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The Russian United Democratic Party Yabloko ( RUDP Yabloko; ru-яблоко.ogg, ) is a social-liberal political party in Russia.
The party consequently participated in the elections of deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of all eight convocations. Until 2003, Yabloko was represented by a faction in the State Duma and later until 2007 by individual deputies. In March 2002, the party became a full member of the Liberal International, and since November 1998, it has been in observer status. The founder of the party Grigory Yavlinsky is an honorary vice-president of the Liberal International and winner of its Prize for Freedom. Yabloko was a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) from 2006 to 2025. As of 2021, the party was represented by factions in 4 regional parliaments of the Russian Federation. In addition, members of the party were deputies of 13 administrative centers of the subjects of the Russia, 183 representatives of the party were municipal deputies in Moscow and 84 in Saint Petersburg.
The party also advocates for the protection of the rights of LGBT people in Russia.
The bloc included several political parties: the Republican, the Social Democratic, and the Russian Christian Democratic Union – New Democracy. The Yabloko bloc in the 1993 elections received 7.86% of the vote, as a result of which the Yabloko faction was created in the State Duma In January 1995 Yabloko was transformed into a public association after holding a founding congress. Yavlinsky became the head of the central council. Already during this period, there were some changes in the leadership. In 1994 part of the representatives of the Republican Party, headed by Vladimir Lysenko, left the bloc. At the same time, the Regional Center Party from Saint Petersburg joined Yabloko as a regional organization. In September 1995, due to disagreements on some fundamental issues, Yury Boldyrev left the association as well.
The Yabloko public association was able to form factions based on the results of the elections to the State Duma in 1995 and 1999. In 1995, in the elections to the State Duma of the 2nd convocation, the Yabloko association received 6.89% of the vote. In the elections of the State Duma of the III convocation in 1999 Yabloko association made an alliance with Sergei Stepashin, including him as number three of the party list. According to the results of the vote count, the party received 5.93% of the votes.
Yabloko during the entire period of President Boris Yeltsin became the "democratic opposition" to the president's policies. For example, Yabloko opposed privatization conducted by Anatoly Chubais, and offered an alternative program in 1998, which stated that privatization was carried out in an economically senseless and socially detrimental way, passing control of sold organizations to the “directors” with several backdrop nominal owners.
During the 1996 elections, Yavlinsky was offered to join the government. As a condition to join Yabloko's leader demanded an end to hostilities in Chechnya and to make serious adjustments to the socio-economic policy. In addition, he demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, head of the Security Service of the President of the Russian Federation Alexander Korzhakov, First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets, Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, head of the presidential administration Nikolai Yegorov, director of the FSS Mikhail Barsukov. Since these conditions were not accepted, Yavlinsky and his team did not enter the government.
Some members of the Yabloko faction nevertheless accepted the proposals of the executive branch. Mikhail Zadornov and Oksana Dmitrieva became members of the government, for which they were expelled from the party. Also, Ivan Grachev and Vyacheslav Igrunov left Yabloko.
In May 1999, the Yabloko faction voted for the impeachment of President Yeltsin. The bulk of the State Duma deputies supported the accusation of the president of unleashing war in Chechnya and 24 deputies voted for the impeachment of Yeltsin on charges of an armed dispersal of the Supreme Council in October 1993. Yabloko, however, refused to support other articles of accusations, including the article proposed by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation about the "genocide of the Russian people." Yabloko criticized presidential and government policies and regularly voted against draft state budgets submitted by the Cabinet of Ministers to the State Duma.
On August 16, 1999, 18 members of the Yabloko faction, including Yavlinsky, voted for the appointment of Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister, 4 members abstained, 8 voted against, and 15 did not vote. In May 2000, 4 deputies of the Yabloko faction voted for the appointment of Mikhail Kasyanov as prime minister, 8 members voted against and 4 abstained. Yabloko also supported a bill developed with the participation of faction deputy Mikhail Zadornov on the introduction of a flat income tax instead of a Progressive tax.
Since Putin was never supported by a majority of Yabloko members, the party found itself in fierce opposition to the government, criticizing the government during the remaining term of the State Duma of the third convocation, especially as parliamentary elections approached.
In December 2001, on the basis of the all-Russian political public organization Yabloko and the Party of Social Liberalism the Russian Democratic Party Yabloko was officially created, which advocates the European path of development of the Russian Federation and is a member of several international and European organizations. Since November 1998, the Yabloko association has had observer status with the Liberal International and participated in its events. At the 51st Congress of the Liberal International, held on March 21–23, 2002 in Budapest, the Yabloko party was accepted into the ranks of this international organization as a full member.
On April 26, 2002, the Russian Democratic Party Yabloko (Reg. No. 5018) was registered by the Ministry of Justice. Grigory Yavlinsky was elected chairman of the party.
In June 2003, the Yabloko faction voted for a vote of no confidence in the government, which, however, was not approved by the Duma.
Since 2003, Yabloko's position has worsened. In the 2003 State Duma elections, the Yabloko party received 4.3% of the vote (less than the 5% threshold) and did not receive seats in the State Duma on party lists (only 4 candidates from the party went through single-mandate constituencies). Interestingly, the fact that Vladimir Putin called Grigory Yavlinsky at night, during the counting of votes, with congratulations on the victory, became widely known.
After the joining of Green Russia and Soldiers' Mothers in 2006, the name of the party was changed to the Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko" (RODP "Yabloko"). Since 2006, the Yabloko party has become part of the European party Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE). Sergey Mitrokhin became party chairman in 2008.
In the 2007 elections, only 1.59% of voters voted for Yabloko, and the party did not enter the State Duma again. In 2008 the party had 58,540 members. In the 2011 elections according to official data from the CEC, 3.43% of voters (2.25 million people) voted for Yabloko. In these elections, the party more than doubled its result but still did not get into the State Duma. However, this result gave Yabloko the possibility of state funding. In 2012 Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky was not registered by the Central Election Commission as a candidate for the presidential elections.
In 2021 the party had 16,100 members.
In the elections to the State Duma of 2021, Grigory Yavlinsky for the first time in the history of the party refused to run for deputies, and the federal list of candidates was headed by Yabloko chairman Nikolay Rybakov. 1.34% of voters voted for Yabloko (750 000 people). On October 14, 2021, the Federal Political Committee of the party decided to withdraw from the election candidates who supported the idea of Smart Voting Alexei Navalny. Several Yabloko members criticized the party's policies and demanded the leadership to resign.
On October 26, 2021, the members of the Arkhangelsk regional branch of Yabloko published a statement, in which they demanded that the central political committee of the party be dismissed due to the adoption of the so-called “Yavlinsky blacklist”, which lead to the suspension of the activities of the branch. On November 19, 2021, the federal bureau of Yabloko appointed the re-registration of party members prior to the upcoming party congress in December
“Yabloko expresses its categorical protest against the outbreak of hostilities against Ukraine. This war is Russia's war with the objective course of history, a war against time, a tragic fall from the reality of the modern world. The consequences of this war will last for a very long time, but now, first of all, it is a tragedy, suffering, and death of people, and this will never be corrected. The reason for the tragedy is lies, cruelty, and absolute indifference to the people of the Russian authorities. The Yabloko party considers the war with Ukraine to be the gravest crime. We believe that this war is contrary to the national interests of Russia and destroys the future of Russia.”On February 28, 2022, the Yabloko factions in the parliaments of Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Pskov region, and Karelia tried to initiate appeals from their legislative assemblies to Vladimir Putin with a call to immediately stop hostilities on the territory of Ukraine and start peace negotiations with international mediation, withdraw military units to places of permanent deployment, to exchange prisoners on the principle of “all for all”. Several members of the Yabloko party in various regions were detained for participating in anti-war protests.
In 1995 Vladimir Lukin and Yury Boldyrev were elected vice-chairmen (he left Yabloko in the same year). Since 1996 Vladimir Lukin has become the first deputy chairman of the party, and Sergey Ivanenko and Vyacheslav Igrunov have been the deputies. In 2000–2001, Vladimir Lukin was again the only deputy chairman of the party. In 2001–2004, Lukin served as the first deputy chairman of the party, while the deputy chairmen were Alexei Arbatov, Igor Artemyev, Sergei Ivanenko,and Sergey Mitrokhin. In 2004–2008, the first deputy chairman of the party was Sergei Ivanenko, deputy chairmen were Alexei Arbatov, Igor Artemyev, and Sergey Mitrokhin. The posts of deputy chairman until 2007 were also presented by Sergey Popov, Galina Khovanskaya, and Irina Yarovaya. After joining the party of the Green Russia movement, the post of deputy chairman of the party in 2006–2008 was held by Alexei Yablokov.
At the XV Party Congress on June 21–22, 2008, Mitrokhin was elected the second chairman of Yabloko. In 2008–2015, the posts of deputy chairmen of the party were abolished.
The next party leadership elections were held at the XVIII Congress of Yabloko on December 19–20, 2015. Emilia Slabunova became the third chairman of the Yabloko party, and Alexander Gnezdilov, Sergei Ivanenko, and Nikolay Rybakov were elected as her deputies.
At the XXI Congress on December 15, 2019, Nikolay Rybakov was elected the new chairman of the party. Sergey Ivanenko, Boris Vishnevsky, and Ivan Bolshakov became his deputies.
The period of Sergey Mitrokhin was marked not only by the exclusion of members but also by the suspension of the powers of the regional branches. It was the case in party regional branches in Omsk, Belgorod (for cooperation with United Russia party), Bryansk (for the removal of the chairman of the local branch – candidate for governor of the region Andrei Ponomarev – from the elections in the interests of the current governor of the region Nikolai Denin, later accused of corruption), Krasnodar (for violating party discipline), St. Petersburg, and several other branches.
In 2020, the Federal leadership of Yabloko decided to exclude the chairman of the Novosibirsk branch , and three of her associates from the party. The leadership considered that they "did not comply with the decision of the party bureau and publicly declared their disagreement with it, which caused political damage to the party". In addition to Kaverzina, Anton Nelidov, Mikhail Ryazantsev, and Vyacheslav Udintsev lost their membership in the party.
Also in 2020, the Federal Bureau of Yabloko expelled other 16 people from the party, including Maxim Katz, co-founder of the City Projects Foundation. The decision of the bureau announced that Katz tried to gain control over the Moscow branch of the party by creating an "artificial majority" of his supporters who voted unanimously. Katz announced his intention to appeal the bureau's decision.
In 2021, mass expulsions from the party as part of the “fight against katzism” and for signing open appeals of party members to the Congress continued. At least 98 members were expelled from the Moscow branch (according to one of the excluded – more than 200).
The expelled members announced that they would form a new, independent from the party leadership organization, as well as that the current leadership of the party "is conducting a systematic fight against civil society", "justifies the repressions" and "accuses those who fight against them". The creation of the public movement "Yabloko" was announced, the declared aim to return the party under the control of their like-minded people or creating a new legal entity.
In addition, 189 members were denied registration, and 488 were suspended, depriving them of the right to any form of participation in internal elections. Many suspended party members consider this action to be inconsistent with the law on political parties and challenge it in court.
Contents of the memorandum:
At the II Congress of Yabloko (September 1995), the program document "The Path of Russian Reforms" was adopted, containing a negative assessment of the first results of Russian reforms, which were characterized as follows:
The congress document formulated a fundamental vision of the reforms – that they should be carried out in the interests of the majority of the population.
The idea was put forward to return control powers to the parliament and thus eliminate the possibility of one authority appropriating the powers of another. The advancement of these principles meant the establishment of Yabloko as a political association of a social-liberal type.
Our ideological model is based on the need to combine liberal and social democratic approaches in Russia. This is a feature of Russia, in which we must be liberals in order to protect private property, achieve tax cuts, maximum freedoms for entrepreneurs, large-scale development of private entrepreneurship, because without this it is impossible to create a “public pie”. But we must not forget that Russia is a country that cannot exist without free education, without high-quality free healthcare. We cannot forget how many pensioners we have, how many people with disabilities, how many territories we have that today do not yet fit into the liberal approach ... We must do everything to ensure that the liberal foundations of the economy are as deep as possible, and at the same time solve the country's priority social tasks.In the first half of the 1990s, the ideas of socialism were generally not popular in the democratic movement. Yabloko's distancing from social democracy was manifested in the party's attitude to such a principle as social justice. In 1995, Grigory Yavlinsky said:
The social justice thesis is one of the most dangerous theses that can exist. It has been proven many times that the struggle for social justice sooner or later ends in terrible tragedies. Therefore, for our country, the thesis would be correct not about social justice, but about social acceptability. This is a dynamic situation, which suggests that at different stages, under different conditions, society can agree with certain social costs. Especially during the period of reforms. And if, instead of organizing an efficient economy, we again begin to seek justice, while realizing that it does not exist, that this is an abstract thesis, we will again and again push people into social conflicts.
In the period after the publication, the program was a permanent part of the Yabloko party election program.
"This process has nothing to do with strengthening the rule of law in the country, or at least establishing some kind of order ... Instead, it created an atmosphere of intimidation and legal chaos in the country ... The number of procedural violations during the process exceeded all possible limits, and the consequences of this will take a very long time to overcome. Probably, since the time of Joseph Stalin and the shooting within "anti-thieves" decrees of Khrushchev in the Khrushchev Thaw. The right was not violated so revealingly and rudely. And after such a high-profile precedent, this will have fatal consequences for thousands of entrepreneurs across the country".According to Yavlinsky, when organizing the trial, the Russian authorities set three goals: to prevent the sale of Yukos to foreigners, to intimidate and subjugate Russian big business, and to put Yukos under the control of a certain group of government officials. Wherein:
"Since none of the objectives could be achieved by legal means..., brute force was used, under the guise of, as far as possible, quasi-legal procedures".Yavlinsky believes that with this process “the political elite of the country begins a new stage: physical persecution and, possibly, destruction of each other ... This is a war that has no end. Its goal is the destruction of people from the highest echelons of power and business, current and former, the destruction of the fate of their loved ones and families.”
"Such a wheel can only be rolled – and it cannot be stopped. Repressions – revenge, new repressions – new revenge. Is it really not clear that the current top will be the same in a few years ...? Joseph Stalin's Stalinism showed that repressions within the political class are continuous and pointless – everyone lives in an atmosphere of fear of the future. Because if our country smells the smell of repression and blood, it will not stop for a long time. The execution of 1993 and the subsequent war of 1994, which lasted for more than 10 years, is from this area ... The imprisonment of Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev is the way into repression and revenge. After that, no one can feel safe anymore – neither the accused, nor the accusers, nor the members of their families. This is the path to self-destruction of the nation and the country. The political class and top business in Russia must understand that the day the verdict of imprisonment is announced is the actual beginning of physical mutual destruction ... <...> Without a doubt, only Vladimir Putin can make a decision. It is necessary to proceed from reality – the outcome of the Yukos case, the imprisonment or not of Khodorkovsky, as well as the term of this imprisonment, entirely depend on the decision of Vladimir Putin. He actually bears political and moral responsibility for it. It is not necessary, taking advantage of your position of power, to put your opponents (or opponents of your entourage) in prison. And so much has already happened to make the situation irreversible, but in the main thing – as far as people's lives are concerned, there is still an opportunity to stop.
The Yabloko party, however, believes that restoring constitutional order is one thing, but demonstrating strength is another. Especially when this demonstration is carried out in order to distract the people from the socio-economic crisis in the country. November 29, 1994 Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued an ultimatum to all forces in Chechnya. On December 5, Yabloko gathered a delegation ready to replace Russian tankmen prisoners of war – officers and soldiers of the Kantemirovskaya division, who participated in the unsuccessful attempt to storm Grozny on November 26, allegedly carried out by anti-Dudaev opposition forces as hostages. Dzhokhar Dudayev agreed to meet with Russian deputies, including Grigory Yavlinsky and Sergei Yushenkov. The deputies arrived in Grozny, but the negotiation process was disrupted – according to Yavlinsky, this happened because "the negotiations were not part of the authorities' plan for a small victorious war." The peaceful initiatives of Yabloko were not accepted by either the broad masses or the State Duma. The majority of the Duma deputies refused to consider the bill “On delegations for the settlement of the armed conflict in the Chechen Republic”.
The “easy war”, however, did not work out – it hit the whole society hard. The capture of Grozny by militants in March 1996, a year after the city was taken by federal troops, demonstrated the weakness of the federal troops, which then led to the Khasavyurt agreements. The only faction that supported the Khasavyurt agreements was the Yabloko faction. Three years later, during the impeachment of Boris Yeltsin, Yabloko formulated its position as follows:
"... Responsibility for this war lies not only with Boris Yeltsin and Dzhokhar Dudayev regime. It is also borne by the military leaders who gave and carried out criminal orders, the head of the government, Chernomyrdin, his deputies, ministers, bear this guilt and politicians, some of whom supported this war, others did not want to stop, and still others could not. However, we, Yabloko, are also responsible, because we did not do everything possible, not all of our resources were devoted to stopping the slaughter. Since no one can fix what happened, there is only one responsibility – to create such conditions under which what happened will never happen again. We, Yabloko, consider ourselves obligated to do everything possible to minimize the likelihood of such tragedies recurring in the future. Today we are obliged to create a precedent for punishing the authorities for crimes. The inevitable responsibility and punishability of the authorities for crimes against their own people is real democracy."However, a long-term peace did not work out, and as a result, events quickly escalated into the Second Chechen War. Nevertheless, even then Yabloko advocated the possibility of negotiations. In October 2002, during the seizure of hostages by Chechens in the theater center on Dubrovka siege in Moscow, one of the demands of the bandits was the participation of Grigory Yavlinsky in the negotiations. After the tragedy, Grigory Yavlinsky made a statement that expressed the official point of view of the Yabloko party:
"We firmly believe that there can be no justification for terrorism – neither political, nor religious, nor by good causes, not even by so-called "symmetrical and retaliatory" measures, or any other. There is no justification for killing or threatening, blackmailing by killing innocent, defenseless people. In this sense, the cause of terrorism is not poverty or suffering, and not even revenge (which is directed at the guilty), but boundless meanness ... Undoubtedly, those who embark on the path of terror must be brought to justice or, if this is not possible, eliminated. However, what happened with a new acuteness raises the question of resolving the armed conflict in Chechnya, of ending the cleansings, torture, kidnappings, extrajudicial killings, bullying, unlimited physical violence – in essence, the cessation of the most brutal war to exterminate an entire people. All efforts to find political ways to end the war are required to be repeatedly intensified. All lessons must be learned from this tragedy."
Some well-known Yabloko supporters, including Galina Mikhaleva, Maxim Reznik and Aleksey Melnikov, support LGBT people. "Protection against discrimination of the LGBT community" was identified in 2011 as one of the new areas of work for the gender faction. Members of the Moscow Yabloko took part in the events of the Week Against Homophobia in 2011, and the Moscow Youth Yabloko issued a special statement in support of it. Also, Youth Yabloko planned to participate in the Equality March in 2011. Party leaders Sergey Mitrokhin and Grigory Yavlinsky have repeatedly condemned homophobia. Nikolai Kavkazsky, a member of the Youth Yabloko, noted that "Pride parade is not a carnival, but a human rights event <...> which should be held more often than once a year". However, LGBT support is not included in the party program.
Deputy of the State Duma of the III convocation Alexander Fedulov, head of the Kursk party organization of Yabloko, in the summer of 2011 appealed to the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev with an appeal to "protect the moral and spiritual health of the absolute majority of Russians from the aggressive, impudent" pink-and-blue "minority", after which he was criticized by Sergei Mitrokhin, who noted that "In a civilized state, the rights of citizens must be respected regardless of their nationality, social class and sexual orientation."
Sergei Mitrokhin at the same time called on the LGBT community to refrain from holding gay pride parades "provoking part of the Russian society to aggression and violence – against not only the participants in the parades themselves, but in general all citizens of non-traditional sexual orientation".
Later, Alexander Fedulov was expelled from the party "for repeated public statements and statements of a nationalist and misanthropic nature, as well as support for the leadership of an authoritarian-oligarchic corrupt regime".
On April 2, 2017, the party adopted a statement on the inadmissibility of the genocide of the LGBT community in the Chechen Republic.
On March 28, 2019, the position of the Yabloko party against LGBT discrimination was published on the official website of the party. In it, the party refers to its program documents and documents of international organizations to which it is a member. The party stated that:
The protection of human rights in relation to representatives of the LGBT community is one of the important areas of the human rights activities of the Yabloko party.
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