Not just a rally

It is clear that the rallies will not bring much effect in the near future. The fact is that they gather quite a few people. Even 50 thousand (and on March 10 it was even less) for multimillion-dollar Moscow is not a very large number. Putin’s supporters and apolitical ordinary people are not too interested in these events or perceive them negatively: they say, these goats can’t sit in their Moscow, they should calm down already. And the authorities know very well that such actions do not particularly threaten them and are not going to make serious concessions. The elections have passed, and now the use of force even at authorized rallies will become a regular occurrence.

As you know, the ruling elite and its smaller henchmen love not only power, but also money. Many officials have their own businesses - legalized or not. So why don’t we start protesting not in our free time, but in our working time? In European countries, strikes are commonplace; it’s time for us to adopt this experience. Naturally, ordinary workers are unlikely to agree to go on strike now under slogans like “Putin must leave.” But we know very well that wages in the country are low and are often not paid on time, so these facts can be used to motivate the broad masses. If entire enterprises begin to shut down, which will cause inconvenience for ordinary citizens (the metro closes, for example), they will pay attention much faster to what is happening in the country. And in the event of initial successes, all those who were taken by bus to the Putings, forced to vote for the “fairly winning” candidate, and so on, may begin to declare themselves - so that both economic and political demands will be put forward.

We just need to figure out who will organize all this, since we don’t seem to have normal trade unions. There are quite a lot of those who, in principle, would agree to participate in such actions, but they are intimidated and do not want to lose their jobs - if three and a half employees go on strike, they will be immediately fired under a far-fetched pretext, which will only intimidate the rest and put an end to such events for a long time ideas. If we are going to perform, then in large numbers.