Protests in Russia Far East rock Putin government
https://themilitant.com/2020/08/08/protests-in-russia-far-east-rock-putin-government/
BY ROY LANDERSEN
Vol. 84/No. 32
August 17, 2020
ASSOCIATED PRESS/IGOR VOLKOV
Tens of thousands of working people in Khabarovsk, a city of 600,000 in
Russia’s Far East, demonstrated Aug. 1, above, over the Kremlin’s July 9
arrest of elected Provincial Gov. Sergei Furgal. The protests have
continued for weeks, initially calling for Furgal’s release and
reinstatement, but now also demanding the resignation of Russian
President Vladimir Putin. This is the most sustained political protest
movement during Putin’s 20-year rule.
Putin just organized a plebiscite that allows him to remain in office
until 2036. Toilers there face a deepening capitalist economic crisis,
exacerbated by the fall of oil prices, Washington’s sanctions and
Moscow’s ineffectual response to the coronavirus epidemic. The marches
have not been attacked by the police, unlike smaller protests led by
Putin’s more traditional opponents in Moscow and other large cities in
the west.
“This is not Moscow, this is not St. Petersburg. This is the Far East,”
Zoya, a 15-year-old student, told the Aug. 2 Financial Times. “People
here are different and we don’t want to be told what to do by Moscow.”
“We are the power here,” chanted thousands as they marched through the
center of the former capital of Russia’s sprawling hinterland along the
Pacific coast. The Khabarovsk Krai region is seven time zones ahead of
Moscow and stretches from the border with China to the Arctic. After
Furgal’s election, Putin had the capital of the Far Eastern Federal
District moved to Vladivostok.
Furgal humiliated Putin’s candidate in the elections two years ago. The
revival of charges against him, that he organized the killing of rivals
in business conflicts almost two decades ago, whether true or not, is
widely seen as politically motivated.
Many of the careers of Russia’s current political leaders — including
Putin — grew out of fierce battles between competing cartels seeking
wealth and power, looting the old state industries after the fall of the
Soviet Union.
Furgal’s arrest is part of the Kremlin’s rolling crackdown since the
plebiscite. Turnout in the Far East was among the lowest in the country.
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