In March, the IMR website published an article by Alexander Podrabinek entitled “The Western Alternative,” in which the author argued in favor of the Western model of political development for Russia. Answering Podrabinek, poet and sociologist Poel Karp presents his take on this issue.
Alexander Podrabinek (left) and Poel Karp
Alexander Podrabinek was right in saying that Russia would be incomparably better off living according to what he called the Western model. He urges making this choice and complains that it has not yet been made. But who made choices for Russia—Czars, general secretaries or presidents? Was it, perhaps, the Russian people or the nations who used to inhabit the Russian Empire? Besides, how were these choices made—through elections controlled by someone like Vladimir Churov, the current head of Russia’s Election Commission, or through a civil war? By calling this model a Western one, we are missing the social essence of the problem. Russia is fundamentally a Western country, the word rus is of Scandinavian origin, and Russia adopted Christianity before the Church split. Byzantium, whose Christianity Russia adopted, was originally the eastern part of the West, of the Roman Empire, which was later finished off by the truly eastern Ottoman Empire.
Freedom, private property, the rule of law, humanism, equality, self-government and free expression, which Podrabinek has good reason to wish for Russia, are not geographical notions. Spanish conquistadors were conquering South America, while the Russian, Yermak Timofeyevich, led an expedition to annex Siberia. The difference between these two events is not a big one. At the same time, provincial countries, such as the Netherlands or England saw the appearance of new relations, which put them at the center of the world and which both the East and the West found strange. These relations were different from feudal ones. Economic freedom demanded political freedoms that would guarantee private property, the rule of law and self-government.
In Russia, all the people, not only those in prison, whether under the communists, the Czars or the current regime, are, in effect, convicts.
Russian rulers understood the new century's demands; however, they responded to them not by creating new relations, but by creating tensions in the old ones. Under Ivan the Terrible, serfdom was established. Peter I brought machine tools from the West and made serfs work with them. We are outraged by the fact that there was slavery in the United States, but African Americans still make up only 8 percent of the country's population. In Russia, half of the country—half of the Russian people—was in bondage, not groups of foreigners brought to the country for that purpose. Alexander II stripped landlords of the right to own serfs, but people still remained in bondage to the state. Lenin and Stalin only made this serfdom more oppressive.
The whole of Russia knows that freedom is not just the articles of a Constitution on one's rights. Stalin's Constitution had beautiful articles on this. Freedom means real independence—the autonomy of every single person and any union of people, such as a party, an organization, a theater, a territory, a national community, a social group; and it also means the independence of any branch of power from the other branches so that everyday management is left to one of them, legislative activity to another, and justice to a third. Random inspections of people and organizations, which our supreme power feels free to do, are used in prisons with regard to those who were caught violating the law. Their guilt was determined after evidence had been examined by a court. A government, which, on the other hand, keeps all its citizens under suspicion and inspects them—the “just in case,” as our president explains—is already criminal. As Podrabinek correctly noted on a different subject, a prisoner does not have a choice, he goes where the guards take him. In Russia, all the people, not only those in prison, whether under the communists, the Czars or the current regime, are, in effect, convicts.
They say: "Putin gives us food!" Who, except the authorities, feeds the convicts in prison? The system is organized in such a manner that we cannot feed ourselves, and we are fed by the state, which uses its "vertical" to manage the whole economy both through its ministries and through loyal "oligarchs" like Deripaska and Abramovich. When Khodorkovsky wanted to act independently, he was put in his place. As for the government, it can bungle managing the economy, as long as the price of some commodity or raw material increases on the world market. Under Gorbachev, oil cost $10 a barrel, and the need to reform the system became clear. Under Putin, oil costs $110 a barrel, so there is no need to rule with common sense.
That is why the problem is not in choosing the right model, but in determining what prevents it from being realized. On August 19, 1991, a considerable part of Russia and Moscow, in particular, showed their support for the so-called Western model, when about a million unarmed people went to the streets of Moscow to protest against tanks sent by the State Committee on the State of Emergency. President Yeltsin came to power under the flag of this choice. Two years later, most supporters of the "Western" model voted for Yeltsin's Constitution, which gave the president perhaps even more authority than the Politburo and the General Secretary of the Communist Party had during the Soviet period. They did not consider the fact that no one, not even the most charming person, should be given unlimited power over people. Putin used this Constitution to broaden his authority even more. It is no surprise, then, that only one tenth of those who went into the streets of Moscow on August 19, now join the rallies protesting Putin's lawless actions. The other nine tenths understand that they had been deceived and do not trust anyone anymore.
The problem is not just in the model. When Jefferson and his colleagues were writing the Constitution of the United States, which, during 200 years of its existence, has had only a few amendments, they clearly determined the limits of each branch of power and the limits of the federal government's authority over the states. But the Constitution is effective there because tens of millions of Americans are ready to defend it and know exactly what they are defending.
It is important to choose a good model, but it will not take root until the vicious “vertical of power” is destroyed.
Russia has to understand that the country's true unity is not provided by internal troops or the FSB (KGB, NKVD, Cheka), but by the truly voluntary consent of its population to live together with respect for all the country's parts and society's layers. It also has to realize that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was brought on by the absence of such consent and respect, which none of Russia’s rulers has sought; Moscow has ruled without such consent and respect—and in Moscow, the Kremlin rules. It is important to choose a good model, but it will not take root until the vicious “vertical of power” is destroyed. Seeing the absurdity of relations with the North Caucasus, people shout: "Stop feeding the Caucasus!" when they should be offered a choice: "We either feed the Caucasus at a loss (and in this case the reasons for doing so should be given) or we let the Caucasus go and feed itself!"
Autocracy is dangerous not only because of its despotism, but also because even though it sees everything from above, it distorts and sometimes hushes up real problems that exist in the country and among its people. The main task for Russia is to stop and look at itself objectively, not as the leading power of a non-religious faith, Leninism; not as the leading power of a religious faith, Orthodoxy. It has to realize the limited nature of its strengths and the necessity to use them wisely. It must do this, above all, in order to save its own population, so that in Russia living conditions are not worse, and life expectancy is not shorter, than in civilized countries, and so that the voice of the people and its initiatives are not suppressed. Then the potential that our country possesses, its widely acknowledged scientific and cultural achievements, will do Russia good and help it live sensibly. In that way and without having it as its aim, our country will become part of the civilized world. As it was under Yaroslav the Wise.
