Designer Revolutionary Frauds-Strategy 31, Eduard Limonov and a Gigantic Phallus.

On The Observer article by Susan Richards, a Russian blogger called Alexey Kovalev, a contributor to The Guardian and student in London who popped up to defend The Other Russia went offline in a huff after trying to defend the claim that Strategy 31's plan to cause trouble for Putin was a good thing at public protests, sulkily moaning that,

Alright, this is a waste of time. I should be back to my Russia-hating, Western-funded grind.

However, it is very difficult to get a completely clear picture of the political forces at work within Russia or where people's interests lie, so corrupted is the political process there and very much so even amongst those in opposition to President Medvedev and PM Vladimir Putin.

To be fair he was accused without evidence of being in the pay of the CIA by more paranoid critics, something that gives online "discussions" a very Orwellian tone to them. And gives him the opportunity to play at being hard done by instead of answering more searching criticisms such as why people should support a group which includes Limanov, the Natzbol Fascist.

Yet the Strategy 31 initiative he supports is just not one that is going to be supported by those who remember the oligarchs and the last time pro-Western interests controlled Russia and saw a massive collapse in living standards, something apparently not discussed in terms of human rights at all.

The Other Russia is supported by a weird coalition of interests and by the National Endowment for Democracy which absurdly claims to be a non-partisan NGO and independent whilst receiving money from Congress. Most people championed by The Other Russia have close association with the oligarchs and are utterly unpopular leftovers of the Yeltsin period.

As Ron Paul, a potential Presidential candidate in the USA wrote in 2003,

What the NED does in foreign countries, through its recipient organizations the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), would be rightly illegal in the United States.

The NED injects "soft money" into the domestic elections of foreign countries in favor of one party or the other.

Imagine what a couple of hundred thousand dollars will do to assist a politician or political party in a relatively poor country abroad. It is particularly Orwellian to call US manipulation of foreign elections "promoting democracy.

How would Americans feel if the Chinese arrived with millions of dollars to support certain candidates deemed friendly to China? Would this be viewed as a democratic development?

In opposition to Paul, it could be claimed that China is not a democracy and, in fact, would not support the means for countries to develop democracies as the USA does that, in theory, would be hostile to its interests. Yet, in practice, "democracy promotion" has been channelled to those with a scant interest in it, not least The Other Russia.

Garry Kasparov has consistently supported nearly everything the USA has done globally in recent years and supports the USA in return for continued funding, something bound to annoy large numbers of Russians who. perhaps, just did not share his view the Russia's opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was wrong only because Russia did so in its interests.

As for Limonov, even the BBC, which tends to misunderstand the supposed liberal nature of oppositionist movements in Eastern Europe, reported in 2005 that he was,

...an anti-establishment leader with a strong youth following - Eduard Limonov, head of the National Bolshevik Party (NBP) - told the BBC openly that his supporters would meet violence with violence.

Both sides, the fronts aligned to The Other Russia, and the Putin regime have reacted in the past with accusations and counter accusations that its opponents are the real "Fascists" with Limonov claiming to be a supporter of leftist anarchism or national defence when it suits him. In reality he is nihilistic and unprincipled.

As the BBC report revealed,

NBP leader Eduard Limonov told the BBC his supporters would join any velvet revolution in Russia.

Like Mr Yashin, he is deeply sceptical about Nashi, but unlike him he says the NBP is ready to respond to violence with violence.

"It is an invitation to a civil war. Such organisations are characteristic of a fascist state. Our country begins to resemble the Berlin of the 1920s and 1930s when fascists were attacking communists," he said.

"But we are not afraid of this. If the authorities want such clashes then we will provide for adequate resistance. We will be happy, because we can't fight with police, but with them - we can."

Naturally, whilst being a Fascist, Limonov can claim that the Kremlin is dominated by Fascists and appear to be a Communist, though why on earth the USA would want to support such an idiotic figurehead is at first apparently very odd, unless it is remembered that the only use of The Other Russia is to advance US interests and weaken Putin from within.

Limonov's vision for what The Other Russia should look like is pretty horrid though,

"We will have to leave Russia, to build a nest on the fresh central lands, to conquer them there and to give rise to a new, unseen civilization of free warriors united in an armed community. Roaming the steppes and the mountains, fighting in southern nations.

"Many types of people will have to disappear. Alcoholic uncles Vasias, cops, functionaries and other defective material will die out, having lost their roots in society. The armed community could be called ‘Government of Eurasia.’ Thus the dreams of the Eurasians of the ’30s will be realized. Many people will want to join us. Possibly we will conquer the whole world. People will die young but it will be fun."

Whether those engaged in more sedentary occupations such as chess, such as Mr Kasparov, would share this alternative vision for a Russia where many types who might not like riding out into the steppes or actively supporting this Manifest Destiny is not especially clear but it hardly sounds like "fun" to get killed in a war for global domination.

Thee rest of the creepy people in The Other Russia sound marginally better or sane. Sergey Yurievich Glazyev of the Rodina Party ( The Motherland ) claims to be "nationalist" and "socialist", despite having former Central Bank members and those close to Yukos Oil such as Viktor Gerashchenko as leading lights.

Glasyev retired in 2007 but the former adviser to Putin was on record for criticising in 2005 according to one source that "’certain forces‘ that are appropriating natural rent and ‘spending billions of dollars in order to have a lobby in the State Duma.’". Gerashchenko was formerly an erstwhile ally of Putin, even winning the Order of Merit for the Fatherland in 2000 off Putin.

His switch to The Other Russia and potential bid to be President in 2008 was only occasioned by his annoyance at the way Mikhail Khodorkovsky's oil empire Yukos was taken off him in such a way as to damage his stake in it, despite the fact that Khodorkovsky was a colossal crook who stole Russia's assets from it and whose goons used contract killings to get their way

Now the idea that liberty should not be traded off for any illusory security provided by Putin is also mendacious as the oligarchs partook is a massive fraudulent rip off of Russia's wealth and resources during the 1990s when mafia power was at its height, as documented by Misha Glenny in his McMafia:Seriously Organised Crime.

So Yeltsin was no better when it came to providing security or maintaining human rights, apart from those of the oligarchs, despite Edward Lucas' feeble attempt to praise him for liberating Russia and blaming the failure to "de-Sovietise". Russia, in fact, was put through a very Bolshevik experiment under neoliberal shock therapy which went badly wrong.

It was the reaction to the devastating social and economic costs of that which has determined politics ever since, though it is routinely ignored by many Western liberals, more than the legacy of the Soviet Union. It seems some liberals are no less deluded about Yeltsin's Russia than they were once about Lenin's.

The fact that The Other Russia and Yabloko ( apple ) is dominated by pseudo-liberals, who will often resort to supporting even worse demagogy than Putin's supporters, is both craven and a travesty of what liberalism is supposed to be. It is necessary to deal with that reality when looking at Russia.

If The Other Russia is really committed to democracy and freedom in Russia, then it is incumbent on its supporters to deal with the facts and to refute convincingly allegations that it is merely a front for oligarch interests at the expense of disenfranchised Russians who have little real choice.

All the continual spats over the right to protest in one particular square in Moscow amounts to is a sordid power struggle. If Russia is to make progress with human rights then double standards really do need to be addressed because this game is seen as an irrelevant abstraction being played over the heads of the vast majority of Russian people.

Mr Kovalev, however, was unable to deal with that at all. And his response was interesting in its evasion of any understanding, whether intentional or not, of what had befallen his nation since the end of the Soviet Union, shock therapy or even what backers of Strategy 31 in The Other Russia stand for.

He simply retorted that,

I don't care a single bit about Limonov. It's a very common question: "So what are you protesting against? Would you like to see Limonov/Kasparov/whatever as your president?" No, and it's not the point. I just don't like being lied to. I'd be fine if somebody just came clean and said "OK, you're right, the constitution doesn't work and we're not a democracy"

Yes it is the point. Supporting a group aligned to thuggish Neo-Nazis using explicitly fascist and communist insignia and to give a platform to Limanov in a way that would, in fact, be severely monitored even in Germany and other Central European nations that got rid of totalitarianism, is craven and hypocritical.

As for "Former dissident" Alexeyeva, she was furious that The Other Russia excluded Limonov, not because she agreed with him but just because she did not like the Kremlin deciding who could march. Yet in the Baltic Republics such insignia is banned by law. This, again, is a double standard.

In a joint statement put out by Alexeyeva she attempted some damage limitation,

“To agree to force out anyone else from these rallies would be a capitulation. But an agreement to hold the rally…with different applicants for the event is by no means a disgraceful agreement. This is a success all the same. Yes, not an entire one, but a success.”

The fact that it was the Kremlin that had to ban neo-Nazis parading in Natzbol insignia is not good for freedom of speech but they could have been excluded from protesting alongside other members The Other Russia before the Kremlin acted as it did whilst maintaining that they thought it was wrong.

It did not need to give Limonov a platform but it did. It could have upheld opposition to the banning of Limonov's party whilst refusing to associate with directly with him or, most obviously, by expelling him completely.

Yet The Other Russia has never condemned Limonov because he was useful in mobilising xenophobia and far right nationalist against Putin in an attempt to out rival him in his nationalist appeal. Limonov is leading figure in The Other Russia. By refusing to take a moral stance on this until forced by the Kremlin's tactics, The Other Russia has shown its cynicism.

Clearly, The Other Russia certainly now has little moral high ground from which to prate about human rights if it has as one of its key backers a man classified as a Fascist. Nor do those who fail to challenge oligarch power such as Kovalev. If this is the future of "liberalism" in Russia, then liberalism has no future there.

Now Kovalev claims that "he loves his country". So much so that he supports in an online student rag called The Free Pint those who fake indignation about the Russian masses and those who are aching to free them by drawing gigantic penises on drawbridges in Moscow. How radical.How transgressive. How likely to bring about beneficial change in Russia.

He opines, in an article written under the name The Angry Russian,

Even when we’re not fighting the bloodiest war in history or staging a revolution against whatever corrupt, unelected government that is lining its pockets with our taxes, the people of Russia have never really known the quiet life of prosperous Western countries. Save for the tiny elite, of course, who keep their money in Switzerland and kids in private schools in London.

But there’s one thing that we do really well: that’s sticking it to The Man in various creative ways. Radical political art in Russia has been flourishing since the early 90s.

That reads rather like a self-promotional corporate advertisement spiel. Yet Designer revolutionaries like Kovalev have no real chance of influencing anybody: the tactics of "young democrats" are pure 1968: to enrage the authorities and gain PR coups and portray Putin's Russia as some authoritarian nightmare.

The absence of real political analysis is the preserve of spoilt brats who think it is witty and clever to indulge in such banal pranks as The Angry Russian Phallus, which fakes indignation and a fake idealism that sees Russians as being too materialistic under Putin and not caring for freedom whilst having nothing to say about neoliberal shock therapy.

Old dissidents such as Solzhenitsyn too complained about the materialism of the New Russians but obviously would not approve either of the kind of nihilism exhibited in the so-called "performance art" of the poseurs who think unfurling a banner over the Mausoleum in Red Square stating Fuck You is particularly intelligent.

Designer revolutionaries like Kovalev have no real chance of influencing anybody in Russia, though he can play to a fawning gallery in the West. The tactics of "young democrats" in Eastern Europe are pure 1968: to enrage the authorities, get disproportionate reactions and gain PR coups in presenting Putin's Russia as some quasi-Soviet authoritarian nightmare.

The absence of real political analysis is equally as true in neighbouring Belarus where students, when they aren't holding up placards supporting the US invasion of Iraq, are trying on futile pranks which the authorities play into the hands of by trying to ban instead of just ignoring them.

Rather than offering a moral critique of Putin's regime or, indeed, the oligarchs, the nexus of money and privilege has led students to advance Russia as a trendy fight through "artistic collectives" and coming out with specious designer propaganda. Pure self promotion with minimal artistic merit. And boring too.

This is proved by looking at The First Pint's website when Kovalev opines on Russian history and culture ( after first feigning concern for the hungry masses ),

....it became apparent that nothing had really changed, and the content and satisfied life was still an illusion. Scratch the surface – and you still saw a country on the verge of hunger riots, with an incredibly corrupt and ineffective government on all levels and, as of recently, rising religious fundamentalism . The correct artistic response? To draw a gigantic penis.

Wow, now that's really going to get bread on the table and challenge the power of the rich and raise the living standards of Russia's poor isn't it ? Why did it become "apparent" that "nothing had changed" only under Putin and not under the radical market experiment under Yeltsin and with the approval of the IMF ?

A lot of things actually changed in the 1990s, such as the massive collapse of living standards and a plummeting life expectancy. Clearly, the arty Voina group does not have such a great memory of such trivial events as that. Perhaps a gigantic penis on a drawbridge should be better remembered.

The collective behind the most hilarious and ballsy artistic stunt is called Voina, or War, and they’re also behind the recent rise of radical political action that seems to draw much more attention than conventional protests which inevitably end in everybody being batoned down and arrested. Well, of course, you also can’t expect courteous treatment from the police when you paint a massive penis on a drawbridge that faces the windows of the most powerful law enforcement agency, but still the latter definitely gets your point across much better than standing on a square with placards. Alexey Plutser, the group’s ideologist and spokesperson, says: “What we are doing is not trying to communicate with the power. We are just shoving a dick in its face. A dick that is 65 meters tall, 23 meters wide and weighs about 400,000 tonnes.”

Hilarious stuff.