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[Read Calling Moscow (Part 8.)]
This time: Introducing the Soviet-Strong-Man: 20 years and counting. The lost generation, The ghosts of Revolution Day and the rewards of mediocrity (102% can’t be wrong…?).
Neil on the recurring phenomena of the “Soviet Strong Men”:
“Where you’ve got what you’d call a “Soviet Strong Man” at the top of an organisation, they’re very, very difficult to topple. Usually they’ve got a power base of friends and politicians and other people who support them… and they stay in power often until they retire. It’s only now, 20 years after the end of communism that some of these people are at last being offered early retirement just to get them out of top jobs in some of these organisations.”
So there’s still an ongoing adjustment that started with the collapse then? “Yes, with every passing year the adjustment is more complete but you still come across these strange former communist era appointees who are still in their jobs. A classic example: I was just in Ekaterinburg. The mayor has just changed. The former mayor had been in his post since the end of communism. He was one of these old “Strong Men” and couldn’t be dislodged… it took 20 years to get rid of him! He was voted out, but the new guy…” Neil pauses to consider… “It’s hard to say if he’s going to be any better… because he’s a former communist party employee who was formerly top man in the Russian railway system. No background at all, ever, in civic administration! Again, it seems to be that these career, communist-type politicians are managing to hang on to power.”
The old guard dies hard. Neil details the Soviet-Strong-Man picture. “That term’s often used. It’s a particular kind of ultra-macho hardman, with a tendency to talk absolute crap… to come out with wild, far reaching ideas but without any details behind them…”
He refers to a Soviet politician whose ideas have “passed into the realms of anecdote” because they are so laughable: “He ran for election once on a policy of cheap underwear for all! His party actually had a tourism policy for the country: that there should be sex toys in all Russian hotel rooms… and in the suites, they should be electric! That was actually in print, and they didn’t see why that was stupid.”
I’m forced to speculate on their power source outside of the main suites then… steam? clockwork? peddle power? Neil breaks my reverie. “He’s a very, very strange man… but… typical of that over-promoted Soviet official. But they all were. To a certain extent Gorbachev was. He got to the top because he was a Soviet blunderer…”
Leaving the Soviet-Strong-Men mercifully behind, I’m curious to know about life on the ground. Are there any similar anachronisms in the general populace? Apparently so… “There’s a generation of people, in their late 50s and 60s, who’ve realised that they’re the forgotten generation. They were trained-up in the Soviet system but the system actually collapsed before their working lives really got started… or before they got to decent managerial positions. What they were trained to do no longer exists. So they’re left flailing around in this post-Soviet Penumbra, not knowing really what to do. Sometimes they are called ‘Generation P’ after a book by Victor Pelevin. “P” is for “Pepsi”. They are the generation who were living when Pepsi-Cola first appeared on the market. The hero has gone through university education and he’s been trained to be a Soviet poet. He graduates, and on the day after, the Soviet Union collapses, so he’s completely unemployable… he has to try find and his way though the new, mad, non-Soviet Russia. There’s a whole generation of people like that and it’s hard to see what could be done for them now… Many of them have drifted into low-level management jobs. Although they haven’t got any qualifications, they know how to organise and look after a small team of people. They’d make reasonable small supermarket managers or something like that. They could never rise through the supermarket hierarchy but as a team leader, they might be alright. Very few of that generation, except for the bandits, have gained much from the changes. It’s mostly the younger generation who’ve gained more.”
There must be some people who prefer it the old way then? “Oh yes, there are. The communist party has been allowed to re-constitute itself. It was declared an illegal organisation for a while. I think it’s called the New Communist Party now. It gets quite a good showing of votes, but never enough to get anywhere near power… it’s always trailing in about 4th or 5th place. But it gets something like 17% of the vote which isn’t bad for a small party. But then when you see them… On November 7th, which used to be Revolution Day… the holiday’s actually been dissolved now… they still have their right to have a parade, and they’re sad, pathetic old people having a parade because they want their Soviet Union back. And of course, it will never come back. For them the changes have not really produced anything but the loss of the former power and glory and privilege that they used to enjoy.”
It does sound a sad, even uncomfortable spectacle. So could I assume that the communist system rewarded mediocrity? “Absolutely, for example next door to Russia you’ve got Belarus, this mad little country which was part of the Soviet Union, one of the constituent republics. They’ve never really changed from the Soviet system. They’re left in this kind of time-warp where they still have a communist party, they still have a communist leader. It’s been called the last Stalinist state on Earth. Because of the backward nature of their economy, they haven’t really got anything except for very basic farming. There’s no energy resources, there’s no real industry. They’re a classic example of a country where the majority of people would probably be worse off if they ‘Westernised’. It actually suits them to stay as they are. Although they do have elections (which are enourmously fraudulent..). The People’s Party, which is a revamped version of the communist party, wins every time, with 102% of the vote…”
In : Unholy marriages bear beneficial fruit. So, who’s socialist now? Legitimate bribery or incentivisation, Russian style.
[Photo by Egor Gribanov.]
