After months of serious negotiations with members of Russia’s Federation Council, the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers were hopeful that the proposed ammendments to the draft extension that they helped to create would relieve some of the fears of the dozens of conscripts and family members who crowded the hallways outside of their office in downtown Moscow in early October, 1995. It was with tears in their eyes on October 6, 1995 that the members of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers learned that their proposed ammendments were rejected by the Federation Council. "They pretend to listen to us," remarked Tatyana Znachkova, member of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, "but then they disregard everything we say."

This scenario epitomizes the current debate over the nature of Russian civil society today. Although channels for independent social organization and interest-based assertion exist, they don’t seem to work well. Are the numerous civil society organizations in Russia today merely a democratic facade hiding the unreformable authoritarian nature of Russian politics, or are they in fact the first signs of a Russian regime trying seriously to create true democratic institutions? This paper examines civil society in Russia today and asks the question: can Russian civil society groups survive the unstable period of regime transition and help to create genuine democratic institutions in Russia?

Simultaneous change in the political, economic and social spheres of life in Russia since the collapse of communism has made certain factors of third sector organizational development more significant in the immediate transition period. The ability of certain civil society organizations to excel in these areas has enabled select groups to overcome great obstacles to long-term group effectiveness and overall organizational survival.

A survey of 20 human rights groups in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the fall of 1995 suggests that three key factors separate groups that successfully organize during the period of transition from those that do not: the scope and clarity of the group's goals; the priority placed on information networks and services; and the ability to generate locate (non-Western) sources of financial support. As a result, certain human rights groups have proven more effective than others have in the transition period with regard to attracting supporters, achieving goals and raising public awareness about rights issues, even despite many traditional institutional weaknesses. This paper analyzes the development of Russian human rights groups with regard to these three factors and explains how this relates to the overall development of civil society organizations during the process of regime transition.

After nearly seventy-five years of communist rule, the rise of informal interest groups and associations in Russia was a crucial change in both the society and the regime. Socially, the circles of Soviet dissent seemed to be widening to include a more diverse range of the population. At this time the Soviet regime was also beginning to show a new level of tolerance for social organization outside of official state or party apparatuses. In the scholarly analysis of the declining Soviet system, emphasis moved from the immobility and immutability of the Soviet regime to a more flexible understanding of the communist system’s relative place among the various paths of modernization. Revisionist scholars tried to reconcile the development of the Soviet regime with that of the West’s using various models of modernization, from welfare-state authoritarianism to corporatism to the administered society. Theories of modernization were first applied to the Soviet case after Stalin, but not until the drastic changes under Gorbachev’s leadership did these theories of modernization seem so applicable.

The changes taking place in the communist world seemed to prove that these theories were at least on the right track. For some scholars, the collapse of communism signified the exhaustion of all alternatives to liberal democracy, in essence the "end of history". It seemed as though the last wayward civilization would find its way to the modern world of liberal capitalist development after all.

As independent social and political groups emerged in Russia, these changes in social relations and social organization were paralleled by changes in the fields of politics and economics. This simultaneous change in social, economic, and political spheres had not been experienced -- at least to this degree -- in previous cases of democratic transition. In the cases of transition in Southern Europe and Latin America, social organizations had never been so severely repressed as they had been under the Soviet regime. In addition, political changes usually took place during more stable periods of economic development. Georg Sorensen has pointed out that many of the previous transitions began with a period of industrialization and economic development carried out under authoritarian political leadership. Only after a sable economic level was reached did the political process of democratization begin. Similarly, the examples of Southeast Asian NICs (newly industrializing countries) has shown the possibility for success of economic transitions carried out under conditions of social repression and political authoritarianism. Even in Eastern Europe, groups such as Solidarity and Charter 77 had emerged and begun to formalize their activities before the onset of dramatic political and economic changes initiated by the political leadership.

In Russia, these changes took place virtually simultaneously. Unlike the groups in Eastern Europe, Russian independent organizations faced the challenge of defining and asserting their interests amidst dynamic currents of change in all aspects of life. Since political and economic relations were in continual flux, there was no clear context in which to assess the significance of these new independent organizations. No longer could groups simply define their role as one of opposition to the state; they had to forge new and truly independent identities. These infant groups faced the challenge of having to distinguish themselves not only from the regime that was being dismantled, but also from the other social organizations now vying for influence and power in the new system being constructed.

Often, the rubric used by observers to understand these emerging groups was that of Western European and American "civil society". These new groups were seen as representing the ‘westernizing’ potential of Russia and other former communist countries. Their prosperity would signify Russia’s commitment to true democratic reform. On the other hand, their failure or inability to affect change would confirm the pessimistic view that Russia was historically and culturally incapable of democratization.

The implications of simultaneous social, economic and political transitions have yet to be adequately analyzed in the literature of post-communist development or transitions to democracy, especially with regard to the Russian case. No doubt, these parallel processes hinder one’s ability to distinguish between changes in each sector. They also exponentially increased the number of complications these groups had to face. As a result, transitions in Russia have become more interdependent. Not surprisingly, the outside perception of Russia’s ability and willingness to democratize results from a lack of appreciation for the complexity of these overlapping processes. Indeed, recent trends in the literature have shown a tendency to fall back on traditional arguments of an East-West cultural gap in order to explain perceived inconsistencies in Russia’s reforms. Whereas during the initial period of fascination with perestroika and glasnost, value-laden Western optimism dominated the literature, now pessimism based on sociocultural arguments has once again created a fatal determinism within the field regarding Russia’s ability to democratize.

What both of these approaches fail to acknowledge is the fact that, because of the simultaneity of the transition process currently taking place in Russia, the causal arrow points in both -- or more appropriately, all -- directions (see Figure 1). Civil society is not the sole instigator of change in the system. Nor, for that matter, are either the political or economic spheres. More so than in any other transition to date, these sectors are incredibly interdependent. Thus, the perspective of civil society as primarily dominating, or inversely, determined by the transition process is inaccurate. A new, third approach must be adopted in order to adequately account for the forces of influence at play in the Russian process of regime transition. Attempts must be made to ascertain both civil society’s effectual strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis the political and economic spheres.

While failures of one or more of the institutional innovations in the political and/or economic realm can negatively effect institutional processes in civil society, such failures do not necessarily invalidate progress already made in the civil sector. Economic failure does not ensure political failure or civil society’s demise. Nor does political upheaval or leadership change necessarily doom to extinction newly established procedural transformations in civic and/or economic relationships. Moreover, the inability of civil society organizations to achieve concrete organizational goals does not mean that they have not effected the transformations in political and economic relationships in other, perhaps more discrete, ways.

When attempting to assess the progress made in the development of civil society, both normative and empirical evaluations must be considered. Judgment of success or failure must be formed from both humanistic and scientific perspectives. In this paper, I will argue that in order fully to understand the nature of civil society’s development in Russia during the initial stages of post-communist transition, one must consider the importance and impact of both internal institutional processes and external group achievements. Only by examining these two dynamics in tandem can one avoid the pitfalls of normative optimism or pragmatic pessimism.

Using the example of human rights groups during the transition process, I will illustrate that despite significant institutional weaknesses, human rights groups have nevertheless succeeded in effecting change in the constituencies they serve. Although absolute gains in the area of human rights have been extremely slow in coming, the relative growth and maturity in these groups remains noteworthy. The evidence of success is not found in the results of individual casework so much as it is evident in the more discrete changes taking place in the ways in which people organize to monitor, support and advocate human rights as a community in Russia. While visible improvements in the area of human rights remain modest, the processes of group organization and the establishment of their place within the patterns of new social relations suggests that traditional institutional weaknesses have not prevented these groups from making significant contributions to the process of democratization.

The success of these newly emerging human rights groups in Russia is that through their actions and organization, they have helped to create a human rights community. What was once an underground movement has now emerged as a constellation of officially recognized human rights organizations, constituting but one dimension of a much broader community of civil society organizations active in Russia today. This human rights community provides the foundation of supporters needed to help create and enforce human rights policy and acts as the channel through which human rights ideas can be articulated to the public at large. The manner in which human rights groups pursue their interests reflects a new belief in the ability of civil society groups to effect change in the political realm. Not only do groups actively involve members in a democratically-based dialogue with state actors, but they also influence both the ways in which sociopolitical issues are conceived and the manner in which interests are pursued vis-à-vis state power. This type of social organization and group participation around principles embodied in the diverse spectrum of human rights performs the task of civic education necessary to create citizens of a new type in Russia -- the democratic constituency.