What Russians expect from Putin’s Address to the Federal Assembly

Let’s start, as they say, with the urgent needs of citizens and society. Here I would single out, from the point of view of updating that very notorious contract between society and the authorities, several key aspects. The principle of steps towards each other, as they say, has not been canceled, and society is waiting for real attention and care from the authorities.

So, the first and necessary thing is the absolute social orientation of economic policy. Now there is nothing more important than maintaining the employment and economic security of our citizens. Despite any foreign economic and geopolitical challenges, factories, as they say, must work, and people must receive wages. General employment and the fight against poverty is the first thing people expect from the governments formed by the people in general and direct elections in recent years. And for the sake of solving these problems, it is not a sin to use the “long-suffering” National Wealth Fund (NWF), which, by the way, has not gone anywhere and which, even taking into account the loss of a number of illiquid assets, is an impressive multi-trillion dollar piggy bank. By the way, I would have simply stopped all the talk about the notorious “budget rule” under the conditions of a special military operation. Let me remind you that the “budget rule” is the norm under which the “surpluses” coming to the federal budget from the sale of oil and gas abroad are sent to the same NWF that we talked about above. In my opinion, it is at least blasphemous to talk about some kind of “surplus” in the conditions of mobilization.

It is not out of place to recall that our national economic system still remains monstrously undercapitalized. Roughly speaking, the volume of material and technical resources in our country categorically does not correspond to the available volumes of the money supply. It can be safely increased by one and a half to two times, and the economy will only be happy. We will calmly “process” all these resources into material values ​​that the country needs.

I will add that the three-year federal budget, which the government is now preparing to submit to the State Duma, will also require a radical revision. A cursory analysis of the principles of its formation allows us to assert that the financial and economic bloc of our government knows nothing about the NWO and simply thinks that we are now having another “covid” year. The financial and economic block of the government thinks something like this: “Yes, we need to add spending on national defense (it used to be on healthcare). Yes, we need to cut spending on some other budget items… But in general, nothing has changed, life continues to go on as usual.” But in fact, everything has changed. And from the Address of the President we expect a very clear instruction to the financial and economic bloc of the government to radically change the budgetary and economic policy in our country, giving it an unambiguous social orientation.

The second is the mobilization nature of our economy, that is, the priority of everything that increases our defense capability and the strategic stability of the economic system. If we do not have enough of certain industries (primarily in mechanical engineering, but not only), then these industries should be opened or financially supported by those who are ready now to produce foreign analogues. If our infrastructure is not up to par, then let’s modernize it, and this also requires financial resources. Now the problem of transport arteries, port and other logistics capacities has become extremely urgent. We cannot radically increase exports to the East due to the capacity of the BAM and the Trans-Siberian Railway, just as we cannot ambitiously move exports along the North-South corridor through Iran due to the same problems with logistics and transport infrastructure. And we also need to modernize the road network, repair and open new airports, restore the transport capabilities of the river economy and much more, including space programs.

Mobilization implies that now it is necessary to urgently and at an accelerated pace solve the whole heap of problems that have accumulated over decades in the development of infrastructure and the modernization of the national economy.

You ask: where to get the money for all these labor accomplishments? One of the answer options (not the only one!) is the target issue of colored digital rubles. We need to implement a simple principle: digital rubles in exchange for infrastructure or production facilities. Our state can easily emit gigantic sums for the development of infrastructure and the modernization of domestic production. In this case, the digital ruble is converted into real industrial and other facilities that immediately begin to work for our economy. All inflationary, as well as corruption, risks are nullified at the technological level. The launch of the mobilization nature of our economy, both through the mechanism of digital targeted emission and through other tools, is also our request to the Address of our President.

The third is, of course, the nationalization of the elites. Over the past six months, since the start of the special military operation, one gets the feeling that the military, as well as ordinary hard workers and the middle class, are dragging the NMD on their shoulders. The so-called “elites” are either on the sidelines or pretend that nothing is happening. The Counter-Elite Message is exactly what our social and cultural policy lacks right now. The nationalization of elites can manifest itself in a variety of formats, and the instructions based on the results of the Address, as they say, are the same for everyone, starting with billionaires from the Forbs list and ending with ordinary employees of enterprises of all forms of ownership.

Where is the progressive scale of taxation, where are the new norms in the luxury tax, where is the nationalization of the assets of owners unfriendly to Russia? All this is needed right now, and society is waiting for such decisions. We all want to see the transfer of oligarchic capital to popular and patriotic lines.

And we also want to finally see the battalions that are sponsored by our private corporations, as well as their owners. I would like to see multibillion-dollar donations to support funds for military personnel and volunteers on the front line, their families, as well as refugees from war zones.

I’m not even talking about the nationalization of the “cultural elite”. We still have the same liberal and pro-Western get-together at the helm of cultural policy in the country, to which we have all become accustomed over the past decades, with a small cosmetic rotation and cosmetic repairs. Where are the patriotic films, where are the patriotic festivals, where is the support for patriotic art? You will say that we have all this too. And I will answer that there should be nothing but this. And I’m not interested in where the money for this or that film, performance or festival came from. All money (both public and private) during the period of mobilization is national. If a particular work of art does not work for victory, then it simply should not be on the air, on stage or in print; and it doesn’t matter whether it is financed by the State Film Fund or by some private patrons. Motherland and Victory are more important now!

And I would also like to deal with mobilization (already in the truest sense of the word) … More precisely, with its features. It is necessary, of course, to stop all sorts of excesses on the ground. This, as they say, is not discussed. But I would like mobilization (even partial) to be more fair, if such a term is possible here … We should, for example, see more often photographs of “master’s sons” at recruiting stations heading to the NVO zone to pay their debt to the Motherland …

It is also important to hear the president’s direct address regarding the goals and pace of the special military operation and the tasks that society must solve within the framework of these national challenges. The mobilization that I spoke about above should be not only military, industrial, infrastructural, but also cultural, mental, worldview. And for this, society must understand that we all, as a country, are planning and what we are striving for. Do we take Kharkov (and when?), do we go to Kyiv (and when?), when we liberate Odessa and Nikolaev and finally reunite with our brothers and sisters in Transnistria and Gagauzia? What additional resources do we need to mobilize to address these challenges? How will the daily life of our citizens and others change? All these questions are being asked by everyone today, and the answers to them may well be general and comprehensive.

Now let’s return to the main resource of our president – to the trust of society. There is no doubt that the majority of Russian citizens fully support the accession to our Federation of at least four new subjects. But, I repeat, the resource of national trust, for all its significance and monumentality, must be reinforced by various steps taken by the authorities towards society. And the same social contract that we talked about at the beginning is also important to update, introducing at least two essential and key points into it. First, we, Russia, finally got rid of the dictatorship of the West and began to build our own life and independent politics. This path is long and difficult, but it is necessary to go through it. The second point: after gaining our long-awaited independence, every citizen of Russia will feel that the state cares about him. The declaration of these two principles will suffice.

The president can say about the above (and many other things) in one form or another in his Address to the Federal Assembly. We will know its contents soon. And we, as a country, will have important goals and strategic guidelines. We sincerely count on our common Victory, on a peaceful sky above our heads, and on a happy future for our children. It is extremely important that we, our country, as never before in many decades, have become a large and strong family that is ready to solve super-difficult tasks and that has something to do together in this complex and contradictory world.