Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 19 – As their strike
continues across Russia into its 24th day, the long-haul drivers say
that they intend to create their own political party to press their agenda, a
step that has attracted support from Yekaterinburg Mayor Yevgeny Royzman, KPRF
Duma deputy Valery Rashkin and opposition leader Aleksey Navalny.
The idea of a truckers’ political
party was suggested by Aleksey Kaldikhin, a leader of the long-haul truckers in
Saratov; and it is entirely possible that other drivers and political leaders
will back his proposal. But Anton Chablin,
a journalist who specializes on the North Caucasus where the strike is
strongest, says there are risks for the truckers in taking such a step.
In a commentary on Kavkazskaya politika today, Chablin notes
that even though perhaps as many as one million drivers are now on strike and
as consumers in 30 or more federal subjects are suffering from shortages as a
result, the Kremlin’s media blackout has kept the strike from blocking the
introduction of the Plato system (kavpolit.com/articles/politicheskij_platon-33193/).
The truckers are getting their
message out, however, via the Internet, with video clips showing their meetings
and empty shelves; and they are attracting statements of support from opposition
politicians, including Navalny who released a video clip of his own on behalf
of the strikers.
“I have a cousin,” he said, “who
works as a long-haul driver, and therefore for me, their problems aren’t
abstract. I understand quite well that this is one of the most difficult kinds
of work. People are simply trying to survive and feed their families,” a
position other opposition figures have echoed as well.
But the politicization of the strike
raises questions, and Chablin interviewed Sergey Smirnov, the head of the
Applied Political Science Foundation, about some of them. According to the Moscow analyst, “the
politicization (or, at a minimum, attempts at it) of the protest actions of the
long-haul drivers as with any other protest movement was inevitable.”
The very same thing happened,
Smirnov says, with the protests of depositors who felt themselves deceived. “But
in fact,” statements by opposition leaders in favor of the position of the
strikers are “not support but the use of them as a protest resource.” Moreover,
“in nine cases out of ten,” the opposition figures don’t care about the issues
of those they say they back.
And that, Chablin argues, means that
this political support may not work for the drivers. On the one hand, it may alienate some
truckers who are quite ready to protest against the Plato fee system but are
far less willing to demonstrate against the Russian prime minister let alone
the country’s president.
On the other, by becoming political,
the drivers are likely to cause the Russian authorities to take a harder line
in any negotiations and even to decide to apply more repressive measures
against them, something that could end the strike even if it left the truckers
angry and the store shelves empty.
He argues
that the experience of the miners who succeeded in getting the authorities to
make concessions by talking to representatives of the ruling United Russia
party is suggestive. Such people, Chablin says, actually can help the drivers
unlike the communists or other opposition groups who will only make use of
them.
Chablin
might be correct if the authorities showed any willingness to talk to the truck
drivers; but so far at least, not only have the powers that be in Moscow
refused to cover the strike but they have been unwilling to negotiate at all,
preferring instead to have regional governments to employ repressive measures
against the drivers.
Unless that changes and soon, the drivers
and the opposition may gain a certain synergy from cooperating, a reality that
Moscow needs to consider as it tries to act as if nothing is happening on the
roads of Russia.
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