Moscow zugzwang

Navalny's incident is not someone's oversight, it is a system error, a failure of the entire "political program", which finally proved to be a powerful "glitch". And it runs the risk of repeating itself in the future: the incident of Khodorkovsky or the incident of Medvedev

Whatever the outcome of the election of the mayor of Moscow, their winner is known - this is Alexei Navalny, regardless of whether he becomes mayor (which is unlikely) or not. In the same way, the name of the main loser is also known, although it is not included in the ballot - this is Vladimir Putin

Whatever the outcome of the election of the mayor of Moscow, their winner is known - this is Alexei Navalny, regardless of whether he becomes mayor (which is unlikely) or not. In the same way, the name of the main loser is also known, although it is not included in the ballot - this is Vladimir Putin.

The Moscow elections are more like a medieval jousting tournament, in which the leader of the list - Sergei Sobyanin - is simply appointed to fight in place of the king. In a sense, he even arouses sympathy - it is not easy to cover for the king today. His acquisitions in this tournament are doubtful, but the losses can be quite significant.

There is no political reason why Alexei Navalny would regret participating in this election campaign, just as there is no political reason why the Kremlin would consider Navalny's participation in the elections beneficial to itself.

Thanks to these elections, Alexei Navalny jumped out of the virtual Internet test tube into the field of real practical politics. The Kremlin, having allowed him to participate in the elections, could not keep him in this test tube, which means that he lost, regardless of how many votes the election commissions give to Navalny. By and large, the latter is of little concern to anyone. Elections for many Muscovites ended before they even started.

What is the main risk for Navalny today? That he will be put in jail. By participating in the Moscow elections, he certainly does not increase this risk. If the authorities consider it possible and necessary to “close” Navalny (no matter how), then they will do it anyway. But in the light of the elections, it will be more difficult for her to do so. Whatever the Kremlin does, its actions will be interpreted in a negative sense for it. If they don't put Navalny in jail, that means they're afraid; if they put him in jail, it means they're even more afraid.

The situation is developing in such a way that the election of the mayor of Moscow very quickly degenerated into a referendum on confidence in Putin. And in this case, it doesn’t matter whether Navalny wins in the end or not. It is important that it gives a significant part of society the opportunity to express itself politically. Sobyanin's attempts to bring the discussion back to regional soil are only partially successful. For the “angry townspeople” driven into a corner, but not vanishing into thin air, voting for Navalny became a form of manifestation of their civic position. Navalny has ceased to be a real person, he literally turns into a "symbol of change" before our very eyes. Other candidates in this case are simply not taken into account. And this is just the beginning of the journey.

The fact that the Kremlin failed to prevent this referendum is the first strategic miscalculation by the "Volodino" administration since the time of the "swamp unrest". There is no “good” way out of this situation for the Kremlin, it was categorically impossible to “enter” it. And the point is not so much in some direct negative consequences, but in the fact that this “referendum” indirectly indicates that by no means everything in the “kingdom” is under control, which, no matter how strong the power is, but by no means all processes she is able to manage. Somehow, more and more often, the apocryphal story of the young Lenin comes to mind, who told the gendarmes that "the wall is rotten - touch it, it will fall apart."

The problem that the Kremlin faces in the person of Navalny is very specific. This is the problem of not having a good move, a situation that chess players often face. Can Navalny be imprisoned? There is little that can stop this today. Will this be a good move? Hardly. Wherever you throw, everywhere is a wedge. The stability of the regime rests on the tacit approval of an apolitical majority. But abrupt gestures can quickly put an end to this apoliticality. Therefore, no matter how the authorities swagger, they are not particularly interested in rocking the boat. If Russia enters an “active” political regime, it will not seem like much to anyone. And Navalny, by coincidence, just turned into such a “red button”, which immediately begins to howl like a siren when it is touched. So it turns out that everything seems to be possible and at the same time nothing is impossible.

Actually, in chess, this situation is called "zugzwang" - a situation in which one or even both sides at once have no useful or even neutral moves, and any movement of the pieces leads to a deterioration in their own position. In this case, of course, the possibility of "not walking" is absent. In everyday language, such a situation is called “you can’t do it and you can’t not do it.”

All that the Putin administration has tried to do in recent years is an attempt to “not go anywhere”, to take and stop the political “chess clock”. For her, the most comfortable position is the position of doing nothing. No peace, no war, more precisely, no dictatorship, no democracy. While pulling back society here and there, the authorities, meanwhile, tried not to go beyond the flags that marked the “zone of uncertainty”. Certainty is the death of the current regime and the end of stability.

Navalny’s casus lies precisely in the fact that he lures the authorities out of the “comfort zone”, deprives them of the opportunity to do nothing, forcing them to make “outrageous” decisions that, under other conditions, the authorities would not want to take, because they can spill the same thing " dark wine" of Russian history, about which Berdyaev and his contemporaries wrote so colorfully. Nobody in the Kremlin cares whether Navalny becomes mayor or not, whether he gains a lot or a little (this is exactly what they learned to "control"). The Kremlin is concerned about the question, what to do with it then? To plant or not to plant? If planted, when? Before or after? Plant earlier, smear the elections. Plant later, you'll get a ready leader. If you don’t plant at all, they will consider you “weak”. You can try to discredit Navalny by passing him off as his own project (the questions asked to Putin at Seliger show that this is also in the plan). But what if the people actually believe in it and follow Navalny like a second Yeltsin? It would be better not to do anything at all, but in the context of the elections it will be almost impossible.

At the same time, Navalny is not a problem of today, not someone's oversight (they overlooked it, missed it, played it out, played too much, and so on). This is a systemic mistake in Russian politics, a failure of the entire "political program", which finally proved to be a powerful "glitch". Paradoxically, if not Navalny, then something like that was bound to happen sooner or later. This is a failure of politics, not specific politicians.

Elements of irrationality can accumulate inside the system for a long time, for decades, but not indefinitely. There comes a moment after which this irrationality begins to "shoot". As a rule, this happens when several long-running scenarios reach a climax in their development, and then it turns out that both plays are played on the same stage, and all the actors are involved in two performances at once. This is exactly what happened with the Moscow elections.

There was one game "in the long run" - with the opposition. It was necessary to correctly decompose it, dismember it and pack it into cells. In general, it almost succeeded, Navalny was left in this scenario for dessert. He was competently “soaked” in the sauce to serve in a liquefied form. It was assumed that if Navalny was fed “in portions” to the people, then people would eventually swallow his arrest and removal from the political scene. This plan had its own timetable, its own performers and its own inspirers.

And there was another game, also not short, started by the removal of Luzhkov, with Moscow, where it was necessary to approve “one’s own” person, capable of supporting the Kremlin in tough times. Governing Moscow is not a sinecure in every sense of the word, so it took such a "heavyweight" as Sobyanin. It was impossible to risk Sobyanin, and therefore it was decided to legitimize him before Russia enters a period of political and economic turbulence. And this game had its own schedule, its own performers and its own inspirers.

And now these two games are superimposed on each other. Do you think the Kremlin did not understand that Navalny would "get into" the Moscow elections? They also understood how - there are generally much more smart people than is commonly thought, and most importantly, they have enough money to pay smart people who will think for them. Therefore, the view of the Kremlin as a bunch of “worthless people” is flattering for its opponents, but absolutely populist. But knowing and being able to prevent are two different things. Each plan developed independently over many months, if not years, and the Kremlin did not have the opportunity to jump out of the game in either the first or the second case. This is a systemic failure due to the general irrationality of the political course.

Precisely because this is a systemic failure, it can be assumed that the Navalny incident is only the first call. A second, and even a third, will inevitably follow. Another zugzwang on a national scale is on the way - this time with Khodorkovsky. If in relation to Navalny the authorities solve the dilemma "to imprison or not to imprison", then in the case of Khodorkovsky everything is exactly the opposite - "to release or not to release."

And there are certainly no good moves left. The authorities are afraid of releasing Khodorkovsky, partly irrationally, partly quite rationally - they are afraid that he will consolidate the opposition, they are afraid that they will see this as a sign of weakness, and so on. In order not to release it, you need to start a third case. This will make the Kremlin's attitude towards Khodorkovsky more definite than it would like. I'm afraid that the ECtHR's recent decision was the last one in which the court managed to avoid assessing Khodorkovsky's case as a political one. Moscow will not receive such concessions anymore. Killing Khodorkovsky is also not an option. Who knows how the "dark wine" of Russian history will react to this...

That is, it is best for the Kremlin that Khodorkovsky continue to sit on his own. The Kremlin really wants to skip this move, but it's impossible to miss it: like it or not, you'll have to move. Moreover, they will have to go at the very moment when, according to all calculations, another game should enter the final stage - with the Medvedev government. This decision can also be delayed, but it must not be taken at all. It is quite possible that these two games will overlap, as happened already in the case of Navalny and the Moscow elections. And what if Navalny and Khodorkovsky also overlap?

In general, these two events - the September elections in Moscow and the impending "cold summer of 2014", when it will be necessary to decide what to do with Khodorkovsky - set a certain corridor of turbulence through which Russia will have to pass in the very near future. Most likely, she will leave this corridor as a country that has changed a lot. I don’t dare to say whether she will stay with Putin or without him, whether she will live better or worse (for anyone), but she will be different than now. Moscow zugzwang is not a one-time event, it is now a new fashionable political style.