It can be said that in his speech at the Valdai Forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin summed up the thirty years of the world order established after the collapse of the USSR.
This time of lost opportunities
"Failures", which resulted in "the current state of the world."
Tense, extremely conflicting and completely unpredictable.
And in fact, then the largest world power, which was at the peak of its military power, in fact, sacrificed itself in the name of a new, more just world order. In the name of overcoming the danger of a global war for the complete destruction of human civilization, in the name of new thinking and universal human values, for the sake of eliminating a dangerous ideological confrontation. Then it seemed that all barriers had collapsed and the world became a common home for everyone. But all these hopes were quickly dashed. The world that emerged from all these expectations has become even more dangerous and disturbing.
Instead of developing new approaches to the global security system, instead of uniting, the Western countries declared themselves victors and elevated to the Olympus, where they only fanned themselves with the fan of exclusivity and rested on their laurels. A very strange system was created with an endless feast of "winners" and chatter about the common good and uniform standards. The real problems were not solved, but only exacerbated. This was also shown by the coronavirus epidemic, when, instead of unification, an even greater separation took place. This was also demonstrated by Afghanistan, where, over the 20 years of its presence, the United States was unable to solve a single problem. And, for example, the fight against terrorism after 9/11 has led to the creation of even more monstrous forms of it. Etc.
It seemed that the notorious unipolar world had stagnated within the framework of a two-tier system: the top were the feasting Olympians, the bottom was a springboard for demonstrating the selfish will of the self-styled and exclusive "gods", which they dressed up in the clothes of democracy. With such a system, changes were inevitable, as it contrasted more and more with reality, and the ground slipped out from under our feet. In general, one should not speak about some kind of victory, but about the fact that 30 years ago the world was given a chance. Unfortunately overlooked.
Now an era of fundamental, radical changes has begun, which brings not only a change in the more or less familiar way of life and the danger of many crises, but also opportunities. Vladimir Putin focused on them in his speech. Moreover, these opportunities are not acquiring a utopian format, as it was during Soviet perestroika, but a realistic one. Putin's speech at a meeting of the Valdai Club was about realism.
As the Russian president noted, earlier, in similar situations of systemic changes and the need to solve the accumulated global problems, everything was solved through "shocks of a worldwide scale: world wars, bloody social cataclysms."
The “existing model of capitalism” also leads to such outputs.
Now it is already outdated and does not meet modern reality and people's needs, and, again, the options for getting out of the overdue tangle of contradictions offer everything in the same format of global shocks, which will now be suicidal.
The same example of the coronavirus epidemic showed that in the current conditions the world has failed to unite, the existing system began to act as reactions of separation.
In general, criticism of capitalism has demonstrated a fundamental and consistent departure from ideology, which builds lines of division, and especially over the past 30 years, the same capitalism has become extremely ideological.
Instead, the focus is on the social, the human.
In addition to the exhaustion of capitalism, the end of the "domination of the West in world affairs" is being stated.
This means that the current era of changes brings a certain line not only under the thirty-year civilization race, but also under the period of world history several centuries long.
Instead of general unification for uniform formats, more and more similar to the threads of a puppeteer, instead of matching everyone and everything to the standards of capitalism and democracy, a “more diverse system” is emerging, where it is not a common march in a single order that is important, but an individual, sovereign one.
In his speech, Vladimir Putin paid a lot of attention to criticism of the traditional ways out of similar crises, such as war and revolution. He noted that in the current realities the war does not stop, it is not a transitional stage for peace, but "only exacerbates the chaos and deepens the vacuum that is dangerous for the world." Likewise, revolutionary upheavals only lead to disintegration, as was the case in Russian history at the beginning and at the end of the 20th century.
Putin formulated the third way, which consists in betting on the state, and the social one, which is the “structure-forming unit of the world order,” on sovereignty. All of this was leveled out in the last thirty years of global failure. When it was argued that it was necessary to entrust your sovereignty to the world gendarme, sign the deed, albeit with blood, after which he would administer a righteous court, and you would only have to enjoy the wonderful moments, abundantly stuffed with freedom and democracy, and do what they say.
The next component of the alternative path to shocks is an orientation towards a value system that is not a derivative of one or another ideology or the current conjuncture. On the contrary, it is "a product of the cultural and historical development of each nation, and a unique product." This firm value support, which Putin spoke about, is the opposite of the practice of “value diktat”, when a certain format of values is implanted without regard for the individual differences of countries and peoples. It also does not fit into the current fashionable fad of "social progress", when not only society, but also people are subjected to liberal experiments in refining, melting and reformatting. And these experiments themselves for the sake of a new brave world are increasingly acquiring the features of aggressiveness and violence.
The third path, which opens up opportunities, is designated by the president as a "conservative approach."
Moreover, not in the spirit of the well-known directive to "freeze" the new socio-political ice age.
This is "not a thoughtless guardianship, not a fear of change and not a game of retention, much less being locked in one's own shell."
Putin called this path "the conservatism of the optimists", which stands for "reliance on a time-tested tradition, the preservation and growth of the population, realism in assessing oneself and others, the precise alignment of the system of priorities, the correlation of the necessary and the possible, the prudent formulation of the goal, the fundamental rejection of extremism as a method action ".
This is a reasonable and rational line of conduct.
Realistic.
And a very important remark: all this is being spoken out not as Russia's claim for leadership in the new world or its claim (God forbid!) To be exclusive. We are talking about responsibility, about the fact that our advantage is “in our historical experience”. We have experienced all variants of paths in the 20th century: revolutions, wars, and attempts to abandon the individual in exchange for the exaltation of someone else's experience or bet on the international of universal human values. They tried to radically change or rebuild society, to form a completely new type of person. But in the end, it turned out that all these are just forms of social and socio-political natural disasters, and only their own is the constant support, the foundation: a completely unique civilization formed for many centuries and a type of person who matches it.
I must say that such a frank conversation is the task of the Valdai Club.
Not a monologue and dictate of any one country, but a responsible dialogue on an equal footing.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.