People's Will Army

The theoretical AVN platform was developed by Yuri Mukhin in the 1990s.[1]

Yuri Mukhin — Leader of AVN, 2009

По сведениям представителей АВН, к октябрю 2010 года организация имела отделения в 56 субъектах России.[1]

The Army of the People's Will was a militarized organization in name only, its methods of work were peaceful propaganda and agitation within the framework of the current legislation. However, according to the participants, the names "Army" (for the movement) and "fighters" (for the participants in the movement) served as an important disciplining factor, and also emphasized the difference between AVN and traditional parties. The AVN could include members of any other organization adhering to any ideology: the criterion for participation was only the recognition of the AVN's goal and assistance in achieving it. The politician who supported the proposed AVN law was Oleg Shenin, a former member of the Politburo of the CPSU, who headed one of the political organizations in Russia called the CPSU.

AVN was not registered with the Russian justice authorities, therefore it did not enjoy the rights of a legal entity. Certain members of the movement (soldiers of the Army) considered it useful to personally participate in the elections in order to promote the draft AVN Law both during the elections and, if successful, directly in the authorities. Since 2010, the movement has participated in the work of the new political party "Russian United Labour Front".[3][4][5]

Among the allies of the organization was the public movement Para Bellum, one of the organizers of which is Vladimir Kvachkov.

Members of the organization took part in rallies and pickets, where they distributed leaflets and newspapers, spoke at various meetings, announced their ideas on Internet resources, conducted public opinion polls in order to clarify the attitude of citizens to the bill.

Текущей задачей АВН считала популяризацию своих идей в самых широких массах населения и расширение собственных рядов до определённой численности, с тем, чтобы впоследствии образовать инициативную группу для организации референдума и обеспечить успех его проведения.

In addition to Moscow, the movement had branches in the following cities: Volgograd, Vologda, Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Kostroma, Krasnoyarsk, Kursk, Kurgan, Nizhny Novgorod, Novokuznetsk, Norilsk, Omsk, Orsk, Perm, Ryazan, Samara, St. Petersburg, Saratov, Tula, Tyumen, Ufa, Khabarovsk, Chelyabinsk, Chita, Yaroslavl.[6]

The first public action organized by the AVN itself was a picket outside the building of the polish embassy in Moscow on November 4, 2005, demanding that the allegations that the execution of several thousand Polish officers in 1940 in Katyn were carried out by the forces of the NKVD USSR be falsified. State Duma deputy from the Rodina faction Andrey Savelyev spoke to the picket participants. Several Russian TV channels were filming at the event, but none of them showed a story about the action.

Later AVN held a number of other public events,[7] and also participated in various political actions, including - according to press reports - in St. Petersburg,[8] Tatarstan. Participated in the 2010 protest action "Day of Wrath".

On July 30, 2007, in Moscow, AVN activists, together with other political associations, held a sanctioned picket near the building of the Government of the Russian Federation in protest against the raider seizures of enterprises of the military-industrial complex.[9] In February 2009, AVN activists took part in an all-Russian action of workers in the automotive industry. About 20 activists of the Army of the People's Will were detained before the start of the May Day procession at the Oktyabrsky Big Concert Hall in St. Petersburg in 2009. Representatives of the Army of the People's Will were holding a portrait of Vladimir Vysotsky in the role of Gleb Zheglov and a slogan with the inscription: "A thief should be in prison, not in the Kremlin."On October 9, 2010, AVN activists took part in the “March for the Preservation of St. Petersburg” in St. Petersburg, as well as in the rallies of the “Russian March” and May Day, pickets against the reform of the social sphere.

По замечанию «Информационно-аналитического центра СОВА», члены организации в причастности к насильственным действиям замечены не были.

The Moscow Prosecutor's Office emphasized the active propaganda work of AVN in the media, within which, according to representatives of the Moscow Prosecutor's Office, extremist ideas are being promoted.[1]

Representatives of the Russian public and the press spoke ambiguously about the activities of the movement.

The Russian media attributed the movement to the radical left, stalinist, and socialist associations.

According to the version reported by the Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Viktor Grin, the General Prosecutor's Office attributed the "People's Will Army" to the most active extremist associations in Russia along with the organizations: "National Socialist Society", "Movement Against Illegal Immigration", "Slavic Union", "Northern Brotherhood". To this, the leader of the Army of Will of the People replied with a statement to the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation about the slanderous nature of such a message from Grin, since the court did not recognize the activities of the AVN as extremist and in relation to the AVN the court did not decide to prohibit the activities or liquidate.

It is noteworthy that members of one of the communist movements in Russia, the RCP-CPSU, refused to participate in the work of the new Russian party "ROT Front", and the reason for the exit of this organization from the new party was the participation of the AVN in it. First Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP-CPSU A. Prigarin said: "We believe that the leaders of the RKRP-RPK, who invited Yury Mukhin and his organization 'Army of the People's Will' to participate in the ROT Front, as well as part of the leadership of the Left Front, who gave their consent to this have made a serious political mistake. This fact puts an indelible red-brown stain on the whole new batch.".

The leaflet "You have chosen - you are the judge!", Which contained the text of the bill, was included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials by the decision of the Adler District Court of Sochi on February 26, 2008 (this decision was confirmed by the cassation ruling of the Judicial Collegium for Civil Cases of the Krasnodar Regional Court dated April 22, 2008 of the year). The material entitled “You have chosen - you are the judge”, containing the text of the proposed draft law, and published, in particular, in the newspaper “Duel” in No. 8 (475) of February 21, 2006, was again included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials by the decision of the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of the city of Moscow on March 20, 2009 (thus, this text became the only one of the materials recognized by the court as extremist twice). According to the SOVA Information and Analytical Center, recognizing the leaflet as extremist is illegal.

On October 19, 2010, at the suit of Moscow Prosecutor Yuri Semin, the Moscow City Court (judge Mikhail Kazakov[1]) ecognized the activities of the People's Will Army as extremist and banned its activities on the territory of Russia. Earlier, by the decision of the Moscow Prosecutor, the activities of AVN were suspended.

The prosecutor's office referred to Art. 9 of the Federal Law "On Counteracting Extremist Activities", according to which the activities of organizations whose goals or actions are aimed at carrying out extremist activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation. According to the prosecutor's office, AVN called for a "violent change" of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation.[10] The court refused to satisfy the motion of the leader of the movement Yuri Mukhin to terminate the proceedings in this case.

The meeting of the Moscow City Court on Tuesday October 19, 2010 was held in the presence of several dozen participants (fighters) of the AVN, who filed petitions to involve them in the case as third parties. The court rejected these requests.[1] AVN leader Yuri Mukhin insisted that the movement is of an all-Russian nature and has 56 branches in Russia and abroad, and therefore the case should be considered in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. The court was presented with notarized statements from branches from 46 regions of Russia. However, Judge Kazakov rejected the motion to change the jurisdiction of the case.

Moscow Prosecutor Semin said that calls to vote after the expiration of the president's term of office, and if the majority of the population turned out to be dissatisfied with his actions, it was proposed to send the former head of state to prison for the period during which he ruled, are a call for a violent overthrow authorities and extremism.[11]

According to the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia, the basis for the prosecutor's appeal to the court was the materials of the verification of the legality of the movement's activities. The report of the prosecutor's office says: "During the inspection, evidence was collected that the goals and actions of this association are aimed at carrying out extremist activities that pose a threat of harm to individuals, health of citizens, security, society and the state.".

AVN leader Yuri Mukhin said at a court hearing that the persecution of his organization is "revenge for the fact that we exposed the groups that run the country.".

On February 22, 2011, the Judicial Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the decision of the Moscow City Court of October 19, 2010 to ban the organization.

The idea of increasing the responsibility of officials occurred not only to the supporters of the AVN. Even before the start of the persecution of the AVN, the IHPR ZOV was organized, which set itself a similar task; but its organizers could not find broad support. After the AVN was banned, the fighters and leaders had a desire to increase the responsibility of officials, and a significant part of them, after the dissolution of the AVN, joined the IGPR ZOV.

• Oleg Shenin — former member of the Politburo of the CPSU
• Yakov Dzhugashvili — Georgian artist, great-grandson of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Joseph Stalin
• Nikolay Pchelkin — front-line soldier, documentary filmmaker, one of the creators of the Songs of Resistance song contest
• Roman Zamuraev[12] — candidate for deputies of the Duma of the city of Kostroma from the Communist Party
• Kirill Barabash — Russian poet, Air Force lieutenant colonel
• Vyacheslav Legonkov — Deputy of the National Assembly of the Russian Federation
• Andrey Ermolenko — Deputy, member of the Council of the National Assembly of the Russian Federation, liaison of the People's Will Army
• Vadim Bochkov — neurologist (Kursk)
• Vladislava Selina — Russian historian-publicist, build editor of the Panorama magazine (Volgograd), editor of the radio station Novaya Volna

For Responsible Government За ответственную власть
Abbreviation	IGPR ZOV (English) ИГПР ЗОВ (Russian)
Leader	Yury Mukhin
Founded	April 10, 2011 (2011-04-10)
Banned	September 22, 2015 (2015-09-22)[13]
Preceded by	People's Will Army
Newspaper	Svoimi imenami (In their own names)
Membership (2011)	572
Ideology	Delocracy Russian nationalism National democracy Left-wing nationalism Anti-Bureaucracy Neo-Stalinism Antisemitism
Political position	Syncretic
National affiliation	ROT FRONT
Colours	Black   White   Red
Slogan	"Have you chosen? Judge!" (Russian: "Избрал? Суди!")
Party flag
Website
igpr.ru zaotvet.info
Politics of Russia Political parties Elections

In parallel with the Army of Will of the People, a voluntary organization for the preparation and conduct of a referendum with the aim of adopting amendments to the Constitution and the Law "On the assessment of the president and deputies of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation by the people of Russia" is engaged in the initiative group for the referendum "For Responsible Government" (IGPR "ZOV").

Participants of the IGPR “For Responsible Power” actively supported the election and campaigning campaign of the Russian United Labor Front (ROT Front) party, which adopted an item on the adoption of the Law “On the Trial of the People over the President and Deputies of the RF Federal Assembly” in its program. The ROT Front party was unlawfully denied registration 6 times. On December 11, 2011, the IGPR "ZOV" supported the nomination of Boris Sergeevich Mironov as a presidential candidate, who adopted the draft Law "On the responsibility of the authorities" in his program. Despite the successful meeting of the initiative group in the amount of 572 people, the candidate was not admitted to the elections due to illegal actions of the Central Election Commission.

The participants in the initiative group called for an active boycott of the elections of deputies of the State Duma in 2011 and the elections of the President in 2012 due to the lack of mechanisms of responsibility of the elected authorities for the results of government.

The joining of the former AVN members to the IGPR ZOV did not go unnoticed: in July 2015, the court authorized the arrest of RBC employee Alexander Sokolov, former editor of the Duel newspaper Yuri Mukhin and his colleague Valery Parfyonov in the case of extremism (later - Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Kirill Barabash). The defendants were charged with organizing the activities of an extremist organization under Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. According to the investigation, since 2011, Aleksandra Sokolov was the administrator of the website for the referendum, the goals and objectives of which remained the same as those of the banned Army of the People's Will (holding a referendum). On August 10, 2017, the verdict was announced. Alexander Sokolov was sentenced to three and a half years in prison, publicist Yuri Mukhin was sentenced to four years probation. Activists Valery Parfyonov and Kirill Barabash received four years in prison. Barabash was stripped of the rank of lieutenant colonel of the Armed Forces.[14]

The course of the trial was accompanied by various conflicts. A visitor to the court session, Alexander Vedeshkin, was beaten by the bailiffs right in the courtroom, in front of the judge, prosecutors, lawyers and several dozen visitors, because he made a remark to the judge when leaving the courtroom. Later, when the lawyer Sukhanov (defended K. Barabash) tried to go to the detainee for an administrative offense, he was hit with his head on the safe

Politician Alexei Navalny spoke at the trial as a witness for the defense, and then noted that the verdict was passed by Judge Krivoruchko, a defendant in the "Magnitsky list".

• Organization website
• CASE OF "PARTICIPANTS OF THE" ARMY OF WILL OF THE PEOPLE "MOVEMENT AGAINST THE NEWSPAPERS" KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA "AND" NOVAYA GAZETA "
• Zamoskvoretsky justice is not worse than Basmanny
• MGAT about AVN
• RBC journalist arrested in the case of "undermining the political situation"
• МЕЖРЕГИОНАЛЬНОЕ ОБЩЕСТВЕННОЕ ДВИЖЕНИЕ "ЗА ОТВЕТСТВЕННУЮ ВЛАСТЬ"