Russia Profile
July 2, 2007
In the Thick Woods of History
The Pitfalls of an Ideological Overhaul from Above
By Alexander Arkhangelsky
The great leader met with his favorite teachers. He spoke with them on the teaching of history in schools, complaining that some of the textbooks in use had been created by people who work "for foreign grants" and so "dance to whatever tune they're told to." And they are told to instill a sense of guilt. Our close neighbors and distant enemies teach history to their students in a "civic-patriotic spirit," cultivating feelings of pride. But we are asked to repent. Yes, we had 1937, but then we never used nuclear weapons!
An esteemed teacher from Yakutia immediately developed this cautious comment into a catchy metaphor. History is like a forest from which the woodsmen have been driven out, allowing poachers to do as they please. The conclusion to be drawn from this is simple and obvious: Arrest the poachers, bring back the woodsmen, so that the latter can be on the alert, ever vigilant.
We could scrutinize the details here, sneeringly asking about which of the current textbooks were paid for by the spiteful enemy. Even the textbook on modern history written by Igor Dolutsky and banned three years ago was created without the slightest hint of grant support. All the rest were sifted through the federal commission, rendering them as clean as the conscience of an intelligence officer. We could also dig around in our memories and find the source of the woodsman metaphor - it comes from a Pravda newspaper of 1937, as it happens. But let's throw the minor details aside and look at it from the view of the very history that has to be divided up between the woodsmen and the poachers. And only after that will we return to modernity, albeit from a different, economic side.
The meeting in the Kremlin continued a process we have already repeatedly written about and will undoubtedly discuss again in the future. Putin is planning to leave. For four years or for good - that's not really important. And as he prepares to leave, he is slowly but surely endowing political authority and administrative might with a sense of his own historic mission. That is far more important than any third term in office, because it doesn't depend on the attendant circumstances. The father of a civil nation, created from above, the supreme creator of a unified "Russian world" - it's no coincidence that this is the name of the newly created foundation for the development of the Russian language, of which the president is a personal patron.
A civil society is impossible without a general agreement on the past, present and future. Not in the details, but in general. Where are we from, what are our roots? Who are we and what are our values? Where are we going and what is our foreseeable future? That agreement can be sought through open discussion, drawing the intellectual elite, along with educated citizenry, into a meaningful and public debate, taking the ideas eventually into the depths of the masses.
Another option is to propose an answer from without, in the same way that the tsarist slogan for Imperial Russia was put forward - "Autocracy - Orthodoxy - Nationality." Nicholas I approved of the formula, the church picked it up for the peasantry and the literary figures carried it to the city dwellers. In essence, this is what Putin is also doing, aided by his ideological entourage. They are perfecting the definitions and quietly testing them on the public. And at the end of the day, they'll order the authorized woodsmen to achieve a consensus: in schools, where the initial consciousness is formed, in the mass media, where the image of reality is honed, and in business, from which the resources for both are drawn.
In odd hints and subtle references we can already see the contours of the completed but not yet fully revealed ideology. In the future, it envisions a high-tech power supported by the robust role of the state with fairly independent business, responsible media and the humanities. In the present, a "sovereign democracy" precisely corresponds to the level of the society's development - authoritarian to the extent to which the majority is not ready for personal freedom and responsibility for one's own fate; a country bound by a rigid power vertical and supported by raw materials; a country of state corporations upon which a free market stands.
The past saw a contradictory but steady movement within the framework of the enduring "Russian political matrix." We had tragic failures but, as a rule, they didn't last long and were self-sacrificially aimed at ourselves; we have been, alas, masochists, but we have never been sadists. We have nothing to repent for before the rest of the world - our crimes, as a rule, have been the direct and unavoidable result of the errors made by world empires. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was just a formal elaboration of the collusion between the Western powers in Munich. Of course, any outline coarsens the author's true intent, and the presentation of Putin's doctrine here is also guilty of this. Nevertheless, that is the general thrust. It derives from a brilliant, utterly ideological and politicized conception of Russian history.
What do we think of all this? It's a serious question. Liberals are itching to get started, impatient to unleash a flurry of objections. But we will use all our powers of restraint to put it another way. It is a doctrine like any other, one of many options up for review. And it may even be a good thing that it exists, because it has been well thought through and, in its own way, is quite solid. Opponents haven't even got that far.
There's something that is wrong with it, however. The concept formed by those above will turn into the starting point for our free-wheeling intellectual journey. If it effectively becomes the law made to fit the Procrustean bed, so be it. The state will yet again be an obstacle on the path to a self-developing society which is already gradually building up internal strength but hasn't yet opened up. The tasks confronting the new generations will come into direct conflict with this concocted framework.
Certain unavoidable results of the woodsman's philosophy have already made themselves clear, even though not even a week has passed since the Kremlin meeting. The State Duma has made amendments to legislation on obligatory secondary education, and the second reading of that draft will come in the beginning of July. Tenders for the publication of textbooks have been cancelled - bureaucrats will be allowed to decide which publishing houses are worthy to print the permitted textbooks, and teachers will no longer be permitted to use other books, even as supplements.
In other words, the enlightened executive will administer the financial flows, and the teacher will transmit the ideas approved on high. Creative teachers will have a hard time of it, while those without talent will prosper. The market for educational literature is worth billions. Whoever hands out the orders will become a millionaire. And what usually happens in societies where the ideology imposed from above wins out is that new sources of corruption will flourish
And it is of no significance whatsoever who sets in motion the mechanisms of the ideological redistribution of financial flows. The last to do so was Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who wasn't regarded back then as the devil incarnate and was even thought to be the finest premier of our time. He gave the history textbooks a dressing down, and the lists of those permitted were immediately reviewed. As a result, the number of sets was reduced to three, and the profits of the trusted publishers grew accordingly, along with the incomes of the bureaucrats overseeing them. Now Kasyanov has adopted a different viewpoint, but it's the old system that continues to operate - the system he set in motion - because it couldn't happen any other way.
Alexander Arkhangelsky is a columnist for Izvestiya. The opinions expressed are the author's own, and not necessarily those of RIA Novosti's editorial board.