Kremlin’s Moves Against Navalny Staffs in Regions Highlight Their Importance, Krasheninnikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 12 – Today siloviki raided Navalny staff offices in 29 cities, ostensibly in the search for evidence of the money laundering Moscow has accused the opposition leader’s movement of being involved with but in fact to disrupt its activities which the Kremlin mistakenly thinks are generating opposition attitudes in the regions (znak.com/2019-09-12/po_vsey_rossii_siloviki_provodyat_obyski_u_sotrudnikov_shtabov_alekseya_navalnogo).

            As New Times commentator Yuliya Galyamina notes, “the government has shifted to mass terror against those who in its opinion are behind the population’s dissatisfaction.” But the source of that, she continues, is not the Navalny organization but rather “the state itself” which has changed the minds of Russians across the country (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/184939).

            Navalny and other activists like him have simply “helped people to institutionalize protest.” And that has anther consequence, Galyamina says. It means that repressions may slow that process in some places on the one hand but will add to popular anger in most and thus accelerate it on the other.

The siloviki are “bad sociologists and political scientists,” she says, and are thus taking actions that will ultimately produce exactly what they do not want. “To everyone who is being subjected to repressions, take heart! Truth is on our side.”

Political analyst Fyodor Krasheninnikov puts all this in a broader context and argues that Navalny’s decision to open offices across the country represents “a small revolution in the political life of all regions of Russia where even one of his staffs operates” (theins.ru/opinions/175167).

By taking the entirely legal action of opening offices and arranging for their financing, the analyst says, Aleksey Navalny has taken protest out of the marginal underground status it had had in many places and made it something entirely legal and normal for an ever larger number of Russians.

Three things have given the opposition leader and his staff offices the opportunity to achieve this: First, the authorities did not immediately understand how dangerous such offices could be and harassed but didn’t close them. Second, Navalny has proved to be better organizer of the infrastructure necessary to support such a network.

            And third, and perhaps most important, “the citizens of Russia, above all the young turned out to be not as inert as many had been accustomed to thinking.”  They wanted change and to protest but they needed structures that would allow them to take part in such efforts in an open and legal way.  Navalny’s “staffs” gave them that.

            Such an opportunity is especially important in smaller cities where almost everyone works for the state or for large companies tied to the state and whose employees could take part in protests only at great risk to their livelihoods. That is in contrast to Moscow where many have other sources of income, Krasheninnikov says.

            Navalny has thus returned to the regions “street politics by creating a method for the survival of the opposition in an aggressive milieu and what is most important awakening to many to an active struggle for their rights,” the analyst says.

            He adds that what prompted the regime to act now was the success of the “smart voting” program. “The fear of the authorities about it is closely connected with the situation in the regions: even in Moscow, United Russia was able to field only very weak candidates.” Its position in the regions is even weaker – and it knows it will face “smart voting” campaigns there in the future.