Staunton, July 23 – While some
analysts are saying that Khabarovsk is the beginning of a revolutionary wave
that will sweep across Russia (nakanune.ru/articles/116237/),
more are asking to which cities and regions the kind of protests taking place in
the Russian Far East are likely to spread and considering how Moscow’s response
to Khabarovsk will affect that.
Leonid Smirnov of the Rosbalt news
agency spoke with four Moscow political analysts. They provide different perspectives
on both what may lead other cities to protest and how Moscow will likely react
especially in the period between now and the September elections (rosbalt.ru/moscow/2020/07/23/1855261.html).
Aleksey Makarkin, vice president of the
Center for Political Technologies, says that in many ways Khabarovsk was unique
because of Furgal and the way he was viewed locally and in Moscow. But there is
anger elsewhere and people may come into the streets not to support their
governor but to have him ousted.
Pavel Kudyukin, vice president of
the University Solidarity union and an instructor at the Higher School of
Economics, says that when tensions are as high as they are now, the only thing
needed is a trigger; but predicting what those might be and when and where they
will occur is extremely difficult.
With regard to the Far East, he
says, China plays a contradictory role: On the one hand, residents of the
Russian Far East see neighboring Chinese regions doing very well. And on the
other, especially in Khabarovsk, they fear that Beijing is too interested in
expanding its influence in border regions of Russia.
But the Far East is the most likely
candidate for new protests now. People there don’t have the background of
serfdom and more given to taking independent action as shown by the fact that
people there were behind protests in the past including anti-Bolshevik risings
during the Civil War.
Boris Kagarlitsky, head of the Institute
on Globalization and Social Movements, says there may either be specific
risings or a more general wave of protest and that both may affect where the
next Khabarovsk occurs. But few have
recognized that a major reason people in Khabarovsk have acted as they are lies
in recent developments.
The kray like other places in the
Russian Far East is far more urbanized than many other parts of Russia and its
people are in fact the second, third or “even the fourth” generation to live in
major cities. That predisposes them to actions.
Rural Russians even in the Far East are far less likely to demonstrate.
Kagarlitsky says that there are
unlikely to be any new risings like the one in Khabarovsk until after the September
elections because Moscow will want to avoid triggering anything that could make
its electoral changes even worse than they now are. But because they are bad, the
center may engage in massive falsification and that could drive more people
into the streets.
Irkutsk is one candidate for that,
the analyst says; but an even better one may be Arkhangelsk because the
governor is unpopular, there is the tradition of Shiyes protest, and the
potentially explosive issue, given the protest voting in Nenets AD, of the
possible amalgamation of the two federal subjects.
And Ilya Grashchenkov, head of the
Center for the Development of Regional Policies, agrees but adds additional possible
sites , including Novosibirsk. It will
largely depend on Moscow’s response and whether it can find a way to negotiate
with regional groups rather than remain trapped in the idea that repression is the
only way forward.
In the current environment, massive
repression almost certainly will prove counterproductive.
No comments:
Post a Comment