Maria Alyokhina: Dictators will always do two things when they want more power – oppress women and ban jokes

The Russian political activist and Pussy Riot member on life under Putin, how repression works, and the cost of dissent in Russia.

The freedoms being taken from Russians didn’t happen in one day. It has been a process, an evolution of repression, and small steps that have led to our country being named a terrorist state. 

Russia has a tragic history; 26 years with Putin, just nine before him, and then a century of totalitarian regime, terror, and gulags. And now it has returned. Fear and censorship, what was once passed down between generations, has come back full circle to crush a new generation of people. We feel what our grandparents felt under the Soviet Union. We read the memoirs of the dissidents and we recognise what they talk about. It’s hard to believe that their world would come back. But here it is. Real and alive today than ever before.

What is the Putin regime? I visited a children's hospital in Ukraine. It’s the biggest in the country and was bombed just last year. A direct missile attack on a children’s hospital. I spoke to the doctors there, the soldiers, the people in the streets. They were not surprised. That’s the Putin regime. 

When I was 18, if you had told me I would be a citizen of a terrorist state, that my country would go to war with our neighbour, that we would be put in prison for flying a rainbow flag, and there would be a network of penal colonies across Russia, I would call you crazy. But it’s happened. It’s real. It’s every day. It’s my friends. It’s their families. Killed, raped, imprisoned. And it still happens.

Activism is cool. It’s addictive and powerful and meaningful.

In the UK, in the West, you don’t have the fear of oppression. Not yet and not enough. There is too much indifference. You don’t notice the change because it doesn’t happen in one day.  Because apart from a few words, you don’t see how it can affect your everyday life. But that’s the power of the creep. The small steps. We used to be able to have mass protests, then they were banned. So we had smaller groups, and people were imprisoned. Then we stood as individuals, queuing to take it in turns to stand in front of a placard; they banned queueing. We write on social media, and they throw those people in jail. And now, even showing you’re against the regime is prohibited. Anyone who left Russia to speak out is under a criminal investigation. We are foreign agents. We are unwanted. We cannot return. That’s what it leads to. Day by day, month by month, law by law. And it works because people get used to it.

Like I said, there are signs of this creep. Dictators will always do two things when they want more power; oppress women and ban jokes. They are afraid of women and they hate being laughed at. That’s how it starts, attacking the creative spirit. Because in truth, activism is cool. It’s addictive and powerful and meaningful. You explore the mechanisms. You analyse the system. And then you find the way to do your thing, make your mark, shout and be heard. It can even be fun, in a way. 

It’s getting more challenging now though, because the far-right or ultra-right don’t care when they get called out anymore. They don’t censor themselves, so why would they care if you call them fascists? They fill space with more words, more anger, more hate, more noise to drown you out. So we need to speak out too, louder and longer and without looking back or worrying so much.

It’s also getting harder because that fascist rhetoric we’re fighting has been normalised, from the top down. We’re at the point where the Declaration of Human Rights – which was signed after the Second World War – is now just words on paper to many. The institutions that were built on ‘never again’ are stuck in bureaucracy. And the far-right know this. That’s why these dictators act with such impunity. Putin has taken it to the extreme; the annexation of Crimea, the occupation of eastern Ukraine, the shooting down of plane MH17. Even then, when 300 innocent Europeans are shot out of the sky and their bodies are falling into the fields below. There is a playbook that works. Delay, deny, distract. An eight year investigation and who gets the blame? The guy who carried out the order. Not the commander, not the generals, not the people who started the invasion in the first place. We’ve seen it all before, and we’re seeing it again today.

Two million people have left Russia since the invasion because they don’t want their kids learning the lessons of Nazis.

Despite the rise of the far right and fascism, both in and outside of Russia, I have no plans to stop. To stop talking, fighting, learning. I can’t stop because it’s how I live. Sure, it’s a bit problematic living out of a suitcase. I made no plans to live in the West. But I meet people all the time who have sacrificed everything just to speak the truth. Two million people have left Russia since the invasion because they don’t want their kids learning the lessons of Nazis. So I’m not alone.

And I’ll keep fighting because I want people to know what’s going on. To not let fascism be normalised. To not forget about Ukraine. They are the bravest people I have ever met. I visited Kharkiv and met a soldier who was a truck driver. He was driving furniture to Belgium when the invasion happened, and he just turned around, drove home, and joined the army. He’s been fighting ever since. And yet he says he’s been supporting me through what I’ve been doing. I’m thinking, sure I’ve had some problems, but nothing like this. But there are similarities and that’s why people like us keep fighting, together.

And I’m always finding more people willing to do what is right, for Russia; for the world. There is an incredible film called “Mr Nobody Against Putin”, about a school teacher in Russia who filmed the growth of rampant propaganda in the school during the Russo-Ukrainian war. It is an extraordinary combination of the gentle reality of children and the horror of the Putin state. How it feeds into everything, everywhere, everyone. This teacher risked his freedom, his life, by not accepting what was happening and to show the world the truth. 

Those are the people who truly love our country, who love Russia. There are people like him with a warm, compassionate love. Not for the USSR or Putin’s state, but Russia, for its people and for what it truly is and what it could be. And we need more of them. Standing up for their own countries, for Europe, for the world. And maybe one day, a time will come when you have to ask yourself, am I one of them too? 

This conversation took place on 29 November and has been edited and condensed for clarity and flow. 

Masha's book Political Girl is available now.