In addition to Kaliningrad, protests on March 20 are planned in several dozen other cities. And judging by information from the field, the authorities decided to fight these protests using proven administrative and forceful methods.

DMITRY KAMYSHEV, AFANASY SBOROV

As “Vlast” has already written (see the material “ Operation Clean Square” in No. 7 of February 22 ), observers were forced to pay attention to the increase in protest activity of Russians in the first months of 2010 by the nervous reaction of regional and federal authorities. But if at that time the conclusion about the Kremlin’s serious concern about isolated and not very large rallies seemed not entirely obvious, then the next three weeks confirmed that this nervousness not only really exists, but is also intensifying as March 20 approaches.

True, at first it seemed that the specter of the “Orange Revolution” frightened the authorities so much that, contrary to custom, they showed a readiness to come to an amicable agreement with those who disagreed. Kaliningrad Governor Georgy Boos went the furthest in this sense, promising the opposition a whole range of various concessions in exchange for canceling the rally - from providing a platform in the local media to the resignation of the most unloved officials.

But it was the Kaliningrad experience that seems to have finally convinced the Kremlin and the White House that it is categorically not recommended to even partially loosen the screws that were previously tightened. Because this will still not be enough for the oppositionists who feel their strength, and following the finger indicating how and where they should rally, they will certainly bite off the entire guiding hand. In addition, it is much easier and more common for the authorities to use old, proven methods of “peace enforcement” than to seek compromises with the opposition.

Wrong places

The oldest and most proven of these methods can be considered the “Luzhkov method”, regularly and with pleasure used by the Moscow authorities. It consists in the fact that the central square where the rally participants would like to gather suddenly turns out to be occupied in connection with the holding of some extremely important event. But since the authorities, of course, respect the right to freedom of assembly, in this case they usually offer applicants a choice of several quiet and very remote places from the center, where the self-expression of oppositionists will not be interfered with by cars or random passers-by.

In addition to the Kaliningrad leadership, which resorted to this method, desperate to cancel the rally through persuasion alone, the authorities of Arkhangelsk had chosen the same path a little earlier. Immediately after the previous rally on February 21, Mayor Viktor Pavlenko issued a resolution listing places recommended for holding mass events, and the city’s main square was not included in this list. Of course, the mayor's office rejected the application for an opposition rally on March 20, citing not this very dubious decision from the point of view of the law, but the holding of another event there. However, one of the leaders of the local Solidarity, Alexander Yufryakov, is confident that in fact there are no other applications.

The authorities of Tula also imposed an “eternal” ban on protests under the windows of the regional administration, explaining this by the fact that the central square is not intended for political events, but only for public festivities. True, for some reason the Tula people are “walking” exclusively under the flags of United Russia, which recently organized rallies there to coincide with the holidays of February 23 and March 8 without any problems.

The oppositionists of St. Petersburg, who decided to hold it in one of the city’s traditional meeting places - near the Yubileiny sports complex, also expected a routine refusal to approve their rally last week. As the head of the local branch of the United Civil Front, Olga Kurnosova, told Interfax, “there will definitely be a refusal at Yubileiny, because this territory has been leased to the sports palace for 49 years, and the St. Petersburg administration has a formal reason to refuse us.” Therefore, just in case, the organizers submitted another request for a rally near the Petersburgsky sports and cultural complex (by the time this issue was signed for publication, a response had not yet been received from Smolny).

In Samara, the opposition did not plan any actions for March 20, but the authorities still staked out Kuibyshev Square, just in case. One application was submitted by the regional Ministry of Agriculture, who wanted to please their fellow countrymen with an agricultural fair on that very day. And the regional public foundation "Youth. Family. Morality", which had not previously been seen in street activity, decided to organize a rally "Youth against drugs." Moreover, according to the application, young people intend to protest against this evil for eight hours straight - from 10.00 to 18.00.

Finally, a somewhat modernized version of the “Luzhkov method” was used by the administration of Murmansk, where the local branch of Solidarity submitted an application to hold a rally on March 20. According to the movement’s website, city hall officials were initially unwilling to accept the application, citing the fact that “only registered organizations can hold a rally” (in fact, even individual citizens have this right by law). Then they “demanded that the slogans that would be heard at the rally be coordinated with them,” and only after the applicants rejected this demand did they issue an official refusal.

Wrong allies

Another type of anti-protest activity has been efforts to reduce the number of participants in street protests. Here, of course, there were also very anecdotal situations like the Communist Party of the Russian Federation rally in Penza on March 7, from which the authorities tried to divert attention by offering free entry to the zoo and free excursions around the city (tourists were recruited in the same square where the rally took place). But many bosses acted more cunningly, trying to lower the degree of protest sentiment precisely in those areas that, as we noted three weeks ago, caused particular concern among the authorities.

Let us recall that the first such alarming circumstance was that the winter rallies, perhaps for the first time since the beginning of the Putin era, united oppositionists of different orientations - from systemic to radical. Secondly, people were forced to protest not by party discipline or adherence to some ideological guidelines (as is usually the case at purely party rallies), but by the desire to protect their own, one might say, “selfish” interests from encroachments by the authorities. And this motive can bring a much larger number of Russians onto the streets.

The easiest way to solve the problem was with the disloyal behavior of the systemic opposition. Whether its leaders were called to the Kremlin carpet or themselves realized the mistakes they had made is not known for certain. But in early March, representatives of the three parliamentary opposition parties unanimously and in very similar terms dissociated themselves from their non-systemic colleagues.

Moscow has developed a universal method of responding to opposition protests: on August 31, 2009, cyclists were launched into Triumfalnaya Square (pictured), and on January 31, 2010, Young Russia activists were launched.
Photo: Alexander Weinstein, Kommersant

First, the deputy chairman of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Kashin, who heads the All-Russian Headquarters of Protest Actions, sent an angry letter to the regional committees demanding “not to allow participation in actions organized by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation of all kinds of charlatans, political crooks (the Solidarity movement, etc.) irreparable damage to the labor movement." Then the leader of Just Russia, Sergei Mironov, said that his fellow party members should “not join someone, but carry out actions on their own,” so in Kaliningrad on March 20, Just Russia members are planning their own rallies “with their own slogans.” And then the head of the Kaliningrad liberal democrats, vice-speaker of the regional Duma Valery Seleznev, reported to RIA Novosti about their reluctance to unite with other politicians. “Our branch is planning to hold its own rally on March 20. We have our own demands, we want to voice them ourselves,” he explained, emphasizing that Vladimir Zhirinovsky will “voice” them personally.

True, on the ground there will apparently be problems with the implementation of these guidelines, especially among the communists. For example, the Primorsky branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, after receiving the mentioned letter, joined the opposition coalition “against the destructive policies of the government and the United Russia party,” whose members included not only “crooks” from Solidarity, but also local associates of former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. And the head of the Arkhangelsk regional committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Alexander Novikov, explained to Vlast his disagreement with the instructions of the leadership as follows: “Increasing tariffs is a common problem, now is not the time to divide into “red” and “white” and show political sterility.”

As for selfish incentives to participate in protests, the authorities tried to counter them with tireless concern for improving the material well-being of their fellow citizens. Thus, on March 4, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that from April 1, pensions in Russia will be indexed by 6.3%, since “carrying out a responsible policy also means fulfilling obligations to our citizens.” The objections of Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who stated that this would lead to a budget deficit for the pension fund in the amount of 130-170 billion rubles, were not taken into account. On March 9, State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov held a video meeting on housing and communal services problems, at which he reprimanded regional and municipal leaders for precisely what in many regions became the main reason for the protests—a sharp increase in utility tariffs.

Well, as a last resort, for the most dull-witted, the bosses, in addition to the carrot, also had a stick. So it cannot be ruled out that in some places on March 20 the authorities will still have to resort to the most severe methods of influencing dissenters. After all, without the use of these methods, it will not be easy to dispel the feeling that some Russians have after recent rallies, which is very dangerous for the foundations of sovereign democracy, that citizens can go to the square, openly demand the resignation of “Putin himself,” and they will not get anything for it.

Wrong protests

However, the forceful suppression of the current rally activity may not have the effect desired by the authorities, if only because these actions are qualitatively different from the previous surge of protest sentiments, which also caused the Kremlin a lot of trouble, but was neutralized successfully and without serious political consequences.

Yes, at the beginning of 2005, not thousands, as now, but tens or even hundreds of thousands of dissatisfied people took to the streets to protest against the monetization of benefits. Yes, these were not rallies coordinated with the authorities, but the most spontaneous protests with all the ensuing unpredictable consequences, such as blocking transport routes and storming administrative buildings, which really threatened political stability as the main achievement of sovereign democracy. In addition, the main driving force behind these protests were pensioners, traditionally considered the main support of the current government, without whose support victory in any elections becomes extremely problematic.

And yet, it was immeasurably easier for the Kremlin to cope with the protests of five years ago than to calm down the dissenters of the 2010 model, among whom representatives of the seemingly undeveloped middle class dominate in Russia.

Of course, the 2005 pensioners also had their own “selfish” interest, because the elimination of benefits deprived them of a noticeable part of their already low income. But, firstly, the dissatisfaction of the current protesters, who as a result of the actions of the authorities (be it a new transport tax or a sharp increase in rent for real estate) are clearly losing not the last of their money, is connected not with the “failure” of what was due, but with the systemic vices of the authorities themselves , initially based on “relatively fair withdrawal of funds from the population.” And, therefore, this dissatisfaction can no longer be extinguished by simply distributing money, as was the case with suddenly monetized pensioners. In principle, the authorities are unable to change the system itself, because this will inevitably mean the emergence of a completely different government in the country, which, unlike the current one, does not separate the interests of the state from the interests of its citizens (see reference).

Secondly, modern dissenters rely on a completely different media resource. If the grandmothers of 2005, in order to stop blocking roads, were quite satisfied with assurances of complete respect for them, heard from the television they deeply respected, then today’s protesters draw information not so much from television news, but from the Internet. And even if federal television channels prove that the rallies in Kaliningrad or Vladivostok were held with US money, this is unlikely to affect the desire of the residents of these cities themselves to return to the square.

Finally, thirdly, the specificity of these protest actions is confirmed by the fact that they take place not at the peak of the crisis, when this would look quite natural, but during the period of its officially declared attenuation. And this is also directly related to the life attitudes of the middle class. After all, at the height of the crisis, its representatives were completely occupied with the struggle for survival and, only having climbed out of difficulties on their own, they suddenly discovered that the authorities had done nothing during all this time to help them in any way. Therefore, when they were asked to tell this government everything they thought about it, they willingly agreed.

By the way, this approach is fully consistent with the peculiarity of the Russian worldview identified by sociologists: our citizens invariably evaluate their own prospects higher than the prospects of the country as a whole. This largely explains, say, the fact that even if the general economic situation worsens, the desire to publicly express their protest among Russians does not increase: each of them simply believes that he personally will certainly get out of difficulties.

But this coin also has a flip side: if the state begins to openly encroach on the personal interests of citizens, then their protest activity can increase sharply, even if the situation in the country as a whole does not inspire much concern. And the appearance among the protesters of representatives traditionally sensitive to the trends of the times of the creative rock intelligentsia (for more information about Yuri Shevchuk’s anti-government speech at a concert in Moscow, see the material “All Quiet on the Rock Front” ) only confirms this conclusion.

"For our state and people"

Russian leaders have repeatedly demonstrated that in their understanding, the well-being of the country and the well-being of its citizens are not at all the same thing.

“Federal laws must be adopted in the interests of the entire country and all citizens of Russia” (Vladimir Putin on December 22, 2005 at the founding congress of the Russian Lawyers Association).

“Boris Nikolayevich (Yeltsin - “Power” ) did a lot for our state and people, leaving in history an indelible mark as a reformer, a fighter who sincerely sought to improve our lives” (Dmitry Medvedev on April 24, 2007, in a telegram of condolences on the death Boris Yeltsin).

“Dmitry Anatolyevich (Medvedev - “Vlast” ) has turned from a good lawyer and expert into an excellent, strong-willed administrator with state thinking. I can say with full responsibility that his main life priorities are the interests of the state and its citizens” (Vladimir Putin December 17, 2007 at the United Russia congress).

“Preliminarily, we can say that Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev won a convincing victory. I congratulate him once again and wish him success in his responsible work for the benefit of Russia and its citizens” (Vladimir Putin, March 3, 2008, at a meeting with members of the government).

“I am ready to make every effort to achieve the set goals, to obtain new and significant results in the name of the prosperity of the country and a decent life for the citizens of Russia” (Vladimir Putin on May 8, 2008, during his confirmation to the post of Prime Minister).

“The well-being of our country and the well-being of our citizens depend on how successful we are” (President Dmitry Medvedev on February 12, 2010 at a meeting on energy development issues).

Magazine "Kommersant Vlast" No. 10 dated March 15, 2010, p. 18

Authors:

Themes:

Rallies and pickets

Operation "Clean Square"-2