Vitali Shkliarov, Foreign Policy Research Institute: Russia's Opposition Protests: On the Road from Nowhere to Nowhere
The recent Moscow protests have been seen as yet another turning point in anti-Putin oppositional politics. Nearly every individual who lives in the post-Soviet space can’t help but feel a personal connection to this story. Every new issue, every argument or disagreement in the Russian capital catches the attention of almost everyone in the former Soviet bloc countries who still feel deeply connected to Mother Russia. This has a lot to do with the “postcolonial” interest of satellite states in what is happening in the former metropolis and with the fact that every small victory in Moscow seems like another step toward stabilization in the region and democracy in Russia. But, in this case, is it really? Do the recent opposition protests in Russia signal a real change is coming? Or is it just more of the same false hope concealing the fact that pro-democracy efforts in Russia are really just a road to nowhere?
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WNU Editor: One of the best analysis that I have read on Russia's opposition movement. A must read for Russian watchers. As to what is my take on the current wave of protests and the opposition movement. They will not succeed. The Kremlin and its allies are employing the same tactics that Mugabe employed when he ruled Zimbabwe. Keep the opposition off the ballot. Intimidate the leadership. Employ force when it gets out of hand.
2 comments:
WNU, In response to your commentary, I would think the younger Russians will prevail in time. Hopefully not with their own version of what they protest now.
On a long enough time frame there certainly will be change as there has been when Russia and captive countries broke up under free world pressure decades ago. Seeing the Berlin Wall turned to dust showed me that controlling the weapons was not all that a regime needs to more than simply survive. It needs to be responsive to it's citizenry. National characteristics change with time. I don't think the Russian population is as cowed as in the Stalin era. There is more opportunity now with the demise of communism and that includes leaving.
One cannot forget Rome and how long it lasted but it did change. The shrinking Catholic church springs to mind. I wouldn't expect it to ever regain it's status of old.
I have lived and am living through societal change here. You left Russia when to seek a better life elsewhere became little more than buying a ticket or walking across an invisible line. I truly consider the democrat party to be oppressive to my freedom in this country. They will adjust to peoples' desires or become as irrelevant as the Flat Earth Society.
Good reply Roger
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