Who is the dissenter now?

It is not Russia that is rising from its knees, it is civil society that is rising from its knees. The most lively, the most courageous and restless, the most dissenters have stopped asking the authorities for permission to exercise their legal rights. Yes, and as much as possible!

- Excuse me, may we exercise our legal right to freedom of street processions and march along this avenue at this time?

“No, dear ones,” the authorities say, “not along this avenue, but along this alley.” And not at this time, but at this time, just before dawn, when there is no one on the streets and you won’t bother anyone.

This went on for quite some time: some asked and agreed, others got confused and broke down. On January 31, tradition was broken - the organizers of the next “March of Dissent” did not notify the Moscow authorities about the place and time of the action.

The “dissenters” marched along Bolshaya Polyanka, meeting on their way only scattered resistance from Kremlin youth hooligans and some of the police officers who were most loyal to their superiors.

The police were in panic. She rushed along the sidewalks of Bolshaya Polyanka, called for help to passing military school cadets, and, in despair, wrung her own hands, and sometimes those of demonstrators. But the police were unable to cope with everyone. And the riot police, their faithful one, always ready to break at the command of “front” riot police, was unknown where. After all, he was not warned in advance when and where it would be necessary to seize the enemies of the “vertical”.

The situation has changed radically. Previously, “dissenters,” refuting their own name, asked the authorities to agree on travel routes or the location and time of rallies, thereby agreeing with the authorities’ illegal claim to restrict freedom of demonstration. Now the “dissenters” act in full compliance with the Russian Constitution, ignoring the illegal attempts of the authorities to restrict civil freedom.

It is high time to ignore this power in cases where it deliberately breaks the law and acts in violation of civil rights and freedoms. Just as in Soviet times the most “dissenters” lived freely in an unfree country, so now it is time to stop reckoning with the criminal inclinations of the authorities, with brute force and constant threats.

Of course, there will still be loyal sycophants in power who skillfully argue and are always ready to crawl on their bellies to the Kremlin to take part in some civic forums, public tents or human rights councils. There is no doubt that these servile, understanding everything, weighing everything and fearing everything will play their game, achieve personal success and then will talk long and tediously about the relationship between reasonable risk and the required effect.

However, real changes in the country are achieved only by those who act without counting on quick success, without regard for the dire consequences, without the desire to please everyone and not cross anyone’s path. There are few such people. There were few of them before, and there are few of them now. Perhaps this is why so few political changes have occurred in our country over the past 20 years; they are so insignificant and not as impressive as, for example, in some Eastern European countries. The changes are increasingly decorative, cosmetic, imitation. Just look, everything will suddenly return to Soviet rails following the anthem, the search for the enemy on the borders of the homeland and within the country.

The only thing that can stop the country from sliding into the abyss of Sovietization is civil society. The political parties and human rights organizations that feed from the hands of local administrations and the Kremlin are not the ones who stand in line for grants at the Public Chamber and carefully check the dose of critical statements. A real civil society is a community of citizens who do not stoop to handouts or grovel before the authorities. Even when there are few of them - not millions, but thousands; even when they are not legalized and they do not have a round seal or an office in the city center. But they are the ones who make the weather. They are the tuning fork by which public opinion is tuned.

Who now remembers how its new state flag was established in the new Russia? In the late 80s, the tricolor was brought onto the streets of Moscow by the Democratic Union, a small political organization that was looked down upon and irritated by the “foremen of perestroika,” fashionable journalists who had not yet gotten rid of their party cards, and democratically minded progressive writers. They considered the Democratic Unionists to be upstarts, troublemakers and called them “demshiza”. But it was these troublemakers who stubbornly went out to Pushkin Square and raised the tricolor Russian flag, and for this they were subjected to blows from police batons and court decisions on administrative arrests. And in the end, one of the deputies of the Supreme Council placed a small Russian flag in front of him in the meeting room, and a scandal ensued. And then other deputies, politicians and public figures gradually became inspired by the idea of ​​the new flag. And finally, it became the state flag of Russia.

This is a forgotten story, like many others like it. But just because it was forgotten, it did not cease to be true. Following in the footsteps of troublemakers, loners and outcasts is a prosperous establishment that is stealing a victory that does not belong to it. It has always been this way and probably always will be.

The story of the January 31 march has another, slightly funny aspect. The question is in the title. Who disagrees with what? “Dissenters” act according to laws and common sense. The current government does not agree with the Basic Law and international standards in the field of protection of human rights and civil liberties. “Dissenters” rely on fundamental laws, while the authorities rely on hastily adopted political decisions. So who is it more correct to call dissenters?