Inside the Neoliberal Kingdom

Ideology constrains the strong and the weak alike

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) meets with Governor of Magadan Region Sergey Nosov (R) via a video conference call at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence, outside Moscow, on October 21, 2022. (Photo by Gavriil Grigorov / SPUTNIK / AFP) (Photo by GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)

Daniil Nozdriakov

Translated by Dan Erdman

Modern Russia is a country of neoliberalism triumphant. Moreover, what has prevailed here is an especially hypertrophied and perverse form of that philosophy. No wonder that, in our country, the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is constantly atop the bestseller list. One can, of course, say that this is complete nonsense – what kind of neoliberalism is it that allows state security agencies to play a key role, that has enforced the total curtailment of democratic rights, that practices state paternalism in the social sphere inherited from the Soviet government, and that features an economic system reminiscent of state capitalism? The US Department of Commerce has even struck Russia from its list of countries with a market economy. And yes, state capitalism has developed into a very specific system in its own way, as the chief of the imperial provocateurs Zubatov said. But the guiding neoliberal principle holds, which is that everything may be monetized, and the state does not owe you a thing. Once, when I worked in a library, I remember how the librarians were constantly forced to impose paid services on visitors – to so much as scan a piece of paper on a copier. I remember constant meetings in the regional government offices on how to make public transport cost-effective. From these two branches of the social program, which, by definition, cannot be profitable, they tried to squeeze out economic benefits. State corporations and other state authorities have been built in the form of commercial enterprises and are given to feed the feudal lords who head them. At the apex of this pyramid are Yevgeny Prigozhin and Ramzan Kadyrov, who own personal armies.

It seems that Russia has a large social sector, which would argue for the existence of a system of state paternalism. But the burden of funding education, medicine, urban planning, and transport is almost entirely cast onto local budgets, after the fashion of Latin American neoliberal dictatorships such as those of Pinochet or Stessner. In addition, there are fewer and fewer free universities, fees remain in many schools, and in technical colleges one cannot avoid the imposition of paid services. The coming of the special operation revealed this essence of the social sphere for all to see, as it was the regional authorities who were charged with the obligation to supply and equip not only volunteers, but also those citizens mobilized into the national army; and those regional authorities tried, in turn, to partially shift these responsibilities onto the people themselves. As the Oryol governor Andrei Klychkov said, if you don’t like our equipment, buy some yourself. And this from a member of the Communist Party, by the way. Truly a worthy successor to one forgotten official who formulated the basic principle of life in modern Russia: “the state does not owe you anything.” I even heard this phrase from one functionary of the “Young Guard,” so deeply has it taken root in the spirit of bureaucratic thinking.

But none of this can be compared with the total atomization and disunity that prevails in the country. In reality, only two institutions exist that can be said to constitute a kind of collectivity: the family and the special services. In a difficult situation, you can only rely on relatives, and it is now desirable to do business only with them. That is why civil servants prefer to register property to relatives. This is by far the most primitive form of social connection, given that the institution of the family has changed a lot in the 20th century and continues to transform.

In the war of all versus all that took place after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the secret services won out as the most organized and strongest structure capable of regulating life in the entrusted state. Their victory has sublimated the war of all versus all in the form of “Putin consensus:” society does not interfere with the state and does not get into politics, and the state does not prevent people from earning money in any or all available ways. From this, fraud has grown to an incredible scale - even among the volunteers who collect humanitarian aid for “our boys for the summer” there are many who simply put the money right into their pockets. But it cannot be otherwise in a country where the only existing national idea was expressed by the president at the dawn of his career: “Money must be made!”

The special operation became the moment of truth for the entire system. Now, even the establishment shows only an illusory unity, and then only in moments of victory, most of which have in any case proven to be short-lived and are now almost completely forgotten. The rest of the time, the main propagandist Vladimir Solovyov stigmatizes the war correspondents whom he previously idolized, the aforementioned Kadyrov and Prigozhin attack the military authorities, ordinary people are ready to bite at each other’s throats in line at the supermarket checkout or if someone cut someone off on the road, and the government, as they have done after the loss of the Kherson region, washes its hands and shifts all responsibility onto the Minister of Defense- Shoigu and General Surovikin.

It can be argued that atomization and disunity are now prevalent throughout the whole world, which is certainly true. But the space for collective action, though diminished, still remains. Recently, US President Joe Biden spent almost a day negotiating with the American railroad unions, dissuading them from going on strike, and there is much that can be said about the struggles and successes of the “yellow vests” in France. In Russia, in most cases, the protest is of a situational nature - against a nearby landfill or the cutting down of a nearby forest park, while the national agenda, such as pension reform or constitutional changes, does not arouse mass resistance. How many times during these transformations have I heard the same phrases uttered in different ways: “We need to work and adapt to new conditions, and not cool off at rallies.”

But the atomization of society is a double-edged sword (although, perhaps it is not a sword, but a more complex structure, with even more than two edges). Partial mobilization violated the “Putin consensus” and became the first crack in the foundation of the twenty-year-old structure of society. Previously, special operations could only be done voluntarily and for money. Now the state has crossed the line and almost reached the point of coercion. Almost – because mainly those who did not outright flee from mobilization do go to the front, and because the authorities did not undertake any special repressions against the draft dodgers. Of course, by participating in a special operation, one can get money into the family budget. But the mobilized have agreed to die only in comfort: in warm boots and brand new helmets, and it was the lack of these that spurred them to protest and to write appeals to their governors. They were not against war or mobilization per se, merely objecting to personal inconvenience, which of course is more important than any other consideration.

But the lack of self-organization is also characteristic of the ideological opponents of mobilization. According to various sources, between 700,000 to 2 million people left Russia in the September-October days. Had such a huge mass of people engaged in spontaneous protest rather than fleeing, it would have been a serious blow to the authorities. But people prefer individual salvation, and one cannot blame them for their choice. After all, the opposition is atomized and fragmented even worse than is society as a whole.

The neoliberal consensus does not allow the authorities to ideologically mobilize people for a special operation, and no amount of ideological defenders will be of use against popular demonstrations. Should a palace coup suddenly occur, via whichever set of actors, the union of interests of the guardians of the regime, the only thing binding the establishment together, will be shattered. Absent this union, we can imagine that the director of the FSB, Bortnikov, will quarrel with the head of the Security Council Patrushev, that the head of intelligence Naryshkin (who has lately managed to meet with the head of the CIA Burns) will go to war with Bastrykin’s Investigative Committee. And at this point of departure, the possibility creating a radical authoritarian dictatorship of the fascist type will open up, as will the possibility of the return of the exiled true liberals, the same ones who have already done their job of reforging public consciousness.

What can the left do in these conditions? To create and restore grassroots collectivity, including trade unions, as the only alternative to total disunity and atomization. The answer sounds simple, but in practice it is not so easy to implement.