.
In the meantime, many of us react to the crisis in the spirit of the notorious market. When, under the guise of dollar growth, sellers of goods and services not related to the dollar, increase prices by 200-600%, not wanting to lag behind imported goods.
When, under the pretext of cutting costs, top managers throw people out on the street, and leave their bonuses in the budget as effective expenses.
When officials, instead of weakening the levies on medium and small business, stifle it even more.
When banks, which have lost the ability to borrow money in the West, take rubles from the state and run to exchange them for dollars, the more weakening our currency; when big capitalists do not want to follow the example of Usmanov, Vekselberg and return assets to Russian jurisdiction, but hope to survive offshore.
When big-name patriots, at the first weakening of the ruble, run to the exchange office and buy dollars.
These are all old habits developed in our liberal, non-sovereign economic model. However, now this behavior is tantamount to suicide. The growth of the dollar is not so terrible (there was more), as our own reaction to the weak ruble: to quickly buy the currency and raise prices. The fall in oil prices and the loss of surplus profits are not so terrible as the hysteria of the Russian establishment for this: why, we will not be able to have an annual profit growth of hundreds of percent!
The challenges facing the country are not so terrible as the unwillingness of Russian officials to understand the chances that the aggression of the West gives Russia to Russia is pernicious. After all, we are actually forced to become independent and self-sufficient.
Russia needs a new economic model, new rules of life. Actually, the Russian leadership has been preparing for this all the years, restoring the economy and creating points of growth, while allowing people to eat up and improve their life: as Igor Shuvalov, who represented the first anti-crisis measures, said in the State Duma, all the previous fifteen years, the Russian leadership made a choice in favor of the growth of social security of citizens and did not embark on painful structural changes in the economy, largely for the reason that the people themselves were not ready for this.
Having experienced terrible shocks and losses in the 90s, when reformers broke the country over the knee for the sake of their dogmas and the interests of their Western "partners", in the following Putin years, Russian citizens - both the elite and everyone else - happily sat on the oil needle, and more addition - on the petrodollar.
However, the very first signs that the Kremlin was going to get rid of the petrodollar and was preparing, on the basis of the Eurasian Economic Union, a smooth transition to an alternative dollar financial model, led the West, using Ukraine as a detonator, decided to thwart these plans and bring Russia down before it will become uncontrolled by the Fed.
And now we will have to switch to a new model under the blows of the dollar system, being still dependent on it. Yes, Russia needs development - modernization, mobilization, industrialization, call it whatever you like. The main thing is to make a breakthrough, high-quality development in a short time. And it is clear that such a leap is impossible without exerting strength and certain hardships.
Neither Stalin's industrialization, nor Roosevel's modernization, nor even more so the Chinese economic miracle, was accomplished, as Dmitry Kiselev correctly noted in his yesterday's program, "tenderly and richly." It has always been associated with at least "tightening the belts" today for the sake of "untied belts" tomorrow, for the sake of the prospect of a better life. Life not only for your own, but for the whole country.
But when Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov, announcing the transition to a new model and trying to formulate motivation, uses the long-standing liberal clichés "either development or social spending", and Kiselev even scares people with "shock therapy", then this can only demoralize and ruin the correct message ... Nothing of the kind should even be discussed.
Shock therapy is just a tool of the dollar system in relation to the conquered countries, the population of which is specially placed in conditions of survival, and the creative ability of the economy is reduced to zero. It is carried out by local foreign agents who are paid to destroy the national economy. Actually, shock therapy is now being carried out in Ukraine, and as a result, the country is on the verge of collapse in a matter of months.
In today's Russia, the situation is reversed. Despite the pressure from the United States and the entire West, which demand from the Kremlin a return to liberal forms of extermination of the people of the 90s, the Russian leadership is choosing the path of upholding sovereignty. And for the sake of this, it is ready to enter into confrontation with the West - both in the Donbass and on the economic front.
Therefore, the only way out for Russia is to accelerate the change of the economic model with a stake on the real sector and the ruble, which are not tied to the dollar. It is clear that during the transition from the old model to the new one will require a colossal strain on the resources of the country and the population.
This means, among other things, a reduction in social spending, and increased requirements for each citizen, and much more from the realities of mobilization development.
However, at least two conditions are important here. The first is the example of the country's top officials and the elite, who should be the first to switch to new principles of the economy and life in general: justice, responsibility, and universal solidarity.
The people must see and understand that the authorities and the elite will go along with them to the end. Moreover, those who set an example of serving the state and society, who will “tighten their belts” first to themselves, and then to their subordinates and those around them, should become the elite.
And the second condition, closely related to the first, is that each of us can clearly see that the resources saved by the country and the goods and services produced by the people go to the very qualitative development of Russia, and not to the private illegal property of individuals.
It's not about everything being perfect, it's about principles. And they are simple and understandable to everyone: we must together help Russia win the clash with the West and reach a new level of development in order to preserve it and glorify it for centuries.
If Russia is good, it will be good for us and our children in the future. We are ready for hardships and difficulties, but with a fair and even distribution of them among all.
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