The Heath and the Hill
The Tug-of-War in Moscow
By Israel Shamir
Moscow
For a month, Moscow was bracing itself for the February
4 Rally. It was pre-planned and prepared by the anti-Putin
pro-Western liberal opposition, donning white colours.
Despite sub-zero Fahrenheit (minus 20 degrees
Centigrade) arctic frost, the organisers hoped to break
their pre-Christmas record and gather a huge crowd and a
procession to shatter the will of the government
supporters. They had bought all thermal underwear in the
city stores, joined forces with anti-Muslim nationalists
of Pym Fortuyn kind, and marched in strength probably
exceeding the previous rallies. Police counted them at
38 thousand-strong; by their own calculation they were
up to 60 thousand.

But the surprise of the day loomed elsewhere. While the
pro-Western opposition gathered on the Bolotnaya Heath
(Le Marais) just across the river from the Kremlin red
crenelated walls, a small demo was also planned as a
token of government support on the Poklonnaya Hill (La
Montagne), overlooking Moscow from the west. The White
Fronde of the Heath applied for 60 thousand-strong rally
permit and almost made it; pro-government forces planned
for 15 thousand, and even this assessment was considered
too optimistic: previous pro-government rally made
between three to five thousand. Indeed, demos are good
“against”, not “for” the government. However, the
Poklonnaya Hill demo turned something completely
different – the rally of the opposition to the White
Fronde. And this rally had 138,000 participants, by the
police count, almost ten times more than predicted.
The numbers are discussed and debated. Vechernyya Moskva,
a city paper, published huge headline “138 000 : 36 000
Putin Leads”. Echo Moskvy, the voice of the Orange
opposition gives 62 000 Heath vs. 80 000 Hill. The
disparity in assessments is partly due to methods of
counting. Some count how many people are located in the
square at any given time (this will be a low estimate)
but it is just a guess how many people came and went
away; this is the flow factor. I would guess that the
Heath had a considerable flow: it is a downtown place,
easy to come, easy to go. Probably the Hill have had
less flow, as it is an out-of-town place, hard to get
there, hard to leave. So my guess would be 50 thousand
for the Heath, and 110 thousand for the Hill. Though
precise numbers are being argued about, but the
numerical victory of the Hill was accepted by the Heath
people, who said that they are fewer but of better
quality :-) Some Heath organisers claimed that the Hill
mobilised hire-a-mob technique and paid cash to
participants. This is an empty claim: nobody in Russia
can hire so many participants. It is a common knowledge
that three to five thousand people is the absolute
maximum that can be mobilised by such measures,
especially at such frost.
The Hill won because this largest rally was not “for
Putin” – there were many speakers known for their
dislike of Putin and his regime, but they hated the
“white” (or “orange”) opposition of the Heath even more.
If the West hates Putin, it should try the forces woken
up by the rally. It became a rally against neo-liberals,
against pro-Western policies, a rally of Red-Brown (or
“patriotic”) alliance of statist nationalist opposition
of Russia-First. They out-Putined Putin in no time.
This was a great surprise for the people of Moscow. It
was thought that Putin will rely upon his own pet youth
movements like Nashi and Steel, organised and paid for
by the Kremlin some years ago as a fighting reserve in
the case of an Orange revolution, but they folded and
faded away at the first sign of trouble. The government
officials, both high and low, did not support Putin,
either. Nobody predicted Putin will wake up the sleeping
beast of popular feelings.
The western mass media missed the point altogether
claiming that the participants were hired or forced to
demonstrate, or alternatively that there were few of
them. Fox News did their best by broadcasting pictures
of the Hill demo and saying it was the Heath. Other
western agencies published pictures of 1991 rallies
saying they were taken yesterday on the Heath. In
Moscow, nobody was fooled: people knew when they were
licked.
There is a huge untapped potential of Russia-First
feeling, connected with resentment against Western
imperialist policies. It is not homogeneous: some of
these people have strong attachment to the memory of the
USSR, others prefer memory of Tsarist Russia, and some
are looking for an alternative future. These people and
these tendencies were repressed and delegitimised in the
Nineties, during the unhindered rule of the pro-Western
liberals.
Putin is a compromise figure between the westernised
liberals and Russia-Firsters; he used some of the
Russian nativist rhetoric while carrying out liberal
economic policy. Russia-Firsters survived his years, but
they were never allowed into the corridors of power,
where such figures as Alexei Kudrin and Anatoli Chubais,
the favourites of IMF, prowled. This opposition burst
forth on the Hill rally.
Among the speakers, there was flamboyant Prokhanov, a
prolific writer and the chief editor of the Zavtra
newspaper, the main organ of the Brown-Red coalition. He
placed Russia as the next on the line of the imperialist
attack, after Libya, Syria and Iran. He fully supported
the Russian veto in the Security Council, but he would
like to see more of direct Russian support for Syria and
Iran, more friendship with China. He is a frequent
traveller to Syria and Iran, is a great friend of
Palestine, published a book glorifying Hamas and
supporting Hezbollah. An Orthodox Christian, a mystic
and a unrepentant Soviet-style Communist, Stalin
admirer, he was very critical of Putin and his
compromises. Fear and loathing of the Orange revolution
mobilised him and his numerous followers to the demo.
Actually, it was the first time since Yeltsin shelled
the Parliament in 1993 with the US blessing, that this
hard core of Russian political life emerged and was
allowed by the Putin’s government to show its strength.
There were other speakers, notably Maxim Shevchenko, a
popular presenter of the state TV, known for his
sympathy to the Muslims and his staunch anti-Zionist
stand; Alexander Dugin, “the Russian Heidegger”, a
controversial philosopher from the Moscow State
University, the founder of the Eurasian movement and a
friend of the European anti-American non-racist New
Right. They were fiery and outspoken, not-so-much for
Putin but surely against his liberal “orange” opponents.
The pools say this feeling is widely spread in Russia,
as the Heath protesters allowed themselves to be
presented as spoiled brats, rich kids, people in
expensive fur coats who like each other and despise the
rabble. In vain they protested that they do not strive
for an Orange revolution; this was the general feeling,
and their connection with the leaders of the Nineties
did not add to their prestige. The Heath organisers were
aware of that, and none of these old politicians, no
controversial figure was allowed to speak during the
demo. As the result, they had very little to say beyond
chanting Down with Putin.
In the end, the Heath protesters emerged with despondent
mood, contrasting their feelings after December demos.
They discovered that they hold no patent on rallies, and
that their opponents can field many more people to the
street. Probably their enthusiasm for rallies will now
vane somewhat. The Russians are afraid of “orange”
revolutions, as arranged by your friendly NED and other
tools of the State Department. Many, perhaps majority of
the Hill demonstrators were afraid of a replay of
Nineties, or of Tahrir, and they were happy to support
Putin as a symbol of stability. The government stocked
up the fears, by flooding with limelight a visit of the
opposition leaders to the US Embassy. Michael McFaul,
the new US Ambassador found himself in the centre of
controversy, with many parliamentarians demanding him
being sent home for this meeting took place almost
immediately upon his arrival and even before he
presented his accreditation papers.
The Western governments did not understand this change
of mood in Moscow when they demanded to vote on their
draft of Syrian resolution. They expected that the Heath
rally will frighten the Russian government and make it
more pliable. They had a good reason: this was the
general feeling among embassies’ interlocutors. When
President Medvedev visited Moscow State U a few days
earlier, a student (a Heath protester, apparently) asked
him whether he is ready to meet the fate of Gaddafi or
Saddam Hussein, or will he escape to his friendly North
Korea. After the Hill demo this Saturday, he would not
ask this question: it seems now too far-fetched. Nor the
Russian government felt it should give in to the Western
pressure on Syria: if the Hill speakers are to be judged
by, now Russia is more likely to send its anti-aircraft
missiles to Iran.
So it was a momentous day; a day of cruel frost,
probably the coldest day of the year – next day, as if
by order, it rose to perfectly palatable minus 12
degrees Centigrade (10 degrees Fahrenheit). Putin can be
pleased with this development: the demos brought the
Russians out of their hibernation, they are likely to
participate in the Presidential elections on March 4,
and the danger of massive stay-away disappeared. Putin
supporters were woken up and discovered they are
majority, while liberal protesters were reminded that
Putin is a compromise figure, and their lot could be
much, much worse if the Hill crowd were allowed to set
its rules.
The Communists stayed away from both demos, they are
busy building up the party chairman Gennady Zuganov as a
credible alternative to Putin in the forthcoming
elections, so they did not want to be seen as supporting
Putin. It is possible that the elections will run in two
tours, and then it will be Zuganov vs. Putin. For
pro-Western forces in Moscow, that will be a difficult
choice: they will have to decide whom do they hate more:
Putin or Communists?
However, the liberals are not defeated. Their numbers
are small, but they are well positioned. Though
ex-Finance Minister Kudrin is now out of power and with
the protesters, all his former minions are still
installed in the upper echelons. The opposition has a
lot of media at its disposal barring the powerful
federal TV channels, and the latter are mainly putting
out entertainment. The opposition has its supporters
among the ultra-rich, and within the inner sanctum of
the Secret Service as well. Liberal anti-Putin papers
receive quite a lot of advertising from friendly
oligarchs. The struggle will go on well beyond March 4,
the elections day.
Alexei Navalny
Alexei Navalny is a rising star of the opposition
movement. He made his name on disclosures of the barely
legal tricks of Russian officialdom integrated with the
moneyed crowd. These disclosures would hardly amaze
Americans who remember Enron and the Brits who follow
Tony Blair's tax saga. Apparently, that is in part where
the Russians learned the features of real capitalism,
mainly warts. Such ugly arrangements - profiteering,
usury and asset-stripping - are the mainstay of the
current world political economical system. They should
be disclosed, outlawed and punished, no doubt, but they
are not uniquely or predominantly Russian, rather
"modern-capitalist." The U.S. ambassador in Moscow
reported on Navalny some years ago to his bosses,
calling him "a Russian Don Quixote" (08MOSCOW2632), for
he fought a widely spread and common injustice.
Navalny's other line was the uncovering of shady oil
deals. The U.S. Embassy was not impressed by his
results: they checked his findings, according to the
wikileaked cable 08MOSCOW3380, with Western managers who
told them in confidence that Russian seaborne oil trade
had became "open and transparent," in the words of Dave
Chapman, general director of oil trading for Shell
Russia.
The idea of Navalny as a new savior ran into obstacles,
as his liberal supporters were visibly upset by his ties
with Russian nationalists. An old Moscow liberal lady, a
respected widow, reported that he called an Azeri party
member by a racist term and was expelled from the
liberal Yabloko party. Navalny reportedly made snide
remarks about Georgian poets qua Georgians. However, the
Russians are quite tolerant of racist abuse and probably
this story did not hurt him much.
In a long interview with another liberal luminary, the
best-seller writer B. Akunin (a Russian Harold Robbins),
Navalny tried to dispel such fears, but he did not
denounce nationalism. Perhaps Navalny's nationalism is a
clever card well played: at the top of the new Fronde
there are not many ethnic Russians, and a "real Russian"
with nationalist background would be a good thing to
have in the front of a revolutionary movement which is
blessed by many Jews.
"Ethnic origin" is not a major consideration in Russia -
the country has been led by Tatars (Ivan the Terrible
was a son of a Tatar princess), Germans (Catherine the
Great was a German princess by birth), Jews (Trotsky and
Sverdlov), by Georgians (Stalin) and Ukrainians
(Brezhnev, also Khrushchev). Ethnic Russian nationalism
was actively discouraged in Soviet times. Still, it is
an advantage to have an ethnic-Russian personality at
the helm of a movement.
Many liberals and non-ethnic Russians are deeply
suspicious of Navalny. But their presentation of Navalny
as a "new Hitler" is far-fetched. Blue-eyed,
good-looking, a dash of the racist, yes, but not an
especially silver-tongued one. Navalny tried to talk to
the demonstrators in December but was catcalled more
than once. His manner was too rude, as if he were
talking to a street gang. He did not speak on the
Saturday demo at all. His views are far from clear.
When asked for a model state Russia should follow,
Navalny said, "Singapore." This is an odd choice for a
person fighting Putin's strong-arm style, as Lee Kuan
Yew was probably more authoritarian than Putin. As fond
as I am of Singapore street cooking, I can't imagine a
less suitable model for a vast multinational ex-empire
than the tiny Chinese polis.