The Russian Revolution Redux

Merry Christmas everyone!

I'm writing this on the tail-end of a packed Christmas Day out here in the mountains of Colorado. I overate and am ready to call it a night but I did want to comment on this weekend's news coming out of Russia. Yesterday's second rally to protest the recent Russian elections sounds to have been a tremendous success with estimates of anywhere from 30,000 to 120,000 people filling the streets and squares of Moscow.

As reported in today's New York Times, what set this rally apart from the first was the presence on the platform of high-level Kremlin officials--including former Finance Minister Alexsei Kudrin--giving measured support for the gathered crowd. Russian business oligarch and newly minted opposition candidate Mikhail D. Prokhorov was also in attendance, although he didn't give a speech, choosing instead to show his support through photo ops and meet-and-greets at the street level. Without a doubt, however, the man it appeared the crowd was there to see was dissident blogger Aleksei Navalny. Mr. Navalny, who was recently released from a fifteen-day detention and who has been tireless in his very public criticism of Mr. Putin, did not disappoint. In a fiery and impassioned speech, Mr. Navalny said, "I can see that there are enough people here to seize the Kremlin. We are a peaceful force now and will not do it now. But if these crooks and thieves try to go on cheating us, if they continue telling lies and stealing from us, we will take what belongs to us with our own hands."

Whoa! Is Mr. Navalny hinting at the possibility of a more violent attempt at overthrowing the government if the Kremlin continues on its current course of generally ignoring or ridiculing the protesters' demands? Or is he merely using dramatic rhetoric to whip up additional support from the protest movement? Mr. Navalny's motivation isn't exactly clear. And herein lies the crux of the issue: while it is all well and good for the Russian people to brave the notorious Arctic winter cold in a massive show of support for ending Putin's political aspirations once and for all, it becomes quite a different matter if they are indeed successful in bringing down the government but are left with a political vacuum and no individual or party in a position that can actually enact much-desired reform. As I've said repeatedly over the past several weeks, the situation facing Russia right now is not dissimilar to that currently facing Egypt or Yemen or Libya, for that matter. Okay...so you successfully forced out a dictator...what then do you have lined up in place of him?

This is precisely what appears to be lacking in any discussion about a Putin-free political landscape. The current opposition is dubious at best. Prokhorov is not particularly well-known and some skeptics believe that he is little more than a tool of the Kremlin, a puppet disguised as opposition but whose function in truth is to only give the impression that he represents change while dividing the genuine opposition and thereby assuring Putin's win in March's presidential election. Outside of Prokhorov, who else is there? Mr. Navalny is an intriguing possibility but with no real political experience, what are his chances of winning political office? I suppose there is always Dmitri Medvedev who appeared this week to give measured support of the protest movement while holding to his line that foreign governments and agitators were behind the unrest. The question remains: how married is Medvedev to Putin these days? Is there indeed a break between the two? We just don't know. And, speaking of which, where was Putin all weekend? He seems to be lying low. Even former president Mikhail Gorbachev lent his support to the protesters, saying it's time Putin cedes control now as a means of preserving his positive legacy in the future.

If we can be certain of nothing else, we can be certain of this: unless Putin and the powers-that-be in the Kremlin are miraculously lobotomized between now and next March, we can expect more of the same: both from the current government and from the Russian street. If Mr. Navalny's speech is any indication, the Russian people are losing patience. If peaceful protests don't bring them what they want, who's to say that more forceful tactics won't be employed in the near future?

Is this the second coming of the Russian Revolution?

Ciao.