Authors

Discussion

The paper examines the development of informal political organisations in three Russian regions - Leningrad, Volgograd, and Novosibirsk - during the Perestroika years (1987 - 1991). While previous scholarship has concentrated primarily on Moscow and all-Union democratic movements, regional initiatives within the RSFSR have received little systematic attention. This study argues that regional informal organisations were not passive recipients of reforms introduced from above but active participants in the political transformation of late Soviet society. Their emergence reflected a growing demand for autonomous public communication and alternative modes of participation beyond the rigid framework of democratic centralism.

The research is based on a combination of samizdat publications, archival documents, and nine in-depth interviews with movement participants and local officials conducted in 2024–2025. These sources allow for a reconstruction of the discursive and organisational dynamics of regional activism, showing how informal associations negotiated their relationship with the authorities - sometimes through cooperation, sometimes through open confrontation. The comparative perspective highlights both common structural features and regional specificities shaped by local elites, economic conditions, and social environments.

The theoretical framework builds on Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action and the concept of the public sphere, viewing informal organisations as emergent communicative structures that enabled new forms of dialogue within a previously closed political system. From this perspective, Perestroika is analysed not only as a sequence of institutional reforms but as a process of expanding communicative capacities in Soviet society. This approach is further informed by Nancy Fraser’s concept of counterpublics and Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato’s theory of civil society, which together illuminate how informal groups functioned as arenas of negotiation and discursive experimentation.

By situating these regional developments within both national and global contexts, the study contributes to a re-evaluation of Perestroika as a multidirectional process shaped by interactions between the state, elites, and grassroots actors. It demonstrates that informal political organisations played a crucial role in testing the limits of pluralism and in creating the communicative infrastructure for post-Soviet civic life. Ultimately, the paper argues that the regional perspective is essential for understanding the complexity of late Soviet transformation: it reveals how new political languages and practices emerged not only in Moscow but also in provincial arenas, where local actors redefined the relationship between society and the state.