​Political optimism

The most stubborn manifestation of civic consciousness imaginable is participation in the public politics of an autocratic country. Almost everyone will agree that there are many risks in this activity, including personal ones, and very little benefit. But in Russia there are optimists who do not give up. Leonid Volkov told InLiberty that participation in falsified and unfair elections is a win-win decision, the fate of an opposition politician who is in the minority is much more enviable than the fate of a deputy from the party in power, and political action even in an unfree country pays off in a hundred cases out of a hundred.

Last spring I traveled to different cities and talked to different people. In particular, I spoke with one good young woman who wanted to be elected to the local city council. She had an offer to run for election from United Russia, since she was a local social activist. “United Russia” happily selects such people, and it was guaranteed a completely problem-free election. She didn’t know whether to run as an independent candidate, collect signatures, spend much more money, face administrative opposition, and have huge risks of withdrawal, or run as a United Russia member. She was afraid that if she was an opposition deputy, all her public initiatives would be blocked, but in the party in power she would be able to help people.

I told her how I was the only opposition deputy out of 35 in the Yekaterinburg City Duma. I had far more influence than all the other 34 combined. They could not say anything - their statements were not newsworthy, their votes did not mean anything, there was no need to walk with them, talk to them or convince them of anything, because they have party discipline there. And I was alone, so when any vice-mayor came to any commission to report, his task was to convince me, and not everyone else. Because he understood that, firstly, I could write something, and secondly, when I write, it will really become an informational occasion. It’s the same with the district: not a single United Russia deputy could achieve anything for his district, because who are you anyway, don’t get in the way. But I could because I was an independent figure. We have huge costs, huge risks, but from the point of view of real politics, that is, the impact on society, the degree of influence of an independent politician is incomparably higher than that of a pro-government one.

However, this works after you win the election. But we haven’t won the elections yet, and we are often told that we shouldn’t even participate in them. And we, of course, do not agree with this. For us, federal elections are a positive-sum game and a win-win.

Why? Because there cannot be more power than the authorities have. Putin and his entourage have concentrated (through the Investigative Committee, law enforcement agencies and champagne bottles) absolute power over the entire country, over the life of every person. Power over the economy and all the money in the country: any asset can be squeezed out, if not already squeezed out. We know very well that this is a mafia state that treats everything as its property, and treats any businessman as a temporarily hired manager, administrator of this property. They theoretically cannot have more power, but they can have less. Even if our probability of success is 1%, the mathematical expectation is still positive; we can't lose anything.

Due to some misunderstanding, the Kremlin still cannot declare a lifelong presidency; it wants to maintain the screen of correct procedures. Once every few years, our opponents are forced to sit down to play poker, having already won all the chips. At this moment you need to go all-in. Yes, they have much stronger cards, yes, they have huge chances to win, but for some reason they force themselves to go all-in in a situation where all the money has already been won. That is why every major election turns into a point of incredible tension: the government cannot win anything, but it can lose, even if the probability is very small. This was the case in 2011 during the State Duma elections, and this was the case in 2013 during the mayoral elections in Moscow. In both cases they eventually won, but both times with huge losses.

The same thing happened in Chile with Augusto Pinochet, who won and won, and then suddenly lost. The same thing happened in Indonesia with Suharto. An authoritarian regime that wants to follow procedure from time to time faces the risk of losing. That's why we are optimists. We have no chance to lose and we have a chance to win. It's great - no matter what this small chance is. Accordingly, we need to think about how to do, how to maximize this stress for the authorities, to make it as painful as possible.

In 2013, the way to create stress was through direct participation because there was a window of opportunity for it. This year, judging by the development of events, we will not be able to participate directly. But in 2011, we achieved maximum stress even without this - one successful phrase about swindlers and thieves undermines the results of the authorities so much that they have to resort to massive falsifications, including in the capitals, thanks to which everyone, including the current pessimists, They say that nothing can be changed, but in fact they appeared, showed up, showed up and recognized themselves as the opposition. Most of the people who are now participating in some kind of discussion about what to do now and how bad everything is, found themselves and identified themselves thanks to the phrase “United Russia is a party of swindlers and thieves” and the falsifications that followed it in 2011. For example, since 2007 I have not missed a single election as an observer and I remember the carousels at every election. But then this was all perceived as a local story of no interest to anyone, but in December 2011 it suddenly became interesting to everyone.

The main thing is to figure out what will be the source of maximum stress in September 2016. When they are stressed, they naturally make mistakes, besides, firstly, everyone makes mistakes, and secondly, the people who live there, in the absence of real political competition and in a very artificial political system, it is natural to make mistakes most susceptible. What it will be, what specific trick will be successful, what specific mistake they will make - we'll see.

Theory of completeness of action

Sometimes we are called human rights activists. Human rights protection goes side by side with politics, next to politics, and sometimes the line is too thin, but still it exists. For example, a hunger strike is a tool of both political struggle and human rights. But when prisoners in a colony go on a hunger strike, this is a human rights act - they demand to draw attention to private problems, to eliminate private injustice, and when a politician goes on a hunger strike demanding to be allowed to participate in elections, this is obviously an act of political action. The difference for me is very clear and understandable, despite the fact that the tools are very similar. Collecting signatures for a petition to Google is a political action, and collecting signatures demanding the release of Svetlana Davydova is a human rights action. Politics and human rights protection have the same tools: a rally, a hunger strike, a petition, a public appeal, a public speech, a journalistic article, a lawsuit, and so on. The difference is in the addressee and the object.

Any political activity aims to increase political pressure and increase political costs. That is, not letting us into the elections becomes more expensive than letting us in, not making this or that compromise becomes more expensive than making it. Human rights protection addresses the rights and freedoms of a particular citizen. This is not about costs: by appealing to some obvious violations of the law, we, in a sense, give the authorities a pass. Well, that is, they released Svetlana Davydova - everyone said “thank you,” “and the fifth, who was crumpled, was saved by Chulpan Khamatova.” The prisoners opened their veins - they fired some head of the colony. They too were relieved.

How is the penal colony's hunger strike different from Bobby Sands' hunger strike? Addressee and purpose. Either we are engaged in political action aimed at changing the political balance at a high level and in the interaction of an unlimited circle of people, or we are engaged in protecting the rights of specific people. There is no dichotomy between whether one should engage in human rights protection or politics: one must engage in both.

There has never been a situation in Russia where political pressure did not produce results, starting from Pikalevo and ending with Plato. Truckers never structured political action, never organized an all-Russian “Snail”, but even the threat of this led to a hundredfold reduction in fines! Even the politically toothless rallies at Bolotnaya and Sakharov led to unprecedented political reform - the return of gubernatorial elections, the transition to the formation of the State Duma under a mixed system, and the like. Fear has big eyes - the very threat of coordinated political action always, in 100 cases out of 100, leads to the fact that the authorities make concessions.

Even in an authoritarian country, political action always pays off, regardless of the degree of freedom of the regime and the country. This depends primarily on the completeness of political action.

This dependence is designed very cunningly. When you do something small, say, paint benches, you quickly pick some low-hanging fruit and get some easy bonuses. People are fascinated by you, as they are by Major Dymovsky. Since everyone is a terrible optimist, optimists need some kind of hooks, they need some kind of icons, and then a person appears - and now he has not done anything yet, but he is already a new hope.

Then, as you apply more force, they begin to notice you, and counteraction is activated. When you put in 80% of your energy, your effectiveness drops greatly because the authorities are worried and begin to interfere with you. The main problem is that when you invest 90% of the potential maximum, you are sent to prison, because the risk is very high. When you invest 99%, they shoot you with a machine gun. And when you put in 100%, you win. You can’t go to the polls and say: I’ll invest 50%. Even going to the elections in Kostroma, you must be prepared that you will work from morning to night like hell and invest all your resources; You cannot postpone some of the resources for later.

If you underwork just a little, you will face a reaction, and this reaction will be very severe. A good example is Sakharov Avenue and Bolotnaya Square, when we almost put the pressure on them, we bent them, but not completely, and then the pendulum swung back with the terrible “Bolotnaya Affair,” political repressions, tightening the screws. If we had pressed a little more then, if we had been able to (we didn’t know how to do this then), they, of course, would all have fled the country in women’s dresses, they were close to this. But we just missed the mark and got a hell of a reaction. Could we, having foreseen this, have done less - invited fewer people to the square? No, of course not, because you can’t achieve 100% without 95%. Bolotnaya and Sakharova were our 95%, and the reaction ended in 30 criminal cases. And the Kiev Maidan was 99%, which became 100% and ended in victory. But when it was 99%, almost a hundred people died from sniper bullets.

Political action is non-linear: every time you have to go for it, determined to give your all and spend all your strength to achieve a result, understanding that if you fall just a little short, you will not receive 99% of the prize, but, on the contrary, you will leave at a terrible disadvantage. This is my theory of political action, primitive, but confirmed by observation.

(Recorded by Andrey Babitsky)

Read the entire issue of “Man and the Law” here .