Abstract

The peculiarities of functioning of opposition parties and movements in the sphere of modern Russian political system have been characterized in the submitted paper. The uniqueness of political life determines the presence of political opposition as one of the facilitating mechanism of political institutеs’ effectiveness within the state. The ability to express critical thoughts about political forces, political actors who have received the legal right of political power in society is one of the attributes of democratic political regime. Nevertheless, recently in the political system of some countries which position themselves as democratic countries, one can observe the oppression of opposition forces or creation of «managed» or «proto-oppositions». According to our opinion, one of such countries is Russia. It has been established that the existing political opposition is not sufficiently effective in its actions, due to its segmentation, internal conflicts and general absence of unity among the opposition leaders in aims and means of achieving them. Consequently, the party of power «United Russia» which political leader is recognized by the majority of Russians - the President of the Russian Federation V. Putin, applies all methods of opposition resistance, negating the protest actions of the opposition parties. It has been shown in the article that the modern political opposition has several groups, among which outstands the «old» part, so-called post-Soviet opposition, represented by G. Zyuganov, V. Zhirinovsky and others. They are political figures who rather play the role of the opposition and act clearly according to the rules that are determined by the party of power. The young generation of the opposition is characterized by constant rivalry among the leaders for the right to lead the movement and to have the support of the majority of the electorate. It is important to understand that the ultra-right and radical groups are represented separately in the opposition of Russia, they position themselves as unifiers of the lands in a single «Great Rus». Studying organized and conducted protest movements, which had been organized by opposition forces, one can see their inefficiency. As a result, the powerful political elite is always one-step ahead, even when applying methods of force counter to the peaceful assembly. Moreover, the political opposition is not ready for real rising to power, it is clearly seen because of the absence of specific programs for Russia’s economic reforms. Also it is based not on foreign experience, but on native specifics. Political actions in the form of the «Open Russia» project have proved once again the fact that the opposition is separated from the needs of potential electorate. Not only new people in power are needed, but also guarantees are needed that these new people will be able to improve the socio-economic life of the ordinary Russians regardless of region of Russia where he\she lives. It has been proven that the political opposition does not take into account the mentality of Russians, their aspiration not to the mild model of Western democracy but to the host leader, the defender of the Motherland from external threat. Whereas, the ruling elite and its leader successfully and effectively implement this image in practice, and despite the deterioration of economic indicators, they get the support among the population. Consequently, the political opposition of Russia is immature and primary controlled by the current government.