Alina Vitukhnovskaya: "The 90s were a hard cure for the bacillus of communism"

Alina Vitukhnovskaya, writer

In the current situation of uncertainty, anarcho-chaos and let it be software, but authoritarianism - to take such a position is to directly support the regime, built, among other things, on aggressive criticism of the "gangster 90s".

Moreover, it becomes obvious that this is a well-coordinated systematic work in which many people who look like democrats, liberals, and "independent" journalists are involved.

Let's start with Chubais's strange return to big politics. This a priori odious figure, which has long become a negative meme, suddenly rises from naphthalene at the behest of the last, as if licked by the heavenly cow Nut, the king.

It is obvious that this small-town red-haired evil genius, who has long signed up for the role of a whipping boy, is in danger of becoming crucified, a kind of Christ of post-Soviet liberalism.

Deputy Yashin immediately appears, stigmatizing him, and at the same time, for some reason, Leonid Gozman. Although now we understand why. For Leonid Yakovlevich is a consistent and logical liberal and democrat.

At the same time, one odious "journalist" in her new article is promoting Mikhail Zygar's book about the nineties "Everyone is Free", according to which a whole series "Heart Attack" will be released in the near future. If this is not a sign of systemic work, then what?

The author of the article is a fierce opponent of the 90s, which, it seems to her, ruined her childhood. You cannot believe her, if only because she has already come across ridiculous and pathetic lies. This yellow-press provocateur accused me of sexual (!) Harassment, just like the late Nemtsov. Which was the equivalent of trying to put my opponent (me) in an Orwellian room with rats, an attempt, it is true, funnier than scary, but monstrously nasty. I was stoically silent for almost a month, expecting a direct answer from her patrons, but, alas, I did not wait for a direct answer, and indirect ones did not suit me.

I would not want this well-coordinated systemic provocation to have any significant impact on public opinion. I still maintain that the 90s were the most free time for Russia in its recent history. The deliberate protrusion of the shortcomings of the 90s, which, of course, were present - this is an attempt at the last revenge of the current failed regime policy. She has no other chance. So don't give her this chance!

Those who grew up in the 90s, in fact, passed an external exam for personal and civic solvency, associated with many risks, but at the same time allowing the newly minted "student for life" to take his first confident steps in the real world. This world is not simple, in some places it is extremely overloaded with unnecessary meanings, and also replete with many insidious and cruel traps. The blessed homosovetikus, who had not received a separate apartment by the year 2000, nor, moreover, communism, even within the limits of the "indestructible Union", found himself in a semantic, economic and finally existential dead end.

And if it were not for the 90s, which became a kind of heavy medicine with many side effects, a kind of antibiotic against the bacillus of communism, then the post-Soviet person would then have risked completely and irrevocably plunging into the abyss of a real civil war, so longed for by red-brown retrogrades, especially among those , who found his inglorious end in the ranks of the defenders of the White House they seized in 1993.

In fact, the whole set of shortcomings of the transition period was a consequence of the enormous inertia of Soviet life in the person of its lost their former enthusiasm troubadours, ideological helmsmen, as well as a large number of citizens who suddenly found themselves faced with the fact of their complete global non-competitiveness. And only the 90s forced the huge country not to flare up with a torch of useless and bloody civil strife, but directed the energy of freedom of some and hatred of others in the only possible direction at that historical moment - to market liberalism and democracy.

Rethinking the affairs of bygone days, I realize that any historical stage during which irreversible, irreversible events occur, especially in a very short period of time, should be subjected to the most careful critical analysis, but without sliding into emotional-value judgments based on personal sympathies or antipathies, or on the experience of a distorted perception of reality.

For example, if someone in the 90s actually starved and remembers these years only with obscene words, although then objectively there was a potential opportunity to both earn and acquire everything necessary, then such a private assessment of reality cannot, and should not serve as a starting point for any meaningful definition given to a given segment of history.

Personally, it seems to me that in the 90s money was lying underfoot, growing on trees and literally falling into their hands. It was only necessary to show a little reasonable initiative. I was a social and political child living in a world of literature and metaphysical imagery. But even I once, looking up to the sky, saw a significant difference in the rate of buying vouchers and currencies on the central exchange on Chistye Prudy and in the bank on Tverskaya. I immediately called the person playing on the stock exchange and offered a scheme for half the proceeds. We circled Moscow all day. By evening, the car's interior was full of bills. And most importantly, it was all completely legal.

After the fact, having both political experience and ideas about the real economy, it becomes clear to me that the economic schemes that were laid in the basis of the reforms were not scams, but were clumsy attempts by former Komsomol members to organize at least some kind of market (and not administrative command) system of relations in society.

Now we are witnessing a persistent remission of Sovietism and neo-morbidity, multiplied by a global covid administrative crisis. But minus by minus, as you know, gives a plus. The old system of relations, which is not viable by definition, will inevitably sink into oblivion. And this will become a universal, now, a chance to finally overcome both the mistakes of the past and fears of the future.