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The Russian presidential election on March 4, which was won by Vladimir Putin with an official count of 64 percent, represented both the end (of the cheerful or romantic phase) and the beginning (of the more fine-grained, step-by-step phase) for the resurgent opposition movement that has taken shape since last December.
That first phase was defined by large demonstrations—as many as 100,000 people, in some cases—that were notable in their feeling of ebullience and optimism. The Russian urban, professional class, which for so long had been in a political slumber, awoke to realize that it has more of a political voice then it once imagined, and quickly gained a sense of what previously felt impossible: that public pressure and action could perhaps force the Kremlin to change itself, to somehow soften or liberalize its control over the country’s political life. “We are here,” was a common refrain at these demonstrations—our voices, our votes matter.
But affecting real political change proved difficult. As the victory of Putin in the presidential election revealed, the state still enjoys an overwhelming advantage in administrative resources, and, no less important, Putin can count on a sizeable portion of the Russian population to be at least his passive supporters. The two opposition rallies held after the presidential election drew smaller crowds (though still huge in the context of Putin-era street politics) than those in December and February, and the mood felt less triumphant, and somehow deflated. But the middle-class protesters are not retreating from politics entirely; instead, they are focusing on regional and local governance, and attempting to build a new civic and political architecture from the ground up. And that will be the next phase: less photogenic, perhaps less fun, but as many who have become interested in politics for the first time in recent months hope, ultimately more long-lasting and effective.