After the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, a part of the intelligentsia, professionals left the country, the other part continued to conscientiously do their job, withstanding hard
conditions of life, not swearing loyalty to the Reds, but not opposing it either. Trotski would contemptuously call such “nonpolitical” professionals “fellow travelers” (попутчики), stressing those people’s temporary status: they are next to us, the Bolsheviks, until we have our own personnel, after which we will get rid of those “fellow travelers.” One must note that it happened much earlier than this revolutionary who had already been declared an “enemy of the people” by that time had assumed, and we still bear the consequences of that crazy step. Destroying the “nonpolitical” intellectuals and creating our own Red one, we set back the science, education, and society decades, turning the latter’s actions into “instinctive,” irrational ones.
This way of thinking continues to be dominant in independent Armenia too. The following question stems from that way of thinking; why aren’t you with the people? Certainly, it is particularly funny when that question is asked by people who haven’t been in Armenia for 20 years, did not freeze and starve here in the 1990s, not to mention that they weren’t at the front. I hold sacred the right to freedom of movement; those people decided to settle down in other countries, but when they call on us, residents of Armenia, to be united or to be with the people, it is quite funny. Who is closer to the people; the mother who delivered a baby by the light of a kerosene lamp in the 1990s and now living here, doesn’t show any political activity or a former resident of Armenia who philosophizes about the troubles of the nation under Glendale’s palm trees.
Being with the people – actually with one’s own political team – is not a test, which can be employed to assess a man’s intellectual and moral qualities. I have heard people say several times those who fought next to me will get (or have gotten) an office. Such a thing already happened at the beginning of the 1990s; they got rid of “fellow travelers” very quickly. The result of it is well-known.
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Fortunately, Raffi Hovhannisyan – thanks to his non-Soviet origins – tries to overcome the Bolshevik stereotypes. In Kapan, Raffi encouraged some Magda who mounted the podium on her own initiative or instigated by Litska in front of a large mass of oppositionists and started to defend the “felonious” governor. And it is right; Magda is also a representative of the people.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
