“Top” initiatives and transformation of public associations of Russia in the second half of the 1980s

Public initiative has always been a landmark in the processes of national development. Another thing is that the format of its implementation tends to vary under the influence of external factors. The present study is devoted to one of these cases. The author carries out the analysis of legal frameworks relating to the functioning of voluntary associations in Russia, and attempts to overcome the longstanding historiography tradition and to look differently at structuring civil society processes. That is, not through the prism of the generally accepted “greater publicity and freedom”, but through the specific initiatives of the public authorities and their vector vision developments within Soviet society. Emphasis is placed on the degree of autonomy of th e public association and its change in this period, focusing on the implementation of public tasks of national importance. Special attention is paid to the interaction of public associations with each other and with the authorities. The author defines the mechanisms for building such relations and prospects for their further development; identifies the implications of initiatives from this time for both the public and the authorities. In general, the study demonstrated the progress made in implementing the so-called “managed” democracy and the formation of a new, not inherent in the previous practice, model of civil society. This model is characterized by the gap in the interaction of authorities and public institutions, the transformation of the role and place in society of such structures as assembly of citizens, trade unions, people's control bodies and so on.