Posted 16 ноября 2021,, 07:17

Published 16 ноября 2021,, 07:17

Modified 24 декабря 2022,, 22:37

Updated 24 декабря 2022,, 22:37

Experts appreciate Prilepin's version that Putin has no and never will have successors

Experts appreciate Prilepin's version that Putin has no and never will have successors

16 ноября 2021, 07:17
Фото: livejournal.com
The prospects for the Russian government after 2024 have been and remain vague. The writer and politician Zakhar Prilepin recently spoke with his own interpretation of how they have it up there. The main message is that the struggle for power has escalated. Who would doubt that...

Yelena Ivanova, Natalia Seibil

The favorite of the Russian patriotic spectrum, Zakhar Prilepin, who has proven his true commitment to the Russian national idea in Donbass, said that Vladimir Putin not only raised Russia from its knees, saved the country, but also prevented a large-scale clan war in the field of finding a successor in 2024.

“Each power structure already had its own successor and they took turns leading them to Putin. They pissed off each other, created various fakes to make one security service look bad, and its successor was not considered at all. And Putin decided to send a signal that he himself will remain in power”, - the writer told the city and the world.

It would seem that after last summer the Russian Constitution was brought into a state that would allow legalist Putin to cross the next Rubicon without major losses - the elections of 2024 - all the "i" s were dotted. All changes in the state structure became legal at the highest constitutional level. The mandate has been received from the people. Why is it necessary to stir up the recent past again and again justify the decision, which the country not only “ate”, but also digested long ago?

"Apart from several dozen technical corrections of the Constitution, there is a significant change in the center of power. Essentially, Putin is creating a post-Putin constitution. Putin believes that it is necessary to move away from a super-middle-person presidency to some combination of a strong president and a collective super-president. And the fact that Putin created a post-Putin constitution that should work after his departure and create an effective, stable system of power is clear to all political elites at the top", - explains political analyst Sergey Markov.

Political elites, as defined by Markov, or clans, as described by Prilepin - for political scientists, such a stratification at the very top of power is a normal phenomenon. Clans, or groups of influence, or lobbyists are not only the towers of the Kremlin. They are everywhere, they have been and will always be, be it the Kennedy clan or castes in India. Why is Mr. Prilepin so much afraid of these clans, asks the political scientist and election expert Dmitry Oreshkin. And he himself answers: because there is no normal, legal, legal institution enjoying the confidence of citizens, which could objectively and honestly judge these clans and say: the majority of citizens are for these, and the minority for those. Therefore, let these rule, and in four years most people will decide whether it has gotten better or worse.

"For some reason, this model does not work for us, explanations already begin from here: how can it be without explosives? The clans will devour each other! And we'll be devoured too", - says Dmitry Oreshkin, - Because Vladimir Vladimirovich eliminated the institutional mechanisms that restrict the struggle of clans, individuals, lobbyist groups, interests, classes in some kind of legal channel. This institution, which is called elections, an independent court, an independent press, has been brought to naught by one remarkable character in our country".

Actually, Zakhar Prilepin said nothing new. He simply paraphrased the well-known statement of the State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin. "There is Putin - there is Russia, there is no Putin - there is no Russia". In a sense, this statement is correct.

"The entire system of institutions has been destroyed and replaced by the competence of one person. Even if he had seven spans in his forehead, which in relation to the BB is an unacceptable optimistic assumption, he still would not have coped with such a huge country, with such a huge number of problems”, - concludes Dmitry Oreshkin.

The defeated clans in the Russian government, threatening the stability of the entire system, according to the political scientist, cannot pose a threat to Vladimir Putin. And historical analogies in this particular case are inappropriate:

- It was good to leave or wait for Stalin to leave, because it was clear that the most powerful clan was the Beria clan. He controlled everything and was ready for it. And only the desperate actions of Khrushchev, from whom no one expected this, only thanks to the desperate courage of Khrushchev, he was able to seize power. Now all the clans - Zolotovskiy, Patrushevskiy, Chemezovskiy - none of them is sure that they will become the beneficiary of the coming changes. Therefore, they pull. - Oreshkin is sure.

The clan struggle is not a traditionally interpreted struggle between the liberal and the power wing of political power, says Sergei Markov. First of all, we are talking about the struggle of personal groups, which includes not only security officials or liberals:

"Vladimir Putin cannot entrust the state issues to the liberals, otherwise they will merge the statehood of Russia with the West. The liberal wing is very strong in the financial and economic block of the government, and there is even a dominance of liberals in this block. This wing is very strong in the media - both Konstantin Ernst and Oleg Dobrodeyev are justly criticized by the patriotic community for their very great liberalism. Of course, the liberal wing is very strong in the media. On the other hand, Putin trusts statesmen in key issues of statehood, primarily those who already occupy important government posts in the main instruments of state power - power instruments".

The political elite explains the need for Vladimir Putin at the very top of the Russian Olympus for various reasons. According to the patriotic power wing, the hybrid war with the West is not over. Sergey Markov says:

"If the hybrid war of the West against Russia for destruction continues, then with a high probability the president will view this as the supreme commander-in-chief, and at a time when presidents can and should change, the supreme commanders during the war should not change, they should wage the war until victorious end. Although the question remains what is meant by the victory of Russia in the hybrid war against the West".

As it turns out, the opposition circles quite agree with her. Like, the captain cannot leave the helm in a stormy sea. But the interpretation of the situation is different. Dmitry Oreshkin believes:

"The most flattering thing is that in a stormy sea, the captain has no right to leave the captain's bridge. The question arises - why, after twenty years of governing the country, he brought it into a state of permanent storm and now cannot leave the captain's bridge? Although there are crises in Ukraine, Britain, the USA and Germany, people leave the captain's bridge. He cannot leave, because from his point of view, this is a manifestation of weakness. First of all, from the point of view of its internal Russian image".

There is an opinion in Russian political circles that despite all the doubts, Vladimir Putin will still leave. The explanation is simple - it’s painfully a dead-end path. It means the transformation of Russia into Belarus or Turkmenistan - a country with a poor population and elites, at which the whole world laughs. Political scientist Abbas Gallyamov is sure of this:

"Putin is not Lukashenka or Turkmenbashi, he will not really like this option. The transformation into the ultimate marginal does not appeal to him. He wants to be respectable and handshake. True, in addition to this, he also needs security guarantees. He is now trying to organize them for himself. Those who manage to combine such categories as loyalty, reliability and efficiency will become the successor. It is clear that each of the members of Putin's entourage would like to see himself or one of the loyal players in this post, or, in extreme cases, someone neutral, but not his enemy. It is clear that a tense struggle is going on for the opportunity to become a successor".

The echoes of the undercover war are now reaching the indifferent public.

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