PREFACE AND
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing a book about activists, many of whom are defending unpopular causes, is a hazardous undertaking. And when the author is an outsider, albeit a sympathetic outsider, and the topic is defending rights in Russia today, the hazards increase. Some of the activists will feel I lack an understanding of ‘their Russia’, that my criticisms are misplaced; others, observers from the wider community, that I am too sympathetic towards them. Some Western scholars will argue that I overestimate the significance of the human rights community; others, including activists, will take issue with my view of human rights. Perhaps too I should have written one book for my Russian colleagues, another for the Western reader. All I can do here is to acknowledge my debt to all who have contributed, one way or another, to this book, a book that crosses disciplines, has elements of a personal memoir, is written not only for students and scholars but also for a wider readership of those with an interest in Russia or human rights.

A further acknowledgement is in order, and that is to the legacy left by a lifetime engagement with Russia. Whether that is for good or bad, is another matter. In generation terms I fall into the category known in Russia as ‘the people of the sixties’, those who were young adults when Khrushchev advanced his destalinization campaign in 1956, and that inescapably has a bearing on the way I viewed and view the changes since 1991. I first visited Russia in 1959, as a student, then spent 1961–3 as a visiting graduate student at the labour law department, in the law faculty at Leningrad (now St Petersburg) University. Neither politics nor sociology existed as a discipline then (nor, one might add, did sociology exist at Oxford University). This was the time of the New Left. I chose the settlement of labour disputes as my thesis topic. I spent time in the factories and in the district courts. Thereafter I studied and taught Soviet politics and history in the UK and in the USA, returning for research periods to Leningrad.

In 1990 Russia opened up, unbelievably, and for the first time I could travel where I pleased, stay where I pleased, talk to anyone and everyone. With British Academy support, and academic leave, I spent most of 1991–4 researching the changing political scene, travelling from Siberia to Tatarstan, from the Urals to Krasnodar in the south, Arkhangelsk in the north, and back to St Petersburg. I kept a diary. Sometimes my path crossed with individuals who would subsequently set up a human rights organization, but I do not remember participating in any discussions on human rights in Russia before 1995. But, then, I had never been particularly interested in the topic. I had never read the Universal Declaration, nor the conventions. Membership of Amnesty International did not include discussions of human rights, only those of political prisoners. As for so many in Russia at the beginning of the nineties, it was the democratic movement and its opponents, the new political parties, and the economic collapse that occupied all my attention.

This was the baggage I took with me when in 1995 I resigned my post at Oxford University and abandoned both academe and St Petersburg for Moscow – to head the Ford Foundation’s new Russian office, and with responsibility for a programme which included supporting Russian organizations in the field of human rights and legal reform. I had a steep learning curve to climb. My greatest debt is to the activists themselves, to those I came to know from 1995 onwards. For the next seven years I learnt all I could by listening, attending meetings, events, observing NGOs, judges, prison officers in action, making grants and seeing what happened to them, and travelling the country. To list all to whom I owe a debt is impossible. Some, sadly, who made significant contributions to the new human rights community, and who taught me much, have died: Valery Abramkin, Olga Alekseeva, Leonid Gordon, Alexander Gorelik, Veniamin Ioffe, Boris Pustintsev, Yury Shmidt, Mikhail Timenchik. A deep bow to them all.

The Ford Foundation, one of America’s richest charitable foundations, believed in learning from other countries, and this took me to Chile, Brazil, South Africa and China. I am grateful to all those in the Foundation offices, whether in those countries or in New York, who offered support, or advice, and in particular to Joseph Schull and Shep Forman who, working out of New York, had begun to support activities in Russia from the early nineties. In Moscow itself, once we had set up the office, Elena Ivanova and Dmitry Shabelnikov are owed a special word of thanks – and so too are Miriam Aukerman, Maria Chertok, Catherine Fitzpatrick, Borislav Petranov, and Mizanur Rahman for their different contributions.

In 2002 I returned to London, but maintained contacts with organizations and individuals, attending events, and undertaking the occasional consultancy. I was fortunate to be given the status of an Associate by the International Centre for Prison Studies, then at King’s College, London, and wrote on juvenile justice reform in Russia. In 2010 I decided to trace the path followed by the human rights community through the two decades since Communist party rule collapsed and the USSR disintegrated. A wealth of old and new materials, published by the Russian activists themselves, initially on paper, now increasingly on their websites, exists. Russians love writing, at length, and publishing. Then there were my notes, my memories of events and people. I had an overabundance of sources. But I needed to take my questions back to the activists themselves, including young individuals with whom I had never worked.

In 2010–11, with support from the British Academy, I interviewed perhaps 50 activists, from the elderly to the young, from Moscow and regional cities, attended their events, watched them at work. Ten Foundation grant makers, journalists, and commentators gave me their time. I sent the relevant passages I wished to quote to their authors, to gain permission; some requested slight changes, others gave approval, some simply replied that they trusted me. All quotations that are not referenced are taken from these interviews. The tapes and transcripts are held by the Center for Independent Social Research, St Petersburg. I am grateful to Natalya Gorinova for her painstaking transcription of the tapes. (‘You still use tapes! How classy!’ said one of the younger respondents when I took my tape recorder out of my bag.)

But there are many others from whom I have learnt much. A longer list would include Jan Rachinsky, Elena Zhemkova, Tanya Kasatkina, Vladimir Shnitke, Vyacheslav Bituitsky, Yury Vdovin, Irina Flige, Karina Moskalenko, Sergei Pashin, Mara Polyakova, Alexei Simonov, Sergei Belyaev, Boris Altshuler, Alexander Podrabinek. And Marek Nowicki, from Warsaw, who died in 2003, was an outstanding teacher.

A different word of thanks to Todd Landsman of the University of Essex, to Margot Light of the London School of Economics, and to colleagues at the European University at St Petersburg, who gave me opportunities to try out my arguments on different audiences. By 2012 I had a manuscript ready for comments. I am truly grateful to those who took the time to read it and respond: Vyacheslav Bakhmin, Catriona Bass, Rose Glickman, Eleanor Keen, Margot Light, Margo Picken, Boris Putsintsev, and two unknown reviewers. But by the summer of 2013 it was clear that Putin’s onslaught on the human rights organizations, which had started in the spring, meant further revision was in order. I was fortunate to be asked by the Open Society Foundation to undertake a review of its grant-making programme in Russia, which includes human rights. This brought both known activists, and new, into the picture of 2013. While I may refer to their views, I do not attribute them without permission. I am grateful to the Open Society staff for their assistance, and for permission to draw from the review.

I have kept endnotes to a minimum, and included only a short Further Reading. But I hope I have included, in one or the other, references to all those authors from whom I have drawn directly. A Dramatis Persone is designed to help the reader recognize those who reappear at intervals throughout the text, and their organizations. To include all those who feature would make it unnavigable and defeat the purpose. The plate section features only a small sample of the activists and events. I try to illustrate the generational change within the community and a variety of events or activities that demonstrate the change over the period. Many individuals, equally worthy of inclusion, make no appearance (but the Dramatis Personae includes references to other easily accessible photo materials). I am especially grateful for help with the photographs to Irina Flige, Dmitry Borko, Andrei Blinushov, Alexander Baroshin and Maria Razumovskaya. Permission to use photographs has been received from the owners.