On the issue of nonviolence of the "Color revolutions" of the first wave

Abstract

The "color revolutions" of the first wave traditionally include the "bulldozer revolution" in Serbia (2000), the "rose revolution" in Georgia (2003), the "orange revolution" in Ukraine (2004) and the "tulip revolution" in Kyrgyzstan (2005). The purpose of this article is to consider the "color revolutions" of the first wave from the point of view of nonviolence. The author analyzes some of the works of the ideologist of the "color revolutions" J. Sharpe, who developed the conceptual basis of nonviolent resistance, and concludes that some of the methods of nonviolent struggle he developed are not actually nonviolent. On the basis of documents from the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation, many of which are published for the first time, and materials from leading media, an attempt has been made to answer the question whether violence in general was not used during the implementation of the "color revolutions" of the first wave, or whether nonviolence was a deliberately created illusion, and the concepts of nonviolent resistance developed by political technologists are not associated with a conscious rejection of violence in all its manifestations. As a result, the author concludes that despite the interest of the organizers in the bloodlessness of the "color revolutions", it is impossible to recognize them as nonviolent.

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