Russian Political Mentality So Internally Contradictory that No One Should Be Surprised when the Country Repeatedly Lurches from One Direction to Its Opposite, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 15 – Having compiled a list of the 37 main characteristics of the political consciousness of Russians, Abbas Gallyamov observes that they are so contradictory that no one should be surprised when the country lurches from one direction to another. Indeed, that is practically inevitable.

            “Sometimes two mutually exclusive characteristics are so close to one another, that a quite small push is all it takes to set the country off in a new direction which seems to be in complete opposition to what has gone before,” the Russian commentator who earlier served as a Putin speechwriter says (pointmedia.io/story/66e3f235dc48800406e0f4cc).

            A recent example of such radical shifts, Gallyamov says, is the public view of Prigozhin who began as “a counterrevolutionary force” but is now, less than a year later, “transformed into the chief revolutionary who shook the system more than all other opposition figures taken together.”

            If one collapses the 37 points into one, he suggests, then the only term that describes Russian political mentality is “contradictoriness, the capacity to contain the uncontainable and combine what can’t be combined,” or as Bunin put it, “we are like a tree from which one can make both a club and an icon.”  

            What is most intriguing, Gallyamov continues, is that “Russian politicians are generally unaware of this duality. They are typically too immersed in the current situation to think more broadly or reflect on the situation critically. “Self-reflection is not a Russian strong point, and so each change in direction is perceived completely new and unprecedented” even though it isn’t.

            The commentator makes another important observation. He says that he doesn’t see “any special reasons” for Russians to be proud of this contradictory nature or to consider their country superior to others; but at the same time, he says, there aren’t compelling reasons for Russia to engage in self-flagellation as they often do.

            “We are who we are because of the path we have travelled,” he concludes. “We are the sum of what has happened to us in history and nothing more than that. Existing shortcomings must be criticized and corrected, but Russians shouldn’t give up on themselves. After all, history which shapes us is not yet over.”