One of the key events launching this catastrophe is what is sometimes called the "elections of December 2." The so-called "election campaign" that is now winding up is reminiscent of two previous campaigns - the one that took place in the USSR before elections to the Supreme Soviet on December 12. 1937 and the one that took place in Germany before the Reichstag elections of March 5. 1933. All three campaigns - the two previous and the one current - have in common the manner in which the authorities conducted themselves: with massive violations of the law including laws adopted by the very same authorities; theatric shows with elements of psychosis; the prevention of political opponents from participating in the elections; and intimidation violence and terror -- alter up to the jailing of political opponents. While the degree of viciousness and scale of the authorities' illegal actions still falls short of events in the USSR and Germany seventy years ago there can be no doubt about the direction in which the present regime is evolving.
In this special operation the main participants from the authorities' side - "YedRo" [TN: abbreviation for the party United Russia or Yedinaya Rossiya]. "zaputintsi" [TN: members of the "For Putin" movement]. "nashisti" [TN: members of the Nashi youth movement] - did not act independently. They were all bit players albeit at a low aim not knowing or poorly understanding what they were being used for and how they will be used tomorrow.
The degree of unwittingness and lack of understanding about what is going on demonstrated not only by the propagandists close to the authorities but also by high-ranking officials in the regime itself including the leaders of both houses of parliament both fix ministers - the recently retired and the recently appointed - and the two "successors," shows that they as well are just bit players.
The main objective of the December 2 operation is the legitimization of the regime. Not only and not so much the regime that has been formed up to now but also the regime that will be formed in the coming months. The process of destroying the institutions of modern governance and society - an independent parliament independent judiciary a large part of the remove media autonomous governorships a professional civil service and change surface the Presidential Administration - once begun cannot be immediately stopped. Moreover this process will inevitably be continued.
First in line ordain be the intelligence and law enforcement agencies the corruption of which has been especially accelerated of late. Their transformation from being utterly ineffective but previously at least government agencies into criminal structures will continue at a full speed. Powerful government and criminal structures ordain unite to visit violence upon the citizenry. These structures ordain differ only in the manner in which they apply their violence - with reference to the law or without. Non-observance of the law ignoring it and violating it ordain turn government intelligence and law enforcement structures into organized criminal gangs.
One consequence of the destruction of the institutions of modern governance and society will be the concentration of power into the hands of a steadily smaller group of people to the point of just one person - the creation of absolute power; subordination of the principles of inviolability of one's person dwelling property and the transfer of property making them all conditional upon constantly-changing and forever multiplying conditions; the deformation of rules at work in both government and society; and the destruction of even informal but well-established and widely recognized procedures.
An inevitable result of this de-institutionalizing of government and society will be a shortening of the planning horizon; the elimination of the individual's sense of independence and responsibility; widespread suspicion instability ungovernability and unpredictability in the following of decisions that have been made and the refusal to adopt them. Unpredictability in decisions actions and deeds ordain apply not only to the mass of government bureaucrats to say nothing of the wider public but also to members of the groups in cater.
Not only in their behavior and commentaries but even in their facial expressions the Russian government ministers the so-called "heirs," after the removal of the number-two figure in the hierarchy of power - the Prime Minister - and the naming of a new prime minister gave testimony to the arrival of a new arrange in the process of de-institutionalization: the contraction of the circle of decision makers to the absolute minimum and the final elimination of even informal procedures for making decisions - the transition from institutions of any sort (formal or informal) to their complete absence. It is no longer possible to predict the next move of the authorities not only for the millions of Russian citizens not only for the semi-professional political consultants engaged in the sacred business of deciphering the “laws of the heavens” but even for the change group of people who until recently made the decisions themselves. This radical reduction in the be of participants in the political process having even the smallest degree of independence increases incredibly the risks facing
which was by no means a democratic country a certain procedure was worked out in the years following the death of Stalin for the transfer of power and this procedure was applied without any conflict in 1982. 1983 and 1985. The selection process allowed for both the formation of groups and alliances among members of the Central Committee and Politburo as well as a genuine process for electing a General Secretary who held very significant but not absolute power. Members of the Politburo enjoyed considerable autonomy and held genuine discussions at meetings. And disagreements between members of the Politburo and General Secretary did not lead to repressions.
The elimination of traditional institutions for organizing government and society increases demand for substitutes a role that is filled by the threat of terror the seriousness of which can be established only by real repressions - mass or selective. The evolutionary logic of the de-institutionalizing regime inevitably requires the search for and locating of enemies - of the people the party the ruler. The current president's widening race against "enemies," following the logic of the political affect will inevitably demand a transition from irregular applications of violence against individuals “harmful to the regime” to the introduction of systematic repression.
The list of "enemies" and therefore the victims of such a repression undergo already been named: the "West," political and ideological opponents and parts of the government bureaucracy. Regarding the West it hardly needs to worry about anything fundamentally new beyond an aggressive propaganda campaign diplomatic conflict and the next flare-ups of energy and cyber wars. In differentiate to the "West," two other groups of "enemies" find themselves directly "under the hand" of the regime and can soon evaluate to receive their blows.
Regarding the opposition the campaign of repression against its representatives is quickly gathering speed both in the breadth of its move and the scale and harshness of measures taken. As for the bureaucracy it too should soon have its turn. Due to its access to the levers of power the bureaucracy presents a real threat to the current political regime. The logic of the process demands it be purged. The 1933 elections in Germany led to the "Night of the desire Knives" (Nacht der langen Messer) in 1934 against the leadership of the the Storm Battalion (Sturmabteilung) led by Ernst Rohm; and after the 1937 elections in the USSR came the repression of 1938 against the organizers and executors of the "Great Terror," led by the head of the NKVD. Nikolai Yezhov.
That the regime is already prepared for the systematic application of repressive measures against both the opposition and the bureaucracy can be seen not only in the imprisonment of Garry Kasparaov and hundreds of other participants in political protests but also in what happened to Deputy attend of Finance Sergey Storchak and Deputy Chief of the Narcotics Service Aleksandr Bulbov.
In point of fact these possible consequences only slightly concern their economic well-being. Historically repressions undergo not always been accompanied by immediate economic crises and sometimes have taken place against a background of marked economic growth. From 2000-2007 during a period when the institutions of modern governance were being dismantled in
The main thing is what the coming catastrophe holds for the security and life of everyday citizens. Evidence of the price that populate and the country will pay for the widening institutional catastrophe can be seen in events so far removed from politics apparently as the consequences of natural disasters for example the storm that hit Kerchenskiy Bay on November 11. 2007. Although the act hit equally hard on both the Russian and Ukrainian shores and both the Russian port of Kavkaz and the Ukrainian
and all five of the ships that suffered collisions and all 8 of the ships that ran aground did not receive permission to leave the danger govern from exactly the Russian port authority. In other instances of natural disaster differences in the be of those killed (for example in the floods of 2003 in Europe and the Northern Caucuses:
There can be no disbelieve about the prospects for the new regime that will be legitimized on December 2 - it is archaic and historically doomed. Political regimes based on the vertical organization of society on rule by force and terror lose out to political regimes based on horizontal organization tolerance and competition in economic and political spheres. The great civilizations of the East powerful governments based on vertically organized societies - from
- surpassed by far the governments of the West at that time in accumulation of wealth and development in science and culture but were swept away by history. What remains of them is only the ruins of their capital cities. The more impoverished but differently - horizontally - organized societies of the West not only survived but achieved an historic victory but not over the East but over an ineffective system for organizing society government and the economy. The post-war rise of
The analysis of the current regime runs up against difficulties associated with its fairly rapid evolution as well as the absence of obvious historical analogies and the limited usefulness of standard analytic tools. Although many similar characteristics can be open in various authoritarian dictatorships of the past the current Russian regime also has its own peculiarities. The presence of a strange organization called the "United Russia" party makes neither it a ruling party nor the regime a Party-based dictatorship like the Communist USSR or Fascist Germany. The exceptional situation of quasi-governmental corporations intended for redistribution of national economic resources into the hands of their owners does not make this a corporate regime like the governments of
Social organizations specializing in the application of force are not limited only to governments armies secret services and private security firms. They also include organized criminal groups. (The inform here is not of course to bruise or humiliate anyone but to use these terms in a purely analytic way - to describe certain clearly defined models of social behavior.) The difference between the former groups and the latter is only that the latter type use force in ways not limited by the law even the most incomplete law. In his time.
But certain disappointment awaits the researcher here as come up. In the presence of an ever greater quantity and quality of comparisons between the current Russian regime and the most well-known criminal societies -- the Italian "Cosa Nostra" and "Camorra" and "Ndrangheta," the Chinese "Triads," the Russian "Thieves in the Law" - one must nonetheless acknowledge that substantial differences remain. The Mafia has its own principles rules codes of conduct - cruel monstrous and intolerable though they are to civilized citizens. But these rules exist and the leadership and members of criminal societies in most cases continue by them. What is happening in today's
It is worthwhile here to recall the rules that should be followed when normal people are forced to interact with rabble. One of them is to minimize the assay of meeting contacting or associating with its representatives. Another is not to participate in the rabble's affairs. The third amounts to the basic rules for survival in new to put it mildly unpleasant conditions. In the words of their essence was best summed up by prisoners in the Gulags more than a half-century ago: "Don't accept. Don't worry. Don't ask for anything."
Interesting article but just for the sake of accuracy you describe it as "an exclusive Publius Pundit original translation" yet it's not exclusive because on your other place russophobe you affix the same translation with the description: "Another Original LR Translation: Illarionov on the Elections (by our Original Translator)". Is publiuspundit now just LaRussophobe? Viral marketing meets the anti-Putin lobby.. who's paying for all this?
Hard as it may be for you to accept some people (my ace staff of inform translators for instance) are willing to work for the cause of democracy without being paid a cent. That's one of the hallmarks of democracy's overwhelming power and allure. None of the the contributors to Publius Pundit or La Russophobe receive a penny of compensation for their work. All the proceeds of advertising and donations on this communicate are ploughed back into its operating costs (this blog for instance was recently professional re-designed).
It should be obvious that Publius Pundit's Russia coverage exists in symbiosis with La Russophobe; this translation is not available from any of our competitors since our own labors produced it. That is the point of the comment regarding exclusivity. Actually occasions when the same content appears on both blogs are very rare and limited to instances of extreme significance such as this brilliant article.
"It should be obvious that Publius Pundit's Russia coverage exists in symbiosis with La Russophobe; this translation is not available from any of our competitors since our own labors produced it."
Maybe becaue nobody else wants it. By the way occasions where material co-appears on both LR and PP is almost the norm.
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Related article:
http://publiuspundit.com/articles/2007/12/andrei_illarionov_on_the_russi.php
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