Abstract. The article analyzes IMEMO activities in 1992–1993, when in Russia, under the influence of both radical economic reforms and drastic weakening of the central government, a deep political crisis emerged and gained a dangerous traction, fraught with the death of a young democracy and even the collapse of the state. Under these conditions, along with economic issues, the politological research came to the fore in IMEMO – the analysis of the country's new political system, the definition of its development vector. The Center of Socio-economic and Socio-political Research of IMEMO headed by German Germanovich Diligenskii played the major role in this work. Analysts of the Center prepared a number of recommendations for public authorities concerning the creation and development of a new democratic political system in Russia. IMEMO experts paid the utmost attention to the nature of the political crisis that arose in the post-Soviet Russia in late 1991, and the ways to overcome it. In January 1993, the results of the study were presented to the discussion at the Academic Council. It was agreed that one of the main causes of the political crisis in the country was the social tensions worsening, as a consequence of the “shocking therapy” conducted by the government of Gaidar in 1992. In the discussion on the political outlook German Diligenskii, rejecting the possibility of the old command-administrative system restoration, substantiated a probability of transformation of the "market democracy" not yet established in Russia into the "authoritarian monopoly or monopoly-bureaucratic system". Noting the disunity of democratic forces, weakness of the entrepreneurial class, largely dependent on the state, Diligenskii formulated a program for uniting all adherents of “arket democracy” under the slogan of "social liberalism", which would take into account Russian specifics. Consolidation of democracy and market economy in Russia is impossible without preservation of the state territorial integrity and consolidation of the central government, with a clear division of functions and powers of its constituent branches. Monopolization (usurpation) of all power by one of the branches – legislative or executive – should not be allowed. The victory of any of them in any case would mean the defeat of democracy. Such was, in general terms, the position of IMEMO in the face of the 1992–1993 political crisis.