When a person passes away, the overall tone of his reception is often an indicator of his place in history, even allowing for an inevitable degree of social hypocrisy. But if he receives equally warm and emotional tributes from people as different as Vladimir Putin and Mikhail Khorodkovsky - and this is what happened on the day of Yegor Gaidar's death - one might reconsider either one's disingenuousness; indeed, it follows from their messages of condolence that the personality of the deceased loomed so large that even people who cannot agree on anything speak with one voice. Putin and Khodorkovsky are worlds apart, but they share a similar attitude to Gaidar. One can name a great many other, less opposed pairings-for example, Anatoly Chubais and Yevgeny Primakov. But in fact, the entire political class of modern Russia has paid tribute to the former Deputy Prime Minister.
Meanwhile, the comments made by his hard-line party critics are also worth noting. The secretary of the CC KPRF, I. Melnikov, pledged allegiance to Communist views, yet interspersed his comments with phrases such as "yes, but in purely human terms..." Such reservations were very rarely made by Communists in the past, whether they spoke about the living or the dead. Vladimir Zhirinovsky mentioned former differences in passing, while punctuating his comments with polite condolences. And we all know about Zhirinovsky's command of the vernacular.
The only exception, perhaps, was the comment made by former presidential advisor Andrei Illarionov. When news of Gaidar's death came, he quoted his own article of two years ago to the effect that Gaidar "destroyed political and public support for liberals and democrats for at least a generation." One might have condoned that remark if it had come from an adherent of a more socially oriented policy. During the lifetime of Yegor Gaidar, Grigory Yavlinsky repeatedly made similar statements, but upon learning of the death of his erstwhile opponent, he had very decent and human words for him. However, coming from the mouth of Andrei Illarionov, who had criticized Gaidar as an extreme socialist and offered as a model countries where there are no pensions, no social benefits, no subsidies, but only the free individual - one could imagine the massive liberal and democratic support that the implementation of such ideas would have received - this is an occasion to remember that the Russian words for a fool and a cripple are derived from the same root.
However, with the exception of occasional antics - and we are talking about sober-minded political classes - we see a picture not unlike the one we observed two and a half years ago when Boris Yeltsin died, only more clearly pronounced. The moral is that a political figure of such stature gets tributes even from those who should be intolerant of him both on the strength of his views and in their disposition to his politics. And yet, they bow their heads in deference. To a degree, this has to do with good manners. Even though we are told that the Latin adage de mortuis nil nisi bonum is an outdated prejudice, it is not easy to kill culture altogether.
However, along with cultural considerations, there are more pressing concerns. The departure of a towering figure highlights the current standards of politics and its personalities, and the contrast is striking. When there are colourful and charismatic persons in politics universally recognized as intelligent and strong, it is much easier to accuse Boris Yeltsin of being willful and unpredictable and to accuse Yegor Gaidar of Bolshevism (translation: ideological firmness and integrity). One can always find shortcomings in a strong political personality.
It is another matter when politics is depressingly devoid of colourful individuals. Either as a result of deliberate selection or universal obscurantism that makes any selection meaningless, the fact remains that the prevalent type of the political functionary is an anonymous creature without faith, age, or gender. Traum aus Celluloid and universal duping. There must be some advantages to this situation, if only in terms of governability and total interchangeability, but it generates among those selected for political office-and not only among observers-the feeling of one's own irrelevance. And a sense that nothing can be accomplished by celluloid puppets.
One of the reasons that the idea of innovation and modernization is marking time is that it takes will, charisma, and conviction-i.e., Bolshevism, to borrow a word from the critics of Gaidar and Yeltsin. Bolshevism in the above sense is the last thing of which the current elite can be accused. The alibi is cast iron. This accounts for the "great strides" accomplished by modernization.
In principle, one might have said: "how I hate all these people, I can't wait to get rid of them." And if death helps us to get rid of them, so much the better. This is the position assumed by the libertarian community, but there you find only white doves. The political class is not so perfect, and for all its being brainwashed, it retains the vestiges of human feelings. To deny the obvious stature of the deceased is not something everyone can do, and to be perfectly happy with the current situation when "there is no divinity, no inspiration," one has to be a brute animal or to be absolutely out-of-touch with reality.
The average functionary is not like that. Ultimately, in the purely platonic sense, it does occur to people that without development, things may come to a sticky end. As a result, the type of personality that seemed to have been consigned to history may have a role to play. For starters, it may only be in the form of recognizing the stature of an individual and the fact that such individuals are sometimes necessary-because without them, a country's history comes to naught.
Maxim Sokolov