"Whoever wins will live." Interview with Andrey Fursov. Andrey Fursov: “The fate of those who have no ideology is a picnic on the sidelines

“What does Russia need to do to become the center of world power again?”- Andrey Ilyich Fursov, director of the Center for Russian Studies at the Moscow University for the Humanities, asks this question in an interview with the Kultura newspaper. The interview, I must say, is worthy of being read by everyone who has not had time to do it yet. After all, it was given quite recently, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the infamous meeting in Malta between George Bush Sr. and Gorbachev. It was then that Gorbachev signed the act of complete and unconditional surrender of the Soviet Union.

Culture: It is believed that it was in Malta that "Gorbachev passed everything." How do you see those events now?

Fursov: Gorbachev's capitulation, in fact, the surrender of the socialist camp and the USSR, which took place on December 2–3, 1989 in Malta, is the final act of a rather long process of interaction between part of the Western and part of the Soviet elites. In the post-war period, a young and predatory faction took shape in the West - the corporatocracy. We are talking about the bourgeoisie, officials, special services, etc., closely associated with transnational corporations and financial capital. For several decades, they stubbornly went to power, seeking to squeeze out state-monopoly capital (GMC) and the segment of world elites associated with it.

The strategy of the corporatocracy in relation to the USSR was fundamentally different from that of the MMC groups. The latter, starting from the 1960s, sought to establish a dialogue with the Soviet elite and found understanding in this regard. Of course, both sides, especially the Western one, were not sincere, but they were eager for dialogue. And in the globalist plans of the corporatocracy, there was no place for the USSR in the “brave new world”. Moreover, this world could not have arisen without the destruction of the USSR. At the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, representatives of the corporatocracy came to power in the West and launched an offensive against the USSR. Here they found allies, more precisely, accomplices: in the 1970s, a small but very influential Soviet segment of the world corporatocracy was formed in the Soviet Union, which included representatives of the nomenklatura, special services, some scientific structures and large “shadow companies”. If the corporatocrats of the West sought to push the MMC out of power, then the corporatocrats in the USSR sought (with the help of the West) to push the CPSU out of power and change the system, turning into owners. In the second half of the 1970s, a team was formed to solve this problem. People were recruited narrow-minded, conceited, and most importantly - corrupt and tainted, who are easy to manipulate, and in which case - to surrender. This was the "Gorbachev team", most of which was used in the dark.

At the turn of 1988–1989. The West intercepted the process of dismantling the socialist system and turned it into the dismantling of the USSR itself and the supranational formations, of which it was the core. No wonder Madeleine Albright saw the main merit of Bush Sr. in the fact that he "led the collapse of the Soviet empire." This “leadership” culminated in the December meeting in Malta.

Culture: Gorbachev came to the meeting after visiting the Pope. Do you think there is any connection between these events?

Fursov: Russophobe and Sovietophob John Paul II, apparently, blessed "Gorby" to capitulate historical Russia, which the West has been dreaming of for at least four centuries. Since the last third of the 16th century, two projects for establishing control over Russia have been developing in the West: Protestant (England, since the 20th century - also the USA) and Catholic (Holy Roman Empire / Habsburgs - Vatican). Gorbachev's visit, first to the Pope, and then to Bush Sr., is quite symbolic. He fixed the capitulation not just of the USSR, but of historical Russia. It is not clear how much Gorbachev himself understood this - but those of his accomplices who had more close contact with the Western elites and began to do this before the Secretary General, for example Alexander Yakovlev, were perfectly aware of this. After all, Yakovlev said in one of his interviews that by perestroika they were breaking the thousand-year-old paradigm of Russian history. Gorbachevshchina is the first phase of this breakdown, Yeltsinism is the second. The beginning of the 21st century is marked by a contradiction between the preservation of the neoliberal course in the economy and the turn towards sovereignty in foreign policy. It is clear that this contradiction cannot last long: either - or.

Culture: But Russia is preparing for a geopolitical revenge: "The bear will not give up its taiga to anyone" - these are the words of President Putin.

Fursov: I don't have the feeling that Russia is preparing for a geopolitical revenge. "Crimean Victoria" is certainly an achievement, especially against the backdrop of a quarter-century geopolitical retreat. But Victoria is forced, it is a pre-emptive reaction to the actions of the enemy. Russia simply had no other option: otherwise, a loss of face would have been added to the geopolitical defeat - the whole world, including its closest neighbors, would have understood that one could wipe one's feet on Russia. At the same time, Crimea is just a point won in the almost quarter-century game for Ukraine lost by Russia. We have not been able to create a real pro-Russian force in Ukraine, real allies of Russia, we have not contributed (to put it mildly) to the emergence in Ukraine of mass strata oriented towards Russia, towards the Russian world. But the Americans, the West as a whole, succeeded in creating anti-Russian orcs, Ukronazis, in spreading Russophobia, in zombifying the population.

“The bear will not give his taiga to anyone” is a wonderful phrase, but deeds must follow words. The assertion of full sovereignty requires not only a great power course in foreign policy, but also the establishment of sovereignty in the economic sphere (primarily financial, banking) and information. We have banks that are directly registered with the US Internal Revenue Service, the banks are, in fact, subsidiaries of branches of the Federal Reserve System. This bears little resemblance to economic sovereignty. As for the media, today the situation in this area is better than 5-7 years ago - during the Ukrainian crisis, the state-oriented media suppressed the five-column for the first time in the history of the Russian Federation. Nevertheless, we see very well that the pro-Western media, whose point of view almost completely coincides with the point of view of the US State Department, and in fact, there is its implementation in our information space, are still active. And this means that sovereignty in this area is not fully ensured. Pay attention to how the Anglo-Saxons are fighting for information sovereignty, spitting on external propriety. The latest example is the actions of the British against Russia Today, which was simply asked to change its editorial policy under the threat of shutdown. But what the correct “Russia Today” allows itself cannot be compared with what, for example, “Echo of Moscow” or “Rain” allows itself.

I'm not talking about the fact that the oligarchic financially dependent, resource-based system cannot win the battle for sovereignty, for being a great power. Clinton once said that the US would allow Russia to be, but would not allow it to be a great power. Russia's revenge is the return of great power status, which is impossible on an oligarchic raw material basis.

Culture: What tasks will Putin have to solve? There are historical parallels. Defeat the neo-nomads and Khazaria like Svyatoslav, come up with a “messianic idea” like Vasily III (“Moscow is the third Rome”), hold an oprichnina like Ivan the Terrible (crush the “fifth column”), create an alternative Western way of life based on the idea of ​​social justice, like Stalin...

Fursov: Messianic ideas are not invented. They are born in struggle during crises. Neo-nomads and Khazaria are, if I understand correctly, globalists and their allies, or rather, their agents in Russia. Defeating them, indeed, is possible only with something like neooprichnina. It is also a condition for creating a new socio-economic structure based on the principles of social justice. First of all, a fair distribution of the national product is necessary. And we must start with the Constitution. On the one hand, reality must be brought into line with a number of its provisions (for example, that Russia is a welfare state). On the other hand, to remove those provisions that Yeltsin's lackeys concocted under the dictation of American "consultants" (for example, on the primacy of international law over Russian). However, much easier said than done. "Do" - means a serious and dangerous struggle that requires political will and the identification of group interests with national ones.

Culture: You wrote: "To win the world game, you need new knowledge and creative special forces." But the drama is that we don't have an image of the future. We are offered to revive the past. Either “USSR 2.0” or “Orthodoxy. Autocracy. Nationality". Or Christian-Islamic - Eurasian socialism without loan interest. So what is the Russian interest?

Fursov: I was not "creative", but "intellectual". I can't stand the word "creative". Everything suddenly became “creative” in our country: “creative manager”, “creative director”, even “creative class” appeared - this is how the office plankton calls himself. The fact that we do not have an image of the future and, as a result, a strategy for achieving it is not surprising - we do not have an ideology, a ban on it is even written in the constitution. And the US has. And China has. And Japan. And other successful states. Without ideology, it is impossible to formulate either development goals or an image of the future. The destiny of those who have no ideology is a picnic on the sidelines of History. Not a single project that looks back will work, nothing can be restored - neither the USSR nor the Russian Empire.

It is amazing, but our government (apparently due to the initial social kinship) is trying to establish continuity with the Russian Empire, emphasizing the MFB complex (monarchism, Februaryism, White Guardism) and opposing it to the Soviet period. But tsarist Russia was a dead end, the USSR solved such problems that the autocracy could not even think of. “We were born to make a fairy tale come true” is a Soviet principle. Unlike the Russian Empire, for the last 50 years of its existence, the Soviet Union did not depend on anyone, was not just a state, but the center of a world system alternative to capitalism. It is free for someone to choose the “lieutenants Golitsyns” who are unable to offer an image of the future, but this is a defeatist strategy. However, the USSR, with all its victories, is also the past. We need a new model of historical Russia. The time of empires has passed, but the time of nation-states too - they cannot resist the global totalitarianism of transnational companies and closed supranational groups of world coordination and management. We need new forms, something like empire-like formations with a population of at least 300 million (economic self-sufficiency in the current "technological order", with all the conventionality of this term). The core is the military-industrial complex, the army, navy, special services and a really reformed science. Empire-like formations should combine hierarchical-institutional and network principles of organization and grow into territorial enclaves scattered around the world. This is the new world order, an alternative to both Anglo-Saxon capitalism and the psycho-informational totalitarianism of the globalists, which is being pushed to replace it. It is a mistake to oppose the Eurasian model to the globalists as a regional one - world games are won on the world stage.

Culture: That is, a global battle for Eurasia is coming?

Fursov: She is already in full swing. If with regard to the Syrian crisis one could say with the words from Gaidar’s “Malchish-Kibalchish”, “as if the wind smells either of smoke from fires, or gunpowder from explosions”, then for the Ukrainian crisis it will be: “Trouble came from where they did not expect it! The accursed bourgeois attacked us from behind the Black Mountains. Bullets are already whistling again, shells are already exploding again, ”and Nazi bad guys under bacon with vodka surrender their country. And there is no need for illusions: having occupied Ukraine and using it as a springboard, they attacked us, Russia. Banderoukraina, this US colony is a ram of the West against Russia. Once Konstantin Leontiev said that the Czechs are a weapon that the Slavs recaptured from the Germans and directed against them. Today it is time to say that the ukry is a weapon that the West recaptured from the Russian world and directed against it, so that the Slavs would kill the Slavs. The porridge on our western border is brewed for a long time, and our geopolitical adversary will try to link the Ukrainian front with the Middle East, creating an intermediate one - the Caucasian one, from which the line can stretch to Central Asia. The last Great Hunt of the era of capitalism is coming, and our task is to switch places with the hunter, turning him into a game. Hard? And don't touch us, don't wake up famously while it's quiet. Taiga is a harsh thing, the bear in it is both the prosecutor and the executor of the sentence.

We publish answers to questions from readers of EYE OF THE PLANET in video format.

About Europe

1. Dear Andrey Ilyich! Watching your speech on TV Day, the question arose: do you think that after the collapse of the Third Reich, the Nazi hierarchs transformed it in the form of the European Union and the NATO bloc for a new campaign to the East?

2. What is causing the current crisis of multiculturalism in Europe? Are there any prerequisites for a similar situation in Russia, and if so, how can this be prevented? According to recent events, it is clear that the Anglo-Saxons support radical Islam in every possible way and help them overthrow the government. Does this mean that, in fact, Israel is being dismantled and pushed, like Turkey, to military action?

About the collapse of the USSR

Andrey Fursov answers the questions of readers of the Eye of the Planet:
Was the collapse of the USSR caused only by external influence and betrayal, or by existing internal imbalances in the system?

Vatican in geopolitics

Andrey Fursov answers the questions of readers of the Eye of the Planet:
What role does the Vatican play in modeling geopolitical processes? Does the Vatican have the ability to significantly influence the political life of individual countries, and if so, which ones? What is the financial resources of the Vatican? Tell us about the relationship between the Vatican and the "Venetian black aristocracy"?

Centers of power

Andrey Fursov answers the questions of readers of the Eye of the Planet:
You spoke about emerging macro-regions that are opposed to globalization. Which of them can be predicted, except for the EU, the USA, China and the EAC. Will there be a united Latin America, what options do Mexico, Australia, Japan, India have, in Southeast Asia and Africa? Will there be a united Europe or problems on the periphery are just beginning. What about countries like Spain or Greece?

Ideology of Russia

Andrey Fursov answers the questions of readers of the Eye of the Planet:
1. In your opinion, can a state exist without a state ideology? And what kind of ideology does Russia have now.
2. Dear Andrey Ilyich! What idea do you think will be able to unite the peoples of Russia: the supremacy of strong power, social justice and equality of people (or is this impossible in modern Russia), faith and support for religious cults, or something else?
3. Can Russia avoid the fate of becoming a tool in third hands in the clash of East and West?

About modernization

Andrey Fursov answers the questions of readers of the Eye of the Planet:
1. A year ago, we heard daily from the first persons about "modernization", what happened today?
2. Good afternoon, Andrey Ilyich! I always watch videos with your participation with deep interest and read your articles, in one of the stories, regarding the current moment, you said that you were only making a "diagnosis" of the system and the world. Actually, the question is that I really want to hear from such a competent researcher and some suggestions - recommendations for improving the situation of the life of the people and the country in the world! Are you working towards practical recommendations of the political leadership of the country? Do our leaders have an understanding of the depth and complexity of the modern world order? How do you see the coming years of life in Russia while maintaining the current government course?

Network-root structures

Andrey Fursov answers the questions of readers of the Eye of the Planet:
1. Is the systemic world crisis a sign of the collapse of the world's "network structures"? There is a feeling that these structures are in a deep crisis and now, like spiders in a jar, they gnaw at each other. And if so, what should the Russian leadership do in this case, in your opinion?
2. How, in your opinion, is the Internet simply a quantitative characteristic of communications, or is it a new phenomenon that changes the behavior and properties of society as a whole.

world elite

Andrey Fursov answers the questions of readers of the Eye of the Planet:
1. You often talk about elites. My question is: What qualities should candidates for the global elite have: enough wealth? What is characteristic of this club?
2. In one program, you said that the world's ruling elite has its own education system, to which mere mortals do not have access. What do you think: does the world elite have its own religion, if so, to which, in your opinion, religious trend or philosophical direction from known to us, is it closest?
3. Good day, Andrey Ilyich! I always watch videos with your participation with deep interest and read your articles, in one of the stories, regarding the current moment, you said that you were only making a "diagnosis" of the system and the world. Actually, the question is that I really want to hear from such a competent researcher and some suggestions - recommendations for improving the situation of the life of the people and the country in the world! Are you working towards practical recommendations of the political leadership of the country? Do our leaders have an understanding of the depth and complexity of the modern world order? How do you see the coming years of life in Russia while maintaining the current government course?

Information protection

1. Do you consider the idea - the eradication of the exploitation of "man by man" as utopian, or as an idea capable, at a certain stage, of uniting Russian society and directing it in the right direction? Do you agree that religion is a tool for managing society? Is it possible to expect transformation from religion, for example, the transition from dogmas to dialectical knowledge of the universe? Do you agree with the statement: - Everything that happens, happens for the better? Did I understand correctly from your statements that Russia has no subjectivity? If I understood you correctly, then don't you think that the words of Fyodor Tyutchev can be addressed to you? "You can't understand Russia with the mind."
2. Why, in your opinion, do people not create mechanisms of psychological and behavioral protection (consciously or not) from the harmful influence of alien environments, and often even take the worst (the cult of consumption, liberal licentiousness)? Is it connected with the underdevelopment / instability / unawareness of cultural codes?
And finally, how deep can the decline of civilization that you talk about in some of your speeches reach? What should (and can) an ordinary person prepare for?

About Miscellaneous

Andrey Fursov answers the questions of readers of the Eye of the Planet:
1. Dear Andrei Ilyich, I am concerned about the attack on the Far East (Sakhalin) by Asians - China or Japan, how realistic is this now and under what conditions is it possible?
2. Tell me, is there any reason to believe that by betraying the interests of the State of Israel today, part of the world elite is trying to play the same card as in the case of the Holocaust?
3. Thank you for your analytics. I look forward to your analytics regarding the latest initiatives of Zbigniew Brzezinski.
4. Sergei Pravosudov, editor-in-chief of the Gazprom magazine, wrote in his blog that there is a chance for a book by your authorship. In recent years, the country seems to be waking up, a sufficiently large number of people may be interested. Do you still have such plans?

Full version of the interview:

Thanks to Andrei Ilyich for detailed and interesting answers. In the future, we hope to regularly communicate with him on the most relevant topics.

Dear readers, we have the opportunity to ask our questions to the historian, publicist and sociologist Fursov Andrey Ilyich we invite you to join.

A. I. Fursov is Director of the Center for Russian Studies at the Institute for Fundamental and Applied Research of the Moscow University for the Humanities, Head of the Department of Asia and Africa at INION RAS, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Oriental and African Studies (Foreign Literature), Head of the Center for Methodology and Information at the Institute of Dynamic Conservatism.

Elected full member (academician) of the International Academy of Science, Austria.

Andrey Ilyich Fursov: biography

Birthday May 16, 1951

Russian historian, sociologist, publicist, organizer of science

Biography

Born in Shchelkovo, near Moscow, in the family of a military man. In 1973 he graduated from the Faculty of History of the Institute of Asian and African Countries at Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov. In 1986 he defended his Ph.D. thesis on the topic "Critical analysis of non-Marxist historiography of the 1970-80s on the problems of the peasantry in Asia."

Member of the Russian Intellectual Club, the expert council of the Political Journal.

In 2009 he was elected a full member (academician) of the International Academy of Sciences (International Academy of Science), Austria.

In 2010 he was elected a member of the Writers' Union of Russia.

Scientific work

The position in science was formed under the influence of Vladimir Vasilyevich Krylov (1934–1989), an employee of the IMEMO RAS (1934–1989), a gifted researcher and original thinker, who passed away early. Subsequently, it reflected the influence of some of the ideas of Alexander Zinoviev and the American "world-systemist" Immanuel Wallerstein.

Scientific interests are focused on the methodology of socio-historical research, the theory and history of complex social systems, the features of the historical subject, the phenomenon of power (and the global struggle for power, information, resources), Russian history, the history of the capitalist system and comparative historical comparisons of the West, Russia and the East.

Participated in 150 Russian and international scientific congresses, conferences and seminars.

teaching

Lectures at universities in Hungary, Germany, India, Canada, USA (New York at Binghamton, Columbia, Yale and Dickinson College).

Publications

• Problems of the social history of the peasantry of Asia. - Moscow: INION AN USSR, 1986-1988. - 2 volumes - S. 161, 267.
• Revolution as an Immanent Form of Development of the European Historical Subject (Reflections on the Formational and Civilizational Origins of the French Revolution) // 200 Years of the French Revolution / French Yearbook. 1987. - Moscow: Nauka, 1989. - S. 278-330.
• Kratocracy (The social nature of Soviet-type societies. The rise and fall of perestroika) // Socium. - Moscow, 1991-1994.
• The great mystery of the West: the role of formational and civilizational factors in the creation of a European historical subject // Europe: new fates of the old continent. - Moscow: INION RAN, 1992. - T. I. - S. 13-70.
• Peasantry in social systems: the experience of developing the theory of the peasantry as a social type - the personifier of the interaction of universal and systemic sociality // Peasantry and industrial civilization. - Moscow: Nauka, 1993. - S. 56-112.
• Communism, Capitalism and the Bells of History // Review. - Binghamton (N.Y.), 1994. - Vol. XIX, No. 2. - P. 103-130.
• Kapitalismus, Kommunismus und die Glocken der Geschichte // Comparativ. Leipziger Beiträge zur Universalgeschichte und vergleichenden Gesellschaftsforschung. - Leipzig, 1994. - 4. Jahrgang, Heft 5. - S. 57-69.
• East, West, capitalism: problems of philosophy, history and social theory // Capitalism in the East in the second half of the XX century. - Moscow: Vost. lit. RAN, 1995. — S. 16-133, 530-540, 597-599.
• Russian System (co-authored) // Frontiers. - Moscow, 1995-1996.

• Social Times, Social Spaces, and Their Dilemmas: Ideology "in One Country" // Review. - Binghamton (N.Y.), 1997. - Vol. XX, No. 3/4. - P. 345-420.
• Manifesto of the Communist Party, or 150 years later // RIZH. - Moscow, 1998. - T. I, No. 1. - S. 267-300.
• Middleness of Central Asia: a long-term view of the place of Central Asia in the macro-regional system of the Old World // RIZh. - Moscow, 1998. - T. I, No. 4. - S. 165-185.
• Asia-Pacific Region (Concept, Myth, Reality) and the World System // Afro-Asian World: Regional Historical Systems and Capitalism. - Moscow: INION RAN, 1999 - S. 89-144.
• Al Hind. Indian Ocean Islamic World-Economy: Structures of Everyday Life, Social Institutions, Main Stages of Development // Afro-Asian World: Regional Historical Systems and Capitalism. - Moscow: INION RAN, 1999. - S. 35-72.
• Another “enchanted wanderer” (About Vladimir Vasilyevich Krylov against the backdrop of late communist society and in the interior of the socio-professional organization of Soviet science) // RIZh. - Moscow, 1999. - T. II, No. 4. - S. 349-490.
• Gulf (the Iraqi-American conflict of 1990-1991) // Arab-Muslim world on the threshold of the XXI century. - Moscow: INION RAN, 1999. - S. 155-195.
• Fracture of Communism // RIZH. - Moscow, 1999. - T. II, No. 2. - S. 274-402.
• At the end of Modernity: terrorism or world war? // RIZH. - Moscow, 1999. - T. II, No. 3. - S. 193-231.
• Saeculum vicesimum: In memoriam (In memory of the 20th century) // RIZH. - Moscow, 2000. - T. III, No. 1-4. — S. 17-154.
• On the Great Contradiction: Life-Being Experiment and A. A. Zinoviev’s Work in the Context of Social Theory and Russian History // Zinoviev’s Phenomenon. - M .: Modern notebooks, 2002. - S. 40-64.
• Operation Orientalism. - Moscow: Humanitarian, 2004. - 55 p.
• Operation Progress // Cosmopolis. - Moscow, 2003/2004. - No. 4 (6). - S. 23-43.
• Eurasia Viewed from an Historical Height // World Affairs. The Journal of International Issues. — New Delhi, 2004. — Vol. VIII, No. 1. - P. 150-168.
• World geopolitical chess: champions and contenders // Dehiyo L. A fragile balance: four centuries of struggle for dominance in Europe. - Moscow: Association of Scientific Publications KMK, 2005. - S. 244-313.
• The European system of states, the Anglo-Saxons and Russia // Dehiyo L. A fragile balance: four centuries of struggle for dominance in Europe. - Moscow: Association of scientific publications KMK, 2005. - S. 27-48.
• Central Eurasia: Historical Centrality, Geostrategic Condition and Power Model Legacy // Towards Social Stability and Democratic Governance in Central Eurasia / Ed. by I. Morozova. - Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2005. - P. 23-39.
• Ideology and ideology // Kustarev AS Nervous people. Essays on the intelligentsia. - Moscow: Association of scientific publications KMK, 2006 - S. 7-47.
• Intelligentsia and intellectuals // Kustarev AS Nervous people. Essays on the intelligentsia. - Moscow: Association of scientific publications KMK, 2006 - S. 48-86.
• Conspiracy theories, capitalism and the history of Russian power // Bryukhanov V. A. Tragedy of Russia. Regicide on March 1, 1881 - Moscow: Association of Scientific Publications of the KMK, 2007. - P. 7-69.

Exactly 97 years ago, an armed uprising began in Petrograd, overthrowing the Provisional Government and going down in history as the Great October Socialist Revolution.

It received this name almost two decades later, and immediately after it, the Civil War broke out in the country, accompanied by the intervention of the invaders. For the majority of detractors and critics of the USSR, the actions of the Bolsheviks ended there, they forget that despite all these circumstances, the USSR carried out a fantastic project for the electrification of the country at that time, which led to the development of industry, energy, the development of vast territories, the construction of infrastructure, and much more. of this works so far. In parallel, the development of education, medicine, science and technology.

The GOELRO plan was one of the key state projects of the young Soviet country. Lenin's expression that "communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country" is well known. The famous science fiction writer HG Wells was simply shocked by the electrification plan and told Lenin that it was impossible, but when he returned to Russia 14 years later - in 1934, there was no limit to his amazement, because the plans that he could "imagine only with the help of super-fantasy ", were overfulfilled. In many ways, it was the electrification of the country that became the basis for subsequent industrialization - the Kuznetsk coal basin began to be used and the industrial zone began to develop, huge hydroelectric power stations were built, a network of regional power plants appeared, and electricity generation increased by almost an order of magnitude over 15 years.

In a matter of years, a colossal construction project has unfolded in the country - hundreds of factories, railways, subways, colossal infrastructure facilities have laid the groundwork for the emergence of a superpower that has used this potential for another half a century and continues to use it to this day. Here we can also recall the system of universal free school and affordable higher education, the development of science and technology, the space program, nuclear energy, medicine ...

Considering all this, one can understand why November 7, in the memory of generations of people who have firmly remembered from an early age "the day of the seventh of November - the red day of the calendar", still remains "that November holiday", which marked a world-scale event and the most significant achievements of the Soviet system.

About why November 7 was and remains an actual holiday for the Russian people, about Soviet patriotism and why the USSR still cannot be restored, he said in an interview Nakanune.RU historian, writer, full member of the International Academy of Sciences Andrey Fursov.

Question: Today is the day of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Why, in your opinion, is this day more understandable to people than the day of national unity?

Andrey Fursov: Despite the fact that the so-called National Unity Day has been celebrated for almost 10 years, it still remains an "artificial" holiday for many reasons. Firstly, most people in Russia are well aware that this happened on November 7, according to the new style of 1917. The October Revolution, which became the beginning of a new era not only in the life of Russia, but also in world history. This is a global event. Almost no one knows what happened on November 4, 1612, since it was a very long time ago. In recent years, it is true, we have been enlightened that this is a dinner over the Poles, but we have not been enlightened about the details of this victory. The fact is that there was no unity of the Russian people on November 4, since the militia of Minin and Pozharsky were in very acute relations with the Cossacks of Trubetskoy, with whom they agreed and expelled the Poles from the Kremlin. And then the struggle of these two groups began, and there was no unity. It is enough to read the chronicles and works of historians. In a word, November 4 is definitely not "pulling" for Unity Day. In addition, many people are well aware that November 4 was invented, as they say, on the knee, in order to displace November 7 as a kind of Soviet symbol, as a symbol of the revolution that overthrew the power of "bourgeois, landlords and priests." Naturally, for those who overthrew this anti-capitalist, anti-autocratic regime in 1991, the memory of November 7 is very, very unpleasant. But you can't argue against history - November 7 remains in the memory of people and will remain for a very long time.

Question: President Putin mentioned the day before that the Bolsheviks did not give peace, nor land to the peasants, nor factories to the workers, and in general, "albeit gracefully, but deceived" the people who supported them.

Andrey Fursov: I think the president was inaccurate in his wording. First, the Bolsheviks kept two of their three promises. They promised peace, bread and land. The peace they promised is the way out of the imperialist war. They kept their word - Russia withdrew from the imperialist war. They promised land to the peasants - and they gave the land to the peasants. Even during collectivization, a significant part of the land - half - remained in the collective farms - in collective ownership, and not in state ownership. That is, the peasants also received land. As for bread, there really was a discrepancy, because in May 1918 the Bolsheviks declared pro-dictatorship and this became one of the causes of the Civil War, but not the only reason. Not only the Bolsheviks are to blame for the outbreak of the Civil War, but also the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, and the monarchists, and the former Februaryists. The civil war is a very complex phenomenon, and one should not hang all the dogs on the Bolsheviks. So the president was inaccurate in his wording, and this once again suggests that it is necessary to select history consultants more carefully so that they do not set up the main boss.

Question: And, speaking of the minuses, they often forget the pluses? Can the creation of a system of free universal education, breakthroughs in medicine, science and technology be considered the achievements of the revolution?

Andrey Fursov: Everything is very complicated with the October Revolution. It is necessary to speak more broadly - about the Russian revolution, which took place in two stages. The first stage was the international socialist revolution, the main characters of which were Lenin, Trotsky and the whole company, who wanted a world revolution, who wanted a zemstvo republic, but they didn’t give a damn about Russia. But nothing came of it - the big system "Russia" turned out to be too tough for the capitalist system and left globalists. And in 1925-27, Stalin's team, which objectively expressed the interests of the large "Russia" system, curtailed the project of world revolution and embarked on the project of building socialism in a single country. And this phase of the Russian revolution continued until 1938-39. Its final chord is the mini-civil wars of 37-38. And in 1939, with the 18th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, this process ends, and the era of the Russian Revolution ends, a regime is established, and a red empire is created. Moreover, such an empire is being created, a quasi-empire, which was able to break the back of the Wehrmacht. Of course, we are still living on the achievements of the red empire, the Soviet Union. The fact that the Americans did not bomb us like Serbs or Libyans is because we have nuclear weapons, and the foundation was laid under Stalin.

We live on this foundation, without it no one would talk to us. But the achievements of the Soviet Union are not limited to space, defense, a civilization of a special type. I always remember that in the 1960s the Soviet Union set an absolute record, I think that it will never be surpassed, in any case, in the next 100-200 years, we are talking about mortality - 6.9 per thousand. This is an absolute record. This means that thanks to medical preventive measures and a whole range of other social measures, Soviet citizens demonstrated a very low mortality rate that the capitalist world could not dream of. In a broad sense, all these are really achievements of the October Revolution, because it was planned as a prologue and the beginning of the world revolution, and, in fact, until 1936, the holiday of November 7 was not called the day of the October Revolution, it was called the holiday of the First Day of the world revolution. But in 1936 it all ended. And in 1936 the term "Soviet patriotism" appears. That is, in a broad sense, it was the October Revolution that opened up broad prospects for the development that Russia received. Tsarist Russia would never have achieved any of this

Question: So, say, the implementation of the electrification plan and the development of industrial potential would not be so active?

Andrey Fursov: A lot of plans were drawn up at the beginning of the 20th century in tsarist Russia, but they could not be implemented under that political regime, under the class structure of society that existed. After all, the revolution threw out the colossal energy of the people, which previously could not be realized by the regime that existed. And this energy rushed over the edge, this energy also had negative aspects. What happened in Russia in the 1920s and 30s is not some kind of malicious intent, it is a negative aspect of the energy that was thrown out. But, by the way, it was this energy that crushed the Nazi hordes, it was this energy that sent a man into space and did much, much more.

Question: Most of those who have visited the republics of Novorossia, especially in the Luhansk Republic, note that leftist, communist views are extremely popular there, many militias say that they are restoring the USSR there. In a broad sense, does November 7 remain an actual holiday, an actual date for the majority of Russians?

Andrey Fursov A: It really is. Another thing is that the USSR cannot be restored. The USSR was adequate to a certain historical stage. This stage is over. We live in such a watershed-transitional time that is coming to an end, and this applies not only to us, but to the whole world. The destruction of the Soviet Union was one of the aspects, perhaps the most important, of the social transition that took place at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century. And this transition is a prologue to the battle for the future of the world as it will be. The fact that it will not be capitalist is completely understandable. The capitalist system has outlived its usefulness, it is old. What will the post-capitalist world be like, will it be an oligarchic, unegalitarian, tough, new edition of the iron noose, or will it be something that will absorb the best leftist ideas of the 19th and 20th centuries without their extremism (although in history it is usually difficult to predict development without extremes), time will tell. This will be the essence of the 21st century – what the world of the future will be like. Will it be the world of Dara Vetera from Efremov's "Andromeda Nebula" or will it be the world of Darth Vader from "Star Wars".

Question: Does Russia now have the potential to create, if not a state of the Bolsheviks, but which, nevertheless, would create the conditions and organization for such a social and intellectual breakthrough, as happened almost 100 years ago? In general, is it possible to develop simply on the basis of the principle "We want, like Europe, give more democracy and freedom"?

Andrey Fursov: I want to hope that there is potential, but everything will depend on specific historical circumstances. The pressure that the West is currently exerting on Russia shows that it is precisely this pressure that causes very powerful opposition from the energy sector of certain segments of the population, and this inspires certain hopes. At least the current generation of those who are between 20 and 30 years old is much more patriotic than those who were 20-30 in the 90s.

Question: Why did this happen, because these young people were brought up, in many respects, under the influence of just that "unpatriotic" generation?

Andrey Fursov: You can educate as you like, but people see social injustice, they see social polarization, they see crime and they know from the stories of their elders that this did not happen in Soviet times, that there were much more acquittals in Soviet courts, and much more cases went to additional investigation. There were no rich, there was a certain injustice, but it was not in such a flashy form, "gay leaders" did not grimace and there was not much else. Life itself brings up those people who do not accept this post-Soviet system.

Question: And returning to the national unity with which we started, can the unity that the authorities call for, but so far is not very successful, be formed on this social basis?

Andrey Fursov: National unity is formed, as a rule, during periods of very, very acute crises when it comes to survival. For example, in 1941-45, it was about the survival of Russians and other indigenous peoples that the Germans wanted to erase with the eraser of history. Energy is born from overcoming the crisis.

Question: The current situation does not fall under such a definition?

Andrey Fursov: While we live in a pre-crisis situation. The crisis will break out, whether it will develop in an increasing way - this depends not only on Russia. We are an element of a world system that is sinking more and more into crisis. In addition, we see the agony of the United States, this quasi-empire, and in a situation of such agony, this huge dinosaur will beat its tail left and right, and all sorts of options are already possible here.

A well-known historian on whether Putin will be able to create his own oprichnina and how people who knew about the fate of the "gold of the party" were killed in the early 90s

Russia has not built capitalism, but "is languishing from its ulcers," says the well-known historian Andrei Fursov. After the destruction of the USSR, the leaders returned 50% of the wealth of 1% of the population, restoring their usual norm. In an interview with BUSINESS Online, Fursov suggested that it was possible to break out of the neoliberal course only by creating the concept of a new oprichnina, but Putin is still busy with banal personnel changes.

“WHAT WE CALL THE TERROR OF 1937 WAS ESSENTIALLY A PERSONNEL ROTATION, A BRUTAL, IN THE SPIRIT OF THE BRUTAL TIME.”

Andrey Ilyich, Vladimir Putin's sensational reshuffles: the removal of the head of the presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov, the replacement of the Minister of Education Dmitry Livanov by the conservative historian Olga Vasilyeva, the resignations and appointments of a number of people - is this not a transition to a new oprichnina, which you have been talking about for a long time? People who were previously little known are coming to the fore, while the pillars of the regime are gradually dissolving into the shadows, leaving "eternal Putin" in a renewed environment of pure "performers"...

No, this, of course, is not a new oprichnina, nothing in common. These are the usual permutations that happen in different countries. Oprichnina is a whole program of reconstruction. There is currently no reform program. At least I don't see her.

- That is, these are ordinary personnel changes and nothing more?

What we have seen recently, when about a dozen high-ranking officials were removed from their posts, then the resignation of Sergei Ivanov, etc., has nothing to do with the new oprichnina. The historical oprichnina is a whole program: the country was divided into two parts ( "sovereign lordship oprichnina" and Zemstvo - approx. ed. ), fundamentally new organizational forms were created. Oprichnina, as an emergency body, was built on top of the Boyar Duma, on the existing institutional system, since this system did not solve the tasks that objectively faced the country, which had to be solved in order for the country to survive and become stronger. What we see now is the usual personnel reshuffling, which often happens in any state apparatus, especially on the eve of elections. But no new structures emerged, the agenda has not changed.

Photo: kremlin.ru

But after all, people with whom Putin has a common past, who remember his pre-presidential period, are retiring. Didn't the same thing happen when Stalin gradually squeezed Lenin's guard out of political life, when Ivan the Terrible parted with his Chosen Rada, which determined the first period of his reign? The old cadres are being replaced by those for whom Putin is a lifetime monument to himself, relatively young performers like Anton Vaino. If this is not yet an oprichnina, then perhaps a vector of movement in this direction?

The vector towards the oprichnina is the declared program, and only then people are selected for it. And when people are simply sorted out, it is completely different. Ivan the Terrible called it that: "to sort out little people." And the fact that people who once knew the incumbent president well are leaving - well, everything ends sometime. As the ancient Romans said: Nihil dat fortuna mancipio - "Fate does not give anything forever."

Until recently, the oprichnina as a historical phenomenon was treated exclusively negatively. The last brick in the liberal library about the oprichnina was put by the writer Vladimir Sorokin, writing his satirical "Day of the Oprichnik". As for the other point of view on the oprichnina, in the latest historiography it is mainly represented by your works.

Still, I would not attribute the writer Sorokin to the concepts of the oprichnina - this is still literature, and, in my opinion, of a rather poor quality. The liberal concept of the oprichnina is, for example, Vasily Klyuchevsky, who saw in the oprichnina "only the paranoia of the tsar", which is rather strange for a historian of this level. A number of historians also treated her unimportantly.

- There was also Karamzin, who opened for the liberal readerXIXcentury, the infernal image of Ivan the Terrible, the writer was one of the first to create a negative myth about the oprichnina.

I do not consider Nikolai Karamzin a historian. Karamzin is a publicist who contributed to the falsification of Russian history. This is a man who, apparently, wanted to please the Romanovs, or rather, the dynasty that has ruled Russia under this name since the middle of the 18th century. The scheme is simple: "the penultimate nightmare Rurikovich is the good Romanovs." Karamzin generally invented a lot of things, for example, “Yaroslav the Wise”. Prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich ( son of Vladimir the Baptist - approx. ed . ) was actually neither wise nor courageous. Karamzin is a great myth-maker. If I wanted to insult him, I would say that this is such Radzinsky of the early nineteenth century. Still, Karamzin is not Radzinsky, so I will refrain.

As for the prerequisites for the oprichnina, I repeat: the prerequisites for the oprichnina are a program, new organizations, and then people. People can be changed as much as you want without any oprichnina. If we talk about the very idea of ​​the oprichnina, it is an emergency organization that performs the function that the institutions did not perform. The same thing: what we call the terror of 1937 was not limited to terror alone, terror is the form in which this phenomenon proceeded. But the bottom line was that it was a form of personnel rotation, cruel, in the spirit of a cruel time. Another thing is that the country has only recovered from the civil war for only two decades, and the human material that rotated and acted in the spirit of the civil war, even the cold civil war, but with all the habits and cruelties of that time. However, if you look at the content, then it was a rotation of personnel, getting rid of corrupt and worthless officials, which took place in the spirit of the era and according to its laws.

"THE OPPOSITE PROCESS HAS STARTED - THE ROBBING BY THE TOP OF THE BOTTOM"

We, too, barely grew out of the 90s, out of the “criminal revolution”. Is a “velvet” version of a new oprichnina possible today, or will we be dealing with a tough scenario anyway?

Forecasting is a very thankless task. The bottom line is that everything also depends on the social structure, on the society in which this or that program is implemented. If changes come from above, then in our situation it may be rather a “velvet” scenario. But if “velvet” changes from above do not occur, then I am afraid that there will be not quite “velvet” changes from below. Therefore, as Emperor Alexander II said (I convey the meaning), it is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for the time when it will itself begin to be abolished from below. It is better to remove corrupt officials and worthless officials in a “velvet” way: maybe by giving them a “golden parachute”, maybe not giving them, maybe someone needs to be given not a “golden parachute”, but a term. But in any case, it should be within the law and preferably without bloodshed. True, in history, all attempts to deceive her so far ended badly. If, for example, the "revolution from above" either stopped halfway, or was simply a hoax, retribution followed without fail. Suffice it to recall the fate of Alexander II and his grandson.

You distinguish three historical models of the oprichnina: Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great (“Petersburg version”) and Stalin. Putin and his entourage are from St. Petersburg, and the Western model is probably closer to them. Or is the “turn to the East”, about which there is a lot of talk, already taking place, including in the field of the formation of a modernization model?

To clarify: Stalin did not have an oprichnina, but he actively used the oprichnina principle in the spirit of Ivan the Terrible's scheme. With Peter the Great, with the similarity of form, there was something different, and the point is not in the “western” or “eastern” turn, but in whether the “extraordinary emergency” works to solve national problems or mainly serves to enrich the group of near-throne lackeys. So the “St. Petersburg version” of the oprichnina, which I wrote about, is only Western in form, but the main difference between the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible and the use of the oprichnina principle by Joseph Stalin from what Peter the Great did is different. Ivan and Joseph suppressed the oligarchy very harshly and did not allow the top to steal. But Peter the Great allowed it out of necessity - he did not have other people at hand. It is no coincidence that he said to his associate Tolstoy, patting him on the head: “Oh, head, head, if you weren’t so smart, I would cut you down.” As you know, another ally of the reformer tsar, Alexander Menshikov, stole almost a third of Russia's national income. But Peter turned a blind eye to the theft of the oligarchs, and in this the St. Petersburg oprichnina differed from the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible and from the use of the oprichnina principle by Stalin. I emphasize: the use of principle, because Stalin did not have his own oprichnina, but he forced the institutions to act as if they were an emergency commission. So it's not about being west-centric or east-centric. The form of power that Stalin exercised may well outwardly qualify as Western-centric, because everything happened within the framework of the party organization: the CPSU (b) was formally considered a party, although it, of course, was not a party.

Photo: © Igor Mikhalev, RIA Novosti

However, what you said about the St. Petersburg oprichnina is very reminiscent of many figures from the circle of the current Russian president. Maybe it's not a coincidence, it's something almost genetic...

This is hardly genetics, I think it would be too simple: the era is different, almost 300 years have passed, and the tasks are different. Another thing is that there were a lot of random people in Peter's oprichnina, they were taken out by the era "up" in the same way as many random people appeared in our top in the nineties and zero years. Imagine who Anatoly Chubais or Yegor Gaidar could have been if the Soviet Union had not collapsed and survived. Gaidar would have sat in the magazine "Communist" and scolded Western economic theory. And Chubais would organize shop production or sell flowers. But the situation changed, and these people were thrown upstairs. As the Indian philosopher Swami Vivekananda said: "Revolution is the time of the Shudras." Sudras in India are the lowest caste ( above them in position are considered brahmins - priests, kshatriyas - warriors and vaishyas - farmers - approx. ed.), but it is the Shudras who throw up the revolutionary changes. By the way, in the time of Peter the Great, many people of the lower stratum were thrown upstairs, the same Menshikov ( they say that the future duke traded pies in Moscow, like Chubais in St. Petersburg - flowers - approx. ed . ). And Menshikov completed his journey below, too, however, he completed it with dignity: he did not whine, did not ask for forgiveness. Nevertheless, in 1727 he was thrown out of the cage, moreover, even the money that he once stole, his family had to give in order to get out of Berezov (a city in Siberia, the place of exile of the duke). Because Biron, the man of Empress Anna Ioannovna, offered Menshikov's family after his death a deal: Menshikov's daughter marries Biron's son, but as a dowry she will bring Menshikov's money that he placed in Dutch banks. What has been done.

True, Biron did not help. Random people came to power, or, as they were called in the 18th century, “fit” people (“fit” in old Russian is “case”). These “seizure people” came and moved from structure to structure until the system settled down, until Catherine’s nobles appeared, and outwardly everything took on a decent look. But, I repeat, only external. Today, however, we don’t have decades that Russia was measured from Peter the Great to Catherine the Second, everything changes very quickly, and the era is completely different, the 18th century was relatively calm, and we live in a completely different time.

But how in this other time of Russia to rebuild, getting rid of corrupt officials and worthless officials? Can this be done within the framework of one model, one environment, one team, which we now see in the Kremlin?

I think that within the framework of the model that was chosen in 1991, not only is it impossible to get out of the situation, but within the framework of it, one can only lose. Pay attention: the neo-liberal course in the world is curtailed not because it is bad, but because it has served its purpose. The course that was unfortunately called neoliberal and which started in the West with the coming to power Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the United States, meant a very simple thing - a global redistribution of income. If from 1945 to 1975 with the help of the “welfare state” there was a transfer of a small part of the income from the “top” down to the middle layer and the top of the working class, then in the mid-1970s this whole situation ended and the opposite process began. - robbery by the “tops” of the “bottoms” (“bottoms”, because, from the point of view of the “top”, the middle layer and the working elite are still “bottoms”). This went on for several decades.

By the way, the late Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras completely fall into the fold of these processes. Actually, what did the neo-liberal revolution, or rather, the counter-revolution in the West, lead to? It restored the usual norm, the "normal" (from the point of view of the neo-liberals) relationship between the property that the rich have and the property that the poor have. We have recently translated into Russian a book by a French economist Thomas Piketty"Capitalism in the 21st century", where the author clearly stated that the norm for capitalism is when 1 percent of the population controls 50 percent or more of the wealth. This norm was violated by capitalism only once - from 1945 to 1975.

To a large extent, the violation of the norm was facilitated by the fact that the Soviet Union existed. The Western elite understood that it needed to appease its “proles and middles” so that they would not vote for leftist parties. And as soon as the USSR was destroyed by a combined blow from inside and outside, everything returned to normal, and very quickly. For a quarter of a century, the norm has been restored.

A number of interesting studies are now emerging on the distribution of wealth, power and property in the West. In 2013, two historians - an Englishman and an American - wrote a paper in which they analyzed how power and property were distributed in England from 1180 to 2012, from Richard the Lionheart before David Cameron. And it turned out that during this entire period, for 28 generations, power and property in England belongs to one percent of the population, and basically this percentage is made up of relatives, close or distant. Therefore, all the talk of sociologists - Western and our lured comprador ones - that with capitalism and the industrial revolution, horizontal mobility changes to vertical and meritocracy appears ( power bestowed according to ability and merit, - approx. ed.), is "a redhead all in public"

“IF THE RULING CLASS IS A COMBINATION OF RAGGERS, NOMENCRATURE AND CRIMINAL, THEN THIS IS NOT THE RULING CLASS, AND SO - THEY RUN OUT OF THE GATEWAY”

- In Russia, the ratio between wealth and poverty is probably even more striking.

At Karl Marx there was such a phrase: "A pagan languishing from the ulcers of Christianity." So are we. Russia is still not, strictly speaking, a capitalist country. But we have more plagues of capitalism than in the capitalist countries, and we also have more wealth at the top than in the capitalist countries. Of course, not in absolute terms, but in relative terms, that is, according to the criteria of the decile coefficient, the Gini index, etc. This despite the fact that, I repeat, the Russian Federation is not a capitalist country, and not only because Russia is an immanently non-capitalist country . There is another political economy focus. The fact is that the emergence of capitalism in Western Europe was preceded by the process of primitive accumulation of capital, which Karl Marx studied in the 24th chapter of the 1st volume of "Capital". The primitive accumulation of capital is not capitalist accumulation, but that which precedes it as a necessary condition. The primitive accumulation of capital is the plundering of those who have property in order to have property that can be transformed into capital. These are enclosures in England, these are pirate raids by the British on Spanish possessions in South America, and much more. And only when primitive accumulation ends in the core of pre-capitalist society, capitalist accumulation starts. But it's in the core. And on the periphery or semi-periphery, these processes develop synchronously. Moreover, primitive accumulation very often clogs capitalist accumulation and hinders it. This is exactly what has been happening to us since 1991.

Look, there comes a new governor in the region or a new mayor in the city. Where does he start? Most often, he or his people begin to take property and businesses from the relatives of the former governor or mayor, there is a redistribution of property, a self-reproducing redistribution, a self-reproducing initial accumulation, next to which capitalist exists, but it is dependent on this initial accumulation. Because property in Russia has always been, is and will be dependent on the authorities. Property in Russia is a function of power, and in this situation, capitalism can only be external, gangster and very, very ugly.

- This is some kind of tribal family capitalism, limited to a small circle of families.

The fact is that this is not capitalism at all. Capitalism is a very complex legal and socio-economic relationship. It is labor realizing itself as a self-increasing value. In order for all groups that have capital in their hands to turn into capitalists, time must pass, a certain type of consciousness must arise. And even in the West, not everything is so simple in this respect. For example, in West Germany, 70 percent of the industry, directly or through figureheads, belongs to the aristocracy. We live with myths about capitalism, about the fact that the bourgeoisie has defeated the aristocracy. Nothing like this. After the revolution of 1848 in Europe, the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy agreed, even earlier they agreed in England as a result of the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688. This is the complexity and strength of the ruling class in the West - it is a combination of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. And if the ruling class is a combination of ragamuffins, ex-nomenklatura and crime, then this is not the ruling class, it is true - they ran out of the doorway, besides, they ate food unusual for them, as I would say Ernst Unknown.

Returning to Putin: will he be able to distance himself from his former comrades-in-arms, from those who “ran out of the gateway”, and from their neoliberal course?

Don't know. Only one person can answer this question - Putin, if he wants to, of course.

Journalists recently asked me: who should carry out the changes from above? I answered that, since power in Russia is centralized, therefore - the general secretary, the tsar or the president. And readers immediately began to comment: they say, again a person is blowing Putin's tune and thinks that Putin will decide everything. Many of us still do not know how to read at all. Putin's name was not uttered at all - it was generally not about a specific person, but about the principle of power. Revolutions from above can only take place from above, only the first person can initiate them: Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Alexander II, Stalin, Khrushchev, relatively speaking.

- Revolution from above for Russia is the most effective and proven model.

You know, it's better without revolutions at all, but it doesn't work without revolutions - neither in Russia nor abroad, and precisely because of the stupidity of the authorities and the ruling classes. In general, there has been only one revolution in history, almost bloodless and successfully cunning. By the way, this is the only truly bourgeois revolution: I already mentioned it - 1688, when the Orange dynasty (represented by William of Orange) came to power in England. This revolution was a consequence of the fact that the Dutch and English East India companies decided to do what is called merger in economic parlance - "merge". And in order to merge, it is necessary that a new dynasty reign in England. They carried out this "Glorious Revolution" practically bloodless, and it was the only bourgeois revolution in the history of mankind. Because neither the French Revolution nor the Revolution Oliver Cromwell they cannot apply for such a role. The Cromwellian revolution was generally anti-bourgeois, and the reasoning about its bourgeois economic lining is a myth that the liberals forged about the bourgeois revolutions, and the Marxists picked it up. It is significant that the French Revolution of 1789 took place not in bourgeois Lyon, but in non-bourgeois Paris. So everything is very difficult with bourgeois revolutions. Unfortunately, we live in a mythologized liberal-Marxist reality, and this despite the fact that I have great respect for the Marxist tradition. But this scheme about revolutions, about the bourgeoisie... We often present these events in such a way that the bourgeoisie invariably finds itself in the center, although it is in the center not by itself, but in unity with the monarchy and aristocracy, which have not disappeared anywhere. The fact that some monarchs were executed does not change the general situation. This is such a triumvirate, well, plus closed power structures.

“NOBODY CAN BECOME STALIN NOW”

Do you see any preconditions for a real bloodless revolution to take place in our country as well?

In general, politicians are designed in such a way that they are largely responsive to circumstances. True, great rulers create circumstances, but they often react to them. A lot depends on the circumstances here. There is such an episode in one of the best political novels of the 20th century "All the King's Men" Robert Penn Warren. The protagonist Willie Stark, the governor, speaks to the people and shouts (I convey the meaning): "Give me an ax - and I will cut down these crooks, oligarchs." And a person close to him, Jack Burden, after this rally asks the governor: “Could you really grab an axe?” He: "The devil knows! But if at that moment they gave me an ax, I don’t know.” Therefore, it is very difficult to say what any politician wants to do at any given moment. In addition, any politicians, especially heads of state, are in fact people who are severely limited in their abilities. Because the more subordinates you have, the more you are involved in a large system of connections, the less room for maneuver you have. Only our liberal intelligentsia believes that Stalin, being the general secretary of the party, did what he wanted. Nothing like this. I repeat, the more subordinates you have, the higher your position in the pyramid of power, the more limited you are. So a lot depends on the circumstances. I do not think that Stalin of the 1927 model thought that he would put the Leninist-Trotskyite guard under the knife. However, in 1937 he had to do this, because it was a matter of his survival in power and his physical survival. Otherwise, he would have ended up in the Lubyanka, and not Zinoviev and Kamenev. As Stalin said: "There is a logic of intentions, there is a logic of circumstances, but the logic of circumstances is stronger than the logic of intentions."

In 2000, when Putin first came to power, he raised a toast to Generalissimo Stalin at the celebration of Victory Day in the Kremlin. At that time, this shocked many - the image of the "leader and teacher" in the mass consciousness remained predominantly negative. But this also made it possible to draw some more or less clear parallels between Putin and Stalin, predicting to him that over time he could grow into a figure, if not of equal size, then at least reminiscent of Stalin in his historical role. Are there circumstances in Russia now that will force Putin to become Stalin?

Now no one can become Stalin. What was the Stalinist system in the political-economic sense of the word? It was an expression of the dictatorship of wage workers of the pre-industrial and early industrial type. Therefore, already at the end of the 40s, the Stalinist system began to slip, Stalin understood this very well. That is why he was going to move real power from the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Council of Ministers, and the party to leave the ideology and training of personnel. Another thing is that he did not have time to do this - either he died, or he was killed without providing assistance in time. Stalin was adequate to his era, but already in the early 1950s he was not quite adequate, so he made mistakes, and even before he had enough of them. He perfectly understood this situation.

In late industrial society, a figure like Stalin is very difficult to imagine. Something else is required here, who and what is very difficult to say. Another thing: the acute foreign policy and acute domestic political situation in the country can call for a dictator to the throne or force the first person to become a dictator. But for sure it will not be a Stalinist dictatorship, but something new. An analogy is appropriate here. When Kissinger became President Nixon's National Security Adviser, journalists asked him, "Will you make the mistakes your predecessors made?" He said, "Well, of course not, we will make our mistakes." Therefore, if there is a dictator in Russia, he will be completely different than Stalin. If a new oprichnik appears in Russia, it will not be a man with a broom and a dog's head, it will be a young man with a tablet and, most likely, without a weapon.

Maybe. Although those who in the 1990s were the glory of gangster Petersburg and other criminal centers of the country, it was by force of arms that they were sent to rest.

This era is over. Remember: people who during the Civil War (I mean the winners) amassed capital, during the NEP became respectable nomenklatura workers and looked down on the Nepmen, who were just hucksters for them. So everything is changing.

Boris Pugo and Gennady Yanaev (left to right)

“AMONG THE PUTCHISTS THERE WAS ONLY ONE WORTHY AND DECISIVE PERSON - BORIS PUGO. THAT'S WHY THEY KILLED HIM"

The other day we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the GKChP, that very August putsch of 1991, which its formal head Gennady Yanaev called the last battle for the USSR. What was it anyway? A clumsy attempt to save the Soviet Union, which only accelerated its agony, or a provocation by people close to Gorbachev, with quite pragmatic goals?

I think that both points of view are partly right. Here we recall Lenin's characterization of the events of July 3-5, 1917 in Petrograd, when the Bolsheviks decided to test the strength of the provisional government. Moreover, when everything in Petrograd hung in the balance, as is often the case in equilibrium situations, much depended on chance. Do not order the staff captain Tsaguriya to open fire from the cannons, do not run the sailors in all directions, everything could have ended differently. So Lenin called these events an explosion of reaction and revolution at the same time. The same - GKChP. I think, indeed, from the point of view of the seven, which we know as the State Committee for the State of Emergency, they sincerely wanted to save the USSR, although one of them, I think, was a misguided Cossack. I will not say who I suspect, since there is no direct evidence, but I think that there was a mishandled Cossack, at least this man wanted to outwit everyone: both the enemy and the ally, but he outwitted himself. At the same time, the very behavior of these people is the actions of gray late-Soviet officials. Instead of taking the telegraph, mail, telephone, arresting Yeltsin, putting airports under control, they did nothing. This is both inability and lack of initiative, brought up by the Brezhnev era. Although now many remember him almost with tenderness.

The events of August 1991 certainly accelerated the collapse of the USSR, but I believe that the history of the GKChP is a history with a double or even triple bottom. It was a provocation, someone provoked these people to speak out in order to hasten the end of the Soviet Union. Moreover, according to the information that I have (I cannot verify it, of course, since it is exclusive), an extraordinary congress of the Central Committee of the CPSU was planned for September - early October 1991, where Gorbachev was to be removed from power ( the fact that an extraordinary party congress was scheduled for September 3, 1991, was confirmed in BUSINESS Online by a former close ally of YeltsinSergei Shakhrai, - approx. ed.). Gorbachev's resignation was to be followed by major changes. And this provocation with the State Emergency Committee, apparently, was supposed to prevent the situation with the removal of the Secretary General from power, since the latter would complicate the destruction of the system and the USSR as its form. I think that's how it was. The “planner” (let's call it that) provoked the seven gekachepists to the actions that they took during these three days. Another thing is that with the organization that they had, with the complete mismatch of actions and words, all this was doomed to failure - that's how it was intended. But the putschists themselves - Yanaev, Yazov, Kryuchkov and others - of course, believed that they were saving the Soviet Union. Whether it was possible to save the Soviet Union in that situation is an open question.

But they saved the country by liberal methods. Gennady Yanaev and five of his associates on the emergency committee organized an open press conference. At the same time, they announced the closure of most of the media, but almost all of these newspapers were present at their famous press conference. No great bloodshed was shed (with the exception of three who died under the tanks of the Taman division), although some democratic forces were eagerly waiting for it in order to scream to the whole world about the "bloody junta".

Three dead under tanks is a completely random thing. As for the members of the State Emergency Committee, these people turned out to be politically impotent. There is a simple rule: pull out a knife - hit. And they pulled out a knife, waved it - and nothing. And even Yeltsin was not arrested. Therefore, they are historically bankrupt. These are classic Gorbachevs. Once deceased Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev defined Gorbachevism as an attempt by gray officials to deceive history. I think that Gorbachevism is still a lot of other things, but there was an “attempt to deceive” there. Yanaev, Yazov, Pavlov - classic Gorbachevites, among them there was only one worthy and decisive person - Boris Karlovich Pugo so they killed him According to the official version, Interior Minister Boris Pugo and his wife shot themselves on August 22, 1991 - approx. ed.). The rest were political impotents.

- So you adhere to the version that Pugo and his wife were killed?

This information has already been published in the newspapers. I will not voice its details - they are known.

But there was no criminal case on the fact of murder. But the Democratic victors managed to organize the case against Pugo himself.

I think that they killed him not because of the State Emergency Committee. This man knew a lot about the so-called "gold of the party", which was allegedly taken out of the USSR. Apparently, he knew that they had not supposedly been taken out, so they eliminated him.

It is known that shortly before his death, Boris Pugo met with Metropolitan Pitirim (Nechaev, one of the candidates for the patriarchal throne). Still, they don’t meet with a clergyman in order to shoot themselves later.

Of course. Even if we take into account that, most likely, Metropolitan Pitirim was a man with shoulder straps (there is no direct evidence, in this case I have enough indirect evidence), then yes, of course. Boris Pugo, according to those who knew him, was not a suicidal type, he was a fighter.

After all, Pugo was vacationing with his family in the Crimea before coming to Moscow and immediately appearing at the press conference of the State Emergency Committee.

Yes, he just got mixed up in someone else's game. He was a sincere, worthy person, unlike Gorbachev's officials, he was not a selfish person.

Photo: ©Vladimir Rodionov, RIA Novosti

"GKChP, YELTSIN, GORBACHEV - IT WAS SKELETON DANCES OVER THE ACCEPTS"

- And those who allegedly committed suicide after Pugo was killed are Marshal Sergei Akhrameev ...

This is the manager of the affairs of the Central Committee of the CPSU Nikolai Kruchina, which on August 26 fell from the balcony of his house. There were more deaths, and these are only people of the first level. In addition to them, there were suicides from among the people of the second and third echelons, so everything is completely clear here ( Kruchina's predecessor as head of the UD of the Central Committee of the CPSU Georgy Pavlov allegedly threw himself out of a window on October 6, although he was already 81 years old; On October 17, the former head of the US department of the international department of the Central Committee of the CPSU fell out of the balcony Dmitry Lisovolik etc.- approx. ed.).

- That is, this is a continuation of the story with Pugo.

In any case, this is a continuation of the story with party money. The fact is that in 1992 I was in a group of experts - there was such a trial: "Yeltsin against the CPSU", as I conditionally call it ( the case was heard in the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation - approx. ed.). It was a non-political process, it was about whether the CPSU is a legal entity, whether it has the right to own anything. I was in a group of experts from the president's side - not because I loved him very much, I never liked him, it's true, I didn't like Gorbachev even more, but just like that the card fell. And I did not regret that I participated in these hearings, since we were provided with a large number of all sorts of documents, now they are declassified. There is a document number 15703, we made it public. This is a secret note that Gorbachev's deputy for the party Vladimir Ivashko (were. about. General Secretary after the resignation of Gorbachev and until the ban of the CPSU, died in November 1994 - approx. ed.) wrote to him in the summer of 1990 as follows (I quote almost verbatim): the experience of the Eastern European Communist Party shows that during the period of transition to a market economy, the property of the Communist Party is not protected by law, in connection with this, it is necessary to create an invisible party economy in the form of funds and "firms of friends". "Firms of friends" were foreign firms associated with the CPSU (mainly with the international department of the Central Committee), which were most often led by Greeks for some reason. He further wrote that the list of those admitted to the secrets was supposed to be very limited and, apart from the general secretary of the party, only three or four people could know about them. This was followed by the names of these three or four people, including Kruchina. I read this in the fall of 1992 and remembered that these same people died in a strange way in the fall of 1991: someone got hit by a car, someone fell out of the window. This is a common thing for an era when nothing is "protected by law" and this unprotected must be hidden.

Thus, the "winners" covered their tracks and removed those who could at least know something about the fate of the "gold of the party"?

Why "winners"? Just the winners are Yeltsin and his gop company. But when they took power, they discovered that they, admittedly, Gennady Burbulis, there are no levers of power, no material means. It was later, in 1993, after the robbery of the population, the shooting of the White House (the elimination of a competitor in the division of assets), the launch of a uranium deal and a number of scams, the new regime got rich. And by the fall of 1991, serious people (not Gorbachev, of course, with his "foremen of perestroika") had already removed everything that was possible "off the shelves". I think, when it became clear that the Union was collapsing, the economic evacuation of the regime began at the end of 1989. Gorbachev and his brigade remained behind the screen, while serious people were preparing to continue their activities after the collapse of the USSR. Some kind of GKChP appear, some kind of Yeltsin, Gorbachev - so what? Also a good background - dancing skeletons over the abyss, and serious people created their own system. Whether they succeeded in this to the full, I don’t know, but they created it with an eye to the future.

And will we really never know the answer to the question, where is the “gold of the party” now? If, for example, it is known that the gold reserves of the Russian Empire settled mainly in European banks (in particular, in the Banque de France), then where is Soviet gold? Have “firms of friends” offshore?

I don't know this, of course. Lots of options. It can be both in the country and outside the country. Here after all it is possible to argue, drawing certain analogies. Say, in 1945, when Germany was defeated, the Americans managed to seize only the gold of the Reich, and with this money they financed the Marshall Plan, because they themselves did not have such funds. But SS gold and NSDAP gold were not found. Where is it? It is believed that part is invested in the drug cartels of South America, part went to the Middle East, part is invested in Swiss banks, in Swedish business, so there are also completely different options. I think that the question of where the “gold of the party” has gone is not so interesting. Much more interesting is whether it works, and if so, for whom. Hopefully, in 30-40 years we will know about it.

- Maybe it will even come in handy when building the model you are talking about.

May be. Just as the gold that was on the accounts of Zinoviev and Kamenev came in handy. Although it was not, of course, the main asset in industrialization.

- Trotsky...

no stock Leon Trotsky, I think, it was not possible to take, because in 1929 he was already out of the country ( exiled to Turkey, from where he briefly moved to Europe, and then to Mexico - approx. ed.). Apparently, the main funds remained with him: he did not live in poverty, he created his own International ... But those who went to trial in the 1930s ... Of course, the values ​​confiscated from them could not completely solve the problems of our industrialization, but several rather heavy "weights" were put on the scales of industrialization. The cycle of the loot: Menshikov - Biron - ashes; revolutionaries - 1930s courts - industrialization - loans-for-shares auctions - what's next? “People die for metal” and for power, framing it with beautiful words about “freedom”, “democracy”, “divine”. Yeltsin with a candle in the church - what could be more caricature for communism and for the church?! What could be more caricatured than "capitalism" ripping itself out of communism like an Alien from a human body?

If you call a spade a spade, then social reality is pushing a fifth of the Russian population straight to the grave, the well-known historian and publicist Andrei Fursov believes. But there is a way out... We are publishing Andrey Fursov's interview with the Zavtra newspaper.

Andrey FEFELOV. My first question, Andrey Ilyich, is for you, as a modern historian. We are talking about some kind of ultimatum that was delivered by the West to the Russian oligarchs. We know that this ultimatum ends in February, on Valentine's Day. What do you see behind this ultimatum? - the struggle of international elites, global elites with regional ones?

Andrey FURSOV. There are several trends that overlap here. On the one hand, this is the struggle of global elites, the elites with national-regional, with national-state, on the other hand, this is increasing pressure on Russia, more precisely, on the power-economic regime that exists in it, from a certain part of the ruling circles of the West, like formal and informal - the so-called "deep power", which in the West is not only deeper, but also wider and more powerful than formalized state structures. Here it is important to talk about trends, and not about individual events and facts, because, as CIA chief Allen Dulles correctly noted in his time, a person can be confused by facts, but if he understands trends, then you will not confuse him.

One of the trends of the past 2017 is the growing pressure of global elites on the elites of the national-state level. This process has been going on for a long time, but it was clearly voiced, in fact, by declaring war on October 12-13, 2012, Christine Lagarde in Tokyo at a joint meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Then she said that it was necessary to provide a legal and moral basis for the withdrawal, i.e. expropriation of ill-gotten "young money". “Young money” is precisely the money of the oligarchs of Russia, China, Brazil, etc. and high-ranking officials associated with them, acquired, as Christine Lagarde said, on the commodity trade.

Immanuel Wallerstein would object to her here very simply. At one of the meetings of the Moscow Economic Forum, Wallerstein said the following. Yes, of course, in the developing world, including in Russia, there is corruption, but judge for yourself, corruption is greatest where there is the most money, and the most money is in America, it’s just that corruption is wrapped up in the “packaging” of lobbying.

Andrey FEFELOV. Of course, there is a global wallet where the regionals put their money, and it would be a sin for globocrats not to use this wallet.

Andrey FURSOV. Field of miracles in the country of fools. Moreover, once, in the years of "fat financial cows", you could put it in this wallet, and they were told - bring your money. And then, when the struggle for the future had already begun in earnest, the essence of which - who will cut off someone from the public pie - is already here, as the hero of one Soviet film said - is not up to petticoat honor, here the big fish devour the small ones. And the seizure of property begins. It is justified in different ways: someone is accused of being oligarchs associated with some big boss, someone is simply corrupt, someone does not take the position that the masters of the world game need. The basis is a simple fact: in the post-capitalist future, the social pie will not be enough for everyone, this future itself will not be enough. And this applies not only to the lower classes and the "middles", but also to the upper ones. And there is no doubt that this post-capitalist future is approaching, or rather, a certain part of the world elite has brought it closer and is bringing it closer as best it could and can. It is symbolic that in the year of the centenary of the Great October Socialist (i.e., anti-capitalist) revolution, the Club of Rome published a report postulating the need and inevitability of changing the existing mode of production and consumption in the world and the (neo)liberal ideology shaping it. The end of capitalism and the coming turn to the left is an agenda that is becoming mainstream, never reaching the Russian elite, which apparently believes that pineapples and hazel grouse are forever.

In the bottom line: a significant part of the Russian elite is increasingly under external pressure in the short term - from the right (sanctions, etc.), in the medium term - from the left, and under internal pressure, and pressure from both sides will increase as the geopolitical situation (“partners” will try) and as the economic situation worsens. In principle, the left turn should have become the basis of a new government program. As he said on the eve of his "left" turn, i.e. the abolition of the serfdom of Alexander II, it is better to cancel it from above than it will happen from below. The situation is similar now. "Above" is really preferable. I really do not want the upheavals into which the authorities in Russia have already plunged the country three times - at the beginning of the 17th century, at the beginning of the 20th and at the end of the 20th century. Believers say God loves a trinity, but nothing is known about the fourth time. In the end, at least the conservation instinct should be and “experience, the son of difficult mistakes” should suggest something, otherwise you will again have to hope that “an accident, God the inventor” will happen, only his “wonderful discoveries” may turn out to be very unpleasant and some people will be upset to the point of impossibility.

It is necessary to note one more point that exacerbates the problems of the Russian Federation. On the one hand, the Russian oligarchs have the same “young money” that Lagarde spoke about. At the same time, Russia is the only country with such a ruling elite that has nuclear weapons. This makes Russia a prime target, more so the more nervous the Americans are about losing their hegemony. When the United States declares the Russian Federation, China and Iran "revisionist states", i.e. states focused on revision, revision of the American-centric monopolar world, they thereby fix their weakness - no one will revise the world, behind which there is strength. China is pushing the United States in the economic sphere, the Russian Federation - in some regions - in the military-geopolitical sphere, while having a weak economic base. In other words, post-Soviet Russia is paradoxically being targeted by a combination of strength and weakness. The weakness of Russia, compared with the same China and India, lies in the huge gap between the rich and the poor. Of course, India and China also have it.

Andrey FEFELOV. He is probably more in these countries, Andrei Ilyich?

Andrey FURSOV. Looking at what indicators. The indicator of the concentration of wealth in the hands of 1% of the Russian population is 1:71, followed by India - 1:49, the world average - 1:46.

Andrey FEFELOV. That is, we still do not have a middle layer?

Andrey FURSOV. However, the middle layer in China and India is a rather difficult question. An editorial about India in one of the latest (January 13-19, 2018) issues of the London Economist is called “The missing middle class”. But experts, including Indologists, have been convincing us for many years about what a powerful and constantly growing middle class is in India. The article clearly captures a simple idea: growing inequality in India hinders the development of the middle class. From 1980 to 2014, the 1% of Indians pocketed almost a third of all additional income related to economic growth. India has gone from $2 a day to $3 but hasn't taken the next step to $10 or even $5, the article says. Only 3% of Indians have ever flown by plane, just over 2% own a car or truck; Of the 300 million Indians that HSBC (the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) classifies as middle class, many live on just $3 a day. And this is called the middle class? All over the world there is a decrease in the size of the middle class and the deterioration of its economic situation. There can be no other way in criminally-financialized capitalism: it does not fundamentally reward those who work. The subtitle of G. Standing’s book “Corruption of Capitalism”, published in 2017, is quite indicative: “Why rentiers thrive and work does not pay”. We have been observing this situation in Russia since the early 1990s. And the “middle class” promised by the rogue reformers, reminiscent of the King and Duke from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, turned out to be a hearth painted on a canvas from another well-known work.

If in post-Soviet Russia there was no middle class (and, obviously, there will not be), then in the West for the last 30 years it has been shrinking more and more - its happy life turned out to be very short. In fact, the departure of this class undermines capitalism as a system. T. Piketty, a leading expert on global economic inequality and author of the bestselling book Capitalism in the 21st Century, explains this simply: it is the presence of the middle class that ensures mass consumption, mass demand and mass investment in construction.

Unlike in the 1950s and 1970s, in the last 20–30 years, formally middle-class families have not been able to afford housing. They are forced to rent it, which worsens their situation even more: for example, in the UK in 2013, housing costs grew 5 times faster than wages. Economists estimate that families renting a home in the UK all their lives lose £561,000 more than owner families; in London this figure is even higher - 1 million 360 thousand! However, despite this, the property is not affordable. The loss of property by the middle class - isn't this a disguised indirect expropriation, I ask? In other words, the disappearance of the middle class leaves a huge hole into which capitalism falls.

As for Russia, we are still living on the achievements and legacy of the socialist era. Therefore, the poverty that is typical for India, the countries of Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as for many areas of New York, Paris, London, is unimaginable not only in Russia, but even in the current Central Asian "countries", the former Central Asian republics of the USSR , which the Soviet Union dragged into civilization and statehood, and whose leaders, who managed to get from their villages and villages to Soviet cities and owe their careers to the USSR, the CPSU and the Russians, today pour mud on both the Russian Empire and the USSR. It is enough to compare Dushanbe, Tashkent and Astana, on the one hand, and Mumbai, Calcutta and Dhaka, on the other.

Suffice it to say that 732 million Indians - 54% of the population, that's official Indian statistics - have no access to toilets, either public or private. In China, this figure is 25%, that is, 340 million. Well, in countries like Ethiopia, it's 93%.

Of course, Russia is in a completely different position. It is enough to drive through a large Russian city, relatively speaking, Tolyatti or Irkutsk and through the city of Mumbai and compare where civilization is and where it is not. At the same time, in different countries, depending on their historical past and culturally specific ideas about social justice, “moral and economic” ideas about acceptable poverty, about where poverty ends and poverty, rejection and deprivation begin.

One of the recent reports of the Higher School of Economics says that 8% of the Russian population do not have access to medicines, 17% do not eat enough. I think that these 8% are included in the 17, but in any case we get 20% of people who, in general, social reality pushes, if you call a spade a spade, to the grave. There is no medicine, no food, a weakened body - the whole bunch of diseases associated with malnutrition and these misfortunes. That is, in this regard, Russia is vulnerable. And it is quite clear that if the economic situation in Russia worsens, as economists say, both liberal and illiberal, this gap will widen.

And on the other hand, the Russian Federation has nuclear weapons and you cannot talk to it the way you can talk to Brazil or South Africa. Therefore, in putting pressure on Russia, the West is following the path not of an ordinary war, but of an ersatz war, a hybrid war, the fronts of which are everywhere. For example, in the field of elite sports, which has long turned into a mixture of business, crime and politics. The Russian Federation received a serious blow on such a front of the new Cold War as the Olympics, a very sensitive blow. The logic here is simple: is sport important to you?! Are you invested in sports? - then we will force you to come under the white capitulatory flag, repent and, on top of that, pay reparations - 15 million dollars.

Andrey FEFELOV. With the Olympics, everything, by the way, is mysterious: the fact that this is an act of war - those who made the decision to let the athletes still ride under the white flag cannot but guess about it. It was immediately clear that they would be smacked there.

Andrey FURSOV. I do not understand only one thing - how could the officials who are responsible for this, for so long, stupidly and irresponsibly sway? It was clear that the Russian Federation, after long humiliations, would not be allowed to enter the Olympics, and it was necessary to respond stasis and harshly. For example: they have a "list of Magnitsky", they should have immediately rolled out a "list" to them - conditionally - Bach or someone else, and not chew snot and bow. Unfortunately, regarding the Olympics, our top officials, as well as on many other issues, are only wiping themselves out, and there are more and more spitting, because in the West they are used to - they will vanish. And how not to get lost? Children in England, money in the States, yachts in Monaco.

Now Russian athletes go to the Olympics without representing the country, and all the talk that we somehow know that they are ours is little consolation for idiots and negligent officials. We can know anything, but it is neither international legal nor international state fact. The cowardly and incompetent bureaucratic bastard has squandered the situation and seeks to save his own skin by sending athletes under any flag, under any sauce, so that if they win, they will foully cling to it.

Perhaps the right, but tough decision would be this: Russia does not ride as a state, athletes are told: guys, you can ride, we cannot forbid you, but you ride at your own expense, because in this case you do not represent the state of the Russian Federation. But then it turns out that athletes who are not guilty of anything are punished because of officials. And why don't they punish sports officials with a bang and shame? I repeat: I do not blame the athletes - the officials are to blame. And it is very strange that these officials still hold their positions, it was necessary to kick them out of these positions in disgrace, because it is they who are to blame ... What is the demand from the West? - this is the enemy, he should act like that, but why expose himself to these blows? It means that you are fighting badly, you have lost the battle on this front. I am afraid that a similar action regarding the World Cup is not far off. In the West, understanding people. And if from the very beginning there had been a tough reaction from Russia, then the West would have behaved differently. The West understands force very well. Strength and will were not shown. There was a lack of will and a willingness to turn the cheek or other part of the body to the offender.

Andrey FEFELOV. Let's return to the global trend of social stratification. We touched the Russian Federation and India. And China?

Andrey FURSOV. In China - of course, with Chinese characteristics - the same thing is happening as all over the world. The growth of inequality in the PRC has reached such a level that it is already reflected even in science fiction novels. Hao Jingfang's sci-fi novel Folding Beijing was recently released in China and won the Hugo Award, a prestigious international science fiction award. In the novel, Beijing's near future is shown in this way. There are three groups of the population in China: the top, the middle class and the lower classes, their number in Beijing is 5 million, 25 million and several tens of millions, respectively. form of wakefulness. Representatives of the elite in the novel are awake for a day, 24 hours - from 6 in the morning of one day to 6 in the morning of another. Then they take the medicine and fall asleep. And then the middle class wakes up, awake from 6 am to 10 pm on the same day, i.e. less. Then the lower classes wake up, they have only 8 hours - from 10 pm to 6 am.

Here, in a sci-fi form, a social process is shown that concerns life itself. In this regard, I recall the film "Time", where social differences are also connected with time, that is, with life, with the time allotted for it. But in essence, class differences have already been transformed into sociobiological or, if you like, into anthropological ones. Just look - the average life expectancy, say, in the same Rome was 22-25 years. But the Romans from the higher groups lived for 75-80 years. The English aristocracy also lived long, with an average life expectancy of 45 years in England at the end of the 19th century. That is, the rich and noble for the last 2-3 thousand years live 80-85 years. This means that their socio-economic situation is broadcast for the duration of their lives; this means that, among other things, exploitation is the appropriation not only of someone else's economic product, but also - through time - someone else's life. And if in the “happy thirtieth anniversary” (1945-1975) this process went back, now, especially after the disappearance of systemic anti-capitalism in the face of the USSR, everything is returning to normal. Capitalism takes on the usual shape of an "iron heel", a devourer of someone else's time. The Germans talked about Lebensraum - space for life, now it's time to talk about Lebenszeit - time for life, time-as-life, devouring which dying capitalism is trying to prolong its life.

Andrey FEFELOV. It is very interesting. Perhaps, we just often do not take into account the temporal category, although, as it turns out, it is very eloquent.

Modern Chinese futurology at such a high level indicates that society is directed towards the future. In this case, we are talking about a dystopia in which a society of social and, probably, digital control over the population reigns.

Andrey FURSOV. And this is another trend - the strengthening of social control with the help of numbers (the reverse side is the growth of digital dementia of the population). Someone talks about chipization, someone talks about the abolition of money and the introduction of cards - this is indeed an increase in social control. Our Russian optimism lies in the fact that it will not be possible to build social control in Russia. Someone is bound to steal or break something.

Andrey FEFELOV. Even during the presidency of Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, there was an attempt to introduce a universal electronic card of the UEC. The Orthodox called this project the forerunner of the Antichrist, trying to resist him. A few years later it turned out that our officials managed to completely "cut" the Antichrist.

Andrey FURSOV. In this regard, the Russian official is our support and hope. As Nekrasov said, however, meaning something else, “he will endure everything.”

As for China, it is a fairly organized society and strict social control is the norm there. In the West, the possibilities of social control, which over the past half century has successfully turned into social training, are multiplying thanks to technical possibilities. There is an obedient, comfortable population, who will be told what they will do. But in Russia the situation is still different, both socially and technically. In addition, we have a wonderful thing - such a value as social justice. Firstly, it initially exists in Russian culture, and secondly, it is powerfully nourished by socialism.

Andrey FEFELOV. That is, injustice is not the norm?

Andrey FURSOV. Injustice is not our norm. If an Indian perceives social injustice normally, the reason for this is the caste system; if, say, a Brazilian perceives it normally, because he lives in a peripheral capitalist country, then for a Russian this is not the norm. In addition, in Russia there were traditionally specific relations between the ruling groups and the oppressed. In 1649, the population was enslaved by the Council Code, and not only the peasants who served the nobles, but also the nobles who served the state, and the townspeople. Under Peter III, this agreement was terminated. The nobles received the right not to serve, although most of them continued to serve anyway, because the nobles were materially poor. Therefore, Sukhov-Kobylin has a proud epitaph: "Never served."

Andrey FEFELOV. And I thought that this was already under Catherine who had usurped power.

Andrey FURSOV. No, this decree was issued by Peter III just a few months before his death - in 1762. The impostor on the throne, Catherine, paid with others - by a decree on the freedom of the nobility of 1785. But this is one line. After it became clear that the nobles might not serve, the peasants decided that they would be released the next day. They were released, indeed, the next day, but after 99 years. The decree of Peter III was dated February 18, 1762, and on February 19, 1861, the peasants were released. However, since the 1760s, the peasants perceived their relationship with the bars as unfair: if the nobles can not serve the state, then why should the peasants serve the nobles. Socio-cultural was superimposed on class hostility - the nobles and peasants personified two different socio-cultural ways. But the European nobility, especially the English, managed to impose their values ​​on the lower classes as national ones. Hence the fundamentally different relations between the upper and lower classes in Western Europe and in Russia: Pushkin wrote about it this way: “A Russian peasant does not respect his master, but an Englishman respects his master.”

In 1861, a reform was carried out that freed the peasants, but at the same time deprived them of a third of the land - again injustice. Therefore, what is called everyday Russian rudeness is the reverse side of the described reality. Someone, I don’t remember who, from our rich travelers said that in Russia, unfortunately, even in an expensive restaurant, if the waitress has a bad mood, she will definitely let you feel it, but in France or Germany this is impossible. Yes, this is one side of the matter, because the people there are absolutely well-trained. But in our country the system did not make a person fit, did not narrow him down, as Dostoevsky's hero would say.

Ultimately, the presence of social justice as a value determines that the population will never accept the results of 1991, and this creates a permanent problem in the relationship between the population and grabbing. The attitude towards the rich and noble in the same India or in the same China is completely different. And Chinese socialism fell on a completely different tradition than Soviet socialism.

Andrey FEFELOV. And, accordingly, social stratification and economic inequality also falls on different traditions in different countries.

Andrey FURSOV. Moreover, the uneven development of different regions within the same country, including some regions in global processes and excluding others, further increases inequality, finally depriving the losers of ever changing their fate.

In India, for example, there are super-developed sectors in electronics. But these are points of growth that have little to do with India. They are connected with the same points in China, in the United States, in Europe. Moreover, Indian capital has invested much more in British industry than the European Union: given the long-standing ties between Britain and India, the British are more comfortable in contact with Indians than with their European neighbors. Great Britain and India are very different countries, but they have one thing in common: perhaps in no other country in the world do the upper classes treat the lower classes with such cruelty and arrogance as in Europe - in Great Britain, and in Asia - in India. And these two traditions overlapped each other. Many police stations in India, for example, still have portraits of their chiefs from colonial times. Although India became independent in 1947, the tradition of the British Raj is preserved, especially since it was the British who united the principalities and polities of the subcontinent into a single whole. Before the British, there was no India in its current form, there were the Mughals, there were Marathas, there were Sikhs, there were states of the south, and they fought among themselves. And the British came, squeezed everyone with an imperious hoop and united. It is symbolic that one of the claims of the leaders of the national liberation movement of India to the British was that they had ceased to observe their own rules, that the white Sahibs did not behave as they declared correct.

Psychologically, there were a number of very interesting moments in the development of colonial India. For example, sociopsychologists pay attention to how Indian attitudes towards white women changed during World War II. Prior to this, the white woman was viewed from the bottom up as a special being. And during the war, American comics and pin-up pictures began to spread in India, where women were slightly half-dressed. This convinced the Indians: a white woman is the same as an Indian woman, with all the ensuing consequences. In general, the war greatly changed the attitude towards the whites in general and the British in particular - they were defeated by the Japanese, i.e. Asians. And then the national liberation movement, on the one hand, and the understanding that came to the West that under the new conditions it is possible to effectively exploit the countries of Asia and Africa economically without political costs, led to the dismantling of the colonial system, the main beneficiary of which was the United States and American TNCs. The euphoria of gaining freedom in the former colonies of the Afro-Asian world very quickly gave way to apathy and the realization that the gap between the West and the former colonies is growing, but now the mother countries do not bear any moral and political responsibility for those who have been tamed. At the same time, while the West was busy with the Soviet Union, China rose up and made an economic breakthrough. The latter, however, should not be overestimated: China, for all its purely quantitative economic power, is a workshop. The design office is located elsewhere. And in this regard, the Chinese are well aware of their situation - both military and economic.

In addition, Russia, Russians for the West are in a certain sense socio-culturally less acceptable characters than the same Chinese or Arabs. For example, the Nazis once declared the Japanese honorary Aryans. Similarly, it will be easier for Americans to declare Chinese honorary Americans than Russians. The Russians pose a constant threat of non-standard thought and behavior, and, consequently, victory.

About 20 years ago, a German woman came to one of our academic institutes with a dissertation on a specific topic - she explored the structures of Russian everyday life and analyzed those situations when Russians use certain objects for other purposes. Well, for example, you come to the accounting department. What are the flowers in there? A plastic bottle is cut, there is earth - and here it is a flower. Or, say, a lock on a barn so that water does not pour in, a plastic bottle is cut off, nailed, and it closes it. The German called this phenomenon barbarism, because civilization, in her opinion, is when a thing is clearly used for its intended purpose, the function is rigidly tied to the substance. We have the same - "call at least a pot, just don't stick it in the stove." On our TV, as part of the program “So far, everyone is at home”, there was even such a heading - “Crazy Hands”. This is a play on words: crazy and very skillful. The rubric showed exceptional ingenuity, adapting to various functions those objects that were originally intended for something completely different. It was Russian ingenuity that helped us win many wars, including the Great Patriotic War. Non-standard thought and behavior is due to harsh natural conditions, the change of seasons, a short agricultural season, special historical conditions that constantly forced us to look for ways to survive - and to win over circumstances and a superior enemy: rich and well-fed Europeans did not face such problems on such a scale. Hence the standardized conformism.

Andrey FEFELOV. This is German civilization.

Andrey FURSOV. No, Western European in general. Our civilizational originality, the ability to survive in different conditions creates problems for them. Andrei Platonov said this very well: "A Russian person can live in one direction and in the other direction, and in both cases he will remain intact."

Andrey FEFELOV. When we talked about social control, I remembered how a balloon rose over Kabul every morning. This is occupied Kabul, 2010, and this balloon was doing optical tracking. And in the evening, on winches, NATO pulled him back to the ground. Huge American patrol cars were moving around Kabul, there were huge Negroes who carried the burden of a white man in Afghanistan. And these pictures symbolized a lot… Now you have made a very big trip to India – what pictures, what images do you have after the trip?

Andrey FURSOV. Well, first of all, of course, these are colossal contrasts. They are seen to a much greater extent in southern India than in northern India. For example, Delhi is a city of contrasts, but Mumbai - the former Bombay - is an even more contrasting city, where when you leave a chic hotel, you do not find yourself on a chic street, like in Delhi in the center, but in a slum zone. Moreover, in Mumbai, as such, there is no city center, these are several cities, but, nevertheless, in the city itself, and not at all on its outskirts, there is a Dharavi district - an area of ​​​​two square kilometers, that is, it is two million square meters, where two million people live: one person per square meter. This is a closet 1.5–1.6 meters high, and this is not even Kuma Pumpkin's house from The Adventures of Cipollino, because Kuma Pumpkin's house was still made of bricks, but this is thin plywood, thick cardboard, pieces from the refrigerator, etc. .

Andrey FEFELOV. It's like in Kobo Abe's novel "Box Man".

Andrey FURSOV. Nearly. Second floor, third floor. But the most interesting thing is that this is one of the attractions of Mumbai, rich tourists are taken there, they show them how people live. In fact, this is a non-human existence. At the same time, there are 10-15% of rich and super-rich Indians who live in a completely different world. These worlds practically do not touch, which is also caste-based. Of course, this does not compare with the stratification in the United States, because there is more social fat, but the process is happening everywhere. Naturally, the worst situation is where there is little social fat. Marx once used the phrase: "A pagan languishing from the sores of Christianity." Here, from the ulcers of capitalism, they wither and suffer most of all not in the core, which plundered the periphery, but on the periphery, because it is no longer needed. It was once needed, but now it is not needed, now it is being thrown away.

Andrey FEFELOV. Squeezed lemon, peel.

Andrey FURSOV. Yes, absolutely right. And the current periphery of the capitalist system is reminiscent of what happened to the northeast of Brazil at the beginning of the 19th century. In the 18th century, this area was actively exploited, then everything was squeezed out of it and it was thrown out. Much of the Afro-Asian and Latin American world is not needed in the post-capitalist digital world. And the problem arises - what to do with this population? This problem within the framework of the capsystem, in my opinion, is unsolvable. Huge masses of the population, which the wave of technical and economic progress is pushing into the abyss. Half a century ago, the American sociologist B. Moore noted that revolutions are born not from the triumphant cry of an ascending class, but from the dying roar of that class, over which the waves of progress are about to close. Today in the world a lot of such people have accumulated, for whom the progress of the current masters of the world game leaves practically no chance. I am sure that they will give battle to the hosts, and on "their field" - I mean Afro-Asian migrants in Western Europe and Latin American ones - in the USA. They will not be able to create a new world - rather the Dark Ages, but the old one will be destroyed. And the post-old world will be a world of uncertainty, a world of functions, walking on their own, regardless of substances - a world familiar to us, Russians. And playing in that world will require sophistication.

Andrey FEFELOV. And mobilization.

Andrey FURSOV. Of course. Most importantly, a necessary condition for victory - the elite must associate themselves with the society of which they are a part. The elite that associates itself with "Barvikha Luxury Village" and which for this "Barvikha Luxury Village" will certainly surrender everything, everything and lose. She will be cleaned up.

Andrey FEFELOV. These elite groups have no other base than Russia. They think that someone somewhere will accept them for their money, but this will not happen.

Andrey FURSOV. These are all the dreams of Ostap Bender - the one who was accepted and completely robbed at the Romanian border. So, in this respect, the one who will win - and this is a paradoxical situation! - with the people.

Andrey FEFELOV. And the second point, it seems to me, is very important, the only way to survive is to win.

Andrey FURSOV. Indeed, victory is a condition of survival. As Confucius said: "Who jumped the farthest will jump again." We will paraphrase it: the one who wins will live. This is a strict condition, this is the imperative of the great crisis of the 21st century that we are entering. Braudel called the time between feudalism and capitalism a social hell. And now we live in an era that is increasingly beginning to resemble a social hell. And the same Braudel in his fundamental work “Material Civilization, Economics and Capitalism. XV-XVIII centuries.» posed the question: is it possible to escape from the social hell? Can. But not alone. Nobody gets out alone. The only way out is collectively. Only those ruling elites will enter the post-capitalist (post-catastrophic?) world who will have a powerful magic weapon - unity with their people. Only those elites who identify themselves with their countries, who are rooted in their culture and share the same values, interests and goals with their people will get a ticket to the future in the conditions of the impending crisis, the war of all against all. In the context of the crisis of the 21st century, there can be only one weapon of choice for the elite of the Russian Federation - unity with the people. This is a necessary condition for victory, sufficient - the will to win, which is forged in accordance with the principle "do not believe, do not be afraid, do not ask."