In fact, we already have everything we need, and we must stop thinking of ourselves as “small and weak” and of them as “big and strong.”
Over the past year, we ourselves have grown strong and powerful.
We—people who support the country’s normal development and oppose Putin remaining president for life—have built a fairly powerful political infrastructure:
- campaign offices in 84 cities
- hundreds of thousands of volunteers, with tens of thousands of them highly active
- the ability to solve organizational problems and coordinate our network
- media resources. This is a constant challenge, but by now we can easily reach a couple of million people on a regular basis
an amazing IT infrastructure. Read about it (part one, part two, part three, part four)
we are brave and courageous. Right now, real raids are taking place against our offices all across Russia, and people are not running away
we have learned to fund our own work. Yes, the funding is modest, but overall it is enough, and we will be able to cope even despite the extraordinary measures being taken against our organizational infrastructure.
So why can’t we achieve victory or serious change? What needs to be done—and done right now? I recorded a video about this, and I ask everyone to help spread it.
Together, we have created an amazing foundation for our work and are ready to act far more effectively. One final problem remains: we are not putting in enough effort and we are not persistent enough—above all when it comes to mass street protests.
Yes, for the first time in the country’s modern history, we are holding fairly large rallies in the regions as well, but we can do more.
Our movement is several times larger than what we see on the streets. And until we learn to turn out for peaceful street protests, nothing will come of it.
This has always been the main instrument of politics. Look at any developed, prosperous democracy. There are already mechanisms of influence there—elections, the media, trade unions. And yet people still take to the streets over all kinds of issues, because that is simply how it works. A civic or political movement that cannot mobilize people and bring them into the streets cannot achieve its goals.
Everything else is tremendously important too. Articles and draft laws. Monitoring and public education. Platforms and debates. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. But there is one main way the masses express their discontent: they go out into the streets and make themselves visible. They show that they exist. Sociologists and analysts may fail to notice them, but then they are physically standing in one place, and everything becomes clear.
The Kremlin, of course, understands this, and this is precisely what it is fighting first and foremost. They have now even started confiscating leaflets that invite people to an officially authorized rally.
They understand it, and it is time for us to understand it too.
There is nothing more important right now than coming out to the January 28 protest. That is what politics is; everything else is secondary.
If you do not come out, then do not expect a normal life. Do not dream of positive change. It will happen only when society truly longs for it. And that is expressed by people taking to the streets.
No matter how much they try to intimidate us, mass repression against rally participants is impossible.
In 99% of cases, going to a rally is the safest, most effective, and simplest form of political struggle. Take part. Nothing will work without you.
Do not wait for anything—take part this Sunday.
Choose your city from the list—there are already 115 Russian cities there. In the video I mention 90, but the number has grown since it was recorded.
In St. Petersburg, come to Proletarian Dictatorship Square at 2:00 p.m. The event group on VK is here, and on Facebook here.
In Moscow, come to Tverskaya at 2:00 p.m. As before, any point on Tverskaya Street from Mayakovskaya to Manezhnaya. The best place to gather is Mayakovskaya. It is better not just to stand still, but to keep moving: walk counterclockwise along Tverskaya from any point to any other point. The event group on VK is here. The Facebook group is here.
Help spread the video wherever you can. See you on Sunday.