Kazus Litvinovich

There are two sides to the story of the removal of Marina Litvinovich from the post of executive director of the United Civil Front. The first is the role of a political strategist in Russian party life.

Litvinovich is a professional political strategist, a representative of a profession that is deeply rational and focused on quickly achieving an optimal result. Practice shows that a political strategist may become uncomfortable in an ideological party (or movement, like the United Front). The best model of relations between a party and a political strategist is an employment agreement, when the specialist offers the client the best - in his opinion, of course - solutions, and the client has a choice from a large number of options, from full acceptance of recommendations to termination of cooperation. At the same time, the political strategist himself, of course, does not speak in the public space on behalf of the party, whose ideology he may not fully share, and sometimes not share at all. Each specialist (or company working in this field) has his own limitations in this matter; he himself determines which clients cannot be cooperated with, based on moral criteria. A political strategist may have his own political views, likes or dislikes, ideas about good and evil - this helps him not to turn into a landsknecht. But his work priority is professional efficiency - similar to a lawyer or financial analyst.

Marina Litvinovich became not only a political strategist, but also the main political organizer of the United Front, which inevitably led to the fact that she found herself within the structure of the United Front - an ideological and radical opposition movement, with its own internal discipline. This is a kind of club that has certain rules, non-compliance with which is unacceptable for the majority of its members. While these rules seemed to the political strategist to be the only possible ones, he followed them. However, sooner or later, conflict had to occur - when rationality came into conflict with the nature of the organization. According to the political strategist, the future of this organization is possible only as a result of serious changes, which are extremely difficult for it to make (if at all possible) for ideological or other significant reasons.

A political strategist can work with a structure that has no serious prospects for a year, two, three, or more. But if he understands the dead end of his efforts, then he strives to change the situation, while entering into conflict with supporters of orthodoxy. If he is outside the organization, everything is resolved simply, without unnecessary noise, which is disadvantageous to either party - the participants disperse peacefully. If inside, then a scandal is possible, which is what happened in the United Front, where a political strategist objectively turned into a politician, while maintaining a largely “technological” approach to solving political problems.

And here we come to the second side of this story. It seems that, from Litvinovich’s point of view, the radical opposition of the UCF, harsh intransigence towards all government officials and their actions, were inevitable at a time when they were provoked by the authorities themselves. Namely: a deliberate policy of excluding “dissenters” in the broad sense of the word from political life, from the radical NBP to the quite moderate Republicans of Vladimir Ryzhkov. Let’s just remember the forced exclusion from the electoral list of the most loyal “A Just Russia”, Sergei Shargunov. The new election legislation made it impossible for politicians who did not fit into the remaining seven political parties to run for the State Duma, only two of which (the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Yabloko) can be considered opposition, despite the fact that they too are forced to make compromises with the authorities.

What has changed since Dmitry Medvedev came to the presidency? At first glance, there are few changes - not a single fundamentally new party has been registered, and the state maintains dominance in the media sphere. Yet there are two new phenomena that require serious thought. The first of them is the rejection of the rigid policy of exceptions in favor of a gradual, evolutionary (in the Medvedev style) “inclusion” of critics of the authorities in the dialogue process. Nikita Belykh became governor of the Kirov region, and Maria Gaidar (who initially emotionally condemned him for this step) became vice-governor. Almost all of its members, who believed that human rights are a minor matter compared to the rights of the state, were removed from the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights. But Irina Yasina, Elena Panfilova (who now supported Marina Litvinovich in a conflict with the majority of the leaders of the United Front and announced her withdrawal from this organization), Dmitry Oreshkin are included. Elena Lukyanova became a member of the Public Chamber under the presidential quota. From the same series are some other actions of Medvedev that are not related to personal appointments. For example, an interview with Novaya Gazeta, after which the siege of this opposition publication, carried out by pro-Kremlin youth, ended. Is this not enough? From the opposition's point of view, probably yes. But we should not forget about the real influence of opposition forces on Russian society, which is now extremely small. And if Medvedev had not taken the actions listed above, this would not have affected his rating in any way.

The second phenomenon is Medvedev’s messages addressed to society. This is not only an article in Gazeta.ru, but also criticism of state corporations, and the position in the “Podrabinek case”, voiced by the president’s press secretary Natalya Timakova. Without this, the policy of “inclusion” could be explained by the desire to split the opposition, tearing out the most capable elements from its ranks. It seems, however, that this is not the case. Medvedev, wanting to create the most representative political coalition, is really looking for allies, including in that part of society that has been a “cut-off piece” for the Russian government in recent years. And this part – the opposition – is forced in this regard to define itself, splitting into “Bolsheviks” and “Mensheviks”. The “Bolsheviks” demand revolutionary changes from the authorities (and “here and now”), the “Mensheviks” are ready to accept Medvedev’s evolutionary logic. For the “Bolsheviks,” Ella Pamfilova is significantly more dangerous than the “Nashi” movement, because it distracts part of the opposition from the struggle in favor of dialogue. Just as Lenin considered the then Mensheviks and Cadets to be more harmful enemies of the working class than the Black Hundreds. Thus, in the current situation, Litvinovich found herself among the “Mensheviks,” whose position is completely unacceptable for the “Bolshevik” part of the opposition.

Do the Bolsheviks have a chance of success – not within a single organization, but on a national scale? Yes, but only in the context of another turmoil, of which there have been many in Russian history - after all, after the turmoil in this case, lustration will inevitably follow. Whether responsible politicians can focus on such a scenario, rejecting the possibility of evolution, even if not unconditional, is a rhetorical question.

The author is first vice-president of the Center for Political Technologies