Human Rights in Russia

Today ‘human rights’ is part of political, activist, and academic language. There are several international conventions, a UN Commissioner, there is a European Court for Human Rights, even the UK has a Human Rights Act (perhaps under threat), in the USA and UK courses on human rights appear on university curricula, there are human rights law departments and degrees, even a European University for Human Rights, supported by the European Commission. Human rights advocacy groups exist at national and international levels. The academic literature, with its debates – philosophical and historical – on what constitutes or what should constitute human rights is extensive.¹

In Russia too there is an active human rights community which includes internationally known, national, and small local organizations. There is a Presidential Council for the Advancement of Civil Society and Human Rights, set up originally by President Putin in 2004, on which many respected rights activists have had or have a place. Issues are openly discussed, even if few gains are made, and the protocols published on the Kremlin website. The federal and regional ombudsmen are active. Young lawyers successfully take cases of police brutality through the courts. Dozens of small organizations, at local level, are occupied with infringements of social rights (housing for orphans, non-payment of wages, pensions). Human rights organizations submit alternative reports to the UN committees. The European Court of Human Rights is inundated with cases from Russia, presented by young lawyers, and in large part its verdicts against the Russian government are implemented. Textbooks on human rights law stand on the shelves in book shops, and leading law faculties are proposing its inclusion, under international law, in their curricula.

In this book I describe and attempt to account for the human rights community that came into being, and has evolved, in post-Soviet Russia since 1991. The attack on the organizations in 2013 provides the cut-off point. The achievements, and failures, of those who gathered under the banner of human rights deserve to be chronicled, not only because this is a fascinating story, set in a period of turbulent social and political change, when state and society struggled to find a new modus vivendi, but also for the light it sheds upon the way past and present can influence attempts to create a new order. Russian traditions, the Soviet past, the impact of moving to a market economy, attempts to introduce democracy, Western aid and ideas, the international environment, the appearance of a younger generation […] all have played a part. I try to assess the contributions they have made to the community's successes and failures.

During the period Russia moves from being an imperial Communist-party state to a federal democracy and, thence, gradually, to one of ‘electoral authoritarianism’. To explain how this happened would require much more than a study of a new civic entity, the human rights community, but a case study can illuminate parts of a process, and contribute to an understanding of the factors that play a part in post-Soviet politics. On the one hand, then, this is a book for all interested in Russian politics.

The legacy of the Soviet or Communist past is a topic that is increasingly attracting the attention of scholars. It has a place here. By way of introduction, I simply say: the effect of developments during the Yeltsin years upon a quite conservative, inward-looking society, with little knowledge or experience of other countries was, in many ways, traumatic. Soviet practices and traditions were still part of everyday life. And, one might ask, how could they not be? Engrained patterns of behaviour or attitudes do not vanish overnight, especially if they provide some defence in a strange and sometimes frightening environment. My concern is whether there were perhaps particular legacies that made the task of defending rights unusually difficult in Russia, or encouraged a belief that human rights should be the focus. Another topic that has attracted attention is the influence and consequences of Western assistance, and here too this study makes a contribution to a wider debate. Finally, this is a chronicle not only for those interested in Russia or post-Communist developments. The experience of the Russian human rights activists also speaks to a wider audience – to those pursuing a human rights agenda in other societies, and under different political regimes. While not a manual for those who emerge out from under an authoritarian or military regime (as, for example, happened in the Arab Spring of 2011) – indeed I shall argue that the specific country context is of paramount importance – there are lessons here for others to heed.

‘How fortunate,’ said Irina Flige, chair of the St Petersburg Memorial Society's Research Centre, in May 2012, ‘that you decided to write about the period from 1991 to 2011. Now it's clear that a period is ending, a new epoch is beginning.’ By 2013, the sense of a period ending was even stronger. It was not just that a younger generation had stepped out, waving new banners, on to the streets of the major cities, and that they had occupied the internet, while the opposition politicians of the previous decade seemed to have lost their footing. Socially and economically, and in its technological infrastructure (communications), in the conducting of politics either at home or on the international stage, Russia was a very different country from that even of 2001.

By 2013, Russia had re-established itself as a player on the world scene. Its leverage over former countries of the Soviet Union varies from case to case but it remains a key player, wielding economic, political and security weapons, one whose interests none in the region can ignore. By 2015, as the book went to press, developments in Ukraine had thrown an uneasy 20 years dialogue between the USA, Europe and Russia into disarray, with worrying implications for all in the region. Anti-Americanism, anti-Western sentiments ride well at home, but the Russian elite takes its access to Europe and its goods for granted (a money haven, quality education for their children, property, and residence) and has no intention of losing them. In turn Western governments, business, and financial interests welcome the Russian elite and its money, regardless of the owners' credentials, or the government's treatment of political opponents. Concerns over armed conflict in Eurasia or the Arab world relegate talk of human rights to a back burner. While Russia increasingly looks to China, a densely populated competitor on its eastern border, and is aware of the dynamism of the other BRICs, it remains a huge, energy-rich, middle-income country, and the dominant player in the region.

Does this suggest back to the Soviet Union? Emphatically not. This is not a Soviet regime, a regime with control over a closed society, albeit with its imperial wings trimmed. Society is open to the outside world, with a wealthy sector that moves in and out, and an intellectual community with international connections. It is a consumer society, with porous borders, across which labour migrants, narcotics, and arms move in and out, and communications link its citizens to each other and to the outside world. It is post-Soviet, and post-imperialist, with a heady combination of grievances. By 2011, after a decade of minimal interest in civil, political, and human rights, people were coming together, to take up local social and political issues, and to pursue their grievances, and in 2012 the falsification of election results brought large numbers out in protest demonstrations. The human rights community in Russia was changing too. Its most important founding elements – democratic activists of perestroika and dissidents – were giving way to younger generations. The authorities too were struggling to find new ways of relating to the non-governmental sector. In 2013, legislative amendments required NGOs that engage in ‘political activity’ (undefined) and receive foreign funding to register as ‘foreign agents’, and a campaign of inspection and harassment began. For those who wish to pursue a human rights agenda (and what kind of an agenda will it be?), the terrain has changed. But let's start with the origins of the community.

During the 20 years following the UN Assembly's passing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, human rights barely featured in the political debates and policy decisions in the advanced Western world. The Universal Declaration was taken up as a weapon by some challenging colonialism and seeking national independence, in some cases demands for social and economic rights were advanced with reference to the UN conventions. But those participating in the uprisings in the Soviet bloc (in East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956) did not base their demands for an end to Soviet hegemony and the existing type of Communist-party rule on ‘human rights’. The Prague spring of 1965 saw no calls for human rights, but rather for ‘socialism with a human face’. The American civil rights movement of the 1960s did not make its claims with reference to human rights, or the Universal Declaration. The students in Paris in 1968 did not fight the police because of their or others' human rights. The Solidarity movement in Poland spoke of rights, of labour rights, of freedom for Poland and democracy, and only after its suppression did an underground ‘Helsinki’ group form.

But, by the mid-1970s, agreements between the major powers – the USA and the USSR – were to have indirect but far-reaching consequences for the future human rights community in Russia. In 1972 the two powers had set up a new institution, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE, renamed OSCE in 1998) to resolve outstanding issues relating to boundaries and security. In 1975, the Final Act was signed in Helsinki. Article III referred to the inviolability of existing frontiers (strongly advocated by the Soviet leadership); Article VII referred to respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as listed in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The publication of the Final Act in the Soviet press, accompanied by statements on its binding nature, prompted a small group of individuals in 1976 to set up the Moscow Helsinki Group. In Czechoslovakia a group, Charter 77, based itself on reference to the Helsinki agreements and the Universal Declaration.

In the late sixties and early seventies small groups of dissident intellectuals, Moscow based, had set up informal human rights groups. An Initiative Group on Human Rights appeared following the imprisonment of writers for the publication of critical materials. Its appeal to the UN was on the grounds that Article 19 of the Universal Declaration (on the right to disseminate information) was not observed by the Soviet courts. Members of an informal Committee on Human Rights cited violations of the law and human rights, emphasizing that their concerns were with ‘illegality’, the non-observance of clauses in the Soviet constitution or Soviet laws.² ‘Observe the constitution!’ not ‘overthrow the system’, was their rallying cry. This concern with legality earned them the name pravozashchitnik or ‘rights-defender’, a term that subsequently would acquire a much wider connotation.

During its short life from 1976–82 the Moscow Helsinki Group's members championed the cause of human rights, basing their case both on the Soviet government's signing of Article VII, on the observance of international agreements, and on specific articles in the Soviet constitution. Their appeal was to law as the instrument for ensuring such rights were observed. They and others were harassed, exiled, and imprisoned by the authorities for continually raising issues and publishing information abroad on the infringement of human rights in the Soviet Union. Few of the original members were still active at the end of the 1980s. Some had died in prison, others were abroad.³

By this time, human rights was part of the international lexicon used by governments and human rights groups. The USA made use of human rights to exert pressure on the Soviet government during the closing years of the Cold War. (Under Gorbachev, the politburo recognized, at least to itself, that the arms race, Afghanistan, and human rights were three issues on which they needed to respond in order to improve relations with the West.⁴) Human Rights Watch appeared in America in 1976. Amnesty International, which since the early sixties had taken up the rights of political prisoners with reference to the Universal Declaration, began to diversify its activities and take up a variety of human rights issues. However, while by the 1980s human rights as a subject was beginning to appear on university curricula, sometimes under philosophy, it was not a topic in the study or teaching of politics, or in everyday politics, in Europe or in the USA. We talked in terms of political rights, civil rights, campaigns for equality and social justice, and defending interests, but not in terms of human rights. For those who studied Soviet politics, their interest in the dissidents covered a wide spectrum that included, among others, the nationalists, the Baptists, writers such as Solzhenitsyn, as well as those arguing for the observance of international conventions. However, as the ideological commitments to communism or capitalism that had divided the world for nearly a century evaporated, it seemed to some that a global community, sharing a commitment to the Universal Declaration, could emerge into the daylight. All of this would have consequences for developments in Russia post-1991.

In 1985 Russia, itself a country with more than 100 different nationalities, dominated a multi-national empire, the USSR, whose control extended over eastern Europe. The urban population, and even the shrinking rural peasantry, was highly literate; there was a well-educated professional and intellectual elite. There were recognizable social groups – the party nomenklatura or officials, the artistic and scientific elite, the military elite, and national minorities – and there were others, in the shadows – the victims of Stalin's and subsequent repressions, the security services, prisoners. It was a closed society where very few indeed had any knowledge of the world outside, or access to their own country's history of the twentieth century. The media was tightly controlled; censorship was tight, and it was only small groups of individuals, in the major cities, who had access to samizdat or underground unofficial publications

An array of pseudo professional organizations, created and funded by the state – the trade unions, the Union of Writers, the Youth movement, the Veterans Association – existed but there were no independent organizations or associations that defended the collective interests of a group or its members, and had experience of pursuing their interests through dialogue, compromise, political competition or direct action. Any independent activity or protest was quickly suppressed by the security services. The only public political activity was large collective gatherings that passed resolutions prepared beforehand by a small leadership group. The ritual formalistic public political language bore no relation to the private languages spoken by friends and colleagues.

What kind of a state existed? One based on authoritarian rule by an elite of co-opted Communist-party members, who professed the belief that their socialist society was moving towards communism. Power and resources were held in the same hands. And the holding of power in Moscow, the capital, mattered hugely. Changes at the top reverberated down but in many respects the regions were run like local fiefdoms. When the regional boss was changed, a new team took over. Those in a position of authority saw themselves as the giver and guardian of rights. Officials looked up, not down, and they relied on their group of acquaintances. They reported up, ticking boxes, making sure the ‘right’ information reached higher levels. They relied on control of the media, and use of the legal system, and security organs, to ensure all remained quiet.

Meanwhile a bureaucratic state apparatus oversaw the running of a huge state-owned economy, a major defence industry, and the distribution of the country's resources. By 1985, a shortage economy was increasingly failing to supply the needs and wants of the population. An extensive welfare state, responsible for everything from housing to healthcare, to employment and pensions, provided a very basic level of support. And the legal system? This was part of the state's system of control. A continental system, it was based on detailed codes, the Criminal Code was harsh, and the task of prosecutors and judges was seen as one of punishing criminals. A benign sovereign could (and did) announce amnesties for prisoners, or issue pardons. At the same time, a telephone call from the local party secretary could change a judge's decision.

What does such a state–society relationship mean for the individual? First, the individual stands alone in relation to power and authority, in an unmediated relationship, without a group representative. What then does s/he rely upon? A connection with the leader or powerful people is the best option. Reliance upon one's own small group of family and trusted acquaintances comes next – they may help, assist, or find someone whom one can petition. Using the legal system is also an option – or the finding of a way to get round it. And very occasionally, a one-off protest may bring results. This was a society and politics that since the 1950s had produced its loyal supporters, and a small number of dissidents (whose objections to the regime were based on very different, sometimes conflicting beliefs and convictions), and citizens who were fearful, and others who had simply opted for as interesting or satisfying life as they thought they could achieve.

It was into such an environment that Gorbachev introduced the toxic words ‘glasnost’ (publicity or openness) and ‘perestroika’ (restructuring) in 1987.

Glasnost brought the unprecedented opportunity for media and hence public discussion of the Soviet past and present, and new ideas of all kinds. As perestroika progressed and Communist-party rule began to unwind, ideas, hopes, and demands rose to the surface: for memorials to Stalin's victims, for freedom of speech, freedom to travel, a better standard of living, the right to demonstrate, and to register independent organizations and political parties. There was little reference here to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but there was the beginnings of a new politics, and in 1990 the first open elections to both republican and regional or local assemblies. Among the deputies who won places to the Russian Congress of Peoples' Deputies, there were individuals who had been associated with the original Moscow Helsinki Group, now re-established. In both the political arena and in the embryonic human rights community, its members would subsequently play a significant role. But, for the moment, the battle was between those defending the existing Communist-party order and a heterogeneous alliance of reformers, under a banner, Democratic Russia.

In 1991, following an abortive coup by the old guard, the Communist Party of the USSR was dissolved, Gorbachev stepped down, and the republics of the USSR split into independent states. Russia, the heartland of the USSR, emerged as the Russian Federation, with Boris Yeltsin as a popularly elected president who looked to Europe as a future partner. With Russia now an independent state came the need for a new constitution, but a constitutional conference was unable to agree on a draft. In September 1993 a frustrated Yeltsin attempted to break the deadlock by dissolving the Congress elected in 1990 and, faced with violent opposition on the streets of Moscow, brought in the tanks. The White House (seat of the Congress supporters) was shelled, its defenders arrested. By December a new constitution, which, while strengthening the role of the president, claimed the Universal Declaration as a founding document and bound the government to observe international conventions, had been approved in a popular vote, and elections held to a new smaller parliament and federal council. This was the environment in which the first, officially registered, human rights groups made their appearance.

Chapters 1 and 2 take us through these extraordinary years – from perestroika up to the new constitution of 1993 – the political developments, the everyday context, and the activities of the new human rights organizations. Thereafter we follow the activists on a rocky path from 1993 up until 2013. It is not an easy journey, partly because the political and social terrain undergoes significant and unexpected change, partly because the human rights community is so heterogeneous, and its members branch off in different directions. A large cast of characters appears, some depart off stage, and reappear, while very different topics – from the bullying of army conscripts to violence against women to justice for Stalin's victims – crowd the pages. Wherever possible, I get the activists to do the talking. Bringing the issues and the activists to life both for those who know Russia well, and for those who, for various reasons, are simply interested, is no mean task. I know many of the activists very well, their crowded rooms, the way they argue at meetings, or relate to their clients, as they now call them; I have spent hours travelling in trains with them, bumping over icy roads in minibuses, standing in prison courtyards, drinking vodka late into the night. I can see them, and hear their voices. But what do their words convey to the reader? In places I put in the background but, before we embark on the journey, I want to give the reader a sense of the human rights community after 20 years of life, and struggle. We start with the environment in which, by 2010, the activists were working, then join them at three events.

Defending human rights was not a safe occupation if your activities offended powerful individuals or violent racist groups. In 2009, a young advocate, Stanislav Markelov, and Anastasiya Baburova, the young woman journalist who was with him, were shot dead in broad daylight on the streets of Moscow after leaving a press conference. In 2009, when the Moscow Helsinki Group introduced annual awards for human rights work, one of the ten awards was to Natalya Estemirova, a leading human rights activist in Chechnya, murdered earlier that year, and another to an activist in detention; in 2010 two of the awards went to individuals who had been severely beaten up, one left paralysed for life.

Yet, as regards rights and freedoms, the situation in 2010 was unusual. On the one hand, key political and civil rights had simply been lost (or never won?). For the past ten years the country had been ruled by a political elite with strong ex-security service elements, which had taken control of key structures (parliament, government, regional governors, security services, the judiciary, and popular media) and economic assets. The marginalization of opposition parties and manipulation of elections inflated the very real support received by president or ruling party, but there was no clear or popular opposition ideology or figures. The architects of this system of ‘electoral authoritarianism’ seemed, in their turn, to lack any ruling ideology apart from that of remaining in control, advancing their own material interests, and maintaining Russia's status in the world.

Politics, and policy making, had become opaque. A growing state apparatus was enriching its members through corruption. Where a political decision was required, the courts complied. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil magnate who had criticized Putin, and whose Open Russia foundation had been prepared to support human rights activities, had been behind bars since 2003, and his oil empire dismembered by the state. In December 2010 both he and his colleague, Platon Lebedev, faced new charges and, following a mockery of a trial, were sentenced to longer terms of imprisonment. Some oligarchs had fled abroad, others toed the line. Yet judges could refer to rulings of international bodies, and the government implemented decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. Human rights issues were openly discussed, and reported, at the President's Council for the Advancement of Civil Society and Human Rights.

The loss of empire, which had first brought Russians back to the Federation as refugees and displaced persons, and been followed by military action within the Federation (the two Chechen wars of 1994–6 and 1999–2002), had resulted in an uneasy settlement. By 2010 Chechnya was run by its Kremlin appointee, Ramzan Kadyrov, a violent individual, with the assistance of his security forces. The Caucasus, with its very mixed ethnic and religious communities, and open to Islamic movements from outside Russia, remained a region of unresolved problems and tension, while labour migrants from Central Asia were becoming more and more visible in Russia's major cities. A conservative Russian Orthodox Church and Russian nationalists were finding their voices, in public and in the media, which reported a growing number of racist attacks. Patriotic rhetoric coloured official announcements.

Meanwhile, computers, the internet, and mobile phones had transformed communication between individuals, organizations, and the regions of the huge country. Anything could be said on the internet, ‘the chattering classes’ were writing, talking, and publishing their views on almost everything. As Maria Lipman, an editor, put it in 2010:

The message which all three TV channels broadcast is not that there are no problems, rather that there are many problems. But the key message is that We are in charge […] initially I [Putin] was wholly responsible, took control of the country, of your lives. Now it's us – now there are two of us.

It is important to recognize that it is simply not true to say that everyone has been silenced and everyone praises Putin […] there's internet, radio, the smaller TV channels. There's freedom to express yourself. Please, speak out, if that's what you want to do. You can be the speaker, or the listener. But the authorities do everything that is needed to ensure that those means of mass communication, where there is still a degree of editorial freedom, do not have any influence on decision making […] you can put out information, but it won't have any political impact.

Not only as regards freedom of speech was Russia a country of contrasts. With privatization running amok, the nineties had been a time of dire poverty for most of the population. Even in Moscow there was little ostentatious wealth, foreign cars the exception rather than the rule. By the turn of the century the city was changing, fast, with its new buildings, boutiques, huge advertisements, fast food outlets, but change had barely scraped the face of provincial Russia, where people were struggling to survive. By 2010, there were pockets of wealth in all the large Russian cities, not just Moscow, and hundreds of thousands of their citizens had travelled abroad. It was 2004 before real cash incomes, edging upwards, approached 1991 levels, and the 2008–9 financial crisis hit both corporations and small businesses, but control of energy resources enabled the government to maintain the rise in the standard of living. The system could be described as a variety of ‘state-capitalism’ – where financial/business and political resources are often held in the same hands by the directors of a state agency, and independent financial or business assets are held courtesy of the political leadership (or leader).

By 2010 a new middle class was emerging, but income distribution was grotesquely unequal. In 2009, the average income of the top 10 per cent was 17 times that of the poorest 10 per cent, still stuck in poverty. A small and phenomenally rich elite enjoyed a lifestyle that matched its counterparts in Europe or North America, perhaps even more ostentatiously. Moscow prices were London prices, the bars and restaurants, and boutiques even flashier, cars with smoked-glass windows parked on the pavements, skirts were even shorter than in London. But the insecurity surrounding property assets, and the level of corruption, discouraged both domestic and foreign investment, while wealth continued to stream out to safer havens. London was awash with Russian money – which was going not only into houses, country estates, Bentleys, and children's education but also into buying football clubs, newspapers, and bookshops. As Oleg Orlov, of the International Memorial Society was speaking to a small London audience in November 2013 on the campaign against human rights organizations, the Evening Standard, bought by a wealthy Russian, Alexander Lebedev, ex-KGB, for his son, Evgeny, carried a news item on how two groups of Russians finding themselves at the same London nightclub decided to outdrink each other – the winners spent £60,000, the losers more than £50,000. Meanwhile, back home, the health and welfare system, barely surviving, was increasingly challenged by the spread of narcotics, HIV, TB, and continued alcoholism.

However, in 2010, human rights activists, journalists, and sociologists were talking or writing of new forms of civic activism or social action, often transient, localized, but nevertheless new. While much of this activity – people collecting money for sick children, helping the homeless, collecting money for imprisoned artists and homeless dogs – was at a local level, events could draw in volunteers from across the country, and receive national media attention. All agreed that this kind of collective action was still limited, and not political. But, as Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch suggested, there were some protest activities, sparked by feelings of outrage, and she gave as an example:

There are very active campaigns in the blog-o-sphere […] information is published on tenders for state contracts, and you can discover that the governor of the city X ordered two Louis XIV chairs for his office, I am hardly exaggerating, and an internet campaign gets underway in which angry individuals shower the governor with letters, speaking their mind freely, and in the end the order for the chairs is cancelled.

What though of the human rights community that had come into existence in the new Russia? To give the reader a sense of the community as Putin prepared to return to power, we attend three events in December 2010.

Our first event is a Constitutional Forum, held on 12 December 2010, Constitution Day. The day-long meeting, or Forum, was organized by a small informal council for human rights, set up by leading Moscow organizations. Its allies were four liberal opposition politicians, hoping to combine forces to oppose United Russia (the governing party) in the 2011 elections for the Duma or parliament, and to campaign against Putin in the 2012 presidential election. Human rights activists and public figures gathered, from across Russia, to start a campaign to restore their rights, as laid down in the 1993 constitution: ‘The Russian Federation is a democratic federal law-based State’ (Art. 1); ‘Everyone shall be guaranteed the freedom of ideas and speech; the propaganda or agitation instigating social, racial, national or religious hatred and strife shall not be allowed’ (Art. 29); ‘Judges shall be independent and submit only to the constitution and the federal law’ (Art. 120). These rights, the organizers argued, were the priorities; without them, the other rights laid down in the constitution could not be guaranteed. Therefore the campaign should focus on: Ensuring the independence of courts and judges; immediate measures to guarantee free elections during the pre-election campaigns of 2011 and 2012; guarantees of freedom of speech and information.

The Forum was held in the huge Cosmos hotel, built for the 1980 Olympics, but itself overshadowed by the soaring hundred metre high obelisk celebrating the Conquerors of Space. The massive hotel, with its lecture rooms and auditoria, lends itself to the holding of big events. In 2001 I had attended a two-day All-Russian Extraordinary Congress in Defence of Human Rights at the hotel. Over 600 delegates of 250 organizations from 62 of Russia's 89 regions, joined by politicians (from the liberal parties), guests, and the media, had assembled in the huge auditorium, then gathered in side rooms for thematic discussions. Funding came from Western foundations. The atmosphere was upbeat.⁵ Now, ten years later, at the more modest Constitutional Forum, financed by Mikhail Kasyanov, an ex-prime minister and opposition figure, the mood was subdued. I met many old friends or acquaintances among the 300-odd who gathered in one of the smaller halls, many who had been at the Congress in 2001. The majority were activists from across the country, those who had been defending very different kinds of rights over the past 20 years. While a few representatives of a new, young, twenty-first century generation were present, none seemed anxious to have their voices heard. This was not their scene. There were a few well-known liberal academics. The television cameras were absent. The press was silent. Only the internet carried news of the event. By 2010, Russia, politically, was a different country from that of 2001, and 1991 seemed a long while ago.

The opening session was chaired by Liudmila Alekseeva, now frail, white-haired, bird-like, a dissident from the 1970s who heads the Moscow Helsinki Group, one of the two best-known human rights organizations. Sergei Kovalev, also over 80, a biophysicist with a dissident past, now president of the other internationally known organization, the International Memorial Society, was an early speaker. Kovalev, small, slight, has a deceptively mild and slightly absent-minded appearance that cloaks a stubborn personality, a personality that must have driven prosecutors and prison camp officials into a state of angry frustration. Lev Ponomarev, a democratic activist of the perestroika period, who heads a more politically oriented organization For Human Rights, suggested:

We set ourselves an objective – Alekseeva, Kovalev and I – the key aim was to obtain legitimate, transparent elections. That's our common aim, wholly political. But we consider it to be one of defending rights. Because, if we don't have legitimate elections, we cannot resolve questions of human rights.

Elections were the issue that dominated the agenda. Kovalev did not mince his words. The authorities, he declared, with a reference to an (in) famous quote from Stalin, ‘were again turning citizens into screws, and the screwdrivers in their hands are ever more visible. To live in such a country is repugnant and dangerous, but to leave is even worse – this is our country.’ We must, he argued, make tough political demands – for honest, transparent elections, independent courts, and freedom of speech. And, while recognizing the difficulty of the task ahead, seek support from different groups in society, including the creative intelligentsia and the new independent trade unions. It is more than likely, he argued, that we shall be ignored. But at least ‘we shall be taking a step towards overcoming the misapprehension that civic activities by human rights activists should not include making political demands. It is very probable that some will have serious (and well-founded) anxieties that making political demands will impede the defending of particular individuals’ but that, he suggested, was a question each should decide for himself. ⁶

Another key figure was Oleg Orlov, direct, straightforward, a biologist who had become a democratic activist under perestroika, and chair of the Memorial Human Rights Centre. One can imagine Orlov in one of the revolutionary movements of the 19th century, but closer to Bakunin than to Herzen. Much of his activity has been monitoring and reporting on abuses in Chechnya. He took up the theme of political action:

We, as non-political organizations, do quite a good job of working on issues which are within our mandates – defending human rights, the environment, or resolving social problems – but, despite all our efforts, the country as a whole is moving in the opposite direction […] each of us can list a whole number of success stories – court cases won at the national level; cases won at the European Court; people we have saved; well written reports […] but our individual successes do not lead to the achieving of our common aim, for the sake of which we, after all, carry out our work: namely the moving forward of our country in the direction of democracy, the observance of human rights, social justice, environmental safeguards, and so on. We should recognize this, and ask ourselves – why is this so? And find an answer.

The answer for Orlov, and some others, was that ‘it is time that the representatives of civic organizations widened their agenda and, while remaining as they are, put political demands before the authorities’. However, even among the most impassioned speakers, many of whom were from the regions, there were few expectations that the Forum would produce much in the way of outcomes. The politicians, led by Kasyanov, spoke; the academics contributed. Draft declarations and resolutions were circulated for signing, or corrections. A declaration ‘Time to Save the Country’, to be presented to President Medvedev, contained strong words:

Afraid of its own citizens, the ruling Russian bureaucracy has concreted over the political field, and then begun to tackle public organizations, accusing them of drawing on ‘Western money’, while producing harsher laws which restrict the freedom of association. Episodic interaction with chosen representatives of civil society has a single purpose – to keep public organizations out of politics. At the same time arbitrary actions against such organizations are increasing; repression and the murder of rights activists, of journalists and environmentalists have become a daily occurrence.

There were statements in support of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, the imprisoned ex-YUKOS oil magnates, statements demanding free and transparent elections, and one criticizing the government's failure to move against the extreme nationalist groups. But while the participants agreed on the issues, it was a different matter when it came to devising a joint strategy to regain these political and civil rights. The organizers were given the task of working out, by February 2011, a programme of joint action, based on the draft resolutions. But they could not agree, and meetings of the group petered out. The four opposition politicians formed some kind of an alliance but were no better able to devise a political strategy to counter the Putin–Medvedev management of elections in 2011 and 2012.

A few days before attending the Forum I was at a School for Human Rights Activists, organized by a Human Rights Resource Centre in St Petersburg. Including speakers and organizers, 100 people attended, perhaps half of them from St Petersburg itself, the rest from small organizations in towns and cities across the country. Several of them were accountants, others lawyers, many of the organizations focused on children's needs, or on invalids, but one of the key speakers was a trade union organizer from Siberia. With an able and well-organized young director, Maria Kanevskaya, the Resource Centre operates a free telephone helpline to assist non-commercial organizations with problems ranging from registration to turning to court. We shall come back to the Centre's activities in a later chapter; here it is the contrast between its December School and the Moscow Forum that interests us.

It was bitterly cold in St Petersburg, minus 20 degrees, and the slippery paths dug across the courtyards through waist-high snow drifts were treacherous. The basement where the conference and School took place was crowded, but warm and well lit. People had come to learn – about how to use the legislation, how to deal with the tax authorities, how to obtain grants, or to turn to the European Court of Human Rights. There were informative presentations given by young professional specialists, and discussion, and sometimes disagreements (for example over whether the legislation on NGOs needed merely amending or radical changes). People from different parts of the country exchanged information on their experiences. For me, and not only for me, a morning's training session by Vitaly Drozhzhakov, a lawyer and trade union organizer from Krasnoyarsk, which included ‘Planning organized campaigns to motivate and attract supporters’ was something new. He dwelt on the need to translate individual claims into collective claims, either to be taken to court (‘the legal defence of rights’), or pursued by direct action (‘the social defence of rights’), for example by organizing a picket. He advocated booking a room for a meeting in a local theatre, preparing leaflets, using the press. But only a few participants from Kaliningrad, who themselves had been involved in demonstrations against the regional authorities, favoured this kind of activity. The majority of those present were sceptical even of the idea of taking collective suits to court. ‘What country do you live in?’, ‘Are you from Russia?’ ‘What about corrupt judges?’ ‘Siberia is a different country…’ Better to win an individual case, and then use it as a precedent.

While there was agreement between those from Kaliningrad, St Petersburg and Krasnoyarsk that the authorities would use any means to obstruct meetings (from claiming that participants were standing one metre outside the confines of a square to ordering a civil defence drill that set off sirens to drown out speakers), no one raised the issue of defending the right to hold meetings. In recent months meetings held, in various cities, on the 31st of the month in defence of Article 31 of the constitution ‘Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to assemble peacefully, without weapons, hold rallies, meetings and demonstrations, marches and pickets’ had become the most visible form of opposition to the authorities. And no one raised the issue of forthcoming elections, or freedom of information and the press. Defending the rights of vulnerable groups was to be done within the confines of the existing political system, using the courts.

Still with the temperature at minus 20 degrees, I found myself at an old-fashioned Soviet rest-home in a forest 30 miles outside Moscow. The dull brown rooms were not very warm. There were photos of Putin, with happy students and school children, on the walls. The cabbage soup in tureens, the rissoles and mashed potato, and the bed sheets so highly starched that they were difficult to unfold, took me back to a Soviet existence. The International Memorial Society was holding its four-yearly conference to approve the reports and accounts, and to elect new officers. One of the earliest independent organizations to emerge in 1988, the Society in 2010 had branches in Russia (50 in all, with legal status), in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia, France, Germany and Italy.⁷ The prime concern for most of the organizations is erecting memorials to Stalin's victims, their rehabilitation, compensation for relatives, and promoting the historical memory of the Gulag. But Memorial's Human Rights Centre, in Moscow, then led by Oleg Orlov, focuses on the infringement of civil and political rights today, as so do some of the local organizations.

There were three guests of honour. Vladimir Lukin, the ombudsman, a Moscow intellectual, formerly a parliamentary deputy from the liberal Yabloko party, spoke warmly of working together with Memorial both on historical and contemporary issues, and told of how, when offered the post of ombudsman by Putin in 2004, he had turned to Sergei Kovalev for advice. Liudmila Alekseeva praised Memorial's achievements in conflict zones, and welcomed the cooperation between the Society and the Moscow Helsinki Group. Ella Pamfilova, with a parliamentary past, at this time chair of the President's Council for the Advancement of Civil Society and Human Rights, commented in particular on Svetlana Gannushkina's work with refugees. Gannushkina, who heads an organization working with migrants and refugees, and is a member of the Memorial Centre, had been nominated for a Nobel prize (previously winning other awards), while Kovalev, Orlov and Alekseeva had recently been jointly awarded the Sakharov prize by the European Parliament.

Of the many issues raised in the plenary and subsequent sessions, for our purposes three stand out. First, as might be expected, Orlov raised the question of political action:

without significant changes to the political situation in the country, we cannot achieve our aims […] We have to put our political demands to the authorities, although that does not necessarily mean identifying with political parties. For example we must monitor the elections. Yes, this won't please the authorities, and some organizations will come under pressure […] yes, this is a very sore point, and there are those among us who object that this kind of action creates difficulties for us.

There certainly were. Many from the local organizations, primarily interested in getting support for memorials, and for books of memory, which entails working with the local authorities, had no sympathy with Orlov's views. But it was not just this. Memorial has always prided itself on being ‘non-political’. But how does one make political demands that carry any weight, except through alignment with a political party? And none of the existing opposition parties would appeal to all Memorial members, even had they any chance of competing in fair elections.

The second issue was the focus of Memorial's human rights work. Should it be assistance to those suffering from political repression or should it include campaigning for access to information, providing assistance to refugees, to orphans, to the indigenous peoples of the far north, and campaigning for alternative service for conscripts? Opinions differed radically, as did the activities individuals were involved in. Perhaps the only point of agreement was that Memorial members should attempt to get included in the new public inspection commissions for prisons and police stations.

The third issue was that of the need for new tactics to attract supporters, whether among the young, or in society at large. Some advocated enlightenment, or ‘rights propaganda’. Others stressed the need to convince individuals who had been helped that they should then help Memorial. A focus on potential donors, on those who could help rather than on those who needed help, on membership dues, and a better PR campaign was advocated by some of the younger participants. A session on historical memory lasted into the night. It was agreed to form a working group to work out ‘a systematic approach to the use of enlightenment and education’. Quite a task.

How had the activists come to form the kind of community that existed in 2010? Chapters 3–5 follow them up through the nineties. I focus on the human rights that attracted the activists' attention, the way they organized their activities, the influence of Western assistance, of the economic downturn and weak state, and the huge size of the country with its very different regions. The war with Chechnya and relations with Yeltsin feature. In 2001, the new Putin leadership issued an invitation to NGOs to participate in a dialogue on the role of civil society. The resulting Civic Forum, which is the subject of Chapter 6, allows us to take stock of the relationship between the non-governmental sector and the state as the new century opens. In Chapter 7 we look at the place the activists occupied in the perceptions of their fellow citizens, at their own perceptions of their role, and their belief in the importance of education. Chapters 8–9 show them actively engaged in ‘concrete action’, in defending or promoting a variety of rights – from alternative military service to prison inspectors to the criminalization of domestic violence – but in an increasingly difficult political environment.

By 2010, Russia was home to a rich variety of human rights organizations, some very professional, some very creative. There were achievements and failures, legacies of the Soviet past, increasing professionalization, and a changing international environment. In Chapter 10 we return to the International Memorial Society to see these influences at work. In Chapter 11 a younger generation of activists steps forward, both lawyers and others whose formative years, and for some their childhood, were spent in post-Soviet Russia. Finally, Chapter 12 brings together the state of human rights as our period ends, the new forms of social action, and the political developments that followed the protests over the 2011 elections and Putin's return to power in 2012. By 2013 the human rights organizations were under attack. The nature of the attack and their response sheds light on the political regime, the law and order agencies, and the society that had come into being.

In April 2013 a knowledgeable journalist suggested: ‘first they are going for the NGOs, then it will be the remaining independent media, then the internet. The aim is to control any opposing voices or activities.’ I put this to a well-known activist, a lawyer: ‘Do you agree?’ ‘Yes, but we'll go down fighting. And it's not control in the Soviet sense. They want to be able to push buttons, if need be, but not to run everything themselves, prevent any other activities.’ But Boris Pustintsev, an experienced human rights activist from St Petersburg, replied: ‘As Mark Twain said: “I can say one thing with absolute certainty – I don't know what the outcome will be.” There are factions/disagreements up at the top, some will be saying one thing to Putin, others another […] they themselves have no clear strategy.’ And another echoed this: ‘If Andropov were in charge, there would be a clear line, now there's confusion.’ But by the spring of 2014 with the Olympics over, and Ukraine in turmoil, the future looked decidedly bleak. By the end of the year, the Kremlin was moving, slowly but seemingly relentlessly, to deprive human rights organizations of very different complexions of support from abroad.

In the Conclusion, I pull it all together and address one further question: what kind of a legacy will they, the human rights activists, leave for future generations – what has been their contribution to history? But, now, back to where it all began – perestroika.