Congresses and Docs

Memorandum of Political Alternative, an updated version of 1.03.2019

Memorandum of Political Alternative

YABLOKO's Ten Key Programme Issues

THE DEMOCRATIC MANIFESTO

YABLOKO's Political Platform Adopted by the 15th Congress, June 21, 2008

The 18th Congress of YABLOKO

RUSSIA DEMANDS CHANGES! Electoral Program for 2011 Parliamentary Elections.

Key resolutions by the Congress:

On Stalinism and Bolshevism
Resolution. December 21, 2009

On Anti-Ecological Policies of Russia’s Authorities. Resolution of the 15th congress of the YABLOKO party No 253, December 24, 2009

On the Situation in the Northern Caucasus. Resolution of the 15th congress of the YABLOKO party No 252, December 24, 2009

YABLOKO's POLITICAL COMMITTEE DECISIONS:

YABLOKO’s Political Committee: Russian state acts like an irresponsible business corporation conducting anti-environmental policies

 

Overcoming bolshevism and stalinism as a key factor for Russia¦µ™s transformation in the 21st century

 

On Russia's Foreign Policies. Political Committee of hte YABLOKO party. Statement, June 26, 2009

 

On Iran’s Nuclear Problem Resolution by the Political Committee of the YABLOKO party. October 6, 2009

 

Anti-Crisis Proposals (Housing-Roads-Land) of the Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO. Handed to President Medvedev by Sergei Mitrokhin on June 11, 2009

Brief Outline of Sergei Mitrokhin’s Report at the State Council meeting. January 22, 2010

 

Assessment of Russia’s Present Political System and the Principles of Its Development. Brief note for the State Council meeting (January 22, 2010) by Dr.Grigory Yavlinsky, member of YABLOKO’s Political Committee. January 22, 2010

 

Address of the YABLOKO party to President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev. Political Committee of the YABLOKO party. October 9, 2009

 

The 17th Congress of YABLOKO

 

 

 

The 16th Congress of Yabloko

Photo by Sergei Loktionov

The 12th congress of Yabloko


The 11th congress of Yabloko


The 10th congress of Yabloko

Moscow Yabloko
Yabloko for Students
St. Petersburg Yabloko
Khabarovsk Yabloko
Irkutsk Yabloko
Kaliningrad Yabloko(eng)
Novosibirsk Yabloko
Rostov Yabloko
Yekaterinburg Yabloko
(Sverdlovsk Region)

Krasnoyarsk Yabloko
Ulyanovsk Yabloko
Tomsk Yabloko
Tver Yabloko(eng)
Penza Yabloko
Stavropol Yabloko

Action of Support

Archives

Categories

SOON!

FOR YOUR INTEREST!

Programme by candidate for the post of Russian President Grigory Yavlinsky. Brief Overview

My Truth

Grigory Yavlinsky at Forum 2000, Prague, 2014

YABLOKO-ALDE conference 2014

Grigory Yavlinsky : “If you show the white feather, you will get fascism”

Grigory Yavlinsky: a coup is started by idealists and controlled by rascals

The Road to Good Governance

Risks of Transitions. The Russian Experience

Grigory Yavlinsky on the Russian coup of August 1991

A Male’s Face of Russia’s Politics

Black Sea Palaces of the New Russian Nomenklatura

Realeconomik

The Hidden Cause of the Great Recession (And How to Avert the Nest One)

by Dr. Grigory Yavlinsky

Resoulution
On the results of the Conference “Migration: International Experience and Russia’s Problems” conducted by the Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (the ALDE party)

Moscow, April 6, 2013

International Conference "Youth under Threat of Extremism and Xenophobia. A Liberal Response"
conducted jointly by ELDR and YABLOKO. Moscow, April 21, 2012. Speeches, videos, presentations

What does the opposition want: to win or die heroically?
Moskovsky Komsomolets web-site, July 11, 2012. Interview with Grigory Yavlinsky by Yulia Kalinina.

Building a Liberal Europe - the ALDE Project

By Sir Graham Watson

Lies and legitimacy
The founder of the Yabloko Party analyses the political situation. Article by Grigory Yavlinsky on radio Svoboda. April 6, 2011

Algorithms for Opposing Gender Discrimination: the International and the Russian Experience

YABLOKO and ELDR joint conference

Moscow, March 12, 2011

Reform or Revolution

by Vladimir Kara-Murza

Is Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko, "The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May 12, 2010

Grigory Yavlinsky's interview to Vladimir Pozner. The First Channel, programme "Pozner", April 20, 2010 (video and transcript)

Overcoming the Totalitarian Past: Foreign Experience and Russian Problems by Galina Mikhaleva. Research Centre for the East European Studies, Bremen, February 2010.

Grigory Yavlinsky: Vote for the people you know, people you can turn for help. Grigory Yavlinsky’s interview to the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, October 8, 2009

Grigory Yavlinsky: no discords in the tandem. Grigory Yavlinsky’s interview to the Radio Liberty
www.svobodanews.ru
September 22, 2009

A Credit for Half a Century. Interview with Grigory Yavlinsky by Natalia Bekhtereva, Radio Russia, June 15, 2009

Sergei Mitrokhin's Speech at the meeting with US Preseident Barack Obama. Key Notes, Moscow, July 7, 2009

Mitrokhin proposed a visa-free regime between Russia and EU at the European liberal leaders meeting
June 18, 2009

Demodernization
by Grigory Yavlinsky

European Union chooses Grigory Yavlinsky!
Your vote counts!

Reforms that corrupted Russia
By Grigory Yavlinsky, Financial Times (UK), September 3, 2003

Grigory Yavlinsky: "It is impossible to create a real opposition in Russia today."
Moskovsky Komsomolets, September 2, 2003

Alexei Arbatov: What Should We Do About Chechnya?
Interview with Alexei Arbatov by Mikhail Falaleev
Komsomolskaya Pravda, November 9, 2002

Grigory Yavlinsky: Our State Does Not Need People
Novaya Gazeta,
No. 54, July 29, 2002

Grigory Yavlinsky: The Door to Europe is in Washington
Obschaya Gazeta, May 16, 2002

Grigory Yavlinsky's speech.
March 11, 2002

Grigory Yavlinsky's Lecture at the Nobel Institute
Oslo, May 30, 2000

IT IS IMPORTANT!

 

Yabloko: Liberals in Russia

By Alexander Shishlov, July 6, 2009

Position on Some Important Strategic Issues of Russian-American Relations

Moscow, July 7, 2009

The Embrace of Stalinism

By Arseny Roginsky, 16 December 2008

Nuclear Umbrellas and the Need for Understanding: IC Interview With Ambassador Lukin
September 25, 1997

Would the West’s Billions Pay Off?
Los Angeles Times
By Grigory Yavlinsky and Graham Allison
June 3, 1991

The Government of Despair

Grigory Yavlinsky on what we can expect from the “new” Russian government  

Grigory Yavlinsky’s website, 21.05.2018

What does the composition of the “new” government tell us? That the situation won’t get any better. Outwardly everything will look just as it did, but to all intents and purposes things will be much worse. Objectively this is because the economy is in decline. Subjectively, this is due to the fact that neither Dmitry Medvedev nor his deputies don’t know what to do in the current circumstances. And they don’t want to. They don’t care.

THERE WILL BE NO “NEW” PUTIN

The key conclusion to be drawn from the formation of the government is that the situation in the country won’t improve. The rejection of any change is emphasised and blown out of all proportion. The minor reshuffle only reinforced the impression of odious despair: Vitaly Mutko will now head construction, Patrushev Junior [son of Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation] will become Minister of Agriculture, while Alexei Kudrin will chair the Audit Chamber. It is boring even to write about all this.

However, there was no possible alternative – as there isn’t and will never be a different or “new” Putin. There will be neither Putin 4.0 nor Putin 5.0. The reappointed President does not have any new ideas and proposals. He has no programme for modernising the country. He has no vision for the future. He doesn’t even have an action programme. Only a set of declarations bereft of any real substance – he simply announced a “wish list”.

The gist of Putin’s recent speeches – both before the presidential campaign and during the campaign, including the December “televised direct line” and the March address to the Federal Assembly – represents a fundamental refusal to change political course and implement any reasonable and necessary reforms. Therefore, the arrangement of musicians in the four-piece band does not matter, as in Ivan Krylov’s famous fable [“The Quartet”].

The “breakthroughs” mentioned by the new-old President while maintaining the current political course would only be possible if the repressive component of the regime were to be abandoned. And Prime Minister Medvedev is perfect here. He faithfully served the system in his role both before and after 2012. Protecting Putin, he publicly announced the key motto of today: “We have no money, but just hold on”. Medvedev deserved it.

And the system has now reached the state where there is no longer a “technical” government or even decorative parliament any more: the ministers and deputies (all of them, including the so-called “parliamentary opposition”) represent an organic part of a single authoritarian-bureaucratic system. This is called the “nomenclature”. Whether as deputies, or governors, or ministers – they will come in handy everywhere as Putin’s universal soldiers. It goes without saying that there will be personnel changes. Dismissals are an effective resource: hated “boyars” and “government officials” will be cast off the Kremlin porch when social tension increases.

What is the criterion for selecting members of the cabinet and what is the logic of such appointments? There is only one criterion for selecting ministers: personal loyalty.  And the logic of the appointments aims to ensure the endless retention of power.

CONTROL AND CARVE-UP

When it comes to the Russian economy, economic policy (and this is exactly what a government is expected to do) has contracted to the maximum. Now economic policy in Russia means only the oil prices, taxes and other charges on the population, the financing of the arms race and various military escapades (like Syria and Donbass), and also cunning social hand-outs against the backdrop of falling incomes. In other words modern economic policy involves finding ways to wring money from the population and allocate it for the goals of the regime. And naturally, where possible a ‘carve-up” of any available funds.

 

The meaning of the “reshuffle” of deputy prime ministers in the “new” government is precisely to ensure that the right people are in place to carry out this ingenuous list of tasks. The main function of deputy prime ministers is to allocate budget funds at a time of economic stagnation and sanctions. As the Russian government cannot influence oil prices or sanctions, the purpose of its work is to increase the financial pressure on the population. The idea of ​​increasing personal income tax has already been proposed and is being tested. The depreciation of the rouble and decline in real earnings – such a development is perceived as an opportunity to replenish the treasury. The decision to increase the retirement age has to all intentions already been adopted. Taxes on e-Commerce, tyres, shoes, real estate, barns, baths, toilets will be raised, Tariffs for housing and utilities services, etc., will increase, indefinitely… And what’s more we will witness another redistribution in the extractive industry.

The formation of the government is merely a fight for control over budget funds. One such example of covert intrigue was the leak of information on the vacation of the now former Deputy Prime Minister Prikhodko on Oleg Deripaska’s yacht.

SIGNALS AND MESSAGES

The new government is also notable for pivotal ideological appointments. The defiant retention of Vladimir Medinsky as Minister of Culture is a message to the humanitarian community and intelligentsia. Meanwhile the appointment of the head of the Federal Agency of Scientific Organisations (the federal authority that has been most proactive in destroying the Russian Academy of Sciences) as Minister of Science and Higher Education is a message to all our academics and each academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences personally.

The retention of Ministers Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Shoigu is also notable. Their ministries have become symbols of the isolationist aggressive foreign policy and militarisation of life in the country and public consciousness. Lavrov is like Medinsky one of the key propagandists in the country. A diplomat as a propagandist is an important element of the system. However, if this is a return to the Soviet era, it is not to Andrei Gromyko, known as “Mr No”, but instead to Mr “Stone Arse” – Vyacheslav Molotov.

Sergey Shoigu also remained in place, despite all his obvious failures, such as the February incident at Deir ez-Zor in Syria when Russian mercenaries were killed. The system that has backed war is becoming increasingly dependent on the people responsible for the fighting. And this means not only the Ministry of Defence, but also the individuals actually commanding these mercenaries (see the article “Hybrid Danger” published in February 2018). Incidentally, we see the same story on the international scene, with Bashar al-Assad and the Iranians: Russia finds itself dependent on its Middle Eastern “allies”, and our country’s prospects arising from development of this dependence are not at all good (see the article “The Iranian Trap” from May 2018). Therefore, if the policy does not change, there is no room for any reshuffles either in the Ministry of Defence or in the government in general, and there are also no chances to rectify the state of affairs in the country in general.

VOTING AGAINST ANY CHANGE FOR THE BETTER

In general, the formation of the government means the completion of the March plebiscite, rather than elections implying a certain level of renewal to factor in the results of the vote, even in the case of victory of the current regime. This is specifically a plebiscite triumphantly supporting the status quo of the powers that be, the policies of the past decade and Vladimir Putin personally. A plebiscite of love for the leader does not imply any change. Everything will remain the same: poverty, corruption, backwardness, war, lies and disrespect… So to all intents and purposes everyone lost, including all the people who voted for Putin, and also who abstained. The only winners were the absolute minority who have been feeding off Putin’s system all these years (see the article “The Elections Were Won by the Overwhelming Minority” published in March 2018). And now the regime in the interests of this absolute minority has formed a government that will grind down the country and the citizens who lost. This is the harsh reality facing everyone. This is the result of Putin’s victory on 18 March this year.

This should have been opposed by fighting for a transformation of the plebiscite into real elections, and by grasping at all the opportunities provided by the Constitution and the intention of the system to observe the constitution albeit formally and only partly. Was there any chance? Probably. However, to disregard elections and then discuss the possibility of change is just absurd and indicative of what Putin is imposing on society. The “elections” are over. What is driving the hope for change in the public opinion polls? Whom do 59% of the population expecting change want to see as head of the government? Igor Sechin?

Source: Grigory Yavlinsky’s web-site