"I would be happy if the participants in these demonstrations received at least $1,000 each from the United States, as this would have torn a substantial hole, over $100 million, in the U.S. budget."

       Polls show that the structure of Russian society changed in late 2009 and in 2010, leading to the appearance of a new social majority. The majority of Russians struggled to earn enough to buy food in the early 1990s, or to buy clothes in the late 1990s, but now a relative majority of Russians, slightly over 50%, earn enough for both food and clothes. Some 16%-17% of Russians can be described as middle-class consumers, meaning that they can pay for durables from their current income, without having to dip into their savings or take out loans.

       Nearly two-thirds of Russians have escaped the survival paradigm. They have the time and opportunity now to look around and think about what they like and don’t like, about their future and that of their children. When this happens, there is a dramatic increase in what society expects from the state, with people moving away from the “so long there is no war” formula to thinking “we deserve to live better.” The Russian state is not in a position to satisfy these demands, and this explains the protests that were sparked when the electorate, this new social majority, saw the results of the elections falsified. Going out to vote, they probably felt like true citizens of their country for the first time, which is most likely why they were so deeply shocked at what happened. Essentially, the situation was simply that the Russian state dealt the Russian people an unforgivable insult.

       Alleged election fraud was the main target of the protests. Furthermore, fraud has its various roots and causes. It is likely that over a hundred thousand people went to Bolotnaya Square because they feel a sense of outrage at the current political system. The most clearly formulated and the loudest cry at the demonstration was “Enough!”. A system in which corruption, theft, lies and violence are facts of everyday life, and where anyone publicly expressing dissatisfaction is automatically branded “a traitor and American spy” cannot operate efficiently in the 21st century or win the support of the people who know their ABCs.

       I would be happy if the participants in these demonstrations received at least $1,000 each from the United States, as this would have torn a substantial hole, over $100 million, in the U.S. budget. But in fact accusations of espionage and collusion with the U.S. State Department are pure malice, an attempt to accuse people with self-respect of every single mortal sin going. The critics seem to be saying, “If you don’t consider yourself a slave, you are an enemy of the people.”

       Of course, there is the significant risk that liberal fundamentalists will steal the idea, and use it to entrench their dominance over the economy, but those gathered in Bolotnaya Square are not likely to support any of Russia’s professional politicians, be they representatives of opposition parties in the State Duma or the unregistered opposition.

       At the moment the protest leader is blogger Alexei Navalny. Other potential leaders are presidium member of A Just Russia’s Central Council Oksana Dmitriyeva (if her own colleagues don’t get rid of her first), and Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov, and then there is Yevgeniya Chirikova, leader of the campaign to defend the Khimki Forest, who occupies the same niche as Navalny but stands a step or two behind him, and Gennady Gudkov, deputy head of the A Just Russia party in the State Duma. However, Gudkov, the only prominent politician in the Duma to have protested against the election results, seemed weak at the Bolotnaya Square demonstration. He could only become a leader of this nascent protest movement if A Just Russia, the LDPR and the Communist Party surrender their mandates, as he has suggested, and repeat elections are held.

       The fight is currently being waged for slogans which could help embolden popular protests. A new politically conscious nation, a nation of people with self-respect, was born in the Bolotnaya and Revolution Square protests. Those meetings were attended by both nationalists and anti-fascists, sexual minorities and active Orthodox believers, who did not quarrel with each other or dredge up old grudges. Instead, they came together against United Russia and Vladimir Putin. A political nation has been born, but its future remains unclear.

       Outwardly, nothing serious has happened, with small fry encouraged to attend yet another unsanctioned rally in Manezhnaya Square. But the issue is that over the past 20 years the state done its best to prevent Russian people from coming together and from sensing their unity. This is what happened. They have passed the point of no return. The public protest movement may roll back a little, but if Putin appoints himself president next March using the same scheme which his subordinates used to appoint their preferred candidates to the State Duma, he will turn from being the puppet master in the theater that is the Russian parliament, into a mere impostor. This would be a national catastrophe and the blame would be laid not at Nemtsov’s or Kasyanov’s door, but at the feet of Putin himself.

       Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.