After the elections to the State Duma of the VI convocation, a protest movement began in Russia. The protesters did not agree with the results of the last elections, they argued that the Duma should be recognized as illegitimate, since it does not reflect the interests of the majority of citizens.
Concept
Protest movement - multiple mass anti-government movements of citizens. In the world, many countries have recently been covered in which they occurred. Some led to revolutions, others did not achieve their goals. However, almost all of them follow the same scenario. More on this later.
Scenarios of protest movements
Protest movements in the Middle Eastern countries and the CIS look about the same:
- First, elections are held, in which any violations are recorded - In Russia, they were held on December 4, 2011.
- The current political forces win them - the president or the ruling party.
- The people come outdissatisfied with these choices. At this stage, there is active propaganda using reports of all electoral violations. People are being told that the vote should be declared invalid.
- Leaders and a symbol of the movement are being chosen - In Russia, the white ribbon has become a symbol, but our opposition has not decided on a common leader.
- Next comes the removal of the current government from management, the appointment of controlled people to election commissions, central media, regulatory authorities.
- New elections are underway, where the "right" people are winning.
The last two points our country does not yet know in recent history. It is noteworthy that before the elections, no one raises a fuss about the fact that the upcoming elections will be illegitimate. On the contrary, the situation with them is hushed up, fixing any minor violation. The purpose of election observation is not to build a civil society, to help establish the current system, but to deliberately use violations for future campaigning, to create an image of the illegitimacy of the government that won them. Although the number of violations, as a rule, does not affect the overall vote.
"White (snow) revolution" in Russia
In Russia, the protest movement after the December elections in the media dubbed the "white revolution". The analogy was not chosen by chance: in the minds of Russians at that time, a negative attitude towards all “color revolutions” was strengthened. Our citizens already "know" that their organizers are "agentsState Department”, “sellers of the Motherland”, that they “act on the orders of the Americans”, etc. The authorities, with the help of the media, have learned to use propaganda for their own purposes. They know about the power of the "fourth estate". Mind control is the main achievement of stability.
Using the negative experience of revolutions in the Russian media as the futility of the protest movement
There have been many revolutions and protest movements in the world over the past 20-25 years:
- "Bulldozer" in Yugoslavia (2000);
- "Rose Revolution" in Georgia (2003);
- "Orange" in Ukraine (2004);
- "Tulip" in Kyrgyzstan (2005);
- Lebanese Cedar Revolution (2005);
- "Lilac" in Moldova (2009);
- Jasmine in Tunisia (2010-2011);
- The Arab Spring in Algeria, Egypt, Oman, Yemen, Libya, Syria (2011-2012) and others
There were also attempts in Belarus - "Vasilkovaya" in 2006, in Armenia - in 2008, in Uzbekistan, etc. Since 2014, "Euromaidan" began in Ukraine, which led to the removal of the current government and unleashed an armed conflict in Donbass.
From the above list, we can conclude that there have been protests and revolutions in many countries. Many of them led to positive developments in the countries where they took place. Some, on the contrary, refer to negative processes in the political and economic life of the country: civil wars, the deterioration of the economic situation, etc. However, most of the pro-government media in Russia use precisely the negative experiencerevolutions in Ukraine, Libya, Iraq. Their goal is to label the protest movement in Russia as hopeless, moving towards chaos and destruction. The idea is instilled into the mass consciousness that the overthrow of power from below will only lead to a worsening of the situation in the country, perhaps even to a civil war and the collapse of a single country.
We do not know what can actually happen in Russia after the violent overthrow of power in the course of revolutionary manifestations, but never before in the entire history of our country have such actions led to a real improvement in life for the majority of citizens. There has always been a significant regression in the economic development of the country, which inevitably led to social upheavals. The events in Ukraine after the Euromaidan also strengthened the belief among the majority of the inhabitants of our country in the futility of the protest movements in Russia.
For Fair Elections
Mass protests in the Russian Federation in recent times began after the elections to the State Duma in 2011. Their symbol was a white ribbon, which seemed to our president a "contraceptive". Their slogan was "For Fair Elections", which said that the opposition did not consider the new Duma to be legitimate, since, in their opinion, it did not reflect the interests of the majority of citizens. Mass rallies were held in 99 cities of Russia and 42 abroad. The largest of them was the opposition rally on Bolotnaya Square on December 5, 2011.
December 24, 2011 occurredan even larger action is on Akademika Sakharov Avenue in the capital. Many famous people, politicians, people of art took part in it. But this was not the end: on February 4, 2012, a mass procession took place in Moscow through the central streets. On February 26, 2012, the action “Big White Circle” took place again in the capital. The protesters had white balloons in their hands, and white ribbons were attached to their clothes.
Fight against the protest movement
Events seriously excited the authorities. It was decided to organize a live video broadcast at each polling station for the upcoming presidential elections. There were also repressive measures: some were arrested and later convicted under various criminal articles, many paid fines. All pro-government and patriotic forces were involved: youth movements, the Cossacks, military-patriotic circles - they participated in mass marches in support of the current government.
All major Russian media actively covered patriotic rallies and hushed up anti-government speeches. Some of them, although they spoke about the movement "For Fair Elections", but only in an exclusively negative way: all the organizers became "traitors to the motherland" who were "hired by the American State Department" and others.
All government measures failed: on March 5 and 10, 2012, after the presidential elections, rallies again took place. Up to 30 thousand people took part in them. After this protestmovement in Russia began to decline. As it turned out, only for a while.
Protest movement in Russia in 2017
In 2017, there was another surge of anti-government sentiment. The experience of previous years was taken into account. This time the organizers refused the call "For Fair Elections" and set as their goal the "fight against corruption". The reason was: the Anti-Corruption Foundation published a film that immediately caused a shock in Russian society.
A. Navalny exposed Prime Minister D. A. Medvedev himself, accusing him of creating illegal schemes with state transfers, the damage from which is estimated at hundreds of billions of rubles. The oppositionist used all known methods of influencing the mass consciousness: he voiced the problem of poverty, insufficient assistance to sick children, problems in the public sector, etc. Mass anti-corruption rallies were held in almost all large cities. The protest movement in Russia currently has a number of features: "street walks", flash mobs are used, and underage children are involved.
The birth of the protest movement in Russia (1905-1907)
Let's delve into history. The emergence of a mass protest movement in Russia began after "Bloody Sunday", January 9, 1905. A demonstration of many thousands was shot, after which the whole country plunged into revolutionary chaos. Then the state was able to resolve the situation for some time, introducing some political indulgences, but in 1917 the authorities signed their impotence - there wasGreat February bourgeois revolution.
