PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • The Baltic States Are Also Worried About Russia

    View
  • International Society Must Act in the Wake of Russia’s Failed Opposition

    View
  • The Collapse of the Soviet Union | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
  • Labor Migration in Russia | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
  • Did Russia Put Its Geopolitical Glasses Back On? It Never Took Them Off in the First Place

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Changing the Color Revolutionary Discourse in Russia

  • March 4, 2015
  • Andrey Makarychev

On March 3, chairman of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee (and key Kremlin propagandist) Alexey Pushkov publicly admitted there are at least three scenarios for a “color revolution” in Russia – radicalization of the anti-Putin opposition, Mikhail Khodorkovsky's presidential ambitions, and economic destabilization in Russia. It was not the content of these options that startled me but the fact that Pushkov inserted them into Russian political discourse.

The importance of Pushkov's confession is enormous. Instead of ridiculing and excluding out of hand the possibility of an Orange Revolution in Russia, he accepted that such an event could occur, and perhaps increasingly so. The Kremlin-sponsored anti-Maidan movement in Russia, paradoxically, leads in the same direction. By elevating anti-Maidan rhetoric to the highest political level, the Kremlin de facto accepts that what it fights against is real.

This is a crucial point, since in many cases Kremlin propaganda has used a different approach, denying any viable alternative to Moscow's outlook and policy. This was especially evident in Russia's policy toward Ukraine, based on the rejection of any possibility for the country to develop beyond Russia's sway. Now, the boundaries of reality in the Putinist discourse have expanded to embrace unpleasant choices, which can be quite consequential.

Whether the change in rhetoric that Pushkov’s statements signify is intentional or not, it marks a change  that could be self-defeating for the Kremlin. For the regime’s opponents to re-signify something that has already been taken as a part of reality is easier than to convince people that this is something that might one day come true.

Of course, in Pushkov's words, the accession to power of Mikhail Khodorkovsky or Mikhail Kasyanov is unacceptable, but he paradoxically legitimized this variant as a hypothetical possibility. What the opposition now has to do is change the frame of discourse and infuse it with positive meaning, rather than prove its possibility under specific circumstances, as this was already done by Pushkov.

The same goes for other scenarios involving mass-scale protests against the regime. The irony is that many dissenters themselves are skeptical about the feasibility of a new wave of anti-Putin demonstrations. Yet Pushkov himself said that in principle this should not be ruled out. Again, what remains to be done is change the vector of this narrative and publicly arrive at the argument that people have the right to openly express their demands without fear of repression.

By making the object of its fears – a revolt by the people – a matter of public discussion, the Kremlin only strengthens the chances that many Russians might take the possibility quite seriously. By deconstructing the imaginary threat, Putin's propagandists only increase the potential for it to occur.

Andrey Makarychev
Andrey Makarychev
Website | + posts
Visiting Professor

Affiliation

Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia

Links

University of Tartu (Bio)

Expertise

Russian Foreign and Security Policies, EU-Russian Relations, Foreign Policy Discourses, Regionalism and Federalism
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/andrey-makarychev/
    Georgian-Russian Relations: the Role of Discourses and Narratives
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/andrey-makarychev/
    The Minsk–Khabarovsk nexus: Ethical, performative, corporeal
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/andrey-makarychev/
    Twigg: I worry about whether or not people are going to be willing to take Sputnik V in Russia
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/andrey-makarychev/
    Culture as an Instrument
Related Topics
  • Makarychev
  • Russia
  • U.S.-Russian Relations
Previous Article
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Special Issue: The Renewed Significance of Borders

  • March 3, 2015
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
Next Article
  • Commentary | Комментарии

The question to ask about Boris Nemtsov’s murder is not who but why?

  • March 4, 2015
  • Paul Goode
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем
  • Territorial Conflict

Dominating Ukraine’s Sky

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • March 5, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russian Anti-War Protests and the State’s Response

  • Lauren McCarthy
  • March 4, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Отравление оппозиционеров в России превратилось в регулярную практику

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 22, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Авторитарные режимы не вечны: О ситуации в Белоруссии

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 14, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

В Беларуси пока что все идет по российскому сценарию

  • Olexiy Haran
  • August 12, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Опасная игра Лукашенко

  • Pavel Baev
  • August 11, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Власть справилась

  • Sergei Medvedev
  • August 10, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.