The Non-Gogol Greatcoat

In the newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda, Russian political commentator Andrey Piontkovksky writes about the choices facing the people of Ukraine in the upcoming presidential election:

In Ukrainian

In Russian

translation:

10 September 2004

The Fate of an Agent Provocateur

Just as there is no such thing as a former KGB officer, there is no such thing as a former provocateur. The well-known political image maker Gleb Pavlovskiy seethed with noble tyrant-fighting pathos at a meeting of the Open Forum, which was held a few days after the arrest of [Russian oil company Yukos CEO Mikhail] Khodorkovskiy.

Shaking papers with the last speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a speech by the Stalin-era people's commissar [for Internal Affairs of the USSR, Nikolay] Yezhov, which was read in 1937, he was trying to convince the audience of the continuity of KGB methods and traditions.

And there really was a stunning coincidence in the logic of thought of the two prominent state figures, who were raised in one and the same non-Gogol greatcoat [allusion to 19th century Russian writer Nikolay Gogol and his story The Greatcoat], and somehow being similar even by outward appearance.

"Our lauded agencies cannot make a mistake. But even if they do make a mistake, they will be corrected by our Soviet courts," one of them said.

"Our Russian prosecutor general's office does not make mistakes. But even if it does make a mistake, it will be corrected by our Russian courts," the second repeated.

"We are an echo, we are an echo, we are an eternal echo of each other" [reference to a Russian song], a choir of little KGB officers [children willing to become KGB officers] could sing after the Dance of the Swans [from Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Swans Lake ballet] at the ceremonial jubilee evening on 20 December.

However, not even managing to run to the Kremlin, the tyrant fighter called and demanded his sensational words be cancelled from the verbatim record of the forum.

And he spent a long time walking from television studio to television studio, proving, with all of the same pathos, how the modern secret services had unmasked Khodorkovskiy, who, as it turned out according to Pavlovskiy, had "promised Condoleeza Rice to ruin the nuclear shield of the fatherland."

None of the authorities' apologists had ever gone to such idiocy, in any case publicly, if only for fastidious considerations.

In contrast to the 1980s, mini-Faustian deals with the authorities guarantee not only freedom and position, but also wads of cash.

Among other playgrounds, Pavlovskiy has a little stump of a backwater in Ukraine. During their elections there, Pavlovskiy, together with a few people who are always ready for anything are selling their stale services to the local party of power.

Not simply for big money, but for very big money [are they selling their services]. So the backwater duly pants, the Odessa con-artists use two simple tricks. In Kiev they puff their cheeks importantly, making themselves out to be Secret Agents of the Ruler who are implementing the will of the Kremlin in the post-Soviet landscape.

In Moscow they instil in the political beau mond and in the same Kremlin, that the higher geopolitical interests of Russia, nay, the very survival of Russia as an independent state, demands that the clients of Pavlovskiy and Company find themselves in power in the neighboring country.

They present the presidential election in Ukraine as an Armageddon, the last fight between Good and Evil, "the pro-Russian Yanukovych" and "the pro-American Yushchenko."

It is not difficult to fool the Russian political class. It is happy itself to be fooled. Post-empire, messiah complexes have always been characteristic of the Russian political class. But if in the first decade of post-Soviet life our [Russian] diplomats, with exceedingly great pomp, waged their phantom wars "against the enlargement of NATO" and "for traditional Russian interests in the Balkans" and so forth, now its operational geography is narrowing down to post-Soviet areas, where it intends to have a "last and decisive fight."

We are stubbornly trying to force a choice on our neighbors -- either Russia or the West.

And maybe some socially close brothers in mind could be found on the post-Soviet landscape if the simmering-from-hate-for-the-West Russian elite offered them a consistent Big Anti-West Ideological Project.

But what does the modern model of Russian capitalism look like, if not a caricature and parody of the modern West -- a predatory and ruthless model of bureaucratic primary accumulation [of capital] which is historically pointless in the 21st century.

So what can the Russian elite offer its former neighbors in the communal apartment? Nothing except pompous talk of its greatness, its historical mission, the messianic imperial foreordination of the Russian ethnos and so on.

No, of course, there is the distribution of electricity at internal rates. Now that is much more interesting. Now for that, and not for free, you will always find politicians ready to position themselves for a time as "pro-Russian."

Belarussian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has achieved virtuosity as a partner in the business of "oil in exchange for greatness."

Every year, the most pro-Russian Great Slav [Lukashenka] travels to Moscow, signs yet another meaningless piece of paper on an even deeper and final joining to Russia, dashes a glass of vodka on the floor in the Kremlin and leaves with a packet of economic preferences worth billions of dollars.

Like most of the poorly-educated dictators of the 20th century, big and small, Lukashenka was born a genius psychologist. He most excellently understands all the complexes and fantasies of the Russian political elite, elegantly and predatorily exploits them, but never for a second thinks he will become a mere governor of Minsk Region or secretary of a regional committee.

Sooner or later, sweet imperialist illusions pass and sooner or later we label each new leader of any country in the CIS as pro-American or "even more pro-American," not noticing that in doing so we sentence our own policies.

Where are the "pro-Russians" for whom we wait building sand castles in our empire. Look how pro-Russian the new president of Moldova and Russian communist [Mikhail] Voronin appeared to be. Now he too is pro-Western and pro-American.

But maybe something is wrong with us and our policy while presidents are simply pro-Ukrainian, pro-Georgian, pro-Moldovan or, to put it more simply, for their own loved ones.

The same labels could soon have been earned by the "pro-Russian" [Ukrainian Prime Minister and candidate for president Viktor] Yanukovych. But he will never earn it. Because he will never become president of Ukraine.

Despite the "patriotic" frenzy of the Russian mass media, the Kremlin has wisely paused for quite a while in regard to its preferences in the Ukrainian election.

The irony of fate is that Pavlovskiy and Company finally managed to convince the Kremlin to unconditionally support Yanukovych at the very moment when it became clear to all qualified experts, including themselves, that Yanukovych will lose.

But they wanted very much to make money. And Putin's word is worth a lot in Kiev price lists.

Yanukovych will lose for two fundamental reasons. First, the "cohesion" of the party of power around its candidate is rather formal and conditional.

The "Dnipropetrovsk" and "Kiev" [business clans] fear the uncontrolled strength of the "Donetsk" [clan] far more than the election of the non-clan [opposition leader and presidential frontrunner Viktor] Yushchenko and they will trip up the official heir with pleasure.

But this is not even the most important thing. The basic strategy of the outside political image makers, which is aimed mostly at the Russian population of Ukraine, to portray Yushchenko as a Russophobe and Ukrainian nationalist and to provoke an ethnic split in the Ukrainian society has failed to materialize.

For this, the Russian image makers spared no means from their old Russian arsenal - demonstrations of "Nazis for Yushchenko" on [Kiev's main street] Khreshchatyk as a remake of "Gays for [Russian politician Grigoriy] Yavlinskiy" and explosions at the market [in Kiev] (nice that it wasn't houses). All this lame stink from the foremost purveyors of the Russian orthodox idea brought only the opposite effect.

Not long ago I was in the biggest Russian-speaking region of Ukraine - in Crimea. Many Russians there plan to vote for Yushchenko and they explain themselves quite simply. Since Soviet times, they, like Ukrainians, are tired of nomenclature mugs with clear signs of former or future court convictions on their faces.

For them, the choice between Yanukovych and Yushchenko is not a choice between Russia and the West but a choice between the past and the future, between a Soviet Ukraine and a European Ukraine. The choice which sooner or later Russia will also make.

Yushchenko's victory will make Russian-Ukrainian relations much healthier, freeing them from that never-ending fraudulence under which some dream of "dominating" and the others are ready, of course not for free, to pretend they like it.

They will gladly kick Pavlovskiy in the butt and out of the Kremlin. It has been said that "you should not bite the hand that feeds you". And one who has bitten once and, moreover, has bitten in someone else's land and, moreover, has fooled the master, will sin again many, many times.

(via Marius)