What is to be in Russia?

Having weighed all that we had to say about the basics of popular sovereignty , every sober-minded and responsible democrat must sorrowfully admit that the Russian people after three decades of destruction, violence, poverty and corruption of every kind - will be unable to implement a democratic system, as long as it does not restore in itself honor, conscience, and the sense of national state. Now, all the basic and necessary foundations of popular sovereignty are undermined in its soul, desecrated, distorted – if not directly abolished by totalitarian communists.

Russian people exist, but its existence is like a tortured humiliation of its own street children. His state, - religious, spiritual, intellectual, volitional, political, economic, laboring, familial and domestic - is such that the introduction of popular sovereignty promises not order, but chaos, not a revival, but decay, not healing, but the "war of all against all", that would be its last and even more bitter disaster. After the nightmare of the revolutionary era of "Jacobinism", the era of prolonged "Girondist" anarchy would have started - with the ferocious tyranny of the far-right in the end. Childish and irresponsible it is to close our eyes to that.

So the first thing an ideological and responsible democrat is obliged to utter, is pessimistic diagnosis and prognosis: the communist revolution did not bring Russia closer to popular rule, on the contrary - it blew all the framework of life, which existed demonstrably in the Imperial Russia.

The revolution has lasted for 32 years (*), and it is not over yet. During this time, the communists did their best to kill in a non-communist mass of the Russian people a sense of public responsibility and spiritual anticipation – in order to make the principle of state an object of hatred in the Russian soul, a synonym of pointless labor camp;- to wean the Russian people on the free and loyal political works; - to snuff the citizen in the Russian soul and to accustom it to slavery; - to instill in it a contempt for the humiliations of the electoral comedy. What kind of "popular sovereignty" can be built on it?

During those long, agonizing years, the Soviet government did everything possible to wean the Russian people from free loyalty and to mix with it in their souls slavish mentality, coarse flattery and mean culture of secret denunciation (**). In Soviet Russia jurisprudence has become tantamount to tyranny and violence, in the souls any respect for the law has been quenched, violation of rights has become a fundamental and necessary form of life.

As early as 1919 the directive was formulated by the Soviet of People Comissars: "the essence of revolution is in open defiance of every law, including its own decrees the revolution." And so, by this directive - the government official became a robber and a bribe-taker, and social refuse was elevated to officialdom. The Russian man in the street, hunted down by this, - in the course of self-defense against revolutionary robbery - turned the "clout"(***) into a natural and inevitable way of struggle for existence. From the top down it was made to confuse "mine" and "yours," "mine", and "state-owned" - into one indistinguishable jumble, so that to erase all property law and honesty in the souls. What kind of democracy can be built on such a "theft"?

Communists still continue to do everything possible to deprive the people from national and statesmanlike outlook and replace it with world-revolutionary fervor, with arrogance, with self-confidence of the international adventurism. That sense of sovereign right and sovereign measure, which for centuries was nurtured in the Russian soul, and on which the whole of Russia from Kiev to St. Petersburg was built, is now trampled and torn asunder. For the fourth decade now the Communists emaciate, for no national reason, the sense of national sacrifice, sense of duty and virtue of service inherent to the Russian people, as rarely to any other nation; they squander Russian patriotism; devalue Russian self-sacrifice; the Russian citizen is forced through a greatest school of political corruption. It is necessary to forget all history and to destroy all political sense in order to try building a democracy on this vice.

The Russian man never lived by another man's thought. He always preferred to think "stupidly", but independently; straggle up and sink in disagreement, but not blindly obey someone else's authority. And for the fourth decade now his ability for independent thought is beaten out of him through the revolutionary "studies", hunger, fear, obsessive propaganda and party monopoly of printing.

In education – all is vulgarized, distorted and lied through; in the forced "world view" - all is dead, stencil-stamped, godless and immoral. For entire generations he is torn away from the true knowledge - about himself, and about other people. He is blind in politics, and often does not know of his blindness, and increasingly he is taking his blindness for the higher mental vision. To offer him a popular rule can only be done in the hope of replacing the totalitarian communist stencil with a new, likewise totalitarian party stencil. What can be more disgusting to a true democrat than than such falsification of "popular sovereignty"? Or perhaps they will try to create a new "democratic fascism" so that, while chanting odes to freedom trample that very freedom on behalf of a new, unprecedented in history pseudo-democracy?

After the Bolsheviks Russia could be saved – either by the greatest discipline of self-governance of the Russian people, or a dictatorship that would be national, governmental, and educational. What a naive psychology is needed to "believe" that the Russian people, -- who have always suffered from lack of character, strength of will, discipline, mutual respect and trust,-- would find in themselves, after these long years of slavery and corruption, the super-character, the super-moderation, super-will and super-solidarity necessary for a democratic system?

Undermined are all the spiritual and social foundations of democracy – down to the tie to the land, down to the faith in the labor, down to the respect for honestly acquired property. In scraps is torn the fabric of national solidarity. Everywhere an unprecedented thirst for revenge has accumulated. The masses are dreaming about shaking off the vile hypnotic fear and answering the lasting organized terror – with terror explosive and disorganized. And at that point they will be offered:

1. "Democratic Freedom"
2. "The right of self-determination of every kind" and
3. "The doctrine of popular sovereignty."

(**) “Доносительство”; “snitching” would be the closest American equivalent, but that would not fit Ilyin’s elegant language. There is no good translation, thank God, for this ugly phenomenon, but it is a cornerstone of Soviet social fabric. In a society where ideological conformance is required of everyone, secretly denouncing someone’s real or imaginary dissent becomes a tool of self-defense or even social advancement. The authority makes it easy for such denouncements to be made and the practice spreads.

by every supporter of Free Trade today

And by every supporter of humanitarian bombings of Serbia, no-fly-zone insurgencies in Libya, every al Qaeda sympathizer in the Obama administration, every supporter of Kosovo Liberation Army in Clinton/Bush administrations, every open-border ideologue in both parties. The common thread to all is hatred of national governments, domestic economies, and sovereign peoples everywhere.

Our destruction is indeed by a revolution

Yes, slow and like you said, "underground". The difference is, Russia was lost in one violent year, -- at most 5 if you count the Civil War 1918-1922,-- America is struggling for at least half a century, and it is still the best country to be in. Still.

An American reader, however, will note many sad parallels to the state of American psyche in the past few decades, as we see our culture of self-sufficiency and self-government recede — not destroyed by a revolution, but rather allowed to weaken though our own neglect.

***
You are so right. Stalin’s plan is the model for the American progressives. Sad — for both cultures.

It is Putin's government putting Russian nationalists in jail on article 282, en mass, today.

Here is the relevant Russian law. It seems aimed at extremists of all stripes. Do you have anything to support your contention that the law is being misused?

Article 282. Incitement of National, Racial, or Religious Enmity

1. Actions aimed at the incitement of national, racial, or religious enmity, abasement of human dignity, and also propaganda of the exceptionality, superiority, or inferiority of individuals by reason of their attitude to religion, national, or racial affiliation, if these acts have been committed in public or with the use of mass media, shall be punishable by a fine in the amount of 500 to 800 minimum wages, or in the amount of the wage or salary, or any other income of the convicted person for a period of five to eight months, or by restraint of liberty for a term of up to three years, or by deprivation of liberty for a term of two to four years.

2. The same acts committed: a) with the use of violence or with the threat of its use; b) by a person through his official position; c) by an organized group, shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of three to five years.

Obviously no criminal article is formulated so that the oppressed nation is mentioned directly. But typically the Russian nationalists are prosecuted on it, for thought crimes like "The system whereby Russia is feeding the Caucasus needs to be destroyed" (quote from memory, Krylov got a conviction for it and now cannot be elected to anything). If you read Russian, I can send you anecdotal info every day; obviously no verifiable statistics exist in that police state.

A good representative case of persecutions directed at Russian Nationalists is the history of Русский общенациональный союз (Russian All-National Union; the English version of the Wiki is useless). The party was systematically denied registration and cannot participate in elections; their materials are branded "extremist". The founder, И́горь Артёмов (Igor Artyomov) is indicted on 282 and is in hiding. What is RONS's political position? Actions against abortions, juvenile justice system, sex education in schools, opublic display of homosexuality, highlighting immigrant criminal culture, support for religious education. The organization is now underground.

So..no evidence of mass arrests of Russian “nationalists” using Article 282 as a pretext because Russia is a police state and doesn’t allow the data to be collected. Yet when one looks for evidence you find things like the case of Aleksei Navalny, who was charged with embezzlement (not article 282) and convicted but allowed to run for the mayor of Moscow where he won a sizable portion of the vote. I find it hard to imagine a police state anywhere that would allow such behavior, don’t you?

Navalny is no nationalist.

Navalny was kicked out of the Russian United Democratic (Yabloko) party in 2007 for his "nationalist" views, and has been associated with various nationalist organizations (NAROD, DPNI, Great Russia) since then.

You seem to have a unique set of criteria for who is and isn't a Russian nationalist, and it doesn't seem to be shared by too many people...either here or in Russia.

Well, maybe mildly nationalist. Navalny’s defining characteristic is criticism of the culture of corruption. He is seen as playing Putin’s game by the nationalists, who view his phony conviction followed by equally phony mayoral run as Putin putting up a facade of democracy against which Putin and his Chekist trash can win every time.

A new one today.

St. Petersburg police arrested 20 peolpe during nationalist action (Russian)
Nationalists inform of mass arrests during meeting in St. Petersburg (Russian)

The meeting was against "ethnoterror": previously, 4-5 people shot pistols without any provocation yelling Allahu Akbar. A nationalist meeting (or rally) ensued, and the police was arresting participants right at the subway exit, even before they could congregate at the rally. Number of the arrested is variously reported between 20 and 60 people.

Not a police state?

It sounds like the St Petersburg police take their job seriously, and aren’t going to let hooligans of any stripe or color to cause a public safety problem.

Good for them.

-btw are you sure they weren’t just unruly Spartek fans?

Picking people off subway exits before they committed any crime is good police work?

You can dismiss one incident or two. Police harassment of nationalists: refusing their right to assembly, denying political party registration, arresting them for no crime, applying 282 for thought crimes, trumping up criminal cases like against Navalny and Konstantinov is what the political system IS in Russia; and that cannot be dismissed.

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