"I see myself in the State Duma in a red dress"

Julia Galyamina - about what an opposition politician can do, remaining in Russia

Julia Galyamina is one of the last popular opposition politicians who, as of August 2023, remains in Russia. Her itself and her movement “Soft Power” were recognized as “foreign agents”, thus depriving the opportunity to participate in elections, engage in agitation and educational activities. At the same time, Galyamin continues to oppose Putin and Russian invasion of Ukraine. She spent 30 days under the arrest for the "call" to go to the action against the war. Later, the FSIN inspectorate handed Galyamina a warning about a possible replacement of a conditional term with a real one. What in such conditions remains the opposition in Russia? The editor of the Cold Maxim conspiration talked about this with Galyamina.

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This is an abbreviated and edited version of the interview from the new video project “Cold” “We are power”. In it, we are talking with politicians who, it seems to us, will fight for power after Putin. The full version of the interview with Julia Galyamina, see the YouTube channel "Cold".

We have just started a series of interviews with politicians who, it seems to us, will fight for power after Putin, but have already encountered gender imbalance. Why is there so few women in Russian politics?

-Well, firstly, literally because few women are engaged in politics. It is understandable: it is difficult, scary and completely incomprehensible to engage in politics. And secondly, because the media pay little attention to those female politicians who are. They say very little about them and write very little.

But a modern politician, as a rule, is media. If you say loudly about yourself on social networks or in the same YouTube, no media can ignore it.

- Often, young politicians, and even more women, have no resources to make their own media. You begin to do media, and then you are recognized as a “foreign agent”, as happened with the “Soft Power” movement, as soon as we spun a little.

But these are not special female risks. Restrictions and repression in the same way concern men.

- Yes, but for women this is a special blow. The woman has a house, children, all the responsibility for this. If a policy man is imprisoned, then a woman will remain with his children. And if a woman is imprisoned, then it is not known who will remain with her children. Therefore, women try to take less risk. Moreover, now there is no point in risking at all. To spin and engage in politics is so -so. The investment of the resource in politics is unpromising. You have blocked communication channels, you have very limited opportunities to speak, a very limited audience. All this will have to be done when opportunities appear. Now we must think first of all about the future, prepare personnel, and not go into politics under an authoritarian regime.

Isn't the authoritarian regime the time for a protest policy? We see how opposition politicians have now significantly increased their audience. At least media.

- I am sure that it was those who left are watching those who left. It is quite difficult to reach ordinary people in Russia. Previously, we had normal political tools: elections, pickets, rallies. YouTube is good, of course. But for politics, he is just an auxiliary tool. The politician should meet his voters. We cannot say that a politician is a media. No, media is media, and a politician is a politician. The politician solves the problems of people, he offers his voters real decisions, but now there are simply no conditions for this.

I am very happy for everyone whose videos are watching a large audience, but this is not converted into real political influence. These are just videos. I respect and love Ilya Yashin very much, but recently communicated with an ordinary person, we talked, and I mentioned Yashin. And this man says: "Yes, I know him, this is such a blogger." Do you understand? Even people do not perceive Yashin as politics, but perceive as a blogger. Because a politician is a person who puts forward political requirements. But now, I repeat, this is almost impossible to do.

You often say that the basis of politics today is a municipal policy. What can a municipal deputy do?

- Yes, municipal policy is the most important, because it is closest to people and, first of all, people need it.

What can municipal deputies do? Protect people. You remember, probably, the story of Alexei and Masha Moskalev in the city of Efremov. Who raised the whole wave? Two active women: one of them is the municipal deputy Olga Podolskaya, and the second is the milkmaid Elena Agafonova, who ultimately received the status of “foreign agent”. This is the first and, I think, the last milking-“foreign-agent” in our country.

So, they helped Masha and Alexei and defended them - and in the end this story ended, of course, not in the most favorable way, but it could be much worse. Masha was still not sent to the orphanage.

We have a deputy Anna Cherepanova, who in Novgorod creates a permanent shuher for the authorities and achieves so many important things. Now she is engaged in monitoring the implementation of the program to support the elderly. She actively stands for the world and will go under this slogan to the nearest elections.

Municipal deputies help people around themselves and involve others in political activity - this is the most important thing that the politician can do. What is the cause of the war? In authoritarian mode. What is the cause of the authoritarian regime? The fact that people do not participate in politics. It is not the problem that we have little Alekseev Navalny, but that people even at the level of their home are not ready to participate in politics that controls it. So the most important thing that municipal deputies do is involve people in politics.

And I, as a person who has grown from a municipal policy, cannot imagine a political life without a direct conversation with specific people. Live.

Remaining in Russia, the opposition politician inevitably accepts restrictions on their political struggle. Even at the level of the language, because a lot of things simply can not be said.

- Well, those who left are not limited, and what did they achieve? Everyone is limited now. Some are in the language, while others are in trust. I choose a restriction in the language. You know, there is a fairy tale about the pipe and a jug - either one or another. I want to maintain trust. This is the potential that can be used in the future. In this sense, Ilya Yashin is in the best situation.

Yeah.

- He has trust, and the audience, and there are no language restrictions. As he said in the trial: "What will you do with me - put it in prison?" He can say what he wants. But he is in prison. He pays a very high price for this conversation. Ilya is a young man, I hope he will be released healthy and inconsistent. As a woman, I am afraid of him older, that if I got into jail, it would have affected my health and then I would not build any political career.

And you do not think that a politician who has the opportunity to call black, white white, and war war, even being at a distance from his audience, still retains its trust? And it is precisely due to the ability to say what he thinks can increase this audience?

- Nonsense. It doesn't work like that. These people campaigning the Red Army for the Red Army. They will not convince anyone new. Let the person with a million subscribers, let two - but these are two million of the most radical anti -war activists.

We have what structure now in society: about 30% - against, about 30% - for, and there are another 30–40%, which do not care. 30% of the adult population of Russia is 30–40 million people. And one fifth of them is people with the most radical and bright anti -war position. These people listen to all these channels, convince each other and get the same information. The expansion of this audience is a very slow and complex process. It is good that such a radical anti -war point of view exists, but in order to come to it, you need to make a huge way. It is impossible to immediately jump into a radical position from a neutral position. The neutral majority is afraid of this radical language. People abroad use the language that repels this majority. It seems to them that he is treacherous. Well, then: why did these people leave, why should I trust them, they abandoned me.

There must be a more moderate rhetoric so that people find themselves in this rhetoric. I am here. I explain to people that what is happening is unprofitable for Russia, that each of us is losing something because of this. But this is a completely different language than the one that uses extreme forces on both sides.

Working with language is your profession. You teach, let it be informally, political linguistics. What is it?

- This is a linguistics that studies communication in the political sphere. It has a lot of different branches and subsystems. Starting from the rhetorical techniques that politicians use, ending with manipulations used by pseudo -journalists on central television. We study them using linguistic and semiotic theories.

And the practical benefit of this science is an opportunity to understand a policy by how he says?

- There are several practical benefits. The first applies to the politicians themselves. Political linguistics helps them build speech convincingly - so that people believe you. And the practical benefit for society is to learn how to recognize lies, roughly speaking. Understand whether you are manipulated or not. Is the politician and propaganda hidden goals and what they are.

That is, different politicians have different pictures of the world, this is normal. We can respect a person with that picture of the world that does not suit us at all if it is sincere. And there are people who say one thing, and their goals are completely different. When they tell us that the goals of “Svo” are denazification, demilitarization and the fight against NATO, we must understand that this is a lie, and the real goal is to preserve Vladimir Putin personal power. But it’s not enough just to understand. If we understand this and just say this, we are unconvincing, and when we show how it works in terms of linguistic examples, we become convincing.

Let's give these examples. What techniques does Putin use in his speeches?

- Yes, he uses all tricks. This is about 20 lectures. But in short, I would note important techniques: these are framing - that is, a person creates the frames of what is happening to him; This is the use of emotionally colored words; These are demagogic reasoning; This is hanging labels-when a bright label is attributed to some phenomenon and then this is called; This is a violation of the postulates of Grace-when you are sure to say something or, conversely, they say a lot of superfluous.

What about the opposition? What tricks does Alexei Navalny use in his speeches?

- I did not study his rhetoric in detail, but I can tell about one example. I had a scientific article about the "Party of Crooks and Thieves." This is just called “hanging a label” - a classic manipulative technique. But manipulation from people who have access to official discourse, and manipulation from those who do not have this access, have a very different weight.

What place in the post -war policy do you see for yourself?

-I always say that in order to achieve something in a political, and not only political life, you need to be able to dream. Dreaming not abstractly, but specifically: who will you, what you will do and even how you will look. I visualized my dream. I see myself as the leader of the faction associated with the female movement and local self -government. This faction is present in the State Duma. I stand on the rostrum in a red dress. We are winners in the elections and create a coalition government.