Orange Reaction What the Kremlin Learned
Orange Reaction: What the Kremlin Learned (and What It Didn’t Learn)
from the Orange Revolution
Theses
1. Introduction
a. Russia’s political situation in 2004
Vladimir Putin’s arrival in the Kremlin in 2000 was marked by two parallel processes. On one hand, as
Russia was recovering from the painful economic reforms and the crisis of 1998, it looked to reassert its
role in the world. On the other hand, this restoration of the nation’s economic power was accompanied
by Putin’s increasingly authoritarian and reactionary political reforms. By 2004, the Kremlin had under
its effective control the Parliament and the judiciary, nearly all regional governments and all nation-wide
TV channels. After arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003 the “oligarchs” never dared to oppose the
“party’s line.” The political opposition had been either marginalized or reduced to clientele groups
competing for favors from the regime and not seriously challenging it. The situation appeared stable and
Putin met almost no resistance in his reelection in March 2004 or when he abolished gubernatorial
elections in the Fall of that year.
b. Brief overview of Ukrainian politics and events in 2004
Putin’s system appeared so efficient and stable that it became a model for autocrats in the region and
beyond. Ukraine, with its deep historical, cultural, economic and political ties with Russia, looked like a
particularly good playground to copy its neighbor’s arrangements. Leonid Kuchma who had ruled the
country since 1994 also enjoyed domination in the media, had strong influence over courts and
governors, and boasted a majority in the Rada. Of course, his level, and efficiency, of control over
political and societal institutions was far lower than Putin’s. Ukrainian society was more fragmented and
polycentric, with antagonism between Ukrainian- and Russian-speaking parts, greater diversity of the
party system, and less tamed businessmen. Still, the soft authoritarianism in Ukraine was modeled on
that of the Kremlin and appeared safe and well-rooted. No surprise that the consultants that Kuchma
and Viktor Yanukovich had hired from Moscow based their advice on Russia’s “best practices” of
“managed democracy.”
c. Kremlin’s involvement in the Orange Revolution
However, this seemingly invincible system was shaken in the course of several weeks by the Orange
Revolution. Both Ukrainian authorities and their Russian advisors did not expect the election to go off
script and were unprepared to face popular protests. Events in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities
demonstrated the vulnerability of methods of political control used in the post-Soviet space.
Numerous sources indicate that the Russian government was deeply involved in the 2004 Presidential
race in Ukraine siding with the incumbent President Leonid Kuchma and his chosen successor Victor
Yanukovich. While it is unclear if the Kremlin had participated in the selection process (it appears more
likely that the decision was made by a part of the Ukrainian political and economic elite), it endorsed the
Prime Minister and put its weight behind his candidacy.
Kremlin’s involvement in Ukrainian politics was a geopolitical choice. For Vladimir Putin, Russia’s “near
abroad” (that includes former Soviet republics minus Baltic States) had always been an area of strategic
interests. Moscow sought to both strengthen its political and economic influence in these countries and
to repel West’s attempts, real or perceived, to do the same. The question is why did the Kremlin support
Victor Yanukovich?
Russian journalist Andrey Kolesnikov asked himself this question during the electoral campaign: “Why
[do Russian authorities] so desperately, to sharp pain in the eyes, to aching joints, support Mr.
Yanukovich in his quest for the seat of the President of Ukraine? Why face such a risk if you know that
his opponent’s rating is higher? Indeed, Mr. Yuschenko can win, unless he is stopped, and it seems he
will certainly win. It means they know that he will not. It means they understand that he will be
stopped.” Then Kolesnikov goes on to discuss two possible scenarios of Yuschenko being “stopped” (the
article was written in September 2004, before the first round): invalidation of Yuschenko’s bid and
electoral fraud. The journalist predicts that the latter will cause mass demonstrations and, ultimately,
decisive reaction from the international community.
Given the deep involvement of the Kremlin in Ukrainian politics, it strikes how they apparently
misunderstood the situation in the country. Putin himself badly damaged his reputation by infamously
congratulating Victor Yanukovich twice on his “victory.” These telegrams, signed by the person who
usually is very cautious and wary of his image, demonstrate both the importance given by Moscow to
the Ukrainian elections and its ignorance of the actual situation in the country. Even one day before the
Supreme Court nullified election results, Putin kept voicing support for Kuchma’s position that a new
vote was unacceptable.
Did the Kremlin realize a possibility of mass protests? There are indications that it did, but it
underestimated the scale and persistence of demonstrators. In October 2004, Pavlovsky predicted that
“in a crisis case, Yanukovich [would] almost certainly win” because “the man in the street, both in towns
and in villages, will swing toward the authorities.”
Success of the Orange Revolution shocked the Kremlin and forced them to reevaluate their domestic
policies. Their goal was now to prevent similar events from happening in Russia.
2. Propaganda concepts
Vladimir Putin had established effective control over Russia’s main TV channels and newspapers long
before the Orange Revolution. In fact, it was one of his earliest endeavors after being elected. By 2004,
the Kremlin had at its disposal a sophisticated and powerful propaganda machine that had been used to
produce necessary election results, to support government’s campaigns and initiatives or to attack its
opponents.
On one hand, success of the Orange Revolution had demonstrated the limits of propaganda. Kuchma
had had control over most TV channels and his administration had been instructing all major news
outlets on how to cover stories using weekly guides called “temniks.” But it did not prevent Yuschenko
from becoming the most popular politician well before his campaign even started nor did this form of
censorship succeed in defusing the mass protest after November 22. This failure of “television
technologies” was an important lesson that the Russian government had to learn.
However, mass media and especially TV were a major part of Kremlin’s response to the event in Ukraine.
It was only natural for Putin’s administration to use this already available resource. Apparently, the idea
was to use it preemptively, before any significant opposition party, figure or idea even gets widely
known.
a. Representation of the Orange Revolution
The first reaction of the Russian government’s propaganda to the Orange Revolution was to discredit this
event—and the movement it represented or created—per se. The argument was trivial: If most
Russians believe that the Orange Revolution is a bad thing, they will not want to organize or support
anything similar at home.
Publicity attack against the Orange Revolution used several main themes (all together or separately):
“The Orange Revolution was orchestrated by hostile Western governments; its participants were
either paid foreign agents or brainwashed fools”
“The Revolution’s proponents were nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes, etc.”
“The Orange Revolution was a catastrophic, chaotic, dangerous, etc. event that destabilized the
country and put it on the verge of a civil war”
“The Orange Revolution was doomed to fail because of infighting, corruption and incompetence
of the new government”
b. Anti-Americanism
Another important part of the picture that official propaganda was painting after 2004 was suspicion or
even open hostility toward the West. As was mentioned earlier, the Orange Revolution was depicted as
a coup d’état organized by the United States and Western Europe. However, the ultimate goal of this
alleged conspiracy was Russia. Developed countries, the narrative went, were interested in Russian
natural resources and wanted to install their puppet government in Moscow to be able to exploit them.
Maidan then was just an episode of, or a prelude to, a large-scale covert operation aimed at changing
Russia’s leadership. The Manifesto of the main pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi, which was adopted in
March 2005, declared directly: “Across the area of the former USSR, under the cover of slogans about
democracy and freedom, a great geopolitical game is being played by the West, with the goal of
‘extruding’ Russia from global politics and bringing Russia under external rule.” 1
This propaganda strategy might have several goals. One was to use patriotic and nationalist feelings to
drive people around Vladimir Putin and his regime, which posed to be the only defense against the
1 Nashi Manifesto, March 2005. Translated by the author.
mysterious Western intervention. Introduction of an external enemy is always a powerful political tool,
but in Russia’s case it was reinforced by the relatively recent Cold War memories as well as by the global
anti-American sentiment of the time connected with the war in Iraq.
c. Stability
One of the main arguments that the Kremlin used against proponents of an Orange Revolution scenario
was that it would destabilize the political and economic situation in the country. Stability was declared a
major achievement of Vladimir Putin’s rule that had to be preserved at almost any cost. It was
contrasted with the “turbulent 90s” with their economic crises, high crime rate and political uncertainty.
Any attempt to change the political system would cause sufferings for masses of people, the argument
went, and even an imperfect but stable government was better than revolutionary chaos. While this
fundamental argument against any reform certainly sounds credible, it was often exaggerated even more
as pro-Kremlin speakers associated the non-violent Orange Revolution with the bloody uprisings of
Russia’s past. Indeed, “revolution” in the Russian history has traditionally been associated with the 1917
Bolshevik coup and the following Civil War. Few people would find the idea of a domestic armed
struggle appealing, especially in the period of a steady economic growth in mid-2000s.
d. Sovereign democracy
The two abovementioned views of the Orange Revolution and the “Orange scenario” in general—as a
Western anti-Russian plot and as a dangerous upheaval—were integrated and reinforced by the concept
of “sovereign democracy.” It was attributed to Vladislav Surkov, Deputy Head of the Presidential
Administration in charge of domestic policies and the author of the complex political system that kept
Vladimir Putin in power for over a decade. “Sovereign democracy” replaced the less prominent, and
already compromised, term of “managed democracy” but kept much of what it described. This concept
put national sovereignty in the focus as opposed to the understanding of democracy as a “government
of the people, by the people, for the people.” Each nation has its own way to democracy, according to
this theory, and is free to choose whatever set of political institutions fits its traditions and national
character. There is no universal model of democracy and any attempt to impose any such models on
other countries amounts to meddling in their internal affairs. Basically, any form of government could be
called a “sovereign democracy” as long as it had the popular support. This concept, which may be
viewed as an extreme case of cultural relativism, served as a “theoretical base” for both Kremlin’s
description of Russia as a democracy and its defense against West’s criticism.
e. Discrediting domestic opposition
An important practical goal of the propaganda campaign was to discredit the Russian domestic
opposition, especially those groups and leaders that were trying to follow the Ukrainian example. The
Kremlin used its domination of the media to preemptively attack any Russian “want-to-be yuschenko.”
The most visible and uncontrolled figures including Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Eduard Limonov,
Boris Nemtsov were accused of being corrupt, paid agents of foreign powers, fascists, etc. This
propaganda campaign was more or less similar to “black PR” (smearing) campaigns used in post-Soviet
elections with the exception that it was used long before any voting took place. The goal was to remove
any threat of having a popular and uncontrolled opposition politician by the time of 2008 Presidential
race. In this way, the Kremlin was trying to avoid the Ukrainian situation where Viktor Yanukovich had to
compete with the already popular Viktor Yuschenko.
3. Political organizing
a. Absorbing active youth
Many accounts of the Orange Revolution focused on the prominent role of youth groups in organizing
the protest movement. Most observers mentioned Pora (which in fact was two groups, the so-called
Black Pora and Yellow Pora, working in parallel) as the hard core of the Maidan. The other “civic
campaigns,” as these organizations were referred to in Ukraine, were less known in Russia: Znayu, Chysta
Ukraina or Studenska Hvylya. It was obvious that in order to prevent the Orange Revolution, the regime
had to win over the hearts and minds of the Russian youth—or at least to prevent them from
independently organizing.
The Kremlin’s involvement with the youth after the Orange Revolution had the goal to coopt all young
active people. In early 2005, the then-leader of a notorious pro-Putin group Iduschie Vmeste (“Walking
Together”) and ally of Surkov Vasily Yakemenko began to tour the country and meet with local nonpolitical activists and the ambitious youth. Yakemenko and his aides promised career opportunities and
financial support to youth projects in exchange for their organizers joining the new structure called
Nashi. Many of these projects were not political in nature and some of them might be even unpopular
with local authorities. The goal of this strategy was not to immediately make these activists ardent
regime supporters, but at least to prevent the opposition from allying with them. Enormous financial
resources, generally favorable media coverage, and patronage of the Kremlin allowed the Nashi to
attract a significant number of active provincial youth who might otherwise join the ranks of protest
groups. Over time, many of them either began to share Nashi’s pro-Kremlin, anti-liberal stance (thanks
to Seliger camp trainings, peer pressure, and incentives of career growth) or got disappointed in all
activism and dropped out permanently. However, Nashi’s reputation was tarnished from the very
beginning by their close ties with Iduschie Vmeste and the Kremlin, by their alleged role in violent attacks
against opposition groups and by the widespread image of a Nashi activist as a cynical, corrupt careerist.
In any case, despite some early expectations, very few people would defect the Nashi to become a
Kremlin-independent political or civil activist. In this sense, the group was an effective, if not so efficient,
tool of the regime.
Interestingly enough, the Nashi mimicked many of the methods and arguments employed by Ukrainian
“orange” groups, in particular Pora. It included the very tours of Yakemenko around the country and, to
some extent, the Seliger camp. Nashi’s ideology was a peculiar mixture of reactionary and revolutionary
slogans. For example, in their Manifesto in March 2005 they called themselves “an example of an active
civil society” and declared as their goal “carrying out a ‘personnel revolution’ in Russia.” They even went
so far in invoking Orange Revolution experience as to promise to make “demands for the removal of
specific officials from power, backed by thousands of young people coming out onto the streets.”
However, the very same document said that the Nashi’s “main goal” was to “fight... oligarchs and liberals
who strive to... [implement] an ‘orange revolution’”. This apparent contradiction was a result of the
Nashi leaders’ attempt to combine the Kremlin’s conservative political agenda and the youth’s desire for
greater social mobility. As Jussi Lassila puts it, Nashi was “a state-conformist and regime-maintaining
social movement [that] trie[d] to conduct a ‘ritual-like strategy à l’Orange’”.
Nashi was not the only group, which was created by the regime to counter a possible “Orange scenario.”
Other organizations with similar goals were created, often with sponsorship of regional governments
(like Moscow Oblast’s Mestnye) or that tried to occupy specific niches (e.g., Rossiya Molodaya, which
specialized in direct actions against opposition groups, see below). The real reason for creation of such
groups appears to have been competition for government funding and demonstration of loyalty.
b. Controlling physical space
The Orange Revolution’s most immediate part was of course the round-the-clock protest rally on Maidan
Nezalezhnosty (as well as other places in Kiev and some other Ukrainian cities). By controlling the
central square of the capital, protesters demonstrated their power and put strong pressure on the
authorities. The huge, peaceful crowd made it too costly for the regime to disperse the protest and
forced it into negotiations and, eventually, surrender. In order to prevent this from happening in Russia,
the Kremlin wanted to make sure that it would completely control the physical space in Moscow.
This could be done in two ways. First, police are the conventional state institution entitled and trained to
control, prevent or disperse protests. While the Constitution and the federal law guarantees freedom of
assembly and only requires demonstrators to notify local authorities of a planned protest, the real
interpretation and implementation of the law was different and became more restrictive over time. This
evolution is apparent in the fate of major protests in 2006—2010: Dissenters’ Marches and Strategy 31.
The first Dissenters’ March was allowed to take place in Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square in December
2006; the very same square was persistently denied to the opposition from December 2008 onwards.
Although the law puts no restrictions on holding marches, in 2005 it became almost impossible to
organize one in Moscow, except for two or three national holidays in a year. Riot police, which previously
had been used only to guard the biggest rallies, soon became a familiar feature of even small pickets;
violent dispersion of opposition rallies also became more common. From 2005, demonstrations and
then pickets were fenced by the police and all their participants were subjected to search, formally for
security reasons. All these and other measures not only allowed the regime to prepare for a breakup of
a potential “maidan,” but also made it harder for ordinary citizens to overcome fear and join protests.
However, use of violence by the police against peaceful protesters undermines regime’s legitimacy. It
may be acceptable in stable times, but can become too costly during political turmoil. Moreover, police
officers are not guaranteed to always remain loyal to the government or willing to participate in
repressions against their fellow citizens. Therefore, a more “civic” force had to be in place to use in these
situations. Nashi and similar organizations were considered capable of fulfilling this task. They had to
occupy the key squares in central Moscow before the opposition could launch its protests. It has been
speculated also that some paramilitary groups within or associated with the Nashi might be preparing to
physically fight demonstrators.
c. Attacking the opposition and independent media
Nashi and the other pro-Kremlin groups did not wait idly for a crisis situation. They were actively
involved in the Kremlin’s efforts to contain and discredit the opposition. Their actions ranged from public
large-scale rallies to provocations to physical assaults on their political opponents. Their formal
independence from the government gave them a convenient position for criticism of Kremlin’s
adversaries. They were also used in attacks against the media that were deemed “dangerous,” like their
campaign against Kommersant newspaper or Yakemenko’s alleged involvement in the beating of
journalist Oleg Kashin. In addition to physical and information attacks, the Kremlin also used hackers to
put down websites or steal valuable information of opposition groups, human rights activists, and
independent media.
4. Legislation and government policies
a. Changes to the electoral system
The Orange Revolution is often classified as an “electoral revolution” or a “breakthrough election.”
Indeed, 2004 Presidential elections were the backdrop, the main theme, and the pretext for the popular
protest. Arguably, it was also a necessary factor that made regime change possible. Therefore, the
importance of elections and electoral system is impossible to overestimate. The Kremlin realized it and
made electoral reform a key part of its response to the “Orange menace.”
Already before the first protesters went to Maidan, Putin had abolished gubernatorial elections and
single-mandate district elections into the State Duma. The next step was to ban electoral blocs, which
made cooperation between various opposition parties extremely hard, raising the threshold of votes
needed to have a party represented in the Duma from 5% to 7%, and putting the whole party system
under effective control of the Presidential Administration. The latter included raising the minimum
number of party members from 10,000 to 50,000 and introduction of a number of additional barriers.
As a result, the number of political parties in Russia dropped from 44 in 2003 to 15 in 2007 to only seven
by 2011. No new political party was registered in that period without an explicit endorsement of Surkov.
The new situation deepened the gap between the “systemic” and “non-systemic” opposition parts. The
former became even more dependent on the Kremlin’s goodwill and had to follow unwritten rules in
order to keep their registration (that is, the ability to field candidates in elections). The latter, on the
other hand, have lost almost any hope to found a party and win an election and saw street protest as the
only way to achieve their goals.
b. Legal restrictions for the civil society: activists, protesters, NGOs
Another important factor in the Orange Revolution and similar developments in Eastern Europe, as
noted by Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchik, has been close cooperation between the political
opposition and the “non-political” civil society. Accordingly, the regime saw non-profit groups as
possible or actual opponents. A number of measures were taken by the Kremlin in order to achieve a
two-fold task: to prevent civic activists from allying with opposition groups and to restrict activities of
those who still do join such alliances. The former goal was mostly pursued with propaganda efforts
(portraying opposition as antipatriotic, weak and corrupt) and by providing incentives for activists to join
Kremlin-friendly projects (e.g., by incorporating them into Nashi or refusing government grants for
disloyal activists). However, this did not stop cooperation between the two “parts” of the civil society.
On the contrary, groups like United Civil Front, Oborona, and The Other Russia appeared and grew that
tried to build such cross-sectorial coalitions. The Kremlin then used its control over the parliament to
pass new legislation.
One of the most significant changes was the so-called “anti-extremist legislation,” which consisted of
amendments to the Law of Countering Extremist Activities, the Criminal Code, the Code of
Administrative Misdemeanors, etc. It had a very broad and vague definition of extremism, which
included “incitement of hatred or enmity against a social group” and was widely seen as a tool to silent
criticism. Indeed, this legislation was increasingly used to prosecute bloggers and political activists and
to ban entire groups (like the National-Bolshevik Party in 2007). Other laws made more complicated
operations of NGOs (though some of the restrictions were later lifted during Dmitry Medvedev’s term,
only to be restored in an even more radical way in 2012) and the media.
c. Using government agencies against opposition and human rights groups
Police as well as the army are oftentimes seen as the last line of defense of authoritarian regimes against
popular discontent. As mentioned earlier, OMON (Special Purpose Police Units) were increasingly used
to control and in many cases disperse opposition rallies. Indeed, since 2005 and especially after the first
Dissenters’ Marches in early 2007, forceful disruption of protests became a routine task for the police.
This was not, however, the only use of coercive agencies for political purposes.
After the Orange Revolution, police units specializing in prevention of organized crime and counterterrorism were tasked with controlling activities of non-systemic opposition organizations, especially
youth ones, often in cooperation with FSB (Federal Security Service). In 2008, special Anti-Extremist
Centers (also known as “E” Centers) were established within the police for this purpose. Level of
harassment of government (both local and federal) critics grew considerably because of these changes,
especially in some parts of the country. In addition to criminal cases against some activists (usually
related to charges of extremism), these units were believed to be responsible for surveillance and
infiltration of political groups.
5. Conclusion
a. View from a post-2011 perspective
As we know, Kremlin was successful in preventing a strong protest movement for many years after the
Orange Revolution. After Dmitry Medvedev became President in 2008 and thus the threat of a political
crisis was reduced, “anti-Orange” measures received much of attention and priority they had had
(although they never stopped completely). The regime felt very confident, which was demonstrated in
September 2011 when Putin and Medvedev announced their planned swap. However, the reality was
much worse for the Kremlin. Fraudulent Duma elections of December 2011 triggered an unprecedented
wave of White Ribbon street protests, which for the first time in a decade posed a real threat to the
Putin’s system. Events of that period inevitably brought about associations with the Orange Revolution.
The regime invoked these associations explicitly; for instance, the biggest pro-Kremlin demonstration
held in February 2012 in Moscow was officially called “The Anti-Orange Rally.” So, more than seven
years after the triumph of the Orange Revolution and two years after its (formal, at least) defeat with the
return of Viktor Yanukovich, “the specter of Maidan” was still haunting Russia—despite best efforts of
the Putin’s regime.
b. Lessons learned and missed
The Kremlin learned a lot of lessons from the Orange Revolution. For a long time, they were able to keep
the opposition under control or marginalized and fragmented, avoid serious political and economic crises
that would threaten their grip on power, prevent real competitors from even participating in elections,
coopt or weaken potential troublemakers among civic activists, etc. They were more effective in
consolidating their power than Kuchma and his government had been. Moreover, one may notice that
the Kremlin was often more creative and/or effective than most opposition groups in using “Orange”
methods. This is not surprising: on one hand, the regime had human and material resources
incomparable to those of the opposition. On the other hand, it could not simply copy Ukrainian
experience. To survive, the Kremlin had to learn both from mistakes of their counterparts in Kiev and
from successes of Yuschenko’s supporters.
However, the regime eventually failed to completely prevent a strong Orange-like movement from
appearing in Russia. Many tools used by the regime were inevitably flawed. For instance, Nashi’s bad
reputation seriously limited their ability to attract capable, educated and self-respecting young citizens,
especially in bigger cities where other options existed for success. These are exactly the people who
became the core of the White Ribbon movement. Brutal treatment of protesters by the police might
discourage a lot of people from joining street rallies but also badly damaged regime’s legitimacy. The
effective destruction of the party system prevented opposition leaders from becoming members of the
Duma but at the same time it destroyed the system’s ability to adapt.
All the actions of the Kremlin only had a limited impact regardless of the amount of resources invested.
The society was maturing and overcoming the shock of instability and crises of the previous decades;
social and civic activism was becoming more common and it could not forever be held within the limits
set by the powers that be. These hidden tensions opened up in December 2011 in the streets of
Moscow. While the Kremlin learned most practical lessons of the Orange Revolution well, it never
managed to cope with fundamental problems of its regime.
Oleg Kozlovsky
[email protected]
from the Orange Revolution
Theses
1. Introduction
a. Russia’s political situation in 2004
Vladimir Putin’s arrival in the Kremlin in 2000 was marked by two parallel processes. On one hand, as
Russia was recovering from the painful economic reforms and the crisis of 1998, it looked to reassert its
role in the world. On the other hand, this restoration of the nation’s economic power was accompanied
by Putin’s increasingly authoritarian and reactionary political reforms. By 2004, the Kremlin had under
its effective control the Parliament and the judiciary, nearly all regional governments and all nation-wide
TV channels. After arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003 the “oligarchs” never dared to oppose the
“party’s line.” The political opposition had been either marginalized or reduced to clientele groups
competing for favors from the regime and not seriously challenging it. The situation appeared stable and
Putin met almost no resistance in his reelection in March 2004 or when he abolished gubernatorial
elections in the Fall of that year.
b. Brief overview of Ukrainian politics and events in 2004
Putin’s system appeared so efficient and stable that it became a model for autocrats in the region and
beyond. Ukraine, with its deep historical, cultural, economic and political ties with Russia, looked like a
particularly good playground to copy its neighbor’s arrangements. Leonid Kuchma who had ruled the
country since 1994 also enjoyed domination in the media, had strong influence over courts and
governors, and boasted a majority in the Rada. Of course, his level, and efficiency, of control over
political and societal institutions was far lower than Putin’s. Ukrainian society was more fragmented and
polycentric, with antagonism between Ukrainian- and Russian-speaking parts, greater diversity of the
party system, and less tamed businessmen. Still, the soft authoritarianism in Ukraine was modeled on
that of the Kremlin and appeared safe and well-rooted. No surprise that the consultants that Kuchma
and Viktor Yanukovich had hired from Moscow based their advice on Russia’s “best practices” of
“managed democracy.”
c. Kremlin’s involvement in the Orange Revolution
However, this seemingly invincible system was shaken in the course of several weeks by the Orange
Revolution. Both Ukrainian authorities and their Russian advisors did not expect the election to go off
script and were unprepared to face popular protests. Events in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities
demonstrated the vulnerability of methods of political control used in the post-Soviet space.
Numerous sources indicate that the Russian government was deeply involved in the 2004 Presidential
race in Ukraine siding with the incumbent President Leonid Kuchma and his chosen successor Victor
Yanukovich. While it is unclear if the Kremlin had participated in the selection process (it appears more
likely that the decision was made by a part of the Ukrainian political and economic elite), it endorsed the
Prime Minister and put its weight behind his candidacy.
Kremlin’s involvement in Ukrainian politics was a geopolitical choice. For Vladimir Putin, Russia’s “near
abroad” (that includes former Soviet republics minus Baltic States) had always been an area of strategic
interests. Moscow sought to both strengthen its political and economic influence in these countries and
to repel West’s attempts, real or perceived, to do the same. The question is why did the Kremlin support
Victor Yanukovich?
Russian journalist Andrey Kolesnikov asked himself this question during the electoral campaign: “Why
[do Russian authorities] so desperately, to sharp pain in the eyes, to aching joints, support Mr.
Yanukovich in his quest for the seat of the President of Ukraine? Why face such a risk if you know that
his opponent’s rating is higher? Indeed, Mr. Yuschenko can win, unless he is stopped, and it seems he
will certainly win. It means they know that he will not. It means they understand that he will be
stopped.” Then Kolesnikov goes on to discuss two possible scenarios of Yuschenko being “stopped” (the
article was written in September 2004, before the first round): invalidation of Yuschenko’s bid and
electoral fraud. The journalist predicts that the latter will cause mass demonstrations and, ultimately,
decisive reaction from the international community.
Given the deep involvement of the Kremlin in Ukrainian politics, it strikes how they apparently
misunderstood the situation in the country. Putin himself badly damaged his reputation by infamously
congratulating Victor Yanukovich twice on his “victory.” These telegrams, signed by the person who
usually is very cautious and wary of his image, demonstrate both the importance given by Moscow to
the Ukrainian elections and its ignorance of the actual situation in the country. Even one day before the
Supreme Court nullified election results, Putin kept voicing support for Kuchma’s position that a new
vote was unacceptable.
Did the Kremlin realize a possibility of mass protests? There are indications that it did, but it
underestimated the scale and persistence of demonstrators. In October 2004, Pavlovsky predicted that
“in a crisis case, Yanukovich [would] almost certainly win” because “the man in the street, both in towns
and in villages, will swing toward the authorities.”
Success of the Orange Revolution shocked the Kremlin and forced them to reevaluate their domestic
policies. Their goal was now to prevent similar events from happening in Russia.
2. Propaganda concepts
Vladimir Putin had established effective control over Russia’s main TV channels and newspapers long
before the Orange Revolution. In fact, it was one of his earliest endeavors after being elected. By 2004,
the Kremlin had at its disposal a sophisticated and powerful propaganda machine that had been used to
produce necessary election results, to support government’s campaigns and initiatives or to attack its
opponents.
On one hand, success of the Orange Revolution had demonstrated the limits of propaganda. Kuchma
had had control over most TV channels and his administration had been instructing all major news
outlets on how to cover stories using weekly guides called “temniks.” But it did not prevent Yuschenko
from becoming the most popular politician well before his campaign even started nor did this form of
censorship succeed in defusing the mass protest after November 22. This failure of “television
technologies” was an important lesson that the Russian government had to learn.
However, mass media and especially TV were a major part of Kremlin’s response to the event in Ukraine.
It was only natural for Putin’s administration to use this already available resource. Apparently, the idea
was to use it preemptively, before any significant opposition party, figure or idea even gets widely
known.
a. Representation of the Orange Revolution
The first reaction of the Russian government’s propaganda to the Orange Revolution was to discredit this
event—and the movement it represented or created—per se. The argument was trivial: If most
Russians believe that the Orange Revolution is a bad thing, they will not want to organize or support
anything similar at home.
Publicity attack against the Orange Revolution used several main themes (all together or separately):
“The Orange Revolution was orchestrated by hostile Western governments; its participants were
either paid foreign agents or brainwashed fools”
“The Revolution’s proponents were nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes, etc.”
“The Orange Revolution was a catastrophic, chaotic, dangerous, etc. event that destabilized the
country and put it on the verge of a civil war”
“The Orange Revolution was doomed to fail because of infighting, corruption and incompetence
of the new government”
b. Anti-Americanism
Another important part of the picture that official propaganda was painting after 2004 was suspicion or
even open hostility toward the West. As was mentioned earlier, the Orange Revolution was depicted as
a coup d’état organized by the United States and Western Europe. However, the ultimate goal of this
alleged conspiracy was Russia. Developed countries, the narrative went, were interested in Russian
natural resources and wanted to install their puppet government in Moscow to be able to exploit them.
Maidan then was just an episode of, or a prelude to, a large-scale covert operation aimed at changing
Russia’s leadership. The Manifesto of the main pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi, which was adopted in
March 2005, declared directly: “Across the area of the former USSR, under the cover of slogans about
democracy and freedom, a great geopolitical game is being played by the West, with the goal of
‘extruding’ Russia from global politics and bringing Russia under external rule.” 1
This propaganda strategy might have several goals. One was to use patriotic and nationalist feelings to
drive people around Vladimir Putin and his regime, which posed to be the only defense against the
1 Nashi Manifesto, March 2005. Translated by the author.
mysterious Western intervention. Introduction of an external enemy is always a powerful political tool,
but in Russia’s case it was reinforced by the relatively recent Cold War memories as well as by the global
anti-American sentiment of the time connected with the war in Iraq.
c. Stability
One of the main arguments that the Kremlin used against proponents of an Orange Revolution scenario
was that it would destabilize the political and economic situation in the country. Stability was declared a
major achievement of Vladimir Putin’s rule that had to be preserved at almost any cost. It was
contrasted with the “turbulent 90s” with their economic crises, high crime rate and political uncertainty.
Any attempt to change the political system would cause sufferings for masses of people, the argument
went, and even an imperfect but stable government was better than revolutionary chaos. While this
fundamental argument against any reform certainly sounds credible, it was often exaggerated even more
as pro-Kremlin speakers associated the non-violent Orange Revolution with the bloody uprisings of
Russia’s past. Indeed, “revolution” in the Russian history has traditionally been associated with the 1917
Bolshevik coup and the following Civil War. Few people would find the idea of a domestic armed
struggle appealing, especially in the period of a steady economic growth in mid-2000s.
d. Sovereign democracy
The two abovementioned views of the Orange Revolution and the “Orange scenario” in general—as a
Western anti-Russian plot and as a dangerous upheaval—were integrated and reinforced by the concept
of “sovereign democracy.” It was attributed to Vladislav Surkov, Deputy Head of the Presidential
Administration in charge of domestic policies and the author of the complex political system that kept
Vladimir Putin in power for over a decade. “Sovereign democracy” replaced the less prominent, and
already compromised, term of “managed democracy” but kept much of what it described. This concept
put national sovereignty in the focus as opposed to the understanding of democracy as a “government
of the people, by the people, for the people.” Each nation has its own way to democracy, according to
this theory, and is free to choose whatever set of political institutions fits its traditions and national
character. There is no universal model of democracy and any attempt to impose any such models on
other countries amounts to meddling in their internal affairs. Basically, any form of government could be
called a “sovereign democracy” as long as it had the popular support. This concept, which may be
viewed as an extreme case of cultural relativism, served as a “theoretical base” for both Kremlin’s
description of Russia as a democracy and its defense against West’s criticism.
e. Discrediting domestic opposition
An important practical goal of the propaganda campaign was to discredit the Russian domestic
opposition, especially those groups and leaders that were trying to follow the Ukrainian example. The
Kremlin used its domination of the media to preemptively attack any Russian “want-to-be yuschenko.”
The most visible and uncontrolled figures including Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Eduard Limonov,
Boris Nemtsov were accused of being corrupt, paid agents of foreign powers, fascists, etc. This
propaganda campaign was more or less similar to “black PR” (smearing) campaigns used in post-Soviet
elections with the exception that it was used long before any voting took place. The goal was to remove
any threat of having a popular and uncontrolled opposition politician by the time of 2008 Presidential
race. In this way, the Kremlin was trying to avoid the Ukrainian situation where Viktor Yanukovich had to
compete with the already popular Viktor Yuschenko.
3. Political organizing
a. Absorbing active youth
Many accounts of the Orange Revolution focused on the prominent role of youth groups in organizing
the protest movement. Most observers mentioned Pora (which in fact was two groups, the so-called
Black Pora and Yellow Pora, working in parallel) as the hard core of the Maidan. The other “civic
campaigns,” as these organizations were referred to in Ukraine, were less known in Russia: Znayu, Chysta
Ukraina or Studenska Hvylya. It was obvious that in order to prevent the Orange Revolution, the regime
had to win over the hearts and minds of the Russian youth—or at least to prevent them from
independently organizing.
The Kremlin’s involvement with the youth after the Orange Revolution had the goal to coopt all young
active people. In early 2005, the then-leader of a notorious pro-Putin group Iduschie Vmeste (“Walking
Together”) and ally of Surkov Vasily Yakemenko began to tour the country and meet with local nonpolitical activists and the ambitious youth. Yakemenko and his aides promised career opportunities and
financial support to youth projects in exchange for their organizers joining the new structure called
Nashi. Many of these projects were not political in nature and some of them might be even unpopular
with local authorities. The goal of this strategy was not to immediately make these activists ardent
regime supporters, but at least to prevent the opposition from allying with them. Enormous financial
resources, generally favorable media coverage, and patronage of the Kremlin allowed the Nashi to
attract a significant number of active provincial youth who might otherwise join the ranks of protest
groups. Over time, many of them either began to share Nashi’s pro-Kremlin, anti-liberal stance (thanks
to Seliger camp trainings, peer pressure, and incentives of career growth) or got disappointed in all
activism and dropped out permanently. However, Nashi’s reputation was tarnished from the very
beginning by their close ties with Iduschie Vmeste and the Kremlin, by their alleged role in violent attacks
against opposition groups and by the widespread image of a Nashi activist as a cynical, corrupt careerist.
In any case, despite some early expectations, very few people would defect the Nashi to become a
Kremlin-independent political or civil activist. In this sense, the group was an effective, if not so efficient,
tool of the regime.
Interestingly enough, the Nashi mimicked many of the methods and arguments employed by Ukrainian
“orange” groups, in particular Pora. It included the very tours of Yakemenko around the country and, to
some extent, the Seliger camp. Nashi’s ideology was a peculiar mixture of reactionary and revolutionary
slogans. For example, in their Manifesto in March 2005 they called themselves “an example of an active
civil society” and declared as their goal “carrying out a ‘personnel revolution’ in Russia.” They even went
so far in invoking Orange Revolution experience as to promise to make “demands for the removal of
specific officials from power, backed by thousands of young people coming out onto the streets.”
However, the very same document said that the Nashi’s “main goal” was to “fight... oligarchs and liberals
who strive to... [implement] an ‘orange revolution’”. This apparent contradiction was a result of the
Nashi leaders’ attempt to combine the Kremlin’s conservative political agenda and the youth’s desire for
greater social mobility. As Jussi Lassila puts it, Nashi was “a state-conformist and regime-maintaining
social movement [that] trie[d] to conduct a ‘ritual-like strategy à l’Orange’”.
Nashi was not the only group, which was created by the regime to counter a possible “Orange scenario.”
Other organizations with similar goals were created, often with sponsorship of regional governments
(like Moscow Oblast’s Mestnye) or that tried to occupy specific niches (e.g., Rossiya Molodaya, which
specialized in direct actions against opposition groups, see below). The real reason for creation of such
groups appears to have been competition for government funding and demonstration of loyalty.
b. Controlling physical space
The Orange Revolution’s most immediate part was of course the round-the-clock protest rally on Maidan
Nezalezhnosty (as well as other places in Kiev and some other Ukrainian cities). By controlling the
central square of the capital, protesters demonstrated their power and put strong pressure on the
authorities. The huge, peaceful crowd made it too costly for the regime to disperse the protest and
forced it into negotiations and, eventually, surrender. In order to prevent this from happening in Russia,
the Kremlin wanted to make sure that it would completely control the physical space in Moscow.
This could be done in two ways. First, police are the conventional state institution entitled and trained to
control, prevent or disperse protests. While the Constitution and the federal law guarantees freedom of
assembly and only requires demonstrators to notify local authorities of a planned protest, the real
interpretation and implementation of the law was different and became more restrictive over time. This
evolution is apparent in the fate of major protests in 2006—2010: Dissenters’ Marches and Strategy 31.
The first Dissenters’ March was allowed to take place in Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square in December
2006; the very same square was persistently denied to the opposition from December 2008 onwards.
Although the law puts no restrictions on holding marches, in 2005 it became almost impossible to
organize one in Moscow, except for two or three national holidays in a year. Riot police, which previously
had been used only to guard the biggest rallies, soon became a familiar feature of even small pickets;
violent dispersion of opposition rallies also became more common. From 2005, demonstrations and
then pickets were fenced by the police and all their participants were subjected to search, formally for
security reasons. All these and other measures not only allowed the regime to prepare for a breakup of
a potential “maidan,” but also made it harder for ordinary citizens to overcome fear and join protests.
However, use of violence by the police against peaceful protesters undermines regime’s legitimacy. It
may be acceptable in stable times, but can become too costly during political turmoil. Moreover, police
officers are not guaranteed to always remain loyal to the government or willing to participate in
repressions against their fellow citizens. Therefore, a more “civic” force had to be in place to use in these
situations. Nashi and similar organizations were considered capable of fulfilling this task. They had to
occupy the key squares in central Moscow before the opposition could launch its protests. It has been
speculated also that some paramilitary groups within or associated with the Nashi might be preparing to
physically fight demonstrators.
c. Attacking the opposition and independent media
Nashi and the other pro-Kremlin groups did not wait idly for a crisis situation. They were actively
involved in the Kremlin’s efforts to contain and discredit the opposition. Their actions ranged from public
large-scale rallies to provocations to physical assaults on their political opponents. Their formal
independence from the government gave them a convenient position for criticism of Kremlin’s
adversaries. They were also used in attacks against the media that were deemed “dangerous,” like their
campaign against Kommersant newspaper or Yakemenko’s alleged involvement in the beating of
journalist Oleg Kashin. In addition to physical and information attacks, the Kremlin also used hackers to
put down websites or steal valuable information of opposition groups, human rights activists, and
independent media.
4. Legislation and government policies
a. Changes to the electoral system
The Orange Revolution is often classified as an “electoral revolution” or a “breakthrough election.”
Indeed, 2004 Presidential elections were the backdrop, the main theme, and the pretext for the popular
protest. Arguably, it was also a necessary factor that made regime change possible. Therefore, the
importance of elections and electoral system is impossible to overestimate. The Kremlin realized it and
made electoral reform a key part of its response to the “Orange menace.”
Already before the first protesters went to Maidan, Putin had abolished gubernatorial elections and
single-mandate district elections into the State Duma. The next step was to ban electoral blocs, which
made cooperation between various opposition parties extremely hard, raising the threshold of votes
needed to have a party represented in the Duma from 5% to 7%, and putting the whole party system
under effective control of the Presidential Administration. The latter included raising the minimum
number of party members from 10,000 to 50,000 and introduction of a number of additional barriers.
As a result, the number of political parties in Russia dropped from 44 in 2003 to 15 in 2007 to only seven
by 2011. No new political party was registered in that period without an explicit endorsement of Surkov.
The new situation deepened the gap between the “systemic” and “non-systemic” opposition parts. The
former became even more dependent on the Kremlin’s goodwill and had to follow unwritten rules in
order to keep their registration (that is, the ability to field candidates in elections). The latter, on the
other hand, have lost almost any hope to found a party and win an election and saw street protest as the
only way to achieve their goals.
b. Legal restrictions for the civil society: activists, protesters, NGOs
Another important factor in the Orange Revolution and similar developments in Eastern Europe, as
noted by Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchik, has been close cooperation between the political
opposition and the “non-political” civil society. Accordingly, the regime saw non-profit groups as
possible or actual opponents. A number of measures were taken by the Kremlin in order to achieve a
two-fold task: to prevent civic activists from allying with opposition groups and to restrict activities of
those who still do join such alliances. The former goal was mostly pursued with propaganda efforts
(portraying opposition as antipatriotic, weak and corrupt) and by providing incentives for activists to join
Kremlin-friendly projects (e.g., by incorporating them into Nashi or refusing government grants for
disloyal activists). However, this did not stop cooperation between the two “parts” of the civil society.
On the contrary, groups like United Civil Front, Oborona, and The Other Russia appeared and grew that
tried to build such cross-sectorial coalitions. The Kremlin then used its control over the parliament to
pass new legislation.
One of the most significant changes was the so-called “anti-extremist legislation,” which consisted of
amendments to the Law of Countering Extremist Activities, the Criminal Code, the Code of
Administrative Misdemeanors, etc. It had a very broad and vague definition of extremism, which
included “incitement of hatred or enmity against a social group” and was widely seen as a tool to silent
criticism. Indeed, this legislation was increasingly used to prosecute bloggers and political activists and
to ban entire groups (like the National-Bolshevik Party in 2007). Other laws made more complicated
operations of NGOs (though some of the restrictions were later lifted during Dmitry Medvedev’s term,
only to be restored in an even more radical way in 2012) and the media.
c. Using government agencies against opposition and human rights groups
Police as well as the army are oftentimes seen as the last line of defense of authoritarian regimes against
popular discontent. As mentioned earlier, OMON (Special Purpose Police Units) were increasingly used
to control and in many cases disperse opposition rallies. Indeed, since 2005 and especially after the first
Dissenters’ Marches in early 2007, forceful disruption of protests became a routine task for the police.
This was not, however, the only use of coercive agencies for political purposes.
After the Orange Revolution, police units specializing in prevention of organized crime and counterterrorism were tasked with controlling activities of non-systemic opposition organizations, especially
youth ones, often in cooperation with FSB (Federal Security Service). In 2008, special Anti-Extremist
Centers (also known as “E” Centers) were established within the police for this purpose. Level of
harassment of government (both local and federal) critics grew considerably because of these changes,
especially in some parts of the country. In addition to criminal cases against some activists (usually
related to charges of extremism), these units were believed to be responsible for surveillance and
infiltration of political groups.
5. Conclusion
a. View from a post-2011 perspective
As we know, Kremlin was successful in preventing a strong protest movement for many years after the
Orange Revolution. After Dmitry Medvedev became President in 2008 and thus the threat of a political
crisis was reduced, “anti-Orange” measures received much of attention and priority they had had
(although they never stopped completely). The regime felt very confident, which was demonstrated in
September 2011 when Putin and Medvedev announced their planned swap. However, the reality was
much worse for the Kremlin. Fraudulent Duma elections of December 2011 triggered an unprecedented
wave of White Ribbon street protests, which for the first time in a decade posed a real threat to the
Putin’s system. Events of that period inevitably brought about associations with the Orange Revolution.
The regime invoked these associations explicitly; for instance, the biggest pro-Kremlin demonstration
held in February 2012 in Moscow was officially called “The Anti-Orange Rally.” So, more than seven
years after the triumph of the Orange Revolution and two years after its (formal, at least) defeat with the
return of Viktor Yanukovich, “the specter of Maidan” was still haunting Russia—despite best efforts of
the Putin’s regime.
b. Lessons learned and missed
The Kremlin learned a lot of lessons from the Orange Revolution. For a long time, they were able to keep
the opposition under control or marginalized and fragmented, avoid serious political and economic crises
that would threaten their grip on power, prevent real competitors from even participating in elections,
coopt or weaken potential troublemakers among civic activists, etc. They were more effective in
consolidating their power than Kuchma and his government had been. Moreover, one may notice that
the Kremlin was often more creative and/or effective than most opposition groups in using “Orange”
methods. This is not surprising: on one hand, the regime had human and material resources
incomparable to those of the opposition. On the other hand, it could not simply copy Ukrainian
experience. To survive, the Kremlin had to learn both from mistakes of their counterparts in Kiev and
from successes of Yuschenko’s supporters.
However, the regime eventually failed to completely prevent a strong Orange-like movement from
appearing in Russia. Many tools used by the regime were inevitably flawed. For instance, Nashi’s bad
reputation seriously limited their ability to attract capable, educated and self-respecting young citizens,
especially in bigger cities where other options existed for success. These are exactly the people who
became the core of the White Ribbon movement. Brutal treatment of protesters by the police might
discourage a lot of people from joining street rallies but also badly damaged regime’s legitimacy. The
effective destruction of the party system prevented opposition leaders from becoming members of the
Duma but at the same time it destroyed the system’s ability to adapt.
All the actions of the Kremlin only had a limited impact regardless of the amount of resources invested.
The society was maturing and overcoming the shock of instability and crises of the previous decades;
social and civic activism was becoming more common and it could not forever be held within the limits
set by the powers that be. These hidden tensions opened up in December 2011 in the streets of
Moscow. While the Kremlin learned most practical lessons of the Orange Revolution well, it never
managed to cope with fundamental problems of its regime.
Oleg Kozlovsky
[email protected]