11.03.09

"Today the following reasoning has become fashionable in our political circles: For the previous eight years, there has been a contract between society and the authorities. The authorities distributed petrodollars and fattened everyone up, while in return society renounced some of its rights and freedoms. Well, now that the petrodollars have dried up, they say, the people have had second thoughts; if there are no petrodollars, give us our freedom.

"I would like to say to the people who are saying this that their sense of decency should not abandon them even at a time of crisis. One case of the direct abdication of one's rights for material reward is well known: It is the Biblical Isaac, who, as is well known, gave up his right of primogeniture (which was connected with many privileges, including the privileges of a free man) in exchange for a mess of potage.

"I think that when our intellectuals permit themselves -- although this is part of our traditions, unfortunately -- to liken the entire people to one of the most despised Biblical characters, they should summon up a sense of tact and be more careful in their statements.

"A whole host of conclusions follows from this suggestion. We should gather together somewhere for some kind of forum -- what kind is unclear; and discuss something -- no one says what; we should remake everything from scratch and create new institutions. The 'old' political system was either not created for these tasks and can no longer fulfill its functions, or it was the fruit of the previous plenty, and everything now will be different, and it is apparently necessary to change this system urgently.

"To begin with, I would like to remind you that it is utter folly to draw a distinction between freedom and material prosperity. Roosevelt said: "A poor man is not free." People who are free are always, first and foremost, those who possess property and material advantages. Democracy became a mass phenomenon only in an era when, thanks to technological progress, basic material goods became available on a mass scale. Freedom has a material dimension, and the prosperity of citizens increased in recent years not in order to take away people's freedom, but in order to make people free.

"I wish to speak in defense of the existing political system. This is boring, because it is always much more fun to change everything, to reject everything, and to try something new. This, in my view, is our biggest vice: We are unwilling to finish anything off, we are ready to abandon everything at the half-way stage -- sweepingly and without thinking about the consequences. At the same time, no one has calculated how the new political system will look or what the cost of introducing it, yet another new system, will be.

"I wish to remind you that the first thing that the 'model' democracies whose example we are usually invited to follow say, before they respond to any crisis, is: We believe in our institutions; we do not reject our values.

"We, on the other hand, at the first sign of problems -- there is no crisis yet, as some people have correctly said, this is still only a hypothetical crisis; these are its first steps, it is only a draft that has blown in from somewhere -- we immediately state: It is necessary to review our institutions, and more than that -- to rethink our values.

"Reread President Medvedev's message: Freedom, justice, patriotism, family love.... What is it possible to reject here, which of these values can we forgo? And most importantly of all, for the sake of what?

"I do not agree with those who say that every change in terrain should bring with it a revision of strategy. You know, when our troops were going from Moscow to Berlin, they encountered every kind of terrain on the way -- the strategy was one and the same, to take Berlin and smash the aggressor. On the major approach roads it was necessary not to flinch, not to hurry, not to hide right away and give up everything. Nowadays everyone says that new formats for communication, for dialogue, are needed. It is very important to assemble, to discuss, to communicate -- to hear each other all over again, as it were. This is simply essential -- a crisis is at the gates! You and I are gathering here not for the first time; we are communicating, discussing, and exchanging opinions. But after all, this institution, Forum 2020, was devised and began working long before the crisis.

"I believe that our political system works: 'It's working' (original in English), as our friends who teach us democracy say. It is working. It is not necessary to create the impression that, if something has changed not for the better in our economy, it means the system much be changed. It is true that what has happened is our fault too. Because when people say to me that America is to blame for everything, I want to remind them that our economic growth is the product of the bubble that the Americans inflated. After all, we did not earn that growth. But let us say honestly: We have spoken about this, you know. It has been said publicly, notably at forums connected with United Russia. Putin has said it too. What kind of revelation is this? Because that is how they present it to us. We know this ourselves, and have talked about it ourselves, and we ourselves call on everyone to create a different economy, less dependent on such blows.

"Let us imagine what things would be like right now if our political system were more loose-jointed, more rickety; if it were more in the spirit of the 1990s than in the spirit of the 2000s. What would start happening right now, on the threshold of a crisis, with the distribution of all this state money and much else? So much trouble would be kicked up that, afterward, someone who greatly dislikes freedom would come along and would impose order for the next 100 years. You know, we could try again one more time doing what we did in the nineties: If we all drank our fill and went on a spree and smashed furniture. Or maybe we have had enough? Maybe be we should try somehow to get by without wrecking furniture and without rampaging?

"And while it seems to me that there a lot of drawbacks in the fact that a single party is dominant in our country, it is my profound conviction that there are far more pluses in this fact today, because if we had entered the zone of turbulence in a more unbolted condition, I assure you that the damage that the state and society would suffer would have been far greater.

"We all understand about corruption. President Medvedev has spoken about it many times. This system, unfortunately, in many ways conserves corrupt relations. But believe me, I worked in several well-known banks and companies in the nineties. I somehow did not notice that the level of corruption was much less then. And to be honest, those who say otherwise today are either lying, or do not know the truth. Because I actually know this from the inside. The scale of money was different. Yes, of course. The proportions were different, but nowadays the situation has actually improved. Maybe this is a very unpopular thesis, but I know what I am talking about.

"I would like to say once again that the system works, that it will cope with the crisis and get through it. It will of course change, it will be modernized. It must be modernized, but, on the whole, it requires that we handle it cautiously; it is necessary to accustom ourselves to social institutions whether we like them or not.

"You all know very well how American institutions are criticized by intellectuals in America, and by their own politicians and journalists. But at the same time, their two-party system has been operating for 200 years. Yes, it has changed, but it has not been abolished, and it works. And no one has said: Let us get rid of these parties and put new parties in their place. This is an example of a healthy attitude to one's own society. Yes, we criticize, yes we develop, yes we move forward, we adapt the system, we make it more it flexible, but we preserve its basic parameters. Because democracy consists of institutions, and institutions have boundaries. Everything, to the misfortune of the liberal gentlemen, has boundaries. At the same time, I would like to call on everyone to think about how we can, together, make our political system more effective, instead of thinking about how we can disengage from it and forget about it.

"And in conclusion, today, on the anniversary of Dmitriy Anatolyevich's election, I would like to say once again: Everything is OK. Elections were held yesterday, they went off successfully. People expressed their opinion in different ways. Yes, United Russia won, and not only did it win, but it significantly improved its results in many regions. And this is good, because it corresponds to people's mood. Here and there the Communists won, and won quite heavily; and that is good. It is a sign of democracy. Such are our political institutions. Such is our political system. Thank you for listening."

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Source: Polit.ru