Starting from the mid 2000s in Russia a new rise of lower social movements may be observed. General features of these movements are their origin from a variety of solidary actions of many local groups of citizens concerned with a certain social problem, and their non-affiliation with governmental and business structures. Basically these movements can be divided in two types. First, these are the movements that are engaged in disputes around housing problems, infill development and gentrification. The second type is a new wave of trade unions that are coming to take place of the old trade unions – successors of the former USSR labor organizations. Certainly there is a strong difference between these two types of movements both from institutional, structural and legal perspective. Although, for the purposes of studying lower interactions these differences are minor – what is more important is the local character of (self)organization and orientation towards achievement of particular objectives on the level of local community or enterprise. Every social movement includes an activist core – a group of leaders that mobilizes other members of the group. A transfer from everyday practices to social activism and a rise of leaders in the social movements are the main topics of study for the group of Moscow sociologists under the direction of Carine Clément. The objective of our work is to go further in the study of social activism and explore possible models of interaction between social activists in different groups and the prospects of solidarity between those who are concerned with different social problems. This in addition implies deeper insight into their social and political aims. The main topic of this paper will be description of possible models of interaction between activist groups based on the involved observation of the work of social movements’ coordination committee in St.-Petersburg, Russia.
