In the early 1990s, it was not considered necessary to conduct a “de-Sovietization” or “lustration”. The transition from fake “pan-national” to incomplete market relations was carried out by an elite, which itself probably had not completely got rid of Soviet vices. As a result, the state, political and economic levers appeared in the hands of those people not so close to the culture of democracy and the free market (these two cannot exist separately), and it was natural that in 1998 the power was transferred to merely Soviet culture holders. What do I mean by “Soviet vices”? This is, first of all, a psychological phenomenon. If we try to put it briefly, it’s indifference towards the efficiency of your work, and vice versa is a strong motivation for other’s failures. To understand what we are talking about, go back to 1937: today we celebrate the sad “anniversary” of the Stalin large-scale terror, the 80th anniversary.
The goal of Stalin’s program was the planned destruction of millions of people. But no good or bad plan can be successfully implemented if it does not have volunteer supporters if only those who have officially called for the implementation of this program benefit from it. “Beneficiaries” of Stalin’s monstrous project again were millions of people, and this is probably the reason that these “beneficiaries” worshiped Stalin, and were crying bitterly on his death. The mechanism of rousing interest was simple: if I am a worker and I want to take the place of the shift head, if I have a one-room apartment and I want to take over my neighbour’s two-room apartment, if I am a colonel and want to become a general, if I’m a farmer (and I’m facing a threat to starvation) and I want to move to town, where I won’t starve, the solution is not working, not improving, but writing information against someone. It turns out that people are not interested in achieving anything through their work, instead, they can achieve their dreams by other sneaky, immoral methods.
That is why I believe that the transition to market relations should be accompanied by strong and unwavering moral principles. It would be ideal if these principles were preached by the Armenian Apostolic Church. But for many reasons, our church cannot take over the role that once Calvinism took over. Instead, we can get rid of the rotten psychology, according to which one can achieve something in life by putting an eye on someone else’s possessions or successes. And addressing the “administration” for restoring “justice”. Under the definition of “de-Sovietization” or “de-Stalinization”, first of all, I understand this.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
