Revolutionary Scenarios in the Post-Soviet Space: Interrelation between Strategies of Masses, Opposition and Elites

The research examines the key actors of the protests that took place in the post-Soviet space, and their strategies. The main question of the research is how the actions of opposition, masses and elites affect the results of protests in post-Soviet countries. The empirical base includes those protests that took place immediately after the federal elections, when people demanded to review their results. The interrelation of these actors' strategies and the dependence of protest results on them was analyzed using theoretical-game modeling. It was found that masses and elites make a decision depending on the probability of successful suppression of the protest in the second stage, which can be influenced by the opposition. In turn, the ruler can only influence the level of terror: either increase it, respectively, tightening the regime, and make the country even more authoritarian (which in turn increases the likelihood of successful suppression of the protest), or weaken, but any even sometimes the most insignificant concession can be fraught with possible prolonged protests, which with a certain degree of probability can lead to a revolution.