IT’S TIME FOR SUPER-PUTIN
Putin is the compromise. If he is gone, there will be no compromise. It is clear that the elite is so resourceful and mean that it will try to adapt to another system, but this does not fundamentally cancel the fact that Putin cannot decisively influence the future. In a sense, he has already influenced it. And this influence is very positive: he showed that the 90s have an alternative, that it lies somewhere in the plane of patriotism (Second Chechen, Munich speech, “Our Crimea”, etc.), and this, in fact, is a grandiose accomplishment. But at the same time, Putin did not give the form and institutionalization of this patriotism, did not change the foundations of the state laid just in the 90s, did not carry out the rotation of the elites, ignored the popular demand for social justice. The established regime in the eyes of the people as a whole is much better than it was in the 90s (hence its legitimacy), but definitely worse than what is required. While Putin is in place, his merits cover the shortcomings. Once he leaves, a delicate and rather unnatural balance will collapse. By the way, Surkov is not right about de Gaulle: his legitimacy, relying on his role in World War II and the Resistance, lasted only until the early 70s, when he remained in power, and collapsed during the events of 1968, which abolished Gollist conservatism and established new socialist paradigm. Later, de Gaulle remained only nostalgia and simulacra.