The New Protest Movements and the Left in Russia: To Overcome the Crisis of Hegemony

The chapter is considering contentious politics in Russia in the context of the permanent hegemony crisis that had been lasting over the last 30 years. The author analyzes how this context influenced the current political crisis and the protest mobilizations in Russia which are also considered against the background of recent protest movements and revolutions globally. The argument is made that the nowadays protest movement that challenges the Putin’s regime is a populist one. However, if populism in the left theory is defined as a hegemonic project that integrates various social demands into vague agenda, in a post-soviet context we deal with “populism by default” that avoids articulation of any social demands. Analyzing the outcomes of the recent revolutions in the post-soviet countries and beyond, the author claims that programmatically and ideologically vague movements are vulnerable for the risk of being appropriated by authoritarian leaders and elites. The author suggests what is to be done by the Russian left to overcome the crisis of hegemony by taking part in the protest movement.