Delegitimize power

Until now, we continue to argue about the existence of a Citizens' Congress. And it was precisely these disputes that most likely prevented

to become fully established as the organization we all dreamed of two years ago, when it was convened for the first time. Much of the disagreement has to do with the loose structure of the organization and differences in ideas about what we are going to do together. Many say that in the name - the All-Russian Civil Congress - the emphasis should be on the word “civil”. This point of view means that we should not be involved in any political struggle, we are not interested in this, we are separate, we are a civil society. But the name of the Congress also has a continuation: “For democracy, against dictatorship.” I believe no one will argue that during the existence of the Civil Congress there has been much less democracy, and much more dictatorship. And if we are against dictatorship, it means we are positioning ourselves as part of the political process.

We are all people here with an active lifestyle, people who are not indifferent to what is happening in our country. The reality around us is becoming darker and darker. And the main question today is: what can we do in this situation? Yes, we are adopting the right resolutions, we have enough intellectual potential to understand the country’s problems and conduct a serious discussion about it. But if all this does not produce results or they are becoming less and less, it means that the algorithm of our actions, which seemed completely natural to us ten years ago, five years ago, two years ago, requires a categorical revision today. And any position or lack thereof, refusal to take active action is in fact participation in the formation of a political field, which today is by no means democratic, it clearly tends towards dictatorship. Yes, we can say that the theory of small things is also very important, I will not argue with that. You can refer to the fact that the people are “not mature”, or to the historical process in general. First, they say, there is a revolution, and then a reaction is inevitable. But this is an excuse. It seems to me that such a position is unacceptable, because we have all participated in this process since the 90s. This means that we are all responsible for what is happening today.

Yes, of course, we cannot directly influence the situation using parliamentary methods, or rather, not all of us can. Theoretically, such an opportunity is available only to those to whom the Kremlin has issued a mandate for political activity. In Russia, the electoral process has been completely eliminated. The latest amendments to the election law, which Putin signed, clearly record a situation where the government influences absolutely all stages of the electoral process - from the registration of political parties to the counting of votes, including control over campaigning.

Participation in the election process means transferring, I insist on this, your resource to the Kremlin. This is not a question of turnout, a minimum threshold, this is a question of legitimizing the regime.

comes to President Putin, meets with him, and after that Putin signs a law that actually abolishes elections in Russia. It does not matter what a given party leader said at this meeting and what statements he made before or after it. He gave a piece of his political resource to the current regime.

And the Civil Congress has enormous authority, I have no doubt about it. It is no coincidence that today representatives of left-wing organizations, even some nationalist ones, talk about the need to introduce rules of political liberalism. This is our territory. This is how the “Other Russia” was created.

It was the enormous moral authority possessed by the Civil Congress that made it possible to begin reformatting the political space in Russia. For the first time in a long time, there was a demand for the ideas of political liberalism, for freedom of speech, for freedom of communication, for free elections. We started talking about these things not only among ourselves. Even our ideological opponents began to speak the same language. Yes, there remains a huge difference in our vision of how to solve the problem. But our tools for solving these problems are being adopted, and this is a colossal victory.

We must remember that power always needs legitimization. She, guided by the traditional principle of “divide and conquer,” finds a way to suck this legitimation out of the civil society that we represent. Today, consciously working with power, even based on the principle of the lesser evil, historical determinism, the need to solve some specific small problems, means legitimizing it. The government that organized “Nord-Ost”, Beslan and committed many other crimes.

The abolition of the turnout threshold is actually a smokescreen. The authorities are afraid that you will deprive them of their legitimacy. And this is within our power. This is not an easy path. This is not just a boycott: I stayed at home and did nothing. This is a conscious position that involves explaining to people - not our like-minded people, not potential today's allies, but millions of Russian citizens - what awaits us. What depends on each of them is what country we will live in.