What social democrats should do in Russia
In this article, we will try to outline the direction for the multi-year journey of social democrats toward a democratic system in Russia. It may take decades. This article shows that social democrats are one of the few political forces in Russia with a clear, step-by-step plan for regime change. There are virtually no alternatives.
We cannot compete with the billions of dollars that the nomenklatura invests in propaganda. Relatively speaking, where they can invest 10 billion, we can only invest 10,000 dollars. The difference is hundreds of thousands of times over. Therefore, we cannot work on quantity — we are bound to lose. The only way to victory over this authority is to work on quality, on intensity. To try to ensure that people do not simply watch a video about corruption, get outraged, but after a while leave politics anyway. Instead, so that the cause of our whole life, the cause of social democrats, becomes the cause of their whole life as well. So that they are not merely our supporters, but become convinced social democrats capable of conducting social-democratic policy without our guidance, on their own. That is, so that no propaganda can force them to renounce these views, so that they are resistant to it, and not just resistant, but carry these views to others themselves and can defend them. This cannot be achieved without forming an ideology and without a large body of materials that eliminate all objections (or at least as many of them as possible). Then we will gain a community of like-minded people inside Russia that will not “collapse” quantitatively thanks to its resistance to propaganda. And it will grow. This was noted by the American political scientist John Lenczowski:
Vladimir Lenin… used ideology as a tool to enforce uniformity of thinking among revolutionaries, because that guaranteed uniformity of action, which in turn was the only way a minority could seize power over an unorganized majority1.
An ideology can be different, but whether it is authoritarian (like Lenin’s) or democratic, it serves as a tool of mobilization, unification, and ensures consistency of thinking. Otherwise, sufficient mutual understanding (and therefore interaction) will not be ensured among those who want to change the regime. Possessing a similar worldview and mindset, they will draw similar conclusions and act in concert even under conditions of disrupted communications (which, in a regime like Russia’s, where much of what is necessary for a change of power cannot be said or written, must definitely be taken into account). Furthermore, under conditions of total propaganda by the regime, it should also be taken into account that most people will be deceived by it, and action falls solely upon the most enlightened minority, which must return to the majority the right of choice (otherwise it will become a new authoritarian regime).
Of course, even with an advanced ideology, we cannot compare quantitatively to the statists and their human resources. But is it necessary? Once, a reader of “Logika Progressa”, proving that taking power does not require millions of supporters, gave such an example, speaking in simple, everyday language: “three youngsters can press a whole train of suckers, moving from carriage to carriage” (hinting that free people in Russia can overturn whole hordes of this power’s combat slaves). Indeed, there are examples where a colossal number of people was not required for major historical events. Thus, the Communist manual on armed uprising reports that during the Third Shanghai Uprising in 1927, which ended in success, in the initial period “besides 6 thousand (by the day of the uprising, instead of 5 thousand, the party had 6 thousand fighters) unarmed militia members and 150 fighters armed with Mausers, the party had nothing else”2. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion, whose troops covered 800 kilometers across Russia in a day and met no resistance3, numbered 25,000 people according to him, but according to journalists’ estimates, “Prigozhin, by all appearances, can count on five to six thousand fighters from the ‘core’ of the PMC with light weapons”4. The Prigozhinists managed to capture Rostov, meaning a city of one million can be taken by 5-6 thousand soldiers. Civilians will likely require somewhat more, but what matters most here is that millions of supporters are not needed.
In conditions where the entire country is trembling with fear and democratic institutions are extremely weak, the outcome will be decided not by the trembling majority, but by a clash of decisive people on both sides (the majority will simply submit to the victor, as we have seen all these recent years). There are reasons to believe that Putinism does not have as many decisive people as one might think. Most of them simply follow power, and if a couple of dozen thousand armed people stage a mutiny, it is not a given that Putinists will want to risk their lives and go against them. What will decide here is who is ready to risk more for their prosperity. That is why we need to work not on the quantity of propaganda, but accumulate people like Ruslan Zinin around ourselves, as well as educate people so intensively that their bamboozling by the regime becomes impossible. The abandonment of ideology by democrats in recent years is a mistake; ideology is necessary for our survival.
Especially in Russia. We must take people earning a miserable 20-50 thousand rubles and ensure that they forever understand that this is a miserable pittance, while Putin’s gauleiters, robbing them, handle millions or even billions (therefore, we will likely have to emphasize mainly the regions, since the standard of living in Moscow is not that low). Optimally, these people should not want to live in poverty all their lives, but be ready to decisively restore justice. This process will be extremely difficult, and even the first stage is problematic to overcome. Until we have resources, we will not overcome it, so everything depends on resources. The remaining stages will not be any easier.
Contents
The first stage – creation of central media, ideology, and a secret society
At this stage, we need to set out the main tenets of our ideology (social democracy) in Russian. For this purpose, a central media outlet is created, where these tenets are developed. In our case, it has already been created — this is our journal “Logika Progressa”. Over the first five years of the journal’s existence, we have developed a significant portion of the basic tenets of the ideology of progressive social democracy. But development must continue — our ideology must be able to respond in theoretical terms to potential attacks by our political opponents (statists, libertarians, communists, and so on) and be able to attack them. Thereby, we prepare the ideological base for agitation. Such a base for the Russian left for a long time was Marxism, but today it is already outdated, has a significant number of weak points, and cannot competently answer many questions.
A society is created along the lines of the British Fabian Society, which is capable of producing agitational content, attracting activists, organizing their training, and creating regional cells. This society must be secret and anonymous, and a safe environment for coordination must be created (we have chosen a forum format, though this is a issue requiring separate consideration). Otherwise, the society will be vulnerable to attacks from the security services, and the implementation of the fourth stage will be impossible. Vulnerability to security service attacks must be minimized as much as possible — for this, it is necessary that founding principles cannot be changed, and individuals destructively influencing the development of the organization can be removed from the society.
Over the years of work, suspicious people have “fallen away” from us, and those who helped selflessly, contributed, and whose views we know very well have remained. These are people tested in every possible sense. We temporarily ceased to be of interest to potential informants; they have already written us off, since we did not rely on rapid subscriber growth. This made it possible to form a group of people who are definitely dedicated to the cause of democracy and can together serve as guarantors of protecting the society from informants.
The most important task at this stage is organizing fundraising, finding financing — otherwise, all activity will be organized solely on volunteers, who, as proven by years of practice, very often quickly “burn out”, miss deadlines, undertake only interesting work (uninteresting but necessary work remains without performers), work irregularly and only in their convenient spare time (that is, extremely insufficient time). That is, we will not get even 10% of the necessary development activity without financing. Therefore, we need to secure financing sufficient to hire at least a few people who perform work that volunteers do not undertake. One must be able to find financing. Even if we have to sell advertising from the central media outlet — if revenues from this allow buying advertising that compensates for the outflow of subscribers due to purchasing advertising in such a way that their number ultimately still increases — this should be engaged in. If suddenly wealthy people turn out to be among active supporters who can support financially or even transfer some property capable of generating money to the society — this is best of all and will bring the greatest contribution to the development of the society.
After securing funding, mass distribution of online flyers and brochures, mass following on social media, building a literature base, its distribution, and growing the central media outlet to at least 10-20 thousand subscribers (these must be organic, not fake followers) on social media become possible. At this stage, it is desirable to organize the publishing of our own e-books, ideally their sale. Systematic propaganda programs should be established, and training and political education programs for activists should be launched.
The second stage – regional growth of the society
At this stage, at least 5-10 regional cells consisting of a minimum of 10-15 people should be created. This can be done through targeted work on social media aimed at a particular region. Local activists should create development plans for each of these regional cells and an action plan to prevent the cell from falling apart (and we must formulate recommendations to facilitate this task). In the future, each cell should ideally have its own regional media outlet – a website or a channel.
The most comprehensive keyword database possible should be created to promote the society’s websites and YouTube channels. These keywords must be covered as thoroughly as possible. At a certain point, creating a news media outlet on social media becomes possible. These media will allow us to learn from the working class about its problems and publicize these issues. Thus, relations with the working class are established.
At this stage, initial attempts should be made to agitate among university professors, engage in teaching ourselves (possibly creating courses of some kind), and launch our own book clubs. Broadcasting live to 15-20 people already carries significant potential to awaken their interest in politics. Rank-and-file activists, in addition to this, should try to infiltrate trade unions and political parties, working with their personal real-life circle. Work is established on distributing our flyers and brochures to mailboxes in both large cities and rural areas (sometimes this is the only way to reach an audience that does not actively use the internet) while studying the experience of “going to the people”. Our activists do not necessarily have to do the distribution themselves – it can be delegated to a private contractor.
More experienced members of the society should help active young members get high-paying jobs (for instance, by recommending training that allows them to find such work) or successfully launch a business. This is the path to ensuring that young members can contribute money to the common treasury in the future. This will benefit all members of the society, so over time we will accumulate a body of genuinely effective advice that works for the financial benefit of every participant. Mutual aid funds are created in case a particular member of the society faces problems.
The third stage – transformation of the secret society into a party
When an extensive secret society exists with many regional cells, a strong central media outlet, well-developed news and regional media outlets, and YouTube channels, it makes sense to try uniting other social-democratic and aligned groups around ourselves into a party, also built on the foundations of anonymity, secrecy, and countering attacks by security services aimed at seizing control over it or destroying its operational capacity. In doing so, it is desirable to leave or create a legal party connected to the main one. Negotiations are conducted regarding the entry into the party of the country’s prominent social democrats (on an open basis if they are in exile, or on an anonymous basis if they are in the country), as well as prominent figures whose views are potentially social-democratic. At this stage, an attempt should be made to create our own TV channel.
The party at this stage must be able to integrate government representatives who have a negative attitude toward the prospects of the regime and must be able to establish connections with them. In exchange for promoting social-democratically minded people, fighting our political opponents, and communicating important information, these individuals will receive immunity in the future state (and possibly advancement). Influential party members help advance less influential ones and enter into deals predominantly with companies whose management holds the closest views. A boycott of goods and services of the ideological enemy, as well as key competitors of party members, is popularized.
If there are enough of us, this will allow us, firstly, to communicate with major Russian movements (which pay no attention to small movements) and media, securing mentions of us from them, which will further aid the movement’s development. We will become of interest to structures from other countries. Trade unions or entrepreneurs might want to fund us. Therefore, recruiting people is important – it affects our capabilities. However, it is not an end in itself, and we cannot recruit everyone indiscriminately; it must be done selectively.
The party puts forward the demand for a democratic revolution, the transfer of full power to the Constituent Assembly, and builds ties with other revolutionary democratic forces and trade unions. An attempt is made to create a powerful trade union along the lines of Histadrut or Solidarity. Democratic media boycott pro-regime freaks like Milonov and Dugin, or coordinate attacks against them.
The legal and illegal parties utilize all possible methods of struggle. The legal one attempts to implement the principles of “municipal socialism” – attempts to seize power at the municipal level, fighting for the expansion of municipal rights, for the transfer of property into their hands, and for consolidating party members in municipalities. The illegal one conducts propaganda in the army and security forces, drawing on the experience of the Portuguese Armed Forces Movement. Agitation is conducted among football fans and in sports societies (including airsoft groups). Finally, practical steps are taken toward arming party members and the working class, creating civil militias, and distributing a manual on armed insurrection.
At this stage, it is important to have an extensive network of supporters across the country. Russians are afraid to protest in small groups, but building associations online can create large enough groups to make taking to the streets for protest possible.
The fourth stage – the revolutionary stage
A party that is strong enough in terms of the dominance of its principles and tenets in society, at the municipal or trade union level, armed, and possessing agents within the government, influences the country by itself and is ready to take power. Sometimes this can be done bloodlessly if the nomenklatura backs down. Sometimes it does not, and revolution remains the only option.
However, it cannot be carried out without a revolutionary situation – one must wait for such a situation, but be prepared for it, ready to deploy mass activity at any moment, possibly in alliance with other revolutionary democratic forces. One must be able to organize student demonstrations and protests along the lines of Euromaidan. Society must be ideologically prepared so that the army or guard defects to the side of the protesters rather than suppressing them. If all details are implemented correctly, taking over administrative buildings in the capital and obtaining full power in one’s hands becomes possible. Then the transfer of power in Russia to the Constituent Assembly and the adoption of measures for the country’s democratization are declared; however, that is a separate issue. For example, we examined the democratization of the country in this article.
- J. Lenczowski. Political-Ideological Warfare as Part of a Comprehensive Strategy // Soviet History Lessons (www.soviethistorylessons.com). [Electronic resource]. URL: https://www.soviethistorylessons.com/political-ideological-warfare-ru (Accessed: 30.04.2025).
- A. Neuberg. Armed Insurrection. – 207 p. – Moscow, Leningrad: State Social-Economic Publishing House, 1931. – p. 102.
- L. Kononenko. Prigozhin: We covered 800 km to Moscow and met no resistance at all. Then Lukashenko called. AUDIO // Censor.NET (censor.net). June 26, 2023, 18:35. [Electronic resource]. URL: https://censor.net/ru/news/3427122/prigojin_my_proshli_800_km_do_moskvy_i_ne_vstretili_nikakogo_soprotivleniya_potom_pozvonil_lukashenko (Accessed: 22.03.2025).
- Prigozhin stated that 25 thousand people are allegedly participating in the ‘march of justice’. But what is actually known about the number of Wagnerites? // Meduza (meduza.io). June 23, 2023, 23:39. [Electronic resource]. URL: https://meduza.io/feature/2023/06/24/prigozhin-zayavil-chto-v-marshe-spravedlivosti-yakoby-uchastvuyut-25-tysyach-chelovek-no-chto-realno-izvestno-o-chislennosti-vagnerovtsev (Accessed: 22.03.2025).
