What comes after the rallies?

The people at the rallies had their say. The authorities completely ignored him. The parties that entered the Duma did not fan the flame, agreeing to work on the terms proposed by the authorities. Indeed, why do they need further democratization of the process? After all, if you insist on holding real elections, you will have to allow Parnas, the National Bolsheviks, as well as the parties that Mikhail Prokhorov and Alexei Navalny will create. Then, you see, the results of the communists, Socialist-Revolutionaries and Zhiriks will go down again.
In the frosty winter it will be difficult to organize such rallies as took place on Saturday. And if the protest movement declines, the authorities will all the more not respond to the demands of the masses. But the current confrontation is of great importance.
Today we see the protest of the well-fed. Those people who took to the streets not so much because it is bad to live in the country, but because it is disgusting to live. Many people felt offended and said so directly.
The authorities understand well that the current offended will not sweep away the Putin regime, since they will not break the law. The well-fed have something to lose. They will not put their heads under the batons of riot police, they will not freeze endlessly in the squares, they will not exchange a stable job for the unstable existence of a professional revolutionary.
The question is whether the authorities understand otherwise. The fact that the second wave of a serious economic crisis has already begun in Europe. As the experience of the first wave has shown, the Russian economy is suffering much more severely from a virus brought from the West than the West itself. Just one drop in oil prices can make our country poor at once. And in this situation, not only a revolt of the well-fed is possible, but also a revolt of the hungry - those who have nothing to lose, those who are ready to go to the end, those who can sweep away everything in their path.
The problem with a revolt of the hungry is usually that it needs a leader from the camp of the well-fed. In other words, as long as the elites support the regime, it most likely remains intact. But the offended elites begin to behave in exactly the opposite way. They give meaning to the irrational hatred of the broad masses. They rationally explain to the hungry that their difficulties are not an accident, but a natural consequence of the existence of the current regime.
The revolt of the well-fed may have no meaning if the economic situation of the country improves. However, such improvement sooner or later reaches a limit. And then the long-accumulated hatred of the well-fed, combining with the suddenly arising hatred of the hungry, forms a mixture that is terrible for the rulers. After all, if the hungry respect their power, they are ready to endure difficulties for some time for the sake of higher goals, but if they do not respect the power, the fall of the regime becomes almost inevitable.
Bulat Okudzhava has two wise quatrains on this topic:

Universal experience says
That kingdoms are perishing
Not because life is hard
Or terrible ordeals

And they die because
(and the more painful it is, the longer it takes),
That the people of their kingdom
No more respect.

When a revolt of the well-fed is combined with a revolt of the hungry, the probability of the destruction of the kingdom is extremely high. But what will emerge from the wreckage?
This depends mainly on the actions of the authorities, on what tasks they set for themselves.
If the goal is to hold out as long as possible, and “even if there’s a flood after us,” the likelihood of a change from an authoritarian regime to democracy is low. And the riot of rallies can only accelerate the emergence of a new authoritarian regime led by some representative of the rebellion of the well-fed.
If the goal is a gentle transformation of the regime in order to avoid such cataclysms in the future, then the authorities can meet the elites halfway and jointly try to direct the growing protest to creative rather than destructive goals.
In other words, the government may follow the path of Hindenburg to pave the way for the new Hitler, or perhaps the path of Juan Carlos, who transformed Franco’s authoritarian regime into democracy. It is extremely important what solution Putin chooses in the current situation. He still has the opportunity to correct the consequences of his self-confident actions.

Dmitry TRAVIN, scientific director of the Center for Modernization Studies of the European University in St. Petersburg