“What do you think of the people participating in rallies and manifestations against the falling living standards and therefore trying to defend their rights?”

The results were:

“Nineteen percent admitted feeling respect for the protesters and 41% said they fully understood them. Seven percents admitted interest. Not a single respondent said that street protests were an affront to be put an end to. Twenty-six percent admitted indifference.”

However, “answers to an analogous question concerning street actions in support of the government were different: 31% declared support, 11% sneered, and 41% were indifferent.”

It’s interesting that according to the Levada Center residents of smaller towns viewed street protests more sympathetically:

“Readiness to protest was mostly admitted by residents of small townships (27-28%) where sympathy with street protests was particularly strong (66%).”

From comments and articles I’ve read, I assumed that most Russians learned to view protests as a no-no–as some sort of an affront to the dignity of Russia itself. Not that I expect that Russia will suddenly become engulfed by street protests, but I’m glad that my assumption was wrong.

Easy-peasy. Gorbachev’s referendum on keeping the USSR intact got ~75% of the vote in favor.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Reduced state power, increased state power, or state power of a different kind. As far as I see it, they aren’t protesting about the presence of a government per se, rather the policies of a particular government.

“If Russia’s oppositionists are afraid of repeating the past, then what is their goal?”

I don’t know. Perhaps it depends on the particular issue they are protesting against. And it often is fairly straight forward. For example, if they are protesting against racism or against human right violations, perhaps they want for both society and the state to deal effectively with racism and to drastically improve the human rights records.

For instance, in the US the pro-life movement often has antiabortion marches. They obviously want an end to abortion. When in the beginning of 2003 my wife marched against the Iraq War she was obviously hoping that those marches will have at least some influence on preventing the US from invading Iraq. And when they were not successful the marchers stated that at least it showed to rest of the country as well the world that a good number of Americans actively opposed the Iraq invasion.

“Are they so naive to think that protest will lead to a desired outcome?”

I don’t think that most are that naive. I think, though, they are hopeful that at some level those protests will have some sort of positive influence. They know the odds are against them, but there is always hope. After all, even if not very often protests sometimes do make a difference–even if the effects are not immediate or direct.

I’d agree with that. I can’t understand what she had against empathy, though.

If you read carefully, I called Rand ideas “nonsense”. This is simple. The problem comes with realization that we live in the world where nonsense doctrines hold sway, more often than not. Rand ideas can’t stand on their own, but they stand very well against say, Marxian historic determinism or wishy-washy Utopian Socialism.

Also, I like your taking down of Chrisius, simple, straightforward and effective. Don’t expect him to come with a coherent answer, so we just assume he had to swallow it.

Regarding the values of “early 20-s century Russian peasants”, there is no mystery to what they wanted: Land and Peace. We know what they were promised: Land and Peace. We know what they were cheated from: Land and Peace. We know what they got: ‘prodrazverstka’ and labor camps.

If Russia’s oppositionists are afraid of repeating the past, then what is their goal? Are they so naive to think that protest will lead to a desired outcome? If their goal isn’t state power then what is? Or should we think of them as mere cynics who have carved themselves out a niche within the Russian body politic?

I think that’s too easy, Sean. For context, for me the trigger was this remark:

“Revolutionaries of yore wouldn’t have bothered calling for the resignation of politicians. They would have demanded the destruction of the state itself.”

To limit myself to Russia (and as I wrote before), I think a reason why many of today’s protesters are not so eager to demand the destruction of the state is the memory of what happened when the state was destroyed in 1917: terror, civil war, famine, repression, countless of people dying at their prime. All that happened before Stalin. Because of this historical memory, I assume that even those who want to do away with liberal democracy, sovereign democracy or whatever are being much more cautious than their more optimistic (naive) counterparts of the earlier part of the 20th Century.

In addition, Da Russophile’s point was a good one.