<nettime> mailradek no. 22 (on Pelevin and young professionals)

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                                                                     text
no. 83
                        18.09.1999

I finally lost my virginity by agreeing to read "Generation P" by Victor
Pelevin ("Chapaev and the Void"-the-superhit still stays unknown for me).
I can only envy the author who is able to publish a book in a month or two
after its completion. "Generation P" seems to have been written this
spring.  In the nearest years it will be forgotten, but now it's
attracting real interest, as if it's specially written for the forthcoming
autumn with its pre-elections campaign and TV rush. 

I have a particular interest in it because i had acquainted with the
prototypes of the book's characters this spring. Kiriyenko's election
campaign is carried by the Effective Politics Fund under the chairmanship
of an ex-dissident Gleb Pavlovsky. He seems to be the prototype of Leonid
Azadovsky. In 1996 EPF carried Eltsin's election campaign and its tactical
innovations are worth an attention. One of Ziuganov's press conferences
was ruined by the Fund who had beforehand spread a gossip ("canard",
"hoax") about the alliance of CPRF and Zhirinovsky, and the next time they
presented a tiny regional communist group denouncing Ziuganov, and
announced it as a great split in his party. Charming young men and pretty
girls stroll about the white offices of EPF. Max Meyer, Director of the
Fund, used to be an anarchist and lived in a French squat. They treat
"young radicals" very friendly, thinking that those belonging to the
radical politics can be their future potential personnel: "There's a
revolution in Gleb Olegovich's office every day", Meyer says. Their own
attitude to politics is characterized by their demonstrative cynical
behaviour: money, "game" and success.  Pavlovsky himself is too shy to
speak of money and thus he flings with seeming indifference: the only
pleasure for him now is finding solutions for hopeless situations. By the
way, another book recently published - "Mass media of the second republic"
by Ivan Zasursky - promises exceptionally high profits for this business
in the nearest political future. 

Victor Pelevin tries to express that cynical attitude, but he somehow does
that in that familiar style of good old-fashioned Soviet prose: "For all
the times he remembered that old rusty bus skeleton, half-buried into the
ground at the edge of a Moscow suburban forest:". The history of
post-soviet environment is expressed, like the whole local "postmodernist
discourse", as the last and final point of history. For the people of that
circle the following point of view is quite suitable: today they are the
masters of life, and they can see no possible forthcoming changes that may
threaten their existence. 

In fact, the "game" in which the young yuppies believe, only exists as
long as they believe in it; they create it as well as it have created
them; since they have personal interests about its existence, they invest
their interest, their money and their life to make it go on. By
interpreting the world of dirty politics as the world of the "game" they
adjust themselves according to its imaginary rules. The world is about to
change pretty soon, and they will have to speak another language (which
they will undoubtedly learn pretty quick). 

None of them needs any explanations about the fact that dirty politics is
bad, that they're the ones who rob and steal from people, and they're the
very ones to be shot by their beloved Che Guevara. They all know it and
they admit it, and it's just the reason why the critical consciousness
cannot affect them in any way. The new century, which they will only enter
in the form of a dying anachronism, will not be the century of the
critical consciousness, it will be the century of instantaneous action and
the new, non-critical but anarchical methodology of decision-making. 

Translation: Alexey Kovalev

éîæï: A closed court seating on the RVS (Revolutionary-military council) 
case took place at October, 7 (tsar Nicolas II monument's explosion in
Taininsky village, Peter the Great monument's at Moscow and the gas
station in Lubertsy's mining). We'll tell later how it finished but we can
already presuppose it wasn't the last one. The case is already almost 2,5
years in the run and consists of 60 volumes. 

A trial on Avdei Ter-Oganyan's case had to take place at October, 6, but
didn't. Everybody knows, a hero is abroad, in Prague. By the way, the
attentive camrades saw the Holy Virgin matreshkas sold nearby Red Square. 
There's an evident idea to proceed an Avdei's deal and to crash them
publicly: if the public opinion became so enraged because of the cheap
paper icon copies' desecration, what will it say about the tourist
souvenirs' desecration? By the way, the same comrades asked the sellers if
there's Christ inside matreshka, an answer was: buy and see. Each
matreshka costs about hundred bucks. 

Yakob Kochkarev is in Lefortovo prison. He's accused of keeping and
transporting a vast drugs' lot which is indeed false (see mailradek no..
38, info). His presence in Lefortovo proves, he's simultaneously accused
or suspected in the frames of the multiple new criminal cases against
anarchists provoked after the Krasnodar case. His girlfriend Anya
Gavrilova and an eco-activist Vladimir Slivyak took part in a
human-rights-defending briefing in <2000 internet-press-center> (Guelman
Gallery) at October, 7. By the way, the Moscow <Jerry Rubin club> was also
unofficially warned by the intelligent services in connection with the
criminal cases. 
    Another press-conference of Vladimir Slivyak and human rights
activists must take place at the National Press Institute at October, 18,
14.00. The speakers will tell about the recent anti-ecologist repressions
and emphasize the FSB's way of investigating the explosions by accusing
all the influensive radical political initiatives (ecologists,
anarchists). By the way, there're almost only anti-nuke activists who are
getting arrested or warned last time, maybe, there's some Minatom's
(Ministery for Atomic Energy) interest here? 

A new book of a living anarcho-literature classic from Smolensk Vladimir
Markov came out of print. We're waiting for a personal Markov's site
appearance, in a neighbourhood with mailradek site - at Vadim Gushin's
<Rema> server (www.rema.ru) and also at www.screen.ru/Slepye/Markov. 

A presentation of new <Radek> issue took place at October, 4 which is
dedicated to trash-culture. Presentation has happened at the biggest in
Europe dump nearby Kollontaevo village. 

The 12th Anarchist Movements' Association (ADA) congress took place in
Saint-Petersbourgh in the end of August. It traditionally carried some
resolutions, like: <On the war>, <On the elections>, <On the state policy
of taxation> etc. In reality, none of the anarchist movement veterans'
decisions has any real force and is able to react on the present
situation.  For example, any of ADA participants who voted and
<participated in the state's manipulations> this way is counted for an
automatically excluded from it, in agreement with the decisions which were
assumed lonf before the <Against all parties> programm has appeared. 

An anarchist leaflet was widely distributed in Saint-Petersbourgh in the
beginning of October, which says, the famous explosions couldn't be made
without FSB help. The leaflet calls for a scepticism towards the official
anti-southerners propaganda and explains that the explosions are needed by
the power for its dirty preelectoral games. It's strange that the
Saint-Petersbourgh activists were more operative than in Moscow where the
propaganda is much stronger and the militia is <enforced>. 






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