Frog-snaking in the "sacred 90s"
"Volodya, just don't turn into bronze!"
(c) Anatoly Sobchak.
FBK or Navalny.Team (What are they even called now?) released the first part of the historical drama "Traitors" titled "The Beginning". In short, the whole point of the film boils down to the fact that in the 90s, power was seized by some degenerates who spun Yeltsin at supersonic speed for their own interests. And they ended up spinning into Putin, who then turned everyone at the same place. Well, basically, that's how it was. The film does not offer any novelty and contains many factual errors, as well as references to the "memoirs" of fabulous idiots of that era.
However, this film infuriated Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who burst into howls about another "betrayal" among the non-existent Russian opposition. Khodorkovsky's howl was supported by people "ideologically close" to him from the same 90s environment, as well as the hangers-on of various kinds who are kept by this contingent. In general, a couple of days have been filled with frog-snaking. It is also fabulous that all this is happening when Yulia Navalnaya was put into "100 most influential people in the world" by Time.
If it is now obvious that such an "opposition" is beneficial for Putin, just as the "seven-boyar" era of the 90s, which brought him to power, then we need to talk separately about the factors that caused such a situation in the 90s.
By the way, both the problem of the "opposition" and the problem of the 90s have a common nature. The elite of the 90s did not appear by chance. KGB analysts predicted such a scenario for the country's development, and all these 90s organized crime groups were prepared long before the 90s themselves in boxing sections, SAMBO, etc., under the close supervision of the KGB. And the "economic geniuses" of the 90s like Anatoly Chubais or Yegor Gaidar are also a product of the KGB. That is, "left-wing people" in the elite of the 90s, as a rule, simply did not get there. And the KGB got along well with all the well-known "liberals" of that era at the time of the country's collapse. Let's not forget that it was the most titled liberal of that time, Anatoly Sobchak, who brought Vladimir Putin into politics and he actively supported his presidential bid. And Putin has never hidden his past from anyone.
Also, Yeltsin did not conduct any serious purge of personnel. Just part of the former Soviet nomenclature migrated to the new democratic nomenclature. Remember the same already deceased Vyacheslav Lebedev or Yuri Luzhkov.
"Oligarchs" were also from the same environment. Komsomol member Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Komsomol member and CPSU member Boris Berezovsky, Komsomol member Vladimir Gusinsky, etc. All this is simple: the special services in the 80s "let down" the then-emerging consumer cooperation on the Komsomol. From there emerged the main "backbone" of the oligarchs of that era. And those who did not fit into the general picture very quickly died. The exception here is perhaps Roman Abramovich, whom Boris Berezovsky brought into big politics. Abramovich was not a member of the VLKSM for the same reasons that Berezovsky took him as a "nominal" - Roma was very dumb. Which, however, did not prevent Abramovich from later "throwing" Berezovsky in the interests of Putin and setting up Khodorkovsky.
"The sacred 90s" was, a priori, a KGB-controlled process of changing the social system on the territory of the USSR as much as possible. This process led to the collapse of the country, "gangster wars", the strengthening of regional clans (which the Chekists could not always control), the war in Chechnya provoked to avoid a junta, and much else. FBK will not tell you about this, as they no longer have the brains to look that deep.
That is, there was no "betrayal," because, a priori, the "country's elite" was formed from a certain contingent of people, and the arrival of the conditional Putin in this situation was inevitable. A simple "that person" was needed to replace Boris Yeltsin, who would reflect the views of the KGB's "deep state." And that person was. And initially, it was not Putin at all. It was Boris Nemtsov.
But something did not work out for Nemtsov with Yeltsin's entourage, and part of the elite began to actively play a very unpopular then in the Kremlin "revanchism" putting forward the alliance of Luzhkov with Primakov. Against this background, the generals openly prepared a military coup, which did not happen only because the "KGB" played ahead and killed General Lev Rokhlin. Against this background, Vladimir Putin appeared. By the way, like Nemtsov before him - a man for big Russian politics of that time "from nowhere".
Who exactly brought Putin to the Kremlin is still unclear. The names of Badri Patarkatsishvili and Pavel Borodin, as well as Anatoly Chubais and Valentin Yumashev, are heard. In any case, Vladimir Putin came to Moscow and made a rapid career there, and Boris Berezovsky personally patronized Putin, which makes the version with Patarkatsishvili and Borodin more real than with Yumashev and Chubais.
As for the "successor" operation, Vladimir Putin was chosen for two reasons. The first reason is the demonstrative loyalty to Boris Berezovsky and the "Family," which then had a huge influence on Boris Yeltsin. And the second reason is the "solution of the issue" with Anatoly Sobchak, who had presidential ambitions, who wholeheartedly supported the election of Vladimir Putin as president. Thus, Putin accumulated the support of Berezovsky, the "Family," and Sobchak and opposed the Luzhkov bloc with Primakov. Inside the KGB's "deep state," the majority of "authorities" of those times were satisfied with Putin, so they chose him.
At the same time, Vladimir Putin then conducted a strictly liberal rhetoric: he scolded "communists," advocated "European values," openly reasoned about Russia's entry into NATO. That is, he did everything that now in Russia gives 10 years of camps, and in the West, a place on the cover of Time.
What did Putin do after being elected president of Russia and having received practically unlimited power in his hands? Correct, he removed all those "authorities" who brought him to power. Someone died under strange circumstances, someone ended up in immigration, and someone "sat down." For many years, Putin has accumulated all the KGB structure remaining from the "Soviet" on himself. As a result, modern Russia of Putin was formed.
Now Putin openly reflects the aspirations of that stratum of society on which his power rests. His power is corrupt and criminal, but it is based on complete lack of alternatives and total control over society inside the country (And this includes propaganda, the omnipotence of the special services, and the impunity of the insiders). The KGB's "deep state" is completely satisfied with Putin, and Putin does exactly what this "state" expects from him. At the same time, there are many dissidents with everything that is happening, but no one accumulates the protest electorate, on the contrary, they simply "drain" and destroy it.
As for the war in Ukraine, unfortunately, this is quite a natural process for the modern "Russian elites," who have chosen a course of complete "revanchism." They are building the Russian Empire with elements of the USSR and believe that this is quite a sane process. And the current war, as paradoxical as it may seem, does not weaken but only strengthens the regime. The war with Ukraine, which began with a complete failure, gave the regime an opportunity to "tighten the screws" and also begin to return to the economy of the "Soviet type." Processes in the economy are hindered by corruption, so a real fight against it has begun at the grassroots and even middle level. In general, a lot of interesting things are happening. And the Kremlin will not stop in Ukraine now. This is already clear.
The current situation is also beneficial to China. China has become the main political and economic ally of Russia based on its national interests. Xi Jinping has long pursued a policy of gradual economic expansion and is gathering a club of "Friends of Interest," generally anti-Western in orientation. At the same time, China's economic expansion in most countries does not lead to political expansion. Therefore, for a long time, it simply went unnoticed. Now the political axis "Beijing - Moscow (And Minsk) - Tehran - Islamabad - Pyongyang" is visible to everyone. And China's economic expansion is much wider. And the current events have brought Moscow and Minsk closer, and they, in turn, have brought them closer to China.
And, most interestingly, the West... Inside the Western "deep state," there has long been an open conflict, the "ears of which" stick out of Beijing. As for Russia, the West makes a bet, a priori, on people who could not under any circumstances constitute an alternative to Putin. It used to be possible to explain this by the fact that in the West they simply wanted "not to escalate" and the game in "Another Russia" (Formed entirely by the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs) or there "the struggle" of the "good" Nemtsov with the "bad" Putin - it's just a show at the level of how the same Vladislav Surkov "puppeteered" the systemic opposition. Now it is inexplicable. It seems that in the West there is a deliberate policy of cutting off potential sane allies and "draining" the potentially dissenting electorate within Russia itself. In the fairly near future, this will inevitably lead to open conflict, in which Russia will side with China. At the same time, this will only be welcomed inside Russia, as there is simply no sane alternative to the Kremlin's modern politics inside Russia.
Dmitrii Ershov, political scientist.
Published in David-Arius.Photo: "Frog-snaking in the "sacred 90s""