Authors

Yakov Lurie¹; Marina Iaroslavtseva²;  ¹ University of Amsterdam, Netherlands;  ² Justus-Liebig-Universität, Germany

Discussion

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, civil society actors, from large NGOs to individual activists, faced new risks and vulnerabilities. The state system waging war in Ukraine simultaneously targeted its internal “enemies.” Many activists faced political pressure, imprisonment, or fled the country (see e.g. McCarthy 2023). Amid the initial shock, economic sanctions, severed ties with Western donors, and increasing repression, it seemed the civil society sector might collapse. This prompted some researchers to use somewhat apocalyptic metaphors such as “desert” or “remnants” (Gretskiy 2023). However, our ongoing research with the Hannah Arendt Research Center (over 100 interviews with NGO members, civil society initiatives, and activists in various Russian regions or working with Russia from abroad) reveals a different reality.

A key question arises: how do these civil society initiatives survive and adapt amid pressure and risks? This paper argues that it is not established safety rules that enable these initiatives to navigate uncertainties, but rather a conscious lack of structure and a dynamic, creative approach to avoiding fixed “order.”

Alongside the practical, field-work-based findings, we also propose a more theoretical framework. The concept of the rhizome proposed in the work of Deleuze and Guattari is used in this research as a metaphor for organizational activity in the autocracy. This paper critiques the preference for root-tree ordering manifested by Western metaphysics and suggests that vertical hierarchical organizations of civil societies are not applicable in the case of authoritarian regimes. By using Russian case study and referring to the empirical data, we tend to claim that rhizomatic principles became the most preferred ways of oppositional organization operating in Russia during the war. Rhizome in this sense acts as a proxy for sustainable civil society.