Preamble
Russian civilization is a combination of spiritual, moral and material forms of existence of the Russian people

A long-term study of the documentary sources of the development of Russian life over the past two thousand years allows us to conclude that an original civilization has developed in Russia, the high spiritual and moral values ​​of which are increasingly being revealed to us in the concept of "Holy Russia", in Orthodox ethics and benevolence, in the Russian icon, church architecture, industriousness as a virtue, non-possessiveness, mutual assistance and self-government of the Russian community and artel - in general, in that structure of being, where the spiritual motives of life prevailed over the material ones, where the goal of life was not a thing, not consumption, but improvement, transformation of the soul. These spiritual forms of existence permeate the entire historical life of the Russian people, are clearly traced through the primary sources for more than two thousand years, manifesting themselves, of course, not in the same way in different periods and in different regions of Russia.

Russian civilization is an integral set of spiritual, moral and material forms of existence of the Russian people, which determined its historical fate and shaped its national consciousness. Based on the values ​​of their civilization, the Russian people managed to create the greatest state in world history, uniting many other peoples in a harmonious relationship, develop great culture, art, literature, which became the spiritual wealth of all mankind.

For the first time, the great Russian scientist N.Ya. Danilevsky. True, he spoke not about Russian, but about Slavic civilization, however, the concepts that he invested in it make it possible to speak, most likely, about Russian civilization. It was Danilevsky who was the first in the world to scientifically develop the theory of cultural-historical types, each of which has an original character.

Before him, the idea dominated that human society develops in all countries equally, as it were, linearly, upwards, from lower forms to higher ones. First there were India and China, then the highest forms of development passed to Greece and Rome, and then they received their final completion in Western Europe. These ideas were born in the West and were a Western version of the concept of the "Third Rome", that is, the West, as it were, took over the baton of world development, declaring itself the highest expression of world civilization. All the diversity of cultural and historical types was considered within the framework of a single civilization. These erroneous ideas of N.Ya. Danilevsky convincingly denied. He showed that development does not proceed linearly, but within the framework of a number of cultural and historical types, each of which is a closed spiritual space in relation to others, and it can only be evaluated according to its internal criteria, inherent only to it.

Civilization is the main form of human organization of space and time, expressed by qualitative principles that lie in the peculiarities of the spiritual nature of peoples that make up an original cultural and historical type. Each civilization is a closed spiritual community, existing simultaneously in the past and present and facing the future, having a set of features that allow it to be classified according to certain criteria. Civilization is not equivalent to the concept of "culture" (although they are often mistakenly identified). Thus, the latter is only a specific result of the development of the internal spiritual values ​​of civilization, having a strict limitation in time and space, that is, it appears in the context of its era.

The division of mankind into civilizations is no less important than the division into races. If races are historically developed varieties of a person that have a number of hereditary external physical features that were formed under the influence of geographical conditions and were fixed as a result of the isolation of various human groups from each other, then belonging to a particular civilization reflected a historically developed spiritual type, a psychological stereotype that was fixed in a certain national community, as well as due to special historical and geographical conditions of life and genetic mutations. If belonging to a race was expressed in skin color, hair structure and a number of other external signs, then belonging to civilization was expressed primarily in internal, spiritual, mental and psychological signs, self-sufficient spiritual attitudes.

Each civilization has its own character and develops according to its own laws. In general, the conclusions of N.Ya. Danilevsky about the nature of civilization are as follows:

• any tribe or family of peoples, characterized by a separate language or a group of languages ​​close to each other, constitutes an original cultural and historical type, if it is capable of historical development in accordance with its spiritual inclinations;
• in order for a civilization characteristic of an original cultural-historical type to be born and develop, the political independence of its peoples is necessary;
• the beginnings of a civilization of one cultural-historical type are not transmitted to peoples of another type. Each type develops it for itself with greater or lesser influence of civilizations alien to it, previous or modern civilizations;
• civilization, characteristic of each cultural-historical type, only reaches fullness, diversity and richness when the ethnographic elements that make it up are diverse, when they, not being absorbed into one political whole, using independence, constitute a federation or political system of the state.

Russian civilization as a spiritual and historical type was born almost two millennia before the adoption of Christianity. Its contours are outlined in the spiritual representations of the Chernoles culture of the Middle Dnieper region of the 10th–8th centuries. BC e. As academician B.A. Rybakov, even then the agricultural tribes of the Eastern Slavs formed an alliance for defense against the nomadic Cimmerians, learned to forge iron weapons and build mighty fortresses. The ancient people of these tribes called themselves chipped. In the 7th century BC e. The Skolot tribal union entered as an autonomous unit into a vast federation, conventionally called Scythia.

There are a number of testimonies of ancient historians, geographers, philosophers about the life of the agricultural Skolt tribes of Scythia. In particular, Strabo notes the characteristic features of the Skolots: benevolence (courtesy), justice and simplicity. Even then, worship of the good beginnings of life, a democratic way of life and life, non-acquisitiveness and contempt for wealth can be traced. Many sources emphasize the adherence of the Skolot tribes to their traditions and customs.

The invasion of numerous Sarmatian tribes in the III century. BC e. suspended the process of formation and maturation of Russian civilization. The agricultural tribes were forced out into the dense forest zone, where much had to be started from the beginning. Zarubinets and Chernyakhov cultures that grew out of it, which existed until the 4th–5th centuries. n. e., were a regression compared to the Skolot period, but, nevertheless, they managed to preserve the main spiritual features, which, under the new conditions of the middle of the 1st millennium, made it possible to finally form the cultural and historical type of Russian civilization, creating unions of tribes, and later - and a single state.

The entire subsequent period of the development of Russian civilization can be characterized as a process of its natural expansion to natural boundaries. The process of expansion of Russian civilization was carried out mainly by spiritual power, and by no means by military force. Russian spiritual power organized other peoples around itself, suppressing opponents and rivals with the power of goodness and justice. The Finno-Ugric, and later many Siberian peoples were drawn into Russian civilization voluntarily, without blood or violence.

The great discovery of Danilevsky about the diversity and originality of civilizations was not properly appreciated by his contemporaries, moreover, his teaching is reviled. The opinion continues to prevail that Russia has developed and will continue to develop in line with European civilization, which is the highest expression of world civilization.

For many outstanding Russian contemporaries N.Ya. Danilevsky, the Russian world was perceived through the eyes of a Western person, through Western European "blinders" that make invisible many of the outstanding values ​​of Russian culture that determine its identity. But what could be expected, if at the end of the XIX century. many Russian philosophers did not know iconography and church architecture, and if they spoke about them, then only as borrowings from Byzantium? Perhaps the most prominent critic N.Ya. Danilevsky V.S. Solovyov wrote his works about Sophia, not knowing either Russian icon painting or Old Russian literature. Hence his falling away from Orthodoxy into Catholicism, disbelief in Russian culture and the conclusion that the Russian people do not have special talents.

Such discussions were not uncommon. So, for example, the historian V.O. Klyuchevsky argued that ancient Russian thought, for all its formal intensity and strength, never went beyond the limits of "church-moral casuistry." To say so means to sign one's ignorance in the field of ancient Russian literature, which gave a huge number of talented literary works various genres. Church historian Golubinsky, who supposedly had to study ancient Russian literature deeper, he believed that "Ancient Rus', right up to the Petrovsky coup, did not have not only education, but even bookishness ...".

The negative attitude of the intelligentsia and the ruling class to the values ​​of Russian civilization, which they were obliged to serve, became one of the main reasons for the great tragedy of Russia in the 20th century. Due to various historical circumstances, a significant part of the Russian ruling stratum and intelligentsia, called upon to serve the development and improvement folk life, development cultural heritage country, changed its purpose and became a tool for the rejection of the national heritage, the imposition of alien ideas and forms of life on the people, borrowed mainly from the West. kowtowing before the West has become hallmark a significant part of the Russian educated society and the ruling stratum, which was noted by Lomonosov and Fonvizin, Pushkin and Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Bunin.

The development of Western European "enlightenment" in Russia is a consistent process of rejection and destruction of the Russian national culture , the destruction of Russian civilization, the moral and physical destruction of its carriers, attempts to build utopian forms of life in the country.

What separated the Russian and Western civilizations, making their meeting so tragic? The answer to this question is extremely important for understanding the values ​​of Russian civilization. The main difference is in a different understanding of the essence human life and social development. Civilization in Russia was predominantly spiritual, while in the West it was predominantly economic, consumerist, even aggressively consumerist. The roots of Western civilization go back to the Jewish worldview of the Talmud, which proclaims a small part of humanity to be the "chosen people", having a special "right" to dominate others, to appropriate their labors and property.

During the XI-XVIII centuries. the former Christian civilization of the West is gradually being transformed into a Judeo-Masonic civilization that denies the spiritual values ​​of the New Testament, replacing them with the Jewish worship of the golden calf, the cult of violence, vice, carnal enjoyment of life. Holy Rus' could not accept such a worldview. Priority of the main life values and the joys of man Ancient Rus' was not on the economic side of life, not in the acquisition of material wealth, but in the spiritual and moral sphere, embodied in the high peculiar culture of that time.

Without an understanding of Orthodoxy, it is impossible to realize the significance of Russian civilization, Holy Rus', although it should be remembered that it is not reduced to pure ecclesiasticism and samples of ancient Russian holiness, but much wider and deeper than them, including the entire spiritual and moral sphere of the Russian person, many elements of which arose even Before the adoption of Christianity, Orthodoxy crowned and strengthened the ancient worldview of the Russian people, giving it a more refined and sublime character. Speaking about the predominantly spiritual character of Russian civilization, it makes no sense to assert that such a civilization was the only one. Russian civilization had much in common with Indian, Chinese and Japanese civilizations.

The search for the goal of development is not in the acquisition of material wealth, not outside of a person, but in the depths of his soul, in the pursuit of the absolute principles of being, makes these great civilizations related. In the XVI century. the ideological struggle between Russian and Western civilizations, in particular, found expression in the concept of "Moscow - the Third Rome", the basis of which was the assertion of the values ​​of Russian civilization, opposition to Western ideology. In the West, "they are asking for this life", and in Rus' "they are pleasing for the future life." Of course, the reasons for this struggle are much more serious than a simple clash between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. By the 16th century In Europe, two opposing ideologies of life crystallized, one of which, the Western one, developed in line with aggressive consumerism, which had outgrown by the 20th century. into a real consumption race.

The confrontation between Russian and Western civilizations became the defining event of the 20th century. Even the "cold" war between "communism" and "capitalism" basically had the character of a struggle between Russian and Western civilizations, because many communist ideas were a perverted version of the ideas of Russian civilization. And today, in this confrontation between Russian and Western civilizations, the fate of all mankind is being decided, because if Western civilization finally wins, the world will be turned into a giant concentration camp, behind the barbed wire of which 80% of the world's population will create resources for the remaining 20%.

Deprived of any restrictions, the consumption race of Western countries will lead to the depletion of world resources, demoralization and death of mankind. Spiritual civilizations give humanity a chance to survive, one of the main places among which is occupied by Russian civilization, which is focused not on aggressive consumerism and the war of all against all, but on reasonable self-restraint and mutual assistance. Russian civilization was the main obstacle to the West's path to world domination.

For centuries, it held back the greedy pressure of the Western consumer on the treasures of the East. This earned her the special hatred of the Western man in the street. The West rejoiced at any failures, any weakening of Russia. For Western Europe, wrote I.A. Ilyin, “Russian is foreign, restless, alien, strange and unattractive. Their dead heart is dead to us. They, proudly looking down at us, consider our culture either insignificant, or some big and mysterious “misunderstanding”... There are peoples, states, governments, church centers, behind-the-scenes organizations and individuals in the world who are hostile to Russia, especially Orthodox Russia, especially imperial and not dismembered Russia. Just as there are “Anglophobes”, “Germanophobes”, “Japanophobes”, so the world abounds with “Russophobes”, enemies national Russia who promise themselves every kind of success from its downfall, humiliation and weakening. It needs to be thought through and felt to the end.”

The pressure of Western civilization on Russian civilization was carried out constantly. This was not a free meeting of two distinctive parties, but a constant attempt by the Western side to assert its superiority. Several times Western civilization sought to destroy Russian civilization through military intervention, such as the Polish-Catholic invasion and Napoleon's campaign. But each time she suffered a crushing defeat, faced with a powerful, incomprehensible force, trying to explain her inability to defeat Russia by various external factors - Russian winter, vast territory, etc.

But still Russian civilization is largely destroyed, but not as a result of weakness, but as a result of degeneration and national degeneration of its educated and ruling stratum. People who, by their national and social role in society, should be the guardians of the precious vessel of Russian civilization, dropped it from their hands, and it broke.

This was done by the intelligentsia and the nobility, deprived of national consciousness, under the influence of "Western enlightenment." Although the precious vessel of Russian civilization has been broken, its images continue to be preserved at the genetic level in the depths of the national consciousness of the indigenous Russian people. They, like the memory of the City of Kitezh, are stored in the national consciousness, marking the "golden age" of the Russian people, the age when the Russian people remained themselves, lived according to the precepts of their ancestors in the conciliar unity of all classes. The national consciousness is formed during the life of many generations and absorbs the tribal experience of the people, due to Divine Providence and historical destiny.

National consciousness is not a chain of speculative constructions, but the spiritual and moral guidelines of the Russian people that have acquired the character of an unconscious beginning, expressed in their typical actions and reactions, proverbs, sayings, in all manifestations of spiritual life. National consciousness cannot be identified with the national ideal, although the latter is an integral part of it. Most likely, these are some kind of nodes of the people's psyche, predetermining the most probable variant of a practical choice in certain conditions. This does not mean at all that deviations and extremely opposite actions cannot take place.

National consciousness creates one of the main prerequisites for a full life. A person deprived of national consciousness is flawed and weak, he turns into a toy of external forces, the depth, fullness of the surrounding life is inaccessible to him. The inferiority and tragedy of many Russian intellectuals and nobles consisted in the fact that they were deprived of Russian national consciousness and became an instrument for the destruction of Russia in the hands of its enemies. Understanding the spiritual and moral values ​​of Russian civilization and the depths of national consciousness is of paramount importance today, because it allows us to open for us and free from all kinds of accretions the source of our strength - the Russian national core.

Since the time of the Slavophiles and Danilevsky, this path has not yet been completely overcome. Leading Russian philosophers and scientists of the late XIX - 1st half of the XX century. practically did not touch this field of knowledge, and if they considered it, then from a Western position, interpreting Russian identity as a legacy of Byzantism. The voices of nationally minded Russian scientists were drowned out by standard formulations about Russia's age-old backwardness and the reactionary nature of its people. Only a few scientists have managed to overcome the absurd chorus of Westernizing accusations and show the world what a precious spiritual treasure was historical Russia - Holy Rus'.

The main generalizations of this book were prompted by conversations with one of the greatest Orthodox ascetics and thinkers of the 20th century. Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga John.

In 1993, at a meeting of the commission for the canonization of saints of the Russian Orthodox Church, at which a report was made on G. E. Rasputin in connection with the upcoming glorification of Nicholas II, Vladyka John gently but very convincingly reproached for "one-sided enthusiasm for the Russian question." According to the metropolitan, this issue is more of a religious than a national character.

The severe trials that have befallen the Russians are a consequence of the fact that they have been a God-bearing people over the past centuries, the main guardian of the Christian faith. Therefore, it was on the Russians that the main blow of the enemies of the human race fell. The concept of Holy Rus' was for the Metropolitan a synonym for the concept of "Russian civilization". This was clear from conversations with him. In our country, said Bishop John, national question was predominantly only an external form, behind which was hidden the desire of Russians to preserve their faith.

All visible contradictions - social, economic, political - were of secondary importance, and the main thing for a native Russian person was always the question of faith, of Holy Rus' (Russian civilization), the memories of which were kept in the recesses of his soul. The revival of Holy Rus' (Russian civilization) in all the greatness and unity of Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality - main point life of a native Russian person. This idea was constantly pursued by the great Orthodox ascetic in his writings and conversations. At the last meeting with Vladyka John, which took place ten days before his death, he presented his book Overcoming Troubles, accompanying it with parting words about “increasing love for Holy Rus',” which became his spiritual testament.

Revealing the spiritual values ​​of Russian civilization, stored in the national consciousness of a Russian person, we mean, first of all, a person before the beginning of the 18th century, for whom they were an organic worldview. In later times, until the beginning of the 20th century, this integral worldview of Russian civilization was preserved in the minds of Orthodox ascetics, saints, spiritual writers, as well as native Russian peasants and merchants, especially in the northern regions of Russia (although by no means all of them).

used in the book the concept of "Russian people" includes, as it was accepted before 1917., all its geographical parts, including Little Russians and Belarusians. Back in the 19th century no one doubted their belonging to the Russian nation. Official statistics considered all of them Russians and divided them into Little Russians and Belarusians on a purely geographical, and not national, basis. Like Siberia or the Urals, Ukraine and Belarus constituted a single geography of the Russian people, an integral fraternal organism.

Some linguistic, ethnographic differences between Ukraine and Belarus were explained by the peculiarities of their historical development under the conditions of centuries-old Polish-Lithuanian occupation. The proclamation of the Russian people of Ukraine as a special people is the result of the subversive work of the Austro-German special services (and later Western special services in general with the aim of dismembering and weakening the single fraternal organism of Russia. The author expresses his deep gratitude to all individuals and organizations that provided creative assistance and financial support, without the kind participation which this book could not have been published.

The material was prepared according to the book by Platonov O.A.
"Russian civilization. History and ideology of the Russian people"

Dostoevsky said that the Russian question is a question of universal human meaning. And indeed, raising the question of Russian civilization, we inevitably come to the questions of other civilizations, civilizational dialogue. So, does Russian (Russian) civilization exist?

In Russian, there is a subtlety in the use of the word Russian. This word is the same in English and in almost all languages, when they want to define ethnic Russians on the one hand, the Russian people as a nationality, but also when they want to talk about the country and its civilizational essence as a whole.

Russia is a country of many ethnic groups and confessions. There are dozens of them. Therefore, in the Russian dictionary there is the word Russian, and there is the word Russian. At the same time, the Russian people make up the majority of the Russian population (about 80%), the Russian Orthodox Church, among traditional Russian religions, occupies its historically formed place. Accordingly, I will always use the phrase Russian (Russian) civilization, which is strange in the opinion of a non-Russian-speaking person. It contains content that is very important for our topic, reflecting the connectedness of the concepts (but not exclusivity!) of ethnicity and civilizational identity. Civilization is wider than ethnicity. [...]

It would seem that the existence of Russian (Russian) civilization within the framework of international civilizational discourse is beyond doubt. The phenomenology of the Russian-Orthodox civilization was recognized by both A. Toynbee and S. Huntington. Skepticism about the very existence of a special Russian (Russian) civilizational type has an internal Russian origin. Genetically, it is associated with a modified ideology of Russian Westernism and has a more political than scientific basis. In this regard, the controversy on the question - is there a Russian civilization - has a predominantly domestic Russian format. However, it is advisable to consider it as a general methodological problem of proving the existence of modern civilizational types.

Is this question relevant? Yes, because the opposite position is very active in the world on the issue of modern local civilizations and their destinies.

In particular, the position of denying the phenomenological nature of Russian (Russian) civilization includes several significant views that are in circulation much more widely than only in relation to the question of Russian civilization.

1. Value profiles of civilizations
To solve this problem, we used the well-known data of sociological measurements within the framework of the international World Values ​​Survey project. The position of Russia was considered by us in comparison with the indicators of countries traditionally defined as typical representatives of the corresponding civilizational areas. This is the West Atlantic (Anglo - Saxon) civilization - the USA, European - (Germany), Latin American, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Islamic (Iran) civilizations. [...]

In addition, modern sociology does not fully reveal the fundamental historically inertial civilizational value constants. They are overlaid with current, including those manipulated with the help of modern information technologies, states of consciousness, which masks the effects and makes it difficult to identify them.

Nevertheless, proceeding from the assumption of the inertia of the stability factors of the identity of civilizations, we believe the analysis of the country-by-country comparison of sociological measurements to be very informative. Table 2 shows the level of preference in Russia for a number of paramount values ​​in human life and society. Their average, maximum and minimum values ​​in the world are also given.

The given indicators of sociological measurements come into conflict with some stereotypes. For example, about indifference, lack of family, the cult of work and the acquisitive guidelines of American society. By all the indicated parameters, the United States, when compared with Western Europe, has more significant indicators.

On the other hand, Japan, usually positioned as a stronghold of tradition and behavioral codes, reveals a low significance of these values ​​in relation to the world level. Nevertheless, for the most part, the existing ideas about the identity of the "value profile" of various civilizations have been confirmed. This indicates the correctness of the methodological approach.

In the list of eight civilizations, Russia has a maximum (first place) or a minimum (last place) in five value parameters. The value of helping people and economic growth is of maximum importance, the attitude to politics, freedom of speech, and imagination is the minimum.

Three of the five listed value orientations are traditionally referred in the literature to the specific civilizational features of Russia. This:
1. Community assistance (the value of helping people);
2. Autosubjectivity of power, autocracy, refusal of the people from direct participation in political life in favor of the supreme sovereign (minimization of the value of politics);
3. Lack of adaptability in the Russian context of the axiology of liberal freedoms and the very ideology of liberalism (minimization of the value of freedom of speech).

A relatively low indicator of the orientation of education towards the disclosure of the ability to imagine is determined by the tradition of polytechnic education in Russia. Artistic and figurative education here does not play the role that is given to it in a number of other civilizations. The significance of the indicator of high economic growth for the Russian population reflects the historically low level of well-being and the desire to improve it.

2. The degree of value closeness to Russia of different civilizations

How do the value indicators of Russia correlate with the axiological profile of other civilizations? Can it be identified within the framework of other civilizational systems or is it a civilization-independent phenomenon?

The calculation consisted in establishing the frequency for each civilization of cases of the closest proximity of its indicator to the Russian level. The result obtained allows us to assert the value independence of Russia. A wide range of countries was found that have the greatest degree of proximity to Russia in terms of one or another parameter (Fig. 1).

None of the comparable civilizational systems even approaches a third of the possible level of coincidence of indicators. The United States has the least coincidence of indicators as manifestations of proximity to Russia. This confirms the hypothesis about the heterogeneity of the Russian and American civilizational value types.

3. The degree of value remoteness from Russia of different civilizations

Along with the question of civilizational closeness, the question of identifying the value antipodes of Russia is legitimate. This is, in general, a question about the alternative genesis of the Russian civilizational system. The verification was carried out by counting the frequency of cases of the greatest remoteness of the value indicators of the studied group of countries from Russian ones.

It turned out that, as well as on the issue of coincidence, none of the civilizational systems can be defined as a stable Russian antipode. For none of them does the value of opposition reach 30%. At the same time, the West finds itself in a polar position with respect to Russia even less often than the countries of the East. The maximum frequency of value oppositions to Russia is demonstrated by Japan - 8 times, India - 7 times, Iran - 6 times. The alternative here is obviously a consequence of the mental differences of the peoples, which go back not least to the variability of the religious platform. Countries that have been civilizationally formed on the foundation of Christianity are less often in value opposition to Russia. This also testifies to the civilizational self-sufficiency of Russia.

When subtracting from the indicator of the frequency of cases of the greatest proximity of remoteness indicators, paradoxically, at first glance, Brazil turned out to be the most axiologically close to Russia country (the highest indicator in the first case, the lowest in the second). This proximity cannot be explained by cultural influence. Historically, contacts between Brazil and Russia have been minimal.

Consequently, the reasons for value similarity should be sought in the similarity of civilizational genesis.

There are two coinciding circumstances - a large state territory and a traditionalist version of Christianity (orthodox Catholicism in one case and orthodox Orthodoxy in another).

Other countries, the USA, China, also have a comparable territorial scale. So it's not just about territory. More important is the factor of traditionalist Christianity. The modernized Christian faith, formed in line with Protestantism, creates a different axiological type. Thus, the importance of the religious factor of civilization in relation to the generation of its value orientations is confirmed.

Another thing is that this role in modern society is decreasing. The genesis factor foundations of the viability of civilizations and the current axiological guidelines of society in the conditions of their manipulation are far from identical.

4. Civilizational value hierarchies

The hierarchy in value sets differs for different civilizations. The proof of this position is the configuration of the ratings of the ten most significant value orientations of different countries. All of them are different from the world average configuration.

A certain exception against the background of high variability represents the value of the family. In 6 out of 8 ratings, the family was in first place. This indicates the fundamental importance of the family institution for mankind, regardless of the civilizational development corridor. However, even in this value indicator there is variability. For the German society, the family in the hierarchy of values ​​is in second place, and for the Chinese - in fourth place. For Russia, the first three basic values ​​are as follows: family - work - patriotism.

The discrepancy for different civilizations is indicative not only of the top ten, but even of the upper triads of civilizational values ​​(Fig. 5).

The only exception is the coincidence of higher value triads for Russia, India and Iran.

5. Civilization-value balance.

Based on the established fact of differences in the value preferences of different civilizations, it is possible to introduce a total indicator of the value positioning of each civilization. Then it will be possible to see the position of Russia on the comparison scale and assess its right to be considered an independent identical civilization (Fig. 6).

The countries representing the Western civilization turned out to be the most remote from Russia. The hypothesis about the value non-identity of the Russian civilization with the West, thus, is clearly confirmed by the sociological material.

At the same time, as mentioned above, it is by no means about their antinomy. There are not so many polar contradictions between them, in comparison with non-Christian civilizational communities. The discrepancy between Russia and the West lies not so much in the nomination of values, but in their expression or preference. And in the end, this gives a significant difference in understanding the meanings of life and the phenomena and processes that occur. In the choice of personal, group and nationwide actions in domestic and foreign policy. In assessments and rhetoric. These differences are not accidental and not malicious or directed against anyone. Just civilizations are different. Not worse or better than others, but different.

6. On the value stability of identity
When identifying the significance of a value for a particular civilization, it is necessary, of course, to correct for time. Value indicators do not remain historically unchanged. They can either be strengthened through the targeted efforts of the state and society, or they can be destroyed. Thus, the traditional society is focused on strengthening traditional value orientations. Values ​​are established in it as sacred laws. There is a system of taboo protecting them from destruction.

The era of modernity has caused the process of destruction of the value constants of civilizations. The period of postmodern inversions accelerated the course of destructive processes even more.

An indirect indicator of the axiological state of each civilization is the ratio of the weight of its value package to the global level. The reduced state of the package can serve as an indicator of both its destruction and the low factorial value of some values ​​for the viability of the corresponding civilization. The insignificance of one value - factor can be compensated by an increased level of significance of another. That is why the analysis of the entire value package was chosen. Exceeding the world level will mean a relatively prosperous state in terms of preserving values, while a lower position in relation to it will mean a threat to the axiological destruction of civilization.

The result of the calculations was the confirmation of the thesis about the civilizational-value destructiveness of modernity. (Fig.7). Six of the eight compared civilizations were below the world level. Above it - only India and Iran. It is the civilizational systems they represent that managed to retain the connection with the principles of traditional society. On the contrary, the worst indicators of the value state in relation to the world level are demonstrated by the countries of the "golden billion" - the USA, Japan, Germany.

Today, the position of the countries of the "golden billion" in the world is still dominant. However, an analysis of their value state allows us to predict future civilizational upheavals for them. A society with devalued values ​​has no prospects for long-term existence. Speaking of Russia, we must also qualify her position as threatening.

7. Civilization matrix

It is undeniable and obvious that peoples and countries in the process of globalization are drawing closer to each other. Culture, information, institutions, technologies, infrastructures are being globally disseminated. Similar modernization tasks are being solved. However, models of modernization differ significantly depending on the civilizational context. The historically elaborated matrix of civilizational existence can act today as a special "civilizational limiter of development" (or vice versa, "civilizational corridor of development").

In Table 3, based on the methodology proposed in the work, the main conditions for the course of modernization processes are identified. The basic ideological provisions are fundamentally different depending on the civilization. For the Russian civilization, they are completely different than, for example, for the communities of the West.

A non-trivial issue in the discourse on the identification of civilizations is the ambiguity of the content of seemingly coinciding concepts. Let us show this by the example of the community, which is presented as an indispensable social institution of the traditional model of society. Its existence seems to be found in the same way in various types of civilizations, which at first glance testifies in favor of the universalism of world development. But are identical institutions hidden under the same notion of community?

For the analysis, the communal structures of three civilizations were taken: for the Russian - the concept of "world", for the Western European - "civic" and the Chinese "chia" (Table 4)

Here again a linguistic digression is needed. The Russian word "mir" is very ambiguous. It was this feature of the Russian language that the brilliant Leo Tolstoy used in his world famous novel"War and Peace". So "peace" is not war. "World" is all mankind and the whole earth as a planet. The "world" is everything that surrounds us. "World" is a community, a local community. None of the six comparison measures used found a match for "community". There are three fundamentally different social institutions, an attempt to identify which, with one semantic load, leads to a significant deformation in relation to each of them.

Russian civilization is a complex of historically formed systems that ensure its viability. These systems were substantiated ideologically and fixed in the minds of the population as values.

8. Dangers of civilizational engineering
Since the early 1990s Russia, due to many circumstances, has entered the phase of civilizational value inversion. Samples of the organization of the Western community were taken as a standard. They were not very reasonably perceived by society as generally applicable universals, while in reality they represent unique life support mechanisms for only a certain civilization. Few thought that they might not be suitable for the Russian civilizational context. We see that there is even less understanding of how dangerous such transfers can be for the civilization of the recipient.

The destruction of the former Russian (Soviet) civilizational model of creating something fundamentally comparable in effectiveness did not follow. The introduced elements of Western life support systems have found their non-functionality in Russia.

When, after almost 20 years, we began to sum up the results of neoliberal reforms, it turned out that the country continues to exist only due to the heavily destroyed, but not yet completely destroyed, mechanisms for the functioning of the Soviet, and before that, the imperial Russian statehood.

The Bolsheviks came to an equally disappointing result in the implementation of the task of building a “state of a new type”. As is known, they borrowed as a standard, and also from the West, the model of the Paris Commune. However, to the surprise of the left radicals, the state built in the USSR reproduced in new shells the main content of the previous system. The experience of historical civilizational value inversions indicates the contraindication of attempts at civilizational "engineering". It's the same way that non-viable mutations occur in genetic engineering.

Table 4 reflects the value aspirations of modern reforms in Russia to replace the traditional Russian life support systems of the Russian (Russian) civilization with Western ones. The inefficiency of the imposed civilizational transfers is another evidence of the reality of the existence of a special Russian (Russian) civilization. There is a Russian proverb: "What is healthy for a Russian is death for a German." And vice versa. […]

Thus, the results of our analysis, obtained through the use of world sociological tools, coincide with the conclusions drawn on the basis of other research methods. This is strong evidence of their authenticity.

Our main conclusion is this: Russia really has a civilizationally unique structure of values.

Its specificity gives every reason to make a statement about the existence of a special Russian (Russian) civilization.

Axiological transfers from other civilizations can be destructive and, most likely, this is an inevitable consequence in most cases of attempts at artificial value borrowings.

In the case of their imposition, the destructive result, apparently, has no alternative. It becomes obvious that these conclusions are applicable to other local civilizations in relation to the challenges of preserving their identity and, therefore, their existence.

Thus, historical time the rejection of the civilizational multicoloredness of the world has not yet come, if at all someday in the foreseeable future it will come.

Sulakshin S.S. , Director General of the Center for Scientific Political Thought and Ideology

Bagdasaryan V.E. , Project Manager of the Center for Scientific Political Thought and Ideology

Russia cannot be understood with the mind

Do not measure with a common yardstick

She has a special

One can only believe in Russia

F.I. Tyutchev

Features of formation and development Russian civilization

I. The concept of civilization.

• Time of occurrence.
• The role of the great migration of peoples.
• Union of different peoples.
• Connection with the Orthodox world.

III. Features of the development of Russian civilization.

• Factors that determined Russian civilization.
• Russian mentality.

• The struggle of forest and steppe.
• The special nature of power.
• Orthodoxy.
• Confrontation between East and West.
• messianism.

I. The concept of civilization

Civilization(from lat. civilis - civil, state): general philosophical meaning - a social form of the movement of matter, ensuring its stability and ability for self-development through self-regulation of exchange with the environment ...

Civilizations are integral systems, which are a complex of economic, political, social and spiritual subsystems and develop according to the laws of vital cycles.

Theorists: A. Ferguson, Boulanger, O. Spegler, N.Ya. Danilevsky..

II. Features of the formation of Russian civilization.

Russian civilization –

it is a socio-cultural community formed on the basis of the universal values ​​of Orthodox Christianity, as well as under the influence of the peculiarities of the geographical location and natural and climatic conditions.

Concepts of Russian civilization

Slavic cultural type (according to N. Ya. Danilevsky)

The Russian people are God-bearing people (according to F. M. Dostoevsky)

civilization (according to L. N. Tolstoy)

2. Russian mentality

The image of Russia

steppe mare -

flying, galloping

• traditional culture
• Orthodox tradition
• historical time compressed

“ For you - centuries, for us -

single hour”, - wrote A. Blok.

• binary structures of thought,

focused on explosion

And eternal battle! Rest only in our dreams. Through blood and dust... Flying, flying steppe mare And crushes the feather grass ... There is no rest! steppe mare Rushing jump!

A. Blok. Poem "On the Kulikovo Field"

The extensive nature of the development of Russian society and the state

“Do you know what Russia is? An icy desert, and a dashing man walks on it. K.P. Pobedonostsev

The perpetual motion of Russians was noted

V.O.Klyuchevsky, which defined Russia

as a country, which is being colonized" .

Attitude to power

• L.N. Tolstoy: “ The Russian people have always treated power differently than the European people. He never fought with power and, most importantly, he never participated in it, he was not corrupted by participation in it. Russian people have always looked at power as an evil, from which a person must be eliminated ... "
• The Russian character is glorified in the world, It is studied everywhere. He is so strangely vast, That he yearns for a bridle.
• I. Huberman.

community

“ It’s not the care that there is a lot of work, but the care that there is none.”

“ From work you will not be rich, but you will be a hunchback.

“ Would eat and drink

Yes, the work did not go to mind.

ascetic ideal

“ From the labors of the righteous you will not make stone chambers.”

“ Bread and belly live without money.”

“ The mind is stupid, but the wallet is tight.

“ Let your soul go to hell - you will be rich."

“ Naked as a saint: he is not afraid of trouble.

Eschatolism

All Russia needs is only faith: We believed in two-fingeredness, in the tsar, And in sleep, and in choh, in spread-eagled frogs, In materialism and in the International.

M. Voloshin

Attitude towards West and East

At the bottom of our souls we despise the West, But from there, in search of the gods, We steal the Hegels and Marxes, So that, perched on the barbarian Olympus, To smoke in their honor with styrax and sulfur And cut off the heads of our native gods.

M. Voloshin

And you, fire element, Go crazy, burning me, Russia, Russia, Russia - the Messiah of the coming day.

O unworthy of election, You are chosen.

Andrey Bely

The messianic role of Russia

Aren't we destined to live out the last fates of Europe, To avert Her deadly paths by ourselves.

Features of Russian civilization

Russian civilization is one of the largest civilizational communities in Eurasia. In Eurasia, the civilizational development of mankind has reached its maximum concentration, where the maximum diversity of its models has been revealed, including the interaction of East and West. The multi-ethnicity and multi-confessional nature of Russia has led to the complexity of self-identification and “choice” in the Eurasian space. Russia is characterized by the absence of a monolithic spiritual and value core, a "split" between traditional and liberal modernist values, and the transformation of the ethnic principle. Hence the problems with the national civilizational identity, we can say there is an identity crisis.

Belonging to the Russian civilization of many peoples, different religions is predetermined by the fact that they live together for a long time in a certain Eurasian territory, they are connected by age-old spiritual, social, human ties, the joint creation of cultural values ​​and state structures, their common defense, common troubles and good luck, - all this affirmed among the large and multi-confessional population a sense of belonging to the destinies of Russia, a number of common ideas, preferences, orientations that have become deep for the psychology of Russian ethno-confessional communities.

The contribution of Russian civilization to the common human treasury is predominantly spiritual and cultural in nature, manifesting itself in literature, moral and humanistic concepts, a special type of human solidarity, various types of art, and so on. It is precisely in the correlation, comparison of the values ​​of one civilization with the achievements of other civilizations that one most often encounters biased approaches and assessments. It is impossible to judge civilization by the specific socio-economic and political system of society, attributing their inherent vices and shortcomings to the essence of the life of Russian society. Civilizational factors are of a long-term nature and are reflected in cultural, religious, ethical characteristics, historical traditions, mentality. It is necessary to take into account the differences between today's short-term needs and conditions and long-term ideas and interests, as well as the differences between ideologically neutral national interests and ideological and political orientations, party preferences of individual social groups. With any model of social development, stability in Russia cannot be achieved without taking into account the peculiarities of its civilizational development: the idea of ​​the priority of the interests of society, the spiritual factor, the special role of the state, harsh natural and climatic conditions, colossal distances, when natural wealth is where there is no population. It is necessary to combine the traditional domestic culture and the value of modernization. The values ​​and norms achieved by the modern world civilization should be implemented through domestic forms of social life.

It should be borne in mind that 20% of the non-Russian population mainly live compactly on their historical lands, occupying about half of the territory of Russia, and are also partially scattered in the diaspora. Without a Russian foundation, including the unifying role of the Russian language, Russian society cannot exist, but at the same time, there is no Russia without a voluntary union of other primordial ethno-confessional communities. In the civilizational aspect, Russian culture is more of an all-Russian culture than a purely ethnic one, and this contributed to the creation of a great Russian culture that has received worldwide recognition. It must be taken into account that the Russian civilization is not innovative, but interpretive; the transfer of foreign achievements to Russian soil can give a brilliant result (for example, a Russian novel).

To understand the complexity of the paths of national history, it is necessary to represent the features of the type of civilization and culture that Russia represents.

There are various classifications of systems of civilizations according to a certain principle, for example, religious. For a culturological analysis of the development of Russia, it is fruitful to consider the type of reproduction of society. The type of reproduction is a synthesized indicator and includes: 1) a special system of values; 2)

characterization of social relations; 3) personality type associated with the specifics of the mentality.

There are two main types of society reproduction. The first is traditional, which is characterized by the high value of traditions, the power of the past over the future, the power of accumulated results over the ability to form qualitatively new, deeper achievements. As a result, society as a whole is reproduced in its historically established, unchanging forms, while maintaining the achieved social and cultural wealth of mankind. The second is liberal, which is characterized by a high value of a new result, more effective and more creative, as a result of which corresponding innovations appear in the field of culture, social relations, personality type, including innovations in mentality.

These two types of reproduction of civilizations are the poles of a single, but internally contradictory human civilization. Primary is the traditional civilization, while the liberal one appears as an anomaly, emerging in an immature form in the era of antiquity. Only after many centuries it is affirmed in a limited part of humanity. Today it is becoming dominant due to its moral, intellectual, technical achievements.

Both civilizations exist simultaneously. The liberal society grows gradually out of the traditional society, taking shape in the bowels of the Middle Ages. Christianity played a special role here, primarily with its demand to develop the personal principle, although it was accepted in different ways by various forms of Christianity. New values ​​manifested themselves gradually in all sectors of society in the sphere of spirit, forms of creative activity, in the economy, in particular, the development of commodity-money relations, law, rational logic and appropriate behavior. At the same time, in any country, despite liberalism, layers of traditional culture and corresponding forms of activity inevitably remain, in particular, in ordinary, everyday life. In this case, elements of traditionalism find their place within the mechanism of functioning of a liberal civilization. Traditionalism may not be integrated into a liberal civilization. Moreover, traditionalism, even with a small number of supporters, can wage a fierce struggle against liberalism, for example, terrorism.

The problem of the correlation of civilizations is extremely acute, it is of paramount importance today, when the transition of mankind from traditional to liberal civilization is taking place. This is a painful and tragic transition, the severity and inconsistency of which threatens with catastrophic consequences.

The transition from traditional to liberal civilizations occurs in different ways. The first countries that embarked on this path (USA, England) followed it for a long time, gradually mastering new values. The second group of countries (Germany) embarked on the path of liberalism when pre-liberal values ​​still occupied mass positions in them. The growth of liberalism was accompanied by crises, a powerful anti-liberal reaction, attempts to stop the further development of liberal civilization at its immature level. It was in such countries that fascism developed. It can be understood as the result of the fear of a society that has already embarked on the path of a liberal civilization, but is trying to slow down this process by resorting to archaic means, primarily through a return to tribal ideology, acting as racism, leading to genocide and race wars. Having suppressed liberalism, fascism, however, did not affect the developed utilitarianism, private initiative, which ultimately comes into conflict with authoritarianism.

Third countries (Russia) are moving towards liberalism under even less favorable conditions. Russia was characterized by the powerful influence of serfdom, which led to the fact that economic development itself took place not so much through the development of the labor market, capital, goods, but, above all, through a system of forced circulation of resources by the forces of archaic statehood. The most important thing is that the real increase in the importance of commodity-money relations, the development of utilitarianism and free enterprise among the broad masses of the population caused discontent and a desire to go against the authorities, which ceased to "equalize everyone." That is why liberalism in Russia was completely destroyed (the Cadets). However, liberalism did not die. The utilitarian desire for the growth of goods merged with the modernizing tendencies of part of the intelligentsia, which made it possible to restore the archaic statehood in its worst forms. The Soviet government tried to cultivate the achievements of liberal civilization, but harshly accepting them as a means for goals alien and hostile to liberalism.

Unlike the first two groups of countries, Russia has not crossed the border of a liberal civilization, although it has ceased to be a country of the traditional type. A kind of intermediate civilization arose, where forces were formed that prevented both the transition to a liberal civilization and the return to a traditional one.

In addition, the Russian civilization of the last three centuries is characterized by extreme inconsistency in development, accompanied by a deep split in society and culture.

In the public consciousness of Russia, there are polar assessments of the specifics of Russian civilization. Slavophiles and Eurasians stood for the identity of Russia, while Westerners assessed it as underdeveloped compared to the West. Such a division may indicate the incompleteness of the process of formation of Russian civilization: it is still in a state of civilizational search, this is a country of an emerging civilization.

The civilizational approach to Russia testifies to its backwardness from the West, and the cultural approach to its originality and originality, manifested in the highest upsurges of the human spirit. There is a gap between the civilizational and cultural image of Russia. Civilizational backwardness exists in the economic, political and domestic spheres. Hence the numerous attempts to modernize. But in a cultural sense, Russia occupies a prominent place. Russian culture became the soul of Russia, shaped its face and spiritual image. It was in the sphere of spiritual and cultural creativity that the national genius showed himself. The history of civilization and the history of culture, mismatched values ​​that can diverge far from each other. The gap between civilizations and culture, between body and soul, is what ultimately divided Europe and Russia. In this confrontation, Russia, as it were, took the side of culture, and Europe - of civilization, not without damage to culture.

For a significant part of educated society, already in the 19th century, Western civilization became synonymous with the complete despiritualization of life, its extreme rationalization and formalization, the discrediting of higher moral and religious values, and the transfer of the center of gravity from the spiritual to the material sphere. The Russian intelligentsia for the most part did not accept the reality of an industrial-mass society, seeing in it a denial of the ideals and values ​​of Western European culture itself. There was an ambivalent attitude towards the West, combining the recognition of its undoubted merits in the development of science, technology, public education, political freedoms with the rejection of a civilization that had degenerated into a "philistinism". Hence the search for a "Russian idea" that would make it possible to find a more worthy formula for life than in the West. Modernization is necessary, but without loss of originality. In relation to Western civilization, Russia is not an antipode, but a special type - another possibility for its development. This type has not really developed, and exists only in the form of a project, an idea, but it must be taken into account when developing any program for reforming the country. Cultural tradition, spiritual continuity - this is what must be reckoned with in the course of reforms.

Russia needs the practical reason of the West, just as the West needs the spiritual experience of Russia. Russia faces the problem of synthesis, reconciliation of the main achievements of Western civilization with its own culture. It is based on the assertion of a special type of human solidarity, which is not limited to economic and political and legal forms. We are talking about a kind of spiritual community that connects people regardless of private and national interests. This ideal has its source not so much in economic and political as in religious, moral and purely cultural forms of human life, originating in Orthodox ethics. F. M. Dostoevsky designated this quality as "universal responsiveness."

So, in the face of the West and Russia, we are not dealing with two different civilizations, but with one, although developing in different directions. If the West prioritizes economic growth and strengthening the rule of law public life, then Russia, without denying either the role of the economy or law, appeals, first of all, to culture, to its moral foundations and spiritual values, striving to make them the criterion of social progress. Russia does not deny Western civilization, but continues it in the direction of creating a universal civilization, in the direction of its reconciliation with the cultural and moral foundations of human existence. Russia and the West are two components of European civilization as a whole, through their confrontation the mechanism of self-development of European civilization was realized.

The Eurasian character of Russian civilization is manifested in the existence of European and Eastern elements in their organic unity in society.

European features are primarily associated with Christianity, which dominates Europe. This means worldview unity, the existence of common foundations of morality, understanding the role of the individual and his freedom, in particular freedom of choice. The East Slavic tribes, having begun to form their culture in pagan, mythological forms, bypassing their rationalization in the paradigms of their own culture according to the type of antiquity, immediately replaced them with the Christian faith. At the same time, it should be taken into account that such a step was not caused by the problem of economic or socio-cultural backwardness, but was rather of a purely political nature in the search for integration with Byzantine culture. Therefore, the process of Christianization of Rus', although it went differently than in the West, still had pan-European cultural origins rooted in ancient spiritual and intellectual traditions.

Initially, Byzantium had a significant influence, which manifested itself in the "bookishness", philosophical ideas, art, architecture. Then, from the 18th century onwards, the influence of European forms of culture (science, art, literature) increased, rationalism and secularization of culture developed, the education system, European philosophy, socio-economic and political thought were borrowed. In the social movement, "Westerners" appeared, formed in line with the ideology of the Enlightenment, including Marxism. In the Soviet Union, post-industrial, including value orientations began to take shape, although this process had its own specifics (changes affected the upper strata of society, there was a mechanical copying of forms without changing the essence). The European vector in politics was of particular importance for Russia. Although the settlement of Europe proceeded from the east and the main vector of innovations of the Neolithic period was eastern, in the future the main path of innovations of modern and recent times came from the west. Features of the territory, low population density, underdevelopment of cities, poor assimilation of the Roman beginning - all this hampered the innovation process in Russia.

Eastern "Asian" features of Russia are connected with the fact that the country was formed on the territory of traditional Eastern cultures and states (Turkic Khaganates, Khazaria, Volga Bulgaria, later -

Caucasus and Turkestan, area of ​​cultures of Desht-i-Kipchak). The Huns, the conquests of Genghis Khan, the Golden Horde and its heirs had a significant impact on Eastern Europe.

In Russia, following the type of Eastern despotism, the state actively intervened in basic economic relations, acting authoritarianly, it played a huge role in the formation of a special mentality, carried out educational functions in culture instead of the church, especially since the 18th century, placing the church in a dependent position. Through the Mongol Empire, much was borrowed from China: centralization, bureaucratization, the subordinate position of the individual in society, corporatism, the absence of civil society, the introversion of culture, its low dynamism, traditionalism. The Eurasianists even talked about civilization - a continent that has developed from the Pacific Ocean to the Carpathians.

For Russia - Eurasia is characterized by a certain stagnation, low innovativeness. In Western Europe, faster innovative development was caused by the development of cities, high population density, the preservation of part of the ancient spiritual heritage, that is, the compaction of the information space was stimulated. Russia could only partially compensate for the information hunger because waves of peoples swept through its territory, and it itself drew more and more peoples and countries into its borders (for example, the annexation of Ukraine, the Baltic States, Poland), but could not fully take advantage of the innovations of a hostile Europe. The East, by this time, had lost its innovative potential. The European civilization was formed as an information one, and this is its advantage over the others, here are the reasons for rapid variability and acceleration of evolution. In addition, the civilizations of Western Europe could draw from past and other cultures the elements they needed and assemble them in accordance with their tasks. The advantage of the West is, first of all, the advantage of technology. Non-European peoples have reached a high level in their technical improvements, but unlike the Europeans, they did not cultivate technology, did not adapt their existence to the rhythms and possibilities of the machine. However, the race of technology is killing the culture by devouring resources. The mechanism of general destruction is built into the mechanism of European civilization, incompatible with the creative principle that culture carries in itself. The question arises: is the "advanced" Western civilization the highest stage in the development of human society?

War is of particular importance in this race. Wars and militarization are a powerful stimulus for the development of technology. So, Peter I began solving the geopolitical problems of Russia with the creation of a modern army and navy and the corresponding industry.

It is impossible to understand the development of Russia in the 19th century, the evolution of its constituent territorial systems, without the fact of its militarization. The military factor largely set the vector for the development of the USSR in the 1930s and the post-war period.

The so-called "Tatar-Mongol yoke" (if there was one at all) was, with all the drama, a powerful innovative wave that brought many innovations to Rus'. At the same time, other waves were coming from the West (Scandinavia, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania). The spaces of Northern Eurasia turned out to be within the boundaries, although weakly connected, but of a single territorial system with a total area of ​​more than 4 million square meters. km from the Carpathians to the Yenisei. It was through the Horde that innovations from China, India and Central Asia penetrated that were not previously available to Europe (for example, firearms).

The great geographical discoveries gave a historical respite to Eurasia by redirecting European activity to the West and South. But the Muscovy turned out to be on the periphery in relation to the main centers of innovation, it was doomed to lag behind due to the delay of the innovation wave, which was intensified by the traditional closeness of our territorial system and the hostility of neighboring states. The collapse of Byzantium nullified the influence of the southern center of innovation. The low density of population and cities sharply reduced the creative potential, hindered both the reproduction of innovations and the exchange of information about them and the exchange of innovations themselves.

The only adequate response to this historical conditionality of development was the formation of a "rigid" centralized state, which allows, through all types of concentration, to ensure high organization and the necessary dynamics. By the middle of the 16th century, after significant administrative reforms (the abolition of feeding, the introduction of elected zemstvo self-government, judicial reform, Zemsky Sobors, the creation of a system of Orders, military reform), the autonomy of individual subsystems of the state at all its levels sharply decreased, and a rigid hierarchical structure was built. Moscow becomes the dominant innovation center. It must be borne in mind that at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries the population of Rus' was 3 million people, and Europe - 85 million. Under Peter I, the population of Russia was 12 million people.

In the first half of the 19th century, contradictory processes were going on in Russia: on the one hand, the country absorbed all new innovations, and on the other, internal systemic contradictions led it to a growing backlog. In the 30s of the 19th century, the industrial revolution began in Russia - a hundred years later than in England.

By the middle of the 19th century, Russia was at the point of bifurcation. The reforms of the 60s marked the choice of the country: it followed the path of creating an industrial society of the Western type. Dependence on foreign investment increased, and the income from investments exported abroad was greater than the investments themselves, that is, Russia turned into a country that forcibly exported capital.

The reforms of the 60s of the XIX century are considered the starting point for Russia's entry onto the capitalist path of development, and this happened 250 years after the start of the capitalization of Western Europe. As a result, on the eve of the revolutions of 1917, Russia becomes a moderately developed capitalist country with a mass of feudal remnants. Major innovations are coming to Russia from the West at the same time as a large influx of foreign capital. At the same time, for the newly annexed regions (Central Asia) and the outskirts of the empire, Russia and the Russians acted as carriers of innovation. In general, behind the few centers of modern Russia, following the path of capitalism, stretched a huge country with pre-industrial, and even pre-agrarian development.

After 1917, the Soviet Union made a giant innovation breakthrough, and, above all, due to its own innovation potential in the conditions of a ten-year external blockade. With numerous political and social costs, the most important task of modernizing the country was nevertheless solved. The territorial structure of innovation centers has changed significantly in favor of the Eastern regions of the country. The USSR became the largest innovation center for the modernization of China, Korea, Vietnam and other countries. Moreover, it must be emphasized that this happened mainly due to the non-market nature of the main priorities of civilizational development. The most important innovative result was the formation of a unique Soviet civilization. A collectivist Soviet mentality was formed, sharply different from the Western one, genetically stemming in many respects from the ideals of catholicity Orthodox tradition and the rural community. An ideal of personality arose, putting in the first place not personal, but public interests. For a significant part of society, sacrifice based on high passionarity has become the norm. The specificity of the Soviet civilization does not allow for a formal statistical comparison of the parameters of the Soviet civilization with the Western one. For example, in terms of per capita indicators, the USSR was inferior to the leading industrial countries, but this gap was reduced by 8-12 times compared to 1913, and the average indicators completely ignore several times less social stratification, which in practice means approximately equal per capita indicators for average and more high for the lower strata of the population.

It should be noted that science has developed at a faster rate than the economy as a whole. The level and quality of manufactured products and their competitiveness in world markets is evidenced by the export of the most technically complex products - aviation equipment. During the period from 1984 to 1992, the USSR exported 2,200 aircraft of various classes and 1,320 helicopters (excluding Europe), while the United States - 860 and 280, respectively, China - 350 and 0, and European countries - 1200 and 670. The total volume of arms exports in the 80s reached 20 billion dollars a year, which debunks the myth of a purely raw-material orientation of exports from the country.

As a result, due to social and technical innovations in the USSR after World War II, a powerful world-wide innovation complex emerged, comparable in scale and productivity to the similar complex in the United States, and significantly superior in efficiency. Within the borders of the USSR, a model of a global system of relations between the innovation core and the periphery was worked out, which provided the possibility of constant growth in regions and countries with a catch-up type of development. The scale, structure and production of this complex prove that the USSR was part of the so-called Kondratiev wave (a new stage in world development) with a minimum lag behind the leading countries of the world.

The result of the Soviet modernization, unprecedented in the world industrial history, which lasted for seventy years, was that the country almost halved historical time in the main breakthrough areas of socio-economic development (including, of course, the cultural revolution and modernization of the agrarian sector) and radically changed both the macroeconomic proportions between large natural economic territorial systems within the country and the content of the innovation processes taking place within them. Since 1917, the USSR has become an independent and the world's largest center of social, and since the post-war period, technological innovations. Thus, the possibility of a different development of European civilization was proved and the broadest possibilities for achieving modern level development for countries lagging behind for a number of reasons, including the fault of the West, which carried out colonial robbery and non-equivalent exchange.

The so-called "perestroika", focused primarily on Western innovations, led to deplorable results that turned the Russian Federation and the "post-Soviet" countries into the weakest link in the chain of industrial states. It is at the expense of the former USSR that the problems of world globalization are being solved. World experience shows that the benefits from market relations are received by those who control the world's financial and information resources, while the costs are borne by countries with a predominance of the real sector of the economy. There is not a single example in the world that countries with a raw-material orientation of production and export have risen to the level of high-tech innovative development. It must be borne in mind that it is precisely in the first years of the 21st century that the beginning of the downward Kondratiev wave falls, and the global systemic crisis, which, apparently, was delayed by the involvement of the territory of the USSR and other former socialist countries in the “market economy”, is on the agenda.

One of the most important factors in the failure of the reform of the USSR is the complete disregard for the geographical, geopolitical and historical features of our country. The following were not taken into account: the climate, the objectively high cost of labor force reproduction, the increased energy intensity of the national product, even in the southernmost republics, high transport costs, the mentality of the elite and citizens, and other development factors. 8.2.

Russian civilization is one of the largest civilizational communities in Eurasia. In Eurasia, the civilizational development of mankind has reached its maximum concentration, where the maximum diversity of its models has been revealed, including the interaction of East and West. The multi-ethnicity and multi-confessional nature of Russia has led to the complexity of self-identification and “choice” in the Eurasian space. Russia is characterized by the absence of a monolithic spiritual and value core, a "split" between traditional and liberal modernist values, and the transformation of the ethnic principle. Hence the problems with the national civilizational identity, we can say there is an identity crisis.

Belonging to the Russian civilization of many peoples, different religions is predetermined by the fact that they live together for a long time in a certain Eurasian territory, they are connected by age-old spiritual, social, human ties, the joint creation of cultural values ​​and state structures, their common protection, common misfortunes and good fortune - all this affirmed among the large and multi-confessional population a sense of belonging to the fate of Russia, a number of common ideas, preferences, and orientations that have become deep for the psychology of Russian ethno-confessional communities.

The contribution of Russian civilization to the common human treasury is predominantly spiritual and cultural in nature, manifesting itself in literature, moral and humanistic concepts, a special type of human solidarity, various types of art, and so on. It is precisely in the correlation, comparison of the values ​​of one civilization with the achievements of other civilizations that one most often encounters biased approaches and assessments. It is impossible to judge civilization by the specific socio-economic and political system of society, attributing their inherent vices and shortcomings to the essence of the life of Russian society. Civilizational factors are of a long-term nature and are reflected in cultural, religious, ethical characteristics, historical traditions, mentality. It is necessary to take into account the differences between today's short-term needs and conditions and long-term ideas and interests, as well as the differences between ideologically neutral national interests and ideological and political orientations, party preferences of individual social groups. With any model of social development, stability in Russia cannot be achieved without taking into account the peculiarities of its civilizational development: the idea of ​​the priority of the interests of society, the spiritual factor, the special role of the state, harsh natural and climatic conditions, colossal distances, when natural wealth is where there is no population. It is necessary to combine the traditional domestic culture and the value of modernization. The values ​​and norms achieved by the modern world civilization should be implemented through domestic forms of social life.

It should be borne in mind that 20% of the non-Russian population mainly live compactly on their historical lands, occupying about half of the territory of Russia, and are also partially scattered in the diaspora. Without a Russian foundation, including the unifying role of the Russian language, Russian society cannot exist, but at the same time, there is no Russia without a voluntary union of other primordial ethno-confessional communities. In the civilizational aspect, Russian culture is more all-Russian than purely ethnic, and this contributed to the creation of a great Russian culture that has won world recognition. It must be taken into account that the Russian civilization is not innovative, but interpretive; the transfer of foreign achievements to Russian soil can give a brilliant result (for example, a Russian novel).

To understand the complexity of the paths of national history, it is necessary to represent the features of the type of civilization and culture that Russia represents.

There are various classifications of systems of civilizations according to a certain principle, for example, religious. For a culturological analysis of the development of Russia, it is fruitful to consider the type of reproduction of society. The type of reproduction is a synthesized indicator and includes: 1) a special system of values; 2) characteristics of social relations; 3) personality type associated with the specifics of the mentality.

There are two main types of society reproduction. The first is traditional, which is characterized by the high value of traditions, the power of the past over the future, the power of accumulated results over the ability to form qualitatively new, deeper achievements. As a result, society as a whole is reproduced in its historically established, unchanging forms, while maintaining the achieved social and cultural wealth of mankind. The second is liberal, which is characterized by a high value of a new result, more effective and more creative, as a result of which corresponding innovations appear in the field of culture, social relations, personality type, including innovations in mentality.

These two types of reproduction of civilizations are the poles of a single, but internally contradictory human civilization. Primary is the traditional civilization, while the liberal one appears as an anomaly, emerging in an immature form in the era of antiquity. Only after many centuries it is affirmed in a limited part of humanity. Today it is becoming dominant due to its moral, intellectual, technical achievements.

Both civilizations exist simultaneously. The liberal society grows gradually out of the traditional society, taking shape in the bowels of the Middle Ages. Christianity played a special role here, primarily with its demand to develop the personal principle, although it was accepted in different ways by various forms of Christianity. New values ​​manifested themselves gradually in all sectors of society in the sphere of spirit, forms of creative activity, in the economy, in particular, the development of commodity-money relations, law, rational logic and appropriate behavior. At the same time, in any country, despite liberalism, layers of traditional culture and corresponding forms of activity inevitably remain, in particular, in ordinary, everyday life. In this case, elements of traditionalism find their place within the mechanism of functioning of a liberal civilization. Traditionalism may not be integrated into a liberal civilization. Moreover, traditionalism, even with a small number of supporters, can wage a fierce struggle against liberalism, for example, terrorism.

The problem of the correlation of civilizations is extremely acute, it is of paramount importance today, when the transition of mankind from traditional to liberal civilization is taking place. This is a painful and tragic transition, the severity and inconsistency of which threatens with catastrophic consequences.

The transition from traditional to liberal civilizations occurs in different ways. The first countries that embarked on this path (USA, England) followed it for a long time, gradually mastering new values. The second group of countries (Germany) embarked on the path of liberalism when pre-liberal values ​​still occupied mass positions in them. The growth of liberalism was accompanied by crises, a powerful anti-liberal reaction, attempts to stop the further development of liberal civilization at its immature level. It was in such countries that fascism developed. It can be understood as the result of the fear of a society that has already embarked on the path of a liberal civilization, but is trying to slow down this process by resorting to archaic means, primarily through a return to tribal ideology, acting as racism, leading to genocide and race wars. Having suppressed liberalism, fascism, however, did not affect the developed utilitarianism, private initiative, which ultimately comes into conflict with authoritarianism.

Third countries (Russia) are moving towards liberalism under even less favorable conditions. Russia was characterized by the powerful influence of serfdom, which led to the fact that economic development itself took place not so much through the development of the labor market, capital, goods, but, above all, through a system of forced circulation of resources by the forces of archaic statehood. The most important thing is that the real increase in the importance of commodity-money relations, the development of utilitarianism and free enterprise among the broad masses of the population caused discontent and a desire to go against the authorities, which ceased to "equalize everyone." That is why liberalism in Russia was completely destroyed (the Cadets). However, liberalism did not die. The utilitarian desire for the growth of goods merged with the modernizing tendencies of part of the intelligentsia, which made it possible to restore the archaic statehood in its worst forms. The Soviet government tried to cultivate the achievements of liberal civilization, but harshly accepting them as a means for goals alien and hostile to liberalism.

Unlike the first two groups of countries, Russia has not crossed the border of a liberal civilization, although it has ceased to be a country of the traditional type. A kind of intermediate civilization arose, where forces were formed that prevented both the transition to a liberal civilization and the return to a traditional one.

In addition, the Russian civilization of the last three centuries is characterized by extreme inconsistency in development, accompanied by a deep split in society and culture.

In the public consciousness of Russia, there are polar assessments of the specifics of Russian civilization. Slavophiles and Eurasians stood for the identity of Russia, while Westerners assessed it as underdeveloped compared to the West. Such a division may indicate the incompleteness of the process of formation of Russian civilization: it is still in a state of civilizational search, this is a country of an emerging civilization.

The civilizational approach to Russia testifies to its backwardness from the West, and the cultural approach to its originality and originality, manifested in the highest upsurges of the human spirit. There is a gap between the civilizational and cultural image of Russia. Civilizational backwardness exists in the economic, political and domestic spheres. Hence the numerous attempts to modernize. But in a cultural sense, Russia occupies a prominent place. Russian culture became the soul of Russia, shaped its face and spiritual image. It was in the sphere of spiritual and cultural creativity that the national genius showed himself. The history of civilization and the history of culture, mismatched values ​​that can diverge far from each other. The gap between civilizations and culture, between body and soul, is what ultimately divided Europe and Russia. In this confrontation, Russia, as it were, took the side of culture, and Europe - of civilization, not without damage to culture.

For a significant part of educated society, already in the 19th century, Western civilization became synonymous with the complete despiritualization of life, its extreme rationalization and formalization, the discrediting of higher moral and religious values, and the transfer of the center of gravity from the spiritual to the material sphere. The Russian intelligentsia for the most part did not accept the reality of an industrial-mass society, seeing in it a denial of the ideals and values ​​of Western European culture itself. There was an ambivalent attitude towards the West, combining the recognition of its undoubted merits in the development of science, technology, public education, political freedoms with the rejection of a civilization that had degenerated into a "philistinism". Hence the search for a "Russian idea" that would make it possible to find a more worthy formula for life than in the West. Modernization is necessary, but without loss of originality. In relation to Western civilization, Russia is not an antipode, but a special type - another possibility for its development. This type has not really developed, and exists only in the form of a project, an idea, but it must be taken into account when developing any program for reforming the country. Cultural tradition, spiritual continuity - this is what must be reckoned with in the course of reforms.

Russia needs the practical reason of the West, just as the West needs the spiritual experience of Russia. Russia faces the problem of synthesis, reconciliation of the main achievements of Western civilization with its own culture. It is based on the assertion of a special type of human solidarity, which is not limited to economic and political and legal forms. We are talking about a kind of spiritual community that connects people regardless of private and national interests. This ideal has its source not so much in economic and political as in religious, moral and purely cultural forms of human life, originating in Orthodox ethics. F. M. Dostoevsky designated this quality as "universal responsiveness."

So, in the face of the West and Russia, we are not dealing with two different civilizations, but with one, although developing in different directions. If the West gives priority to economic growth and strengthening the legal regulation of public life, then Russia, without denying either the role of the economy or law, appeals primarily to culture, its moral foundations and spiritual values, seeking to make them the criterion of social progress. Russia does not deny Western civilization, but continues it in the direction of creating a universal civilization, in the direction of its reconciliation with the cultural and moral foundations of human existence. Russia and the West are two components of European civilization as a whole, through their confrontation the mechanism of self-development of European civilization was realized.

The Eurasian character of Russian civilization is manifested in the existence of European and Eastern elements in their organic unity in society.

European features are primarily associated with Christianity, which dominates Europe. This means worldview unity, the existence of common foundations of morality, understanding the role of the individual and his freedom, in particular freedom of choice. The East Slavic tribes, having begun to form their culture in pagan, mythological forms, bypassing their rationalization in the paradigms of their own culture according to the type of antiquity, immediately replaced them with the Christian faith. At the same time, it should be taken into account that such a step was not caused by the problem of economic or socio-cultural backwardness, but was rather of a purely political nature in the search for integration with Byzantine culture. Therefore, the process of Christianization of Rus', although it went differently than in the West, still had pan-European cultural origins rooted in ancient spiritual and intellectual traditions.

Initially, Byzantium had a significant influence, which manifested itself in "bookishness", philosophical ideas, art, and architecture. Then, from the 18th century onwards, the influence of European forms of culture (science, art, literature) increased, rationalism and secularization of culture developed, the education system, European philosophy, socio-economic and political thought were borrowed. In the social movement, "Westerners" appeared, formed in line with the ideology of the Enlightenment, including Marxism. In the Soviet Union, post-industrial, including value orientations began to take shape, although this process had its own specifics (changes affected the upper strata of society, there was a mechanical copying of forms without changing the essence). The European vector in politics was of particular importance for Russia. Although the settlement of Europe proceeded from the east and the main vector of innovations of the Neolithic period was eastern, in the future the main path of innovations of modern and recent times came from the west. Features of the territory, low population density, underdevelopment of cities, poor assimilation of the Roman beginning - all this hampered the innovation process in Russia.

The eastern "Asian" features of Russia are connected with the fact that the country was formed on the territory of traditional eastern cultures and states (Turkic Khaganates, Khazars, Volga Bulgaria, later - the Caucasus and Turkestan, the area of ​​Desht-i-Kipchak cultures). The Huns, the conquests of Genghis Khan, the Golden Horde and its heirs had a significant impact on Eastern Europe.

In Russia, following the type of Eastern despotism, the state actively intervened in basic economic relations, acting authoritarianly, it played a huge role in the formation of a special mentality, carried out educational functions in culture instead of the church, especially since the 18th century, placing the church in a dependent position. Through the Mongol Empire, much was borrowed from China: centralization, bureaucratization, the subordinate position of the individual in society, corporatism, the absence of civil society, the introversion of culture, its low dynamism, traditionalism. The Eurasianists even talked about civilization - a continent that has developed from the Pacific Ocean to the Carpathians.

For Russia - Eurasia is characterized by a certain stagnation, low innovativeness. In Western Europe, faster innovative development was caused by the development of cities, high population density, the preservation of part of the ancient spiritual heritage, that is, the compaction of the information space was stimulated. Russia could only partially compensate for the information hunger because waves of peoples swept through its territory, and it itself drew more and more peoples and countries into its borders (for example, the annexation of Ukraine, the Baltic States, Poland), but could not fully take advantage of the innovations of a hostile Europe. The East, by this time, had lost its innovative potential. The European civilization was formed as an information one, and this is its advantage over the others, here are the reasons for rapid variability and acceleration of evolution. In addition, the civilizations of Western Europe could draw from past and other cultures the elements they needed and assemble them in accordance with their tasks. The advantage of the West is, first of all, the advantage of technology. Non-European peoples have reached a high level in their technical improvements, but unlike the Europeans, they did not cultivate technology, did not adapt their existence to the rhythms and possibilities of the machine. However, the race of technology is killing the culture by devouring resources. The mechanism of general destruction is built into the mechanism of European civilization, incompatible with the creative principle that culture carries in itself. The question arises: is the "advanced" Western civilization the highest stage in the development of human society?

War is of particular importance in this race. Wars and militarization are a powerful stimulus for the development of technology. So, Peter I began solving the geopolitical problems of Russia with the creation of a modern army and navy and the corresponding industry.

It is impossible to understand the development of Russia in the 19th century, the evolution of its constituent territorial systems, without the fact of its militarization. The military factor largely set the vector for the development of the USSR in the 1930s and the post-war period.

The so-called "Tatar-Mongol yoke" (if there was one at all) was, with all the drama, a powerful innovative wave that brought many innovations to Rus'. At the same time, other waves were coming from the West (Scandinavia, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania). The spaces of Northern Eurasia turned out to be within the boundaries, although weakly connected, but of a single territorial system with a total area of ​​more than 4 million square meters. km from the Carpathians to the Yenisei. It was through the Horde that innovations from China, India and Central Asia penetrated, previously not available to Europe (for example, firearms).

Great geographical discoveries gave a historic respite to Eurasia by redirecting European activity to the West and South. But the Muscovy turned out to be on the periphery in relation to the main centers of innovation, it was doomed to lag behind due to the delay of the innovation wave, which was intensified by the traditional closeness of our territorial system and the hostility of neighboring states. The collapse of Byzantium nullified the influence of the southern center of innovation. The low density of population and cities sharply reduced the creative potential, hindered both the reproduction of innovations and the exchange of information about them and the exchange of innovations themselves.

The only adequate response to this historical conditionality of development was the formation of a "rigid" centralized state, which allows, through all types of concentration, to ensure high organization and the necessary dynamics. By the middle of the 16th century, after significant administrative reforms (the abolition of feeding, the introduction of elected zemstvo self-government, judicial reform, Zemsky Sobors, the creation of a system of Orders, military reform), the autonomy of individual subsystems of the state at all its levels sharply decreased, and a rigid hierarchical structure was built. Moscow becomes the dominant innovation center. It must be borne in mind that at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries the population of Rus' was 3 million people, and Europe - 85 million. Under Peter I, the population of Russia was 12 million people.

In the first half of the 19th century, contradictory processes were going on in Russia: on the one hand, the country absorbed all new innovations, and on the other, internal systemic contradictions led it to a growing backlog. In the 30s of the 19th century, the industrial revolution began in Russia - a hundred years later than in England.

By the middle of the 19th century, Russia was at the point of bifurcation. The reforms of the 60s marked the choice of the country: it followed the path of creating an industrial society of the Western type. Dependence on foreign investment increased, and the income from investments exported abroad was greater than the investments themselves, that is, Russia turned into a country that forcibly exported capital.

The reforms of the 60s of the XIX century are considered the starting point for Russia's entry onto the capitalist path of development, and this happened 250 years after the start of the capitalization of Western Europe. As a result, on the eve of the revolutions of 1917, Russia becomes a moderately developed capitalist country with a mass of feudal remnants. Major innovations are coming to Russia from the West at the same time as a large influx of foreign capital. At the same time, for the newly annexed regions (Central Asia) and the outskirts of the empire, Russia and the Russians acted as carriers of innovation. In general, behind the few centers of modern Russia, following the path of capitalism, stretched a huge country with pre-industrial, and even pre-agrarian development.

After 1917, the Soviet Union made a giant innovation breakthrough, and, above all, due to its own innovation potential in the conditions of a ten-year external blockade. With numerous political and social costs, the most important task of modernizing the country was nevertheless solved. The territorial structure of innovation centers has changed significantly in favor of the Eastern regions of the country. The USSR became the largest innovation center for the modernization of China, Korea, Vietnam and other countries. Moreover, it must be emphasized What is this occurred mainly on the non-market nature of the main priorities of civilizational development. The most important innovative result was the formation of a unique Soviet civilization. A collectivist Soviet mentality was formed, sharply different from the Western one, genetically stemming in many respects from the ideals of the conciliarity of the Orthodox tradition and the rural community. An ideal of personality arose, putting in the first place not personal, but public interests. For a significant part of society, sacrifice based on high passionarity has become the norm. The specificity of the Soviet civilization does not allow for a formal statistical comparison of the parameters of the Soviet civilization with the Western one. For example, in terms of per capita indicators, the USSR was inferior to the leading industrial countries, but this gap was reduced by 8-12 times compared to 1913, and the average indicators completely ignore several times less social stratification, which in practice means approximately equal per capita indicators for average and more high for the lower strata of the population.

It should be noted that science has developed at a faster rate than the economy as a whole. The level and quality of manufactured products and their competitiveness in world markets is evidenced by the export of the most technically complex products - aviation equipment. During the period from 1984 to 1992, the USSR exported 2,200 aircraft of various classes and 1,320 helicopters (excluding Europe), while the United States - 860 and 280, respectively, China - 350 and 0, and European countries - 1200 and 670. The total volume of arms exports in the 80s reached 20 billion dollars a year, which debunks the myth of a purely raw-material orientation of exports from the country.

As a result, due to social and technical innovations in the USSR after World War II, a powerful world-wide innovation complex emerged, comparable in scale and productivity to the similar complex in the United States, and significantly superior in efficiency. Within the borders of the USSR, a model of a global system of relations between the innovation core and the periphery was worked out, which provided the possibility of constant growth in regions and countries with a catch-up type of development. The scale, structure and production of this complex prove that the USSR was part of the so-called Kondratiev wave (a new stage in world development) with a minimum lag behind the leading countries of the world.

The result of the Soviet modernization, unprecedented in the world industrial history, which lasted for seventy years, was that the country almost halved historical time in the main breakthrough areas of socio-economic development (including, of course, the cultural revolution and modernization of the agrarian sector) and radically changed both the macroeconomic proportions between large natural economic territorial systems within the country and the content of the innovation processes taking place within them. Since 1917, the USSR has become an independent and the world's largest center of social, and since the post-war period, technological innovations. This proved the possibility of a different development of European civilization and demonstrated the broadest possibilities for achieving the modern level of development for countries that lagged behind for a number of reasons, including the fault of the West, which carried out colonial robbery and non-equivalent exchange.

The so-called "perestroika", focused primarily on Western innovations, led to deplorable results that turned the Russian Federation and the "post-Soviet" countries into the weakest link in the chain of industrial states. It is at the expense of the former USSR that the problems of world globalization are being solved. World experience shows that the benefits from market relations are received by those who control the world's financial and information resources, while the costs are borne by countries with a predominance of the real sector of the economy. There is not a single example in the world that countries with a raw-material orientation of production and export have risen to the level of high-tech innovative development. It must be borne in mind that it is precisely in the first years of the 21st century that the beginning of the downward Kondratiev wave falls, and the global systemic crisis, which, apparently, was delayed by the involvement of the territory of the USSR and other former socialist countries in the “market economy”, is on the agenda.