Social movements in Russia: the history of the emergence

Social movements as separate mass communities of people united by any common goal arose long ago. Their appearance is associated with the development of absolutism in the second half of the seventeenth century. The first social movements in Russia had the character of uprisings and arose as a response to the economic, political and cultural changes taking place in society.

As an example of the social movement of the seventeenth century, the Salt Riot in 1648 in Moscow could be cited . The reason for this uprising was the tax reform of the boyar B. Morozov (1647), during which he proposed the introduction of an additional tax that is ruinous for ordinary people, a tax on salt. The result of this plan was a reduction in salt consumption by the city's population and a sharp increase in the related discontent.

A year later the salt tax was abolished, but additional direct taxes were introduced instead . This time, their dissatisfaction was expressed not only by ordinary people, but also by representatives of the nobility. The tense situation in Moscow became even more intense after the tsar Alexei Mikhailovich had dispersed the citizens who had decided to give him his petition. In the summer of 1648 mass pogroms of boyar houses begin, the instigators of this social movement demanded that the boyars be sent to them for the massacre of Morozov and others involved in the tax reforms of recent years. The result of the uprising was the formation of a union of townspeople, nobles and archers, who demanded the convening of another Zemsky Sobor. After some time, imitating Moscow, similar riots were arranged by residents of some southern and northern regions of the country.

From this example we see that the first social movements in Russia arose spontaneously as a response of citizens to the actions of people close to the authorities. Such movements were of a mass character, they had their own leader, but they can not be called fully planned for this word. Of great importance was the collective behavior of people, which differed from well-planned actions by spontaneity, lack of organization and strong leader, unplanned actions of the participants in the movement.

The flowering of social movements in Russia falls on the 19th and 20th centuries. It was during this period that the first revolutionary ideas in the minds of many activists and public figures were born . The first revolutionaries, as a rule, were students of Moscow and St. Petersburg universities. In the second decade of the 19th century, the first secret organizations of officers (the "Sacred Artel") and patriotic organizations (the "Union of Salvation") appeared in St. Petersburg. These social movements differed from the previous ones by the presence of leaders and a specific goal (the abolition of serfdom, the overthrow of the current government), strict conspiracy, and duration of existence. In the second half of the 19th century, circles of Slavophiles, Westerners, Social-Utopians, etc. were formed on the basis of the Moscow University. In the province there is a growing mass discontent with the current plight of the Russian peasantry.

As for the 20th century, the striking social movements of this period were strikes and strikes by workers in the factories of Moscow, Donbass, the Urals, political parties of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Social Democrats, and more peaceful alliances-writers and intellectuals.

Modern social movements in Russia are very diverse, most of them are, as a rule, completely peaceful goals. Their activities are aimed at protecting the interests of certain categories of the country's population, combating the infringement of the rights of its citizens and nationalism. The existence and activities of extremist public organizations are prohibited, as a rule, at the legislative level.