On March 31, 2011, a British magistrate court rejected a request from former Soviet dissident and longtime human rights advocate Vladimir Bukovsky to arrest former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, on the basis that the latter should be prosecuted for brutally suppressing protests in Tbilisi, Baku and Vilnius in 1989-91, leaving 100 people dead and 2,000 wounded at the hands of the Soviet army. Bukovsky’s move was widely and harshly criticized by Russian civil society as impossible to achieve and a grasp at self-promotion.

According to leading opposition figure Garry Kasparov, such uncalled for criticism is not only rooted in an infantile and outdated Soviet mindset, but directly harms the purported goals of what remains of the Russian intelligentsia.

Practicality
By Garry Kasparov
March 9, 2011
Kasparov.ru

Vladimir Bukovsky’s demand to criminally prosecute Mikhail Gorbachev for the crimes of the Communist regime committed while he led the country has evoked a sharply negative reaction from the Russian intelligentsia. Many of the commentaries are full of sarcastic mockery and derisive judgments of the motivations for Bukovsky’s unexpected step. Aleksandr Podrabinek responded to this criticism very thoroughly and with careful consideration. I would like to add that the negative perception of the initiative of one of the most famous Soviet dissidents is formed by not only a desire to justify Gorbachev, but also its attitude towards the current government.

If you ignore the transparent hints at how Bukovsky is not relevant to contemporary political reality then the basic point of the criticism in one form or another comes down to a lack of practicality for criminal prosecution. Indeed, even with a substantial legal basis to detain Gorbachev in Great Britain, the English Themis sees the difference between the “father of perestroika” and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (who, in fact, gave up power because of the results of a national referendum) with closed eyes. So critics forget that those who believed in practicality and the possibility of reforming the regime from within didn’t spend long years in the camps and psychiatric hospitals during Soviet times. And it’s unclear on what basis Gorbachev’s well-wishers want Bukovsky to abandon the principles that he has been certain of his entire life.

The main point of difference is that today’s Russian intelligentsia, preserving its Soviet roots, continues like before to live in expectation of freedom granted from above. It’s amazing how people who, in their words, consistently uphold liberal values simultaneously avoid their realization in every way, referring to practicality. It’s obvious that everyone is equal before the law, but it’s necessary to make an exception so that the reprisals against peaceful demonstrators in Tbilisi or Vilnius don’t overshadow the global picture of the positive changes brought about by perestroika. So the talk about free elections, about the market and competition, the rule of law and the war against corruption have diverged from real actions for the course of nearly twenty years because all this time it’s been necessary to allow “minor exceptions” for the sake of moving along the path of “necessary reforms.”

As a result, we live in a country where there is no political competition, where the court has turned into an appendage of the executive branch, where reforms have resulted in the utmost monopolization of the economy and the bureaucracy is thoroughly corrupt. Such a divergence of government rhetoric from end results is immediately striking even to a layman who pays no attention to politics, and makes the entire structure of Russian systemic liberalism flawed. Therefore, it’s unsurprising that a large part of the Russian population rejects liberal values, which, alas, have begun to be steadily associated in the collective consciousness with the reforms of Gaidar and Chubais.

There was also nothing common between this notorious practicality and Andrei Sakharov’s continuous fight for human rights and democratic freedoms in the Soviet Union. I wouldn’t want during the upcoming anniversary celebrations of a man whose life position should serve as a reference to those who want to see our country truly free for the first violin again to be played by people waiting for the tsar’s next manifesto and now considering the fight against Putin’s regime only through the prism of practicality.

Lev Ponomarev, head of the movement For Human Rights, said on Monday that the mayor’s office had approved an application he had filed jointly with rights advocates Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Oleg Orlov, Valery Borshchev, Roman Dobrokhotov, Khimki Forest activist Yevgenia Chirikova, and others.

For the past year and a half, opposition and rights advocates have been holding rallies in defense of free assembly on Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square on the 31st of each month with that date under the Strategy 31 campaign. However, the last rally in October was split in two when the three original organizers – Alexeyeva, Eduard Limonov, and Konstantin Kosyakin – fell into irreconcilable disagreement.

A recent meeting between the three organizers ended in similar disagreement. In the end, Alexeyeva and the aforementioned rights advocates have chosen to hold their own rally, while Limonov and Kosyakin will hold another rally at the same time and place in conjunction with former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky.

The oppositionists’ disagreement in October arose over the number of participants that the city gave permission to attend the rally. After conferring with Alexeyeva, the Moscow mayor’s office approved a rally for 800 people – short of the 1500 usually present at Strategy 31 events, leading Limonov to defect.

It was not immediately clear how many people would be allowed to attend the December 31 rally headed by Alexeyeva and Ponomarev or whether permission would be granted to Limonov and Kosyakin for their version of the rally.

Solominsky was detained after an apparent clash with police on October 9. A group of men in plain clothes, believed to be officers of a regional St. Petersburg police department, had blocked off access to the Khasansky market complex. When Solominsky asked them for official identification, he was beaten into a concussion, thrown into a car without police license plates, and taken to the 13th Police Precinct.

Although the beating was captured on video, prosecutors have refused to initiate criminal proceedings against the police. Instead, a suit was brought against Solominsky, charging him with “public insult of a representative of authority.” The charge carries a sentence of 6 months to 1 year of remedial labor. Police have placed Solominsky under house arrest.

“Petersburg authorities, obviously,” he says, “have decided to deal with the oppositionists who have long annoyed them.”

Signatories of the petition include writer Vladimir Bukovsky, politician Boris Nemtsov, political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky, Right Cause member Boris Nadezhdin, journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, Cato Institute senior fellow Andrei Illarionov, Yabloko member Yevgeniya Dilendorf, Solidarity executive director Denis Bilunov, Solidarity member Sergei Davidis, and many others.

According to the petition, Solominsky had previously been detained for distributing books written by Bukovsky, a Soviet political dissident, and for organizing an “unsanctioned” rally of businessmen.

Police abuse is notorious in Russia. A recent study estimated that 1 in 25 people are tortured, beaten, or harassed by law enforcement officials in Russia each year. An activist in the city of Voronezh claims he was abducted and tortured by police on October 31 as a result of his participation in opposition activities.

Putin’s Kremlin clearly has no desire to face off with Bukovsky, a man who can speak with profound authority on the methods and manipulations of a KGB dictatorship. Bukovsky will be coming to Russia in the fall to talk with opposition leaders Garry Kasparov and Grigory Yavlinsky, among others. Then we will no doubt hear more elaborate justifications from the Kremlin for why Bukovsky should not be allowed to run, or perhaps not to speak at all. Perhaps the KGB can line up a few dozen witnesses to claim Bukovsky isn’t over the presidential candidate age minimum of 35.