The main public expectations now are that the country, having overcome the coronavirus stress, will return not only to its original position, where it will stagnate for some time, gradually healing the wounds caused by the pandemic, but it will be altered, transformed. It will be on a drive similar to that experienced during the Crimean Spring.
The country and society need to be invigorated, especially after such an extraordinary depressive pandemic period.
In recent years, the main vector has been to give Russia time, which, in fact, it never had, to save from shocks, which was done. But since they happened, moreover, of a global global order, then you should try to benefit from them and do what you couldn’t dare to do before, in calmer times.
This is precisely what is presented in terms of restoring the economy from the consequences of the pandemic, which Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. Initially, the development of this national action plan was announced on April 28 during a meeting of the president with regional leaders.
It consists not only in conventional defense and defense - smoothing out the negative consequences, but also in attack and breakthrough: in achieving “sustainable long-term economic growth exceeding the pre-crisis level”, while “real cash incomes of the population must grow stably”. This will be achieved, according to Mishustin, due to "a set of measures in different directions: increasing investment activity, the use of modern technologies, digital technologies, improving the level of education, the rapid construction of high-quality housing."
It is planned to allocate 5 trillion rubles for this two-year plan. It consists of 500 points. If you wish, you can draw an analogy with the late Soviet plan to save the economy, called the "500 days." Mishustin’s plan is also called the new economic course, which can also be rhymed with the early Soviet NEP. But all analogies are meaningless from the evil one. One thing is important: in its ambitiousness and scale, the Mishustin plan has no analogues. So President Putin himself noted "the fundamental importance of this plan of action for structural changes in the economy, to achieve a new quality of growth." That is, we are talking about the very tea transformation of the country, about its start.
We have not encountered anything like this for a long time and only sighed: it would be nice to unpack the money capsules and build, build, develop the country, its infrastructure, create new industries, enterprises, cities ...
I remember last year’s December press conference of the president, at which the main questions from the regions were raised: new roads and bridges. All of this is sorely lacking. But this is what sews the country, overcomes the abandonment of territories, includes them in one common cause.
So, the money for economic recovery will be taken mainly from the National Welfare Fund and will be launched including for the largest investment projects: roads, bridges, airfields. They have long been waiting for all this. After all, with the Crimean bridge, Russia showed that it could, and in extremely tight deadlines.
Now it is necessary, if not to put it on the stream, then start similar processes throughout the country, including to overcome the depression of a number of regions.
It is planned to develop a vector for the self-sufficiency of the country, which began with the practice of import substitution.
And this is also a question of independence and sovereignty. It is proposed to give a significant impetus to the development of the aviation industry, the agro-industrial complex, and domestic pharmacology. That is, there is a bet on the development of its own production, and in parallel with this, a growth has been declared in the country's non-primary non-energy exports. Not at all in order to cook in isolation and in our own juice, but to understand that we can do everything ourselves! This is a very invigorating knowledge, overcoming the stagnant inferiority complexes that have irradiated the country for a long time.
They could have been in the Soviet ... By the way, on the national level there is an impulse to overcome the feeling of secondary nature, compared with the USSR, which is quite strong in society. We still walked with our head turned back. This, to put it mildly, is difficult and gives rise to numerous complexes that sooner or later become destructive.
It didn’t seem at all: there is a certain dialogue in the plan, and in the meantime, with the goal of extracting and adding to it our positive aspects and experience. All nostalgic talk about the restoration and restoration of the Union is speculative, and such plans are not viable. It should be about the succession and separation of grains from the chaff, especially since in society this is a huge request.
Powerful social projects, including supporting families with children and restoring demographics. Access to a completely free higher education by 2024. It seems that all this is not fire, not situational measures, but the same “dialogue” and inheritance. Indeed, the gap is still perceived by society as a huge problem, and, as you know, President Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union the largest geopolitical catastrophe. Therefore, we are talking not only about infrastructure projects, but also about historical “bridges” that will help society expel that very feeling of fragmentation and decaying energies. This is extremely important for the further development of Russia.
The current plan allows the new Russia to speak on equal terms with that big country, and, therefore, build a path of continuity for stitching a single line of domestic civilization, to overcome the injuries caused by numerous splits. So we are cured of them.
What is voiced is an indicator of the consistency and sanity of a country that, through this new economic course, is already clearly formulating the philosophy of its future, just in the spirit of a “separate civilization,” as Putin recently called it.
At the same time, it pleases that there is no pathos of gigantomania, a slogan-demagogic mood for grandiose construction projects and accomplishments. In a good way, it draws attention to a specific person. Actually, all this is for him, not his price, which is fundamentally important. No one urges people to tighten their belts for a bright future. In the draft plan itself, in the first place is “the restoration of employment and incomes of the population”, and a large block of measures to support small and medium-sized businesses has been registered. In general, a vector is planned for the partnership of citizens and the state. This, for example, is evidenced by the Gostech platform, which will serve as a unified system of such interaction.
The national plan showed that the state is not at all subject to fatalism, otherwise a pandemic would become a coronavirus pit for it. But we see, on the contrary, a springboard for fundamental structural changes in the economy and that same “new quality of growth”. Including to ensure that society and the economy were ready for such shock situations.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.