Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 19 – The increasingly
large and blatant appointment of the children of the current Russian elite to top
jobs closes off the possibility for upward social mobility in the population
and opens “the path to social and political catastrophe … and quite soon,” according
to Znak commentator Yekaterina
Vinokurova.
She points to the appointment of the
22-year-old son of Nikolay Patrushev to be agricultural minister whose only obvious
qualification is that he is the son, she says (znak.com/2018-05-18/ekaterina_vinokurova_o_detyah_elity_spravedlivosti_i_socialnom_vzryve) as only the
latest and most obvious example of this dangerous trend.
No one in Russia is surprised by
this anymore, Vinokurova says; and when people do challenge officials about it,
they are told that “in America, it’s just the same with the clans of the Kennedys,
Clintons and so on.” Moreover, they’re
told that this is “part of the payment for the stabilization of society and hardly
an attempt to impose a new aristocracy.”
But those who make these arguments
forget, she says, that not long ago in the United States, an anti-establishment
figure, Donald Trump, beat Hillary Clinton precisely by running against entrenched
elites. Something similar could confront
the Putin elite if it continues to act as it is doing.
“In a situation where social lifts
are blocked, in one when the average deputy is an aging millionaire who while
flying from Moscow to Nice waxes nostalgic about the Soviet Union … the
demonstrative assignment to public state positions of children of highly placed
people is a path to social and political catastrophe,” a path that Russia may traverse
quite quickly.
“My prophecy as a Cassandra is as
follows: In 2025-2035, a chain of contract murders of people in top positions will
occur. The murders will remain unresolved sine among the victims will be
highly-placed siloviki.” They will be succeeded by their deputies or by their
children; and the population will have had enough.
In this situation, Vinokurova continues, blocked
social lifts “in combination with the childish faith of the establishment in
its own inherited ambitions will create an explosive mixture for those at the
lower levels of society” across the country.
“In every region and in every city,
people see ‘the golden youth’ exceeding the speed limits in their expensive
cars. And they are already deputies of regional parliaments, the heads of major
enterprises and so on. Not one of them has worked a single day of his life” at
the kind of jobs most Russians have. And not one of them has the training for the
jobs they occupy either.
“In the first hours after the naming
of the government,” the commentator says, “we corresponded with a clutch of
young bureaucrats and state employees, even siloviki. We talked with all of
them about Patrushev Junior.” Every single one was horrified that no one at the
top recognized how offensive his appointment is to everyone.
How should the opposition exploit
this situation? “It is very simple. Now is not the time for liberal ideas. Moreover,
the problem of our opposition is that it in part is inherited too … The time of
the leftists is coming. Not some kind of Homeric Stalinists but people who in
simple language will put before society some long maturing questions.”
“Why in the government are they
appointing children of highly placed bureaucrats who have never worked in an
ordinary job? Why do the powers that be
think that the public approves of this transfer of power by inheritance? Why
does the new government want to take the last funds from the self-employed and
raise the retirement age … if the members of this same government live in
palaces and fly about in private jets?”
Further, those who want to be an
effective opposition need to ask, Vinokurova says, “why are people in power putting
into force laws that neither they nor their children who are resident in the
West live by? And why do they consider
that all this won’t end with a rapid social explosion?”
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