Spiritual reasons for dissatisfaction with the authorities in Russia. The degree of dissatisfaction with the authorities in Russia is very high: Igor Shuvalov
I continue to study the phenomenon of opposition with the help of LiveJournal.
In one post, the author asks people attending rallies what they don’t like about today’s Russia, given that every second secretary in Moscow has an iPhone, and every second office occupant has a Lexus.
In my opinion, he greatly exaggerates and flatters the oppositionists - among them there are many frankly poor people, for example, students. What's interesting is that almost no one wrote to him about this. Still would! Admit that you don’t have an iPhone or Lexus! Readers who consider themselves wealthy answer him. I provide some comments below.
« iPhones have nothing to do with it. The dissatisfaction is mainly aesthetic. Power is perceived as the triumph of dullness. Plus – a feeling of Kafkaesque space, with some crazy twists. Hence, the anxiety is, of course, still irrational. Plus – the feeling of mothballs in the system. So I could type this text in the Lexicon editor on a 286th processor, but it would break. So it is with power. The trouble is that this aesthetic rejection of power by intellectuals is completely incomprehensible to the so-called “people”. Yesterday I was convinced while talking on the square. Uprisings with riot police. A nice guy who tried to understand but couldn't. The authorities themselves do not understand this either. Like a person telling dirty jokes in polite society. So what?"
“On the surface there is a huge number of large-scale corruption scandals that are not being investigated at all with the connivance of the country’s leaders whom your party supports (or, to be more precise, who support your party, that’s more correct). Decomposition level in rows law enforcement reached the scale of some not very developed countries south africa or Latin America. The efficiency of performing even the tasks set by the system itself tends to zero. existing judicial system can be described as a punitive machine, but it seems impossible for any decent person to call it an independent court.”
“I am dissatisfied with the fact that in Russia, after you are exposed by the authorities, you are not given additional rights. responsibility (as in Europe) is removed. A simple example - a police lieutenant drank a little and got behind the wheel, I’ll excuse myself, if anything happens - a completely normal and familiar situation. I received shoulder straps (position, mantle, rank...) that’s it, I was relieved of responsibility.
I don’t know what to do with this.”
“The basis of discontent is arbitrariness and the inability to achieve justice. Everyone today can be taken away and imprisoned like Navalny, simply because you are walking or ruining Shuvalov’s life. And not finding the truth is scary. The trick is not just having an iPhone, but worrying that tomorrow your friend will be raped by a Chechen and he won’t get anything for it.
Well, I’m also not happy with the roads and the road tax. I understand that the roads are bad because they steal, and they steal because the authorities allow it. Therefore, I turn out to be against such power.”
“I’m not happy with the fact that every second office plankton (not “in the country”, really, in Moscow) has a Lexus - and at the same time the roads are like after a bombing. because once you get to the police station, you can “suddenly” and “accidentally” die. because I pay utility bills for no reason (“ Maintenance entrances” – where? What? when it will be?)
Sick of CASCO! You pay money, for an insured event you run around all the nooks and crannies, collecting a “package of documents” for them, and then you still wait for the “transfer of the insured amount”.
Remove most paperwork! We’ll save the trees, there will be fewer aunts jostling around at work, and maybe everyone will breathe easier.
This is for once!
For two.
Urgently change Fursenko to sausage! Such a minister will destroy all children’s desire to learn!
On three.
Tired of the government employees! They are growing by leaps and bounds, eating up our budget. Let's set up a monarchy?!)))”
“I am terribly annoyed by the sad expression on the faces of 99% of the people around me. This is especially felt when you arrive from Europe on the first day. Is everything really so bad for everyone, why does everyone walk around with such funeral-threatening faces? Well, really, you look around, not a single smile!”
“I am not satisfied with dependent courts, because I will not be able to protect my rights if they are violated. I am not satisfied with mutual responsibility in law enforcement agencies for the same reason. I am not satisfied with the lack of political will to solve problems with corruption, and what is even more dissatisfying is that even the revealed and obvious facts of corruption are not investigated, the cases are hushed up (examples: the Magnitsky case, the Daimler case) and, apparently, they are hushed up in reality high level. Most of all, I’m not happy that the authorities don’t give me the opportunity to replace myself with someone else. »
In general, it’s clear. People with average European standards of living and income are protesting. They want the same power, court, education, healthcare and roads as in Europe. From the media they have some perfect image Western power. That is, a prime minister or president, whom not everyone knows by sight, who goes to work by subway or bicycle, an absolutely independent court, etc. If the prime minister allows himself to get a haircut at public expense, he will be dismissed. If a minister is caught downloading a couple of paragraphs from the Internet in his dissertation, then his path to power has already been blocked.
I'm afraid it's just appearance authorities, but we don’t have a very good idea of what it really is. And these attempts to replace power with something similar to the European one are similar to the legendary cargo cult or any other primitive magic.
Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial;
everything is permissible to me, but nothing should possess me
1 Corinthians 6:12
If you look closely at what today's accusations and claims of the opposition to the authorities in Russia are based around, you will notice a very remarkable and at the same time trivial fact. This is money. Just take a quick look at the liberal mantras:
Power is a thief;
Putin is the richest man (either in Russia or in the world);
Crimea was annexed in vain - it will cost us a pretty penny;
ROC is a money making company;
Bribery priests drive Mercedes;
Why should we be deprived of trips to Turkey in order to satisfy someone’s geopolitical ambitions, or easy option- blue cheese;
In Russia everything is expensive, in the West everything is cheap;
Putin is playing the fight against terrorism to make money from Sochi and Crimea;
Rotenberg robs truckers;
Russia is mired in corruption, etc.
To see that the core of all this screaming and wailing is the material aspect. This is what unites them all and runs like a red thread. Money, material wealth, comfort, and, ultimately, materialism as such, it is the basis, the main component of the lives of people who are trying to denounce the authorities today. The main claims to power revolve around what is essential and mega-important for them, which constitutes the core and meaning of their life. Proof of this can be the fact that the Olympics in Sochi, prepared in as soon as possible, indeed, through the titanic work of a huge number of people and carried out with such success, returned to the Russian people after for long years national humiliation and shame and insane admiration for the West, faith in one’s own strength, in oneself, in one’s great Fatherland and the triumph of Russian Tradition. But for people infected with the spirit of material gain, the main thing was not this, but who earned how much from it and who stole how much money. Their entire intellectual product on numerous liberal resources was built around this.
Further more. Even the parade in honor of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory, which is an image of the resilience of the Russian spirit, these people are trying to evaluate not from the point of view of the unity of the nation, patriotism, respect for the memory of ancestors, education of the younger generation, pride in own History, the courage of millions of people of their Fatherland, loyalty to the behests of their fathers about the preservation of the Motherland, but from the point of view of material costs. It’s so natural for them that they don’t see the absurdity of their words! They immediately cynically claim how expensive this action was, and that this money would be better spent on veterans’ pensions (without asking the veterans themselves, by the way, what is more important to them) or on orphanages. There is obvious deceit here, a substitution of concepts, when the average person is asked to choose one or the other, instead of doing both. In fairness, I would like to ask such people, have they themselves helped veterans or orphanages a lot? But that's not the main point. The main thing is that these people not only themselves measure everything that happens in the country (and in their lives) from the point of view of material gain, but also encourage everyone else to take the path of lining their own pockets and satisfying their own belly. Amazing thing! They are trying to blame the authorities for what they themselves are mortally infected with - the spirit of self-interest, greed, material gain and materialism. That is why, when the President, addressing the nation, speaks about spiritual values, patriotism, historical memory, love for the Fatherland and love for each other, national self-awareness and the unification of people on the basis of national self-identification, the importance of preserving the family, this makes such people either sarcastic a smile, or irritation, but most often anger, since spiritual and moral values and concepts, and the virtues arising from them - love, mercy, sacrifice, the ability to respond to someone else's grief, collectivism, non-covetousness, lie outside the plane of materialism as such. They cynically claim that you won’t be satisfied with moral concepts alone. But no one suggests living only by spiritual and moral concepts! The President says that exclusively material things should not be placed at the forefront in the life of every person! They mumble about the economy with enviable obstinacy when they are told about love for the Fatherland and the need to give own life when mortal danger for him. This is equivalent to if these people, with the scrupulousness of an accountant, began to talk about the cost of fortifications, about the cost of cartridges and shells, tanks and aircraft, about their high cost, when Hitler was already near Moscow! The President today draws our attention to external threats that have increased many times over Lately. The intensification of NATO, the incitement of war in Ukraine, where these hypothetical threats became reality, geopolitical dominance, the strategy of which is so vividly described in the book of the former adviser to the American President Zbigniew Brzezinski “The Great Chessboard” and the existing danger of turning the territory of Crimea into a springboard for the deployment of military contingents Western countries. They are again trying to give an economic assessment of the annexation of Crimea, how much it will cost the Russian budget.
The tendency is obvious that people who are dissatisfied with Putin in particular and the government in general are far from poor people. And that's to put it mildly. These people live in comfortable conditions, have more than one car, go (more than once) on vacation abroad throughout the year, eat great food, dress well, have money for expensive entertainment, have their children taught by expensive teachers and in prestigious universities, and even abroad. A quick glance at the news background is enough to understand this. The constant social gatherings of such “star” people, widely covered in the media, show their social status, income level, luxury from clothing to housing, and the so-called life vector aimed at the pursuit of wealth. And it is these people who are most dissatisfied with the course of the President and the Government. And vice versa, ordinary people who have nothing of this, and from the point of view of the average person are not rich, do not throw any hysterics about this. And here we ask the main question - why, in the worldview of such people, the material aspect is fundamental to their lives. The spiritual reasons for this phenomenon seem to me to be the following.
The Holy Scripture says a lot about wealth and the correct attitude towards it on the part of man, pointing out that with an incorrect attitude towards material wealth, a person can suffer a spiritual, moral and life catastrophe. IN Gospel story, associated with the three temptations of Christ, God seems to show people three main vices that will accompany the entire human history, set the vector of its development and underlie all existing world socio-political cataclysms - love of money, voluptuousness and love of fame and the importance of spiritual resistance to precisely this passions, since they are the ones that can cause irreparable harm to a person’s soul. Again the devil takes Him to great lengths high mountain and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and said to Him: All This I will give it to you if you fall down and bow down to me. This is the height of the temptation of the love of money - all the treasures of the world can be given to a person, only one thing is needed - the worship of Satan. What does Christ answer? “Get thee behind Me, Satan, for it is written: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”(John 4:10).
As a vivid illustration of the disastrous attachment to earthly material goods, the Evangelist Matthew shows the incident that happened to Christ, when a young man approached Him and asked: “What does it take to inherit eternal life?” The Lord answers him: “Don’t you know? Keep the commandments that God gave you - love God, honor your father and mother, do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery.” The young man replies: “I have kept this from my youth.” Then the Lord says: “Go, sell all your possessions and give to the poor, follow Me, and you will have eternal life.” And the young man went away from Him very sad (Matt. 19:21).
Of course, here the Lord does not call us to run away and sell our property and give it to the poor, as many may think. It simply shows how much a person clings to material things, to prosperity, to comfort, that even when the Lord Himself tells him and gives guarantees that he will 100% have the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal stay with God in eternal life, a person chooses earthly things! In other words, he exchanges the temporary, perishable, perishable for eternal bliss of being with God in the Kingdom of God. Well, isn't it crazy? That is why the Lord says: “It is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; it is easier for a camel to fit into the eye of a needle” (Matt. 19:23 ). Not because owning wealth is a sin in itself, but because clinging to wealth can become so strong for a person that he will not be ready to part with it even for the sake of eternal bliss. Further, Christ shows us all that following the path of materialism and the desire to own material goods, so that it becomes a passion, is a direct path to the death of the soul, called to dwell in eternity with God. That is why He says that His Kingdom is not of this world. My kingdom is not of this world(John 18:36). He tells people - don’t cling to wealth (material goods) so much that if you were deprived of these benefits, you would feel a catastrophe in life... Do not love the world, nor the things in the world: whoever loves the world does not have the love of the Father.(John 2:15). And the Apostle James adds : Unfaithful people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? He who wants to be a friend of this world becomes an enemy of God(James 4:4).
And indeed, how many depressions, despondency, mental disorders, nervous breakdowns occur in a person who suddenly lost his income, a prestigious job, good income, and just an expensive thing.
Here is how Doctor of Philology Tatyana Kasatkina shows this trend in her article dedicated to the view of the great Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky on the state of Russian people at the end of the 19th century: “ And here one more circumstance is extremely interesting - Dostoevsky saw the Russian people perfectly and the way we see them. Moreover, if we follow how Dostoevsky writes about his contemporary relevant state of the Russian person - we will be surprised and amazed at how all the characteristics he gives can be attributed precisely to the person of today, our neighbor and contemporary. Dostoevsky states that a person of the post-reform era of the 19th century is characterized by: 1) the loss of common, unified foundations and values, 2) the desire for wealth, now accepted as the only undoubted support and effective force in life, placing comfort and the satisfaction of vain and passionate desires above all else, raising them to rank goals human life(while they are nothing more than conditions and means existence)".
How this desire for material things ended in 17 is well known to everyone. And it is not surprising that the main slogans of the revolutionaries of that time were completely material values- “land to peasants, factories to workers.” Appealing to the consciousness of the people, they laid precisely the material aspect in their appeals, while knowing that they would not give them anything of this, and using the people as an instrument for their rise to power. As a result, the people, of course, were given neither one nor the other, but most importantly, the government was swept away, and the country drowned in a bloody Civil War, the results of which were millions of casualties, and most of the revolutionaries themselves perished in this bloody mess. That is why the Church, which has always affirmed that the spiritual should dominate in a person’s life, spiritualizes, so to speak, him life path, became the main ideological enemy of the then rebels and revolutionaries. That is why representatives of the clergy were destroyed with particular cruelty, that is why churches were destroyed, since it was the Church that was the main obstacle to mastering the minds and souls of people on the path to seizing unlimited power, earthly power and ideological power. It is no wonder that ordinary people, having distanced themselves from their faith and spiritual tradition, believing in these slogans, were ultimately deceived by the enemy of the human race, for “When he speaks a lie, he speaks his own, for he is a liar and the father of lies”(John 8:44) and became victims of their gullibility and frivolity, taking the path Civil War, where, as we know, brother is against brother and son is against father.
What do we see today? The same motives. It is the creation of a consumer society, cultivated in the West and so zealously implanted in our country, starting in the early 90s, when spiritual and moral values are replaced by material and perishable ones, when a person is only worried about what to eat, and preferably to eat tastier, what to buy, and preferably better than with friends, where to have fun and necessarily more prestigious than his friends, displaces all spiritual guidelines from a person’s life, and then this process of increasing the level of material comfort becomes a goal at the subconscious level, unnoticed by the person himself. He would be glad to stop, but he can’t. Spinning in this process, there is almost no time left for the rest. The crafty spirit is a great manipulator, it constantly hammers into a person’s head, sending very specific impulses and, as it were, programming him for appropriate behavior - “take everything from life”, “you deserve it”, “work for money and for money, and don’t miss out”. the moment when money starts working for you.” Numerous programs cultivating gluttony, the cult of consumption, greed, avarice, and all kinds of entertainment do not leave TV channels and billboards, as if this is precisely the meaning of human life. At the same time, the enemy of the human race assures man that he lives only once, there is no God, no soul, no eternal life, and its meaning is to receive pleasure and constantly improve your own comfort! And if so, then why adhere to some moral standards behavior, helping the poor, alms and charity? As F.M. Dostoevsky wrote in the novel “Demons”: “If there is no God, then everything is permitted.” It is the atheistic and materialistic worldview that underlies the thirst for possession of material goods. It is not surprising that under such a powerful onslaught a person takes the wrong path and begins to see the meaning of his life solely in the pursuit of wealth and the satisfaction of vain, passionate desires. Maintaining status in his own eyes and in the eyes of friends and acquaintances forces him to raise the bar higher and higher for this level, which gives prestige and respect in society, creates a certain circle of acquaintances and communication, which brings the opportunity to preserve and increase capital through these acquaintances. But Christ speaks in the Gospel of Matthew : “No one can serve two masters... You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6:24). And further: Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear (6:25). And this lesson concludes: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). This verse reveals to us another spiritual law - the law of dependence, which cannot be crossed, circumvented or ignored. The Lord did not leave us in the dark and warned us that if we want to be successful in material things, then, first of all, we should not seek material wealth and not be filled with this, not with the problems of this world, but the Kingdom of God and His truth. Well, how can we not remember the great A.S. Pushkin and his “Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish”. And here's the key point. When a person becomes completely dependent on his passions and vices, an enemy of the human race, whose goal is the death of the human soul for eternal life (he constantly walks around,Howroaringa lion, looking for someone to devour. 1 Pet. 5:8) offers a man a deal to worship him in exchange for keeping his wealth. And here a person faces a difficult choice. But we must understand that there is always a choice, and it is always up to the person. And we must admit, many accepted such conditions, becoming obvious servants of dark forces. And this is the second key point. On the one hand, we see people who have quite consciously taken the path of serving Satan (Satanists), who certainly know that they are doing lawlessness, and incite others to this lawlessness, on the other hand (and the bulk of them), people who are lost, deceived, who have not understood what why, those who believed obvious deception and deceit. Satanists, acting consciously and being financially secure, without risk to themselves, as it seems to them, begin to confuse and deceive others ordinary people, pulling the strings of human vices so familiar to them. For them, the price of human life is worthless. Anything can be used - outright lies, slander, insinuations, flattery, bribery, deceit, forgery, deception, threats, manipulations, incitement to uprising (revolution) and even murder (suffice it to recall the wave of terror in tsarist Russia, which ended in the murder of the Royal family). We all see this fully today in Russia, and this was especially fully manifested in Ukraine, when people were called to overthrow the government in order to improve their lives. Now in Russia, Mr. Khodorkovsky is openly calling for revolution! They very quickly become at the helm of any discontent and any protest, throw mud at the authorities, accuse them of corruption, being themselves corrupt officials in their purest form (just remember the accusation of G. Kasparov by the world chess organization FIDE for embezzlement of funds) and incite the duped people to lawlessness , as in a well-known parable. The thief himself shouts loudest: “Stop the thief!” But this is not enough for them! They assure a person that in the fall of his well-being, loss of work, reduction wages, in general, in all troubles, it is not the person himself who is to blame, or rather his attachment to false gods - money and comfort, and who laid material comfort as the basis of his life construction, making it the core of his life, but the power that supposedly takes away from him what is due to him ( although it’s unclear on what basis) material goods and funds. The main thing is to sow doubt in human soul, and then the person will do everything himself with his internal self-destructive “work”. His own pride tells him that he supposedly deserves more, that he is underestimated, that he is deceived, but he had all this! And who is to blame? Well, of course, not he himself, who worships mammon, but the cunning power that encroached on his prosperity. As a result, the person is again led down the wrong path. Not on the path of repentance and cleansing from one’s own passions, but on the path of discontent, embitterment, and destruction.
Our holy fathers also taught people about the correct attitude towards material wealth. They said that everything we have and own in life is literally not ours. According to earthly laws, legally, yes, we are the owners of our property. But from the point of view of spiritual meanings, metaphysically, the Owner of everything is the Lord, for He created the heavens and the earth, and everything that is on it, and everything that began to be, and put man in charge of all this, making him the crown of His creation. We are placed by Him as stewards of material wealth, which He gives us, according to His wise Providence, for temporary management and disposal. In this sense, material wealth is only a means, an instrument for accomplishing a more important task—salvation and inheritance of the Kingdom of God. He watches how a person manages the wealth entrusted to him, and at any moment he can request a report on activities, or even deprive him of it. Now, when a person appropriates this to himself, considers himself the sole owner and manager of good, then, suddenly deprived of this wealth, he can reach an extreme degree of depression, even suicide. This, by the way, also applies to talents given to man by the Lord. When a person considers himself a guide, a prudent steward of the talent given to him from above, he can create great works of art. As soon as he appropriates the talent given to him for himself, and considers himself the owner of this talent, then the masterpieces disappear somewhere and he can no longer create anything other than a nauseating mess. There are plenty of examples.
Inflation and unemployment are becoming the main problems for the population
The overwhelming majority of citizens - about 90% - have some kind of complaints against the current Cabinet of Ministers of the Russian Federation. The government cannot cope with inflation and the fall in incomes of the population - these are the most frequently mentioned complaints. Russians are also concerned about rising unemployment.
Only 10% of citizens surveyed by the Levada Center currently have no complaints about the current cabinet of ministers. Sociologists came to this conclusion after surveying 1,600 people over 18 years old in 134 at the end of February. populated areas 46 regions of the country.
The rest, that is, approximately 90% of respondents, have a wide variety of complaints against the government. The most important of them is related to the fact that the Russian government cannot cope with rising prices and falling incomes. This was stated by 55% of the citizens surveyed. Just a year ago, 41% put forward such a claim to the government, and in 2000 – 39%.
It is worth recalling that in 2000, price growth in the country reached 20%, however, judging by sociologists, then this caused less dissatisfaction among Russians than now, with annual inflation of about 17%. This paradox can be explained by the fact that at the beginning of the 2000s, economic difficulties were perceived by citizens as temporary adversity. The population hoped that under the new president, life in Russia would soon improve. And it won’t be worse than during the 1998 default. These hopes were not groundless, because in the first half of the 2000s, real disposable income of the population grew by 10% per year, or even more.
Now the positive sentiments of citizens seem to be declining. Today, many Russians think that the near future will only bring worsening problems. Many citizens do not see that the government is effectively solving problems that arise. One example is an emergency increase key rate The Central Bank in the midst of a currency crisis. Finally, the current double-digit inflation is no longer accompanied by faster growth in income, as was the case at the beginning of the last decade. On the contrary, today real incomes of the population have gone negative for the first time since 2000.
Second on the list of complaints is the lack of a well-thought-out economic program by the Cabinet of Ministers. This was indicated by 29% of respondents.
Citizens also blamed the government for the fact that the authorities cannot cope with the economic crisis and do not care about social protection population, cannot provide Russians with work, that the authorities are corrupt and act in their own interests - each of these options received approximately 20% of the votes.
However, the press service of the Levada Center explained to NG yesterday that in fact the level of citizens’ dissatisfaction with the government’s actions is always at approximately the same level. Over time, only the reasons for this discontent change. Thus, in 2001, 20% of respondents accused the government of being unable to ensure stability in the North Caucasus. Now only 1% of surveyed citizens indicated such a problem. Another example: in 2007, 47% of respondents said that the government does not care about social protection of the population. But this was the last pre-crisis, fat year. Now the frequency of mentioning this problem has almost halved.
Finally, Russians told sociologists what worries them most. In first place was price growth, reported by 82% of respondents. 43% of respondents reported poverty and even impoverishment of the population. The third most pressing problem is the rise in unemployment, which is worried about by 38% of respondents.
Let us clarify that the new year 2015 really began for many Russians with layoffs or transfer to part-time work. Previously, the Ministry of Labor already reported that in February the number of officially registered unemployed in Russia increased weekly by 19–20 thousand people, or about 2% (see “NG” dated 03/01/15). Yesterday, the Ministry of Labor reported that the number of unemployed citizens who applied to employment services exceeded 990 thousand people.
True, Maxim Topilin’s department boasted that the weekly growth rate of registered unemployment began to decline: “From March 4 to March 11, the number of unemployed citizens registered with the employment service increased by 0.6%.” “For the second week in a row, a decrease in the growth rate of registered unemployment has been recorded,” Topilin explained.
Experts interviewed by NG admit that there is a direct connection between the state of the economy and the level of support for the authorities. "On this moment the population generally supports the political course, but if inflation continues to rise, then the views of ordinary citizens may change,” says Lionstone Investment Services analyst Ani Kruzh.
In turn, Timur Nigmatullin, an analyst at the Finam holding, points out that “the population of democratic capitalist countries is primarily interested in the level of unemployment, and not in inflation or the tax regime.”
Unemployment rate, according to methodology International organization labor (ILO), in Russia is still close to historical minimums since the collapse of the USSR, the expert notes: “In January 2015, the figure was 5.5%, and the historical minimum was reached in August 2014, when unemployment was 4.8%.” . And against this background, inflation, according to Nigmatullin, will not greatly worsen the attitude of Russians towards the country’s leadership. Discontent will begin to grow, apparently, only with mass layoffs.
Meanwhile, as follows from VTsIOM data, Russians now approve of the president’s actions, but many are skeptic towards the government. In early March, 80% of Russians approved of the president's actions and only 45% approved of the government's performance.
Experts do not exclude that in Russia for last years the risks of protests and revolution have increased, that is, society is inclined towards non-electoral types of political struggle.
Such conclusions are contained in the report of the Minchenko Consulting holding. The document is called “The New Political Reality and the Risks of an Anti-Elite War in Russia.” It includes sociological surveys and comparisons with what is happening in Western countries.
According to experts, Russia is now experiencing a similar anti-establishment wave. But if in the UK it was explained by Brexit, and in the USA by Trump’s victory, in Russia the reason for this was a sharp deterioration in people’s social well-being.
Currently the positions " United Russia” are weakening, and populist politicians are gaining weight. Thus, political scientists of the communications holding analyzed possible scenarios for rebooting the party-political system of Russia.
Its prerequisites are the defeat of government candidates in several regions in the gubernatorial elections in September. The public demand for changes in the situation is also clearly visible in the RANEPA survey conducted in October.
It says that 42% of respondents could not name the party that expresses their interests. About 28% of respondents said that parties serve the interests of rich people, oligarchs, authorities (17%), as well as their leaders (12%).
The Russian party system, according to respondents, is characterized by facade, incompetence and closed system, as well as serious corruption. Populists may find themselves in the ranks of liberal, left-conservative, anti-elite projects.
Thus, writes RBC, the authors propose several strategies to combat the populist opposition. The authorities are encouraged to use censorship, forceful methods, and regulation of access to elections. This becomes relevant against the background of the fact that the number of those dissatisfied with the situation in the country prevails over those satisfied (52% versus 45%).
Dissatisfaction is based on the obvious deterioration in living standards, insufficient measures social support. Rising prices and tariffs and an increase in the tax burden, as well as the difference between Moscow and the rest of the country, also have an impact.
According to Russians, there is stagnation and stagnation in the country, and this cannot be considered “stability”. In fact, discontent in society is constantly growing, but in existing political conditions it cannot be expressed. Accordingly, protest activity is being implemented in a targeted manner and at different levels. But in the future it will only increase, analysts note, since the volume of accumulated problems is too great.
It is this state of affairs that can become the basis for a major anti-system project. The center will either have to create a new party project to extinguish protest activity, or reform the entire party system as a whole. The creation of new parties that could form the State Duma in 2021 is becoming urgent.
On this occasion, political consultant Dmitry Fetisov explained to RBC that the party system needs to be updated. Of course, this is part of the lost electorate, which turned away from United Russia due to voicing an extremely unpopular pension reform, can be used by existing parties, but so far it remains unclaimed. In this regard, the Kremlin must take into account the absence of political forces capable of competing with it, but be aware of the likelihood of their emergence.
Hello, friends!
In this topic, I would like to give my own version of the answer to the question: “Why are the people of Russia dissatisfied with their state?”
Our country, our people, we have a Great Past. This is undeniable. The history of Russia is full of examples of brave deeds, cultural achievements, and the willingness to make self-sacrifice for the sake of the Motherland and Fatherland. It is not an empty phrase to say: We have something to be proud of! This is true. Russia's past is a multitude of Personalities with a capital P. Russia's past is something that will always be of interest, something that will always be studied, something that will always be admired.
We have a past.
The present.
Let's be honest. The people of Russia have never lived as well in their history as they do now. Well, never. Store shelves are bursting with all kinds of goods. Food for every taste. All types of meat, milk, confectionery, drinks, etc. All kinds Appliances. Cars. Any kind of literature. Cinema. Finally the Internet. Any information for every taste. Imported goods are absolutely available. Someone tell me all this to the Soviet man, he would have thought that communism had arrived. All this is there. Available. Right here and right now.
We also have the present.
But people are still unhappy. And they even organize rallies. Why? What else are people missing when it would seem that all the blessings of the world are available? After all, everything is there. Or not everything? People of all different political views and even those without these views take to the streets. Nationalists, communists, democrats, anarchists, just onlookers in the end. And everyone comes out under their own slogan, with their own demands and claims, or simply silently.
What unites all our people? Why are they unhappy? Our people are dissatisfied that the state did not give us a future. When rallies take place, no matter what slogans and demands there may be, it is only discontent formulated in the form of slogans, demands and colored accordingly political ideology. Nationalist, communist, democratic slogans are just popular discontent expressed in their specific form. And there are people who cannot even say what they are actually dissatisfied with, they cannot formulate it.
People are unhappy that they have no future. But when they say at rallies that we need communism or democracy, or nationalism in general in its radical form, this is not an end in itself. All this is just a means. When our state is called to change its socio-economic course or even its form of government, this is not the final goal. This is a means to build our future. All of us and the people as a whole want to have a future. Various groups offer different means to build this future. Some people propose nationalism, others communism, others see anarchism as a means to create the future. But everyone needs it, this future. That's why people are rebelling. And he will continue to rebel if he is not given a future.
In one interview with Putin in 2000, when he had just become president, they asked: “Tell me, Vladimir Vladimirovich, what can be seen from here, from your office?” He replied: "It is clear from this office that our country needs reconstruction in order to have a future."
Absolutely agree, damn it! This was 13 years ago. And I, as I think many others, want to ask, where is this RECONSTRUCTION?
Yes, we have all the benefits of civilization now. Our state gave us the present, the well-fed present, and we live in it now. Thanks to him and Vladimir Vladimirovich personally for this, and this is not sarcasm! But please, can someone from the state clearly say where the hell are we going? What are we building? What kind of society, what kind of country do we want to create? What kind of future will our children live in? What kind of old age will those who are now young have?
Am I so blind and deaf that I can’t see or hear anything? I don’t see a future for Russia in the form in which it exists now. I see the present, but there is no future. And many young people who graduate from universities and enter adult life, see the future anywhere, but not in Russia. Why is that? After all, this is not normal. Young people are seriously thinking about immigration from the country to en masse. And even if he doesn’t leave the country, he thinks and reflects! It should not be.
Our state still has the opportunity to change everything. The point of no return has not yet been passed. Not too late. It is still January 1917. But time is running out. We need action from the authorities. Actions, not words. Too much beautiful words It was said that too much was promised, including in the May decrees. The people still trust the authorities, believe Putin, hope, endure, wait.