Is Russia Revolutionary or Russia Without Revolutions?
The picture of the probable future drawn below has the right to exist at least as a hypothesis. Trying to look at the future without rose-colored glasses of endless lies and propaganda. In this sense, the author resembles a researcher who writes about the drug business, without being a drug addict or a drug dealer. I do not want a revolution and wrote many times why: revolution is almost always blood, chaos and poverty. But at the same time, it is necessary and honest to recognize that, through revolutions, through the renewal of systems and ruling elites, many nations made unprecedented leaps in development. An alternative to revolution is degradation, followed by the conquest of the country by more developed neighbors. About how this happens, could tell the Byzantines.
Khodorkovsky’s recent statements about the desirability of a revolution in Russia are absolutely hypocritical in their essence. The revolution provides for a transition to a different social formation, a new way of development. Mr Khodorkovsky and his patrons do not want a revolution with radical changes in the state and society, but an oligarchic coup d'état modeled on the Ukrainian Euromaidan, when the authorities simply changed their faces, and the government itself only became even more cannibalistic. The current system of oppression and colonial exploitation of Russia suits them all, except that it is not they who are in charge.
Genuine revolutions differ from oligarchic coups just as much as a cat on a sofa is different from a sea cat. If a coup can be created literally from scratch, then conditions must arise for a revolution. First of all, socio-economic, in the second - political. It is foolish to think that the revolution is happening because someone, especially such an “authority” as Khodorkovsky, calls for it. It happens when society reaches its boiling point. In response to the shouts of “not rock the boat,” this very boat is already being heated with a special frenzy and hatred.
For Russians 2016 year promises to be a difficult year. The socio-economic crisis, the difficult international situation and many other factors can radically shift the situation in the country in one direction or another. Accumulated social fatigue and thirst for change will lead to an inevitable outcome. It does not matter whether we want it or not. If the changes are ripe, then the phase transition will take place. The only question is when it will burst and in what conditions. Experience stories shows that if the importance of the transition is realized by the country's leadership itself, then it carries out the necessary reforms by volitional decisions - then the state will remain until the next frontier. If the ruling class is concerned only with preserving its own well-being, expect trouble, because the revolutionary whirlwinds will simply sweep away everything in their path.
Background
By the middle of the 2000s, a rather favorable foreign policy background has developed around Russia. It could not be called ideal, but we have such convenient conditions once a hundred years, if not less. At the same time, an economic upturn began, caused by the rise in world energy prices. The oligarchs grew rich at an unprecedented pace, and the crumbs from this feast fell to the people who, for the first time in a long time, healed a little better and answered the authorities with high ratings of real support. The war with Georgia in 2008 was the final act of symbolizing the legitimacy of the power of the ultra-liberals, which came to power as a result of the upheavals of 1991 and 1993. But everyone has forgotten that legitimacy is both acquired and lost. And it is lost it much faster and easier than it is acquired.
In Russia, there remain three key issues for the existence of the state: economic; foreign and national. And the national question we must first of all be considered the issue of the rights of the Russian people. In Russia, the Russian people are still the most humiliated. In this sense, "tolerance" we won much earlier than in Europe itself, even in early Soviet times with the proclamation of "multinationality" and "internationalism."
Why do the most radical patriots dream of liquidating the existing statehood of the Russian Federation? The answer is simple. If the liberals simply hate everything Russian, then the nationalists, on the contrary, put Russian above all. Modern Russia, in their view, is not only an absolutely anti-social state, but also deeply anti-Russian. In their coordinate system, such a state has no right to exist. Specify, not a country as an area of settlement of an ethnos united under a single administration, namely, the state as a system of values and a method of management. The roots of this hatred are very old. Proletarian internationalism, which oppressed the Russians throughout the existence of the Soviet system, and continues to do so now under the liberal shell, had a simple fact in its original basis: there were less than half of the total Russian population in the Russian Empire. In the USSR, the proportion was about the same. Therefore, active representatives of national minorities, occupying key government positions, in every way sought to suppress the Russian self-consciousness and develop nationalism of autonomies, from which they themselves came out. It ended predictably - the collapse of the country.
The modern Russian Federation, despite all the Russophobic experiments, has 82% of the Russian population and 2-3% of those who can be considered (and who consider themselves to be) Russian. It is this population that has been consistently oppressed by national minorities since 1917, but no spring can be squeezed ad infinitum. Considering how much the Russian “internationalists” squeezed the Russian spring first, and then the post-Soviet “universal human” system liberals and democrats, we can only roughly imagine how ruthless the answer will be when the spring moves in the opposite direction. The ideology of the new revolution is likely to be precisely nationalism, mixed with the demands of social justice. This ideology can be called radical patriotism or national communism. Moreover, nationalism is not so much ethnic as ideological. For the first time, this ideology showed itself on the barricades of the defenders of the White House in October 1993. After the dispersal of the Supreme Council, radical patriotism went underground, but its main ideas continue to hover in the air. And the further, the more. It is impossible to destroy this idea, because it is based on the instinctive desire of every person for maximum freedom and justice.
Previously, the ruling class itself has repeatedly made it clear that it has no common values with the people. This was manifested not only in fundamental decisions, but also in all sorts of illustrative gestures. Do you remember how Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov flashed in the tenth row on the Parisian “unity march” dedicated to Charlie caricaturists, while thousands of people died in the Donbas? Or how in the 2011 year on the central Russian TV channels live show (!) Showed the wedding of the British Prince William?
All these episodes, along with others, emphasize the national humiliation of the people and the dependent status of the country. The rigidity of the elite, coupled with its isolation from the general population, will inevitably give rise to its own, Russian revolt. It doesn’t matter whether he is Orthodox, nationalistic, anarchist or otherwise. Injustice in the distribution of goods and the suppression of any, even quite peaceful protest, simply guarantees an explosion of discontent, which in the most disastrous scenario threatens to split the country into several parts.
Already at the second stage of the revolution, such militant nationalism, as once Bolshevism, would lead an offensive against neighboring Russian-speaking territories, joining and assimilating them. It is most likely that they will not succeed in returning all the lands that were part of the former Russian Federation, but at the same time some Russian-speaking territories that are now part of the former Soviet republics will be annexed, because nationalists never recognize the borders that they were painted by Soviet leaders to the detriment of the Russian people and later, with the division of the USSR, enshrined by former nomenklatura, recoloured in the "Democrats".
Of course, it will not be possible to return some territories in the process of rebuilding the country, as the USSR could not return Finland or Kars, but this is not required. The USSR could, without these areas, become a superpower and go into space. The question is in the idea and organization, and then in the resources. But the idea - the foundation. Not some muddy ideology, which is forced to cram in schools and universities, namely, an idea that is simple and clear to everyone. Of course, later the bright idea will turn into an obsessive dogma, and the control system, even the best, will ossify and begin to degenerate - such is the fate of any, even the most ideal community. But here it is not for us, but for future generations to decide.
Helpless and humiliated
National humiliation is felt more acutely when there are obvious failures in the international arena. The dominance of traders in foreign policy led to the fact that the interests of the country became the subject of trade. We want to build nuclear power plants in Turkey at our own expense; we pull (again for taxpayers' money) gas pipelines to the same Turkey and to China; we forgive billions in debts to countries that are fully capable of paying off (at least renting a part of the territory for the Russian base, if there is no money), but at the same time we prohibit the tariffs and taxes for our own citizens.
Although the word "we" is hardly appropriate here. The people of Russia did not agree to such a policy, moreover, judging by the reaction of the audience on the Internet and in private conversations, it causes an ever more acute rejection in society. The era of "cunning plans" is coming to an end.
The Russian Federation not only regularly receives unanswered dental bumps from all "partners", ranging from the developed countries of the West, ending with Kiev and, for some time, Ankara. Kiev is carrying out a genocide of Russians of Donbass - the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation threatens with a finger The shells of the Ukrainian artillery fall on Russian territory, killing and maiming Russian citizens, foreign armored vehicles drive into our land and point a cannon at our border guards — well, that's all right, these are partners. Turkey knocks down a Russian bomber - let's ban tourism and tomatoes in return! Apparently, if tomorrow the United States (God forbid!) Drops a nuclear bomb on Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, we probably, in response, decisively ... close all McDonalds.
People and history
History knows many examples when states made an unprecedented leap forward after the revolutionary changes. In Russia over the past century, a system of two revolutions has taken shape. Traditionally, the first liberal, when the old thieves and traitors are overthrown by exactly the same thieves and traitors, only more arrogant, predatory and completely unprincipled. This happened in February 1917 of the year and in December 1991. Since thieves cannot be effectively managed in principle, the situation will quickly sink to a catastrophe. As from February to October 1917 or from January 1992 to October 1993. Under these conditions, the emergence of an alternative center of power in the capital is more than likely, with the involvement of the broad masses of the impoverished and depressed population. But then there is already a “fork” - the uprising, with the support of the people, can win or not. Lenin and the Bolsheviks won because they managed to quickly capture key objects of the capital. The Supreme Council lost because it couldn’t do the same thing - either the organization let it down, or corny there were not enough resources.
In this sense, you should pay close attention to the election-2016. If we assume that the people's dissatisfaction will bring the Communist Party and the LDPR to the first roles in the Duma, pushing United Russia to second or even third place, then for the Kremlin’s current administration it will also be extremely bad news. The fact is that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party in the heat of social and economic tension and the fall of the authority of the executive branch will no longer be the same herbivorous opposition that they have been in for the last decade and a half. A decisive struggle for power will begin, and in the person of parliament, the Kremlin risks getting at least an opposition to the Duma of the 1999 model of the year, if not the Supreme Council of the 1993 sample. And the stigma will be the same figures that had recently sang the praises.
The most important thing is that a huge reservoir of disgruntled people will soon be formed, who will be able to collect hundreds of thousands, if not millions of citizens, on the streets only in Moscow. Who will be among these thousands? For example, representatives of small and medium-sized businesses, the middle class, which liberals from the government and the Central Bank, as well as corrupt officials, literally exterminate at the root. There will also be radical patriots, enraged by the betrayal of Novorossia. There will be all sorts of creative people, dissatisfied with the domination of censorship and obscurantism. In the end, the simplest hard workers will come out, whom the oligarchic system will bring to extreme poverty, and even to poverty. What happens next is impossible to predict.
Side Revolution
Now a little about the possibility of direct military intervention from outside. Someone would say that if they wanted to attack us, they would have attacked during the October 1993 speeches of the year, when the state mechanisms were in complete disorder. This is not true. In 1993, the foreign policy situation was fundamentally different. The West was completely on the side of Yeltsin and against the Supreme Soviet, as well as the militia of the national communists (they are radical patriots), who came out as a force group supporting parliament. China was still not strong enough, and the former Soviet republics themselves were in a state of internal chaos.
The army of the Russian Federation at that time, in spite of the starving soldiers and officers, possessed a huge arsenal of modern weapons, produced by Soviet industry. Now, all these arsenals are already morally and physically obsolete, and rearmament is far from such a vigorous pace, as stated on TV.
Now everything is different. In the West, they have already decided to “throw down” the Russian Federation - at least in its present form. Formed statehood and strengthened the institutions (including the army) and the former Soviet republics, with many of which Russia has already broken the pots. So in the event of a conflict in the capital “a la October 1993 of the Year” we can definitely say that this time the neighbors will not sit quietly and watch everything from the sidelines.
If at the beginning of 2008, Russia had only one territorial dispute - in the Far East, by the end of the year Georgia was added, the victorious campaign in which Moscow stopped at the first call from the West. Although Abkhazia and South Ossetia did not become part of Russia, they became unrecognized protectorates. Then there were the Crimea and the Donbass, and again the emergency stop was turned off at the wrong time. But the failure in Ukraine turned out to be much worse than in Georgia. And by the number of victims and reputational consequences. Moreover, for the first time, Transdniestria was blocked from all sides. The situation is heating up around Kaliningrad.
In such conditions, we ship far from the worst part aviation и fleet to an overseas frankly unnecessary war, depending on the frankly hostile Turkey, which threatens to block the Straits. Apparently geopolitical thinking of a higher order looks exactly like that.
The final
In such conditions, the higher power is becoming more and more like a generator of random solutions, 90% of which turn out to be catastrophically unsuccessful or hopelessly late. Under the conditions of the deepest internal systemic crisis and the rapidly growing external threat, to declare that the main enemy, they say, is international terrorism in the Middle East and climate change (despite the fact that global warming for Russia is just beneficial) is an example of exceptional cosmopolitanism and complete isolation of those who are “at the helm” from reality.
It is clear that a significant part of the members of the Federal Assembly, to whom the recent speech of the First Person formally intended, has personal property in wealthy countries. It is also clear that the opinion of the West is much more important for our elite than the opinion of its own people, who have long been held for dumb cattle. But even with all this, the binding of the message to the external listener is striking, no less than the British royal wedding on Russian federal television channels.
Where in this message is the Donbass, which was once promised to protect? Where is the Crimea in it, which in winter was under conditions of blockade unprecedented since the times of the Great Patriotic War? Where are the aspirations of tens of millions of Russians who were thrown by the government’s economic experiments on the border between extreme poverty and poverty? But nature does not tolerate emptiness and inevitably there will be new leaders who will speak precisely about what is relevant for the people and in a language understandable to them. They will remember both the suffering Donbass and the poorer Russia, the devoted Russian spring and the sold Russian world. Remember and truckers; and about scientists who are forced to go abroad; and about the workers of defense enterprises, that they forge the power of the country on outdated equipment for meager wages in cold workshops. In a word, about everything that is not customary to talk more from high tribunes.
If we talk about the missed domestic political opportunities, the All-Russian People's Front could have become the center and assembly point of the new nation, the oprichnina (in a good sense) of Putin, from which he could get rid of foreign agents of influence and corrupt officials, on the wave of the Russian spring of early 2014. But instead, the old liberal path that leads the country into the abyss was chosen. The Crimean patriotic resource is now lost, and it cannot be returned. And ONF has become a marginal structure without authority and any authority, a phenomenon about which people usually say "no one, and call it in any way."
And finally, again on the characters. As the developed countries go farther and farther, we are building Yeltsin centers. By the way, many of our systemic and non-systemic liberals were present at the opening of the latter, who publicly vilified each other, and here they suddenly showed surprising unanimity. However, the Yeltsin Center as a symbol of social inequality will hardly survive long enough.
Khodorkovsky’s recent statements about the desirability of a revolution in Russia are absolutely hypocritical in their essence. The revolution provides for a transition to a different social formation, a new way of development. Mr Khodorkovsky and his patrons do not want a revolution with radical changes in the state and society, but an oligarchic coup d'état modeled on the Ukrainian Euromaidan, when the authorities simply changed their faces, and the government itself only became even more cannibalistic. The current system of oppression and colonial exploitation of Russia suits them all, except that it is not they who are in charge.
Genuine revolutions differ from oligarchic coups just as much as a cat on a sofa is different from a sea cat. If a coup can be created literally from scratch, then conditions must arise for a revolution. First of all, socio-economic, in the second - political. It is foolish to think that the revolution is happening because someone, especially such an “authority” as Khodorkovsky, calls for it. It happens when society reaches its boiling point. In response to the shouts of “not rock the boat,” this very boat is already being heated with a special frenzy and hatred.
For Russians 2016 year promises to be a difficult year. The socio-economic crisis, the difficult international situation and many other factors can radically shift the situation in the country in one direction or another. Accumulated social fatigue and thirst for change will lead to an inevitable outcome. It does not matter whether we want it or not. If the changes are ripe, then the phase transition will take place. The only question is when it will burst and in what conditions. Experience stories shows that if the importance of the transition is realized by the country's leadership itself, then it carries out the necessary reforms by volitional decisions - then the state will remain until the next frontier. If the ruling class is concerned only with preserving its own well-being, expect trouble, because the revolutionary whirlwinds will simply sweep away everything in their path.
Background
By the middle of the 2000s, a rather favorable foreign policy background has developed around Russia. It could not be called ideal, but we have such convenient conditions once a hundred years, if not less. At the same time, an economic upturn began, caused by the rise in world energy prices. The oligarchs grew rich at an unprecedented pace, and the crumbs from this feast fell to the people who, for the first time in a long time, healed a little better and answered the authorities with high ratings of real support. The war with Georgia in 2008 was the final act of symbolizing the legitimacy of the power of the ultra-liberals, which came to power as a result of the upheavals of 1991 and 1993. But everyone has forgotten that legitimacy is both acquired and lost. And it is lost it much faster and easier than it is acquired.
In Russia, there remain three key issues for the existence of the state: economic; foreign and national. And the national question we must first of all be considered the issue of the rights of the Russian people. In Russia, the Russian people are still the most humiliated. In this sense, "tolerance" we won much earlier than in Europe itself, even in early Soviet times with the proclamation of "multinationality" and "internationalism."
Why do the most radical patriots dream of liquidating the existing statehood of the Russian Federation? The answer is simple. If the liberals simply hate everything Russian, then the nationalists, on the contrary, put Russian above all. Modern Russia, in their view, is not only an absolutely anti-social state, but also deeply anti-Russian. In their coordinate system, such a state has no right to exist. Specify, not a country as an area of settlement of an ethnos united under a single administration, namely, the state as a system of values and a method of management. The roots of this hatred are very old. Proletarian internationalism, which oppressed the Russians throughout the existence of the Soviet system, and continues to do so now under the liberal shell, had a simple fact in its original basis: there were less than half of the total Russian population in the Russian Empire. In the USSR, the proportion was about the same. Therefore, active representatives of national minorities, occupying key government positions, in every way sought to suppress the Russian self-consciousness and develop nationalism of autonomies, from which they themselves came out. It ended predictably - the collapse of the country.
The modern Russian Federation, despite all the Russophobic experiments, has 82% of the Russian population and 2-3% of those who can be considered (and who consider themselves to be) Russian. It is this population that has been consistently oppressed by national minorities since 1917, but no spring can be squeezed ad infinitum. Considering how much the Russian “internationalists” squeezed the Russian spring first, and then the post-Soviet “universal human” system liberals and democrats, we can only roughly imagine how ruthless the answer will be when the spring moves in the opposite direction. The ideology of the new revolution is likely to be precisely nationalism, mixed with the demands of social justice. This ideology can be called radical patriotism or national communism. Moreover, nationalism is not so much ethnic as ideological. For the first time, this ideology showed itself on the barricades of the defenders of the White House in October 1993. After the dispersal of the Supreme Council, radical patriotism went underground, but its main ideas continue to hover in the air. And the further, the more. It is impossible to destroy this idea, because it is based on the instinctive desire of every person for maximum freedom and justice.
Previously, the ruling class itself has repeatedly made it clear that it has no common values with the people. This was manifested not only in fundamental decisions, but also in all sorts of illustrative gestures. Do you remember how Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov flashed in the tenth row on the Parisian “unity march” dedicated to Charlie caricaturists, while thousands of people died in the Donbas? Or how in the 2011 year on the central Russian TV channels live show (!) Showed the wedding of the British Prince William?
All these episodes, along with others, emphasize the national humiliation of the people and the dependent status of the country. The rigidity of the elite, coupled with its isolation from the general population, will inevitably give rise to its own, Russian revolt. It doesn’t matter whether he is Orthodox, nationalistic, anarchist or otherwise. Injustice in the distribution of goods and the suppression of any, even quite peaceful protest, simply guarantees an explosion of discontent, which in the most disastrous scenario threatens to split the country into several parts.
Already at the second stage of the revolution, such militant nationalism, as once Bolshevism, would lead an offensive against neighboring Russian-speaking territories, joining and assimilating them. It is most likely that they will not succeed in returning all the lands that were part of the former Russian Federation, but at the same time some Russian-speaking territories that are now part of the former Soviet republics will be annexed, because nationalists never recognize the borders that they were painted by Soviet leaders to the detriment of the Russian people and later, with the division of the USSR, enshrined by former nomenklatura, recoloured in the "Democrats".
Of course, it will not be possible to return some territories in the process of rebuilding the country, as the USSR could not return Finland or Kars, but this is not required. The USSR could, without these areas, become a superpower and go into space. The question is in the idea and organization, and then in the resources. But the idea - the foundation. Not some muddy ideology, which is forced to cram in schools and universities, namely, an idea that is simple and clear to everyone. Of course, later the bright idea will turn into an obsessive dogma, and the control system, even the best, will ossify and begin to degenerate - such is the fate of any, even the most ideal community. But here it is not for us, but for future generations to decide.
Helpless and humiliated
National humiliation is felt more acutely when there are obvious failures in the international arena. The dominance of traders in foreign policy led to the fact that the interests of the country became the subject of trade. We want to build nuclear power plants in Turkey at our own expense; we pull (again for taxpayers' money) gas pipelines to the same Turkey and to China; we forgive billions in debts to countries that are fully capable of paying off (at least renting a part of the territory for the Russian base, if there is no money), but at the same time we prohibit the tariffs and taxes for our own citizens.
Although the word "we" is hardly appropriate here. The people of Russia did not agree to such a policy, moreover, judging by the reaction of the audience on the Internet and in private conversations, it causes an ever more acute rejection in society. The era of "cunning plans" is coming to an end.
The Russian Federation not only regularly receives unanswered dental bumps from all "partners", ranging from the developed countries of the West, ending with Kiev and, for some time, Ankara. Kiev is carrying out a genocide of Russians of Donbass - the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation threatens with a finger The shells of the Ukrainian artillery fall on Russian territory, killing and maiming Russian citizens, foreign armored vehicles drive into our land and point a cannon at our border guards — well, that's all right, these are partners. Turkey knocks down a Russian bomber - let's ban tourism and tomatoes in return! Apparently, if tomorrow the United States (God forbid!) Drops a nuclear bomb on Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, we probably, in response, decisively ... close all McDonalds.
People and history
History knows many examples when states made an unprecedented leap forward after the revolutionary changes. In Russia over the past century, a system of two revolutions has taken shape. Traditionally, the first liberal, when the old thieves and traitors are overthrown by exactly the same thieves and traitors, only more arrogant, predatory and completely unprincipled. This happened in February 1917 of the year and in December 1991. Since thieves cannot be effectively managed in principle, the situation will quickly sink to a catastrophe. As from February to October 1917 or from January 1992 to October 1993. Under these conditions, the emergence of an alternative center of power in the capital is more than likely, with the involvement of the broad masses of the impoverished and depressed population. But then there is already a “fork” - the uprising, with the support of the people, can win or not. Lenin and the Bolsheviks won because they managed to quickly capture key objects of the capital. The Supreme Council lost because it couldn’t do the same thing - either the organization let it down, or corny there were not enough resources.
In this sense, you should pay close attention to the election-2016. If we assume that the people's dissatisfaction will bring the Communist Party and the LDPR to the first roles in the Duma, pushing United Russia to second or even third place, then for the Kremlin’s current administration it will also be extremely bad news. The fact is that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party in the heat of social and economic tension and the fall of the authority of the executive branch will no longer be the same herbivorous opposition that they have been in for the last decade and a half. A decisive struggle for power will begin, and in the person of parliament, the Kremlin risks getting at least an opposition to the Duma of the 1999 model of the year, if not the Supreme Council of the 1993 sample. And the stigma will be the same figures that had recently sang the praises.
The most important thing is that a huge reservoir of disgruntled people will soon be formed, who will be able to collect hundreds of thousands, if not millions of citizens, on the streets only in Moscow. Who will be among these thousands? For example, representatives of small and medium-sized businesses, the middle class, which liberals from the government and the Central Bank, as well as corrupt officials, literally exterminate at the root. There will also be radical patriots, enraged by the betrayal of Novorossia. There will be all sorts of creative people, dissatisfied with the domination of censorship and obscurantism. In the end, the simplest hard workers will come out, whom the oligarchic system will bring to extreme poverty, and even to poverty. What happens next is impossible to predict.
Side Revolution
Now a little about the possibility of direct military intervention from outside. Someone would say that if they wanted to attack us, they would have attacked during the October 1993 speeches of the year, when the state mechanisms were in complete disorder. This is not true. In 1993, the foreign policy situation was fundamentally different. The West was completely on the side of Yeltsin and against the Supreme Soviet, as well as the militia of the national communists (they are radical patriots), who came out as a force group supporting parliament. China was still not strong enough, and the former Soviet republics themselves were in a state of internal chaos.
The army of the Russian Federation at that time, in spite of the starving soldiers and officers, possessed a huge arsenal of modern weapons, produced by Soviet industry. Now, all these arsenals are already morally and physically obsolete, and rearmament is far from such a vigorous pace, as stated on TV.
Now everything is different. In the West, they have already decided to “throw down” the Russian Federation - at least in its present form. Formed statehood and strengthened the institutions (including the army) and the former Soviet republics, with many of which Russia has already broken the pots. So in the event of a conflict in the capital “a la October 1993 of the Year” we can definitely say that this time the neighbors will not sit quietly and watch everything from the sidelines.
If at the beginning of 2008, Russia had only one territorial dispute - in the Far East, by the end of the year Georgia was added, the victorious campaign in which Moscow stopped at the first call from the West. Although Abkhazia and South Ossetia did not become part of Russia, they became unrecognized protectorates. Then there were the Crimea and the Donbass, and again the emergency stop was turned off at the wrong time. But the failure in Ukraine turned out to be much worse than in Georgia. And by the number of victims and reputational consequences. Moreover, for the first time, Transdniestria was blocked from all sides. The situation is heating up around Kaliningrad.
In such conditions, we ship far from the worst part aviation и fleet to an overseas frankly unnecessary war, depending on the frankly hostile Turkey, which threatens to block the Straits. Apparently geopolitical thinking of a higher order looks exactly like that.
The final
In such conditions, the higher power is becoming more and more like a generator of random solutions, 90% of which turn out to be catastrophically unsuccessful or hopelessly late. Under the conditions of the deepest internal systemic crisis and the rapidly growing external threat, to declare that the main enemy, they say, is international terrorism in the Middle East and climate change (despite the fact that global warming for Russia is just beneficial) is an example of exceptional cosmopolitanism and complete isolation of those who are “at the helm” from reality.
It is clear that a significant part of the members of the Federal Assembly, to whom the recent speech of the First Person formally intended, has personal property in wealthy countries. It is also clear that the opinion of the West is much more important for our elite than the opinion of its own people, who have long been held for dumb cattle. But even with all this, the binding of the message to the external listener is striking, no less than the British royal wedding on Russian federal television channels.
Where in this message is the Donbass, which was once promised to protect? Where is the Crimea in it, which in winter was under conditions of blockade unprecedented since the times of the Great Patriotic War? Where are the aspirations of tens of millions of Russians who were thrown by the government’s economic experiments on the border between extreme poverty and poverty? But nature does not tolerate emptiness and inevitably there will be new leaders who will speak precisely about what is relevant for the people and in a language understandable to them. They will remember both the suffering Donbass and the poorer Russia, the devoted Russian spring and the sold Russian world. Remember and truckers; and about scientists who are forced to go abroad; and about the workers of defense enterprises, that they forge the power of the country on outdated equipment for meager wages in cold workshops. In a word, about everything that is not customary to talk more from high tribunes.
If we talk about the missed domestic political opportunities, the All-Russian People's Front could have become the center and assembly point of the new nation, the oprichnina (in a good sense) of Putin, from which he could get rid of foreign agents of influence and corrupt officials, on the wave of the Russian spring of early 2014. But instead, the old liberal path that leads the country into the abyss was chosen. The Crimean patriotic resource is now lost, and it cannot be returned. And ONF has become a marginal structure without authority and any authority, a phenomenon about which people usually say "no one, and call it in any way."
And finally, again on the characters. As the developed countries go farther and farther, we are building Yeltsin centers. By the way, many of our systemic and non-systemic liberals were present at the opening of the latter, who publicly vilified each other, and here they suddenly showed surprising unanimity. However, the Yeltsin Center as a symbol of social inequality will hardly survive long enough.
Information