Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 1 – Polls show, Boris
Kagarlitsky says, that “a significant portion of the population passively
supports those in power. But today the stress needs to be placed not on the
word ‘supports’ but rather on the word ‘passively,” which is exactly what the
Kremlin does not want given its desire for high turnout in March and
enthusiastic backing of Putin.
In an editorial for the Rabkor
journal, the editor of that publication and the director of the Moscow Institute
of Globalization and Social Movements argues that today, Russian society is divided
into two parts, one that is completely apathetic and another that is
increasingly angry (rabkor.ru/columns/editorial-columns/2018/01/31/newyear2018/).
The mass of the population “which
the present authorities can conditionally include among their supporters is in
fact simply apolitical and indifferent to everything except petty current needs
that ever more oppress them, Kagarlitsky argues. That may not seem like much, but “in the
current situation, this can be equivalent to a death sentence.”
That is because “the people will
destroy the authorities not by means of protests but rather by its indifference
to them.”
In this situation, there are many
paradoxes. In 2017, the relative stability of the crisis “began to grow into a
political crisis” because people at various levels began to recognize that
change is required and that the current powers that be are not interested in
any change that would in any way take away their power and wealth.
Now, the paradox is that the current
worsening of the economic situation may in fact work for the powers that be
because Russians will focus again even more intently not on politics but rather
on meeting their own most immediate needs. But what is going on above them
highlights a society-wide problem.
“Even the ruling circles and the
bureaucracy understand the need for change. But these groups are divided in what
direction to proceed. Because any discussion of these differences threatens “’stability,’”
the conflicts are growing but not into a real struggle for power but rather into
a situation in which “solutions simply aren’t being taken.”
According to Kagarlitsky, the
country and the state are living by inertia,” something that is visible on the
faces of those in power. Indeed, it may be that their faces already bear “’the
mark of death.’”
As the situation deteriorates, he continues,
Putin will make ever more promises; but people now know that he will not
realize any of them. But as the gap between promises and non-action grows, they
will become ever more angry viewing that gap as evidence that “the powers that
be are panicking.”
“Liberal experts complain about the ‘Sovietization’
of the economy which is now being put on military rails. Critics of liberalism place their hopes on
protectionist measures. But neither the one nor the other is real,” Kagarlitsky
argues. The former would require a different
society and different values and officials than the ones that now exist.
And protectionism is a complete
illusion for a country based on the export of raw materials with a very weak
domestic market and the collapse of private investment in industry. “Without the
conversion of the state into a locomotive of development, without nationalization,
and without a sharp change in social policy, nothing will happen.”
And that won’t happen until there is
a change in regime, he says. But even that change by itself is far from a
guarantee of changes to the best. Neither God, nor the tsar, nor Navalny, nor Grudinin
were they to win would save society.”
Society must change, but so far it is too indifferent to what is going
on to be able to make any serious effort in that direction.
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