Pathanatomy of protest

The Fund for the Development of Civil Society (FRGO) presented the report “A New Protest Wave: Myths and Reality”, in which he conducted a very voluminous analysis of the outbreak of street movements. In the expert environment, it was noted that the authors of the report, as it were, emphasized, analyze the fossil or corpse. The head of the Foundation Kostin agreed that they strove for this.

The report, as reported in the text of the document, is based on sociological studies by the Federal Antimonopoly Service, FCIM, “Levada Center”, analysis of media publications, texts of performances, as well as on the Focus groups funded by order of the Focus groups. The analysis period is from December 5, 2011 to September 15, 2012, the place is Moscow, St. Petersburg and a number of other cities of Russia.

The protest wave, according to the authors of the document, is divided into two stages: the period of high mass - from December to February - and the period of the decline, indicated why not in months, but in seasons - spring -sanitary.

The main distinguishing features of the protest wave in the report are “relatively high number of participants <...> over the past 10 years”, participation in the rallies of the intelligentsia, “creative class”, office workers and business representatives who previously ignored such events, the presence of common coordinating bodies and a significant role of social media (more simply blogospheres) in mobilization of participants and mobilization of participants and mobilization of participants and mobilization Lighting events. Blogosphere, and this is especially noted in the report, for the first time played such a significant role, sometimes overshadowing even traditional media.

Among the reasons for the protest, in addition to the obvious - typical of the federal electoral cycle to increase political activity and irritability of citizens with socio -economic problems and corruption, -

The report refers to new causes such as the appearance of fashion for protest and turning social media into "multipliers of discontent." Konstantin Kostin

The reasons for the decline in protest activity in the report are indicated by internal and objective. Among the first, in particular, the low effectiveness of protests, the disappointment of protesters in the leaders of the movement, the absence among leaders of a vivid authoritative person with an unspoken reputation, the departure of “fashion for protest” were noted. Among objective reasons, the obsolery of elected subjects, the belief of citizens in political institutions, and not in the revolution, reform (in the plural) of the political system (as explained by Polit.ru, the head of the Federal Reserve, Konstantin Kostin, refers to the simplification of the procedure for registering political parties, the return of direct elections of governors, etc.).

In addition, an important reason for the extinction of a protest wave in the report is called the country's rallies in support of Putin.

The latter, as stated in the report, turned out to be a factor in the decline, as they significantly exceeded the number of protests: in total, 770 thousand people took part in them, 385 thousand of whom came to promotions in Moscow. The conclusions of the report also say that the new forms of protest a la “Okupui” and “Walks”, although they caused a short-term growth of the media effect, could not prevent the decline in activity. It was a bad, in other words, Creative.

At the same time, the law that tightens responsibility for unauthorized rallies up to half a million rubles, which gave rise to the first Italian strike in Russia, was not noted at all in the report.

In other words, the fashion has passed, the protest has no leaders, there are no people, there is no creative. There are no laws that gave rise to political scientists with the most gloomy examples of political regimes as a factor of influence either.

But there is an assertion that “even at the peak, the protest could not become a phenomenon of an all -Russian scale” (“according to the data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, the 2010 became Pikov in the number of street shares in Russia,” the report says). The rallies also made it possible to form a political asset of protests. He, according to the experts of the fund, is 5,000 people.

Illustration from the site civilfund.ru

“Currently, the participants in the shares <..> either have already decided to avoid [from participation in the future] or doubt,” the results of the survey conducted as part of the study are read.

At the same time, the document has a lot of comparative information, which had never previously hit the public field in such a concentrated form. There are also a cut of political addictions of protesters (the most numerous among participants are liberals, the least nationalists), and not simple, but in dynamics for the entire period of research; Analysis of party addictions (60% - supporters of system parties: 27% - Yabloko, 17% - Communist Party, 16% - “Fair Russia”) and even a temporal analysis of the dynamics of the number of shares. There is an analysis of the level of education of participants (December 24 of participants with higher education was 70%, September 15 - already 58%), the gender composition (60% or more - men), analysis of the income level (40% and higher people with average income, the poorest and the richest to rallies almost do not go to rallies). Analysis of musical, cinematic and religious preferences.

There is an infographic dedicated to the differences in the agenda of the speakers and participants in rallies (indicated as one of the key factors in the decline in protest activity, which does not cause special objections) and a semantic analysis of the speeches of the leaders of the non -systemic opposition. For example,

According to the study of the authors of the report, on December 5, the main word of performances was “people”, and on December 4 and March 5, “power”, this word is also the main thing in the speeches of Gennady Gudkov, Sergey Udaltsov and Alexei Navalny.

Even the main factors are allocated and described that contribute to the decision of each individual’s decision on participation in rallies: the scale of the event, the relevance of the topic, the name of the leaders, the guarantee of security and the presence of a friendly company.

Illustration from the site civilfund.ru

The editor-in-chief of the Expert magazine Valery Fadeev, among other experts, was very praised by the report (the report during the presentation managed to praise the head of the CSR Mikhail Dmitriev, political scientist and chairman of the Supreme Council of the Civil Strength, Vladislav Inozemtsev, the head of the general political science of the State University Leonid Polyakov, and even the deputy suser, the leader of the protesting movement Ilya Ponomarev, noticing, however, that I did not agree with all the provisions).

“I would [at the place of protest leaders] would hasten to take advantage of the results and conclusions made in this report. But the opposition leaders consider themselves the smartest, I think that they will not even read, and even more so they will not be able to use the results that are there.

He is too big for them, too fat, ”Fadeev expressed his experience about the intellectual capabilities of opponents of the authorities.

The President of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation Mikhail Vinogradov noticed that the report has the “predestination of theses” (“The text of the Tseserovites even important and respected by me, sometimes, sometimes an interpreter drags [facts] for conclusion,” the political scientist noted).

Vinogradov also noted that the attitude of the authors to the subject of the report is not the ratio of sociologists or historians, but as the attitude of archaeologists or even pathologists.

To this, one of the authors of the report Kostin said: “Noticeing, right? We tried so! "

Illustration from the site civilfund.ru

But if Vinogradov was relatively soft in his commentary on the report, then the head of the FEP Gleb Pavlovsky, perhaps the only guests, did not hold back criticism. According to the political strategist, the authors could not decide whether they were independent analysts or consultants of a particular customer (during the discussion it was noted that the company is a company affiliated with the authorities, which is logical if it is headed by a former senior official of the presidential administration).

“We must distinguish whether you want to express the position of power, or you want to tell the authorities what happened. But these two things mixed together create a sweet situation with salty. That is, vomit, ”said Pavlovsky.

The head of the FEP also noted that the use of modern technologies is very impressive - a semantic analysis and research by ideology, but, a year later, it may already need a completely different analysis: “If we want to tell about the victory over the revolution, which we ourselves came up with, then why write an analytical report about this? To do this, it is enough to organize a TV show. ”

According to the expert, the report did not noted that the situation with protests gave white -wingers a biography, which could no longer be taken away from them, and the protest itself went to the top. There he acquired even less visible and more vile form, and will expand further. And this is exactly what should be analyzed.

Gleb Pavlovsky

“But it will already be difficult to conduct sociological studies there,” Pavlovsky said maliciously, “and now it is pointless to exchange psycho -traumas and make friendly dressings. We now need to understand where we are. ”

Pavlovsky emphasized that the strongest side of the study was the analysis of the age composition of the protesters and the emergence of the Fashion factor in politics, owned by publicist and TV presenter Anton Krasovsky. But here Pavlovsky pointed to a turn not described by the speakers - "Putin won because he ceased to be fashionable, that’s the problem."

“The authors of the report say (a wonderful phrase, it has already been reproduced):“ Putin is a figure consolidating due to the lack of alternatives. ” This is the same as Soviet advertising of cowards or “keep money at the savings box office”, when there is nothing but the savings box office. This is good, but you have no way to check reliability. Until 1992, ”compared Pavlovsky.

According to the expert, it is necessary not to talk about why it rose and went to the decline, but that the power, having preserved the situation, has received a soft form of sluggish civil war today. “In this war, the number of agents, participants, and by no means spectators will increase,” Pavlovsky hinted at the end that the Federal Republic of Frgo with his report is also its participant.