Authors

Georgii Khazagerov¹;  ¹ South Federal University, Russian Federation

Discussion

Judging by the fact that political forecasts regarding modern Russia did not come true, it can be assumed that they were based on concepts that do not work or work poorly. My hypothesis is that while we overestimate political institutions and their imitation, we ignore the presence of totalitarian discourse in society.

Totalitarianism, autocracy, ideology.

Modern authors distinguish autocracies from both democracies and totalitarianism. Authoritarianism is seen as a compromise between democracy and totalitarianism. It is believed that in Russia totalitarianism has given way to authoritarianism. One of the leading opposition political scientists, Ekaterina Shulman, sets out the concept of the hybrid nature of the regime and insists that Russia is a typical autocracy. This, however, cannot explain the tendency towards increasing totalitarian traits.

I want to note that a certain ideology is built into Russian discourse, blocking democratic transformations both in the sphere of politics and in the economy. This is not an ideology in the real sense of the word, having a clearly formulated program.However, it conveys certain ideas, for example, about any transaction as a zero-sum game, which excludes compromise and assumes that harm for one party automatically means benefit for the other. A typical example is the so-called “Stalin Strait”. The presence of totalitarian thinking makes the distinction between authoritarianism and totalitarianism in general irrelevant, because it leaves the gates open for a new totalitarianism.

Conservatism, archaic, modern, adaptation.

There is a strong opinion about the conservatism of both the Stalinist and Putin’s regimes. Today they talk about the conservatism and even archaism of the Putin regime, moving towards the Middle Ages. At first glance this looks convincing, however, two objections can be raised here that radically change the matter.

Firstly, the Stalin era was marked by a constant series of multidirectional political campaigns. What kind of conservatism can we talk about if the language itself (Newspeak!) was in a state of permanent restructuring, and it was impossible to predict the future?

Secondly, the idea of ​​archaism obscures the understanding of the adaptive capabilities of the system and creates false hopes. On the other hand, the opposition between “archaic and modern” does not allow us to see the real zone of vulnerability of the regime. Within the country, the system easily falls into the Stalinist rut and does not meet with serious protest, but the discourse itself contains the idea of ​​​​constant expansion, and this is the Achilles heel of the regime. This drama has been playing out since the time of Lenin, as Richard Pipes wrote about.   Today we see a powerless attempt to introduce totalitarianism in Ukraine.