Translation: Confessions of a Russian “Liberal” Part 2

This is a continuation of Part 1, my translation of the inspiring story of how an honest, courageous woman who dared to admit her mistakes and expose the Russian “liberals” for the amoral Bolshevik hypocrites that they really are. She is a great Russian patriot and true liberal.

OK, let’s go step by step. Example. A discussion about a Dissenters March. Three forumers write – “You’re all fags and Orangeists¹”. And those reading it will see, that’s how people think about them, therefore that’s what they are. But there I enter the discussion, as tanya_ucf²; then Sergei Petrovich Kozlov happens to come by and help me out, tailed by Lolita. Now it’s three versus three. And now my cell buddies pull over, making us 3 + 4 = 7 strong.

Now we start throwing each other links and participating in discussions on other forums, where each of us was already known as a dog breeder enthusiast or playgirl or physics teacher or sport mom. That is, we don’t come out as Dissenters until the moment is ripe. First we work on developing the trust of other people, for it is always easier to convert an already like-minded group than to try winning them over from zero. I don’t know who said this first, perhaps I did.

Another example. For the first two months at a cactus-growers forum we write things like: “Your cactuses are so cool!”, and they’d reply with thx and :* kisses, and then we casually throw in: “Yeah and there was this march, so many people killed, wounded, etc”. And these people, the electorate so to speak, receive info even while doing nothing more than hanging out at cactus-growing forums. Not only do get this info, but they also get to see how “everybody” reacts to it. And who exactly is this “everybody”? That’s right. It’s us – the project participants, 3 people and our 9+ avatars.

Am I explaining this clearly? At the time this was all clear to me too and I was OK with it.

At the time I had not yet joined the project all-out, since apparently only four people had yet given their consent to participate which was too little. But I was already given the task of registering on the forum of the Daily Journal³, where my mom had been hanging out for more than a year. Mother stumbled upon it once upon a time and remained there, and even somehow managed to become its president, which is why she has the nickname that she has on LJ⁴. Now I also registered there previously, but I had forgotten my password. I had also joined My Circle⁵, but forgot its password too and even the email I used to register. And in general since I was on so many different forums and sites I didn’t write down my passwords anywhere, so that the bloodthirsty regime could not uncover them, but rather forgot most of them. But that’s all to the good.

Together with that woman⁶ we set off finding and recruiting new people. And one fine day there arrived a certain person. She said he would soon arrive by train and I was to meet him and then she too would come by. She also told me that he also has a LJ account, but I was not to know his identity and that to me he was to be just Sergei, and nothing else. For the fewer people I knew the fewer people I’d be able to betray if I was ever apprehended by the authorities.

I met him, we talked for five minutes and I told him his true name on LJ. I mean it’s not my fault that by that time I had already memorized the commenting styles of all Dissenters by heart, and it wasn’t very hard for me to identify someone by two or three key words they typically use. He could have said I was mistaken, but instead he became reddened and flustered, and it was clear I was right on the mark.

But nonetheless we agreed that we never met, that we didn’t see each other here and so on. And note that even now I’m not exposing him. I’m not ratting anyone out unless they they wanna play the goat and deny this⁷. She didn’t like that I blew his cover, didn’t appreciate my attitude.

It’s just that I’ve been very attentive and had a good memory and sense of logic since childhood. Or maybe just imitated my mom. For my mom and I communicated with everyone and went there and everywhere all the time, and many people agreed with us and tried to participate in our enterprises however they could.

And it so happened that at this time there was a Dissenters March in July in Moscow⁸ and Yuri Chervinchuk, leader of the Moscow’s National Bolsheviks, said something along the lines of “and Yeltsin was bad too”. And then all the Union of Rightist Forces⁹ (SPS) folks began raising a fuss over how offended they were over his words. And then Limonov apparently slighted Masha Gaidar, apparently by not allowing her to take the podium.

Afterwards when they were analyzing the schedule of flights home in the offices of the United Civil Front, I said that I too agree with what Chervinchuk had to say. And when I came back home I also told everyone that I support Yuri Chervinchuk and that I don’t love the likes of Chubais, Gaidar, Nemtsov, Berezovsky, etc, much more than I love Putin.

I said this without any second thoughts, assuming this is all OK and understandable – but actually no, it wasn’t. For the unity of the opposition was built on the principle of uncompromising opposition to Putin. The question of who we’d support after the destruction of the regime was delegated to the future. I was told – what, you don’t support SPS??

And later she even wrote me a comment on my LiveJournal that if I continued dissing SPS then I would become her enemy. Now I’ve never had a single enemy, and here you go, there appeared an enemy. No, no, I don’t have enemies! I love everyone! I want everyone to open up and stop lying, stop it with their stupid complexes, cynicism, zombieism, etc! I know I can do this. But they need to want this themselves, and as of now they don’t want it.

I don’t like it when people threaten me. And they always threaten me. Yes, those, who call themselves the opposition, write, for example, that I “might meet the fate of Larisa Arap¹⁰”. That is, the opposition is not averse to using the same methods which the authorities use against them.

Everything I do and will continue doing is geared towards one thing – exposing them, unclouding their fog of lies¹¹. And that’s all.

For by that time I had already long been a member of the SPS branch in my city – in fact from the first days of their foundation there (but I already wrote much about that), and long enough to understand what they are and how they do things. And I said that the main thing is not that I am against SPS, but that I’m for the UCF and for Kasparov. And I asked them, why is this project not focused on Kasparov – I mean, wasn’t it created for him?

“Yes, but not quite. It’s against the regime, but not quite for Kasparov, but for him and also someone else”.

Back then I didn’t understand who was that someone else.

Later I understood.

Then they told me that they wanted to be even more confident in me and that I’d have to see a psychologist-psychotherapist. They gave me money and his address (it’s on the Old Arbat street) and I went off to see him.

The psychologist said only one thing – “Tell me about yourself”.

“About me? Where should I begin?” I replied.

“From the beginning,” the psychologist said.

And I told him everything from the beginning. I talked for 40 minutes, then he said – “All’s understood, you can go now”.

“But why don’t you tell me as well, I mean I’m interested too,” I said.

He replied that he’d tell those who sent me to him. I mean why not just tell me, that I’m not inclined towards treachery, enemy recruitment and things of that nature.

*whisper* You remember, right, who told me about this again a year later?

That’s right, the NLP¹² practitioners at the NLP-seminar in St.-Petersburg under the Solidarity¹³ movement. They told me that this is necessary because there will a come a time when the bloodthirsty regime will bind and torture us, repress us as in the days of old, lock us up in lunatic asylums and practice punitive psychiatry against us. And for insurance we need to consult doctors now, before the storm, so that if worst comes to worst they could give authorities proof that we’re sane – for it is better to do time in prison than in a madhouse, they said.

With every passing day I become ever more saddened by the things they told me. I began to experience hitherto unfamiliar feelings, which I only later figured out as like being a “sacrificial lamb on the altar of democracy¹⁴”. But I stress I only pinned down the meaning of this feeling later; at the time they just appeared to be overly impressionable and mistrustful. They’re sure taking a lot on themselves, if they fear so much¹⁵.

I left the psychologist. I then wandered around the Old Arbat, joined a picket with the National Bolsheviks, visited Lev Ponomarev, joined a “Free Khodorkovsky!” demonstration. There they interviewed me because since I was from Nakhodka, they thought I had flown to Moscow just to join them. And by that time I already had several things to say about old Khodor, because I wrote him many letters and he replied to them (and about which I boasted to everyone).

Then a friend of Khodorkovsky presented me with two tickets to the Lenkom Theater, because I said I had never been to a theater before. And that was that. I met all the opposition, such as it was, in those 45 days. I’ve still got lots of photos from that trip and many other things. Then I returned to Nakhodka. After that I traveled to Moscow five times, but henceforth only by invitation to UCF conferences.

But after that first visit, we ceased communicating. Furthermore, they even let me know that the project, apparently, could not take place. Yes, and I also missed the moment. The so-called first “action”¹⁶ of our project was to be my memories, dedicated to the anniversary of those mass repressions – the barriers against the Alternate Summit¹⁷. For this person they even involved a very famous and popular LJ user, but I won’t say who exactly.

But nothing came of it. I was very offended that they were trying to trivialize, “popsify”¹⁸, my personal tragedy, my family’s tragedy. No-one offered me legal help, for I was useful only as a living example of the regime’s evil. Moreover at the time I believe those repressions were indeed one of the most awful cases from my subjective perspective. Like the later case of Arap, for instance.

Yes, and where exactly is Arap today? Who’s interested in her health, her life? No-one. That person was needed only as a pawn in the information war.

When I returned to Moscow after a year, I met the “project manager” again.

Yes, only then did I understand that she was not its originator but just a “manager”, never mind that she insisted it was only her own personal initiative. But who pulled the strings behind this project, and behind other projects already in play after my first visit to Moscow, and projects created afterwards, I only understood later. Yes, not without hints too.

Today there are already more than a few such projects aimed at “forming social opinions¹⁹”. Under every real “movement” there exists an e-project.

Why is this bad?

Because society never gave anybody the right to form its own opinions, just as the people never conferred authority on any of our political movements and parties to speak on its behalf.

Because just a few dozens of men and women can weave a web of opinions over the people at the behest and by the design of their clients²⁰, forcing people to think – that this is how the people think.

Because no-one knows what they will define and spread as “truth” and to what you will become an accomplice to the day after tomorrow.

Sometimes you may get the impression that there is nothing on the Internet except projects and their promoters. But there actually do exist other people. It is they who are the target audience and it is for their hearts and minds that the information war is waged.

Things might look totally different to you and you might argue that you never notice any such thing. And I trust you when you say that, for it is noticeable only to those who spend as much time on the Net as myself and in like manner.

You need time and attentiveness to notice all these things. And something else too. I’ve met people who told me (and there were witnesses with me), “We found sponsors and the project was launched on a larger scale than was planned at the start”. That already they are planning to ditch their real life jobs and embark on this project full time, especially now that they are going to get paid for it. They even named several participants in this project from St.-Petersburg – they are quite famous amongst the opposition.

And there are some other things, but this is all for now.

To be continued…

Tatiana Korchevnaya, Tel #: 89147277889, Nakhodka, Primorsky Krai.

Related posts:

1. Translation: Confessions of a Russian “Liberal” Part 1
2. Translation: The Case of the “Stalinist” Textbook
3. Translation: “Radio Liberty – The Liberty of Mendacity”
4. Interview @ Siberian Light
5. Comrade Kasparov – Charlatan or Bolshevik?