Former chess champion Garry Kasparov and other prominent liberals launched a new anti-Kremlin movement in Russia on Saturday.

Opposition leaders Garry Kasparov, left, and Boris Nemtsov, right, attend the founding congress of a new opposition movement called Solidarity in Khimki, outside Moscow. (Mikhail Metzel/Associated Press)

The organization — called Solidarity, after the victorious Polish anti-Communist movement — aims to unite the country's dysfunctional liberal forces and encourage a popular revolution similar to that seen in other ex-Soviet countries.

"We are fighting for victory because we have something to say to our people and something to offer them," Kasparov said at the founding congress Saturday in a Moscow-region hotel.

"On this very day, we are in a position to take stock of past mistakes and act differently," he said.

With a parliament now dominated by Kremlin-friendly parties, Russia's liberals have found themselves marginalized.

Yabloko and SPS (Union of Right Forces), the two main democratic parties to emerge after the collapse of the Soviet Union, lost their State Duma representation in 2007 after failing to garner at least seven per cent of the vote.

Much of the Russian public has lost faith in liberal democracy, which remains associated with the chaos, poverty and corruption that emerged in Russia under president Boris Yeltsin.

"One of the tasks of the Solidarity movement is to rehabilitate those basic principles that, unfortunately, for a significant or even overwhelming portion of our fellow citizens, have become associated with failure, misery or reduction of freedom," Kasparov said.

Critics like Kasparov say Russia under former president Vladimir Putin and now his protege, Dmitry Medvedev, has rolled back the democratic reforms that heralded the post-Soviet era.

Delegates listen to music from glasnost era

Some 150 delegates from more than 40 Russian provinces poured into the hotel's auditorium Saturday, where they voted unanimously to inaugurate the movement.

After the vote, the delegates rose from their seats to cheer, clapping along to rock music from the "glasnost" era, the period of openness and political debate that presaged the collapse of the Soviet regime.

Kasparov called on delegates to salvage the tainted reputation of Russian democracy by joining forces against Russia's current leaders.

Those leaders, he said, "have taught themselves to use liberal rhetoric and have created a complete dictatorship under the mantra of liberal principles."

Solidarity's manifesto, "300 Steps to Freedom," outlines concrete recommendations on how to improve the social, political and economic setup of the country.

But in a sign of what it may be up against, members of the pro-Kremlin youth group Young Russia, some dressed as monkeys, demonstrated outside the conference, distributing flyers that read "monkeys are rocking the boat."

Standing around a wooden dinghy, they hurled bananas into the air, some of which were lit on fire.

"We came to show that there are people in our country who actually wish our country well," said Valery, one of the young pro-Kremlin activists.

Kasparov and other opposition leaders emphasized that the financial crisis offered a window of opportunity for Russia's democratic opposition to prosper.

Both the leaders and delegates were hopeful about the new movement's prospects, though they recognized the enormity of the task ahead.

"We might not be able to launch an Orange Revolution right now, but we can certainly create an orange organization," said Valeriya Novodvorskaya, one of the movement's leaders, referring to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine that brought pro-western President Viktor Yushchenko to power.

"We have a great chess master sitting here who knows how to move and how to play," she said.

Solidarity's founders include the outspoken former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov.