Pavel Kudyukin is co-chair of the University Solidarity trade union and a member of the Council of the Confederation of Labour of Russia. In the second part of our interview, Green Left’s Federico Fuentes and Serhii Shlyapnikov spoke to Kudyukin about the crackdown on Russian universities and the campaign to free leftist academics and others that have been jailed for their political views. Read part one of the interview here.
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What has been the impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine on universities, academic freedom and the right to dissent?
In reality, the crackdown on academic freedom started before the full-scale invasion. Unfortunately, higher education institutions in Russia have always had issues with academic freedom.
These issues became more pronounced around 2019, after relatively large-scale protests involving students and some faculty members. This led to increased pressure on educators with independent political and social views.
Universities, including those considered relatively liberal, such as HSE [Higher School of Economics], began introducing internal regulations restricting free speech.
These restrictions started even earlier, with rules prohibiting faculty members from publicly stating their university affiliation if their opinions did not align with the administration’s stance.
Faculty members were also banned from criticising their institutions. This trend is not limited to higher education. For example, a leader of the Moscow Metro workers was fired simply for giving a newspaper interview.
Repression has escalated, with increasing political control over universities. Indoctrination courses such as “Fundamentals of Russian Statehood” have been introduced, featuring textbooks filled with obscurantist ideas reminiscent of the most reactionary ideologies of the 19th century.
In some cases, students have reported professors for expressing dissenting views. A prominent case involved Maria Rakhmaninova, a professor at the St Petersburg University of Humanities and Social Sciences, who was denounced by her students and quickly dismissed, forcing her into exile.
There has been a wave of dismissals of workers for their anti-war views, especially in education. Do trade unions help workers in these cases?
We tried to provide legal support. We had several court cases challenging dismissals on the basis of procedural violations, specifically breaches of Articles 81 and 82 of the Labour Code, which require employers to offer alternative positions before dismissal.
But one common issue we encountered was that individuals were declared “foreign agents” and added to the official registry.
Federal Law 255 imposes severe restrictions on those listed as foreign agents, including bans on teaching in state and municipal educational institutions. So, universities such as Moscow State University, HSE, and RANEPA [The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration] argued that they could not offer alternative positions because the law prohibits financial support for foreign agents.
This interpretation is legally absurd as wages are not financial support; they are compensation for labour. But Russian courts ruled against us.
Also, many members of University Solidarity left the country in two waves: first after February 2022, then after September 2022. This weakened us significantly.
However, these former members are actively working on self-organisation efforts for exiled academics.
Are there any strategies among university workers to resist?
Unfortunately, university workers are highly fragmented. This is a broader issue: Russian workers in general are highly atomised. As a result, resistance strategies are mostly individual.
Some faculty members choose to remain silent on sensitive topics, others seek to emigrate if they can secure academic positions abroad, even temporarily. Some try to navigate the restrictions while still promoting progressive ideas in subtle ways.
However, there is no unified strategy, and solidarity among academic workers is very weak.
Some well-known left-wing university professors, such as Boris Kagarlitsky and Azat Miftakhov, are currently in prison for their political beliefs. In response, there are campaigns to support leftist political prisoners. Why are such initiatives important?
These efforts represent a last line of defence, so to speak. Even if political action is nearly impossible, showing solidarity with those who have taken action remains crucial.
There is a long-standing tradition of this, going back to pre-revolutionary times. Even during the harshest periods of political repression after the 1870s, there were always support networks for political prisoners, such as the Political Red Cross.
Similar organisations existed in Soviet Russia until around 1937.
More recently, there are several initiatives to support leftist political prisoners. One important example is the Leftist Political Prisoners Support Fund.
Russia has political prisoners from various ideological backgrounds: liberals, nationalists and leftists. The fund helps support leftist activists who are less publicly visible than their liberal counterparts.
Another interesting initiative is “Dialogues with Kagarlitsky”. Since Boris Kagarlitsky is one of the most prominent leftist political prisoners, this serves as a platform for public discussion among leftists and an avenue for dialogue between the left and liberals.
A wide range of organisations have participated, from anarchists to social democrats to the Committee of Solidarity Actions [which involves several left-wing organisations] and Rabkor [the online media outlet that Kagarlitsky edited until he was jailed]. These discussions have been held in Moscow, St Petersburg, Ufa and Yekaterinburg.
Such efforts help maintain horizontal connections among different leftist groups and remind people that they are not alone. Supporting political prisoners is not just about helping those behind bars — it is just as important for those who remain free.
You signed the statement “The Left for Peace Without Annexations” that was distributed at a gathering of post-Soviet anti-war left émigres in Cologne, in November. What was the purpose of this statement?
There is a wide range of positions among anti-war leftists regarding questions, such as what does the peace we stand for mean? And can this peace be bought at any cost?
For example, there is a strong sentiment that the Ukrainian people resisting only increases the casualties, and that, therefore, this resistance should not be supported. Some Western leftists and part of the Russian émigré community support the idea that the Ukrainian people should not be supplied weapons.
But this essentially means handing Ukraine over to Russian aggression — to Kremlin aggression — even if people may not realise this.
Meanwhile, no one is restricting arms supplies to Russia from Iran, North Korea, or the delivery of critical components for weapon production from China, and sometimes even from European countries.
The authors of the Left for Peace Without Annexation statement say that only the Ukrainian people can decide how long they are willing to resist and under what conditions they are ready to make peace. Only they can decide what they are willing to compromise on.
It is wrong for Russians, especially Russian leftists, to impose on Ukrainians how they should act or restrict what actions they can take. This could weaken Ukrainian society’s position and even force them into capitulation.
We also believe that lasting peace must be based on rejecting annexations, and only one country is capable of carrying out annexations.
The main goal was to emphasise these stances.
Some signatories of this letter may be considered revolutionary defeatists. Clearly, this position is a little bit idealistic under the current circumstances, as there are no visible prospects for a revolutionary resolution to the war.
But at the very least, we needed to firmly state the possibility of such a position.
[Read the full interview at links.org.au.]