What is the color revolution?

For the past ten years, the notion of color revolution has taken root in political usage. What is it? How does this form of protest arise? What is it manifested in? Who finances it, prepares and inspires it? Let's take everything in order.

Today, color revolutions are understood to mean mass riots and protests of the population of a country that are carried out with the support of foreign non-governmental organizations. Usually the result of such actions is the change of the political regime, but without military participation. At the same time, the ruling elite is changing.

Far from the background color revolutions can be called the Iranian coup in 1953, when as a result of actions authorized by the State, Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh was overthrown. At the present time, there is no consensus on what kind of events can be attributed to the type of political technologies considered in our article. Thus, the official right to be considered colored was given to: "Bulldozer revolution" (Yugoslavia, 2000), "Rose revolution" (Georgia, 2003), "Orange revolution" (Ukraine, 2004), "Tulip revolution" (Kyrgyzstan, 2005) ). Some researchers try to look deeper and classify the "Carnation Revolution" (Lisbon, 1974), as a result of which a bloodless coup was carried out, and the fascist dictatorship was replaced by a liberal-democratic system. But this example still should not be taken for a color revolution, since the Portuguese coup was organized by the military. The main actors of the remaining protests under consideration are civilians, and first of all active, opposition-minded young people.

Color revolution: causes

1. The deepest internal crisis (economic and political) of a new independent state in which events took place.

2. The undivided desire of the superpower and other forces that are interested in influence and division, in the promotion of their interests.

3. Problems in the economic sphere, especially in the social economy, leading to destabilization in the state: poverty of a large mass of the population, lack of a middle class.

In addition, as a prerequisite for a color revolution, there is also a problem such as the government's unwillingness to cooperate with the opposition, its ignoring, and sometimes suppression. Allegorically one can imagine the threat of revolution in the country as a human disease, the symptoms of which indicate that something is wrong with the body. Well, if you do not pay any attention to these signs, then the ruling authorities will not cure the disease, but, on the contrary, will drive it even deeper, where it will develop and progress. At one uninterrupted moment, the "illness" will break out, but then it will be stopped much more difficult.

But color revolutions can not only be a consequence of the fact that not everything is in order within the state. They may be needed by someone, not only by those who implemented them, but also by those who organized, "paid". As a rule, such interested persons provide political and financial support to the protest from afar - they do not attend the streets and squares directly, but carefully follow the reports of the performers and the actions of the striking masses.

Color revolution: structure

Any revolution, and especially color, has a structure. Conditionally it can be represented in the form of a three-tiered pyramid. At the very top are "sponsors" of the protest - high-ranking patrons of the mass of revolutionaries. These are individuals, and more often groups of people who are engaged in training, direction, financing and creating optimal information support for the protest. Directly this stage never acts, despite all its influence, but only through intermediaries, which allows them, the "sponsors", to keep a worthy face in the eyes of the world community.

The middle tier is the direct organizers of the coup. The color revolution here, as a rule, has a group of young active people of a pro-Western orientation. This category includes, on the one hand, specialists in the field of PR and propaganda (journalists, professional psychologists) who help create a background, a revolutionary mood, so that the popular masses have a sharply negative view of the existing government. The second category of organizers is the "showcase" (young politicians who are distinguished by eloquence and charisma).

The third, the lower and the most numerous level are ordinary people, the people, which is necessary for creating mass protest actions in city squares and streets. At the same time, some of them become revolutionaries solely for ideological reasons, while others are ready to go out to meetings with slogans and banners for very considerable money in any weather.