The bloc consisted of All-Russian Union "Renewal" (VSO), Democratic Party of Russia (DPR), People's Party "Free Russia" (NPSR), youth organisations of DPR and NPSR, parliamentary faction Smena — New Politics, Russian Union of Youth (RSM, legal successor to All-Union Leninist Young Communist League) and several prominent public figures.

A governing body — Political Council — was also elected, the Council comprised leaders of founding organisations: Arkady Volsky (VSO), Nikolay Travkin (DPR), Aleksandr Rutskoy (NPSR), Andrey Golovin (Smena), Andrey Bogdanov (Youth Union of DPR, MSDPR), Vyacheslav Lashchevsky (RSM) and Oleg Sokolov (Youth Movement "Free Russia", MDSR).

Civic Union's experts also developed an anti-crisis programme "Twelve steps away from the abyss", under which state-owned enterprises would return to governmental administration, protectionism would be used to support domestic producers, conversion of munitions facilities would be held and natural tax on extractive industries would be imposed.

Especially, the bloc's power became evident at the VII Congress of People's Deputies of Russia (1—12 December 1992), when acting prime minister Yegor Gaidar was deposed and replaced with Viktor Chernomyrdin.

After the April 1993 referendum the bloc started to fall apart: in May DPR decided to pull out its representatives and in August members of VSO left the Civic Union's leadership.

In October 1993 association "Civic Union" became a co-founder of the electoral bloc Future of Russia–New Names (BR-NI), However, several members of the association's leadership led by Arkady Volsky and Aleksandr Volsky decided to run in the upcoming legislative election separately and created electoral bloc "Civic Union in the Name of Stability, Justice and Progress".

The federal list was headed by RSPP president Arkady Volsky, general director of Kamaz Nikolay Bekh and VSO co-chairman Aleksandr Vladislavlev.

Several prominent figures joined the bloc, including jurist Oleg Rumyantsev, former first secretary of VLKSM Viktor Mironenko, admiral Vladimir Chernavin, singer Iosif Kobzon, former Vice Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russia Vladimir Ispravnikov, economists Igor Yurgens and Iosif Diskin, philosopher Aleksandr Tsipko, journalists Pavel Voshchanov and Anatoly Yurkov, former chairman of the Soviet of the Union Konstantin Lubenchenko, sociologist Fyodor Burlatsky, general Valery Ochirov, cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya and businessman Alisher Usmanov.