HOW DO YOU SLAY A DRAGON?

If we stop to think about it, why do we need democracy? Why do we need this system of power based on regular general elections and the division of the branches of power? Why is it necessary in general? And why specifically in Russia?

The answer is far from clear. Or, to be more precise, it’s far from clear for everyone. The liberally-minded Russian opposition tends to believe that everyone understands that democracy is a good thing; and those that don’t understand this are just pretending they don’t. But this is a serious delusion.

Even in the most liberal of circles, you come across fierce anti-democrats who are convinced that democracy is merely for the chosen ones. And in the non-liberal sphere, where opponents of democracy dominate, not everyone speaks out on this topic, many preferring to remain silent. So the question as to whether Russia really should become a democratic state remains an open one.

The simplest thing to do would be to stamp “demo-scepticism” on this stagnation or lack of culture; but it’s much more complicated than that.

First of all, there are quite a few highly-educated intellectuals among the opponents of democracy; they’re not all just people who’ve been duped by the regime.

Secondly, there are plenty of genuine problems in the way modern democracy works, and these have discredited it in the eyes of people who have a wide variety of political views.

Thirdly (and perhaps most importantly), Russia has only a tiny experience of democracy, whereas at the other end of the scale its experience of authoritarian rule is huge; inertia has instilled into many people much more trust in this system.

And we have to remember that Russia is an atypical dictatorship. Russian authoritarianism is unique in its own way, and has never demonstrated any ability to modernise. Throughout its evolution, the Russian political system has formulated its own original answer to the challenges of history, which can be summed up as a permanent oprichnina . This system is not as primitive as many might think it is.

The essence of the oprichnina  is the division of power into an external and an internal state, where the internal controls the external and is a hidden political force.

First established by Ivan the Terrible, the oprichnina  has gone through multiple transformations. At different times this internal state has been called by different names (such as “the court”; “the Communist Party”; or the “‘Lake’ cooperative”). But in essence it has remined as it always was: while the regular state has existed, this oprichnina  has been a network of informal power above all the usual laws and institutions, and one that hasn’t been identified by any laws. It’s the power of the superiors, standing above the law and living by their own privileges. It’s a specific kind of Russian “eternal Middle Ages”. It changes and constantly adapts to new circumstances, but never, ever, disappears.

The image of some magical force of this “Middle Ages” has become an integral part of the people’s historic memory, and people remember that any attempt to escape from this paradigm has ended with some kind of “time of troubles”.

This image doesn’t need to be helped by propaganda. It’s the first association that springs into the mass Russian political consciousness. So the renewed enthusiasm for Stalinism that many talk about today shouldn’t be regarded simplistically as just people being brainwashed by television. It has deep roots, not to mention that a significant element of the population retains sympathy for Stalin, and his methods for running the country survived even during the “riot of democracy”. Of course, this part of society didn’t always behave as aggressively and as shamelessly as they do today, but they haven’t changed their principles in the slightest.

At the base of this enduring sympathy is a belief in the effectiveness of Stalin’s way of ruling, especially when it was necessary to quickly mobilise limited resources so as to achieve a specific result.

A significant part of Russian society is convinced that Stalinism has great potential for modernisation, and this is a reality that cannot be ignored. Well before Putin appeared on the scene, there was talk in Russia about Stalin and even Ivan the Terrible as being efficient managers, but no one really paid any attention to it, dismissing it as nonsense. Wrongly, as it turns out. Here we need proper arguments, not emotions. For now there’s been more of the latter than the former.

The substantive objections that the liberal part of society puts forward against Stalinism and in favour of democracy are largely based on two principles, the ethical and the economic. The ethical principle talks of “the price paid” – the millions of lives lost to win Stalin’s “victory”. The economic principle maintains that half a century later the country broke up, and a significant reason was that we had clearly fallen behind democratic countries in our economic development.