Institute of Modern Russia

The mass rallies for fair elections and democratic reforms that have swept across Russia since December are deeply worrying to the Kremlin which had, over the last decade of authoritarian consolidation, grown accustomed to acting with impunity in the face of society’s apathetic silence. The television images of tens of thousands of protesters on Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Avenue served as an uncomfortable reminder of the “color revolutions,” which had peacefully dismantled authoritarian regimes in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine – regimes that were strikingly similar to Vladimir Putin’s. In an effort to suppress the protest wave and, if not stop, then at least slow down society’s awakening, the authorities are shifting from one tactic to another.

The Kremlin’s first reaction to the December protests was to offer concessions – the first concessions to the opposition in Putin’s twelve years in power. Twelve days after the Bolotnaya Square rally, Russia’s figurehead president, Dmitri Medvedev, announced a “political reform” that included the restoration of direct elections of governors, easier access to the ballot for presidential candidates, and the registration of opposition parties. Another concession came in the form of a crack in the information blockade: for the first time in years, state-run television gave airtime to opposition leaders. Yet the concessions were half-hearted. The protesters’ main demand – new parliamentary elections – was not granted. The restored gubernatorial elections were undercut by a “filter” that allows the authorities to eliminate unwanted contenders in advance. Opposition leaders dismissed Medvedev’s reform as a “sham” and recalled Pavel Milyukov’s reaction to the October 1905 Czarist manifesto: “Nothing has changed, the struggle continues.” More protesters came out on Sakharov Avenue – after Medvedev’s reform – than to Bolotnaya Square (for the previous rallies.)

The authorities’ next response was the most familiar one: a crackdown. More than 1,000 people were arrested during the anti-inauguration protests in Moscow; twelve remain behind bars to this day. Four days before the planned opposition march in June, Putin signed a new law on rallies raising the maximum fine for “violations” by a factor of 150. On the eve of the march, police conducted high-visibility searches at the apartments of its organizers, including Alexei Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov, and Kseniya Sobchak. Intimidation did not work: between 50,000 and 100,000 opposition supporters marched through the streets of Moscow on June 12^th under the slogan “Russia without Putin!” “They are doing everything to make sure you don’t come out, but you came out because we…cannot be frightened,” Republican Party Co-Chairman Boris Nemtsov declared at the rally, “They are afraid [of us] as they are of fire, they are afraid of popular protest and of independent-minded people.” The core of the protest movement has not dwindled: the march on September 15^th, the first one after the traditional summer lull, brought out more than 50,000 people to downtown Moscow. Another measure that was strongly rebuffed by civil society was a new law that forced NGOs which receive support from abroad to register as “foreign agents.” Russia’s largest human rights organizations, including Memorial, For Human Rights, the Moscow Helsinki Group, and the Golos Association, have refused to comply with the demand.

It appears that concessions and intimidation are being complemented by a targeted attempt at neutralizing opposition activists, especially in the provinces. United Russia is planning to offer its opponents positions in regional governments. According to a source in the party leadership, United Russia has “recommended that governors…invite their opponents to become their advisors, their deputies in charge of social affairs, and so on.” The first such appointment has already been announced: Konstantin Okunev, an opposition activist from Perm and an active participant in the winter protests, will become an advisor to the regional governor. Similar job offers are expected to be made in the Novgorod and Bryansk regions, where the United Russia governors have signaled their readiness to accept representatives from other parties onto their teams.

The Kremlin’s tactic is hardly new: in recent years, the regime has already “snatched” a few well-known politicians from the opposition ranks. Nikita Belykh, the former leader of the Union of Right Forces who had been detained by police at opposition marches and had accused Putin’s regime of “barbaric totalitarian methods,” accepted the Kremlin’s offer to become governor of the Kirov region, stressing that he was no longer “involved in politics.” Mikhail Fedotov, a co-founder of the opposition 2008 Committee, went to work for the Kremlin administration as a presidential advisor and head of the Human Rights Council. Konstantin Doroshok deserves a special mention. He was the organizer of the 10,000-strong opposition rally in Kaliningrad in January 2010 that would become a precursor of the current wave of protests. Doroshok’s name became known throughout round the country; he was compared to Lech Wałęsa and expected to have a bright future in politics. Yet he resigned from the Solidarity movement, cancelled the plans for another protest rally, and publicly backed his erstwhile opponent Georgy Boos, then-governor of Kaliningrad. Today, Doroshok is a member of the regional legislature and the governor’s political council. It should be noted that Doroshok’s case is not black-and-white: opposition leaders have indicated that his defection to the authorities was caused not so much by careerism as by direct pressure (“insurmountable personal circumstances”).

Belarusian political "defector" Yaroslav Romanchuk with President Alexander Lukashenko

The attempts to lure opposition members are by no means unique to Russia. Belarusian economist Yaroslav Romanchuk was considered an opponent of President Alexander Lukashenko when he served as a deputy leader of the opposition United Civic Party and was its presidential candidate in December 2010. Yet after riot police brutally dispersed a protest rally in downtown Minsk, Romanchuk went on Belarusian television to condemn opposition leaders for “provoking disturbances” and trying to “sabotage the fragile dialogue that had begun to develop between Belarus and the international community.” The former opposition candidate then met with the dictator to discuss, among other things, his “work in the government.” A similar political route was taken by Serbian politician Vuk Drašković, a leader in the opposition’s Zajedno (Together) coalition and a key organizer of the 1996-1997 protests against Slobodan Milošević’s regime (his activism earned him the nickname “king of the squares”). In 1999, Drašković’s opposition background did not prevent him from accepting Milošević’s offer to become his deputy prime minister (though he only managed to keep the position for three months).

The result is the same across the board: the defections of individual politicians to the government camp do not have a major impact on opposition movements. The protest movement is founded on principles, not personalities, and the loss of a few "faces" is not critical: vacancies will be inevitably filled by others. The only thing that suffers is the reputation of the defectors themselves. Even in democracies political flip-flopping is openly frowned upon (suffice to recall the criticism of Socialist Bernard Kouchner who became foreign minister in Nicolas Sarkozy's center-right government, or Republican Jon Huntsman who went to work for Barack Obama's Democratic administration). In authoritarian regimes, political "defections" are viewed as open betrayal.

Nikita Belykh’s agreement to become the Kirov governor was criticized by his former opposition colleagues with various shades of disapproval. Boris Nemtsov diplomatically stated that any “political links with him are ruled out.” Garry Kasparov sarcastically advised Belykh to change his last name to Serykh (“Belykh” means “white” in Russian, while “Serykh” means “gray”) to avoid any association with the white ribbon, the symbol of the Russian protest movement. With respect to presidential advisor Mikhail Fedotov, Nemtsov said “He will have to integrate into the heinous and rotten vertical [of power], where all his talents and abilities will drown. I do not understand the motives of people who join this heinous government. Even if you are a distinguished person, it won't be valued. What they value is loyalty and obedience.”

The leaders of the Belarusian opposition are less lenient about their former colleague. “A coward and a traitor,” Stanislav Shushkevich, chairman of the Social Democratic Assembly and the first leader of independent Belarus, said of Romanchuk, “He is lucky that the other day I did not notice him in the train to Vilnius. I would have definitely spat in his face…. He should repent for what he has done.” Drašković’s actions, meanwhile, have received a clear verdict from Serbian voters. In the 2000 and 2007 parliamentary elections (held after the fall of Milošević’s regime), his Serbian Renewal Movement, once a popular political group, failed to win a single seat, receiving less than 4 percent of the vote.

History knows several examples – from Viktor Yushchenko to Mikhail Kasyanov – of former high-ranking officials joining the opposition and helping it in its struggle for free elections. But there is no known example of an opposition activist successfully integrating into an authoritarian system without the loss of reputation. The only way for the opposition to achieve power in such circumstances is a mass protest that forces the regime to hold free elections. This is precisely what Russia’s opposition is seeking to achieve.