Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 3 – The ongoing
long-haul truck drivers’ strike is fundamentally different in its import from
the March 26 demonstrations, Igor Klyamkin says. The first was an ethical
protest but the second is “a solid economic protest of a vitally important professional
group against pressure on its interests that has risen to an expression of
political distrust.”
The longtime Moscow analyst and
commentator points out that this strike, in contrast to the ones of 2015, “is
well organized,” has thrown up new structures, and continues to spread “throughout
the country.” What is most important, he
stresses is “the powers that be still don’t know how to react” (facebook.com/igor.klymakin/posts/1271326472987811).
That is because,
Klyamkin suggests, that the authorities are encountering a kind of self-organization
from below and that “strikes for economic goals that in the course of which
acquire a political coloration” is something that for Russia is “nothing new”
and hardly reassuring to the Kremlin today.
“It is sufficient to recall the
general strike of 1905 which put before the tsar the choice between a
dictatorship and concessions.” That tradition is very much alive, the analyst
says, while “there is no experience in Russia with long-term political protest
of the ‘Maidan’ type,” despite the hopes of some in the opposition.
Klyamkin concludes by noting that he
is not prepared to offer historical analogies to what is happening now. Clearly,
he says, Russia is not where it was in 1905 or where it was at the end” of
Soviet times. But he says he is quite
prepared to insist that “today the situation is not what it was a week ago,”
because of the truckers more than because of the protesters.
Five other developments and
commentaries offered about this in the last two days provide additional
evidence for Klyamkin’s conclusion:
·
Increasingly,
there is anger that the government media aren’t covering the protests (forum-msk.org/material/news/13024187.html).
·
The
truckers’ strike in Daghestan has been joined by merchants in the cities there
(yug.svpressa.ru/society/article/145519/).
·
The
truckers’ strike is seen triggering clashes in the North Caucasus that could
work to the benefit of ISIS (forum-msk.org/material/news/13025068.html).
·
At
the very least, the strike is going to have an impact on the campaign for
president in that region (https://regnum.ru/news/polit/2256630.html).
·
The
truckers’ strike is spreading from its initial organizing points to ever more
federal subjects (nakanune.ru/articles/112755/).
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