Democratic Choice Movement

In November 1988 (after the publication of the draft Law on the Elections of People's Deputies of the USSR), on the initiative of Gennady Burbulis, the For Democratic Choice Movement was founded in Sverdlovsk, renamed in 1990 1990 into the Democratic Choice Movement (DCM). In Moscow, a movement of similar political orientation - "Democratic Russia" - will be created only in 7 months. DCM was created to participate in the elections of People's Deputies of the USSR in 1989. According to the results of the elections, 2 candidates who were supported by the DCM became the people's deputies of the USSR from the Sverdlovsk region: Gennady Burbulis and Vladimir Volkov.

After the elections of USSR People's Deputies, the DCM focused on the Interregional Deputy Group of the Congress of USSR People's Deputies, whose leaders included Boris Yeltsin. The DCM advocated more radical political and economic reforms than those carried out by the leadership of the USSR. In particular, the DCM advocated a multi-party system, the elimination of the ruling role of the CPSU, the supremacy of republican laws over union laws, and accelerated privatization of state property.

The backbone of the DCM was made up of social scientists and lawyers. The ideological basis of the DCM was determined by former employees of the Department of Philosophy of the Ural Polytechnic Institute (UPI), the main role among whom was played by Gennady Burbulis. This group of people worked directly with Boris Yeltsin – preparing election campaigns, writing speeches.

The financial support for the DCM was most likely provided by the Sverdlovsk Center for Scientific and Technical Creativity of Youth, which closely cooperated with the UPI and the Kirov district executive committee of Sverdlovsk.

The informational "mouthpiece" of the DCM was the newspaper "Tribuna", which was printed on the pages of the "Vestnik STCY" (newspaper CSTCY "Sverdlovsk"). "Vestnik STCY ", in turn, was published as a supplement to the UPI newspaper "For Industrial Personnel", whose editor was Larisa Mishustina.

Before the 1990 elections, about 70 organizations, including 2 labor collectives, were collective members of the DCM. DCM helped organize the election campaign of Boris Yeltsin, who was elected People's Deputy of the RSFSR from one of the constituencies of Sverdlovsk. According to the results of the first (main) stage of elections in March 1990 in Sverdlovsk, 54% of candidates (99 people) from the DCM received mandates, which made it possible to organize factions of the DCM not only in the regional and city councils, but also in the district councils. The largest representation was in the city council of 200 deputies, 60 belonged to the DCM faction.

In April 1990, Yuri Samarin was elected chairman of the Sverdlovsk City Council of People's Deputies, who, although not a member of the DCM, was elected a deputy of the City Council from the DCM and declared that he shared many of the views of the DCM.

Aleksandr Zaborov, one of the leading members of the DCM, became a member of the presidium of the regional Council of People's Deputies.

Boris Yeltsin, elected a People's Deputy of the RSFSR with the support of the DCM, became chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. One of the founders of the DCM, Vladimir Isakov, who was also elected People's Deputy of the RSFSR, headed the Council of the Republic - one of the chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. Gennady Burbulis headed the working group of the Coordination and Consultative Council under the Chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet Boris Yeltsin.

In June 1990, after the completion of the election campaign of the Soviets of People's Deputies, due to the fact that the founders of the Far Eastern Branch, Gennady Burbulis and Vladimir Isakov, left to work in Moscow in the Supreme Soviets of the USSR and the RSFSR, a senior researcher at the Institute of Electrophysics of the Ural Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Alexander Zaborov, elected a deputy of the regional Council of People's Deputies, and a software engineer at the Department of Biosphere Protection of the Ural Forestry Institute, Boris Makaranets, elected as a deputy of the Sverdlovsk City Council of People's Deputies.

The founders and leading members of the DCM (Gennady Burbulis, Boris Makaranets) were among the organizers of the Democratic Party of Russia in Moscow.

In 1991, the Democratic Choice Movement was renamed the Democratic Choice - Democratic Russia Movement (DCM-DR).

In 1992, DCM-DR supported attempts to remove Eduard Rossel from the post of head of the administration of the Sverdlovsk region. The movement supported the economic reforms of Yegor Gaidar and condemned the actions of the Vice-President of the Russian Federation Alexander Rutskoy, who criticized the President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin. At the same time, DCM-DR avoided assessing the political activities of the State Secretary of the Russian Federation Gennady Burbulis at the moment when he was accused of losing public confidence both in Moscow and in Yekaterinburg.