Volja. Telegram. 1 October 2021
We usually do not repost entire texts by third-party authors produced for other platforms and other channels. But now a new time has arrived, a time for solidarity, so such content will naturally appear here.
We begin with a text by the political scientist Boris Kagarlitsky, who was sentenced yesterday to ten days in jail posting on social media about the protests by [Valery] Rashkin and the Communist Party.
So, we yield the floor to Kagarlitsky. This was the last text he published before his arrest.
Kagarlitsky Letters. Telegram. 29 September 2021
The actions of the Russian authorities in the wake of the elections appear, at first glance, clearly excessive vis-a-vis the political circumstances. In fact, almost everyone who was promised a seat was elected to the State Duma, and the opposition was routed, and even the internet is largely under control, but for some reason they still have been carrying out lawless raids on Communist Party lawyers, chasing down individual activists, expanding the lists of “undesirable organizations,” and opening new criminal cases against those who are already in prison or have fled abroad. They are behaving as if everything is about to collapse. Why? What is the source of their hysteria?
Without reliable information about what is happening inside the Kremlin, we can only draw some conclusions based on history and psychology. It seems that the reason for the regime’s nervousness is the regime itself, its own internal and insoluble contradictions.
Political scientists have been contemplating the prospects of Putin’s so-called transit for more than a year. Will Putin appoint an heir? Who will it be? The ruler’s health clearly leaves much to be desired, and the question of how long he will be able to exercise his powers is probably a matter of concern not only for pundits. Naturally, preparations for the transit have begun, and Putin himself must be involved in them in one way or another. But even if the president promises his entourage that he will take care of the future, he knows for certain that as soon as a successor is named, the current ruler’s [sic] grip on power will be shaken. Therefore, the transit will be readied, but it will not take place. As long as Putin is alive, he will not permit any final decisions to be made. If something happens to him, it will be too late to make decisions, and the process will develop spontaneously and catastrophically.
It is no surprise that this state of affairs has generated the most severe neurosis among people in and around the Kremlin. The transit has begun, but it does not end. Vital decisions are discussed and readied, but not made. The cruelest intrigues and conspiracies are hatched within the ruler’s entourage, but nothing comes of them. Threatening, unbearable uncertainty becomes an all-consuming element that ravages the mind. Everyone is afraid of everyone else; no one trusts anyone. Exactly as Freud would have it, fears and complexes are displaced. The form of this displacement is a crackdown against members of the opposition or those who have been labeled members of the opposition.
Irrational actions generate unforeseen, but absolutely predictable consequences. Loyal functionaries from the leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) are being pushed into the radical opposition’s vacated niche, which is just as psychologically and emotionally unbearable for them as the endless transit, going nowhere, is for government officials. Maxim Kalashnikov has compared this to a situation in which a very weak radio receives a signal too strong for it, which totally fries its circuits. I think this analogy describes quite accurately what has been happening among Communist Party executives and staffers.
Political rationality requires the Kremlin to stop escalating the crackdown, take a breath and at least weigh the consequences of its decisions. But this will not happen, because the rationale for the regime’s behavior has nothing to do with managing the political process. It is no longer political scientists, but psychiatrists who should analyze the actions of the ruling circles.
Translated by the Russian Reader
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A court in Moscow has sentenced Marxist theoretician and sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky to 10 days in jail for sharing content on social media promoting unpermitted protests by the Communist Party (KPRF) against the results of Russia’s recent parliamentary elections. Police arrested Kagarlitsky on Wednesday on his way to the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, where he is a lecturer.
Boris Kagarlitsky is also the director of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements, which Russia’s Justice Ministry designated as a “foreign agent” in 2018.
KPRF has refused to recognize the official results of electronic voting in Moscow, where online ballots propelled several candidates backed by the Mayor’s Office to victories over oppositionists. The Communist Party staged small protests on September 20 and 25, prompting a sweeping police crackdown in the days that followed.
The Russian Reader 