this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
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Because russia is not a democracy and an average russian is staying away from politics due to learned helplessness. Because of multiple factors, even protests won't change anything. You can call for sabotage, but that isn't what an average person would do.
Besides, their internet is far more restricted. They don't have access to twitter. They use vk and registration there essentially requires a gov id, 1 per citizen.
You grow up in those countries, you'd soon learn to keep quiet.
My family was all born in mainland China, we live in the US right now, my parents keeps telling me to stop criticizing the government, as in neither the governments of of PRC and USA. Because in their mind:
dissent = trouble
shut up = safe
Which I mean, to be fair, seeing how PRC allegedly has overseas operatives and also the US's current autocratization, they might actually have a point.
I don't agree with that idea, but I get where they're coming from. They lived through the Cutural revolution stuff. My dad was a kid during those times, my mom was born near the end of it, but she heard direct first hand accounts from my maternal grandparents. So... those fears gets passed on. My mom told me many times to not post anti-government views on the internet... even here in the US... ๐
I know what you mean. My parents (both Ukrainian) were telling me to lower my profile and don't post anything political cause we don't know where are we heading. They did enjoy their freedom to criticize gov at home & with the family members though, but in a very characteristic Ukrainian trait - all the politicians bad, they all steal etc.
My wife's granny from Belarus, she switched to very quiet whisper every time she was talking about politics. Even in Ukraine, where people faced no consequences. Because walls have ears.
And re genetic memory, I know what you mean cause even people that didn't experience Holodomor had very different attitude towards food, having stashes & wasting food was basically unthinkable.
That's true in the US, anyone who thinks they have free speech hasn't said anything that anyone cared about, and were asleep the entirety of 2020 and hasn't turned on the news now that Trump's ICE are so wildly incompetent they don't even bother to obfuscate what they're doing.
Those who don't move don't notice their chains.
the fact that you get Siberia'd for holding a blank poster on the street says more than enough to this end.
This isn't the key factor. Every protest that has big political change goal is potentially dangerous for those who participate, in every country. That didn't stop Ukrainians, for example.
But the thing that russian gov wouldn't just go away. Even if 10 millions would be on the streets for like a month. Even if they defend against riot police instead of running away. The key figures would just stay till the bitter end. They would use army. And then what, an average russian doesn't have a rifle at home. And who would you fight, an army?
At this point it's easier to just join russian corps in Ukrainian army. At least it is organized.
But then again, they won't get a million on the streets. And they won't resist the riot police. Russian protest is a sad view.
When Russia was not in the war, protests were way more prominent. Some of them were not sad at all.
The thing is, protests don't do shit on their own. They are tools that opposition use to organise and send a message, and Putin learned to strike where it hurts, so when you participate in a protest all you achieve is that you paint a target on your back.
This is one of the reasons Ukranian protest of 2014 ultimately prevailed, cops were targeting protesters and not the leaders, so it became an organised fight.
Protest in a country with the rule of law and democracy is about sending a message. Those tools don't work in authoritarian countries like Russia (or Ukraine in 2013, for that matter). I'm fairly convinced that russian opposition politicians don't want to allow the real protest to happen, directing the protest energy into waste.
Otherwise, I can't explain why the protest never evolves into action. As if the protest wasn't about the goal (to change things), but about fixing self-consciousness (to say that you don't agree & getting jailed & say you did all you could).
And I need to vocalize the unfortunate truth about the protests that resolve around the goal - you need to be able to answer the question "and what if they won't?" at every step, and be able to escalate.
"We are on the streets for a month, what if they won't go?" - take the gov buildings / their villas and make them go. "What if they beat those people?". Organize the people so they are coordinated and can fight back. "What if they shoot?" Raid the military bases and shoot back. Etc.
Every next step is escalation into more violence. Every next step don't add you new followers, but filters out the existing ones that can't follow further. All the peaceful protest part is about getting the biggest amount of people on the streets. But if you can't answer a single "and what if they won't?" - you lose.
The Ukrainian revolution worked because it had no leaders. There were politicians who wanted PR and were telling speeches, but lots of people despised them. There was no single entity you could eliminate to make it fall. Sure, different groups had their authority figures, but there were dozens of those groups. And people used their time to self-organize into militia groups, new leaders emerged naturally from those who took action and responsibility.