Maria Chiara Franceschelli is a PhD researcher in political science and sociology at Pisa’s Scuola Normale Superiore. She is coauthor of La Russia che si ribella.
The lack of popular rebellion in Russia is often cast in terms of mass depoliticization. Yet working-class Russians do express political attitudes, often voicing a familiar frustration that the future has been taken from them.
In Russia, signs of opposition to the war in Ukraine haven’t developed into a mass movement. State repression has closed off the avenues of mass politics, forcing dissidents into mainly symbolic protests.