On Whose Behalf, Against Whom, for the Sake of What Values?

Abstract

When we began working with a group of political activists in December 1991, the euphoria society had experienced from the victory of democratic forces had already passed. After the collapse of the August putsch, the democratic movement went through some difficult times: internal contradictions became exacerbated, and splits and withdrawals of parties from the movement followed one after the other. Journalists lost no time in calling Democratic Russia, the largest of the social movements that had emerged in Russia, a "political corpse." Works appeared in the political literature assessing the concrete-historical role of the democratic movement as a force engendered by the totalitarian system and whose function was to abolish that system. V. Pastukhov, a consultant to the Supreme Soviet of Russia, wrote: "The Russian democratic movement is a product of the disintegration of the totalitarian system. … In the last stage of crisis, the totalitarian system … gives birth to its own 'assassin,' a force whose reason for existence is to abolish totalitarianism. Once it comes to power, the movement ceases to exist as an integral whole. … It accomplished its mission when it destroyed totalitarian power, and after that it ceased to exist as a movement" [1].