On the failure of United Russia

It was predictable that United Russia would perform worse than usual in these elections. However, no one imagined that it would be so bad. Neither experts, nor members of the presidential administration, nor the candidates themselves expected this. Moreover, according to my information, during the counting of votes in many regions, the voting results were adjusted. And even despite this, United Russia candidates received significantly fewer votes than in previous years. Of course, the “party in power” was defeated in yesterday’s elections.

What happened is primarily due to the fact that changes in public sentiment began to turn into changes in political behavior. People who are dissatisfied, for example, with the pension reform, began to vote against those who are introducing this reform - the current authorities. Previously, dissatisfaction with specific phenomena or processes did not develop into dissatisfaction with those who are behind it.

On the prospects of electoral protest

Very soon, those who voted against United Russia may take to street protests to express their dissatisfaction. So far they have not done this because the social reasons are not clear enough. However, it is already clear that street protest in the regions has a core, even though it is often spontaneous in nature. In my opinion, the electoral protest could develop into a street protest within a year. It needs time to mature. Life is getting worse, pressure on citizens is increasing, and very soon Russians will think about taking part in rallies. Yesterday, many of them voted for the first time not for United Russia, and in a year they may go to the square demanding the resignation of the authorities. For example, the disconnection of the Russian Internet from the world Internet, which, according to my information, is planned by the authorities for the end of 2019, can provoke mass participation in rallies.

About the conclusions that the authorities will draw

The main thing that the elections demonstrated is that the state machine is working worse and worse, its effectiveness is decreasing. Will the election results change anything - I think not. It is unlikely that the authorities will listen to changes in public assessments of their actions. In general, elections in Russia have long been a formality that does not seriously affect anything. I also don’t think that there will be any serious changes in the Kremlin due to the disastrous outcome of the elections. However, it is clear that the protest potential is growing and will continue to grow, which means people will use other means to inform the authorities of their dissatisfaction.

There is a bright palette in the assessments of the figure of political scientist Valery Solovy - he is a spy, a Russian nationalist, and a specialist in indoctrination. The incredible accuracy of his forecasts of certain events in the life of the country, willingly or unwillingly, evokes the idea that the professor has his own network of informants in the vertical of power. The general public recognized Valery Solovy after resonant performances on Manezhnaya Square in December 2010 and on the RBC TV channel.

Childhood and youth

The details of the political scientist’s life available in the sources are not rich in facts. Valery Dmitrievich Solovey was born on August 19, 1960 in the Lugansk region of Ukraine, in a city with a promising name - Happiness. There is no information about Nightingale’s childhood.

After high school, Valery became a student at the history department of Moscow State University. After graduating from university in 1983, he worked for ten years at the Institute of History of the USSR of the Academy of Sciences. In 1987, he successfully defended his dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences.

Valery Solovy’s further work biography continued at the international foundation for socio-economic and political science research “Gorbachev Foundation”. According to some reports, Solovey worked at the fund until 2008. During this time, he prepared several reports for international organizations, including the UN, was a visiting researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and defended his doctoral dissertation.

By the way, some observers and political scientists reproach Valery for his connections with the foundation and the London School of Economics, believing that both of these institutions a priori cannot be carriers of the ideas of creating a strong Russian state. Simultaneously with his work in these organizations, Valery Solovey held a position on the editorial board and wrote articles in the magazine “Free Thought”.

Since 2009, the political scientist has been a member of the Expert Council of the international analytical journal Geopolitika. The magazine promotes the ideas of preserving Russian identity, statehood, and spreading the Russian language and culture. Famous media personalities work in the editorial office - Oleg Poptsov, Anatoly Gromyko, Giulietto Chiesa. In addition, Valery Solovey heads the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at MGIMO University.

Science and social activities

In 2012, Professor Solovey made an attempt to make himself known more loudly in the political arena by creating and leading the New Force party, which he announced in January of the same year on the Ekho Moskvy radio station. Nationalism, according to the professor, underlies the worldview of normal people, since only through such an attitude towards life will there be a chance to hold onto the country.

Despite the fact that the ideas promoted by the party were understood by people, New Force was not registered with the Ministry of Justice. The party's official website has been blocked, its Twitter and VKontakte pages have been abandoned. This is not surprising, given the right-wing liberal position of Valery Solovy: he does not see nationalism as a threat to society, and does not consider it an ideology.

Nevertheless, Valery Solovey continues to be active. To date, he is the author and co-author of 7 books and more than 70 scientific articles, and the number of online publications and articles in the media numbers in the thousands. It has long become a tradition in the journalistic community to interview one of the most famous political scientists in the country on every more or less significant issue.

Nightingale’s frank, unvarnished notes on his own blog on the Echo of Moscow website, on his personal pages in "Facebook" And "In contact with" get a lot of comments. Quotes from speeches and the professor’s forecasts (by the way, surprisingly accurate) become the subject of discussion and are taken as the basis for expressing the personal position of concerned citizens on the pages of LiveJournal.

Personal life

All that is known about the personal life of Valery Solovy is that the professor is married and has a son, Pavel. The wife's name is Svetlana Anashchenkova, originally from St. Petersburg, she graduated from the Faculty of Psychology of St. Petersburg State University, and is engaged in publishing children's literature and textbooks.

In 2009, together with his sister Tatyana, also a Doctor of Historical Sciences, Solovey published the book “The Failed Revolution. Historical meanings of Russian nationalism”, which the authors dedicated to their children - Pavel and Fedor.

Valery Solovey now

Valery Solovy’s latest book so far is “Revolution! Fundamentals of revolutionary struggle in the modern era” was published in 2016.

In the fall of 2017, it became known that the leader of the Growth Party, a billionaire and Commissioner for the Protection of Entrepreneurs' Rights, would participate in the Russian presidential elections in 2018. At the party's election headquarters, Valery Solovey was appointed responsible for ideology. The professor believes that from a propaganda point of view, the campaign has already been won, and the goal of Titov’s nomination is to influence economic strategy.

Among Nightingale’s latest “prophecies” are the imminent ripening of a political crisis, the loss of controllability by society, and the worsening crisis in the economy. In addition, on his Facebook page, Valery Dmitrievich expressed the opinion that we should allegedly expect the appearance of Russian volunteers in military conflicts in Yemen, as happened with Libya and Sudan. In other words, Russia will be drawn into another conflict, which will again entail multibillion-dollar expenses and rejection of the country in the international arena.

Nightingale predicts a quick end to Putin’s next presidency, in two or three years, and the reason is not even Vladimir Vladimirovich’s years (much older heads of state are in charge), but because “the people of Russia are tired of Putin.” And then a series of serious changes will follow.

Speaking about a possible successor, Solovey does not consider the Minister of Defense as such, whose candidacy is not directly, but is being discussed in narrow circles. The political scientist drew attention to Shoigu's former deputy, lieutenant general, governor of the Tula region.

On the much-discussed Ukrainian issue and the topic of the US presidential election, Valery Solovey is also straightforward. According to the political scientist, relations with Ukraine will no longer be the same, and Crimea will remain Russian. And Russia, albeit long before the elections, launched attacks, but the victory was due to a successful political strategy, exploitation of the role of the guy next door and mistakes.

Publications

• 2007 – “Meaning, logic and form of Russian revolutions”
• 2008 – “Blood and soil of Russian history”
• 2009 – “The failed revolution. Historical meanings of Russian nationalism"
• 2015 – “Absolute weapon. Fundamentals of psychological warfare and media manipulation."
• 2016 – “Revolution! Fundamentals of revolutionary struggle in the modern era"

With the participation of MGIMO professor, political scientist Valery Solovy.

- I have a question about the Telegram messenger. Why was he blocked? We understand that there are a large number of other messengers that terrorists can use, for which no one asks for keys. Why Telegram?

- Firstly. to teach an indicative lesson: “Look what happens to those who do not cooperate with government authorities.” Secondly, Telegram’s audience, even if it arranges various kinds of bypass opportunities there, as a rule in such cases is reduced anyway. And thirdly (and thirdly, this is the most important thing), this is just a taste of the pen. Because, as far as I know, the policy in this direction will be improved and developed, and should become comprehensive. The comprehensive nature of this policy is to generally isolate the Russian segment of the World Wide Web from, in fact, the global space. This should happen sometime by 2020, but the technical capabilities for this must be prepared by 2020. So this is just nothing more than testing.

- So Telegram is the first one? First player get ready?

- Yes, this is not very important from the point of view of the authorities - what matters is what happens next. Now she's watching the reaction. That’s where people rejoice: “Ah! We will go around." So please be happy. But the time will simply come when you will not be able to do anything at all; you will, behold, be in the Russian segment of the World Wide Web only exclusively. The Iron Curtain in the information sphere will fall.

- But if testing is underway and if there are a large number of users... Well, the officials will leave. But let’s just say that ordinary users will take advantage of the opportunity to bypass the blocking. What will this test show? That this is an ineffective measure. And then?

- Absolutely right. This is what will stimulate. If this is not an effective measure, then we must take more stringent steps that will be effective. And ultimately we will come to the point where I started, that we simply need to single out our domestic sector and limit it. And delimit and limit according to the model of the Chinese firewall. This has been discussed for several years, and the technical capabilities should be ready somewhere by the end of 2019, beginning of 2020.

- Aren’t they afraid of some protests from users? A fairly active part of society, young.

- Is anyone protesting here now?

- Now there is an opportunity to circumvent this ban. And if he hadn’t been there, maybe the reaction would have been different.

- Well, if you cook the frog gradually, there won’t be any protests.

- She doesn’t notice this?

- Certainly.

- That is, the field will gradually become narrower and narrower?

- Yes, as far as I can imagine (and the logic of events is moving in this direction), a number of measures are being prepared to expand censorship in general and censorship in the Internet space, too, in the digital space.

- Maybe Durov is wrong? Maybe, after all, it was necessary to talk, I don’t know, with the prosecutor’s office, with the State Duma? How Zuckerberg went to Congress was explained there. And he didn’t even come to court. Or would it have no effect on anything?

- Well, if he had gone, so to speak, appeared in court, his lawyers would have come. All the same, the question would be: “We need keys.” Okay, keys provided. This does not negate the movement of politics in the direction that I have outlined for you. It doesn’t matter at all whether he agrees or not, because the decision has been made, the goals have been defined, let’s get to work, comrades.

- What if he provided the keys?

- So what? All the same, the movement would continue in this direction. Well, how can you stop an asphalt roller that is picking up speed?

- And there is no way to stop this trend?

- Well, unless the state authorities change their ideas about threats and challenges. From his point of view, there is an uncontrolled digital space and messenger, in particular Telegram, that is an opportunity for communication for politically disloyal sections of society, for coordinating their actions and for very fast, almost instantaneous communication within several hours, or even several tens of minutes mobilization. This is the danger.

- So, in a global sense, we should expect that in a few years the Internet will be closed for us?

- They won’t shut down the Internet, but they will limit the ability to enter a space other than Russia.

- Are there any attempts to challenge this in court? Declare a violation of constitutional rights, complain to the ECHR? Will it also affect anything?

- No. I think, given the current nature and, again, development trends of the Russian judicial system, it is a completely pointless exercise.

- Fine. A hopeless story.

- No, I’m just inclined to believe that the reaction will be unexpected as always. You can't plan everything, you can't foresee everything. Garbage dumps can and do cause very strong reactions. And attempts to limit the space of the Internet, I think, will also cause a very strong reaction.

- So, some kind of mass protests are still possible?

- I have no doubt about it. But it will also depend on the context, that is, what context in which all this happens. Because these same steps - although they are being prepared, this does not mean that they are automatically launched. They are launched in a specific context. It’s easier to do this when some kind of, say, external threat arises. This is the situation now. Well, very conditionally we can call it a “military threat,” right? Perhaps it is exaggerated, even most likely exaggerated. With this sauce, any restrictive measures always work better.

- I think that this argument is intended for the wrong audience, because everyone understands perfectly well when our authorities talk about security measures in relation to Telegram, that... Well, this is some kind of nonsense.<...>

- Well, on TV, those who hear, believe. But 70-80% of people still get their information from television and, in general, they trust it. By the way, precisely because the Internet space is expanding, it is becoming an alternative (social networks), which is why they pose a threat. Including and even primarily a political threat. Therefore, it means we need to take control of them. Well, since it is clear that a law will be adopted there... I don’t remember its wording. ...about information, protecting reputation on social networks, right? Then Facebook, for example, will be under threat. That is, he, most likely, will also not be there after some time in Russia.

- In the end, what will we be left with? Some internal networks...

- ...completely under control?

- Yes, completely controlled. By the way, they have a very large audience. VKontakte, Odnoklassniki. Facebook will disappear. As the youth say, “they’ll cut it out.” Instagram will probably remain, but that’s not a fact. And that’s not a fact. I think that even if he cooperates, this does not guarantee you anything.

- But it’s interesting. Well, how likely is it that intelligence services, even having the keys to these controlled networks, will read all this correspondence? Are they really going to study who is there, what they write to, what they communicate about, what they say? Why then all this?

- No, of course not. This is technically impossible. Well, if there is surveillance there, it is surveillance of a limited number, of course, of characters. Then, yes, this is of interest. That’s why they demand that information be stored there for a certain period of time.

- So suddenly you will come into view, and then it will be easy to find incriminating evidence?

- You came into the spotlight, and then it will be possible, yes, to restore your history. Well, incriminating evidence can be discovered this way, or it can be simply, I would say, constructed.

The identity of the scientist historian Valery Solovy causes a lot of controversy among the public. He calls himself a “nationalist” who is not indifferent to the future of Russia.

Biography

Valery was born in 1960 in the city of Shchastya, Lugansk region. We were unable to find information about his childhood or school hobbies. Therefore, we will not invent or embellish.

Most likely, the guy went to school, like all children of that time, and after receiving his primary education, he entered Moscow State University. Lomonosov to the Faculty of History, from which he graduated in 1983.

Scientific activity

After studying, he began scientific work at the Institute of History of the USSR, and in 1987 received the title of Candidate of Historical Sciences. The topic of his dissertation was research in the field of Soviet historical science.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Valery Solovey understood how important it was to develop a new Country, and the main issue was sociological research.

In 1993, he became one of the experts of the Gorbachev Foundation, which researched the history of Perestroika and forecasts for the future of Russia.

In 1995, Valery Solovy was lucky enough to undergo an internship at the London School of Political Science and Economics.

In 2015 he received a Doctor of Historical Sciences.

His scientific activity is connected with the scandal surrounding the defense of the dissertation of the Russian nationalist Vladimir Thor, who was accused of plagiarizing famous scientific works. And Valery Dmitrievich was precisely its leader. As a result, the candidate of sciences was awarded the Torah.

Career

At the beginning of 2012, Valery Solovey took part in the formation of the new political party “New Force” and was even elected its chairman. But the Ministry of Justice refused to register the political party with its bodies.

Now Valery Dmitrievich says that the party has been frozen due to threats against them.

The sociologist and politician often appears on the radio and holds meetings and seminars. He pays special attention to the influence of the press, television and the Internet on modern Russians.

He is not afraid to talk about the fact that people need financial well-being first and foremost. And people who live in abundance are less interested in the political situation in the country.

He also believes that the media have a huge influence on a person’s mood and views. A study of the information flow suggests that the authorities are trying in different ways to distract people from global problems in the country.

Family and personal life

Valery Dmitrievich has a sister - Tatyana Solovey. Who, like her brother, graduated from the history department of the same university and still works there. She has joint publications with her brother on the topic of Russian nationalism.

We were unable to find information about her personal life anywhere, but from unofficial sources it is known that Valery Solovy has a wife and children.

Social media

Judging by the information from his articles, we can say that Valery Solovey is in opposition to the current government. He is especially concerned about the information war and freedom of speech on social networks.

Valery Dmitrievich has a personal page VKontakte - https://vk.com/id244477574. More than 4 thousand people have subscribed to it here. On the wall he shares his statements about the situation in the country and his attitude towards the current government.

Dmitry's Twitter - https://twitter.com/v_solovey. Here, just like on VKontakte, he raises important social and political issues. He has more than 6 thousand followers on Twitter.

His page is built on a similar principle. on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/people/Valery-Solovei/100007811864378. Here he has 34 thousand subscribers.

His activities are connected with the online newspaper Kasparov.ru, where Valery Dmitrievich in his articles raises the most pressing issues of state policy in relation to international social networks, which the authorities are trying in every possible way to delimit. At the moment, the issue of “digital sovereignty” is very relevant.

Unfortunately, we were unable to find his pages on Odnoklassniki and Instagram.

Valery Dmitrievich Solovey is an ambiguous person. He understands how important it is to draw public attention to important issues in the state. And his speeches resonate not only in opposition circles, but also in the current government.

Valery Solovey: by 2024 there will be 15-20 regions in Russia and state ideology

Political scientist, MGIMO professor Valery Solovey expressed his opinion regarding rumors about imminent constitutional reform in Russia.

The other day, the Chairman of the Constitutional Court, Valery Zorkin, spoke about the need to change the Constitution of the country.

According to Professor Solovy, by 2024 in Russia the number of federal subjects will be reduced through unification and state ideology will be introduced.

Valery Solovey:

I have already written and spoken on this topic, and I would be happy to repeat it.

1. Preparation of constitutional reform, or rather, fundamental changes to a wide range of constitutional laws, began in the fall of 2017.

2. Changes were developed in the following areas:

a) the formation of a new configuration of state power and management;

b) a radical reduction in the number of subjects of the federation (to 15-20) by merging them for the purpose of ease of administration, equalizing levels of development and neutralizing ethnic separatist tendencies;

c) decisive amendments to the laws on elections and political parties (not at all in the sense of liberalization);

d) introduction of state ideology.
Well, one more thing.

3. Initially, it was not clear which of the changes and in what volume would be given the green light, and which would not.

But in any case, they were not supposed to be implemented all at the same time due to the predicted strong negative reaction.

4. Sine qua non - reconfiguration of state power and management, which should provide an institutional and legal framework for the transit of the system.

There are also several options here.

From the well-known model with the establishment of the State Council as an analogue of the Politburo and the reduction of the role of the president to representative and symbolic functions to, on the contrary, the strengthening and expansion of presidential powers and the establishment of the post of vice president. (There are several other options.)

5. The transit of the system should be completed before 2024 in order to take external and internal enemies by surprise. It was assumed that 2020-2021 could be decisive.

6. There is only one reason why these deadlines could be shifted downward.

And this reason has nothing to do with politics and declining ratings. The situation is assessed as concerning, but not critical and under control.

7. And, moreover, there was no talk of any early elections and there could not be any talk. A fundamental change in the organization of state power and management is not being carried out in order to hold elections and subject the system to extreme stress.

8. Among the key beneficiaries of the reform, the authorities name three people who are already among the top ten elite in terms of their political and bureaucratic weight.