Levada Center releases report on the protest movement ‘without a plan’

Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Nathan Toohey – October 3, 2012

The independent Levada Center polling agency has released an analytical research paper on potential future scenarios for the protest movement. The research was carried out based on interviews with the leaders of the opposition and rally participants, also incorporating data from public opinion polls. The research was conducted with the support of the U.S. Congress-funded National Endowment for Democracy organization.

Possible protest resurgence

The report warned that although public protests may be dying down and could cease altogether for some period of time, they could return with increased ferocity.

“The mass protests clearly showed the internal contradictions of the Russian political system,” said the Levada report. “The deliberate destruction of civilian structures which provided for peaceful resolutions of events on this past occasion … has increased the likelihood that the next inevitable surge of public discontent will be less manageable and more violent.”

According to the Levada Center, there have recently appeared three or four possible scenarios for the development of the protest movement in Russia.

“You can talk about three or four lines of development for the protest movement: observation, political protest, civil protest, including the youth-orientated Occupy movement.”

Leaderless movement

The Levada Center said that at present there was no single “super-leader” or “mega structure” representing an alternative to the country’s current leadership, “but a colorful, competitive, public political field.”

The vast differences in the disparate views of the various public movements participating in the protests and these groups’ strong dislike of one another meant that the opposition leaders had to tone down their objectionable political stances to encourage unity.

“So, Alexei Navalny was forced to temper his nationalist rhetoric, Sergei Udaltsov publicly declared he would review his relationship to Stalin,” read the report.

The vast majority of surveyed leaders and ordinary members of the protest movement agree that no change from the top is possible in Russia. “There is a consensus that change can only come from below under pressure. The state machine is much stronger than the protesters,” said the report

“The lack of a clear program of action is today one of the main problems for the protest movement. So far, there is no leader or party that has a ‘clear plan,'” concluded the report.