HOW DO YOU SLAY A DRAGON?

What else can the underground do? Undoubtedly, prepare public acts of protest. Not so as to “seize power”, but to show the flag and other symbols that will keep the movement alive. Of course, this also includes maintaining in readiness communication and organisational links so that if there is any change in the political situation they can emerge swiftly from underground and become a normal political organisation. Finally, there is assistance for those who have been arrested and for their families. In this instance we must bear in mind that in present circumstances financing any illegal work from external sources will, in effect, be impossible, fraught as it is with instant disclosure and sanctions. So all local activists and organisations that have managed to survive will have to be self-financing. But this in itself will reduce the number of such organisations.

Nevertheless, if the Russian state continues to develop as we’ve seen in recent years, sooner or later the opposition will have to acknowledge that the focal point of its political work will have to take place abroad. They have to look at this soberly and start to prepare for it psychologically. Recent experience, including what happened in Belarus, illustrates that the only place that at least the coordinating hub of opposition activity can be based is outside the country. Any attempt to create it internally will be smashed by the regime. It’s only abroad that the work of the independent opposition media can be fully rolled out, although the spreading of its content within Russia will be a separate challenge. (But in order to put out reliable information, you also have to create reliable ways of producing it.) It’s abroad, too, that projects to teach activists how to prepare for the future Russia will have to be formed. And it’s only outside Russia that the necessary financial resources can be organised and that Western public opinion can be influenced.

Trying to operate from abroad, of course, is always a compromise. But the problem is that those who are going to try to live on inside the country will have to make even more of a compromise. I believe that we’re going to have to change our usual attitude to political emigration and see flight from the country as something essential, and thus stop dividing the opposition into the categories of “those on the ground” and “those abroad”. In this way, emigration can simply be considered as a second front in the struggle against the regime; and if the situation becomes too dreadful, it may even become the main front. There must be clear mutual cooperation between those who are fighting inside the country and those carrying on the struggle from abroad. It’s only with such cooperation that the opposition’s two fronts can survive and operate.

But those who are operating abroad will have extra problems. The regime will inevitably describe these political emigrants as spies and saboteurs who are in the pay of foreign secret services. And that’s only part of it. They certainly won’t have an easy relationship with the governments and secret services of those countries where they try to establish their bases. History has shown that European governments are not exactly thrilled about having opponents of the Russian regime operating on their territories, because it’s a headache they could do without. It also creates extra problems in their relations with the Kremlin.

It seems clear that there’s going to have to be a division of labour. From a certain point, any open discussion about the model for the new Russia will be possible only somewhere where the dictatorship is not operating. But the spread of free ideas from outside will be difficult. It will be done by those who are courageous enough to carry on the struggle inside the country. We have to be prepared for a significant period of time when the protest will have to be kept on hold before it can be released into the political sphere. It’s essential, therefore, that we ensure that during this period our work is well prepared. The more we’re able to do now, the less will need to be done later.

Chapter 4. The Point of No Return:

the Street or the Commanding Heights?

`At which moment does a revolution become irreversible? Many suggest that it’s when you “take control of the streets”. But is this so?