AMERICAN.COM

With between 25,000 and 40,000 demonstrating in Moscow and at least 10,000 in St. Petersburg, the protest rallies that swept through Russia this past Saturday are likely to be not only the largest in Putin’s Russia, but likely the most numerous since the end of the first phase of the Russian revolution in 1987-91.

But this undeniable hallmark is still less important than who the demonstrators were and what they demanded. In both respects, these rallies have marked the coming of political age of the post-Soviet middle-class. It made its political debut almost two years ago, in winter and spring 2010, when during the “Days of Wrath” what I called “new protesters” have made quintessentially middle-class demands on the regime: not more government and more from the government but less of both—less interference, which meant less corruption, less taxes, and less meddling in people’s lives. They also wanted the authorities, both local and national, to respect their fellow citizens and abide by the country’s laws and constitution.

Judging by reports and videos, this Saturday’s demonstrators, too, were mostly middle class. (There was even a group of professors and administrators from Russia’s most privileged business and technology center in Skolkovo near Moscow, President Medvedev’s much-touted response to the Silicon Valley). Their main demand—new and honest parliamentary elections—was perhaps even less important than the broader, overarching quest for respect from their own government. “We earn enough money to live,” one of them told the Washington Post. “But the authorities need to understand that we are really fed up.” “Putin appointed himself the next president,” another protester in Moscow said. “Why didn’t he ask us?”

Another quintessentially middle-class feature of the movement is its Internet-centricity. It was the “Internet Russia,” not the “television Russia” that was out on the streets. One of the world’s most explosively growing internet markets, reportedly counting more users (51-52 million) than any other European country, Russia has followed the similarly middle-class “Twitter/Facebook Revolutions” in Iran and of the Arab Spring in making the Internet the key instrument of political mobilization.

It has been clear for a while (and confirmed by my field research in Russia last summer) that for Russia to achieve lasting progress in liberty, prosperity, and democratic stability, this time change will have to come “from below,” effected by a civil society mature, organized, self-aware, patient, and self-confident enough to hold the state accountable at both the local and national levels.

Yesterday’s protest is the first undeniable sign that such a society is in the making. Atlas has shrugged! Or, as they say in Russian «Лёд тронулся!» Lyod tronulsya: the winter ice on rivers is melting and moving. It may be unstoppable and gathering speed, smashing Putinism and ushering in, at long last, a firmly post-authoritarian Russia.