Navalny’s Return ‘has Shortened Life of Putin Regime but Lengthened Russia’s Path to Democracy,’ Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 1 – London-based Russian analyst Vladimir Pastukhov argues that “Navalny’s return to Rusisa has shortened the life expectancy of the Putin regime and lengthened the path of Russia to democracy and a legal state,” pointing out that “such is the dialectic of the Russian revolution.”

            Describing the protests across the country as “a Russian intifada,” he advances five theses in support of his argument (mbk-news.appspot.com/sences/v-stojke-vladimir-pastuhov/):

            First, Pastukhov says, “society from a state of hidden (latent) civic opposition all at once has shifted to a state of open civic opposition, the size of which will now only grow until one of the sides ends it with a victory.” That means among other things that “victory will not necessarily go to those who entered this fight first.”

            Second, the Putin regime in this “clutch” has practically lost the chance to maneuver and will be forced to use up its political resources” far faster and more extensively than planned. That doesn’t mean a quick end, however, as the situation in Belarus shows. It may be able to hold on for some time while becoming increasingly radical in its repressiveness.

            Third, “the weak and underdeveloped Russian civil society after the transition of the opposition into an intifada also finds itself in a similar ‘clutch’ with all ensuring consequences.” It has no choice but to go forward to destroy the existing regime or to suffer “a knockout blow.”  That means that support for the use of force is “an inevitable trend in the protest movement.”

            Fourth, Pastukhov continues, “the provocation of revolution in the absence in t he country of a real revolutionary situation has few chances of ending with a blitzkrieg.”  Instead, it likely means that the regime will make use of “the most brutal and dirty forms of reaction in which the totalitarian methods of the Soviet past will be combined with those borrowed from the arsenal of the mafia.”

            And fifth, “the objective consequences of a premature uprising in the near term will become a sharp transition of the system from a regime of manipulation into one involving the total suppression of any social activity.”

            All this means, the London-based analyst says, that Russia faces “a complicated period” in which “the legal field for the realization of any alternative agenda will be sharply reduced.” There won’t be any “gray zone left,” and in this situation, “civil society will be driven into the underground where it will decay and radicalize.”

            There is always the chance that the regime could collapse quite quickly, but that chance is quite small. And so the pursuit of a revolution in non-revolutionary times represents “adventurism of the purest kind,” Pastukhov concludes. It may look impressive as the charge of the Light Brigade did, but it will end as that action did in failure of one kind or another.