Why Russians protest and what's wrong about Putin's autocracy

In light of the recent wave of anti-Putin protests in Russia, I made a quick and dirty attempt to explain the reasons that drive the protest movement. If you live outside Russia and you want to have a general idea of what's happening here and why, read on.

This post was originally published as a Twitter thread.

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What exactly is wrong about Putin's autocracy?

In essence, Putin's regime relies on rigged elections, lies, hypocrisy and propaganda.

Federal and municipal Parliament elections have been rigged repeatedly for at least a decade. The 2011 Parliament elections were especially notorious, triggering nationwide protests.

Since 2003, the Parliament hasn't seen a party capable of acting independently of the Kremlin. Rare independent deputies have all been thrown out since then.

The current Parliament is dominated by United Russia (Putin's party) and a slew of satellite parties ("system opposition") that are decorated as left or liberal but always vote the way Putin's administration tells them to. Leaders of the 3 "system opposition" parties all bash the protests and call for all kinds of nasty things to happen to Alexey Navalny, Russia's de facto opposition leader.

In fact, the Russian political process under Putin perfectly illustrates what negative selection is. As a clear autocrat, Putin wants public figures to be personally loyal to him and dangerously incompetent. Year after year, bureaucrats and elected representatives that are not sufficiently loyal or, God forbid, sympathetic to opposition, are pushed out of power and replaced by new recruits who play by the rules and are eager to display their loyalty.

As a result, the current Parliament resembles a circus inside a psychiatric institution far more than a legislative assembly.

Ultraconservative, borderline xenophobic propaganda works to instill fear in a substantial share of the population. A lot of people tend to believe that their lives are sure to get worse unless Putin and United Russia continue to be in charge. Of course, this is exactly the kind of feeling that the political elite takes full advantage of.

The propaganda machine puts a lot of blame on Western countries, maintaining that the collective West can't wait to wreak havoc in Russia. Unfortunately, many Russians, especially the older generation, have never been able to afford traveling outside Russia, which makes them extra vulnerable to this kind of rhetoric.

Speaking of which, the regime isn't exactly interested in improving the living standard. There's a stark contrast between many millions of low-income population and a small club of billionaires, with very limited middle class in-between. Middle class tends to be independent, while both the extra rich and the poor can be easily manipulated with loan debt, arrests, etc.

Constructing the "us vs. them" narrative is also convenient for pro-government forces in that every time any kind of anti-Putin protest gains traction, propaganda is quick to claim that protesters are foreign agents and protests are fueled by hostile intelligence services.

This is ironic considering how the pro-Putin elite has a well-documented history of purchasing expensive property in Europe and the US, living there for extended periods of time, paying their taxes there, and sending their kinds to study in top European and American colleges. These people are corrupt to their core, yet they have the nerve to call protesters foreign agents.

For starters, it's plain painful to be exposed to such narrative day after day: you see how truth is turned upside down, what you know is white is called black, and the environment gets increasingly dystopian.

Psychology aside, this regime is holding the country back, putting the well-being of few ahead of the interest of many and isolating itself from the rest of the world.

Under Putin, Russia has essentially turned into an international outlaw, thanks to the annexation of Crimea, massive cheating in sports, foreign electoral interventions, and state-sponsored hacking.

As a result, I suspect that many people in other countries tend to avoid dealing with any and all Russians whenever they can. This is not the way I want it to be.

We, Russians, have allowed this to happen for many years, and forcing the system to evolve will take considerable time, too. Which brings us to Alexey Navalny.

Is Navalny a messiah or an ideal politician? He's not. However, he's undoubtedly the leading opposition figure right now who has balls of steel, tenacity, and a sense of purpose. We desperately need people like him to help us push the system into some real change. Whether we agree with his political programme or not, we just can't afford to lose him.

This is especially important ahead of this Fall's Parliament elections that the government will definitely try to rig again. We need to consistently show them that doing so will have consequences, that fewer people are happy to swallow it this time.

Will we succeed? Who knows. One thing is certain: we have a zero chance of success if we keep quiet. I hope we'll develop the habit of being consistently loud, and we'll see where it gets us.