December 14, 2011--Rokirovka

Castling in chess is a special move that involves the king and either of the rooks (or castles) of the same color. It is the only move in chess in which a player moves two pieces at the same time. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook on the player's first rank, then moving the rook onto the square over which the king crossed. Castling can only be done if the king has never moved, the castle involved has never moved, the squares between the king and the rook involved are not occupied, the king is not in check, and the king does not cross over or end up on a square in which it would be in check.

Got it?

In Russian the word for castling is rokirovka ; and what is going on in the streets of Moscow right now, with unusual demonstrators protesting the political rokirovka in which President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are changing places--both moving at the same time so that Putin will again become president and Medvedev prime minister.

But there are a lot of things wrong with the chess analogy being drawn by protesters and media folks. In classic castling/rokirovka they would not be eligible to switch places because the rules of chess require neither one of them to have moved previously; and as we know, they switched places previously, moved once before so that Putin could retain ultimate power, albeit as "only" the prime minister. They did so so Putin could avoid the constitutional prohibition that he not serve more than two consecutive presidential terms.

In Russia, however, where chess grandmasters have been known to cheat on the international stage, political cheating is also a traditional pastime. But this time, Putin and his gang may not get away with it. People are in the streets demanding a real election and a Russian billionaire, Mikhail Prokhorov, owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, just announced he plans to run against Putin this spring when the vote is scheduled.

In a version of the Arab Spring or Occupy Wall Street the thousands who have taken to the streets are not the usual Russian suspects. They are not the lumpenproletariat clamoring for bread and jobs familiar to history. They are, in fact, Putin's people. The new middle class who have been significant beneficiaries of his polices. They are of course not the oligarchs who became billionaires when Russia's natural resources were given away during the Yeltsin years, but those who are well educated and secured well-paying positions in the Putin-liberalized economy. Those from Moscow and the other major cities of Russia's west, for example, have seen the value of their apartments skyrocket and their wages soar an average of 15 percent per year during the first eight years of Putin's rule.

So what is so under their skin that they are out protesting in the freezing early Russian winter?

According to protesters quoted in the New York Times, the issue is political, not economic: "The people coming onto the streets of Moscow are very well off. These are people protesting because they were humiliated. They were not asked. They were just told, 'Putin is coming back.'" [My italics.]

There is an historical irony here--as during General Pinochet's time in Chile, and perhaps now in Russia, when the economy is at its strongest, authoritarian leaders whose policies boosted the economy so that a large middle class emerges are in turn rendered vulnerable.

Returning to the chess comparison, the Russian people, playing black may soon declare to the white-playing Putin--"Mate in three."