Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 27 – Totalitarianism
can emerge in any society if conditions are created to promote the restoration
of “social and cultural archaism” as a result of “a lack of choice in politics”
and the promotion of “irrationalism in mass consciousness,” according to Moscow
sociologist Emil Pain.
Exactly that dynamic, one that
promoted “barbarism” as opposed to the triumph of rationality that Max Weber
saw as the hallmark of modernity, is on view in contemporary Russia and helps
to explain both what Vladimir Putin is doing and why his ratings are so
astronomically high (colta.ru/articles/society/7139).
Over the last two years – and Pain
insists that the events in Ukraine have been the occasion rather than the cause
of this – such archaism, including the desecularizaiton of society, the
expansion of zones of the sacred which cannot be criticized by anyone, and
hostility to the surrounding world, has been Putin’s policy and has boosted his
standing.
After the annexation of Crimea, Pain
rights, mass consciousness in Russia increasingly acquired a messianic aspect:
the notion “Great Russia is called upon to defend the Russian world from any
enemies: fascists, liberals and the West” and the related notion that Stalin
and any real leader – and by implication, Putin -- is justified in taking any
actions if he does so
To understand this, Pain suggests, one should consider the ideas of
English anthropologist E. Evans-Pritchard who argued 60 years ago that the
study of witch doctors in Africa helps to explain “the nature of
totalitarianism” and its leader cults.
Now, it is clear why that is so.
“The
cult of a leader of the nation for life and that of the witch doctor are based
on one nad the same thing – recognition of the unachievable and mystical power
of a particular individual in whom resides a magical and supernatural force or
ability” without which the nation or the tribe would die, the Moscow
sociologist writes.
According
to Pain, “the witch doctor and the leader use similar mechanisms of
subordinating the masses to themselves, appealing not to the reason of the
latter but to the emotions of a pre-cultural stratum and above all to fears and
phobias.” That is exactly what Putin is doing now.
The
totalitarian leader just like the witch doctor is able to give comfort and
eliminate fears “again by the same mystical path, above all by the elimination
of an impure force on which all attacks depend. Such mystical comfort is best
of all demonstrated by contemporary Russian propaganda.”
That propaganda creates “the image
of the horrific enemy who with the help of magic is capable of calling forth
‘color revolutions’ in any country but then comfortsits audience by showing
that it is not difficult to convert this enemy into ‘atomic dust’(somehow
without a return threat to one’s own country).”
Indeed, Pain argues, statements by
Russian military experts about the use of nuclear weapons recall the
incantations of shamans” more than any other kind of analysis. Nonetheless,
they can help consolidate Russian society around Putin, although such “negative
consolidation” is something that is very narrow and likely short-lived.
“For
positive consolidation,” one would need goals that elevated people rather than
drove them back to atavistic positions, but there are no such goals on offer or
even currently available in Russia, Pain says.
Internationally,
Russians now know who their enemies are but not their friends. Economically,
they are in the position of someone who is happy only when his neighbor’s cow
dies. And culturally, they are told they
should come out in defense of traditional values. But there is the problem:
most Russians may protest the new but no longer support the old.
As Pain notes, “classical totalitarian regimes
guaranteed social support for themselves by advancing global goals: ‘world
revolutions,’ ‘the thousand-year Recih,’ the universal Islamic khalifate,’ and
so on.” But Putin’s Russia is “positioning itself as an outsider, fighting not ‘for’
anything, but only ‘against.’”
Maintaining this is a problem given
that the enemies or obstacles keep changing, Pain says, although promoting the
idea is “one of the simplest tasks for propaganda.” But when the country can’t attack others or
cannot achieve economic growth and when the leader doesn’t offer anything else,
his backing will fall.
The magic of the leader like the
magic of the witch doctors around him allows for the manipulation of public
opinion for a time. “For the time being, it guarantees the self-preservation of
power but this magic is not total or firm.”
Indeed, “the current ‘uncompleted (and perhaps unachievable)
totalitarianism’” is closer to its end than its beginning.
“Historically,” he says, “all
processes are accelerating,and as a result, the lifetime of mobilization
regimes is now measured not in decades but in years.”
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