Groundhog Day 2023

What will it take to bring back reality?

Boris Kagarlitsky

An intriguing feature of the current situation in Russia is that events seem to be flying by almost too quickly to comprehend. This is not to say that nothing significant or striking is happening. Rather the opposite. Almost every few days something happens that in the old days would have been sensational. Someone among my readers may still remember the shock which greeted the German pilot Matthias Rust, who managed to fly to the USSR in 1987 and land his plane right on Red Square. Then it was perceived not just as a scandal, but also as evidence of the failure of the entire system, as a national disgrace, or its opposite, as an occasion for cynical jokes, which also testified to an emotional withdrawl from the established order.

And now some mysterious drones are flying over the Kremlin, and one of them, having been shot down shot down, crashes onto the roof of the palace, damaging it. Has anyone been shocked by this? Not at all!

The flood of news that is raining down upon our heads is more disorienting than shocking. There is still no respect or trust for the state. Neither the opponents of the government not even its supporters have it. The Angry Patriots Club holds a press conference to announce how angry they are. Everyone shrugs their shoulders and twists their fingers to their temples. Are you just now angry? Was everything okay before?

The propagandists on TV are also unhappy. “How is it possible?! Who allowed this?! We must end them, destroy them, wipe them off the face of the earth!” Having shouted it a hundred times, they are going to shout it again and again with the same zeal. The screaming makes one's ears pop, but that's the only result of all this hysteria. Everyone swears and condemns, complains and resents. But what's the point?

Previously, so-called Sovietologists, having experience with propagandists and ideologues, would try to anticipate the plans of the Kremlin or changes in its political line. Now it is useless to do so. There are actions, but no plans, no political line. There is a firm desire of all the chiefs to occupy their posts not for a fixed period but forever. But this desire is not new.

We can discuss anything in detail - the drones flying over the Kremlin, a new statement by the leader of Putin's mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, or phone chatter by the famous producer Iosif Prigozhin (both show their disloyalty, but in the opposite way), we are informed about another assassination attempt on another propagandist, or about a visit to Moscow of the famous singer Alla Pugacheva, whom Dmitry Peskov kisses on the hand (despite the fact that quite recently the singer was declared an enemy of the state). We can come up with any conspiracy theories we like, or refuse outright to comment on what is happening, but the main thing is that none of these events will have any consequences. After a few days everything will be forgotten. Not because we have a short memory, but because what happened willhave no continuity.

A political event is important not in itself, but precisely because one may, in the the future, look backwards from its ensuing consequences, and put some measure to the dynamics of the processes it launches. Of course, nothing in the world remains completely without some reaction, but today in Russia these reverberations either remain invisible or are so insignificant and indistinct that it makes no sense to analyze them.

All this is reminiscent of the famous American film Groundhog Day, directed by Harold Ramis in 1993. The protagonist, inexplicably caught in a time loop, lives the same day over and over again. The immediate events during this day change, but still this does not advance us in any way towards any result, because the next day the hero again finds himself in the same place and at the same time, and everything starts all over again. True, the hero himself also changes, but this also does not mean anything, since there is no way to implement these changes in new actions and new circumstances.

The endless repetition of the same day in the film suddenly ends on its own for no apparent reason, just as it began without any obvious reason. And the hero still gets the opportunity to use the experience gained during that endless day. It is clear that in Russia our political Groundhog Day will someday end. I even have some guesses about when and how this might happen. But sharing them does not make sense, simply because today it does not matter at all.

This lack of consequence for any event, even the most scandalous, has come about for systemic reasons. The narrow circle of the oligarchy, gathered around Putin, has no other goals or objectives than to remain in power and physically reproduce themselves (while maintaining, of course, their current status). If these people had any other tasks, even imperialist ones, they would be forced to respond to the changing situation, on which the resolution of these tasks would depend. But as soon as there are no tasks, then it is possible to not react to anything, except for what poses an immediate threat to personal physical existence. Whether things are going well or badly in Russia is not particularly important in this case. The main thing is to prevent radical changes that could force the rulers to leave their palaces and offices.

Unfortunately for them, ignoring reality is not the best political strategy. And not because the authorities are threatened by a popular uprising - the masses of people are demoralized by the endless repetition of negative events that do not affect anything and do not change anything. But the middle ranks in the apparatus of power, including its power structures, are not only tired, but also angry. And this threatens to break the situation.

It remains just to live and wait, to hope that sooner or later we will live to see events with actual political and social meaning.

Translated by Dan Erdman