Grigory Yavlinsky’s web-site, 15.11.2021

Photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin at the opening of the Wall of Grief – a monument in memory of the victims of political repression in the USSR. Moscow, October 30, 2017. Putin recalled that “the repression spared neither talent, nor service to the motherland, nor sincere devotion to it.” // REUTERS / Alexander Nemenov / Pool

A submission on the liquidation of the International [human rights] Society Memorial was sent to the Supreme Court of Russia. The formal pretext for this looks deliberately contrived: the absence of a “foreign agent” label in the materials of an organisation with a large number of branches and a huge document flow, which has been encountered for a long period, cannot be the basis for such a decision.

The point is different. It is unacceptable for the authorities of modern Russia that Memorial in its activities speaks the truth about the security and law enforcement structures of the USSR, declaring them criminal in a number of cases, and condemns the repressive periods of the Soviet politics. It is unacceptable for them that Memorial’s lawyers represent in international structures the citizens who have failed to achieve justice on the basis of the domestic law enforcement of the Russian Federation, thereby pointing to the repressive nature of the current government.

The destruction of Memorial will mean a return to the practices of applying the Soviet Criminal Code and such its political articles as “anti-Soviet propaganda” and “slander against the Soviet social system”.

What is happening is absolutely not accidental.

After the fall of the communist system in Russia in the 1990s, no assessment was given to the crimes of Bolshevism and Stalinism at the public-state and legal-judicial level. Society has done virtually nothing so that to hear Memorial and prevent the danger of a return to the totalitarian model of governing the country. Thus, there was taken the first step towards abandoning the historical memory.

And already in 2000, Vladimir Putin, a man who was the flesh of the Bolshevik system, was brought to power, under enthusiastic shouts “Sergei Kiriyenko to the Duma, and Vladimir Putin to the presidency!” [Sergei Kiriyenko, a former co-Chair of the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS) political party, is now First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration] by the supporters of the Union of Right-Wing Forces and noisy representatives of the post-Soviet intelligentsia, the so-called liberals, and when ignoring the more than reasonable opinion of Memorial. This was already a contempt for the national historical memory.

By 2018, political repression was already in full swing in the country, Russia annexed Crimea and waged a hybrid war against Ukraine. Memorial took a firm stance on the unacceptability of this policy. However, in the presidential elections [of 2018], a significant part of the “the liberals on record” supported Putin’s nominee Ksenia Sobchak (stepping on the same rake as in 2012 when voting for [oligarch] Mikhail Prokhorov [picturing him as a “liberal” presidential candidate]), thereby indirectly expressing support for Putin’s policies. This was not merely a rejection of memory, it was a rejection of connection with reality.

In September 2021, the Communists increased their representation in the elections to the State Duma. With the help of the so-called Smart Voting [vote for any party with high ranking, including all the pro-Putin parties, but for the ruling United Russia], which was driven by numerous representatives of the post-Soviet intelligentsia, a loud campaign was held in the country for the communists, Stalinists, and Prilepin’s militants. As a result, the impact of their ideas turned out to be much more tangible than before. Thus, the authorities received a signal that intensification of repression was acceptable to society and that they would not meet a meaningful response, since even those who were supposed to defend the common sense, abandoned the remnants of it.

Certainly, they have been trying to press on Memorial before. But it was the mass campaigning for the communists on the Smart Voting list by the noisy part of the politically active intelligentsia and the support of the communists by those who often speak on behalf of Memorial’s initiatives that gave the Kremlin carte blanche – to make a decision and fulfill the long-standing and very persistent desire of the Communist Party to liquidate the organisation engaged in the historical memory of the consequences of the coup d’etat of 1917, eradicate the very memory of the crimes of Bolshevism and Stalinism, the crimes of the civil war, the GULAG, the political terror of the state, and millions of innocent victims who were shot and tortured.

International Memorial has existed for four decades; it is one of the backbone organisations in Russia and the entire former USSR. Its destruction will mean a new qualitative step in the reactionary change of the entire social-and-political system of our country. There is no doubt that the final decision to liquidate such an organisation will be made personally by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will bear personal political responsibility for this.

It is well-known that during the First World War and on the eve of Second World War such a form of leisure as salon talks was widespread in Western Europe: writers and publicists, artists and actors, lawyers and doctors very fervently criticised, for example, the order in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and without the slightest understanding of the matter with an intelligent air talked about politics, not realising the threat of the advancing fascism. They just allowed themselves to chat about politics and were not particularly worried about their future, because they believed that, thanks to their talents and professional skills, they would be able to arrange life under any government, or, in extreme cases, they would be able to move to another country. But these people, many of whom were really talented and truly successful, could not imagine what would happen to all of Europe and personally to them in a few years…

On 4 November, Putin delivered a speech at the monument to the end of the Russian civil war, erected in Sevastopol [Crimea] in April this year. Instead of public awareness and comprehension, attempts to understand the tragedy that happened more than a hundred years ago, he simply announced that everything was over. In fact, this is the assertion of victorious Bolshevism as an uncontested continuation of the history of Russia, with which everyone must agree as a given and inevitable. The falsification of history and, virtually, the ban on the study of the dark past give every reason to believe that we will face difficult times and a painful future.

I express my full solidarity and full support to the Memorial International Society.

Source

Grigory Yavlinsky

is Chairman of the Federal Political Committee of the Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO, Vice President of Liberal International, PhD in Economics, Professor of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.