The #WhiteForum has ended. Some thoughts on the future of the opposition and its “combat units”

The discussion camp near St. Petersburg has ended. Over 2 days of work, more than 300 people visited it. Among the guests were Evgenia Chirikova, Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ashurkov, Alexander Belov, Alena Popova, Vladimir Milov, Denis Bilunov and many others.



Despite the large number of interesting and constructive discussions in which representatives of all political forces participated, the main topic of subsequent discussion in the media and social media. networks became my statement that the opposition needed to create combat units that would work on the streets. As usual, in pursuit of sensation, the words were taken out of context, and many thought that I was tired of playing by the rules and it was time to take power by force. However, this is understandable - the party in power is gathering “arguments” that will be presented in the fall for the deprivation of parliamentary immunity following Gudkov.

In fact, it was a discussion about further actions of the opposition between me, Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Milov and Alexander Belov. Nemtsov said that protests are the only way to radically change the system, and for this, millions of people must take to the streets, and only after that is it possible to force Vladimir Putin to a round table for a bloodless transfer of power according to the Polish scenario. Alexander Belov went even further, proposing to study the experience of Libya, Egypt and Tunisia in order to completely destabilize the existing system, but at the same time emphasized that we are talking about the results of the protests, and not about the method of changing power. Vladimir Milov said that Putin won the elections fairly, and the opposition must come to terms with this, work on its mistakes, stop holding rallies and participate in elections, even if they are rigged.

My opinion is somewhat different from those voiced above, which is what I said. We consider ourselves power, but we don’t yet know how to achieve it. More precisely, there are many options, but the final choice has not yet been made. If our goal is to win the elections, then we must go home and stop supporting Pussy Riot, and talk about housing and communal services and rising prices, the WTO and NATO. And if we want to achieve a change in the system, then we need to create an alternative to the authorities. An ideological and organizational alternative, understandable to the broad masses and capable of management. In the meantime, we are not even able to establish clear organizational interaction with those who go to rallies, with our “combat troops,” the most devoted and motivated supporters. By the way, we have already held a vote at several discussion camps: who sees a future career as a deputy or official, and who wants to achieve a change in the system so that they can then mind their own business. In St. Petersburg, approximately 50% of the Forum participants saw a career in power, and nowhere did this figure exceed 2/3.

Therefore, I said that from my point of view, our movement should be based on three organizational pillars:
- “personnel reserve” - the future government, a politicized, but not radical mass of supporters;
- “civil corps” - volunteers and civil activists involved in specific “small” matters outside the political agenda;
- “opposition combat units” - those who go to rallies, organize pickets, etc.

Structuring can be achieved through elections to the Coordination Council, the massive involvement of regional activists, and the allocation of CC members responsible for each area. The opposition is still at the stage of working on the Internet, but now it is time to move into the real world, to start doing real things, which is gradually happening.

Ultimately, we must force the authorities to dialogue about the path to their exit according to the round table scenario - this is the only way to eliminate the existing system. To do this, it is necessary to unite the efforts of all organizations in order to create a unified program of protest actions, which, in fact, is what the Coordination Council will do. But in the event that there is no dialogue with the authorities, and the repressive machine is working at full capacity, the only way to resist it is to physically defend yourself. For these purposes, it will be necessary to create a special human rights structure, not military units that will destroy stores, beat up police officers and those who support Putin, but to protect people against whom lawlessness is happening. It is already impossible to hold law enforcement officers accountable who break the law. 27 cases of police officers exceeding their official powers at the March of Millions on May 6 are still not being investigated, although 17 deputies of the State Duma signed the request.

As for real extremist groups, they will definitely appear without our participation if Vladimir Putin decides to retain power at all costs. We have already seen surges in the partisan movement in the Far East and Nalchik, Tatarstan and the Urals. In fact, all responsibility for the emergence of such “detachments” lies with the Russian authorities, who stubbornly refuse to talk and discuss with their citizens.

In the meantime, we need to make maximum use of all legal methods to prevent conflicts. To consolidate the reasonable part of the opposition and attract the attention of citizens, it is necessary to create a common program of action that will cut off insane radicals and dogmatists of various kinds.

In addition, the opposition must turn towards the regions, otherwise it will not become a serious political force. The Moscow opposition crowd makes a big mistake when it excludes the possibility of coming to another city to work with people. The experience of campaigning in Gagarin is excellent, but this is very little. It is to awaken the regions that discussion camps are created, the level of which is growing every time. The White Stream motor rally, the main stage of which will begin on August 27, is another important step in this direction.

Most of the forum was devoted to the discussion of legal methods of struggle for power. Vladimir Ashurkov spoke about why the People's Alliance party was being created and how it would function based on Internet technologies. The main task of the party is to overthrow the current government. According to Vladimir, the party does not consider itself either left or right. This is a platform for uniting different political forces. If a party is registered, the doors are open to all opposition leaders and sane people. But personally, I think that this idea is not very correct: a political party must have a clear ideology and program, and the presence of several camps within the party cannot afford this. Uniting for a common goal is necessary, but in a completely different way, described above.

Vladimir Milov spoke about the strategy of the Democratic Choice, about how they build their line of attack. Their main goal is to change power legally, through elections. Questioning the liberalization of party legislation as a consequence of the winter rallies, Milov said that their path was the only correct one.

This discussion continued during the discussion of the upcoming elections to the Coordination Council. Vladimir Milov, his deputy Igor Drandin and the leader of the St. Petersburg Drug Russians Andrei Dmitriev believe that the Constitutional Court is an internal game of the opposition that no one needs and will not bring any benefit. For some reason, the problem of the legitimacy of opposition representatives does not concern them, but this is the main goal - to stop disputes about who represents the people taking to the streets; so that there are no disputes about why on December 10 Nemtsov led people from Revolution Square to Bolotnaya, and why some “group of self-appointed people” decides everything for the people going to the rallies. In the event of destabilization, it is necessary to have a body that can authoritatively say what to do.

I was pleased that not only opposition politicians, but also representatives of the current government came to the White Forum. One of the guests was Valery Fedotov, head of the Vasileostrovsky branch of United Russia. He said that the opposition and the party in power need to learn to speak the language of compromise in order to prevent civil war. Fedotov proposed to agree at the grassroots level on specific issues, and then those at the top would have to accept this as a fact. I think it’s very sad that people like Fedotov are in United Russia - this fraudulent party uses their illusions to campaign in its favor, and in the end there are more crooks and thiefs in power.

In addition to political discussions, questions of journalistic ethics were raised, a round table on which was held by Anastasia Karimova and Ilya Azar; Alena Popova spoke about the project of the all-Russian volunteer movement, who recently received a letter of gratitude from the Ministry of Emergency Situations for her help in Krymsk, which is recognition of the merits of all volunteers. A separate block was devoted to environmental problems, in which Evgenia Chirikova spoke about the experience of consolidating forces around the fight for the Khimki forest and how she managed to unite into one team people who do not care about the forest itself, but the law is important, and for whom preserving the forest is important. main goal.

The guys from the “Let’s Do It” project recalled that on September 15, an all-Russian garbage collection will take place based on the experience of Estonia, where 8% of the country’s population took to the streets on one day to draw attention to the problem of environmental pollution.

In general, #GoodCampNorth showed that discussions of any problems are necessary, first of all, for politicians to understand whether they can work together or not, and whether they are able to find any common ground. Most are ready to work together. And this is the main thing.

On August 19, the #GoodCampCenter has already started in the Khimki Forest, which will continue its work until the 26th. This is the last debate camp planned for this summer. You can find the program and other information in the VKontakte group http://vk.com/dbcenter

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