What the Authorities Fear - Irina Khakamada, Mikhail Fishman, Alexei Navalny - Full Albats - 2007-04-15

**Y. ALBATS:** Good evening. It is 7:06 and 39 seconds. You are listening to Echo of Moscow on 91.2 FM. This is Yevgenia Albats at the microphone with our traditional Sunday program devoted to the key events of the week — the events that will matter in politics over the coming weeks and months. The topic of today’s program is: *What is the government afraid of?* Yesterday Moscow turned into a besieged city. The center of Moscow was effectively under military siege — it felt as though there was no civilian authority in the city at all. Today the center of St. Petersburg was also under military siege. And again, judging by the information coming in, it felt as though the military were answerable to no one and could do whatever they wanted. I mean, of course, the Interior Troops, SOBR (special rapid-response units), OMON (riot police), who yesterday in Moscow and today in St. Petersburg grabbed people, beat them with batons, dragged them into police vans, drove them around Moscow, then held them for hours at police stations. Yesterday a crowd gathered outside the Krasnopresnensky District police department demanding the release of Garry Kasparov, Alexander Ryklin, Masha Gaidar — more than 170 people were arrested, according to official figures alone. And OMON moved against that very crowd and dispersed it with extreme brutality. Today in St. Petersburg, according to the reports we are receiving, someone has a broken arm, someone a broken nose — the rally was dispersed very violently. So what is the government so afraid of? That is what we will be discussing today. In the Echo of Moscow studio with me is Irina Khakamada, deputy chair of the presidium of the Russian People’s Democratic Union. Ira, hello. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Hello. **Y. ALBATS:** Also with us is Alexei Navalny, executive secretary of the Committee for the Defense of Muscovites and editor-in-chief of the now-closed program *Fight Club*. Hello. **A. NAVALNY:** Good evening. **Y. ALBATS:** And Mikhail Fishman, my colleague, a columnist for Russian *Newsweek*, who also took part yesterday in the Dissenters’ March. Hello. **M. FISHMAN:** Good evening. **Y. ALBATS:** I should tell you that when we were putting this program together, we had intended to talk about why TV Center shut down the program *Fight Club*. This was a program that essentially grew out of political debates organized by the youth movement DA! — Democratic Alternative. Those debates were very successful; they were held at the Bilingua club and another club on Brestskaya. Alexei Navalny hosted them from the very beginning. Then, apparently, TV Center liked the idea and offered Navalny and the program’s producer, S. Kazakov, a chance to go on air. It would be pre-recorded, with all the necessary restrictions that exist today on TV Center. And yet, completely unexpectedly, at the beginning of the week, the program was shut down. And although it was still listed in the schedule, when TV Center viewers turned on their televisions on Wednesday, they saw *The Street of Closed Lanterns*, *Open Lanterns*, or *Dead Lanterns*? **A. NAVALNY:** *The Street of Your Destiny*. **I. KHAKAMADA:** *Red Lanterns*. **Y. ALBATS:** Right. I clearly have trouble with TV series. That was the situation. Political debates among young people — first and foremost, it was a youth program discussing the sharpest problems of our life today — and the episode that never aired, which was devoted to the military draft, was shut down. And it seems to me these things are connected: the youth talk show was closed, and at the same time what happened on Saturday in Moscow and today in St. Petersburg took place. So my first question is for Alexei Navalny: Alexei, do you connect these two events — the closure of *Fight Club* and the way the Dissenters’ March was dispersed yesterday in Moscow, and today in St. Petersburg, with such brutality — precisely brutality? **A. NAVALNY:** Naturally. Because the government’s basic idea right now is that it has forgotten the word “compromise.” So *Fight Club* — I’m not going to play dumb here, or pretend your listeners are dumb — was obviously a program prepared to work within all the current television rules. There were stop-lists — we understood all that and accepted it to some extent, though we tried to work around it. We wanted to make a sharp, hard-hitting program within certain limits. Nevertheless, we went on air twice and got pretty good ratings, but the authorities showed that compromise is impossible. In other words, even if you pretend you are ready to play by certain rules — absolutely not. Any political agenda is formed exclusively by certain people who have appropriated that right to themselves. If you want to do something a little out of the ordinary and you haven’t fully coordinated it, or you did coordinate it but at some moment someone didn’t like it — everything is instantly liquidated. **Y. ALBATS:** Am I right in understanding that TV Center, as a channel, as a business, was interested in your program? **A. NAVALNY:** I want to make one thing clear right away: this was a joint project with TV Center. It was not simply a copy of our debates. It was a joint creative team — TV Center was very actively involved in all of it, and I have absolutely no complaints about TV Center. For them it was a ratings success — commercially a good program — and from what I saw, they were just as shocked as we were by the closure. Because it was a good product, approved and re-approved by a million different offices — and then suddenly, bang, it was shut down. **Y. ALBATS:** So what you’re saying is that no matter how much you try to get into bed with the authorities, if you allow yourself any freedom at all, the authorities throw you out of that bed. **A. NAVALNY:** Well, that’s an offensive comparison for me. I don’t think I got into bed with the authorities. But still — in fact, there was no particular freedom on our part. The whole idea of our program was new faces, so frankly we didn’t care much about those “stop-lists.” **Y. ALBATS:** If you could be more specific — on Echo of Moscow that’s not a very familiar concept, “stop-lists”; we don’t have them. Tell us, who was on your “stop-lists”? **A. NAVALNY:** I don’t know who was on them — everyone connected with television knows that some kind of “stop-lists” exist. **Y. ALBATS:** Was Irina Khakamada on the “stop-list”? **A. NAVALNY:** No, Irina Khakamada was definitely not on the “stop-list.” We see her regularly on NTV, so apparently she’s not on it. Our idea was new faces. We didn’t care about the “stop-lists”; we simply invited interesting new people. Apparently those interesting new people were saying things too... even though the program was not live. **Y. ALBATS:** I see. Read *The New Times* tomorrow — it lists who is on the stop-list, at least for TV Center. Yevgeny, a reserve officer from St. Petersburg, writes: “What a day in St. Petersburg today — the entire historic center was blocked off with dump trucks and people dressed like some kind of aliens. Seriously. OMON was written on their backs — what a glorious word that has become nowadays. And the people cursed them with the strongest Russian words. They even sent in a helicopter to help them — yes, our governor’s nerves are clearly failing.” Another message from St. Petersburg, from pensioner Vasily Popov: “Now the authorities should be afraid of their own OMON — they brought these lunatics in all the way from Arkhangelsk Region. If only some pensioner Tolya from Moscow could see how they were clubbing people like him near Vitebsky Station. Grandmothers shook icons at them, crossed them, cried, pleaded with them, and they — especially the ones from Arkhangelsk — only grew more savage, grabbing everyone who opened their mouths. Today Matviyenko gave the city’s residents a real OMON beating, and she’ll pay for it yet.” Let me remind our listeners: the live call-in numbers are 783-9025 for Moscow, and 783-90-26 for the regions. You can also send SMS messages to 970-45-45. Irina Khakamada, Vasily Popov from St. Petersburg wrote something that seems very telling to me: now the authorities should be afraid of their own OMON. Do you think these two days in Russia’s two capitals showed that the men in uniform have slipped out of civilian control? **I. KHAKAMADA:** I’m convinced these two days showed that the security apparatus has slipped out of control... **Y. ALBATS:** You mean the Interior Ministry, probably? **I. KHAKAMADA:** No. The regular police behaved decently. **Y. ALBATS:** But there were so many plainclothes men there yesterday — security-service types (chekists, i.e. secret police / security-service officers). On Pushkin Square it was unbelievable. **I. KHAKAMADA:** The most aggressive were OMON, and OMON not from the local city — in Moscow, the Moscow OMON behaved more decently; the regional OMON had clearly been set on people, with the message: “Muscovites have grown fat,” “they’ve gone too far,” “Beat Moscow.” Moscow isn’t liked in the regions, and they were trained like shepherd dogs are trained for the hunt — only in this case, apparently, they had been trained on people. The same thing happened in St. Petersburg — the Arkhangelsk OMON were the most aggressive. In other words, they took people from the north who felt resentful — it’s a tried-and-tested tactic of setting groups against each other. And I got the impression that all this military force deployed in the streets was deliberately demonstrating its aggression and discrediting Russia in the eyes of Western journalists. Because I was on Pushkin Square, and people were literally following me around; we were trying to avoid clashes with OMON, and foreign journalists were filming everything. We saw how, right in front of the cameras, they acted brutally — including beating Kasyanov, and so on. In other words, it was obvious. It was a challenge: “We don’t give a damn about the international community; we’ll do whatever we want in our own country.” That wasn’t the case before. And I’d like to explain what the authorities are afraid of. Clearly, they are afraid of something. But after this Saturday, I had the following impression. Imagine you are staging a classic play and you are the chief director. You are the master of the production, whether on a film set or a theater stage. There is no democracy there. The chief director tells the actors what to do, how the extras should behave, who comes on when, and what they say. And suddenly chaos breaks out on stage — the actors disagree with the director and want to say different lines. The extras, instead of moving right, move left across the stage — and a scandal begins. Why such hysteria in Russia? Because the task was to stage a performance called “democracy.” And this performance was supposed to go off without a hitch and end with thunderous applause in 2008, when the new chief director would come out on stage, bow to everyone, and receive the crown. But something is going wrong — the actors are moving the wrong way, the extras are behaving the wrong way. If democracy were real, not theatrical, then the people would rule the ball. But if it is theatrical, then the chief director does. And now everything is slipping out of control. That is the main fear: that the production will collapse, that not all the roles will be played to the end, and that the main hero will not come out at the end with the proper crown. It’s reaching the point of paranoia. This is already rational behavior in its own way. Because in a huge country it is hard to keep a performance under control; it isn’t that manageable. Imagine a stage the size of all Russia, with that many actors, and trying to make them all twitch and move exactly according to the squares marked out for them. So nerves are fraying. **Y. ALBATS:** We received 28 pages of questions on the program page — that’s an absolute record for me — and a great many questions are also coming in by SMS. Maria Popova, Moscow, a small business owner, writes: “Yesterday my husband went to the Dissenters’ March, but couldn’t get through OMON. I was frightened for him. And what was the point? The march was crushed. We dream that our children will live in a free democratic country. What can an ordinary person like me do to make that happen?” Mikhail Fishman, I have the same question for you. The march was crushed in the harshest possible way. We were shown — though this is hardly news to us — that there is no democracy in Russia. But usually authoritarian regimes prefer to act selectively: they jailed Khodorkovsky, and all businesspeople got scared and crawled under the table. They went after someone else — journalists got scared somewhere, the intelligentsia somewhere else, politicians somewhere else. Yesterday we saw elderly people in the streets, and a great many young people too. Pasha Gaidenko wrote: “Ladies and gentlemen, I was on Pushkin Square yesterday and saw OMON dispersing and beating elderly people. Right in front of me they detained several student passersby.” It really was remarkable yesterday — it reminded me of 1988 in Moscow. True, there weren’t this many OMON back then. There were water cannons, I remember that — but not this many troops, and not this level of lawlessness by men in uniform, even then, at the end of Soviet rule. So what can people do? Will they come out again, or not? Was this directed against them, or was it, as Irina says, aimed at an external audience — at the West — to tell the West: we don’t give a damn about you and all your U.S. State Department reports and your noise about the lack of democracy in Russia? **M. FISHMAN:** In my view, it was certainly directed against them — against the people who came out there. But if I may — I don’t entirely agree, since I’ve just come from the march. If we cool down a little — and yes, to everyone who went there yesterday, it all looked utterly disgusting. But if we step back a little and look at what happened there as observers — I wasn’t present at that scene on the boulevard, which apparently really was brutal and unpleasant. But obviously it was more the exception than the rule at that march. **Y. ALBATS:** And you weren’t present at the scene by Turgenevskaya metro either? **M. FISHMAN:** No, why not? **Y. ALBATS:** You weren’t there when OMON drove people from behind like sheep, herding them into the metro? **M. FISHMAN:** I was. But they weren’t deliberately beating people. I was there, I saw it. May I finish? **Y. ALBATS:** Please. **M. FISHMAN:** My feeling is that the troops did not act in the harshest possible way. They could act more harshly. And in fact, I think the main message, the main signal they were trying to send me as I walked there, was: we can act more harshly. In other words, I was being warned. **Y. ALBATS:** More harshly — meaning shooting? **I. KHAKAMADA:** Cracking skulls open, you mean? **M. FISHMAN:** For example, shooting. **I. KHAKAMADA:** No, they have no right to do that. **M. FISHMAN:** I don’t know how. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Under no law. **M. FISHMAN:** The point is the signal I was supposed to receive — they wanted to tell me something. They were telling me: right now, we’re actually acting fairly mildly with you. And they wanted to convey their confidence that they would act much more harshly. And I did, in fact, receive that confidence — the signal got through to me. **Y. ALBATS:** Misha, am I right in understanding that you think the next time a demonstration comes out into the streets, it will first mean rubber bullets and water cannons — and then real bullets? **M. FISHMAN:** It’s not a question of the number of demonstrations, but rather of their quality. **Y. ALBATS:** Meaning? **M. FISHMAN:** Well, if it’s 20 people, we’ll just surround them with OMON. If it’s 20,000, then maybe we’ll act differently. **I. KHAKAMADA:** I see. **M. FISHMAN:** And if they go there, then we’ll act. I think that follows quite clearly from what we saw yesterday. **Y. ALBATS:** Radif Yusupov, from the Volga region, a prosecutor’s office employee — interestingly enough — writes: “The authorities are afraid of organized civil disobedience directed against the authorities themselves. Right now everything is being done from above to herd everyone into the stall. That is why television is all entertainment, and so on. Slightly more than 10% of citizens want access to unmanipulated information; the rest, sad as it is, are a herd. The authorities fear that those same 10% may unite and drive part of the herd in the wrong direction — isn’t that so?” Alexei Navalny, do you really think the whole issue is those 10% — that the authorities are afraid that 10% could lead some kind of mass protest? **A. NAVALNY:** I don’t think the authorities are really afraid of some mass protest, or really afraid of an “Orange Revolution,” or anything like that. It seems to me things have already reached the point where the authorities have spent a very long time growing this instrument of repression, and now they finally have to repress someone — otherwise what was all this for? So many people have spent so long dealing with the problem of fighting “Orange-ism”; special departments have been created to counter it on the internet; anti-terrorist headquarters have been set up; anti-extremist laws have been passed — what is all this for? A lot of people make money from it, and a lot of officials at every level justify their existence by saying they are fighting some “Orange plague”; there are supposedly American agents running special seminars, and so on. Well, they have to crush someone in reality, don’t they? So even a small event like the Dissenters’ March — they crushed it with such brutality. **Y. ALBATS:** Another question. Moscow, Alexei Suvorov, museum worker: “Why do some media outlets, not only the central TV channels, allow themselves to tell outright lies about the Dissenters’ Marches? Are they hoping for praise from the current regime, for government grants? For what? Why do they knowingly violate the code of journalistic ethics approved by the Congress of Journalists of Russia on June 23, 1994?” An amusing question. **A. NAVALNY:** Well, fine — what would this respected listener like Konstantin Ernst to say on air? That 10,000 OMON officers beat up 15 grandmothers, dispersed them for no clear reason, and everyone was shocked by it? Obviously that’s not going to happen. So what is power? Today I was reading reports in blogs very carefully and found an absolutely brilliant phrase from the very conservative journalist Maxim Kononenko: “The only source of power in the Russian Federation is the ATM.” That is absolutely right. There is an ATM, and there is a crowd of people around that ATM — that is power. And the only thing they do is protect that ATM. **Y. ALBATS:** And Maxim Kononenko is one of them, am I right? **A. NAVALNY:** Probably, yes. At least Maxim Kononenko isn’t ashamed of it — that’s what makes him somewhat likable. So we build all these theories and think about some strategy of power, while in reality they are simply protecting their ATM. That’s all. **Y. ALBATS:** Interesting. **I. KHAKAMADA:** I would like to agree with our listener, the former prosecutor — I think his analysis is absolutely correct. And second, I would like to raise the discussion to a more serious level — maybe then at least 10% will understand. In effect, what we have built today is this demonstrative, decorative democracy for reasons no one can quite explain, which is neither a pure authoritarian regime nor anything to do with a free society. A regime cannot remain in such a state — this has been calculated mathematically. It cannot stay indefinitely in this neither-here-nor-there condition. **Y. ALBATS:** Eleven years. On average, authoritarian regimes last 11 years. **I. KHAKAMADA:** That’s not what I mean. **A. NAVALNY:** Irina is saying it’s not authoritarian. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Not authoritarian. **A. NAVALNY:** It’s balancing. **I. KHAKAMADA:** It’s a balancing regime. So very soon something will happen — mathematically speaking — either it will move into a hard dictatorship, or it will move toward softening and gradual democratization. And it seems to me that everything happening around the march is being initiated by the wing that would like to move toward a hard dictatorship. All the backtracking and wavering that happen afterward come from the weaker wing, which would prefer — and I’m still talking about the authorities — a gradual shift. **Y. ALBATS:** A wing inside the Kremlin? **I. KHAKAMADA:** Yes. But at the moment... **Y. ALBATS:** Let’s be more specific. I really dislike these vague formulations — what “strong wing” are we talking about? **I. KHAKAMADA:** I don’t know exactly. **Y. ALBATS:** Do you mean Igor Ivanovich Sechin, or whom do you mean? **I. KHAKAMADA:** Surely those... **Y. ALBATS:** The chekist wing, the security-service wing, that wants to herd everyone into a small-scale Gulag (the Soviet forced-labor camp system), just without a special camp zone? **I. KHAKAMADA:** No, I know their thinking. It has long been known that they believe Russia, packed with resources, absolutely self-sufficient and self-reproducing, can manage in a closed mode without all those Western countries — that has long been a cherished dream. **Y. ALBATS:** Russia as a fortress, right? **I. KHAKAMADA:** Yes. **A. NAVALNY:** Just like in Sorokin — *Day of the Oprichnik*. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Yes, *Oprichnina* (a reference to Ivan the Terrible’s terror apparatus, revived in Vladimir Sorokin’s dystopian fiction). So the democrats are in crisis now; this should be exploited, trampled on, and a model built accordingly. There is another, softer wing — Medvedev, for example, perhaps even including Putin, though apparently he no longer has much influence — which is trying to preserve some kind of dialogue with the West and build its supposedly sovereign democracy. What are they united by right now? They are united by the fact that they still haven’t managed to sort out the successor. **Y. ALBATS:** Mikhail Fishman, do you also think there are different wings in the Kremlin and that the hardline wing organized... **M. FISHMAN:** I don’t know. In this specific case, we’re guessing. **I. KHAKAMADA:** I don’t know either. I’m just analyzing. **M. FISHMAN:** It doesn’t seem that way to me. I agree with Irina completely that we really do have this strange regime — neither authoritarian nor free, a kind of swallow pose that you simply can’t hold for long... **I. KHAKAMADA:** Impossible. **M. FISHMAN:** Yes. You can’t stay in it for long. But the message — the suppression of marches, the tightening of the screws — what we are seeing today, right now, in my view comes directly from V. Putin. That doesn’t mean he personally gives the order. But the signal about how one is supposed to act is certainly connected to his own fears of street politics, fears that have already spread down through the vertical of power. **Y. ALBATS:** Thank you. We’ll come back to that in just two minutes. On Echo of Moscow — the news. **NEWS** **Y. ALBATS:** Good evening once again. It is 7:33 and 25 seconds. You are listening to Echo of Moscow on 91.2 FM. This is Yevgenia Albats, and we are talking about what the authorities are afraid of. In the Echo of Moscow studio are Irina Khakamada, deputy chair of the presidium of the Russian People’s Democratic Union; Alexei Navalny, executive secretary of the Committee for the Defense of Muscovites; and Mikhail Fishman, a columnist for Russian *Newsweek*. We’ve received many SMS messages with the same question: “Yevgenia Markovna, if you were in power, what would you do if a certain group of people decided to hold a rally in the city center?” I’ll answer: I would act as required by the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees citizens — not permits, but guarantees — the right to assembly and rallies. Moreover, the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation provides for criminal liability for violating citizens’ right to demonstrations and rallies. More than that, if I were in power, I would have put on trial those who organized yesterday’s beating in Moscow and today’s in St. Petersburg. Because they violated Article 149 of the Russian Criminal Code. I hope that answers your question. Moscow, Roman Badeev: “How many people would have to come out on a march to be able to stand up to the mad OMON? Surely they couldn’t hold back 20,000 or 30,000?” Who wants to answer? **A. NAVALNY:** What does “stand up to OMON” mean? Beat OMON back? Take away all their batons and beat them? I don’t know — I hope no one is setting such a goal. But to simply force a march through, I think 20,000 people would be enough — though that doesn’t fundamentally solve anything. Next time they’ll just shoot everyone with rubber bullets and disperse them with water cannons. But yesterday, I think if at least 10,000 people had come out for the Dissenters’ March, everything would have developed according to a completely different scenario. **Y. ALBATS:** Why do you think that if 20,000 or 30,000 come out, they will use rubber bullets? The Soviet authorities were afraid to do that, and when demonstrations of 100,000 marched through Moscow... **A. NAVALNY:** The situation was different then. **Y. ALBATS:** Irina Khakamada, do you also think they would shoot if 20,000 or 30,000 came out? **M. FISHMAN:** The point is that they now think they would. **I. KHAKAMADA:** No, they’re just trying to scare people. **Y. ALBATS:** Alexander, Moscow: “Maybe someone in the studio can explain why the Dissenters are not satisfied with an authorized rally — why do they absolutely need a noisy march of empty pots?” Alexander, let me just remind you that in our country one does not need to obtain permission to hold a rally. In our country the system is one of notification. All these bans are violations of the Constitution of the Russian Federation — our basic contract with the state. Mikhail Fishman? **M. FISHMAN:** In my view, that is a very reasonable question. It does make sense. Let’s look back at yesterday. There was official permission to hold a rally on Turgenev Square, where people could come and be absolutely... **I. KHAKAMADA:** Without risking anything. **M. FISHMAN:** Without risking anything. Hold a rally, chant whatever slogans they wanted, and so on. If that rally had drawn enough people to fill the whole Turgenev Boulevard area allocated for it, that probably would have made some kind of impression. But events developed differently, as we know. In principle, this is a question for the organizers of the event — why they considered it necessary to hold it precisely in the form of an unauthorized street march, clearly risking a real forceful response. **Y. ALBATS:** And as a journalist, didn’t you find out what the issue was? You couldn’t? I understand, sometimes that happens — a journalist doesn’t have time. **M. FISHMAN:** No, in the sense that they submitted the application earlier, and then... **Y. ALBATS:** Their opinion is running ahead of their knowledge — let me answer, because we found out first and only then formed an opinion. The fact is that the organizers of the Dissenters’ March originally submitted a notification to hold a rally on Pushkin Square — exactly at 9 a.m. **M. FISHMAN:** I know. **Y. ALBATS:** Yes, you know, you’ve read it. But somehow Young Guard (the pro-Kremlin youth movement) — or whatever it’s called — got permission. Some number of their people gathered, they put up a big stage on Sparrow Hills. Do you know that journalists could not get onto Sparrow Hills, where another pro-Kremlin gathering was taking place? Because advance accreditation was required. Not only journalists — the people who were brought there couldn’t leave. Yesterday outside the Krasnopresnensky district police department I had to speak with a very nice *Kommersant* reporter, Taratuta, who had in fact been accredited for that rally on Sparrow Hills. And very interestingly, no one was being allowed out. It was a fenced-off zone for those who support the authorities — apparently in our country those who support the authorities need some special zone. So before the space on Turgenev Square was offered... **M. FISHMAN:** They had applied for Pushkin Square. **Y. ALBATS:** ...the organizers of the Dissenters’ March had already printed 150,000 copies of a leaflet-newspaper calling on people to come to Pushkin Square. Once again, Misha, let me remind you — ours is a notification system. **M. FISHMAN:** Yes. May I answer? When children are playing in a sandbox and one older, bigger child comes up, says “This is my spot,” and drives the other away — I wanted to stand here, but he pushed me aside and took the place himself — I have two tactics: I can throw myself at him with my fists, or I can stand next to him. Essentially, that was the choice facing the organizers. I’m not accusing them of anything, please understand me correctly. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Well, it was like one set of balls against another — one character against another. **M. FISHMAN:** I just think it’s rather interesting. Of course the leaflet was printed, and the organizers called on people to gather on Pushkin Square — that’s true. **I. KHAKAMADA:** I agree. They were calling on people to gather on Pushkin Square even when it was already clear what would happen... **M. FISHMAN:** More than that, I think I even understand why it was done — some might call it a provocation, but I would put it this way: the organizers, the opposition leaders who arranged this event, consider this method of real physical confrontation... **I. KHAKAMADA:** The most effective. **M. FISHMAN:** The most effective. **A. NAVALNY:** I’d like to object to Irina and Mikhail. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Let me just say what I think. I was simply proposing a compromise. If there are people — professional revolutionaries — who are ready to go to prison and get hit over the head with a baton, then that is their personal responsibility, and they are taking responsibility for the future of the people and fighting for it. But there are ordinary people too. I was on Pushkin Square, and huge numbers of people came up to me saying: “We don’t understand anything. We came here thinking the rally was here. But here they’re chasing us around and none of you are here — we don’t understand anything. Tell us where to go.” I told them: go to Turgenev Square. And on the way to Turgenev Square they were beaten with batons. I do not want to be responsible for that. People should have been warned: those who are ready to take risks and show the authorities a clenched fist — “this is who we are, and to hell with you” — let them come to Pushkin Square. Those who are ready to protest, but still within certain limits... **M. FISHMAN:** Simply express their position. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Yes. They should have been told: “Friends, come to the registered rally; we’ll come there too, but the main gathering point is Turgenev Square.” That was not said. And you cannot risk people’s lives. **A. NAVALNY:** I do not accept that position. I’ve been involved in this whole process — filing notifications and so on — for quite a long time. And I can tell you that over the last year and a half, the opposition in any form, even environmentalists with some “Save the Birds” campaign, has not received a single permit for a single march. We applied even for boulevards, for pedestrian routes, during the day when there isn’t a single person there, on weekends when there are few people — and we did not receive permission once, not a single time. **I. KHAKAMADA:** So walking is forbidden. **A. NAVALNY:** It is. Because it is something specifically political — walking is forbidden. And for everyone, and for me, this was a matter of principle. I’m not going to fight anyone, and I don’t want to beat up some OMON officer, but you understand, it’s like in the film *Kin-dza-dza!*. **I. KHAKAMADA:** But you knew what risks you were taking. **A. NAVALNY:** One second. Wait. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Or did you decide OMON would be kind and fluffy? **A. NAVALNY:** It’s like in *Kin-dza-dza!* — they tell you: “Fine, walk. But tomorrow. And walk in a muzzle.” And the question is whether to put on the muzzle or not. **I. KHAKAMADA:** You must not manipulate people. Be honest democrats. **A. NAVALNY:** No one is manipulating people. **I. KHAKAMADA:** You didn’t tell them: “If you go to Pushka (Pushkin Square), you’ll get into trouble.” **A. NAVALNY:** Echo of Moscow had been reporting for the last week that the march was banned, that only the rally on Turgenev Square was allowed, but that the organizers had nevertheless announced they would gather on Pushkin Square. Everyone understood perfectly well that it was unauthorized. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Echo of Moscow is a radio station, not your newspaper. And you have a website. So next time, please write everything honestly on the website. **A. NAVALNY:** I’m not even an organizer. But for me it was a matter of principle — whether to put on the muzzle or not. **I. KHAKAMADA:** That may be a matter of principle for you. But as for the people — don’t treat the people like cattle. Some have children, others are elderly grandmothers who are guilty of nothing — and those are the people being manipulated, and you are trying to do it too. **Y. ALBATS:** Ira, may I ask you a question? The Constitution of the Russian Federation provides citizens with the right to demonstrations and rallies. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Yes. **Y. ALBATS:** The Russian law on rallies, including the Moscow city law, provides for a notification system. So as a politician, how do you think one should fight to preserve that notification system, so that the word “banned” cannot be used? Because the authorities have no right to ban anything. Let me remind you of what I tell students in every lecture: power is made up of people we hired to do a job, and we pay them. So tell me, as a democrat, how do you propose your colleagues fight to ensure that the Constitution of the Russian Federation is actually observed, if it contains an article guaranteeing people the right to rallies and demonstrations? **I. KHAKAMADA:** That is exactly why I go to them, because I believe that too. But all our reforms failed because when the democrats came to power in 1991, they did not bother to explain to the people what they were going to do next. If we do not honestly take the trouble to explain to people what risks they are taking at what moment, and if we do not respect their right to their own lives — they are not professional revolutionaries, and they have not joined any parties. So if we do not want some old woman’s head smashed in with a baton, we must warn her: here you are taking a risk, and here you are not. That is the only issue. If we begin building power this way... **Y. ALBATS:** So you believe people are non-citizens, incapable of assessing their own risks. **I. KHAKAMADA:** On the contrary. **Y. ALBATS:** And you, Irina Khakamada, know whom we should patronize and tell: “Children, sit in the corner.” **I. KHAKAMADA:** On the contrary, Zhenya. You’re wrong. On the contrary, I am giving that right to people. **Y. ALBATS:** It is their right, of course. **I. KHAKAMADA:** It is their right. **A. NAVALNY:** They make that decision for themselves. **Y. ALBATS:** But you are offering them paternalism, Irina. **I. KHAKAMADA:** I am offering them information. Thousands of people came up to me on Pushkin Square who did not know what was happening. **Y. ALBATS:** Echo of Moscow, with an audience of more than a million people, reported — as Alexei Navalny, a member of Yabloko’s federal council, quite rightly said — that the rally on Pushkin Square was banned, that the march was banned, and that the rally would take place on Turgenev Square. And yet people considered it necessary to come to Pushkin Square — perhaps precisely because they learned that the Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees them the right to rallies and demonstrations. Natalya Vasilyevna from Barnaul writes: “If the authorities begin to fear everything, to shy away from their own shadow, and as a result try to strangle everyone who disagrees with them, that speaks only of weakness and inadequacy, not of strength. A very characteristic symptom. Free thought and opposition are dangerous only to unnatural social systems built on violence. The Communists also instinctively sensed that Soviet power and its ideology were a colossus with feet of clay, which is why they banned any hint of dissent. We know how that ended. One must assume the current regime is heading the same way. It would be interesting to hear the panelists’ views on this.” Mikhail Fishman, please. **M. FISHMAN:** Well, in fact, where did we begin? We began with the program *Fight Club*, which was shut down in a brutal way. **A. NAVALNY:** I’m uncomfortable because we’re comparing the closure of *Fight Club* and... that’s not right. **Y. ALBATS:** But they are connected. **A. NAVALNY:** Connected, yes, but absolutely incomparable as events. **M. FISHMAN:** Before it was shut down, it had been opened not long before. It could simply never have been opened at all — and then there would be nothing to discuss. But it was opened shortly before — why, one wonders? This is exactly that balancing act in the swallow pose: on the one hand, we have to create some illusion of discussion, some kind of conversation; on the other hand, that conversation must not be real. Because as soon as a real conversation begins, we feel a huge danger coming from actual communication. You can discuss which region Sergei Mironov will run from for the Federation Council — that’s acceptable. But even the question of what to do about immigrants in Moscow — that is already a serious, important question. And that cannot be discussed. So it seems to me that *Fight Club* failed in the sense that, even while observing the “stop-lists,” it still managed to produce some kind of real conversation — and that is not allowed. So what will happen to us? For now, the screws are being tightened. But they are sending us a signal: no, we’re not really doing that. Again — you say they had no right to ban it — but they didn’t ban the Dissenters’ March. **Y. ALBATS:** How so? **M. FISHMAN:** They just moved the goalposts a little — they didn’t ban it. If you open the documents, there is no ban on holding the Dissenters’ March. It simply turned out — oops — that someone else had filed an application a little earlier. They could simply have said: stay home. But it seems to me... **A. NAVALNY:** It seems to me this is a situation where they say: if you’re good little bunnies, no one will beat you on Turgenev Square. Next time they’ll say: if you’re good little bunnies, no one will beat you in Tushino. If you’re good little bunnies, no one will beat you if you gather somewhere in Krasnogorsk. They will always keep moving that line, always shifting it. That is why I object so strongly. **I. KHAKAMADA:** You’re not hearing me. I am only asking that people be warned more clearly. In fact, you don’t trust them enough — you are deceiving them just a little. Just say it honestly. **A. NAVALNY:** Quite the opposite. I trust them completely. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Echo of Moscow is not enough — it’s FM radio, people listen to it in their cars. **A. NAVALNY:** I saw 1,500 people walking and shouting on the boulevard — what was it they didn’t understand? **Y. ALBATS:** Far fewer people hear you. **M. FISHMAN:** This is a system that cannot exist in a static state. It cannot be stable. It inevitably has to move. We cannot freeze in place. It may take on strongly repressive features — in principle, one can imagine that — and much really depends on how we get through 2008, and no one knows that today. Or it may go the other way... **Y. ALBATS:** Misha, what year were you born? **M. FISHMAN:** Born? 1972. **Y. ALBATS:** 1972 — so you’re still a kid. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Quite. **Y. ALBATS:** Quite — 34 years old. Let me tell you something. In 1989 there was a situation where *Pravda* published a letters page prepared by a woman named Tatyana Samolis in the paper’s letters department. It was fairly sharp. There was nothing extraordinary in it, but at the time the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union took it as a complete outrage. Later Tatyana Samolis became head of the press service of Foreign Intelligence. But I remember a conversation at *Izvestia* then — or maybe it was 1987–1988 — when Ivan Laptev, who had just left *Pravda* and become editor-in-chief of *Izvestia*, said: look how *Pravda* has spoiled the information climate, why did they do it, now everyone else will be squeezed. But at that same time there was already *Moscow News*, which didn’t give a damn about how they would squeeze people and firmly believed that asking permission was completely pointless — you had to try to break open a window. And from the point of view of history, *Moscow News* turned out to be far more right than Ivan Laptev, who said that *Pravda* should not have gone so far with that publication of letters — under no circumstances should one irritate the authorities, should not irritate the hardliners in the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. And later they said the same thing to Yegor Yakovlev, editor-in-chief of *Moscow News*: “Yegor, why are you being so sharp? They’ll shut everything down again.” But it turned out that the tactic was correct — they broke open a window. First there was the “Letter of the Dissidents” in *Moscow News* in 1987, then people said: how is this possible, Vasily Aksyonov on the pages of the Soviet press? And now he is a fully public figure. Then something else, then something else, then they started writing about the KGB. And then 1991 happened. **M. FISHMAN:** Returning to this march — this form of struggle against the regime. I actually think that the way it happened was a more effective way of fighting the regime than if we had simply gone to the rally and stood on Turgenev Square. It is more effective — that is obvious. If one believes that something is being shaken loose this way, then clearly it is shaken more strongly this way. The pressure point is right here: the feeling that you are going somewhere, and the feeling that this means there will be an assault. That is why the Kremlin is so afraid of it, and that is why they act exactly this way. I have no questions about that. **Y. ALBATS:** Irina, a teacher, 45, from Tolyatti, writes: “Khakamada is absolutely right — it’s a performance. The authorities showed the people their police teeth on the eve of the elections.” Vyacheslav Demidov, Moscow Region, engineer: “I think the authorities’ seeming overreaction to the Dissenters’ March was in fact preparation and training for the security forces — OMON and so on — for some upcoming events they are planning. Do you agree with me?” Irina Khakamada? **I. KHAKAMADA:** Yes, I agree. I already said that none of this is happening for no reason. Unfortunately, I increasingly believe in conspiracy theories. I always used to dismiss them, but now such a regime has been created that conspiracy decides everything. We do not understand what is happening there. But hysteria has clearly begun ahead of the presidential election — the parliamentary election, in my opinion, no longer worries anyone; everything is clear there, the “theatrical” mechanism has been created. But the presidential election — no, because they still lack something. They kept the imitation of elections, but there is no high-rated successor. And there are several candidates they like, and these groupings cannot agree among themselves — in short, for now nothing is working out. I think 2008 will be decisive. After that year we will understand what course the country has chosen — meaning its elite. Either toward hard dictatorship, or toward softening the regime once they calm down, having installed their own man, and then decide they can soften things. And until that year, until 2008, all these protests, all these marches, actually help to some extent to force the authorities to take different steps. Because no one can win yet. But one can push the authorities, tell them: “Friends, you’re going too far; you won’t get away with this.” **M. FISHMAN:** Again, I agree. It seems to me that the elite as a whole is probably not ready for a hard, truly hard, maximally hard... **Y. ALBATS:** And what is “the elite”? Could you give names? **M. FISHMAN:** No, I can’t give names. **Y. ALBATS:** Then who? You say “the elite” — I want to understand. The elite is a serious thing, people who take on strategy... **M. FISHMAN:** It’s business, it’s the bureaucracy. **Y. ALBATS:** Business cowering under the table — that’s what you call the elite? **M. FISHMAN:** Yes, of course. **Y. ALBATS:** Business that is afraid of everything in the world. **M. FISHMAN:** Yes, that’s the elite. **I. KHAKAMADA:** No, business is already nobody and nothing. **M. FISHMAN:** You’re putting a positive meaning into the word “elite,” while I’m just using it as a label. **Y. ALBATS:** No, Misha, open a textbook and you’ll see that the elite are the people who make strategic decisions related to the development of a given society. Business does not make them. According to the latest figures, 62% of the middle class today are bureaucrats. In fact, the elite of today’s Russia in that classification is the officialdom. Under Soviet rule it was the so-called nomenklatura; today the concept is more diffuse. So if you say “elite,” let’s still mean those who make strategic decisions. Obviously business makes no decisions today; it just sits there in fear, waiting for when it will next be grabbed by some body part — I won’t say on air which one, and don’t assume I mean from behind. So you see, when I read or hear about “the elite,” I want to know whom exactly you mean. Alexei Navalny — “These events are in fact confirmation of Berezovsky’s statement about financing forces for a revolution,” writes Igor from Makhachkala. By the way, I want to ask all of you about Mr. Berezovsky’s interview with *The Guardian*, in which he said that a revolution is coming in Russia, or will happen in Russia, and that he is financing it, among other things. Alexei Navalny? **A. NAVALNY:** Forgive me for saying this on the air — Boris Berezovsky is a swine and a monster, and I would very much like to see him put in chains, handed over to Russia, and brought before a fair court. **Y. ALBATS:** And you’re a democrat? **A. NAVALNY:** Absolutely. Because he helped create all this, then fled to England, and now makes idiotic statements from there. It’s an absolute provocation. **Y. ALBATS:** And he thinks that from London he’ll mount a white horse, swim across the Channel... **A. NAVALNY:** And we’ll greet him here with polonium. Let him swim across. **Y. ALBATS:** And into the Kremlin on a white horse. Irina Khakamada — is Berezovsky financing you? Say it openly, looking me in the eye. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Looking you straight in the eye, I can say: no one finances me. I pay for my office with my husband’s money. **Y. ALBATS:** Irina, how do you interpret his statement? **I. KHAKAMADA:** A provocateur. He has been a provocateur all his life. **Y. ALBATS:** What, the Kremlin is paying him or something? **I. KHAKAMADA:** One could think that, but I don’t think so. I think London is boring, he has a lot of money, and huge ambitions. **Y. ALBATS:** And girls don’t love him anymore. **I. KHAKAMADA:** They probably do, because for money girls love many people. Bin Laden used to make many statements too — claiming some terrorist attack was financed by him, though it was never clear which attacks were his and which were not. It’s like getting hooked on PR — he saw that something was beginning to boil here and immediately jumped on it. Ambition, inadequate ambition. **Y. ALBATS:** Mikhail Fishman — your explanation of Berezovsky’s statement. **M. FISHMAN:** I have more of a counter-question. I agree — it is an obvious provocation. I just don’t understand who its target is and what is being demanded of that target — what result this provocation is supposed to produce. **I. KHAKAMADA:** Yes, I was offended by it — if he is an intelligent man, he should understand that as soon as he makes statements like that, all of us end up in deep trouble here inside Russia. **A. NAVALNY:** Exactly — we are the targets. **I. KHAKAMADA:** In other words, we are the targets of this provocation. **A. NAVALNY:** Boris Berezovsky is trying to prove to someone that I, Alexei Navalny, came to Pushkin Square and marched somewhere because he, Boris Berezovsky, paid me his four shekels. **M. FISHMAN:** But that’s not what he said. **A. NAVALNY:** I don’t know, it’s just a figure of speech — Berezovsky’s bloody shekels, it’s an established phrase. **Y. ALBATS:** Just so you know — over there it’s pounds sterling. **A. NAVALNY:** Fine, let it be. **Y. ALBATS:** Taisiya, a student from St. Petersburg: “There are marches in St. Petersburg today, and on the Culture channel they’re showing the cartoon *The Feast of Disobedience* — well, our president went to St. Petersburg yesterday for ‘no-rules fights’ (mixed martial arts / cage fighting) — ours is a fantastic country in that sense, nothing happens by accident. On the eve of the Dissenters’ March the president goes to St. Petersburg for no-rules fights; in Moscow they stage no-rules fights. He leaves, and they stage no-rules fights in St. Petersburg.” Vladimir Botsmanov, St. Petersburg: “Doesn’t the government understand that putting the Dissenters’ leaders on the federal wanted list, arresting them on trains, sending hundreds of OMON officers against peaceful people, water cannons in St. Petersburg — and I won’t continue the list — that all this may finally end in a real revolt?” Mikhail Fishman — you have exactly 50 seconds, and so do the others, to answer the question: will this end in a real revolt? **I. KHAKAMADA:** I’m sure it will. If they keep suppressing things like this, then yes. **A. NAVALNY:** It will not end in any revolt because, unfortunately, democrats in reality are 10% at most — that is the maximum they can count on. Unfortunately, the population will not support them. **M. FISHMAN:** No, it seems to me that a revolt is impossible in any near historical perspective. **I. KHAKAMADA:** What do democrats have to do with it? The revolt will be different. When ordinary people are hit over the head with batons simply because they went out into the street because they disagreed with something — that has nothing to do with democrats — a person never forgets that. **M. FISHMAN:** Because you are leading them, Irina — you are leading them. **I. KHAKAMADA:** We are not leading them anywhere. **Y. ALBATS:** Well then, our program is coming to an end. I’ll read one more message — unfortunately it was impossible even to glance through all 28 pages. Alexei Levin, Moscow, engineer, writes: “What the authorities fear most is for their business. They are terribly afraid of losing their closed joint-stock company called ‘Russia,’ and they think least of all about any rights or any human beings.” **I. KHAKAMADA:** And that’s correct. **Y. ALBATS:** “If they don’t think, then we must.” We’ll speak again in a week. Goodbye.