New Arakcheevshchina: gubernatorial power is growing in Russia

Dmitry Mikhailichenko, political anlyst

Disciplinary power, as a regime for the implementation of political and administrative functions, is based not only and not so much on principles, laws and morality, but on the will to power in its purest form and the prevention of what is not allowed. There is more and more of what is not allowed.

Within the framework of this logic, the governors have received a lot of powers to maintain stability and manageability, but this is unlikely to cause social optimism. The powers of the governors have really grown, now it is not in the classic form of shifting responsibility from the center to the regions. Indicative here are the sharp replacements of two mayors of cities this week (Ulyanovsk, Makhachkala), due to dissatisfaction on the part of the head of the region. It is important that these mayors were removed, in fact, with one click of the hands of the heads of regions, and a couple of months ago, the likelihood of such resignations was not highly estimated.

However, the main resource of power in these conditions is not ideology and not images of the future, but the current loyalty of the population and complete control. And this means that there will be more specific and restrictive decisions on the part of not only the federal center, but also the heads of regions in the near future, and they, most often, will be of a disciplinary and restrictive nature.

The Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg is going to ban the performance of musicians on the streets of the city without special permission. That is, for example, young people want to play the guitar and sing the songs of Viktor Tsoi on Nevsky Prospekt, and for this you need to ask the highest permission from the governor Alexander Beglov.

The governor of the Kurgan region, Vadim Shumkov, criticizes young people for their passion for Western dances and music, and State Duma deputies "order" young people to watch Soviet films. Shumkov, with his poor Kurgan region, has a weak resource for governance and his various, loud and posturing statements, in many ways, are designed to compensate for this structural shortcoming.

Some time ago, the head of Komi, Vladimir Uiba, declared to those who were dissatisfied that “he is Putin for them,” that is, there is no need to complain about social and economic problems at the federal level. And now the deputies of the legislative assembly of the republic at the next meeting refuse to listen to the deputy of the State Duma, elected from Komi with the help of a switched off microphone and numerous clapping of opponents from the ruling party. This State Duma deputy Oleg Mikhailov is a longtime opponent of Uyba, and their skirmishes using rude words have repeatedly amused the politicized part of society. Now the governors will "jam" such pseudo-people's tribunes, who, in fact, express the interests of counter-elite groups in the regions. For this, the heads of the regions also have the goodness and authority in the form of law enforcement agencies.

The governors, in fact, were given to understand: do what you want, make any decisions - the main thing is that everything be calm and stable. In this regard, the governor's "creativity" (more precisely, tyranny) aimed at turning the social life of the regions into a semi-barracks and a semi-monastery will be more and more, but the main blow will not be on the population, which has long been obedient and disciplined. The main blow will fall on the counter-elites, who are now not allowed to "muddle the waters". It is extremely difficult to ensure this regime, but these are the problems of the governors, which they have to solve.

The next step, quite possibly, will be pure Arakcheevism. This statesman of the 19th century is credited with the following phrase, which, of course, will also appeal to the governors of the current formation. “You can only complain about me to God and the King. God is high, the King is far away: I receive complaints. The people are already getting used to it, but the elites are not ready, and this "accustoming" will lead to a cascade of elite conflicts, especially since the resource share of the pie is significantly reduced.