Maidan for Russia

What to hide: observing the last three months after the revolution in Ukraine, worried about the fate of Ukrainian freedom, we secretly tried on their situation on ourselves. Can we do the same? What should be done for this? Why is Russia not Ukraine?

Comparison is not in our favor. The situation of December 2011 in Moscow to a certain extent is similar to the situation of December 2013 in Kyiv. Their people were outraged by a sharp change in orientation from Europe to Russia, with us - in a brazen castling of Medvedev and Putin and falsifications in the elections. In both cases, the indignation was sincere, but the Ukrainians went out to protest, and we - to imitate protest.

We protested. We went to marches as a holiday - with balls, with smiles, funny and creative. It was joyful for us to realize that there are so many of us that we are free and say that we would think. I got liberated! The very fact of the mass action was enough for us. At the same time, very few people cared that protest promotions are carefully consistent with the authorities that demonstrators are searched before the procession, like Zekov, that the Omonovsky convoy reliably separates the participants of the march from passers -by. We were taken away for protest, and we obediently agreed with this.

It was not at all on the Maidan. No one asked the authorities permission to protest, and people came not to have fun and rejoice in freedom, but to protest and achieve their goals. Do not declare their requirements for the authorities, but to achieve their implementation. Do not accept the next resolutions and go home, but stand on your own until victory. This is the main difference between our protests and the Ukrainian: they were aimed at victory, we are an exciting process and a beautiful picture.

Our opposition politicians are similar. They are prudent and cowardly. They are afraid to enter the clinch with the authorities and hypocritically explain this with concern for the safety of the protesters. The vast majority of them are not ready to reach the edge beyond which repressions begin against them personally. On the Maidan, they behaved the same. The difference is that the Ukrainians did not allow the opposition to celebrate a coward, they forced them to behave adequately public mood. And sometimes they boiled right on the Maidan. They kept their politicians in good shape. We do not know how. We are inert and gullible, we are content with what will be brought to us.

Another serious difference between Ukrainian protests and Russian - Ukrainians see their future as democratic and European. We are aimed only to replace power. Therefore, there were no communists on the Maidan who were pulling the country into the Soviet past, so monuments to Lenin in Ukrainian cities and villages flew from their pedestals one after another. And we have communists and Stalinists in some rows with us, and their goal is to plunge the country into totalitarianism before Putin has time to do. As a result, our protest is not constructive, it does not see the ultimate goal - or at least it is ambiguous. That is why our protests are small. In Kyiv, up to a third of the city’s inhabitants went to the Maidan, we had a maximum of one percent.

However, the point is not only in the number of protesters. In the fight, it is not power that wins, but rage. Ukrainians were ready to make sacrifices and proved it. They paid the highest price for their freedom - the price of human life. In our country, the majority is not ready to pay for freedom even administrative arrest or risk to get a baton on the ribs. What can we say about more? For general caution, "swamp prisoners" are now paying, of which almost everyone refused to ask for condescension in court.

Our society lacks self -esteem and rage of resistance. Either we are intimidated over the edge, or to be tortured for centuries of the forced life. We want a happy future to come somehow by itself, so that nothing needs to be sacrificed, and even better-and without any effort from our side.

In December 2011, we had real chances of changing the fate of the country. To do this, it was necessary to take a chance and increase confrontation with the authorities, and not the crowd in Swamp Square in a safe and senseless protest. You can now blame everything on the leaders of the opposition, but by and large they are just expressors of public mood. This, our protest society as a whole, had no desire to risk their well -being. The people are worthy of the opposition that has.

From the experience of the Ukrainian revolution, it would be useful for us to draw another conclusion. In our countries, with weak democratic traditions, one cannot allow the concentration of power in the same hands - neither an autocrat nor the president. The parliamentary republic gives more hopes for democracy. It is more difficult for parliament to usurp power, it is more accountable to the people, it is difficult to subordinate to the will of one person. Russia, like Ukraine, needs constitutional reform and rejection of presidency as a state institute. The Prime Minister appointed by parliament will fulfill all presidential functions no worse.

The main conclusion for us is that for real changes in the country, efforts must be applied for real, not safe toy.