Expecting a Revolution in Russia? I Have Good News for You

Moscow, the Kremlin. Photo by the author

Vladimir Lenin, the great master and theorist of revolutionary intrigue, proposed the classical formula for revolution back in 1913: “The bottoms don’t want and the tops cannot live in the old way.” Surprisingly, this formulation appeared in the year of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, when the Russian Empire was at the height of its political, economic and military power. Nevertheless, only one year separated the Romanov Empire and its elite from the outbreak of World War I. And four years — from the beginning of the February Revolution.

Another great contemporary, Russian American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin named two reasons for the revolution:

• the suppression of base instincts at the majority of population.
• the disorganization of authority and social control.

The atmosphere of pre-revolutionary epochs always amazes by observer with weakness of the authorities and with degeneration of the elite. Sorokin argued that the disorganization of authority and social control means the incapacity of government to crush the rebellion, to remove the conditions, which cause the dissatisfaction of population. In this sense his views were very similar to Lenin’s definition of revolution.
If we apply Lenin’s formula to the modern Russian Federation (which, oddly…