Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 17 – Vladimir Putin’s
“restorationist policy” is rapidly leading Russia to the abyss of a new
totalitarianism, one in which political repression will spread across the
entire society claiming ever new victims and ultimately Putin and his entourage
as well, according to Vladimir Pastukhov, one of the most brilliant analysts of
Russia writing today.
In an article in today’s “Novaya
gazeta,” Pastukhov, who teaches at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, argues that
few in Russia now recognize “the tectonic shifts” which are taking place there,
whose “power and significance” are so great that they threaten to effect the
country more than anything since World War II (novayagazeta.ru/politics/59086.html).
Most
Russians think that Putin “will not go too far and [that] political repression
will be localized,” Pastukhov says, and Russian elites do not recognize “the
scale of what is happening with Russia,” the challenges what is going on poses,
or “the deep meaning of what is taking place” around them at present.
As
a result, the Russian analyst continues, “those who are ready to live as under
Pinochet may be extremely disappointed when they unexpectedly discover
themselves living a under Mussolini or Stalin.”
Tragically,
“Russia is not separated from its terrible past by a Chinese wall,” he argues. “This
past lives in it like a bacillus of the plague ready at any movement to break
out” and reinfect society.” And that past does not point to the construction of
a police state but of something worse, totalitarianism.
“The
Putin regime is not a police state,” Pastukhov says; it is much worse. “A police state controls the behavior of the
individual in the public sphere,” allowing him to do what he wants in private. A
totalitarian state in contrast “does not recognize the division of public and
private life and attempts to control an individual everywhere, always and in
everything.”
As
a result, “an authoritarian state struggles with criminal (from its point of
view) actions; a totalitarian one with the crime of thought itself. Thus, “the
enemy of authoritarianism” is someone who is disloyal, [but] the enemy of
totalitarianism is “simply anyoe who thinks on its own.” Anyone who thinks
differently thus is viewed as a dissident.
“The
struggle with dissidence is the essence of the current policy” of the Kremlin,
Pastukhov says. Those who view his approach simply as an effort to suppress the
opposition are wrong. “In fact, his focus is not so much on the opposition as
on society as a whole” and an effort to draw on the fears and aggressiveness of
the population to impose conformity.
Putin,
Pastukkhov says, is the latest example of a long line of Russian Grand
Inquisitors, of “’the engineer of human souls’” whoconducts “experimentson
Russian consiciousness.” He needs such experiments “because if he is not able
to push Russia into a coma, his regime will not survive” and thus “he is ready
to go as far as circumstances require.”
“History
has clearly shown that to achieve unanimity and to put down dissidence is
impossible without terror,” the Russian analyst says. Russia is thus “condemned
to terror and even mass terror,” however few believe that because “the goals
not only justify but predetermrine the means,” and Putin’s goal in this regard
is clear.
Terror,
of course “is more than force and arbitrariness.” It is “a system which does not have definite
political limits and therefore gives birth to … fear.” Under its conditions, “the need to think like
others” disappears. Instead, “people themselves voluntarily and in a massive
way refuse to think at all.”
Under
conditions of terror, “the population is transformed into human-like robots,”
who will carry out particular tasks without reflecting upon them, Pastukhov
says. “These are real zombies” like those in a film. But “for people born in
the USSR,” such a phenomenon should be familiar.
The
chief problem with terror is that “no one can control it,” the analyst
continues. “It is naïve to think that Putin or even more those around him” can
do so. That is “just as mistaken as to suppose that Stalin ran the hellish machine
he created.” For terror to work, it cannot be completely controlled. It “begins
with enemies and ends with friends.”
“Under
conditions of terror, Russia will inevitably become a battlefield of numerous
elite clans” who will in the end destroy themselves in “’battles without rules.’”
A first glance might suggest that this is “a war of all against all,” but in
fact, it is even more frightening: it opens the way for “a new class” even more
unprincipled and cruel than the one in power.
“From
out of the provinces, from the very lowest levels of the feudal vertical that
has been constructed arise terrible people” who make those they replace look
like “aristocrats.” That is what happened under Stalin, and that is what is
happening once again now under Putin.
“It
is naïve to suppose that Putin is someone who can direct the terror,” Pastukhov
writes. “Terror is not an instrument of policy” in the usual sense but rather “a
state of society, he argues. And consequently, Putin “is not so much the
architect as the slave of ‘the new totalitarianism,” itself “the hysterical reaction
of society to the deep crisis it has experienced.”
Putin
would need “enormous courage and a feeling of historical responsibility” not to
go down this road, because “today’s ‘leap into the past’ is a movement along
the path of least resistance” for the country as a whole.
Once
that is recognized, the tasks of the Russian opposition can be seen as very
different than its leaders imagine. “Political
opposition as such in the near future will be practically impossible” not so
much because of repression but because under current conditions, “it will never
become massive and thus will always remain marginal.”
“In
this situation,” Pastukhov argues, the most important thing is “not so much
political as spiritual opposition to
the regime.” That means that “the opinion of prominent cultural figures and
leaders of professional communities, of all those who are often called ‘the
flower of the nation’ acquires particular significance.”
The
Kremlin understands this very well, the analyst says, and that is why it is
creating the All-Russian Popular Front, a group that is not about elections but
rather “a mechanism of control and the neutralization of elites” in advance of
the looming cataclysms. If these
cultural figures want to matter, they must become “a Resistance” to the Front
rather than become part of it.
Even
if they do, however, “there are few chances” that Russia will avoid this
catastrophe. But such chances
nonetheless exist. “The new totalitarianism is distinguished from the old by
two very important indicators.” On the one hand, the regime lacks “’a
dominating idea’ without which” it will be difficult to organize society
totally.
And
on the other, because of the Internet and the ability of Russians to go abroad,
“the new totalitarianism will have to be built” in the open rather than behind
the scenes, Pastukhov argues. That in
turn “will essentially reduce the effectiveness of the repressive machine” and
allow for more resistance by groups not “traditionally involved in politics.”
But
the ultimate irony is elsewhere,” the analyst says. “Putin mistakenly supposes
that he is playing with Russian history … but in reality, he is playing ‘Russian
roulette.’” And “sooner or later,” the
bullet he represents will hit not others but himself and the regime that he has
been engagedin creating.
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