First, the anti-crisis march has a website: http://vesna.today/
Second, about the regions. Many cities have said they are ready to take part in the March 1 events in various formats, from solo pickets to rallies, but four of them are preparing to hold full-scale marches. They are:
As in Moscow, the exact location will be determined after the legally required application is submitted, but it will take place on March 1 at 2:00 p.m. local time.
This time, we plan to be a little less Moscow-centric and promote not the “Vesna (Spring) Anti-Crisis March in Moscow,” but “anti-crisis marches across the country.”
The most active cities so far are Ufa, Kazan, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, Samara, and Krasnodar. I’ll let you know what is ultimately decided there.
Third, as promised, about the polling.
We conducted a large study to better understand Muscovites’ attitudes toward rallies and identify their preferences regarding locations, themes, outreach methods, and so on.
To do this, we first identified a group we called the “non-Putin” respondents—those who said they did not plan to vote for Putin. We continued recruiting such respondents until we had a properly structured sample of 1,200 people.
Within this group, we identified the “protest-goers”—that is, those who took part in one of the mass rallies of 2011–2014, or did not take part but would have liked to. They made up about 17% of the “non-Putin” group, which is enough to draw statistically meaningful conclusions.
Each card indicates which group’s views are being shown.
I won’t publish all the data, since it is internal and intended for our work, but here are the politically important findings:
So, the internet is popular among the “non-Putin” group, but the TV zombie box (a slang term for propaganda-heavy television) also plays an important role.
Sixteen percent of the “non-Putin” group do not use the internet at all.
I posted this card yesterday, and it is important. Most of the “non-Putin” group view mass public events positively. This is an important audience for our outreach.
Interestingly, a significant share of the “non-Putin” group knows nothing about the protest actions of 2011–2013—or has already forgotten them. This points to the importance of informational work. Nineteen percent saying “this is the first I’ve heard of it” means there is a huge untapped field for outreach.
This is important. As for channels of communication, the internet and personal acquaintances matter most. And given that “the internet” very often also means acquaintances through social media, we can see the fundamental importance of personal involvement in calling people to rallies. Share and like more, citizens.
The low importance of leaflets and newspapers is probably explained by the fact that we have basically never produced them. We’ll fix that this time.
Interestingly, “protest-goers” are not always ready to attend unauthorized protests themselves, but most of them view those who do in a positive light.
This may be explained by the fact that most people understand that the driving force that brings people out to rallies is an unwillingness to put up with injustice.
This is a very important slide, and the last one I want to show. The issues that bring “protest-goers” into the streets are:
Please note that our March demands were also drafted with these findings in mind.
For example, the demand to cut military and police spending and redirect those funds toward human capital development—education and healthcare—is our anti-crisis solution to the first two and most urgent issues.
A question naturally arises: why are the issues of war and political prisoners ranked so low when all my friends go to rallies precisely because of them?
The simple explanation is that these are issues for all “protest-goers” (who make up 15% of the “non-Putin” group). When we run cross-tabulations, we can clearly see the core of activists and the issues of those who are not just ready to come out but actually do. For them, these issues are an absolute priority.
Put it this way: fewer people consider war the most important issue, but their likelihood of definitely taking to the streets is higher than that of those who are concerned about the judicial system.
The same applies to political prisoners and Putin’s resignation.
These are three specific issues that unite the core of the protest movement and produce its fiercest and most steadfast activists. That said, I admit this is my personal interpretation, and I am not claiming to offer a rigorous qualitative analysis of the data.
Now to practical matters:
1) There are a hell of a lot of people in Moscow willing to come out to protest rallies (sorry).
2) We know, support, and share the issues that concern those inclined toward protest activity.
3) The emphasis should be on the internet and word of mouth. Personal outreach is crucial.
There is a clear lag in offline campaigning for an obvious reason: no one has really been doing it, even though volunteers do exist. Their potential has not been used. Fixing this is an important task. To do so, we are launching a volunteer outreach project. Sign up in this spreadsheet if you are ready to help us with street campaigning.
If we want more people to come, we need to invest our own time and effort.