The Kremlin “ideologue” Vladislav Surkov has recently written an article for Nezavisimaya Gazeta called “Putin’s Long State.” It posits that the Putinist system’s power stems from its unique ability to “listen and understand” Russia’s “deep people” – in contradistinction to the “deep states” that control the West beneath their democratic facades. This means that the system will outlast Putin, much as France remains De Gaulle’s Fifth Republic. It is unclear if “deep people” reflects the kremlins’ genuine opinion of their role in Russia and the world, or whether it is merely a bid by the largely sidelined Surkov to sidle back into a more central position of power. Still, as the person who did more than ever to popularize the term “sovereign democracy” in the mid-2000s, his article requires a serious analysis.
One of the article’s core problems can be distilled in one of its early sentences:
Having fallen from the level of the USSR to the level of the RF, Russia has stopped collapsing, and has began to recover and return to its natural, and only possible, condition as a state that is great, increasing, and gathering the lands of the community of peoples.
This is obviously a nod to the “gathering of the Russian lands,” except that in this case, it refers to some “lands of the community of peoples.” What are these lands? What are these people? Here we come to the crux of the problem – from a Russian national perspective – of Surkov’s worldview.
Let’s start with the national question, which would seem to be central to any discussions about “deep people.” The famous Russian far right blogger/troll Vladimir Frolov (“yarowrath“) has long argued that the “basedness” level of a Russian politician or publicist could be accurately proxied by the ratio of “rossiyane” (anodyne PC term for denizens of Russia) vs. “russkie” (ethnic Russians) in his vocabulary. Now at eight to five, Surkov’s piece is better than average for kremlinspeak, but that’s the most that can be said for it. This is confirmed in the details – the only mention of the “Russian nation” occurs in its civic form (“rossiyskaya natsiya”), with its subtext that Russians and Chechens have more in common than Russians in the RSFSR (sorry, I mean the RF) and Russians in the UkSSR (Ukraine). This is something that Zhirinovsky pointed out as well, noting that while there there are plenty of words about the “deep people,” there is nothing about the “Russian people.” As he argues, this is a regression relative to Alexander III, who first coined the slogan “Russia for Russians.”
Note that Surkov is the Kremlin’s “curator” for the LDNR. With people like these in charge, can it be any surprise that news from that front has generally been one of disappointment after disappointment?
Kholmogorov points out that while Surkov’s article can be seen as a modernized update to Uvarov’s triad (“Presidential Autocracy, Deep Nationality, …”) it is missing the first term in the equation. Because without Orthodoxy, what can autocracy plus (undefined, if “deep”; fake, if “rossiyskaya”) nationality, with no higher ethical superstructure, even be other than your typical tinpot populist regime? How is what Surkov is saying different from how the Western media describes Russia, with the minor exception that what the West considers “bad” – Surkov considers “good”?
Surkov’s claims about the all-powerful nature of the “deep states” in the West is belied by the fact that populist successes – Trumps, Brexits, and Salvinis – actually do happen from time to time. But these are homegrown phenomena, and have nothing to do with Russia. Ironically, in “defending” Putinism, Surkov merely echoes neoliberalism.txt’s Russiagate tropes. To the extent that the far right and the far left in the West are more “Russophile” than normie centrists, that is just a function of their hatred of their own establishments; to them, Russia is a blank canvass to project their hopes and dreams, just as Russia is a blank canvass for neoliberals to project their fear and hatred. And certainly there are very few people in the West, even amongst populists, who agree with Surkov that the Russian system is somehow more “honest” than what they have. As Paul Robinson says, “At this point… Surkov is in cloud-cuckoo land.”
The Leninist state is cited as an organic part of Russian history, on par with the states of Ivan III, Peter the Great, and Putin, as opposed to the terrorist takeover that it was. Just presumably another example of the “deep people” in action:
With its gigant supermass, the deep people creates a giant force of cultural gravitation, which connects the nation and attracts (flattens) to the ground (the native soil) the elites, when the cosmopolitanism gets out of hand.
“Deep people” are ethnic minorities with a chip on their shoulder? Actually, Surkov might just have a point there, if perhaps not quite the one he wanted to make.
The deep people is always of its own mind, impenetrable to sociological polls, agitation, threats, and other means of direct study and influence. Understanding what it is, what it thinks, and what it wants, often occurs suddenly and too late, and not to those, who can do anything about it.
So according to Surkov’s PoMoist take, Russians are this primeval hive mind, impenetrable to standard tools of sociology that work everywhere else. Apart from its inherent Russophobia, it also – taken on its own merits – completely discredits arguments to the effect that a solid majority of Russians support Putin. (So what? You yourself have just said that Russia is impenetrable to sociology). Good job, Vlad!
Fortunately, Surkov has a “powerful” rejoinder”:
The ability to listen and understand the people, see through it, to its very depths, and act accordingly – that is the unique and most important feature of Putin’s state.
Erm… OK.
In reality, the Presidential Administration is positively obsessed with polls. It also seems to be pretty good at it. Maintaining approval ratings of 60%+ for the national leader for almost two decades now without exercising overly coercive media control is quite impressive.
The problem with Surkov is that he evidently fancies himself to be very clever, sophisticated, “the only truth is that there is no truth” philosopher whereas in reality he is quite mediocre. The article itself is one of the clearest examples of Fluctuarius Argenteus’ “RussoShoe Theory” that I have read in months. With “apologists” like him, Putin needs no enemies. Fortunately, Putin’s actual state is less retarded and PoMoist than its putative “ideologue” seems to believe.
What is the etymology of this name, Surkov?
Some Russian names just sound funnier in English. Like Protopopov. Or Raskolnikov. One does not need to know Russian to know that a guy named Raskolnikov is probably a troubled hombre.
As an American, I can only say that Surkov is way too close to our “jerkoff.”
You’re quick to jump all over Surkov for being purposefully vague in defining what he means about the ‘gathering of Russian lands’, but what about you Anatoly? I’ve been waiting for over two years now, trying to get you to more fully define what this concept means to you, and most importantly, the practical effects of putting such a policy into play, and am still waiting…a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black! 🙂
I think Surkov’s father is an ethnic Chechen.
Bring back Ukraine, Belorussia, Baltics and Kazakhstan, kick out Chechenya and Dagestan. Clearly said in this article from 2017.
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/russian-nationalism-101
http://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/sputnik-i-pogrom-big-russia.jpg
No idea about Mr. Karlin’s position on Alaska, the oldest stolen Russian land 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipFVd_iHQRo
Funny memeable title. But I would disagree a little. Not that he is any intellectual, but – he is actually quite honest about the situation, with an intentionally mild layer of encryption.
Yes if a person will imagine Surkov’s text as serious, academic statement – then it is some unreadable, muddled, garbage.
For example, amusing are comical parts which are written as attempt to make “gears” of a primitive Soviet mind to grip to “cogs” of abstract Western political concepts (e.g. stuff about output of Putin’s political machine is not yet in full capability).
But that is really less comical, than mildly insightful – Here he is honestly writing with the kind of language he has to use when he talks to men like Putin, so they can understand him.
–
As for other things Surkov is saying, are clear when you just add some negation ¬. And then there are various honest statements about the current rules.
He is not writing with “opposites” (so you don’t reverse statements), but he is writing some just negations because this is precisely what work of PR is (to insert negations about unpopular components of the product he is hired to sell).
e.g, unpopular realities such as:
if true:
“cosmopolitanism gets out of hand”
print “¬ (deep people… (flattens) to the ground (the native soil) the elites)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMfUr43KSRo
–
Surkov’s real worry, is he thinks the Russian Federation is more politically unstable than it is, and is scared of what will happen after Putin. This is a product of the old generation he belongs to.
Objectively, for all the complaints – Russia has never lived in history as well as now. This is a basis for political stability, which will be further reinforced by demographic trends.
In 2018, median age in Russia is around 40 years old. By the time Putin leaves, it will be a few years higher than now. With such a population pyramid, it is unlikely there will be the kind of political instability in the future after Putin to compare to the past before Putin.
‘Alexander III, who first coined the slogan “Russia for Russians.’
Actually, the slogan was coined prior to Alexander III by the conservative newspaper Vest’ in the 1860s. As I’ve written in my forthcoming book:
‘This was not an ethno-nationalist statement about the supremacy of the Russian nation within Russia’s borders. Rather, the slogan was primarily about foreign policy, and amounted to a reassertion of what might be called the isolationist tendency in Russian conservatism. Vest’ said:
“Sacrificing Russian interests for the Slavs? No, and a thousand times no! Russia
for the Russians! That is our banner.” The newspaper continued by asking, “Is the
Russian treasury so full, and the blood of Russians so cheap, that we can spend one
and the other on something other than Russia itself? . . . We repeat, Russia for the
Russians!” In a later edition, Vest’ clarified what it had it mind:
Russia for the Russians . . . means not for the Germans, not for the Slavs, not for the
Greeks—that is to say that valuable Russian blood should only be shed for Russia.
But Russia for the Russians isn’t a cry of hostility to humanity; it doesn’t mean the
persecution, devastation, or pursuit of foreigners. It does not mean enmity toward
that which isn’t Russian. . . . Russia for the Russians means Russia for all loyal subjects
of the Russian Empire.”‘
In other words, in its original form ‘Russia for the Russians’ had a very different meaning from the one you give it, and had nothing to do with ‘russkie’ v. ‘rossiyane’
Well, not really. He does so within a comment (to me of all people) in comment #5:
A comment? Give me a break! He is nowhere to be seen after I query him further in comment #6?
I would think that a proud Russian nationalist who feels this way, who is a good writer with his own blog, could devote at least one piece to this very important topic?
Lol the speech was more amusing than I remember from then.
His logical reasoning process is something like –
Fish rots from the head
Skolkovo does not have a rotted head [because me and Vekselberg are already far too rich to steal merely hundreds of thousands of dollars]
->
Skolkovo is less corrupt than other projects in Russia.
I think if Anatoly wanted to answer you, if he already hasn’t already, he would have done so. So why derail every thread?
How am I ‘derailing every thread’? He brings up the topic anew at this thread, I reply with avid interest. Besides, it’s an interesting topic, don’t you think?…
The trouble with Karlin, is that he skirts around the issue (Triuinism) without sinking his teeth into it.
Karlin is a Russian nationalist who, as I understand it, advocates incorporating Belarus and most of Ukraine into the Russian state. I don’t imagine he cares much what the Ukrainians think about the matter. As a Ukrainian, you’re free to be outraged by that, but is it really interesting or productive to have a shitfest week after week? It’s not like anybody is going to have their minds changed.
Most common types of “Russophile” you might meet:
Sadly completely true, though regarding your last point there are at least some moderately influential parties advocating improved relations with Russia – Lega Nord, AfD, Front National etc.
What’s wrong with that? (Asking for a friend.)
Who’s having a s___fest week after week, Adam? I don’t even know how exactly he proposes to follow through on his ‘regathering”? Perhaps, it would only require a loose political or economic association, with a genuine respect for the Ukrainian language and culture? Perhaps, it would require a massive war and a reimplementation of the gulag system to ‘reeducate’ recalcitrant Ukrainian nationalists, and a heavy dose of russification? Do you know? He seems to be very sparse in providing any details?……
I’d be interested in seeing his blueprint for the regathering project. Is that too much to request?
About time. This isn’t Speakers’ Corner.
He is, but Surkov is а Russian name and it’s his mother family (maiden) name.
His father’s surname is Dudayev.
@John Burns, Gettysburg Partisan:
Surka means groundhog in Russian.
thanks for the information. I looked it up afterwards and it seems you are correct .
And more than one far right Tory politician with a wife 20-30 years younger than he.
Vladimir-Suzdal is Russia. The rest is stolen.
Good grief. I’d hate to think what that logic would do to America!
With your logic,you can say goodbye to France, Germany or even the UK in its current form.
Only loser nations have this attitude.
Not such high numbers of these people please.
The target audience for marketing rusofilia to, should focus on the attractive people in the West.
Ideally, it should more beautiful rich women. The question for this marketing in external policy should be- how to increase the number of Kate Beckinsales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QBVL3hBo5Y
Wessex is England. The rest is stolen.
AYE, EM ANGLE CUNTS STOLE DAT TOO
BRITAIN BELONGS TO THE BRITONS
SIMPLE AS
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/410/677/50c.png
No coercive media control
@
All federal tv is controlled by the presidential administration, as well as all but 1 radio station and 1 newspaper
…right
Sovereignty over most of the US was bought and paid for legally. Post Andrew Jackson treatment of the original inhabitants was somewhat robust. He pushed for them to become occupiers rather than owners of the land as British law had seen them.
Tel-Aviv is the de facto capital of England. London is the de jure capital of England.
Well if that is really the state of Russian foreign policy, then Ukraine should seriously contemplate turning Karlins home into a mushroom cloud, what is Kim Jong Un Facebook messenger name again?
Yeah, Surkov is delusional here.
And here Surkov is absolutely right. The “Leninist state” may or may not have been a “terrorist takeover” but of course it was organic. It’s not like it was imposed by Martians.
Kholmogorov is right. What would be Russia without Orthodoxy? Would have been at all?
“Russia without faith, without truth in Christ, is copulation and cruelty”, “ethnographic material” (as Dostoevsky put it) to be relentlessly studied for writing erudite theses and essays in sociology, psychology, political sciences, literary criticism, etc. for graduation at God knows what ‘prestigious’ Universities in the enlightened ‘West’.
The Church failed to protect Russia against revolution and is a dead ideology. Modern Orthodoxy is a joke – extremely corrupt and entirely political. I strongly suspect the vast majority of higher clergy and most lay people are atheists.
I sympathize greatly with people like Dostoevsky and Ivan Ilyin but their world is completely dead, might as well talk about reviving the Roman Empire and their paganism. Any serious movement should focus on practical matters, nationalism, family formation, prosocial behavior etc.
“Tinpot” is classic Hajnalcelspeak, like “trope” or “canard” for Jews.
“To the extent that the far right and the far left in the West are more ‘Russophile’ than normie centrists, that is just a function of their hatred of their own establishments; to them, Russia is a blank canvass to project their hopes and dreams, just as Russia is a blank canvass for neoliberals to project their fear and hatred”… fear and hatred aside – unproven as it is -it would be interesting to see just what might happen if the ‘far right’ or the ‘far left’ in the West tried to canvass in Russia; or if neoliberals tried to fill in the blanks in Russia by canvassing in the country. Perhaps they would meet with the same fate as Jehovah’s Witnesses and other Western canvassers. All the same, Surkov is at least right that the Russian system is somewhat more “honest” than what we have. How could it not be? At least you know what you’re in for.
Thanks.
So this is historical trope, much like the mythology around the Potemkin village.
The Church ‘failed’ to protect Russia against revolution because the revolutionaries acted quickly to kill tens of thousands of priests and monks and destroying the churches.
But if was a ‘dead ideology’ why the furious campaigns against the revival of Orthodoxy? If most lay people are atheists why they continue building churches (from just 6000 in 1991 to 36,000 today and counting)? Why the number of people training for priesthood grows by the year? And that people don’t give a f***k if the Patriarch wore a gold watch?
Can you read? I said “overly coercive”, not “no coercive.”
The PA gives the editors of the main federal TV channels instructions on how to cover the main topics every week, so yes, the biggest TV channels can be considered controlled relative to the West. However, there’s if anything more ideological variety in the newspapers, and the Internet is still an extremely diverse and uncontrolled entity. This is important, considering that Internet is rapidly displacing TV as where Russians get their news from. There are no online censors, as in China.
Of course there are plenty of tabooed and pigeonholed topics in the Russian media space, but in that respect, it’s entirely in line with Western realities.
Really? Here from the vantage point of 2019 it looks like the Church won. Commies are dead, commie projects are also dead, but pretty much every objective of the Church for the 20th century was successfully achieved.
No.
Based on what? You’ve never even met any of them in real life!
You left out:
Europeans like myself who seek multipolarity by way of Russia and China balancing out American overreach, particularly on the continent, and who also see the good that Putin has done in Russia (Gusinsky, Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky for starters) as inspiration for countering those seeking to annihilate national sovereignty elsewhere.
What a load of garbage. The PA meets with the editors, first and foremost because the pool of journalists that covers the President everywhere , needs to know where he is going.
Meeting with the government is completely normal. There is nothing to indicate they tell them what to say and do.
If they are “controlled” then why, unlike in the West,are there are anti-state pundits on television all the day? In an equivalent situation in America you think anti-Russian Poles, ukrops, Latvians would be on federal channels every day?
Federal channels were way ahead of the Kremlin in promoting Novorossiya and in their general statements towards Banderastan
You can even tell this in the rare errors, when Channel One got overexcited and did that silly “satellite photo evidence” of MH17 being shotdown by the Ukrainians…their source for that wasn’t some official….and there is no way the Kremlin instructed them to do it
Absurd nonsense. There are many political talk shows on Russian tv – I think it’s too many but the very fact that they have strong ratings is why so many of them are on. Also what you call “Internet” largely includes newspapers own operations or even tv itself ( Kiselyov videos interviewing Putin and Sobyanin before their elections uploaded onto youtube got many million views in a short space of time) or derivative work off tv, radio and newspapers.
Would an equivalent of Limonov be allowed anywhere near tv in a western country? Only “censorship” is on ethnonationalism and associated criminal issues relating to non-slavic Russians, all main other political issues are total freedom.
Recently in the UK, they were banned from showing the faces, and dubbed the voices, and couldn’t even mention the exact name of any political republican in Northern Ireland ( and that was a terrorist attack-laden but nowhere near war state of affairs , as in Chechnya)
Left out altogether the born and practicing Orthodox who didn’t start their catechism this month, who know that RF is not a Christian theocracy, but who along with the Russians know that filioque is wrong and why, who have a natural sympathy for the fellow Orthodox who in the past came to their rescue against Islam, which is not ‘pretty much the same as Orthodoxy’, but not at all.
True enough.
Continuity of Roman administration stayed in Wales until 1282.
Just pointing out that Chechen terrorist leader lowlife Dudayev was also married to a Russian woman. No connection of course, just irony
“Stolen territory” was extremely sparse or non-existant occupied territory…or Kingdoms for which they had been made Protectorate. Something of which none applies to any of the French, Belgian or British empires.
Add in that most of the actual “stolen territory” is land that Russia has beneficially given to others from different countries , Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Lithuania all got excellent territorial gifts from Stalin. Hungary and Germany missing out.
Nor apparently whether he was ever involved in the marketing of contraband cigarettes and alcohol. In a society where professional advancement may be stilted, the prospects of having full employment (and pay) working perhaps 3 hours a week would be attractive to somebody, I’m sure. Also, the prospect of getting a gold watch somewhere in the bargain (and perhaps a vehicle too) might motivate others to enlist. What’s holding you up from applying? 🙂
Hey, aren’t you the guy of the Ottawa Citizen fame who wrote about Russia as a piece of dung wrapped in the cabbage leaf in the outhouse and created a diplomatic scandal? It is funny how fast that piece was removed from Internet.
Never mind my previous post–I mistook you for John Robson of Ottawa Citizen. Sorry for confusion.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Communism was vastly attractive to millions of people not that long ago. Things like that don’t stay dead forever. See Orthodox Church.
Stalin actually took Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (which he gifted to Ukrainian SSR) from Romania at the same time when he gifted Hungary with half of Transylvania.
After the war Stalin kept Bessarabia and Romanians themselves recovered the part of Transylvania gifted to Hungary.
Hungary and Germany missed out because they have been the losers of the two world wars they started for their own aggrandizement and they had to be cut to size.
Well, even Stalin had enough sense to ‘gift’ northern Bukovina to Ukraine. Here’s an ethnographic map of all of Bukovina, the vast majority of the population in the north was Ukrainian, whereas just the reverse was true in Southern Bukovina. The map is from 1910, based on census information, before Stalin even knew where Bukovina was located.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Bukovina1910ethnic.jpg
Red signifies Ukrainian areas, green – Romanian.
In Russia is dead and nobody want to see it again. There might be some ‘undead’ zombies left who ‘believe’ in Communism, out of a mental inertia. They will disappear when the the carcass of Lenin would be finally buried (with Christian rites) and his mausoleum purified and dedicated to the Martyrs of Communism.
There are more zombies left in the ‘West’, whence Communism actually came to kill the Orthodox Church of Russia. They are terrified by the resurrection of the Church and want to kill it again, nuking it if necessary.
This opinion of yours is rubbish, the idea that most of our sovereignty was bought and paid for legally.
Take the infamous Walking Purchase that occurred here in Pennsylvania. Only under a very Talmudic conception of law could it be considered “legal.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_Purchase
Indeed, but that’s the kind of logic one must resort to in defending the Ukrainian project.
You are an unceasingly odious parrot! Karlin has already posted a kind of a blueprint for the regathering project – and you yourself participated in the post’s comment section! http://www.unz.com/akarlin/31-steps-for-ukraine/
Either you have the memory of a goldfish or you’re just a troll. Gee, I wonder which…?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccyz_tlYxGU
Well Surkov is not even his real surname, he adopted it in adulthood, once his mother parted sides with his real father.
He is a Chechen, thus, with an original Chechen surname.
Raskolnikov is a fictional name invented by Dostoevsky to characterize his rebelious personage, raskol meaning revolt. Protopopov is a real name. It means roughly ‘a descendant of a protopope’, an ecclesiastical rank – the first among the priests of a district.
For most Anglo English speakers any ‘foreign’ name sounds funny, if not funky.
The reverse is true also. For example, for a French, Burns sounds like ‘burnes’ – testicles, bollocks. A ‘casse-burnes’ – crush the balls, is slang for a disagreeable, importunate, exasperating person.
Makes me wonder. So many people praising Surkov’s article.
And for me it looks like much ado about nothing, mix of trivialities and wishful thinking, even to a degree “call for everything good and against everything bad”.
While i am not a big fun of Dugin, in this Surkov’s article he is on point, i believe.
http://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/its-time-super-putin-dugin-surkovs-putin-analysis
……….Of course, in comparison with the 90s, Putin has changed a lot. But all this was in fact, it was not reflected in the structure of the political regime.
The future does not belong to Putin
The people, society in a broad sense, is a generally organic carrier of two main values: patriotism + social justice. The elite is on the exact opposite position: cosmopolitanism (Westernism) + freedom of large private capital. In the 90s, power as a whole was anti-people. Putin changed this formula somewhat by adopting patriotism, which the masses liked, but retaining liberalism in the economy, which was acceptable to the elites. Therefore, the people accepted Putin for patriotism, which was in short supply in the 90s, but retained their dislike for the elites and clearly regretted more and more about the complete absence of social justice in Putin’s regime. In this absence, the people rightly blame the elite, which they curse in the face of “collective Chubais.”
Such is the structure of the status quo or Putin’s compromise. The people suffer a lack of social justice and an incredible scale of corruption (elite) at the expense of the patriotic component (Putin personally). Although this is not particularly reliable, but still the Putin system has lasted for quite some time now – 20 years. Therefore, it is already quite “long”, but this “longitude” in its eyes ends. And with Putin it will definitely end.
Putin is the compromise. If he is gone, there will be no…..