“I’m not talking about complete predictability”

On April 27, one of the prominent ideologists of A Just Russia (the current Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP)) Oleg Shein announced his care from the post of head of the Astrakhan branch of the party. Journalist “Kommersant” Grigory Leiba talked with the politician about the reasons for such a decision, as well as about his future political future and the fate of the left movement in Russia.

– You announced that you are leaving the post of head of the regional branch of the SRZP, but will you remain its deputy in the Astrakhan Regional Duma?

– I remain a deputy, I remain a member of the party. This is a good game, I gave her a lot.

– Do I understand correctly that the key reason for your decision was your disagreement with the global party course?

– If I had conceptual differences, I would leave the party. I believe that in the person of “Fair Russia” at one time a left-wing democratic force arose, advocating both social rights and freedoms, I value this and I certainly do not intend to leave the party.

– Are you going to continue your political career in Astrakhan or at the federal level?

— I am going to work further as a deputy where I am now. What up (future.— “b”) elections, then you and I should generally see what we have left of the electoral process. A fork is possible here. Either we will see an absolute manageability of the electoral process, or we will see a return to relatively competitive elections. Therefore, the answer to this question will determine, I think, not only for me, but also for a large number of other people who have given their lives to social tasks, the attitude towards the upcoming elections.

– If the first scenario is implemented – the controllability of the process, do you see your place in such a political configuration?

– In the case of complete predictability? I think I’m not talking about complete predictability. You are talking to a man who was the organizer of the People Against Raising the Retirement Age campaign. I wrote a text that was posted on change.org and signed by 3 million people, we created a committee against raising the retirement age, we tried to connect various activist groups in different cities. This campaign was not isolated – the whole country remembers it.

How do you find whether a person, with the approaches that I have just described to you, within the framework of an absolutely controlled process, proceed from the fact that his participation in some legislative bodies is in the interests of not only the population, but also the establishment?

– What you said, and some other factors that have arisen recently, allow some observers to talk about the crisis of the left idea of ​​Russia as a whole. Can you, as one of the founders of a large-scale left political force, support this thesis?

– No. There is a serious difference between Russia and other countries of the former socialist space. In other countries — Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, and so on — the very thesis about the left idea within the framework of the prevailing political narrative looks like this: “Here the occupiers came to us, planted their socialist orders here.” Within the framework of this political model, the left idea is considered by a part of society as anti-national. Poland is a prime example: there are conservatives, liberals and a very weak left. There is no such thing in Russia. In Russia, on the contrary, the subject of national pride is the Soviet period, not the Russian Empire. What is a matter of national pride is associated with what is called socialism. The associative array is exactly this: the workers’ revolution, 1917, the overthrow of the autocracy, space, free medicine, education, etc. Therefore, leftist ideas are already accepted at this level. If we are talking about what worries people the most …

It is not the conquest of Alaska that worries people the most, but good wages, normal pensions, high-quality free education, affordable and high-quality medicine.

That is, a social agenda that is achievable only under one condition – if there is less inequality in the country and there will be a different distribution of the national product in the country. Transition from the top to the working class. So we come to an internal contradiction. And why would the ruling elite, which is on the Forbes lists or not far from them, give their capital to the population? Over the years, we have lost the right to strike, the right to an effective, protected trade union, the right to elect city mayors, we have received a municipal filter in the election of governors, the right to freedom of rallies has been virtually eliminated since the time of the coronavirus. That is, there are no tools to influence the decisions made. On the one hand, the bearers of left-wing values ​​declare what is really in demand. On the other hand, the tools to achieve these goals are disappearing. And a plot arises when people say: “Yes, nothing depends on us! We have nothing to do with it.” This is a story of frustration. The history of people losing the skills and practices of collective action, because they are, to put it mildly, extremely difficult. Well, you also see what is happening with the elections. Three-day voting, remote electronic voting and other things… And this really forms not a crisis of the left idea, but a crisis of the left practice. And it produces the preservation of the inequality and lawlessness that exists today. There is a crisis not of the left idea, but of the left action.

Do any mechanisms of political work remain in the picture of the world you described?

– They are, of course, connected primarily with values. That is, I think that the question of values ​​in such conditions is fundamental, basic. We remember: “in the beginning was the word”, and then everything else. And before a person starts to do something, he forms a certain ideal picture in his head. It, of course, changes as it approaches the result, but a person has some general ideas. And under these conditions, it seems to me, the main thing is just the position itself.

– Did the current foreign policy situation and the position of A Just Russia, in particular regarding the military operation in Ukraine, somehow influence your decision?

– I would return you here to the published by me text. This will be the most correct.