Who to argue with?

Nobody owes anything to the opposition

Not to understand what our system is is stupidity. To understand and praise her is meanness. But there are people who, perfectly understanding everything, not only do not see for themselves the opportunity to participate in protest activities, but also consider it completely meaningless and, if justified in moral terms, then completely unproductive in terms of pragmatics. From their point of view, the system is too strong to be shaken by individual or even mass protests. She, in their opinion, is ready for self-defense with the use of force and has such force. That is why rallies and investigations seem to them a waste of time - like collecting signatures for a petition so that autumn does not come after summer. And some of them believe that protests are completely harmful: they put citizens under the batons of riot police, distract young people from education and careers, and ruin their lives.

Personally, I do not agree with this position. And I don’t just disagree, but to the best of my ability I put into practice the position of the exact opposite. I, not knowing, however, whether this will lead to at least some result, participate in protest actions, speak out wherever possible, collect money for detainees at rallies, and so on.

Of course, you have to pay a pretty high price for this - the arm broken by the riot police during the arrest back in 2007 was the smallest of what I had to face.

But I do not consider myself entitled to indiscriminately accuse those who think and act differently of cowardice and opportunism.

Of course, shorts are enough. Particularly pitiful are the “cultural figures” who glorify the authorities with such a proud and independent look, as if they are delivering a diatribe and going up to the stake. Yes, they say, this is my opinion, and I will express it, no matter what. Disgusting and fake politicians who run for elections only to legitimize them and, at the same time, to discredit and interfere with the real opponents of the government. And then, without wiping God's dew from their eyes, they receive a well-deserved (albeit less than promised) reward.

But this is not about citizens with reduced social responsibility, but about decent people, who are also quite a few on the part of principled opponents of protest activity and political struggle. Not expecting significant political changes in the foreseeable future, they continue to do their job within the framework of the existing order of things.

Sometimes they also make ritual gestures to the authorities, believing, rightly or wrongly, that this is necessary in order to do what they should do. So many of us joined the CPSU, and not necessarily because of conformism or for the sake of the repeatedly ridiculed desire to "make the party better." It's just that when moving up the career ladder, non-party people quickly ran into a glass ceiling. I did not join that party, but I do not consider it possible to condemn all those who did.

Did we have at least one non-party general or factory director? Engineers, teachers, and managers joined the CPSU, completely indifferent to the ideas of building communism. They entered, with greater or lesser moral feelings, and those who, having no illusions about the nature of the Soviet system, worked to get water from the tap, had their appendix cut out in hospitals, and taught to read in schools.

For those who see the system unchanged in the medium term, it does not seem the same as for those who are trying to change it or who find it necessary to confront it openly and publicly. The same Moscow City Duma, around which such passions have now flared up, is not a political platform for them at all, but only a pass to high offices where you can lobby for what you do, be it medicine or green spaces.

And it's pointless to tell them that the Moscow Duma needs politicians, not lobbyists - they don't believe in the very existence of politics.

And even more so to convince them to just do their job and not get into the thought - they themselves know whether they need a deputy mandate for their cause, in our situation, alas, it is very necessary. And the State Duma, from their point of view, is not so much the subject of all sorts of abominations, like the "law of scoundrels", and not so much a potential parliament. This is a place where you can achieve - and therefore you need to achieve - the adoption of some reasonable rules for regulating specific areas of life. River transport, for example - remember "Bulgaria"? or drug market. They are no worse than us. They understand that out of a hundred obviously correct proposals for improving the situation in the country, ninety will not pass precisely because of the political system, but they consider it necessary to fight for the implementation of the remaining ten.

By the way, indirectly their work can also influence the political situation. For example, the creation of jobs in the field of high technologies - and after all, some people succeed, albeit on a scale several orders of magnitude smaller than the authorities once promised.

It costs too much to choose whether to fight the system, or to achieve improvements without going beyond it. But it is necessary to understand each other. The line between “we” and “them” is not between us, but between decent people who do business—and I also attribute protests to business—and those who steal, lie, lead the cause to war, beat people at rallies or orders to do so.

They are adversaries for all of us. And for those who are trying to change the regime, and for those who do their job, considering the regime indestructible.

But if so, then the "politicians" have no right to demand anything from the "evolutionists" - neither priority on the road, as in the case of the conflict between Federmesser, Sobol and Mitrokhin, undeservedly ignored by the media, nor gratitude for their asceticism. In the end, we do everything for ourselves - not in terms of material things in this case, but in terms of self-respect, a sense of the meaning of our own lives. The presumption of the moral superiority of "politicians" over "evolutionists" is flawed. And not only in a pragmatic sense - instead of negotiations, which in principle may have a chance of success, as in the same conflict over the forty-third district, it only provokes mutual anger. This presumption is flawed primarily in moral terms.

Jules Renan once said that precisely because the first Christians heroically and fearlessly shed their blood for the Faith, their followers arrogated to themselves the right to shed other people's blood. You can sacrifice yourself, you can devote your life to the struggle for the truth, but you cannot demand from others either the same selflessness or recognition of your merits. You can give them advice if they ask, but you can't give orders.