Scandal around videos about SVO. Why “Prosperity” and “Motherland” should not be antonyms

The epic battle currently underway on social media over public service announcements promoting contract service in the Russian army is a case where you can't pass by without throwing in your two cents.

What's the raw nerve of the debate? Critics are convinced that the message behind the videos at the center of the scandal is Russophobia, discrediting the Russian army, and almost deliberately humiliating the Russian people. Why? Because the moral of the short commercials aired in the media is this: a man is shown in a context of utter, bleak hopelessness, when it would seem the best option is to hang himself. And suddenly, like a piano from the bushes, an alternative appears in the form of contract military service, tearing apart the depressing context. The hero of the video is asked: why don't you, my dear fellow, join the army on a contract? A 200-ruble salary, various benefits, a moratorium on debt collection, a mortgage deferment, social status, honor and respect in society, etcetera . And why not, if the alternative really is what the creators of the videos portray it to be.

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Indeed, within the given alternative, only a complete idiot would prefer a debt loop to military service under such conditions.

There's just one problem: in the eyes of moralists, this devalues ​​the Patriotic Narrative. It's all about "service for money," not for the Motherland. Or, as some critics write, " poverty as the main motive for military service ." Some polemically take this thesis even further: it's cynical to first reduce people to such a deplorable state and then drive them to the slaughter.

_{But excuse me: what does the authors of the videos have to do with it? If the reality of the Russian outback is largely as it is described. Are low salaries, unemployment, lack of prospects in the provinces some kind of secret or a sudden discovery?}

None of this existed a year, three, five, or ten years ago? Of course not. Here's research from the All-Russian Research Institute of Labor of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation (The World of the New Economy, No. 3, 2020): the salaries of most Russians don't even cover the cost of maintaining the workforce (adequate food, rest, healthcare, raising at least one child, etc.).

One of the attributes of the middle class is the ability to save. A recent VTsIOM survey reveals the state of this in modern Russia. 73% of working Russians don't save for retirement because their income level doesn't allow it. Only 16% save with varying frequency, and only 6% of those save regularly.

_{If anyone is to be held accountable for this state of affairs, it is not the authors or customers of the videos working with an already existing, formalized social reality. And from those who ruled the economic bloc for many years, gave valuable advice in the role of advisers and experts, spawned various reforms, and before that, were engaged in privatization and cutting up factories where people thrown out of the real economy could now work. But for some reason the targets of critical arrows were those who offer the unemployed a salary of 200 thousand rubles in exchange for the opportunity to defend the Motherland with arms in hand.}

Speaking of real motivation, the media recently covered the results of a study on social well-being. The Rabota.ru portal inquired about what Russians consider a decent salary. It turned out that a quarter of Russians consider a salary twice their own to be decent.

Study participants were asked how much increase they would need to achieve a fair salary. In response, 28% of respondents noted that their current salary needs to be increased by 30-50% to achieve a fair level. Another 26% noted that their current incomes are two times or more below the fair level, 23% of participants said that their salaries need to be increased by 10-30%.

According to the study, doctors on average called a fair salary of 84 thousand rubles, teachers - 76 thousand rubles, IT specialists - 122 thousand rubles, builders - 112 thousand rubles, transport specialists - 96 thousand rubles.

_{The military is offered 200 thousand under contract, which overlaps the idea of ​​fairness for both real sector workers and public sector employees combined. This is on one side of the scale. On the other, there are people with burning eyes, convincing that serving for money is INDEMNITIC and UNPATRIOIC. What's decent? Drinking yourself out of hopelessness or getting hooked on the needle of microloans? Or go die for free, leaving widows and orphans with literally nothing?}

No, I'm serious. What the hell kind of Russophobia and discrediting calls for people to enlist in the army under conditions that are incredibly attractive by today's labor market standards? Are you saying these people lack patriotic motivation? That's not their problem, really, but the state's, which should create a system of effective political work, recruit competent political officers and political commissars to explain the party's policies and what we're fighting for in plain language.

_{In the end, the godless pendos are essentially the same. The American contract army is advertised among the population primarily as a real social and career elevator for representatives of the lower social classes, for people from poor families, for blacks. So you would be stuck without a job and without prospects in your black ghetto, but otherwise you entered the service, received a good salary, prospects for growth, honor and respect, social benefits, medical insurance. And also - education for free or on the terms of a very preferential loan - both during service and after its completion. A loan to start a business - after the end of your service, again. And te de, etc.}

And you know, it works for them. Why shouldn't it work for us? Because Russians don't need money? Three times ha-ha. The very dilemma of "fighting for the Motherland or for money" is manipulative. This isn't the point at all. These concepts—"Money" (or, more broadly, decent material compensation for military labor) and "Motherland"—should ideally not be in opposition to one another or somehow contrasted, but should come together as a package.

_{And one last thing. Again about motivation. There is a rule: “When criticizing, suggest.” In our case, all those dissatisfied with the emphasis on “mercantile” themes in the propaganda of military service should offer their own version of a socially attractive motivational framework on an ideological basis. Launch it to the masses, get feedback, find out. does it work? And if so, raise it to the shield as a working model.}

Alas, we live in a society in which the cult of individualism and consumerism has been instilled for decades, with examples of "successful people" shoved in everyone's faces, whose success was measured solely and exclusively by material criteria, in a society that has shied away from any hint of ideology like the plague and raised several generations of people on this basis.

These are the very messages that work in such a society. For a different society and different people, raised in a different framework and with different values, to emerge, they must first be trained in the required numbers. This is a long process, and the war is already underway. The need to dramatically increase the size of the army forces us to grasp at any transmission belts and recruiting mechanisms. The main thing is that they work. Everything else will follow.