Search results

The author explores the reasons for the development of authoritarian tendencies in mass political consciousness in modern Russia. It was shown that one of the determining factors in the formation of this consciousness was a crisis of social identity. At the same time, in the very beginning of the existence of the Russian Federation, a well-defined request of the majority of citizens for democratic values was established. The failure to implement them in the process of long-term reforms ordered the emergence of a request for authoritarianism as a way to protect individuals from the tyranny of officials and oligarchs. The mass political consciousness of the Russian Federation during the quarter century of its existence as a state is a mosaic picture, composed of elements of the communist, neo-liberal and national-patriotic ideologies, which are conducting a mutual struggle, pretending to dominate the role in society. As a result of this struggle, none of these ideologies failed to establish in their public consciousness their values and to unite the majority of citizens around them. At the same time, in the mass political consciousness of Russia, the most significant segment represents values orienting to Western standards of life. Therefore, the idea of identity, which implies the priority of state interests over individual freedom, can not consolidate society. At the same time, a democratic idea, which at the beginning of the 1990s played the role of a unifying factor in mass political consciousness, soon ceased to be generally recognized in the context of ineffective socio-economic policies. Institutions of self-government and public opinion in Russia are not developed and are mostly formal. Compensation for the loss of political and national identity has been made through authoritarian power, which performs an important adaptive function. However, this does not mean the refusal of Russian society to expect the realization of democratic rights and freedoms.