Understanding evil

Reflecting on Soviet society and culture, Nadezhda Mandelshtam arrived at a conclusion that sovok (this pejorative word that means stupid Soviet ways was, of course, coined later) was incompatible with tragedy and the tragic outlook begot by the profanation of values. In other words, it is inability to admit a failure and, hence, absence of an aspiration for rebirth and victory, for the restoration and affirmation of values.

Whenever I watch what occurs in the minds of various people I always recall these words. What I am going to say now applies to all those who consider the current events in Russia a woe – be it local residents, Georgians, or Ukrainians. The gravest mistake many are making today is refusal to admit Putin’s victory and their own total defeat. This refusal is a triumph of the Kremlin.

He who is unable to admit his defeat will never be a winner. The longer the losers will try to persuade themselves and others that all this is accidental and for a short time, the farther they will stay from being able to begin from scratch in sound mind and memory. They prolong and aggravate their defeat, and they do not wish to hear those who are telling them this. They cling to the illusions and statuses that do not allow them to freely develop their thinking and honestly discuss what is going on.

Their curses and insults to Putin and the Kremlin and prophesies about an early fall of the present-day triumphers make them accomplices of the ones they are reviling. The way to victory will begin with the admission that what is going on is a so far irreversible tragedy. It is a tragedy for the peoples deprived of being able to develop peacefully and freely.

And, above all, one must abandon the vain hopes that all this is for a short time in Russia because it is associated with one man only. The drug changes, but dependency remains. During the Bolotnaya Square protests in Moscow, the air was full of screams about a scared government that was about to tumble down. There was only one argument: look at the faces of the people who have taken to the streets – they are wonderful.

The wonderful faces went behind bars, while the Bolotnaya protest leaders keep going to Valdai and Sochi and attend hangouts together with Putin’s retinue. It is a trend now, not an anti-governmental procession.

Also in vogue are new hopes, for example: suffice it to replace Putin, and...

And what? Let us recall what happened after Stalin’s death. “The doctors’ case” and what was to follow came to an end only because there was a rift inside the secret police. And those who were on the receiving end later – just a few in number – were executed or imprisoned for the same reasons. Neither Berlin, nor Budapest, nor Novocherkassk noticed any thaw because imperial expansion and suppression of any social protests is not a Stalinist or a Soviet but a Russian policy. And the Ukrainians do need to be told when and on whose orders Stepan Bandera, and not only he, was assassinated.

Why the policy on the post-Soviet space should suddenly change if the No.1 person is replaced is totally unclear. All that is associated with this policy is multilevel, non-uniformly scaled, and dissimilar business. War in now part of business plans, the social structure and mass culture of today’s Russia, part of its way of life and identity.

Frondeurs turned trend-setters are also making their contribution to this. A corporate state is forming in Russia, which precludes the emergence of civil society.

The same old story: one who is doing something good for the leader must disappear. Sobchak died unexpectedly and in good time. Berezovsky, who had brought Putin to the Kremlin, was ousted. Serdyukov, who had formed the battleworthy units that seized Crimea, ended up in disgrace. Surkov is now taking the flak.

Surkov gifted Putin something more serious. It is not about youth gangs – hongweibings did not come in handy. Yet, using the latter as a model, he worked out not an ideology but something more profound and significant – a system of values that laid the groundwork for new corporatism. It is based on consumerism. It is sometimes called pragmatic patriotism, but this is intended for fools.

For wise people, it is, above all, identification of success with the appropriated status. Money also matters, but it is the consequence of a status. Those were the embryos of a corporate state, the emergence of a corporation of status-holding intellectuals, journalists, writers, artists, and film directors. We have all seen them on the photos of recent society get-togethers, which stunned so much the people for whom active citizenship is not an empty sound. For these photo documents show that the most rabid Putinists and inveterate frondeurs are members of the same corporation. They do not and cannot take a civic attitude. They only simulate it, which points to their place in a single corporation established, to a large extent, by the efforts of Surkov. We must give him his due – he has really incorporated those who can influence public opinion and lead people.

They can but will not do so, for they will then lose a place in the corporation. And the circle will then close – a potential active figure will turn into a loser and a feeble-minded freak.

Trotsky and Bukharin also used to do this to art party-goers and some intellectuals, while Stalin preferred to get rid of both the former and the latter. Only a few survived. Now, too, social activity in Russia has given way to the struggle for survival. The emergent corporations are forms of societal self-organization. The stereotype about confrontation between civil society and the state as the only possible relationship between society and the authorities has been ruined. The ongoing self-organization has nothing to do with and is directly opposite to civil society. It is now the masters of discourse, not the authorities which set this process into motion, that are doing the selection. I will say it over and over again: as property is not theft, so totalitarianism is not violence of the authorities over society.

Masters of the discourse are not the authorities’ secret agents, although the latter also occur. You can even revile Putin and prophesy the fall of this regime in the next few weeks. In a word, you can ramble on as much as you can with “Down with the Generalissimo!” It’s so nice to peep through a keyhole.

But you had better not ask why such a worthless Putin has been holding power and dictating his will to the world for 15  years. Nor should you claim that he continues daily to tighten his grip on power.

Intellectual and cultural development consists in a constant review of the discourse and reappraisal of hierarchies and cult figures. But who will do the reappraisal if masters of the discourse hear nobody but themselves and strictly show others their proper place? There can be no public discussions in a corporate state. Prison-camp dust has given way to social dust. But you can’t possibly speak to it.

In a corporate totalitarian state, the mission of these people is to be a civil society – not to represent all kinds of riffraff from the subway, cheap cars and tenements, and a plot of land, but to be a society. All the rest is the masses.

They will be a society for the entire civilized humankind. Nobody in the world will hear other voices. The world will take into account the people who stand out, influence the media content, and are close to the authorities. Back in the USSR, things were different – there was a dissident niche which is now filled with the same nomenklatura.

And is there the reason why civilized humankind should take interest in social dust? And the latter comprises everybody, irrespective of professional and property status, all those who have received no other status from the governing corporation. There was, for instance, Yevtushenkov. Where is he now?

I am writing this in so much detail only to claim: Russia can be understood with the mind alone. And she must be understood – otherwise you will not be able to live side by side or just in one world with her. This understanding begins with the refusal to extrapolate the idea of a democratic state and society onto the totalitarian Russia. Totalitarianism requires a different set of social optics and political science methods. There is only one example here: we say “society,” but, at a closer examination, it is a corporation, i.e., something diametrically opposite. This applies to everything, including the hopes that oil prices will soon fall, and this means…

This means nothing. Speculation is powerless. The crux of the matter is: whenever the very word “totalitarianism” is pronounced, this pulls the plug on all the attempts to acquire some value-free unbiased knowledge. Evil is the object of study. This is to begin with – as well as with admitting that evil cannot be funny and always causes a tragedy and never a farce.

Dmitry Shusharin is a Moscow-based historian and political journalist