Another future

What fate awaits a new batch of supporters of Alexei Navalny?

While Alexei Navalny is serving another administrative arrest, his supporters established a new party “Russia of the Future” in Moscow. The name for the organization was invented by a lawyer of the Corruption Fund Lyubov Sobol. Until recently, the party existed as a “working name”, Navalny explained that this was needed in order to protect himself from possible spoilers. On the eve of the presidential election, the opposition really took the previous brand: the “Party of Progress” was registered by the famous friend of the Kremlin Andrei Bogdanov in the Ministry of Justice.

“Russia of the future,” perhaps an even more difficult fate awaits. The reasons for this are associated not only with the resistance of the authorities - some of them lie in the field of ideology.

The ability of Navalny's supporters to act in the absence of a leader causes deep respect. At the same time, the choice of a new name raises several questions. Firstly, there is direct continuity between the “Party of Progress” and “Russia of the Future”. Both names promise indefinite, but positive changes, and are not attached to a specific political platform. Progress and the future can raise supporters of almost all political forces on flags, including left-wing, social democrats, libertarians, nationalists, or, as we will see below, even "centrists-conservatives."

Secondly, “Russia of the Future” is a quote from Alexei Navalny himself, who often discusses in his speeches about the “beautiful Russia of the future”. The expression even became a meme on the Internet. Supporters of Navalny are often reproached with the fact that they are too focused on his personality. And the name of the party, resembling a quote, will not contribute to a decrease in the number of such accusations. By the way, the party "Beautiful Russia of the Future" would have sounded even better, but there was enough tact.

Finally, Vladimir Putin was actively engaged in the search for the image of the future in the last year before his next election. It was not possible to find something stunning, at best we are talking about a cocktail from new social decrees and common wishes for robots, artificial intelligence and digital economy. This is most likely due to the fact that the future in the political sense of the word is a rather empty concept, by which you can understand anything, and then not to answer for anything.

Regardless of our political beliefs, it will be honest to notice: the summons of the opposition and the Kremlin suddenly coincided. We are talking about the struggle for the future, that is, about the struggle for who will rule Russia.

All other considerations are deeply secondary.

It is worth repeating here: politics just represents the struggle for power, and in accordance with the constitution and common sense in the lessons of politics, there can be nothing wrong. Another thing is important: the time of political organizations that advocate for some specific direction of development of the country has not come in Russia. The quasi -Russian “United Russia” is spreading through all the flanks of the political spectrum: from the struggle for social justice to the help of oligarchs under sanctions. The Communist Party is simultaneously left and ultra -right. Navalny’s opposition does not lag behind its official opponents and offers to go to the future, sometimes putting forward mutually exclusive requirements (freedom, economic growth, visa regime with central Asia) with the only specific condition: the expulsion of the current elite from the Kremlin.

From the point of view of political science, this means that Russian society is still very immature. Even after the hypothetical victory of democratic forces, long years of the struggle for the formation of the usual parliamentary system, where there is routine replacement of power, and people vote not just “for all the good”.