Staunton, May 31 – The current
Russian regime talks a lot about promoting the development of a civic Russian
nation and takes the existence of an ethnic Russian nation as a given, Lidiya
Sycheva says; but in fact, it is systematically destroying the Russia people as
a collective identity and transforming its members into a more easily
manageable population.
In a commentary for Moskovsky komsomolets, the
journalist-observer argues that this can be easily seen if one looks at people
in the rural areas of the country and contrasts them with the increasing number
who have moved into major cities (ru/social/2018/05/30/naselenie-vmesto-naroda-tak-ubivayut-rossiyu.html).
The former display
a certain “calm dignity” and look at the world directly, she writes. “Young and
old, ill and healthy,” one can see “an honest life of labor. What confident
faces! Rural people look at the world in the broadest possible way.” Those in the cities are different,
homogenized, atomized, and without the spiritual world of those in rural areas.
In contrast to people on rural bus
routes, those who ride the Moscow metro “in the main are weighted down by the
contents of their mobile telephones. The virtual world dictates their agendas
and drives out their own space of spiritual life … Instead of life, they live
in a space of news about others, primarily political people.”
Indeed, Sychev says, “90 percent of
the lead news stories in our country concern 20 or 30 people from the ruling
class.” Its all about them, and everyone else is to take his or her lead from
the way they live rather than from living and breathing people around them as
do people in rural areas, a condition that deprives them of independence and
makes them easier to rule.
“The natural feeling of a motherland
tells an individual: ‘where you were born is where you must learn to deal.’ But
the reality of physical survival drives Russians into a multi-story ghetto. The
urban man is economically and politically suitable to the ruling class. Its
cheaper to feed him, educate him, and cure him.”
“Besides that,” she continues, “the
overwhelming majority of urban resident do not own anything besides their
modest apartments. Where there is no property, there are no rights – or even
certain feelings.” Without property, people grow up without the feeling of
being master of something and responsible for it.
As a result, the journalist says,
“the people, deprives of the feelings of being masters is converted into a
population, into a society of separate and synthetic spiritually and materially
individuals who are held together only by television and propaganda.” And media
surveys show that they are told far more often about bureaucrats than about the
people.
The resulting population, having
displaced the people, “forms and advances out of its milieu a ruling class
which is even less attached to its native hearth than its atomized
‘parent.’” That class, Sychev says,
“does not feel any attachment to ‘simple people’ other than disdain.” It truly
consists of “’princes who have come out of the dirt.”
“Such a ruling class can retain
power only by one means – the consistent fulfilment of a given ‘program’ that
continue to degrade the people into a population. Any other legitimation for it
is simply impossible for objective reasons.”
According to the journalist, “self-administration,
collectivism, cooperation, entrepreneurialism (but not ‘business’), good sense,
and a moral view on people and actions are part and parcel of the life of the
people.” These values have been “reduced to a minimum in today’s Russia because
they are “dangerous for the people on top.”
“The formalization of spiritual life
in the form of state religious customs” leads to all kinds of perversions,
including the notion that God will forgive us if we steal and the view of those
on top that the people below are “slaves.”
And that in turn is why the powers that be talk so much about “’bindings,’”
the chief content of which is shamelessness in all its forms.
The language of mass culture and of
political debates show this. The former has no real voices of the people and
the latter is full of “imitation, emptiness and scandal.” Indeed, “our
television is poison wrapped up as candy.” Many mistakenly think this is a
spontaneous process, but in fact, it is organized by those on top to serve their interests.
“Villages have been almost destroyed,
national culture has been replaced by state financing, and there is no strategy
for the development of the economy.” Instead, those on top do whatever serves
their interests regardless of what that means for everyone else.
“The ability to think independently
and to act in the interests of the Russian people aren’t qualities you can
impose by force,” Sychev say. “They can arise naturally and organically only on
a healthy basis.” But Russia doesn’t have this: Millions of the best people have
left, and the Russian people have
suffered as a result.
According to Sychev, “the main task
of the current historical period is the restoration of the vitality of the Russian
people in three areas – natural-demographic, socio-political, and spiritual-moral.” A leader needs to emerge who can speak for
the Russian people which still exists. Soon it may be too late entirely.
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