Protest Actions. The Second Wave 

Ten months before the presidential election, politics as a process of choosing the path to the future has completely disappeared from the agenda. Everything is done so that to ensure that no one would be interested in the future, because everyone knows that Putin will remain in power, which means that the present archaic system will be preserved and will become even more authoritarian and more corrupt, and that hard economic period is ahead, that armed conflicts and even war is possible. 

Therefore, now the work of the entire machinery of the state is aimed at diluting any sense out of politics, as it aimed at suppressing and reducing the turnout in the elections last year (when for the first time significantly less than 50 per cent of voters came to polling stations) and deliberate turning the election into an obvious nonsense. Approximately the same is done with regard to the upcoming [presidential] elections in March 2017. Now, perhaps, the authorities will need a higher turnout, but the essence should be the same – so that the election will have no subject-matter. 

All recent developments indicate this very clearly. The announcement that the State Duma refused to oblige presidential candidates to participate in the debates went unnoticed, and this is one of the most important and necessary (albeit insufficient) condition for any elections. 

Politicised public us fed with a PR show on the exchange of video retorts between the Kremlin’s tycoon and [anti-corruption blogger] Alexei Navalny instead of political discussion. No wonder that they are not discussing the causes of state lies and corruption, but who is better dressed, or on which yacht the video has been shot, or who has addressed whom to and how, or who has called whom an «earthworm». 

Or let us take the recent rally in Moscow against the [so-called] renovation [of old but often high quality housing disguising deprivation of people of their private property and ousting them to other small flats and other districts without their consent], when the organisers of the rally resolutely decided “not to speak politics”, even banning political symbols, slogans and speeches. They exactly repeated the scenario of 2011-2012 rallies, turning a serious matter into another «protest walks» [i.e. when people literally walked in the streets without any slogans or demands, in contrast to demonstrations or rallies], turning the protest into nothing. As you can see, the State Duma has again returned this fraudulent bill into its agenda scheduling the reading for the beginning of June. At first they were afraid, but now, seeing the senselessness of the non-political protest, they returned it back. Why? Because a meaningful protest rally against the lies and arbitrary rule of the authorities should aim at one thing only: the change of this power. The rally against the law on renovation should have resulted in the adoption of a decision on the change of the President and the Moscow Mayor, on the candidacies whom the rally would call to vote for in the elections, especially since the election is on the threashold. Only in this case the authorities would start talking to people, would begin a dialogue with the protesters. 

By the way, it is important to note that such civic activity, when every man is for himself (even among the organisers of the rally), is a harmful imitation. In Russia there is no civil society, there is no real defence of human rights (what is to be protected if there is no right?), there is no separation of powers, there are no independent media, there is no independent business… Without all this, a civil society does not exist. To depict, as if all this does exist, is either stupidity or self-interest. There are good people, there are very good people, but there is no society. To believe that the social protest will transfer into a civil one, and then someday miraculously into a political one, is a mistake! It was like this in the Middle Ages in Europe and lasted for hundreds of years. But we live in the 21st century. We live in a country, where the power was usurped by an irremovable group. In such a situation, only political activity has meaning. A peaceful political activity. The actions similar to those taking place in Moscow in the recent years will, due to their senselessness, lead to even greater public disappointment, apathy, subconscious refusal even from the thought that something can be decided in the elections, and ultimately to extremism and reprisals.

In fact, today all social protests are arranged in such a way that the protesters would appeal to Vladimir Putin as the supreme arbiter. And that is all he needs, since it strengthens his system even more. This is how political discourse has been ousted. This is how degradation of social activity has been taking place, this is how it has been made similar to a humble petition to a tzar. 

In the present situation, a protest without politics and politicians, — whether it is truck drivers’ actions or resistance to the breaking-up of the Academy of Sciences, — is a nonsense doomed to failure. 

They have been attempting to simplify the social and civil protest against the deterioration (change) in housing conditions, the struggle for pensions, salaries and low tariffs to the format of discontent that was allowed in the USSR: «in general everything is fine, but there are some shortcomings», «now the authorities will hear us, fix the problem, and everything will be even better». This is not true! Only foolishness or self-interest can explain the reluctance to see that the country has been conducting two wars, killing people in Ukraine, launching an arms race, holding political prisoners in prisons, eliminating political opponents, annexing the territories of its neighbours, balancing on the brink of a great war, lying endlessly on the state level. Only foolishness or self-interest can explain the reluctance to understand that such a power will still deceive all people and eventually do what meets the interests of a small group of people who serve it. It does not work like that that one can take away Crimea from a neighbor state, or can take away property from defenseless Moscow entrepreneurs, but the same state will exchange flats in five-story apartment blocks for «equal value flats». It never happens like this. It never works out that way. 

All this lawlessness, imperialism, war in the territory of a foreign state with knocking down of passenger planes, results, among other things, from this long-term and virtually conciliatory or even imitational stance of many so-called «civil activists». 

A Written and Non-Written Strategy 

There is one more problem. They have to occupy the minds of the «thought leaders», or rather, what is left of the intelligentsia,  with something, so that to distract them from elections. The Russian economy is in a bad state: there are 20 more years of stagnation ahead, the country is in isolation, sanctions have not been canceled and will not be canceled, Donald Trump does not help, Europe has not completely collapsed. Than how can they occupy the people’s minds? And here the country gets another programme, in addition to the strategies developed by [ex Finance Minister] Alexei Kudrin, the “Stolypin’s group” and the government. This time it comes from the President — the strategy of economic security of Russia until 2030. The document was developed by the “key experts” in the economy: [Prime Minister] Dmitry Medvedev, [First Deputy Head of Presidential Administration] Vyacheslav Volodin and Sergei Ivanov [ex Head of Presidential Administration and Special Representative of the President for Environment and Trasport], and  under the leadership of Nikolai Patrushev [ex Director of the Federal Security Bureau and Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation]. 

The economy has been experiencing stagnation and crisis for almost ten years, Russia has moving farther to the periphery of the world system, but there is not a word about the reasons for this in Putin’s economic security strategy. Accordingly, there are no concrete methods and quantitative parameters of the way out of the growing crisis. The economy should be economical, safety — safe, butter — oily, sausage — meaty: «the implementation should result in… ensuring the economic sovereignty of the Russian Federation and stability of the national economy to external and internal challenges and threats, strengthening of social and political stability, dynamic socio-economic development, raising the level and improving the quality of life of the population». In general, this is like in the 1970s, the «developed socialism.» Putin’s strategy keeps silent on a fair trial or independent institutions required for protection of property (which is a prerequisite for the development of a modern innovation economy). There is not a word in the document about the protection of private property from the state. The authors confidently make it clear that the cause of all Russia’s troubles is more external rather than internal. The outside world is very dangerous, and as for us, the Putin’s strategy can be reduced to roughly the following: we will reduce poverty, eliminate corruption, we will see so that «excessive requirements in the field of environmental safety» implying an increase in the costs for compliance with environmental standards are not established, we will replace  imports by something else, and we will dream about access to foreign technologies — and security will come. The implementation of all these measures will begin in 2020.

If it were expected that next year there would be at least seemingly real elections, then the economic security strategy (which should become the basis of the country’s development programme for the next presidential term of the incumbent head of state) would look quite different. Now it can only be called a programme about nothing. The only thing that this document demonstrates is the unlimited contempt that the inhabitants of the Kremlin, in the absence of elections and confident of their invulnerability, feel to people living in our country. It is obvious that the Russian economy will be safe only when an independent court emerges in the country, the law will be the same for all, private property will become inviolable, the media free, and the government will be regularly replaced in fair and transparent elections. And also when the national currency is not completely dependent on oil prices on stock exchanges in London and New York. And it is not necessary to wait for 2030 to accomplish this. 

The main task of a meaningful economic security strategy is to formulate what needs to be changed in today’s politics so that the desired result would be achieved. And we can not say that everything is well with this result either: so far nothing has been presented to us, except for the words about the need to increase the growth rates (and I have reiterated that quantitative growth is a treacherous thing, it can quickly lead the state and society to a deadlock; there is even a phenomenon “growth without development”) and the abstract goal of mass introduction of «new technologies, and no one argues the aforementioned goals. As far as I know, no one from the government stands for reducing the growth rates and refusing technological renewal. 

But, I should repeat it, the matter is not in the guise of the «desirable tomorrow», but in the fact what has to be changed in the present policy for it. And here some puzzles arise. Investing in a person, in his education and training is certainly an important thing, and all this should be a priority. But a mere increase in public spending will hardly change anything, if people with a high-quality education, the most important condition for obtaining which is freedom of creativity, will not be claimed by the economy, and a propaganda machinery debugged by the authorities will regard any free-thinking as treason. We should begin not with the book-keeping. We should start with interests that are built up by the efforts of the authorities into a system of almost medieval semi-feudal relations. Education here is subordinated to this archaic social system. 

Do you think the government has no strategy? You are mistaken. They have it. An unwritten strategy. The strategy for the security of the government, its irremovability, rather than a strategy for the security of the country’s economy. And it is this strategy that is being realised before our eyes. Independent media and opposition political parties and structures have been virtually liquidated, protest leaders have been convicted, independent public organisations suppressed and discredited, opposition-minded activists and famous people squeezed out of the country. Now a new stage has begun — pogroms and intimidation of intellectuals. One of the recent examples are [reprisals against] Academician Yuri Pivovarov and theatre director Kirill Serebrennikov. Apparently, opposition-minded intellectuals are a prominent academic and  famous theatrical figure. They are bright and socially prominent. [They face] criminal cases, searches, interrogations, FSB… I think this is only the beginning of the implementation of a strategy for intimidation, suppression and final elimination of the dissent. People of this kind, capacity and caliber are very few in the country, maybe there are only several hundred of such people. [The government] has “solved the problem” of the Academy of Sciences, and then turned to the most significant and notable ones, we have already witnessed this with the media (NTV) and business (YUKOS). The rest will either become silent voluntary, or will be imprisoned for «corruption» or «fraud». As in 1937 [in the start of Stalin’s “purges”] they would be able to imprison anyone for «politics» under the joyful hooting of those who will be imprisoned tomorrow. Yet it has been only the beginning, probing and testing – they will see how it goes. On a large scale, it will become a part of the political course after March 2018. Already then everyone will be taken to task. So what? These bright and notable people are not needed for oil-trading and saber-rattling with nuclear weapons. [These bright people] only stir up trouble. Hard times are ahead. So their mouths must be shut. 

Fraud Instead of Elections 

The military prosecutor’s office runs a trial against a private soldier who lost his gun in Syria. Somehow they considered the case so important that the court hearings were held in Moscow. The private got off with a fine of 50,000 rubles [approximately USD 833]. Why are we told all this? So that to achieve even greater dilution of politics and further deepen the degradation of the political field. They are not going to call to task those who have already wasted 100 billion of budget rubles for a senseless war of personal prestige in Syria. Although this money would suffice to pay for treatment of over 320,000 cancer patients, or to build 400 kindergartens, or to pay for training of 60,000 students. But they make a court trial over an ordinary soldier, who lost his gun costing 50,000 rubles. 

The lawsuit with the transfer of St. Isaac’s Cathedral [in St.Petersburg with its famous museum to the church]; voting in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly for the new «honorary citizens» of the city — Patriarch Kirill and [ex St.Petersburg Governor and now Senator and Chair of the Federation Council] Valentina Matviyenko (and [famous film director] Alexander Sokurov did not pass!); daily statements by Press Secretary of the Ministry of Affairs Maria Zakharova about contrived international scandals covered only in the Russian media; the struggle of young MP [ex Public Persecutor General of Crimea] Natalia Poklonskaya against the Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK) and Transparency International, and the struggle of FBK and Transparency International against young MP Poklonskaya.

In the meantime, the State Duma scheduled the presidential election on the day of annexation of Crimea. Apparently, [this is made] so that to hold a referendum on people’s approval of the annexation of Crimea together with elections. So that there would be a good turn out, so that to Putin … the collector of lands … and so that in general everything would be there forever. 

This is how substitution and creation of a false agenda, which leads to nothing and only imitates politics, look like. There are less than ten month left before the presidential elections, but the Central Electoral Commission asks all not to worry: they have just reported that the start of the presidential campaign will be announced not earlier than December. 

Neither the government nor the society want elections, they are not interested in the elections and do not believe in the election. If it goes like this, there really will be no elections. 

There will be Putin. 

Forever.