The former Soviet dissident Alexander Skobov, who was sentenced in April 2024 to 16 years in prison for “terrorism” due to his staunch denunciation of the war and Putin’s regime continues to work from his prison cell. In this piece, he shares his reflections on the unconscious of Russia’s ruling elites. According to the author, these people feel deeply humiliated when they are denied the right to rape, plunder, kill, and dismember their neighbors to punish them for their disobedience, because they are convinced they have the right to demand obedience from others. Will the world tolerate this?
The May 22 issue of Nezavissimaïa Gazeta published an editorial headline “Two Historical Scenarios for Contemporary Russia: How Did the Transformation of the Stalinist Regime Differ from the Collapse of the USSR?” ”
This editorial begins by noting an undeniable fact: every historical period in Russia has ended with a state of stupor and paralysis of the central government, followed by the country’s disintegration. This occurs against a backdrop of military defeats or the absence of any clear military victory. Even the “non-victory” in the Cold War—which was never officially declared—was enough to trigger the collapse and turn Russia into a protectorate, easy to exploit.
The so-called “external management” of Russia in the 1990s and its plundering by Western capital constitutes a myth deeply rooted in the collective consciousness. Boris Yeltsin’s team did indeed invite Western advisers, but the latter were horrified by the way their recommendations were implemented. As for the plundering of Russia, it was carried out by his own people: the very heart and soul of the bratva1 of the 1990s and individuals from the former Soviet special services.
Without delving into the reasons for this myth’s popularity, it suffices to say that it fits into a worldview where one is either predator or prey. Either one dictates, or one is dictated to. There is no middle ground.
It is clear that this is the worldview of the article’s author. The outside world—and this refers above all to the “Western world”—is viewed by him as inherently hostile to Russia, seeking to subjugate and plunder it. Non-Russian territories that have broken away from Russia are, too, considered inherently hostile. The author of the editorial claims that, time and again, these territories have “triggered” wars against the central part of the country that remained intact. Presumably in the same vein as Finland, which is said to have “triggered” the war against the USSR in 1939—by refusing to submit and cede part of its territory.
The problem here isn’t even the exceptional audacity that allows one to lie brazenly, to call white black, to attack in the name of self-defense. When one views the other side as an enemy with whom war is inevitable due to an irreconcilable conflict of vital interests, it doesn’t matter who strikes first: they would have attacked us anyway.
They forced us into it.
Yet all these territories—from Poland and Finland to the former Soviet republics—despite their hostility, continue to be regarded as parts of one and the same country: Russia. It is Russia that is said to have “lost Poland and Finland,” and then control of the fourteen “Soviet republics.” There is no trace of tender feelings regarding a “voluntary and egalitarian union of free peoples.” The Russian state is viewed exclusively as an imperial state, possessing territories “by right of the sword.” These territories and their populations lack legal personality. When, for whatever reason, they acquire it, they become hostile and dangerous to Russia. The only way to neutralize this hostility and danger is to subjugate them once again. Anything that is not subject to Russia is hostile to it. Such is the worldview being proposed.
In speaking of the threat of a new collapse of the empire, the author of the editorial openly acknowledges that the ruling elite finds itself in the same state of stupor as on the eve of the February 1917 Revolution and perestroika. He calls for saving the empire through “effective modernization,” modeled on the rapid transformation of the Stalinist regime, which was also plunged into a state of stupor after the dictator’s death.
Let us examine the path of this transformation in greater detail. Stalin’s heirs did indeed eliminate the most monstrous manifestations of tyranny fairly quickly. Above all, through periodic outbreaks of mass repression, which targeted individuals and entire groups who were not opponents of the regime and posed no threat to it whatsoever. But the system of total political and ideological subjugation of society to the all-powerful nomenklatura of the Party—which is, in fact, totalitarianism itself—remained unchanged until Gorbachev. Repression against genuine opponents of the regime also continued. It’s just that the victims were no longer counted in the millions, but in the thousands.
It is worth noting that, in reviewing the historical processes of the last century and a half, the author of the editorial does not say a word about the development of democracy. In his “worldview,” there is the struggle for resources, the conquest and loss of territories, the shifting and repetition of geopolitical configurations, and the stupor of the ruling elites and their emergence from it. There is even socioeconomic progress. But there is no struggle between authoritarian and democratic tendencies. Apparently, for the author, this is not part of the historical process. It is something profoundly secondary, of no interest to either history or humanity. Geopolitics is something else entirely.
That said, the author of the article is by no means indifferent to political systems. His ideal is very clearly Chinese-style “market totalitarianism.” Our state conservatives have long looked upon mainland China with admiration. What arouses their admiration above all is the way in which the “Tiananmen Empire” prevented the transformation of the stunned Maoist totalitarian regime into a democratic one. For democratization means collapse.
Thus, the “effective modernization” called for by the editorial’s author categorically excludes any political democratization. That is not what it is meant to achieve. What, then? To secure a decisive military victory in the war currently being waged against the West. In this war, even a “controversial draw” would amount to yet another collapse. This is the central idea for which the article was written.
The contributor to Nezavissimaïa Gazeta clearly does not want to repeat the “mistakes” of the post-Stalinist modernizers, who had engaged in complex games called “peaceful coexistence” and “international détente.” In these games—which involved a partial limitation of violent forms of rivalry, mutual concessions, and compromises—they ultimately lost. When the Soviet empire exhausted its possibilities for expanding its sphere of control around the world—that is, for achieving visible victories—the process of its disintegration began.
We are therefore dealing with a geopolitical entity whose ruling elite periodically falls into a state of stupor, which immediately activates the powerful centrifugal forces existing within it. Without specific efforts by the central government—which, to varying degrees, involve the use of direct violence or the threat of its use—this “entity” cannot hold itself together. It attempts to compensate for this internal deficiency through military victories against the outside world, which it regards a priori as hostile. Only such victories can, however imperfectly, justify in the eyes of the population the numerous costs of this monstrous system and still manage to cement it together somewhat. In other words, war and expansion are its mode of existence.
And now, allow me to ask a question: how should the surrounding world view such a structure? Does it need such a “passenger”? By virtue of its unique characteristics, this imperial construct reproduces, with each new historical cycle, three inextricably linked elements: extreme authoritarianism, an archaic anti-Western—in reality, anti-modernizing—traditionalism, and messianic expansionism. Much has already been written—both before and after 2022—about the objective, “geopolitical” causes of this phenomenon. But the objective, the historical, manifests itself through the subjective, the human.
These people feel deeply humiliated when they are denied the right to rape, plunder, kill, and dismember their neighbors to punish them for their disobedience. They are convinced they have the right to demand obedience from others. They want to stamp their boot on everything that moves.
This “unconscious” of the ruling class, its “libido,” shines through clearly in the “intellectual productions” of its privileged ideological servants. One should not look for common sense there. It is the most basic instincts that are at work. It is a chthonic matter.
During perestroika, an adaptation of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s The History of a Town was released: the film It. That is what the writer called the terrifying ball of fire hurtling toward the town of Glupov—a concentration of dark, destructive energy that had absorbed all human baseness and stupidity. From the madness of power to the servile and obtuse submission to it.
Well, this “It”—that’s exactly what it is.
Editor’s Note:
If you’d like to write to Alexander Skobov to support him and exchange ideas with him, visit this site, where you’ll find all the information you need to correspond with him.
Former Soviet dissident and political prisoner. After his release in 1987, he taught history at school and was involved in the activities of various opposition associations. A man of the left, he is an influential blogger and a regular columnist for the websites grani.ru and kasparov.ru.