The March of Free People, as the organisers called it, commenced on Nikitsky Boulevard at 6 p.m. Initially it was planned for the march to start at Okhotny Ryad (by the Kremlin) and lead to the Solovetsky memorial by the Lubyanka. However the authorities forbade this. The “Free People” in consequence then used this very route, on which they had been forbidden to march. The column, consisting of some 400 people, proceeded to Pushkin square, where a meeting took place. At the head of the marchers were the representatives of democratic organisations, with orange balloons and banners supporting civic freedom and condemning the war in Chechnya. Following them, young people from the Association of Communist Youth, Left Front Youth, Socialist Opposition and anarchists and communists marched. While the democrats moved quietly, the communist element shouted out slogans such as “all power to the soviets!”, “revolution!”, or “communism!”. Above the column the red and black flags of the communists and anarchists respectively fluttered. Some of the marchers held a large banner aloft with “socialist opposition” written on it. From time to time, the communist youth cried out “revolution: red, not orange!”

On Pushkin square all became rather confused. Banners proclaiming “no to imperial politics” and “for fair elections” were aloft adjacent to red flags and banners proclaiming “down with autocracy!”. An elderly person looking back at this asked me what the reds were doing here. He had been going to Pushkin square on 10 December every year, and came today having heard on radio Svoboda about the democracy meeting. “I did not know that the communists would be here. On radio Svoboda they did not say this”: he told me, rather discouraged. “If they will not leave, then I shall”.

The reds naturally did not leave: they were among the organisers of the joint action. I noticed that the acquaintance had left the meeting when anarchists started crying out “Up, up with the red flag, the state is our enemy!” However, leaving the meeting now seemed to be not very easy: the militia had blocked off all exits with the exception of one at the distant Novopushkinsky square. They also blocked off the approaches to the lorry from where the orators were speaking. Furthermore around twenty metres from the lorry the militia had assembled, separating the organisers from the remaining protesters.

The leader of the Movement for Human Rights, Lev Ponomarev, was unable to start the meeting as the communists were singing the red hymn and paying no attention to him. Ponomarev called out to them via his microphone “enough folks, stop now”. Finally, after an order from one of their own, the reds quietened.

First up was the priest Gleb Yakunin, who reminded the protesters of the value of the constitution and read out verses dedicated to the events underway in the Ukraine. Lyudmila Vakhnina represented the human rights organisation Memorial, and spoke of the necessity of ending the war in Chechnya, and defending human rights. Leaders of the left also spoke, attacking capitalism, the liberals, and Putin. The anarchists’ leader also came up, calling all party leaders “monsters” and calling for the state to be broken. A trade union leader and a foreman from the train drivers described the difficult conditions for the workers. At the end of the meeting Lev Shimaev, a democrat from the early 1990’s, spoke against the high prices of food, and the people’s low standard of living. And at the end, Anna Karetnikova from the Committee against War called on all communists who had gathered at the meeting, liberals, democrats, anarchists and students to be friends and henceforth to come to the protest meetings together. 45 minutes after the beginning of the meeting, it ended and some 400-500 of its participants peacefully left.

I asked several of the democrats about their opinions of the meeting. “As a temporary measure, the union with the communists can be possible, but it will inevitably fail”: the president of the international human rights assembly said. “And generally it is obnoxious”.

“Freedom by sanction is not freedom”: said the former Soviet political prisoner Mikhail Kukobaka. “But Putin has upset people to such an extent that people of opposing political views are united. I am against Putin, and I do not care who stands next to me and under what flag”.
Pavel Bashkirov, once a Soviet-era dissident and political prisoner said “we absolutely don’t like human rights activists and communists being together at one meeting. I did not expect that there would be a union with forces of the left. I am sceptical towards the idea of a union of all forces against Putin. I probably will not come to the protests any more”.

The idea of a union between democrats and communists is not new. Politics uniting in fractions and unions does not care too much about its public reputation. Society pays it back in kind: the loss of votes at parliamentary elections, and loss of interest in its political ideas. Civic forces, taking the same dubious path, will come to the same pitiful result. The meeting on 10 December was attended by far fewer people than if it had not been in conjunction with the communists. The people are not as simple as some political and civic leaders believe. But to lose one’s reputation in the manner of actions like that of 10 December on Pushkin square in Moscow is indeed very, very simple.