At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, Alexei Navalny recorded this video address to launch the large-scale public campaign “5 Steps for Russia.” He proposed a concrete plan to support citizens and businesses using money from the National Wealth Fund, including direct cash payments and the cancellation of utility bills and housing fees. While officials led by Putin were guarding the state’s “rainy-day fund” and claiming that giving money directly to people would hurt the budget, Alexei called on Russians to unite and demand the assistance they were legally entitled to.
Text version
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What if you found out that somewhere you have
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120,614 rubles hidden away
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— well, your mood would probably
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improve, especially now, during
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the crisis and quarantine.
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Well, the pleasant surprise is that there actually are
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not just some abstract 120 thousand
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614 rubles for every citizen
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from infants to the very elderly, and this is
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not some abstract estimate of all
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Russia’s wealth, and not current budget money
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used to pay salaries and
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pensions.
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These are specifically reserve funds that
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citizens and organizations paid in taxes.
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This is how the state works: everyone
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pays taxes, the government collects them,
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and then spends them on all of us to make
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our lives better and safer. In our case,
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the government did not spend part of those taxes
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but saved them instead,
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creating a reserve, a financial cushion
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for a crisis. And according to
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the Central Bank, as of March 1, 2020,
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into the pillowcase of that financial
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cushion, we had stuffed almost 18 trillion
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rubles, or
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if you recalculate it per citizen,
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120,614 rubles each. And I am
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recording this very important video
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so that Russian society
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can finally start discussing how
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we are going to survive now, during
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the epidemic, quarantine, and isolation.
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Can we really not ask for $800
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until next month?
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What will happen to
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the economy, small businesses, and jobs,
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and why can’t we use
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this cushion made up of our
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accumulated tax money, these reserve
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funds, to help ourselves
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at least a little? This is the 21st century.
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Fourteen planes were sent to Italy,
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but what about helping people here?
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People in Russia can see all of this.
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The hard fact is that in the near future
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we are going to live a little worse. Maybe you
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are sitting at home in fear right now and have lost
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your job. Maybe you are still receiving
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some kind of salary while staying at home.
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Maybe you work in the public sector or for a large company.
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Maybe you are a pensioner.
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And maybe you are still receiving your pension. The latest
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poll shows that 50 percent
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of working people have already seen their incomes fall. But even
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if yours have not fallen, you will still
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become poorer, and prices will rise for everyone.
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Two months of quarantine will eat up as much as 10
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percent of GDP.
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Cafés will go bankrupt, hair salons will go bankrupt,
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suppliers will suffer losses,
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and then the chain reaction begins — it will affect
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everyone. The entire global
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economy is under threat, and really no one
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disputes that. The argument is about something else: all rich
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developed countries, both East and West,
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are acting in similar ways right now. They are saying:
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we are requiring people to stay home,
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people and businesses are suffering and taking losses,
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and if they become poorer, it will be bad for everyone.
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So what is the solution? Give people money. It is hard to imagine, but even
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such super-
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capitalist countries as the United States,
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Germany, the United Kingdom, and Canada are now
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simply handing out money directly to citizens
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and entrepreneurs. In Germany,
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if you are a private entrepreneur,
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you just submit an application, and within a week
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you receive from €5,000 to €15,000
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and you do not have to pay it back — it is simply so that you
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can survive. In the U.S., the government will send you
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$1,200 per person — about 90,000 rubles.
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In Canada, everyone will receive
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$2,000. Spain is doing the same,
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and so on and so on. Even
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countries that are not rich are trying. For example,
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Georgia is poorer than Russia, but
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there they completely canceled utility payments
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for the duration of the epidemic. In other words, in all
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countries huge sums are now being spent
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to directly support the public and businesses.
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The Russian government, however,
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takes a different view. It does not
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consider it right, as President
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Putin said, to “squander the reserves.”
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And Moscow Mayor
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Sergei Sobyanin put the idea even more bluntly when answering the question
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of whether people should be helped directly. He
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said that if everyone were helped, the budget
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would burst.
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I am not saying all this
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just to criticize Putin once again. No,
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what we really need is a nationwide
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campaign: Five Steps for Russia. If
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the authorities are currently taking the position that they will give
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nothing, then pressure must be applied until they
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change their position. Putin and his government
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are politicians, and they still depend on
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public opinion and approval ratings.
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It is just that right now, paradoxical as it may seem,
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there is no organized force loudly
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demanding direct financial support.
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Business is silent, the people are silent, and on television
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they say everything is fine. Why give
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money to people who are not asking for it?
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Of course, the best way to demand something
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from the authorities is to take to the streets, but under
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epidemic conditions that cannot be done. We
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are all sitting at home, online.
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So let’s organize an online campaign. Since
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other mechanisms are unavailable, you and I
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know what we want. Our demands are reasonable,
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and they are supported by the majority
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of respected Russian economists.
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Russia’s reserves contain more than
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enough money to pay for everything that is needed
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without harming anything else.
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right now, pay every adult 20,000 rubles (about $215)
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and 10,000 rubles (about $110) for
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each child; if the quarantine continues,
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then another 10,000 rubles (about $110) for everyone in May and June. Third,
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completely cancel utility and housing-service payments for the entire
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period of the epidemic. Fourth, allocate two
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trillion rubles (about $21.5 billion) in non-repayable
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payments to small and medium-sized businesses. And fifth,
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cancel all taxes for small businesses
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for one year. As you can see, our
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national financial cushion would still have
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money left over. In addition to financial aid, we demand
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that they stop misleading us and using
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strange terms like “self-isolation”
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or “non-working month,” and clearly, in accordance with the law,
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call it what it is: quarantine, so that not
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only citizens have obligations,
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but the state as well, which, by the way,
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is obliged to compensate for losses caused by
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such emergency situations. So,
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what needs to be done? First, there are scientific
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studies that say if
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an idea strongly takes hold among ten
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percent of the population, very soon it
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will be supported by the entire population. In our
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situation, it’s even simpler: 99 percent of people
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are ready right now to support all of this;
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they just have no idea that someone
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is demanding it. Our goal is the first 15
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million people. Just tell everyone,
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discuss it at home,
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share the video, cite the numbers,
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explain that this is realistic, that it is
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not fantasy and not populism. It’s one thing when
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people are generally dissatisfied
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and generally want help, and quite another
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when 15 million people, and then the whole
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country,
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put forward five clear and specific demands
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backed by economic calculations.
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They say to the authorities: we worked, we
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paid taxes, and now we want this
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reserve to make our lives easier. If you
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do not do this, then we will never again,
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under any circumstances, vote for you.
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That is not some circus put on by complete
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madmen; that is already a conversation
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the authorities will be forced
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to listen to. Second, we must
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formalize these demands and collect
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signatures for them. Yes, yes, yes, I myself am skeptical
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about online petitions; I have launched them
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many times, and not once were the demands
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fulfilled. However, here it will be an important,
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appropriate, and very simple tool. There are
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three main platforms for petitions:
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the Russian Public Initiative (an official state platform), where
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everything is official. We collect 100,000
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signatures, and the government will have to
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give some kind of response. Any public
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initiative that collects at least one hundred
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thousand verified signatures on the
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internet must be submitted for
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consideration by the federal parliament.
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VKontakte petitions,
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where we need to collect 3 million
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signatures. This will be a huge campaigning
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tool. Change.org
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is a popular platform; here we need
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one million signatures. To make it easier for you,
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we
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have created a single website called
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“Five Steps for Russia.” There
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you can find a brief version of the demands, a detailed
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description, and links to all the signature platforms.
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The task is to make sure that within
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a week, there are several million people in the country
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who know about the Five Steps,
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support them, and have signed for them on
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at least one platform, or on all platforms.
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Each of us has enough free time
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right now, but not enough money.
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Whether we receive help
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from our own national reserve depends
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only on us.
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We need these Five Steps for Russia. Let’s
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make them happen.