Translated material
Trends and tendentiousness
Negative comments from the same people flooding the Internet after each opposition rally, this time focusing mainly on the lack of dynamics in the growth of the number of dissenters.
In this regard, I remember a conversation with my friend and assistant, Hungarian grandmaster Andras Adoryan, during a match with Karpov in 1985. Then I won the first game, but after two defeats in the 4th and 5th games I found myself in the role of catching up. Then followed a series of five draws, with the games taking place in very intense competition. I, of course, wanted to get even, but Adoryan gave me important practical advice: “In such a long match, it is not the result that is important, but the tendency, the main thing is that Karpov was unable to build on the success, and you are gradually seizing the initiative.” And indeed, in the 11th game, Karpov, in a rather harmless situation, made a grave mistake and allowed me to equalize, after which I dictated my terms until the end of the match and ultimately became the 13th world champion on November 9th.
Those who today, with sympathy or with gloating, thoughtfully talk about the emerging decline in the protest movement, would do well to pay attention to the trend or, as it is now fashionable to say, the trend in the long and still unequal duel between the authorities and the opposition.
The “March of Dissent,” organized by “The Other Russia” on December 16, 2006, can be considered the beginning of joint street actions of the united opposition. Then about 4 thousand people gathered on Triumfalnaya Square under the banners of the United Front, RNDS, NBP and AKM. At peak moments, for example, March 3 in St. Petersburg or April 14, 2007 in Moscow, no more than 7-8 thousand people took to the streets at a time. The Kaliningrad protests of late 2009 - early 2010, which attracted about 10 thousand people, were related to local issues and did not have a serious impact on the protest movement throughout Russia. The spirit of protest activity has long been supported by the actions of the 31st, which, among other things, were able to bring dozens of young energetic people into the ranks of the opposition. But until December 2011, there was no fundamental change in the number of dissenters on the street. Radzikhovsky and others like him, arrogantly looking at the few rallies regularly dispersed by riot police, time after time came to disappointing conclusions about the unwillingness/inability of the Russian people to resist the authoritarian government.
It is logical to assume that a certain stagnation in 2008-2011 was primarily due to the fact that a significant part of society became a victim of a skillful hoax of Kremlin propaganda, which presented Dmitry Medvedev as the guarantor of inevitable changes. This illusion disappeared on September 24, 2011, when Medvedev humiliatingly asked Putin to return to the throne. And the overdose of Churov’s magic on December 4 finally broke the dam of popular discontent.
Starting from December 5, the protest movement enters a new phase of its development, characterized by rapid growth in numbers, the fixation of strict political demands on the authorities and the formation of an organizational core of a united opposition. The march on September 15, which became the 8th (!) large action over the past 10 months, demonstrated that the protest core, even according to a conservative estimate, has increased by an order of magnitude and is already at least 30-35 thousand people. It is unlikely that such a leap will be possible today. It is obvious that time must pass for the opposition to strengthen in this bridgehead. At the same time, we must remember that the general political landscape in Russia has changed not at all in favor of the current government. Putin is rapidly losing his popularity, and the demand for fundamental changes is becoming more and more clear in society.
It’s quite funny, by the way, to compare two comments by the same Radzikhovsky.
November 20, 2011 - “300-500 people gather for “democratic” rallies.”
September 15, 2012 - “It’s a failure – and in numbers. Well, let the Ministry of Internal Affairs lie, not “14,000”, but the standard 30,000. Does this change anything?
Yes, of course, formally the score in the power-opposition duel has not yet changed, but even a more or less objective analysis shows that the era of the Kremlin’s total dominance in the political space of Russia is over.
It is pointless to guess when a new sharp increase in the number of protesters will begin - in a year, two or three - but it is obvious that the agony of the Putin regime will end long before 2018. The main thing now for those who want changes in the country is to demonstrate the ability to self-organize, and the best test for us will be the elections to the Opposition Coordination Council . They should become not just a vote of the protesting street for their representatives in the opposition structure, but actually create a forum for a free Russia, where every citizen who wants to influence the processes in their country could convey their point of view. At the same time, it is natural that all actions of the Coordination Council should be correlated with the dominant position of the forum participants. The number of voters in the elections to the Coordination Council will become an indicator of the success of the opposition at this stage of the struggle to build a free Russia.