The first thing to be told by Nikita Belykh to a Novaya Gazeta correspondent was that “it’s been for long that we do not have public politics as a phenomenon, while its party format either imitates the power or disappears as a real institution”.  

Q: But all that was happening at the time you headed SPS!

A: When I came to head it, most members could not suppose that in 2007-2008 they would be got arrested in the street and brought to police stations. I came then to head a normal independent party that had failed to get to the parliament, but had a wish to come back there and try to do real work, despite all the ridiculousness of the State Duma. The deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov – that was a plus. Six people in Perm are a plus either, as they provide for real discussion.    

Q: In today’s Duma there is a faction of “Just Russia” consisting of actual “Yabloko people” for one third, and there are right among the “bears”, and so what’s the use?

A: And those “right bears” are really right? The problem is that they lose their independence being in a format of their factions. I wouldn’t like to offend anyone, considering that I have good personal relations with some of them. Ilya Ponomarev, for example, is not an ideological friend of mine, but when I need to make a deputy’s request, he usually helps me. If there were a faction of SPS there, headed by me, that would be a political force. Very little would depend on us, but at least our position and opinion would be present there. And this is why we are not present there. 

Q: And what have you changed? SPS still wants to get to the Duma, and wants to come to agreements with the authority and to influence it from inside. It’s only you who is absent there.  

A: I was ready for a fair competitive struggle at the elections, and instead a steamroller was used against us. I am not ready to be “appointed” to the Duma, when they clearly indicate in your ticket what you can do and what you can not. That’s of no interest to me. Now the task by my colleagues from the party is not that global to get somewhere, but just to survive. People in the province are really get imprisoned, and are taken their businesses away. That’s not seen when you look from Moscow, but I have traveled in the regions and I saw that SPS activists are really pressurized.   

Q: Roughly speaking, do they need the federal protection?

A: They need conditions under which there would be no “bite!” command. 

Q: Was the message from the authority like this: we shall stop the steamroller if you change your leader?

A: Well, I am on reciprocal terms with the authority. And I am no barricade hero.   

Q: And who carried the megaphone for the Byelorussian opposition?  

A: I did that, but that’s not my line. The border between what can be done and what cannot is not about the question of your interaction with authority, but this is about the question, to my mind, about what is good and what is bad. Kudrin in the finance ministry – that’s good. Ignatyev in the Central Bank – is also good. Chubais in Nanotech is good. But what is absolutely unacceptable is clownery in politics. What could I need that for?  

Q: From appearance, all that looks quite simple – in December all the democratic parties got indebted for the free airtime on television. Now in the new project they are offered new accounting from zero point under condition of changing the leader.  

A: I am worth more than 150,000,000 rubles. An associated credit with Chubais in Nanotech? No way! The decision about him just coincided with my resignation. It’s just about that the variant I staked at, failed. I wanted to make a new party on the basis of SPS, but the oppositional one. The alternative offer by the Kremlin appeared in spring, but I said at once I would not participate in that. Only when it became clear that Mikhail Kasyanov was ready to join the party just after a year, that Garry Kasparov does not believe in any party projects at all, and Vladimir Ryzhkov was willing to join under a condition that another group of about 10-12 “decent” people came, then it became clear that we could not be on time, and so it was only the variant remaining in which I could not take part. After a month such a party would die by itself, and no one else, except me, could bring money there, as all the fundraising attempts met obstacles.   

Q: And when did they stop giving money to SPS? 

A: In November last year, after Putin’s speech in Luzhniki. 

Q: And then Chubais appeared with Nanotech, at which everyone is looking as at a new big financial opportunity?

A: I shall repeat it – if there had been an alternative option possible I would have gone for it. Chubais in RAO EES of Russia and in Nanotech worked for a breakthrough in our innovative development. And it would be difficult to take money from there for the party’s needs. There was no topic like that.  

Q: Without the right “license”, would you get engaged in making your party in the street? 

A: I need to explain matters to my comrades so that to remove the ambiguity, when people learn about your resignation from newspapers and Internet. Then I will take a rest for a week. I have not discussed with anyone any “escape hatch” either for business or for public activities. I need to understand now what part of my business still stands after I took money from there for the party’s needs. And the situation in the world economy is complicated. It’s necessary to realize one thing – we are going to carry out long work, not timed to the elections of 2011. It’s necessary to define whether there is a critical mass of people able to join ranks.