Does anything threaten the stability of the current power system?

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Magnetic Hill is a hill in India. Due to the visual illusion, the road appears to slope upward, but in fact it slopes downward.

But there is a more interesting version. Supposedly, a huge magnetic force hidden inside the mountain pulls vehicles up the mountain when they are on the road. Many argue that you don’t even need gasoline when you’re heading towards a magnetic anomaly.

Does anything threaten the stability of the current power system?

Experts are increasingly noting that the existing “party menu” in the country no longer suits anyone, and there are no bright personalities on the horizon. Against this background, predictions of a record low turnout on the upcoming single voting day (this year it is September 13) are an illustration of a sad reality. Professor, Doctor of Political Sciences Yuliy Nisnevich is convinced of this.

Interviewed by Svetlana Sukhova

— Yuliy Anatolyevich, the 2020 elections caused you to associate with the circus, because “not only everything was clear, but also funny.” What are the associations now?

- Yes, none. No associations, no emotions, everything became completely uninteresting. No intrigue, no suspense. Even experts have the feeling that we are in a remote swamp and there is no end to it. One can only guess how people who are far from politics feel. However, such an outcome is natural in a situation where the power vertical, the existing system, has been engaged in negative selection for so many years. I mean the approach to solving the personnel problem.

Yuliy Nisnevich, professor, doctor of political sciences

Please note: not that bright personalities, but simply personalities in the best sense of the word, are becoming less and less common on the political Olympus. Power becomes faceless. I even wrote a paper on this topic, where I posted a very appropriate photograph, in my opinion: a group of men in gray suits stand with their backs turned to the reader with their butts sticking out - this is an excellent illustration of what we have in politics today. Everything is the same and uninteresting.

— So, maybe right now an external factor will have an impact and the Belarusian example will be contagious?

- No, of course not. After all, the point is not only in the negative selection of personalities, but also in the fact that the system is rapidly losing touch with reality. The powers that be live in an illusory world and the further they go, the more they believe in it. The Belarusian events are probably unpleasant for them, but they do not even think that something similar could happen in the reality around them, which means there is no point in changing not only their behavior, but even their attitude. The maximum that they can do is to study the experience of the Belarusian security forces, but they certainly will not change anything in the mechanism of the action that we all face on September 13 and which is mistakenly called “elections.” This action, repeated year after year, has nothing to do with elections in the classical sense of the word.

Elections are a certain mechanism when the result is uncertain, but in Russia the result is predictable or even known. No one will change the system by returning real choice. This is not beneficial for the authorities.

You can only change the “scenery” and introduce multi-day voting under the pretext of the epidemiological situation. And if some conditions suddenly change, for example, fatigue and even irritation from the party in power appear, then there are always political strategists who can offer a way out. Let’s say we act through “self-nominees” who have distanced themselves from United Russia.

— Is there a limit to the capabilities of political strategists?

- Of course have. Sooner or later, any technology fails. Russian “specialists” have gotten into trouble more than once, but this is unnoticeable to Russians because it happened outside the country. For the first time - in Ukraine, now - in Belarus. Political strategists may develop new techniques over time, but they will never have new ideas. And that's the problem. Let's put it this way: they are not able to control the situation, but can only react to changes in certain circumstances.

— But in Russian elections there is still a high demand for political strategists. You mentioned such a technique as replacing candidates from the party in power with supposedly self-nominated ones. But how to avoid the toxicity of United Russia in the 2021 Duma elections?

“The toxicity of United Russia is unlikely to increase any further; it is at its maximum. This means that we can not change tactics and act in the same way as in the previous Duma elections. United Russia is not a real political party. EP is a nomenclature structure. It differs from a political party of the classical type in its complete lack of independence in decision-making. It’s an open secret that United Russia’s “decisions” come down from Staraya Square, from the Presidential Administration. So there are only two parties in the classical sense in Russia today - the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party. The latter, however, with the caveat that this is a party of one person. What will the nomenklatura do to support its structure? Yes, everything is the same as before: organizing a wide front of support. What it will be called - ONF or something else - is not so important. All these are hackneyed tricks that have saved us more than once. Authoritarian power is, in principle, unable to show anything new. And the creation of a broad coalition is generally a proven technique: remember the “Bloc of Communists and Non-Party People,” which was announced before the 1937 elections. 54 percent of deputies were non-partisan.

Are the crisis and the pandemic enough to dislodge the elites?

“But modern society clearly needs a diversity of faces. In your opinion, the government is unable to create a new opposition?

“She couldn’t do it before, and even more so now.” That’s the problem: in modern Russia there is an ongoing attempt to construct a political system from above. Technically this is possible, but in reality such structures are short-lived and, more importantly, not independent, which means there are few strong politicians in their ranks. The latter are a foreign element for the nomenclature structure. In Russia, the top of the political system is the Presidential Administration, while in any democratic state this is the parliament, consisting of effective independent political parties. But they are not built from above! I agree: in the modern world, a lot is changing and parties are moving away from the classical type of party in the West, but still the main thing remains - independence in decision-making.

— Yes, creating a party is a complex and objective process, but the government is at least capable of launching new faces into the political space?

— One cannot exist without the other: without parties there will be no individuals, and vice versa. A good example is France. Let us ask ourselves: how did the Macron phenomenon arise? Suddenly he emerged from somewhere and won the presidential elections, and his party won the parliamentary elections. New faces in the West are a regular occurrence. Yes, because the environment in which they appear has not been destroyed. Where is such an environment in Russia if the power system at all levels - both horizontally and vertically - rejects any independent person? And even if she doesn’t do it right away, then certainly over time. All the more or less bright personalities in the Russian political scene have either faded and no longer stand out against the backdrop of general dullness, or have found themselves on the “sidelines” of the political process. Instead of them - little-known, little-understood ones.

- Therefore, the authorities are not lying when they say that they are training personnel...

- In her understanding, he doesn’t lie. But she does not train personnel, but selects and approves candidates. Do you feel the difference? And it is approved in one place - in the Presidential Administration. Coordinates and selects - from among the dependent and controlled. And such people a priori cannot be either independent or bright. You cannot keep a strong personality in check; it is difficult, if not impossible, to manage. So we are observing a certain cognitive dissonance among representatives of the highest Russian authorities, who want new bright faces in politics, and at the same time, they strictly demand loyalty and obedience from all applicants. But here it’s either “checkers” or go.

— Why did the Soviet nomenklatura manage to raise loyal and at the same time bright personalities, but the Russian nomenklatura fails?

- Complex issue. Firstly, the communist nomenklatura, unlike the current one, was hierarchically organized. There, roughly speaking, the district committee secretary could not steal more than the regional committee secretary. But today there is no such hierarchy, and in the current vertical the principle applies as much as you can, drag as much as you can. But the very presence of hierarchy encourages one to stand out in order to move up the career ladder, and therefore, one must improve. And if at any level of power you can create a comfortable living environment for yourself, then why try? But one should not exaggerate the effectiveness of the Soviet personnel training system: there were few outstanding personalities there either. More precisely, in a short period of time they were observed in large numbers, and then they were forced out of power. And at the end of the empire, there was a complete gerontological ossification of the system, which even the relatively young (54 years old) Secretary General could not save. History repeats itself: the Russian nomenklatura, whose ranks included many outstanding personalities in the mid-to-late 1990s, got rid of them in the 2000s and today is rapidly aging. This is understandable: the current nomenklatura is the flesh of the Soviet flesh. A few years ago, I analyzed the composition of the Federation Council, and 40 percent of the senators there (now, however, probably less) were former Soviet functionaries.

— You wrote that the Russian nomenklatura differs from the Soviet one, like a nomadic bandit from a sedentary one: the former act as temporary workers, squeezing the maximum out of the population in order to subsequently live abroad. Have sanctions and coronavirus changed this attitude?

- Not at all. I have already said that the nomenklatura lives in its own illusory world, and in it the question of opening borders for them is not far off. They do not see the obvious, for example, that the West has begun to actively squeeze them out of its space and hunt for “dirty” money. The current nomenklatura is structured in such a way that it is not interested in investing money in Russia, and there is nowhere else to do it - that’s how they built the economic system. In order for large-scale investments in different sectors of the economy to become profitable, we need to move away from dependence on raw materials and reduce the bloated public sector. Please note: how many Russian businessmen who left for the West were able to create a normal business structure there? Units. They are used to working in different conditions, they are able to withdraw money, but they cannot invest at a low profit. But there is another problem - the nomenclature workers are not attracted to the domestic way of life. They need palaces and yachts in quiet Italian or British towns, cleanliness, culture, etc. - everything that they don’t want to build here. This is the same cognitive dissonance: they steal here, but want to spend there. And what to do if it’s becoming more and more difficult to steal here, and the budget pie itself is rapidly decreasing in size, and you’re not allowed “there”?

- And How?

“They can’t change their approach and worldview—that’s why they’re nomenklatura.” Nomenclature officials cannot become normal officials in the Western sense. Simply because an official is, albeit a privileged one, but a servant of the people, and a nomenclature official is a sovereign master. All they can do is tighten the terms of the struggle for the shrinking financial pie and more actively squeeze out the last “juice” from the population.

“But the locust principle is short-sighted!”

—

You are proceeding from the so-called theory of rationality, and the Russian problem is that the nomenklatura thinks irrationally. At the same time, they understand rational arguments, but act differently. Their logic is to live here and now, grab it quickly and carry it far. This approach is in no way consistent with the logic of sustainable development of the territory, when it is necessary to invest in the economy and in free politics. None of the nomenclature workers will give a ruble of their own, let the neighbor fork out. It is important for them to preserve the system as much as possible...

— But then where do these rumors about early presidential and parliamentary elections come from? They have popped up more than once this year...

— The nomenclature is heterogeneous - there are several clans and groups fighting for power and the personal well-being associated with it. It can be assumed that some of them considered that Putin’s potential had been exhausted, and perhaps they analyzed the reasons for the Belarusian events - the population’s fatigue with any long-liver on the political Olympus. The request for a new figure of the “breeder” did not appear today, and the search has been going on for a long time.

— Dmitry Anatolyevich can’t handle it?

What is the state of the country’s “personnel reserve”?

“You see for yourself: we tried it, it didn’t work.” His main “sin” is belonging to one of the clans, and he needs to be a neutral figure, but at the same time stable, so that he is supported by different groups. At one time, Luzhkov’s “factor” also worked: Popov openly told us that Yuri Mikhailovich was the only one who was listened to by various Moscow mafia clans, and at the same time he was a man of the system, capable of keeping these clans from open battles. Which is exactly what happened. Putin did the same on a Russian scale. But to preserve the system, a replacement is needed, but there is none. My version of why Putin is not leaving is that he is not being released. He himself would probably leave, but they can’t find a replacement, and without a “breeder” the clans will squabble and devour each other.

— Is Russia doomed to nomenklatura clanism in power?

- Escape from this system failed even with a change of system! But sooner or later any system collapses. And this one is no exception. The whole question is the speed of destruction, but no matter how much the rope twists, it will break. The whole question is with what consequences. This could hypothetically result in a regime similar to a one-party regime, as in Cuba or China, and then we will face a very long-term preservation of a completely stable system, or the situation will slide into chaos. More chances for the latter.

And the government, which in words does everything to achieve stability at the expense of development, in fact nurtures protests itself, it provokes them, as in Belarus.

Let's be honest: Lukashenko destroyed the opposition, just like in Russian politics, “cleared the clearing” and himself provoked mass protests by his reluctance to admit the obvious - that he was tired of him. The Russian government did the same thing, albeit on a smaller scale, in one region and even a city, not a country. I'm talking about Khabarovsk. Who provoked the protests there? Power. What about speeches against “garbage reform”? These are still isolated manifestations of discontent, but they are multiplying. Now our Bashkir history (the people opposed the development of Mount Kushtau with Bashkir soda) is developing. And the further we go, the more such examples there will be. And it’s clear why: in the conditions of a shrinking financial pie, the nomenklatura will be forced to squeeze more resources out of the population - taxes, fines, levies of all kinds. Sooner or later this will cause protests. Simply because such a system of power is not without reason called a system with positive feedback: instead of stopping dissatisfaction by compensating for the cause that caused it, the government only spins it.

— What do you consider the most dangerous for the current system?

— The very nature of the power of the nomenklatura. She is unable to stop in her desire for personal enrichment and is not able to even slightly let off steam from the already boiling cauldron of discontent. The absence of real elections - what we started our conversation with - leads to the fact that people do not see the opportunity to influence the situation in legal ways and sooner or later they will have to act illegally. On the other hand, in such a crisis situation, the struggle between nomenklatura clans intensifies, and this risks the fact that sooner or later not a single arbiter will be able to restrain them. If he will be there at all by then.

“The system has demonstrated amazing survivability and stability for so many years. Maybe you're exaggerating?

— There were regimes that were much more authoritarian and even cruel, which lasted for almost half a century. Lukashenko, for example, sat in his chair for 26 years, and just a month ago everything that was happening today was difficult to imagine. Or my “favorite hero” Mugabe - he ruled the country for almost 40 years, squeezing all the juice out of the inhabitants, and lived to be 95 years old, but his term was over! In Russia, not only are there no new bright politicians, but there is also a clear aging of power. We know from the history of the Soviet empire what this leads to.

Lake Sørvagsvatn

Lost somewhere between Norway and Iceland, the magical lake of the Faroe Islands looks more like a high-mountain bowl rising hundreds of meters above the ocean. But this is also just an illusion. Being actually only three meters above the world's oceans, the lake has a beautiful waterfall flowing into the ocean. But this place attracts hundreds of professional photographers, because by photographing the rocks and lake from a certain angle, you can create the impression of dizzying heights.

Treatment of derealization

Neurosis requires treatment. In this case, neurologists prescribe tranquilizers, antipsychotics and antidepressants. Some doctors recommend nootropics. Pharmaceutical medications can temporarily reduce anxiety and therefore reduce some manifestations of derealization.

Experience shows that taking such medications by a person with VSD does not solve the problem, but aggravates it. The stress component (psychological) does not dissolve along with the pill that the patient takes. Resistance to treatment of derealization in NCD with pharmacological drugs is often observed - the protective response mechanism does not disappear anywhere.

Symptomatic treatment in itself is meaningless. Only solving the causative factor can rid a person of the problem forever. The following recommendations will be more effective and less dangerous:

• maintaining a healthy lifestyle,
• normalization of sleep,
• long rest,
• regular exercise,
• auto training,
• intake of calcium and magnesium,
• phytotherapy,
• psychotherapy,
• water and other relaxation procedures.

Positive emotions are the best pill for VSD in general and the symptom of derealization in particular. But it’s difficult to enjoy life when your own nervous system is ready to break loose for any reason. You can try to reduce the intensity of an attack of derealization “here and now” by following the following instructions:

• completely relax, normalize breathing;
• remind yourself that distorted reality is a temporary, passing reaction, and not true madness;
• concentrate on one object without straining (no need to look at the details of the object - this is difficult to do during an attack);
• you can fixate on some neutral thought (but with depersonalization, an attempt to think may fail).

But what to do then? It is no secret that states of derealization and depersonalization caused by autonomic dysfunction affect the state of the psyche. A person can learn to react adequately to an attack: they get used to everything. In this case, they do not talk about a high quality of life.