Shiyes ‘Rallying Point for Russian Civil Society’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 4 – The protest in Shiyes against plans by the authorities there to build a dump for trash from Moscow have become “a rallying point for Russian civil society,” commentator Oleg Kizim says, with people across the country coming out in support of that action and adding their own concerns to it (publizist.ru/blogs/107559/31864/-).

            These protests have even spread to Moscow where yesterday about 1,000 people came to add their support to the Shiyes demonstrators, urge that Muscovites “become like Shiyes,” and advance their own demands as well (https://www.interfax.ru/moscow/667803 and mbk-news.appspot.com/suzhet/kvachkov-limonov-chaplin/).

            Kizim says that “the powers that be do not know what to do when they are confronted by the strong resistance of society.” If they act more brutally, they will provoke even more anger and possibly even a revolt not only in the place where they do so but elsewhere in the country as well. 

            What this means, he says, is that “finally a civil society has become to form in Russia. People have passed from spontaneous and largely marginal actions to a planned and conscious struggle for their constitutional rights.” Shiyes shows the way. Despite official harassment, the protesters have thought out how to act and have been insistent on their rights.

            That presents the authorities with a new and very difficult situation, Kizim says. The powers that be are used to dealing with people who may be angry but who are easily cowed. Now they are confronted by a population that is anything but easily intimidated and may become even more angry if officials ignore or try to repress them.

            “It is interesting that many Muscovites are in solidarity with the Shiyes activists,” as yesterday’s meeting shows.  And it is not just residents of the capital but Russians across the country who feel this way. “Shiyes has become one of the points which is consolidating society in opposition to the power structures which have turned away from the people.”

            And what is especially important, this action was not organized “by some elite grouping which has authority from the powers that be.” It was organized by the population independent of and very much opposed to those powers, and the powers know this.  Even Vladimir Putin has had to speak out about it.

            “Shiyes has shown that ever more citizens have entered on the path of an active civic position to struggle for their rights and social guarantees … In many regions, meetings, and actions are taking place in which people express their dissatisfaction with the irresponsibility of the authorities.”

            In the face of more technogenic and natural “catastrophes,” the population can see the inadequacy of the official response and the inability of local and regional officials to do anything on their own without Putin’s intervention. That has given them space for protest and they are using it.   

            Under these circumstances, Kizim suggests, it will take only the slightest spark to touch of a conflagration that could destroy everything, a reality that the powers that be still do not appear to understand.  But what is most disturbing, he says, is their more general attitude to what is happening in Russia today.

            If you live under the slogan, “’ après moi le déluge,’” as the powers that be appear to be doing, that flood will almost certainly appear. Indeed, it is already on the horizon and not just in the small railway station of Shiyes or the flooded villages of Irkutsk.