After the war started, the number of subscribers on my channel has doubled compared with the time before the war.
So, many viewers know me as a youtuber talking about the war and its consequences.
However, if I had a business card, it would say, “Maxim Katz, chief manager of the foundation “City Projects”.
And if someone asked me to explain in short what this foundation had done before February 24,
I would have said, “It created a social demand for comfortable cities”.
We’ve even published a book “100 pieces of advice to the Mayor”.
I’m telling you about that one quite often, and not so often about this one. But it’s really good too.
Creating a social demand is one of the key tasks for any politician, and in Russia this task
is beyond important and beyond complex.
The problem is that a hungry man always dreams about food.
When people’s basic needs aren’t satisfied, = it’s difficult for them to want anything else.
Sometimes it seems that Putin keeps the Russian citizens in poverty on purpose, so that their wishes
were just about food, clothes and a place to live in.
On September 5, during another meeting Putin urged once again to pull the Russians out of slums.
And before that he urged to do the same in 2021, and in 2013, and in 2007.
Like in the Russian fairy tale. The old man keeps urging and still can’t do it. And it doesn’t look like he wants to, anyway.
But in today’s video I want you to think about this. Let’s imagine the war is over and Putin is no longer a President.
“United Russia” successfully ununited itself, and reasonable people came to power.
Let’s think, what do we want from them? If we want this to happen, we need to understand what we want first.
REHABILITATION AND AMNESTY
In the context of civilized political competition, left and right, conservative and modernist politicians can come to power.
The most bizarre coalitions can be created.
But despite that, any government’s activity in our country should be consistent with humanist values.
The main goal for any new power should be to make the lives of the citizens better.
Not to gain any new territories. Not to abuse its own people to frighten (or entertain) the others.
It should work so that our country could become a big and cozy home for people who live there.
After two world’s wars, four revolutions, Stalin’s repressions and Putin’s confusing schemes we almost forgot
that our citizens are people and not some expendable toy soldiers.
It’s time to start living like normal people do.
The first thing the new power in after-war Russia should do is to liberate all the political prisoners.
Innocent people put into inhumane conditions of Russian prisons shouldn’t spend any extra days there.
They are imprisoned for their opinion, their legal political, journalist and social activity.
It was inhumane to prosecute them.
But it’s even more inhumane to make them wait for days, weeks and months after the change of power.
A pardon committee should be created as soon as possible.
It should include lawyers, journalists, social activists, politicians and other people.
The task of this commission is to make lists of prisoners who should be immediately pardoned.
It’s the fastest procedure to make prisoners free.
If we have enough people with public weight for the pardon committee, the rehabilitation committee
should be created in a more thorough way.
Its volume of work can be compared with what was done during Khrushchev's “thaw”.
The rehabilitation committee should review thousands and thousands of criminal cases,
and former political prisoners would be just a small part of it.
Just for example. You might have heard about Elena Khakhaleva with the nickname “the golden judge”.
She became well-known when she arranged a wedding for her daughter and paid several millions of rubles for it.
Then the journalists found out that she had connections in the criminal world,
mansions in different parts of the world, an impressive auto park and no law school diploma.
“The golden judge” was fired in the end but it took several years to achieve that.
But another thing is important here – during her career Elena Khakhaleva alone made 6,000 sentences,
and 99% of them were guilty verdicts.
And no one has reviewed her sentences. And how many judges like her are there in Russia?
A lot of innocent people are in prison right now in Russia. I’ll repeat, the percentage of strictly political cases isn’t huge.
There are many more people who were convicted because of drugs planted on them or for unsolved crimes.
Only in Stalin’s time there were more innocent prisoners than now.
Except for pardon and rehabilitation committees, it would be necessary to create a separate committee –
an amnesty committee.
It should review the cases of those who were convicted for real crimes but their punishment was excessive.
It happens all the time in Russia. The amnesty committee should avoid mistakes people made after Stalin’s death.
Then they let solid criminals go. Of course, they shouldn’t let them go free.
And innocent people kept waiting for their cases to be reviewed while staying in prisons.
People who were imprisoned for political reasons should be consulted while performing
a huge reform of the punishment system.
They’ve seen what the Russian prison is from the inside.
They understand it better than anyone why it doesn’t help people change but turns them into solid criminals.
Those who sit in detention facilities, prisons and camps illegally and unfairly, get acquainted with the machine which make
a wrongdoer become a murderer, and a murderer become a maniac.
I’ll remind you that the task of the penitentiary system is the opposite.
You need to create such conditions so that a person who committed
a crime could leave the prison without committing any more crimes in future.
That’s why society needs a penitentiary system.
After leaving prison every unfairly sentenced person should get not only rehabilitation and compensations,
but an invitation to the committee on reforming the penitentiary system.
And in order not to feed this inhumane machine with new people, we need to get rid of all those unjust laws
in our criminal and administrative codes which contradict our Constitution.
Our Constitution guarantees us freedom of speech – people can’t be punished for their opinion.
Even if the Minister of Defense or the President himself doesn’t like this opinion of yours.
The Constitution forbids to sentence a person twice for one action.
Therefore, the “Dadin’s law” for several violations of the meetings law shouldn’t exist at all.
And I’m not even saying anything that legal protests and meetings become criminal,
though our right to protest and arrange meetings is guaranteed by Article 31 of the Constitution.
According to the Russian Constitution, there could be no “foreign agents” either.
It's absolute nonsense when a person is deprived of his political, civil and even labor rights
and his punishment is implemented without any court decision.
Yes, we know what Russian courts are, but in the case of foreign agents even formal court hearings aren’t necessary.
Any nameless bureaucrat in the Ministry of Justice or even in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can name a citizen “a foreign agent”.
And closing the matter with the Constitution, it was rewritten in a totally wrong way. It should be brought back.
I won’t even stop here, because if they managed to comply with this new Constitution,
we would live in a completely different country, in a much more humane one.
NO HONORS, NO HUMILIATION
Thousands of war participants from the current Russian army will come back to Russia after the war.
They would need an individual approach.
In a truly humane country you can’t repress the whole social group, you should review each case individually.
If a military man is suspected of committing a military crime, he should be taken to court.
With a prosecutor, defender and an unknown verdict beforehand – as the procedure demands.
According to international legislation, military crime is giving a criminal order or acting on it.
There are a lot of such actions – from barbarities on the occupied territories
to the shootings of the civilian infrastructure which are happening right now.
There would be a lot of people to be prosecuted.
However, according to the international legislation, the participation in the aggressive war
as a part of the regular army is not a crime.
So, there is a question – what should be done with the Russian soldiers who are back from Ukraine?
I think the most appropriate thing would be the formula “no honors, no humiliation”.
The attitude should be like modern Germany treats the veterans of Wehrmacht.
If it turns out that you committed crimes against humanity, you should be prosecuted no matter
how old you are – such crimes have no expiration date.
If you were at this war, the country is not proud of you, but it won’t leave you alone.
The government which sent you to this unjust war should rehabilitate you physically and psychologically
and integrate you back into the society.
No one needs you to abuse alcohol, commit a suicide or attack other people.
Our country will get a lot of young people with disabilities, it would be convenient for any power
that all the war invalids remained silent and invisible at home.
But you can tell how civilized the society is by the number of disabled people on the streets.
How many of them might be seen on the streets, maybe they sit at home.
It’s the indication of the health care development, and the quality of the city’s accessibility,
and how much the government complies with the humanist values.
We would need to do something so that all the disabled people
including war invalids who didn't commit any military crimes, could leave normally in our cities.
NO PROPAGANDA
I suppose many of my viewers have no TV at their homes.
TV is like a home telephone – it’s a technology you can live without perfectly well.
But for dozens of millions of Russians TV is still the main source of information.
Still, it can create an alternative reality and drag our citizens in its net.
We need to do something about it, otherwise Solovyov, Skabeeva and Kiselyov
would be replaced by other predatory and dangerous hags.
For now, the first 5 buttons on your TV remote will send you to the channels controlled by the government.
At least half of them should be given to the private owners.
At least one TV channel should be given to the government – I’ll tell you why it’s necessary.
But other channels should have private owners.
They should compete with the governmental TV for the audience,
including news agenda, analytics and assessment of events.
Media competition is the best antidote against propaganda, any propaganda, not just the governmental one.
To tell you the truth, this suicidal war has support in some groups not because there are governmental channels
but because there are no channels like “TV Rain” (a blocked opposing channel).
EVERYTHING IS DESTROYED
Vladimir Putin got a country with phenomenal income from selling raw materials.
And he will leave it with destroyed health care, inadequate education system, and rotten law enforcement agencies.
Whatever you look at, it’s a disaster everywhere.
From landfills sprawling throughout the country to the death of historical and architectural heritage
which survived centuries of wars and revolutions but not 22 years of Putin’s stability.
Facing this catastrophe, reasonable Russian power should divide all the problems Russia has into 2 groups.
Matters which can’t be solved in a hurry and which we need to think about properly. And urgent matters.
If we talk about education, health care, police, culture, ecology, and many other areas – we just can’t “optimize” it in a hurry.
Otherwise, it will be another reform for the sake of a reform instead of the real improvements.
First, we need to create a strategy for changes implementation, set clear goals and tasks, picture the desirable outcome in detail,
and set rigid deadlines – you can’t implement changes for 20 years.
And it’s necessary to collect feedback from ordinary people – teachers, doctors, common police officers and so on.
We need it to change the mistakes which are bound to happen while reforming in real life.
But apart from reasonable reforms, the new power will need decisive measures “here and now”.
If it wants to remain a legitimate power and not a temporary government of the country which is falling apart,
it will need to neutralize all those illegal armed groups created by Vladimir Putin in Russia.
In this case I’m not even talking about the so-called Kadyrovites – they are not such a huge problem.
At least, they are formally integrated into a governmental system being employed in the National Guard.
But besides the Kadyrovites, and other dressed-up Cossacks who bully people on the streets,
there are the whole groups with army ammunition, battle experience and even with their own arms depots.
And they don’t formally report to anyone.
There shouldn’t be any small amateur groups with their own field captains, or big private military companies
with tanks and artillery in Russia!
This simply shouldn’t happen.
The first sin is desertion. No one should step back. No one should surrender.
40 people entered into the enemy's trench, butchered them with knives.
There were 3 people dead and 7 wounded. One of the dead ones was 52 years old, he was imprisoned for 30 years.
He died as a hero. Then in 6 months you go home and get pardon.
If you come and on the first day you say that you are in the wrong place, we make
a note that you are a deserter and then we will shoot you down.
Some guy without any official power just comes to a prison to pardon or kill the prisoners as he thinks fit.
And what about the laws of Russia? No one cares for them? It should be put back in order.
NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US
Some time ago in a communist Poland there was an opposition motto “Nothing about us without us”.
There was an important protest against the governmental paternalism in this motto.
It’s when the government tells its citizens, “You are just small children who know nothing.
Now, the clever adults will do something good for you, don’t stand in our way”, and this situation made the Poles angry.
They didn’t like that the government tried “to make them happy” without asking them how.
Whoever comes to power in the after-war Russia should comply with the principle “Nothing about us without us”.
In the end, it’s necessary for them to survive in Russian politics.
Now, Putin’s regime is partying hard at the expense of the next generations of Russians.
But Vladimir Putin will leave anyway, and the new power will have to pay those tremendous bills.
It will have to deal with Putin’s “heritage” in its horrible diversity.
It will have to make reforms.
The positive effect of those reforms won’t be noticed immediately, but the expenses will be “here and now”.
The Russian budget will be under a huge pressure because we will have to reconstruct both countries – Russia and Ukraine.
And to avoid people’s indignation on the peak of the crisis. Like “What have you done? We want everything back.
At least, we survived with Putin, and now we’re eating our last piece of bread!”.
So, to avoid this, the new power should talk to people directly, honestly and respectfully.
The new power will need to explain its actions to people.
The attitude “We know better what you need” won’t work here.
Just an honest respectful conversation will work.
There is one good example in history.
Huge economic transformations made by the American President Ronald Reagan hit millions of Americans hard.
However, they don’t curse Reagan in the US now, but remember him as one of the greatest Presidents in their history.
Why?
Because Reagan explained thoroughly the meaning of his reforms.
He could spend 20 minutes on air explaining with colored diagrams and graphics why he took those decisions.
That’s why he managed to get reelected.
That’s why we need governmental channels.
It isn’t bad for the government to have its own channel or other media to make its point clear.
What’s more important, this point of view shouldn’t be the only one
And there should be other channels and media independent from the government, so that it couldn't pressure them,
because they don't depend on governmental money, which exist on their own, on a commercial basis.
EXTERNAL POLICY
The main idea of this video – the necessity of public demand for liberal humanism.
Putin’s propaganda did everything it could to discredit it.
Like, if some liberals and rights advocates come to power, they will lay down under the West.
They will betray our national interests!
In reality, Putin’s policy depends on the West and this connection isn’t good.
It can be noticed in the rhetoric of power itself.
Like, the Americans intruded into Iraq, so we will intrude into Ukraine!
There is a law about foreign agents in the US, so we’ll create our own law then!
We’ll catch up and surpass them.
Or it’s otherwise, we’ll hurt ourselves but we won’t do what they do in the rotten West.
In any case, Putin’s policy is a constant comparison of itself with the Western countries.
They even built this observation wheel in Moscow not for the citizens of Moscow
but to compete in height with the European rides.
A new and truly reasonable power in Russia will not become a dark shadow of Europe or the US.
It will use a very pragmatic formula – external policy is the extension of the internal policy.
Russia should become a country which is comfortable and desirable to live in.
Here should be all the conditions for any small, middle and large business,
a nourishing soil for creative, active and unusual people.
And it doesn’t matter what color their hair is,
whom they like, which God they believe in and in what words they criticize the power.
If they want to create something, they should have such an opportunity.
Because the government needs creative people who develop technologies
and culture, create workplaces and pay taxes from their income.
And not some permanent yes-people whose life philosophy is “otherwise, something bad might happen!”
With a strong education system, developed healthcare, clear legislation
honest justice system which can solve arguments without waiting for any calls with instructions and which can be trusted
and mild political climate, Russia will be able to become really strong.
And when it happens, Russia will be an attractive country for long-term investments.
Then the whole world would want to learn its rich culture, and our country would have decent technologies.
And only then other countries will be interested in our opinion.
And it won’t be necessary to fight trying to prove something to someone.
If the US started pointless wars, we shouldn’t do the same thinking, “Well, we’ll be similar at least in something bad!”.
We’ll get busy with our own life in Russia. Then international respect will come naturally.
WE WANT TO WANT
When you know what you want, you know what to demand.
Yes, it’s difficult to think about governmental reforms and liberal humanism when you should take out
a loan to equip your child for school.
But we need to if we want to live in a normal country.
In this video I’ve given a couple of ideas on what should be done after the war ends and
when there would be a normal government in Russia.
Please write in the comments, what positive ideas you’ve got.
Perhaps, that's what we will do soon
Till tomorrow!