When a person reaches a new level in life where they are not yet competent - the first thing they must do is think about how to change their worldview. If they don't address this - the person won't be able to notice their mistakes and will incorrectly perceive criticism. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has fallen into such a trap. He removes from his circle all people who tell him unpleasant truths. He considers any criticism hostile. He tries to surround himself only with those who agree with his actions and are ready to support his policies. Can the president change his psychology? Why is Zelensky's catastrophe inevitable?
A new conversation between Yuriy Romanenko and political psychologist Oleg Khomyak.
Romanenko: Friends! Hello everyone, surfers, idlers, deviants. We continue our broadcasts. Today, I think we'll have a very interesting conversation with political psychologist Oleg Khomyak. Hello!
Khomyak: Good afternoon!
Romanenko: First time on my broadcast. But we've been subscribed to each other for a long time, and I practically watch what you write every day. You have many interesting posts, as they say in Ukrainian, about our politicians from a psychologist's perspective.
And what's happening now with our president seems to me a very interesting case, as they love to use that word now. In general, the influence of a person's psychological matrix on political processes, the transformation of this psychological matrix, or problems related to its transformation. And I think we can have a very interesting discussion about this now.
Khomyak: Of course.
Romanenko: In your view, what situation does Zelensky find himself in today as a person? Because it's obvious that the midpoint he's literally passed in terms of being in his presidential term is now complemented by specific dynamics in a number of processes - domestic political, foreign policy, economic, etc., which require radical, fundamental changes to his worldview as well.
Will his worldview change? Because we know well that great personalities approached certain breaking points and, having overcome them, emerged with renewed baggage, with new capabilities and achieved what they achieved.
Is the president psychologically capable of such a breakthrough or not? Because in reality, a lot depends on this in the processes we'll see over the coming months.
Khomyak: I'll make various theoretical inserts along the way, I want to explain.
Romanenko: No problem.
Khomyak: To put it briefly, it's unlikely he's still capable. That is, he's already passed several points. You know how you enter a corridor and you're already flying, you can always turn, but if you've missed several points, it's practically impossible. Here's a theoretical insert.
So, there's our objective reality: there's a president, there's Ukraine, there are all sorts of economic tasks, problems, situations and a certain logic of development that we could outline. Besides this dimension, each person has their personal dimension. If you step back, each of us has a psychological script, a brain (that is, a psyche), and this will unfold in our activities.
In a sense, if we remove external objective reality from each of us, we could draw something somewhat abstract about what happens to a person, what they go through. Any person who finds themselves in a situation where they reach a level higher than their competence... This is normal, when we develop, we strive, we end up where we're not yet competent. Any person finding themselves at this level first finds themselves at this level, and only then will the psyche change, if they naturally apply effort to this. If they don't apply effort, there will be catastrophe.
[Photo caption: Volodymyr Zelensky during a marathon with journalists November 26, 2021. Photo: press service of the President of Ukraine]
In our culture, there is no such understanding. Look, if your status has changed, the first thing you should immediately think about (even before this and right after this, sit and think), is how do I change, as you said, my worldview. From such a task, how many people have you seen who rationally...? This is a task - changing your worldview.
Romanenko: I've seen some, but very few.
Khomyak: And I'm saying now that this is a technically necessary step if you've reached some level. If you don't do this, then most likely the logic of the situation's development will be such that your script will worsen.
Worsen - this means all the worst aspects of this script will be fully realized. And now a few words about Zelensky, but also, let's say, an equally vivid example - President Poroshenko in the final years of that election campaign. It was visible that the person fell into some completely strange state, in a sense inadequate. And continues to act in it as if he sees exits, while outside observers see that there are no exits.
What's the peculiarity? Another difference is that if you imagine some outside observer, not involved in the situation, competent and with good intuition (not all these experts, of which there are many on Facebook, but real professionals), they see one situation, while the person who is acting has a completely different picture. And when the script worsens, we see from the outside that there's deterioration, there will be a crisis, but the person inside sees the opposite, that just a little more and everything will be fine.
Romanenko: Everything's excellent.
Khomyak: And it turns out to be a mechanism, in a sense, of "anesthesia," so that once you didn't change, it means you'll keep implementing.
In this sense, from some point, from some moment, with Poroshenko it was during the election campaign, and now with Zelensky, it's useless to talk about anything. There's already a completely different picture inside and the person perceives any criticism as something interfering, confusing, because everything here is very important, urgent, needs to be solved quickly. All these reflections, it's all unnecessary.
That's why I say that now it's unlikely. Most likely, we'll reach some final end and the script will conclude there, like with the previous president. If we're talking about Zelensky, the breaking point was, in my opinion, in January of this year, after which the National Security and Defense Council began, etc.
In my understanding, it looks like some time passed, and he discovers that he's not able to fulfill all his promises. Peace with Russia is impossible, although they explained this to him at the very beginning, that asking for it is pointless. Poverty doesn't disappear, moreover enemies torment him, the media and everything else.
What is a crisis? I discover that everything previous, all my instruments, goals, maybe even, don't work. This is a crisis, a breakdown. That is, at this point, what should I do? I should have, reasonably, sat down, definitely immediately acknowledging that everything previous - these were ineffective strategies and goals at the moment, and start rethinking. If I do this, I get a completely new picture and at this moment Zelensky could have come out with completely new theses, which has happened in politics, not so rarely, when a leader changes position.
Romanenko: Yes, that's actually normal.
Khomyak: Yes. Moreover, they can radically change position, and thanks to this maintain influence. But at this point, why I say breakdown, he went down the path, fell into what situation - that enemies are actually interfering. Not me, not my worldview, but enemies. Through the media they're destroying the image and inciting the population.
This is like (sorry, I'll interrupt), in everyday life, when something doesn't work out for a person, even with our relatives, who's to blame? They're to blame. Not that I'm bad, but life is bad. These kinds of statements.
And here he simply literally switched to this mode. That is, enemies - enemies need to be defeated. Then this National Security and Defense Council mechanism kicks in.
The second aspect is the struggle for power, when already in August, in September they were saying: "so, Zelensky cleaned everyone out, there's never been anything like this."
Look, what everyone and he himself perceived as a peak, this is really a peak. You know, you climb to a peak, and then there's descent. So Razumkov - that was the peak. That's it, after that everything collapsed. And that's it, everything that we, even outside observers who don't understand very well, but Zelensky himself perceives this way - we're winning. We just won, we just suddenly find ourselves at a cliff.
[Photo caption: Volodymyr Zelensky during a marathon with journalists November 26, 2021. Photo: press service of the President of Ukraine]
That is, he sincerely saw that this really leads to controlling the situation, but what does this actually lead to if the script hasn't changed. You just move forward all those tasks you didn't solve. Only they're moved with interest.
Romanenko: Yes.
Khomyak: And now it will be worse, harder, so if he didn't solve it then, it's unlikely he'll solve it now. Especially since everything became even worse, everything became completely bad. And where will the strength come from, we also understand what his mechanism is? He removes people who have their own point of view, some kind of perspective. Accordingly, this is one of the key mechanisms in teamwork, as Gustav Vodička said.
Romanenko: We all know him.
Khomyak: "In every team there must be your own bastard who always tells you some truth and a very unpleasant one."
What does he do? He removed everyone. That is, it turns out the mechanism has no negative feedback.
Romanenko: Let me rephrase, Zelensky fights problems by forming loyal and convenient interpretations around himself. That is, when people around him say: "Boss, everything's fine (like with Poroshenko), let's move forward, it means the enemies are suffering."
Khomyak: This is a mechanism that doesn't allow stopping, because everyone around (you've removed everyone who criticizes) only, what do they do? Positive feedback. Positive feedback on negative action - this is catastrophe.
Romanenko: Sorry for interrupting, it's the same as if the helmsman of the "Titanic," seeing an iceberg there, shouts to the captain: "Captain, there's an iceberg ahead," and the captain says: "No, that's not an iceberg, everything's fine, we're going full speed, we'll pass."
Khomyak: God is with us, we'll go. And this is connected to his character. He has one such, let's say, unofficial motivation - to enter history. But he's talked about it, hasn't hidden it - to enter history.
Romanenko: Who is he in terms of psychotype?
Khomyak: A person very oriented toward recognition, love. You understand, there's such complexity, even in political psychology these psychotypes exist, but they're often called psychiatric terms. That is, for a psychologist it's normal: schizoid, narcissistic, etc. I'm just afraid that...
Romanenko: Use those terms.
Khomyak: Look, for example, I'm a schizoid type. This doesn't mean sick, it's some accents with thinking type. He's a narcissistic type. That is, being in the center of attention. And this all helped him when he was an actor.
Another paradoxical thing - strategies that will destroy us are those strategies that raised us up. At some point they need to be changed. But changing them is difficult because you achieved victory through them.
Romanenko: This is what I call a success story. I always said that the problem of our presidents was that, having become president, they tried to reproduce their success story in a corporate position or some other.
Khomyak: The worldview doesn't change. And this is actually a very complex thing, because this is already character. Essentially, he lives in this paradigm. Therefore, the consequence of such fixation is - removing those who don't applaud, who say "boo," etc. Accordingly, focusing more on those who say "good, we're with you."
And it's clear that this all works systemically, this is also a survival mechanism for those around him. They see that if you support - you'll stay, if you don't support - you won't stay. That's how the system works. He falls into a situation where there's already no feedback. If negative feedback appears, the person is in such a state that he interprets everything - enemies. That's it, the person falls into a tough situation, accordingly, in which you can't get through anymore, no buttons work. That is, the car broke loose and is flying down on ice.
In this sense, I'm saying this is unrealistic. Although, for practically each of us, in any situation there's always an action that can pull us out. But at each next step it's simply more radical. That is, more complex, more radical, but it always exists. But the further you get into all these things, the harder it is to do.
Romanenko: It's like with an iceberg. The "Titanic" maneuver from 10 km distance - one trajectory, from 400 m distance - another, which ends with landing down there.
Khomyak: Therefore, a person always has such an option - to jump out. Here we're talking using examples of our presidents, remembering both, but this applies to each of us even in everyday, family situations, the smallest ones, the same logic. Nothing changes because these are all people.
As my teacher in political psychology told me, when I found myself in one room with people of very high status, I started getting nervous, then I invented a kind of fairy tale for myself, a story - they're all people. They react exactly the same way I do, they have exactly the same families, children, the same problems. Everyone has the same psyche. Only a person who ended up at such a level, everything intensifies for them, everything becomes more intense and it becomes public. The Truman Show, if you remember.
Romanenko: Yes, of course.
Khomyak: Essentially, we have "The Truman Show." Everyone observes, and the person doesn't even understand what's happening.
Romanenko: In general, status is what sits in our head. Because a person with status who suddenly ends up somewhere abroad suddenly realizes that their status doesn't work here. Because no one recognizes them, their piece of paper means nothing.
Khomyak: Here's another thing that plays a role with status. When a person finds themselves at the maximum high level of power, the higher, the fewer restrictions you have. In real life, these fears that there might be sanctions, something else, they keep you in self-control of all these internal impulses. Because any impulse, narcissistic including, is not rational, it's like "self-devouring." That is, I want this totally.
And when you find yourself at the peak of power, these restraining impulses don't exist. And if you don't have techniques for working with worldview, with state at least, then you simply don't register, you have no sensors that changes are happening. You're driving, but all your indicators aren't working, or are working but barely. GPS shows, only they loaded the wrong map. The route seems to show, only the map is different. A person finds themselves in such a difficult situation, they no longer control, a kind of obsession arises. But when obsession arises, there's no self-control.
Romanenko: You know, this is a very good and correct thesis that people in power in Ukraine, and in many other countries, don't realize. And which is very well shown in the film "The Crown" about Elizabeth II, where some people from outside come to her and say: "But you're the queen, you can do such and such there."
And she says that "actually I'm about balance, the more I don't interfere, the more correct it is. Because I can only interfere at the most critical moment, when things are really bad, as they say. But all the rest of the time I should sit, and actually, I behave like an ordinary person. And moreover, I'm even more limited than an ordinary person. Because an ordinary person can go out on the street, do whatever they want."
Khomyak: Yes, the last point, which is there, if there's a crisis, there's still another point to which you can still come. She's stable.
Romanenko: Yes. That's why this is the meaning of the word "guarantor" in our Constitution, which we constantly forget about. In Britain, the queen, as guarantor of this whole model, is taught from childhood about the system of checks and balances. They're constantly taught, shown how this worked in history. But here - it's just a word on paper that means nothing to anyone.
Khomyak: Look, we have, besides the fact that these are indeed all just words, no one thinks about what this actually means. Indeed, ask any person what they understand by the word guarantor. Strange formulation, the guarantors themselves loved to pronounce this, but what it means - no one knows.
Romanenko: How many politicians do you know in our country who have psychologists they work with? At the same time, the popular series "Billions," I think, where the head of a firm, they have a psychoanalyst working at the firm. She's one of the main characters.
Khomyak: Yes, "Billions."
Romanenko: She, in theory, shouldn't have her own personal interests. She has a conflict arise there.
Khomyak: And her husband is a prosecutor.
Romanenko: Yes, her husband is a prosecutor. Her task, even without the prosecutor, is to work at the firm with everyone as individuals, not reporting any information. That's the balance function she plays.
Khomyak: While the prosecutor husband is fighting against the billionaire whose firm she serves.
Romanenko: Yes. He has a difficult situation, but there the idea itself is shown that there's a specialist who, what does he do? No matter how smart you are, no matter how smart I am, I understand these things, but I need a person who is not involved in my topics and who honestly says: "Oleg, listen, you're going in the wrong direction."
Why? Because I don't fully understand everything that's in my unconscious. I'm a psychologist, I deal with this daily. Usually, a normal person definitely doesn't understand. Accordingly, if something unknown to me is activated, I'll most likely not be able to track it in time. This outside person will give feedback.
The one who holds the "rope" will give feedback: "something's happening." We don't have this, we don't have this in our culture. In principle, this assumes that most of those striving upward will fly off somewhere.
Romanenko: Actually, yes. This is a problem of our Ukrainian society. Because we have this attitude that people go to psychologists, psychoanalysts not from a good life. It's generally not clear why people go.
Khomyak: You see, recently it's been changing. But now it's still such a lite version. Like everyone's looking for coaches. But still, in such a serious version - this should be a person with good education, understanding these unconscious depths, what's happening with the psyche.
Therefore, if we talk about our president's logic, here it's at the end of this whole dramatic script. Each next forceful step he takes will drive him into even tighter frameworks and end in catastrophe.
[Photo caption: Volodymyr Zelensky during a marathon with journalists November 26, 2021. Photo: press service of the President of Ukraine]
What is catastrophe? Another moment, in our country it turns out like this? When elections happen, politicians go, struggle for power, election campaign, you won. For some reason everyone perceives this as victory. But what kind of victory is this? You found yourself in a situation, and now it's all really yours. Only most people go to this victory, how? That it's there, final, victory. What will you do next? But I haven't seen, except for, let's say, some formal PR plans. That is, people really don't work this through. For what? This isn't victory, you found yourself in the most difficult state.
Romanenko: This is a huge burden.
Khomyak: This isn't just a burden, you found yourself under attack from which you can't escape anymore. Now several years will lead to whether you'll be a loser or remain in history. But in both cases, of course, you'll remain in history, but in what image. We have struggle for power, for 30 years everyone got used to this being normal.
Naturally then, when a person finds themselves at this level, if they have no program, they don't understand this personal perspective, what they need to go through, what crisis points, how they should change personally, not some serious program for the country. That is, they naturally find themselves in reaction mode to "here" and "now." And that's it.
Further, accordingly, if you found yourself in reaction mode to "here" and "now," the whole system sucked you in. You essentially now service this system with your reactions, just stirring things up, nothing changes.
Romanenko: Yes, and what I interrupted about. To understand what will happen at the moment of catastrophe, what a person will experience at the moment of catastrophe - this is essentially a function opposite to what you psychologically want to get. If you want to get applause, glory, to be loved, then the opposite function is what? The directly opposite pole? Shame.
Khomyak: And you'll get it.
Romanenko: There's nothing else there. There's nothing else in the matrix. In the script, what a person experiences for themselves. I want to get this, there's such a vague experience, how I want to feel, who I am, and what people are around me.
For example, one thing is they applaud me, they love me, another thing is - I control, everyone obeys. Everyone has their own focus. This is the positive pole, it's always connected with the opposite pole, conditionally speaking, like a vector. From this you run to that. If this doesn't exist, you'll end up in that. That is, "Koschei the Deathless's life needle in an egg" - this is that script. In the end, it comes down to very simple logic - there's what you're running from, there's what you're running to.
If this is a psychological script, achieving this is impossible, or possible but for a time. Then you'll experience this catastrophe. Either you live through this, rethink it, as such internal work, and change the script... If you don't do such internal work, then you'll live it externally in events. Then you'll have an opportunity again to experience this, but already based on realized events. But it's not a fact that you'll still rethink. We see the previous president's events, somehow there was no rethinking even after this.
Romanenko: By the way, here I remembered an interesting example, that the same Yanukovych, he essentially went through two shames.
Khomyak: After the first he already radically changed.
Romanenko: Yes-yes, this is important. Actually shame, such catastrophe, can be not only annihilation of personality.
Khomyak: Everyone thought that he's done, the end. But he sat for a year, and came out "with good Ukrainian language," and everything worked out for him. But then the question arises. He seemed to rethink everything, came out.
Romanenko: He didn't rethink everything.
Khomyak: Yes. The question is, what didn't he rethink? He can rethink a lot, but if this direction, motive remains. He, you know, kind of rethought it like - I need to figure everything out for the sake of, after all, implementing this.
Romanenko: Why didn't I achieve presidential power?
Khomyak: Precisely under the word power he means, everyone has their own. This is a sensory experience, such total control. That is, his own domain. This part didn't change. Therefore he pulled all forces together, sorted out everything else, won, and it hit him even much more seriously.
If you don't deal with this direction and invest forces, then the blow will be even stronger. The payback will be even stronger. Because all the force you invested, it will return to you, hit you.
Romanenko: That's exactly what happened with Yanukovych.
Khomyak: Yes. This is such a vivid example that a person actually applied effort, changed very strongly, but it ended very tragically for him and for the country.
Romanenko: Look, while you were talking, I thought about how strangely it turned out, and maybe prophetically, that essentially Zelensky programmed himself with that series thanks to which he won. If you look at the sequence of those series, we clearly see that now he's heading toward being imprisoned. That oligarchs will unite and imprison him.
And that configuration we see today in this seething oligarchic layer just assumes that Ukraine will come to its most powerful state crisis, which can end either in Ukraine's annihilation or its rebirth, the emergence of a republic or disintegration.
Khomyak: Yes, such a situation awaits us. The end of the Ukrainian state in the format in which it was created. Here, essentially, 30 years can be considered as an era of national revival, or can be considered as an era of degradation. But evidence can be provided for both.
And regarding the series, there's a very interesting theme. They filmed it how? There are three seasons. He wins eventually in the third season, if you remember. But the third season was filmed for the elections. That is, it had a purely propagandistic direction, while the first two seasons they filmed while conducting opinion polls.
[Photo caption: Volodymyr Zelensky during a marathon with journalists November 26, 2021. Photo: press service of the President of Ukraine]
This can be taken as a hypothesis that through opinion polls, qualitative research, they raise material that's in people's minds. They formalize it. If you watch the series itself, it's strange to watch because there's no connection between episodes. That is, the logic of transitions is unclear, just like in a person's fantasies. You just fantasize, and that's it.
Essentially, they formalized people's fantasies without really thinking about how this will affect them. On one hand - this is such an interesting tool for researching the unconscious. We can say that our people think this way, that there are such people who can go take revenge, but they usually end badly. The lords imprison them, crucify them, etc.
Moreover, we had a dramatic history in Soviet Union textbooks - the dramatic struggle of the peasantry and Cossacks against such and such. Essentially, he was elected as realization of this script. And the funniest thing really is that, I think, no one has really delved into this yet, when all this will end. Because one part was obvious to everyone - he won elections thanks to the series. Essentially, his task was to say nothing extra during elections.
Romanenko: Yes. For this function they brought in Razumkov and other speakers who tried to complement with professional messages.
Khomyak: Accordingly, they'll later study the second part, from this programming itself. Actually a very interesting thing, just like we remember the film "Wag the Dog." But here and there, in principle, quite accurate coincidence. But here it seems more serious. We're innovators in this sense. That is, the question, again, is research of this collective unconscious and then how you formalize it, through what.
Because in the collective unconscious (let's conditionally take such a term collective unconscious), there are still many different scripts, many aspects. The question is - what will you orient toward. He's for justice - let's do them together. But this worked. Zelensky has another interesting moment (it was clearly visible during elections and now in crisis situations), at the moment when he experiences that there's an attack on him personally... This situation, remember, the video - "I'm not a sucker." That is, these are experiences when you're oriented toward glory, toward acceptance, toward recognition, and then there will be acute experience if someone despises you and considers you worthless.
For me, let's say, this will be about nothing, some foolishness came to someone's mind. But for a person with his construction, naturally, this will be a pain point. I'll have a different pain point, due to being organized differently.
And at this pain point he starts behaving completely radically differently. That is, did you notice, he becomes completely unrestrained, nothing scares him. He becomes very tough, precise and hits very precisely. During elections with the stadium, with all these things, this was very clearly visible. Moreover, they all believe he can do this. And essentially this whole year, even his whole presidency, they simply didn't believe he could. But he can.
Only another matter is that this works tactically, situationally, he doesn't change anything. Tactically, situationally, and actually at the moment when he shoots from a machine gun (this is in the series), he generates a bunch of enemies, a bunch of problems which, you know - scorched earth tactics. A lot of offended people. And that's it, he comes to an equilibrium state. In an equilibrium state he's such, kind of can't really figure out the situation, etc. But when they hurt him, he becomes very tough, precise, cruel, to the point of cruelty. Because a very deep level is already affected - psychodynamic, connected with personal traumas.
I'd like to say here that this doesn't mean Zelensky is strange, we're all like this. Each of us can remember a situation when a topic, if they hit it, it's hard to keep yourself in control, you become unrestrained. If I know such situations, I can at least somehow control them, work through them. Or at least understand, when I calm down, that I need to go apologize, do something else, or correct.
If you don't know, then this works at certain moments, you know, as if you made a sharp action, your route changed, but you already didn't notice that it changed.
Romanenko: Moreover, if you're an external subject and you understand this weakness of yours, you can use it, essentially manipulating.
Khomyak: Of course. I'm telling you all these things, and saying that most likely our politicians don't have any such function. Although, I know that, for example, in the KGB, SBU, FSB, there are departments that deal with psychological analysis. When I finished institute, they invited me to work. But due to life's complexity then, peculiarities, I still chose commercial - to go into business.
But I know how it's done. People sit who, from video recordings, speeches, texts, collecting information, form your psychological portrait. Then, knowing your psychological portrait, how to influence, what actions can lead to what, to what exact result. This is also used for recruitment. But all this is used in serious organizations. Therefore, sometime, if you remember, last year or at the beginning of this one, Mr. Yermak said that Mr. Kozak from Russia is almost his friend, this is the peak of Mr. Kozak's work. It's called recruitment.
Romanenko: This once again shows that this skeptical attitude of our society toward such instruments as psychology constantly plays a very...
Khomyak: Primitiveness, general primitiveness. That is, that's how it is. As I once talked with my cousin, it was long ago, and he's a practical person, was in business, land, something else. This was twenty years ago. He asks me: "what do you do?" - "Psychology." - "About nothing."
Not in the sense of offensive. For him this is about nothing, in the sense, you can't touch this. This, kind of, doesn't exist. Therefore, if for you this doesn't exist, then you're completely defenseless from the point of influence on you. Because this doesn't exist for you, you don't see it at all.
Romanenko: Because if you're in politics, you don't see this as a weapon and as an instrument.
Khomyak: Accordingly, further they use this. If we talk about Russia, we have one enemy - Russia for the Ukrainian state. They purposefully use this, powerfully use it. All these personnel remained there. They work seriously with this.
Moreover, they work not only with top politicians, but also at grassroots level. Because it's clearly visible how they raise some activists. Same with Buzina. This is textbook.
That is, you start purposefully raising someone to use either as bait or modeling a situation that then allows you to realize your interests.
Romanenko: Yes. And such a person who is being used, if they don't have this self-reflection... What is self-reflection? I have my psyche, my reactions, I react somehow. When they influence me, it's clear I'll react acutely.
I have such a marker inside that tracks all this, like a camera sensor. It tracks everything and in the evening, conditionally speaking, even if I don't have my person I could talk to, I sit and can replay this. And intuitively I feel something's happening that's not right. That is, some such function of self-observation. But when you tell this to someone in our country, it seems to me...
Romanenko: I'll tell you, I know such people.
Khomyak: Yes, they exist.
Romanenko: But that's already top level, as they say. Because these are actually people who really at any moment, when necessary, look at themselves from the outside, how the situation looks from the outside. You, being on air, for example, if it's a politician, must understand how it looks from the outside. Not only for you, involved in this broadcast, but how it looks for those viewers, you need to imagine them. How understandable you are to them, what messages, how will this be perceived?
This, by the way, in business, when you talk with successful people who achieved success primarily through their own efforts. When you talk with them, most of them have their own strategies, not even taken from books. They came to them somehow either through ancestral channels or somehow they formed them themselves. But they start telling about some things, how they make decisions. There it is. In business there's much more of this. In politics there's less of this.
But I think all these situations that are happening now, being analyzed, will provoke precisely that this function should somehow be more in demand.
Khomyak: I don't know if there's sense in touching on this topic. Zelensky's opponents, how do they look psychologically? Now, for instance, Avakov came out (started playing). I can't say he returned triumphantly. He returned triumphantly for the elite. Because for the majority of the population he's rather a toxic-negative character. But for the elite - this is a kind of triumph, because he withdrew, waited it out, struck a blow and, again, will try to return to the game.
If we talk about opponents, about those who are the president's opponents, they also go through some stage of observing all these successes, everyone was stunned. And now such reassembly is happening, when everything starts falling apart, more problems arise. He generates many offended people with his victories, and at some point the quantity of these offenses transforms into quality. That is, people start thinking, gathering, etc.
If we talk about Avakov's speech, it was more emotional, seems like they hurt the person with something. We don't know all the nuances, or we know but they're not official. And he at some point comes out and speaks very emotionally. There's probably not yet some definite plan, how, what will be. This is rather a position statement that I'm going on the warpath and a call - unite.
But it sounded this on the same day when the well-known Geo Leros showed... That is, it was such a symptomatic day for Zelensky. Now simply, I understand, there will be many contacts, communication, building this understanding, position, how, where to go.
[Photo caption: Volodymyr Zelensky during a marathon with journalists November 26, 2021. Photo: press service of the President of Ukraine]
Same Razumkov, by the way, it's also interesting to observe how he changes. Initially they said Razumkov is too intelligent, soft, etc. He is such. Was.
It's not a problem what we are by character. Much more valuable is what happens to us when we get hit. The starting point means nothing. The question is, do you react to these blows and do you change? You can be very smart, strong, etc., but after each blow nothing changes, that's it, there'll be nothing. It's visible with Razumkov that he's becoming tougher. For Razumkov, it turns out, unexpected blows were needed, betrayals, someone left there, not everyone entered this faction. Some other actions that force some intelligentsia traits to distance themselves. But it's also visible with Razumkov that he's changing. This is interesting.
That is, a blow happens and a person changes. What will be in the end is hard to say, but he's developing. Since the situation will now be dynamic, most likely he's guaranteed these various blows, contacts, moments. He'll, accordingly, be formatted through this type of negativity.
Romanenko: But he, it seems to me, has what Zelensky doesn't have. The ability to look several steps ahead and understand...
Khomyak: He's a political consultant.
Romanenko: That being even in the most top position (and he's still speaker - this is one of the most top positions in political hierarchy), you still can't allow yourself everything that many imagine you can allow yourself in this position.
And this is a very important quality because essentially it determined the logic of actions when he didn't make concessions at these National Security and Defense Council meetings, didn't sign what they wanted, avoided this in every way.
This already said that he had his own position. And he also has such a sphere of activity, he works as an observer, as a consultant. That is, he has this position in his head. He accordingly can do this in relation to himself. And he has more chances not to drown in all this. Because he has this worked out as a professional skill. Zelensky has a completely different professional skill.
Therefore it's interesting to observe everyone, how people change. Especially publicly. We'll see many more interesting things there. There are some old players who are visibly not changing anymore. This very moment that they personally don't change is a signal that there's no perspective there. Because they personally don't change. You can change external appearance, hairstyle, etc., but so what. Something should change in slogans, in ideas, approaches, if it doesn't change, then it's useless.
Romanenko: You're just talking, and I have such images before my eyes.
Khomyak: Just such a subtle topic. We can see them, they exist, they took their niche, and they won't go anywhere. Rethinking is required. Rethinking is essentially death of self and birth. This is a hard act actually. That's why if they do it, it's precisely in a difficult situation, when it's hopeless. When you have nowhere to go, you'll do this. A normal person outside of this won't do this.
Romanenko: Look, from this flows, from such a psychological conversation, even more fundamental questions. Everything you're talking about is about the Second Ukrainian Republic. Because Zelensky essentially realizes the impossibility of further existence in such a form, on such a basis.
He brings it to total peak, embodiment. Because what they call incompetent, he's not restrained by any stereotypes. He doesn't have in his head that you can't do this. Why can't you? You can.
He takes this, does it and brings it to absurdity. Plays this role. I wrote at the very beginning that he has the "Joker" role. Joker is a destroyer. A destroyer person who, destroying, can himself perish (or maybe not). That is, here he plays it.
You can look at a rational level. There's a national level: Zelensky should be such - he's not such, our population is such - not such. But there's an irrational level where the logic of the unconscious goes. This Second Republic - it's not viable. The thinking itself there is not viable. It must die. And in this sense, leaders turn out such that correspond to this. Competence would be needed for competent state management, but incompetence is needed to destroy this.
That is, from another side, he plays his role in this whole script. He must bring it to absurdity because we, as humanistically directed people, can think: but if he were competent, if he did it right. And what would happen? Would drag it out somehow? Because to do it right, you need to stop all this, say, like Tymoshenko, when she started, tried, even constitutional reform... It all sounded so beautiful, but in fact it was just PR. Although actually it concerned really important changes. This is what would need to be moved toward.
But how will people go for this? They simply won't go by their own will. But if we take someone with such qualities that will correspond to problematization, then he'll easily play this role, being completely sure that he's going to a place in history.
Romanenko: Good that you remembered Tymoshenko. Because Tymoshenko and her perspective in 2019 well illustrates how it was possible to go, and how she didn't go.
Because if you look at neighboring Poland, there Lech Kaczyński in a situation when it became obvious that it's necessary to transform the party, took the step of leaving from under the "spotlight." That is, he went into shadow. Everyone knew that he really pulls the strings, manages the party, etc. He brought forward youth, Duda and others. But in fact, his party system only benefited from this.
Khomyak: It turns out, decisions need to be made not at the level of these psychological impulses, desires: now I won't be in the spotlight, something else. But if there's this self-awareness, self-reflection, I can feel, sense where the power goes. Maybe here I need to go into shadow, something else.
But to act like this, you need to already be maximally free from your own complexes, ability to distance yourself. We all have sediment, everyone has complexes, but a person who is mature, strong or controlling, a person who can distance themselves from a complex, make a difficult decision for themselves... You understand, it's not difficult from outside, it's reasonable. It's difficult inside. It's difficult for me inside to do this. For this there needs to be vision. Yes, when Tymoshenko raised these questions, she turned in a different direction. Essentially, she maintains herself at her level.
Romanenko: Another example can be given in development of what you said. I was just arguing in my Facebook the day before yesterday with Tolya Amelin. He wrote a big text about Parvus's role in the 1917 Revolution. I read it, as a historian I got ruffled and spent three hours...
Khomyak: I saw it.
Romanenko: Sitting on iPhone typing all this. But I took Lenin's example as an example of what you're talking about. After all, actually, Lenin despite all his complexes, personality specifics, etc., his real strength was that he could at a critical moment discard everything that weighed on him and act as the situation of the moment required.
For example, after he read Hegel when he was in Switzerland, he understood that you can use peasants as drivers of revolution. Although all Marxist literature on this clearly said: revolution happens only where there's proletariat and only there. And so he returns to Russia, his April Theses, where he precisely leads to this, that "peasants, we're betting on them" and involves this whole huge peasant mass in the game. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, when...
Khomyak: These are such decisions that now seem to us, like... But at that moment, this was such a hard act.
Romanenko: Essentially an act of capitulation, where inside...
Khomyak: You need to capitulate to take everything back in a year.
Romanenko: NEP - another example. When you send all war communism to the dump. Because you realize all this doesn't work, it becomes mortally dangerous. Kronstadt uprising, etc., etc.
But if you're a populist. That is, Lenin - a person who raised masses, but turns out not a populist, could make such decisions. If you're a populist, like in our situation, difficult situation with Covid, why wouldn't you come out and say, address the nation? Because a leader usually does this. In a difficult situation, when the nation is disoriented, chaos and panic, the only thing they can do is come out and tell the truth. At this moment, actually, when everyone's scared and it's hard, people react very well to truth. Because they understand that at least someone takes responsibility...
There's a good film "Free State of Jones." This is an American film about a real situation. In America during the Civil War, a territory independently organized itself into Jones State. There it's interestingly shown how a deserter (this guy, finding himself among deserters), at difficult moments is spontaneously forced to play the leader's role. He doesn't want to, he wants to escape, but he understands that either their cause will be covered or something needs to be done. At these moments he makes such sharp statements. Everyone from panic accordingly instantly clings to the leader and they win. They create a huge independent territory during the civil war.
In our situation, what is a populist? A populist at a hard moment is torn by these ratings.
Romanenko: Sociology.
Khomyak: But at a critical moment, as Chapaev said in the film - where should the commander be? Old Soviet film, where he shows on potatoes.
Romanenko: Yes, matches.
Khomyak: So, behind, because they might kill the commander. But if the attack succeeded, in front need to catch up.
He shows there that roles should change. But our leader loses on this. He really loses because he thinks this will affect Lyashko's image. But how on Lyashko's image, you made a system to remove personalities. A good minister for Zelensky (ideal) - is Prime Minister Shmyhal, whom the population practically doesn't know. This is ideal. That is, this means everything will hang on you.
Romanenko: And you came to this yourself.
Khomyak: You can, of course, remove Shmyhal, but no one knows him. This will just be a blow to you: who are you recruiting.
All these situations with changing ministers, he thinks this looks like constant renewal, new faces, but from the outside it looks like managerial incompetence, you can't decide. You have complete chaos. And gradually all this will form. But inside he has a different picture, he thinks it looks somehow different.
That is, the limit of the situation will be this. For Covid, Lyashko never appeared, he appeared now, everything will hit Zelensky. But that's how it hit.
Romanenko: I absolutely agree. Also, when you talked about sociology they used when making the film, I wanted to ask this question. Generally, this is precisely reflection of leader weakness, because sociology is an instrument, but sociology should never be an instrument that forms a leader's decision, especially at a responsible moment.
Khomyak: Sociology shows us fantasy. And the subtle question is: how do you get, earn money from these fantasies. You just take them and voice them. And people joyfully watch this, kind of with self-recognition, get high.
But if you make a decision, this is material, you don't just want them to get high, you want this people, with their fantasies (you want, if you had such a plan), to bring to some point. There Moses across the water...
[Photo caption: Volodymyr Zelensky during a marathon with journalists November 26, 2021. Photo: press service of the President of Ukraine]
These fantasies are needed to understand how to influence this, to move there. Because the easiest thing is just to return these fantasies. You'll get pleasure, likes, here and now, and general obsession, general madness.
This you know, our Institute conducted in summer, this big research, who we are.
Romanenko: For the thirtieth anniversary.
Khomyak: Yes, for the thirtieth anniversary, precisely this sociology was done for several months, focus groups, etc. In short, they traveled all over Ukraine, did it for a very long time. And there, in people, when you read, what was realized in the series, everything is there. You see all this very clearly.
There the ideal time for Ukraine is the time of this "Cossackry," "golden Cossack times." If you'll orient toward these views and start realizing what was in "golden Cossack times," you'll be a loser because that era is gone, and those organizational forms, all the tasks that existed are not relevant.
Romanenko: So when they take these "golden Cossack times," which era do they take? Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Ruin. But the sweetest times were after this. This is the Hetmanate of the 18th century when there were no wars, but there were no heroes either.
Khomyak: Because everything was under Russia.
Romanenko: Everything was calm, they lived calmly until Catherine II liquidated it. But the era of these heroes is the era of three hetmans. That is, it's the Ruin, the country was practically bled dry. Accordingly, together with these heroes, all these stereotypes, scripts automatically load. The point from which we now rely is destructive, which is strange.
And the most dangerous thing is that we're afraid to admit this, that these narratives presented as top actually have huge destructive potential in them. Reproduction of the model now leads to what was then.
Romanenko: Imagine, some person must come who will say: "all this was catastrophe," completely turn everything around. Imagine what blow must be dealt to society, and it must be dealt with in order to restructure all this.
Khomyak: Look, I remember our neighbors' history - Turkey. Atatürk comes in '22, he precisely said this: "guys, all this is catastrophe, all this 'gray-haired antiquity of the Ottoman Empire' with all Süleymans, etc., this is all about catastrophe. We must radically change. Therefore fezzes - off, writing system - off, organizational forms - off, church - off, everything - off."
Romanenko: This succeeds because it's a difficult situation. Therefore people have nothing to hold onto, they're ready for anything. And reliance not on the past but reliance on the future, we must become. We have reliance on the past. We have what's called "national revival."
Khomyak: What revival? Here we need to create, what to revive here, there's nothing to revive there. If you remember, in the film "Brexit" Cumberbatch is a political consultant, he has such a phrase: "how I hate all this old stuff," when they walked through some city, and all this English antiquity, architecture, "how this prevents creative thinking." That is, he had emphasis on the future.
Romanenko: This is, by the way, generally Europe's problem because Europe turned out hostage to architecture, life, structure, way of life, from which it's very difficult to break out. This is a giant "hospice" under open sky in which it's comfortable, good, but there's no energy.
When you come to China and look at all these crazy projects they do there, you can deny their social structure, not accept strong authoritarianism, autocracy inherent to their society, but when you look...
I was in Shanghai in 2013 and I see there's a residential building with people living in it, and a bridge runs into it, and builders are running on this bridge, I understand these people will be removed, this building will be destroyed. Beautiful colonial architecture that was in Shanghai, where it doesn't fit into new plans, they demolished mercilessly, not worrying at all.
Khomyak: You know, because when they talk about development, usually it's perceived as something positive. Development - it's all the same drama, it's hard drama with big losses. These are complex things. Therefore in this sense although they talk a lot about development, few develop.
Because actually - it's trash, it's hard. You need to make such decisions that those around will say "you're a traitor." You betrayed antiquity, you betrayed such and such.
Romanenko: In Ukraine, to make such a blow, you're hitting identity, and you need not just to hit, you need to present something new, where we'll go, and this is a very strong step. That is, who will do such a thing? Hrushevsky once created this, he didn't particularly hit anything there, he cut out a piece from big history, created.
Khomyak: The concept of Ukraine-Rus.
Romanenko: Generally created Ukraine as such. How to create Ukraine now, he drew it into the past. And that's it, now we live, he's the creator of this. But now the next step is needed, something needs to be changed differently because this concept doesn't work anymore. Something needs to be done differently.
Because we had Cossacks and peasants, the elite - these were traitors. Although Prince Vyshnevetsky was Khmelnytsky's biggest enemy - an ethnic Ukrainian, wanted to become king, but all this national liberation struggle didn't allow this to be done, but the son became one.
Even the same history can be examined in a different key. It's a question of what meanings we attribute to historical facts.
Romanenko: Of course. Thank you for the conversation. I think it's very positive. Because actually many people now have fear before this whole abyss that's opening in the context of coming problems of the Second Ukrainian Republic. But it seems to me that those people who look at this as opportunities will go toward realizing this opportunity, these people will overcome this. And our nation ultimately will overcome those problems we face.
Khomyak: Yes. Opportunities exist.
Romanenko: Yes. Thank you!