Press Release, 9.12.2023

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov made a report at the 22nd Yabloko Party Congress. He spoke about the historical forks of the past 30 years and Yabloko’s proposals at each of them.

Rybakov said that it was necessary to understand at what turns the wrong choice had been made, since such forks and such crossroads would happen more than once in the history of our country:

“Our party is 30 years old. This is almost as much as the new Russia is. Until recently, I would have said that this is a difficult case. Now I have to say that this is a tragic case. Because of the turns our country chose to make at important crossroads, many people paid with their lives or their crippled destinies for these wrong choices. People died, their destinies changed as they fell under the moloch of the state machine. First, Grigory Yavlinsky, and then the entire Yabloko, offered the country a meaningful and personal alternative, a different path. And no one can convince us that there was no other way. Because life itself, the years we have lived, have proven that the truth was on our side. And it is on our side today,” Rybakov noted.

Rybakov named the reasons for the current state of affairs in Russia: poverty, the lack of alternative sources of meaningful political information, the lack of separation of powers, an independent court and a real parliament, and the country’s disregard for the most important thing – human life.

Nikolai Rybakov recalled several such forks when Russia chose the wrong path.

Rybakov said that one of the first forks happened in the period of the late 1980s – early 1990s, when the movement towards a market economy began. It was then that a programme appeared that could give a chance for the formation of a large middle class in the country – “500 Days” [by Grigory Yavlinsky]. It was proposed to start privatisation with the least monopolised sectors of the economy and those enterprises that people could buy with their savings, thus, building their businesses in retail trade, services, catering or construction.

“The key point of the programme was to implement the concept of moving towards a market not at the expense of the people, but at the expense of the state, in order to give people faith and understanding that the state will take care of them. Despite support from the Soviet republics, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ultimately rejected this programme. Instead of carrying out a broad corporatisation of enterprises, they were sold through loans-for-shares auctions, that was, in fact, criminal privatisation. As a result, the country’s largest enterprises ended up in the hands of a small group of people, and this contributed to the formation of an oligarchic regime in the country,” Rybakov added.

Another fork in the road was the adoption of the 1993 Constitution. The Yabloko party was the only political force that opposed the adoption of the Constitution [with a very strong president and a weaker parliament] that the authorities tried to push through. Yabloko proposed to adopt a temporary constitutional act, and after that, in a few years, prepare a real, well-thought-out fundamental law.

“Because even then we understood that the benign provisions on freedoms and human rights, and the welfare state that were in the Russian Constitution, on the social state cannot be implemented under the system of power that is ultimately provided for in the rest of the Constitution. Because there were no mechanisms that guaranteed the implementation and protection of these rights and freedoms. And the consequences of the adoption of such a Constitution become clear in 2020, when many asked: “How did this happen? Why is this so? But the first bloody consequences manifested already a few years later [after the Constitution was adopted]. These were the First and the Second Chechen wars [in 1994-1996 and 1999-2000]. What was the position of our party? – ‘Stop the war’,” Rybakov added.

Nikolai Rybakov also recalled other turning points in Russian politics and the alternatives proposed by Yabloko: the seizure of the independent NTV television channel by Gazprom Media and Yabloko’s calls in its defence, the economic crisis of 2007-2009 and the “Land-Housing-Roads” programme for mass housing construction proposed by the party, the coronavirus pandemic and measures to support the population and business proposed by Yabloko, “resetting” of the Constitution and Yabloko’s alternative “Constitution of Free People”.

Rybakov associated one of our country’s wrong turns with the authorities’ refusal to make a state-legal assessment of the 1917 coup, the entire Soviet period, and Stalin’s terror. Rybakov stated that the policy of de-Stalinisation and de-Bolshevisation would be a necessary condition for the modernisation of Russia in the 21st century.

Nikolai Rybakov dwelled on the situation with Ukraine in detail. Back in March 2014, Yabloko warned about the tragedy of the bloodshed for both countries. The party had a plan to resolve the situation in Donbass. Grigory Yavlinsky presented it as candidate for the post of Russian President in the 2018 presidential elections.

Rybakov noted that all these years, Yabloko opposed bloodshed – published articles, made statements, called for negotiations and organisation of an international conference on resolving the status of Crimea. All these years, the party had been proposing solutions to prevent bloodshed.

The party leader also recalled that the 2021 parliamentary elections demonstrated that the threat of an armed conflict was brooding. Members and supporters of the party participated in debates, held pickets, and held a public awareness campaign. At the beginning of 2022, Yabloko organised a collection of signatures “for peace” from citizens, and a plan of actions to prevent military confrontation was sent to the leaders of Ukraine and Russia – then the party offered itself as the organiser of the negotiations and the peace process. The Yabloko Congress formulated the key demand – stop killing people and immediately conclude a ceasefire agreement. No matter how dangerous it may be, over the past two years, party candidates across the country ran their campaigns under this slogan “For peace!” Rybakov emphasised that all the recent party’s work had aimed only one goal: returning peace.

According to Rybakov, the Yabloko party proved at all these forks, and at many others, that it was possible to choose a different path for the country. Residents of Russia were offered an alternative 12 times during the presidential and the State Duma elections.

In conclusion Nikolai Rybakov spoke about Yabloko’s current mission:

“We are working to ensure that all Russians could have a good, peaceful, and humane future. It is a heavy burden, but no one else will take it. Because it is unprofitable and unpopular. But this is the only possible option for our life. We have vast experience and knowledge accumulated by people who have been working in the party for 30 years. This experience is needed so that to make the right choice at the next forks. This moment will definitely come. We work in Russia, for Russia and for the people.”

NIKOLAI RYBAKOV

is Chairman of the Yabloko party, member of the Federal Political Committee of the party, member of the Yabloko Bureau.

Head of the Yabloko Electoral Headquarters