Democratic transit and meeting democracy in the USSR in the 1980-1990s

The article deals with the problems of the democratic transit in our country in late 1980s - early 1990s. The research work was conducted on the basis of the theory of transitology (D. Rustow, G. O'Donnell, T.L. Karl, P. Schmitter). On the background of the global trends towards democracy, the causes of the beginning of the democratic transit in the USSR are shown. The reasons of the initial changes in the Soviet Union were, in our opinion, the following: the development of international communication connections and tourism in the 1970-1980s, which contributed to the spread of democratic ideas in the USSR and made it possible to compare the level of life in the USSR and in the developed Western countries; the entry into adult life of the new generation not intimidated by threats of reprisals, whose needs increased significantly compared with the generation of the "fathers", who were more susceptible to western liberal democratic ideas; the annual per capita income in the USSR in the 1970s amounting to more than US$ 2,000, from the point of view of the theory of modernization and transitology countries with such incomes fall within the democratic transition; the emergence of a latent middle class: a growing role in the society began to belong to specialists with higher education, civil employees, teachers, doctors, trade and office workers; the rise of the educational level of the population, the emergence of a relatively numerous layer of intellectuals aware of their powerless political position; and, finally, the desire of the elite to begin the changes, understanding the fact that modernization processes were inevitable. It is this elite that nominated from their milieu M.S. Gorbachev. Initially, he remained a supporter of the socialist system and was for some of its transformations, but the reforms of M.S. Gorbachev brought to irreversible consequences for the Soviet system and became a part of the third wave of democratization in the whole world. The article deals with the features of the democratic transit in the USSR, the behavior of people in the crowd in the period of meeting democracy. Here are shown the features of mass psychology. The article studies the liberalization processes in the USSR, formation of the civil society and introduction of elections with unknown results. Attention is also paid to the processes of democracy consolidation, i.e. the establishment of democratic processes and institutions in the society. The period of democracy consolidation is characterized by disappointment with the gained freedom and even cynicism. It is what we can observe in the mass behavior of Russian citizens today. Nostalgia for the days of the USSR is the phenomenon of the same kind. The success of the democratic consolidation will depend on whether the politicians and citizens will cooperate and compete with each other freely on the basis of the rules acceptable for everybody.

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