Byzantine politics and number crunchers. - "It was night. Dogs were barking. - truffaldino from milano. - moon rover and paper tissue - an open party meeting at spaso-house
By Maxim Sokolov
Giving a pep talk to his fellow United Russia party members, Deputy Head of the Government Staff Vladislav Surkov said: "You cannot overcome the crisis by forming a feeble army of number crunchers to fight it. New creative decisions are needed." This call for creativity turned out to be provocative. Some reckoned that it was a veiled attack on the main number cruncher, Alexei Kudrin, especially since the conference was attended by Mr Kudrin's Deputy, Anton Siluanov. Others dismissed Surkov's words as intrigues intended to test Mr Siluanov's mettle and provoke him into revealing what the Finance Ministry really thought. Perhaps both were wrong and what the Deputy Chief of the Government Staff really wanted was just to liven up the meeting's atmosphere. In fact, he recalled an old Soviet-era joke about a parade in Red Square where artillery, tanks, and ballistic missiles were followed by a dreary band of functionaries all wearing hats made from young reindeer fur (a status symbol in Soviet Russia). When asked by curious foreign military attaches who those people were, their Soviet hosts explained: "They are our main weapon - the Gosplan officials. They possess incredible destructive power."
The United Russia representatives present got the message and went out of their way to be seen as being creative. Shortly after the meeting they decided to organise the automobile industry workers to launch a campaign for control of the internal Russian market under the slogans "By supporting Russia you support yourself" and "By supporting the car industry you support Putin". So far it is unclear how the protest will be organised in Moscow. Logically thinking Party members decided that, since in other cities such protests took place at car plants, they should be held at AZLK and ZIL car plants in Moscow, as well. Oblivious of recent history and the current state of these auto giants, it escaped the attention of the United Russia functionaries that their action would be uncomfortably reminiscent of the opening page of the second volume of Leonid Brezhnev's memoirs. The book, titled "Rebirth", begins with a scene of Leonid Brezhnev driving through a war-ravaged industrial area. The narrative begins with the words: "It was night. Dogs were barking." It could be a fitting description of members of United Russia appearing among the ruins of the AZLK plant.
There is a problem with a prominent member of United Russia, Yury Luzhkov, who was very active in the mid-1990s in trying to give a fillip to the automobile industry and launch the production of some curious new cars ("Prince Vladimir", "Svyatogor") before developing other hobbies and losing interest in the automobile industry. Today's analysts, who see intrigues everywhere, may try to convince Mr Luzhkov that in this way the Party leadership is trying to remind the Mayor of his misguided actions in his youth.
Indeed, the slogan "By supporting the car industry you support Putin" today acquires very broad implications and could be applied not only to the auto industry. The artist Bopris Moiseyev is eager to represent Russia at the Eurovision song contest, which Moscow will host in May 2009 thanks to Yury Luzhkov's efforts. Come to think of it, it might be just as well.
As the Munich newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung writes, "Moiseyev's performance would in any case give Russia a chance to present itself as a highly tolerant state." The Bavarian newspaper is right in thinking that encouraging Mr Moiseyev's work attests to a very high level of aesthetic tolerance, but considering the Moscow authorities' fear that the fans who will converge on Moscow from all over the world will turn the city from a Third Rome into a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, the newspaper's well-intentioned reasoning acquires a less than decent subtext.
Meanwhile, artist Moiseyev is pressing his bid, producing a report about Vladimir Putin explaining "to the bureaucrats who banned his concerts that ‘Moiseyev is a Merited Artist of Russia'". From this it is but a step to the next logical conclusion: "By supporting Moiseyev you support Putin". One can sympathise with Mr Luzhkov. The only hope, considering the situation, rests with Italian Premier Berlusconi, who has helped his Russian friend out of even more complicated situations in the past. "The strong friendship and mutual respect that link me to Russian Premier Vladimir Putin allowed me last Thursday, at the most delicate moment of the (gas-M.S.) crisis, when there seemed to be no way out of the situation, to propose a technical and commercial solution that resolved the situation," Mr Berlusconi said. He clearly draws inspiration from Truffaldino, the hero of Goldoni's play "The Servant of Two Masters", who used the strong friendship and mutual respect that linked him to all sorts of gentlemen to find a way out of a variety of crises. The only difference is that Truffaldino came from Bergamo and Berlusconi comes from Milano, but the distance between these two glorious cities is only 50 km and can be neglected.
Meanwhile, across the ocean the American people gave a rapturous welcome to the new US President, a tireless champion of peace and the great successor to the cause of Lincoln, Comrade Barack Obama. A model of a moon rover moved in a solemn procession through the capital's streets and the turnout was so massive that the Washington Post newspaper advised people attending the inauguration to bring their own paper tissue, as the cost estimate of the inauguration events did not provide for a huge number of rolls of toilet paper. The individualistic suggest that bringing along one's own paper tissue is somewhat at odds with Obama's inspired words to the effect that "our wealth should go to every needy heart", but then, the President was speaking about needy hearts and not about other needy parts of the human body, so no wealth was wasted on them.
The celebrations across the Atlantic were echoed at Spaso-House in Moscow, where Russians integrated into the world elite and enamoured of democratic procedures were invited to spend two hours in the conference hall watching the inauguration ceremony on a huge screen. The idea is highly sophisticated, since only a person who has really embraced democratic procedures can endure sitting for two hours with a pious expression on his face. There was a time when the Communists staged similar party meetings. Non-party members could evade listening to the keynote speech only at the risk of having their names blacklisted, which could later turn out to be very embarrassing - as for example, when a commission that cleared people for foreign trips recalled that the candidate had not shown due interest in Party matters.
