Subject of Discussion
The debate between Maxim Reznik and Maxim Katz, presented to us as a principled discussion about the future of Russian resistance, was not such. It was a one-man show where, after losing an internal dispute in an obscure organization, he decided to air his grievances on the public stage, wrapped in the guise of lofty matters. This entire production is a perfect illustration of why the opposition movement of 2011 ultimately suffered a crushing defeat and why its remnants continue to poison any living initiative.
Maxim Reznik
Maxim Reznik, the initiator of this bout, created cognitive dissonance from the very first minutes of his opening remarks. He spoke about the importance of dialogue and consolidation, apologizing for the harsh formulations he himself used on Twitter to lure his opponent into the studio. He pompously declared fundamental disagreements in approaches to building «Russian resistance,» but as the reason for such a serious conversation, he proposed… a dispute over an amendment on anonymity in the «Deputies of Peaceful Russia» organization. An organization whose existence, as Katz rightly noted, 90% of the viewers learned about only from the announcement of these very debates.
This contrast between the proclaimed scale of the problem and its actual insignificance is the key to everything that happened. When a politician, instead of engaging in real work—expanding the audience, creating coalitions, searching for words understandable to millions of people—spends his and others’ time on public score-settling over a procedural issue in his hobby circle, this is not politics. This is imitation.
This is a struggle for status in the sandbox while a real war rages around and a real dictatorship takes root. Reznik did not come to negotiate. He came to accuse, judge, and deliver a verdict, having appointed himself both prosecutor and judge in this process. And it is precisely this approach, as we will see further, that is the main cause of the very deconsolidation he loves to accuse Katz of.
Who Holds Power Here?
The central element of the attack that Maxim Reznik so meticulously prepared was the thesis of the struggle between «democracy» and «authoritarianism.» As his main «trump card,» he presented to the public a recording from an internal meeting where Maxim Katz discusses the effectiveness of a «unitary» management model for a small, essentially non-functional project. Reznik presented this as an exposure—here he is, the true face of Katz, a power-hungry dictator, an opponent of collegiality and democratic procedures!
Reznik deliberately set this frame for the entire debate: I, Reznik, am the defender of democracy, and my opponent is a hidden leaderist. This was his main line of attack. But any loud declaration must be tested by actions. And throughout the broadcast, this test was failed by him with a resounding crash.
Because during these very debates, an idea was voiced that is a real, not ritualistic, test of democratic credentials. Maxim Katz proposed what the entire «old guard» of the opposition fears like fire: to hold new, open, and honest elections to the Coordinating Council. Not appointing leaders in backrooms, not gathering committees from «respected people,» but allowing hundreds of thousands of Russians who follow politics to decide for themselves who represents them and whom they trust.
It would seem, here is the chance for the «democrat» Reznik! A chance to support a procedure that would give the opposition real, not self-proclaimed legitimacy. And what do we hear in response from the fiery fighter for collegiality? He calls this idea «useless,» «conflictual,» and «a path to nowhere.» He claims it will only lead to new disputes.
At this moment, his entire construction crumbles. His «democracy» turns out to be a fiction. This is democracy for internal use, for disputes in closed chats where you can later leak a recording and accuse the opponent. But as soon as talk turns to real, uncontrollable democracy, where voting rights are held not only by «club» members but also by ordinary supporters, it is immediately declared harmful and dangerous.
Why? The answer is simple, and it lies in history. The last elections to the CC in 2012 showed that real popularity often does not coincide with status in the circle. Then, voters brought not only politicians but also writers and journalists to the top spots, shuffling the cards of the «professional fighters.» Reznik fears a repetition. He fears that honest voting will show that his real weight and influence are significantly less than he tries to demonstrate.
His model is not democracy, but an elitist club where only «insiders» have voting rights, and everyone else must merely heed their wisdom. «Consolidation» in his understanding is not the search for compromise, but the subordination of all to his supposedly uniquely correct line.
The video leak was just a pretext. It was an attempt to discredit, to accuse of a power grab that did not happen. Reznik attacked Katz not because he proposed an authoritarian model for a small circle. He attacked him because he intuitively senses in him a bearer of a different approach—an approach where legitimacy is determined not by membership in committees, but by real support from millions of people. An approach under which old elites risk being left out in the cold.
He is not afraid of Katz’s authoritarianism. He is in panic fear of his democracy. Because Reznik literally lost the elections to Katz on an internal issue of anonymity within a small horizontal structure with zero output.
Rewriting Noon
A telling and, frankly speaking, shameful moment of the debates was the discussion of the «Noon Against Putin» action. In Maxim Reznik’s retelling, it appears as some crown of his strategic thought, a great unifying project that was cynically attacked and split by his opponent. This is a beautiful fairy tale. But it’s a lie. It’s a deliberate attempt to appropriate others’ merits to hide his own failure and strategic impotence.
Let’s just restore the chronology that the director of Zhelezyaka’s firm and Maxim Reznik himself are so diligently trying to erase from reality. The campaign to participate in the 2024 presidential elections as a form of protest began long before Reznik’s political allies deigned to remember it. As early as August 2023, Maxim Katz began calling on the opposition not to ignore the elections. The response from the FBK camp, to which Reznik is affiliated, was clear and unequivocal: «We won’t let them count us.» A direct call for sabotage and inaction.
However, one fact must be acknowledged: the idea of «Noon» was indeed proposed by Maxim Reznik at the end of September. And that’s where his real participation in its success ends. The idea was thrown into the info field and safely forgotten there. Neither Reznik himself nor his powerful allies from FBK did anything to turn it into a mass campaign. It remained stillborn.
It was at this moment that others picked it up. Volunteer groups, the very «Unicorns» that Reznik would later try to insult with the strange word «katsyuni.» This includes us, including me personally, who from October began kicking this lifeless project, creating content, running accounts, agitating. While we were doing this, Reznik’s closest associates in live streams called his idea ineffective and called for a boycott.
The real mobilization came with Nadezhdin, whom, by the way, Reznik then called «Kremlin conservative tinned goods,» which he promised to «open.» Tens of thousands of people came to stand in queues at headquarters not because of Reznik’s calls, but because they were convinced by Katz, Shulman, the candidate’s team itself. And so, when a real, living movement arose that they did not control, Reznik and his allies decided to lead it. They did not join—it; they tried to privatize the action, turning it from a tool into an end in itself.
And what was the «author» of the idea, Maxim Reznik, doing? He did not organize, did not help, did not coordinate. He ran around Twitter like a headless plucked chicken and nitpicked everyone who was doing the action «wrong.» He was not a leader—he was a toxic controller who tried to strangle any living initiative that did not fit into his framework of «righteous protest,» pressured everyone who acted not within his vision. Especially hard on Katz, who allegedly sabotaged his action.
I know this firsthand. We talked with Reznik on Zoom. We tried to negotiate. We found out that there were no principled disagreements—only in tactics and deadlines. We offered him dialogue and coordination. And what did he do after that? He did not go private. He went to fight more actively on Twitter. And a year and a half later, he accused me personally and other people who promoted his idea for months of working for the Kremlin there, after which he cowardly blocked.
This is his entire method of «consolidation.» Not to convince, but to brand. Not to negotiate, but to demand submission. Not to lead, but to hinder those who are moving.
And after all this, he comes to the debate and accuses Katz of splitting. He, who splits the movement himself with his ultimatums and insults. He, who opposed simple and understandable voting against Putin with his complex and failed tactic of «come and stand» (which, by the way, I decided to explain a bit below). He, whose inadequacy and aggression reduced the level of support for his own action. This is not just hypocrisy. This is political marauding—an attempt to steal someone else’s success on the ruins of his own failures and inability to coalition with anyone except Unicorns.
Who to Vote For?
At the heart of the conflict between the two approaches highlighted by these debates lies a fundamental misunderstanding by «professional politicians» of the psychology of an ordinary person. For millions of people, politics in scorched earth conditions is now the search for a simple, understandable, and most importantly, safe action to express their disagreement.
This is why the «Vote for Davankov» campaign (essentially—for anyone but Putin) worked, while the elitist concept of «Noon Against Putin» in its original, «pure» form did not.
Maxim Reznik and his associates still cannot or do not want to admit this. In their picture of the world, voting for Davankov is «supporting a war criminal,» a moral compromise, almost betrayal. They think in categories of an ideal world where only candidates with impeccable reputations run for elections, and the voter is ready to risk everything for the purity of the gesture.
But in reality, everything is different. For hundreds of thousands of Russians who stood in queues at polling stations, this was not a choice between «good» and «bad.» This was the only available way to show the finger to the regime. Voting for someone, even a technical candidate, is always psychologically stronger and simpler action than voting against everyone or abstract «standing at the site.» A person needs a candidate, even temporary, to focus their hope and protest on him. Davankov, with his rhetoric about peace and ending the war, became such a candidate. People did not vote for him personally. They voted for peace. They voted against Putin. They wrote Navalny’s name on the ballot, understanding that this was their only way to say: «We are here, we disagree, and there are many of us.»
This was a simple, elegant, and most importantly, working strategy. It gave people a clear instruction. It allowed them to feel part of a huge movement. It created those very «Queues Against Putin at Polling Stations,» which became the next political event after the «Queues of Hope,» and not the mythical «Noon,» which almost no one noticed in Russia, and abroad it only hindered people from voting.
What was Reznik offering at this time? He offered the most complex, multi-level construction, understandable only to a narrow circle of activists. «Come at noon, but better don’t vote, and if you vote, not for Davankov because he’s a spoiler, better spoil the ballot but in a way that doesn’t help Putin. Or you can even for Putin, but don’t drop the ballot in the urn and leave…» This stream of consciousness was impossible to explain to an ordinary person. This was a strategy created not for people, but for the self-affirmation of its authors.
They did not believe that the opposition could win quantitatively. They did not believe that more than 50% of votes against Putin could be gathered. So they didn’t even try. Instead, they focused on the «beauty of the gesture,» on a symbolic act that was important to them but absolutely useless for real politics. This is the main sign of defeat and detachment from reality: when the process becomes more important than the result, and the purity of one’s own coat is more important than victory. They lost not because Putin is strong, but because they forgot how to talk to people and stopped believing in them.
The Price of Defeat
During the debates, a key, existential question for the entire opposition was raised: isn’t it time to admit defeat? And here, in the answer to this question, the entire chasm between politics as real activity and politics as ritual self-admiration was exposed.
Maxim Katz, as a person thinking in terms of results, gave an honest and the only possible answer for anyone who wants to move forward: yes, defeat must be admitted. The movement born on Bolotnaya lost. It did not achieve its goals. Moreover, the country rolled back into such archaism that it didn’t even dream of in the darkest moments. Recognizing this fact is not capitulation. It is a starting point. It is a diagnosis without which treatment is impossible. It is an analysis of errors so as not to repeat them again.
And what do we hear from Maxim Reznik? In words, he agrees. «Yes, we lost our fight,» he says, making a mournful face. But this agreement is fake. Because for him, admitting defeat is not a reason for reflection and working on mistakes. It is an indulgence. It is a way to say: «We heroically fought, but the enemy was too strong, so now we can do nothing but judge others for not fighting heroically enough.»
All his further rhetoric is a direct consequence of this approach. Instead of analyzing why the broad public movement turned into an elitist club, why it lost connection with millions of people, why its language became incomprehensible to anyone beyond the Garden Ring (and now—beyond Vilnius cafes), he is looking for the guilty. And the guilty one is always the same—the one who tries to do something differently.
This is the main pathology that eats the opposition from the inside. At some point, basic political work—expanding the number of supporters—was replaced by its opposite: searching for enemies and narrowing the circle of «worthy ones.» The opposition turned into an elitist club with an incredibly high entry threshold. To become its supporter now, it’s not enough to just be against Putin. You need to pass an exam on «correctness.» You need to know all political prisoners by heart, understand the varieties of «good Russians,» have an impeccable biography, and preferably graduate with a master’s in opposition politics so as not to accidentally confuse whom you can vote for today and whom you can’t anymore.
And Maxim Reznik in these debates is the ideal chairman of the admissions committee for this club. He brands those who want anonymous participation in the protest—«lowering the bar!» He brands those who voted for Davankov—«accomplices of a war criminal!» He looks for traitors, he looks for those working for the Kremlin. He does anything except the main thing—trying to understand how to start talking again with tens of millions of Russians who do not want to live under Putin but to whom these sectarian squabbles are completely alien and incomprehensible. Admitting defeat means admitting that this path led to a dead end. But Reznik is not ready. For him, this dead end is a cozy and familiar place.
The Swamp Named After Himself
«From Reznik, there’s a feeling of a hypocritical lurker. These people have been carrying the same nonsense for 5 years. It’s like I’m stuck in time. It’s funny that only Katz seems to have started understanding now that they all knowingly wallow in one swamp. Sometimes I think that this swamp is one big Kremlin agent—how can they be so stupid»
And this is not just an emotion. This is a diagnosis. Reznik and similar «professional oppositionists» are politicians of the past, stuck in their own time loop. They still think in categories of «the crowd,» committees, statements, and congresses. They still believe that politics is made in a narrow circle of «worthy ones,» and the people should merely heed their wise decisions and take to the streets on their command.
They slept through everything. They slept through the emergence of new media, new opinion leaders, new ways of communication. They did not notice how politics ceased to be the domain exclusively of those with a party card. They did not understand that today real influence is held not by the one who is a member of more committees, but by the one watched and trusted by millions. They became a toxic mass that is scary to look at without tears of disgust.
Their reaction to this new reality is fear and aggression. When someone appears who acts differently, who speaks simpler and more understandably, who gathers an audience not at rallies but on YouTube channels, they see in him not an ally, but a threat. A threat to their status, their influence, their cozy little world where they are the recognized leaders. And then old, tried-and-true methods come into play: accusations of working for the Kremlin, searching for traitors, public scandals, demands to «come to debates,» which are actually a challenge to ritual execution.
Of course, it’s not about stupidity or direct work for the enemy. It’s much more prosaic and sadder. This is a conscious choice. This is a deliberate decision to wallow in their swamp because it is familiar, understandable, and in it they are big frogs. Any attempt to drain this swamp, to build something new, big, and open is perceived by them as an existential threat.
This is why they attack Katz so aggressively. He is alien to them. He came from outside and showed that you can act differently—and be successful. He showed that you can speak to millions, not hundreds. That you can unite people around simple ideas, not split them with complex instructions. That you can admit mistakes and move on, not endlessly reflect on defeats from a decade ago.
These debates were not a dispute between two politicians. This was a clash of two eras. The era of the old, ritualistic, elitist opposition that long ago lost and accepted it, and the era of the new, pragmatic, media politics that may also lose, but at least tries to fight. And looking at Maxim Reznik, it becomes obvious: until people of his ilk leave the stage, any «unification» will just be a new name for the same old, viscous, and hopeless swamp.
Paper Generals
To understand the full depth of the chasm separating Maxim Reznik from modern politics, you need to listen to what he considers important. Throughout the debates, he appeals not to people, not to the audience, not to results, but to structures. «Anti-war committee,» «Deputies of Peaceful Russia,» round tables, declarations—this is his currency, this is his measure of political weight. In his world, you become a significant figure not because millions listen to you, but because you are a member of the «right» committee and signed the «right» statement.
This is the thinking of a «paper general without an army.» A person who is proud of his epaulettes and membership in the council of elders but has not a single soldier under his command. He speaks with great reverence about his comrades in these committees—undoubtedly respected people—but their combined audience and real influence on the situation in Russia are close to zero. This is an elitist club that produces statements for itself. And Reznik sincerely considers this «resistance.»
And what in this picture of the world is «not resistance»? Well, for example, the same YouTube channel of Maxim Katz, watched daily by hundreds of thousands, and monthly by millions of Russians. According to Reznik, this is just «media activity,» «chatter.» And in this lies the essence of his detachment from reality. He does not understand that in conditions of growing dictatorship and emigration, when all other forms of politics are destroyed, independent media become the main political tool. A YouTube channel is the modern proto-party. It has an audience (electorate), funding (donations), ideology (content), and most importantly, real, measurable influence, which could be seen in the example of the queues for Nadezhdin.
Reznik and the like do not see this (or diligently do not notice). They continue to live in the paradigm of the early 2000s, where politics is congresses, factions, and backroom deals. They do not understand that legitimacy today is given not by an invitation to another forum, but by direct support from the audience. They devalue this support because it is not under their control and destroys their cozy world where they are recognized authorities. This legitimacy is maintained only through bullying the unwanted with the available media resources. On the fact that conditional «Western partners» understand us even less, and who represents whom in the Russian opposition.
This is the reason for their aggression. They attack Katz not for his views, but for the very fact of his success. For proving that you can be an effective politician without being a member of any of their committees. For speaking to millions while they broadcast to a few thousand. For actually mobilizing people to the streets to sign for Nadezhdin while they wrote another declaration about disliking elections. He is a living refutation of their own significance. And instead of learning and adopting successful experience, they try to destroy him, declare him «wrong» and «schismatizing.» This is not political struggle. This is a desperate attempt by paper generals to prove that their paper headquarters are more important than the real battlefield.
Scorched Earth Tactics
When a politician has no real arguments left, and the only goal becomes not winning the argument but destroying the opponent, the dirtiest weapon comes into play—projection and double standards. And in this art, Maxim Reznik demonstrated a level of mastery that Kremlin propagandists would envy.
His entire tactic in the debates is the classic scorched earth tactic. He did not try to convince. He tried to «smear.» He accused Katz of opacity in funding—a perennial red herring so convenient to throw when there is nothing to say on the merits. At the same time, his own political allies from FBK are one of the most closed and opaque structures in the opposition, for years refusing any public reporting. And Reznik himself actively hides behind his courageous pot-bellied bald head the ears of Frirashi. But this, of course, is different.
He accused Katz of creating «squabbles,» while he himself initiated this «squabble,» starting with public insults on Twitter and a challenge to debate, which, as it turned out, had no real substance. This is not just double standards. This is a conscious strategy of projection: attributing one’s own sins to the opponent to confuse the viewer and shift the conversation from uncomfortable topics for himself.
He accused Katz of «splitting,» but did everything himself to deepen this split: branded millions of people who voted for Davankov, speculated on Navalny’s name, refused any compromises. His «unity» is an ultimatum. His «consolidation» is a demand for submission. Anyone who disagrees is an enemy.
This is a conscious choice. This is a tactic that the opposition of the old formation honed for years. Instead of expanding their base, they engaged in its purge. Instead of attracting new supporters, they looked for traitors among the old ones. This led them to defeat.
And they drew no conclusions. They continue to act the same way. They are ready to burn everything around them just to not admit that the world has changed, that their methods are outdated, that new people have appeared who act more effectively. They are ready to drown any living initiative in scandals and mutual accusations if it arose without their approval and not under their control.
Therefore, returning to the beginning, these debates were important. Not because they discussed something significant. But because, like litmus paper, they revealed the problem. There is politics aimed at victory. It seeks allies, speaks to millions, admits mistakes, and changes. And there is politics aimed at preserving one’s own status in a narrow circle. It seeks enemies, speaks to itself, never admits mistakes, and fears any changes, but actively pretends to want consolidation and unity. But pretending is not doing.
And until the bearers of the second approach leave the stage, any attempt to build something new and truly mass will be doomed to their fierce resistance. Because for them, the main enemy is not Putin. The main enemy is anyone who threatens their monopoly on defeat.
Maxim Katz
Maxim Katz’s strategy in these debates was simple: from the first to the last minute, question the very meaning of the event. The refrain «I don’t understand why we are gathered here» and «This is of no interest to anyone» essentially allowed him to impose his agenda. Instead of discussing the insignificant reason, for two hours they talked about why such public squabbles are harmful to the opposition. Katz used his opponent’s platform to demonstrate the destructiveness of the opponent’s methods themselves. This was a strong and, from a tactical point of view, winning meta-move.
However, this victory contains a fundamental contradiction. If the debates are so meaningless, why participate in them and spend two hours of your time and your million-strong audience’s time on it? The very fact of presence in the studio legitimized the format he criticized. Participation created a paradox: «I am against meaningless disputes, so I came for two hours to meaninglessly argue about why arguing is meaningless.» Refusing to participate would have confirmed his thesis with action, but Katz came, giving the opponent exactly the platform for attack that he wanted.
The Price of Pragmatism
The key moment of the debates was the clash of pragmatic politics with ritual demagogy. When Maxim Reznik, having exhausted his arguments, moved to his main «moral» trump card—accusation of supporting the «war criminal» Davankov—he expected to draw Katz into a long and justifying discussion. This was a trap, and it did not work.
Katz made a strategic decision not to play along. He did not repeat for the hundredth time the logic of his campaign, which he had explained many times before. He refused to spend airtime on a discussion that was a foregone loss for the common cause. Reznik’s attack was not a search for truth, but an attempt to brand the opponent and make him bog down in an unwinnable dispute.
This is the vulnerability of the pragmatic approach: it assumes that the audience is smart enough to distinguish substantive criticism from ritual smearing. For a viewer not following opposition wars, Katz’s refusal to respond in detail might seem like cynicism. But for those who followed the campaign, his silence was more eloquent than words—this was a refusal to participate in ritual self-flagellation that has become the meaning of existence for part of the old opposition. His goal is not to prove his rightness to Reznik, but to win the battle for the minds of millions by talking about the future, not endlessly chewing over old grievances.
Strategy of Replacement
This tactic reveals a larger strategy of Katz, which can be called not unification, but replacement. His communication is not a dialogue, but a monologue in the presence of an opponent. Constantly appealing to his large audience and repeating the mantra «this is of no interest to anyone,» he did not try to convince Reznik or his supporters. He simply crossed them out of the equation as an insignificant quantity.
To an outsider, this might seem like arrogance. Politics is not only working with one’s supporters but also trying to negotiate with opponents. Katz demonstrated that dialogue with such as Reznik is uninteresting to him in principle. True, it’s not entirely clear here, and what about Svetov. After all, it was not he who launched the chain of events leading to the challenge to debates, but Katz himself, unlike the situation with Reznik.
By completely refusing to play on the «old field,» he risks ending up in isolation (though he’s used to it). He builds his powerful media empire but no longer tries much to establish ties with other, albeit archaic, centers of opposition life. He does not want to be first among equals in a coalition; he is already actually perceived as almost the only bearer of «healthy pragmatism.» In the long term, this leads not to consolidation of the opposition, but to the creation of yet another, albeit the largest and most influential, but formally similarly isolated, though to a lesser extent, camp. He won the debate but did not take a single step toward ensuring no such debates happen in the future, although hardly can this blame be placed solely on him, considering the systemic tendency of the Russian opposition to divide into closed groups.