As is well known, the ardent Bolsheviks who found themselves in the Gulag in the 1930s were convinced that “Comrade Stalin knew nothing,” that the manuscripts written about them had been sent to the NKVD, and that the unscrupulous and sadistic staff of that institution had done something to torture people, but if “Comrade Stalin” suddenly found out about it, he would punish the guilty and justice would be restored.
This is how authoritarian and totalitarian governments are built. At the top sits the “ruler,” the “king,” whose actions are unquestionable. They are above all systems and institutions, including parties, parliament, courts, and law enforcement. If the “common man” can be heard by the “king,” then their complaint will be heard, and maybe the “king” will decide to punish his unjust or careless subordinates by doing “the will of the people.” Vladimir Putin’s several-hour broadcasts are mainly about that. The microphone is given to “ordinary citizens” who express their complaints to the local authorities, and the “king,” realizing what it is about, instructs the authorities to solve the issue of that “ordinary citizen.”
Putin sends a message to the Federal Council and instructs them to adopt different laws. The deputies of both houses are not really legislators, they are Putin’s “boyars” – members of parliament who are appointed to carry out the king’s will. The same is in the Armenian parliament today. Many of my colleagues have targeted NA Speaker Alen Simonyan for drafting anti-democratic laws. But he is just one of the main courtiers who does the will of the “king” together with a group of courtiers called the Civil Contract. By the same logic, the Prime Minister orders the arrest of someone at a government session, or instructs law enforcement to investigate this or that case during a meeting.
In such a system, victory in the war is entirely the grace of the leader, as it is in the case of Aliyev. Have you heard the name of any Azeri general who led the troops well during the last war and organized the right operations? Instead, everyone is to blame for the defeat except the leader. Pashinyan’s supporters claim that the generals who misreported to the commander-in-chief are to blame. I am sure that the so-called “commission of inquiry” formed by the government will come to a similar conclusion. Of course, a logical counterargument may be voiced: be so competent and skilled that you will not be misinformed. But that counterargument has no force in the authoritarian system. The king should not be competent; he should just rule.
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Aram Abrahamyan
