“Their tongue is a deadly arrow,” he says slyly; with their mouths they speak friendly with their neighbor, but in their hearts they build coats for him."
(Book of the prophet Jeremiah 9: 8)
All revolutions, especially if they are "colored", have the same structure. Like any other social structure, it is shaped like a pyramid and also includes three types of people. Higher, middle and lower. On the top "floor" there are high-ranking patrons of those who make the revolution, that is, people or a group of people who train and finance its cadres, direct them, prepare the "process" and optimize the information environment in which it goes, in their own interests. Such patrons of revolutions are usually very influential, but they themselves never act directly, but prefer to use the services of intermediaries. This allows them to always maintain a dignified appearance in the eyes of the world community.
The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia led to the resignation of al-Ghannushi's government.
The middle ones are the direct organizers of the upcoming coups. As a rule, they are young people of a clearly pro-Western orientation. In turn, this large group is subdivided into two small ones, or rather, differing in the specifics of their actions. The first consists of specialists in the field of PR technologies, as well as professional psychologists, sociologists and journalists. In a word, people who manage information. They create the necessary background to create a negative attitude of the people towards the official authorities. In the future, this helps to overthrow this power, of course, provided that no one will defend it. Many of these specialists are citizens of foreign countries, often having nothing to do with the country of the “color revolution”. They can write anything and about anything equally talented. For this they are paid, and very decently.
The second category is nothing more than the "face" of the revolution. They are also quite young people, but they are politicians, leaders of the revolution, well recognized by the representatives of the masses. Usually these people, after the victory of the revolution, become the new ruling elite of the country. Some of these leaders, such as Mikheil Saakashvili, studied in the United States, have connections and support there, and it is quite obvious that in the end they will have to pay for this very support to the same country.
Below are the very "ordinary people" whom the leaders take to the streets and squares. Often they do it for ideological reasons they have, but it happens that they are paid for it and why not “cut the money off the easy way,” they argue. After all, shouting in the square is not tossing bags!
Well, now let's see how, in fact, and why “color revolutions” differ from “non-color” ones. Let's start with the fact that in the old days there was also a need to dismantle political regimes. But then the main tool for such dismantling was a forceful solution. That is, usually it was an armed coup - "pronunciamento" (as it is commonly called in the countries of South America), a local military conflict, civil war or foreign military intervention.
It was a time when human life was worth very little. But … time passed, its value increased, the media began to report on combat losses of 1-2 people in a way that they had not previously reported on the loss of thousands, so the forceful deprivation of power of an undesirable government became … "not popular."
Therefore, let us note the main thing - "color revolutions" are such a technology of a coup d'etat, when pressure on the authorities does not take place in the form of direct violence ("Guard is tired! Free the premises!), But with the help of political blackmail. Moreover, its main instrument is the youth protest movement, that is, the most valuable part of society participates in it, because today there are few children, and therefore young people, and, besides, everyone knows that "the future belongs to the young!"
Although the states where these revolutions took place differ in their geopolitical, economic and social status, they all have the same organizational scheme. That is, they occur as a youth protest movement (they say, how to shoot young people when dispersing such demonstrations, it's a crime!), And then marginalized people, old people and old women who want to “shake off the old days” and even stand next to young people, join it, from which and exudes the energy of youth and enthusiasm. In this way, crowds of different ages are created, about which the necessary media immediately report that they are “the people”, and thus the opposition has a real instrument of political blackmail. This alone directly suggests that color revolutions, even in principle, cannot ultimately realize the objective hopes and aspirations of the majority of the country's population. But there is also the “Pareto law”, which generally “prohibits” any revolution, since even a victorious revolution changes the position of only 20% of the population, and the remaining 80% get only beautiful slogans and promises of a “bright future”.
Thus, any "color revolution" is a coup d'etat, which means the seizure of power by violent means, shaped as a peaceful protest movement. There are no shots, and the authorities seem to have no reason to use six-barreled machine guns capable of sweeping any protesters from the streets and squares. In addition, there is “world public opinion” that the authorities fear, “sanctions against a regime that suppresses democracy in their country”, that is, everything that any government has to fear under the conditions of the international division of labor.
The object of "color revolutions" is the state power, its subject is the existing political regime in the country.
Today, the "color revolutions" have everything they need to win, provided they are well prepared and organized. Let's start with the most important condition. This is the presence in the country of a certain political instability or a crisis of the existing government. However, even if the situation in the country is still stable, one can try to destabilize it artificially.
It is only necessary to have a specially prepared youth protest movement.
The characteristic features of the "color revolution" are as follows:
- the impact on the existing government takes the form of political blackmail, they say, if you do not "surrender", it will be worse.
- the main tool is protesting youth.
It should be borne in mind that the "color revolution" only outwardly resembles the "classical" revolutions caused by the objective course of historical development. "Color revolutions" are just technologies disguised as a spontaneous revolutionary process.
True, there is also such a point of view that these "events" can have a spontaneous beginning, that is, some objective social contradictions, which are usually referred to as poverty, fatigue from the political regime, the people's desire for democratic changes, an unfavorable demographic situation. Most often, however, this is far from the only reason for them. For example, in Egypt, before the color revolution, there were “donations for flatbreads,” that is, the government gave the poor money for breadcakes, the staple food, but in the slums of Cairo, you could see a satellite TV dish on almost every roof of the hut. The same was the case in Libya, where the citizens of the country were paid natural rent (and a lot of all other additional payments), which is so significant that the aboriginal population did not want to work for it, and visiting migrant workers from Egypt and Algeria began to work in Libya. In Tunisia, the most democratic state among the authoritarian countries of the African continent, the standard of living came close to that of Southern France (Provence and Languedoc), and the standard of living in Southern Italy even surpassed. The most "funny", so to speak, the reason for the start of the protest movement in Syria was associated with the fact that President Assad decided (and without any external pressure!) To soften the authoritarianism of his regime and began to carry out liberal reforms. In theory, one would have to rejoice and support such a leader, but the “people” (as in Russia in the case of Alexander II) did not think this was enough, and the result was what we have today.
Proponents of staging "color revolutions" point out that they all look as if they were made "for a carbon copy", but the likelihood of such a phenomenon in nature is extremely small. They also have their own signs that make it possible to say that they are happening "for a reason":
First, in the foreign policy arena, "color revolutions" are usually supported by the United States and its allies.
Secondly, all "color revolutions" follow a very similar scenario, one might say, according to the same pattern.
Third, they use reflexive control technologies, which are also an American invention.
Fourth, they do not have their own revolutionary ideology, which is caused by the fact that the Americans themselves, being the authors of all these revolutions, are poorly versed in the mentality and psychology of different peoples, and therefore cannot create for them “their own” ideology that would organically accept all strata of local society. Instead, someone else's ideology is being imposed on the expectation that the majority of the people will consider "that it will not get worse." And the most interesting thing is that this often happens. Someone gets worse, someone is better, but how do you know the percentage of those and others, when all media are controlled by the winners. "Have you stopped paying rent"? But then you now have freedom, and before there was the tyranny of Gaddafi and … what can you object to this? That life was better economically? But now it depends on you to make it the same as ours. You just need to be patient … "Moscow was not built in one day either!"
“Color revolutions” are considered to be an instrument of “soft power”, since they do not use forceful methods of changing the political regime in the country. However, it is wrong to regard them as a more progressive, less bloody, and therefore much less dangerous form of popular protest against totalitarianism. Why? Yes, first of all, due to the multiplicity of features of the historical and cultural development of a particular nation and its historically formed mentality. It should be remembered that in any case, the "color revolution" is a form of organizational state blackmail, the object of which is a sovereign state, but disguised as a legend and beautiful slogans of a "real" national liberation revolution.
