Discussion
“We have not won anywhere, but without us it would have been worse”: Successes and failures in the activities of Russian human rights defenders from the early 1990s to 2022. Today, some human rights activists view their activities over the 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union as a complete failure: we have lost, a dictatorship has been established in Russia, and Putin has started a global war.
To what extent do the Russian authorities' “successes” in destroying democracy devalue the activities of human rights activists in the years after the collapse of the USSR and before the start of full-scale aggression against Ukraine?
The focus of my presentation is on Russian human rights activists' assessments of their successes and failures during this period.
The main source for the study was my interviews with Russian human rights activists, supplemented by their other interviews and articles, as well as materials from the websites of human rights organizations.
Summarizing the assessments of human rights activists, we can say that quite a lot has been achieved. Millions of people have received help in defending their rights. Society has received guidelines for ensuring human rights from government officials. Human rights activists have been able to convey the meaning of human rights to part of society. They have managed to influence the authorities in the adoption of a number of laws, influence law enforcement, influence through the inclusion of international mechanisms, and finally, influence through the power of their moral authority. In this way, they managed to partially restrain the authorities' attacks on human rights for a long time.
Yes, human rights defenders did not succeed in turning society into their ally in the fight for human rights, did not succeed in consolidating their efforts with liberal politicians in the fight for democracy, did not succeed in achieving unity within their ranks to develop and implement strategies. The extent to which this was possible is a subject for another discussion.
Ultimately, the outcome is well summed up in the words of Memorial leader Arseny Roginsky, spoken in 2014: “We have not won anywhere, but without us it would have been worse.”
