Russian journalist and economist Alexander Sokolov is facing prison time for his activist and journalist investigations. Source: Rot Front. Since November 2016, the corridors of Moscow’s Tverskoy district court have been filled with elderly citizens, loudly discussing conspiracy theories, the fate of the Soviet Union and the significance of Stalin. Waiting outside the courtroom, they exchange comments with officers of the court before finally being allowed inside, when they promptly occupy all the seats. Two tall women, dressed in their prosecutor blues, follow them into the court, where three men — Kirill Barabash, Valery Parfyonov and Alexander Sokolov — are standing trial. Yuri Mukhin sits next to them, and this is the case against “Army of the People’s Will”.
Mukhin is a prominent political writer, who began his career back in the early 1990s. In 1995, he began publishing the Duel newspaper, which, in its various iterations, took Stalinist and anti-Zionist approaches to Russia’s political and social problems. Later, Mukhin’s most active followers joined his organisation “Army of the People’s Will” (AVN), which sought to, among other tasks, enforce the direct responsibility of Russia’s politicians to the people: AVN tried to conduct a referendum on changes to Russia’s Constitution permitting public officials and parliamentarians to be punished, should the people wish it. It’s completely legal to want a referendum, but in 2010 AVN was declared an extremist organisation and banned. In effect, this court decision meant that any further activity by AVN was subject to criminal prosecution.
At one point, though, an initiative group on conducting a referendum (under the name “For responsible authorities”, or ZOV) was set up in parallel with AVN — this group had the same basic idea and the same people behind it. If you compare the leaflets they published, the symbols they used and their demands, these two organisations were similar to the point where you couldn’t tell them apart.
