Orange Reaction: What the Kremlin Learned (and What It Didn’t Learn)
from the Orange Revolution
Theses
1. Introduction
a. Russia’s political situation in 2004
Vladimir Putin’s arrival in the Kremlin in 2000 was marked by two parallel processes. On one hand, as Russia was recovering from the painful economic reforms and the crisis of 1998, it looked to reassert its role in the world. On the other hand, this restoration of the nation’s economic power was accompanied by Putin’s increasingly authoritarian and reactionary political reforms. By 2004, the Kremlin had under its effective control the Parliament and the judiciary, nearly all regional governments and all nation-wide TV channels. After arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003 the “oligarchs” never dared to oppose the “party’s line.” The political opposition had been either marginalized or reduced to clientele groups competing for favors from the regime and not seriously challenging it. The situation appeared stable and Putin met almost no resistance in his reelection in March 2004 or when he abolished gubernatorial elections in the Fall of that year.
b. Brief overview of Ukrainian politics and events in 2004
Putin’s system appeared so efficient and stable that it became a model for autocrats in the region and beyond. Ukraine, with its deep historical, cultural, economic and political ties with Russia, looked like a particularly good playground to copy its neighbor’s arrangements. Leonid Kuchma who had ruled the country since 1994 also enjoyed domination in the media, had strong influence over courts and governors, and boasted a majority in the Rada. Of course, his level, and efficiency, of control over political and societal institutions was far lower than Putin’s. Ukrainian society was more fragmented and polycentric, with antagonism between Ukrainian- and Russian-speaking parts, greater diversity of the party system, and less tamed businessmen. Still, the soft authoritarianism in Ukraine was modeled on that of the Kremlin and appeared safe and well-rooted. No surprise that the consultants that Kuchma and Viktor Yanukovich had hired from Moscow based their advice on Russia’s “best practices” of “managed democracy.”
c. Kremlin’s involvement in the Orange Revolution
However, this seemingly invincible system was shaken in the course of several weeks by the Orange Revolution. Both Ukrainian authorities and their Russian advisors did not expect the election to go off script and were unprepared to face popular protests. Events in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities
demonstrated the vulnerability of methods of political control used in the post-Soviet space.
likely that the decision was made by a part of the Ukrainian political and economic elite), it endorsed the Prime Minister and put its weight behind his candidacy.
Kremlin’s involvement in Ukrainian politics was a geopolitical choice. For Vladimir Putin, Russia’s “near abroad” (that includes former Soviet republics minus Baltic States) had always been an area of strategic interests. Moscow sought to both strengthen its political and economic influence in these countries and to repel West’s attempts, real or perceived, to do the same. The question is why did the Kremlin support Victor Yanukovich?
Russian journalist Andrey Kolesnikov asked himself this question during the electoral campaign: “Why [do Russian authorities] so desperately, to sharp pain in the eyes, to aching joints, support Mr.
Yanukovich in his quest for the seat of the President of Ukraine? Why face such a risk if you know that his opponent’s rating is higher? Indeed, Mr. Yuschenko can win, unless he is stopped, and it seems he will certainly win. It means they know that he will not. It means they understand that he will be
stopped.” Then Kolesnikov goes on to discuss two possible scenarios of Yuschenko being “stopped” (the article was written in September 2004, before the first round): invalidation of Yuschenko’s bid and electoral fraud. The journalist predicts that the latter will cause mass demonstrations and, ultimately, decisive reaction from the international community.
Given the deep involvement of the Kremlin in Ukrainian politics, it strikes how they apparently
misunderstood the situation in the country. Putin himself badly damaged his reputation by infamously congratulating Victor Yanukovich twice on his “victory.” These telegrams, signed by the person who usually is very cautious and wary of his image, demonstrate both the importance given by Moscow to the Ukrainian elections and its ignorance of the actual situation in the country. Even one day before the Supreme Court nullified election results, Putin kept voicing support for Kuchma’s position that a new vote was unacceptable.
Did the Kremlin realize a possibility of mass protests? There are indications that it did, but it
underestimated the scale and persistence of demonstrators. In October 2004, Pavlovsky predicted that “in a crisis case, Yanukovich [would] almost certainly win” because “the man in the street, both in towns and in villages, will swing toward the authorities.”
Success of the Orange Revolution shocked the Kremlin and forced them to reevaluate their domestic policies. Their goal was now to prevent similar events from happening in Russia.
2. Propaganda concepts
On one hand, success of the Orange Revolution had demonstrated the limits of propaganda. Kuchma had had control over most TV channels and his administration had been instructing all major news outlets on how to cover stories using weekly guides called “temniks.” But it did not prevent Yuschenko from becoming the most popular politician well before his campaign even started nor did this form of censorship succeed in defusing the mass protest after November 22. This failure of “television technologies” was an important lesson that the Russian government had to learn.
However, mass media and especially TV were a major part of Kremlin’s response to the event in Ukraine. It was only natural for Putin’s administration to use this already available resource. Apparently, the idea was to use it preemptively, before any significant opposition party, figure or idea even gets widely known.
a. Representation of the Orange Revolution
The first reaction of the Russian government’s propaganda to the Orange Revolution was to discredit this event—and the movement it represented or created—per se. The argument was trivial: If most
Russians believe that the Orange Revolution is a bad thing, they will not want to organize or support anything similar at home.
Publicity attack against the Orange Revolution used several main themes (all together or separately):
“The Orange Revolution was orchestrated by hostile Western governments; its participants were
either paid foreign agents or brainwashed fools”
“The Revolution’s proponents were nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes, etc.”
“The Orange Revolution was a catastrophic, chaotic, dangerous, etc. event that destabilized the country and put it on the verge of a civil war”
“The Orange Revolution was doomed to fail because of infighting, corruption and incompetence
of the new government”
b. Anti-Americanism
Another important part of the picture that official propaganda was painting after 2004 was suspicion or even open hostility toward the West. As was mentioned earlier, the Orange Revolution was depicted as a coup d’état organized by the United States and Western Europe. However, the ultimate goal of this alleged conspiracy was Russia. Developed countries, the narrative went, were interested in Russian natural resources and wanted to install their puppet government in Moscow to be able to exploit them. Maidan then was just an episode of, or a prelude to, a large-scale covert operation aimed at changing Russia’s leadership. The Manifesto of the main pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi, which was adopted in March 2005, declared directly: “Across the area of the former USSR, under the cover of slogans about democracy and freedom, a great geopolitical game is being played by the West, with the goal of ‘extruding’ Russia from global politics and bringing Russia under external rule.”1
This propaganda strategy might have several goals. One was to use patriotic and nationalist feelings to drive people around Vladimir Putin and his regime, which posed to be the only defense against the
mysterious Western intervention. Introduction of an external enemy is always a powerful political tool, but in Russia’s case it was reinforced by the relatively recent Cold War memories as well as by the global anti-American sentiment of the time connected with the war in Iraq.
c. Stability
One of the main arguments that the Kremlin used against proponents of an Orange Revolution scenario was that it would destabilize the political and economic situation in the country. Stability was declared a major achievement of Vladimir Putin’s rule that had to be preserved at almost any cost. It was
contrasted with the “turbulent 90s” with their economic crises, high crime rate and political uncertainty. Any attempt to change the political system would cause sufferings for masses of people, the argument went, and even an imperfect but stable government was better than revolutionary chaos. While this fundamental argument against any reform certainly sounds credible, it was often exaggerated even more as pro-Kremlin speakers associated the non-violent Orange Revolution with the bloody uprisings of Russia’s past. Indeed, “revolution” in the Russian history has traditionally been associated with the 1917 Bolshevik coup and the following Civil War. Few people would find the idea of a domestic armed struggle appealing, especially in the period of a steady economic growth in mid-2000s.
d. Sovereign democracy
The two abovementioned views of the Orange Revolution and the “Orange scenario” in general—as a Western anti-Russian plot and as a dangerous upheaval—were integrated and reinforced by the concept of “sovereign democracy.” It was attributed to Vladislav Surkov, Deputy Head of the Presidential
Administration in charge of domestic policies and the author of the complex political system that kept Vladimir Putin in power for over a decade. “Sovereign democracy” replaced the less prominent, and already compromised, term of “managed democracy” but kept much of what it described. This concept put national sovereignty in the focus as opposed to the understanding of democracy as a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Each nation has its own way to democracy, according to this theory, and is free to choose whatever set of political institutions fits its traditions and national character. There is no universal model of democracy and any attempt to impose any such models on other countries amounts to meddling in their internal affairs. Basically, any form of government could be called a “sovereign democracy” as long as it had the popular support. This concept, which may be viewed as an extreme case of cultural relativism, served as a “theoretical base” for both Kremlin’s description of Russia as a democracy and its defense against West’s criticism.
e. Discrediting domestic opposition
An important practical goal of the propaganda campaign was to discredit the Russian domestic opposition, especially those groups and leaders that were trying to follow the Ukrainian example. The Kremlin used its domination of the media to preemptively attack any Russian “want-to-be yuschenko.” The most visible and uncontrolled figures including Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Eduard Limonov, Boris Nemtsov were accused of being corrupt, paid agents of foreign powers, fascists, etc. This
any threat of having a popular and uncontrolled opposition politician by the time of 2008 Presidential race. In this way, the Kremlin was trying to avoid the Ukrainian situation where Viktor Yanukovich had to compete with the already popular Viktor Yuschenko.
3. Political organizing
a. Absorbing active youth
Many accounts of the Orange Revolution focused on the prominent role of youth groups in organizing the protest movement. Most observers mentioned Pora (which in fact was two groups, the so-called
Black Pora and Yellow Pora, working in parallel) as the hard core of the Maidan. The other “civic
campaigns,” as these organizations were referred to in Ukraine, were less known in Russia: Znayu, Chysta Ukraina or Studenska Hvylya. It was obvious that in order to prevent the Orange Revolution, the regime had to win over the hearts and minds of the Russian youth—or at least to prevent them from
independently organizing.
The Kremlin’s involvement with the youth after the Orange Revolution had the goal to coopt all young active people. In early 2005, the then-leader of a notorious pro-Putin group Iduschie Vmeste (“Walking Together”) and ally of Surkov Vasily Yakemenko began to tour the country and meet with local non-political activists and the ambitious youth. Yakemenko and his aides promised career opportunities and financial support to youth projects in exchange for their organizers joining the new structure called
Nashi. Many of these projects were not political in nature and some of them might be even unpopular with local authorities. The goal of this strategy was not to immediately make these activists ardent regime supporters, but at least to prevent the opposition from allying with them. Enormous financial resources, generally favorable media coverage, and patronage of the Kremlin allowed the Nashi to attract a significant number of active provincial youth who might otherwise join the ranks of protest groups. Over time, many of them either began to share Nashi’s pro-Kremlin, anti-liberal stance (thanks to Seliger camp trainings, peer pressure, and incentives of career growth) or got disappointed in all activism and dropped out permanently. However, Nashi’s reputation was tarnished from the very beginning by their close ties with Iduschie Vmeste and the Kremlin, by their alleged role in violent attacks against opposition groups and by the widespread image of a Nashi activist as a cynical, corrupt careerist. In any case, despite some early expectations, very few people would defect the Nashi to become a Kremlin-independent political or civil activist. In this sense, the group was an effective, if not so efficient, tool of the regime.
Nashi leaders’ attempt to combine the Kremlin’s conservative political agenda and the youth’s desire for greater social mobility. As Jussi Lassila puts it, Nashi was “a state-conformist and regime-maintaining social movement [that] trie[d] to conduct a ‘ritual-like strategy à l’Orange’”.
Nashi was not the only group, which was created by the regime to counter a possible “Orange scenario.” Other organizations with similar goals were created, often with sponsorship of regional governments (like Moscow Oblast’s Mestnye) or that tried to occupy specific niches (e.g., Rossiya Molodaya, which specialized in direct actions against opposition groups, see below). The real reason for creation of such groups appears to have been competition for government funding and demonstration of loyalty.
b. Controlling physical space
The Orange Revolution’s most immediate part was of course the round-the-clock protest rally on Maidan Nezalezhnosty (as well as other places in Kiev and some other Ukrainian cities). By controlling the central square of the capital, protesters demonstrated their power and put strong pressure on the authorities. The huge, peaceful crowd made it too costly for the regime to disperse the protest and forced it into negotiations and, eventually, surrender. In order to prevent this from happening in Russia, the Kremlin wanted to make sure that it would completely control the physical space in Moscow.
This could be done in two ways. First, police are the conventional state institution entitled and trained to control, prevent or disperse protests. While the Constitution and the federal law guarantees freedom of assembly and only requires demonstrators to notify local authorities of a planned protest, the real interpretation and implementation of the law was different and became more restrictive over time. This evolution is apparent in the fate of major protests in 2006—2010: Dissenters’ Marches and Strategy 31. The first Dissenters’ March was allowed to take place in Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square in December 2006; the very same square was persistently denied to the opposition from December 2008 onwards. Although the law puts no restrictions on holding marches, in 2005 it became almost impossible to organize one in Moscow, except for two or three national holidays in a year. Riot police, which previously had been used only to guard the biggest rallies, soon became a familiar feature of even small pickets; violent dispersion of opposition rallies also became more common. From 2005, demonstrations and then pickets were fenced by the police and all their participants were subjected to search, formally for security reasons. All these and other measures not only allowed the regime to prepare for a breakup of a potential “maidan,” but also made it harder for ordinary citizens to overcome fear and join protests.
However, use of violence by the police against peaceful protesters undermines regime’s legitimacy. It may be acceptable in stable times, but can become too costly during political turmoil. Moreover, police officers are not guaranteed to always remain loyal to the government or willing to participate in
repressions against their fellow citizens. Therefore, a more “civic” force had to be in place to use in these situations. Nashi and similar organizations were considered capable of fulfilling this task. They had to occupy the key squares in central Moscow before the opposition could launch its protests. It has been speculated also that some paramilitary groups within or associated with the Nashi might be preparing to physically fight demonstrators.
Nashi and the other pro-Kremlin groups did not wait idly for a crisis situation. They were actively
involved in the Kremlin’s efforts to contain and discredit the opposition. Their actions ranged from public large-scale rallies to provocations to physical assaults on their political opponents. Their formal
independence from the government gave them a convenient position for criticism of Kremlin’s
adversaries. They were also used in attacks against the media that were deemed “dangerous,” like their campaign against Kommersant newspaper or Yakemenko’s alleged involvement in the beating of journalist Oleg Kashin. In addition to physical and information attacks, the Kremlin also used hackers to put down websites or steal valuable information of opposition groups, human rights activists, and independent media.
4. Legislation and government policies a. Changes to the electoral system
The Orange Revolution is often classified as an “electoral revolution” or a “breakthrough election.” Indeed, 2004 Presidential elections were the backdrop, the main theme, and the pretext for the popular protest. Arguably, it was also a necessary factor that made regime change possible. Therefore, the importance of elections and electoral system is impossible to overestimate. The Kremlin realized it and made electoral reform a key part of its response to the “Orange menace.”
Already before the first protesters went to Maidan, Putin had abolished gubernatorial elections and single-mandate district elections into the State Duma. The next step was to ban electoral blocs, which made cooperation between various opposition parties extremely hard, raising the threshold of votes needed to have a party represented in the Duma from 5% to 7%, and putting the whole party system under effective control of the Presidential Administration. The latter included raising the minimum number of party members from 10,000 to 50,000 and introduction of a number of additional barriers. As a result, the number of political parties in Russia dropped from 44 in 2003 to 15 in 2007 to only seven by 2011. No new political party was registered in that period without an explicit endorsement of Surkov.
The new situation deepened the gap between the “systemic” and “non-systemic” opposition parts. The former became even more dependent on the Kremlin’s goodwill and had to follow unwritten rules in order to keep their registration (that is, the ability to field candidates in elections). The latter, on the other hand, have lost almost any hope to found a party and win an election and saw street protest as the only way to achieve their goals.
b. Legal restrictions for the civil society: activists, protesters, NGOs
disloyal activists). However, this did not stop cooperation between the two “parts” of the civil society. On the contrary, groups like United Civil Front, Oborona, and The Other Russia appeared and grew that tried to build such cross-sectorial coalitions. The Kremlin then used its control over the parliament to pass new legislation.
One of the most significant changes was the so-called “anti-extremist legislation,” which consisted of amendments to the Law of Countering Extremist Activities, the Criminal Code, the Code of
Administrative Misdemeanors, etc. It had a very broad and vague definition of extremism, which included “incitement of hatred or enmity against a social group” and was widely seen as a tool to silent criticism. Indeed, this legislation was increasingly used to prosecute bloggers and political activists and to ban entire groups (like the National-Bolshevik Party in 2007). Other laws made more complicated operations of NGOs (though some of the restrictions were later lifted during Dmitry Medvedev’s term, only to be restored in an even more radical way in 2012) and the media.
c. Using government agencies against opposition and human rights groups
Police as well as the army are oftentimes seen as the last line of defense of authoritarian regimes against popular discontent. As mentioned earlier, OMON (Special Purpose Police Units) were increasingly used to control and in many cases disperse opposition rallies. Indeed, since 2005 and especially after the first Dissenters’ Marches in early 2007, forceful disruption of protests became a routine task for the police. This was not, however, the only use of coercive agencies for political purposes.
After the Orange Revolution, police units specializing in prevention of organized crime and counter-terrorism were tasked with controlling activities of non-systemic opposition organizations, especially youth ones, often in cooperation with FSB (Federal Security Service). In 2008, special Anti-Extremist Centers (also known as “E” Centers) were established within the police for this purpose. Level of harassment of government (both local and federal) critics grew considerably because of these changes, especially in some parts of the country. In addition to criminal cases against some activists (usually related to charges of extremism), these units were believed to be responsible for surveillance and infiltration of political groups.
5. Conclusion
a. View from a post-2011 perspective
years after the triumph of the Orange Revolution and two years after its (formal, at least) defeat with the return of Viktor Yanukovich, “the specter of Maidan” was still haunting Russia—despite best efforts of the Putin’s regime.
b. Lessons learned and missed
The Kremlin learned a lot of lessons from the Orange Revolution. For a long time, they were able to keep the opposition under control or marginalized and fragmented, avoid serious political and economic crises that would threaten their grip on power, prevent real competitors from even participating in elections, coopt or weaken potential troublemakers among civic activists, etc. They were more effective in consolidating their power than Kuchma and his government had been. Moreover, one may notice that the Kremlin was often more creative and/or effective than most opposition groups in using “Orange” methods. This is not surprising: on one hand, the regime had human and material resources
incomparable to those of the opposition. On the other hand, it could not simply copy Ukrainian experience. To survive, the Kremlin had to learn both from mistakes of their counterparts in Kiev and from successes of Yuschenko’s supporters.
However, the regime eventually failed to completely prevent a strong Orange-like movement from appearing in Russia. Many tools used by the regime were inevitably flawed. For instance, Nashi’s bad reputation seriously limited their ability to attract capable, educated and self-respecting young citizens, especially in bigger cities where other options existed for success. These are exactly the people who became the core of the White Ribbon movement. Brutal treatment of protesters by the police might discourage a lot of people from joining street rallies but also badly damaged regime’s legitimacy. The effective destruction of the party system prevented opposition leaders from becoming members of the Duma but at the same time it destroyed the system’s ability to adapt.
All the actions of the Kremlin only had a limited impact regardless of the amount of resources invested. The society was maturing and overcoming the shock of instability and crises of the previous decades; social and civic activism was becoming more common and it could not forever be held within the limits set by the powers that be. These hidden tensions opened up in December 2011 in the streets of Moscow. While the Kremlin learned most practical lessons of the Orange Revolution well, it never managed to cope with fundamental problems of its regime.
