The New Times: Navalny vs. Romanova

NT: There are two fairly clear and widely discussed points of view in the public sphere regarding both the March 1 rally and street protest in general. One says: demonstrations achieve nothing, while people end up behind bars and facing criminal charges. The other says: precisely because the regime is tightening and repression is spreading, people must take to the streets—so that both the authorities and fellow citizens know that the opposition is alive and that people willing to resist have not disappeared. We would like to hear the arguments from both sides. Alexei Navalny: People should go out for a very simple reason: we no longer want to read the news that comes in every day. If it once outraged us and made us angry, now it is already an avalanche of absurdity—like the idea that foreign-language study should be cut back. And this is against the backdrop of a war that Russia is effectively waging. We have no other country, no other people, and it seems to me that we are responsible people; it is our duty to call on everyone else to resist what is happening. Olga Romanova: I have always gone to protest marches, and I always will. March 1 will be the first march I do not attend. I am not going quite consciously, although of course I will be somewhere nearby, and together with the May 6 Committee and the union supporting political prisoners, as usual, we will be on duty with lawyers outside police stations, trying to mitigate the consequences. But I am not going because the goals formulated by the organizers are completely unclear to me. I do not understand what the anti-crisis march “Spring” is supposed to be. I am ready to go out for freedom. I am not ready to go out so that the opposition gets an hour on a federal TV channel. I am against going out for the repeal of the countersanctions as an anti-crisis measure, because that will not affect prices in any way. The entire wording of the points of the anti-crisis march “Spring” boils down to: “Crisis, go away! Winter, go away!” It reminds me of a trade-union march in Portugal. Very nice, but we are not Portugal. What exactly are we marching for? NT: Are you against the economic demands that form part of the march’s 12 demands, or against any demonstration on March 1 in principle? Romanova: I am in favor of conscious, meaningful street activism that will have an effect, that will actually do something. NT: What does “actually do something” mean? Take the Kremlin, tear down the Lubyanka? Romanova: Here is a vivid example. There were two marches—the March Against Scoundrels on January 13, 2013 (a march against the “Dima Yakovlev Law,” which banned U.S. citizens from adopting Russian orphans. — NT), when everything was clear… Navalny: By your logic, that was a march that led nowhere. Romanova: …and the very large and important anti-war march in the fall of 2014. First, people came who had never gone out before. We saw many Ukrainian flags; many people came in vyshyvankas (traditional embroidered shirts), in Ukrainian flower wreaths, and we did not understand who they were—Russians, Ukrainians? We saw one another, saw that there were many of us. And we showed Ukraine that not all Russians, not all people in Russia, had gone mad—there were also those who opposed the war. And we told the world the same thing. Navalny: I look at the demands and see that this march is exactly about what you are talking about. We are saying that the country has reached a dead end. We—this is written into the march’s demands—are demanding an immediate end to the war and to any aggressive actions toward Ukraine; many people will come out on March 1 for precisely that reason. We demand unconditional access for opposition parties and their candidates to participate in elections. Elections are the key point: without that, nothing will happen, because right now the opposition is not represented in the organs of power, which means no alternative point of view is being heard. Then there are the socioeconomic demands: cutting bloated military and police spending—which is a third of the federal budget—in half and redirecting the money toward developing human capital; repealing the pointless food countersanctions that have caused food prices to rise. Perhaps you do not trust my expertise on this issue, but Konstantin Sonin, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, also includes “repeal of the food countersanctions” among his three immediate steps needed to fight the crisis. Next: redistribute funds in favor of the regions and local self-government to finance social and public-utilities infrastructure. Stop pouring hundreds of billions into state companies like Rosneft, VTB, VEB, and so on. Reverse the decisions to confiscate pension savings, which, as we know, affect 25 million people. I am ready to go to a rally for every one of these demands—every single one! And I am sure a huge number of people are ready to go out for these demands. But even if it ends up being just the two of us, and everyone else decides they are fine with what is happening, it is still our duty to go out into the street and stand there, showing that we do not accept a situation in which the authorities can jail anyone, trample anyone, shut down any media outlet, and so on. We do not agree. Romanova: You want change within the system, not a call to change the system. I cannot go to an anti-crisis march... NT: Then under what slogan should people march? Romanova: No to war. Period. Not “please give us an hour of airtime.” Navalny: Through the war in Ukraine, Putin is pursuing domestic political goals. He unleashed this war in order to preserve corruption, to keep parties off the ballot, to maintain censorship and a bad judicial system. “No to war” is a slogan under which most people will come, but we need to see the bigger picture. Who is waging the war? The authorities are. Why? Because they have a political and economic crisis, and they are trying to resolve the political crisis by means of war. Risks and responsibility NT: You have to admit, though, that the argument of those who believe street actions only generate ever more repression also has some basis. Doesn’t it? Romanova: It seems to me that people who are not going out for the first time know these risks. That is not the problem. The problem is that the action on December 30 of last year on Manezhnaya Square (after the guilty verdict was handed down to the Navalny brothers. — NT) showed a very troubling trend. Namely, that a great many people—more than two hundred—ended up in police stations, and they were handled by various lawyers and various organizations—except Navalny’s supporters. Navalny: It is upsetting that you say that; it is simply not true. All employees of the Anti-Corruption Foundation were either on the square or involved in other ways… The lawyers were providing legal support. We had a separate call center at the Anti-Corruption Foundation. All our legal resources were working on the 30th. Everything we could do, we did, together with everyone else. NT: On social media, the question was framed more broadly. Namely: protest leaders should bear responsibility for ordinary activists who are arrested for 15 or even 30 days and then face criminal cases, as happened with Mark Galperin and Vladimir Ionov. Navalny: My answer is that all activists connected with me, with the Progress Party, and with the Anti-Corruption Foundation do what they have always done. They either end up in police stations themselves or help those who do. Naturally, our capabilities and those of the state’s repressive machine are incomparable. That is exactly why all this is done—to jail random people and then tell stories about how the leaders abandoned them. I do not absolve myself of responsibility. Political leaders, or people who aspire to become them, are of course responsible for everything. And that is a large part of my moral burden. I am also responsible for the fact that my brother was sent to prison. Romanova: Yes, people are taking real risks, especially those who have been detained several times and now face charges carrying up to five years in prison. But when, in August 1968, a handful of people went out onto Red Square, they understood perfectly well that they would go to prison. They came out with a single demand: no to sending tanks into Czechoslovakia! Even though they had plenty of reasons to say: and we also want jeans in the shops, imported drinks and food, and the ability to travel to London and Paris—give us higher wages, give us boneless meat, and so on. But they came out with one main demand—and they went to prison. And now, if people go to prison after the March 1 rally—what exactly will they be going to prison for? NT: So, Olga, is it the wording of the march’s slogans that you object to, or are you concerned that many people could suffer? Romanova: Both. But most importantly, there is no central message, no essence, no nerve. What are we going out for? Navalny: For freedom. For dignity. So that we can be wealthier. So that in the wonderful, rich country of Russia, we get our share of the national wealth. NT: Are we right in understanding that the disagreement between the two sides is about what words should be written on the march’s banners? Or is there something more fundamental here? Romanova: Absolutely something fundamental. Navalny: Just to wrap up the issue of risks, let me say what seems to me an important thing. The regime deliberately, demonstratively, ostentatiously, and of course unjustly represses various people. But overall, statistically, the likelihood of being detained at a rally is much lower than the likelihood of getting into a traffic accident during an ordinary car trip in Moscow. This action will be officially sanctioned, and no one will detain anyone; everything will be fine in that respect. But returning to the substance: what drives us into the streets is what is happening in the country. It is not Navalny who brings people out, but Putin—because he is doing things to our country that we do not want to let him do. A new reality NT: If you are saying the issue is regime change, then how can street actions affect that? People have already gone out—on Bolotnaya, on Sakharov Avenue, back to Bolotnaya again, marching along the boulevards. And—? Navalny: People taking to the streets should create a new political reality. Many are convinced that there was a protest movement in 2011–2012, but now there is none. But that is simply not true: institutionally speaking, the opposition has become stronger, more powerful, and even in some sense wealthier—because significantly more people support us. But precisely because street protest activity has died down, people think the protest itself no longer exists. We must demonstrate to society that the opposition exists, that there is a serious force that disagrees with what is happening. Understand this: those who go out into the streets are only the spearhead. If 200,000 people come out, that means several million in Moscow are dissatisfied. And across the country? Through his television, Putin has constructed a reality in which everyone supports his foreign policy, the opposition consists entirely of marginal figures, and the only people capable of attracting real, living human beings to their actions are Ramzan Kadyrov, or “Anti-Maidan,” or some biker nicknamed the Surgeon, or the Orthodox Church. We have to say: that is not true. Romanova: But the same number of people will not come out as did in 2011, and as it turns out, that does not create a new political reality now, because the upper classes can still rule, while the lower classes still want to live the old way. And why this competition with Ramzan Kadyrov or the Surgeon? Even if we bring out the same numbers, Putin still has greater resources. That is not the point. NT: Do you believe that human rights work is now more important than political activity? Romanova: No, I think everything has to be done: street activity, human rights work, and civic work. Pressure has to be applied at every point. Navalny: The political crisis exists because everyone who would like to participate in politics has been pushed out of it. Therefore the most important political demand right now is access to elections for everyone. Until there are free elections, the government will not change, so yes, we are talking about a change of power. Romanova: And about replacing Putin. Navalny: The march’s demands say: Putin and the government must go. Romanova: And early elections? Do you understand that in early elections Igor Ivanovich Sechin would win? Navalny: In elections in which the Progress Party is allowed to participate, we would knock Igor Ivanovich Sechin off the street in three seconds. At any rate, I am ready to try. I think that when I talk to the workers at Uralvagonzavod and tell them about his salary and what the Progress Party is offering, the workers at that factory will vote not for Igor Ivanovich Sechin, but for me. I am not afraid of competition from Sechin or Putin. They are the ones afraid of competition, and that is exactly why I am banned from participating in elections until 2020. That is exactly why they passed a law that threw me, Khodorkovsky, and a huge number of other people out of elections. Romanova: I do not see the point or the effectiveness of the March 1 rally. NT: One political analyst, laying out his arguments against the March 1 rally, wrote that the opposition is going out once again simply to count itself. In his view, that is not a sufficient reason to go out. Navalny: Of course I would like a lot of people to come to the March 1 rally. But in fact, numbers are not of fundamental importance—this rivalry was imposed on us by Kurginyan’s people. But even if I understood that everyone was either passive or afraid, I would still go out, because that is my civic position; it is part of why I live and why I claim self-respect and the respect of my children. Can you ask the authorities for anything? Sergei Sharov-Delone, member of the May 6 Committee (Olga Romanova’s second): Do I understand correctly that the march’s demands are addressed to the authorities—that the authorities should give airtime, allow participation in elections, do this and that? Do you think it is possible to talk to this government, to ask it for anything? Navalny: If you look carefully at the text of the demands, you will see that it cannot possibly be addressed to the authorities, because we are demanding that Putin and his government leave. It is a manifesto; it is addressed to ourselves and to our current and potential supporters. There is no interaction with the authorities here, not even remotely, and there cannot be. It is a statement of how we see a way out of the crisis. It is an appeal to the people. Sharov-Delone: This is not a program for getting out of the crisis. It is a set of wish-list items, a set of appeals to the authorities: let us somehow remove the most odious things, and then everything will not be quite so bad. Navalny: A great many things need to be done for the country to emerge from its political and economic crisis. There is a set of steps without which that definitely will not happen. No one is asking the authorities for anything. We are stating that this is what we demand; this is our vision of what must happen. Roman Nekhoroshev, bank employee (Alexei Navalny’s second): I was at Manezhnaya on December 30, and it felt like moving in circles. There were few people. If this goes on, there will be five, ten, fifteen thousand people coming out, year after year, for three years, five years… Maybe it is time to change the format? Navalny: That is a good question, one we constantly ask ourselves. The action on the 30th was an act of despair; people take part in such actions because they want to show solidarity. But you have touched on something important: if there was enthusiasm in 2011 and 2012, there is no enthusiasm now, and we need to make much greater use of various techniques, do much more explaining. If even Romanova has doubts… The lack of enthusiasm has to be compensated for—with persistence, with outreach and explanation; and yes, the format is worth reconsidering. Right now we want to split the march into several columns so that each column focuses on one thing. For example, there are people—Olya is one of them—who say: what matters to us is being against the war, and we are not going out, figuratively speaking, for mozzarella. People need to be given the opportunity, within the overall march, to unite around the slogans for which they came out. Nekhoroshev: I like the idea of different columns. But surely we are united by some one overarching thing? We believe in freedom of speech, freedom of the market—these things seem important to everyone. Why do you not want to unite and discuss more global issues? It seems to me there is no point arguing over details. Romanova: I do not consider these details. Of course people need to unite, but that unity must have meaning. What did everyone come out for? My argument is that the demands should be much tougher. Navalny: It seems to me that Romanova and I do not need to unite, because we are already united. I am sure she will go to the March 1 rally. Debate is a feature not only of the liberal crowd but of politics in general. People who enter politics argue endlessly because they have a clear system of views, and those views cannot be identical. This conversation is useful, and I am sure that on March 1 we will go together. NT: On March 1, Alexei Navalny will be in a temporary detention center, so he will not be able to take part in the march. When a judge at Moscow’s Presnensky District Court sentenced him on February 19, Olga Romanova was beside Navalny in the courtroom as well (pictured left).