In the offered article, an attempt is made to prove illegitimacy of using the term and the notion «democracy» for the designation of the modern way of governing the state and of realizing power functions, which has been supposedly formed in a number of countries (as a rule, the most successful). It is demonstrated in the article, that all the basic features of the modern way of governing habitually called democratic, have no relation to the people’s power proper. It is being proved that deliberate substitution of notions takes place, with the aim of conferring the vaunted brand of «democracy», as well as with the aim of appropriation of the corresponding political dividends by the «patentees».