The text argues for the need to create a decentralized system for coordinating supporters, in which everyone can contribute what they can and the movement’s work does not depend on a single individual. The author contends that the Russian authorities are not a single monolith but rather a chaotic network of competing corrupt groups, which causes breakdowns within the system and makes it possible to secure occasional legal victories and uncover numerous instances of corruption even from open sources. The main thesis is that corruption is the foundation of the existing vertical power structure and political loyalty, but growing public discontent, the authorities’ lack of real results, and the spread of the internet as an alternative source of information are creating mounting problems for it.
Text version
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The main task is to find a mechanism
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for coordinating supporters. A huge
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number of people—thousands of people—reach out
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asking, “How can I help you? How can I do
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the same thing you’re doing?”
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Coordinating and managing
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the efforts of these people is extremely difficult. They
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are experts in—well, either they’re not experts at all
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or they’re experts in completely different
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fields. Everyone can make some kind of
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contribution, but when it comes to the question, “How can I
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help you right now?” the answer is:
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That is, if you’re not a lawyer, not a specialist in
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the securities market, then it seems like
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there’s really nothing you can do for me except
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spread information. But we need
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to build a system like this. I see my
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task as creating a system in which
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everyone, first, would be able to
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make their own contribution; second, the system would be
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decentralized and would not depend on
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any particular
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person—including me.
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Because I, like any
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person, can be intimidated or bribed, and so on.
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That must not lead to the entire
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activity
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coming to a halt. It is, without any doubt,
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obviously not independent; however,
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it would be a mistake to view the system
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as some kind of monolith. There is no monolith,
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of power. There is no so-called
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criminal Putin regime in the form of
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people all carrying out one
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single task. In reality,
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it’s not one big criminal
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gang, but rather a community
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of various crooks who are constantly
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fighting among themselves, defending different
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interests and promoting different interests.
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The same thing happens in
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the courts: different corporations bribe
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these judges and influence judges in their
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own favor. So despite the fact that, yes,
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if Putin personally orders
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a judge to make sure Navalny does not win this
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case, I will never win it. And any
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Gazprom or Rosneft has enough
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administrative leverage to exert influence.
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But since everyone in the system is busy
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trying to make money,
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the signal from above does not always get through, and
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the system is a gigantic criminal
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mess and absurdity. There is no real system at all.
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There is this kind of corrupt chaos, and in that
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corrupt chaos, this so-called system
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is chaotic—it simply makes mistakes.
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That is precisely why we win regularly.
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The Presidium of the Arbitration Court
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ruled in our favor regarding, broadly speaking,
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a shareholder’s right to receive
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information. The Constitutional Court also issued
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a ruling in our favor, and so on and so
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forth. Besides, many cases are
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obviously political, and when courts
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hand down unjust decisions against us,
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it generally leads to a major
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scandal that the authorities do not
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want. Every year, in the public procurement system,
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public procurement
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totals 3 trillion rubles (about tens of billions of U.S. dollars), of which, according to Medvedev,
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1 trillion is stolen. That is an enormous
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number of cases—thousands and tens of
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thousands, a colossal number
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of auctions, tenders, and so on. The people
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involved in this—not even the people who steal, but the people
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who are involved in the system that enables
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the theft—
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the theft itself—
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those people do not get any money from this
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corruption, so they are inclined
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to complain. Besides, corruption has become
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such an obvious and familiar
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phenomenon that people are hardly embarrassed by it, and
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holding auctions with a predetermined
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outcome is absolutely not uncommon.
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So the facts that are available now—
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anyone can sit down and, by spending one
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hour in the public procurement system, find enough of these facts
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to sustain our
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work for a month. At the same time, you need to understand
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that, given the scale of the problem, our
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activity is still very small,
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very limited. So the obvious
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facts of corruption that any person can find
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are already enough for our work. If
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we go deeper and start looking for
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insiders, we certainly won’t have trouble finding them,
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and they come to us in large
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numbers. But even insiders are not necessary
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in a system where all the corruption happens
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simply on
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the surface. The authorities cannot avoid talking about it;
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at the level of rhetoric, they cannot avoid condemning
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it. There is too much of it; it is too obvious.
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That is the first point. Second, they cannot actually
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fight it, and corruption is so
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resilient because it is the foundation
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of power. Medvedev and Putin exist
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because corruption exists, because
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corruption is precisely the basic
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idea and the basic point of elite
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consensus, which consists in the fact that
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all the bosses below delegate their
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political rights upward, and all
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the bosses above delegate
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economic rights downward. That is how it works.
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This is what any governor looks like in practice.
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A district chief, and so on—he has
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two
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responsibilities: to make sure that in his territory
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there are no protest rallies, and
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that in his territory United Russia
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gets 65% of the vote, and that Putin gets
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some set percentage there. In exchange, he can
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enrich himself as much as he likes, as long as he
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does it not too blatantly and
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does it cleverly, he need not fear
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any criminal prosecution. That
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is the basic consensus. Why would
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the mayor of some small town in
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Ryazan Region falsify
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elections and risk anything if in return he
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gets nothing for himself?
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Now he does get something: he
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gets the opportunity, when he is allocated
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money for some housing and utilities project—10 million rubles—he
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gets the chance to steal 1 million from it.
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That is exactly why he falsifies
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elections: to preserve this system.
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That is why corruption is—this is exactly
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the vertical of power, and it is resilient because
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if corruption disappeared tomorrow,
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there would be no Putin or Medvedev.
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That is, they would still exist, but there would be no sky-high
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approval ratings, no constitutional majority in
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the Duma, and no people with
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portraits of them hanging everywhere. None of that would exist, because
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what would be the point?
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I can give an example. When I
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worked for the Yabloko party
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in 2003, when everything about
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Putin—who he was and how he governed—was already clear,
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we were collecting signatures for the liberal
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Yabloko party, and the people collecting
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signatures went door to door. If, in
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some apartment, you started criticizing
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Putin, the door would be slammed
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in your face. Since 2007,
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people listen carefully to criticism,
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hear it out, and are ready to take it in. Why?
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Because there are absolutely
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real
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grounds for it. Before 2003, Putin,
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for all his faults, without any
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doubt did some useful things,
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implemented part of that famous
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Gref program, and so on. It would be
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stupid to deny that. But from 2003 to
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the present day, the authorities have completely
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degenerated; they have done nothing useful for
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anyone.
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The stories once told about how
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order had been restored in the Caucasus, that there would be
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police reform, army reform, and
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so on—none of that happened, and from
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2003 to 2011 we see only
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growing corruption, nothing but theft,
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against the backdrop of Russia receiving
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colossal, unimaginable sums from
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oil exports.
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So there are entirely objective reasons
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why discontent is growing, and here
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there is also an indirect reason. First and foremost,
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it is the spread of the internet,
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the internet's penetration. Right now,
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30% may not seem like that many people
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who get their news every day from
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the internet. Maybe it is 20%, but that 20% is
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the politically active class; these are
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residents of big cities, the people
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who, broadly speaking,
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serve as the driving force for
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political change. And these
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people can now get information
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quite independently of television. So, on the one hand,
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there is the government's incapacity,
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confirmed over years; on the other hand, there are
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alternative sources
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of information. This leads to the fact
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that the authorities will face very serious
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problems, and those problems will keep growing.