Putin's Preventive Counter-Revolution

This book examines the ''preventive counter-revolution,'' a programme of reforms and repression that transformed the face of Russian politics during Vladimir Putin''s second term as president. Kremlin propagandists hailed this programme as a defence of national sovereignty against Western attempts to foment a ''velvet revolution'' in Russia. But this book shows that the Putin regime was reacting to a real domestic threat: opposition leaders and youth activists who had begun to employ ''velvet'' revolutionary methods in a campaign to harness popular grievances and to challenge Putin in the streets and at the ballot box. It traces the formulation and implementation of the regime''s two-track response, which was based on a careful analysis of the lessons of the recent ''velvet’ (or ‘coloured’) revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. The first track was repressive: the imposition of controls on NGOs, restrictions on electoral competition, and a crackdown on opposition demonstrations. The second was the mobilisation of supporters in ''patriotic'' youth organisations that employed both gang violence and ''velvet'' revolutionary techniques. Drawing on a wide range of Russian-language sources, including opposition activists'' blogs, this book charts the end of Russia''s experiment with liberal democracy and the emergence of a new type of authoritarian order.