An increasingly large part of the educated class does not expect anything from the government. In the best
case scenario, a process of inner immigration starts: people will not be involved in any discussions, they will not fall for any slogans, they will not participate in any
thing, they will not suggest any innovations. In other words, they will effectively be saying ‘leave us alone’.

In and of itself, the mere recogni
tion of the existence of a gap between society at large and the rul
ing class is not something to feel anx
ious about. In principle, this gap could serve as an indicator or sign of an impending social recovery that, in turn, may bring about some positive changes and improvements within the socio
political regime.

Russia is currently experienc
ing a quite difficult period in terms of its relationships between the elite and the larger society. Hopefully, it is yet neither a split nor a crisis that will lead to a split. This situation, in which the trust in the elites has been exhausted and the resultant feedback from society is lost by them, continues to reoccur and has already done so on a regular basis in our histo
ry for the past two decades at minimum. But every time this happens – whether it be in 1993, 1996 or 1999 – there were healthy forces in the Russian establish
ment, weighed down by many shortcomings and sins, which offered a hand to the respectable majority of the Russian public, which were uninterested in shocks, splits, and revolutions.