Decision by the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko, adopted on 21.11.2024, published on 27.11.2024

Photo by Ivan Vodopyanov, Kommersant

The world is changing irreversibly and qualitatively. A large-scale institutional crisis is beginning, it is manifested in the systematic inoperability of many international institutions, as well as the crisis of political systems in the leading countries of the world, which for decades supported the world order that emerged after World War II and largely determined the development of the world.

The continued disintegration of the mechanisms of military balance and, in particular, nuclear deterrence is especially dangerous. An indicator of the degradation and inability of world politics to cope with the challenges of the 21st century is the political and diplomatic impasse in the situation around Ukraine and the Middle East means inability of the leading countries of the world and international structures to stop the daily killing of people.

The peculiarity of the current situation is that it is neither a temporary turbulence that one can wait out, nor just a crisis as a natural phenomenon during the change of eras or paradigms of development. The “new world”, that was supposed to replace the outgoing one with a new economy, politics, and media, is also in a state of crisis, and the old world order is being replaced not by a new order, but by chaos, a “new world disorder”.

In many ways, the ongoing change in the world is connected with the emergence and introduction of fundamentally new digital technologies, the development of which opens up enormous opportunities, but at the same time creates great dangers, significantly outpacing human consciousness.

The key phenomena this leads to are as follows:

– the Internet and the diversity of social networks have dramatically increased the role and influence of incompetent but active actors, have strengthened the tendency to transform democracy into ochlocracy;

– populism in politics has become widespread;

– the inability of populists to fulfill their promises and the search for “enemies” hindering them;

– fragmentation, division, and lack of mutual understanding and solidarity at the global level.

As a result, people are disoriented in their understanding of development prospects, they lose ideas about the future, and society gets even more depoliticised.

All these are attributes of the new world, which, in particular, brought Donald Trump to the political top. His victory in the US elections is not only a personal achievement, but a sign of the times.

The current situation is such that there is no model of a new political system that сould replace the old one, and therefore chaos, fragmentation and confrontation are growing, moving towards a major war.

The main task in politics should be the formation of a prospective agenda opening the doors to the future.

The Federal Political Committee declares that in the current conditions, our main political demand, goal and task remains the achievement of the signing of a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine. The events of the past two years have convincingly demonstrated that this position, which we have being defending alone for a long time, was fundamentally correct.

The main medium-term political task of the party is not just to wait out difficult times and survive, but to formulate new ideas and political meanings for the future. It is necessary to form an agenda for the future policy based on an appeal to PEOPLE, protection of their lives, rights, freedoms, dignity and interests, their personal creative development, and the development of their personal abilities.

Only Russian society can build a modern European Russia. However, the failure of the reforms of the 1990s and the post-Soviet modernisation of Russia led to the situation when the society in Russia failed to shape.

Facilitating the formation of Russian society is our primary task. We will create it, offering our party as a foothold. At the same time, protection of people’s rights to life and freedom, justice, security and independence is and will be of key importance. We realise that the traditional party-political system will also change in a changing world, the time is coming for a new Yabloko. In order to influence the future, our party will change significantly, but these changes will not be an ajustment to global chaos and disorganisation, our basic principles and goals will remain unchanged.

The Federal Political Committee considers the work on crystallisation of politically active civil society of Russia around Yabloko, on attracting competent and qualified people who are interested in change, be an important part of our future activities. This is an extremely difficult task in the current conditions, with the obvious tendency to transform democracy into ochlocracy, and the dominance of populism. We understand this and propose to begin to form structures in the party aimed at solving these problems.

In the current situation, party members need to understand the reasons and meanings of the developments, new problems and the practical tasks caused by them, tell people about them, and explain their nature and ways to solve them.

The crisis of our transitional period is not in the artificial geopolitical confrontation of states, but in the loss of the meaning of their development.

The Federal Political Committee states:

we will not blindly submit to power and force, go with the flow and adjust to global chaos and disorganisation.

It is our objective to defend and promote human values, while understanding that the world is changing. The focus of our work is the individual, his or her life, freedom, dignity and justice.

Grigory Yavlinsky,

Chairman of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee