A Threat To Putin

• Ivan Preobrazhensky
• 7.10.2026, 16:39

The Communists have made the Kremlin nervous.

The traditional October rally in Moscow commemorating the events of 23 years ago, which resulted in the Supreme Soviet being forcibly dispersed, was ruled “unauthorized” by the court, despite having official permission. So what went wrong? Why was the rally—organized by those who became one of the ideological foundations of Putinism—now also dispersed?

How Putin subjugated the revanchists

Debates about what might have happened if, in 1993, the radical faction of the Supreme Soviet had prevailed in the power struggle with President Boris Yeltsin have been going on for more than 20 years. But they are irrelevant to the topic of this article. What matters is something else. Putin and his associates, who sided with Yeltsin in 1993, actively exploited the resentment of the “witnesses to the October events” once they seized power.

During Putin’s later years, the commemorative rallies—which had started as a marginal gathering of elderly communists—gradually transformed, if not into a respectable event, then at least into a thoroughly loyalist one, precisely thanks to the efforts of the authorities. Putin needed this revanchist ideology. And he gradually brought it under his control. This was required by the criticism of the Yeltsin era—in the sense of “liberalism”—which had intensified under his rule over the past decade. So the activists gathering on October 3–4 had grown accustomed to the fact that the authorities did not merely tolerate them, but respected them.

Why the Authorities Got Nervous

Everything changed unexpectedly in 2026, when the October rally practically coincided with half-hearted protests against the wholesale rigging—or, to put it simply, the sham—of the Duma elections held by the authorities in late September. The elderly “witnesses of 1993” were suddenly joined by young people. It is said that these included not only communists but also those with quite liberal views, although, for example, the Yabloko party denies the participation of its young supporters.

In any case, there are not just few—there are currently no officially authorized political events in the country or in Moscow at all. It’s no surprise that many discontented people decided to follow Putin’s lead in “appropriating the 1993 agenda” and organize a rally against the current government.

As a result, at least 2,000 people gathered—which, for modern Russia, is practically a “revolution.” The authorities, of course, became unnerved. And then, amid the traditional communist slogans, familiar chants from Alexei Navalny’s rallies began to ring out. Both “one for all” and “party of crooks and thieves”—not to mention “down with the tsar”—when everyone understands who the protesters are alluding to.

After that, of course, the arrests began, and no number of Communist grandmothers—who, on the whole, may well be quite loyal to the authorities but were frightened by the violence they likely hadn’t directly faced since 1993—could prevent it. And after that, as usual, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow—which, despite the permit issued by the mayor’s office to hold this traditional event, detained Kirill Martemyanov for 14 days and fined Maria Usoltseva 4,000 rubles.

They Came for the Communists

The authorities have put pressure on the Communists before; even before these sham elections, some were arrested. But those were specifically regional, often young leaders—those who, under the guise of a thoroughly loyal party, are trying to remain a genuine opposition. These are not the “witnesses of 1993,” whom the police have now caught up with.

It turns out they’ve come precisely for those who openly rejoiced when the liberal opposition was “cracked down on.” And that makes sense. As the regime becomes more totalitarian, it will grow increasingly intolerant of protests and debate.

And the key takeaway from the crackdown on this rally is this: any young person—whether liberal, red, brown, green, or rainbow—will be dissatisfied with this government. Because sooner or later, every young, active Russian is forced to ask themselves: how did it happen that their future was stolen from them, and that they can only take to the streets to protest events that took place more than thirty years ago? Well, once they start thinking about it, they become a threat to Putin’s regime—one that the authorities are ready to hunt down and crush wherever they find it.

Ivan Preobrazhensky, “Deutsche Welle”