ARCHPRIEST VSEVOLOD CHAPLIN PREDICTS NEW RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT IS REPEAT OF 1917
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the former head of an RPTsMP synod's department, but now rector of one of central Moscow's churches, expressed disappointment with the membership of the "new" government of the Russian Federation, which Premier Dmitry Medvedev presented to Vladimir Putin on 18 May. In the archpriest's opinion, which Nezavisimaia Gazeta quotes, the cabinet has been deprived of a few ministers who had their own opinions. Chaplin found in the premier's candidates adherence to the principle of the irremovability of elites.
In Chaplin's opinion, such political stagnation led Russia to revolution in 1917 and the U.S.S.R. to disintegration in 1991.
"Stagnation, stagnation, and again stagnation—this is the impression from the new make-up of the government," Vsevolod Chaplin wrote in his account on the network Facebook. "The 'non-standard' figures who have their own opinion--Mikhail Men, Alexander Galushka, Sergei Donskoi—have gone. It is good that some of such figures still remain—Alexander Konovalov, Olga Vasileva. I am happy even for the retention of Vladimir Medinsky—we never will forgive him for 'Matilda.' But almost all alternatives were worse."
"But on the whole, the irremovability of elites—not just the personalities but also their types—is unambiguously bad. Bad not just for the elites, although for them too. Bad for the country. Does really nobody remember 1917 and 1991? Repetition is inevitable if we do not give way to figures who are able to revise the system—economic and social, first of all. And also ideologically," Chaplin warned.
It was after his call for a change of the political elite that the archpriest lost his post as chairman of the synod's Department for Relations with Society of the RPTsMP in 2015. (tr. by PDS, posted 19 May 2018)
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