Фото: ITAR-TASS.

(18+) НАСТОЯЩИЙ МАТЕРИАЛ (ИНФОРМАЦИЯ) ПРОИЗВЕДЕН, РАСПРОСТРАНЕН И (ИЛИ) НАПРАВЛЕН ИНОСТРАННЫМ АГЕНТОМ КОЛЕСНИКОВЫМ АНДРЕЕМ ВЛАДИМИРОВИЧЕМ ЛИБО КАСАЕТСЯ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ ИНОСТРАННОГО АГЕНТА КОЛЕСНИКОВА АНДРЕЯ ВЛАДИМИРОВИЧА.

“Lev Davydych, how are you? – I don’t know, I haven’t read today’s newspapers yet.” This early Soviet anecdote foreshadowed what was bound to happen – and it did. The country is rapidly descending into Stalinist archaism that, after targeting “foreign agents”, also known as “stateless cosmopolitans” in the old days, could not avoid moving on to a period of combating Trotskyists. Since the “quadrobors” have emerged, why not uncover Trotskyist underground as well? According to reports by the RIA Novosti agency, a group of students with left-radical views was “discovered (!)” at the St. Petersburg University. And this is not just any group – it is part of an “international network with headquarters in Great Britain”. British Trotskyist Alan Wood pulls the strings. And the organization itself is Trotskyist too. By the way, Wood was a close friend of our friend Hugo Chavez, so the ideological disagreements here are unclear. The whole issue started when two young students hung a mannequin depicting Minerva and the inscription “Science is dead” on the monument to Count Uvarov in St. Petersburg.

In this activism lies the beauty of it all – the use of the statue of Sergey Semenovich Uvarov, the author of the triad “Orthodoxy. Autocracy. Nationality”, which is more significant than “Peace. Labor. May”, and according to which modern Russia lives, including its increasingly cohesive form of education. Count Uvarov so perfectly embodies today’s political policy that even in 2023, those who erected this monument forgave him for belonging to the banned LGBT** movement and the fact that he was mocked by “our everything” Alexander Pushkin, who called the dreary minister “Count Dunduk”. The idea that in the face of advancing pseudoscience and obscurantism, “Science is dead”, doesn’t raise much doubt. Although it resists. However, there are means to deal with that – for example, recently, the Shanyinka University in Moscow, one of the best humanities institutions in the country, was temporarily banned from accepting new students for a year. And this is understandable! Even the best professors have left, and various “princetons” are being taken care of, some have faced court sentences, the leadership has been changed, importing the first person from the reliable city of St. Petersburg, yet the students remain good and curious. And there are still decent teachers left. (The same story, despite all the toughening and trimming, is happening at the European University in St. Petersburg.) Thus, one must suppress everything alive, thinking, and non-obscurantist, especially in the field of humanities, and beyond. Or accuse students of collective Trotskyism.

Lev Trotsky. Photo: Wikipedia.

Furthermore, in the state agency’s message, everything is so magnificently dated back to the late 1940s that a fragment cannot go unnoticed without being quoted in full (syntax and spelling preserved): “Also, according to him (source. – A.K.), during the interrogation, it was revealed that the student group acted under the instructions of experienced left-radicals-Trotskyists: a employee of the Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute known by the party nickname “Ivan Loch”, a worker from the Institute of Oceanography known by the party nickname “Maria”, and an activist nicknamed “Kirill Pushkin”. “The activation of pro-British supporters in promoting radicalism among the student community in the region is most likely linked to the heightened geopolitical relations between Russia and England and aims to create a protesting core ready to engage in direct action,” the agency’s source concluded. Passwords, addresses, … Underground party nicknames … Once again Pushkin, who mocked the symbol of strict educational rules in the folk education in the period akin to today’s obscurantism, Count Uvarov.

“Back at it is the mysterious Alan Woods from England! Trotskyists are returning! Everything falls into place! Indeed, the renowned Latin Americanist Grigulevich, the author of Che Guevara’s biography in the Soviet series “ZhZL”, missed Trotsky with his machine gun. Yes, the Hero of the Soviet Union Merkader did not finish off Trotsky-Bronstein with an ice pick, who lied about Comrade Stalin. Trotskyism raises its head, as reported by a source familiar with student Pronko’s interrogation protocol, involving “young revolutionaries who have just turned 18” (and not working either!). It is imperative to strengthen the ranks of informants and video surveillance. And to pay closer attention to the “foreign agents”, especially those connected with Great Britain. However, initiatives in this area have not subsided: Deputy Koshelev, for example, has introduced a creative bill stating that the money from the special accounts of “foreign agent” artists should be allocated to the needs of restoring new territories and rehabilitating participants of the Civil War. There’s no grip on Trotskyists yet. However … They are all from well-off families, so let their parents pay for something. By the way, a dissertation by Deputy Koshelev, alien to us, was found to have probable borrowings by the “Dissernet”. What can one do — “Science is dead”, as claimed by 18-year-old youths. It is somewhat surprising in this story that the competent authorities failed to please Trotsky himself, the creator of the Red Army, a strong advocate for the construction of the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station, and overall a fighter for social justice. What do those who negatively assessed Trotskyism, detaining young people, know about Trotsky? Only that he was also negatively evaluated in the Soviet history textbooks of the CPSU, to such an extent that Trotsky’s killer, after serving time in Mexican prisons, was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union, seemingly at the peak of the thaw, in 1960? The main thing, apparently, is the very fact that Trotsky was Stalin’s fiercest enemy. And enemies of Stalin back then are enemies of the current regime. Symbolically, the nearly finished manuscript of Stalin’s biography lay on Trotsky’s desk when Merkader, the future Ramon Ivanovich Lopez, struck his victim’s head with an ice pick. The pages were splattered with blood – an astonishing symbolism. The current return of the concept of “Trotskyism” by the authorities and state media may look caricatural, but it is ominous. The dark past increasingly plays the role of our “bright” future. Listed as “foreign agents” by the Russian authorities. * Recognized as extremist movements, their activity is prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation.