Sergey Gavrov

Russia between past and future

(Article published in the third issue of the Neva in 2009)

Dialogues with Alexander Melikhov

The journal Neva in the last year published a number of insightful and
informative articles by Alexander Melikhov. Subjects of these publications
overlapped with the theme of this article, a separate provision, promoted by the
author, is the desire to agree or argue, but, more importantly, do not leave
indifferent, forced to think.
Let's start with the national tolerance and intolerance. It is a topic for a
multinational, multi-mnogotsivilizatsionnoy and even Russia to explain, perhaps,
not worth it. So, tolerance lies in the world winners who want to quietly enjoy the
fruits of their victories. The losers next round of the historic confrontation,
accumulating hatred teshat a etnoutverzhdayuschimi illusions about his own
election and exclusion.
One can not but agree with the author that the increase ethnic tolerance,
tolerance to a different general, one can achieve a permanent reduction in the
number of those who feel defeated, those who translate their social victories and
defeats in ethnic plane. Cure for this ethnic self-serve perhaps more significant
vertical and horizontal mobility, the opportunity to achieve, to play by the rules of
society that bring in all the brackets, go to Transcendence, the scope of the
inherent. Excretive including religion, as it is the basis of socio-cultural traditions
of the ethnic group, the most important marker, separating it from strangers and
prevent their own people.
The original winners, in which control how to safely coexist on the many
ethnic groups, was the world's aristocracy empire. We know from history that has
emerged as an ethnic aristocracy, the imperial aristocracy, over time the greatest
complement most active from aristocratic families of the peoples of the empire. We
1
may recall the story far away by the scale of historical time the Roman Empire,
and quite close to Russian and Soviet empires. They organized power, and
consequently a system of vertical mobility in the ancient principle remained in
Europe until the late Middle Ages - does not matter what you blood, it does not
matter what language you speak, it is important only to whom you serve. Relative
multinational world occurs when the supreme power is provided, so to speak,
equidistant between the ethnic groups are subject to it ....
That was before, but times change, the Western world today live in an era of
liberal-democratic, imperial principle of geographically large and diverse socio-
cultural spaces of today, and if used, such as shamefaced, default. Here, the crucial
question, how to maintain tolerance in the house where the owners were all?
Let's try to search an answer to this question. Almost all the multinational
state as having or not having a particular historical experience of imperial co-
existence, seek to mitigate mezheticheskih differences and, consequently, discord,
making as an essential unifying principle of the principle of a nation in civil, rather
than ethnicity. You can refer to the mentioned A. Melikhov experience of France
and the United States. And in the civil nation neither Hellenes, nor Jew, all
regardless of ethnic origin, mother tongue and religion, Americans or Frenchmen.
But this is an old, slightly pereinachenny imperial nationality principle.
The difference today from latent imperial imperial past, do not hesitate to
itself is likely in today's political, social and cultural practices, particularly in the
level of the applicable state violence. Empire, and the State in general, is always
kept at a certain level of violence. In multiethnic societies, this level is usually
higher than in mono-ethnic.
Imperial socialization subjects was based on vertical mobility of ethnic
elites, spread of imperial culture and violence, set a framework of legal and illegal,
setting the rules of the game here and now. If you violate these principles of
imperial and kvaziimperskih spaces, growing internal tension, until the resistance
of direct imperial power. I think that is not historical, and passing, and methods of

2
poly-invariant spaces. Remove component of this triad and the building-ethnic
state, it does not matter, in imperial or national hypostasis starts tumble.
A. Melikhov rightly observes that today inokulturnyh, inoetnicheskih
immigrants as well, and minorities traditionally living in the ethnic territories has
almost nothing to make and almost nothing to lure - and the newcomers have so
possessed civil equality. But today, the French state, through its police force
continues to apply necessary to preserve ethnic secular state level of violence, such
as banning religious symbols, in particular hindzhaby in public schools,
suppressing the streets of Arab-African youth.
In other words, the principles of control have changed rather formal,
declarative than content, with the exception of a significant reduction in levels of
violence. In place of physical violence came soft social technology, the
manipulation of consciousness on the part of mass culture, advertising and media.
The man, regardless of their ethnic origin, acquires general rules of society. It
must, above all, be strongly in the faith, Muslim, Christian, Jew, a successful
consumer.
And there does not need the police, do not need a previous level of violence.
Manipulated people feel imposed on him as their own desires. At the consumer
people really hypostasis forget about their ethno-cultural identity, she moves from
public to private sphere. And in this our common salvation.
A. Melikhov believes that the multinational state will never be able to
reconcile their national teams, if not force them to believe in any new common
tale, which would not have rejected their earlier dreams, but they challenge some
venerable place within the new. On a note that a new tale, a new ideology - an
ideology that eskeypistkaya consumer society, nothing great, a complete triumph
over the inherent transcendent, all the achievements in the sphere of material life,
all the achievements here and now. This is not great, not a heroic dream-ideology.
Man as a successful consumer, forgotten, sending the scope is not very meaningful,
a private, their ethnic traditions.

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 Now a few words about the article A. Melikhov aristocracy and a national
idea. I agree with the author in almost everything. On a more just add that a society
in which no idea of service, where everyone, including the situational elite, comes
only in terms of economic advantages or disadvantages of this action is doomed to
destruction.
And if you dive into the material interests of mass human-ethnic societies
contributes to the sustainability of the state, at least in terms of preservation of the
latent nature of ethnic conflict, the elites are accurate to the contrary. Need house
keepers, keepers of the state, the people, for which economic values are secondary.
This has historically been the custodian of aristocracy. It is largely thanks to the
preservation of aristocratic traditions maintain continuity of power and control,
such as the country old Europe and Japan. Is useful to remember that this
aristocratic hereditary captures and businesses. Descendants of famous noble
names managed many large European companies, and the descendants of samurai -
the Japanese. They are guided in their economic non-economic objectives, such as
serving the state and society. And such a ministry keeps the state, society, national
business.
In Russia, the ministry with the case badly. From the old aristocracy of pre-
Soviet, the Soviet authorities for decades, almost nothing was left but to a large
extent assimilated descendants first wave in Western countries. It spawned its
aristocracy, and the Soviet period of development of society. The absence of the
aristocracy, the minimum necessary for the sustainable development of the state
and society layer of people, the most dramatic impact on the post-reform period.
Without these people we have got what they got.

Dialogues with Alexander Akhiezer, Igor Klyamkin, Igor

Yakovenko

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 Consider the macro reproduction and gradual izzhivaniya of
authoritarianism (or so-called Russian systems).
Since it is especially Russian Systems directly determine the content of our
history, and indirectly, and the present, we point to its main features. First of all,
Russian system - a system in which the Russian Authorities block subjectivity of
elite groups, with the passive or active support to deprived people subjectivity. In
other words, the policy is the subject of power, personalized to specific historical
images of the great prince, king, emperor, general secretary of the CPSU Central
Committee - and they alone possess the fullness of subjectivity. The people of this
subjectivity does not have, except for times of severe crises of statehood (vague
time major Cossack and peasant revolt, revolution).
But the peculiarity of this system in that the subjectivity of elite groups in
society is also undergoing the largest possible in the given historical
circumstances, the restriction. Specific historically caused, methods of blocking
subjectivity Russian elite are in a wide range: from massive physical repression to
a relatively mild extrusion of some members of the elite teams in the Russian
political and economic fields in the European and North American emigration. As
a historical example of such repression can recall antiboyarskuyu oprichnina I.
Grozny and the destruction of the party elite I. Stalin, but there are also
intermediate methods, for example, now may be the fate of former heads of Yukos.
The basis of our authoritarian system is the so-called father - paternalistic -
the matrix based on the provisions and powers Bol'shakov in the patriarchal
peasant family. For a typical military / paramilitary matrix organizes society and
the state, which is especially evident in times of internal crises and turmoil, when
the system itself grassroots people's movement, and in the foreign policy of the
state, it manifests itself in an effort to voennoderzhaviyu, military / paramilitary
matrix organizes and Russian power.
For its existence and reproduction of this authoritarian system has to seek
and find external or internal enemy, divide the world into we and them. According
to his mental grounds she mobilization and isolationist-defense, but its adherents

5
are inclined to look for the causes of injuries are not flaws in the system, but
explain them in a spirit of konspirologii and the criminal neglect and errors of
individual performers. Sama Russian system infallibly, she only suffered from the
machinations of internal and external enemies, as well as errors and neradeniya
artists from which you can always choose the perpetrators in all. So, intimidate
enemies and about punishing the perpetrators, you can continue to pursue similar
policies, commit an error and nelepitsy, which, incidentally, from the viewpoint of
the system itself, are not.
Would alert the reader to another source of the formation and reproduction
of Russian systems. This feature of our adoption and interiorizatsii Christianity. We
know that European Christianity emerged as a popular movement in the
geographical boundaries of the Roman Empire, with all the excesses of a period,
while maintaining continuity with the late antique culture. Later Christianisation
captured and marginal European nations where the spread of Christianity was no
longer the bottom, but on top of power, not having this any serious conditions. By
the time the spread of Christianity in the Kievan Rus local paganism was still very
viable, for a century thereafter, while the foundation on which overbuild Institutes
of Christian churches. The result was the postponement of their pagan genealogy
presentations on the evolving institutions, including institutions of power. In a
phenomenon popularly dvoeveriya when spontaneous rural pagan accepts external
(ritual) Christian piety, without changing its internal quality. In government there
are similar processes, when the orthodox direct successor to the king and the
embodiment of the pagan totem, of course, in the frame of Christian phraseology.
Thus, during the centuries of Christianity there is only a form separated from
content, the weak and partially penetrating into guschu people's lives.
In summary, one could argue that the Russian system is expressed in the
synthesis' paternal 'cultural matrix, a pagan interpretation of Christianity and the
army of life.
With sustained volatility, this system is, paradoxically, of its archaic
dogosudarstvennogo beginning of the relationship and the state contributes to the

6
reproduction of deep socio-cultural division, drawn up in the spirit of the time
situational shape. And the main reason for replacement of old and new lines
(cracks), the social and cultural divisions in national history was that the cultural
foundation design has remained divided. Divided, it was because of the large,
state-organized societies have been transferred model of the fabric of life of local-
tribal, worlds dogosudarstvennyh .
It is important to remember that in itself a social and cultural division is not
unique and isolated, passed through him, all peoples in the process of becoming a
state. We are different from other people, only a special resistance to the flow split
of historical time, its reproduction when the nations of Western Europe, he was not
only broken, but has become a distant past. Naturally, the exterior design and
informative content of specific forms of social and cultural divisions in each
historical epoch with its unique conditions, and that they are expressed by its main
contradictions.
With regard to the intensity of division, it differs in different periods of
Russian history. Not going into empiricist its many historical manifestations, such
a thorough review of the book The history of Russia: the end or new beginning?,
Related to the social and cultural transformations in the division of Russia in XX
century. In pre-Soviet Russia the situation is the social and cultural schism was
evident - but the various social groups and subcultures gravitated to one of the two
poles of stably reproducing the binary opposition. We believe that by the end of
XIX - beginning of XX century with the well-known shares can be formed to talk
about extreme social and cultural dynamics, which is grouped around the educated
and economically successful social groups - consumers and creators of the
technical achievements of civilization and high (elite) culture, in a sense,
modernists striving for the future. The second pole, conventionally referred to us as
a pole of sociocultural statics, led to the archaic, often dopismennoy popular
culture around it focused the bulk of the peasantry and Philistinism small Russian
towns.

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 Once in power, the Bolsheviks gradually weakened both poles, depriving
them of their former strength and certainty. We understand that as a socio-cultural
reality, and its poles can not be played back in time without the living, human
action, and contemporary events accomplice. The Bolsheviks gradually destroyed
physically, out of the country, ousted in the marginal area of the vast majority of
educated and economically successful people, often removing the very name of
their social groups. But the social and cultural dynamics of the pole can not be
completely eliminated, because it means the disintegration of society and the loss
of the state. The Bolsheviks filled modernist socio-cultural dynamics of a pole, but
it was already a high-quality content, particularly after large-scale purges of
Stalin's Party cadres second half of the 30-ies of the XX century.
With respect to the poles of sociocultural statics, the archaic and the mass of
the peasantry Philistinism been fragmented and grind Moloch collectivization,
industrialization, state repression. Here, the Bolsheviks have not able to make full
or preferential elimination of members of these groups, because they collectively
accounted for more than 90% of the population. Therefore, although their physical
destruction was partial - it is millions and millions of our compatriots - the exact
figure of deliberately killing people we do not know today. As a result of the Soviet
period of our history, the second expressing the Archaic, pole of a binary
opposition, lost the certainty of its quality system, has weakened and partially
dismantled. As a result, has become a very dilute binary opposition sociocultural
poles, markedly decreased, and the symbolic distance between them.
For a number of historical and cultural factors have both in the realm of
Moscow, Russia and the USSR was formed comparatively slowly cultural meaning
complex mediating breeding these cosmological poles. Torn country lacked
mediation, dialogue between the poles as the conversation of people and ideas,
which reduces the interests of the existing median area of culture and social life.
However, the formation of such a mediating cultural-semantic complex
dramatically accelerated in Russia / Soviet Union during the last century.
Mediation, dialogue with all occurred during most of the XX century in the camp

8
barracks, on the fronts of the world wars and local conflicts in communal
apartments, stuffy eseninskih beer, on trains, in geological expeditions in the
development of Siberia and commodity stocks rise Kazakh ground. Thus, at the
expense of physical and social isolation useknoveniya ordinary people that were
previously the basis of social and cultural dynamics of the poles, on the one hand,
and the introduction of universal secondary education - on the other hand,
podtyanuvshego to middle-level people from the social and cultural sectors of the
Archaic, the society by the end of the Soviet period became much more
homogeneously. Despite the wealth stratification of post-Soviet period, it remains
much more homogeneous than at the beginning of the twentieth century. today.
Today, Russian society is in front of another historic choice, but the clear
answer to the question of what Russia we want to build, and think whether - there
is not a political elite, nor the society. It is clear that the main options for this
building are grouped around two fundamentally different alternative projects.
Either we build a democratic, rational, successful and high-tech post-Russia, or the
desire to reproduce the spiritual, and even the institutional elements of Russian
systems.
In society there are both heterogeneous and multidirectional trends. But the
desire to simultaneously translate the leads not only to a maximum of inefficiency,
but to knowingly infeasibility project to build a new Russia, incidentally
contributing to a split of mass consciousness and introduce into society a well-
known element of schizophrenia.
We believe that the strategic building of development can not be
simultaneously transmitted in opposite directions, sooner or later will have to make
a historic choice. Russia - this is Europe, the political will needed to identify the
strategic vector of development.
Our uniqueness in the amount of occupied territory, geographical deepening
in Asia. But we have more Europe than, for example, included in the EU Orthodox
Bulgaria and Romania, where the influence of eastern culture where more visible
than in Russia. Civilization we represent Europe in Asia, Europe, expanding

9
geographically and culturally to the borders of North America and Japan. Thanks
to Russia, it potentially becomes a small tip of Asia, in Heartland - land, have a
strong impact on world events.
Our European identity was natural since the inception of the Russian
statehood. Major features of our historical past is not a special, than, for example,
in Spain. But based on the relatively long-standing Arab conquest and the
relatively close frankistskogo government of Spain, one of European civilization
does not exclude.
Adhering to a rigid belief that the strategic vector of historical development
can and should be aimed at the integration of Russia into the Euro-Atlantic
civilization to modernize its genealogy, we note that this type of integration can not
be edinomomentnoy, a complex and lengthy macro. Recall, for example, that
Turkey is seeking to Europe since the time of Mustafa (Kemal) Ataturk. Yes, it is
long, but now Europeans are seriously discussing the institutional integration of
Turkey into the European Community. But Russia is far more reason to include
Europe, not only a clear political choice, and patience, and whereas a tactical
failure on the scale of several years - not decades - forced political elites
sharahatsya from side to side, eskeypistski to turn away from the present and future
in the name of a distant past.
Russia is part of Europe, even irrespective of whether with the Europeans
themselves. They are today's willingness or unwillingness to include our country
into European structures does not change the situation dramatically - included in
the historic tomorrow. There is no need to demand from the European Union and
the history of the immediate integration steps, all the time. For half a century of
history and even a century is not that for people. Home - to choose the way of
approaching, and not delay this development.
It should be noted that the main problem of Russia is the need to transition to
organic intensive self, can not be solved within the framework of Russian systems,
as it always used the extensive model of development. With regard to the use of
extensive modernization, the process of transition to a postindustrial economy,

10
inefficient methods of the period of accelerated industrialization. Today
nekonkurentosposoben slave labor, can not return to the status quo, in which non-
free scientist and engineer to achieve the military-technical parity with the most
developed countries of Europe and North America. Of the witnesses recollections
of events, historical documents and artistic works, we know that pay-for scientific
discoveries and technological inventions have served on the acceptability
compared with the rest of the living conditions of the Gulag system - beds with
linen and plenty of bread with a little oil.
The success of modernization in the post-Soviet Russia determine the
availability of free and open to the world, the formation of productive innovation
sociocultural space. Need modernization is not for the sake of permanent
strengthening of the military and political power of the empire, but for the sake of
development of society and man. Need an air of freedom, which is so little space in
the socio rife efflux Russian systems.
Today in Russia extensive type of development maloeffektiven to maintain
its resource base is not old. But we now live mostly in the extensive paradigm,
using the last resource of extensive development - an abundance of oil, gas and
other natural resources. The availability of abundant natural resources in prolonged
opportunity for extensive development, in making the transition to an unknown
far-intensive innovative development on the basis of revolutionary technologies.
Living through the use of the natural rent, you can skip the next technological
revolution, smooth and stepwise increasing the catching of the regions, using the
paradigm of intensive development.
With regard to the resource constraints of extensive development, but today
is almost impossible territorial expansion of the Russian state, is difficult to
establish political and economic control over the neighboring territories. Although
there is not all lost, remember at least a project to establish a liberal empire. For a
relatively new restrictions that prevent extensive development is the reduction of
manpower and dissemination of the European model of demographic reproduction
of population. Note that this is not only the most important domestic constraints to

11
extensive development, but also for the institutional reproduction of Russian
systems, including in its державно / imperial hypostasis.
But in today's post-Soviet period, we relaxed and played a reduced systemic
weaknesses and flaws formed in the realm of the Moscow, the Russian Empire,
Soviet sociocultural traditions Russian systems. And it is inheriting these ills and
shortcomings, despite the marked decrease in the depth we have and reducing the
intensity of the traditional socio-cultural division, suggests the possible opening of
this disastrous series of national history.
What is, in fact, we see a possible future socio-cultural prerequisites stall,
where the trend indicates the potential volatility of the next stage of development
of the country? Unfortunately, these trends are already evident today, when
historical time is accelerating, and the result of errors does not make itself wait too
long.

Dialogues c reader.

I. Again, in the empire?

Postimpersky status of our nation troubled. Russia today is not yet full-
fledged nation state, but pokalechennoe, lost in time and space postimperskoe
education, then, that the empire remained. In the public mind there is no consensus
about the legitimacy of state borders - it is very difficult to clearly answer the
question of why the state is composed of some regions, and why others are not
included. The country still has a imperial body, care we inherited from the imperial
phase of territorial expansion.
Until now, most of society and political elites perceive imperial territorial
heritage as an almost sacred value, what can not be set aside under any
circumstances, regardless of socio-cultural proximity or alien controversial
territories.

12
 But the most unpleasant for his contemporaries and collaborators of events is
that Russia has not yet become a nation state, organized on the principles of civic
nation and the threat of the third stage of the disintegration of Russia, as public
education, the remainder of the empire, remains.
The legacy of the empire, we won and ethnic and sociocultural blossoming
complexity (KN Leont'ev) regions belonging to the three civilizations, the three
world religions, in different stages of economic development: pre-industrial,
industrial and postindustrial. In addition, Russia has not formed any nation in its
ethnic or postetnicheskom, civic sense.
Traditional has a question - when nesformirovannoy nations to agree on such
a diverse regional interests, moreover, that in some cases these differences are
cultural, civilizational, religious foundation. But it is not only in the cultural and
civilizational differences. Because of its geo-economic situation and the difference
stadialnogo development have different interests and property of the Russian
regions, where the ethnic Russian, in stark differences in living standards, income
and social security.
Marginal regions of Russia today tend rather than to Moscow, but to the
world's centers of economic power. In western countries, in Königsberg /
Kaliningrad, the economic attraction for the more developed EU stadialno stratify
on the historical and cultural attraction. On the east of the strong economic
attraction of becoming the Asia-Pacific countries, especially China. In this case, it
still is not a proper cultural and civilizational reorientation of Siberia and the Far
East, but rather on the absolute economic integration in the economy of this part of
Asia. But, as we know from the history of economic integration often should the
political integration. This is largely just a matter of time.
We once again draw attention to those things known to stress the difference
between the interests of Russian regions, once again turn to the question of how to
possibly negotiate a variety of regions of interest within the past, but not yet gone
before the end of Empire, the Russian state?

13
 World historical experience provides two main solutions, individually
designed for different historical and sociocultural contexts.
The first option involves networking etnofederativnyh relations, procedures,
harmonization of regional interests, a clear distinction between the delegation of
authority. This will be a long, often painful process for the Russian authorities. Too
great a temptation to revert to the traditional, albeit historically izzhivshim a form
of governance, simplify the harmonization of interests, to abandon them, to
manage the order, a de facto authoritarian governance and the unitary state. This is
the second path.
In the framework of the interests of the regions agreed to a minimum, the
major decisions taken at the center, the process of agree takes place in the tradition
of a unitary imperial state, which actually was the Soviet Union and the Romanov
empire. Although the Tsarist empire and was known exception to the autonomy of
Finland, the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland ... The construction involves
the use of violence against dissenters, not a harmonization of regional interests, but
the imposition of solutions federal. This is a legacy that today's native Russian
government with the imperial state. I close the definition of the key properties of
the empire, the E. Yasin: Empire impossible without violence, no matter how soft
or its form. This is the main identifier empire .
And today over the country, the authorities and society still dominates the
goods Geography and History, limitations, they asked, actions and decisions in
many ways continues to define the old gauge imperial life. To change the vector of
development and escape from it, you'll need to make great efforts to build a
genuine federalism, working on the formation of civic nation, to build democratic
institutions and traditions.
To continue to move in a historically familiar, lived-and nakatannoy lines of
imperial life, so much effort is required. You can almost observe the removal of
self mechanism authoritarian unitary state. But if earlier, until about the Crimean
War, during the reign of Nicholas I that track has been in the mountain, that is, the
benefits of the imperial state and the authoritarian rule exceed the costs, the post-

14
war costs exceeded the benefits gradually, becoming today the most significant
constraint to development country. I refer to the close position E. Yassin: declining
empire began long ago. Developing countries, the empire - there are increasingly
becoming a brake on the development of the country .
And here we do not save history, because her experience is to be realized
otrefleksirovan society. As a matter of historical work on the bugs had not been in
the public consciousness has become a popular false impression that the Soviet
empire has become a victim of short-term external circumstances and treachery of
the political and intellectual elite - Democrat. But if all that easy, then you can try
to change external circumstances, enhance geopolitical position of the Russian
state, to make the border farther to the west. That's is organized neoimpersky
project - glove would perceive it as a bad joke pervoaprelskuyu, but hampered by
an increasingly clear sense that this project not only real, but is already in progress.
It is evident that its implementation can not lead to the most serious foreign policy
costs, put Russia on the brink of war between the cold - latent and hot - open.
Naturally, however, that the most serious losses from this military-political
confrontation will be very Russian society, so apathetic dealer Today the
democratic gains of the Yeltsin-Gorbachev period. But democracy - this is the only
way to protect yourself from society foreign policy adventure, because it is kept to
a decorative, purely external, are devoid of references to the refusal of most
foreign-policy Insurance. We know what a huge price to pay the people of
Germany for the rejection of democracy and the unleashing of the Second World
War. Just as the price paid for this choice of the German political elite and the
peoples of Europe. But this is someone else's historical experience, too distant for
Russian society, the analogy, we even own historical experience teaches nothing.
Building in Russia of controlled democracy minimized public participation
in decision-making, both domestic and foreign policy. Decisions of this takes part
of the political elite, which is known to share can be defined as nostalgiruyuschih
of the Soviet empire statesmen. The key question, to which they are responsible, is
as follows: Russia - is part of Europe, the potential of the West, or an independent

15
power center - as the EU, USA and China? From the answer to this question
depends our present and future.
If Russian society and political elite respond that Russia part of Europe and
the potential of the West, along the lines of Germany, which is just after the Second
World War joined the Euro-Atlantic civilization, then the expansion of the EU and
NATO to the East and South, on Ukraine and the Georgia not only dangerous, but
also desirable. Then this movement, along with Russia - they are in NATO and the
EU before, we again later. Naturally, the integration of these international
structures in the small Georgia and Russia can be a big different.
There is another option - Russia is an independent power center, an
independent Eastern Christian civilization, embodied in the earlier Russian and
Soviet empires, and which should translate into a new empire. This response
suggests that NATO is a military and political rival, whose promotion to the
borders of Russia poses a serious threat - a threat to the very possibility of imperial
restoration.
How serious that threat is perceived and how far can go the Russian
military-political elite in order to neutralize this threat? In the case of Ukraine the
most serious threat is perceived. Because only together with Ukraine, Russia may
in some way to go back to the imperial ways of development based on Orthodox-
Slavic identity. Without the Ukrainian Center of the Russian empire will inevitably
shift to the East, the two heads of double-headed eagle will be rotated from the
Euro-Byzantine heritage to the legacy of the East, Mongolia, China. And if you do
not have long to Byzantium, the growing economic and geopolitical power of
China is today. Without Ukraine, a new Russian neoimpersky project could be just
the project return to Ordu, ideological and military-political distancing from the
West, the departure from Europe.
Today the Russian statesmen sympathetic to the traditional imperial project -
Russia, headed the Slavic state of education - at the head of Ukraine and Belarus.
This kernel is the dissolved Soviet Union, the traditional core of the Russian state -
so, let the language of geopolitics, the majority of the Heartland. For some, not

16
very historic time, it may be enough resources to deal with the European Union
and NATO, will be followed by another geo-political and social disaster - is also a
repetition distance. It is important for the Russian political elite is that when
neoimperskom uniting Slavs label on reign will be issued in Moscow, in the case
of the East, to China, the distribution of labels can go to Beijing.
It is clear that under this set of alternatives neoimperskaya part of the
political elite of Russia is desperate to fight for Ukraine, for its imperial
integration, or at least the pro-Russian course. Indeed, the integration of Ukraine
into EU and NATO removes even the theoretical possibility of the traditional
imperial restoration.
The stakes for Ukraine zashkalivayusche high, it is here possible powerful
geopolitical scrapping with Russian participation, in contrast to developments in
the Caucasus, in Georgia, which, with all its severity and the possible tragic could
not go beyond a local conflict. Not the Caucasus, but the Ukraine sent the
geopolitical edge of imperial restoration. Do this geopolitical scrapped, the
division and the division of the country to its west and its east by the Ukrainians? I
think not - irrespective of political and party loyalties, even regardless of the
language - Ukrainian or Russian. And it is not already, it is important to support the
Ukrainian voters' Party of Regions, Yulia Tymoshenko, Our Ukraine - all of them
do not need. This is just outside the Ukraine neoimperskim forces.
No imperial restoration and the peoples of Russia - prekrasnodushnye
neoimperskie dreams over a cup of tea costly when you try their practical
implementation.

II. The future of the country in the context of ethno-religious

revival

17
 We believe that finding recipes for solving new problems and challenges in
the era of authoritarian socio-cultural tradition, updating the experience forced the
Moscow kingdom dopetrovskogo period in our history - leads to a repetition of the
same historical mistakes. Now pull the company back in the Middle Ages, not only
claiming orthodoxy as the dominant state religion, but considering it almost as a
state ideology - there is a danger of confusion. This action can not consolidate, but
to undermine the socio-cultural foundation of the post-Soviet states, thereby
calling into question its territorial integrity.
Despite such serious implications of such policies today are more distinctly
heard voices of modern pochvennikov, denying the universal essence of
Christianity, which has no Hellenes, nor Jew, voting, in which all semantic
emphasis shifted to underline bogoizbrannosti, nothing on like the identity of
Russia and Russian human self. In doing so, Christianity itself is considered
merely as a convenient tool for the consolidation and mobilization of the ethnic
Russian people, a marker that can clearly divide humanity on the we and them, our,
and not ours, righteous and sinful.
The idea of such a privatization of Christianity and use it for these specific
needs is not new, but in pre-Soviet period of our history such plans, to some extent
overlap with the sociocultural reality in which the country lived.
But the erosion of traditional values that have taken place in recent decades
as the late Soviet Union, both in post-Soviet Russia (in the most explicit form),
today led to a sharp activation of protective traditionalism. Today hear the
statement, according to which a person can consider themselves Russian only in
the case of belonging to orthodox religion: Orthodoxy for us, the Russians - our
matrix and the base of our historical existence. Yes, for many centuries of Russian
history that was so, but after more than seventy violent repression of various faiths
such generalizations questionable. The Russian empire was predominantly
Orthodox country. But by the atheistic Soviet period and the post-agnostic, during
which maintained the secular nature of education and mass culture - the Russian
society has become far less religious.

18
 It needs no further explanation of why, today, after the Soviet period of our
history, we live in a fundamentally different reality. Specify only the results of
sociological surveys conducted in 2004, the All-Russian Center for the Study of
Public Opinion, where only just over half (51.7%) of respondents belonging to a
variety of ethnic groups in Russia, said that they believe in God. More than half of
them (57.5%) in parallel, like just in case, believe in such supernatural forces and
phenomena such as witchcraft and magic, the resettlement of souls, destiny,
horoscope, signs, UFOs and aliens.
In addition, the majority (48.8%) positive attitude of Russians to the
proliferation of festivals in Russia, came to us from abroad, such as the Catholic
Christmas, Valentine's Day, etc., are not revealing any desire to defend traditional
country religious values. These statistics also show that of any anti allegedly
inherently peculiar Russian man who does not have to say.
But all the same that the data of opinion polls indicate prevailing in Russian
society, indifference with respect to matters of faith. Today votserkovlennyh
Orthodox people about 3-4% relative to the total number of those who in one way
or another, identifies with the Orthodox faith. In other words, all attempts to build
on Orthodoxy as state ideology have little instrumental capacity, as 3-4% percent
of Russian citizens are a minority of its population.
In addition, to Orthodoxy as the dominant state religion and the only true
ideology is not only government but also the actual ecclesiastical dimension. We
know how to Marxism in the USSR became responsible for the horrors of
Leninist-Stalinist period in our history, although the inherent prerequisites for that
at the very Marxism was not so much. The Orthodox Church, putting the burden of
state ideology, thus assumes responsibility for the goods and secular, by definition,
public policy decisions that are not always popular. As an example, a recall has
caused so much public interest law on monetization of social benefits. And if the
My Kingdom is not of this world, and human hands to build the kingdom of God
on earth is impossible, then is it worth for the sake of psevdopatriotam and
lzhepravoslavnym worldly temptation to yield to another? And here we think it

19
appropriate to recall the admonition Russian philosopher Ε.Η. Trubetskoy, noting
the dangerous tendencies of his time, quite clearly, and reproduce in the bottom of
this: Gromily, lzhepravoslavnye, lzhepatrioty, and with them new and false
prophets will prepare a new and more horrible than now, the explosion of
Bolshevism - in our current reality can pave the way for a new, fifth on the
account, the Russian catastrophe.
In fact, there is the choice of our present and future life - secular or clerical
nature of the Russian political system, the desirability or undesirability of church-
state partnership. In my opinion, our державные circles making an attempt, albeit
still very cautious, to implement a plan to introduce in practice lubochnyh symbol
of Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality. As long as a reference point is selected,
with a known percentage of convention, in 1913. Great was the temptation to
return to the last relatively quiet time of imperial history, as if there was no follow-
up the horrors of the twentieth century. Yet these horrors was prepared and a
persistent desire of the Russian authorities did not change as far as possible, keep
otzhivshuyu monarchical form of government, to resist the coming of modernism
and the search for peace a moral ideal in Russia dopetrovskoy.
Going forward, looking back, it was difficult. Can not see the path under my
feet, there is a big risk stumbled, losing the direction of fall history. And in 1913
came a decade is quite apocalyptic.
Today we seem to be moving to a new era of high style - similar to the last
great style of 30's of last century. Vaguely mereschatsya front of a black and yellow
imperial banners, tasty crunchy snow under yunkerskim boots, life with the sound
of the king's anthem God save the king fizkulturnikov with parades, sirech
Olympians, on Red Square.
Message to the imperial retro, including the close church-state partnerships,
may not be the last opportunity to show the power used by the city and the world
of new and old at the same time, pre-Soviet, державность powerful Russia. To
what extent the aesthetics of the new / old will be able to combine great style with
democracy, the question is, of course, interesting. Style substantially affects the

20
political process, a great style of pushing the country if not autocracy, then the
orthodox version of the monarchy, framed the constitutional attributes. Monarchy
in modern Russia? This madness has its own system. Prosperity pozavcherashnih
ideologies have the right sign of the beginning of the agony yesterday's ideas -
Fyodor Stepun argued in his The idea of Russia . - This explains their delusional,
delirious nature ... Revive obsolescent ideology can not be nothing in life is not
invading a fateful moment in the development of ideas, but as a creature of the
same subject to revive a dead ideology. Because attempts Galvanization ideologies
always only convicts of their final mertvost .
Yes and no return in history, neither in life do not. Traditionalism, including
its religious performance, away material. Artificial renaissance traditionalism is not
only absurd and inevitably comical, but also destructive.
Perhaps part of the church hierarchy and the public seek to merge to the
State, to make the church the first among equals. However, they must understand
the implications and implementation of such Project, including the ROC. If the
church will play an equally important role in public life, which during the Soviet
period of our history has played the CPSU, the Kremlin will be taken for the
management structures of the church seriously. And there is no doubt that such a
course would be damaging to the credibility of the same church. Russia is not
mono-Poland, where the clerical policy is supported by an ethnically homogenous
mass traditionalists. In Russia, too, there are traditionalists, but they historically
belong to different ethnic groups and religions. The most terrible things that can be
done in a historical cultural and religious diversity, it is a child draw the line
between human beings on the basis of religion. Such a mental boundary to divide
society into a - a stranger, and then at the glass ceiling has all chances to become
visible in new government otverdet shape.
Poland, like other countries in Eastern Europe and Russia, save more than in
Western Europe, commitment to religious and cultural traditionalism through the
clear, and often hidden anticommunist movement. Such struggled with this, the
idea of struggling with ideas. As a result, we, together with our neighbors on the

21
block missed a significant part of the fundamental processes of the twentieth
century: building a society of consumption, the shift of mass from the maximalist
civil and religious ideologies in the world of material dostizhitelnoy life. The fact,
however, that in today's France and in modern Russia votserkovlennyh number of
people, especially among young people, is only a few percent.
This indifference to religion of the general population, preoccupation with
earthly concerns of real people, as well as the pervasive influence of mass culture
objectively stores, Conserve Russia in its present borders. Strengthening the
influence of religious ideologies on the lives of individual regions and the country
as a whole threatens our common future. That is why the desire to impose on
students the lessons of Orthodoxy is not particularly a manifestation of the wrong
ideas about the development of society and its prospects as a society. Such
strategic errors stem from a misunderstanding of the place Russia in a changing
world, fear of institutional integration in European structures. They are the result of
unproductive search third ways and unwillingness of the Russian political elites to
part with the mental part of the imperial heritage.
Today, it is understood that the construction of ethno-national rather - the
Russian, and not the world - ideokraticheskoy empire. Suppose that in varying
degrees, but the Russian empire and Soviet Union were the world aspire to
ideokraticheskimi empires.
With a purely mythological thinking, radical supporters of the revival
empire, out to the borders of 1991 and then in 1913 not perceive the historical
patterns, each time discovering the history again, seeing it as a random
coincidences pile. And traditional, respectable type of the English empire, I think
they are too weak and liberal. Rather, aesthetic charm and geopolitical request the
Third Reich. His story to them, of course, the decree, but twelve years of its
existence are perceived as a historical accident, rather than as inevitable. Then why
not try to carry out close to the spirit of the project in Russia, of course, strictly
orthodox and autocratic setting. That they were only twelve years, and our Empire

22
led by the emperor would be exactly millennium, it would be like outside of
physical time in the space-time mythical.
We believe that in a multinational and multi-state rate for ethnic nationalism
can only lead to a radical increase in nationalism small peoples, to strengthen the
country is not centripetal, but the centrifugal force. In ethnic and
polikonfessionalnom Russian society is extremely dangerous to play on ethnic
sentiments - the emphasis on ethnic and religious identity of large and small
nations to anything except increase the likelihood of the collapse of the state, can
not lead.
If long-term and relatively stable coexistence of different joint regions,
people living in them, may, in principle, this possibility is based on two main
principles: real federalism and confederation with the elements of civil-ethnic
nation. And here we are keeping with our historical tradition, as a civil, not an
ethnic nation is generic link to the nationality of the empire. Our blossoming
complexity imperial legacy here may be useful, for this reason we can not build an
ethnic nation, but we can polyethnic and civil. In terms of respect for civil and
political freedoms, human rights in general, this option obviously preferable.
What can help and hinder the implementation of these principles, and hence
the further joint life in the territory of the Russian state?
Civil nations living together in a federal / confederal state could build on the
principles of social dostizhitelnoy human activity. In pursuit of Russian dream in
Moscow, Yakutsk, Daghestanian design, it can at least do not remember, who is he,
where is and where, or, at least, went before - forget about its cultural civilizational
identity. While it it forgotten, as it is on the periphery of his consciousness, until it
determines its social activity - postimperskoe The Russian state will exist in its
present borders.
Even today, despite all popyatnye, retrograde movements, traditional
religious identity of various ethnic communities present in the public
consciousness largely in the latent, dormant form. It is blurred and the
Europeanization of the unification of different degrees of intensity and duration, in

23
the case of Central Russia - from the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich Peter and I, and
the total secularization of politics pursued by the Soviet regime.
Today's inaudibility ethnic and religious identity of Russians are united
country, mitigate inter-ethnic and interfaith tensions. As soon as the process of
ethno-religious revival will be a truly massive, these contradictions seriously
worse, calling into question the territorial integrity of the country. The more events,
updated civilization, the early religious life of Russia's regions, the less stable
structure of Russian statehood. The degree of latency determines the degree of the
strength of traditional Russia.
Today, Georgia imperial heritage influences the choice between a de facto
unitary and a federal / confederal state determine the choice between democracy
and various forms of authoritarianism. Many of those who now will of fate was in
cohort of people, policy-makers, conducted internally neoimperskuyu policy of
unification of the social and cultural space, minimizing the harmonization of
regional interests. It seems that the choice between two options is made. De facto,
you choose the re-establishment of a unitary state.
Many of neoimperskogo state of the state and the refusal stems from
democracy in favor of controlled, but something even decorative option. But
ethno-religious differences and stadialnye regions make a unitary form of
organization of the state (de jure or de facto) and Democracy malosovmestimymi.
The choice of unitarity greatly influences the actions of authorities on the case of
building formal and informal vertical in politics, business, media. It may be that
this way is effective today, but this effect is temporary, purely tactical.
Yes, the democratic way of development of the country as a nation-state
declared the existing constitution, but because of Soviet history, we know also that
the declaration of democratic principles does not mean their actual compliance.
Here is enough to remember Stalin-buharinskuyu the constitution in 1936, and
negotiations with the 1965 presentation of human rights under the slogan - Follow
your constitution. Today we are witnessing the restoration of the model simulation

24
and legal state, and yet protogosudarstvenna culture, and society atomizirovano -
can not a priori exclude the possibility of negative scenarios of our future.
Russian Europeans can not samouspokaivatsya and blagodushestvovat:
playing great rhetoric, the political elite is able to tune up, under the influence of
their own propaganda to go beyond the boundary of common sense, against his
will be dragged into a situational logic neoimperskogo process. Follow
neoimperskoy practical politics catastrophic, inevitably fraught with human
suffering and the territorial disintegration of the Russian state, the destruction of its
geographical integrity.
Today we are all contemporaries and involuntary witnesses / participants of
events occurring in the country. We know that in the post-Soviet Russia, said the
word little effect on changing the social and cultural reality, but can lead to
scientific and public interest. We also know that the role of personality in history,
opened today, yet we remain contemporary events, we have at least a theoretical
chance to change something, try to avoid the most negative scenarios of Russia's
future. Tomorrow, when the ordinary historical events already occur, it will be is
impossible, so we are trying to catch today.

III. Civil society and power: from confrontation to dialogue

Recently, in a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, there is significant

economic growth, Russian companies are becoming major players of the
international market, increasing the capitalization of Russia, rising incomes of
Russians. On the other - trimmed public information space, especially the federal
TV channels, the system is organized managed democracy. Power and society is
less talk and stop to hear each other. Their communication more confined to the
mix Marches dissenting and the OMON. That's bad for everyone, and for the

25
democratic prospects of Russia in the first place. It is necessary to stop the
confrontation.
Today, power in Russia is guided rather than ideals, but interests. When it
comes to managing hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars in the long run,
none of the persons concerned in this pragmatic process would not infringe.
Common sense can expect that the most important for the political elite, including
people from the uniformed services, not so much planting in the country of ideals,
Orthodoxy, autocracy and the people, but rather build their own economic capacity
and the largest Russian goskompany.
In 90 years Russia, unlike other countries in Eastern Europe managed to
retain national control over the resource, the most important sectors of the
economy. It is worth noting just the price of Russian society has paid for
maintaining national control over the economy.
We know that during this period of our socio-economic history of the
subjects of management all by hook or by crook tried to minimize the tax
deductions to budgets of all levels, resulting in social support for pensioners, the
disabled, mothers and children, medicine and education to a minimum. The price
of preservation of property in the hands of local capitalists and the state the people
the children who died before the old people, millions of homeless and others in the
same spirit. We have kept in the national hands of the economy, but once again
undermined the population. We retain control over the economy and territory, but it
will work on the conservation of living people, different language, religion and
culture. This is a price issue, and the price already paid.
And there, in the Eastern European countries, new foreign owners pay taxes,
and such a failure in the financing of social programs was not, was not so obvious,
and the processes of depopulation, a sharp deterioration in the quality of society.
But what is done is done. Today, not to help the Russian authorities to drive
themselves in an increasingly shrinking corridor opportunities from bad to worse.
There such a configuration of power and property, which exists.

26
 The possession of power and property of the power does pragmatic enough.
It must deliver to the West and East oil and gas, it needs to earn real money. This is
what limits it to the self, it can allow yourself a lot, but not all. It may, for example,
sterilize public information space and point trimmed of his political opponents, but
can not go on a serious, binding of solidarity, alliance with Iran or China.
The reason for these restrictions in the ratio of profits and losses in the
largest possible cost. And now restrict democracy, build it managed, simulation
option in many ways to maximize profits, maximize the capitalization of Russian
goskompany. Today, on the low startup society and economy, with all reservations
and costs, including the moral order, it turns out.
Tomorrow, when the structure of property ownership changes, and in her
capacity as strategic investors include large western companies, and GDP per
capita pereshagnet magical figure of five thousand dollars, the situation will
change. Then in the same order to maximize profits can not be claimed
operetochnaya, and real democracy as an instrument at a certain stage of
development of economy and society contribute to further economic growth, the
capitalization of Russia, and the population will not be pressing economic
incentives to change the power on the left or right extremists.
Is this policy the authorities with democracy? From an Islamic democracy
and Soviet might and compatible, but not with classical Western-style democracy.
Nevertheless, today we live in a historic transition between the authoritarian Soviet
regime and the modern Western-type society. Authorities can speed up or slow
down the process, but it did not stop him in power. Taking into account the
peculiarities of our history, the ongoing transition option today is not very
optimistic, but not the most terrible.
Limitations of democracy affects not only liberals, but left, the heirs of the
Soviet Union. Efforts of the current government there has been a consistent process
of de-communization Russia. And of course, and shall be shut off artificially
electoral base of the Communist Party (Fair Russia), removed the communist
symbols in the army. Left all stripes extruded into marginal plane. The danger of

27
Communist revenge eliminated completely, even though in 1996, Zyuganov was
very close to victory in the presidential elections in Russia.
I think that comes from the Left is a serious danger for the present and the
future of the country, and allow them to power is not desirable, at least at the
federal level. This unwillingness to share political and economic power to those
who are on the left and right flank, and is due to the use of administrative resources
and manipulative political strategists. Naturally, the most significant part of this
reluctance to share power is the desire to preserve the integrity of administrative
rent control over cash flows in the Russian economy. That is the interest of power
conservation has a private component.
There apparently paradoxical and ambivalent situation internally. Of the
particular interests of political stability grows, exhibited severe defensive units in
relation to potential rivals, including the left and right radicals. The latter fact
makes this meaningful policies, designed to prevent the accession to power in the
transition from Soviet authoritarianism to democracy, left and right radicals, to
prevent a new Russian revolution.
Only when the Russian company will become part of golden billion, when
the country will build a society of consumption, when the average Russian will be
rich, then vnesistemnye, leftist and ultranationalist forces cease to be dangerous for
the country.
But ironically, today, left again in favor of the part of the Russian
intelligentsia. Limonov is involved in marches disagree, as well, and fellow
Udaltsov, leader Avangard Red Youth. I wonder how you can fight for democracy
together with the heirs of Lenin, Stalin, why not fight against the terrible power
and the democracy, together with the heirs of Hitler, Maluta Skuratov and other
well-known in the history of the defenders of democracy.
Maybe someone from the Russian politicians liberal camp likes to associate
with the avant-garde red youth and limonovtsami, even combined, it is their
choice. Destroy - not to build in street riots, and even more so in the revolution has
a fair share of romance and adrenaline. But the romance of the revolution have to

28
pay too much, not only the direct participants, but contemporaries of events.
Revolution devastating in its results, and Russia is fully exhausted its revolutionary
limit.
This does not mean that people on the extreme wing of Russian politics is
not necessary to speak. But the death uchuvstvovat with them in a broad political
coalition, with the ultimate goal is to obtain state power. God forbid all of us and
the history of the success of such a revolution of the company. There are too many
marginal, yet earn too few able-bodied citizens of Russia - workers, peasants and
intellectuals. So what political forces select power in such developments - who
knows. One can only assume that these people will be neither democracy nor the
more liberal. At best for the country if they are liberal Democrats. All other options
are worse.
At present, with a predominance of free elections in the country
economically insolvent people have a risk of coming to power, destructive -
populists and radicals. You can hold free elections with equal access various,
including radical political forces, the federal TV channels today, but then you
might think and the introduction of a legislative anti insurance, remembering, for
example, elections in the third and the fourth State Duma. As we know from
history, in the early twentieth century Russia antiekstrimistskoy such insurance
was a serious property qualification.
I am not concerned about free choice, let us say, the people Rublevka,
which, as a rule, a major asset and a good education. They could hear the extent of
any television treatment and rebuke Udaltsova Limonov and without risk to their
political choices, mainly determined by their economic interests. They are, by
definition, can make a lot of wisdom and sorrow, ie knowledge of the political and
economic life. This knowledge of the vast array of negative information about
living in a country not particularly affect their choices as voters make up more to
diversify their investments and life plans.
But I am concerned about the manner in which the right of force, namely,
with all possible reservations, right-wing forces are now in power, could win the

29
election, to get a parliamentary majority, if their policies are not consistent with the
current economic interests of the majority of the population of Russia. United
Russia is not only a party of power, but also the right party, slightly more diluted
populism ATP. Making people vote against their visceral, left on the political and
economic interests is very difficult, and the victory of right-wing, sirech party in
power, under such conditions may be largely a victory of administrative resources
in the coupe with modern political strategists.
What then is the situation in Russia is similar to the situation in the Islamic
world, where attempts to hold relatively free elections led to the threat of Islamist
victory. And with the threat of the secular elites of Muslim countries such as
Turkey, dealt in different ways, both who can. How to solve the problem of its
Islamist Turkish army, we are well aware not only of history. Turkish military had
to use more traditional, more stringent methods of social control, because too much
power of religious traditions, too, by the standards of Western countries, poor
Turkish peasants.
The Russian authorities have the situation somewhat similar to something
different. The situation in Russia is easier, but still too poor by the standards of
developed economies and democracies Russian peasants, workers, and Public
Employment, they still may not be full players consumer society. They still need
information and anesthetic protection from the horrors surrounding his real life,
look at the world through the pink glasses first and second federal channels.
The real world in which these people lived, not very friendly to them,
economic growth in the country yet geographically located in major cities,
especially in mega-cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. A lot of Russians must be
given not only the physical possibility to reach a better future, but also help break
down psychologically, to wait for the spread of economic growth in breadth and
depth of.
From the history of Russia and other countries, we know that the inability to
realize their potential in the field of the Earth, pushes the material life of man to
the care of the validity of the scope of deviant practices, and the scope

30
sverhmaterialnogo, acculturation to the world of ideas, less secular, more religious.
And he and a solution destructive for the individual and society. Destructive
practices as deviant behavior, such as such as alcoholism and drug addiction, and
treatment of spiritual Opium secular and religious ideologies.
In this context, it becomes clear federal policy of broadcasting channels,
which, according to expert estimates, soothes, entertains and besot mass audience.
We see a conscious attempt to replace undesirable forms of socially deviant
behavior failed the citizens of Russia virtual world of mass culture. This is a form
of drug anesthesia unsuccessful social strata of society, minimizing their protest
potential, obstacles to the realization of the real social conditions of its own
existence. Every evening, the federal TV channels make them vaccinated against
regular participation in the Russian revolution, minimizing the possibility of such a
revolution.
The mission was to prevent a potential revolution in strategic perspective,
does not very good authority, if not more pleasant, then at least more
understandable. In the revolutionary context can be understood and enhanced
television anesthesia part of Russian society. Let the best man in the street will be
near the customer than the fiery revolutionary. If the man in the street wake up,
slezet with needles television virtual reality, a few do not seem to anybody.
Strasheny Russian revolt, senseless and merciless. Man in the street, which is at
once revolutionary, remember everything. He remember the authorities and the
social good fellow, the disintegration of the great powers - the USSR, the value of
the property separation in society, their own unenviable economic situation, the
absence of the great national idea, the destruction of traditional relations in society.
Because we all need to be more careful in speeches and actions, no longer
throw stones glass house called Russia. In their political actions and the public and
the authorities should take into account the fundamental volatility of the current
design of the Russian statehood.
The fundamental cause of the instability of a minimal political participation
of citizens in political life, even those who supported and defended the new power

31
for most of the post-Soviet period. As at first sight paradoxically, the internal
fragility of modern Russian statehood due to the almost exclusive reliance on the
power chinovnye, including the power structures are not saving in a critical
situation. In this regard, at least remember the experience of the collapse of the
Soviet Union.
It is so hard for Russia to repeat traditional errors. Power is the most
weakened structure of Russian statehood, localized and demoralize virtually all
segments of civil society that could support her in a difficult minute. Now she
hopes only for the officials and people in uniform. The Russian state has become
too fragile, this wine and the sin of government and society.
This situation requires the company not to make sudden movements,
attempting to break what might be broken. From history we know that the
destruction of statehood adversely affect the individual and society.
Therefore, it is necessary not to break, but to build. Not included in the
clinch tight and destructive confrontation, but to support the possible forms of
cooperation, to use all possible platforms for dialogue, including the Public
Chamber. In this way you can influence not only in words but also in the affairs of
government. We need to try to stop the confrontation of liberal society and the
authorities, learn to listen not only to themselves but also other, to move from
monologue to dialogue with each other, to depart from the position of white
garments and moral excellence of the power, not to pursue a clear victory, but
compromise.
We recall that in our history has been, and rejection of power, the refusal of
dialogue, were populist, esery, as in Soviet times trying to live is not to lie
dissidents ... There were people opposing power in word and deed, but that it was
for power, and who is a party to the latest possible closure of the dialogue?
We know that this neadaptivnaya the power of inertia, shape, lack of
decisions and the will to respond adequately to the challenges of the time, until the
end was way samoischerpaniya. In Empire, the Romanovs, it has exhausted itself
not moving towards a desirable society, the republican form of government, ending

32
its existence revolution of 1905-1907 years and the participation in the First World
War on the side of a republican France. Surprising ease revolution in February
1917 the first revolution was the result of the desire, which is shared by several
generations of Russian educated society. It can not be so prolong the inevitable, a
revolution can not let door policy of internal, it break in the window of foreign
policy, it will still come if it was a historic time and historical time neadaptivnoy
power - gone.
On the stump rotted and the USSR, rotted before being bloodless, free, I
wish the participants of the events samoraspada. It is a separate big topic, I note
only that the past and its historical time. And the dialogue and the power of society
in the era of Gorbachev had already saved could not - too many have been in the
history of the USSR and blood was too inefficient Soviet economy.
Today there is no need to repeat the same political mistakes. Back from the
confrontation and dialogue - deliriously difficult task, impossible in the absence of
a party, but the dialogue between them is the only way to remove the still largely
latent civil resistance, to become an effective mechanism to strengthen both civil
society and the Russian state.

Gavrov Sergey Nazipovich (Russian: Гавров Сергей Назипович, 1964, Gorky, USSR) –
Russian philosopher, social anthropologist, a political scientist. Doctor of Philosophy. Professor
of Sociology and Social Anthropology MGUDT. Senior Research Fellow sector social processes
and systems of the Russian Institute for Cultural Research. Author of several books on the
problems of modernization, intercultural, imperial and colonial studies, and over one hundred
scientific articles included in the collection of the Library of Congress, the world's leading
libraries and universities (Harvard, Turabian, Chicago, APA, MLA, University of Wisconsin-
Madison [[1]], Freie Universität Berlin)[[2]]. A member of the editorial board of the journals
«Personality. Culture. Community» (Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences) and
the «Psychology elite», as well as the Commission «To study the complex problems of human
culture and society», acting under the Board of the Russian Academy of Sciences «The history of
world culture». In the area of scientific interest - the problem of modernization of
transformations in different hypostasis, including political, demographic, educational, social and
cultural as well as the philosophy of education. Professor Gavrov included in the summary

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recommendation list of Russian scientists and politicians, best reflected in their political life in
Russia in 1994-2003 years. Worldcat. Russian Politics [[3]]. A member of the Writers' Union in
Moscow

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