Gallery owner and political strategist Marat Gelman has been living in Montenegro since 2014, where for the fourth time he held the SlovoNovo Forum of Russian Culture in Europe. There, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, cultural figures from both Russia and abroad come to him. In an interview with Konstantin Eggert, Marat Gelman explains that the forum is his attempt to create a cultural platform “outside Putin’s jurisdiction.” The former political strategist and one of the founders of the Foundation for Effective Politics also spoke about how, in his opinion, Putin is like Stalin, what he learns from Lukashenka and whether he is afraid of Navalny, and also speculated about how the authorities translated the protest into an ethical plane.
Konstantin Eggert: Marat, you have been organizing the SlovoNovo Forum of Russian Culture in Europe for several years now. Is this an attempt to create a cultural Russia without Putin?
Marat Gelman: This is an attempt to create a kind of Russian platform outside of Putin’s jurisdiction. Outside of Russia today there are not fragments or scraps of some kind, but a significant part of Russian culture. Our country is literary-centric, but Volodya Sorokin lives in Berlin, (Mikhail – Ed.). Shishkin lives in Switzerland, (Boris – Ed.) Akunin lives in England. We wanted to show that the relationship between the cultural diaspora and the metropolis is not a relationship between a large whole and small breakaway particles, but are two equivalent parts of one cultural space. The difference between our cultural environment and the emigre one is that we have not lost touch. We exhibit, publish in Russia and vice versa, if something bright and interesting happens in Russia, we immediately invite it to us.
– This is for the time being you are allowed to do so.
– I think that when they are banned, something will break, but it will break there, not here. For example, in the history of Russian literature there were periods when all the most important things were published outside of Russia. People of art, our colleagues remain in Russia, because they have the opportunity to communicate with Europe. If they take away this opportunity to interact, it will actually take away the opportunity to pursue a profession, and they will leave.
– You know the Kremlin quite well, you worked with it. What is the goal of the Putin regime for itself today? Why did the repressions suddenly begin, pressure on the opposition and non-governmental organizations? What is the reason for this?
– There is a fundamental answer to the question of what Putin’s problem is, and how it is similar to Stalin’s problem: it is an attempt to constantly prevent any situation. After all, how did the repression come about in the case of Stalin? Let’s say he plans some action, then thinks about who will possibly oppose him, and begins to remove these people, sometimes entire classes. But this very removal turns out to be a more brutal gesture than what he wanted to do. And it turns out that the main action of Stalin was not the reforms that he tried to do, successfully or not – here you can discuss, but the repressions with which he furnished it all. Putin has the same problem. Life is full of accidents, surprises and so on. He tries to get around it. He wants to have everything for sure. Any elections do not give a result for sure, so it is necessary to remove the elections.
– That is, Putin is a reinsurer?
– Yes, and this is his main problem. He wants guarantees. Why (Michael – Ed.) Khodorkovsky should have been imprisoned? One could do all the same. There would be some kind of competition, an element of randomness. No, we’d better plant. We will get a bunch of problems with the West, but the person is guaranteed to be in prison.
– Is Putin really afraid of Navalny?
– It seems to me that this is the wrong word. I think that it is a mistake of Navalny’s team that they use this word. It is easy for Putin to show that he is not afraid of anything. On the contrary, he may be too trusting in his strength. She may let him down at some point, but it seems to me impossible to say that he is afraid.
Detention of a protester with a Smart Vote poster in Moscow in August 2021
– In the last elections, Navalny’s team suggested voting for any person not from United Russia who had a chance of winning. And their opponents said that a boycott was needed. What is your point of view?
“The choice is not boycott or smart voting. There is no alternative. This is a false position. The point is that processes cease to be political, they become ethical. And everyone decides ethical issues personally. The authorities, with the help of repression, translated the issue of the authorities’ protest into an ethical plane. Let’s take a look at a person who lives in Russia and speaks out against the government. It is clear that this is an idealist. This is not an intelligent person who expects to make a career in an opposition party, this is an idealist who, despite the fact that he will have problems, is forced to speak out as he sees fit. And this idealism is the last energy that we still have.
And now you say to these people: “Let’s cheat. Let’s vote smartly. This candidate, of course, is shit, but he is still against United Russia. that today the ethical position is the only platform on which the protest movement is held, and if you expose it to erosion (once I slyly voted for an ardent communist, the second time I cleverly voted for some nationalist), some internal structure of mine is destroyed, that I am such and such, I have such and such convictions. Moreover, it does not affect anything. And since it does not affect anything, the most valuable thing is that a person came and sincerely spoiled the ballot, the second sincerely voted for a candidate who has no chance. ”This, it seems to me, is very important.
During an interview with Marat Gelman
– And how to make such idealists a political force?
– The main thing is to preserve ourselves, because no one, not even Putin, knows what awaits us. And it may turn out that much faster than we think some kind of change of formation will take place. And at this moment, it would be great if the people we love, whom we value, were without difficulties in the biography.
– Can Putin start another war?
– I think yes. I am afraid that they are considering this as one of the ways out. They know how to fight and apparently not bad. In the situation with Ukraine, no one has yet grabbed him by the hand. So I think it can, yes.
– Does Putin learn from Alexander Lukashenko?
– Yes, he is studying or doing some kind of experiments. Perhaps he does not learn from him as a teacher, but from the situation in Belarus. He also looks at her as such an experimental site.
– And what does he learn?
– Putin has two cases: Ukraine and Belarus, Yanukovych and Lukashenko, one was afraid of blood, the other was not afraid of blood. Lukashenka did not manage to create an estate. He rests exclusively on his own bureaucracy, on very close people and on the police. In this sense, Putin has a different situation, he already has some kind of estate that is interested in everything going on as it is now.
– But will Putin be able to take the same measures as Lukashenka?
– No doubt. But it is very important that I haven’t gone yet, there are no repressions yet. He feels this border. As it seems to me, it still cannot be called repression.
– Many will disagree.
– Their strategy today is a demonstration. Having imprisoned Navalny, they show us what will happen to us if we act this way and that way. This is targeted repression in order to send a signal to everyone else: everyone should be afraid. When (Vladislav – Ed.) Surkov was like this: do not mind, be more or less loyal and everything will be fine with you. When (Vyacheslav – Ed.) It is no longer enough for Volodin not to be against it: be with us, be part of our strength and then everything will be fine with you. In these times, everyone should be afraid. Moreover, the closer they are to Putin, the more they should be afraid.
– And how will the Putin era end?
– It seems to me that they feel very safe now and they are right in this confidence that today nothing is visible that can corrode them. Of course we are looking at (Spanish leader Francisco – Ed.) Franco, on how the transformation in Spain was delayed compared to all other countries until the dictator died. I see this as a positive scenario for the development of events.
– Will it sit until the very end, and then there will be a peaceful transition?
– Yes. They have to transfer power to someone. They created this estate state in order to pass it on to their children: Putin’s daughters, Lavrov’s sons, and so on. But their children want a different country, not the one that their fathers are building. Therefore, historically, paradoxically, Putin is doomed. Maybe during this time they will create a longevity pill, but I think they will not.
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