Abstract

The article focused on the Russian liberal-democratic ideas which were widespread in the first years after collapse of the Soviet Union. Traditionally, in the Russian social and political thought supporters of the close relations with the EU and the US, the free market economic reforms, the representative democracy, freedom of speech, press, religion called «Westerners». This publication, based on previously unpublished archival materials and the press of those times, considered the history, the main ideological principles of most consistent in advocating pro-Western vector of development of post-Soviet Russia - the party «Democratic Choice of Russia». Particularly, attention is paid to the DCR participation in parliamentary elections in 1993, 1995 and 1999, the party’s position to the first and second Chechen Wars, foreign policy views of the party leaders, especially on the integration processes within the Commonwealth of Independent States. In the article was also analyzed the main reasons for the defeat of the leading liberal-democratic forces in Russia during the 1990s, which led eventually to the collapse of democracy and the gradual introduction of the authoritarian regime of Vladimir Putin in the 2000s.