As I already wrote, all these pro-Putin rallies are a great gift to us. Just think about it: 200,000 people are gathered in one place. And in 80% of cases, these are exactly those “offline people” — the ones we simply can’t reach through the internet. There’s no need to stuff mailboxes, plaster flyers around apartment entrances, or hand them out near the metro. Two hundred thousand voters have been brought together in one place and made to talk about politics. We don’t know whether the participants are pro-Putin or anti-Putin; all we know is that they are employees of state-funded institutions or state-owned companies. And we have one huge advantage: these people* have already come face to face with the brazen hypocrisy and lies of Putin, the Chief Crook, and his company*. They know perfectly well that they were forced to go to the rally. They know how it was organized. How they were bused in. They’re discussing things like, “At headquarters they gave people two compensatory days off, but in our branch only one. Outrageous.” They’re discussing things like, “At MOEK (Moscow United Energy Company), they’re paying a 3,000-ruble bonus for attending the rally, and we’re only getting 1,500. Outrageous.” Two hundred thousand people and their families — a million in total — know perfectly well how they were rounded up and brought there, yet from the rally stage they hear, “We came here voluntarily to support blah blah,” and on television, smirking, they listen to reports saying, “Tens of thousands of Muscovites turned out enthusiastically in a united burst of civic spirit.” That creates the conditions for anti–Crooks and Thieves campaigning to be well received, because it will be taking place right in the middle of completely undisguised fraud. So if anyone wants to come to a pro-Putin rally to do anti-Putin campaigning, that’s an excellent idea. Important: don’t be rude; don’t shout; don’t argue if the other person doesn’t want to argue; if they throw you out, leave calmly. The ideal material to distribute is the new leaflets made on RosAgit based on the posts about “Promisekin”:
Download them, print 20 to 30 copies on your home or office printer, and calmly hand them out to bored public-sector employees. The effect is guaranteed. Another excellent idea for a pro-Putin rally: interview people on camera. The videos always turn out amazing. So on February 23 at 1:00 p.m. at Luzhniki, this could turn into a genuinely successful campaigning action.