Poverty in a priority: experts assessed the National Security Strategy

Social networks are vividly discussing a rather strange document signed by Putin the day before. Bloggers' particular attention was drawn to the paragraph that lists all the so-called "Russian values":

“The traditional Russian spiritual and moral values include, first of all, life, dignity, human rights and freedoms, patriotism, citizenship, service to the Fatherland and responsibility for its fate, high moral ideals, a strong family, creative work, the priority of the spiritual over the material, humanism , mercy, justice, collectivism, mutual assistance and mutual respect, historical memory and continuity of generations, the unity of the peoples of Russia. Traditional Russian spiritual and moral values unite our multinational and multi-confessional country..."

Special attention is drawn to the “value”, which immediately crosses out all dreams of a normal, shameful everyday life of the country's citizens - this is the “priority of the spiritual over the material”, on which Russian Orthodoxy is built, and which justifies the age-old poverty and lack of rights of all peoples inhabiting Russia. No wonder it was this point that caused the most violent reaction on the network.

Here is what network analyst Dmitry Milin writes about this:

“Well, the authorities have finally decided on our“ spiritual values ”, having written them down in the“ National Security Strategy - 2021 ”. The adherence to free or cheap labor remained: "creative labor, the priority of the spiritual over the material." The authorities cannot do anything without serfs, slaves or convicts!"

One commentator on his publication adds:

“…The priority of the spiritual over the material - that is, there will be no money again. "We will come to the victory of communism, but they will not be fed on the way". Clearly understood…"

Political scientist Alexander Morozov assessed the psychological underpinnings of the appearance of this document:

“Putin signed an updated version of the National Security Strategy. Paragraphs 84-93 are devoted to the protection of "traditional spiritual and moral values". This is a grim innovation. It captures the turnaround that has taken place with Putinism since 2014. In the 2009 concept, such a description of "spiritual threats" was impossible. At that time, if someone proposed to include this in a state document, they would simply laugh and say: well, this is permissible in the pathetic documents of the World Russian People's Council (VRNS), i.e. on the political periphery, where our "Byzantine" values have always been defended against the deliberate intention of the entire surrounding world to undermine them. Now this nonsense has migrated into the basic document of the Security Council. And if earlier these "traditional values" were mentioned in one line in the "Culture" section, now they are separated into a separate section and the defense of the "besieged spiritual fortress" is spelled out ominously..."

As the Russian historian Ivan Kurilla rightly noted:

“You are all afraid that the United States is undermining our traditional values, and we must defend them in a single impulse, etc., etc. But the document gave (it seems, for the first time at the state level) a definition of these traditional values. Here, of course, how to interpret, and there is some 19th century in some places - but in general - is the whole world, except Russia, against this?"

Publicist Marina Shapovalova also very pessimistic responded about the appearance of the Strategy:

“There is no point in discussing the homespun values that are squeezing us in the Russian Federation from all sides. It’s just right to agree that the worse the better. The barn burned down - burn down and the hut. After last year's rape of the constitution, it just became clear that in the future, in case of at least some changes, when they come due to the natural change of generations, this state does not have such a document. There will be no question of what to change in it and what not to touch - it does not exist as a document suitable as a basic law.

All other madness, swelling with yeast to homeric proportions - into the same cesspool. We'll have to scrape off the stench from the face of the country. That still work will be. But no options..."

Shapovalova's theses were developed by one of the commentators of her publication named Boris:

“This state in the form of a country existing today is doomed. No people or laws will help build a house from rotten waste.

Do not flatter yourself, dear romantics and dreamers, changes are needed so global that they will terrify you today and you yourself will not undertake to implement them. Gangrene covered the entire geography of 1/7 of the land area of this ball and surgery requires a cardinal, structural and "from Moscow to the very outskirts", and today there are no surgeons, no instruments, no protocols for such operations. All this has yet to be brought up by your children and grandchildren.

No one will come from anywhere and do your job. The whole future of your children and their children is only in your hands..."

It is also curious that the Declaration of Independence of the United States, adopted by the Congress of this country back on July 4, 1776, can be considered a kind of response to the newest Strategy. So many years have passed, and she looks incomparably more human and more modern than the Russian one:

“We proceed from the self-evident truth that all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, which include life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. To ensure these rights, governments are established by the people, deriving their legal powers from the consent of the governed. In the event that any form of government becomes destructive for these purposes themselves, the people have the right to change or abolish it and establish a new government based on such principles and forms of organizing power, which, in their opinion, will best provide people with security and happiness. ... Of course, prudence requires that governments established long ago should not change under the influence of inconsequential and fleeting circumstances; consequently, all past experience confirms that people tend to endure vices as long as they can be tolerated rather than exercising their right to abolish government forms that have become familiar to them. But when a long series of abuses and violence, invariably subordinated to the same goal, testifies to an insidious intention to force the people to come to terms with unlimited despotism, the overthrow of such a government and the creation of new guarantees of security for the future becomes the right and responsibility of the people..."