ABSTRACT
IN THE MID-2000S, THE DECLINE OF OPPOSITION POLITICS in Russia was so sharp and undisputed that the title of an article I wrote at the time, ‘Political Opposition in Russia: A Dying Species?’ (Gel’man 2005) met with little objection. At that time, the impact of the opposition was peripheral at best. The ‘party of power’, United Russia (Edinaya RossiyaUR), dominated both nationwide (Remington 2008) and sub-national (Ross 2011) legislatures, and the few representatives of the opposition exerted almost no influence on decision making. The share of votes for the opposition parties (in far from ‘free and fair’ elections) was rather limited (Gel’man 2008; Golosov 2011). Even against the background of the rise of social movements in Russia, anti-regime political protests were only able to gather a minority of 100 or so participants, while environmental or cultural protection activists deliberately avoided any connections with the political opposition, justly considering being labelled ‘opposition’ as an obstacle to achieving positive results (Gladarev & Lonkila 2013; Clement 2013). In other words, political opposition in Russia was driven into very narrow ‘niches’ (Greene 2007), if not into ghettos, and spectators were rather gloomy about the chances of its rebirth. Ten years later, Russia’s political landscape looks rather different. Protest meetings in
Moscow and other cities in 2011-2012 brought together hundreds of thousands of participants under political slogans, and the Russian opposition was able to multiply its ranks, to change its leadership, to reach a ‘negative consensus’ vis-a`-vis the status quo political regime, and to come to the front stage of Russian politics. Some opposition activists became legitimate actors of electoral politics, a few of them succeeded in receiving a visible share of votes during the (still unfair) elections, the public voice of the opposition became louder and the Kremlin was forced to turn from ignoring its rivals to intimidating them and their supporters. However, the Russian opposition is still far from achieving its goals: it is still bitterly divided by internal contradictions (thus opening doors for the Kremlin’s divideand-rule tactics); it has been harshly coerced by the authorities; and it is unable to develop a clear and positive agenda. This essay is an outcome of the research project ‘Choices of Russian Modernization’, funded by the Academy of Finland. I would like to thank Jussi Lassila, Egor Lazarev and Dmitry Travin for their helpful suggestions,
What were the causes of the rebirth what are the factors that continue to drive this process? How and why did the opposition respond to major challenges and resolve (or not resolve) its problems? And what future is there for the political opposition in Russia? This article focuses on these and other related issues. First, I will present an account of the evolution of opposition politics in Russia in the 2000s and 2010s, and then consider its major strategic and organisational challenges and alternatives vis-a`-vis the experience of the democratic opposition in authoritarian regimes worldwide. Some implications and possible scenarios for the future of the Russian opposition are discussed in the conclusion. Since the term ‘opposition’ is used in very different contexts in present-day Russia as well
as in other non-democratic regimes, I will limit the analysis to what is commonly regarded as the ‘non-systemic’, ‘principal’ (Linz 1973) or ‘subversive’ (Barghoorn 1973) oppositionthose organisations, movements and politicians which seek a change of authoritarian regime. In this respect, the ‘non-systemic’ opposition is also a democratic opposition (Stepan 1990), irrespective of the ideological stances of its various segments. Its major difference from the systemic opposition, ‘semi-opposition’ (Linz 1973) or ‘sectoral opposition’ (Barghoorn 1973), is that systemic actors can oppose some policies in certain areas but are not inclined to struggle for major regime changes. Systemic and non-systemic oppositions are not comprised of completely separate actors and are often linked with each other even in terms of personnel. However, their strategies differ widely: the former serve as fellow travellers and junior partners of authoritarian regimes (even though the risks associated with their possible disloyalty are a real possibility) while the latter position themselves as explicit rivals to the regime. The non-systemic opposition played a decisive role in the process of democratisation in the 1980s and 1990s from Latin America to Eastern Europe (Huntington 1991; Przeworski 1991; Greene 2007); but what is its role in contemporary Russia?
