Monday, December 1, 2014

Window on Eurasia: The Return of Yet Another Soviet Rule – ‘Criticize but Don’t Generalize’


Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, December 1 – In Soviet times, censors prevented any criticism of the top leadership but they permitted a remarkable range of criticisms of the subordinate parts of the system as long as journalists and scholars followed the principle of “criticize but don’t generalize,” that is, as long as the problems were not presented as a product of the system.

 

            That principle, Ivan Davydov argues, has now been restored not only for the state-run media but for any social protest. “Any attempt at generalization or going beyond the limits of ‘small affairs’ which would ‘make our life better is now under prohibition” from the powers that be (snob.ru/selected/entry/84492).

 

            The Moscow commentator says he draws this conclusion from the combination of a new report by the Russian Social Chamber about the state of civil society in Russia and of the attacks on participants in recent protests by medical professionals about the reduction in the number of hospitals in Moscow.

 

            The first makes clear that the number of protests in Russia is almost certainly going to rise, something officials recognize, and the second shows that these officials are already thinking about “how to devalue the significant of any mass protest or, if that won’t work, how to describe it in a positive tone” from the point of view of the authorities.

 

            The Social Chamber report is devoted to the issue of “why the people love the president so strongly an unqualifiedly,” a “risky” theme given that people should not need an explanation for this and if they do that raises questions as to whether it is true, questions that could lead to being identified as one of “the national traitors.”

 

            But what is more interesting in this context is “another fragment of the document devoted to ‘the new generation of activists” who are changing the landscape of civil society,” not in a “virtual” sense but in a “real” one by working to “change life for the better” by working for improved roads, better hospitals, and the like.

 

            Moscow’s doctors would seem to fall into this category: they are after all protesting to seek better medical care for the Russian capital’s residents. But they have been attacked by the state media which have suggested that those engaged in the protest aren’t very numerous and by officials for the fact that various protest groups have joined them.

 

            One can draw “a direct line” between these two, and from it draw three important conclusions.  First, “from now on protests are permissible,” something many may find difficult to believe but a line explicable because there are going to be protests and the regime doesn’t want to present itself as opposing something it can’t stop.

 

            What it does want to do is to set clear limits: specialists can protest for special goals, but they can’t go beyond the limits of their “sandboxes” or “problems” will arise.

            Second, and deriving from the first, Davydov continues, is that protest by Russians is permissible only if those engaged in it are from the same particular group and not linked to others and if their demands are very narrow, specific and local and do not touch on the system as a whole.

 

                And third, “and this is the main thing,” the commentator says, the regime seeks to exclude any possibility of “political protest as such” because “any attempts at generalization and at going beyond the limits of ‘small affairs’ which are designed to ‘make our life better’ are banned.”

 

            The only people in this scheme who will be permitted to advance political demands are “professional politicians,” and they are at least for the time being fully controlled by the Kremlin.

 

 

 

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