A Quest for Democratic Citizenship

Agendas, Practices, and Ideals of Six Russian Grass-Roots Organizations and Movements

Leon Aron

1150 Seventeenth Street, NW Washington, DC 20036 202.862.5800 www.aei.org

Cover image by Mikhail Reznikov AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE A Quest for Democratic Citizenship Agendas, Practices, and Ideals of Six Russian Grass-Roots Organizations and Movements

By Leon Aron

September 2012

A PROJECT OF THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

Cover photo: Protesters in Bolotnaya Square, Moscow, on December 10, 2011. Photo by Mikhail Reznikov.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... V

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...... 1

A NOTE ON THE METHODOLOGY AND THE LIMITATIONS OF APPLICABILITY ...... 2

BACKGROUND ...... 3 US Policy ...... 3 Russia’s “New” Middle-Class Protesters ...... 4 A Literature Review: Civil Society and Grass-Roots Organizations and Movements in Vladimir Putin’s Russia ...... 5

THE STUDY ...... 9 Design and Selection Criteria ...... 9 The Respondents and the Interviews ...... 13

FINDINGS 1: DEMOGRAPHY, STRUCTURES, AGENDAS, PRACTICE, REGIME . . . . . 15 From “Intelligentsia” to Young Middle Class? ...... 15 Causes ...... 15 Governance ...... 16 Resources: Symbolic Dues, Ad Hoc Funding, Wary Businesses, and In-Kind Donations ...... 16 Virtual Membership and Ad Hoc, Issue-Driven Mobilization ...... 17 The Internet ...... 18 A Bridge to “Mainstream Media” ...... 19 The Uses of “Mainstream Media” ...... 19 The “Traditional” Means of Outreach and Mobilization ...... 20 The State: An Uneasy “Partnership” ...... 20 Public Politics ...... 21 The “Ship Rats” and Their Occasional Victories ...... 22 Sanctions ...... 23

FINDINGS 2: A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP ...... 26 The “Spillover” into Politics ...... 26 FAR’s “Political” Evolution ...... 27 A Surprising Culprit: Civil Society ...... 28 The Metagoal: “Changing People’s Mentality” ...... 30 The “Cells” and the “Molecules”: The Moral Contagion of Citizenship . . . 32 Toward “Peacefully Changing [People’s] Conscience” ...... 33 A Civil Rights Movement ...... 33

iii A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

CONCLUSION ...... 35 Building on Earlier Research ...... 35 . . . And Noting New and Potentially Momentous Developments ...... 35

APPENDIX ...... 37 Questionnaire: The English Translation and the Russian Original ...... 37

NOTES ...... 40

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ...... 45

iv Acknowledgments

This study would not have been possible without generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation and the attention of its senior program officer, Dr. Nadia Schadlow. I am grateful to Danielle Pletka, AEI’s vice president for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, for her unfailing encouragement and advice. I am most grateful to Leonard Benardo, Timothy Frye, Andrew Kuchins, Blair Ruble, Daniel Treisman, and Andrew Weiss for taking the time to read this paper and give me their generous and insightful comments. My thanks go also to Nicholas Eber- stadt for moderating a panel where Lenny, Andy, Andy, and I discussed these findings. My thanks are also to Daniel Vajdic for his invaluable assistance and companion- ship during our three weeks in Russia and for his editorial suggestions in the preparation of this essay; to Vera Zimmerman and Valentina Lukin, who listened to and transcribed over forty hours of recorded interviews on over three hundred pages; to Lara Johnson, who researched dozens of Russian grass-roots organizations; to Lauren Kimaid and Julia Friedlander for their help in shepherding the grant proposal to successful conclusion; and to Laura Drinkwine, Katie Earle, Claude Aubert, and Christy Sadler for their assistance with production of the report. Most of all, I am hugely indebted to the respondents of this study for the wonder- ful conversations we had. Without a doubt, they are among the finest, most remarkable men and women I have had the privilege of knowing.

Executive Summary

lthough limited in scope, inductive, and most time limits for the achievement of their goals, dis- Adecidedly qualitative, this study nevertheless playing quiet but unyielding determination and suggests several important tendencies in the devel- patience as long as necessary. They rejected violence opment of Russian civil society and its potential in principle. Instead, their key strategy was the moral impact on the country’s politics. Our exploration of and civic education of fellow citizens as the main pre- the agendas and ideals of these mostly young and condition for the emergence of a democratic state. mostly middle-class leaders and activists of six grass- Although, as we discovered a few months after roots organizations and movements provides con- the interviews were conducted, key elements of the siderable evidence that a proactive civil society respondents’ political and moral sensibilities were might be emerging. echoed by the participants in the mass protests of Vastly different in the causes they advocate and winter 2011–spring 2012, the groups and move- activities they engage in, the groups’ leaders and ments under study, on the one hand, and the pro- activists were remarkably similar in their conviction testers, on the other, represent closely related, often that the meaningful and lasting liberalization of the overlapping, but distinct manifestations of the country may be ensured only by a mature, self-aware moral, civic, and political awakening of the Russian civil society, able and willing to control the execu- middle class in the second decade of the twenty- tive. The main venue for such a change would not be first century. Aimed not just, and even not so a political revolution in the conventional sense. Nor much, at the change of political regime but at the would it be brought “from above” by a good czar or establishment of a powerful civil society capable of a hero. Instead, their hopes were predicated on a supervising any regime, the organizations and deeply moral transformation “from within.” Effect- movements like the ones we have explored are ing such an evolution toward enlightened and bound to continue their work long after the Putin morally anchored democratic citizenship appeared regime is no more. to be the overarching metagoal of the organizations, A free, democratic, and prosperous Russia, at above and beyond their daily agendas. peace, finally, with its own people, its neighbors, and The formation of such a cohesive and effective the world, is among the most important geostrategic Russian civil society will undoubtedly be a gradual objectives of the United States. Thus, America’s and long process, overlapping with but distinct from stakes in the consolidation and further expansion of traditional political developments. Rather, emerging a vibrant civil society, the emergence of which we from the interviews1 was something similar to the may have observed and recorded in this study, are moral sensibility of a civil rights movement. Thus, undeniable and high. Ultimately, it is the only the men and women we interviewed were striving to assured way of securing the attainment of this objec- effect vast political and social change through per- tive, so obviously and immensely beneficial to the sonal and deeply moral efforts. They established no peoples of Russia and the United States.

1 A Note on the Methodology and the Limitations of Applicability

This project is an explicitly inductive exploration. (listed below), rather than randomly, the subjects We did not seek to confirm any theory, and such cannot be considered methodologically “typical,” generalizations as are ventured here have been further limiting the findings’ applicability. Thus, any prompted solely by the findings. This is also a quali- patterns and themes described below should be tative study: a mostly interview-based,* in-depth interpreted only as preliminary insights. It is my probe into the modus operandi and Weltanschauung hope, however, that, as good qualitative studies of leaders and activists of geographically diverse sometimes do, this one may stimulate and supply a organizations and movements with equally diverse framework for quantitative research that will enable day-to-day agendas. Selected by a priori criteria us to generalize.

* Altogether, nineteen one-on-one interviews were conducted in five cities. On average, they lasted about an hour and a half, although some took two, three, and even four hours.

2 Background

US Policy conditions for average people....The United States has sent a delegation of leaders in the technology to oth before and after the glasnost revolution and Russia to explore how technological advances can Bthe fall of the Soviet Union, the US government help enhance civil society in Russia.”4 Secretary of has encouraged the development of human rights, State Hillary Clinton voiced her support of “creative civil society, and pluralist political culture through ways to use technology” to disseminate information diplomacy and foreign aid. By encouraging political employed by activists at the US-Russia “Civil Society parties, human rights organizations, nongovern- to Civil Society” Summit on June 24, 2010.5 Philip H. mental organizations, and political activists, the Gordon, assistant secretary of the Bureau of Euro- United States has traditionally played an active role pean and Eurasian Affairs, announced that the in promoting the reform of political culture in mod- United States spends $33.6 million annually on ern Russia. Beginning in 1989, the “Support for East funding for democracy promotion and civil society European Democracy (SEED) Act . . . has sought to in Russia.6 promote democratic and free market transitions in The United States Agency for International Devel- the former communist countries of Central and opment (USAID) sponsors dozens of programs to Eastern Europe, enabling them to overcome their promote civil society and human rights in Russia. past and become reliable, productive members of Among them are Promoting Civic and Political the Euro-Atlantic community of Western democra- Engagement in Russia; Strengthening Democratic cies.”2 In addition to promoting domestic economic Institutions in Russia; Young Human Rights Activists development and confronting domestic challenges and Social Marketing in Russia; and I’ve Got Rights: such as law enforcement, AIDS prevention, and Mainstreaming Human, Social, and Civil Rights.7 human trafficking, the US government, in the words Many of these projects have been introduced over the of the State Department’s performance report on its past year and will receive long-term funding. Pro- fiscal year 2009 activities in Russia, also “continued moting human rights and civic activism is of increas- to focus on promoting human rights, democracy, ing importance for the US government and has civil society, and rule of law through support to received significant attention and resources. organizations that encourage the adoption of poli- Several new protest groups in Russia have an cies and practices consistent with the responsibilities environmental and ecological focus, which may of a democratic state.”3 indicate the growth of a well-developed protest cul- Protest and the growth of civil society in Russia ture. The environment is a well-practiced form of have gained immediacy for American diplomacy and public protest. Concerns over ecological conditions developmental assistance. The Bureau of Democracy, stress the human need for basic living standards. In Human Rights, and Labor at the Department of State addition, they provide an avenue to voice concerns issued its Russia country report in May 2010, stating for citizen welfare without overt opposition to an that “a new generation of activists is starting to use autocratic state and with less fear of political retri- 21st century methods to raise awareness of the role bution or punishment. Engaged Russian citizens are that civil activism can play in improving living following a long-standing and successful tactic

3 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

employed under authoritarian regimes as a means of Russia’s “New” Middle-Class Protesters “safe protest.”* In the 1980s, protesters used environmental concerns to target regimes that paid no atten- The Russian middle class seems to have emerged tion to citizen welfare, neither in working and living from the sharp economic growth of 2000–2008 with conditions, nor in civil society and political life. The higher expectations of state institutions and new complete absence of response to Chernobyl in 1986 means of engagement with the authorities at both epitomized this sentiment and fueled protests across national and local levels. No longer burdened with Eastern and Central Europe. These groups started providing for the basic needs of their families and small but grew in size and reputation to effect now enjoying perhaps unprecedented, for Russia, momentous change in Europe. Twenty years later personal freedoms and prosperity, the middle class’s under Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev, the more socially active members appear to believe they Russian citizenry has begun to follow suit. are entitled to become stakeholders in a functioning, Today, in the aftermath of mass protests, what fair, and less corrupt state.** historian Tracy Lee Simmons called the “conflict As the authors of the 2010 study (despite its quali- between the power of the state and conscience of the tative character, likely the most representative to date) citizen”8 has acquired additional urgency. Having of “political values and behavior” of the Russian mid- closely monitored the progress of democratic dle class after the 2008 crisis found out from dozens of governance and civic activism in Russia, the US gov- in-depth interviews, this segment is relatively “well- ernment stands to benefit from new studies of grass- off” and “largely young,” liberal, “critically thinking,” roots organizations and movements in various and exhibiting “a certain degree of self-organization.”9 important ways. First, a deeper and more compre- Perhaps most important for our purposes, the study hensive understanding of their goals, structures, revealed the “level of civic activity” to be “relatively activities, and needs is indispensable for US diplo- high” by national standards and the “attraction to mats and those responsible for the disbursement of democracy” above that of the population at large.10 foreign aid. Second, the success and challenges of Specifically, their “shared values and ideals” have led grass-roots movements and political opposition the members of this group to be dissatisfied with provide a vivid sense of the political climate and “nontransparent” governance, the “erosion” of repre- conditions on the ground in Russia. Finally, and per- sentation in elections, the “uncontrollable government haps most importantly, such research provides corruption,”and the cancelation of gubernatorial elec- important clues regarding the direction of Russian tions.11 The respondents’ support for democratization politics, allowing for better planning and prepared- stems from their desire to “restrain bureaucracy, cor- ness in US policy toward Russia. ruption, and lawlessness.”12 Some of these characteristics and attitudes became evident between December 2009 and March 2010, when rallies, meetings, and picketing took place in

* To name just a few examples, the Solidarity movement in Poland began with protests of working conditions, and the Green League and Society for Nature and Environment in East Germany brought together dissidents to voice their discon- tent with pollution, destruction of natural resources, and industrial conditions. ** Maria Lipman defines the social stratum that contributes heavily to the ranks of the “new protesters” not as “middle class” but as “the new urban class,” which she describes as “young, well-educated professionals and entrepreneurs who have learned to rely on themselves and make their own decisions.” They are also “mobile and flexible” and at home in the “world of new media and global communications.” See Maria Lipman, “Civil Society and the Nonparticipation Act” (paper presented at the 42nd National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Los Angeles, CA, November 17, 2010), 4. Cited with the author’s permission.

4 BACKGROUND

Unlike previous protests that were dominated by groups who wanted more from the state, these demonstrators wanted less government intrusion in their lives and businesses. several dozen Russian cities, culminating in the the industrial contamination of Lake Baikal in national Day of Wrath in forty-eight cities on March Irkutsk, and the dominance of the Kremlin-created 20. As described at the time, the protests were innova- “party of power,” United Russia. Among their tive in both their organization and communication immediate results were the defeat of United Russia’s strategies.13 Two factors made these protests intrigu- candidate for mayor in Irkutsk at the eleventh hour ing and potentially politically significant: the size of and, eventually, the dismissal of the governor of the the middle-class component and the “middle-class” Kaliningrad province. These were authentic, grass- values reflected in their demands. Most importantly, roots civil society movements, both passionate and those whom I called “Russia’s new protesters” appeared self-organized but also fluid and often with unclear to embody a quest for a mature, organized, enlight- management structures. Although these movements ened, strong, self-aware civil society, willing and able have focused mainly on local political, economic, to take on the executive at both the national and local and environmental causes, they have also addressed levels—Russia’s only hope for the resumption of national political issues. For example, protesters nonauthoritarian modernization. Thus, the “new demanded the return to electing provincial gover- protesters” movement appeared to have momentous nors, which Putin canceled in 2004, and have fea- implications for Russia’s near future, as the political tured this demand prominently in their slogans. and economic model of the Putin restoration seemed It was fascination with this putative trend that to be running out of steam. prompted me in the fall of 2010 to seek an opportu- Thus, car owners (who by definition are middle nity to assess the movement’s staying power by class in Russia) and small-business owners were exploring the attitudes and goals of the leaders and among the most visible of the protesters. Furthermore, activists of at least some of the organizations that unlike previous protests that were dominated by participated in the protests. In late June 2011, Daniel groups (mostly pensioners) who wanted more from Vajdic and I left for Russia to interview them. In the state, these demonstrators wanted less government three weeks, we traversed the country from the far intrusion in their lives and businesses. They east to the westernmost city of Kaliningrad, 4,600 demanded fewer taxes and tariffs, less corruption, less miles away, over nine time zones and twelve take- incompetence, and less police brutality. In a recent offs and landings. Starting with a flight from Wash- paper that draws on a series of roundtable discussions ington, DC, to Seoul and concluding with one from and interviews with “public activists” conducted in Moscow to DC, we circumnavigated the globe. summer 2010, Maria Lipman of the Carnegie-Moscow Center described their dominant message as “leave us alone, don’t interfere with our lives, we want to live . . . A Literature Review: Civil Society the way we think is right and fair.”14 Furthermore, the and Grass-Roots Organizations and demonstrators’ disapproval of the Kremlin, as an Movements in Vladimir Putin’s Russia astute Russian journalist noted, stemmed from the “systemic flaws of the authorities themselves.”15 Although rather sparse, the literature on civil society The protests included demonstrations against taxes and grass-roots movements in Putin’s Russia has and import tariffs in Vladivostok and Kaliningrad, proved adequate to frame this study and suggest

5 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

broad research themes. If the development of civil constricts channels of “healthy contact” between state society is often used as a metric to judge the effec- and civil society.24 tiveness of communication between citizens and the In addition to the constraints discussed above, at state,16 then, judging by the reviewed literature, Rus- least some Russian grass-roots organizations have sian voluntary civic associations in the 2000s have failed in their “classic” role of mediating between not been a particularly effective or especially notable state and society because of their self-limiting (and mediator. Thus, the authors in the Evans, Henry, and occasionally self-defeating) tactics and strategies. Sundstrom collection trace the passivity and apathy Thus, after investigating environmental groups in within Russian society from the revolutionary activ- the Samara region, Jo Crotty concluded that these ity in the late 1980s and early 1990s to the national groups relied largely on personal friendships and political culture and the state’s monopoly or near- elite connections and were “uninterested in forming monopoly on policymaking and its near-total a mass movement” or in “actively engaging with the control of the public sphere.17 Both the czarist and Russian public.”25 As a result, these organizations the Soviet legacy are to blame, yet, as McFaul and were said to have “contributed very little” to the Treyger point out, the latter was especially devastat- development of Russian civil society and, by exten- ing, as “no political system has ever been more hos- sion, Russian democracy. Instead of bridging the gap tile to civil society than the totalitarian communist between state and society, the Samara environmen- regime erected by Stalin,”18 which survived until the talists “fell into” it.26 Similarly, a study of protests second half of the 1980s. against the second Chechen war found that the Most postcommunist nations evince disillusion- movement proved incapable of influencing the pol- ment with government attempts at privatization and icy of the regime due less to institutionalized repres- democratization, and a majority have lower levels of sion than to the “movement’s own culture,” which membership in voluntary associations than other dictated the use of tactics and slogans that had “little postauthoritarian societies.19 In Russia, in addition, mass appeal.”27 the obstacles to public grass-roots activity and par- However, while uncovering and analyzing struc- ticularly public protests have become more formi- tural impediments to the development of Russian dable under Putin’s regime, when compared to the civil society, some researchers are also careful to 1990s. The Putin Kremlin appeared to set out to con- point out that while they face serious obstacles, they struct institutions that “control civil society rather have not been silenced. Thus, summarizing the than engage it,”20 and to “cultivate”“civic groups that essays in their edited volume, Sundstrom and Henry unswervingly support it” and co-opt others, while conclude “that the challenges of navigating life in “shunning,”“curbing,”or even “eliminating” those the postcommunist Russia have led a strong minority of Kremlin considers incorrigibly oppositional.21 citizens to band together to resolve their problems The regime’s control of media, especially televi- collectively.”28 Similarly, McFaul and Treyger point sion, prevents voluntary associations from playing a to several national environmental campaigns against vital role as a “facilitator of civil society”22 and thus government policies as a sign that “the potential for further weakens the ability of civil society to be Russian society to acquire traits closer to the West- informed and to self-organize. Nongovernmental ern paradigm has not disappeared.”29 Drawing on a organizations lack financial and human resources case study of the provincial capital of Tver, Salmen- and are thus incapable of “institutionalization,” that niemi concluded that while both the Russian state is, of becoming reliable venues where interest groups and the older civic organizations favor a “paternal- can make their demands known to the state and ist” (or “state-centered”) model of citizenship, society at large.23 Finally, organized crime, which in which “citizen-subjects” work to help the state allegedly penetrates “all levels of government,”further implement government policies, activists in more

6 BACKGROUND recently formed organizations advocate “a participa- this obstacle.** Indeed, the already-cited recent study tory conception”: they aim not merely to implement of public activists found that “the increasing penetra- government policies but to actively participate tion of the Internet is a highly important factor” in in shaping them.* For these men and women, the sustaining the nonstate “public sphere” that has “dra- “ideal” citizen is “active, self-reliant, and respon- matically contracted in the previous years.”34 The sible,” orienting himself or herself to “society” Internet is “increasingly used” as “a venue for public instead of the state.30 campaigns,” and, although it does not “create the Having survived the privations, wrenching activism . . . it [becomes] very useful wherever there changes, and disappointments of the 1990s; the eco- [is] an organizational or community-building drive.”35 nomic crisis of 1998–99; and the state-imposed The regime’s cultivation of loyal organizations constrictions of the first half of the 2000s, how have and its disdain for (and efforts to defund and Russia’s voluntary movements and nongovernmen- repress) oppositional or even nonpolitical groups tal organizations evolved? In addition to expanding may hamper the progress of civil society for the time our knowledge of Russian civil society and single- being. Yet by blocking the institutional channels of issue protest movements, the existing research societal feedback, the Kremlin is almost certain to inspires further exploration and analysis of at least deepen the gap between the regime and society in some of the structural factors that shape grass-roots the long run and to radicalize grass-roots opposi- associations in Russia. tion. Indeed, as a researcher of the popular “Soldiers’ For instance, one such factor has been “insufficient Mothers” national movement has concluded, after resources” that allegedly hamper the “institutionaliza- being shunned by the government, the group has tion” of such associations.31 Yet the economic restruc- adopted a much more adversarial stance.36 As far as turing of the 1990s, coupled with rising oil prices from specifically public protests are concerned, a promi- 2000 to 2008, has resulted in a steady and at times nent Russian political analyst traces their increasing sharp increase in middle-class incomes in Russia. As a incidence to a situation where “all institutions are recent study of “protest moods” in one relatively poor eviscerated, when referenda, elections, independent Russian province (Vologda) has shown, incomes more judiciary, and parliament exist only formally”—in than doubled between 2000 and 2006.32 Similarly, short, where society cannot use the normal, institu- government ownership or control of national mass tionalized “channels of interaction with the state.”37 media has been found to impair the ability of grass- In 2006, the editors of the definitive monograph roots movements and organizations to “cultivate pub- on Russian civil society concluded that “demonstra- lic awareness and support” of their activities, thus tions by NGOs or protest movements, which are impeding their “institutionalization.”33 Yet the explo- aimed at the public as well as at the state, are exceed- sive growth of Internet access in the past decade, espe- ingly rare.”38 Four years later, the Day of Wrath and cially among the urban middle class, may eliminate other protests of the winter and spring 2010 evinced

* For a theoretical interpretation of these opposing views on civil society’s role vis-à-vis the state, see, for example, Henry Hale, “Civil Society from Above? Statist and Liberal Models of State-Building in Russia,” Demokratizatsiya 10, no. 3 (Sum- mer 2002): 306–21. Hale identifies “the statist conception of state-society relations” as one in which the state and society are perceived as “integrally related” and “part of the same organic whole,” and contrasts it with a situation in which civil society plays an independent role and orients its activists toward society as a whole and not just the state. He labels the latter “the liberal model of state-society relations” (Ibid., 309, 307). ** For a pioneering study of the immensely benign impact of e-mail communications on grass-roots organizations in Rus- sia (in this case, an environmental activist group in Kaliningrad in the mid-1990s), see Shannon O’Lear, “Networks of Engagement: Electronic Communication and Grassroots Environmental Activism in Kaliningrad,” Geografiska Annaler; Series B, Human Geography 81, no. 3 (1999): 165–78.

7 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

By blocking channels of feedback, the Kremlin is almost certain to deepen the gap between the regime and society in the long run and to radicalize grass-roots opposition.

a dramatic multiplication, expansion, and radical- modes of outreach, the changing (and thus, possibly, ization of such movements,39 suggesting a possible increasing) appeal of their causes and slogans, and renaissance within Russian civil society. This phe- their material and human resources. It is precisely nomenon underscores the need for new field such updating and augmentation that this study was research into the movements’ and organizations’ intended to undertake.*

* The Levada-Center study Perspektivy grazhdanskovo obshchestva v Rossii [The Prospects for Civil Society in Russia] came to my attention too late to inform the design of this research or stimulate the analysis of the findings, but the two projects are remarkably similar in the initial impulse, methodology (selection criteria), and even some of the key conclusions. Seek- ing to explore the objectives and modus operandi of grass-roots organizations and movements, the Levada researchers, led by Denis Volkov, conducted 103 in-depth interviews in six of the largest Russian cities (of which three, Vladivostok, Kalin- ingrad, and Moscow, overlapped with our final choices). Noting severe shortages of funding, the authors nevertheless noted “growth of civic activity,” the central role of the Internet, a degree of cooperation with the state and its institutions, and the “forced politicization” of the organizations and movements that began as apolitical. Study available in Russian at www .levada.ru/press/2011040402.html (accessed October 25, 2011).

8 The Study

Design and Selection Criteria was given to organizations and movements outside Moscow and St. Petersburg. qualitative study, this project attempts to pro- Yet the weightiest factor in the final choice of Avide a snapshot of Russian grass-roots civic- organizations was the explicitness, intensity, and per- political and quasi-political opposition through suasiveness of what I have come to consider the defin- in-depth research into several representative move- ing themes in the new protesters’ moral and civic ments and organizations. The study is comprised of sensibilities: self-reliance, personal responsibility, and three distinct but overlapping phases: informed citizenship. Within this framework, the following six organizations and movements have been I. Extensive background research of the more selected (in alphabetical order): visible organizations and movements using mostly Russian media and websites; Baikal Ecological Wave (Байкальская экологи- ческая волна). One of the oldest Russian grass-roots II. Selection of the final group of organiza- organizations, and part of the international “Save tions and movements; and Baikal!” Coalition, Baikal Ecological Wave has been engaged in civic outreach, informed citizenship, and III. Field research/observation and face-to-face activism since 1990. Although its primary goal is to interviews with the leaders of these shut down the Baikal Pulp and Paper Plant (BPPP), organizations and movements. which dumps toxic waste into Lake Baikal, the movement has evolved into a kind of ecological watchdog Prior to the field research phase, nearly two dozen for the entire region and has advanced sophisticated organizations and movements were investigated with and practical suggestions for the emergence of “clean” respect to the following criteria: (1) protest visibility, industries in the area, as well as retraining and alter- determined by the size of their rallies and/or their native employment for the workers of the BPPP. resonance in the Russian cyberspace and their sites’ traffic; and (2) level of “attention getting,” as indi- The most salient eligibility features: High local visibil- cated by the authorities’ response and the achieve- ity and effective political mobilization as evidenced, ment of the stated objectives. An organization’s most recently, by the organization’s contribution to eligibility was enhanced if it contributed to the diver- the defeat of United Russia’s candidate for mayor of sity of causes and agendas (taxation, environmental Irkutsk in spring 2010; national and international protection, corruption, law enforcement), diversity visibility and support; the website’s language of civic in scope (“single-issue” as opposed to more general activism and informed citizenship; and very specific, and broader agendas, local versus national), and constructive, and practical alternatives to existing diversity of the size and geography of the urban cen- government policies. ters where organizations and movements operated (large versus medium, central Russia versus Siberia Causes, objectives, and mission statements:“Annul the and regions far east). Other things equal, preference government decision to allow the BPPP to dump

9 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

toxic waste into Lake Baikal”;“conduct a technologi- On December 8, 2010, the government of St. cal audit of the BPPP”; “pass a law to create a Petersburg withdrew its permission to Gazprom to national parklike zone in the area”; create ecologi- build the “Tower.”Proud of fomenting “public opin- cally friendly “clean” industries in the area (with the ion,” under the “pressure of which” the authorities proposed projects detailed, complete with workforce have “stopped this barbarity,” Bashne.net! had no and investment requirements); “support and devel- plans to disband. On the contrary, the movement opment of ecological education”; “active ecological seemed to want to establish itself as a kind of per- lobbying at the national and regional levels”; “sup- manent preservationist watchdog. A post on its site port the growth in social activity of the population” called on its members and supporters to continue to (emphasis added). “defend our city together!” The movement was especially concerned about the quick erosion of archeo- Bashne.net! (Башне.нет! “No to the Tower”). In logical digs that uncovered an ancient Russian town 2007–2010, the organization led protests against the and two Swedish fortresses that preceded St. Peters- construction of the seventy-seven story, 403-meter burg by several centuries. (1,322-foot) headquarters (the Okhta Center) of Gazprom Neft—the oil division of the country’s Examples of relevant site posts and mission statements: largest company, Gazprom. Bashne.net! organized “Petersburg needs our protection. The Gazprom several large rallies, including one on October 9, Neft company is going to build a 403-meter high 2010, attended by three to five thousand people—at ‘Okhta Center’ [which] will not only destroy Peters- the time, one of the single largest protest gatherings. burg but also its history. According to public opinion In mid-October 2010, the group collected 48,412 polls, over half of the city’s population is against the signatures on its Internet petition. skyscraper. But the opinion of the city-dwellers is not being taken into consideration. Our voice must The most salient eligibility features: Solidly middle- be heard. This is not a question of taste but a choice class demographics (especially creative intelligentsia, between legality and crime. Let’s together defend our teachers, and college students); visibility; large city!”“Hands-off Petersburg. It is sickening to watch national and international target audience; very how scum, which is temporarily in power, is trying active blogging community; excellent educational to get into history with all its might.”“Isn’t it time to outreach (at the time the site was getting an average change the governor [Valentina Matvienko] and of 4,141 page views per day); national and interna- send her packing?” tional support; and very specific, constructive, and practical alternatives to existing government prac- ECMO (Экологическая оборона Москвоской tices and actions. области, or ECological Defense of the MOscow Region). One of the most visible protest movements Causes and objectives: “Annul all the real estate devel- in Russia today, ECMO leads protests against the opment decision in the area around the estuary of destruction of the Khimki forest in Moscow and of the Okhta River. . . . Preserve a unique archeological many other ecological and historical sites along the monument in the Okhta estuary and create there an Moscow–St. Petersburg “superhighway.” ECMO archeological park to exhibit unique memorials of activists, who literally put their bodies between the our history and culture. . . . Prosecute the officials trees and the bulldozers, have been (and continue to who have broken laws [in approving the tower con- be) subjected to sanctions more brutal than those struction]. If officials do not guarantee that laws will meted out to any other group selected for this be obeyed, a new danger may loom over the city at study: beatings, arrests, fines, and hacker attacks on any moment.” their website.

10 THE STUDY

The most salient eligibility features: Very high visibil- traffic safety, and lower gasoline prices. One of FAR’s ity; frequent pickets and rallies, including those in most popular campaigns has been against Article 3.1 the center of Moscow; pronounced middle-class of the Traffic Regulations Code, which permits vast tonality of self-reliance and civic activism in its web- and ill-defined categories of government officials to site posts; successful national civic coalition building drive with blue flashing lights (migalki). (including website hosting of ECMO’s “banners” by at least twelve opposition and environmental groups The most salient eligibility features: Likely one of the and movements). largest, if not the largest, nongovernmental organization in Russia;* protest visibility; strong middle- Causes and objectives: “Our objective is protecting class presence, closely correlated with car ownership; forests, parks, and green zones around Moscow from geographic diversity; very specific, constructive, and destruction. . . . Our objective is to DEFEND practical alternatives to existing government laws NATURE....Our objective is to avert an ecological and regulations. disaster, to uphold our right and the right of our children to breathe clean air, to walk among trees instead Causes and objectives: Lower the transportation tax; of concrete boxes—in short, to live a NORMAL LIFE.” reform the transportation police (GIBDD, the acronym for State Inspection of the Security of the Examples of relevant site posts and mission statements: Road Transportation), aiming to ensure “safety and “We must defend our nature for one simple reason: equal rights for all participants”; organize “public EXCEPT FOR US, THERE IS NO ONE ELSE TO DO control over the actions of authorities”; defend the IT.”“It seems to me that our problem is not Putin but “rights of the car owners through legislation, strug- the [Russian] people. For [we should be] . . . more gle against corruption, and control over the dis- demanding with respect to our own lives, with respect bursement of the tax revenue”; eliminate the neglect to what we see out of our windows, and resisted every of laws (“legal nihilism”) and spread knowledge time when the government functionaries offend us. about laws (“legal education”) among people; repeal . . . [As regards elections] I myself have been an the increased tariffs for imported cars. entirely apolitical person until recently and thus understand very well why people don’t bother to vote. Examples of relevant site posts and mission statements: To go into the booth, to fill in the ballot—all that “I am for the ‘FAR party,’ which could defend the seems very far removed [from people’s everyday life]. interests of a majority of Russia’s population. And not But such themes as ‘this is my forest and they are tak- only with respect to car owners but along the entire ing it away from me’—this is very easy to understand spectrum of problems. . . . For those who sit in the and close to one’s heart. And it seems to me that the Duma are nothing but the Soviet nomenklatura, be [Russian] people will understand, although maybe they ‘United Russia,’ the Communists, or the [pro- not now....[But] this is already a rather high level of Kremlin, nationalist] LDPR [Liberal Democratic understanding of oneself as a citizen.” 40 Party of Russia]. All the laws adopted by these ‘deputies’ are against 90 percent of the country’s Federation of the Automobile Owners of Russia population. And our D. Medvedev has said that (Федерация Автовладельцев России, or FAR). [regional] ‘governors’ will continue to be appointed Since 2001, FAR has championed better roads, [as opposed to being elected] for a HUNDRED years,

* According to an interview with FAR president Sergei Kanaev, there were 36 million cars in Russia as of summer 2011 and 30 million car owners. While far from every owner is a member and car ownership is not a requirement for membership, the self-selection is apparently strong enough to account for the organization’s popularity and the size of the Internet community it spawned.

11 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

just as under the czars. And these ‘governors’ and their Causes and objectives: Lower taxes (especially on families will be ruling us....In its latest program ‘United imported cars); eliminate corruption (especially in Russia’ has written that it is for a Russian ‘conservatism.’ the ranks of the traffic police); health care and edu- To me,this means the continuation of the policies of the cation; veterans’ benefits; preservation of urban czars and Bolsheviks.” “The federation of automobile “green spaces”; honest elections. owners of Russia is a fellowship of free people, for whom the rule of law, justice, and equality are not an Examples of relevant site posts: “The rose-tinted empty sound but a part of life’s path; for whom public glasses fell off and smashed against the hard reality interests are above personal ones and who understand into which the party of power has thrown us: cor- that the responsibility for one’s freedom rests on their ruption . . . and lawlessness, the absence of rights and own shoulders....For FAR,equality and respect on the liberties of a citizen, and much else now associated roads is one of the key priorities of its activity, along with the United Russia party, which in [our] region with lowering the cost of car ownership.” is represented by a pack of mercenary, greedy, and talentless functionaries and deputies.” Spravedlivost (Справедливость, or Justice). Orga- nized by Konstantin Doroshok in May 2007 and offi- TIGR (Товарищество инициативных граждан cially registered in early 2008, Spravedlivost is an России, or Fellowship of Active Citizens of Rus- umbrella advocacy group for honest elections and the sia). Founded in Vladivostok in December 2008 to end of economic injustice, against the sharp rise of protest the sharp increase (up to 54 percent) in import duties on cars, and against the real estate piracy import duties on Japanese cars,41 TIGR has evolved of the so-called point construction (tochechnaya zas- into a nationwide populist movement that aims to troyka) that destroys schools, hospitals, and parks. encourage and sustain civic activism by exposing Save for the 2005 pensioners’ rallies against the and opposing corruption, bureaucratic malfeasance, “monetization” of formerly in-kind benefits and and the curtailment of democratic liberties, self- until the Russian Spring protests of December 10, rule, and popular sovereignty. 2011, the Spravedlivost-led rally of ten to twelve thousand people on Central Square in Kaliningrad The most salient eligibility features: Powerful and on January 30, 2010, was the single largest demon- well-articulated moral protest sensibility; high stration in Putin’s Russia. Along with various protest visibility; geographic diversity (including regional movements and organizations, every oppo- such regional capitals as Barnaul, Bryansk, Vladivos- sition party in the Kaliningrad region marched tok, Kaliningrad, Kaluga, Kazan, Kirov, Moscow, under Spravedlivost’s banners: Solidarity, Yabloko, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Pskov, St. Petersburg, Tomsk, Patriots of Russia, the Communist Party, the Liberal Chelyabinsk, Khabarovsk, and Yaroslavl); strong Democratic Party, and A Just Russia. civic-education program, including detailed instruc- The rally was followed by two firsts for Putin’s Rus- tion on “how to self-organize a legal protest action” sia: the firing of a regional governor, Georgy Boos, in and a Wikipedia-like “Encyclopedia of a Citizen,” direct response to public protests; and the March 2011 or Энциклопедия гражданина; minimal foreign election of the protest organizer Konstantin Doroshok, media coverage. who ran as an independent (“self-nominating”) candidate (samovidvizhenetz), to the regional Duma. Causes and objectives: To “awaken” civic activism and radically reform the regime; “Authorities must serve The most salient eligibility features: Protest visibility; the people, yes to serve because they are nothing strong middle-class presence and issues; blend of more than our employees, whom we entrusted to civic and political causes. manage the country. Instead, it is we who are forced

12 THE STUDY to serve the authorities! No one but we ourselves will “We have a choice: to continue to tolerate lawless- be able to win justice and to force government offi- ness or not. . . . We invite to join us all those who are cials to work for the good of the people and the ready to participate in our work and to make more state”; “People are not organized and lack initiative proximate the moment when Russia becomes a . . . we lack solidarity and fellowship. This is what we country of happy, strong, and free people.” aim to correct.”

Examples of relevant site posts and mission statements: The Respondents and the Interviews “Democracy is nowhere to be found; we have been deprived of the right to elect and be elected An extensive questionnaire was developed (see the [because] every possibility of realizing this right has original and English translations in the appendix) been extirpated! We are saddled with [local] author- and interviews were agreed on with the leaders of ities that are convenient [for the powers that be] and the selected organizations and movements via per- that are absolutely indifferent to the people and their sistent e-mailing and phone calls, using contact problems. We are saddled with draconian taxes and information on the organizations’ sites.* In addi- tariffs. . . . Having reached the peak of one’s tion, at least half a dozen of the activists we met were impunity, the authorities became virtually untouch- interviewed using the same questionnaire on an ad able by laws. Instead of serving the people, they treat hoc basis. Listed alphabetically below, all respond- them like cattle. [Government functionaries are] ents were interviewed individually and, unless noted remaking the Constitution to suit themselves, they otherwise, face-to-face: are making laws that push people into a real slavery, the slavery of a police state, a slavery of an authori- The Leaders tarian regime, which borders on totalitarianism.” • Evgenia Chirikova, ECMO, Khimki, Moscow** “[The authorities are] afraid of us, which means that • Konstantin Doroshok, Chairman, Spravedlivost, we are on the right path, that the defense barrier Kaliningrad built by the regime will soon crumble and people’s • Sergei Kanaev, President, FAR wrath will come down on the heads of those who • Dmitry Mozhegov, Coordinator, TIGR, illegally and illegitimately seized power in Russia.” St. Petersburg

* The questionnaire was e-mailed to the respondents long before we set out for the trip. With one exception, however, we received no response. Similarly, our efforts to agree on the time of the interview were met with the virtually universal response of “call me when you are in town.” The indeterminacy caused the author a few sleepless nights—until the deeply buried but apparently still intact native sense of resignation took over. In the end, we managed to interview everyone on the original list of respondents—and several others, to boot—albeit not without glitches. One respondent’s child was sick; she canceled the meeting at the last minute, yet made up for it by responding to the questionnaire in writing and then again in response to my follow-up. Another leader was too discomfited by severe back pain to meet us in the office, yet invited us to her home, where we found her with a thick woolen shawl around her waist, constantly changing her position in the chair to ease the pain or getting up to walk around during the interview. ECMO’s Evgenia Chirikova and Yaroslav Nikitenko were to be contacted by phone on the eve of our last full weekday in Moscow (even civil society activists disappear to their dachas in mid-July). Yet no one answered our phone and Skype calls and e-mails. I continued to call every few minutes until late afternoon when Nikitenko suddenly picked up. Both he and Chirikova turned out to be in Paris, promoting their cause. (The general contractor for highway construction is the French multinational Vinci). I interviewed Nikitenko via Skype from St. Petersburg, where we went after Moscow. Chirikova, who seemed to spend her days leading protest rallies, getting arrested, or throwing herself in front of bulldozers in the Khimki forest, was harder to catch up to. She was interviewed by phone after our return to Washington. ** The interview was recorded from a speakerphone.

13 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

• Marina Rikhvanova, Baikal Ecological Wave, The Activists Irkutsk • Irina Abdulova, Baikal Ecological Wave • Dmitry Shpeytelshpakher, Coordinator, TIGR, • Sergei Ageev, ECMO St. Petersburg; Regional Representative, FAR, • Oleg Mel’nikov, ECMO St. Petersburg • Yaroslav Nikitenko, ECMO • Maxim Vedenev, Chairman, the Far Eastern • Daniil Beilinson, ECMO (Maritime) Region (Primorsky), TIGR, • Dmitry Linov, Bashne.net! Vladivostok* • Vitaly Lavrinovich, Spravedlivost • Natalia Vvedenskaya, Bashne.net!, St. Petersburg • Oleg Nikiforov, TIGR, Kaliningrad • Anastasiya Zagoruyko, Regional Representative • Natalia Sivokhina, Bashne.net!/Zhivoy gorod (Coordinator), the Far Eastern (Maritime) • Maxim Vorontsov, Baikal Ecological Wave Region, FAR, Vladivostok** • Petr Zaborokhin, Bashne.net!/Zhivoy gorod

* By written responses to the questionnaire (via e-mail) and a face-to-face recorded interview. ** By written responses to the questionnaire and to written follow-up questions.

14 Findings 1: Demography, Structures, Agendas, Practice, Regime

From “Intelligentsia” to Young Middle Class? the journalist; the writer; the editor; and, later, the environmentalist) to middle class as defined by the t the time of the interviews, the oldest leader was universal criteria of higher-than-average income Afifty, the youngest twenty-seven, and the rest and self-employment or business ownership. between twenty-nine and forty-three. The average age was thirty-seven. Without exception, the leaders belonged to the middle class as defined by traditional Causes national criteria, which emphasize not only—and perhaps not so much—economic status, but also With the exception of Baikal Ecological Wave, which education and profession. All were professionals with began to coalesce in 1990, all the organizations and college or postgraduate degrees. In addition, three movements were founded in Putin’s Russia after leaders had earned (or had begun to earn) second 2005. At their inception, three of the six could be university degrees in business or law. (All the younger classified as “single issue” (ECMO, Baikal Ecological activists we met were full-time college students.) Wave, and Bashne.net!); FAR and Spravedlivost are Perhaps indicative of a deeper socioeconomic engaged in a wide range of issues; and TIGR is metamorphosis of the Russian middle class in the perhaps best described as a wide-ranging human, past decade, all but two of the nine leaders were (or political, social, and economic rights watchdog. had been) self-employed entrepreneurs, and five (Seeking a more precise description of TIGR’s fluid would be classified as upper-middle class, since they and events-driven agenda, I suggested in an inter- had had profitable midsize (4) or small (1) busi- view that the organization’s key function was “pro- nesses. (With one exception, all had abandoned viding protest infrastructure” to a multiplicity of business for full-time activism. In the cases of causes: from the organization of rallies against Maxim Vedenev and Konstantin Doroshok, the increases in the price of gas and the transportation businesses had been destroyed by the economic and tax, to opposition to Kremlin-sponsored educa- legal pressure applied by the authorities.) tional reform, to helping other grass-roots organiza- Although the methodology precludes generalizations with membership and resources. The tions, these data may suggest an evolution of the respondents heartily agreed.42)* Russian middle class from state- to self-employment Economic concerns have been prominent but far and entrepreneurship. More importantly for our from dominant. Even among the three organizations purposes, the change may also indicate a shift in the (Spravedlivost, FAR, and TIGR) born out of or ener- national political tradition of civic leadership from gized by economic demands (lower import duties on the intelligentsia (largely state-employed intellectu- imported cars, the transportation tax, and gas prices), als in “liberal” professions—the university professor; over time these issues started to be increasingly

* For example, TIGR helped organize rallies for the dismissal of St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matvienko and led protests against the transportation tax (calculated according to the size of a car’s engine) and for lowering the price of gasoline. In December 2008, it demonstrated in solidarity with the car owners of Vladivostok, who protested the ban on the right-hand steering wheel and a sharp increase on import duties for used Japanese cars. (Materials in the author’s possession.)

15 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

As with most grass-roots organizations, members’ personal time and effort are by far the most important resource.

overshadowed by equality before the law, anticorrup- own agendas and rules. In the words of Maxim tion measures, and a broad range of human, civic, Vedenev, “We are [officially] ‘Maritime Human and economic rights. Thus, these organizations are Rights Regional Organization.’ We send our statute engaged in finding and publicizing “traps” set up by (ustav) to Kaliningrad [to help set up] the Kalin- the traffic police in order to extort fines; conducting ingrad Human Rights Regional Organization. But all independent investigations of some fatal traffic acci- are known as ‘TIGR.’ These are separate organiza- dents (FAR); protesting the destruction of green tions. We have no [national] chiefs. . . . All regions are spaces and the closing and destruction of schools and absolutely independent in their region, but they must hospitals to make room for expensive “point con- support the sister organization in another region. . . . struction” (tochechnaya zastroyka) (Spravedlivost); So when a good idea [emerges] that should be imple- and monitoring local and national elections to make mented nationally, we all work on it.” them “more transparent and fairer” and to preclude By contrast, FAR annually convokes a national the local authorities from ballot stuffing (TIGR, congress, which elects a president and the Consulta- Spravedlivost).43 In addition, FAR, Spravedlivost, tive Council. The Far Eastern (Maritime) TIGR and and TIGR attach great importance to providing legal Spravedlivost hold annual meetings to elect a chair- advice on a broad range of topics. man, and Baikal Ecological Wave holds an annual The most fluid and multicentered of the organiza- meeting and reelects its three cochairs every two tions, with its agenda shaped by events almost in real years.45 ECMO began to elect a six-member Coordi- time, TIGR is particularly omnivorous. Its causes nating Committee in 2010,46 and, although she is range from helping victims of business takeovers still the undisputed leader, Evgenia Chirikova is for- (rayderstvo) abetted by corrupt local administrations, mally “first among the equals.”Finally, Bashne.net! is police, and judges, to protesting against the alleged almost completely informal. “We are not an ‘organi- introduction of fees for high school education outside zation,’” an activist insisted. “We are more like a the core subjects.44 TIGR also joins or helps organize ‘club,’ a group of like-minded individuals who were protest rallies of other groups and movements. opposed to the tower.”47 (Indeed, one of the two TIGR coordinators in St. Petersburg, Dmitry Shpeytelshpakher, was also the FAR representative in the city and region.) Resources: Symbolic Dues, Ad Hoc Funding, Wary Businesses, and In-Kind Donations Governance As with most grass-roots organizations, members’ The organizational structures range from loose personal time and effort are by far the most impor- and almost ad hoc to fairly rigid and elaborate. For tant resource. Membership dues are collected by instance, while national in scope, TIGR is a confeder- only two (Spravedlivost and Baikal Ecological ation, with de facto regional chapters registered as Wave). The amounts are symbolic—five hundred autonomous organizations. There is no national rubles (around $18) per year—and dues-paying leadership, and each of the regional chapters sets its members do not exceed a few dozen at most. By

16 FINDINGS 1 contrast, most funding in all the organizations Virtual Membership and Ad Hoc, comes from ad hoc donations. Sbrasyvaemsya (“we Issue-Driven Mobilization [the leaders] chip in”) is the dominant method. “The FAR office in Moscow exists on the personal Card-holding and dues-paying membership appears money of Kanaev,” FAR’s president told an inter- to be largely a thing of the past. Indeed, only the viewer. “And the office in Novosibirsk exists on per- leader of Baikal Ecological Wave knew how many sonal money of [the local chapter’s president] “traditional” members the group had (twenty).50 Koval.” The same is true for Maxim Vedenev and Instead, the organizations are loose, Internet-based Konstantin Doroshok. (All three had been communities of the like-minded. They coalesce successful entrepreneurs and owners of midsize around issues, swell before and during successfully businesses.) In the words of Vedenev, “We have organized events, and melt away afterward, leaving accumulated some subcutaneous fat [podkozhnyy only the core leaders and activists to deal with day-to- zhir], and that’s what we live off now.” The only day organization. It is a fluid, mostly virtual member- exception to the ad hoc or leaders’ donations is ship capable of rapid, Internet-based mobilization. Baikal Ecological Wave: it receives occasional grants, Tellingly, Sergei Kanaev defined FAR’s “base”not as all from abroad, from an extensive international net- “members [but] supporters” (ne chleny, a storonniki). work of ecologically minded foundations.* A supporter is someone who “registers” by filling in The absence of anything like reliable and sizable the “questionnaire (anketa) of the FAR supporter” on outside donations is perhaps the key structural the organization’s site, avtofe.ru.51 According to problem of these groups. “Private business would Kanaev, FAR had 132,000 “supporters” in July 2011. not give,” Sergei Kanaev said. “Private business is “When the supporters register,” continued Kanaev, very afraid.” Protecting a business donor, the “they indicate how they can help and which [events] regional representative of FAR in Vladivostok they are ready to organize or participate in....That is, would not name an auto club that contributed a person is . . . [asked], what do you want to do? Do every now and then.** Most outside donations are you want to participate [in the Internet] forum, [or] in-kind, including volunteer work. Thus, both want to come to events [aksii]?” Or, as the regional TIGR and Spravedlivost rely on pro bono work by leader of FAR, Anastasia Zagoruyko put it, “We don’t lawyers, who provide free consultations to members have that many members in the regional chapter. and nonmembers alike.48 In addition, a publishing When there is a need to attract the attention of many house in Vladivostok, where Zagoruyko has “close automobile owners, we do so through the [national] friends,” occasionally printed FAR’s materials for automobile forum drom.ru.” free or “with substantial discounts.”49 And attention they do get. “It is possible [via the Internet] to get in touch with as many as a hundred fifty organizations,”a respondent said. “And we, too,

* Among the past funders, Marina Rikhvanova listed the Ford Foundation, the Eurasia Foundation, and the Institute of US- Russian Relations. In 2008, after receiving the Goldman Prize for her efforts to protect the environment around Lake Baikal from harmful industries, Rikhvanova used it to “support the organization for several years.” (The Goldman Prize, $150,000, is awarded annually by a San Francisco–based foundation to six grass-roots environmental activists from around the world.) Contrary to popular belief, Baikal Ecological Wave is not a Greenpeace affiliate, although the organization is “always very interested” in cooperating with Greenpeace on the issues to which it cannot find solutions on its own. (Interview with Marina Rikhvanova. See also www.goldmanprize.org/2008/asia.) Evgenia Chirikova received the Goldman Prize in 2012. See www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/evgenia-chirikova. ** “There is an auto club that supports us, but I cannot name as confidentiality is their main condition of working with us,” Anastasia Zagoruyko explained.

17 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

The Internet was instrumental in producing one of the largest protest turnouts in Putin’s Russia.

always participate if [a fellow organization] needs There was even a protest action near the Rus- help, needs signatures. We disseminate information sian Embassy in Tashkent, organized by our [telling people]: please help, please sign this.”52 Simi- colleagues from the Social Ecological Union. larly, the March 2011 FAR letter to Prime Minister [It] consists of many organizations ...and Putin (in which the organization demanded that he people support each other’s organizations either dramatically improve the economic and very actively....Even the Union of Bird political situation in the country or step down) col- Watchers has made a truly remarkable contri- lected 89,000 signatures.53 bution to the campaign. It is a very well- In the case of the January 30, 2010, rally in Kalin- organized international group. So when we ingrad, the Internet was instrumental in producing posted the information in English, [other the single largest protest turnout in Putin’s Russia such] organizations, specializing in global outside the pensioners’ protests in 2005, which [environmental] efforts, responded immedi- remained the record until the December 2011 ately and supplied lots of signatures. demonstrations in Moscow. The organizers created “groups” on such popular social networking sites as V Kontakte (In Contact, roughly the equivalent of The Internet Facebook) and Odnoklassniki (Classmates).54 After the rally, the number of visitors on Spravedlivost’s As these examples make clear, the Internet is central site reached twenty thousand per day—a very large to ad hoc mobilization, which, in turn, is the pre- number for a local political site in Russia at the time.55 ferred method of collective action organization. The Internet helps not only nationalize, but also, Equally if not more critical is the Web’s utility in in some cases, internationalize the issues. For routine outreach and intraorganizational communi- instance, many of the tens of thousands of notes of cation. Thus, how-to postings and legal advice are support on the Bashne.net! site were not only from permanent features on the TIGR, FAR, and Spra- outside St. Petersburg, but also from abroad. Per- vedlivost sites, while Skype is the prevalent method haps the most spectacular evidence of Internet of consultations and deliberation among leaders.57 mobilization was Baikal Ecological Wave’s petition To quote Rikhvanova: drive, which garnered thirty thousand signatures in 2006, to prevent the construction of a Transneft oil From the very beginning we’ve recognized pipeline that would have run just eight hundred that the Net was very important. We were meters from the northern shore of Lake Baikal. among the first organizations that gained When Rikhvanova counted the signatures collected Internet access in the 1990s. There was a man, as well as the participants in protest “rallies and whose name I cannot recall, an American, other actions in many cities,” the number was who helped nongovernment organizations to around two hundred thousand.56 The Internet has get access by distributing modems....We’ve enabled the organizers to make the “pipe removal” used [Internet] communication very actively into a national and even international cause. In the and continue to do so: [we use] Skype to con- words of Rikhvanova: duct all manner of meetings, allowing us not

18 FINDINGS 1

to get together [physically] but still discuss plant had been taken over by crooks abetted by local issues with Moscow, St. Petersburg—and any- authorities, dooming the inhabitants to unemploy- one anywhere. . . . It is via our site that we dis- ment, penury, and eventual starvation.60 The story seminate information about what we do, what was picked up by local newspapers and, most impor- responses were received [from the authori- tantly, television, forcing the region’s governor, Sergei ties], what documents we have acquired [in Darkin, to, as Vedenev put it,“tear off” (sorvat’sya) to the course of investigation], so that people Svetlogorie (where he was “pelted” with rocks, the have the same information that we do. potatoes, even rotten, being too precious to waste in this way).61 Indeed, Bashne.net! started out as a website. “We needed a site,” recalled Natalia Vvedenskaya, “that would express our opinion [and where] we could The Uses of “Mainstream Media” refer people who wanted to understand what it was that we were saying.” The three people who worked There is a well-known symbiosis in a democracy on the site became the “initial group” of the move- between activists and the media, each using the ment.* So in that sense, Vvedenskaya continued, other for their purposes, and the organizations stud- Bashne.net! started not as an organization but as an ied are no exception. Although, for obvious reasons, “informational resource,” a “kind of brain.”58 (The deviating from this norm in a multitude of particu- Internet origin, of course, is immediately recogniza- lars, the pattern is recognizable in the way these ble in the organization’s name, which was readily organizations interact with the media. accepted as permanent by the followers.) “It is the Local and, occasionally, national print and Net that allows us to function (za schyot setevoy broadcast media are particularly active in soliciting sistemy tol’ko I zhivyom),” as Sergei Kanaev put it. I views and comments from Baikal Ecological Wave doubt that any of the leaders and activists inter- and FAR—both because they are the least “politi- viewed would have disagreed with this description cal” of the organizations and because of their proof the Internet’s role. found expertise in environmental protection and road safety. For instance, while we were in Irkutsk, Marina Rikhvanova was quoted in the Siberian edi- A Bridge to “Mainstream Media” tion of a leading national daily, Kommersant, to the effect that the laws are not sufficiently demanding The Internet is also central to another critical activ- of industrial enterprises where ecology is concerned ity: outreach to “mainstream” media, mostly local and the fines “for damage to ecology” are too small. newspapers and television. In Kanaev’s words, “For “Regardless of whether I am on vacation or not,” me, [mainstream media are] the most effective way Rikhvanova said to us, “I am always ready to talk [of outreach], and the Internet [delivers] 80 percent to [the media] and, if I can, give a comment.” For here.”The Far Eastern (Maritime) TIGR has used the their part, the organization relies on the media to Internet to publicize in local media the plight of the publicize instances of harassment (naezdy) by the Svetlogorie “monotown,” as Russian sociologists call authorities and thus to create a public opinion them,59 at the northern edge of the Primorskiy Krai, “downside” for the former: “We have had several about six hundred kilometers from Vladivostok. The such cases, and getting quickly in touch with media city’s sole major enterprise, the Lermontovsky tung- has always saved us.” sten (volfram) ore-dressing (gorno-obagatitel’niy)

* Two of them have been interviewed for this study: Natalia Vvedenskaya and Dmitry Lynov.

19 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

The “Traditional” Means of Outreach People . . . have problems but no one to share and Mobilization them with. And here they see a newspaper to which they can send information, or go to the For all its importance, the Internet is far from the site, if you have the Internet, or simply get in only means of mobilization and publicity. Another touch with and say: I have a problem. We pub- method is “live” petition signatures (as Rikhvanova lished a lot of materials there directly from the called them) collected at rallies—something all the Web. (The newspaper’s subtitle was “What the organizations are engaged in. Yet the tried-and-true Press Is Silent About” [O choym molchit pressa].) newspapers and leaflets emerge as the most effective The first issue was published during the [sum- tools. This is particularly true in the periphery. Our mer] fires, and what people were publishing on interlocutors in Vladivostok and Kaliningrad esti- the Net was not at all what they saw on TV or mated the Internet’s penetration in their cities at read in newspapers. So the first issue was thirty- only 20–25 percent of the population.62 six pages long! And people started to contact us In Kaliningrad, the Spravedlivost-led opposition and tell us about their problems. relies heavily on a free newspaper, Dvornik (a yard keeper). Privately owned, financed by advertise- Leaflets, too, remain a valuable means of out- ments, and distributed free of charge, it has a huge reach. ECMO periodically “blankets” Khimki with circulation, by local standards, of 110,000.63 (It is leaflets.65 As a book designer, Natalia Vvedenskaya* also published virtually at rugrad.ru.) Although not herself produced “all kinds of posters and leaflets.”66 political by design, it is something of a muckraking In advance of the crucial January 30, 2010, rally,** sheet, with frequent exposés of the authorities’ Doroshok had “printed around 40,000 leaflets. I incompetence and corruption. Dvornik is also the knew that people treat leaflets under the windshield only local print medium not afraid of publicizing wipers of their cars as spam, so I distributed them the activities and agendas of the opposition, becom- deep into the night personally, by hand (some stores ing, in Doroshok’s words, its rupor, or loudspeaker. were open till midnight, and I handed the leaflets to The paper was most helpful to Spravedlivost during the shoppers), telling the people: ‘Please read this. the January 2010 protests and played the same role a This is very important.’”67 year later during local elections, when, to everyone’s surprise, Doroshok was elected to the regional Duma as an independent. The State: An Uneasy “Partnership” The Vladivostok TIGR publishes a dedicated “party” newspaper, Internet Vestnik (or Internet Her- In one of many breaks with the national political tra- ald). In addition to stuffing mailboxes, TIGR activists dition, the respondents viewed the state pragmatically leave issues wherever people “spend hours in lines”: as an equal partner—without awe or fear, adoration or hospitals, outpatient clinics (polikliniki), courts, dis- hatred. The leader of the Vladivostok chapter (pred- trict attorney offices (prokuratura), welfare offices, or stavitel’stvo) of FAR, Anastasiya Zagoruyko, encapsu- real estate firms.64 Vedenev explained: lated this attitude about the relationship with the

* Vvedenskaya also designed blue ribbons as the movement’s symbol. ** In preparation for the same rally, Doroshok also used in-person advertisement he had seen “in Europe”: “It was com- mercial advertising, but I liked the way it was done. In Germany, where traffic lights turned, I saw how girls run across a giant autobahn and just stood there [with their ads] along the pedestrian crossing in view of hundreds of cars. Then lights changed and they were gone. We did the same here, in Kaliningrad. We made posters, addressed very personally to each driver: ‘Help us! Nothing will happen without you! The car tax has been increased six-fold! Is that fair?!’ So we walked onto a highway and stood there while the cars stopped for the light. And we did it for several hours until police came and took us away.”

20 FINDINGS 1 authorities: “Sometimes it is partnership, sometimes hearings, we have written letters to officials, competition. We do not shy away from criticizing the and sometimes what we’ve written crops up in authorities when they deserve it. I have never been part the speeches of government officials. of any government or pro-government structures and don’t plan to [be]. Our views on many issues and those Although all of the organizations in this study of the government are quite different.”68 have been targets of harassing “investigations” by the With the exception of ECMO, all the movements local prokuratura, responsible for law abidance and and organizations have, with various degrees of col- law enforcement, they all use prokuratura to expose legiality and effectiveness, cooperated with local violations of law in the hope of putting pressure on authorities. For instance, FAR regularly supplies data the companies or government agencies. TIGR and on road hazards and disrepair and suggests ways to Baikal Ecological Wave tend to provide especially lower child mortality in car accidents.* Some leaders voluminous materials. “We support the actions of and activists have even been invited to join “expert prokuratura,” said Rikhvanova. “Whatever its goals groups” or “consultation committees” advising may- are, if it manages to advance ecological security, ors and governors.69 that’s good enough for us.” For over two decades, while advocating the clo- sure of the BPPP, Baikal Ecological Wave has been active in helping the city authorities of Baikalsk, a Public Politics “monotown,” where the plant is located and where virtually everyone in one way or another depends on While formally “apolitical,” all organizations are very it for employment or services. The organization has attuned to local and national politics. Their actual worked closely with the mayor’s office to provide involvement ranges from public criticism of local expertise and occasional funding for job diversifica- and national authorities to entering alliances with the tion and retraining for the former plant workers. “systemic” parties (that is, those permitted by the Among their success stories have been pastry mak- Kremlin to register and thus “legal”) to advance a ing and strawberry growing, including a wholesale common agenda, supporting parties friendly to their fair known as the Strawberry Festival, which since agendas in local elections, or even fielding candidates 2009 has attracted buyers from all over Siberia.** of their own. Thus, Bashne.net! endorsed and cam- Rikhvanova said: paigned for the liberal Yabloko party in city elections, while Spravedlivost and TIGR formed alliances with We used to be opponents [of the plant’s systemic parties in their regions and fielded candi- administration] at all kinds of hearings about dates to run for office in 2011 and 2012. In “extra sys- BTsBK [the BPPP],but when BTsBK was [tem- temic” (vnesystemnye) public politics, four months porarily] closed, the city administration after we had interviewed her, ECMO’s leader Evgenia accepted most of our suggestions with much Chirikova became one of the most popular figures enthusiasm. For our part we tried, and con- among the winter 2011–12 protesters. tinue trying, to attract some private commer- Due to its popularity, FAR has been courted by cial interests, some [development] progress.... virtually all the “establishment” parties seeking the We have participated in all kinds of public organization’s endorsement. For its part, the FAR

* Alone among the organizations under study, FAR has received a government grant as part of a federal project to lower the rate of children’s injuries in traffic accidents. ** Although we were in Irkutsk two weeks before the festival, we liberally sampled strawberries and were amazed at how good they tasted—in Southeastern Siberia. The pastries were delicious as well.

21 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

leadership aims to safeguard the organization’s politi- Kanaev compared his organization and others like cal independence by not allowing it to be “hijacked” FAR to steam valves that “let the regime know about and “used” by the parties.70 Instead, FAR seeks to use the rising temperature before the [pot] boils over.”74 the national parties to advance its agenda. In a tacit In a more elaborate metaphor, FAR was one of the quid pro quo, FAR submitted its wish list (khotelki) to rats on the ship of the Russian State—the rats that, all political parties, and “if they support [the planks] they may include them in their platforms. For our as sailors say, must never all be exterminated part, we write our supporters [that] we have sent the because if the ship begins to sink gradually, list to all the parties and are now watching for their then without rats [jumping off the ship] it will reaction.”71 While every regional office (pred- sink quietly. FAR is like those rats—an indica- stavitel’stvo) of FAR is allowed to decide which politi- tor of what is happening in the country. And cal party or parties they should work with in their the regime would be in a tough spot without region, at the national level, the organization is pro- this indicator. When media are [acting] in the hibited by its statute to endorse any political party.72 interests of the regime, they [the regime] “Yes, freedom for all, and equality for all [regional understand that we are an excellent gauge for branches],”said Kanaev.“But on the national level our what is happening among the car owners— platform is not to join anyone, not to be associated and there are 30 million of them [driving] with any [single] political party.”73 36,400,000 cars. They have to cooperate with us. People like [former deputy chief of staff for both Presidents Putin and Medvedev and the The “Ship Rats” and Their Occasional former chief “political technologist” of the Victories Kremlin Vladislav] Surkov know that the authorities have completely detached them- Kanaev suggested two reasons for the regime’s rela- selves [from the people] and that they need tively lenient attitude toward these groups: First, some means of communication with society. they are tolerated simply because the state lacks [When] they don’t allow [us] to create [truly either the ability or the resolve (or both) to reintro- independent] political parties or other [inde- duce the sort of mass terror that would be necessary pendent] societal structures, then, yes, the to permanently put them out of business: organizations like ours are an indicator.

Yes, they can arrest everyone. It is not a prob- It seems plausible that such rare major victories lem for them. Although it is in the past, 1937 as the organizations have achieved are due in large [the height of Stalin’s great purge] can be eas- measure to their “warning” function as described by ily and quickly returned. They can grab every- Kanaev. Thus, following the 2009 protests in Vladi- one and shove them somewhere. But there are vostok, in which TIGR was born, and in Kaliningrad lots of people [in addition to those belonging a year later, the draconian taxes on imported cars to these organizations]. It is like a cancer (along with the ban on the right-hand steering tumor [for the regime]: they are not certain wheel) were “suspended.” Similarly, after a national that even if they decide to cut it out, they will protest campaign led by Baikal Ecological Wave, in be able to cut out all of it. 2006 Putin ordered that Transneft’s planned oil pipeline be moved at least forty kilometers away The second reason has to do with the organiza- from Lake Baikal, instead of eight hundred meters. tions’ bellwether function in the absence of normal As mentioned above, national authorities have channels and institutions of societal feedback. stopped the construction of the Gazprom Tower in

22 FINDINGS 1

Frontal assaults on organizations are a relatively rare tactic compared to selective harassment of leaders and activists.

St. Petersburg and, following the January 30, 2010, In one of the better-publicized cases, acting osten- rally in Kaliningrad, Moscow, fired the regional gov- sibly on the prokuratura’s “request for evidence,”fol- ernor. In 2011, the year of national Duma elections, lowing an alleged complaint that Baikal Ecological President Medvedev met one of FAR’s key demands Wave violated intellectual property laws by using by announcing changes in the notoriously corrupt “unlicensed” Microsoft software, the Irkutsk police and inefficient annual “safety inspections,” which raided the organization’s headquarters in January henceforth were to be entrusted to gas stations, 2010 and confiscated all its computers. It took eight shops, and car dealers instead of the traffic police. months to get the equipment back.*** Bowing to the FAR-supported “blue buckets” cam- Likely because of wariness of negative publicity, paign* while running for president in February such frontal assaults on organizations are a relatively 2012, Prime Minister Putin promised to limit the rare tactic compared to selective harassment of lead- number of officials entitled to cars with sirens and ers and activists. For example, Anastasia Zagoruyko’s flashing lights (migalki), and in one of his first post- wedding cortege was trailed by cars belonging to the election decrees reduced the number of “privileged” regional Center for the Battling of Extremism, the cars from 968 to 569.75 (In response, Kanaev vowed FSB [Federal Security Service], and the GIBDD.77 A that FAR would continue to campaign for the Baikal Ecological Wave activist and a former mem- “equality of all people on the road,” until flashing ber of the National Bolshevik Party, Maxim lights are left only for emergency services.76)** Vorontsov was routinely detained by police when he traveled through Eastern Siberia to deliver presenta- tions in schools and community centers. Although Sanctions he had not been affiliated with the National Bolshe- viks for years, the authorities used that connection The regime’s tolerance of the organization “rats” is as an excuse for detention. “We know you are a rad- punctured by sanctions with varying degrees of ical!” Vorontsov was told on such occasions.78 severity and duration. They range from the confis- Even if they did not instigate them, the authori- cation of equipment to pressure on leaders’ busi- ties condoned brutal physical assaults on ECMO nesses, harassment, and even (although brief) activists in the Khimki forest. These activists, mostly incarcerations. young men and women, are set upon not just by

* See the Findings 2 section. ** The regime’s responsiveness must not be exaggerated even in the areas where it has made concessions. Thus, the BPPP continues to operate and pollute Lake Baikal. After yielding to a FAR-led campaign to reexamine the evidence, the authorities again concluded that the victims were to blame for the traffic accident on Moscow’s Leninsky Prospekt in February 2010, in which two women physicians were killed when the Mercedes of a Lukoil vice president smashed into their Peugeot. And, of course, Spravedlivost’s and TIGR’s demands for greater election transparency were met by the worse-than-ever manipulation in the December 4, 2011, Duma election. *** By then, Microsoft had licensed its software for free use by nonprofit organizations. Baikal Ecological Wave brought a suit against the police, but the court ruled that the police “acted in accordance with law.” Lacking “qualified lawyers,” the organization has given up on appeals. (Interview with Marina Rikhvanova.)

23 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

uniformed private security guards (ChOP,or Private and told to tell me to withdraw my candidacy. Security of an Enterprise), but by thugs in civilian Then I was stopped in the car by GIBDD, and clothes, who tend to attack those walking alone in they begin to ask me questions like: “Where is the forest. Both activists interviewed in the Khimki your first-aid kit? Where is your fire extin- forest camp had been injured: one had a broken guisher? Why are your windows tinted? Can nose and the other had been taken to the hospital you open the hood? Aha, this car is listed as with a broken jaw.79 Invariably, the police were slow stolen!” They take me to a police station. The to arrive, never arrested the assailants, and did not GIBDD people leave and another team comes bother even to look at the evidence or interview the in, whom I did not see before, and they write victims. With a few exceptions, courts, too, have a violation report (protokol) to the effect that I sided with the construction companies. was verbally abusing GIBDD officers. Three of the six leaders have been singled out for For three days I was in the KPZ [prehearing particularly severe harassment. Evgenia Chirikova detention cell], and they staged all sorts of was the subject of an “investigation” by social services, “shows” for my benefit [to intimidate me]. For which alleged that she “neglected” her two children— instance, beatings of [ethnic] non-Russians or a charge that could have resulted in the removal of sending in a tattooed thug. There were 12–15 her children to institutional care.80 In addition, an people in our cell. And, by the way, it is minus electrical engineering firm owned by her husband, two Celsius [28 Fahrenheit] in the cell. You Mikhail Matveev, was raided, its employees interro- could see steam coming out of people’s gated, and many documents seized. mouths when they talked. When there were In the case of Maxim Vedenev, the authorities enough people in the cell, it got a bit warmer have gone beyond harassment: and one can doze off a bit. I came over to the sink to have a drink but it was full of blood I was director of a shipping company. A great and [excrement]. And, of course, the toilet enterprise, with a lot of ships and good busi- looks the same. And they [the guards] were ness, including in the United States. When I saying to me: “Why aren’t you drinking. Aren’t am told that I started to get involved [in you thirsty?” ...Meanwhile, my pregnant wife TIGR] because my enterprise died, this is a was sobbing at the entrance to the police sta- mistake. It died because I got involved in tion: they had told her that I was not there and TIGR. My company was killed in six months. they never heard of me. I simply could not get fuel, could not get They held me until a protest rally we cargo. Half a year later the company stopped organized on January 29 took place without to exist. There were also physical threats. me. At the rally, people talked about my detention and, if they didn’t release me, people The leader of Spravedlivost, Konstantin Doroshok, would come to the police station with posters. was first harassed in January 2009, when he decided So they let me go that night and ordered me to to run for a seat on the Kaliningrad City Council be in the court the next morning. against a United Russia candidate, “a millionaire, a former KGB officer,” and protégé of the governor, One by one, the police pulled in for questioning who had “serious business” stakes in the election: as “witnesses” all Doroshok’s close relatives: mother, father, and finally his brother: There was a huge influence [involved], huge amounts of money. At first, my friends began And all the while the police continued to “dig telling me that they were stopped on the street under me” looking to find out how much

24 FINDINGS 1

money I had, what sort of property [I had], what fight them and I will help you. And you should sort of property my relatives had. . . . Until finally help me with my campaign instead of asking they got to my younger brother [who was] a come not to run. owner of a construction company. At that point But then [the police] essentially took my it got serious: masked police with machine guns, brother and his colleagues hostage. Everyone ’s ordering everyone on the floor, requisitioned all lying on the floor, with a Kalashnikov barrel to the records—the whole shebang. the back of the head and a boot on their spines. So my brother’s entire company came to They also took them out, one by one, and beat see me at home to beg me to cancel my candi- them. So while they are held hostage, I go to dacy. Naturally, I tried to explain to them: the election commission and hand in a state- guys, you are not just interfering with my life. ment withdrawing my candidacy. I barely was If you have to, go and defend your business. If out of the building when [my brother’s firm] what they do to you is against the law, go and called to say thank you: the police were gone.*

* Although he was not a leader of Spravedlivost, Areseny Makhlov’s newspaper, Dvornik, described above, was central to the organization’s outreach. As a result, he too has been an object of what is known as naezd—literally, a “run-over,” a term used for a corrupt legal procedure initiated against a political foe or a business competitor. According to Doroshok, the naezd was initiated by Governor Georgy Boos, when the latter attempted “to establish control over all the media [in the region].” Makhlov was accused of taking bribes, with “proof” furnished by a video. Fortunately, a well-off man, Makhlov was able to hire “top-notch” experts and lawyers, who proved that the video was fake and that the alleged participants in the “transaction” were ex-criminals hired by the police. (Interview with Konstantin Doroshok.)

25 Findings 2: A Quest for Democratic Citizenship

The “Spillover” into Politics They think that money and power give them the right to do all this.”87 t first blush, there is little that is overtly political “Do you know why people protested against the Ain the agendas of all six groups and movements. Tower?” Natalia Vvedenskaya asked in our interview. “We are nonpolitical,” one of the leaders told us,81 and, if asked directly, most of the leaders and activ- Most of all, because [the construction] was [a] ists would likely agree. Indeed, national politics, not visualization of violence [vizualizatsiya nasiliya]. to mention regime change, seems to be completely We have corruption, of course . . . but it is outside their daily goals and activities. not always easy to see how people are daily Yet the interviews made clear that, in the end, none humiliated—and to become outraged. But of them could avoid grappling with nationwide issues here, people had something onto which they and confronting key aspects of the regime. It is as if, could concentrate all their hatred [of the having resolved to clean a small apartment, one is system]. And all the more so because [the cul- immediately confounded by far bigger problems— prit was] the very same company that is turn- faulty designs, leaking ceilings, lack of heat and hot ing the country into a senseless oil-producing water, crumbling walls—that are beyond one’s con- appendage [of the world economy]. And this, trol and require a capital repair of the entire build- subconsciously realized, truly was a stronger ing.82 For instance, Rikhvanova fulminated at the motivation than the struggle for the purity of “merger of power and property” as the key obstacle to the skyline....Because you [the state], with- environmental progress.83 Chirikova denounced the out asking our opinion, tell us that your absence of a normal judicial system and pointed out model of life, which you are foisting on the that “for the first time in Russian history we have in country, is the only correct one—and we are power people whose sole goal is personal enrichment not asking you [the people]!88 at the country’s expense.”84 Bashne.net! and Zhivoy gorod activist Dmitry Linov called this process “a A TIGR coordinator in St. Petersburg and the spillover into politics” (peretekanie v politiku).85 Or, as representative of FAR in the city and region, Dmitry Chirikova told an interviewer in 2010,86 “I have no Shpeytelshpakher, described his political “conver- intentions of going into politics. It is the regime func- sion” in his blog: tionaries that make me into an opposition leader.”* To the Bashne.net! activists, the Gazprom Tower I had never been a member of any political epitomized general lawlessness (bespredel). “They party but one day I opened my eyes. Being an build what they want, however they want and wher- active participant in the [Internet] forum of the ever they want,” read an October 2009 Bashne.net! admirers of Japanese cars (Drom.ru), I began leaflet. “They deface Petersburg and violate laws. my struggle with the system, starting with the

* In the same interview, Chirikova accused Vladimir Putin of “blatantly violat[ing] and continuing to violate the laws of the Russian Federation,” and in December 2010, she announced that “we are starting [a] political struggle and will be insisting on the change of the current regime.”

26 FINDINGS 2

GIBDD. I read [the information posted on] anti-people politics of the government! Enough rob- legal sites, I studied in detail . . . laws and bery of the people!! Raise the standard of living, not orders of the MVD [Ministry of Internal the prices!”90 In March 2010, a TIGR bumper sticker Affairs] and tried to prevent the violation of read: “We can’t take anymore [dostali] [of] the traf- my rights as a driver. My victories gave me fic police, taxes, [the state of the] armed forces, elec- energy and then fate brought me in touch tions, customs [tariffs and duties], health care, with the “Freedom of Choice” movement of bureaucracy. Come to the March 20 meeting against car owners. I took part in rallies against rutted the irresponsibility of the government functionaries roads and high gasoline prices, was confronted [chinovnikov].” 91 In February 2010, a TIGR poster with unlawful actions of the MVD (they read: “Don’t wake up the Egypt in us!”* threatened me physically) and I understood The Far Eastern (Maritime) TIGR’s involvement that this was my struggle. Being in touch with in politics is spurred by the already-noted defense of rank-and-file car owners from Vladivostok to local entrepreneurs and public organizations from Kaliningrad, I UNDERSTOOD the true scale reyderstvo—a takeover of companies or organiza- of the degradation of our society and, as a tions by crooked entrepreneurs or local politicians, result, of the AUTHORITIES (the problems of abetted by the police, prokuratura, and courts, usu- car owners were only a drop in the ocean). ally bribed by the perpetrators.** To the organiza- Inaction and silence is not my style—I created tion’s leader, Maxim Vedenev, “working against the an Internet group [by the name of] “Exchange stranglehold (zasil’e) of corruption and the rampant the government for a canister of gas.” Then a bespredel of state bureaucracy” is of great impor- thunder struck: Putin’s oligarchic-financial tance. (At the time of the interview, Vedenev and his corporation-gang has made an attempt colleagues were preparing “huge [documentary] evi- (pokusilas’) at the [key] property of the dence” for a suit in the Constitutional Court of the middle class—the car. The indignation was Russian Federation, charging President Medvedev swelling at our Web forums at the authorities’ with “violating his own laws.”92) inaction at the time of the world [2008 financial] crisis; the lying statements on television that there is no crisis and we are the best pro- FAR’s “Political” Evolution tected country [from the crisis] in the world; [and] tax-free disbursement from the Stabi- Perhaps the least “political” of the groups under lization Fund to those close to the Kremlin.89 study, FAR’s agenda includes redressing two major gripes of millions of Russian car owners: gasoline As usual, TIGR cast its economic demands in prices, which are almost as high as those in the terms broader and more radical than any other United States with salaries orders of magnitude organization in the sample. Thus, at a rally in St. lower, and the so-called transportation tax levied on Petersburg in support of the December 2008 Vladi- every car in Russia. “Where does all this money go?” vostok protests against the ban on the right-hand FAR began to ask—and instantly was confronted steering wheel and the increase of import duties with two structural defects of the regime: lack of on cars, TIGR featured this poster: “Say ‘No’ to the transparency and rampant corruption.

* Below the caption was a picture of a gasoline gauge, with “war” instead of “empty” and “peace” instead of “full.” (A photocopy in the author’s possession.) ** Among the successes of its anti-reyderstvo operations, TIGR listed the successful recovery of a local quarry to its owner and the defense of the Ussuriysk Cossack Society. (Interview with Maxim Vedenev.)

27 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

Officially, taxes and duties collected at the pump the organization has sought to strictly limit the use are supposed to be spent mostly on improving high- of the lights and allowable traffic pattern violations way safety and building more and better highways. to sharply reduced and precisely defined categories Yet FAR has established that these claims are largely of officials and eventually to confine them solely to bogus: the length of new roads constructed since fire and medical rescue vehicles. In Kanaev’s words, 2000 has been minuscule, and Russia’s traffic fatali- “Until the law is on the books, we are saying that a ties per 100,000 vehicles (70) remain the highest in government functionary has the right to kill people Europe (except for Albania) and almost five times on the roads.”94 the US rate (15). FAR’s investigation concluded that FAR has also been very active in the “blue buck- the price of gasoline is inflated by the “corruption ets”“equality on the roads” campaign, in which chil- component”: the 20 and 30 percent (and sometimes dren’s beach toys are placed on cars’ antennas and as high as 50 percent) of the price of goods and serv- racks or on the heads of protesters to mock the lights ices known as “administrative rent” and “kickbacks” of the Russian mandarins’ corteges. Popular bumper (otkaty). This component is particularly large in stickers that we saw at FAR’s headquarters in such heavily regulated industries as oil production.* Moscow told the story: “For Equality and Security,” Furthermore, as FAR’s homepage pointed out, “I don’t give bribes!” and “Flashing Lights are Rus- 1 trillion rubles (over $30 billion or 12 percent of sia’s Shame!” Shortly before the interview with the Russian state budget) are stolen from the Kanaev, FAR had released a letter to Putin, demand- Russian treasury every year according to President ing his resignation if he is unable to meet FAR’s Medvedev—twice as much as the transportation tax demands and improve the country’s economic con- and the gasoline tax combined. Hence, FAR’s ditions in general. demand: “The end of corruption, transparency, and public control over everything that is connected to the formation of monopolistic prices, state regula- A Surprising Culprit: Civil Society tion, and duties. It is not just the price of gasoline that will determine how we act but to what extent the Although confronted almost daily by the regime’s authorities will take into consideration our interests structural problems and inequities, for virtually all in the future.”93 the respondents the regime was not the main cul- Similarly, highway safety has been found com- prit. Instead, most of the blame for the country’s promised, often fatally, by another hallmark of state of affairs was laid at the door of civil society, Putin’s regime: flagrant inequality before the law. In which allowed the present regime to be established, this instance, it is the law that permits vast and ill- to consolidate, and to continue. In the words of defined categories of government officials and what TIGR’s statement, “We have no civil society that might be called “friends of the government” to drive would keep politicians to their promises ...and with blue flashing lights (migalki) and violate the would make government functionaries remember rules, including driving on the wrong side of the that they are servants of people who pay their road against traffic. A source of many accidents, a salaries.”95 Natalia Vvedenskaya’s diagnosis was few of them fatal, the law has been targeted by FAR’s similar: “When I got involved in Bashne.net! I had a national campaign for repeal. As previously detailed, sense that it would be possible to win. But the habit

* As a December 2009 leaflet distributed by FAR’s close ally, TIGR, put it: “They increase the transportation tax, but they don’t build new roads! We buy gasoline but only 30 percent of our cost is the price of gas, the rest is tariffs and taxes—and we don’t know where this revenue goes! . . . STOP MILKING US!” (A photocopy is in the author’s possession.) “All transportation taxes—for bridges and roads!” (Vse avtonalogi—na mosty i dorogi!) is another of TIGR’s slogans, in this case a rhyming one.

28 FINDINGS 2

Most of the blame for the country’s state of affairs was laid at the door of civil society, which allowed the present regime to be established, to consolidate, and to continue.

of submissiveness is so [widespread] that no one The shortage of a mature, self-aware, and self- resists. And for most of our compatriots, unfortu- organized civil society, able and willing to manage nately, motivation is something like this: ‘Nothing executives on every level, emerged from the inter- depends on us anyway.’ It is a phrase that everyone views as the key obstacle to the country’s progress mouths. ‘They will decide on their own. We don’t toward democracy. This theme was articulated with matter here.’”96 remarkable clarity, passion, and consistency. “Where A 2010 TIGR leaflet expressed the same sentiment does the regime’s impunity [beznakazannost] come graphically and in no uncertain terms. It featured a from?” asked Maxim Vedenev.“It is a function of our photo of a cow with a caption in bold capital letters: indifference. Indifference breeds impunity, and “YOU THINK THIS IS A COW? NO, IT’S YOU. And impunity destroys everything. If people respected they will milk you forever if you continue to support themselves more, we would have never had such the powers-that-be with your mooing. October 24 impunity.”99 [2010] is your chance to become a human being [by “Public control [over the executive] is the key,” protesting] against . . . the transportation tax, duties said Sergei Kanaev. “The system we want to con- [poshliny], and gasoline prices.”97 struct is a system of public control that would work “Why should we know,” exhorted another TIGR no matter who is in power. Without this, nothing leaflet, will change in the country. Everyone thinks that if only they come to power everything will change. But that we have no justice, no freedom of speech, I tell them: by the time you get to power, you will no honest elections, already be just as the ‘system’ wants you to be....It seems to us that if we manage to work out a [new] [that] our rights are violated and the Consti- system of control not by the state but by society, tution is not abided by, everything will fall into place. We say: so long as there is no such control, no matter how many elec- [that] we are not free in our country? WHY tions we hold, the power system will always remain SHOULD WE KNOW ALL OF THIS? the same [as it is now].”100 For Doroshok, too, the main obstacle is the THESE ARE NOT OUR PROBLEMS, ARE structure of power rather than individual leaders. THEY??? “State power has always existed and will exist. [But] which party is in power is not as important as the Now they’ve really got to us [dostali]. THE framework in which people put that power. The TIME HAS COME TO ANSWER FOR content is less important because without people’s EVERYTHING. Come to participate in the control, those in power, even the finest men, could protest action on March 20 [2011] at 1 become scoundrels.” o’clock. Come participate if you can’t take any Evgenia Chirikova’s diagnosis was similar. One more the LIES and CORRUPTION of the cur- state (the Soviet Union) collapsed because it was rent regime.98 founded on violence, she said, but it has been

29 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

The key objective is not change of regime but an enlightened, active, and informed citizenry, capable of effecting change and of remaining vigilant to prevent a relapse into authoritarianism.

replaced by “a veritable kleptocracy,” the “regime of at will, completely ignoring people’s wishes. swindlers and thieves”: Under these circumstances, a political agenda makes no sense since there are no mechanisms This is scary. I think the only way [out] is for for its realization. To create such a mechanism our citizens to become real citizens. And in is precisely what constitutes our agenda. And that case, we will be able to change the regime. this mechanism is called “civil society.”102 At the moment, it would be useless to exchange Putin for someone else, no matter Respondents had no illusion about the tall obsta- who that person might be. Only when people cles that must be overcome on the road to a mature develop political will, if they are not indiffer- democratic citizenship. For instance, calling on its ent to their fate, if they actively participate in members and supporters to participate in the March the life of their country—only then will we 2011 national protest against high gasoline prices, have an entirely different regime in power.101 FAR’s homepage declared, “Nothing [provokes] the authorities [toward] lawlessness and impunity [sic] as the silence of society. . . . The parasite inside [us] The Metagoal: “Changing People’s thwarts all the attempts at civic activity....Despair Mentality” and laziness have shackled our society.”103 The same reasons, according to Chirikova, account for the diffi- Thus, the key objective is not change of regime but culty in mobilizing people for the defense of the an enlightened, active, and informed citizenry, capa- Khimki forest. “People are not ready to fight for their ble of effecting such a change and of remaining vig- rights,” she claimed. “Why do we have a situation ilant to prevent a relapse into authoritarianism. In where the [United Russia] ‘party of thieves and the words of a TIGR manifesto: swindlers’ has a majority in the parliament? Because people cannot tear themselves from their sofas to vote There are no mechanisms for the defense of in the right way, or to [help] register a new party.”104 common people in Russia. . . . We have no civil In the end, permanent change for the better can society that would keep politicians to their come only from within society. Nothing short of an promises, that would force businesses to be evolution in people’s attitudes—and, through it, of socially responsible, and that would make the country’s political culture— will do. “The government functionaries remember that they change of political regime is possible only through are servants of people who pay their salaries. the change in people’s mentality,”105 said a respond- We are aware that the situation is like an illness ent. “The main thing is that people who come to us that is not treated for many years. It is impos- begin to think differently, begin to believe that sible to create a party and win an election. It is everything is possible and the key is not to be afraid,” impossible to field a candidate for mayor of a another leader told us. “For Russia to become the city, it is impossible even to find such a candi- country I dream of . . . the Russian people must wake date. The authorities change the constitution up and begin to think within a different mental

30 FINDINGS 2 framework, to be guided . . . by such notions as nothing?” said Natalia Vvedenskaya. “This makes a honor, conscience, camaraderie, duty . . . and, most huge difference! People don’t understand that it is importantly, free will. Don’t confuse [free will] with not somebody who has to act but it is they—they freedom. Freedom can be taken away, delimited, but must control [the affairs in the country].” People [free] will either exists or does not. It can be sub- come to his organization and ask for help, explained verted only by its owner himself.”106 Maxim Vedenev. “I say: no, we can’t help you. They Regardless of their daily activities and short-term don’t understand [and say], ‘We know that you help goals, it was in the inculcation of a new “mentality” people!’ And I say: I help you to help yourself . . . that respondents saw the essence of their effort and I can explain what can be done and how we can help its ultimate moral justification. “We are no longer you do it. But it is you who must help yourself!”112 fighting just for the forest,” said Chirikova. “Our Similarly, according to Anastasia Zagoruyko, by struggle is a struggle for people’s minds. . . . We are increasing car owners’ “legal literacy” (knowledge trying to change the most difficult thing of all: peo- of laws) “we teach people how to defend their ple’s mentality. We are making [real] citizens out of rights and to achieve justice.”113 Doroshok, too, felt citizens. Which is why we publish newspapers, blan- that people’s ket the town with leaflets. . . . This is more important than any seizure of power, because this is the foun- own participation [is] essential. As soon as dation for serious and long-term changes in the they begin seeing some “Uncle Vasya” who will country.”107 Many [like-minded people] “gathered do everything for them, this society becomes in one place can change a great deal,” said another stagnant. That is why it is so important to build respondent. “If people begin to self-organize, we a self-conscious civil society [which] not only won’t need any revolutions. This will be the most develops likes or dislikes with respect to this or peaceful revolution of all: people will simply stop that party. A party’s name does not change the submitting and begin to demand.”108 nature of people in power. People must be The new civic “mentality” is defined, first and fore- explained the necessity of their own partici- most, as self-respect and personal responsibility— pation in the life of their area, their city.114 “responsibility for what is happening in the country.”109 A citizen is someone who “to the best of his abilities Far more than the development of skills for does everything he can to ameliorate the situation in informed citizenship, important as they are, was to the country, in his yard, in his town, in his country— be achieved by these efforts. Examples of voluntary as far as he can reach.”110 collective action in pursuit of moral objectives were Among several strategies to promote these atti- seen as the key to building confidence and cohesion— tudes, self-organization and self-help were judged by and to facilitating mobilization. respondents to be the most effective. “Self” was the “Often there is a situation when people are ‘a lit- operational term. All respondents were vehemently tle angry’ and this is enough. It is enough to feel dig- opposed to what one of them described as “dragging nity in oneself,” said Vvedenskaya: people along”111 toward a particular political or social order, no matter how progressive. Instead, they were Among other things, the [Bashne.net!] victory determined to inculcate citizenship through actual is so important because people may react dif- participation. Above and beyond any advance in their ferently [next time]. They see that they’ve organizational agendas, this citizenship-by-action and signed [letters of protest]—and it has worked! citizenship-by-example was an ever-present objective. That they’ve gone to a protest rally—and it has “[The question is] how to make people who worked! The levers begin to work and people decide at least something out of people who decide begin to behave differently. . . . I understood

31 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

Respondents saw their organizations becoming a kind of laboratory of civil society, where values and convictions were strengthened and ideas developed for dissemination.

this. I’ve felt the responsibility. Because [for us] We are not aiming at the instant transforma- it was a struggle of the cultural capital of the tion of the entire society. We are beginning country [St. Petersburg] with the country’s rich- with the defense of our rights. We will stand est company [Gazprom]. It was like a model of up for our rights and our dignity. We will the struggles that take place throughout the involve more and more people in this process. country: if the cultural capital cannot win, then We want to construct a “small civil society” [in the provinces] they don’t have a prayer. But and gradually expand it to all of Russia. And if goodness wins, then we have a chance. Which is then either the civil society will force the why they followed our fight so closely in the regime to heed its demands—or it will change provinces. It was a model for them.115 the irresponsible regime.118

Demonstrating that “the banding together of citi- Most of all, respondents saw—or wished to see— zens can have a real impact on the fate of their district, their organizations (“cells”) becoming magnets for city, country” was seen as “giving people faith”:* if [the the like-minded, a kind of laboratory of civil society, organization or movement] achieved something here, where values and convictions were strengthened and why couldn’t we try it somewhere else? “Someone must ideas developed for dissemination. “The organiza- do something to demonstrate that we are citizens.”116 tion is to become a cell around which coalesce those who are not indifferent to the fate of their city, their country,” a TIGR leader wrote in response to the The “Cells” and the “Molecules”: questionnaire. “[It] is an association in which a per- The Moral Contagion of Citizenship son stops feeling himself alone, where he finds like- minded people, acts on and implements his plans. Tellingly, several respondents (or their organizations’ And most importantly, he feels an active, real support Internet posts) described their organizations as “cells” when he starts to battle rampant lawlessness (bespre- (yacheykas) out of which a new civil society springs. If del) of police, procuracy, and bureaucrats.”119 everything that his organization did made it a “cell of To illustrate this process, another respondent civil society,” said Sergei Kanaev, he would be very likened it to “the effect of water crystallization,” pleased. “I cannot say that by our actions we are which occurs when a particle of dust is introduced changing the system,”Kanaev continued. “We are not into sterilized,“absolutely clean” water.“It creates the there yet. Instead we are creating a situation in which point of unification” of molecules, with the extent people understand that, having defended their rights and the pace of crystallization depending “on what even in a small way, they need to go further.”117 TIGR we do next.”120 Another leader compared the process described its role in very similar terms: to organic chemistry, in which new materials are

* Three weeks later and 4,500 miles away, Sergei Kanaev put this in almost identical words: “When people see that we’ve succeeded in something, it gives them faith: why not try this and that now? Someone has to do something to show that we are citizens here! But when we just sit and wait for civil activity to fall from the sky, it will never happen. It cannot appear out of nowhere.” (Interview with Sergei Kanaev.)

32 FINDINGS 2 created and “go on engaging new molecules ad infini- In advocating this peaceful revolution, Chirikova tum.” He contrasted this practice with the nonor- was very concerned about “frightful historical paral- ganic chemistry of “regular politics of interests,” in lels,” with the current political regime becoming, as which coalitions come and go, without making the she put it, “so deaf [to the needs of society], so inca- society richer and more complex.121 He also pointed pable of meeting its demands, that the society could to an important advantage of the former method blow up.”125 Such an outcome, she continued,“would over the latter: the organically created societal “mol- not be good either for the people or the country.... ecules” will continue to exist even if the initial ele- We’ve made this mistake once [in the Bolshevik Revo- ment (the organizer) is detached; the nonorganic lution of 1917], but we are more experienced now. units are likely to fall apart if the regime manages to Our condition is different. The world has changed, “take [the leader] out of the chain.”122 and so have our modes of communication, which is why I think that the key element of [political] change consists of citizens themselves changing. I think the Toward “Peacefully Changing [People’s] chances are good to be able to change the regime’s Conscience” power structures by peacefully changing the conscience of our citizens.”126 By far the most gratifying effect for most respondents was the change in their compatriots’ attitudes. “I feel huge satisfaction when a man begins to talk seriously A Civil Rights Movement about the things that he considered foolish and impossible only not long time ago,” said one Although the leaders and activists of these organiza- respondent.“The organization is only an instrument. tions could be described as political opposition, a The key is to forge a circle of people with a similar more precise definition might be a civil rights move- perspective on life, mentality, and understanding.”123 ment. In stark contrast with the national political Such change does not happen overnight and culture that for centuries has prized quick, usually requires patience and steadiness of purpose. “It is illusory results and what Stalin called “great rup- paramount not to relax, to understand that this tures” (velikie perelomy) imposed from above, most struggle may last our entire life,” said Evgenia respondents were convinced that needed change Chirikova. “Such changes don’t happen in five sec- would come only through a sustained moral and onds. We must resolve to be patient.” A mother of civic education. It is in educating their fellow citizens, two young children, she added, “It’s like pregnancy. through self-organization and self-help, that they see It will last nine months. No matter what you do, the their most important contribution to the emergence baby will be born only in nine months. Laws of of a new, dignified, and prosperous Russia. nature cannot be changed—and neither can the The respondents’ common, overarching goal laws of societal development. We cannot skip over could be described as dignity in democratic citizen- some processes, this is physically impossible. So all ship, with equality before the law and the end of de these quick, enthusiasm-fueled revolutionary trans- facto disenfranchisement as the most urgently needed formations that many are dreaming of today, they building blocks.* Led, like other civil rights move- will come to nothing. Only gradual change— ments, by the middle class, the Russian civic effort and only work with individuals on every level can rejects violence in principle. Instead, the respondents [bring results].”124 seek to effect vast political and social change through

* Four months after the interviews were conducted, the realization that their votes did not count after the December 4 par- liamentary election triggered the largest mass protests in Putin’s Russia.

33 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

a personal and deeply moral effort. In one instance, I get very tired from all of this. Truth be told, I after he had poured out his immense frustration with am not at all a public person. It all comes from “the system” and evinced a seemingly complete lack a sense of duty....I understand sufficiently of hope for any change in the short term, I asked the clearly that for some time—perhaps a long deputy chairman of Spravedlivost,Vitaly Lavrinovich, time, perhaps as long as twenty years and why then he was continuing the struggle. He answered, maybe longer still—all that can be preserved “How can one live otherwise?”127 Similarly, as she [of the historical and cultural legacy] is what took us to some of the Bashne.net! and Zhivoy gorod we manage to preserve, because a normal “battle sites,”a young female activist spotted a watch- system of cultural preservation in our country man who in the past had harassed the protesters at is not working and not likely to start working one of the construction sites. “How can you live with soon. It is understood. And that means that I your conscience?” she asked him. personally will be asked: “And where were you Evgenia Chirikova summarized this persistent, when all this was happening?”129 deeply personal, but utterly nonviolent effort: Harassment appeared only to add to their resolve. I think we look more like the Gandhi movement “So I told the [regional] administration,” said in India. . . . We lead many ordinary people, who Maxim Vedenev, understand that, to continue the parallel, we are not worse than the British, we are not worse Guys, you thought I would be afraid because than our authorities, that we are not slaves and of [my] business, but I don’t have it anymore. that, although the empire humiliates us we con- You’ve tried [to intimidate] through the fam- tinue to resist and do not respond with violence. ily. I don’t have it anymore either. So all you . . . We consciously avoid violence, never resort can do now is to kill me. And I am not afraid [to] violent means in our struggle [because] of that either because I’ll finally rest. So when when you don’t respond to violence with vio- [now] I am ordered to come to the proku- lence you avoid multiplying evil....Ifsome of ratura, I go and sit there calmly. When I am the people whom we support begin to resort to ordered to the UVD (Internal Affairs Admin- violence, of course we sympathize with their istration), I sit there calmly. [personal plight] after they are repressed. But . . . I always tell them: Guys, I am very sorry that Konstantin Doroshok, too, remained defiant: you are being punished like this, but our way is a way of peaceful resistance and it is the only When my brother and his friends came to see way to change anything in the world.128 me to say thank you, I told them that I would definitely run again. . . . And then, I told them, Again, like civil rights movements before them, go on vacation, do what you want but I would the respondents eschew time limits or deadlines for not do for you again what I just did. And, of the achievement of their goals, displaying quiet but course, there was a great deal of anger in me, unyielding determination and patience to persevere anger and determination. I’d gone through all as long as necessary. “For us to have what you have this and I was not afraid of anything anymore. [in the United States] we will have to devote our lives And I began to think seriously how to expand to it and then perhaps something will change during our ranks, how we could attract and unite the life of our children,” said Sergei Kanaev. Natalia political parties because it would be more diffi- Vvedenskaya sounded the same motif of personal cult to harass them than an individual. responsibility before posterity:

34 Conclusion

Building on Earlier Research . . . has resulted in steady and at times remarkably high increases in middle-class incomes, enabling the lead- y establishing continuity, evolution, or disconti- ers and activists, many of them current or former Bnuity with the earlier findings, this study supplies business owners, to keep the organizations alive correctives and updates to some of the patterns, ten- through ad hoc funding. dencies, and themes suggested by earlier research and Most significantly, we have found that, despite highlighted in the literature review above. For severe structural limitations, Sundstrom and Henry’s instance, while the regime’s persistent control of tele- “strong minority of citizens” continue to “band vision continues to hinder associations in their role as together” in Putin’s Russia. Similarly, McFaul and “facilitators of civil society” and to impede civil soci- Treyger’s belief in “the potential for Russian society to ety’s ability to self-inform and self-organize, the data acquire traits close to the Western paradigm” clearly collected confirm the Internet’s ability to breach this has been borne out, with citizens not merely imple- monopoly and dramatically expand the “public menting government policies but actively partici- sphere” into the virtual realm. The Internet’s transfor- pating in shaping them. As described by Salmenniemi, mation into a public venue and its contribution to the concept of the “ideal” citizen—“active, self-reliant, civic activism appear to have progressed dramatically. and responsible,”orienting himself or herself to “soci- In the case of all the organizations under study, their ety” instead of the state—has been found to be very websites serve as indispensable forums for the eluci- much alive. dation of their agendas, education of their members and supporters, and outreach to “mainstream media.” Most importantly for our purposes, the Internet has . . . And Noting New and Potentially evolved into an indispensable tool of mobilization, be Momentous Developments it public events (picketing, rallies) or petition drives. The Web helps not only “nationalize” but also, in Supplementing or perhaps even challenging the tra- some cases,“internationalize”the issues, drawing sup- ditional civic leadership of the intelligentsia (mostly) porters from the country at large and abroad. from liberal professions and (mostly) in the state’s Another previously noted tendency confirmed by employ, the organizations and movements are led by this research is the lack of financial predictability (and what might be called Russia’s “new” middle class of “institutionalization”) as a key structural problem of self-employed, relatively well-off, entrepreneurial grass-roots organizations in Russia. With dues sym- and/or business-owning individuals. More like loose, bolic and even then rarely collected, what might be broad, Internet-based, issue-driven, and ad hoc called a “post-Khodorkovsky” resource environment mobilized communities of the like-minded than tra- is characterized by the absence of anything like sys- ditional groups with a fairly well-defined member- tematic and sizable outside donations. Such assistance ship and hierarchy, the organizations swell during as they manage to get from local businesses is meager, successfully organized public events or petition surreptitious, and often in-kind rather than money. drives. The members (or, rather, “supporters,” as a At the same time, the economic boom of 2000–2008 respondent called them) seem to melt away into

35 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

cyberspace afterward, only to reemerge again, often Hence, no matter what their “routine,” day-to-day on very short notice. objectives were, all of the respondents saw their most Yet perhaps the most portentous findings are the important mission as the education of their fellow two overlapping but distinct phenomena: the seem- citizens in self-organization, self-help, competence, ingly spontaneous but apparently inevitable courage, and confidence. “spill–over into politics” (peretekanie v politiku), on Both in their ultimate aims and in the highly the one hand, and long-term goals that extend far moral personal example of civic responsibility and outside the day-to-day agendas, on the other. Con- nonviolence by which they advance toward them, veyed to the interviewers by remarkable self-aware- these organizations and movements resemble civil ness and articulated with equally notable clarity and rights movements much more than political asso- determination, both processes deviated from the des- ciations. If borne out, this tentative parallel may tination suggested by the national political culture. help predict the behavior of these groups—and Instead of a political change “at” and “from” the top, that of hundreds of organizations and movements with remarkable unanimity, the respondents like them—thus helping US policymakers chart described their ultimate goal as something that might more effective engagement with, and assistance to, be described as democratic citizenship—a civil soci- the pro-democratic segment of Russia’s reviving ety able and motivated to supervise the executive. civil society.

36 Appendix

Self-Organization of Civil Society in Today’s Russia: Goals, Strategies, and Tactics of Six Movements and Organizations

Translated from Russian by the author, with the Rus- 4. Tactical goals and tactics; current work; relations sian original follwing. In each case, the question- with the authorities naires were augmented by references to the • What are your short-term objectives? What organizations’ activities; materials found on the would you like to achieve in, say, the next one to organizations’ sites (programs, posts, statutes, and so two years? forth); and, in the case of the leaders, quotes from • Which political, social, economic problems of their previously published interviews. your city, region, country do you consider “your own” in terms of your organization’s activities? • What projects/objectives are you currently The Questionnaire working on/seeking to attain? What approaches/ actions are you planning for their realization? 1. Biography and personal motivation • In your experience, which actions seem to you • How old are you? tactically most effective in terms of reaching the • Education? organization’s goals? • Profession/occupation? • What are the relations with the authorities? Do • How/under what circumstances did you organize/ they combine protest “from the outside” with start to participate in the organization? work “from within” (for instance, elections to/ • Why do you continue to invest time and energy participation in the local legislative, executive, or in this work? Where, for you, is the moral “com- consultative bodies)? Is it more competition or pensation”? partnership? Both? Then where is the emphasis? • Have the authorities asked you to “help” them? 2. The organization’s “biography” What is the organization’s position with regard to • Where and by whom organized? such requests? Are you concerned about the “coop- • What are the circumstances? What served as the tation” of the organization by the authorities? “spark”? 5. The role of the Internet 3. Strategic goals • What are the main uses of the site and its effect • What are the strategic, long-term goals of your (for example, an alternative to the censored organization/movement (as opposed to tactical mass media; a key means of connecting with the objectives that will be discussed below)? members and “sympathizers”; practical or legal • How does its activities help the emergence of or advice; mobilization for a particular action)? make more proximate a Russia about which you dream and which you would like to bequeath to 6. Structure, membership, resources your children? • How is your organization structured: informally or “formally”(regular meetings, elections of leadership, leadership’s reports to the members)?

37 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

• How is the membership maintained and 7. The future expanded? • Ideally, how do you see your organization • Do you collect membership dues? Donations? in two, three, five years in terms of structure, Do you have regular sponsors/supporters/ membership (demographics, numbers), and contributors? Of course, we are interested not in influence? the names but in the types of support/funding.

Самоорганизация гражданского общества в современной России: цели, стратегия, и тактика 6-ти движений и организаций

Вопросник считаете «своими» в плане деятельности организации/движения? 1. «Демография» («Коротко о себе») • Над реализацией каких конкретных проектов/ • Возраст целей Вы сейчас работаете? Какие подходы/ • Образование действия планируете для их реализации? • Профессия/род занятий • Какие действия, учитывая накопленный опыт, • Как/при каких обстоятельствах вы организовали/ кажутся Вам наиболее эффективными в начали принимать участие в деятельности тактическом инструментарии для достижения организации? целей организации? • Почему Вы продолжаете тратить время и • Как строятся отношения с властями? Комби- усилия на участие? В чЁм удовлетворение, нация протеста «извне» с работой «изнутри» моральная «компенсация» за эту работу? (например, избрание в местные законодатель- ные и исполнительные органы, работа в «сове- 2. «Биография» организации щательных», «советнических,» «экспертных» • Когда и кем основана? структурах)? Соперничество или партерство? • При каких обстоятельствах. Что было «искрой»? То и другое? Тогда, на что «ударение»—на первое или второе? 3. Стратегия • Поступали ли просьбы от властей «помочь» • Каковы стратегические (long-term) цели им? Какова принципиальная позиция на этот Вашей организации (в отличии о тактических счЁт? Есть ли опасения по поводу возможной задач, о которых ниже)? «кооптации» движения/организации властями? • Чем еЁ деятельность помогает возникновению или приближению той России, о которой Вы 5. Роль Интернета мечтаете, которой хотели бы для своих детей? • Сайт: использование и значение. Альтернатива подконтрольным СМИ? Главное средство связи 4. Тактика и отношения с властями с членами организации и «сочувствующим»? • Каковы кратковременные (short-term) цели? Практические советы? Чего бы Вы хотели достичь, скажем, в течении года-двух? 6. Структура, членство, ресурсы • Какие политические, социальные, экономи- • Структура: формальная (выборы, отчЁтность) ческие вопросы города, региона, страны Вы и/или неформальная?

38 APPENDIX

• Членство: как поддерживается и каким 7. Будущее способом расширяется? • Каким, в идеале, Вам видится Ваше движение/ • Ресурсы: членские взносы? Пожертвования? организация, через 2-3-5 лет: структура, Спонсоры? Естественно, нас интересуют не членство (демография, численность), имена, а типы поддержки. влияние?

39 Notes

1. For long excerpts from the interviews with the six 14. Maria Lipman, “Civil Society and the Nonparticipa- leaders, see Leon Aron, “Putin Is Already Dead,” Foreign tion Pact” (paper presented at the 42nd National Conven- Policy, January 2012, www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012 tion of the American Association for the Advancement of /02/07/putin_is_already_dead (accessed June 28, 2012). Slavic Studies, Los Angeles, CA, November 17, 2010). Cited 2. US Department of State, “US Government Assistance with the author’s permission. to Eastern Europe under the Support for East European 15. Oleg Kashin, “Shtorm na Baltike” [Storm on the Democracy Act,” www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rpt/c10247.htm Baltic], Vlast, March 15, 2010, available in Russian at www (accessed January 5, 2011). .kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1334515&ThemesID= 3. US Department of State, “FY 2009 Foreign Opera- 366 (accessed May 28, 2010). tions Appropriated Assistance: Russia,” www.state.gov/p/eur 16. Frederick Power, The Politics of Civil Society: Neolib- /rls/rpt/eurasiafy09/136829.htm (accessed January 5, 2011). eralism or Social Left? (Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2007), vii. 4. US Department of State, Russia: Advancing Freedom 17. Alfred B. Evans Jr., Laura A. Henry, and Lisa McIn- and Democracy Reports (Washington, DC, May 2010), tosh Sundstrom, eds., Russian Civil Society: A Critical www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/afdr/2010/eur/129785.htm Assessment (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2006). (accessed June 24, 2012). 18. Michael McFaul and Elina Treyger, “Civil Society,” in 5. Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Remarks at the US-Russia Michael McFaul, Nikolai Petrov, and Andrei Ryabov, eds., ‘Civil Society to Civil Society’ Summit” (Washington, DC, Between Dictatorship and Democracy (Washington, DC: June 24, 2010). Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004), 142. 6. Philip H. Gordon, “US-Russia Relations under the 19. Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom and Laura A. Henry, “Rus- Obama Administration” (remarks, German Marshall sian Civil Society: Tensions and Trajectories,” in Evans, Fund, Washington, DC, June 16, 2010). Henry, and Sundstrom, eds., Russian Civil Society, 306. 7. Titles of USAID-funded civil society projects Marc Morje Howard, similarly, has found postcommunist retrieved from www.usaid.gov on December 6, 2010. civil society “weak” and did not foresee “dramatic changes 8. Tracy Lee Simmons, “God’s Law and the Power of in the pattern of nonparticipation throughout postcommu- the State,” Washington Post, February 5, 2012. nist Europe.” See Marc Morje Howard, “Postcommunist 9. L. M. Grigoriev, B. I. Makarenko, A. A. Salmina, and Civil Society in Comparative Perspective,” Demokratizat- A. E. Shastitko, Sredniy klass posle krizisa: ekspress-analiz siya 10, no. 3 (2002): 285–86. vzglyadov na politiku i ekonomiku [Middle Class after the 20. Sundstrom and Henry, “Russian Civil Society,” 318. Crisis: An Express Analysis of Its Opinions on Politics and 21. Ibid., and McFaul and Treyger, “Civil Society,” the Economy], 134–38, http://viperson.ru/data/201011 159–66. For details, see Alfred B. Evans Jr., “Vladimir /Middlefinal2010.pdf (accessed January 4, 2011). Putin’s Design for Civil Society,” in Evans, Henry, and 10. Ibid., 138. Sundstrom, eds., Russian Civil Society. 11. Ibid., 139–41. 22. Sara Oates, “Media, Civil Society, and the Future of 12. Ibid., 142. the Fourth Estate in Russia,” in Evans, Henry, and Sund- 13. Leon Aron, “Russia’s New Protesters,” AEI Russian Out- strom, eds., Russian Civil Society, chapter 4. look (Spring 2010), www.aei.org/outlook/foreign-and-defense- 23. Sundstrom and Henry, “Russian Civil Society,” 311. policy/regional/europe/russias-new-protesters-outlook. 24. Louise Shelley, “Organized Crime Groups: ‘Uncivil

40 NOTES

Society,’” in Evans, Henry, and Sundstrom, eds., Russian 44. Interviews with Maxim Vedenev, Dmitry Shpeytel- Civil Society, chapter 6. shpakher, and Dmitri Mozhegov. 25. Jo Crotty, “Reshaping the Hourglass? The Environ- 45. Interviews with Maxim Vedenev, Konstantin Doro- mental Movement and Civil Society Development in the shok, and Marina Rikhvanova. In preparation for the bien- Russian Federation,” Organizational Studies 27, no. 9 nial meeting, Baikal Ecological Wave posts on its site all the (2006): 1319. expenses and contributions within the period. 26. Ibid., 1334–35. 46. Interview with Yaroslav Nikitenko. 27. Jason M. K. Lyall, “Pocket Protests: Rhetorical Coer- 47. Interview with Dmitry Linov. cion and the Micropolitics of Collective Action in Semiau- 48. Interviews with Maxim Vedenev, Anastasiya Zago- thoritarian Regimes,” World Politics 58, no. 3 (April 2006): ruyko, and Konstantin Doroshok. 379, 411. 49. Interview with Anastasiya Zagoruyko. 28. Sundstrom and Henry, “Russian Civil Society,” 307. 50. Interview with Marina Rikhvanova. 29. McFaul and Treyger, “Civil Society,” 171. 51. Interview with Sergei Kanaev. 30. Suvi Salmenniemi, “Struggling for Citizenship: Civic 52. Interview with Marina Rikhvanova. Participation and the State in Russia,” Demokratizatsiya 53. Interview with Sergei Kanaev. (Fall 2010): 336. 54. Interview with Konstantin Doroshok. 31. Sundstrom and Henry, “Russian Civil Society,” 311. 55. Ibid. 32. K. A. Gulin and I. N. Dement’eva, “Main Trends of 56. Interview with Marina Rikhvanova. Protest Moods in Vologda Oblast,” Sociological Research 57. Interviews with Anastasiya Zagoruyko, Maxim Vede- 49, no. 2 (March/April 2010): 50 and table 1. nev, and Konstantin Doroshok. 33. Sundstrom and Henry, “Russian Civil Society,” 58. Interview with Natalia Vvedenskaya and Dmitry 314, 311. Lynov. 34. Lipman, “Civil Society and the Nonparticipation 59. For more on “monotowns,” see Leon Aron, “Russia’s Pact,” 5. ‘Monotowns’ Time Bomb,” AEI Russian Outlook (Fall 35. Ibid. 2009), www.aei.org/outlook/foreign-and-defense-policy 36. Lisa Sundstrom, “Soldiers’ Rights Groups in Russia: /regional/europe/russias-monotowns-time-bomb. See also, Civil Society through Russian and Western Eyes,” in Evans, Leon Aron, “Darkness on the Edge of Monotown,” New Henry, and Sundstrom, eds., Russian Civil Society, chapter 11. York Times, October 16, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009 37. Lipman, “Civil Society and the Nonparticipation /10/17/opinion/17aron.html (accessed July 27, 2012). Pact,” 6. 60. Interview with Maxim Vedenev. 38. Sundstrom and Henry, “Russian Civil Society,” 311. 61. Ibid. 39. Aron, “Russia’s New Protesters.” 62. Interviews with Maxim Vedenev and Konstantin 40. Evgenia Chirikova (movement leader), interview to Doroshok. the Ekho Moskvy radio network, August 10, 2010. Empha- 63. Interview with Konstantin Doroshok. sis added. 64. Interview with Maxim Vedenev. 41. “About TIGR,” Tigr, February 14, 2009, 1 (copy of 65. Interview with Evgenia Chirikova. the leaflet in the author’s possession). 66. Interview with Natalia Vvedenskaya. 42. Interview with Dmitri Mozhegov and Dmitry 67. Interview with Konstantin Doroshok. Shpeytelshpakher. 68. Anastasiya Zagoruyko, written responses to the ques- 43. The sites’ posts, as well as leaflets and newspapers in tionnaire. the author’s possession; and interviews with Anastasia 69. These include Marina Rikhvanova (Baikal Ecological Zagoruyko and Maxim Vedenev in Vladivostok, Dmitry Wave), Maxim Vedenev (TIGR), Konstantin Doroshok Shpeytelshpakher in St. Petersburg, and Konstantin (Spravedlivost), and Sergei Kanaev (FAR). Following the Doroshok in Kaliningrad. January 2010 demonstrations, Konstantin Doroshok was

41 A QUEST FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

invited to join the “advisory commission” under Governor 87. A copy in the author’s possession. Georgy Boos. When we interviewed him, Maxim Vedenev 88. Interview with Natalia Vvedenskaya. was the head of the department of consumer affairs of the 89. Undertakerspb, December 15, 2009. Bolding and state-owned Regional Unified Enterprise responsible for capitalization are in the original, the printout of which is in heat supplies to apartments. He had been invited, Vedenev the author’s possession. explained, “to look at the situation from within” because 90. A photocopy in the author’s possession. the federal subsidies were drying up and the regional 91. A bumper sticker in the author’s possession. authorities were seeking ways to make the corporations 92. Interview with Maxim Vedenev. [Enterprise] profitable.” 93. FAR’s homepage, www.autofed.ru (accessed January 70. Interview with Sergei Kanaev. 19, 2012). 71. Ibid. 94. Interview with Sergei Kanaev. 72. Ibid. 95. A printout in the author’s possession. 73. Ibid. 96. Interview with Natalia Vvedenskaya. 74. Ibid. 97. A photocopy in the author’s possession. Capitaliza- 75. Anatoly Medetsky, “The President Slashes Numbers tion and bold type are in the original. of Cars with Blue Lights,” Moscow Times, May 21, 2012. 98. A photocopy in the author’s possession. Capitaliza- 76. Ibid. tion and bold type are in the original. 77. Anastasia Zagoruyko’s written answers to the ques- 99. Interview with Maxim Vedenev. tionnaire. 100. Interview with Sergei Kanaev. 78. Interview with Maxim Vorontsov. 101. Interview with Evgenia Chirikova. 79. Interviews with Sergei Ageev and Oleg Mel’nikov. 102. “About TIGR.” 80. Boris Vishnevsky and Charles Digges, “New Tactics 103. Federation of Automobile Owners of Russia, “20 against Khimki Activists—Target Their Children,” Bellona, marta—Vserossiyskaya aktsiya protesta protiv tsen na February 25, 2011, www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2011 toplivo” [March 20—Is the All-Russian Protest Event against /Khmki_children (accessed April 15, 2012). the Prices of Gas], www.autofed.ru/?p=3863 (accessed May 81. Interview with FAR president Sergei Kanaev. 15, 2011). 82. Interview with Evgenia Chirikova. 104. Interview with Evgenia Chirikova. 83. In the interview, I quoted to Rikhvanova her own 105. Ibid. statement found on her organization’s site: “The merger of 106. Interview with Maxim Vedenev. state and business engenders conflicts of interest. And no 107. Interview with Evgenia Chirikova. matter how prettily the environmental policy is formu- 108. Interview with Maxim Vedenev. lated, the state functionaries will not be interested in 109. Interview with Maxim Vedenev and Evgenia Chiri- defending and expanding our common natural [and] cul- kova. “If people had even a little bit of self-respect, then we tural treasures.” Rikhvanova replied: “When I’ve tried to would not have the impunity,” said Vedenev. delve deeply into this, I understood that the merger 110. Interview with Evgenia Chirikova. (sliyanie) of [political] power and business is a real and 111. Interview with Maxim Vedenev. serious conflict of interests.” 112. Ibid. 84. Interview with Evgenia Chirikova. 113. Interview with Anastasia Zagoruyko. 85. Interview with Dmitry Lynov. 114. Interview with Konstantin Doroshok. 86. “Ulichnye aktsii: naskol’ko i komu oni nuzhny?” 115. Interview with Natalia Vvedenskaya. The emphasis is [Street protests: How Much and for Whom Are They added. Needed?] Ekho Moskvy, August 23, 2010, www.echo 116. Maxim Vedenev, written responses to the question- .msk.ru/programs/albac/706566-echo/ (accessed January naire and interview. 19, 2012). 117. Interview with Sergei Kanaev.

42 NOTES

118. “Prinuzhdenie k otvetsvennosti” [Forcing to Act what a great guy [you are]!’ But there is no expansion of the Responsibly], Tigr, February 14, 2009, 1 (copy in the system [he created]. And it is always easier to wring the author’s possession). Emphasis added. neck of one person than to do it to everyone.” 119. Maxim Vedenev, written responses to the questionnaire. 123. Interview with Maxim Vedenev. 120. Interview with Maxim Vedenev. 124. Interview with Evgenia Chirikova. 121. Interview with Sergei Kanaev. 125. Ibid. 122. Ibid. “[Alexei] Navalny is the sole master of [the anti- 126. Ibid. corruption investigative site] Rosyama, he has [the anti- 127. Interview with Vitaly Lavrinovich. corruption investigative site] Rospil,” Kanaev added. “And 128. Interview with Evgenia Chirikova. 100,000 people who visit his site say, ‘Atta boy, Lyosha, 129. Interview with Natalia Vvedenskaya.

About the Author

Leon Aron is a resident scholar and director of Aron has contributed numerous essays and articles Russian Studies at the American Enterprise Insti- to newspapers and magazines, including the Washing- tute. He is the author of three books and over 300 ton Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, articles and essays. Since 1999, he has written AEI’s Foreign Policy, The New Republic, Weekly Standard, Russian Outlook, a quarterly essay on economic, Commentary, New York Times Book Review, the Times political, social and cultural aspects of Russia’s post- Literary Supplement. A frequent guest on television Soviet transition. He is the author of the first full- and radio talk shows, he has commented on Russian scale scholarly biography of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin: A affairs for, among others, 60 Minutes, PBS NewsHour Revolutionary Life (St. Martin’s Press, 2000); Russia’s with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose, CNN International, Revolution: Essays 1989–2006 (AEI Press, 2007); C-SPAN, and National Public Radio’s All Things and Roads to the Temple: Memory, Truth, Ideals, and Considered and Talk of the Nation. From 1990 to 2004, Ideas in the Making of the Russian Revolution, he was a permanent discussant at the Voice of 1987–1991 (Yale University Press, 2012). He coedited America’s radio and television show Gliadya iz Ameriki and contributed the opening chapter to The Emer- (“Looking from America”), which was broadcast to gence of Russian Foreign Policy (US Institute of Peace, Russia every week. 1994) and contributed an opening chapter to The Aron earned his PhD from Columbia University, New Russian Foreign Policy (Council on Foreign has taught a graduate seminar at Georgetown Univer- Relations, 1998). sity, and was awarded the Peace Fellowship at the US Institute of Peace.

45 A Quest for Democratic Citizenship

Agendas, Practices, and Ideals of Six Russian Grass-Roots Organizations and Movements

Leon Aron

1150 Seventeenth Street, NW Washington, DC 20036 202.862.5800 www.aei.org

Cover image by Mikhail Reznikov AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE