Color revolutions and the destruction of political regimes / Цветные революции и демонтаж политических режимов

Манойло Андрей Викторович доктор политических наук профессор, кафедра российской политики, факультет политологии, Московский государственный университет им. М.В. Ломоносова (МГУ) 199992, Россия, г. Москва, Ломоносовский проспект, 27, корп. 4, каб. Г-638 Manoilo Andrei Viktorovich Doctor of Politics Professor, the department of Russian Politics at the faculty of Political Science, Moscow State University   199992, Russia, Moscow, Lomonosovsky Prospekt 27, building #4, office #G-638 cyberhurricane@yandex.ru Другие публикации этого автора

It should be noted that in the history of the world, there have always been problems with the dismantling of political regimes. Before, instruments of such dismantling tools were mostly violent methods in the classical sense, applied in armed coups, local armed conflicts, civil wars, and military interventions. The international community was able to develop effective methods to counter this threat and to create effective mechanisms of political regulation of these processes, including at the international level. No matter who and how they criticize the UN, the organization operates and its potential and ability to manage the political stability and settlement of international conflicts even in the collapse of the Westphalian system is far from exhausted. The acuteness of the problems that is associated with the threat of military coups in the various countries of the world, does not cease to be relevant and is not removed from the agenda. However, in general, for the world community, this category of threats is familiar and the international community knows how to react to it.

However, today the world is changing, and more subtle technologies of color revolutions are replacing the armed coups technologies. They cleverly disguise as the true revolutionary movements and are virtually unopposed by countries with already well-established democracy and by the Oriental States that have preserved the traditional way of life. Repetition of the scenario of color revolutions in Ukraine is a legitimate concern, since a strong confidence is developing that Ukraine is not the end point of this scenario. It is a bargaining chip in the geopolitical game, where the punch of American directors of color revolutions could be directed at Russia, China, and Kazakhstan.

The reasons for the increased attention to the color revolutions lie in the fact that during the last three years there were coups in a number of countries with completely stable political regimes, which led to full or partial dismantling of the political regimes that for many years successfully resisted external and internal enemies; for example, the Egyptian, Tunisian, Syrian and Libyan regimes successfully resisted Islamism.

There is a striking similarity in the scenarios of regime change in these countries, which can be seen as a pattern or an organizational chart; and it is used for guessing the general features of the so-called velvet revolutions that have destroyed the communist regimes in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It is unlikely that such a coincidence could be called accidental, since the probability of an exact match of such scenarios of regime changes in countries differ significantly at the level of political organization of power, as well as in terms of socio-economic development, and with the spectrum of unresolved problems, relatively, if not negligibly small.

In this respect, Syria and Libya are radically different from Ukraine and Georgia, but it is not difficult to notice that the revolution of 2014 in Ukraine (which received the name Euro Maidan) is exactly the same as the scenario in the “Arab Spring” revolution in Egypt, including the behaviors of the opposing sides.

All this may indicate that using the example of various countries and regions, we are dealing with the same phenomenon - the result of the application of the color revolution technology. However, despite the bright brand name, there is nothing revolutionary about them. Even today, the Western media says that the color revolutions, which they call the technology operations to export democracy through civil disobedience, are so perfected that their methods have become a guide to changing political regimes¹. All these arguments together determined the choice of the theme and focus of the study.

The analysis of the role and place of the color revolutions in the transformation of the world political system are presented in the report in the context of global changes, which the system of world politics and international relations is experiencing today, including the entire world order as a whole. In this regard, the color revolutions and problems of the forced dismantling of political regimes are well inscribed in the global problems of international relations that shape the global agenda. To create a coherent and complete picture of the processes taking place in the modern world, the report presents the results of the analysis of some of the most acute and pressing global problems of international relations, playing the leading role in the formation of a new world order based on the principles of multipolarity, along with the color revolutions.

The author refer the chaos in international relations and the immersion into the world of “controlled chaos” to these problems, as well as the fight against web-based forms of international terrorism and political extremism, countering of global production and transit of drugs (and the severity of this problem multiplies in connection with the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan), and the managing of international conflicts.

The author draw attention to the fact that many of these problems are a direct product of short-sighted policies of the Western world leaders, and especially the United States that, with their idealistic desire to build a “democratic peace” by any means from Tripoli to Kabul and from Belgrade to Astana, have artificially nurtured, educated, consolidated and armed the forces of those, with whom they will have to fight on all continental fronts in the coming decades. The tragedies of the Libyan, Syrian, and the Yugoslav peoples can serve as an example of such a policy, plunged into civil war, as well as the events taking place in Ukraine.

In this study, special attention should be paid to the analysis of the role of the “controlled chaos” technology, in shaping of the multipolar world and in reformatting of the modern system of international relations, which, in turn, is transforming into a state of anarchy itself, as was noted previously by American constructivists. This context analyzes the actual issues of the formation of the modern world order: the transition from unipolarity to multipolarity. Using the example of a color revolution in Ukraine, which received the name of Euromaid, a new question arises of the principal applicability of the Anglo-Saxon concept of the “controlled chaos” technology for the dismantling of the political regimes in the Commonwealth of Independent States in the interests of “democratization” in its North American understanding.

The crisis of the unipolar world clearly requires the nomination of new global alternatives based on restored principles of justice and values of peaceful coexistence. As Foreign Minister S.M. Lavrov rightly pointed out, today "the fates of the world cannot define even the most powerful state, nor opposing military-political blocs, as it was during the “Cold War,” not even a narrow concert of the “chosen” countries and centers of global power. The idea is to build a just, democratic and stable, ideally - a self-regulating system of international relations. Russia is playing a leading role in shaping this new just world, acting against the dictates of individual countries, even those with extensive experience in the development of democracy.

Today, Russia really got in the way of the wave of color revolutions and “controlled chaos.” This is no accident. It is thanks to Russia and its foreign policy that NATO's military intervention in Syria did not take place; precisely because of the foreign policy of Russia that the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia escaped genocide and got a chance to gain real independence; precisely because of Russia, the people of Crimea escaped the fate of other civilians, murdered by the new Kiev authorities in the Donbass. Russia has a powerful foreign policy potential capable to stop the tide of chaos and channel the energy of the world leaders into re-creation. In this regard, it is appropriate to quote the words of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation S.A. Ryabkov: “We have to work using our advantages ... a positive attitude of people to Russia, the absence of prejudice, understanding that our country is an important international power, a source of polycentric and multipolar world order.” ²

Thus, Russia has the right to rely on the assistance and collaboration of all progressive forces, interested in maintaining global peace and stability, all who oppose the color revolutions and the chaos that they bring to the world civilization. With view of the above, I would like to quote the words of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergey Lavrov: “The philosophy of the joint creative work lays in the basis of our entire foreign policy. We are ready to go far forward in the development of long-term deep-sided cooperation with all that show willingness.” ³

Color revolutions are a technology of the implementation of coups and of external control of the political situation in the country, under the conditions of an artificially created political instability, where the pressure on the government takes the form of a political blackmail, using the youth protest movement as a tool.

In spite of the significant differences of states, where they break out, (in the geopolitical, social, and economic terms, and the international situation) they all fit into the same organizational chart that involves organizing the pattern of the youth protest movement, converting it into a political crowd and using this power against the current government as an instrument of political blackmail. This clearly indicates that the color revolutions, in principle, cannot be the realizations of the objective hopes and aspirations of the majority of the population.

The purpose of any color revolution is a coup, i.e. a seizure and hold of power by force.

The objects of the color revolutions are power and power relations; its subject is the political regime.

Color revolutions have necessary and sufficient conditions for their success.

A necessary condition for the implementation of a color revolution is the existence of political instability in the country, accompanied by the current government crisis. If the political situation in the country is stable, it is necessary to artificially destabilize it.

A sufficient condition is the presence of a specially organized (in the form of a special network) youth protest movement.

The characteristics of color revolutions are:

1) The impact on power is exercised in a special form of political blackmail

2) Youth protest movement serves as the main tool for influencing the power.

The color revolutions only resemble real revolutionary movements. Unlike the real revolutions, caused by the objective development of the historical process, the color revolutions are technologies that are successfully masquerading as natural processes. They differ in the level of an almost theatrical drama that Western political scientists are diligently trying to pass off as natural and spontaneous manifestations of the will of the people that suddenly decided to regain the right to govern their own country.

At the heart of the technological scenario of a color revolution is the Anglo-Saxon (North American) ideology of democratization, suggesting the export democracy and the democratic institutions and values in the neighboring countries.⁵⁴ In practice, only their authors and their developers, the Anglo-Saxons, are able to use the technologies of color revolutions. In any country where the color revolution began to unfold, we look for the trail of North America.

There are two versions of the explanation of the causes of the color revolutions: the version of spontaneity and a version of the recreation of the color revolutions (random and not). Both versions have a right to exist, and both are not certain.

Supporters of spontaneity of the color revolutions insist that the cause of the revolution is the objective social contradictions that are manifested in the forms of popular uprisings and mass protests of the “oppressed” people. Poverty, fatigue regimes, the craving for democratic change, and demographic situation are cited as such reasons.

Meanwhile, when we look at the socio-political situation in almost every country where there was a color revolution, it often turns out that the existing contradictions and social breaks were not their main and only reason, although they have become a catalyst for the subsequent events.

For example, in Egypt, until the color revolution there were the so-called subsidy for tortillas, providing access to the main product, the Corn tortillas, for the poorest segments of the population. In the slums of Cairo, however, on the roof of each hut there is a satellite TV dish, and Libyan nationals received welfare (and a lot of other benefits), which was so great that people stopped working and put to work the visiting guest workers from Egypt and other African countries; the standard of living in Tunisia, the most democratic of all authoritarian countries in Africa, became very close to the South of France (Provence and Languedoc), and even exceeded southern Italy. One of the reasons for the burst of protest movements in Syria is that Assad decided (without any pressure) to soften the authoritarian regime and began to conduct liberal reforms that the Islamists immediately took advantage of, as well as their supporters from the United States, etc.

The supporters of the recreation of the color revolutions indicate multiple repeatable scenarios (a democratic template) of these revolutions in various countries around the world that are very different both in terms of the political system, and in the nature of the socio-political problems. They claim that all the colored revolutions are “a blueprint,” and the likelihood of the recurrence of the same event on the same pattern in nature is negligible. On the basis of these findings, supporters of the recreation of the color revolutions point to a number of grounds, on which any externally spontaneous popular revolt can set a color revolution.

Every color revolution has its own features that show technology.

First, it is a feature of the Anglo-Saxons’ external politics, their distinctive style of work.

Second, it is a strict correspondence of the revolution to the plan of any base template (or scenario). All color revolutions develop in the same scenario using a template pattern.

Third, this is how the youth protest movement is organized and used, which is controlled by the technology of reflexive control (it is also an American invention).

Fourth, there are certain recurring features in the selection and the nomination of the revolutionary leaders.

Fifth, in some color revolutions, revolutionary ideology that allows recognizing them as fake is completely absent. This is due to the fact that the Americans, the authors of the color revolutions, do not always understand the mentality and the psychology of the people. They want to bring “the value of a true democracy,” and cannot offer an ideology that is organically accepted by all sectors of society.

The color revolutions are often called the technology or instruments of the “soft power” as it is understood in the perspective given to this term by John Nye. ^[1] This approach, based on the principle of analogy (externally color revolutions are non-coercive techniques of regime change), is not quite accurate and is often misleading, causing the color revolutions to be considered softer and, therefore, more a progressive and a less dangerous form of social influence on authoritarian regimes. Thereby, a campaign to promote color revolutions unfolds, in defiance of any form of self-armed coups.

In our view, it is difficult to determine what is actually a more dangerous phenomenon for the international security as a whole: the color revolutions or local armed conflicts. The modern Middle East, immersed in color revolutions of the “controlled chaos,” is a full proof. It still seems pretty obvious that modern color revolutions in nature are not a manifestation of the “soft power.” Color revolutions are nothing but an organizational form of state intimidation (i.e. blackmail, the object of which is an independent and sovereign state), masquerading as a legend and slogans of the national revolution.

Color revolutions are not “soft power.” It is a hacking tool of democratic regimes in transition, copied from the Anglo-Saxon model by the non-Western countries which have tendencies of imitating. One could argue that Americans not only created a model of the democratic structure of the state, focused on the “export,” but also took care of the creation of the special tools for its demolition and dismantling, if it suddenly became necessary. In today's world, such tools that act as master keys to break the political regimes of the Western liberal type, are the technologies of the color revolutions.

Special attention is given to questions related to the risk of escalating a color revolution in a civil war or an international conflict, in the phase of an armed confrontation. Color revolutions use military force as a factor of the service function that their writers and technologists resorted in case of emergency. Military force for color revolutions is not the main tool. Its use is rather forced and secondary in character. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to draw attention to the fact that modern color revolutions really create the conditions and reasons for the subsequent military intervention.

There is only one underlying model of a color revolution. It is the creation of the protest movement and turning it into a political crowd and directing its aggression to the current government, in order to get it to voluntarily withdraw from public office and to give up control of the country. This pressure on the government always takes the form of blackmail and ultimatums with threats of massacres and, rarely, physical attacks against the dissidents. If the government starts to resist, a color revolution enters a phase of armed rebellion. Sometimes this is accompanied by an armed revolt with the intervention of the Western countries, as it did in Libya, and may be in Syria.

The model of color revolution consists of five main stages or phases:

1. Any color revolution begins with the formation of the country's organized protest movement - the main driving force of the future color revolution.

At the initial stage, before the big opening, the protest movement is generated in the form of a network of conspiratorial cells, each of which has a leader, and three or four activists on call. These networks bring together thousands of activists that make up the core of the future of the protest movement. Before becoming the leaders of the cells, many of them are trained in special centers, specializing in promoting democratization.

The activists are recruited from the youth environment that is extremely mobile and easily entrained with different bright appeals and slogans.

The network principle of the organization of the protest movement resembles the principle of global terrorist organization networks, which, in fact, is the same organizational technology.

2. This network emerges from the underground to the streets of major cities at the same time and on cue, which is called the incident. Such incident can be any event, shocking society and getting a powerful public outcry. As a rule, it is initiated on purpose.

In the revolutions in Serbia (Bulldozer Revolution 2000), Ukraine (2004), and Georgia (2004), the results of the elections were such incident, which were declared fraudulent. The revolution in Tunisia (2010), a country with an authoritarian regime, began with the self-immolation of a trader on one of the central squares of the capital: an insignificant event across the country.

It is important that the incident would attract the attention of the whole society and would be the subject of extensive discussion, interpretation, a rise of universal excitement, and it would initiate spontaneous forms of mass behavior. 3. After the incident occurred, the protest network rises from the underground to the streets, where a group of activists of the cells become a catalyst for massive spontaneous processes, involving all major sectors of the population.

The mechanisms to mobilize the conflict are turned on, one of which is the “Twitter revolution” - involvement through social networks.

The cells begin to rapidly grow with citizens that are dragged into a spontaneous protest movement and that they pushed to take part in mainly out of fear for their future. The overall mood of anxiety leads to the fact that the consciousness of men that goes into the so-called borderline and becomes subject to a mass panic reactions, general hysteria, often manifested at the level of reflexes and instincts. From this point, there is only one step from becoming a mass protest of the community into the crowd of protesters.

4. The next step in the scheme of a color revolution is the formation of a political crowd. To do this, a large enough area (Maidan) needs to be chosen that could accommodate large masses.

The activists lead their elected protesters to this square, where there is a complete fusion of the participants into a single mass during the hours of the meeting, known in psychology as the crowd. There is a complete emotional fusion of individuals with the crowd, where bright ”revolutionary” identification symbolism begins to be to be used, in order to identify “their own” and “foreign”.

In these conditions, the mind controlling technologies affect the crowd, introducing new values and imperatives, and reprogramming a person . It is these technologies that are used in Protestant totalitarian sects.

It creates the conditions to sustain the existence and functioning of the crowd: financial security, tents, hot meals, clothing, money for the activists, means of attack (and armature ...), and etc. The “Home Front Command” is well-organized.

5. On behalf of the crowd, crucial requirements come to those in power using the threat of mass riots or, at least, of the physical destruction. In that case, if the government does not sustain this pressure, it is swept by fury. If the government accepts the challenge and is ready to fight, the crowd becomes a major ram factor that the authors color revolution apply to those in power. In the future, such a revolution inevitably turns into a rebellion, and in some cases into a civil war, accompanied by military intervention.

The evolution of organizational charts and patterns of color revolutions are pretty well traced by the example of the revolutions of the “Arab Spring.” Thus, the “Arab Spring” revolutions have their own characteristics that distinguish them structurally and technologically from its predecessors - the color revolutions in Central Asia, Ukraine, Georgia, and even the so-called “Green Revolution” in Iran in 2009. The feedback mechanisms (iterative mechanism is well known to mathematicians) and “controlled chaos” are added to the classical scheme to implement a color revolution (i.e., a coup) that allow to control the political instability not only within a single, relatively small countries (such as Ukraine or Georgia) but across the entire region (Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and etc.).

The feedback mechanism is a special correction mechanism that allows it to identify and to eliminate the shortcomings in the implementation of schemes of the color revolutions in real-time, modifying them under specific conditions of the particular social and cultural environment. Such a mechanism was first worked out in the revolutions of the “Arab Spring,” in which coups in the countries that are victims of a wave of the “forced democratization,” are not carried out simultaneously but sequentially along a chain. Each subsequent implementation scheme of color revolution took the mistakes made in the implementation of the previous scheme into account. The introduction of color revolutions into technological schemes of feedback mechanisms in real-time, based on iterative schemes, is a direct result of their evolutionary development, allowing the immersion of entire regions and not just individual countries into the revolutionary processes.

The mechanism of the “controlled chaos” is another evolutionary breakthrough in the technology of color revolutions, which allows the use of “democratic schemes and templates,” originally developed for the Western type society (individualistic) in terms of traditional Eastern societies, that are resistant to the promotion of democratic and liberal values in their original form. In order for the Western and Anglo-Saxon technology of the colored revolutions started to work in this kind of socio-cultural environment, the traditional structure of the social order must first be destroyed, which is what the technology of the “controlled chaos” does (and very successfully). The main goal of these technologies is to prepare a traditional society to use technology to control mass political consciousness and mass political behavior that is achieved with the help of its “atomization,” the breaking of the bonds between individuals and the community, the introduction Western type surrogate individualism into the consciousness of citizens.

Modern developments in Ukraine (2013-2014) are also relevant to the color revolutions, as they repeat the Egyptian scenario exactly. Therefore, it can be expected that the color revolution in Ukraine also opens the way for foreign intervention, as in Libya, and may be in Syria.

In the events in Ukraine, we can discern some signs familiar to the color revolutions in the CIS, Georgia, and Central Asia, that engulfed Ukraine in the 2000s in the "orange" frenzy, as well as in the recent revolutions of the “Arab Spring.”

Comparing the current Ukrainian color revolution with recent events in the Middle East and North Africa, it should be noted that the scenario of the Ukrainian revolution of 2014 is exactly the same as the revolution in Egypt, that destroyed the Mubarak regime, and the Egyptian president was dismissed from his post and imprisoned. There are too many coincidences, which are:

1) the nature of popular unrest, which escalated into riots that were passed as the spontaneous, but in fact were not.

2) a well-organized protest movement, supported by paramilitary militias, the Ukrainian nationalists, had been transferred to Kiev from the Western regions of Ukraine, where they trained all these years in special camps, studying the tactics of resistance of the special units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine, as well as the tactics of the war in an urban setting.

3) the blockade of the authorities to seize the strategic and vital infrastructure of the capital.

4) the use of mechanisms for conflict mobilization of a community, involving it in the conflict on the side of the “representatives of the people in revolt,” inciting hatred against the regime, the wide ideological treatment of those that come under the influence of radicals

5) large-scale information war

6) a well-organized supply of the rebels with everything they need to continue the fight, including special equipment, clothing, food, financial means used for the services of mercenaries and provocateurs.

These similarities of the Egyptian and the Ukrainian revolutions, however, are limitless. In both cases, under the guise of the people in revolt, organized and well-armed groups of rebels are included in the armed struggle: in Egypt - the Islamists , and in Ukraine - the Western nationalists. For the public this struggle that has all the signs of the beginning of the Civil War, is presented as a “national liberation movement, deployed by the people in revolt against the criminal regime.”

In both cases, “people in revolt” were opposed by the weak, indecisive and corrupt power that is afraid to take decisive action and that is slow when it comes to making a choice, torn between recent allies that tend to distance themselves from it the new conditions, makes contradictory statements, demonstrating their helplessness and discrediting itself perhaps more effectively than the opponents do. That is how Mubarak behaved. Until the last moment, he believed that the US would come to his aid and save him from his own play of a color revolution, hoping that this is just an educational measure. His hopes, however, were dashed just like the expectations of Viktor Yanukovych that an almost European Ukraine is not the wild Egypt; Ukrainians are not illiterate Arabs, and all will settle by itself.

A few years, Yanukovych repeated the exact behavior of Mubarak: despite the obvious threat posed by the burgeoning insurgency, which began with really a trifling unrest in the so-called Independence Square, he did nothing to stop this revolution. Instead of tough but fair measures to restore order (as Alexander Lukashenko did with the “Jeans Revolution”), Yanukovych started an incomprehensible political game, playing with the West (EU and US), then with Russia, hoping that Ukraine will receive the next tranche of financial support from both sides in the background of his “intended great role in containing chaos.”

Yanukovych’s weakness was the reason that at first he lost the support of the electorate, and then his supporters turned away from him that began to rapidly disperse or just run over to the enemy's side. In these critical conditions, Yanukovych still ordered the suppression of the power of the Maidan, but he did not have the willpower to finish it. When the rebels pulled in the illegal armed nationalist groups to the Maidan and began to form squads of “self-defense” out of the the bulk of the protesters, the suppression of the rebellion was only possible at the cost of bloodshed. Yanukovych did not dare to do this for the fear of, not so much, the killings, but for the safety of their capital and accounts in foreign banks, which he could be deprived of overnight could after being recognized as an “international criminal offender.”

Yanukovych’s playing around with the European Union also played a fatal role. FIrst, the EU insisted that Yanukovych would strongly suppress the riots in the capital, restoring the rule of law. When he finally started doing so and the first victims appeared, the EU immediately began to blame Yanukovych’s regime for human rights violations and the genocide of his own people, as well as the urgent need to make concessions to the rebels and to negotiate with them. When Yanukovych, following recommendations, went to negotiate with the rebels, they thought it was the recognition of the weakness of the government and intensified their actions, entering a phase of uncompromising armed struggle. As a result, Yanukovych and his team just escaped from Kiev, instead of continuing to fight or take responsibility for their actions.

The differences between Egypt and Ukraine are really small: in Egypt, the Arabs came to the Cairo Square, and in Kiev they were the Ukrainian nationalists, and ordinary citizens, dissatisfied with the dominance of the Donetsk clan. In fact, in both cases citizen became “tired of those in power,” which served as the catalyst for the color revolution from both, the Mubarak regime and the regime of Yanukovych. That is what appeals to the nationalists, forgetting the obvious analogy, which can be traced between the Ukrainian and Egyptian scenarios.

In similar revolutions in Syria and in Libya, the Islamists were the ones against the regimes, with which these regime have been struggling for decades; The Ukrainian nationalists are composed of many Catholics, Greek Catholics, and many of those that adapted some Protestant sects, mostly totalitarian in character that preach extremism. In fact, in both cases, the success of the coup became possible only because of the weakness and the infinite fluctuations of the ruling regime, initially an extremely self-confident one, and then quickly fallen in spirit, serving as an example that gave a signal to its supporters “to escape if you can.” In Egypt, moderate Islamists came to power after the revolution, and in Ukraine, extreme nationalists seized power, which is about the same.

During the entire time that North Africa and the Middle East were swept by the tsunami of the color revolutions of the “Arab Spring” and the world's attention was focused on to the tragedy of Libya and Syria, Russia has not ceased to argue, when will the tide of the color revolutions return, and when will the last bastion, the regime of Bashar al-Assad, be swept away. It was pretty obvious for all that the implementation of new technologies of the color revolutions, based on the “controlled chaos,” having a run-in the Arab East, thereby will not be limited to the East. A question arose: which country is next in line to be thrown in the chopper? Will it be Iran, where the so-called “green revolution” almost reached its goal in 2009?

The states of Central Asia were called as the following objectives of the color revolutions, where the previous model of the color revolutions failed to ensure the stability of the puppet regimes that came to power in the wake of a color revolution. Belarusian partisan regime has long been a strong annoyance for the whole of the West, something resembling the Gaddafi regime; some had mentioned China. However, the wave of the color revolutions did not continue to format the Muslim East, and suddenly emerged in Ukraine, directly on Russia's borders. Hence, the obvious conclusion: the purpose of the new wave of the color revolutions is not Ukraine and not the Yanukovych regime, but Russia and its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Russia, based on the Ukrainian experience, must prepare for the fact that it will be the next target in the list of the Anglo-Saxon color revolutions that already have the experience in eastern traditional societies and under a super-centralized state built on the principle of the “power vertical,” not having airbags in the form of a civil society. A country needs a state concept to counter the color revolutions, both in Russia and, in general, throughout the CIS, having its implementation be backed by road map. It would be naive to hope that this time the wave of the color revolutions will bypass Russia. There are no miracles or exceptions in politics. It’s just that the Americans have been searching for approaches to Russia, based on the experience of a test color revolution, the so-called “revolution of the white ribbons.” Finally, this approach is found. Ukraine was nothing more than the last dress rehearsal for a revolution, using a country with a similar mentality, culture and civilization identity.

The situation is similar to Ukrainian, is developing today in Venezuela. Here, a protest movement unfolds, which has all the hallmarks of a classic color revolution. This may mean that the United States, having realized a scenario of a color revolution in Ukraine, used another Russian ally - Venezuela. Moreover, we can say with confidence that this time the US created a wave of color revolutions, not in a single country (Ukraine, for example) or a region, but launched an offensive in several strategic directions making countries, such as Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Venezuela their targets, i.e. those countries that are (Ukraine - until February 2014) Russia's strategic allies.

A color revolution in Venezuela is possible, moreover, it is inevitable. The fact is that due to the credibility and popularity of Venezuela in the Latin American world, the use of brute military intervention by the United States can be ruled out, as it was in Grenada and Panama. Therefore, in the quest to destroy the gains of the Bolivarian revolution and to undermine the pursuit of freedom by the people of Venezuela, the United States will use the “soft power,” “soft” coup technologies, disguised as spontaneous acts of political processes and popular revolutions, the way it was organized in Tunisia, Libya, Syria. Libya, particularly, is an illustrative example, where the color revolution turned into a civil war, and the last one turned into the intervention by France and Great Britain, as well as the United States that later came to the rescue. Of course, Venezuela is not Libya, and here the Americans will use a special scenario, based on all the same basic scheme similar for all the color revolutions. Most likely, the scheme, repeating an armed rebellion of 2013 - 2014 in Ukraine will be applied in Venezuela, which began with “Euro Maidan.”

The first sign. Those protest movements and demonstrations that are currently taking place in the largest cities of Venezuela, is the first sign of the beginning of the color revolution. Please note that the protest demonstrations take place in major cities at the same time, hence, they cannot be considered spontaneous, due to a high degree of synchronization of operations.

The second sign is the coverage of these protests by the Western media, in which there are signs of and the elements of information warfare. There are other signs that definitely do not point to chance and external handling of the protests.

If it is a color revolution, the support for the opposition groups from the outside is a prerequisite of its success. The organization of large-scale protests, even the ones that look spontaneous, is very expensive. None of the forces within the country, sympathetic to the rebels, have such funds. As a rule, the channels of financial income in the country to organize a color revolution are quite easily detected by the financial intelligence.

Preliminary tests of the color revolution scenarios in Venezuela were held during the election campaign, when the Chavistas actually lost (or won by a whisker) in all major cities, but won in provincial areas.

All the signs indicate that the “controlled chaos” technology is used in Venezuela. The “controlled chaos” technology is a technology of destruction of structures and institutions of civil society that can resist the rebels and the participants of the color revolutions. They make the human environment receptive to the slogans of the color revolutions, since technology if the color revolutions were developed by Americans living in a society of individualists and liberals, for similar societies and social formations. The pure technologies of the color revolutions have stalled in the East because society is not liberal there, but organized by the communal, ancestral or tribal basis. The “controlled chaos” destroys a community structure, resulting in a lot of people being deprived of social protection and experiencing feelings of fear and panic, being forced to seek refuge, organizing into a crowd, which is then used by the directors of the color revolutions.

In the case of Venezuela, “controlled chaos” will be necessarily involved to destroy the social unity of those, who gained a lot from the peaceful Chavez revolution, and to weaken the rest of the Hispanic world that may not come to Venezuela to help.

There is a system of measures that help reduce the risk of the color revolutions. It consists of three groups.

The first group of measures is aimed at detecting and blocking financial flows going to finance the protest movement.

The second group of measures is aimed at involving the social base of the protest movement, young people aged 18 to 35, in the activities of the non-governmental organizations of pro-government orientation.

The third group of measures is to create “valves to let off steam” a society to relieve tension that would not allow a society to “overheat” like a steam boiler, and then throw out the accumulated energy in the form of a social explosion.

In this context, the question of organizing a counter to the spread of the ideology of the “color revolutions” among university students is of a particular interest. As a whole, the student environment is not politicized, but it is very fluid. It easily picks up any slogans that give students the opportunity to stand out among their peers. The purpose of the activity of the student environment is self-affirmation and, in part, the introduction of diversity into their lives, fighting boredom and the search for thrills. Often, this need for self-affirmation of young people is expressed through the negation of the existing norms and standards of living, including the foundations of government. That is why students readily flow into any protest movements that provide them the opportunity and that individually welcome every new member of their movement and immediately assign them an active role in the general case. All this is in stark contrast to the pro-government youth movements, organized on the principle of barracks or neo-sects and looks as a “gray mass” that does what it is told to do. By becoming a member of such an organization, the student loses all its freedom; moreover, he immediately gets himself a personal commander that he is obliged to obey unconditionally.

Characteristics of the student environment. Technology of the color revolutions is used especially by the youth and student community to engage students in the protest movement. Thus, a bright revolutionary symbolism is developed, pseudo slogans and ideological imperatives are thrown into masses, charismatic leaders are nominated, which creates a halo around the national heroes and representatives of the new wave of the ardent revolutionaries, and in the media an appropriate informational background is created. This has to attract young people who think using the images and, by virtue of youth extremism, is accustomed to divide everything into black and white, because it is the emotions rather than the intellect that appeals to the opposition.

Often, however, the managers themselves of the pro-government movements (mostly distant from the youth) are pushing students into the ranks of the opposition. The actions of the “Our” and “Young Guard” movement patterns lack creativity, and any ideology is non-existent. They are good for reporting, but not for the real consolidation of the society. The image of “the defender of the existing order” (whose successes are quickly forgotten, and failures become the subject of a lively debate) always loses to the “ardent revolutionary idealist,” a fighter for freedom and justice, for a brighter future.

Often, young people and students are pushed into the ranks of the protest movement with the awareness that nothing depends on them in the political life of the country, nor in the life of the home university. On the contrary, the opposition provides students with the opportunity, citing examples of ordinary people who became famous for their personal part in the revolution: from a simple Argentine doctor Ernesto Guevara to an allegedly “unbending” blogger A. Navalny.

In order to distract students from participating in the protest movement, it is necessary:

1) to captivate a large (at least a university-wide) project;

2) to organize opinion leaders into a managed student organization under the control of an administration;

3) to form a personal, closed and self-contained information environment around the university (where the students are taught)

4) to provide an effective feedback mechanism

5) to create a personal (alternative) valve to “let off steam”.

It defines at least five major activities of the university asset.

1. A large project. In order to channel the energy of the students into a peaceful course, you must inspire them with a new, large and bright university-wide project that would enable most active and passionate students to fulfill their potential, provide them with professional and even career opportunities, and would take all their spare time. Such a project may be, for example, the Press Center of the University or the Student Center of Journalism.

2. Managed student organization. In order for the students not think that nothing depends on them and not undertake the attempt to change the situation by means of “revolutionary” methods, an opportunity must be provided (through their elected representatives) to manage the life of the home university (within reason, of course). For this to work, the powers of student organizations need to be expanded. It is better, however, to create a fundamentally new structure that would choose the non-formal leaders from the student community (“opinion leaders”) and include them in its work, organizing their activities and using them to manage the main mass of the students. Such a structure can be a bicameral Student Senate and its specialized committees of political modernization, of foreign policy, of public diplomacy, of science and new technologies, and of economic policy, etc.

3. Information sphere. It is necessary to form around the university a personal, closed and self-contained information sphere, in which students could find a ready-made answers to all their questions, including the political life of the country: in the form of news (actual and promptly updated) and of ready assessment of the events in the form of commentaries of the specialists and analytical materials. This will allow them to manage the still emerging political ideology and protect against the negative influence of the external destructive forces.

An information background is required to solve these problems, as well as a broadcast of the news from the University life, analytical materials on current topics and evaluations by university authorities. In organizational terms, the university must create a powerful information and broadcasting network, starting from their own news channels and online media, produced by the Press Center of the University, and ending with its own social network, and a short message service. The university must also create its own social network, which based on the original format and service will win the most active university electorate.

4. The feedback mechanism. In order to control the student environment and get an adequate response to all the changes that are occurring, it is necessary to create a feedback mechanism between the students and the university administration or its authorized representatives. Such function can be performed by: the “hotline,” the “online watch of the university professors” (on-line or broadcasted via the university press center), the “virtual reception of the dean,” and a club of the “anonymous” political scientists, operating in real time.

5. A valve to “let off steam.” For the stability of the university, the management system, as a whole, needs to create a valve to “let off steam,” which would allow to reset the tension among the youth, as soon as it exceeds a certain threshold. There is no final opinion yet on what form to use for its creation. Any political system (including the world) has a similar valve: in particular, for the international global corporations such controllable valve is sponsored by their anti-globalization movement; for the British government it was Hyde Park, etc. For university students whose radical sentiments that cannot be broken, this valve can be the “University’s Hyde Park,” free debate with government officials and the university leadership (ending in a symbolic act of reconciliation, such as the distribution of porridge from the field kitchen) and other managed public information campaigns.

These activities must be supplemented by a number of effective measures along the following lines:

1. The Mission of the University. Any information and ideological work starts with defining the organization's mission, including in the political vein. A well-designed mission not only defines development priorities and values, but also becomes the basis for the main instrument of persuasion, the mass ideology. If such mission and ideology do not exist, other political concepts, actively promoted in the consciousness of Russian citizens of the so-called opposition in immediately take its place the minds of young people.

Therefore, the main condition for the fence of students from negative external influence is the development of the university's mission in the emerging multipolar world, which bears the ideological character, where the university is seen as center and a generator of ideas of modern political modernization.

2. The Crisis Center. As part of the Press Center of the University, a student anti-crisis situation center can be organized, capable to take control of any emergency and keep it in operation until the crisis is not resolved, or specialized forces of direct competence will be mobilized for its localization. Within the framework of a crisis center, a group of students negotiators should be created and trained.

3. Center for the Study of Color Revolutions. In the framework of the university crisis center, a Center for the Study of Color Revolutions and international cooperation in the field of protection from the “color” rebellions can be arranged, which can make good use of student and youth resources to develop technologies of resistance of the “color” rebellions, as well as train experts to detect the start of these operations in the early stages and development of preventive measures. The very creation of such a center would be a sign for those who are preparing another color revolution in the country. We are aware of their plans and we are preparing an adequate response.

4. Propaganda. It is necessary to organize the promotion of university values and ideals. Considerable attention should be given to the direct advocacy of the true nature of manipulative techniques used by the opposition to recruit new members and to make obedient tools of any revolutions out of them - the political crowd. Conferences and “round tables,” with the possibility of scientific publications is a lovely format for this. It might be necessary, though, to revive the Institute of the University of agitators and political informants.

5. The Student Leisure Organization. It is advisable to return to the idea of the organization and spending of the student leisure time, especially those who live in dormitories (establishment of student clubs in dormitories, holding mini-conferences and seminars with the participation of prominent professors and lecturers in an informal atmosphere, with no formal attire, in the “kitchen”, as was the case in the early years of the Soviet rule.)

6. Target University Grants for individual students and student groups that perform research or conduct public events to counter color revolutions.

To solve these problems, the university should establish the following triad structures, implementing the idea of administrative and student partnerships:

1. Student Parliament

2. Press Center

3. Crisis Center

1. Student Parliament. The Student Parliament may consist of two chambers: the lower and the higher. The lower house, the Student Senate, is formed out of the most active and enterprising students, by direct elections. The Senate is formed out of the elected student representatives, as well as its specialized committees of: political modernization, foreign policy, public diplomacy, science and new technologies, and economic policy, etc. “Senators”, selected by the President of the Senate out of the number of students that have authority among young people head these committees.

The upper chamber, the Council on Public Diplomacy of the University, is appointed by the Dean (or project supervisor) from the plenipotentiaries of the administration and heads of committees of the lower house of the parliament.

To make new structures have authority among the youth, the status of the structure needs to be raised to the international level: for example, create a public organization called the International Assembly of student senates of universities in different countries, where there would be sharing of experiences of direct student parliamentarism, etc.

For the elected members of the Senate there shall be provided a form and accountability to the electorate. In addition, there should be a procedure to name deputies at the initiative of the voters, as well as the mechanism of staff turnover.

2. Press Center. There needs to be a new big project, in order to drag the bulk of the students of the university with idea and direct their energy to a peaceful course. As we have said, a Press Center can become such a project of the University and the experimental university television that will allow the mass of enterprising people to express themselves in journalistic work, information campaigns and university networks, in directing (the release of the author's programs), in the profession of hosting Television programs and Radio Broadcasting, and most importantly - a real opportunity to convey their views to a large audience. It will be especially interesting to undergraduate and graduate students, who are not professional journalists, but plan their future in the field of public relations and mass communications. The Press Center, like any newly created structure, will quickly develop and grow, i.e. provide its employees with rapid career growth, which is very important today. The “untilled field” will allow the most enterprising and infatuation students to shape the information and broadcasting policy center, develop and implement new forms of broadcasting, and to implement their own projects.

One of the tasks of the Press Center would be to create their own social network where web active students will take their social activity, and to have special promotional psychological operations against the color revolutions.

It is advisable that the student staff of the Press Center were trained in psychology and journalism, got the basics diplomatic skills and diplomatic etiquette (crisis fighters - negotiations and mediation), i.e. they would form their own curriculum (specialization) and receive diplomas at the end.

As in any media, the staff correspondents should be doing regular news, and analytics should be done by staff analysts, combining the work with university studies. However, in doing so they must rely on their own network of correspondents and actively expand it in the interest of common cause.

In the Press Center, for the dissemination of the information it is necessary to make full use of personal and business relationships, as well as student contacts involved in the activities of the center. Many of them work in the major media and public relations agencies and have access to channels of information dissemination. Accordingly, on the basis of their connections a network of correspondents and a network to disseminate information on the principles of network marketing can be organized. The center, however, should have experts specialized and fluent in network communication skills.

3. Crisis Center may consist of a group of experts to monitor, control and manage the situation; group of negotiators; group of social psychologists and group of extreme journalism.

These provisions should be deployed into a single concept of the project (to create a university system to counter color revolutions). The organizational structure of the Student Parliament, the Press Center and the Crisis Center is derived from the short and long term objectives. There is a core among the units, which is introduced immediately after the formation. The remaining units are formed and attached to the core as deployment activities. In addition to the concept, a business plan, a financial plan and an operational plan of the project are formed.

It is interesting that in the latest works of the Western authors (including British and French) there appear assessments of the color revolutions, which are contrary to the notions of color revolutions as instruments of democratization and formation of a democratic world as imposed by the United States. For example, some scientists are beginning (still quite cautiously) to argue that none of the color revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa have brought prosperity to the Christian world. On the contrary, the “Arab Spring” has stirred up the most dangerous, extremist forces representing Islamism and forced them to withdraw from the deep underground, which the Western countries now have to deal with at the official level.

The “Arab Spring” that began under the banner of democratization of the Arab East, accelerated the retreat of Christianity under the pressure of radical Islam, which strengthened with the beginning of the colored revolutions of the “Arab Spring.” The “Arab Spring,” created with the money and with the help of American and Western European allies, has become for Western Christian civilization that is already experiencing an acute crisis, the beginning of the “Christian winter.”

Western Christianity has put down another line of defense. It makes us seriously think about what role today he color revolutions actually play in world politics in the formation of a new world order, and what will it become if the wave of the color revolutions will not be stopped in time.

The modern world is experiencing an era of global change, accompanied by the collapse of the Westphalian system, the growth of the global political instability, the reconfiguring of the system of international relations that existed in the postwar world, international legal nihilism, the devaluation of values and a decrease of the role of international institutions, such as the UN. Even S.V. Lavrov in an interview to the “International Affairs” journal has noted that “the historical processes continue to gain speed. We see this in the acceleration of the deep, as they say, tectonic shifts in the redistribution of power and influence at the global level, in the rapid developments in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in a number of other areas of the world.” ^[3] In these circumstances, it is necessary to develop a new platform for the global unification and integration, on the solid foundation where a new architecture of international relations and a new design of international institutions can be built that meet the realities of the emerging multipolar world.

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