Many by inertia divide the political field between the “red” and “white”, democrats and communists, conservatives and reformers. However, our world is more complex and does not consist only of black and white tones. Centrists are people who seek to unite and smooth over existing contradictions, to find a balance between oppositely directed forces.
Definition
Centrists are representatives of parties and movements that seek to maintain a balance between opposing radical forces located at different poles of the political spectrum. The main advantage of a politician is his ability to achieve his goal, to stay in power and achieve the implementation of his program.
Centrism is not an ideology, not a concrete doctrine with its sacred figures and postulates. Representatives of this movement are trying to find a compromise between extremely radical parties and movements that have authority in society, find common ground with each of them and engage in a constructive dialogue.
Depending on the situation, the forces of the center can be a watershed between liberals and conservatives, leftists and conservatives, clerics and atheists. Often, such a policy gives the impression of a lack of one’s own principles, softness and amorphousness.
Strength and weakness
However, in a parliamentary democracy, when government is distributed between various political forces that are forced to create blocs and coalitions, centrism is an extremely important tool. It is necessary for the normal functioning of the state. The centrist parties gain an advantage in this case, since the game follows their rules.
Societies accustomed to authoritarian regimes of government categorically do not accept such a policy, perceiving the methods of concessions and compromises as one of the forms of weakness.
This is clearly seen from the populist slogans of politicians who operate in countries accustomed to a "firm hand."
Background
The Great French Revolution enriched the political dictionary with a huge number of terms, one of them is, in fact, the concept of the center. At the time of the Convention, centrists - these were the deputies who were located between the radicals and the Girondins.
The Jacobins and conservatives hating each other fiercely fought for power among themselves, sitting on the left and right sides of the assembly hall.
Neutral-minded representatives were located in the center and did not have a distinct position. Sensitively holding their nose in the wind, they leaned toward the victorious side. For such a strategy, this group was contemptuously called the “swamp”, but then their ideological followers secured the respectable name of the parties of the center.
In the middle of the XIX century, the Roman Catholic party of Germany for the first time designated its political orientation as centrist. In this regard, very often movements with Christian names are a priori positioned as an example of the issue under consideration.
However, centrists are people with completely different worldviews, the ideology of political movements could be diametrically opposed. Its factions of the center were among Marxists, conservatives, liberals.
Centrism on Russian soil
With the advent of the Social Democratic Party in Russia, the concept of centrism appeared. The Marxist movement, torn by irreconcilable contradictions between the right and left wing, also generated groups that sought to reunite the two halves of the broken bowl.
In the pre-revolutionary period, these politicians defiantly distanced themselves from the factions of the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, declaring the need for compromise and restoration of unity. Paradoxical as it may seem, the irreconcilable revolutionary and socialist Leo Trotsky, who would later go down in history thanks to his radicalism, could be considered a kind of centrist. Then he still tried to establish contact between the two groups, not considering their breakup to be final.
During the Russian Revolution, the positions of the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks were clearly defined. Representatives of the Social Democrats, such as Chkheidze and Martov, tried to fully maintain mutual understanding between their former party members and restore former unity. Some of them even accepted the October Revolution and went to cooperate with the winners, despite the fact that this contradicted their views.
Accordingly, in Soviet historiography, the concept of centrism was perceived extremely negatively, centrists are unprincipled, weak-willed politicians, they are neither worthy of respect nor sympathy, according to official ideology.
Modern europe
European parliamentary democracy suggests the most favorable conditions for a policy of compromise and concession. The activity of the centrist parties in the Scandinavian countries is most pronounced. The local movements stand at an equal distance from the radical left and right forces in matters of the social sphere and economy on a political scale.
Another characteristic feature of local movements is a clearly expressed ideology, which is not typical for centrist parties as a whole. They stand on the positions of decentralization, liberalism, and environmental balance.
Periodically, they take power into their own hands and successfully compete with the Social Democratic and conservative movements of the center-right. They successfully play on contradictions in the slogans of competitors and recruit allies among them.