Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
On 29 October, Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, Ivan Bolshakov, Yabloko Deputy Chairman, Galina Mikhaleva, Chair of the Gender faction and party activists and supporters laid flowers at the Solovetsky Stone monument in Moscow.
The Solovetsky Stone in Moscow is one of the most significant monuments to the victims of political repression killed in Joseph Stalin’s period, 1930 – 1953. The stone was brought to Moscow from the territory of the former Solovetsky Camp, which became the symbol of the GULAG.
The action took place on the eve of the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression. Every year on 29 October 29, for 13 years already, the Memorial human rights group (which was proclaimed a “foreign agent” by the authorities, the very label bearing strong connotations with repressions in the USSR) has been carrying out the action “Returning the Names” at the Solovetsky Stone, this year the action takes place online due to COVID restrictions: citizens read out the names of those shot during the Stalinist repressions.
Photo by the Press Service of the Pskov branch of Yabloko
The Pskov branch of Yabloko proposed to the Regional Assembly to send a request to the Constitutional Court about the violation of the electoral rights of the so-called “foreign agents” and persons associated with them. The MPs rejected this initiative by a majority of votes: three parliamentarians voted “for”, 14 “against”, and one abstained.
Deputies of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg have submitted to the St.Petersburg parliament a draft law, the adoption of which will completely eliminate the status of a “foreign agent” from Russian legislation. If the bill is supported by the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, it will be sent to the State Duma for consideration. The draft law was prepared by Lev Levinson, an expert of the Institute of Human Rights, at the request of the Yabloko faction deputies.
Photo: Environmental journalist Tatiana Artyomova, Nikolai Rybakov and the leader of the Separate Collection movement Tatiana Nagorskaya. / Photo by the Yabloko party Press Service
On 27 October, the Fifth Alexei Yablokov Readings were held in St. Petersburg. This is an annual event in memory of Alexei Vladimirovich Yablokov (1933 – 2017), an outstanding Russian scientist, ecologist and politician, leader of the Green Russia Faction of the Yabloko party.
Alexei Yablokov Readings join together environmental activists from all over the country and represent a platform for them to jointly find solutions to environmental problems and develop approaches to sustainable development and protection of nature.
(*Negative selection is a mechanism prioritising and ensuring selection of the worst. See, for example, here)
The State Duma elections ended exactly one month ago. We approached these elections in a situation when the system had been consolidated and had started moving definitely and consciously to an aggressive-repressive model of relations with society. After 1 July 2020, a new modification of Putin’s vertical already emerged, following in the tracks of the authoritarian version1. From the perspective of a value-based system and construction of the state, Russia’s post-Soviet modernisation ended in failure.
On 26 October, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko Ivan Bolshakov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma Maxim Kruglov, and ex-candidate of Yabloko in the elections Gleb Tumanov laid flowers at the memorial “In Memory of the Victims of Terrorism” by the “Theatre Centre in Dubrovka”, Moscow.
Photo: Vladimir Ryzhkov (centre) before handing the signatures in the Moscow Mayor’s Office
The increase in the “Moscow allowance” to pensioners in Moscow [a regional allowance which is decided by regional authorities] was a key point in the electoral programme of Vladimir Ryzhkov, a recently elected Moscow City Duma deputy from Yabloko.
Ryzhkov’s initiative to increase the “Moscow allowance” was supported by 5,700 Muscovites. In September, the signatures with a justification of the need to increase the “Moscow allowance” to pensioners were submitted to the Moscow Government. The appeal was considered by the city goevrment, and the corresponding changes were made to the draft budget for 2022.
In 2022, the minimum pension, together with the city allowance, will grow to 21,193 roubles – by almost a thousand roubles.
Despite the numerous promises of the authorities to achieve a revision of the project for the development of the territory by the Bars shopping centre in Yesenina street in Ryazan, the developer was issued a building permit, and preparatory works began. The project was not revised.
To watch the conference in English, you can turn on English subtitles.
On Tuesday, 19 October, the European Dialogue expert group and the Gender Faction of the Yabloko party held a Zoom conference on the topic “Discrimination against women in the labour market and the fight against it in Russia, Europe and the CIS countries”.
Photo by the Press Service of the Pskov branch of Yabloko
Democracy is air. One can ask the question, “Do you need air?” People can answer in different ways, but they will suffocate without air. The situation with democracy in our country is understandable, it is obvious. Democracy is the rule of the people, literally translated from Greek into Russian. It is quite obvious that there is no people’s power in our country.
Recently, President Putin, speaking of the 13,000 fatalities on the roads of the country in 2020, compared this to losses “in military actions”. True. Russia is losing a lot of people in the war that our drivers are waging against Russian roads.
However, there is another war, and the losses there are much greater! According to Rosstat [the Russian Federal Statistical Service], more than 400,000 people have died from COVID in Russia since the beginning of the pandemic! According to the official data of the operational headquarters, significantly more than 13,000 people died in October alone,
Decision No 145 by the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko, adopted on 14.10.2021, published on 18.10.2021
Photo by Alexander Kazakov / Kommersant
The situation in Russia, in almost all spheres, is currently determined by trends summarising the previous 25 years and set by the 2020 “constitutional reform” [Vladimir Putin’s amendments to the Russian Constitution].
This is a movement of the authoritarian Vladimir Putin’s System towards even greater closeness, repressiveness, militarisation, imitation of democracy, pseudo-patriotic ideologisation, and ultimately towards totalitarianism equipped with the latest technologies.
Decision No 144 by the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko, adopted on 14.10.2021, published on 18.10.2021
Photo: Distribution of seats in the Russian parliament based on the results of the 2021 elections. Photo: by Igor Ivanko / Kommersant
The past parliamentary elections are the first after the cynical, insulting and hypocritical imposition on the country of [Vladimir Putin’s] “amendments” to the Constitution.
We participated in these elections being well aware that in the changed conditions it is absolutely impossible to maintain the previous goals, objectives and methods of work of Yabloko as a centrist social-liberal democratic party of a parliamentary type in a campaign that cannot be called elections by any standards.
Statement by the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko, adopted on 14.10.2021, published on 18.10.2021
Photo: Dmitry Muratov / Photo by Alexander Kazakov / Kommersant
The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize to Dmitry Muratov “for his efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace” is an award to a Russian citizen, a public figure, editor-in-chief of an opposition newspaper and a member of the Yabloko party. Certainly, this is a prize to the [murdered] journalists of Novaya Gazeta – Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Natalya Estemirova, Igor Domnikov, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, but not only to them.
Decision No 148 by the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko, adopted on 14.10.2021, published on 18.10.2021
Photo: Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), bows to the bust of Stalin on 5 March 2021, the anniversary of Stalin’s death / Photo by Irina Buzhor / Kommersant
The Political Committee of Yabloko considers it extremely harmful for Russian politics and the country as a whole to use voting for the communists as a tactical method of fighting a repressive dictatorship. Bolshevism and Stalinism, which the Communist Party of the Russian Federation represents in modern Russia, is an ideology alien to us. Moreover, Yabloko’s position is that creation of a modern state in Russia and development of the country is impossible without overcoming Bolshevism and Stalinism. Lack of understanding this and insufficient attention to overcoming Bolshevism in the first post-Soviet decade is one of the key reasons for the failure of the reforms.
On 14 October, a closed meeting of the Federal Political Committee of the Yabloko Party took place in Moscow, 15 out of 17 members took part in it (Igor Artemyev and Svetlana Gannushkina were absent). The main topic of discussion was the results and lessons of the past parliamentary elections – the first elections after the establishment of “the 1st of July system”, the adoption of Vladimir Putin’s amendments to the Russian Constitution.
The Political Committee is aware of the difficulties and threats is store for the party in the modern political system, constructed by a repressive regime, up to and including the ban on its activities.
A faction of the Yabloko party has been created in the Petrozavodsk City Council, Karelia. It includes two deputies from Yabloko: Dmitry Rybakov and Olga Tuzhikova. Dmitry Rybakov became the leader of the faction, he headed the list of the party candidates in the elections to the City Council.
Photo: Yevgeny Gontmakher. Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 21 October, a new term of the Yabloko Party University will begin.
It will be opened by a Zoom lecture by Yevgeny Gontmakher, Professor at the Higher School of Economics, head of research of the European Dialogue group, and a member of the Public Constitutional Council.
The topic of the lecture is “Social development of the Russian Federation in the COVID era”.
