BORIS KAGARLITSKY, MOSCOW
WORST CASE SCENARIO
Once I used to think that the Russian authorities possessed an exclusive talent to choose the worst solutions of all possible. I later realized that the decisions they had made were the best of all possible, while I simply couldn’t grasp the root of the matter.
The point is that the Russian authorities are motivated not by the abstract ideas. They are governed by their own interests and those of the ruling class. And from this perspective the decisions they make are always the best.
It is another matter that all the decisions made by the authorities are provided with propaganda that totally complicates understanding. The propaganda works to represent the decisions made in the interests of few as decisions that serve public weal. This always causes all the discrepancies.
To illustrate the idea let’s turn to the 1990s “radical reforms”. The scheme is quite simple:
Task 1: to ransack the country, to share the property among the few.
Propaganda 1: to raise the living standard, to increase production.
Tool 1: to give money to propaganda people to translate proper information to the masses.
As a result: the country is devastated, the property is shared, living standard dropped, production declined, the journalists cashed in on the situation.
As we see the task was successfully fulfilled. The side effect, though, was quite the opposite to what had been promised by the propaganda. But the journalists hushed the real facts for the sake of big money they got.
The simple-hearted Russian citizens believed the propaganda and deplored the failure of “radical reforms”. This only proves that the people in our country are naïve enough to be fooled around by their own government, for the 1990s reforms were carried out with certain goals which were not anywhere near serving the interests of the society.
The reforms were successful, as was the work of propaganda. But this triumph contained the seed of the future defeat. The only way to keep people passive and at a safe distance despite the growing divergence between the propaganda and the reality was to gradually increase the amount of state propaganda. But as the effectiveness of the state-issued half-truths was decreasing, its price was only growing.
In the beginning it was efficient to pay the journalists for support of the reforms, but as the journalists wanted more money for their job, it became more paying to make terms with the society. It turned out that the society cost less than the journalists.
“They must share”, a simple and straightforward phrase by Aleksandr Livshits, finance minister under Boris Yeltsin, expresses the idea of social responsibility of the ruling elite.
And the propaganda must at least sometimes be based on real facts…
Now let us consider Task 2: to impose order in the elite, to stabilize the system.
Propaganda 2: to raise the living standard, to increase production.
Tool 2: to gag the mass media in order to have free hands with Task 2.
As a result: the ruling elite were shown their place, the system was stabilized, living standard was successfully raised, production increased and the mass media had to pipe down.
All are more or less happy with the outcome, apart from the journalists. I mean those of them who cannot put up with being gagged. Mind you that Tool 1 – giving money – is still implied to both loyal and opposition journalists. There are cases that the latter are persecuted but none of them is starving.
While Task 1 was a success, Task 2 was a triumph. But despite the coincidence of the state propaganda and the reality, the propaganda system is in a difficult situation: the authorities have booted out the most talented propaganda cadres; and now the propaganda has to hold tight to reality. In our first example propaganda, on the contrary, was too far from the real life, which caused problems. But now it is even worse, for should the life change, it will heavily hit the propaganda machine. And life does change.
Meanwhile the authorities are busy working out Task 3. It is not that they don’t like the previous tasks or are dissatisfied with the situation in the country. But they have already exceeded the target in Task 2, so that it has lost any sense. Any bureaucrat knows what I am talking about, for they all are preaching development and innovations that would occur without any change and in ultimate stability. Where is the sense: to make everything new without changing anything.
Task 3: to make the system dynamic and effective leaving all its elements as they are.
Propaganda 3: to raise the living standard, to increase production.
Tool 3: ???
We have to admit that if the weak point of Task 1 and Task 2 was the divergence of the real purport and the propaganda, now there is a problem with feasibility of the task. Mission is impossible.
Poor bureaucrats, they don’t understand the Task and don’t know how to fulfill it. The propaganda is in no better position: those of the journalists who serve the authorities don’t have the Tools to fulfill the Task, for the bureaucrats fail to give them a clear concept of the task, and the opposition journalists cannot spot their enemy to attack him.
The only hope in the current situation is Tool 1.
Boris Kagarlitsky is Director of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements
May 19, 2008
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