Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 20 – The Russian
blogosphere almost unanimously has suggested that the fight over the
registration of candidates for the Moscow city council show that “the powers
that be are archaic and degrading” while “society in contrast is evolving,”
something the writers say “the powers don’t understand” and are in fact “in a
state of panic,” Irina Pavlova says.
But those judgments are completely
wrong, the US-based Russian historian says. In her view, it is the opposition
which “doesn’t understand with what kind of power it is dealing while the
powers know perfectly well how to manipulate it” far beyond the capacity of the
opposition to cope (ivpavlova.blogspot.com/2019/07/blog-post_20.html).
What is taking place in Moscow now brings
to mind the 2011 election campaign for the Duma, Pavlova says, when the Kremlin
quickly brought to heel what seemed to be an overwhelming wave of protest
against the Putin regime. Since that
time, she argues, the Kremlin’s political technology skills have only grown.
This is especially the case with regard
to manipulating the rising generation in ways that direct the “anti-powers”
energy of the young into directions that ultimately work to the benefit of the
powers that be rather than representing any threat to them in ways that recall how
Stalin used elections in the late 1930s.
On the one hand, since 2012, the
Kremlin’s political technologies have focused their attention on the young,
successfully promoting among their ranks the idea that “the future of the country
belongs to them, that civil society is developing, modernizing, and influencing
the powers that be forcing it to change course.”
That leads the young to want to
participate “in the modernization of the existing regime” rather than seek to overthrow
it, Pavlova suggests.
And on the other, the current powers
that be by constantly shifting course, now advancing, now retreating keeps young
people off balance. When it looks as if the powers are going to shut down all
protests, they allow a large one; and when it looks like protests are becoming
too widespread, the powers that be shut them down.
That is, the Kremlin like its Soviet
predecessors acts in ways that those opposed to it cannot easily take advantage
of because as soon as they mobilize on the basis of one set of facts, the
Kremlin provides them with a different set – and the opposition confused has to
begin all over again rather than build on any successes it may have had.
Such a tactic, Pavlova continues, “works
not only to change the electoral technologies in the country but also to create
in the eyes of the world community the illusion of the existence of a civil
society capable of influencing the regime.” Those who accept that lie thus
conclude that they need not seek to replace Putin because Russian civil society
will cause him to evolve.
Meanwhile, while Russian opposition
groups and the West are impressed by the size of the meeting about election
registrations in Moscow, the Putin regime has stepped up its application of the
criminal code to include not only Articles 280 and 282 but also and more
seriously Article 275.
That article deals with state
treason, a category that given the current regime’s reading of this paragraph
could be used against “young Russians above all and also against others who are
in contact with foreigners.” That the
Kremlin has this intention is suggested by Nikolay Patrushev’s remark that
foreign special services and NGOs are seeking to subvert Russian youth.
Pavlova performs an invaluable service
by providing this contrarian position.
She has proved right more often than wrong in the past; and at the very
least, her arguments represent a challenge to the prevailing optimism among the
Russian commentariat and should be answered rather than dismissed.
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