In the story of the parliament split, which many have already declared a “state coup,” the most important aspect for me, so to speak, is the systemic-historical component. About current politics, I think much will still be written; it seems to me more significant are those considerations so vividly illustrated by what is happening—considerations which, I believe, may yield useful conclusions for the future.
The more you dig into the history of the modern political machine, the clearer it becomes that its “technical specifications” bear no resemblance to how it is actually arranged or how it actually functions. Those who were interested in the question, I think, were always visited by the thought of some artificial constructedness of what is nowadays called the “democratic model.” That is, the separation of powers, separately elected legislators, executives, and judges appear as the product of some creative mind that assigned them specific functions and interests and pre-planned the optimal construction. It is clear that in life this cannot be so. And, as it turned out, it never was.
If you spend some (alas, it took me quite a significant amount of) time studying where all of this came from, you will discover that modern parliamentarism is nothing other than the fruit of a cargo cult. Just as we today try to install Western institutions in our country, the revolutionary French borrowed parliamentarism from Britain, and from the French it spread throughout the rest of Europe and the world. It is clear that representative bodies existed in France itself and many other places—in this case, we are talking about the attempt to isolate and borrow the principles of a very specific system that formed in England after the Glorious Revolution.
It is precisely the results of the efforts of French figures who admired “British freedoms” that we now have the pleasure of enjoying. Although, when we turn directly to the subject of their efforts, we not only do not find anything resembling our system there—we see something completely opposite.
Let us begin at least with the fact that the king in England (that is, the executive power) did not have a guaranteed budget. The king had his own income (which in the 18th century was practically given to him in the form of a fixed salary), but for any sneeze he had to ask Parliament for money, for which he still needed to convene it. And further—pay attention!—if Parliament approved any spending, new or revised taxes followed, and tax changes inevitably affected voter moods. Compare this with the completely opposite system we have now adopted, when the state receives guaranteed income from taxes and then distributes it at its discretion. Obviously, in the first case power is under the most effective—financial—control, in the second it is practically uncontrolled.
But the main thing is not even this. It turns out that the “separation of powers” does not consist in the existence of “branches of power” that are all one state. The separation of powers consists in the rootedness of the judicial caste on the one hand and in the fact that the chambers of Parliament represent really existing powers located outside Parliament, that is, communities and the aristocracy. Parliament is only the meeting place of all these powers; it is not Parliament that gives them power, they merely “bring it with them.” It is the constant resistance of aristocrats and communities to attempts to increase royal power, reinforced by financial control of the latter’s activities, that is the true source of “British freedoms,” which then led to the Industrial Revolution, the “workshop of the world,” capitalism, the flourishing of science, “Rule, Britannia,” won world wars, the Beatles, and Harry Potter.
The French revolutionaries did everything backwards. First they destroyed all powers outside the central one, that is, they destroyed the aristocracy and the privileges of provinces and cities. Then they endowed state bodies, including parliament, with their own version of popular sovereignty, which meant that if you are parliament, you are, as it were, a substitute for the entire people at the moment and, consequently, can do whatever you want. In fact, this is what the revolutionaries needed. That is, the British model, which really “formed on its own,” was tuned to constant control and restriction of the state in the interests of society, while the French one was artificially bred for the retention and expansion of political power by those who were currently using it.
And you know what’s interesting? People were aware of this circumstance at the very moment when all this was happening. Many authoritative figures like Tocqueville perfectly understood what was happening.
And so? And nothing. Let us note that the revolution and all the allegedly extraordinary circumstances it supposedly spawned—circumstances which, as they explained, required certain special powers—ended, but the system and the accompanying ideas took root with a vengeance. Moreover, the same British model, allegedly serving as its prototype, eventually fell victim to the new system over time.
All this once again says that only what is beneficial to the state survives. Well, our power is valuable in this story (I will not tire of repeating this) in that it willingly and even with enthusiasm demonstrates its true nature. “Tut-tut-tut!” cries the progressive public, “what about the constitution, the laws, the regulations! They are not following them!” But they should not, that’s the point. A sergeant’s widow cannot whip herself. Munchausen cannot pull himself out of the swamp by his hair. If society has no real powers outside the political system, things will be as they are. Parliament will stamp out laws for the executive even on a lawn in the forest or in “telephone mode”—not because Donetsk people have seated themselves in it and they all spit on regulations and laws, but because such is its nature. And the solution to the question does not consist in simply replacing Donetsk people with anti-Donetsk people, but in creating powers outside the political system.