Russia And The Politics Of Car

When cars and politics collide, the results are rarely pretty. No wonder the political discussions here at TTAC so often rate amongst our most heated and community standards-challenging. Modern cars are machines of great power, facilitating a great deal of freedom but also carrying undeniable consequences, and their position in modern society demands a constant re-evaluation of their terms of use. Some of TTAC’s gripes on car-related policy may lead some to believe that we harbor ulterior political motivations for our coverage, but the truth of the matter is that our principles are simple and directly car-related. If our political coverage sometimes seems petty, it’s because American motorists have relatively little to complain about. In Russia, however, motorists find themselves under assault by import bans, draconian tax increases and corrupt traffic police. And as the New York Times documents, it takes a lot to push motorists into political awareness, but once pushed their eloquent defense of their automotive rights is nothing short of inspirational.

When motorists gather for a meeting, they don’t come out with political slogans. We have no ideology. It’s a revolt of people who are not satisfied — not for political reasons, not because our salaries have not been paid — but because something sacred has been taken from us, our car.

So says one Kiril Formanchuk, a lawyer who helped organize a campaign against traffic police corruption in Yekatrinburg. His cause, combined with last year’s Vladivostok anti-car-import-ban riot and opposition to a proposed doubling of car ownership taxes have galvanized motorists as a political class. So potent is their middle-class rage, that President Dimitri Medvedev recently overturned the proposed tax increase, against the wishes of his party United Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin. In a country like Russia, where opposition is scarcely tolerated, this represents a rare concession by the ruling party. Opposition commentators have taken notice of this chink in the Kremlin’s armor, and are embracing the newly politicized motorists. Yuri Gladysh of the opposition site Kasparov.ru explains the power of this new constituency.

For a car, a Russian will simply bite through the throat of a passer-by. I know plenty of shop owners who in their hearts are prepared, if the state takes their business away, to return to some office job, with their Soviet-era diploma. But I don’t know a single motorist who would silently agree to the infringement of his rights

To which Novaya Gazeta’s Yuri Geyko adds:

My biggest shock was that these people were not poor. This was the middle class. These people, they did not go out into the street because they have nothing to eat. They went out into the street because they have a future.

For all the rhetoric that surrounds the right to bear arms in the United States, few could deny that cars are a far more relevant tool for the cause of freedom. But the eloquent defense of any right is almost always born of extreme pressure. Let’s be thankful then, that Americans enjoy the freedom of the automobile to such an extent that we can remain ambivalent to its politics. Even if some of us choose not to.