The ideological situation in Russia on the eve of the elections is becoming tenser and tenser. The election result does not matter. But the system itself begins to tremble not from impending risks but entering into resonance from the contradictions accumulated in itself. They are not reflected in elections, but in the system itself and in society – how. This election cannot even pretend to let off steam. The fact of the matter is that they do not release anything. Steam accumulates, the structure begins to pound the inner tremors.
Everyone notices that the run-up to the fifth column in the Russian Federation is only gradually increasing. Moreover, the more the West tries to support the terrorist organizations of liberals banned in Russia, the less they are reckoned with inside. The roll-over applies to multinational and especially American companies in the field of information (the process of recognizing many media outlets as foreign agents). This calls into question the very existence of youtube, google (the losers, by the way, the court to Konstantin Malofeev and Tsargrad), Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc. Goskomnadzor has just announced the termination of the work of the main VPN, which made it possible to easily bypass the blocking of sites.
It is noteworthy that in the telegram service, the revelations of not only the fifth column (forbidden Navalny, direct foreign agents) but also the sixth, have sharply increased recently. This requires special attention.
Earlier, Putin acted according to a scheme that can be compared with the Chinese doctrine of ” Tianxia “, which predetermined the system of international relations of traditional China. This meant that the countries neighboring China – primarily Korea and Vietnam, but also Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and even Japan – fully recognized the cultural hegemony of the Celestial Empire (hieroglyphic writing, customs, etiquette, political system, rituals, canons of literature, poetry, painting, music, dance, etc.), but at the same time retained political sovereignty… Formally, they recognized the Emperor of the Celestial Empire as their ruler, but this was an act of political politeness. And when China tried to establish direct political domination over Korea or Vietnam, the Korean and Vietnamese rulers fiercely rebelled against this, and most often they managed to defend their freedom from Chinese aggression. But having secured themselves against the armies of the Celestial Empire, they again restored the Chinese cultural hegemony. As if nothing had happened.
Putin also considers Russia a part of the Western world and does not even think that Russia can be a separate isolated civilization. If this were not so, would he have kept the pro-Western liberal elite prevailing in the economy, education, foreign policy, culture, information space at the head of the state for more than 20 years? Putin agrees with Western spiritual hegemony, with the globalist liberal Tianxia. But only until the moment when the united world metropolis (Washington and its satellite Brussels) does not think to supplement its cultural (economic, value, ideological domination – in a word, capitalism) with direct subordination to Russia. This is where Putin says the stop word. Whoever does not understand that “stop means stop, that’s enough” goes to Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, or Navalny. Therefore, the authorities today are crushing the fifth column and are rather tolerant of the sixth, that is, towards the liberal American agents in the ruling elite. If the spies in power are personally loyal to Putin and recognize his political sovereignty, then “they are not there.”
However, in the structure of hegemony, it is very difficult to draw a clear line:
- between those who support and develop a culture of liberalism, and
- those who provide classified information (about weapons, technologies, industry, etc.) to the enemy or organize direct sabotage actions, severely destabilizing the situation.
There is a continuous continuum between the fifth and sixth columns. And of course, any liberal in power secretly sympathizes with protest groups, dreams that “Crimea would not be ours” and cannot wait for the end of the “Putin’s regime”. It is this contradiction between the growing pressure on the fifth column and the relative prosperity and impunity of the liberal agents in power that creates tension – especially before the elections.
The Tianxia principle has worked successfully under Putin for more than 20 years. When you need the support of the masses – just in time for the elections – are turning to the fact that Russia is ” sovereign powers as “. And that is what she is. But otherwise, it is “a part of Europe, the Western world. ” That is, it is governed by the laws of liberal hegemony. And only when hegemony encroaches on sovereignty (and this is exactly what the fifth column, “Echo of Moscow” and the protest movement as a whole, does), then the punishing sword falls on it. And so “please spy.” Atlantic council? – OK. Welcome.
But everyone was sick and tired of it. The siloviki think: if you fight against agents, then with all. And they have a stop from above, only within the framework that we indicate. In psychology, this is called a ” double bind “, when a person is given two mutually exclusive assignments. “Seek and don’t find”, “deliver but lose”, “do everything so that nothing comes of it”. If you prohibit (already banned by FBK) and put Navalny in prison, then why bother with Chubais, Gref, Nabiullina, RIAC, or HSE? The security officials perfectly see the continuity between the fifth and sixth columns, they are well aware that both have the same curators, common support, and communication systems. And they do not understand: is it to catch spies or not ?? Strengthen sovereignty, or just pretend that we are strengthening?
This uncertainty is the essence of Putin’s strategy for governing the country – the Tianxia strategy. Russia accepts capitalism but retains the right to control its territory on its own. But capitalism
- is international by nature, once, and
- much more developed in the West than we have two.
Therefore, the West is angry: if our hegemony is accepted, then be so kind as to act our way in everything. But then Putin says to them: “what else …” That is, not only with the siloviki inside Russia but also with the West, with the capitalist metropolis, there is cognitive dissonance.
How long can this go on? Vladislav Surkov, in one of his articles, suggested: let it be like this forever. An extremely suspicious and not very realistic proposal.
Effectively fighting the fifth column, carefully protecting the sixth, will not work for a long time. From here, companies are born against it, quickly becoming very popular. Generally speaking, Chubais is much more odious in the eyes of the masses (that is, voters) than Navalny, whom just a few people know. That’s who it is enough to put in prison for the election results to go off the scale. But that would mean rejecting the law of liberal hegemony, rejecting Tianxia. I am sure that Putin is not ready for this now. This is left as a last resort if enemy troops come close to the Kremlin. But before that, thank God, it is far away.
From a strategic perspective: either Russia or liberal hegemony (capitalism). But most likely, this fundamental dilemma will have to be really faced by someone who comes after Putin.