Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 19 – Changes in the relationship
between the Putin regime and the Russian population is leading some to suggest
that the Kremlin leader will be increasingly willing to make concessions to protesters
in order to maintain himself, however risky such an approach may be (themoscowtimes.com/2019/06/19/are-putin-and-xi-going-soft-on-protest-a66058).
Others argue that protesters should
negotiate with the regime now because they have a good chance to extract
concessions (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/181926)
while it has led others to say that is a waste of time (idelreal.org/a/30007196.html),
with some insisting that the rise in popular protest points toward the end of the
regime (economicsandwe.com/B3739CAFDB7D2343/).
But a more interesting perspective
is offered by Andrey Pertsev, a special correspondent for the Medusa news agency,
who explores why at the present time, Putin sometimes makes concessions to
protesters but at others uses force against them (meduza.io/feature/2019/06/19/v-2019-godu-moskva-regulyarno-idet-na-ustupki-protestuyuschim-kto-eto-reshaet-i-pochemu-i-kakie-protesty-kremlyu-kazhutsya-po-nastoyaschemu-opasnymi).
The Meduza
journalist draws his conclusions on the basis of interviews with present and
former members of the Presidential Administration and also on others who work
regularly with that powerful body. He suggests
that there are five factors which determine how the Kremlin is likely to
respond to any particular protest:
·
How well informed Putin is personally. Sometimes as in
the case of Yekaterinburg and its church, he is well-informed, in that case
thanks to the Russian Orthodox; but in others as with the anti-trash protests
in the Russian North, he knows less; and as a result, the protest is viewed as
less significant and the Kremlin is less likely to overrule local officials and
impose an outcome.
·
How large the protest is, not in absolute numbers
but in relative to population. A protest in Moscow has to be vastly larger than
one in a smaller city for the Kremlin to get involved and be concerned.
·
Whether the demonstration is sanctioned or
unsanctioned.
If it is sanctioned, the regime can work with organizers to ensure that it won’t
be anti-Putin or anti-regime; if it isn’t, the dangers of that increase many
times over.
·
How political the protest is, that is, how
much it raises questions of power. The more a meeting does that, the more
concerned the Kremlin is and the more likely it is to use repression; the less
it does, the less it is likely to act in that way.
·
Local conditions: In Moscow there are no systemic
parties and no problems with organizing meetings; in the smaller cities, the
situation is different and thus of greater concern to many in the Kremlin.
The reaction of the Kremlin, its decision
to make concessions or apply repression also depends on the participants of the
meetings at which such decisions are taken. In some cases, those at the table
want to see repression and in others they prefer concessions depending not so
much on the state’s needs but their personal ones.
According to Pertsev, “a decision to
oppose unsanctioned protests if it involves not political but civic issues is
not easy for the Kremlin to take.” Often the siloviki do not want to get involved
lest they get blamed for the outcome and frequently argue that the politicians
should make the decisions about what to do with the demonstrators first.
Consequently, the Meduza analyst says, the
decision-making process in the Kremlin about using force or not using force
against protesters is far more complicated and far less consistent than many might
expect. Sometimes Moscow uses force when it might not have to, and other times
it may make concessions that it could avoid making.
And that pattern itself, Pertsev suggests,
means that those who try to calculate how they can negotiate from the streets
with the powers that be may often obtain results very different from those they
have good reason from their point of view to expect.
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