What Kind of Ideology Does Russia Need?

From the SVR's Monthly Journal: Scout

Nikita Sergeevich Mikhalkov: Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation, People's Artist of the Russian Federation, director, author and presenter of the program "BesogonTV" wrote the following short essay that was published by the Journal of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Razvedchik, or The Scout, which is published quarterly in Russian in pdf format. His title is furnished above and asks a question shared by many within Russia’s intelligencia: Do we need an ideology when our Constitution says we don’t, or rather shouldn’t? A very serious question, indeed:

"Peoples sometimes forget about their national tasks, but such peoples die, they turn into a seed, into fertilizer, on which other, stronger peoples grow and grow stronger."

These words were spoken by Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin at the beginning of the last century, but how much they are relevant to us today. Today, when our country has risen to its full height, so that foreign peoples, values and symbols alien to us do not grow and strengthen in its place. But we were close to losing ourselves, to abandoning our own, to dissolving into an ideology imposed on us from the outside. How did it happen? Why did we come so close to the abyss and already put one foot up to rush there, into the abyss?

One of the main reasons, in my opinion, is that the Constitution of 1993 banned the very concept of "ideology." We were scared that this was necessary so that the communist ideology would not repeat itself. The ardent young reformers of those years, waging a merciless war against communist ideology, hastily outlined the concept of "ideology" in general, and imposed a ban on it. But I want to ask a simple question: can ideology only be communist? What is this about—What is ideology? And is this just an agreement of people on the rules by which they will live together in the same country and move towards its well-being, this is an agreement on what is allowed and what is not allowed under any circumstances. No, because it does not fit into the cultural and historical root of human existence, a person living and born here in Russia. Awareness of one's national tasks, which P. A. Stolypin spoke about, is ideology.

Let's see what the 13th article of the current Constitution sounds like: "The Russian Federation recognizes ideological diversity. No ideology can be established as a state-sponsored, mandatory or compulsory." What does it mean? This means that in a huge country with several time zones, with different nationalities, religions, languages, and so on, in a huge country, any other countries can engage in ideology, except Russia itself. Because they are not forbidden to engage in their ideology here, in our state. It is forbidden for us to engage in ideology in our own country.

And look how slowly but surely we have the values and ideas of the collective West were planted in Russia... The Overton Window: what was forbidden, what could not even be thought about, gradually turned into what you can think about, then into what you can discuss, then into what you can do, and then into what you definitely need to do. Remember how the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Russia to recognize same-sex marriages. That is, just think about it! The European Court of Human Rights demands in an ultimatum form from a great power, from a country with a nuclear weapon that can destroy this Europe to wipe it off the face of the earth in 15 minutes so that it violates its own Constitution in accordance with those political trends that they exist today in the same Europe. How is this possible? And that's it.

And it turns out that the absence of ideology is also an ideology. This is exactly the clot of liberal philosophy: to all everything is possible. I am not against individual freedom, but I am against people not understanding where they are going, so that people do not have an idea of what kind of state they are building.

Russia is a huge ship, and no wind will be fair to us until we understand where we are going. And in this, "the fluctuation of minds that are not solid in anything," according to A. S. Griboyedov, lies the most terrible thing… It seems to me very important, in the context of all that has been said above, that July 2, 2021 the President of our country, Vladimir Putin, signed Decree No. 400, which is called "On the Strategy of National Security of the Russian Federation", which deals with the protection of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, culture and historical memory. I would like to quote one paragraph from this decree: "The changes taking place in the modern world affect not only interstate relationships, but also universal values. Humanity is faced with the threat of the loss of traditional spiritual and moral guidelines and stable moral principles. Basic moral cultural norms, religious principles, the institution of marriage, and family values are being subjected to an increasingly destructive effect."

And how can I not remember the words of Anthony The Great One: "The last times will come when nine sick people will come to one healthy person and say: You're sick because you're not like us."

How exactly does our President see protection of traditional values? This is what the document says: "Information policy aimed at strengthening the role of traditional Russian values, developing the education, training and education system, popularizing the achievements of Russian science and technology, literature, artistic culture, sports, music and so on." And how can this be implemented at all if the entire information field is not radically reformatted, and maybe, well, and the environment in which you and I live? How can this presidential decree be implemented?

If we talk about national values and respect the President's decree, then why do we shamefully abandon sacred things, those things that should educate and preserve our historical memory? How much can we look at the fact that during parades and holidays on Red Square we see a Mausoleum shyly covered with painted plywood shields. Well, we understand that behind these shields it is The Mausoleum. And why are we closing it?

After all, this is really a sacred place. In June 1945, victorious soldiers who had gone through the war threw the standards and banners of the defeated Wehrmacht to the foot of the Mausoleum, and they carried them in white gloves, which they then burned. The mausoleum is a sacred symbol, it is an image. And I'm not talking about Stalinism or Leninism right now. I ask myself, among other things, what are we embarrassed about?

In order to understand what is happening, I would like to take a short historical digression. The first Mausoleum was built 100 years ago — in 1924, immediately after the death of the leader. It received its modern stone appearance six years later, in 1930. The architect was the author of the project Alexey Shchusev. In 1945, at the Mausoleum a podium was set up from which the Soviet leadership greeted the participants of the parade in commemoration of the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany. In the Mausoleum an embalmed body was placed—Lenin, chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, revolutionary, Bolshevik. To maintain its safety, a scientific laboratory was created (now the Center for Biomedical Technologies), which employs a large staff of people. They monitor the observance of the temperature regime, maintaining the necessary air humidity.

Why was this done? Because after the death of Vladimir Ilyich, it did not stop. A stream of people who wanted to forgive him, and workers wrote petitions not to have his body buried. At that time, the Mausoleum was visited by approximately two and a half million of our fellow citizens per year. We understand that these people were brought up in a different paradigm — the paradigm of atheism and God- fighting. And we were brought up at school and at the institute precisely in these atheistic traditions. Therefore, we had an uncovered person, his body, which was not buried, did not cause protest; we treated it as a natural phenomenon: if we did it, then it was necessary.

Time has changed, but even now the Mausoleum is open five days a week for three hours. About half a million of our fellow citizens visit it every day and every year. But these are completely different people, not at all those who came to say goodbye to the leader 100 years ago. Of course, there are those among them, those who sincerely believe in communist ideas, I respect these people, and do not want to in any way. But No Offense, time is running out… In general, at this hour people go to the Mausoleum more out of curiosity. But there are also those, and there are a lot of them, who do not know who Lenin is at all.

In my opinion, this question has the most direct relation to ideology. How can we move forward if we are still shamefacedly covering the sacred symbol of the country with these painted plywood shields?

There have been many disputes in our country over the fate of Vladimir Ilyich's body. I also have some thoughts on this. Yes, but I would not like my thoughts to be perceived as a political declaration or as a desire to provoke conflicts. This concerns something else; it concerns only what we talked about above and what the President talked about — how we move forward.

After all, what is Red Square? At one time, it was a place where they traded looms, hay, where there were various stalls and such. And from a certain point on, Red Square became a cemetery, and it was decided to intern the remains of people who had proved themselves in the Kremlin Wall in the Civil War, in the construction of a socialist society, in revolutionary activities, and so on. And the most outstanding ones were buried near the wall. In 1993, the number one post near the Mausoleum was canceled, and the Red Square seemed to regain its former significance. Concerts began to be held there, as always, with a draped Mausoleum. Pop stars on City Day, Independence Day, just concerts… And all this taken together, whether we want it or not, is happening in the cemetery… Can we imagine a concert by Paul McCartney or Scorpions at the Novodevichy Cemetery or at Troeka Rovsky? Well, that would be nonsense, blasphemy! And in winter there is a skating rink on Red Square. And this skating rink is also in the cemetery… I'm not saying that we need to stop spending holidays on Red Square, but this necropolis is of special importance.

It's not mine. The idea — it originated back in 1953 after Stalin's death. Then the idea arose to create a kind of pantheon, where to place those remains that were in the wall and the house with it. But my namesake Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, who waged an unrestrained struggle against architectural excesses, rejected this proposal. And, by the way, ironically, he became the only Soviet secretary general who was buried not at the Kremlin Wall, but at the Novodevichy cemetery.

It seems to me that it would be right to build a pantheon somewhere near Moscow, to move the remains of all these people. An interactive screen should be placed at each urn, which will be able to tell people who this person is, why he was buried in the Kremlin, at the Kremlin Wall, for what merits. Moreover, it should be devoid of absolutely any political color, only facts, objective truth while being careful of the evaluation intonation. Children, schoolchildren, students will be able to find out why these people were buried there, what they did for the country, and what their fate is. From this, an amazing, very informative picture of studying the history of one's own country can arise, at least from 1917 to our modern times. From my point of view, this is very important.

And this is exactly about ideology and about where we're all moving together.… And a special military operation is also about ideology and about where we are going and what kind of world we want our descendants to live in. I am deeply convinced that everything what happened before the SVO are the consequences of the sabotage policies of the 1990s, which many people in our country liked, because it did not impinge the sovereignty of their values and meanings and allowed a small part of our society to earn a lot of money from this policy. Today, in such a responsible and important period for our Fatherland, we see in all its glory how there is a quiet fermentation inside... There is a whole caste of people who no one says bad things, no one writes bad things, but this is the kind of conspiracy that expects everything to be like this, like before. This is a very dangerous meeting—the hope that it will be like before... No kidding! God sent us a special military operation! So that we finally wake up and I wanted to understand who is who and what is what. So that we can fully comprehend: The millennial desire to humiliate us has come close to the possibilities of its own. SVO is our salvation and our common cause!

And yes, this POV isn’t uncommon. It’s more directly expressed in Russian, IMO, and where it’s published also gives a hint at the intended audience—not your average Russian. Dmitry Medvedev recently shared a similar opinion about the nature of the SMO/SVO and what it means for Russia and Russians. Stolypin’s words at the intro were uttered after the 1905 Revolution which ought to provide better context in their relation to what the writer’s expressing. The citation attributed to Anthony The Great appears to be an Orthodox saying from what I could gather. The 1945 ceremony at Lenin’s Tomb is one I never knew of but as described was certainly a spiritual and sacred event. The point of knowing your history is to learn from it, which is one of Team Putin’s educational goals as we’ve read here often. The closing paragraph was very troubling from a translation perspective as it didn’t, and still doesn’t, make sense. Here’s the original Russian:

“И  Специальная военная операция — это тоже про идеологию и про то, куда мы двигаемся и в каком мире хотим, чтобы жили наши потомки. Глубоко убежден, что  все, что  происходило до  СВО, — это последствия вредительской политики 1990-х годов. Которая многим в нашей стране была по  душе, потому что  не  подразумевала суверенитета своих ценностей и  смыслов и позволяла малой части нашего общества зарабатывать на  этой политике большие деньги. Сегодня, в  такой ответственный и  важный период для  нашего Отечества, мы видим во  всей красе, как  идет тихое брожение внутри… Целая каста людей, которые ничего плохого не говорят, ничего плохого не  пишут, но  в  этом и  есть тихий сговор ожидающих, что все будет так, как  раньше. Это очень опасная вещь — ожидание, что  будет как  раньше… Не  будет! Специальную военную операцию нам послал Бог! Чтобы мы наконец проснулись и попытались понять, кто есть кто и что есть что. Чтобы мы осознали в  полной мере: тысячелетнее желание уничтожить нас подошло вплотную к  возможности своего осуществления. СВО — это наше спасение и наше общее дело!”

If a reader comes up with something more sensical, please provide it in the comments, after all, a writer’s conclusion is supposed to be the summation of his/her effort and needs to be clear and easily understood, and this isn’t. Also, IMO, the author really didn’t answer his question, What Ideology does Russia Need? The closest I see him saying is a law-based, objective ideology, that faces reality, while venerating and learning from its past.

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