Starting a conversation about power and the opposition, one cannot help but recall the words of M. Bulgakov: “All power is violence against people, and the time will come when there will be no power by Caesars or any other power. A man will pass into the realm of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all … ”(“ The Master and Margarita ”).
Power and its manifestations
Is it possible for a state to exist without power? Unlikely. In human society, power is laid at a subconscious level. Some are eager to rule and rule, while others do not think of their existence without guidance from above. Freud interprets the source of power as the desire to realize his libido, and according to Adler’s theory, the desire to have power is nothing but a compensation for one’s own inferiority complex.
What is power? This concept determines the ability to manipulate (manage), realizing their personal or public interests. Management can be carried out both at the level of one person, and at the level of the state or the whole world, regardless of the desire of those who are governed. Power is a tool with which a person or group of people united by more or less similar interests and striving for similar goals (political parties and movements) can concentrate forces and resources around themselves that will help achieve the goal, suppress the will of others even in spite of their desire, dictate their conditions and control the processes and mechanisms of distribution of the most important and scarce material, natural and social values. Political power implies the achievement of goals for the benefit of the entire community of people subordinate to this power. As a rule, it has a single center making decisions, can act in various fields and use all kinds of control levers. Political power has a clearly defined hierarchical structure.
Ways of confrontation between society and government
People are not always enthusiastic about the way they control. No ruling politician, no matter how powerful he may be, can be sure of his political future. People’s anger is a terrible force, because in anger the people turn into a crowd, but the crowd cannot be controlled. But in order for the people to take action, a person is needed who would not be afraid to openly oppose the government. As a rule, these are desperate fanatics who firmly believed in their cause.
With the advent of the era of "humanity" such fanatics ceased to burn at the stake and put on a stake. They were allowed to unite in groups called the “political opposition”. This was done in order to have some semblance of control over them. For the one who knows the enemy in the face wins. In the era of the Union, the opposition could not exist as a real, somehow visible force in principle. These were units in power structures and outside the state apparatus, which had absolutely no political weight. In modern Russia, the political system allows the formation of opposition political parties in the sense in which the very concept of "opposition party" was originally defined. That is, structures began to appear that have a package of documents fixed by law, aimed at observing the interests of citizens who do not agree with the line of the ruling party. The work of the opposition party is to publicize its ideology and conduct outreach. The result of this work is either the overthrow of the current government, or significant changes in public consciousness.
Power and Opposition
The role of the opposition in the life of modern Russia is rather ambiguous. On the one hand, there are political forces that have a rather high percentage of support for the electorate, whose programs differ in many respects from the programs of not only the ruling party, but also other political entities that call themselves opposition. On the other hand, no opposition party can be recognized as such in relation to the ruling political party. The alignment of political forces in Russia today looks like this: in the parliament, the ruling party is represented by United Russia, and the Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party play the role of the opposition. These two parties were able to gain more than 7% of the vote in the last Duma elections. This is the so-called systemic opposition. There is also an extrasystemic opposition. These are political parties in Russia that did not overcome the 7% barrier, but were allowed to work in parliament. However, they do not have any weight. All other movements expressing their political point of view are recognized as marginal and eliminated by the Federal Registration Service as those that could not prove their ability to perform the functions of the party.
A bit of history
Opposition in Russia has always existed. The Russian opposition began to manifest itself most vividly at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the Bolsheviks came to power. And although the word “oppositionist” itself became something like a stigma, the parties that formed during this difficult period made attempts to negotiate with the new government. These attempts continued until 1929.
But again, the real force opposing the Bolsheviks - the “White Movement" - at that time was already completely destroyed, the opposition was allowed only within the Bolshevik movement itself. Even the thought of the possibility of the existence of an opposition outside the party at the level of the people was not allowed. When Stalin came to power, all dissent was punishable by death, so the very concept of “opposition party” ceased to exist. But the Russian soul is so arranged that it does not accept any violence against itself. In contrast to the regime of severe terror in the late 30s, there is a "moral opposition." She found her expression in the revival of faith, underground, but the faith of all faiths. Malenkov in a letter to Stalin expressed his doubts about the possibility of conquering Europe by SUCH people. This was the impetus for a new wave of terror in 1937, which destroyed almost the entire former aristocracy and intelligentsia of the Union. Only in 1985 did the General Secretary of the CPSU Gorbachev, with his thesis on the democratization of Soviet society, actually allow a multi-party system, thereby bringing the opposition back to life.
Arrangement
With the abolition of the CPSU as a unified ruling party, the political community faced a difficult choice. Naturally, it was necessary to develop at least some kind of program that would allow the state with such resources not only to stay afloat, but also to regain leadership positions in the world arena. The process of alignment of political forces takes a rather long time. During its formation, the government and the opposition have undergone tremendous changes. Democratization and liberalism of the new socio-political society are becoming a paramount task.
By 1993, a party system was formed, consisting of three blocks: the center-left, centrist and center-right. The centrist bloc supporting the president became the leader. It included DPR, PRES, Yabloko and Choice of Russia. The struggle, in which ruling and opposition parties take part, develops against the backdrop of a downturn in the economy, when the pro-government party loses its position by stimulating opposition political parties. In addition, interethnic conflicts on the border lines allow the extreme left and extreme right forces to build up electoral power. This situation undoubtedly put the opposition parties of Russia in the leading position.
Like-mindedness
In the Duma of the IV convocation (2003), the United Russia party is taking the lead. With the advent of such a strong player in the political arena, the ranking of priorities is gradually changing. Political parties and their leaders are gradually removed from leadership positions. The pro-government party will consolidate its leading position for a long time, relying on the ideology of conservatism and immediately opposing itself to more radical movements. It is from this moment that a new stage in the development of Russian society begins. The main task of the party is to maintain leadership positions for 15 years. To achieve this goal, a civic consciousness must be formed, which will be supported by a stable economic situation and a single thought about Great Russia.
It is on patriotic feelings that the leadership of the party is first and foremost placed. One of the stages in the formation of national patriotism was the signing of an agreement to take measures to prevent xenophobia and racial discrimination. Political parties of the Russian Federation almost unanimously signed this document. Thanks to the clear implementation of the party’s program and the improvement of the welfare of the nation, the United Russia party received tremendous voter support in the recent elections to the Legislative Assembly, which also explains the majority of representatives of the ruling party in local governments at all regional levels. The presence of a powerful political force with such support among the population of the state put the opposition parties in a difficult situation.
Fresh stream
The main problem that almost any opposition party faces is competitiveness. The mechanism of government and lawmaking is structured in such a way that it is difficult for the opposition to influence its functioning. Getting support from the working population is even more difficult, because in order for the working class to start protesting against the ruling party, you need to find a reason for dissatisfaction. Well, what if everyone is full, satisfied with their work, spend their leisure time with interest? How to make people grumble? There are several options. The first is pensioners. Here you can play nostalgia for the Soviet past. But again, bad luck - the level of pensions fully meets the needs of citizens who survived in the hungry 90s and did not want to change the well-fed “now” to the unknown “tomorrow”. The second option is the local intelligentsia and the oligarchs, but their number is too small for strong support, and they are unlikely to want to quarrel with the current government. The younger generation remains. It is the youth who are targeting the propaganda of today's opposition. It’s easier to work with young people. They are more amenable to ideologization, have good mobility and practically do not require material costs. Youthful maximalism, inherent in almost all members of youth movements, with the skillful processing of experienced psychologists becomes a really powerful weapon. It is unlikely that these movements can significantly affect the political life of Russia, but here's how the real street power such parties can be used by the opposition to achieve their own goals.
Walking march
The manifestation of such a force was the notorious events on Bolotnaya Street. The sad thing is that the political parties of Russia, which consider themselves in opposition to the authorities, have once again proved their complete failure exactly as political parties. For the crowd gathered on Bolotnaya Square was not motivated by the slogans put forward by the opposition. Calls for the resignation of power and re-elections were borrowed by protesters from the Kiev "Maidan", and the tactics themselves were pretty similar, but that wasn’t the point. The fact is that the very possibility of a protest became a signal to the authorities. A signal of a growing popular consciousness that has learned to think and draw conclusions. Against the background of "colored" Maidans and motley revolutions, Bolotnaya could seriously harm not only the political image of the ruling party, but also Putin personally. The lack of leaders saved the situation.
The meeting of a fairly large number of people, who allowed himself to throw out the energy accumulated over the years of satiety, ended just like it ended, that is, with nothing but a few dozen criminal cases and a general feeling of euphoria from overcoming his own fear of the authorities. If the instigators of a popular revolt had a real leader, a change of power could be real. But, as they say, they shouted and dispersed. Modern opposition leaders are incapable of pushing their electorate to any serious actions; they do not possess those leadership qualities that would help captivate the crowd.
Missed opportunities
The unrealized objectives of the rally on Bolotnaya and on Sakharov Avenue determined the direction in which political parties should move further from the opposition. The first step to success is, of course, the creation of a certain opposition headquarters, which will include those leaders who have the greatest potential. Work should be carried out using the maximum amount of resources. If propaganda through the media has rather limited possibilities, then the World Wide Web is not limited by censorship yet. Great opportunities get bloggers. Their activities can be directed towards the formation of public consciousness, the collection of sociological data, but there are few options for unlimited imagination … Those movements that did not realize their political ambitions during the elections at all levels have chances for success. Joining a single oppositional force gives a certain, albeit a ghostly, opportunity to return to its former positions. There is no doubt that the strong new opposition will make an injection of private capital. Although the very mention of money in the plane of the fight against corruption in politics can be called blasphemous, but any force must have a real material base. Attracting rich and successful people to the opposition party provides quite substantial support for all revolutionary endeavors. Well, the final, but by no means the most insignificant link in this chain should be the intelligentsia and representatives of the elite. Dear cultural figures, the creative elite, they are capable of leading the people, at least their admirers.
