Coordinator "Spring" - about a rally against mobilization

The Opposition Movement "Vesna" announced the protest in the cities of Russia after on the morning of September 21, President Vladimir Putin announced mobilization. “Paper” spoke with the coordinator of “Spring” Bogdan Litvin about why they call people to protests even after mass detentions and criminal cases in the spring, on the coordination and prospects of rallies in Russia.

Bogdan Litvin

Coordinator "Spring"

- You urge people to go out against mobilization. Have you had doubts taking into account mass detentions this spring?

- We saw a certain social reaction. Yesterday we discussed this both inside our team and with other anti -war organizations - and everyone came to the conclusion that such a action should take place. We believe that it needs to be carried out.

- What do you expect from protest?

- There are many stereotypical ideas about what a street action is. The people saw that in different countries this often led to the victories of civil society, so it represents protests as a silver bullet: today we will come out, and tomorrow the conditional Putin will leave. We look at this from two positions: from moral and ethical-as our duty. We understand that this is a way to convey to society, that there are quite a few anti -war people, in this situation, they are at all.

We do not have access to the TV and a very large number of people. In society there is no wire majority, there is an apolitical - people who have not decided on their position are not interested in politics and so far they are shown only one point of view. A rally is one of the ways to be noticeable for these people, passers-by who will share with someone.

In addition, we have been calling people to street agitation for six months and we will do this further. We will plan how to use tools except rallies. We see that a large response and a request for rallies and protests: the number of subscribers in Telegram, the flow of messages doubled. When people called for other protests, the reaction was more dry. I hope we can convince people of other methods: we objectively understand that rallies are the most understandable and predictable in our society. We cannot just quit this tool and we must use it competently.

Now the superchud will not happen: tomorrow they will not be canceled mobilization simply because the rally has passed. Millions will not come out today. But if we look at how protests in different countries, including ours, often successful campaigns began with small street performances, which later turned into a wave. Let's see how everything will go today.

- What can you say about the actions of the security forces today?

- I would not want to lie to our supporters and say that the action will be safe, that no one will be detained on it and no one will suffer. We always publicly talk about the fact that there are risks.

People still have to go out for protests, but they need to be ready for risks: to be in touch with human rights organizations and read their instructions on how to behave at rallies. In no case do not need to touch the police and the Russian Guard - as you know, they are very fragile creatures, and even paper and cardboard are a danger to them. It is sober to reason, behave as much as possible, not to enter into fights and not substitute yourself under a well-known article of the Criminal Code (Article 318, in March two criminal cases against the Petersburgers participating in the anti-war protest-approx. “ Papers” ) were instituted in March).

- Will representatives of Vesna coordinate rallies? Online or offline?

- [After criminal cases] we took out many people, but there is a lot left. We come to us applications for those who want to join, which are now difficult to work with. There are various regional groups that are not activists of the “spring”, but with whom we cooperate, including in the context of this action.

We have debugged technical infrastructure: a large number of users of our bots with which we work - in this way we use the achievements of the last years of coordination of rallies. But in society and in our city there is a delusion that there is some perfect way to coordinate the rally so that everything goes smoothly. This method does not exist. Our opponents on a professional basis are engaged in the fight against protesters. We can protest so that it is more difficult for them to disperse, but we do not have one hundred percent guarantees that our coordination will be perfect, that no one will be dissatisfied.

We are trying to use our many years of experience, because the St. Petersburg “Spring” in various formats was related to some rallies. We know that in the city center there is not a single place for which the police would not be ready, and the center is currently a priority for us from the point of view of more people to see a protest.

- How did the events of the last days develop for the "spring"?

- We discussed potential mobilization when rumors went about it in the spring and in May. The initial plan was to call on rallies, since this [mobilization] would most likely cause a rather large reaction in society. Yesterday, when we observed the decision of the State Duma on the new legislation, we initiated a joint appeal to the military - they called them to resign or surrender.

We believe that a street protest remains an important part of any social and political (anti -war in our case) campaign. This is not the only thing we call for, but it is very important. For many months we observed feedback from people who asked when we had rallies, but we understood that it was impossible to do this before. Now society is outraged.

- Do you plan other protests?

- This will depend on how everything goes today. We will not make some kind of action tomorrow, it is 100 %. But someone else can declare it-we will discuss this with other anti-war initiatives. We will publish a plan, because now we have another opportunity to change something. We do not want to be defeated this time.

- How do you even imagine a protest in Russia of 2022, when the repressions are tightened, and people are more and more afraid?

- Unfortunately, the road to freedom, democracy and the world did not promise to be easy. The stronger society becomes, the more dissatisfied, the more rigid methods acts. But I do not think that there is something impossible in achieving the goals we have stated. In other countries, there were more difficult conditions for the struggle: military dictatorships, executions, but people nevertheless won. We are no worse than other people. Our country is no worse.