As Moscow braces for the next major opposition rally planned for February 4, the regime's administrative resources have apparently kicked into gear. Reports in the Russian media abound of local officials pressuring citizens to show greater support for the government particularly at the rival pro-Putin rally scheduled for the same day. If indeed true, this is only the latest Kremlin ploy to keep people off the streets that highlights Russia's ongoing affliction with official corruption.
Gazeta.ru reported on Monday that Moscow schoolteachers across several different districts claimed they had been pressured by their superiors to attend the rival rally, sponsored by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's All-Russia People's Front and deliberately scheduled at the same time as the opposition protest, but at Poklonnaya Gora in western Moscow. Local union officials said they received numerous complaints from teachers about mysterious phone calls urging them to come out and show their support for the government.
"Everyone retold the same story: a phone call came in from the director of the department demanding to establish a presence at the meeting of about ten to15 colleagues," the co-chair of the Interregional Union of Education Workers Vsevolod Lukhovitsky told Kommersant on January 31. "They told the teachers that if they don't go, there would be problems at school."
The incident was followed by a similar attempt to sway public opinion ahead of the protest for fair elections, in which Moscow city officials urged media outlets to cover the pro-Putin rally in a more favorable light. According to Gazeta.ru, a memo sent from the Moscow Region's Press Ministry instructed journalists to focus on the demonstration's "national character," take fewer comments from officials, and, perhaps most curious, not to transmit the feeling that people had been forced to participate in the rally.
For their part, Moscow officials denied the accusations. Alexander Gavrilov, the spokesman for the local Department of Education, told RIA Novosti that no orders had been issued to teachers, and that the accusations are "all rumors."
Yet regardless, these allegations paint an all-too-familiar picture of politics in post-Soviet Russia, especially under Putin's leadership, when Soviet-era methods of rule have been revived and the state's hand in everyday lives has been increasingly felt. Recent months alone have seen an array of offenses, such as an Izhevsk official threatening to cut funding for a veteran's group if United Russia performed poorly in December's parliamentary elections, or a Volgograd priest urging his congregation ahead of those elections to vote for the ruling party. And although leveraging one's status or public office for personal gain or interests is expressly forbidden by the Russian Criminal Code, it's a crime that is often overlooked in an environment where the rule of law and, more notably, its absence has long been under fire.
Analysts noted there is often a particular pattern in the way administrative pressure is applied. In today's environment, according to Elena Panfilova, the head of Transparency International's Moscow office, there are two major forms of pressure used by directors and administrators toward their employees. The first is an "incentivized approach," in which managers claim that the wellbeing of an organization and certain privileges otherwise afforded it, such as funding, are at stake. The second, Panfilova said, was a more personal approach, in which bosses appeal to people's feelings of sympathy and guilt. "They say: 'Look guys, I don't like this myself, but I don't want to lose my job and if you don't do this it will hurt me personally,'" she said.
Panfilova added, however, that it is difficult to track whether punishments are dished out for perceived disobedience or, what's more, if people even act on the requests from their managers. Yet she noted that there is a certain culture of "silent resistance" among the masses: "The resistance is mostly silent, and that's why it looks like everyone is going to follow orders," she said, "but then [United Russia] secures this low percentage during the elections. So people go and do whatever they want to do, somehow fooling the system."
The whole practice is undoubtedly a holdover from the Soviet era, in which the state ruled above all and citizens were left to find ever more ways to dodge its incredible reach. But for this same reason, some believe Russia's culture of official corruption and administrative pressure may simply be a matter of generational differences. In a January 31 interview with Moskovskie Novosti, the head of Moscow's Department of Culture Sergei Kapkov pointed to Gorky Park Head and former top manager at the Dozhd TV channel Olga Zakharova as an example of a new class of public servants who refuse to conform to the old way. "She is a very progressive woman, very professional," he said. "Can you imagine if someone were to call her and ask her to collect a team and go to vote for United Russia? I'm getting at the fact that new people are forming a new agenda of the day."
Keywords: Russia, Government, Politics - Russia News - Russia
As Moscow braces for the next major opposition rally planned for February 4, the regime's administrative resources have apparently kicked into gear. Reports in the Russian media abound of local officials pressuring citizens to show greater support for the government particularly at the rival pro-Putin rally scheduled for the same day. If indeed true, this is only the latest Kremlin ploy to keep people off the streets that highlights Russia's ongoing affliction with official corruption.
Gazeta.ru reported on Monday that Moscow schoolteachers across several different districts claimed they had been pressured by their superiors to attend the rival rally, sponsored by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's All-Russia People's Front and deliberately scheduled at the same time as the opposition protest, but at Poklonnaya Gora in western Moscow. Local union officials said they received numerous complaints from teachers about mysterious phone calls urging them to come out and show their support for the government.
"Everyone retold the same story: a phone call came in from the director of the department demanding to establish a presence at the meeting of about ten to15 colleagues," the co-chair of the Interregional Union of Education Workers Vsevolod Lukhovitsky told Kommersant on January 31. "They told the teachers that if they don't go, there would be problems at school."
The incident was followed by a similar attempt to sway public opinion ahead of the protest for fair elections, in which Moscow city officials urged media outlets to cover the pro-Putin rally in a more favorable light. According to Gazeta.ru, a memo sent from the Moscow Region's Press Ministry instructed journalists to focus on the demonstration's "national character," take fewer comments from officials, and, perhaps most curious, not to transmit the feeling that people had been forced to participate in the rally.
For their part, Moscow officials denied the accusations. Alexander Gavrilov, the spokesman for the local Department of Education, told RIA Novosti that no orders had been issued to teachers, and that the accusations are "all rumors."
Yet regardless, these allegations paint an all-too-familiar picture of politics in post-Soviet Russia, especially under Putin's leadership, when Soviet-era methods of rule have been revived and the state's hand in everyday lives has been increasingly felt. Recent months alone have seen an array of offenses, such as an Izhevsk official threatening to cut funding for a veteran's group if United Russia performed poorly in December's parliamentary elections, or a Volgograd priest urging his congregation ahead of those elections to vote for the ruling party. And although leveraging one's status or public office for personal gain or interests is expressly forbidden by the Russian Criminal Code, it's a crime that is often overlooked in an environment where the rule of law and, more notably, its absence has long been under fire.
Analysts noted there is often a particular pattern in the way administrative pressure is applied. In today's environment, according to Elena Panfilova, the head of Transparency International's Moscow office, there are two major forms of pressure used by directors and administrators toward their employees. The first is an "incentivized approach," in which managers claim that the wellbeing of an organization and certain privileges otherwise afforded it, such as funding, are at stake. The second, Panfilova said, was a more personal approach, in which bosses appeal to people's feelings of sympathy and guilt. "They say: 'Look guys, I don't like this myself, but I don't want to lose my job and if you don't do this it will hurt me personally,'" she said.
Panfilova added, however, that it is difficult to track whether punishments are dished out for perceived disobedience or, what's more, if people even act on the requests from their managers. Yet she noted that there is a certain culture of "silent resistance" among the masses: "The resistance is mostly silent, and that's why it looks like everyone is going to follow orders," she said, "but then [United Russia] secures this low percentage during the elections. So people go and do whatever they want to do, somehow fooling the system."
The whole practice is undoubtedly a holdover from the Soviet era, in which the state ruled above all and citizens were left to find ever more ways to dodge its incredible reach. But for this same reason, some believe Russia's culture of official corruption and administrative pressure may simply be a matter of generational differences. In a January 31 interview with Moskovskie Novosti, the head of Moscow's Department of Culture Sergei Kapkov pointed to Gorky Park Head and former top manager at the Dozhd TV channel Olga Zakharova as an example of a new class of public servants who refuse to conform to the old way. "She is a very progressive woman, very professional," he said. "Can you imagine if someone were to call her and ask her to collect a team and go to vote for United Russia? I'm getting at the fact that new people are forming a new agenda of the day."