By Anton Golovko Hjälm
WHEN THE BOLSHEVIKS dissolved the Constituent Assembly of Russia, they did so reasoning that the “will of the people” expressed itself through revolutionary action, rather than debates in parliament. Under the slogan “All power to the Soviets!” Vladimir Lenin proclaimed that to share power with an Assembly would be to “compromise” with the ruling bourgeois class, and that this would be “treacherous” to the proletarian cause. These things – parliaments, ideologies, the rule of law, politics itself – were redundant relics of another era.
The sum parts of Lenin’s justification are what construct the narrative of the post-ideological world – one in which power is all that matters. This is what enabled the Bolsheviks to dissolve an elected parliament, initiate a civil war, invade their neighbours; deal with treason as they will. On the 16th of July 1918, fearing the advance of their enemies, the Bolsheviks, without a trial, led the family of the deposed Tsar down into a basement and started firing until no one remained – not one man, woman, or child. Many others would come to follow.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Alexei Navalny was largely recognised as the leader of the opposition in Russia, though he sat not in parliament, but in exile or jail. History is filled with persecuted figures who became elected leaders – Vaclav Havel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Nelson Mandela – and Navalny had the charisma and skills to potentially join them. He spent his life criticising corruption; over the years creating several world-famous exposés which spawned large domestic protests. If he could have translated words into action would be to speculate. It doesn’t matter anymore.
Three-years into his three-decade long prison sentence Alexei Navalny died, age 47, in the notorious IK-3 penal colony, located in Arctic Siberia.
There are elections in March. The Central Election Commission has swept aside those with opinions that meaningfully differ. Yekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin, a journalist and a politician who oppose the war in Ukraine, were disqualified because of, among other things, “spelling errors” in their paperwork. Even those who will appear on the ballots stop their pretences there, refusing to even hint at challenging Putin: Leonid Slutsky, leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party, asked; “What’s the point?”. Putin will win; because there is no one but Putin.
What’s the point of debate, critique, elections, politics? The President knows what to do. Putinizm has transcended such things. The vibrant ideologies of Russia have been led to the slaughterhouse, to be reconstituted for the one whole. Bolshevism and Monarchism, Liberalism and Conservatism, Atheism and Theocracy; they have all been melted down into a generic, yet bizarre and idiosyncratic Russian nationalism. All now serve the President and His War.
Vladimir Putin certainly stands unopposed. The Ukrainians seem unable to push back his armies, and their western allies seem more hesitant than before. Rivals board planes headed for the afterlife, á la Prigozhin, or die in other mysterious circumstances. And yet for every bombed-out shell-of-a-town he captures, for every political opponent he assassinates, for every protest he disperses and sends to prison, one question will be ever more prominent: who will be left to rule over?
By: Anton Golovko Hjälm
Photography: Pixabay
