What type of civilization does Russia belong to and why? Russian civilization Civilizational search for Russian society
STAVROPOL 2007
BBC 63.3 (2) Ya73
Russia in world civilization (IX-XIX centuries) Textbook for independent work of students. -Stavropol. Publisher: SGMA, 2007. ISBN
Compiled by: L.I. Tsapko
The textbook for independent work of students considers the main milestones of Russian history from the 9th to the 19th centuries. The history of Russia is considered in the context of world civilization. The course material is presented chapter by chapter in chronological order. The use of elements of a visual-graphic nature allows you to better understand and assimilate the material, get closer to comprehending complex and contradictory historical process.
The textbook is intended for students of medical and pharmaceutical universities.
Reviewers:
Bulygina T.A., Doctor of History, Professor, Head. cafe History of Russia SSU
Kalinchenko S.B., Candidate of History, Associate Professor, Department of History, SSAU
© Stavropol State
medical academy, 2007
Foreword
An attempt was made in the manual in accordance with the requirements of the current State Standard Russian Federation for higher educational institutions to analyze Russian history from new positions and in a holistic way, to show history as a process, to reveal the logic of the development of Russian history. Some highlights and trends national history are given against the backdrop of a foreign one, because just as a person cannot know himself outside of communication with other people, so the history of one country, even such a specific one as Russia, cannot be understood and comprehended without comparing its fundamental moments with the history of other countries. The history of Russia simply does not exist outside of European and world history. And not only in the sense of chronological or geographical. Russian specificity and even “uniqueness” are a kind of manifestation of global processes. Understanding Russian history - necessary condition to understand what is going on in the world. The textbook is aimed at helping the student to form specific ideas about the most important events that determined the course of world history, and about the socio-historical structures that underlie it. When writing the manual, two approaches were used - problematic and chronological, allowing to analyze the most important aspects of the life of the state and society for a long time. The limited volume of the training manual and its focus on a contingent already familiar from school education with some historical facts, forced to abandon the detailed presentation of all the facts in order to focus on turning points key points Russian history. Comprehension of history is a creative and diverse process, therefore, without thoughtful and intense independent work, it is impossible. Visual diagrams, diagrams, tables presented in the manual should help students.
Topic 1. Methodological problems and basic concepts of historical science. Place and role of Russia in history.
Plan
1. The subject, methods and sources of studying the history of the Fatherland.
2. Russian historical science. Features of Russian history.
3. Conditions for the formation of Russian statehood: factors that determined the features of Russian civilization.
History is the collective memory of a people. The loss of historical memory destroys public consciousness, makes life meaningless. As the great Pushkin wrote, “respect for the past is the feature that distinguishes education from savagery.”
The term history is of Ionian origin. Ionia became the birthplace of early Greek prose, on which he wrote his essay Herodotus- "father of history" Vv. BC. However, a clear distinction between science and art was not yet made at that time. This is clearly reflected in the mythology of the ancient Greeks: the goddess Athena patronized both the arts and sciences, and the muse Clio was considered the patroness of history. The works of ancient authors included information on both history and literature, geography, astronomy, and theology.
Historical science tries to give a holistic vision of the historical process in the unity of all its characteristics.. In this it is no different from other sciences. As in other sciences, in history there is an accumulation and discovery of new facts, the theory is being improved, taking into account the development of other branches of knowledge (culturology, historical
psychology, sociology, etc.), methods of processing and analyzing sources (for example, the use of mathematical methods). Most often in historical science, two groups of methods are used: general scientific and special-historical.
General scientific methods- these are methods of empirical research (observation, measurement, experiment); methods of theoretical research (idealization, formalization, modeling, induction, deduction, thought experiment, systematic approach, historical, logical, etc.) General scientific methods as such are necessary at the theoretical level of historical science. As applied to specific historical situations, they are used to develop special-historical methods for which they serve as a logical basis.
Special Historical Methods are a different combination of general scientific methods adapted to the characteristics of the historical objects under study. These include: historical and genetic; historical and comparative; historical and typological; historical-systemic; method
diachronic analysis.
History is a science that studies the past in the totality of specific facts, seeking to identify the causes and consequences of events, to understand and evaluate the course of the historical process.
. You can't create a new world bypassing the past - people knew that
at all times.
All this
testifies in favor of the fact that knowledge of history makes it possible to clearer
understand modernity.
The task of history is to generalize and process the accumulated human experience. The subject of history is the study of human society as a contradictory and unified process.
It has long been noted that even stones speak if they are stones of history. -
Evidence of conclusions is an obligatory feature of scientific knowledge. isto
Riya operates with precisely established facts. As in others
sciences, in history there is an accumulation and discovery of new facts.
These facts are extracted from historical sources. historical sources- these are all the remnants of a past life, all evidence of
slom. There are currently four main groups
historical sources:1) real;
2) written; 3) and
figurative; 4) phonic.
Historians examine all facts without exception. The collected factual material requires its explanation, clarification of the reasons for the development of society. This is how theoretical concepts are developed. Thus, on the one hand, knowledge is necessary -
specific facts, on the other hand, the historian must comprehend the whole
collection of facts in order to identify causes and patterns
development of society.
At different times, historians explained the causes and patterns of development of the history of our country in different ways. Chroniclers from the time
Nestor believed that the world develops according to divine providence and divine will. With the advent of experiential, rationalistic knowledge
historians as the determining force of the historical process -
began to look for objective factors. So, M. V. Lomonosov (1711 -
1765) and V. N. Tatishchev (1686 - 1750), who stood at the origins of historical science, believed that knowledge and enlightenment determine the course of the historical process. The main idea that permeates the works
N. M. Karamzin (1766 - 1826), (“History of the State of the Russian-
»),
- the need for a wise autocracy for Russia.
The largest Russian historian of the nineteenth century. S. M. Solovyov (1820-1870
) (“History of Russia since ancient times”) saw the course of history
countries in the transition from tribal relations to the family and further to
statehood. Three the most important factors: country nature, nature -
tribes and the course of external events, as the historian believed, objectively determined the course of Russian history.
Student S. M. Solovieva V. O. Klyuchevsky (1841 - 1911) (“Course of Russian History”), developing the ideas of his teacher, he believed that it was necessary to identify the totality of facts and factors (geographical, -
ethnic, economic, social, political, etc.),
characteristic of each period. "Human nature, human
the state and nature of the country - these are the three main forces that build
yat human hostel.
Russian specificity and even its “uniqueness” are only a peculiar manifestation of global processes. Often the manifestation is extreme. But that is precisely why understanding Russian history is a necessary condition for understanding what is happening in the world. And vice versa: without an understanding of world history, the Russian past really turns into a chain of ridiculous riddles, which, as the poet said, cannot be understood with the mind or measured with a common yardstick. Disciple of the outstanding liberal historian Klyuchevsky Mikhail Pokrovsky came to the conclusion that the Russian past needs a radical rethinking, and Marxist analysis provides the key to a new understanding of events. K. Marx in the middle of the 19th century formulated the concept of a materialistic explanation of history, which was based on the formational approach. He proceeded from the following premise: if humanity progressively develops as a whole, then all of it must go through certain stages in its development. The thinker called these stages “socio-economic formations.” The basis of the socio-economic formation is one or another mode of production, which is characterized by a certain level of development of productive forces and production relations corresponding to this level and nature. The totality of production relations forms its basis, over which political, legal and other relations are adjusted, which in turn correspond to certain forms public consciousness: morality, religion, art, philosophy, science, etc. The transition from one socio-economic formation to another is carried out on the basis of social revolution. In this regard, the class struggle was declared the most important driving force of history. However, man appears in this theory only as a cog in a powerful objective mechanism.
In the 30s of the 20th century, a new direction of historical thought was born in France, called the school "Annalov". Followers of this trend often use the concept of civilization. Civilization - a set or a certain level of achievements of material and spiritual culture, methods and methods of human contact with nature, a way of life, established stereotypes of thinking and behavior. Scientists believe that history is called upon to study a person in the unity of all his social manifestations. Public relations and labor activity, forms of consciousness and collective feelings, customs and folklore - in these perspectives a person appears in the works of this direction. The weakness of the methodology of the civilizational approach lies in the amorphousness of the criteria for distinguishing types of civilizations. The intellectual and spiritual-moral structures of man undoubtedly play the most important role in history, but their indicators are poorly perceptible and vague. With all the diversity of civilizations in the history of mankind, two macro communities can be distinguished - East and West.
In domestic and world historiography, there are
There are three main points of view on the problem of singularities
(specifics) of Russian history. Proponents of the first, adhering to the concept
unilinear world history, believe that all countries
us and
peoples, including Russia and the Russian nation, pro-
walk in their evolution the same, common to all,
stages move along one path common to all.
Certain features of Russian history are interpreted
representatives of this school as manifestations of lagging
loss of Russia and Russians. In the most
in what form this point of view is presented in the works of you
emerging Russian historian Sergei Mikhailovich Co-
loviev.
Proponents of the second approach to Russian history
walk out concept multilinearity of historical times
orgy. They believe that human history is
from the histories of a number of original civilizations, each
day of which mainly develops (developed)
any one (or a specific combination of several
kikh) side of human nature, evolves according to
your own way; one of these civilizations is the Russian (Slavic) civilization. From
domestic researchers this approach in most
more comprehensive form justified by the later Slavonic-
scrap Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky.
The third group of authors tries to reconcile both campaigns. A prominent Russian historian and public figure belonged to the representatives of this trend.
Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov. In his opinion, in the
As a result, three main groups are distinguished
conditions that produce it: “The first condition is the internal tendency
tion, the internal law of development inherent in every society and the same for every society. Second
conditionally
vie lies in the features of that material
environment, the environment in which a given society is destined to develop.
Finally, the third condition is the influence
individual human personality on the course of historical
process”.
So, representatives of the three approaches differently interpret
pose the problem of the peculiarities of Russian history. However
less than all of them recognize the influence on its course of certain
powerful factors (causes, conditions), under the influence of
of which the history of Russia differs significantly from the history of
rii of Western societies.
What are these conditions? In domestic and foreign historiography, 4 factors are usually distinguished - which determined the features (lagging behind
lost, originality, originality) of the Russian
stories: natural and climatic; geopolitical; religious; social organization.
Influence natural and climatic factor noted by all researchers, one of the last to dwell on this problem L.V. Milov using a solid factual basis. Russia lies in the zone of action of the Arctic anticyclone, which makes temperature fluctuations significant up to 35-40 degrees per year. In Europe, the peasant does not have a “dead season”, which accustoms him to systematic work. In Russia, deep freezing of the soil and a short spring, turning into a hot summer, force the peasant, after household chores in the winter, to quickly switch to agricultural work - plowing, sowing, on the speed of which his well-being depends throughout the year. Summer for the Russian peasant is a period of suffering, the utmost exertion of strength. This develops in a Russian person the ability to “go all out, to do a huge job in a short time. But the time of suffering is short. Winter in Russia lasts from 4 to 7 months. Therefore, the main form of attitude to work is a leisurely-passive attitude.
However, such an attitude to work and life is associated with another value of the Russian person - his patience, which has become one of the traits of the national character. It is better to "endure" than to do something, to change the course of life. Such behavior is justified by the nature of the work and settlement of the Russian peasants. The development of forests that covered most of the country's territory, cutting down and uprooting forests, and plowing the land required the collective labor of several families. Working in a team, people acted uniformly, trying not to stand out among others. The cohesion of the team was more important than the effectiveness of the activities of each of the people who made it up. As a result, individualism has developed poorly among Russians, forcing them to strive for initiative, increasing labor efficiency and personal enrichment. The support of the collective guaranteed the peasant a certain amount of irresponsibility in the commission of certain actions, the opportunity to act "at random" without thinking. The serf or dependent peasant in Europe fled to the city, which was an island of democracy and law in the midst of a sea of feudal self-will. There was nowhere else to run, except for the sea. In Russia, they fled not to the city, but to the Cossacks, from where "there was no extradition", to the schismatics - to the outskirts, to undeveloped lands. As a result, urban, bourgeois values were developed in Europe, and communal, collectivist values in Russia. The European solved his problems by developing prudence and self-interest, and the Russian by asserting egalitarian collectivist ideals. At the political level, this manifested itself, respectively, in bourgeois revolutions, as a result of which the state as an institution became dependent on civil society and the values of liberalism and democracy were affirmed, or in peasant wars, during which the Cossacks and peasants tried to embody their leveling ideals in the life of the state. The result of such attempts was only the strengthening of the authoritarian, undivided power of the state.
Colonization undermined demographic conditions historical development. If in Europe the growth of population density stimulated the processes of creating cities, class formation, and the intensification of the economy, then in Russia each of the stages of colonization was associated with a greater or lesser drop in population density in the center of the country. This was a consequence of the fact that Russian colonization was carried out not only as a result of population growth, but also due to resettlement, the flight of people from nomads, social oppression and hunger. Colonization of lands in the IX-XVII centuries. more and more tore Russia away from Europe, hindered the assimilation of the advanced achievements of European civilization. In the IX-XII centuries. the ancient Russian state was created on the great European trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks", linking northern and southern Europe. Two centers of ancient Russia: Novgorod and Kyiv stood at the key points of this path. However, already in the XIII century. the trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" began to give way to the "amber route", which went through central Europe. This was due to the transition of the role of the leading world power in the Mediterranean from Byzantium to the Venetian Republic. As a result, Russia lost its political weight, became the periphery of Europe . In the process of colonization of the eastern lands, Russia became part of the Eurasian geopolitical space, in which authoritarian forms of power dominated from ancient times.
The paradox of the historical development of Russia was that it was damaged not only by the fall in the natural productivity of natural forces as they moved from the black earth southwest to the loamy lands of the northeast in the 13th century (at the same time, the yield fell by 1.5-2 times). "Asiatic", stagnation in the development of industry led to the fact that stagnation was also facilitated by the discovery and development of new natural resources. The concentration in the first half of the 19th century of serf heavy industry in the Urals, rich in natural resources, led to a sharp lag behind Russia from the West in this industry, which is important for the industrialization and defense of the country. It was the wealth of resources that made it unimportant to introduce free labor and new technological processes in metallurgy and metal processing. The development of the black earth lands of the Black Sea and Volga regions led not only to an increase in productivity, but also to the development of serfdom in the 18th century, which hampered social development. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the unprecedented wealth of Siberia actually lay unused. Russia's trouble was not in the lack of natural resources, but in the socio-political system and cultural tradition, permeated with communal and Asian influences, which did not allow these resources to be used.
The historical existence of the Russian people was extremely complicated by such a factor as natural openness of the borders of Russian lands for foreign invasions from the West and East . The constant threat of military incursions and the openness of the border lines required enormous efforts from the Russian and other peoples of Russia to ensure their security: significant material costs, human resources. Moreover, the interests of security required the concentration of popular efforts: as a result, the role of the state had to increase enormously.
About the next geopolitical factor – isolation from maritime trade . In order to break through to the seas, Russia had to wage intense bloody wars for centuries.
If the factors discussed above shaped the body of Russia, the temperament, skills and habits of the Russian people, then religion - Eastern Christianity- nurtured their soul. In Eastern Christianity, the confrontation between secular power and the church ends with the complete absorption of the secular power of the church. The royal power, standing over everything, is not controlled by anything.
Orthodoxy teaches that God is separate from the world and unknowable, but God can be seen and felt. No definitions can be applied to God. Hence, the idea of mystery, unknowability is strong in Russian culture (Russia-Sphinx" by Blok, "Russia cannot be understood with the mind" by Tyutchev, etc.)
The Western European idea of the knowledge of God teaches that since Christ (God) has descended to earth, he is knowable. The civilization of the West seeks to cognize the object not holistically, but analytically, defining, structuring, dissecting, describing signs. The Protestant-Catholic culture is based on rational knowledge, while the Russian-Orthodox culture is based on holistic knowledge. The culture of the West is dialogical, the culture of Russia is monological.
Under the influence of the above factors:
native-climatic, geopolitical, religious-
th, - in Russia a specific social
organization. Its main elements are the following:
the primary economic and social unit is the corporate
walkie-talkie (community, artel, partnership, collective farm, cooperative
tiv, etc.), and not a privately owned entity,
as in the West;
the state is not a superstructure over
civil society, as in Western countries, and
backbone, and sometimes the demiurge (creator) of civil society;
statehood or has
sacred character, or ineffective ("distemper");
state, society, individual are not divided, not
autonomous, as in the West, but mutually permeable, whole
walls;
the core of statehood is the corpo-
walkie-talkie of the service nobility (nobility, nomenclature).
This social organization differed extremely
tea stability and, changing their forms, not their essence,
recreated after every shock of the Russian
history, ensuring the viability of Russian society.
What is the place of Russia in the world society? What type of civilization can it be attributed to?
1. Russia is a peripheral, local, Orthodox-Christian civilization. According to sociologist A.J. Toynbee, the Western European and Russian civilizations have a "common mother", a sister relationship. “Each local civilization, experiencing paths similar and interconnected with neighboring stages, at the same time had its own, unique destiny, its own rhythm, either drawing closer or moving away from the countries that were in the forefront.” Determining the place of Russian civilization, the Russian philosopher N.Ya. Danilevsky wrote in the book "Russia and Europe": "If Russia ... does not belong to Europe by birthright, it belongs to it by adoption."
2. Russia is an oriental country. Attempts were made to include Russia in the European version - the adoption of Christianity, the reforms of Peter I, but they were unsuccessful. October 1917 returned Russia to eastern despotism. Evidence of the Eastern type of development is the cyclical nature of Russia's development - from reforms to counter-reforms.
3. Russia is a special Eurasian civilization. It differs both from the west and the east - this is a special world - Eurasia. Russian nationality is a combination of Turkic, Finno-Ugric and Slavic ethnic groups. The ideas of Eurasianism were very close to N.A. Berdyaev, “the Russian people are not a Western European people, they are more of an East Asian people.” Eurasians attach exceptional importance to Russian culture, in which the Orthodox idea plays a decisive role. Russia is a closed continent that can exist in isolation and have a special mentality, a special spirituality.
1. What is the subject of study of historical science?
2. What are the current theories of the history of human society?
3. Name the largest representatives of Russian historical science.
4. What are the features of the geographical position of Russia?
5. What impact did the features of the geopolitical position of Russia have on the state mechanism?
6. What types of civilizations do you know and to which of them can Russia be attributed?
SECTION 1
CIVILIZATIONAL SEARCH OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIETY
Topic 1. Theoretical and methodological foundations of the civilizational approach to history.
1. What does the science of "History" study? What is its subject?
Sources:
- History of Russia IX-XX centuries: Textbook \ ed. G.A. Amon, N.P. Ionicheva.-M.: INFRA-M, 2002. pp. 3-4
History, literally translated from Greek, is a story about what has been learned, explored.
History is a science that studies the past of human society in all its spatial concreteness and diversity in order to understand the present and the development trends of the future.
The object of study is the past of mankind.
Between the reality that really existed, i.e. the past, and the result of the scientist's research - a scientifically recreated picture of the world - is an intermediate link. It is called a historical source. This is the subject of study.
It is customary to single out 7 main groups of historical sources: written, material, ethnographic, oral, linguistic, photo and film documents, sound documents.
2. Name the main types of civilizations. Which one is Russia?
Sources:
- History of Russia IXX-XX centuries: Textbook \ ed. G.A. Amon, N.P. Ionicheva - M.: INFRA-M, 2002. p. 6-13
Civilization is a community of people who have a similar mentality, common fundamental values and ideals, as well as stable features in the socio-political organization, economy, culture.
There are three types of civilization development: non-progressive, cyclical and progressive.
To non-progressive type of development include peoples living in accordance with nature (the natives of Australia, some tribes of Africa, the Indians of America, the small peoples of Siberia and northern Europe). These peoples see the purpose and meaning of existence in the preservation of customs, receptions, traditions that do not violate unity with nature.
Cyclic type of development originated in ancient times in the countries of the East (India, China, etc.), society and the person in it exist within the framework of historical time, which is divided into past, present and future. For these peoples, the golden age is in the past, it is poetized and serves as a role model.
The cyclic (eastern) type of civilization is still widespread in Asia, Africa, and America. The standard of living of the people with this type of development is extremely low. Therefore, in the twentieth century, projects appeared to accelerate and develop society and improve human life.
Progressive type of civilization development (western civilization) main features:
- The class structure of society with developed forms of trade unions, parties, programs, ideologies;
- Private property, the market, as a way to regulate the operation, the high prestige of entrepreneurship;
- Horizontal connections independent of the authorities between individuals and cells of society: economic, social, cultural, spiritual;
- A legal democratic state that regulates social class relations to resolve social conflicts, ensure civil peace and implement the ideas of progress.
From the position of ethnogenesis and civilizational approach, Russia does not belong to any of the three types of civilizations in its pure form. Russia is a special civilization, a historically formed conglomerate of peoples belonging to different types of development, united by a powerful centralized state, based on the Great Russian, Orthodox core.
Russia is located between two powerful centers of civilizational influence - the East and the West, and includes peoples developing both in the eastern and in the western version.
Topic 2 Education and milestones Old Russian state. Civilization of Ancient Russia.
1. What are the main stages in the development of the Old Russian state.
Sources:
- History of Russia IX-XX centuries: Textbook \ ed. G.A. Amon, N.P. Ionicheva - M.: INFRA-M, 2002. pp. 38-58.
- Domestic history until 1917: tutorial\ ed. Prof. AND I. Froyanova.- M.: Gardariki, 2002. p. 19-87.
Stage 1. (IX - mid-X centuries) - the time of the first Kyiv princes.
862 - mention in the annals of the calling of the Varangian prince Rurik to reign in Novgorod. 882 Unification of Novgorod and Kyiv under the rule of Prince Oleg (879-912). 907, 911 - Prince Oleg's campaigns against Constantinople. The signing of the treaty between Russia and the Greeks. 912-945 reign of Igor. 945 - Rebellion in the land of the Drevlyans. 945-972 - reign of Svyatoslav Igorevich. 967-971 - The war of Prince Svyatoslav with Byzantium.
What type of civilization does Russia belong to? This question has been on the minds of Russians for a long time. In the history of political and legal thought in Russia, there have been and still are different points of view. Some unconditionally attribute Russia to the western type of civilization, the second - to the eastern, and others speak of a special historical development inherent in Russia.
It should be noted that both the history and the current state of Russia indicate the features of its civilizational path. They are largely related to the geographical position of the country. The Russian lands, being a watershed between Europe and Asia, often suffered from the steppe hordes, lagging behind the countries of Europe in socio-economic terms. Under the influence of external danger, the need to overthrow the Horde yoke, the process of overcoming feudal fragmentation in Russia proceeded at an accelerated pace. The special nature of forced centralization, which was based not on strong prerequisites, but on barely emerging trends of integration, led to the strengthening of despotism, the elimination of vassal-retinue and the formation of princely-subject relations, which can be denoted by the short formula "sovereign - serf".
The assertion of despotism led to the strengthening of the serfdom and hindered the development of the country.
Peter's reforms were aimed at making up for lost time, catching up with the advanced countries of Europe, which had gone far ahead. The forced breakthrough method at that time was possible by strengthening state power and intensifying the exploitation of the peasants, which was done by Peter. His reforms gave a powerful impetus to the progressive development of Russia, at the same time creating the prerequisites for its subsequent slowdown: absolute autocracy, a powerful bureaucratic apparatus, serfdom.
In the second half of the XIX - early XX century. an opportunity opened up for Russia to catch up with the advanced countries of the world and enter a civilized society in an evolutionary, reformist way. This required time and the wisdom of state power. In Russia, neither the first nor the second was enough to peacefully transform society.
At the beginning of the XX century. social contradictions intensified in the country, exacerbated by the First World War, which led to a crisis in the existing system. Under these conditions, the radicalism of political forces, which already had deep roots in Russian history, sharply increased, which is explained by many factors: the unwillingness of the autocracy to make concessions to the opposition, the lack of developed democratic traditions in Russia and, therefore, the extreme intolerance of political parties towards each other.
An important feature of Russia was the spread of the idea of "a just society". The developed leveling tendencies exerted powerful pressure on all socialist parties, including the Bolsheviks. The utopian ideal contributed to the enthusiasm, since the utopia promises more than is realistically possible, such as making everyone happy in a short time. From the desire for a utopian ideal, the thesis about the possibility of pushing the historical process inevitably followed. And this requires strong power, violence, dictatorship.
The doctrine of Marxism, which the Bolsheviks tried to put into practice, adjusted to Russian reality, was close to many sections of the population, which predetermined the revolutionary transition to a new political system in Russia.
The historical course of Russia, its civilizational features prepared a powerful social explosion, establishing power in the country, which sought to solve the objective tasks of modernizing society along the lines of building socialism.From the standpoint of Marxism, the civilizational features of a particular country do not matter. Such a concept does not exist in Marxism at all. But since Marxism is the ideological trend of Western culture, Lenin, the Bolsheviks actually proposed to consider Russia by analogy with societies belonging to Western civilizations.
Therefore, when creating a socialist model for building society in Russia, Marxist ideas were corrected in accordance with the views of the Bolsheviks and real practice. In October 1917, the Bolsheviks, having come to power, were armed with the Marxist model of socialism in its radical left variant.
The main characteristics of this model:
1. Under socialism, all means of production become public property. Public property is owned and managed by the state. (As long as the state exists.)
2. There are no commodity-money relations under socialism and communism. The regulator of the economy is not a market, but a plan. Planning is carried out taking into account the use value, i.e. taking into account the satisfaction of the personal needs of people in the right things.
3. Distribution under socialism is done through receipts, tokens that producers receive for "individual working hours."
4. Under communism, the productive forces of society are so highly developed, and human nature is so changed that everyone receives according to his needs, and labor becomes the first necessity of life.
5. A democratic republic is a form of domination by the bourgeoisie. Democracy is a historically transient phenomenon. It is being replaced by "democracy for the majority", which implies "withdrawals from freedom" in the interests of the majority.
6. In order to win political power, crush the resistance of the discontented and organize society in a new way, it is necessary to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is a democracy for the majority.
From the standpoint of modern knowledge about the development of society and historical practice, the main shortcomings of these theoretical ideas are as follows:
1. The monopoly of state ownership of the means of production leads to extremely negative consequences: the exploitation of man by man is replaced by the exploitation of man by the state; there is an alienation of people from property, depersonalization of property. And this, in turn, leads to the loss of the "feeling of the owner" with all the negative consequences. The liquidation of private property creates a state monopoly on the productive forces of society. Because of this, the importance of the state increases dramatically, because it takes over the management of all aspects of society, including the entire economy.
2. Centralized planning and regulation of distribution, the absence of such a regulator as the market, contribute to the emergence of shortages, a decrease in the quality of manufactured products, and strengthen the bureaucracy.
3. The lack of economic incentives to work makes a person inert, lacking initiative.
4. "Withdrawals from freedom", the elimination of democratic institutions, the use of violence contribute to the establishment of the dictatorship of the party and, ultimately, to the regime of personal power.
There is a direct logical connection between the economic and political transformations that ultimately lead to the establishment of a dictatorial regime. The liquidation of private property, commodity-money relations takes place through violence, the establishment of a dictatorship. Absence different forms ownership creates the prerequisites for strengthening the monopoly in the political field, which leads to the strengthening of the state apparatus, including the punitive bodies.
Thus, the implementation of the ideas of Marxism in its left-radical version contributes to the formation of a state with the characteristic features of the countries of Eastern despotism.
The most radical ideas of Marxism were put into practice in Russia. As we have already noted, this did not happen by accident. The historical course of Russia prepared a powerful social explosion, asserting the power in the country, which sought to solve the objective tasks of modernizing society along the lines of building socialism.
The inability and unwillingness of the ruling elite to undertake reforms intensified the contradictions in the country, which led to a social explosion and a revolutionary change in the political system.
The implementation of Marxist ideas about the transformation of the means of production into state property and the creation of market-free socialism, in which the entire economy of the country will be turned into a kind of “single factory”, led to the state’s monopoly in economic life. Under these conditions, the people did not receive economic freedom, their situation was aggravated by the imposition of a system of non-economic coercion.
The replacement of free competition by a monopoly in the economy contributed to the establishment of a political monopoly based on the Marxist position on the dictatorship of the proletariat.
As a result, in the first years of Soviet power, the implementation by Lenin and his supporters of the ideas of marketless socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat led in the political sphere to the dictatorship of the party, in the economic sphere - to the establishment of a bureaucratic, inefficient organization of labor.
Under the influence of objective circumstances after the end of the Civil War, the Bolsheviks made adjustments to economic policy: they recognized the pluralism of property and commodity-money relations, allowed the use of hired force under the control of the state, etc.
Most leaders of the Communist Party viewed the New Economic Policy as a temporary retreat, believing that it would be replaced by another that would fully implement the Marxist model of socialism.
Changes in the economic sphere did not lead to the liberalization of the political regime. In the first half of the 1920s. the dictatorship of the party was further strengthened, and in the second half of the 1920s. there is an evolution of the political regime, which led to the establishment of the dictatorship of the leader.
The political process of establishing the cult of the leader is accompanied by a breaking new economic policy, because in order to establish absolute totalitarian power, it is necessary to monopolize not only political, but also economic power.
Changes in the economic sphere are also due to the fact that many leaders of the Soviet state dreamed of returning to the Marxist propositions on the transformation of the means of production into state property and the elimination of commodity-money relations. With changes in economic policy, there were also hopes for the rapid development of all branches of the national economy of the country in order to gain economic independence from the capitalist states.
Both accelerated industrialization and complete collectivization, carried out during the years of the pre-war five-year plans, were aimed at solving the entire complex of these tasks.
Characterizing in general the socio-economic results of industrialization, it can be noted that the pace of the country's economic development during the years of the first five-year plans, despite the "jumps" leading to disruptions, was high. By all historical standards, if we take only the quantitative side of economic development, the results were brilliant. In the 1930s In terms of gross industrial output, the USSR took second place in the world and first place in Europe, thereby joining the ranks of the first world powers and acquiring economic independence.
Great changes have taken place in the social sphere. The number of the working class has increased, its educational and professional level has risen.
Things were much worse in agriculture. Collectivization, which led to innumerable misfortunes for the peasantry, did not lead to the creation of an effective agrarian stratum. During its implementation, the peasants were alienated from the land, from the means of production. The peasant turned from a master into a performer of work, into a "day laborer". The return to the surplus appropriation destroyed the material incentives for the work of the peasants.
Large-scale collective farming opened up opportunities for the rapid development of agriculture, but on the condition that the labor owner is the owner of the means of production and the products produced. It was this condition that was not met, which predetermined the formation of an agrarian stratum, which cannot provide food for the population of the country.
So, in the years of the pre-war five-year plans, great changes took place. Industrialization and collectivization changed the face of the country. These changes were taken into account when drawing up a new state constitution, approved on December 5, 1936 by the VHI Extraordinary Congress of Soviets of the USSR.
Indeed, if we analyze the views of Marx, Engels, Lenin (before 1917) on socialism, we can see that to a large extent in the second half of the 1930s. they have been implemented.
One of the main demands of Marxism was, above all, the transformation of the means of production into state property. The next important postulate of Marxism is the nullification of commodity-money relations. The implementation of these requirements, according to Marx, will lead to the elimination of the exploitation of man by man.
Let's see how these fundamental Marxist principles were implemented in our country in the second half of the 1930s.
State and cooperative-collective farm (essentially the same as state) ownership of production assets, tools of production and production buildings by the end of the second five-year plan amounted to 98.7% of all production assets in our country. The socialist (essentially state) system of production began to dominate the entire national economy of the USSR; in terms of gross industrial output it amounted to 99.8%, in terms of gross agricultural output, including private subsidiary plots of collective farmers, 98.6%, and in terms of trade turnover, 100%.
Another fundamental position of Marxism was realized: commodity-money relations were curtailed. Markets were closed administratively, state distribution was introduced material resources, it was forbidden for enterprises to sell their materials and equipment, etc.
However, differences in the financial situation of members of society were not eliminated. A new exploiting class emerged, the nomenklatura, which used the analysis given by Marx in Capital to extract surplus value.
The "Marxist steps" in the economic sphere of Stalin and his associates not only did not realize the dream of the Marxists (and not only Marxists) to eliminate exploitation, but, on the contrary, made the exploitation more severe and sophisticated.
The same can be said about the "Marxist steps" of the leadership of the ruling party of the CPSU (b) in the political and ideological sphere. The classless communist society, which, according to Marx, should have been created after a short transitional period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, has not been built. The state does not die out, but is strengthened, penetrating all spheres of society's life. The totalitarian Stalinist system exercised leadership in all areas of the political, economic, spiritual, and ideological life of Soviet society. The apparatus of the Communist Party ("party within the party") had absolute power in all spheres. Legislative, judicial control, administrative functions were merged and concentrated in the central party apparatus. The organs of administration and distribution were dualistic. The leading functions were performed by the party apparatus, the executive functions were performed by the state apparatus.
So, by the end of the 1930s. in the USSR, the Stalinist vision of socialism was realized with the dominance of the nomenklatura, mass repressions and human fear, without the elementary signs of democracy.
The characteristic features of this variety of socialism are:
Centralization of all spheres of public life;
Removal of the masses from government, the fictitious nature of the institutions of democracy;
The merging of the party and state apparatuses, the dictates of the party-state bureaucracy;
Exit of punitive bodies from the control of society;
Cult of personality;
Creation of ideological myths, a huge gap between word and deed.
The economic basis of the created system was: the monopoly of state property, the lack of pluralism in the economic sphere; the limited nature of the action of commodity-money relations; exploitation of the working people by a totalitarian state, by a new exploiting class - the nomenklatura; an extensive and costly economic mechanism based on non-economic coercion.
In fact, all the listed features of socialism in the Stalinist modification were signs of the countries of Eastern civilization. Thus, our country during this period, both in content and in form, resembled a country of Eastern despotism, where there is no private property, where the state permeates all spheres of life, where tyranny reigns.
So, the bright dreams of Marx and his followers about a wonderful future turned into a gloomy and tragic reality in the USSR. And, I think, this can be explained, firstly, by the fact that the ideals of the Marxists (and not only the Marxists: More, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Bakunin, Kropotkin) were largely utopian, and secondly, they were embodied in such an Asian-European country as Russia. It should be noted that in some countries, Marxist ideas, having been transformed into programs of social democratic parties, contributed to the creation of a democratic society with a highly efficient economy.
In its formation and development, the considered socialist system in the Soviet state went through several stages. By the end of the 1930s - the beginning of the 1940s. the system was completed. In the future, she accepted various denunciations that did not change her essence. It was shaken and overturned only by the events of the second half of the 1980s - early 1990s.
Already in the early 1960s. The Soviet state faces certain difficulties. The general economic situation began to deteriorate. The pace of economic development has slowed down. In the early 1970s The USSR lagged behind in the sphere of economic development not only from Western, but also from a number of developing countries. The state preferred to build new enterprises rather than oversaturate old ones. The result of such a policy was the actual cessation of economic growth. By the mid 1980s. the inability of the country's leadership to ensure stability, not to mention economic progress, became more and more evident. A deep crisis was brewing in the state, which covered all spheres: economic, political, social, spiritual, etc. The crisis led to fundamental socio-economic changes, which some political scientists call a peaceful capitalist revolution. Indeed, fundamentally new economic relations based on the principles of a liberal economy were emerging in our country, such universally recognized democratic institutions as real freedom of the press, freedom to choose the type of activity, etc. were introduced. This vector of development was predetermined by the will of the desire, perhaps not yet fully realized, not to remain aloof from the main trends in the movement of world civilization.
The revolutionary transformations and reforms being carried out in our country have again brought to the fore the question of the ways of Russia's development, of its relation to one or another type of civilization.
In the early 90s. 20th century there was a strong influence of politicians who believed that Russia was an integral part of Western civilization, from which the Bolsheviks forcibly brought it out. Such ideologists (to a greater extent they were radical democrats) believed that upon returning to the bosom of Western democracy, the United States and the countries of Western Europe would provide us with great assistance in order to quickly get rid of our inertia and Asiaticism and become a powerful state.
In the modern political science community, there is also a point of view that, despite the changes, Russia remains an oriental-type country.
strong enough to modern Russia there remains the influence of ideologues who do not classify Russia as one of the known types of civilizations. One of the founders of this approach can be considered P.Ya. Chaadaev, who, back in 1836, wrote in his first philosophical letter: “One of the saddest features of our peculiar civilization is that we are still discovering truths that have become beaten in other countries ... The fact is that we never marched along with other peoples, we do not belong to any of the known families of the human race, neither to the West nor to the East, and we have no traditions of either.
Varieties of this approach include the Eurasian concept, the founders of which are considered to be emigrants N.S. Trubetskoy, G.V. Florovsky, P.N. Savitsky, L.P. Karsavin and others. In the early 20s. 20th century abroad, while in exile, they offered their own interpretation of the historical process, in which a negative attitude towards the West was clearly manifested. Therefore, they separate Russia not only from Europe, but also from the Slavic world. In this case, they opposed the Slavophiles, believing that the latter were dissolving the Russian people in Slavism, and the Russian national consciousness in pan-Slavism, which was based on the idea of the singularity and unity of the Slavs.
The Eurasianists considered the determining factor in the development of peoples to be their connection with the geographical environment, which determines the identity of peoples. The vast expanses of Russia, covering Europe and Asia, contributed to the creation of a special mentality of the Russian people, the originality of its cultural world.
Another feature of the Russian people, according to the Eurasianists, is the influence of the eastern (“Turanian”, Turkic-Tatar) factor on it. The influence of this factor was much greater than the influence of Western civilization.
As a result of these features, a unique civilization has developed in Russia, which differs from both Western and Eastern civilizations. Russia is a special world - Eurasia. The peoples inhabiting it represent a single multinational nation with the leading role of the Russian nationality. Russia, according to the Eurasianists, is self-sufficient. Russia has everything necessary for its development.
It should be noted that critics of the Eurasianists accused them of links with Bolshevism, in an attempt to justify political regime in the Soviet state. There were grounds for such an accusation. The Soviet secret services introduced their agents into the ranks of the Eurasians, who began to "help" financially the supporters of the new theoretical direction to publish the newspaper "Eurasia". After this became known to a wide range of emigrants, Eurasianism was discredited and ceased to exist as a theoretical movement. However, supporters of this approach still exist.
After a brief analysis of the main theories about Russia's place in the world community of civilizations, let's return to the question that was posed at the beginning of this paragraph: what type of civilization does Russia belong to?
The analysis of the historical path of our state allows us to answer it. In its pure form, Russia does not belong to any type of civilization. It appears in the following:
1. Russia is a conglomeration of peoples who belong to different types of civilizations.
2. Russia is located between the East and the West (one might say - both in the East and in the West).
3. In the process of formation and development of the Russian State, it was influenced by various civilizational centers: Byzantine civilization and the "steppe" (primarily the Mongol invasion), Europe and Asia.
4. At the sharp turns of history, whirlwinds pushed the country closer to the West, then to the East.
5. Over 70 years of building socialism had a huge impact on the development of Russia.
As we have already noted, this construction was carried out under the influence of Marxist ideas, adjusted by the leadership of the Bolsheviks in accordance with their views and real practice, which led to many negative consequences.
However, it should be noted that not only negative consequences are associated with Marxism. We must not forget that teaching
Marx and Engels gave a powerful impetus to the workers' and socialist movement in the capitalist countries. The struggle of the working class, which was often carried out under socialist ideas, contributed to the evolutionary change of the capitalist world and, ultimately, its transformation into a modern civilized society. The evolution also took place under the influence of the revolution in Russia, which was led by Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
When constructing the contours of the future society, K. Marx and F. Engels often turned from sober realists into utopians, whose revolutionary romanticism, implemented in practice, was transformed into its opposite. But, thinking about the general perspective of the development of society, K. Marx and F. Engels guessed some features of society that would make it more humane (social protection of members of society, the creation of public funds for this, etc.) and dynamic (planning).
It seems that some of the humane ideas of socialism will be embodied in the new democratic Russia, as happened in most civilized states of the modern world.
The best features of both Western and Eastern civilizations must be embodied in the new Russia. Our society must combine world values with the traditional values inherent in Russia. After all, Russia is a unique state formation located both in Europe and in Asia, the development of which has been and is being influenced by various civilizational flows. And in this sense, we can say that Russia is both Europe and Asia.
To embody the best features of Western and Eastern civilizations, to turn the country into a truly democratic state with the inherent traditional values of the peoples of Russia, much needs to be done. First of all, it is necessary to eliminate the preconditions for totalitarianism. In Russia, due to the peculiarities of its historical development, socio-economic, political and spiritual prerequisites are preserved, which do not exclude the possibility of the revival of totalitarianism. In order to create guarantees in the state system of our society that would prevent the repetition of negative events, it is necessary to reform the social system, create a rule of law state, and instill in people respect for the law.
What type of civilizations does Russia belong to and why?. and got the best answer
Answer from Association PACMASH[guru]
Russia is a special type of civilization that differs from both the West and the East. This particular type of civilization they called Eurasian.
In the Eurasian concept of the civilizational process, a special place was given to the geographical factor (natural environment) - the "place of development" of the people. This environment, in their opinion, determines the characteristics of various countries and peoples, their self-consciousness and destiny. Russia occupies the middle space of Asia and Europe, approximately outlined by three great plains: East European, West Siberian and Turkestan. These vast flat spaces, devoid of natural sharp geographical boundaries, left their mark on the history of Russia, contributed to the creation of a unique cultural world.
Answer from Jeka[guru]
To the type of Maya civilization. Why not! Also smart and also ingloriously die out!
Answer from Alexey Titov[guru]
out of types
Answer from Arn[guru]
If nothing has changed in 10 years, then there was an opinion that it was their own, for it was a wild mixture of Western and Eastern.
Answer from 3 answers[guru]
Hello! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: What type of civilization does Russia belong to and why?.
Civilization arose in the 30th century. back.
Civilization will reformat its socio-cults into new formats in the 2nd century. in future.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The specificity of the Russian civilization was seen in the mutual influence of Western and Eastern elements on it, believing that it was in Russia that both the West and the East converged.
They separated Russia not only from the West, but also from the Slavic world, insisting on the exclusivity of its civilization, due to the specifics of the “place of development” of the Russian people. They saw the originality of Russian national self-consciousness, firstly, in the fact that the vast expanses of Russia, located in two parts of the world, left an imprint on its cultural world. Secondly, the Eurasianists emphasized the special influence of the “Turanian” (Turkic-Tatar) factor on him.
An important place in the Eurasian concept of the civilizational development of Russia was assigned to the ideocratic state as the supreme master, possessing exclusive power and maintaining close ties with the masses of the people.
The peculiarity of the Russian civilization was also seen in the fact that the single multinational Eurasian nation was the national substratum of its statehood.
Gradually, the eastern regional socio-cults of the Russian civilization will form a new Russian civilizational system, the Eurasian one.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FROM The modern civilizational identification of Russia can be represented as follows:
1 . Russia is part of European and Western European civilization, and it must develop on this civilizational basis
2 . Russia is an integral part of a special Slavic civilization, enters the civilizational orbit of states with a predominantly Slavic population
3 . Russia is a special multi-ethnic civilization.
4 . Russia absorbed elements of many other civilizations, and this alloy formed something independent, unique and irreducible to any of the components of the alloy.
O The main categories of the sociocultural dynamics of Russia as an intermediate civilization are inversion and mediation; inversion is characterized by a strenuous focus on the reproduction of a certain type of society.
G
M Diation, on the contrary, determines the constructive intensity of human activity on the basis of the rejection of the absolutization of polarities and the maximization of attention to their interpenetration, to their coexistence through each other.
D Another feature of Russia as an intermediate civilization is the split of cultures and social relations. At the same time, the split is considered as a pathological state of society, characterized by a stagnant contradiction between culture and social relations, between subcultures of one culture.
D A split is characterized by a “vicious circle”: the activation of positive values in one part of a split society sets in motion the forces of another part of society that denies these values. The danger of a split lies in the fact that, by violating the moral unity of society, it undermines the very basis for the reproduction of this unity, opening the way for social disorganization.
FROM according to one of the concepts. Russia, not being an independent civilization, is a civilizationally heterogeneous society. This is a special, historically formed conglomerate of peoples belonging to different types of development, united by a powerful, centralized state with a Great Russian core.
R Russia, geopolitically located between two powerful centers of civilizational influence - the East and the West, includes peoples developing both in the Western and Eastern versions. Russia is, as it were, a constantly “drifting society” in the ocean of modern civilizational worlds.
R Russian civilization is one of the most ancient civilizations. Its basic values were formed long before the adoption of Christianity, in the 1st millennium BC. Based on these values, the Russian people managed to create the greatest state in world history, harmoniously uniting many other peoples.
T what main features of Russian civilization, such as the predominance of spiritual and moral foundations over material ones, the cult of kindness and love of truth, non-acquisitiveness, the development of original collectivist forms of democracy, embodied in the community and the artel, contributed to the formation in Russia of an original economic mechanism that functions according to its internal, only him inherent laws, self-sufficient to provide the population of the country with everything necessary and almost completely independent of other countries.
R Since its inception, Russian civilization has absorbed a huge religious and cultural diversity of peoples whose normative-value space of being was not capable of spontaneous merging, of synthesis in a unity that is universal for the Eurasian area. Orthodoxy was the spiritual basis of Russian culture, it turned out to be one of the factors in the formation of Russian civilization, but not its normative and value basis.
T Statehood became such a basis, “the dominant form of social integration”. Approximately in the XV century. there is a transformation of the Russian state into a universal state, by which Toynbee meant a state that seeks to “absorb” the entire civilization that gave birth to it.
G the global nature of such a goal gives rise to the claims of the state to be not just a political institution, but also to have some spiritual significance, generating a single national identity.
P Therefore, in the Russian civilization there was not that universal normative-value order, as in the West, which would turn out to be autonomous in relation to the state and cultural diversity.
B Moreover, the state in Russia was constantly striving to transform the national-historical consciousness, ethno-cultural archetypes, trying to create appropriate structures that would “justify” the activities of the central government.
D The realism of social existence in Russia had a different nature than in the West. It was expressed, first of all, in such conflict tendencies, where one of the parties was always the state.
FROM The methods of resolving conflicts in Russia also differed significantly, where their participants not only deny each other, but strive to become the only social integrity. This leads to a deep social split in society, which cannot be “removed” by compromise, it can only be suppressed by destroying one of the opposing sides.
To In addition, one should take into account the uniqueness of the “patrimonial state” that developed in the era of the Muscovite kingdom. The Moscow princes, and then the Russian tsars, who had enormous power and prestige, were convinced that the land belonged to them, that the country was their property, because it was built and created at their command.
T which opinion also assumed that all those living in Russia were subjects of the state, servants who were in direct and unconditional dependence on the sovereign, and therefore had no right to claim either property or any inalienable personal rights.
G Speaking about the peculiarities of the formation of the Muscovite state, it should be noted that from the very beginning it was formed as a “military-national state”, the dominant and main driving force behind the development of which was a permanent need for defense and security, accompanied by an intensification of the policy of internal centralization and external expansion.
R The Russian state, in the conditions of the socio-ecological crisis of the 15th century, arrogated to itself unlimited rights in relation to society. This largely predetermined the choice of the path of social development associated with the transfer of society to a mobilization state, the basis of which was non-economic forms of state management.
P Therefore, Russian civilization was characterized by a different genotype of social development than in Western Europe. If Western European civilization switched from an evolutionary path to an innovative one, then Russia went along a mobilization path, which was carried out due to the conscious and “violent” intervention of the state in the mechanisms of the functioning of society.
M the ubiquitous type of development is one of the ways to adapt the socio-economic system to the realities of the changing world and consists in the systematic use of emergency measures in conditions of stagnation or crisis in order to achieve extraordinary goals, which are the conditions for the survival of society and its institutions expressed in extreme forms.
X a characteristic feature of the social genotype of Russia was the total regulation of the behavior of all subsystems of society with the help of coercive methods.
O One of the features of Russia's mobilization development was the dominance of political factors and, as a result, the hypertrophied role of the state represented by the central government. This found expression in the fact that the government, setting certain goals and solving development problems, constantly took the initiative, systematically using various measures of coercion, guardianship, control and other regulations.
D Another feature was that the special role of external factors forced the government to choose such development goals that constantly outstripped the country's socio-economic capabilities.
AT In Russia, in the West and in the East, different types of people have formed with their specific styles of thinking, value orientations, and behavior.
AT In Russia, an Orthodox (“Ioannovsky”), messianic type of Russian man has developed. In Orthodoxy, the eschatological side of Christianity is most pronounced, so the Russian person is largely an apocalyptic or nihilist.
In this regard, the "Joannian" man has a sensitive distinction between good and evil, he vigilantly notices the imperfection of all actions, customs and institutions, never being satisfied with them and never ceasing to seek perfect goodness.
P recognizing holiness as the highest value, the "John" man strives for absolute goodness, and therefore considers earthly values as relative and does not elevate them to the rank of "sacred" principles.
E If the “Joannian” man, who always wants to act in the name of something absolute, doubts the ideal, then he can reach extreme ochlocracy or indifference to everything, and therefore is able to quickly go from incredible tolerance and humility to the most unbridled and boundless rebellion .
R Russian civilization in the process of civilizational interaction reveals messianic tendencies with a focus on higher value-normative orientations (the old authoritative-imperious, paternalistic multinational statehood).
W As for Russia's attitude to Western or Eastern civilizational types, it can be said that Russia does not fully fit into either Western or Eastern types of development. Russia has a huge territory and therefore Russia is a historically formed conglomerate of peoples belonging to different types of development, united by a powerful, centralized state with a Great Russian core.
R Russia, geopolitically located between two powerful centers of civilizational influence - the East and the West, includes peoples developing both in the Western and Eastern versions.
H and for a long time, the development of Russia was influenced by states of both eastern (Mongolia, China) and western (during the reforms of Peter I a lot was borrowed from the western type of development) civilizational types.
H Some scientists distinguish a separate Russian type of civilization. So it is impossible to say exactly which civilizational type Russia belongs to.
To The most frequently distinguished features of Russian civilization include: a) an autocratic form of state power, a “patrimonial state”; b) collectivist mentality; c) a small amount of economic freedom; d) the subordination of society to the state (or the dualism of society and state power).
M Scholars and scholars who tried in the past to grasp the civilizational specificity of Russia pointed, as a rule, to its special character, to the combination and mutual interweaving of Western and Eastern elements.
X Although researchers of Russian specifics pointed to the conflicting nature of the combination of different traditions within the framework of the Russian community, it was they who set the task of synthesizing various principles - Western and Eastern. One way or another, in the combination of Western and Eastern elements, both of them saw the defining feature of Russia, which determined the uniqueness of its sociocultural image.
R Russian civilization is a combination of extremely contradictory tendencies. In it, a passionate craving for the Christian faith and holiness coexists with powerful manifestations in the most diverse forms of the pagan principle.
FROM on the one hand, in the spiritual warehouse of a Russian person there was a tendency (especially clearly among the peasantry) to submit to natural rhythms; on the other hand, in Russian spirituality there has always been a desire, most clearly manifested by the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, to establish absolute control over nature.
D Russian life was characterized by a tendency to the complete dissolution of the individual in the community (community), to total control over the individual by social institutions - from the community to the state, and at the same time a powerful desire for freedom without borders - the famous Russian "will", which periodically came out to the surface of Russian life.
_____________________________________________________________________________
BUT. V. Lubsky
AT The controversy between Westerners and Slavophiles formed two opposite versions of the civilizational affiliation of Russia. One version connected the future of Russia with its self-identification in line with the European socio-cultural tradition, the other - with the development of its original cultural self-sufficiency.
To.Leontiev developed the concept of Eastern Christian (Byzantine) cultural "registration" in Russia.
H.Danilevsky considered the “Slavic type” of civilization, which was opposed to Western culture, to be the most promising, most fully expressed in the Russian people.
BUT.Toynbee considered Russian civilization as a "daughter" zone of Orthodox Byzantium.
FROM There is also a Eurasian concept of the civilizational development of Russia, whose representatives, while denying both the Eastern and Western character of Russian culture, at the same time saw its specificity in the mutual influence of Western and Eastern elements on it, believing that it was in Russia that both West and East converged. They separated Russia not only from the West, but also from the Slavic world, insisting on the exclusivity of its civilization, due to the specifics of the “place of development” of the Russian people. They saw the originality of the Russian (Russian) national consciousness, firstly, in the fact that the vast expanses of Russia, located in two parts of the world, left an imprint on its cultural world. Secondly, the Eurasianists emphasized the special influence of the “Turanian” (Turkic-Tatar) factor on him.
AT An important place in the Eurasian concept of the civilizational development of Russia was assigned to the ideocratic state as the supreme master, possessing exclusive power and maintaining close ties with the masses of the people.
FROM The imagination of Russian civilization was also seen in the fact that the single multinational Eurasian nation was the national substratum of its statehood.
To the defining features of Eastern societies include "non-separation of property and administrative power"; "the economic and political domination - often despotic - of the bureaucracy"; "subordination of society to the state", the absence of "guarantees of private property and the rights of citizens."
D Western civilization, on the contrary, is characterized by guarantees of private property and civil rights as an incentive for innovation and creative activity; harmony of society and state; differentiation of power and property (E. Gaidar). In such a civilizational interpretation, Russia looks like an Eastern-type society.
BUT. Akhiezer also distinguishes between two types of civilizations - traditional and liberal. "Traditional civilization is characterized by the dominance of a static type of reproduction, which is aimed at maintaining society, the entire system of social relations, the individual in accordance with some idealizing past idea."
AT liberal civilization "the dominant position is occupied by intensive reproduction, which is characterized by the desire to reproduce society, culture, constantly deepening its content, increasing social efficiency, life activity."
R Russia, Akhiezer believes, in its historical development has gone beyond the boundaries of traditional civilization, embarked on the path of mass, albeit primitive, utilitarianism. But, nevertheless, it failed to overcome the border of liberal civilization.
E This means that Russia occupies an intermediate position between the two civilizations, which allows us to speak of the existence of a special intermediate civilization that combines elements of social relations and culture of both civilizations.
O The main categories of the socio-cultural dynamics of Russia as an intermediate civilization are inversion and mediation. Inversion is “characterized by a strenuous focus of activity on the reproduction of a certain type of society.
G The dominance of inversion at every moment of time does not require long and painful development of fundamentally new solutions, but opens the way for quick, logically instantaneous transitions from the present situation to the ideal one, which, perhaps, in new clothes reproduces some element of the already accumulated cultural wealth.
M Diation, on the contrary, determines the constructive tension of human activity on the basis of the rejection of the absolutization of polarities and the maximization of attention to their interpenetration, to their coexistence through each other.
D Another feature of Russia as an intermediate civilization, according to Akhiezer, is the split of cultures and social relations. At the same time, the split is considered as a pathological state of society, characterized by a stagnant contradiction between culture and social relations, between subcultures of one culture.
D A split is characterized by a “vicious circle”: the activation of positive values in one part of a split society sets in motion the forces of another part of society that denies these values. The danger of a split lies in the fact that, by destroying the moral unity of society, it undermines the very basis for the reproduction of this unity, opening the way for social disorganization.
P When considering the issue of the specifics of Russian civilization, special attention is paid to geographical, geopolitical and cultural-political factors.
AT In particular, it is noted that the vast space, the abundance of free land gave rise to the habit of extensive forms of management, contributed to constant migration.
O the vastness of the territories required a huge state apparatus of power and active control by it of all spheres of society and, above all, the field of economic relations, with minimal feedback from society. The huge role of the state, its constant intervention in the private sphere of social relations held back the formation of civil society in Russia.
B Of great importance, according to some historians, was the geopolitical factor. The constant military threat, the permanent rivalry with Western Europe required constant mobilization efforts on the part of the state both in the field of economic and social relations.
AT state interference in the economic life of society was accompanied by a kind of enslavement of estates. By this, the state in Russia sought to streamline the functioning of the social organism, based on its own interests and needs. From this grew the legal oppression and legal nihilism of the lower strata of society and the legal chaos of the bureaucratic apparatus of power.
AT Ever more closely woven into the pan-European process, Russian statehood, at the same time, developed in the manner of Asian despotisms, which, moreover, was reinforced by etatized Orthodoxy.
AT All this was also accompanied by a violent social reaction from various classes, which predetermined a peculiar pendulum rhythm in the development of Russian statehood, which can be described according to the scheme: reform - counter-reform - "Time of Troubles" (revolution) - strengthening of the statist principle.
R The role of the cultural and political factor consisted primarily in the self-expansion of the etatist principle, which left no other way to reform the country, except for a kind of dissolution of society in the state.
++++++++++++++++++++