Analysis: Past peaceful revolutions have lessons for anti-Putin protesters

NON-violent revolutions do not always remain non-violent – but peaceful movements for regime change often do succeed. They have toppled illegitimate rulers, as with the post-Soviet “colour revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine, and ended apartheid in South Africa, for example.

Non-violent movements broke British rule in India and Malawi.

On the surface, most of these cases seem so different from present-day Russia as to be irrelevant to the success or failure of the protests against Vladimir Putin’s continued rule and the protesters’ call for free, fair elections. But which differences are important?

Recent sociological research shows that one factor more than any other determines whether nonviolent struggles succeed: protesters’ decision to adopt non-violence itself.

But the outcome of civil resistance also depends on the precise methods used. Challenging the regime’s legitimacy and withholding skills and material resources from it are important, as is maintaining the movement’s unity and clarity of purpose.

Conversely, a government that secures the unconditional loyalty of its troops will be able to crush even the most sustained popular protests.

Given this, what are the prospects for Russia’s current protest movement? So far, it has got many things right. It has focused on a single demand: fair elections. It has united liberals, communists, nationalists, and otherwise apolitical citizens in a broad coalition. Like the 2000 Serbian uprising against Slobodan Milosevic, the Russian movement has produced an upsurge in grassroots creativity. A good example is a “nano-protest” in the Siberian city of Barnaul, where police were forced to write up a report on a group of Lego figures brandishing slogans.

To get round biased reporting on state television and bridge the huge distances between cities, protesters have used decentralised ways to communicate, such as social networks.

Nonetheless, Russia’s size could become a liability for the protesters if things come to a head and, say, Putin refuses to accept a defeat in the March election.