As promised, I’m posting the text of the Denunciatory Speech™ that I delivered at the Bureau of the Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO when my expulsion was being considered. Good afternoon! I am glad to have the opportunity to speak while the question of my expulsion from the YABLOKO party is being considered. I would also like to thank the leadership of the Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO for putting the question of my expulsion on the agenda at its very first meeting after the rather dramatic failure in the State Duma elections, the launch of the “successor operation,” and the first real signs that Putin would remain in charge of the country as prime minister. This suggests that the question of my expulsion is being treated as a key political issue and the most important stage in YABLOKO’s emergence from crisis. I am a little embarrassed by this attention, but thank you all the same. During the preparations for this meeting, and again today, a great many assessments have been voiced regarding my political position and the results of my work in YABLOKO. The culmination of the discussion was undoubtedly today’s statement by one of the party chairman’s deputies that I am a Kremlin agent advancing the line of Surkov and Churov. So I cannot help but say a few words about my work and how it affected YABLOKO. Although there is much I was unable to do, I can say that I am proud of the work I carried out together with my comrades. I maintain that since 2002, from the moment I effectively began working for the party on a professional basis, there has not been a single successful project in YABLOKO that I and my colleagues—members of my team—did not work on. It was thanks to our team that the genre of street actions emerged in democratic politics. Thanks to us, both in the format of short actions organized by Youth YABLOKO and in the format of mass marches, YABLOKO effectively monopolized street politics for several years. And everything that happened afterward, and is happening now, is in many ways a development of the theme we began. My colleagues and I were the founders of what was effectively Moscow’s main and most successful human rights organization, the Committee for the Defense of Muscovites. With my direct participation, Moscow YABLOKO and Youth YABLOKO were the only significant political components on which our party rested during the difficult period from 2003 to 2005. We in Moscow YABLOKO were the first to organize a donation-collection system, which federal YABLOKO later adopted. During the Moscow City Duma elections, I was the only one who independently attracted substantial funding to my district—and not for a single-member race, but for a party-list campaign. And despite the fact that headquarters completely ignored that district, it produced the largest increase in votes compared with the previous election. The Moscow YABLOKO press service became the most effective part of the entire party apparatus. It was the one pulling us out of the notorious information blockade, working for the whole party while the federal press service demonstrated nothing but helplessness. And much more besides. There is no doubt that the possibility of all this work was due to Sergei Mitrokhin’s tremendous energy. But the fact remains: the energy is still there, yet we do not see any new breakthroughs. Although some work is being done. That is why I know the value of my work, and my comrades know its value too. But even while working quite successfully in YABLOKO, I always had one problem. It was best, most accurately, and most succinctly described by one representative of the mysterious team of the party chairman, whom he always brings in for elections and who then disappears just as mysteriously. “Alexei,” he said, “your problem is that you do not sincerely love Grigory Alexeyevich.” Yes. That’s true. I respect him for some of his past achievements, but I do not love him in the slightest. The stated reason for my expulsion is public advocacy of nationalist ideas. Yes, indeed, I maintain that only by abandoning the dead-end, narrow-minded left-liberal ideology and moving toward the creation of a national-democratic movement can the democratic movement be revived. The experience of many neighboring countries proves this. And only this can effectively counter the primitive and genuinely dangerous incitement of ethnic hatred. Recent experience in Yugoslavia also showed this, where the savage, insane, totalitarian nationalism of Milošević was crushed not by a pathetic liberal opposition, but by Koštunica’s national-democratic movement, which won mass voter support. I maintain that the endless equation of nationalism with fascism stems simply from primitive thinking and sheer political illiteracy. I also continue to maintain that there is not a single phrase in either the manifesto of the NAROD movement or in the latest report we published that contradicts the charter and program of the YABLOKO party. I proposed holding a broad intra-party discussion on this issue, but apparently our democratic party is not ready for that. Be that as it may, I will never accept a single reproach from these comrades on the presidium regarding my creation of the NAROD movement. And here is why. Yesterday, in the city of Serpukhov, the National Bolshevik Chervochkin was buried; he had been killed by officers of the UBOP (the Russian anti-organized-crime police), who were carrying out an order to “put pressure on the National Bolsheviks.” That order was given by the very same “Administration” (the Presidential Administration) whose willingness to negotiate is such a source of pride for the party leadership. At the last congress, a proposal to ban any contacts with the Presidential Administration was rejected with outright obstruction. “But that’s what politics is,” our leaders declared. So the people who sit in those reception rooms, coordinate funding schedules, and generally negotiate with those who give orders for political murders, beatings, and provocations, with those who falsify elections and usurp power—those people have absolutely no right to make any political claims against anyone. Because they sit at the same table with people compared with whom even the DPNI (Movement Against Illegal Immigration, a Russian nationalist group) are just Girl Scouts. The real reason for my expulsion is that I openly state: YABLOKO failed completely in these elections. And I am not satisfied with the sugary syrup about how “our victory was stolen.” Supposedly we got seven percent. Some even say 15. To prove it, they invent some kind of exit polls. Our party conducted no exit polls. Everyone who observed the campaign knew that perfectly well. And spreading this—putting it mildly—falsehood is humiliating for the party and for all of us. We already went through this in 2003, when it was claimed that our parallel vote count showed we had cleared 5 percent. And everyone present here knew that the count conducted by party staff showed nothing of the kind. It was a lie. The same thing happened in the Moscow City Duma elections. When, after honestly receiving 11 percent, it was for some reason announced that we had 20. Even though we had protocols from almost all polling stations and our count officially found no discrepancies with the official data. Yes, of course, the issue is not the counting. The elections are dishonest and unfair. But under honest elections we would have received even less. Because honest elections do not mean only live airtime for Grigory Alexeyevich. They also mean allowing everyone who wants to take part to participate. That would mean that in that same live airtime there would also have been the more popular Kasparov and Ryzhkov. It would mean that Kasyanov, with financial resources, would also have taken part in the election. It would mean that questions of democratic unity would be resolved not in the Presidential Administration, but in open dialogue. I am not sure the party leadership is ready for such a dialogue. I maintain that the main cause of the present collapse is that YABLOKO has turned into a dried-up, closed sect. We demand that everyone be democrats, but we ourselves do not want to be democrats. We demand accountability and resignations from those in power. But we fail to see that the government has already changed three times. Yet in YABLOKO everything is still as it was in 1996. And the worse the results, the stronger the leadership’s position. The more tightly we are supposed to close ranks around it. Since this may be my last speech as a member of YABLOKO, I call on you to stop deceiving yourselves about our supposedly high results and about the possible theft of votes. Stop lying about it. Draw conclusions and make decisions. And the first decision I demand, as a member of the party’s Federal Council elected by the Moscow organization, is the immediate resignation of the party chairman and all his deputies. I put forward this demand on my own behalf and on behalf of all my comrades. I also call on the party congress to dismiss and re-elect at least 70 percent of the Bureau, which through its silent obedience covers for incompetent leadership. In conclusion, I want to say that I have no illusions about today’s decision. The party-based mode of opposition politics has exhausted itself, and any admissions or expulsions are simply ridiculous. Therefore, I thank all the members of the YABLOKO party and all the staff members I encountered in my work, those who helped me, and even those with whom I sometimes clashed. My work in YABLOKO was an invaluable experience for me, one I will try to use in the cause of creating a new, real opposition. And to the members of the Bureau who are about to vote, I want to say this: strength is in the truth. And the truth will prevail anyway. Glory to Russia! By the way, one very important and highly symbolic thing that happened at the Bureau went completely unnoticed. The sort of thing summed up by saying, “the press release didn’t mention it.” One of Yavlinsky’s deputies—Alexei Arbatov—said that he was categorically against supporting Bukovsky (he even asked for this to be entered into the minutes), and said that in his opinion YABLOKO should support Medvedev. According to eyewitnesses, this proposal provoked no outrage whatsoever. Some regional representatives even applauded. That’s how it is.