Editor's
note: Vladislav
Surkov has been called the "Kremlin's Ideologist" and partly due
to his formidable intellectual firepower, as this article demonstrates, wields
power in Russia regardless of what office he currently holds.
A former
Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Chief of Staff to Putin, Surkov excels
the white arts of PR, Propaganda, electoral chicanery (which he denounces in
this article, he of all people should know what a fraud modern democracy is).
This article appeared on Monday in Russian in Moscow, and there were immediate
and predictable howls from the Russia-hating media. 'Russia is ‘playing with the West’s
minds’ says Putin advisor' quips London's Independent. Surkov is
something of an obsession for Russia's tiny liberal opposition and for their
fellow-traveler, Russia-hating Academia and Punditry, and he has been written
about endlessly, films have been made about him, etc. etc. Here is a good
recent example by Whitney Malam on Medium.
He is always painted as some kind of Dark Prince of Deception, which is their
way of saying he is smarter than they are.
Surkov is
no longer in the limelight, but he occasionally hurls down
these rhetorical thunderbolts. What he says is always interesting and
sometimes profound, and we think this essay is very much the latter. It argues
that the system which has evolved in Russia over the last 18 years is
extremely durable, and could well last for centuries, and that it is more
honest and works far better than the clown show in the West.
Well,
judge for yourself. The translation here is brilliant, because it was done
by regular contributor Dmitry Orlov, who if you
haven't read, you should. One doesn't often see translations of this calibre,
because the people capable of doing them don't tend to be translators. -
Charles Bausman, Editor, RI
Putin's Lasting State
Russian
title and link: Долгое государство Путина
By
Vladislav Surkov,
“It only
seems that we have a choice.” These words are amazing in their depth of meaning
and audacity. They were uttered a decade and a half ago, and today they have
been forgotten and are not quoted. But according to the laws of psychology that
which is forgotten affects us much more than what we remember. And these words,
taken far outside the context in which they were first uttered, have as a
result become the first axiom of the new Russian statehood upon which have been
built all theories and practices of contemporary politics.
The
illusion of choice is the most important of all illusions, the main trick of
the Western way of life in general and Western democracy in particular, which
has for a long time now adhered more closely to the ideas of P.T. Barnum than
to those of Cleisthenes. The rejection of this illusion in favor of the realism
of predestination has led our society first to reflect upon its own special,
sovereign version of democratic development, and then to completely lose
interest in any discussions on the subject of what democracy should be like and
whether it should exist even in principle.
This
opened up paths toward the free development of the state, directed not by
imported chimeras but by the logic of historical processes, by that very “art
of the possible.” The impossible, unnatural and counter-historical
disintegration of Russia was, albeit belatedly, definitively arrested. Having
collapsed from the level of the USSR to the level of the Russian Federation,
Russia stopped collapsing, started to recover and returned to its natural and
its only possible condition: that of a great and growing community of nations
that gathers lands. It is not a humble role that world history has assigned to
our country, and it does not allow us to exit the world stage or to remain
silent among the community of nations; it does not promise us rest and it
predetermines the difficult character of our governance.
And so
the Russian state continues, now as a new type of state that has never existed
here before. It took form mostly in the middle of the 2000s, and so far it has
been little studied, but its uniqueness and its viability are now apparent. The
stress tests which it has passed and is now passing have shown that this
specific, organically arrived at model of political functioning provides an
effective means of survival and ascension of the Russian nation not just for
the coming years, but for decades and, most likely, for the entire next
century.
In this
way, Russian history has by now known four main models of governance, which can
provisionally be named after their creators: the government of Ivan the Third
(the Great Principality/the Kindom of Moscow and of All Rus, XV-XVII century);
the government of Peter the Great (Russian Empire, XVIII-XIX century); the
government of Lenin (USSR, XX century); and the government of Putin (Russian
Federation, XXI century). Created by people who were, to use Lev Gumilev’s
term, possessed of “long-term willpower,” one after another these large-scale
political machines repaired themselves, adapted to circumstances along the way
and provided for the relentless ascent of the Russian World.
Putin’s
large-scale political machine is only now revving up and getting ready for
long, difficult and interesting work. Its engagement at full power is still far
ahead, and many years from now Russia will still be the government of Putin,
just as contemporary France still calls itself the Fifth Republic of de Gaulle,
Turkey (although now ruled by anti-Kemalists) still relies on the ideology of
Atatürk’s “Six Arrows,” and the United States still appeals to the images and
values of its half-legendary “founding fathers.”
What is
needed is a comprehension and a description of Putin’s system of governance and
the entire complex of ideas and dimensions of Putinism as the ideology of the
future—specifically of the future, because present-day Putin can hardly be
considered a Putinist, just as, for example, Karl Marx was not a Marxist and we
can’t be sure that he would have agreed to be one had he found out what that’s
like. But we need this explanation for the sake of everyone who isn’t Putin but
would like to be like him—and to have the possibility of applying his methods
and approaches in the coming times.
This
description must not be in the form of dueling propagandas—ours vs. theirs—but
in a language that would be perceived as moderately heretical by both Russian
and anti-Russian officialdoms. Such language can be made acceptable to a
sufficiently large audience, which is exactly what is needed, because the
political system that has been made in Russia is fit to serve not just future
domestic needs but obviously has significant export potential. Demand for it
and for certain specific components of it already exists, its experience is
being studied and partially adopted, and it is being imitated by both ruling
and opposition groups in many countries.
Foreign
politicians accuse Russia of interfering in elections and referenda throughout
the planet. But in reality the situation is even more serious: Russia
interferes with their brains, and they don’t know what to do with their own
transformed consciousness. After the disastrous 1990s, once Russia turned away
from all borrowed ideologies, it started generating its own ideas and began to
counterattack the West. Since then European and American experts have been
erring in their predictions more and more frequently. They are surprised and
vexed by the paranormal preferences of the electorates. In confusion, they have
sounded the alarm about an outbreak of populism. They can call it that, if they
happen to be at a loss for words.
Meanwhile,
the interest of foreigners in the Russian political algorithm is easy to
understand: there are no prophets in their lands, but everything that is
happening to them today has been prophesied from Russia a long time ago.
When
everyone was still in love with globalization and made noise about a flat world
without borders, Moscow pointedly reminded them that sovereignty and national
interests are important. Back then many people accused us of “naïve” attachment
to these old things, which had supposedly fallen out of fashion long ago. They
taught us that it’s futile to hold on to XIX-century values, but that we should
bravely step into the XXI century, where there supposedly won’t be any
sovereign nations or nation-states. However, the XXI century is turning out the
way we said it would. British Brexit, American #GreatAgain, anti-immigrant
enclosure of Europe—these are but the first few items in a long list of
commonplace manifestations of deglobalization, re-sovereignization and
nationalism.
When on
every corner someone lauded the Internet as an inviolable space of unlimited
freedom, where everyone is allowed to be anyone and all are equal, it was
specifically from Russia that came a sobering question for Internet-addled
humanity: “Who we are on the World Wide Web, spiders or flies?” And now
everyone, including the most freedom-loving of bureaucracies, is busy trying to
untangle the Web and accusing Facebook of accommodating foreign interlopers.
The once free virtual space, which had been advertised as a prototype of the
coming heaven on Earth, has been seized and cordoned off by cyber-police and
cyber-criminals, cyber-armies and cyber-spies, cyber-terrorists and
cyber-moralists.
When the
hegemony of the “hegemon” was not contested by anyone, the great American dream
of world domination was close to being fulfilled, and many people hallucinated
the end of history with the final comment of “the people are silent,” in that
silence there came Putin’s Munich speech. At the time it sounded as dissenting,
but today everything in it seems self-evident: nobody is happy with America,
including the Americans themselves.
The
previously little-known Turkish political term derin devlet has
been popularized by American media. Translated into English as “deep state” it
was then picked up by the Russian media. The term indicates a harsh, absolutely
nondemocratic networked organization of real authoritarian structures hidden
behind showy democratic institutions. This mechanism, which in practice exerts
its authority through acts of violence, bribery and manipulation, and remains
hidden deep beneath the surface of a hypocritical and simple-minded civil
society which it manipulates while bribing or repressing all who accuse it.
Having
discovered in their midst an unpleasant “deep state,” Americans were not
particularly surprised, since they have long suspected that it exists. If there
is a “deep net” and a “dark net,” then why not a “deep state” or even a “dark
state”? From the depths and darkness of this un-exhibited and unadvertised
power there float up shining mirages of democracy special-made for mass
consumption that feature the illusion of choice, the feeling of freedom,
delusions of superiority and so on.
Mistrust
and envy, which democracy uses as prioritized sources of social energy,
inevitably lead to a sharpening of criticism and an increased level of anxiety.
Haters, trolls and the angry bots that have joined them have formed a screechy
majority that has forced out the once dominant, respectable middle class which
once upon a time set quite a different tone.
Nobody
believes any more in the good intentions of public politicians. They are envied
and are therefore considered corrupt, shrewd, or simply scoundrels. Popular
political serials, such as “The Boss” and “The House of Cards,” paint
correspondingly murky scenes of the establishment’s day-to-day.
A
scoundrel must not be allowed to go too far for the simple reason that he is a
scoundrel. But when all around you (we surmise) there are only scoundrels, one
is forced to use scoundrels to restrain other scoundrels. As one pounds out a
wedge using another wedge, one dislodges a scoundrel using another scoundrel…
There is a wide choice of scoundrels and obfuscated rules designed to make
their battles result in something like a tie. This is how a beneficial system
of checks and balances comes about—a dynamic equilibrium of villainy, a balance
of avarice, a harmony of swindles. But if someone forgets that this is just a
game and starts to behave disharmoniously, the ever-vigilant deep state hurries
to the rescue and an invisible hand drags the apostate down into the murky
depths.
There is
nothing particularly frightening in this proposed image of Western democracy.
All you have to do is change your perspective a little, and it would no longer
seem scary. But it leaves a sour feeling, and a Western citizen starts to spin
his head around in search of other models and other ways of being. And… sees
Russia.
Our
system, as in general everything else that’s ours, is no more graceful, but it
is more honest. And although the phrase “more honest” is not a synonym of
“better” for everyone, honesty does have its charms.
Our
state is not split up into deep and external; it is built as a whole, with all
of its parts and its manifestations facing out. The most brutal constructions
of its authoritarian frame are displayed as part of the façade, undisguised by
any architectural embellishments. The bureaucracy, even when it tries to do
something on the sly, doesn’t try too hard to cover its tracks, as if assuming
that “everyone understands everything anyway.”
The
great internal tension caused by the need to control huge, heterogeneous
geographic areas, and by the constant participation in the thick of
geopolitical struggle make the military and policing functions of the
government the most important and decisive. In keeping with tradition, they are
not hidden but, quite the opposite, demonstrated. Businessmen, who consider military
pursuits to be of lesser status than commercial ones, have never ruled Russia
(almost never; the exceptions were a few months in 1917 and a few years in the
1990s). Neither have liberals (fellow-travelers of businessmen) whose teachings
are based on the negation of anything the least bit police-like. Thus, there
was nobody in charge who would curtain off the truth with illusions, bashfully
shoving into the background and obscuring as much as possible the main
prerogative of any government—to be a weapon of defense and attack.
There is
no deep state in Russia—all of it is on display—but there is a deep nation.
On its
shiny surface sparkles the elite which, century after century (let’s give it
its due) has involved the people in its various undertakings—party conferences,
wars, elections, economic experiments. The deep nation takes part in these
undertakings, but remains somewhat aloof, and doesn’t appear at the surface but
leads it own, completely different life down in its own depths. Two lives of
the nation, one on the surface and one in the depths, sometimes run in opposite
directions, sometimes in the same direction, but they never merge.
The deep
nation is always as cagey as can be, unreachable for sociological surveys,
agitation, threats or any other form of direct influence. The understanding of
what it is, what it thinks and what it wants often comes suddenly and too late,
and not to those who can do anything about it.
Rare is
the sociologist who would venture to define whether the deep nation is equivalent
to its population or is a part of it, and if a part of it, then which one. At
different times it was taken to be the peasants, the proletariat, the
non-party-members, the hipsters, the government employees. People searched for
it and tried to engage it. They called it the executor of God’s will, or just
the opposite. Sometimes they decided that it is fictional and doesn’t exist in
reality, and launched galloping reforms without looking back upon it, but
quickly bashed their foreheads against it and were forced to concede that
“something really does exist.” More than once it retreated under the press of
domestic or foreign conquerors, but it always came back.
With its
gigantic mass the deep nation creates an insurmountable force of cultural
gravitation which unites the nation and drags and pins down to earth (to the
native land) the elite when it periodically attempts to soar above it in a
cosmopolitan fashion.
Nationhood,
whatever that is taken to mean, is a precursor of the state. It predetermines its
form, restricts the fantasies of theoreticians and forces practitioners to
carry out certain acts. It is a powerful attractor, and all political
trajectories without exception lead back to it. In Russia, one can set out from
any position—conservatism, socialism, liberalism—but you will always end up
with approximately the same thing. That is, with the thing that actually
exists.
The
ability to hear and to understand the nation, to see all the way through it,
through its entire depth, and to act accordingly—that is the unique and most
important virtue of Putin’s government. It is adequate for the needs of the
people, it follows the same course with it, and this means that it is not
subject to destructive overloads from history’s countercurrents. This makes
it effective and long-lasting.
In this
new system all institutions are subordinated to the main task: trust-based
communication and interaction between the head of state and the citizens. The
various branches of government come together at the person of the leader and
are considered valuable not in and of themselves but only to the extent to
which they provide a connection with him. Aside from them, and acting around
formal structures and elite groups, operate informal methods of communication.
When stupidity, backwardness or corruption create interference in the lines of
communication with the people, energetic measures are taken to restore
audibility.
The
multilayered political institutions which Russia had adopted from the West are
sometimes seen as partly ritualistic and established for the sake of looking
“like everyone else,” so that the peculiarities of our political culture
wouldn’t draw too much attention from our neighbors, didn’t irritate or
frighten them. They are like a Sunday suit, put on when visiting others, while
at home we dress as we do at home.
In
essence, society only trusts the head of state. Whether this has something to
do with the pride of an unconquered people, or the desire to directly access
the truth, or anything else, is hard to say, but it is a fact, and it is not a
new fact. What’s new is that the government does not ignore this fact but takes
it into account and uses it as a point of departure in its undertakings.
It would
be an oversimplification to reduce this theme to the oft-cited “faith in the
good czar.” The deep nation is not the least bit naïve and definitely does not
consider soft-heartedness as a positive trait in a czar. Closer to the truth is
that it thinks of a good leader the same way as Einstein thought of God: ingenious
but not malicious.
The
contemporary model of the Russian state starts with trust and relies on trust.
This is its main distinction from the Western model, which cultivates mistrust
and criticism. And this is the source of its power.
Our new
state will have a long and glorious history in this new century. It will not
break. It will act on its own, winning and retaining prize-winning spots in the
highest league of geopolitical struggle. Sooner or later everyone will be
forced to come to terms with this—including all those who currently demand that
Russia “change its behavior.” Because it only seems as if they have a choice.
Translated
from Russian by Dmitry Orlov, ClubOrlov.com
This post first appeared on Russia
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