Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 15 – In January
1917, Lenin thought that he and members of the older generation of
revolutionaries might not live to see a revolution but by the end of that year,
he and the Bolsheviks were in power in Petrograd. Now, the Russian opposition believes
that there must be radical change, but polls suggest that most Russians don’t
agree with them.
Instead, Gennady Gudkov, an
opposition figure himself, argues in today’s “Moskovsky komsomolets,” the
Russian people want stability and continuity even if the trends are bad, a
pattern that explains the Kremlin’s optimism about its ability to survive for
many years to come and requires that the optimism revise its optimism and
timetable for change.
“For all thinking people in Russia
it is clear that the need for change in the country’s leadership is becoming the
main social trend,” Gudkov observes, but polls show that there is no basis for “this
euphoria” in the population as a whole (mk.ru/specprojects/free-theme/article/2013/04/14/841201-holodnyiy-dush-dlya-oppozitsii.html).
He
says that he has been studying a volume of sociological studies conducted in
the Moscow region which he believes “very often reflects” the pattern of
attitudes throughout the Russian Federation. And what those studies suggest
that the Russian people want stability above everything else and that they are
grateful to Vladimir Putin for giving it to them.
This seems inexplicable to most
opposition figures, he continues, but the reality is that the more the
government steals form the people and denigrates them, “the stronger they are
attached to those who have power.” The
Kremlin’s sociologists are reporting this, and consequently, the leadership is
certain it will “rule many more years.”
Those in the Kremlin may be right,
but history is, Gudkov insists, unpredictable now just as it was in 1917. And
consequently, “neither the Kremlin nor its opponent should allow themselves to
weaken” because no one can say just when the population will shift and with it
the fortunes of the elite and the country.
But these polls do show where the Russian
people are now. On the one hand, such attitudes reflect the age-old “slave
complex” in which getting one’s daily portion of bread is “better than freedom.” But on the other, it reflects the fact that
many Russians simply do not know what the condition of the country is – and that
suggests a new opposition strategy.
Most Russians get their news from “’zombified’
and government-controlled” media, he says, and consequently, fewer than half of
them know who Mikhail Prokhorov is, fewer than a quarter know who Grigory
Yavlinsky is, and fewer than one in six know who Yevgeny chirikov, the mayor of
Khimki is.
And Russian attitudes fully reflect
the messages of these mass media outlets: 43 percent want those who take part
in meetings and demonstrations to be punished, while only 20 percent are against
that. 58 percent favor abandoning orphans rather than letting foreigners adopt
them, while only 16.7 percent take the opposite position.
Moreover, the polls say, 40 percent
of Russians are for tight control of the media, with only 20 percent opposed.
Just under half want to introduce criminal punishments for slander, while only
11 percent understand that such regulations will make almost everyone afraid to
criticize the powers that be.
In addition to the messages of the
controlled media,Gudkov continues, “it is also clear that the degradation of
education, science and culture have given birth to fools and cynics who are
easy to administer.” Moreover, the numbers of the educated are declining because
up to 150,000 of them are leaving the country every year.
All
this, the opposition figure says, raises the old Russian question: “What is to
be done?” Gudkov says that first of all,
those opposed to the regime have to dispense with the self-serving euphoria of
recent months. And second, they need to begin a campaign of “counter-propaganda”
to inform the population about the true nature of things.
“Everyone who recognizes that he is not
a slave … must help his neighbors, friends, officemates, and fellow travelers
on the bus to recognize” the nature of the idiots that their passivity is
allowing to remain in place where those people continue to steal and oppress
everyone.
On the Internet and in a few other
places there is plenty of material “which unmasks the true nature” of those in
power. Consequently, Gudkov argues, “the
arena of struggle for the new Russia must become each apartment, house,
hallway, work place, bus stop, smoking place, and hairdressers.”
That will be a long and hard
struggle, he says, but victory requires acknowledging that “today we are losing
the unequal battle for hearts and minds to the authorities.” Now, the opposition must “cease being snobs
and begin to speak in an accessible language” in order to reach the
population.
There is reason to hope that things
can change if the opposition does, Gudkov concludes. Indeed, the polls provide some evidence that
there is a basis for moving forward. But
the victory the opposition seeks will not take place easily or tomorrow. But he
insists, it will inevitably happen if the opposition begins to work rather than
just to talk about itself.
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