Chumakov 2016 Past Orthodoxies

Between Past Orthodoxies and the Future of Globalization
Value Inquiry Book Series
Founding Editor
Robert Ginsberg
Executive Editor
Leonidas Donskis
VOLUME 288
Contemporary Russian
Philosophy
Editors
William C. Gay (University of North Carolina, usa)

Mikhail Sergeev (University of the Arts, Philadelphia, usa)
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/crph

Between Past Orthodoxies and the
Future of Globalization
Contemporary Philosophical Problems
Edited by
Alexander N. Chumakov and William C. Gay
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Chumakov, A. N. (Aleksandr Nikolaevich), editor.

Title: Between past orthodoxies and the future of globalization :
contemporary philosophical problems / edited by Alexander N. Chumakov and
William C. Gay.
Description: Boston : Brill-Rodopi, 2016. | Series: Value inquiry book
series, ISSN 0929-8436 ; VOLUME 288. Contemporary Russian philosophy |
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globalization--Russia (Federation) | Philosophy--Russia (Federation)
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Contents
Prefacevii
List of IllustrationsX
About the AuthorsXI
Introduction: Contemporary Russian Philosophy and the Challenges

of Globalization1
William C. Gay
PART 1
he Global World as Seen from Russia
T
1 Globalization from a Philosophical Point of View: Russian Vision9

Alexander N. Chumakov
2 Russian Culture and Challenges of Socio-cultural Globalization22

Ilia V. Ilyin and Olga G. Leonova
3 The Transformation of Economics, Politics, and Law in

Globalization38
Vladimir V. Mironov
4 The Cultural Heritage of Russia and Globalization57

Sergey A. Nikolsky
5 Globalization and Contemporary Russia: The Need for Innovation68

Pavel S. Seleznev
PART 2
The Global Dimension of Current Issues in Russia
6 International Migration, Globalization, and Development85

Ivan A. Aleshkovski
7 Internal Anarchy in Russia as an Obstacle for National and International

Security (After the Dismantling of the Soviet Union)101
Valentina G. Fedotova
vi Contents
8 The Change of the Elites in Modern Russia113

Yakov A. Pleis
9 America and Russia: A Multipolar World as an Echo of Fear before

Future Unification126
Alexander V. Katsura
PART 3
Russian Perspectives on Various Issues
10 The New World Order and Philosophy145

Leonid E. Grinin
11 The Prospect for Politicization of Orthodox Christianity157

Anastasia V. Mitrofanova
12 Non-linear Futures: The Mysterious Singularity in View of

Mega-History171
Akop P. Nazaretyan
13 The Tragedy of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Tragedy (Sergey N.

Bulgakov and Lev I. Shestov)192
Vladimir N. Porus
14 Liberalism in a Non-ideal World212

Tatiana A. Alekseeva
Bibliography229
Index247
Preface
Publication of a volume by Russian philosophers in English by an international

publisher is a rare, if not an exceptional, event. For this reason the release of this
volume is not an ordinary but rather a symbolic fact testifying that we increas-
ingly understand that in this global and interdependent world different nations
may and should know each other better and understand each other better. At the
same time, this book is an attempt to introduce contemporary Russia to English
readers through the eyes of Russian scholars themselves. In addition, this vol-
ume serves as an invitation to creative cooperation, dialogue, and discussion.
I also wish to observe that publication of this volume is not an accident or
the result of some unusual circumstances. This publication is based on the
reality of the new distribution of players on the international arena since the
collapse of the Soviet Union and on the broadening cooperation between
Russian and American philosophers, despite the fact that, over the last several
years, relations between Russia and Western countries have worsened in the
political sphere.
The contemporary world is a giant battlefield of various interests and, some-
times, contradictory views. Hence, our current era of globalization cannot be
grasped without the united effort of scholars from around the world. From
campaigns against international terrorism through efforts against the dangers
of the impact of technology on nature which the international community has
faced during the last several decades, a comprehensive analysis is required that
provides a balanced and objective evaluation of these and related world events.
Such analysis requires multiple approaches; the numerous positions and view-
points that result are needed when discussing the desired world order for the
near and distant future.
The opinion of Russian scholars about these issues is particularly interest-
ing due to the fact that Russia is of exceptional geopolitical significance for the
world community and one of the central actors of world politics. Besides,
Russian science and philosophy have always paid broad attention to global
problems, processes, and trends. To underscore this point, one only needs to
name the works such Russian scholars as Vladimir S. Soloviev, Nikolai A.
Berdyaev, Vladimir I. Vernadskii, and Alexander L. Chizhevsky. Moreover,
beginning of the 1960s Russian scholars, together with their Western col-
leagues, have initiated even more extensive research on specifically global
problems. They have achieved some important results in understanding the
specifics of globalization processes and their causes. Nevertheless, these results
have been largely unknown to Western readers.
viii Preface
Another reason to publish this volume is the fact that, since the collapse of
the Soviet Union, Russian and American philosophers have established good
academic contacts and relations. This cooperation resulted in joint round-
tables and creative discussions during the last four meetings of the World
Congress of Philosophy (xxth, Boston, 1998); (xxist, Istanbul, 2003; xxiind,
Seoul, 2008; and xxiiird, Athens, 2013). These discussions were dedicated to
the most acute problems of modernity and resulted in completing a huge joint
project with the preparation and publication in Moscow of the international
Global Studies Encyclopedia in simultaneous English and Russian languages
editions.1 This volume subsequently led to the publication in Amsterdam and
New York of Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary that begins with a Foreword
by Mikhail Gorbachev.2 Despite the publication of these two encyclopedias
that summarize many of the results of this cooperative research, more
extended discussion of these issues by key Russian scholars remains virtually
unknown to the Western readers. Essays in this volume aim to begin providing
elaborations by contemporary Russian scholars of their research.
Addressing this book to the English-speaking reader, we take into consider-
ation that for various reasons, including ideological ones, Russian philosophy of
the 20th century did not prosper within the country and, thus, provoked very
little serious interest abroad. This fact, however, does not mean that recent
work by Russian philosophers and political theorists lacks achievements that
would be interesting for the world philosophical community. For example, even
in the past many works by Russian philosophers on ontology, epistemology,
logic, ecology, and global problems of modernity could have been interesting
for Western colleagues had they been translated into English. Now, after the
radical changes following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, contemporary
Russian philosophy for a quarter century has operated apart from past ideologi-
cal constraints and has been discussing in new ways the most acute problems
of Russia and of the world community as a whole. For Western readers, Russian
philosophy today should be attractive not simply because of being unknown to
them but also because of its fresh approaches and contemporary relevance.
In preparing this book we aimed at reflecting not only various directions of
development in contemporary Russian philosophical thought but also various
1 Ivan I. Mazour, Alexander N. Chumakov, and William C. Gay, eds., Global Studies Encyclopedia
(Moscow: TsNPP Dialog, Raduga Publishers, 2003). [Russian edition, .. ..
, , (:
, 2003).]
2 Alexander N. Chumakov, Ivan I. Mazour, and William C. Gay, eds., Global Studies Encyclopedic
Dictionary (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2014.)
Preface ix
visions on the issues in question. To provide this breadth we invited authors

from various parts of Russia who are conducting significant, yet diverse,
research on these global issues.
I hope that publication of this volume will contribute into a better under-
standing of contemporary Russian philosophy in the West and to establishing
and expanding contacts between Russian philosophers and their Western col-
leagues. Such understanding and interaction are of paramount importance in
the global age.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my coeditor Professor William
C. Gay for his idea to prepare and publish this book and to Reginald Raymer,
Jayne Tristan, and other American colleagues and translators whose efforts
made this publication possible.
Bibliography
Mazour, Ivan I., Alexander N. Chumakov, and William C. Gay, eds., Global Studies
Encyclopedia (Moscow: TsNPP Dialog, Raduga Publishers, 2003). [Russian edition,
.. .. , ,
(: , 2003).]
Chumakov, Alexander N., Ivan I. Mazour, and William C. Gay, eds., Global Studies
Encyclopedic Dictionary (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2014.)
List of Illustrations
Figures
12.1 The Stages of Cosmic Evolution174

12.2 The two hoses of universal evolution, by Alexander Pinkin181
12.3 Scaling law in the phase transitions182
13.1 The Philosophers, portrait of Sergei Bulgakov and Pavel Florenskiy by
Mikhail V. Nesterov194
13.2 Lev Shestov195
Table
11.1 Religious practices of respondents, June 2013165

About the Authors
is Professor, Dr. of Science (Philosophy), Moscow State Institute of International
Relations (mgimo-University) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian
Federation. Her latest book is Contemporary Political Thought (20th21st
Centuries): Political Theory and International Relations (Moscow, 2015). She is
Chair of the Department of Political Theory at mgimo and author of 14 books
and nearly 200 articles. She is Honored Scholar of the Russian Federation
(2007), Prizewinner of the Russian Government in Education (2014), and
Visiting Professor at uncc (Charlotte, nc, usa) and luiss-University (Rome).
Ivan A. Aleshkovski
is Assistant Professor, Ph.D. (Economics), Deputy Dean Faculty of Global
Studies Lomonosov Moscow State University. His research interests focus on
population studies, international migration, migration policy, urbanization,
and globalization. He is the author of more than 150 publications, including
ones in Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary (New York, 2014), Nonlinear
Dynamics of Global Processes (Moscow, 2014, co-authored), City in the Context
of Global Processes (Moscow, 2011, co-authored), International Migration and
hiv in Russia (Moscow, 2008, co-authored), Internal Migration in Russia
(Moscow, 2007), Determinants of Internal Migration (Moscow, 2005), and
Urban Economics (Moscow, 2005, co-authored).
is Professor, Dr. of Science (Philosophy), Chair of Philosophy Department of
University of Finance under the auspices of the Government of the Russian
Federation, Leading Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian
Academy of Sciences, and First Vice-President of the Russian Philosophical
Society. For 35 years he has been studying such topics as philosophy of globaliza-
tion and global problems, scientific and technological progress, transition to
democracy and open society, social philosophy and ecology. He participated in
and was one of the organizers of the All-Russian Philosophical Congresses,
participated in the last six World Philosophy Congresses. He is Editor-in-Chief
of the journals Age of Globalization and Vestnik rfo, editor of Global Studies
Encyclopedia and Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary. He is the author of
more than 500 research works, 16 monographs and textbooks published in many
languages.
xii About the Authors
is Professor, Dr. of Philosophy, Principal Research Scientist, Head of Research
in Social Philosophy and the Development of Civil Society in Russia, Institute
of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. Her research
interests focus on modernization, global capitalism, concepts of democracy,
and political culture as a project for Russia. She is the author of eleven mono-
graphs. Some of her books include: Anarchy and Order (Moscow, 2000), Good
Society (Moscow, 2005), Global Capitalism: Three Great Transformations. Socio-
Philosophical Analysis of Relations between Economy and Society (Moscow,
2008, co-authored), and Modernization and Culture (Moscow, forthcoming in
2015).
William C. Gay
is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte. He has published six books: with Michael Pearson, The Nuclear
Arms Race (1987); with Tatiana Alekseeva, On the Eve of the 21st Century:
Perspectives of Russian and American Philosophers (1994), Capitalism with a
Human Face: The Quest for a Middle Road in Russian Politics (1996), and
Democracy and the Quest for Justice: Russian and American Perspectives (2004);
with Alexander Chumakov and Ivan Mazour, Global Studies Encyclopedia
(2003) and Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary (2014). He has also published
over 100 journal articles and book chapters. He serves on the editorial boards of
the journals Philosophy and Social Criticism, The Age of Globalization, and
Journal of Globalization Studies.
Leonid E. Grinin
is Ph.D., a Senior Research Professor at the Laboratory of Monitoring of
Destabilization Risks at National Research University Higher School of
Economics, a Senior Research Professor at the Institute for Oriental Studies
ofthe Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He is a co-editor of international
journals Social Evolution & History, and Journal of Globalization Studies, author
ofmore than 400 publications in Russian, English, and Chinese, including 27
monographs. His academic research in the field of Global Studies and futurology
isconnected with the analysis of current issues of globalization, forecasts of the
world political and social-economic development, and economic cycles.
Ilia V. Ilyin
is Dr. of Political Science, Lomonosov Moscow State University and is Dean of
the Faculty of Global Studies. He is the Head of the Chair of Globalistics. He is
Chief Editor of the journal Bulletin of Moscow University: A Series of Global
About the Authors xiii
Studies and Geopolitics. He is the Executive Secretary of the International

Association for Global Studies and Chair of the Executive Committee of the
International Consortium of Global Studies. He is currently researching issues
of globalization, evolutionary globalistics, and sustainable development. His
monographs include: Theoretical and methodological foundations of global
studies (2009), Global studies in the context of political processes (2010), Global
geopolitics (co-authored, 2010), Evolutionary globalistics (co-authored, 2012),
Global studies and the evolutionary approach (co-authored, 2013), and Theory
and practice of political globalistics (co-authored, 2013).
is Dr. of Philosophy, a member of The Union Russian Writers, and the author
of books and articles in the philosophy of science, the theory of systems,
ecology, and science fiction. In his book Environmental challenge (Moscow,
2005) he addresses the question human survival and in his fantastic and
detective novel Sketches the theory of miracles (Moscow, 2007) he raises the
issue of Russian-American scientific relations in the field of bioelectronics
and biocomputers.
Olga G. Leonova
is Dr. of Political Science, Lomonosov Moscow State University. She is the
Deputy Head of the Chair of Globalistics, a member of the Editorial Board of
the journal Bulletin of Moscow University: A Series of Global Studies and
Geopolitics, a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Studia Humanitatis,
and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center of the Science, Political
Ideas and Ideology. She is currently researching issues of political globaliza-
tion, global political system, socio-cultural processes in the global world,
Russian civilization, and soft power. Her monographs include: Global geopoli-
tics (co-authored, 2010), Russian Orthodox Civilization: political and social
aspects (co-authored, 2011), Russias national idea (co-authored, 2012), Spiritual
and moral foundations of the sovereignty of Russia: historical parallels and mod-
ern times (co-authored, 2012), and Theory and practice of political globalistics
(co-authored, 2013).
Vladimir V. Mironov
is Associate Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, Dr. of
Philosophy, Dean of Philosophical Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State
University, and Head of the Ontology and Gnoseology Department. His mono-
graphs include: Il destino del marxismo in Russia: dall idolatria al rifiuto
(2001, with Dario Antiseri and Silvano Tagliambe), Philosophy and Culture
xiv About the Authors
Metamorphosis (2005), Reflections on Reforming Russian Education (2011), and

Modern Transformations in Culture (2011). His articles include: Metamorphosen
oder das globale Theater der modernen Kultur, Paragrana. Internationale
Zeitschrift fr Historische Anthropologie; On Progress in Philosophy, Metaphi
losophy; Interrelations between Philosophy and Religion from the Viewpoint
of Hegels Heritage, Philosophical Theology and the Christian Tradition: Russian
and Western Perspectives Russian Philosophical Studies, Christian Philosophical
Studies, iii 2012, and Der Kommunikationsfaktor in der Entwicklung der
Kultur, Mediensprache und Medienkommunikation im interdisziplinren und
interkulturellen Vergleich. 2013.
is Chair of Political Science, Church-State Relations and Sociology of Religion
at the Russian Orthodox University of St. John the Divine, Professor at the
University of Finance under the auspices of the Government of the Russian
Federation. She received her Ph.D. (1998) in Political Science from Moscow
State University and her Dr. habilitat degree from the Diplomatic Academy of
the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Russian Federation (2005). She was Director
of the Center for Euroatlantic Studies at the Diplomatic Academy (19982012).
Her research interests include religious politicization, fundamentalism,
Orthodox Christianity and politics, nationalism in post-Soviet states, and reli-
giopolitical movements. Her main publications are Politizatsiia pravoslavnogo
mira (Moskva, 2004) and The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy: Actors and
Ideas (Stuttgart, 2005).
Akop P. Nazaretyan
is a cultural anthropologist and political and historical psychologist. He is a
member of the World History Association, the Russian Academy of Natural
Sciences, and the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics. He is Senior Research
Fellow at the Institute for Oriental Studies (Russian Academy of Sciences), Full
Professor in the International University Dubna, Editor of the journal
Historical Psychology & Sociology, and Director of the Eurasian Center for
Mega-History and System Forecasting. He is the author of over 350 scholarly
publications, including 10 books.
Sergey A. Nikolsky
is Dr. of Philosophy and Deputy Director of the Institute of Philosophy of the
Russian Academy of Sciences. His monographs include The Power and the Land
(Moscow, 1990), The Land question (Moscow, 1999), Agrarian policy of Russia
About the Authors xv
(Moscow, 2003). He has studied the history of peasantry and currently is

researching issues of the Russian world outlook with the monographs The
Russian world outlook: volume 1, The Meanings and values of the Russian world
outlook (co-authored, 2008); volume 2, Is positive deed possible in Russia? (co-
authored, 2009); volume 3, New people as a concept and phenomenon (2012).
Yakov A. Pleis
is Dr. of Sc. History, Dr. of Sc. Political Science, Professor, Ph.D., and Head of the
Department of Political Science in the University of Finance under the auspices
of the Government of the Russian Federation. His research focus is on Modern
political science, political history and foreign policy of Russia, and world poli-
tics and international relations. He is the author of more than 300 publications,
including, Political Science in the Context of the transition Epoche in Russia
(Moscow, 2009,2010), Democracy vs. Partocracy and Burocracy (Moscow, 2009),
Democracy. Power. Elites: Democracy vs Elitocracy (Moscow, 2010), and New
Modernization of Russia: Myth or Reality? (Moscow, 2011).
Vladimir N. Porus
is Dr. Habilitatus, Professor, Head of the School of Philosophy of Humanitarian
Faculty of the National Research University Higher School of Economics. His
fields of interest are Philosophy of Science, History of Russian Religious
Philosophy, and Philosophy of Culture. His main books are Rationality, Science,
Culture (Moscow, 2002), At the Culture Edge (Moscow, 2008), and Crossroads of
methods (Moscow, 2012).
Pavel S. Seleznev
is Director for International Cooperation of the University of Finance under
the auspices of the Government of the Russian Federation. He is Candidate of
Political Science (degree awarded by Lomonosov Moscow State University,
2009) and Dr. of Political Science (degree awarded by Russian Academy of
National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the
Russian Federation, 2015). His monographs include Innovation projects of
modernity: political and economic experience for Russia (Moscow, 2013),
Innovation policy of non-western countries in the beginning of the xxi century:
search for priorities of modernization (Moscow, 2013), and State innovation pol-
icy of western countries and Russia (the end of xx century the beginning of xxi
century) (Moscow, 2009). His areas of scientific interest are state innovation
policy, regional policy, and elite and intra-elite interactions in Russia and
abroad.
Introduction: Contemporary Russian Philosophy
and the Challenges of Globalization
William C. Gay
The theme of this book, Between Past Orthodoxies and the Future of Globalization:
Contemporary Philosophical Problems, is an important one. Clearly, at the
beginning of the 1990s Russian philosophy very quickly moved beyond the past
orthodoxies associated with the ideology of the Soviet Union. The speed of this
transition is reflected in essays found in the first book in English by Russian
and American philosophers to be published following the disintegration of the
Soviet Union. This book was undertaken at the beginning of the 1990s and was
published in 1994.1
By the beginning of the 21st century Russian philosophers were address-
ing many vital issues, including questions regarding democracy. These
issues were addressed in 2004 in the inaugural volume in Contemporary
Russian Philosophy.2 Over the last decade the number of philosophical
issues being addressed by Russian philosophers has continued to blossom.
One of the most important of these issues, and the one that has received
the most attention among the new philosophical establishment in Russia,
is globalization.
With the publication of this current book, scholars in the West will have
access to the research of some of the leading thinkers in Russia in the fields of
philosophy, political theory, and related fields as their thinking relates to issues
of globalization. My coeditor, Alexander Chumakov, is First Vice President of
the Russian Philosophical Society and for many years has been on the forefront
of organizing for Russian scholars conferences and publication outlets both
within Russia and abroad.3 In particular, together with Ivan Mazour and
myself, Chumakov has published two major volumes in English focusing on
global studies.4 These volumes contain many entries by scholars from around
1 William Gay and Tatiana Alekseeva, eds., On the Eve of the 21st Century: Perspectives of Russian
and American Philosophers (Lanham, md: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994).
2 William Gay and Tatiana Alekseeva, eds., Democracy and the Quest for Justice: Russian and
American Perspectives (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2004).
3 William Gay and Anastasia V. Mitrofanova, Alexander Chumakov, Encyclopedia of Global
Justice: A-I, Volume 1, ed. Deen K. Chatterjee (New York: Springer, 2011), 126128.
4 Ivan I. Mazour, Alexander N. Chumakov, and William C. Gay, eds., Global Studies Encyclopedia
(Moscow: TsNPP Dialog, Raduga Publishers, 2003). Alexander N. Chumakov, Ivan I. Mazour,
koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 6|doi 10.1163/9789004307841_002

2 Gay
the world. Nevertheless, most of the entries in these two volumes are fairly
brief. This book continues in the tradition of these prior volumes the analysis
of globalization but is distinct in two respects. First, contemporary Russian
thinkers are the exclusive authors of the chapters in each of the three parts of
this book. Second, each chapter provides extended analysis of its particular
theme and its relation to issues of globalization.
The Global World as seen from Russia
Part i focuses on the global world as seen from Russia. This part has five chap-
ters that each deal with an important aspect of globalization in Russia today.
Alexander Chumakov, in Globalization from A Philosophical Point of
View: Russian Vision, provides a philosophical overview of the development
of globalization. He connects the resulting transformations of society with
the emergence of new configurations of global power and the demise of the
world socialist system. These changes, however, have not achieved global
security because individuals and nations continue to pursue their own par-
ticular interests. Chumakov supports the alternative of giving priority to uni-
versal interests.
Ilia Ilyin and Olga Leonova, in Russian Culture and Challenges of Socio-
Cultural Globalization, focus on how social-cultural aspects of globaliza-
tion display the separation of many aspects of westernization from ethical
and moral dimensions of life. They support a strategy of a measured adap-
tation of traditional civilizations to the social-cultural realities brought
about by globalization. Ilyin and Leonova present how Russian civilization
may offer a paradigm for negotiating these adaptations in a manner that
achieves peaceful coexistence. Otherwise, globalization may face an east-
ern challenge to the liberal culture being advanced in the westernization of
global culture.
Vladimir Mironov, in The Transformation of Economics, Politics, and Law
in Globalization, examines the impact of globalization on the economy and in
politics. Economically, modern culture faces the dichotomy between those
countries that are the economic leaders and those countries on the periphery.
Politically, various aspects of national and international law are transformed.
Mironov stresses how these economic and political impacts of globalization
threaten the diversity of local cultures.
and William C. Gay, eds., Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary, Foreword by Mikhail
Gorbachev (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2014.)
INTRODUCTION: Contemporary Russian Philosophy 3
Sergey Nikolsky, in The Cultural Heritage of Russia and Globalization,

examines how globalization processes involve tensions between cooperation
and competition. The tensions that can result are illustrated by the current and
prospective situation in Russia. Nikolsky suggests, in the case of Russia, its own
tradition may facilitate a successful resolution. From this prospect emerge
options for how global contacts may be approached more effectively.
Pavel Seleznev, in Globalization and Contemporary Russia: The Need for
Innovation, focuses on innovative development as an alternative to tradi-
tional ideological practices. In this regard, he gives particular attention to
innovative projects in Russia. He stresses the advantages of projects that pro-
mote being a leader, rather than a follower, in innovation. Nevertheless,
Seleznev cautions that such approaches need to be embraced not just by the
ruling establishment but also by the general public and within the business
community.
Part ii looks at global dimensions of current issues in Russia. Each of the four
chapters in this part examines a particular facet of these issues.
Ivan Aleshkovski, in International Migration, Globalization, and Development,
examines how globalization has transformed international migration. Initially, he
analyzes at factors impacting international migration such as geography, eco-
nomics, illegal immigration, and political policies. Then, Aleshkovski turns to its
impact on Russia. On this basis, he calls for the development of migration policies
that will be fair and also utilize properly the skills of migrants.
Valentina Fedotova, in Internal Anarchy in Russia as an Obstacle for
National and International Security, focuses on anarchist trends that recently
have become very widespread globally. She looks at post-communist Russia in
particular and ways that contemporary Russian anarchism neglects the impor-
tance of the state to a stable social order. Fedotova contends that because
Western scholars and politicians mistook the anarchist tendencies in Yeltsins
Russia for democratic ones they thwarted the proper institutionalization of
democracy.
Yakov Pleis, in The New Elite Class Formation as the Top Priority for Russian
Modernization, examines elite political and administrative groups in contem-
porary Russia. He notes how their contributions have been inadequate. At the
same time, a very talented new generation of leadership has not been properly
utilized. Consequently, Pleis contends that Russia needs to replace these elite
groups with a more professional establishment.
4 Gay
Alexander Katsura, in America and Russia: A Multipolar World as an Echo

of Fear Before Future Unification, compares the opposing models offered by
the United States and the Soviet Union during the 20th century and the types
of persons they produced. At the beginning of the 21st century, the implica-
tions of this competition involve choices in the quest for global unity. He asks
which type of person is better suited for proper national development. Katsura
concludes by suggesting that the type chosen will play a significant role in how
well the world handles continuing globalization.
Part iii provides a Russian perspective on a variety of other, more general

issues. The five chapters in this part continue the examination of topics rele-
vant to a broad consideration of globalization and its impact.
Leonid Grinin, in The New World Order and Philosophy, examines how
the contribution of United States and the West to a new world order is weaken-
ing. Nevertheless, at present no other country can match the hegemonic power
of the United States. The outcome of how the new world order will be shaped
remains open. For this reason, Grinin stresses how philosophers can and
should work to make the resulting world order better and more humane.
Anastasia Mitrofanova, in The Prospect for Politicization of Orthodox
Christianity, highlights the role of Orthodox Christianity in shaping a political
community. At the same time, she delineates how politicization can lead to
ideologies that diverge from earlier beliefs and more accurately should be
termed as political religion. This shift occurs in modernized and secularized
societies. In this regard, Mitrofanovas focus is on Russia and the likelihood for
the politicalization of Orthodoxy in Russia.
Akop Nazaretyan, in Non-Linear Futures: The Mysterious Singularity in
View of Mega-History, uses insights from Mega-History, complexity theory,
and other models to analyze tendencies within the spheres of life in general
and humanity in particular. He also uses recent developments within psychol-
ogy and cultural anthropology to provide further grounds for understanding
these directions. Nazaretyan stresses the importance of actors achieving ade-
quate inner regulation to contend with continuing expansions of technologi-
cal power. To achieve such regulation, humanity will need to go beyond current
group identities that perpetuate the sharp bifurcation of friends and foes.
Vladimir Porus, in The Tragedy of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Tragedy
(Sergey N. Bulgakov and Lev I. Shestov), examines the related but quite dis-
tinct viewpoints of the Russian Orthodox Christian theologian Sergey Bulgakov
INTRODUCTION: Contemporary Russian Philosophy 5
(18711944) and Russian existentialist philosopher Lev Shestov (18661938),

comparing and contrasting Bulgakovs tragedy of philosophy and Shestovs
philosophy of tragedy. Bulgakov does not find the philosophy of tragedy to
itself be tragic; rather, it only reasons about the tragic. Shestov, on the other
hand, views the tragedy of philosophy as remaining within philosophy and not
rising to knowledge of God. Porus concludes by suggesting that the fate of
humanity may hinge on whether the continuing dispute about reason repre-
sented in these two viewpoints can be resolved in a manner that abandons
such disagreement and mutual distrust.
Tatiana Alekseeva, in Liberalism in a Non-Ideal World, focuses on the status
of contemporary liberalism within international relations. To move beyond the
obvious importance of such liberalism for peaceful values and to address issues
that are still open, she relies on the later work of John Rawls on the law of peo-
ples. In this work, Rawls provides a basis whereby liberalism can avoid becoming
a fixed ideology that is not open to any criticisms or suggestions. In using Rawls
to avoid this danger, Alekseeva shows how this type of pluralism can better fos-
ter the quest for a global world that also is more likely to be a peaceful world.

Overall, the fourteen chapters of this book provide timely insights by contem-
porary Russian thinkers into central issues connected with globalization. They
demonstrate the relevance and vitality of Russian contributions to the study of
globalization.
Bibliography
Chumakov, Alexander N., Ivan I. Mazour, and William C. Gay, eds. Global Studies
Encyclopedic Dictionary. Foreword by Mikhail Gorbachev. Amsterdam and New
York: Rodopi, 2014.
Gay, William C. and Anastasia V. Mitrofanova. Alexander Chumakov, Encyclopedia of
Global Justice: A-I, Volume 1. Deen K. Chatterjee, ed. New York: Springer, 2011,
126128.
Gay, William C. and Tatiana A. Alekseeva, eds. Democracy and the Quest for Justice:
Russian and American Perspectives. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2004.
, eds. On the Eve of the 21st Century: Perspectives of Russian and American
Philosophers. Lanham, md: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994.
Mazour, Ivan I., Alexander N. Chumakov, and William C. Gay, eds. Global Studies
Encyclopedia. Moscow: TsNPP Dialog, Raduga Publishers, 2003.
Part 1
The Global World as Seen from Russia

chapter 1
Globalization from a Philosophical Point of View:

Russian Vision
Abstract
The author addresses globalization from the philosophical viewpoint and considers
multiple visions of globalization in different cultures. The 21st century turned a new
page in history, because the world became global and interconnected in accordance
with the basic parameters of social life. These transformations are results of the his-
torical development of society, which entered the era of global relations during the
great geographic discoveries when economic, political, and cultural contacts irrevers-
ibly transcended the borders of separate countries. Globalizations development pro-
voked new global power configurations and a new vision of world events and was a
primary cause in the destruction of the world socialist system. The world did not
become more secure, because humans continue with habitual, but obsolete, catego-
ries. Separate states confront each other and struggle in pursuit of their interests. The
author envisions an alternative through developing civil society, democratic princi-
ples, and human rights, taking into consideration regional peculiarities and the men-
tality of peoples living in each region. Every nation, while preserving its traditions and
values, is obliged, for the sake of guaranteeing the future to pursue universal interests
first and to follow the motto think globally, act jointly.
Keywords
globalization contemporary world humankind interdependence interests

values democracy civil society
In the third millennium, the world community faces a newly acquired quality.
According to the main parameters of social life, the world community has
become a single holistic system. At the same time, the world community pays
more and more attention to the problems of its unity by thinking about its
responsibility for biospheric conditions and the continuation of life on Earth.

10 Chumakov
This attention engenders questions of sustainable socio-economic develop-

ment and harmonious relations between society and naturequestions about
establishing humane, good-neighbor relations among separate people and
peoples. Such questions, along with perennial philosophical themes, inevita-
bly move to the foreground of modern philosophical studies.
Scientists, philosophers, and also many different people in Russia, like
everywhere in the world, are today deeply concerned about the process of glo-
balization taking place in various spheres of social life that has become espe-
cially noticeable in the second half of the 21st century. During the last decades
these trends and changes became evident even to the general public.
Particularly challenging and even shocking features of this process are the
organized anti-globalist riots in different parts of the world and the increasing
threat of international terrorism. These terrorist threats are demonstrated by
such terrible events as September 11th, 2001 in New York (usa), September 1st,
2004 in Beslan (Russia), April 15th, 2013 at the marathon in Boston (usa), and
January 9th, 2015 in Paris (France). These events engender among the epis-
temic community not only justified concerns but also additional interest in the
above-mentioned processes. The number of conferences, seminars, disputes,
media publications, and academic literature has grown significantly. Even a
brief analysis of these sources allows one to conclude that many different
opinions are expressed about the globalization of the modern world; neither a
general approach to globalization studies nor a common position on this pro-
cess has yet been forged.
Some scholars think that globalization is an objective process, independent
of human will and intent, which began long ago and will not end in the near
future. Scientists and philosophers, like Roland Robertson, Ervin Laszlo, Endre
Kiss, William C. Gay, Ulrich Beck, Vyacheslav S. Stiopin, Igor V. Bestouzhev-
Lada, Arkadi D. Ursul, and others (including the author), think that gradual
evolution of scientific progress, modernization of its achievements, and natu-
rally evolving trans-nationalization of social life are preconditions for global-
ization.1 In other words, they think that globalization is a result of an objective
and long-term historical process characterized by cyclical increases and
slowdowns of the tempo of the evolution of globalization. This evolution,
1 See Alexander N. Chumakov, Ivan I. Mazour, and William C. Gay, eds., Global Studies
Encyclopedic Dictionary, Foreword by Mikhail Gorbachev (Amsterdam and New York:
Rodopi, 2014); Ivan I. Mazour, Alexander N. Chumakov, and William C. Gay, eds., Global
Studies Encyclopedia (Moscow: TsNPP Dialog, Raduga Publishers, 2003); Roland Robertson,
Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (London: sage Publications, 1992); Ulrich
Beck, Was ist Globalisierung? (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997).
Globalization from a Philosophical Point of View 11
accompanied by qualitative breakthroughs in scientific and technological

development, grew by the end of the century into the information and com-
puter revolution. On this basis, world economic and political interdependen-
cies have begun to merge into a single entity, especially in relation to
transportation, trade and energy supply flows, mass media, and internation-
ally based regional conflict resolution. These developments allow scholars to
define globalization as an objective process.
Other scholars, and modern Russia has relatively many of them among
both academics and politicians, think that globalization was initiated by the
Western developed countries and multinationals who had envisioned pursu-
ing their self-interests and who now control by extracting profits from the
growing interdependence of various countries and regions of the world. The
backers of this position suggest that the kapellmeisters (orchestrators) of glo-
balization, predominantly the United States but also developed Western
countries, are using the ideas and slogans of human rights, universal values,
and so on to win the ongoing struggle of globally defined interests. Thus, the
supporters of this position question the future of democracy under the new
conditions. In the absence of democratic traditions and in the face of under-
development or the non-existence of corresponding institutions, some
grounds for their concerns exist concerning this acute problem. The most
typical representatives of such a view in Russia include the philosopher and
political theorist Alexander S. Panarin who has written several books on
Eurasian issues of which The Temptation of Globalism (2000) is especially
noteworthy, the well-known philosophers Victor V. Iliin and Alexander
S. Akhiezer who have expressed a neo-Eurasianist position in a collective
work, Russian Civilization (2000), politician Dimitri Rogozin, and economist
Alexander V. Bouzgalin who is one of the leaders of the anti-globalization
movement in Russia.2
Western social thought also gives more and more attention to the processes
of globalization.3 The threat of international terrorism, including the revolu-
tionary events and military operations in Afghanistan, North Africa, the Middle
East, Ukraine, and other places, fix Western public consciousness on issues
concerning the problem of values and the formation of the new world order. In
this connection, the issues of intercultural and inter-confessional relations
2 Alexander S. Panarin, The Temptation of Globalism [Iskushenie Globalizmom] (Moscow:

eksmo-Press, 2002) (in Russian); Alexandr V. Buzgalin, Alterglobalism: Searching for the
Positive Alternative to a New Empire, Age of Globalization 1 (2008), 5860.
3 Roland Robertson, The Return of Religion and the Conflicted Condition of the World
Order, Age of Globalization 3 (2013), 411.
12 Chumakov
become acute; also the increasingly evident need to stop the continually wid-
ening socio-economic gap between rich and poor countries is ignored. The
issue of convergence between the East and the West again has become an
important topic of discussion, even while concerns grow about the future of
democracy in developed countries and the possibility of democratic transition
in traditional societies, including those of the East, the Islamic World, and the
African continent.
So, our contemporary world is evolving dramatically and presents to the
world community, as well as to particular countries, difficult questions, includ-
ing the one of the future of democracy in the globalizing world. Russia, having
declared its adherence to democratic principles after the dissolution of the
Soviet Union and facing great difficulties in building a democratic society, now
as never before needs philosophical bases for these ideas that are adjusted to
local conditions. Unfortunately, we must admit that in trying to build a new
society Russia got more problems than positive results. The main problem is
that today Russia still does not have a developed civil society. As a result, the
totalitarian style of Russian leadership has increasingly strengthened, which
leads to increased contradictions in relations with the outside world. This situ-
ation is one of the reasons for the above-mentioned interest of Russian schol-
ars in exploring current trends and searching for new forms of world order.
Regardless of ones approach to the analysis of the issues mentioned, one
cannot help saying that entering the new century means opening a totally new
page in human history. Unlike previous pages, this one will be dedicated to a
new and different topic and will be written in a different language. The new
topic is the end of the globalization process and the formation of the worlds
wholeness and unity. A different language implies not just new means of com-
munication, such as the Internet, satellite television, and so on, but also altera-
tions in morality, ethics, and law in accordance with global transformations.
A different terminology implies a reevaluation of previous values and an
acceptance by the majority of the international community involved in the
transformation of reality. The contours of this reality are being defined by the
following circumstances.
First, the formal process of globalizing social relations that began in the age
of geographic discoveries was largely completed by the start of the twenty-first
century. No place on the planet is free from human impact, the allocation of
territories is more or less finished, and sovereign nation-states predominate
across the globe. At the same time, socio-economic relations, cultural connec-
tions, and informational flows have poured out irreversibly over the borders of
separate countries and peoples and have ceased to be their prerogative.
However, as far as the essence of globalization is concerned, humankind is still
waiting to become an international community, which would necessarily

require a serious transformation of worldviews, established cultures, and
values.4
Second, the time since the collapse of the Soviet Union was accompanied
by both fundamental structural changes in the former socialist countries and
tectonic displacements in world affairs resulting in the new balance of power
on the world arena and a new vision of current developments. For a while the
collapse of the world socialist system has distracted attention from the pro-
cess of globalization and the global problems it raises. Nevertheless, now
these developments are more and more clearly understood as two sides of
the same coin.
Globalization raises new concerns for the world. Endless confrontation and
armed conflicts keep humankind on the verge of self-destruction. After the
collapse of the Soviet Union and the fading of the potential for nuclear con-
frontation between the two superpowers, we would be reasoning fallaciously
to think that all threats have been left behind. Our technological civilization
contains weapons of mass destruction. These technologies, along with global-
ization, can transform local problems and dangers into transnational, global
phenomena. For example, terrorism has always been a feature of human his-
tory, but new technologies, especially modern means of communication and
transportation, make it a dangerous phenomenon to the whole of humankind.
To fight successfully not only these phenomena but also their causes, one
should see the objective foundations and patterns behind the new threats,
including the unprecedented terrorist attacks on the United States.
Thus, at first glance, the contemporary context appears to have changed
dramatically within the last ten years. Has such a change really taken place?
Are we not witnesses to the culmination of a more complicated, longer-lasting
process like the transition from atomistic, disparate, and fragmentary interna-
tional social relations toward global unity? Some of the best minds in the first
half of the last century had their attention attracted by this possibility. One can
mention the works by Vladimir Vernadskii, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Karl
Jaspers, and the 1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto of Bertrand Russell and
Albert Einstein.5 However, for the broader public, awareness of these changes
did not become evident earlier than the information revolution of the last
couple of decades. This revolution is so fast and sweeping that humankind has
4 Alexander N. Chumakov, Philosophy of Globalization. Selected Articles (oscow: max-press,

2010).
5 Alexander N. Chumakov, Ilia V. Ilyin, and Ivan I. Mazour, eds., Global Studies Ecyclopedic
Directory: Persons, Organizations, (Moscow: Alfa-M), 2012 (in Russian).
14 Chumakov
not managed to react adequately or even to think over the current develop-
ments theoretically. The destructiveness of anti-globalization protests and the
unwillingness of the participants to see the objective patterns of world devel-
opment serve as further arguments in support of this conclusion.
Ignorance of the implications of globalization has happened largely because
some people try to explain the newly transformed world using established
familiar terms and categories like civilization, democracy, sovereignty, and
universal values. Somehow many people do not pay attention to the fact that
each of these terms, as well as the established system of ethical values and
legal norms of contemporary times, has been formed by and acquired its
meaning under radically different conditions from the present ones. The same
is true for the general fundamentals of democracy formulated in the age of
industrial transformation and constituting the foundation of modern demo-
cratic institutions. These fundamental conditions, which have so far taken firm
shape only in a limited number of countries, need a new conceptual under-
standing to be applied and disseminated throughout the world. Even though
the international community has a shared house, a shared destiny and a
shared responsibility for what is going on in the world, this situation does not
yet mean that democratic values and the organizational principles of social life
typical up to now for only the minority of humankind will be automatically
accepted by the rest of the international community. Moreover, the forced
implantation of democratic values into non-Western societies not accustomed
to them often causes dislike, bewilderment, and sometimes backlash. To ignore
these developments would be wrong and could even be quite dangerous.
In this fragmented world no one should avoid dealing with our common
concerns. Avoiding responsibility for developing an understanding of global-
ization undermines debates concerning a countrys responsibility for partici-
pation in our world; such avoidance of responsibility increases the possibility
of discontent and violence. This discontent grows and becomes even more
acute the further our world, still divided into separate national houses, moves
along the road of globalization toward a greater interdependence. An equally
important realization is the fact that as the gap between standards of living
widens feelings of security, satisfaction, and even superiority for a few nations
are heightened, while in others feelings of insecurity, injustice, deprivation,
and exclusion predominate. These factors pose a serious obstacle in the way of
democratic transition and in the creation of a global civil society that needs to
be formed in the future in order to overcome fragmentation and disintegra-
tion. Thus, if we lack an alternative to unification via globalization, then we
need common principles and rules of living within the world, as well as com-
mon responsibility for each human beings fate; for in the global technocratic
world well-organized transnational criminal groups, terrorist organizations,

and even individual outcasts pose a danger, as do rogue states.
Can this global society become a reality? Will the world community be able
to transcend the concept of globalization, move toward real unity, and become
an open society or at least step firmly on the way to democratic transition
while preserving national identity? So far, we lack evident answers to these
questions. Regardless, this transition will not happen on its own without our
making a conscious effort.
Covering the relatively small body of our planet, the contemporary world is
a quilt under which separate states still do not cooperate so much as they
compete, confront, and fight. They apply giant efforts to preserve sovereignty
and independence, conduct selfish foreign policy, and pursue their narrow
national interests. This confrontation manifests itself not only through the
rich Northpoor South opposition but also through the clash of cultures, val-
ues, religious beliefs, and traditions of the West and the East. Beginning in the
1990s Samuel Huntington addressed this confrontation in his highly influential
book The Clash of Civilizations (1996).6 Nevertheless, in spite of the increasing
satellite communications and Internet homogeneity of the global fabric, the
following couple of decades were not ones in which the East and the West
became equally homogeneous or in which mutual understanding between
rich and poor countries grew appreciably.
Acting (more or less) as a single body the developed Western countries play
the main part in world affairs. Apart from the details of their strategic partner-
ships and private interests, one should admit that their mutual understanding
is based on common democratic principles and foundations worked out and
implanted into public consciousness in the Age of Enlightenment. Although
they took different national forms, states during the Enlightenment pursued
similar goals and attempted to solve the same tasksdevelopment of civil
society and formation of democratic institutions. As a result, such principles as
personal freedom, private property, and rule of law became commonly
accepted norms deeply rooted in modern language and the contemporary
public consciousness of Western societies.
The East, for well-known reasons, has not passed through such transforma-
tion. As for Russia, numerous attempts to enact Enlightenment solutions took
place, but none were successful. Should we consider this failure to adopt the
categories of the Enlightenment to be a consequence that Russia, along with
the East, Africa, and other parts of the world, do not understand Western
6 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1996).
16 Chumakov
erspectives? If so, should we not also note that the West cannot or does not
p
want to understand different, non-Western outlooks, especially the difficulties
caused by a clash between non-Western cultures and Western values and tech-
nology? Does the conflict not reflect the saying, The one living in a palace
thinks differently from the one living in a hut? Regardless, can we ignore the
fact that this dynamic and even aggressive intrusion of technological civiliza-
tion and Western culture into traditional-minded countries and regions pro-
vokes discontent not only among the nationally oriented but also among the
broader society strata, thus provoking backlash and new international ten-
sions? Likewise, will the West continue to underestimate the dangers emerging
at the fault lines of these contradictions? Can the West, without endangering
itself, ignore the growing gaps of development between different countries
and regions and the growth of apocalyptic and extremist feelings engendered
by continual ignorance of such poverty? Today, when technological civiliza-
tion becomes more and more complicated and its capacity to destroy, as well
as to create, grows, the forces of destruction have proven able to act globally.
These questions must be addressed.
Metaphorically speaking, as we are all sitting in one boat in which mutual
understanding and cooperation are needed, one should refer to the positive
lessons of history, particularly to the connections between the industrial trans-
formation in the West and the Age of Enlightenment: the new economic real-
ity demanded adequate thinking, a new outlook, and appropriate modes of
behavior. The greatest merit of the Enlightenment philosophes was asserting
the concept of an autonomous individual. This concept of a sovereign indi-
vidual along with the problem of freedom and responsibility were the main
questions occupying the minds of the philosophers of the Enlightenment.
They were pondering one of the most important contemporary problems:
How do people organize a society in such a way that duties and responsibili-
ties, the norms and rules of common sense, define the nature of social rela-
tions? How can individuals form a state that guarantees the rights of citizens?
Two centuries ago Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel wrote about the French
philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment: We place it to our credit when we
reproach the French for their attacks upon religion and on the state. We must
represent to ourselves the horrible state of society, the misery and degradation
in France, in order to appreciate the services that these writers rendered.7 In
connection with this point, one should understand that the Enlightenment
7 Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel, Hegels Lectures on the History of Philosophy (iii, Section Two,
ii, C), accessed February 16, 2015, https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/
hp/hpfrench.htm.
that paved the way for the French Revolution aimed to overcome the social
situation Hegel addressed. The task of the philosophes was the modification of
the social situation in the eighteenth century. Until the possibility for the for-
mation of a united, holistic, interdependent world arose, the Enlightenment
served as the paradigm for development. However, for others, at the start of the
twenty-first century, the environment has changed dramatically. Western
countries can no longer remain indifferent to economic and socio-political
development of other countries because continual instability and backward-
ness of some states juxtaposed against the background of global interdepen-
dence pose a real threat to all states.
Just because Russia and other countries have started or intend to begin the
road to capitalist transformation does not mean that they will face the same
socio-economic problems. The West with relative success resolved many of the
difficulties of capitalist transformation. However, huge obstacles still exist.
First are ideological issues. In Russia and other countries, public consciousness
is far from being free from past stereotypes and concepts that shape peoples
consciousness. The task requires maintaining a clear vision not only of the
future, but also of their part of the historical inheritance that they should
reject. To succeed at this task requires a new Enlightenment that the West can
assist in promoting by sharing its knowledge and historical experience.
Two important aspects should be kept in mind when talking about the
necessity to transform international relations.
First, Western civilization and its inherent values are not a panacea for the
global problems challenging humankind since the second half of the twenti-
eth century. Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, they are bad, but the point is that
the others are worse. However, the West is not immune from critical consider-
ation of its system and a search for ways to improve it. Although playing a more
and more significant role in world affairs, the East does not want to and is not
able to change its fundamental core worldview in a short period of time and
accept the rules of a game and the value system of the West in its present form.
Even Russia, which is culturally and socio-economically much closer to the
West than are its Eastern neighbors, is unable to change. For this reason, inde-
pendent from their wishes, Western countries will have to look for compro-
mises with Eastern countries and Russia, which in their turn should not avoid
searching for the same compromises. In addition, non-Western countries
sooner or later will have to admit that universal values, individual rights, and
freedom provided by the institution of private property are not Western propa-
ganda but are the essential, inseparable features of the Western way of life and
action. Another important factor also needs to be stressed, that is, the need to
protect human rights becomes a top priority in the modern global world
18 Chumakov
because if it is left unresolved, the other tasks become insignificant. Ioanna

Kucuradi, a leading specialist on human rights, contends that proper legisla-
tion by states presupposes that those who are responsible for the implemen-
tation and education of human rights have sufficient philosophical knowledge
of the conditions that human rights demand and have become able to put in
connection this knowledge with the cases they will face.8
A second aspect is that one should not forget (even being ultimately altruis-
tic) that the world of the twenty-first century is not less severe and not less
cruel than the past. Today the world community has become a holistic global
system according to all basic social parameters. At the same time, the new
world, now the world of global relations, is being spontaneously regulated, but
it lacks adequate rational and purposeful governance. This fact is very danger-
ous for humanity, because numerous economic, social, political, and other
related problems become global and exceed the control of national states that
lack an adequate solution for them. Currently, however, nation states are the
central international actors. Since each of them, first of all, pursues its own
ends, the interests of nation states collide and are protected with all the avail-
able means. Thus, in the context of brutal confrontation, they have only one
way to avoid military conflict, that is, by using soft power in their relations with
other countries. Using soft power in the sphere of cultural relations is the most
humane and effective method of solving complex tasks and achieving peaceful
coexistence. Economic and political interests will henceforth be the ground
for discontents. The absence of common approaches, common principles, val-
ues, and a shared language will be difficult obstacles in the way to unity and
mutual understanding of peoples in a global world. The task ahead can be
solved only if the international community approaches with moderation and
patience the cultural heritages of different nations.9
What conclusions may we draw from my earlier considerations? First, glo-
balization has become the specific feature of the contemporary world and
demands, apart from serious structural changes, the reconstruction of interna-
tional relations Hence, the need is paramount that we give undivided and pri-
mary attention to regional policy, especially where interests collide among
states with substantially different socio-political and economic regimes, as
well as cultures and religions. This focus requires cultivating in public con-
sciousness democratic values and outlooks that would adequately reflect the
8 Ioanna Kucuradi, Human Rights from the philosophical point of view, Mazour, Chumakov,
and Gay, eds., Global Studies Encyclopedia, 249.
9 Yersu A. Kim, A Common Framework for Ethics of the 21st Century (Paris: unesaco Division of
Philosophy and Ethics, 1999).
wholeness of the world and humankinds common destiny, which should nec-
essarily be based on the specific consideration of people living within a spe-
cific region. In other words, if establishing democracy and forming globally
oriented outlooks are the dictates of the time and a necessary precondition for
the survival of world civilization, then globalization can be successful only
when national peculiarities and cultural diversity of peoples living together or
nearby are taken into consideration. If Western countries do not want to be
accused of using double standards, they must take these factors into consider-
ation when resolving complex international conflicts. One can cite many
examples of politically biased interpretations of democratic principles (if not
double standards), including ones about the Middle East, Yugoslavia, Chechnya,
Syria, Ukraine, and the treatment of international terrorism. The latter consists
not only of openly aggressive actions by various groups but also of numerous
structures, organizations, and social and political movements supporting ter-
rorism ideologically and financially that often find shelter and sometimes pro-
tection in some states including Western ones.
A second conclusion we may draw concerns promoting, as the main regula-
tive force of social relations, basic principles of democracy in an effort to pro-
duce a shared morality and law. One should keep in mind that human rights
are the most important ideals among other values. However, under the condi-
tion of global interdependence human rights must be clearly defined and
accompanied by appropriate responsibilities, as expressed, for example, in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and should be complemented by a
Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities. For the world community
to survive, nations and states (if not individuals) must be able to prevent by
common effort armed conflicts and to suppress any extremist action capable
of causing catastrophic damage. The world community should demonstrate
interest in every person receiving a proper education that teaches thinking in
global categories or, at least, accepting these categories when considering one-
self as a universal citizen. Every nation, every state, while supporting its tradi-
tions, values, and beliefs, is simply obliged in the name of preserving the future
to put universal human interests first; consequently, the well-known slogan of
the Club of Rome, Think globally, act locally, must be re-considered. A new
slogan, Think globally, act together, is more appropriate for the era of global
civilization.
People are unable to predict the future with confidence, but they are able to
influence it through their actions, which should be more and more grounded on
acknowledging common moral principles and global values, the formulation
and acceptance of which become the most vivid tasks of the international com-
munity. Scholars, social scientists, and, most of all, philosophers of different
20 Chumakov
countries must undertake a collective effort. A step in this direction took place
at the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy in Boston in 1998. Focused on
the theme, Paideia: Philosophy Educating Humanity, the international philo-
sophical community reached consensus that the Paideia principle developed
in Ancient Greece needs to be reborn as a fundamental principle underlying
education and for forming a holistic and harmonious human personality.10
Subsequent world philosophical congresses, in particular the Twenty-Third
World Congress of Philosophy held in Athens in 2013, consistently emphasized
this idea.11 According to many philosophers, Paideia must prevent dissolution
and degradation of high culture and become one of the central principles
underlying a new, globally oriented outlook. The first steps taken by philoso-
phers in this direction offer an optimistic vision that humankindbeginning
at the level of scholars, then at the level of politicians and societal leaders, and
finally at the level of the general publicwill manage to resolve collectively
the issues discussed above. For the foreseeable future, we do not have any
other rational alternative than for philosophy to educate humanity.
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, Ilia V. Ilyin, and Ivan I. Mazour, eds. Global Studies Ecyclopedic Directory:
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, Ivan I. Mazour, and William C. Gay, eds. Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary.
Foreword by Mikhail Gorbachev. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2014.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Frederich. Hegels Lectures on the History of Philosophy (iii,
Section Two, ii, C.). Accessed February 16, 2015. https://www.marxists.org/reference/
archive/hegel/works/hp/hpfrench.htm.
Huntington, Samuel P. A Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
10 Paidai Project On-Line, 20th World Congress of Philosophy, accessed February 16, 2015.
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/.
11 Philosophy as Inquiry and Way of Life, 23rd World Congress of Philosophy, accessed
December 16, 2014, http://www.wcp2013.gr/en/universal/congress-filosofias.html.
Kim, Yersu A. A Common Framework for the Ethics of the 21st Century. Paris: unesco
Division of Philosophy and Ethics, 1999.
Kucuradi, Ioanna. Human Rights from the philosophical point of view. Global Studies
Encyclopedia, Mazour, Chumakov, and, Gay, eds., 245249.
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Accessed February 16, 2015. http://www.bu.edu/wcp/.
Panarin, Alexander. S. The Temptation of Globalism. [Iskushenie Globalizmom.]
Moscow: eksmo-Press, 2002. In Russian.
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universal/congress-filosofias.html.
Robertson, Roland. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: sage
Publications, 1992.
. The Return of Religion and the Conflicted Condition of World Order. Age of
Globalization 3 (2013), 411.
chapter 2
Russian Culture and Challenges of Socio-cultural

Globalization
Ilia V. Ilyin and Olga G. Leonova
Abstract
Socio-cultural globalization involves reverse globalization or the asymmetrical

exchange of Western goods, capital and technologies, values, ideas and lifestyles, and
simulation of unification (westernization) that mainly affect the material aspects of
human existence, while the ethical and moral aspects of life remain quite stable.
Socio-cultural globalization is a nonlinear dialectical process. National cultures are in
a complex dialectical interaction with the global culture, but the global and the local
ones exist as two parallel trends (based on the principle of the reverse movement
toward each other). The most effective strategy to respond to the challenges of socio-
cultural globalization is to develop adaptive abilities of traditional civilization to the
new socio-cultural realities and to make a choice between them, giving preference to
the latter but using all the best of the former. However, socio-cultural transformations
and socio-cultural adaptation have limits. Russian civilization can offer the global
world its main principles and experience for a peaceful existence of different cultures
and confessions. Attempts to transfer Western culture to the global periphery could
result in spiritual consolidation of Eastern Christian and Islamic civilizations. This alli-
ance may become an eastern challenge to Western liberal culture and an exporter of
ideas, values, and ideals.
Keywords
socio-cultural globalization global culture traditional culture civilization

adaptation transformation Russia
Socio-cultural globalization is a process of internationalization of culture on

the basis of liberal values and principles of the European Enlightenment.
This process should not be confused with Americanization. The latter is
only one of the models of socio-cultural globalization. This very model, which

Russian Culture and Challenges of Socio-Cultural 23
is more viable and which uses effective methods of promotion and public rela-
tions, has become prevalent in the initial phase of globalization.
We are witnessing the formation of globalist culture, that is, universal or
unified American-type culture. Internationalization, unification, and univer-
salization of the cultural sphere of the lifestyle of peoples ignore many civiliza-
tional imperatives and suppress cultural traditions, ceremonies, and rituals.
Alexander Chumakov states, Mutual penetration and mutual assimilation of
various cultures, being an objective and necessary consequence of globaliza-
tion, led in the 20th century to the formation of the universal, planetary cul-
ture. Its contours can be already seen quite well in every country and continent,
where the established way of life, traditions and daily peculiarities coexist.1
As a matter of fact, socio-cultural globalization means active and dynamic
importing of Western values into another socio-cultural environment. Its pur-
pose is imposition of alien traditions, ideals, values, and, ultimately, control of
human consciousness.
Chumakov also observes that, difficulties and contradictions [are] engen-
dered by an increasing influence and broad expansion of mass culture
periodically emerging crises of spirituality, increasing apathy, feelings of being
lost, insecurity, etc, are the examples.2
The pace of cultural globalization has accelerated as a result of the informa-
tion revolution, which promoted cross-border movement of not only material
results of Western culture as it was before, but also spiritual ones.
On the one hand, the world is witnessing an intensive process of adapting to
Western (mostly American) culture, which appears to be new for traditional
societies, and attempts are being made to adapt it to local socio-cultural tradi-
tions, customs, and lifestyles.
On the other hand, in order to survive as a civilization, a country needs to
respond to the challenges of socio-cultural globalization by forming its own
directions in the multivariate information space and integrate Western and
national principles, along with contemporary and traditional principles.
In order to minimize negative consequences of socio-cultural globalization,
the nations of sovereign countries need knowledge of their own cultural and
intellectual heritage, as well as an ability to use it creatively in a different cul-
tural space and social time.
1 Alexander N. Chumakov, Culture in the Global World: Between Dialogue and Conflict,
Globalistics and Globalization Studies, Leonid E. Grinin, Ilya V. Ilyin, and Andrey V. Korotaev,
eds. (Volgograd: Uchitel Publishing House, 2012), 292.
2 Ibid., 291.
24 Ilyin and LEONOVA
Modern cultural globalization has several features and contradictions.
1. A so-called reverse globalization is becoming more evident; it is a phe-

nomenon of asymmetrical exchange of Western goods, capital, and technolo-
gies and of migration flows; it also involves religion, philosophy, and lifestyles.
For example, Islamization of Europe is very relevant today: more and more
Catholics and other Christians are adopting Islam. Every year more than
100 thousand Europeans move from Christianity to Islam. France has about
8million Muslims, Germany has 7 million, and the uk has 5 million. All in all,
Western Europe has approximately 2530 million Muslims.
2. In fact, a large-scale simulation of unification (westernization) is taking

place. It affects superficial layers of visual culturefashion, food, leisure, and
external behaviors. Global culture is only perceived at the horizontal external
level, but it is rejected at the depth level of archetypes and stereotypes of mind.
An external contact exists between global and traditional cultures. During
this contact neither organic unity nor a new type of culture is formed. At the
same time transforming cultural codes and archetypes of civilization is difficult;
so, they remain virtually the same. Preservation of deep traditional/civilizational
culture as a system of beliefs, values, and norms, as well as national identity and
cultural genotype, takes place.
The national cultural tradition opposes alien culture and minimizes its
negative effects.
One paradox is becoming more and more evident: socio-cultural globaliza-
tion brings challenges, the answer to which is actualization of national con-
sciousness, active search for national culture identity, and revival of interest in
national culture.
Certain links are present between the theory and practice of heritage, col-
lective identity, and globalization. However, David Tutchener thinks These
links between heritage, collective identity, globalization and nationalism [are]
not static and will vacillate in terms of influence depending upon the circum-
stances of the period.3
In the context of globalization at the external level of social activity, the
adaptation of Western culture to local conditions is transpiring. However, this
process is accompanied by a revival of nationalist tendencies. Successful inte-
gration into the world of Western cultural tradition runs parallel to the
strengthening of national identity. In countries of the global periphery, that is,
3 David Tutchener, Collective Identity and Heritage: Ebb and Flow at National and Global
Levels, Journal of Globalization Studies 4:2 (November 2013), 96.
in traditional societies, an intensive search is being undertaken for ways of

combining their own national culture and a unified globalist one.
3. Globalization is not about unified culture only. The Western world has
lost its ability to play the role of the generator of cultural values, which was
peculiar to it in the twentieth century. Therefore, the globalization of culture is
accompanied by the revival of national traditions, ceremonies, and rituals. As
a result, two main strategies of humanitarian interventionliberalism and
conservatismare formed. Attempts of Western liberal culture to rule the
world by forcibly imposing it on traditional societies are becoming more evi-
dently opposed by national cultures. They move from defense and tactics of
saving their values to aggressive strategies. Countries of the Muslim Ummah
are at the forefront today. Their diaspora in Europe that belongs to Western
Christian civilization is not just satisfied with a dialogue of cultures: they are
making demands for preferences. These days the dualism of cultures that takes
place in several European countries develops into a civilizational confronta-
tion and turns into interethnic tension.
The most significant factors in this civilizational confrontation are religion,
cultural and historical traditions, work ethics, and family life.
So, Roland Robertson, considers that religion has appeared in recent years
to be a crucial theme in world politics and international relations, not least
because religion appears to be at the center of some of the worlds most formi-
dable global conflicts.4
Civilizational conflicts are aused by deep differences in traditional moral-
ity, history, and culture. Interaction of the people of competing cultural tradi-
tions enhances their awareness of their own civilizational identity.
As a result, socio-cultural globalization is turning into inter-civilizational
competition with liberal western culture and traditional cultures of other
world civilizations as the parties. They pursue different objectives by different
methods and declare different missions; in addition, the gap between them is
so wide that they cannot accept and understand other values. Therefore, in the
context of globalization the culture of one civilization does not enrich another
one by penetrating into it; instead, it undermines its foundations, contributing
to its marginalization.
4. An aggressive strategy of socio-cultural globalization that imposes the

American cultural model of the secular society of the West faces reciprocal
aggression from the fundamentalism of the Islamic East in return.
4 Roland Robertson, The Return of Religion and the Conflicted Condition of World Order,
Globalistics and Globalization Studies, Grinin, Ilyin, and Korotaev, eds., 336.
Globalist culture carries a growing uniformity of consumer goods, including

fashion and home appliances, a spread of behavioral stereotypes, standardiza-
tion of skills and techniques of professional occupation, and universalization
of human communication forms. However, this uniformity does not concern
the deep layers of national cultures and traditions that are associated with life
values and religion.
Therefore, universalization mainly affects the material aspects of human
existence, while the ethical and moral aspects of life remain quite stable. This
universalization, however, mainly concerns those countries where religion
continues to play a significant role in society when it is supported by the state.
Transformation of the value foundations and cultural unification that accom-
pany globalization causes a reaction to protect national traditions, for which
religious consciousness is an effective mechanism. When the fundamental
value orientations are threatened with destruction, religion quite probably can
become the basis of preserving traditional identity. In the context of socio-
cultural globalization religion plays the role of the immune system by being
the keeper of life values of local cultures, and the values stand as powerful
attractors.
In a secular society, such as Russia, some tendencies can be seen. Combi
nation of the conflicting values of global and national cultures results in
hybridization of culture. Globalization causes the formation of a special type
of convergent self-identity to which the following features are intrinsic: the
value of individual freedom, the freedom of self-expression, and the ability to
express ones own opinion openly. At the same time, according to the data of
the social survey among the students of Southwest State University (Kursk),
more than half of respondents (57%) pointed out that the value orientations
of the present generation have negatively changed as compared with the val-
ues of parents. Among the most important youth valuesmodesty, honesty,
courage, teamwork, altruism, and selflessnessappear to be missing.5 The old
traditional system of factors in the formation of national consciousness is
beginning to weaken, while a new emerging socio-cultural environment is pro-
moting the development of a new system of values. On the condition of the
further development of these processes national culture may lose its identity
and become an imitative one.
5 Ludmila V. Klimova. The relationship between globalization of society and transformation

of personality values, Proceedings of the ii International Scientific Congress Global
Studies2011: Ways to achieve strategic stability and the problem of global governance
(Moscow, May 1822, 2011), (Moscow: MAKS-Press, 2011), v 2, 5758.
5. Political scientists predict in the twenty-first century the peoples whose

mentality is inclined to socio-cultural universals of civilization will be at the
forefront of the historical process.6
The predominance of national self-consciousness over civic identity may
lead to the growth of separatism and national chauvinism; ultimately, it threat-
ens the collapse of the multinational and multi-confessional federal state.
However, the state that is based on the common civilizational matrix becomes
more monolithic and receives an additional source of power and influence in
the world. Countries, where civilizational codes are actualized, national cul-
tural traditions, values, and ideals create superethnic spiritual spaces (the
term often used by the famous Russian philosopher Alexander Panarin) that
crush global universalism and appear to be a right response to the challenges
of cultural globalization.
Global culture appears to be an artificial entity, which is modeled by socio-
technologists of today. Distributors of global culture have their own interests,
including commercial ones, which they often set above the interests of the peo-
ples from the local cultural communities. Although the national insularity of
traditional cultures goes through intense erosion, national culture still remains
the dominant form of culture.
Throughout the world, national cultures still remain a powerful fact that
affects the choice of a model for development of a country. The world is still far
from being a single universe, and it stays fragmentary and composed of mosaics
of national cultures. Moreover, their reciprocal impact on global cultural pro-
cesses implies restructuring of the entire field of the dominant global culture.
The importance of national cultures in global culture is becoming more evi-
dent. They are on no account marginalized cultures that appeared against the
backdrop of global cultural processes; they are in a complex dialectical interac-
tion with them.
6. Socio-cultural globalization is a nonlinear dialectical process where

global culture appears to be the general and local traditional culture appears to
be the particular; these two are linked, being complementary and interpene-
trating phenomena.
The global and the local exist as two parallel trends in the socio-cultural
space of the global world. Even being under the influence of socio-cultural glo-
balization, the civilizational matrix retains its cultural core, for its hypothetical
transformation or modification would inevitably lead to the loss of those fea-
tures that allow the nation to exist in this way.
6 Vladimir A. Dergachev. Global Studies (Moscow: unity-dana, 2005) (in Russian).

Traditional culture does not have a proper flexibility. The absence of flexibil-
ity is a natural preservative of this culture in the face of global challenges and
a cause of the phenomenon of reactive traditionalization, which sometimes
shows itself through archaization of forms of consciousness and everyday
forms of life in contemporary society. It is can be seen in the revival of interest
in the national costume or elements of its religious affiliation, as well as in
mass movements (back to nature) or in creation of subcultures that are simi-
lar to anastasists in Russia.
Interaction of the two trendsglobal and local (traditional) culturesis
based on the principle of the reverse movement toward each other in parallel
lanes. The traditional religion of the society serves as a kind of separating bar-
rier on this busy highway. If this barrier is missing or has a symbolic gap
somewhere, a niche appears where a convergent consciousness, which has
been mentioned above, is being formed.
Gradually, the boundaries between endogenous and exogenous factors that
affect the development of the culture of a society are becoming more transpar-
ent and unsteady.
In the context of the global world, no traditional culture, even the most
ancient and rich one, whether it is Asian, African, or Latin American, can
remain completely restricted by its own tradition. Otherwise, it threatens the
status of provincial culture. However, as Chumakov notes, the history of many
different social systems demonstrates that cultures isolated for some reasons,
as well as those who oppressed multiculturalism, are prone to stagnation, pov-
erty, monotony, and decline of creative activity of the significant part of the
population. In the end they inevitably degrade.7
Analysis of the trends of socio-cultural globalization reveals the impossibil-
ity for the national culture of any traditional society to exist in isolation from
global culture.
Today, the direction of the socio-cultural development of a society is defined
by specific relationships and interactions of Western values and values of the
national culture.
Meanwhile, the issue of the challenges of socio-cultural globalization is not
only about rejecting the national culture and seeking faster access to the cul-
tural standard proposed by globalization; it is also about developing adaptive
abilities of this civilization to the new socio-cultural realities. It leads to cre-
ation of the diversity of cultures.
7 Alexander N. Chumakov, Culture in the Global World: Between Dialogue and Conflict,
Globalistics and Globalization Studies, Grinin, Ilyin, and Korotaev, eds., 298.
As Ervin Laslo notes Diversity is a positive attribute of the world system; a

significant reduction would impair its resilience. Monocultures are inherently
unstable, in society the same as in nature. Diversity, however, needs to be bal-
anced by unity. Viable systems manifest unity within diversity: their diverse
parts or elements are cooperatively focused on the attainment of shared goals,
above all, that ensuring the continued persistence of the whole system.8
Another factor that should be taken into account concerns the limits of socio-
cultural transformations and socio-cultural adaptation. Their violation may
lead to marginalization and even to destruction of the society.
Resistance to the effects of socio-cultural globalization in Russia surpris-
ingly comes from the diversity of ethnic, cultural, and religious traditions of
our civilization. This variety has an immense potential for innovations that can
be claimed by global society in the near future. Russian civilization can offer
the global world its main principles and conditions for a peaceful existence of
different cultures and confessions in the context of the multipolar world that
has been used here for centuries.
Russia is unique for having and matching Christian (Orthodox), Muslim,
and, being a European country, Western liberal values in its culture. Thus,
Russia has a potential for a cultural issue that determines its distinctive place
among other civilizations and cultures of the global world.
Russias place in the global hierarchy is to be determined not only by its
effective integration into the global economic and political processes; its place
also depends on the ability of our country to preserve the foundations of its
national culture and comply with the balance between them and the achieve-
ments of global culture.
In the 21st century, civilizations which are open to interaction and which at
the same time are able to put a reasonable limit on cultural expansion and
preserve their own identity will effectively resist destructive challenges of
socio-cultural globalization and even end up being the winners. In the context
of increasing the pressure of socio-cultural globalization and intensification of
contradictions between global and national cultures, any country should make
a well-considered choice between them, which involves giving preference to
the latter but using all the best of the former.
Russia will take a significant position in the global world only on the condi-
tion that it acts as a sovereign civilization pole and as a state with strong and
sustainable civilization standards.
8 Ervin Laslo, Culture and the Sustainability of the Global System. Journal of Globalization
Studies 3:2 (November 2012), 8.
At the moment, the civilization resource of Russia is stable, renewable, and

filled; it is attainable and independent of the will of political leaders and the
foreign policy situation.
The globalization project in the socio-cultural sphere seems destructive to
us: in order to create cultural standardization and similarity to Western civili-
zation, the main cultural and historical foundations of Russia, which gave it
the power of spiritual influence on the rest of the world, must be destroyed.
The challenges of globalization in the political sphere imply a threat to national
security and a loss of national sovereignty.
The challenge of globalization in the socio-cultural sphere may result in a
loss of the national identity of the country, as well as a loss of its own culture
and civilizational heritage. This prospect creates a specific tension, which can
be disastrous for Russia; however, it also can become a stimulus that will push
the country to find a way out. Unconditional implementation of foreign stan-
dards means a loss of an opportunity for Russia to make its own political deci-
sions concerning its material resources and raw materials and development of
its own social structure.
For these reasons, Russia turns out to be quite interested in the approval of
civilizational diversity in the world. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prime
Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and other leading political figures of Russia have
been making positive statements concerning development of multipolarity;
they have pointed out that they mean consolidation of civilizational diversity
in a globalizing world. In this context, multipolarity is equivalent to alignment
of interstate relations and the system of international law with not only the
liberal standard taken into account, but other ideological and philosophical
traditions as well.
The model of the polycentric and multipolar world appears to be the most
attractive for Russia: since multiple centers of power exist, no one of them
alone will be able to make important decisions concerning the fate of other
countries.
However, promoting the idea of the multipolar world, its ideology, and insti-
tutional execution is impossible for Russia without taking the next step
awareness of its own civilization identity and preservation of its own civilization
standards. The need of generating ideas about its own national identity is
expressed in ideas of the real sovereignty of democracy that have been pro-
posed in Russian political circles. Undoubtedly, in this case, the approach to
the identity and civilization standards of Russia is considered by politicians at
the relevant position for them to be the creation of a mechanism of internal
and external political decision-making that would be independent of external
parties.
Unfortunately, Russian political leaders failed to offer a serious ideological

alternative to the Western socio-cultural project. Russias religious traditions
and moral values seem to be the only source of ideas concerning the definition
of the countrys identity.
Thus, the following issues are urgent:
Attempts to adapt those elements of the Western system that are consistent
with our civilization standards and world-view and can be combined with
our historical experience;
Creation of an organic synthesis between Western values of liberalism and
values and traditions of Russian civilization;
Actualization of an original civilization standard that includes such power-
ful components as Russian Orthodoxy and Russian Islam.
These objectives are consistent with Russias course on creation of the multi-
polar world where it can be one of the civilization poles.
For Russia, the way to preserve its identity implies creating an independent
civilization pole and socio-cultural sovereignty.
In the process of a gradual transition to the new model of the world, Russia
can claim to take one of the most rightful places and stand as a powerful civili-
zation pole in the multipolar world.
To cope with the geopolitical and socio-cultural challenges of our time,
Russia must create a clear course of domestic and foreign policy. On the one
hand, the Russian economy is not yet strong enough to compete with the devel-
oped countries of the West or China. The negative consequences of the reforms
of the 1990s and the global economic crisis of 2009 still can be seen. In order to
become one of the centers of power in the global world, first of all, Russia must
carry out economic and political modernization of the country and implement
its geopolitical projects as soon as possible.
Apart from the internal institutional and structural changes that are con-
nected with the changes in the main institutions in the economy, politics, and
social and cultural spheres, Russian political leaders should properly answer
the questions concerning the accession of Russia to global socio-cultural
processes.
Russia has rich civilizational heritage, traditions, and culture. Throughout
its history, these factors gave it the right and the opportunity to be a very
important actor throughout Eurasia. Although not having sufficient economic
and political opportunities to become one of the centers of power in the new
world, Russia has a large civilization potential. So, one can predict that in the
near future Russia will be able to take part in the creation of the polycentric
world and take its rightful place in it. In addition, Russias geopolitical position
is the key to a multipolar system of international relations itself.
The very possibility of a multipolar world will depend on its position, deter-
mination, and political action. Obviously, Russia will play a key position in
world politics, but only on the condition that it acts in world politics as a sov-
ereign civilization pole, as a state whose civilization standards are strong and
stable and as the initiator of the creation of the multipolar world. Only in this
case will Russia claim its whole potential (not only its potential in raw materi-
als and energy, but also its spiritual potential).
A multipolar model of global political order is consistent with Russias
interests today. Also, an emerging multipolarity should define the geopolitical
strategy of Russia.
Another effective strategy implies that the best policy for Russia will be to
maintain a dynamic balance between the major centers of powerthe United
States and China.
Concerning its relations with the major centers of power, Russia should go
to the pragmatic, calm, and reasonable policy of balancing between them,
trying to preserve equality and partnership with them all. The spheres of vital
interests should be clearly delineated and its own civilization standards in
the economic, political, and socio-cultural spheres should be stated and
maintained.
The response to the challenges of socio-cultural globalization can be a
return to the traditions of the national culture that depend on the peculiarities
of national consciousness and the socio-cultural code of the country, that is,
the attempts to find those elements of the code that today can be the ideologi-
cal and spiritual foundation of Russias movement as a sovereign state with
clearly defined civilization standards on the way to integration into objective
globalization processes.
Socio-cultural processes that take place in Russia today highlight not only
economic issues, but also those concerned with the revival of the spiritual cul-
ture of the peoples of our country needed in order for Russia to take its rightful
place in a globalizing world.
Spiritual foundations of our civilization are a complex mix of values of faith,
knowledge, and culture that are embodied and enriched with experience of
the historical development of Russia as a world power. Spiritual and moral
principles can serve as an effective foundation for future economic and socio-
political and intellectual innovations of the 21st century.
Vladimir Soloviev also proposed a strategy of Russias entry into the global
world. He noted a special awareness and thoroughness that allowed Russia not
to lose itself and retain its originality, while it carried on its careful and respectful
dialogue with European civilization, agreeing with it on some issues and reject-
ing others.9
The experience of the last two decades shows that attempts to transfer a
foreign culture from one civilization to another are useless. Forcing this pro-
cess will result in a spiritual consolidation of Eastern Christian and Islamic
civilizations and the formation of an eastern challenge to Western liberal cul-
ture. This civilizational alliance will be able to overcome the status of periph-
eral self-consciousness and become an exporter of ideas, values, and ideals.
Civilizational solidarity of Eastern countries, where Russia will gain the dis-
tinct voice and influence, will undoubtedly overcome the spiritual monopoly
of American culture.
In the future global world, political and social processes will be increasingly
influenced by the ability to integrate cultural and religious interests and respect
for religious interests and views of its partners.
Today, an urgent task for our country, as well as for other countries with
traditional and original culture, is a search for reserves of internal develop-
ment of Russia, which would be based on its own experience of civilization
and its own traditions and historical memory reserves, including an acceptable
adaptation of foreign economic and scientific technical and managerial expe-
rience; however, it should not be an implantation of the ready-made models of
socio-economic and cultural development onto the national ground.
Russias integration into the global world means its advanced development
on the condition that it happens on stable national and spiritual foundations
along with conservation and development of standards of civilization.
Global challenges dictate the need to maintain and strengthen its own civi-
lizational identity and preserve the civilization core of the original state.
A strategy that is oriented to adaptation of foreign culture and integration
of its best achievements involves active civilization creativity.
Resistance to globalization in the field of national culture should be expressed
through understanding and preservation of its own civilization standards, his-
tory, and political traditions. Specific traditional culture of Russian society and
its unique historical and political experience can stand against violent leveling,
degradation, and transformation into a culture of the global world unified by
westernization.
Russias future as one of the poles of the multipolar world will be defined by
the content of its civilization standards, traditions, values, and ideals and by its
national mentality and culture.
9 Vladimir S. Soloviev, Works in two volumes (Moscow, 1989), v 2, 220226 (in Russian).
Meeting these challenges will be the main condition for the transformation
of Russia into a powerful civilization pole that will be able to offer its spiritual
and moral alternative to the world.
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chapter 3
The Transformation of Economics, Politics, and

Law in Globalization
Vladimir V. Mironov
Abstract
This essay considers globalization in its manifestation on different levels of modern

culture. In connection with globalization, integration processes and trends influence
such fields of culture as economics, politics, and law. In economics, integration is
manifested in the formation of the transnational market. In a market of this kind, a
certain type of world configuration is implemented. In terms of this configuration,
some countries are assigned a part to be the leader and other countries appear to be on
the periphery of economic development. In politics, integration trends lead to imple-
menting new forms of globalization. In law, integration processes considerably deform
the proportion of international law and national law. On the whole, the consequences
of integration lead to the need to speak about the transformation of culture, more
specifically, the need to address the destruction of culture as a system of diverse local
cultures and the establishment of global culture.
Keywords
culture law economics politics integration globalization transformation

antiglobalism totalitarianism democracy
Globalization is not a unique splash in the development of human culture,

but a component of a general development process. David Held et al note The
fact of the world religions and Middle Ages trade networks makes us pay atten-
tion to the idea of globalization being a process that has a long history.1 That
fact is why, now, we can speak about a form of globalization that is emerging.
In this regard, I will examine critically the lineal theories of social develop-
ment, including the Marxist theory of the change of social formations.
1 David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton, Global Transformations:
Politics, Economics and Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), 15.

The Transformation of Economics, Politics, and Law 39
Globalization as a process reflects complicated interactions between cultures

that are changing tremendously depending, for instance, on the development
of new communication technologies, which were impossible to imagine some
time ago. For this reason the vector of globalization itself is not lineal. It is
modifying under the influence of cultural changes and, simultaneously, con-
tributing to reinforcement and distribution of these processes around the
world. In other words, in the broadest sense, as Held et al note globalization
can be understood as an implementation of the processes of structuring and
stratifying.2 The process of globalization reflects, in general, a dynamic char-
acter of cultural development and changes of position of particular cultures,
connected with the character of their communication interaction. In this
respect, culture, perceived as a dynamic system, has not only constant features,
but also features that let it be investigated as a constantly changing system, as
a live structure. Accordingly, the conceptual framework of investigating the
process of globalization is extremely wide and interdisciplinary. In this essay
I will choose just two main characteristics of globalization. I will examine the
processes of integration and transformation and show how they influence the
fields of politics and law.3
Integration Trends
Integration trends are connected with creating a united economic and produc-
tion system based on reinforcing the role of transnational interactions, when
the production becomes a united process that is not divided by national and
cultural traditions, specified by the tasks of getting the top profit. So, in pro-
ducing goods or services, the representatives of many countries, different cul-
tures, and diverse traditions and religions participate at the same time. The
collective character of world production unites them. In this sense, one is not
making a big exaggeration to say that any product today is a product of trans-
national collective creativity and work. Also, a certain division of labor appears
to be natural. One country works out theoretical ideas, another works out tech-
nological solutions, and a third one provides human material for guarantee-
ing a sufficient quantity of manufactured goods. This global division of labor
2 Ibid., 32.
3 I have examined these aspects many times, in particular, in philosophy and education. See,
in particular, Vladimir V. Mironov, Globalization and Unification Threat, Vek globalizacii 1
(2012) and Vladimir V. Mironov, Reflections on the reform of education, Russian Journal of
General Chemistry 83:6 (2013), 12121225.
40 Mironov
gives certain distribution of the profit share, which mostly goes to the coun-
tries providing the most scientific and technological contributions to produc-
tion. These countries can even be located faraway from the production itself.
The countries participating directly in product manufacturing just provide
producing based on these technologies, to a large extent, and they have less
profit, which forms a certain system of contradictions. So, the transnational
market is based on its segmentation that is rigid enough. According to this
segmentation, peculiar production sectors exist in which every country must
take its place. Countries that are less developed in terms of science and tech-
nologies get their secondary place that is very difficult to change, and most
technically developed countries, having more profit, are not interested in
changing this global economic order.
This kind of the world configuration cannot be constantly stable, and a cer-
tain process of Brownian motion is taking place inside it: this process happens
when a range of non-leading countries start to claim the leading positions and,
on the contrary, when some leading countries are going through a crisis, which
means for them a threat of shifting to the periphery of the transnational market.
This situation cannot be ignored, and, inside the developed countries, a system
having a dominating leader or group of leaders is forming already. These leaders
are capable of holding the system in relative stability, but, of course, due to the
victims being moved to the periphery and, on the contrary, due to countries
moving from the periphery to the leading positions. In other words, a constant
process of repartition of the market sectors occurs that is influenced specifi-
cally by rapidly developing countries such as South Korea or India and, of course,
primarily, rapidly developing China. Such a situation also involves new contra-
dictions. For instance, China cannot now be satisfied by the role of a supplier of
production services, but by means of the volume of these services it is so closely
related financially to the technologies elaborated in the United States such that,
to some extent, we can speak about a type u.s.-China system, despite all their
ideological and cultural differences. Today, China, that used to be a country pro-
ducing goods based on the technology of other countries, is rapidly turning into
a country producing the technologies, and, because of its very large population,
it still has an enormous market of manufacturing products. Moreover, taking
into consideration the experience gained in mass production of foreign goods,
China definitely will be the leader in its own production based on its own tech-
nologies, which will be an additional impulse for an economic jump.
Declaring universal and equal competition, the transnational market is inter-
ested in keeping its rigid specialization and attaching certain countries to it. For
example, for this configuration, a very important need is that oil countries
continue their specialization in this particular field. Until this situation is relevant,
they stay in a zone of the first group countries that get any support (technological,
financial, etc.), which confirms this specialization. Contributing to this process
are the capacities of the new technologies in transferring not just goods, but also
ideas (whose implementation is often impossible in the country of their origin)
and people (who can facilitate the implementation of these ideas).
So, competitive freedom is relative, while having strict zones of economics
and technologies that are closed for other countries. On the contrary, when
highly specialized developing countries try to change the configuration, they
are rebuffed.
The integration trend counters the tread toward disintegration. The popula-
tion of developing countries occupied in the process of capitalization in the
fields of the production of scientific technologies feels uncomfortable when its
representatives need to move to more developed countries in order to accom-
plish their purposes, which provides them some necessary income; meanwhile,
inside their own country their opportunities are limited by the specialization
of the country in the world market. Taking into consideration the trend of the
increasing education in the world, meaning the growth of the number of peo-
ple capable of participating in the process of scientific activity and creation of
technologies, one needs to understand, simultaneously, the prospect for enlarg-
ing the scope of possibilities for social conflict. Notably, developed countries
will support not so much reforming a country where a conflict is taking place
as rearranging inner spheres of influence and power in favor of strengthening
and modifying the transnational specialization of countries. If we simplify all
that has been said above, in the world today each country must stay in a niche
designated for it, which, in turn, provides the stability of the world economic
system and prosperity of each country. The market is divided into parts, and for
this reason any attempts to change this order can be strictly prevented.
Accordingly, the analysis of these processes is accompanied by opposite
estimations and approaches.
On the one hand, one attitude can be called conventionally the hyper-
globalist who examines these processes primarily in a positive way and con-
nects the beginning of the new epoch in human history with them. With
economic integration, the facilities and profit brought by it are distributed
according to a certain model of the changing culture in general, keeping in
mind that particular cultures should dissolve in the emergent super-global sys-
tem. Within this approach, the leaders of the modern civilization, the win-
ners and the losers, are defined in advance. These winners are the countries
that catch a car in the quickly departing globalization train. The losers stay,
and they will be forced to play a secondary role in the new world arrangement.
According to Held et al As far as national economics is becoming more and
42 Mironov
more a branch of international and global streams countering national social

and economic activity, the power and legitimacy of the national state are ques-
tioned: national governments are less capable of controlling the situation
inside their borders or independently satisfy the demands of their citizens.4
The policy of justifying interfering into the affairs of sovereign countries imple-
mented by the winners and, primarily, by the United States, reinforced in the
last decade, follows this particular paradigm.
On the other hand, also present is an anti-globalist attitude based on reveal-
ing contradictions that already appear as a result of global integration and on
criticizing current processes. The core thesis is that globalization does not so
much unite the world as intensify existing contradictions causing global
inequality and enhancing disintegration processes. In particular, according to
Held et al, such globalization contributes into fundamentalism and aggressive
nationalism development, which, in its turndivides the world into civiliza-
tion blocks and cultural and ethnic enclaves.5
So, as I mentioned previously, globalization is, in substance, a new structure
of the world order, in which the group of the most developed countries should
dominate. In reality, economic and legal systems of these countries are specifi-
cally driven to a certain model represented by the United States as the leader
of the leaders in globalization. The United States adopts a messianic role of
arranging the new world order, but, most importantly, it controls the unchange-
ability of this order. This attitude is aggressive and can take different imple-
mentation forms. It can be either real or implied warfare aiming at the change
or support of one or another regime, or some concealed forms of peaceful
influence such as orange revolutions, which transform the political system
from inside, based among other things on the latest achievements of commu-
nication technologies.
Peaceful forms of political globalization are more effective means despite
the fact that finally they also can occupy real spaces, because they do not draw
a direct protest or, to be exact, the protest is always late and it often starts when
the system is already transformed and it works based on other laws.
One of these forms implemented before the whole range of orange revolu-
tions had started was connected to the so-called reunification of Germany,
which I defined as integration-occupation.6 Some time ago, in several articles,
4 Held et al., Global Transformations, 5.

5 Ibid., 7.
6 Very interesting information on this question can be found in Nikolai Dryakhlov, ed., Russia
and Germany: the Experience of Transformations (Moscow: Institute for socio-economic stud-
ies of population, 2004) (in Russian).
I began to use this term and unexpectedly found a like-minded person in

Germany. Interesting research devoted to this issue was edited there, namely,
Arno Hecht, The Scientific Elite of Eastern Germany: Enemy Occupation or
Integration?7 The term bernahme in the German title can be translated as
occupation, merger, and consolidation, but anyway it does mean neither union
nor reunification. It was a severe and very fast type of integration that some
German researchers, notably ones loyal toward this event, call carefully exog-
enous, which means determined by outer factors, and that others call directly
sponsored by the West. This phenomenon is connected to the fact that the
main opposition forces of the German Democratic Republic did not strive for
reunification, but were ready for changes inside the country. For this reason,
Petra Shtykov notes the role of the reformer was played by the outer actor
specifically by the authorities of the former Federal Republic of Germany.8
Integration was going here in a way that, according to the agreements on
establishing social union, the law of the Federal Republic of Germany (frg)
covered the German Democratic Republic (gdr). This situation meant that
the frg legal system was directly extended on five new federal lands. The con-
sequence was that all the gdr legal system, that had been legitimate from the
perspective of international law, found itself in new legal space. Moreover, it
caused a range of juridical processes, for example, the process of condemna-
tion of the gdr politicians who were legitimate in the law of their own coun-
try, but became convicted according to the law of the other country. The
legitimacy of these decisions is still doubtful. Apparently, such is the case for
European politicians who tried to take these legal contradictions into consid-
eration when later forming the unified law of Europe. In similar cases, this kind
of condemnation was implemented not using the laws of one country but
using a certain legal norm of the united European Union (eu).
The basis of making such decisions is a premise about the fact that adapta-
tion of different social and economic systems can or, precisely, must be fast
enough. However, often such does not happen and changes or reforms imposed
by theoretical models do not take into consideration the factor of systems
being different not only in terms of economics and politics, but, more deeply,
in terms of culture. This difference came out in the integration of the two
7 Arno Hecht, Die Wissenschaftselite Ostdeutschlands, Feindliche bernahme oder Integration?

Leipzig: Verlag Faber & Faber, 2002.
8 Petra Shtykov, The Research of Transformation Processes, HISTORY TURNS: Post-socialist
Transformations By German Researchers. 2 v., v. 1. Post-socialist Transformations: Theoretical
Approaches. Saint Petersburg; Moscow; Berlin: Evropeisky universitet v Sankt-Peterburge;
Letniy sad; Berliner Debatte Wissenschaftsverlag, 2003, 25.
44 Mironov
German states that even had such a successful identity as the same culture and
language.
Christa Wolf, one of the most popular writers of the gdr, called one of her
novels Divided Sky (1963), emphasizing the unity of German culture which was
broken into two worlds by political realities. She was one of those in the opposi-
tion, dreaming of the gdr reform. Nevertheless, the destiny of the majority
from this opposition was sad, because they were washed off as well by the
same processes of reunification suggested by the politicians and they even
were accused of agreement with the disappearing state. Eventually, in spite of
the metaphorical image, the sky above Germany after its unification of the
frg stays divided along the axis Eastwest. While one state exists, we have two
societies, two collective identities. Disadvantages of structural balance and cul-
tural and mental differences seem not to have disappeared but have become
more obvious. Eastern and Western Germans who have much in common
(Ritter, 1996), nevertheless, created two different identities. The mental rup-
ture between Eastern and Western Germans became wider (Fach, 1995).9
Apparently, the European Union faces similar problems today. In the
European Union, cultural difference of countries defined by their culture,
unexpectedly, turned out to be deeper and more significant than economic
components of these processes.
In the process of German reunification, optimists believed that rapidly
increasing the efficient use of economic sources was manageable, which, in its
turn, would cause a splash of economic activity, and western capital would
flow to the new lands, new manufactures would grow like mushrooms, and a
great labor market would be developed.
However, such did not happen. The laws of competition, as the basis of capi-
talist development, have shown the unprofitability of moving western capital
to the former gdr, primarily because of the terms and laws that were function-
ing in the frg (not just economic ones but also social ones). The expenses
spent on production startup in the conditions of high social prosperity made
the economics of the former gdr (which was one of the leading world eco-
nomics) deficit and unprofitable. At the same time, its own social system was
destroyed and restoring it became impossible.
The model of catch-up development in the case of reunifying two states
failed unlike its implementation in the frg after the Second World War.
Instead of adopting a new German Constitution together and establishing one
9 Rolf Rising, Transformation Research: Achievements, Urgent Issues and Perspective, Post-
Socialist Transformations By German Researchers, 2 v., v. 2. Post-Socialist Transformations in
Comparative Perspective, 385386.
republic based on the synthesis of the best features of two states, Germany
treated reunification as a simplified type of integration. So, the result was not
the union of two countries as a synthesis of social systems, but the submission
of one system (defined as a bad one) to another (regarded as a progressive
one). As a result, on the territories of the western lands the challenges con-
nected to reallocation of financial flows appeared, which immediately influ-
enced social programs traditionally strong in Germany. The eastern lands got
all the problems they forgot about while living under socialism (missing the
guarantee of work, free infant school and kindergarten, etc.).
Moreover, the factor of reunification connected to rejecting all positive
experiences of the gdr stimulated processes of cutting down social programs
in Germany in general. The model of Ludwig Erhards welfare for all imple-
mented in the frg after the war, defined as a social market economics, was
significantly deformed. As far as the events in Germany coincided with the
whole socialist camp ruin, as strange as it may sound, capitalism to some
extent comes back to its classic form, but, of course, in other, primarily scien-
tific, technical, and information conditions. By the way, the interest in the
theory of Karl Marx is explained by this fact, because many conclusions con-
cerning classical capitalism that seemed to belong to the past, according to
many researchers, unexpectedly came back in the new conditions.
So, instead of catching-up modernization of the world got an imitative
one that was later imposed on Russia. Global pragmatism of West Germany
capital overpowered national inner interests of Germany. The cultural iden-
tity of the German nation lost the battle with the global economic community.
The latest economic practice of the frg showed that the goal of equalizing the
living standard of East and West Germans, set by politicians, was illusive.
Moreover, at the level of mass consciousness, unbelievable nostalgic motives
even connected with the idea of restoring the Berlin Wall arise today in the
country. (The inquiry conducted by the sociological service Forsa, according to
the German magazine Stern showed that in 15 years after the Berlin Wall fell,
21%meaning each fifth German citizenassumed the situation would be
better if the Berlin Wall had stayed; representatively, in the western lands the
number of such people is greater than in the eastern lands, 24%.10 At the 20th
anniversary of the event, 15% wished the Wall could still exist in Germany.
Again, the index in the west was higher, 16%.11).
10 Jeder Fnfte will die Mauer zurck, accessed April 2, 2015, http://www.stern.de/politik/
deutschland/deutsche-einheit-jeder-fuenfte-will-die-mauer-zurueck-529441.html.
11 Jeder Siebte wnscht sich die Mauer zurck, accessed April 2, 2015, http://www.stern.de/
politik/deutschland/stern-umfrage-jeder-siebte-wuenscht-sich-die-mauer-zurueck
-1509194.html.
46 Mironov
The process of the integration of Germany was implemented in the frame of

what was defined before as integration-occupation even without having a
metaphoric meaning of the term. The speed of events was so fast that it was
arranged without juridical declaration of national will implemented by refer-
endum, which is much discussed in the world today. Patrick Sskind, an out-
standing German writer, in his pamphlet titled Germany, Climax, described
the situation emotionally. He wrote, We had an earthquake. Yes, we had. Is it
frightening? No, it is not the word I feel uncertainly uncomfortable. It is not
the fear that Germany is threatened by barbarity setback and superiority com-
plex of the 30s and 40s. But there is a concern that disturbing social conflicts
could root inside it: much envy and fierce hate. And later, not in our country,
but in the East, where the Soviet empire is breaking down, new wars including
civil ones can come. And also, I feel a little bit sad when I think that there will
be no poor, small, unloved, pragmatic statethe Federal Republic of Germany,
the state I grown up in.12 This view is a perception of a West German. However,
the East Germans have the same regrets about their lost motherland; they are
regretful about their former gdr, which was grey, hateful, beautiful and pro-
tected from the wind (Dieckmann 1989; Weiss 1990). After the prince woke the
Sleeping Beauty up by his kiss, the masters and servants, soldiers and kitchen
maids, young and old and even the castle sages had to waken from sleep.13
One of the core wishes of the gdr citizens, including the opposition, was
not German reunification but building-up a democratic regime in their coun-
try. In some time after the reunification of Germany, B. Bolei, one of the
human right defenders of the former gdr said: We wanted justice, and we got
the legal state. The meaning of this saying is that waiting for justice in specific
cases that seemed to be a result of an extremely non-legal decision of the for-
mer regime, people faced current norms of legislation that in many cases
legitimated injustice because of their general character.14
One also needs to mention that similar to the processes described above are
ones current in modern Europe in connection with establishing the European
Union. Having no opportunity to investigate this problem in its complexity,
Iwill examine one of the most important moments of integration linked to the
attempt to establish the unified legal space of the eu and, in particular, the
12 Patrick Sskind, Germany, Climax, Inostrannaya Literatura 6 (1999), 262.

13 Detlef Pollack, The End of the Organized Society: The Arguments of Fundamental Social
Changes in the gdr in the System Theory, Post-Socialist Transformations in Comparative
Perspective, 258.
14 Dagmar Mironowa, Political Philosophy (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Moskovskogo Universiteta
[Moscow University Press], 2014), 219.
problem of the correlation of international and national law and those contra-
dictions that significantly deform the law system itself.
National law originates from its proper culture, in other words, from the sys-
tem of ethical, religious, social, and cultural components forming this culture.
In this sense, it is based on the cultural memory of the nation. International
law is constructed based on a theoretical model, and it always follows domi-
nating processes taking place in the world. Nowadays, the dominating basis is
the process of globalization. The effort to adjust the legal system of certain
countries to the general aims of economic integration and transnational mar-
ket formation is needed and desirable.
As a result of increasing processes of integration, the area for applying the
norms of the international law is getting wider, while repressing the legal sys-
tem of a certain state. This process is specifically reinforced as a consequence
of the European Union forming, because before it the status of international
law itself was less of a law-enforcement character, being more an ideal model.
After the Second World War, at the Nuremberg Trials international law was
the basis for providing the legal legitimacy of banning fascist Germany and its
leaders. That period was the time, as Gerhard Holzinger mentions, when the
process of constitutionalization of the international law started,15 which means
that international law was given an obligatory executive authority and an
extended sphere of influence.
While establishing the eu, the question of correcting national legal systems
arose as well. Later the problem became urgent of creating the European
Constitution as the main law defining the basis of the functioning of the eu
also. Simultaneously, the establishment of the eu coincides with the process
when many countries (in particular, after the disintegration of the Soviet
Union) began to establish or considerably renew their own constitutions. So,
all these processes are going on in transforming the political environment, in
constructing local legal systems of the new states based on law traditions of
their own cultures, but in the situation of the co-existence of totally different
cultural systems and communication environments that define their penetra-
tion to an unbelievable extent. International law starts interfering into legal
structures that influence the principle of the separation of powers and the
15 Gerhart Holzinger (Chair of the Constitution Court of the Austrian Republic), The
Constitutional State in the European Union, Modern Constitutionalism: Challenges and
Perspectives Vladimir D. Zorkin, ed., materials of the International Scientific and Practical
Conference Devoted to the 20th Anniversary of the Russian Federation Constitution
(Moscow: Norma, 2014), 36 (in Russian).
48 Mironov
principle of personal freedom that have always been the basis of any national
system of law.
In this regard, we can speak about the crisis of the notion of constitutionalism
itself,16 because the constitutional legitimacy of some states becomes doubtful
in favor of international law. Gerhart Holtzinger notes Because of autonomous
functioning of the Union law and its superiority over the national law, national
constitutions in the eu, including the Austrian one, lost the function of norm
of the highest rung, which is positioned above all other norms of law and which
is the source for deriving all the other norms.17 The states that entered the eu
have to correct their own national legal systems significantly, provided that the
legitimacy of these actions is highly indefinite. In the European space, a sort of
constitutional dualism appears when the legal structure is based on two sys-
tems of legal order: the national one (different in every European country) and
the European one being established and which must be unified for all.
Holtzinger continues Both law orders are connected and correlated to each
other, although variously, but they still stay independent.18
The eu initially aimed at creating the unified European Constitution con-
nected to entrenchment of legal norms and their forcible execution for all the
countries that are members of the Union. As Holzinger mentions, this process
is not done yet but the elements of force are already being added to the whole
range of current contracts. As a result, Holzinger notes the appearance of the
following contradiction: on the one hand, the Union law is of the top-priority
compared to the constitutions of certain states, on the other hand, it recog-
nizes the principles of the constitutional state (main rights, freedom, democ-
racy, equality, and legal nationhood) composing the rightful scale of the total
law created by the eu.19 The problem of law applicability arises and primacy is
given to international law compared to state law, and it is done in the form of
obligation. The citizens of their country that did not break the law or any con-
stitutional norms could fall within the jurisdiction of the eu. Holtzinger con-
tinues An autonomous action means that the eu law forms its independent
law order, whose addressees are not only the states-members but also separate
citizensSo, the eu law operates at the territories of the states-members
16 See a detailed discussion about the problem in Jrgen Habermas, Der gespaltene Western
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2004) and, translated as, Habermas, Jrgen, The
Divided West (Cambridge, uk: Polity Press, 2006), especially Ch. 2, The Constitutionaliza
tion of the International Law or Liberal Ethics of the World Power.
17 Holzinger, The Constitutional State in the European Union, 39.
18 Ibid., 40.
19 Ibid., 37.
together with the state law as well as independently.20 Moreover, this rule of
the eu works based on the self-executing principleacting immediately and
urgently, ignoring, in fact, national law.
However, national law is not just a theoretic fiction. One must understand
that, after destroying national law, destroying state law and state sovereignty
follows, including that of territory, because, as Vladimir Zorkin observes sov-
ereignty in its classical interpretation assumes the nation and the national
state. And if we seriously speak exactly about glocalization, in other words,
about transforming a national state into a conglomerate of territories and a
nationinto a conglomerate of tribes and ethnic groups, then what kind of
sovereignty we can speak about?21
This situation concerns the whole range of the basic principles of modern
democracy. The principle of national will, as the defining basis of the constitu-
tion, is in doubt and is denied in fact. National will is always a will of a specific
nation, which means the nation of one or another state. This principle is
inserted in the majority of the worlds constitutions. In the United States this
principle derives from the famous Gettysburg address of Abraham Lincoln
(1863)the first line of the u.s. Constitution preamble; in Germany it is the
notion of the German nation as the constituting power which defines the
force of the law for the total German nation; in the Austrian Constitution it is
stated as its law comes from the nation; in France it is stated as the nation
triumphantly declares; in Russia the nation is defined as the only source of
power, etc. So, the legitimate law based on the national will, in this particular
case, by the will of the Austrian nation, as Holzinger mentions, damages
thedemocratic principles themselves, subjecting its own national law to the
eu law that is less legitimate, which lets us speak about the deficit of the eu
democracy.22
The democratic principle of decision-making is deformed, because, in fact, it
derives from the decisions made by bureaucratic authorities of the eu.
Holtziner continues The democratic principle is concerned in the sense that
the Union activities do not depend just on the Austrian nation will, moreover,
20 Ibid., 37.
21 Vladimir D. Zorkin (Chair of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation),
Problems of constitutional and legal development of Russia (to the 20th anniversary of
the Constitution of the Russian Federation), Modern Constitutionalism: Challenges and
Perspectives, Vladimir D. Zorkin, ed. materials of the International Scientific and Practical
Conference Devoted to the 20th Anniversary of the Russian Federation Constitution
(Moscow: Norma, 2014), 19 (in Russian).
50 Mironov
it can act against the Austrian nation will and, meanwhile, have certain conse-
quences for Austria as well having an advantage over the national law.23 Such
interference in the sovereignty of other countries, being not just state systems
but cultures, necessarily brings and will continue to bring protest.
The dualism of the legal system causes the most complicated problems of the
applicability of law. In the majority of European countries, the principle of rep-
resentative, not direct, democracy dominates. This type of democracy Holtziner
notes transforms a democratic idea of self-governing into a functional form
capable of making decisions.24 In an ordinary legal system the law has an
important restrictive function. On the one hand, it restricts the state executive
power, and, on the other hand, it lets the nation implement its will. Because of
this fact, Jrgen Habermas claims From the political realism point of view,
normative managing of the political power by means of the law is possible only
inside the borders of a sovereign state, a state that based on the capability of
asserting itself through force.25 In forming the system of eu international law,
the role of a legal officials increases at the level of the application of laws,
because they act on behalf of international law, which causes voluntarism at
the level of decision-making.
The role of judicial power increases, because national courts are responsible
for the use of the Union law (although they were established not for this pur-
pose and they are legitimate for their own states laws). Here the contradiction
appears when the court, in the frame of the legitimate national law, starts
executing initially non-relevant functions of correcting this law on behalf of
the eu. Holtzinger contends In order to do that, national courts have the right
to check the national law by the Union law and, if there is a contradiction
between the terms of the national and the Union law, they support full imple-
mentation of the Union one.26 The transformation of the legal system from
the the law state into the justice state is extremely serious and the hyperac-
tivity of the bodies of legislative power increases both at the national and
European level. Holtzinger says The stream of the norms flowing from that is
a serious threat for the law state, because the law order can reach such a scale
that it will be impossible to see by the citizens and it will not be able to be
executed effectively by the state administration.27
23 Ibid., 3839.
24 Ibid., 42.
25 Habermas, The Divided West, 104.
27 Ibid., 44.
Transformation
So, the changes current in todays world cannot be reduced just to the analysis
of economic development as a dominating factor of these changes. As I men-
tioned at the beginning of this essay, the global transformation of all human
culture is going on. Its core is in switching from the system of local cultures to
establishing a new formation that can be defined as global culture. The most
important factor of these changes is the sphere of communication that, from
the background accompanying the development, is turning into an indepen-
dent force having a feedback effect on all levels of modern culture. We can
see the explosive character of technological discoveries in communication.
Significant communication systems appear which not only change the charac-
ter of communication itself but cause totally different forms of social commu-
nication at the level of storage, retranslation of information, and in possibilities
of the use of information coming into service today, including those for the
manipulation of consciousness. This situation, in its turn, affects the forms of
social consciousnessfrom individual and mass levels to those of politics, art,
science, and philosophy.
All these factors result in culture switching from the complicated system sta-
tus as a sum of local cultures different from each other to a more rigid unified
integrative system, whose system-forming pivots are the issues of unifying eco-
nomic vectors and, consequently, political development vectors.28
Communication between local (national) cultures is actualized as a dia-
logue, which means interpenetration of cultures. Cultures intersect each other
as language sets. The field of crossing rarely can be large (hypothetically, even
identical); generally, it is small, to which cross-culture senses correspond. The
field of identity had a function of penetration into the field of nonidentity and,
thus, into uncommon and interesting fields. The value of the dialogue, as Yuri
M. Lotman states, is connected not to that crossing part, but to data transfer
between parts that are not intercrossed. This puts us in front of an insoluble
contradiction: we are interested in communication with the situation that
complicates communication, and at the extreme, it makes it impossible.29
In the process of forming global communication space, the functions and
interactions of cultures are changing. The transformation of culture is taking
28 See Vladimir V. Mironov, Philosophy and Metamorphoses of Culture (Moscow: Sovremennye

Tetradi, 2005) and Vladimir V. Mironov, Communication Space as a Factor of The
Transformation of Modern Culture and Philosophy, Voprosy Filosofii 2 (2006).
29 Yuri M. Lotman, Culture and Explosion, Moscow: Izdatelskaya Gruppa Progress, 1992, 15
(in Russian).
52 Mironov
place as a directed process of inner system change implemented by means of

fitting extraneous elements in it. These elements do not destroy the system but
they gradually make it work differently. This process is similar to the process of
cell transfection, when a fragment of outer dna fits into a cell. The cell is
infected and, as a result, the mechanism of its transformation starts up, which
leads to a phenotype change at the genetic level.
Similar processes are taking place in culture, when a condition of culture
infection is global communication space. All the cultures are placed in the
communication space and, being there, they are, literally, attacked by what
Douglas Rushkoff terms media viruses.30 Analogically, again, those places are
mostly affected where system immunity (meaning its cultural immunity) is
weak. Culture is infected by means of implanting cultural stereotypes in it,
which do not derive from its history and functioning peculiarities.
Influenced by the process of globalization, culture is transforming, which
means culture as a system of diverse local cultures is being destroyed, and global
culture, inevitably having one or a group of dominating cultures in it, is forming.
When we use the term Americanization to define these processes, it is not a
result of some negative estimation of the United States. This use is a reflection
of the fact that the United States dominates in scientific and technical fields
and, primarily, in relation to information technologies. The United States can
be a cultural donor spreading media viruses all around the arena of modern
culture.
The modern system of mass-media transforms communication from its
state of the background registering events into a pivot of modern culture,
when subordinating and forming the peculiarities of information perception,
which means that it influences the mechanisms of sense formation. Cultures
are dipped into unified global communication, which makes them function by
different communication rules. For example, an event in the modern world
can be not a real fact but its media construction, even if no real fact is present
at all. Culture starts functioning by the rules of communication of mass media.
We start dipping into reality that is constructed by the mass media, and the
modern world turns into a great pop-show and works by the rules of this genre.
This situation contributes to enlarging the pseudo-cultural field of com-
munication, in which dialogue is actualized by the principle of cognizing the
most accessible, coinciding or almost coinciding with structures of sense. This
communication field of general stereotypes, general estimations, and general
parameters of demanded behavior is ruled by the most accessible and most
30 See Douglas Rushkoff, Media Virus: Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture (New York:
Ballantine Books, 1996).
simple components. By the way, this factor is demonstrated in the attempts to

elaborate some global criteria of scientific activity, for instance, expressed in
primarily citing in English, which can be a long-term factor destroying national
culture.
The proportion between high culture and lower culture is destroyed. The
last one becomes mass culture not only by the quantity of participators, but by
the simplified quality of a consumed product. As a result, the dominating fac-
tor is not sense or quality of a creativity product, but the system of its spread-
ing (distributing). In this situation, the phenomenon of pop-culture appears
as the domination of lower culture becoming the mass one by the character of
its production and consumption, whose products are widespread because of
the modern communication means. Pop-culture is an excellent environment
for the distribution of media viruses.31 Its simulation often substitutes the art,
and it aims at creating pseudo-images, simulacra. The imitation is not just tem-
porary substitution of the real sense, the real event, but it takes place of the
reality in the society and in human consciousness. This situation, in its turn, is
a reason for the endless multiplying the sphere of pleasures and entertain-
ments. Modern society is becoming a factory of entertainments, whose prod-
ucts are consumed by the total society.
Globalization causes the most powerful integration processes at all the lev-
els of mass consciousness, which influence destructive cultural and even per-
sonal peculiarities connected with losing identity. This situation inevitably
leads to the reverse processes of disintegration, in particular, to the increase of
national disintegration processes.32 Globalization reproduced the process
ofglobalization, when nations and states do not want to give up the values of
their own culture, to lose their identity in the stream of global values. Clearly,
globalization is imposing its own system of law, its own system of values, and
is being implemented in global communication space that can reproduce
totalitarianism of a new type having absolutely unique capacities of manipula-
tion of consciousness both of a person and the society as a whole. This phe-
nomenon is defined as the Global Empire33 by a range of the authors. Even a
democracy is not a trustworthy guarantee in this case. A formal democratic
regime can become fundamentally totalitarian. The basis of modern despo-
tism can be formed paradoxically by juridical constructions that are often
structured as a system of laws and norms forming a tunnel that does not lead
31 See Rushkoff, Media Virus, 15.

32 Alexander S. Panarin, Globalization as a Challenge to the Lifeworld, Vestnik Rossiyskoy
Akademii Nauk 74:7 (2004).
33 See Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2000).
54 Mironov
to happiness and can be very far from the truth. Jurists tend to mix the norm of
law with the truth, although different legal systems prove that it does not
essentially coincides. National power is not equal to its freedom (Montesquieu).
Describing totalitarian democracy, Bertrand de Jouvenel concludes It is pos-
sible to provide everybody with the guarantee from the Power despotism by
the rational organization of the institutions. But there are no such institutions
that could make everybody participate in exercising Power, because the Power
always commands, not everybody is capable of commanding. That is why the
sovereignty of the nation is a fiction, moreover, it is a fiction destructive for
personal liberties.34
In this context, the significance of the philosophical analysis of culture
increases tremendously and is connected with the fact that philosophy repro-
duces dominating senses of culture (Vyacheslav S. Stiopin). This situation lets
it set general cultural traditions having sort of protective functions, which is
an important factor of cultural stability. However, simultaneously, philosophy
always strives for exceeding the scope of its cultural tradition and construct-
ing such category senses that are addressed not to the present but to the
future.35 In this respect, philosophy is always a form of the most critical atti-
tude to reality. Accordingly, a certain thinker can be represented both as a
keeper of cultural traditions and as their destroyer, criticizing and analyzing
constant value systems using even the most outrageous forms of self-expression
toward society, the state, power, etc. For this reason, philosophy can be very
uncomfortable for those in power, because, as Stiopin states, philosophical
cognition can generate new world-view senses and introduce mutations into
the culture and by that preparing drastic changes in social life.36
However, this peculiarity of philosophy makes it the most important analytic
tool in complicated periods of social development when the change of cultural
paradigms is taking place, when new value and ethical issues are becoming cur-
rent, when technologies are moving onto higher levels, etc. The modern period
of global transformations taking place at all levels of culture seems to demand
deep philosophical analysis, on the basis of which we have the possibility not
only to explain these latest phenomena but also to accomplish, maybe, the
34 Bertrand de Jouvenel, Power: The Natural History of Its Growth (Moscow: irisen, Mysl,
2011), 346.
35 Kasavin, Ilia T., ed., Man, Science, Civilization, jubilee edition, devoted to the 70th
anniversary of the full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Prof. Dr. Vyacheslav
Stiopin (oscow: Kanon+, 2004), 63 (in Russian).
36 Vyacheslav S. Stiopin, Civilization and Culture (Saint Petersburg: 2011), 214.
most important philosophical functionthe function of warning about possi-

ble consequences of implementing one or another trend of development.
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chapter 4
The Cultural Heritage of Russia and Globalization

Sergey A. Nikolsky
Abstract
An essential manifestation of the globalization process in the modern world is that in

accordance with its developmental logic, an increasing number of nations relate to
one another in two dynamically interacting processes: those of more and more inten-
sive cooperation, as well as those of more and more tough competition. Collaboration
with selected interaction partners may progress rather far, up to creating a new social
organism of global scale. As to the intensified competition processes, they occur within
the framework of new formations and display a trend toward their intensification
among the nations trying to keep the usual form of their relations with the outside
worldnotwithstanding the worldwide processes of global cooperation. Specifically,
if in the conditions of globalization the cooperation is evolving from casual interac-
tions to deliberate and selective contacts, then the competitive relations progressively
acquire an absolute nature. In relation to these points, the author addresses what has
already happened, is happening, and may yet happen in Russia. The author shows that
the values and richness of Russias philosophical literature is a condition and means of
Russias cultural revitalization, security, enrichment, and successful development in
the course of fruitful contacts with the global world.
Keywords
philosophy globalization human beings literature consciousness love fate

freedom activity obedience
An essential manifestation of the globalization process in the modern world is

that in accordance with its developmental logic, an increasing number of
nations relate to one another in two dynamically interacting processes: those of
more and more intensive cooperation as well as those of more and more tough
competition. As for the nations deliberately reflecting on globalization, things
that matter in conscious selection of partners for cooperation are historical,
economic, political, and religious grounds of the latter that have affinity with
their social system. Collaboration with selected interaction partners in these

58 Nikolsky
fields may progress rather far, up to creating a new social organism of global
scale. For instance, we bear witness to its establishment in case of the New
Europe. As to the intensified competitive processes, first, they occur within the
framework of new formations too and, second, display a trend toward their
intensification among the nations trying to keep the usual form of their rela-
tions with the outside worldnotwithstanding the worldwide processes of
global cooperation. Namely, if in the conditions of globalization the coopera-
tion is evolving from casual interactions to deliberate and selective contacts,
then the competitive relations progressively acquire an absolute nature.
Globalization is not a new phenomenon. Globalization events emerged ear-
lier in history too. They were accompanied by the creation of technical facili-
ties through which the ties between the societies were becoming closer and
more intensive. The invention of radio, telegraph, and the steam engine inten-
sified, in particular, communications and has accelerated the globalization.
At the same time, modern globalization is different from its manifestations
in the past. Its emergence owes to two new inventionstelevision and the
Internet. Modern globalization has two properties that were missing earlier: a
possibility to watch the events online and a possibility of direct interactiona
possibility to become a direct participant in the event in terms of information.
From now on, for the sake of convenience in treating the problem of the
interaction between societies in the process of globalization I am going to
apply the terms donor society and recipient society. Of course, both terms
are not quite precise as in each particular case the existing ties are not unilater-
ally directed but mutual. Besides, admitting the historical character of the glo-
balization phenomenon allows me to speak of modern globalization in order
to denote its contemporary form.
In this regard, I would note that consequences are created for the interacting
societies that have never arisen before. The need and importance of adequately
understanding ongoing events grows for both societies, that is, the necessity of
having an authentic perception of the values and senses lying behind the
events and being manifested in the process of interaction. So, if in reality no
demonstrations in support of the rights of sexual minorities take place within
the recipient society, then after becoming aware of such phenomena within
the donor society, the recipient society may not only develop keen interest
in this phenomenon but some developments toward the forms of its publicity,
as well as some actions aiming for its minimization, may occurs. The interest
evolves into questions about the causes of this phenomenon, the forms in
which it happens, and the type of values behind this phenomenon, and the
relation of the new values and the values traditionally guiding the recipient
society.
The Cultural Heritage Of Russia And Globalization 59
Analyzing this problem the recipient society addresses its awareness, the
new assessment and, likely, the need to take stock of its own senses and values
that gain in intensity due to the new phenomenon. In other words, the recipi-
ent society comes to realize that for better understanding and adequate
assessment of foreign culture, in principle, it needs in-depth cognition and, if
necessary, rethinking of some particular elements of its own culture. If this
phenomenon is put into terms of global studies, what appears under global-
ization is not only a danger for the alien culture to be suppressed but also a
possibility of its stimulation and actualization.
Mutual development of cultures within the framework of the process of glo-
balization does not always progress or may not do so automatically. Mutual
development of cultures is not immanent to globalization as such. Cases are
possible when the very culture of donor society falls into decay and ruin on
meeting the culture of the recipient society.
As a rule, this process of ruining has three stages. At the first one the cultural
artifacts of the recipient society get distorted: a different content is intro-
duced into the values initially inherent in them or the emphases are shifted
within the existing content. At the second one the demand for traditional val-
ues declines and these are ousted to the margins of the informational cultural
space. Finally, they sink into perfect oblivion at the third stage. In parallel the
sphere of information is being filled with cultural artifacts of the donor soci-
ety and a real threat to the public self-consciousness of the recipient society
to be reformatted can occur and, in the long run, a loss of self-identification by
its members can also occur.
Another possibility is that the culture of the donor society could begin to
incorporate into itself elements of alien culture and change itself voluntarily in
the course of its interaction with the culture of the recipient society. So, under
certain conditions globalization may bring about extermination of one culture
by another, reformatting consciousness in big groups of people. However, it
cannot become an incentive for the development of both cultures.
In relation to the points mentioned above, I will address what has already
happened, is happening, and may yet happen in Russia.

Maybe, the dissemination of Marxism during the second half of the 19th and
the first half of the 20th century became one of the most conspicuous exam-
ples of globalisms manifestations in domestic history. Originating within the
European economy and philosophy, Marxism gradually spread to the allied
domains of humanitarian knowledge. The peculiarity of its development in
60 Nikolsky
Russia was revealed in the manner it was embedded in the political tasks that
the Russian adherents of Marxism set for themselves.
Having turned doctrine into an ideology and then a state worldview in the
form of Leninism and Stalinism on the Russian historical grounds, Marxism
reinterpreted and distorted a considerable part of the Russian cultural heri-
tage. First of all, this process was applied to such traditional domestic forms of
philosophizing as literary philosophizing, with its value-oriented content.
Upon substantiating ideologically many of the ideas previously rejected by
Russian thoughtamong them the ideas of achieving happiness by one part
of society through oppression and even extermination of other parts
Marxism should have also taken care of a project to create a new individual
with a new self-identification. To this end, after the October 1917 events, its
own proletarian literature was created as one of the most important means to
form a new personality, along with the task of ideologically reinterpreting the
classical heritage. The latter may be exemplified by literary and philosophical
texts, some of which were published again while others, that used to be pub-
lished earlier, fell under the ban.
An example of the Leninist-Stalinist reformatting as applied to a part of the
Russian culture may show how a cultural and scientific, as well as socio-political,
phenomenon, systematically worked on the scale of society in a manner that is
like what occurs in conditions of globalization when a donor-society may
function as an aggressor with regard to a recipient-society if the latter lacks
sufficient organizational possibilities to resist such aggression. As an ideology
and phenomenon of globalization, Marxism played in Russia a role of swal-
lower of Russian culture. Fortunately, a significant part of our culture came off
unhurt after all. Besides, when in 1890s a process began of a theoretical rethink-
ing of Marxism in the country, the society began gradually to address its cul-
tural background.
This process is not only necessary but also saving in the full sense of the
word. If it does not take place at its full extent, then, first, the cultural distor-
tion that happened in the recent past will continue resulting in lack of demand
for Russian literature or its perception within public consciousness as dis-
torted. This point is a step toward oblivion of culture and establishment of
artifacts from Ersatz (artificial, substitute) cultures in its place.
In speaking of the Russian cultural background, first of all, pointing out the
classical literature is necessary. In terms of its content and aesthetic diversity,
as well as its depth, our literature is one of the greatest in the world. For this
reason, to organically join the processes of globalization and begin, in its
capacity as recipient culture, the natural process of interaction with donor
societies, Russia should be a partner of equal magnitude. This development,
however, requires that a number of procedures be performed.
One of the first requirements is making an inventory and returning to the

authentic re-creation of the values that make up the native cultural heritage
that are intensified in the course of global contacts. We gradually come to the
right awareness that for a better understanding and adequate assessment of the
alien culture we need in-depth authentic understanding and, in some cases,
correction of distortions in relation to specific elements of our own culture.
The second step is to give enlightenment-oriented direction to the values of
native literature. From their status as being unneeded and half-forgotten, they
should be moved to the public sphere. Toward this end, the proportion between
high and low (mass) culture within the public space should be changed
radically in favor of high culture.
What are the value components of the high Russian literature that should
be referenced in connection with the existing global contacts? What in the
literary part of the native cultural heritage is worthy of philosophical analysis
in the first place?
Undoubtedly, Russian literature has many value-bearing elements that are
of importance for the contemporary development of Russia, including for the
countrys equal interaction with other cultures. I will cite only two of them.
The first elements are fate and freedom. The second ones are activity and obe-
dience (non-doing).
Within the richest content of the Russian worldview that we find in the
works of Alexander Pushkin and other classics of the 19th century, these senses
belong to the basic ones. The Snowstorm, one of Pushkins tales (from his
series of short stories The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin) tells, among
other things, about fatethe course of human life foreordained by the Creator.
As we remember, Maria Gavrilovna, a landowners daughter, falls in love with
Vladimir, a poor sub-lieutenant in the army, and her parents give their consent
to the marriage. However, the decision by the parents came too late. Their
daughter had eloped and tried to wed with her fianc in a secret church cere-
mony, but a snowstorm began. The fianc arrived late and a young scapegrace,
a complete rogue, casually passing by took his place at the altar.
Years went by and Maria Gavrilovna had a new love for a hussar (light cav-
alry) colonel named Bourmin. Their happiness seemed to be very near. However,
Bourmin turned out to already be married. From his story, he is the one who
happened to be at the altar in that snowstorm that is so memorable for the hero-
ine. In this way, providence interfered with the lives of the heroes. My God! My
God! cried Maria Gavrilovna, seizing him by the hand, Then it was you! And
you do not recognize me? Bourmin turned pale and threw himself at her feet.1
1 Alexander Pushkin, The Complete Prose Tales of Alexandr Sergeyevitch Pushkin, Gillon R.
Aitken, trans. (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1966).
62 Nikolsky
So many surprising things occur in this story! The snowstorm was the reason
of Vladimirs arriving late. Having lost his way as well, Bourmin came instead
to be at the altar. Maria Gavrilovna did not notice the substitution. Vladimir
perished in the war, while Bourmin came to that very village where Maria
Gavrilovna was abiding. They fell in love with each other. Bourmins confession
reunited them.
This short story has such a long list of coincidences, multiplied by enor-
mous geographical space and dispersed over the course of several years!
Naturally, one can hardly believe a blind chance took place and so can come to
believe in divine predestinationfate. Fate as faith and providence is one of
the most important notions and vital senses by which Pushkin is guided. We
are not the rulers of our fates is a perpetual refrain of the poet, as his authori-
tative researchers have observed.
We find a different attitude toward providence or fate in the case of Pushkins
younger contemporary Mikhail Yu. Lermontov, who in the native literary tradi-
tion, was given the name theomachist (one who resists God or the divine
will). Lermontovs protagonist is Demon, a formerly beloved Angel of God who
has been cast out of heaven. In the tradition inherited from Lord Byron (George
Gordon Noel Byron) in his mystery Cain, Angel, while still abiding in heaven,
dares to put difficult questions to God. You have placed people in a world over-
filled with evil that is impossible to overcome. Why? You have enslaved them
with fateyour own providence over them. How should they live in captivity?
As a result, Angel has been thrown down to earth by God and turned into a
spirit of evil.
However, a difference can be seen between the demon of Byron and Demon
of Lermontov. In case of Byron, the demon is just a condemner. In case of
Lermontov, Demon is not only condemning but also trying to go beyond the
role of evil spirit destined for him by God and is seeking to cast off the chains
of evil and to free himself with love. (Belinsky is right in his saying that is exact
but blasphemous from the standpoint of religious orthodoxy: Demon was not
scaring Lermontov. He was his glorifier.2)
Should we regard the fategood providence of God over human beings
as good or evil? Is a human beinga living toy in the guiding hands of God
really free? Will the Russian sense of fate prove to be a heaven-sent anchor or
a murderous grappling iron when the native culture encounters the other cul-
tures in the process of globalization? The answers are still to be given.
2 Vissarion G. Belinsky, Complete Works, Vol. vii (Moscow: Publishing House Nauka, 1955), 37
(in Russian).
Now, I wish to address the issue of activity and obedience. I make some
assumptions. An act of an individuals incorporating (including) himself or
herself into the construction of life, in such a way that one initially accepts the
world and ones fate in principle, without arguing with them, may be taken for
obedience in the sense of spinelessness and weakness only at first sight. In
actual fact, an individual acts to the full extent of his or her own intentions and
strength. Can one ultimately be sure that nothing but fate enjoins Bourmin to
walk down the aisle with a stranger, that this action is not his arbitrarinessa
manifestation of his own will lacking any determinacy? If the answer is yes,
then the hero is not just obedient and passive in relation to his fate but passive
and active at the same time. As to what is what, one has no way to know exactly.
If this activity is human arbitrariness, one may know a measure of ones
own activity. Bourmin has not demanded that his fiance agree straight away
to really become his wife. This knowing of measure within the construction
of fate represents a strong point of this sense in the Russian worldview.
Now let me try to place the construct of fate in the context of globalization.
What are the other interpretations of this term within the other cultures that
are encountered? What kind of content are these meetings within the pro-
cesses of globalization likely to have?
I believe that the position of Russian culture in this case is as follows. Having
perfect knowledge of the world is beyond an individual. The world has always
been and will be much more sophisticated than our knowledge of it. Therefore,
one does better to choose a form of non-resistance to the world and to con-
stantly look for a reasonable compromise as a measure of human obedience to
fate and freedom from it, that is, of personal activity in, instead of confronta-
tion with, the world.
Reconciliation with the world and obedience (non-doing) has been exten-
sively developed in Russian culture and could be compared to the opposite
property of activity or opposition to the world, including the effort to create
a new individual. As an example, I take recourse to the classical analysis of
these traits in the novel Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov.
As the reader may recall, raising in his consciousness one stratum after
another, Ilya Ilyitch finally reaches the deepest onethat vital fundamental
principle wherein two elements living in him are related: his deeply under-
standing mind and his subtly empathic heart, both weak-willed.
This revelation of ones own self by Oblomov happens time and again. For
instance, this point applies to his reasoning about literature:
Picture a thief or a fallen woman or a cheated fool, if you like, but do not
forget the rest of mankind. What about humanity, pray? Writers like
64 Nikolsky
yourself try to write only with the head. What? Do you suppose the intel-
lect can work separately from the heart? Why, the intellect needs love to
fertilize it. Rather, stretch out your hand to the fallen and raise him, weep
over him if he is lost beyond recall, but in no case make sport of him, for
he is one to whom there should be extended only compassion. See in him
yourself, and act accordingly. That done, I will read you, and bow my
head before youOut of the civic circle!That is tantamount to saying
that once in that faulty vessel there dwelt the supreme elementthat,
ruined enough the man may be, he is still a human being, as even are you
and I. Turn him out, indeed! How are you going to turn him out of the
circle of humanity, out of the bosom of Nature, out of the mercy of God?3
Oblomov came near to shouting as he said this, and his eyes were blazing.
An intense desire to turn a negative phenomenon out of life is rejected by
Ilya Ilyitch as being inhuman. An aspiration to turn the negative out. accord-
ing to Oblomov, should be supplemented with its obedient acceptance but
certainly in line with understanding that both elementsactive and passive
rest on even deeper foundationon humanness. Perhaps, such a position
would not bring a momentary result providing an economically effective deci-
sion, for example. However, in the long term this position is infinitely more
humane and, therefore, effective after all.
Another unexpected reasoning about activity and obedience in the strug-
gle to eradicate shortcomings can be found in the works of another classic
writer who is, apparently, one hardly suspected of indulgence in facing evil,
namely, Mikhail Ye. Saltykov-Shchedrin. In the words uttered by one of his
characters speaking on behalf of the author in his book Provincial Sketches,
reconciliation with reality (obedience):
generally happens in a very simple way. One has to look around, to take a
good look at the people around and reluctantly comes to realize that all of
them are rather good guys, indeed. They are not sillyand thats the first
point; they are hospitable and companionable, hence, they are kind
and thats the second point; they are poor and, moreover, furnished with
their families, and therefore the very instinct for self-preservation com-
pels them to care about their means of subsistence whatever they might
bethats the third point. Ones understanding easily accepts these rea-
sons and rests content with them. Since what is there to say against them?
Eloquent as you may be, to whatever extent you may become embittered
3 Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov, David Magarshack, trans. (London: Penguin Classics, rev. ed., 2005).
against bribes and abuses, a very simple answer is always ready for you: a
human being is such an animal which by no means is able to exist without
food and clothes. You see? so
Why is it that despite convincingness of these arguments, certain
embarrassment is still felt just when these are presented to the mind with
such lucidity? There is no doubt that all these people are right, you tell
yourself, but, nevertheless, the reality is such a varied contexture of vile-
ness and disgrace that your heart cant help feeling heavyWho is to
blame for this? Where is the reason for this occurrence?
Its in the air,I am replied by my most sincere friend Yakov
Petrovitch, just the one who has invented [the people called] khvetsy and
the ointment for growing horsehair on human heads.
In the air! but it cant be true that the whole air is contaminated with
the corrupt miasmata to such an extent that there are no means to purify
it from them. Out with them, with these fumes not allowing to breathe
freely, infecting even the healthiest man!
Oh, my dear fellow, we both are unlikely to change everything in our
own way!the very same inventor of hair-growth ointment replies to
me,wed rather drink some vodka, have a bit of herring and play a
short set of whist: sorrow will be all gone without trace!
Well, lets have a drink, indeed4
To change the very airthat is the task wherein not only technological
development is still missing but philosophical awareness shows groundless-
ness of still continuing efforts to find its radical decision, for example, by
means of issuing special laws against corruption.
Overcoming the vice without losing humaneness is all the more subtle a
task as, apart from the danger of trying to eradicate the vice drastically and
instantly, that is, of acting inhumanly (in other words, viciously), another dan-
ger is presentthe one of getting reconciled with and accustomed to, as
another classic writer used to say, the oppressive horrors of life. Russian clas-
sics cultivate a special human stateobediencetoward the end of securing
peace for reconciliation. Looking back at his own experience, Shchedrin has
the following recollections. He has been told of obedience since his early child-
hood. He has been instilled with the following view:
4 Mikhail Ye. Saltykov-Shchedrin, Collected Works in ten volumes (Moscow: Pravda, 1988), v. 3,
260262 (in Russian).
66 Nikolsky
obedience makes the cities flourish, the villages prosper, that it gives
strength and firmness to the ailing on the deathbed, vivacity and hope to
the exhausted by work and hunger, that it softens the hearts of the great
and powerful as well as opens the dungeon door for a forgotten prisoner
Further on an obedient child turns into an obedient young man and
then into an adulta functionary, for example. While listening obedi-
ently to the instructions of his boss, he gets imbued with his shrewdness,
profundity, width of views. He gradually takes in the intricacies of bureau-
cracy. What work is revealed by any tiny thought of his wherein his vast-
est intentions, greatest endeavors and most infinite plans are packed. In
everything but expressing his feelings of devotion and obedience, he is
superbly brief.
Obedience does not mean low trick, does not mean ingratiation,
does not mean weak-mindedness and apathy; obedience is not preaching
or slyness on the quiet, or hypocrisyThat is a special, distinctive virtue
with the help of which a person gains a lot and loses absolutely nothing.5
Is this ironic recipe given by the Russian classics saving? I think we do not yet
have an answer, but, perhaps, it will be received when compared with the val-
ues that the process of cultural globalization is bringing.
Of course, as for contemporary Russian self-consciousness, other values are
of no less importance than those that have come thereto from Russian culture
of the 20th century. Among them is a special relationship between humans and
nature when the living world is regarded as an organic continuation of human
beings and the human beings is regarded as its natural part. Ivan S. Turgenev
has attained matchless heights in the analysis of this sense, for instance, in his
book A Hunters Sketches.
In the same vein one can possibly speak of things mentioned by the classics
in philosophizing literature, such as the special attitude of the Russian people
to life and death, their understanding not only in terms of opposition but of
mutual complementarity as well. For instance, many aspects of the phenome-
non of death are analyzed in the works of Leo N. Tolstoy: death in the war
(Sevastopol Sketches), death as the end of a fruitless life (The Death of Ivan
Ilyich), death in the course of human playing with nature (The Cossacks, The
Snowstorm), and death as a suicide (Anna Karenina). The great novel War and
Peace also narrates the struggle of life and death principles in human life as
coupled with living in compliance with or contrary to the Christian values.
5 Ibid.
A further great merit of the Russian is its careful attitude not only to the
human mind but to human feelings as well, to what is called the soul and
theheart. Perhaps, one may speak of an excessive emphasis that Russian litera-
ture puts on the affective element in human life, but in no way can one omitthe
findings made in this domain of human spirit due to the elements I have
analyzed.

In conclusion I would stress once again: the value and richness of Russian phi-
losophizing literature are conditions and means for Russias cultural revitaliza-
tion, for the countrys safeguarding, enrichment, and successful development
in the course of fruitful contacts with the global world.
Bibliography
Belinsky, Vissarion G. Complete Works. Vol. vii. Moscow: Publishing House Nauka, 1955.
In Rusian.
Goncharov, Ivan. Oblomov. David Magarshack, trans. London: Penguin Classics rev. ed.,
2005.
Pushkin, Alexander. The Complete Prose Tales of Alexandr Sergeyevitch Pushkin. Gillon
R. Aitken, trans. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1966.
Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail Ye. Collected Works in ten volumes. Moscow: Pravda, 1988.
In Russian.
chapter 5
Globalization and Contemporary Russia:

The Need for Innovation
Pavel S. Seleznev
Abstract
This essay examines the concept of innovative development that emerged in the early
21st century to replace the outdated traditional ideological concepts. The struggle for
political and economic leadership in todays globalized world is unthinkable unless
innovative breakthroughs are made. The author systemically describes the key
approaches to the issue of introducing innovation and analyzes the relevant categories
and concepts. Special attention is paid to the examination of Russian innovative proj-
ects. The author notes how one of the current projects is not based on the practice of
Catch up and Overtake but rather on the principle of Be the Leader while maximiz-
ing the efficient use of domestic economic, social, and technological resources. The
author also argues that the innovation-oriented way of thinking is mainly a character-
istic of the most advanced part of the ruling establishment and that such ideas have
not yet met with approval by the general public and the business community.
Keywords
globalization innovation ideological crisis innovative product innovative

development sustainable development public innovation policy establishment
research and development
The world today is in a state of ideological, political, and economic turbulence.

This situation is largely due to the fact that the old concepts of the 20th cen-
tury are gradually dying out, and humanity has just begun developing new
principles of integration. Nevertheless, the concept of innovation may be
attributed to the basic values of the 21st century because it gives the countries
and peoples a chance to achieve unprecedented improvement and secure
peace and prosperity for many years to come.
The turn of the 20th and the 21st centuries was marked by a serious fall
of traditional ideologies political and philosophical concepts that had

Globalization and Contemporary Russia 69
determined the peoples lives over the last 200 years. Most of the concepts
have turned out to be lacking competitiveness and could not meet the chal-
lenges of the new century. The liberal political, social, and economic concept
was the last to fall. On the one hand, the liberals position was undermined by
the overly assertive attempts made by the United States and the European
Union (eu) to divulge the only true knowledge everywhere, and, on the
other hand, by the global financial and economic crisis which caused people
to doubt the universality and efficiency of the liberal market model. This
resulted in attempts being made to meet the challenges of the new century by
looking into the past. Therefore, on the political front, people became increas-
ingly interested in concepts that were popular in the 19th and the 20th centu-
ries (communism, social democracy, conservatism) and in quasi-political
theories (political feminism, religious and political doctrines, globalism, anti-
globalism, post-industrialism, environmentalism), while on the economic
front people turned to a new version of Keynesianism. However, this path
leads nowhere. By turning to the past or using concepts that are inappropri-
ate in the new reality, the public officials, policy-makers, and economists vir-
tually ignore qualitatively different types of political, social, and economic
relations that came into being in the early 21st century. In what way is the new
age fundamentally different from the earlier periods? The answer is the
following:
Higher overall speed in political, social, and economic development is

observed that requires more flexibility and a more prompt response to the
instant demands of people;
Contradictions are observed in the global environment. On the one hand,
the globalization process is ongoing; on the other hand, the influence
exerted by third world countries and civilizations that are confronting
Western civilizations is growing;
The shortage of vital resources (energy, water, food, territorial, human, tech-
nological, and others) is growing;
Latent growth of reasons for international conflicts, hidden arms races, and
unofficial preparation for a new world war are in place;
Virtually omnipresent lack of ideology in the social and community life and
a reduction in the community political activity is observed;
An information society has emerged; information space has become trans-
parent, and new information technologies are spreading;
The very principles upon which human life is based changed in the 21st
century; the icon of hedonism and the consumption cult play a major
part.
70 Seleznev
This situation requires that developed countries identify the new ideological
priorities that could meet the challenges of the 21st century. One of the politi-
cal and economic concepts that might as well become a global ber-ideology
is the innovative development ideology. Despite the country- and culture-
specific way the concept of innovation and innovative modernization is under-
stood, the basic theoretical concepts have already been developed.
Despite the fact that the public innovation policy has become one of the key
tools used in the social, economic, and political development process, no
country in the world not even the United States or the Peoples Republic of
China (prc) can clearly claim leadership in all areas of scientific and techno-
logical development; moreover, the role of certain innovations in shaping the
political, social, and economic image of a country also varies. Despite the fact
that the innovative development is often understood as technological and eco-
nomic modernization (for the most part), political factors are at the core of it.
Therefore, the choice of priorities related to innovation should be based on the
examination of the national political structure and social stratification, basic
social ontology, and the popular system of values; also, the traditional way of
exercising power, the balance of power within the national establishment (the
ratio of supporters and opponents of the innovative development), should be
taken into account.
Ensuring innovative development is one of the most complex issues of the
21st century. Different viewpoints exist concerning what is meant by innova-
tive development. I suggest that the relevance of this issue should be consid-
ered using the concepts and categories that are used by contemporary
researchers. Since the same concepts are treated differently by Russian and
overseas experts, my goal is to choose a definition that is appropriate for the
purposes of this essay out of the list of definitions available.1
Building an appropriate political and economic model in Russia that is
based on knowledge, a creative approach, and vision of the future requires
1 See, for example, Heinrich von Pierer and Bolko von Oetinger, Wie kommt das Neue in die
Welt? (Wien: Hanser, 1997); Ralf Moldenhauer, Krisenbewltigung in der New Economy
(Wiesbaden: Gabler, 2004); Michael Blatz and Sasha Haghani, Innovative Konzepte zur
Krisenbewltigung: eine aktuelle Bestandaufnahme, Gestrkt aus der Krise: Unternehmens
finanzierung in und nach der Restrukturierung (2006), 322; Clayton M. Christensen, The
Innovators Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business (New
York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000); Vladislav Barancheev, Nadezhdo Maslennikova, and
Viktor Mishin, Innovation Management (A Study Guide) (Finstatinform: zao, 2005) (in Russian);
Vladimir Balabanov, Innovation Management (Saint Petersburg: Piter, 2007) (in Russian);
Aleksandr A. Dynkin, Innovation Economics (Moscow: Nauka, 2001) (in Russian); Yury
Morozov, Innovation Management (Moscow: Unity, 2007) (in Russian).
conditions suitable for the transformation of the Russian scientific and techno-
logical potential into one of the main resources supporting sustainable social,
economic, and political growth. I should note that the Russian government has
considered the degree of urgency of challenges set by the 21st century and poor
technological development of the country compared to the leading countries
in the world, has taken into account the countrys strong economic, demo-
graphic, and cultural potential, and has played an outperforming card. The
slogan proclaimed was not Catch up and overtake but Be the leader (at least
in the areas where Russia can make a major breakthrough).
In the Address to the Federal Assembly made on 10 May 2006, Vladimir
Putin, President of the Russian Federation set an unprecedented goal, namely,
to change the structure of the Russian economy by introducing innovations
that were identified as needed in order to perform the following key tasks:
To make incentives for making investment into the production sector and
innovation. Putin stated in the Address: Today we need an innovative envi-
ronment that will put new knowledge production on a mass scale.2
To make research institutions more responsive to the needs of the real econ-
omy. Putin added: The implementation of joint plans by the Government
and the Academy of Sciences to modernize the research industry will not be
formalistic, it will bring genuine results, give the domestic economy the
promising research products.3
To make necessary arrangements to develop business initiatives in all sec-
tors of the economy. At the Security Council meeting dedicated to steps
taken to achieve the goals set in the Address to the Federal Assembly on 20
June 2006, President Putin set a goal to build the economic incentives that
can enhance the participation of businessmen in the technological mod-
ernization process and help create the environment that generates knowl-
edge and technologies.4
Dmitry A. Medvedev, Putins successor, continued implementing the innovative

modernization policy. This continuation was reflected in the four Is concept
2 Annual Address to the Federal Assembly, May 10, 2006, accessed April 6, 2015, http://
www.kremlin.ru/appears/2006/05/10/1357_type63372type63374type82634_105546.shtml (in
Russian).
3 Ibid.
4 Welcoming Address by Vladimir V. Putin at the Security Council meeting dedicated to steps
taken to achieve the goals set in the Address to the Federal Assembly, June 20, 2006, accessed
May 10, 2015, http://viperson.ru/wind.php?ID=278967&soch=1 (in Russian).
72 Seleznev
(Institutions, Investment, Infrastructure, Innovation) and in the priorities set in

the Address to the Federal Assembly made on November 5, 2008:5
To form a personnel pool thus attracting the most talented, creative and pro-
fessional people to the government institutions and business companies;
To modernize the Russian educational system;
To produce and export knowledge, new technologies and advanced culture,
which means achieving a leading position in the field of science, education,
and the arts;
To reform the machinery of state.
According to the Medvedev, a people-centered ideology should be at the base

of the public policy. Those people are the citizens to whom equal opportuni-
ties are guaranteed from birth and whose success in life depends on their per-
sonal initiative and independent actions, on the ability to perform innovative
and creative work. As a result, Russia has to form a national innovation system
that would involve all the different entities and make them proactively partici-
pate in the system operations.6
The attention paid by the government institutions to the innovative devel-
opment concept was not in a purely declarative format. To address the growth
points in business incubators, science parks, special economic zones, and
public corporations (rusnano and others), Skolkovo innovative company was
formed. The Agency for Strategic Initiatives formed in May 2011 is also engaged
in promoting innovative projects and their managers.
Nevertheless, the Russian innovative modernization goals have not been
fully achieved. According to Leonid Gokhberg, First Vice-Rector of the Higher
School of Economics of the National Research University, efficient innovation
policy cannot be implemented now that it is combined with a number of ele-
ments of the existing policy. He cited the tax incentives system, trade barriers,
the public procurement system, and the research institute financing system
that did not depend on the research results as examples of areas of ineffi-
ciency. The experts in innovation policy believe that the weak point in the
public innovation policy is the lack of coordinated efforts. For example, the
reduction of export duty on crude oil kills the refining sector, etc.7
5 Annual Address to the Federal Assembly, November 5, 2008, accessed April 6, 2015, http://
www.rg.ru/2008/11/05/poslanie-kremlin.html (in Russian).
6 Ibid.
7 Strategy 2020, accessed April 6, 2015, http://strategy2020.rian.ru/g5/20110707/366099491
.html (in Russian).
All of these factors make the Russian government turn again to the topic of
innovative development since it is associated with the rebirth of the country
as a great power in the 21st century. Medvedev spoke about the innovative
project promotion success stories and the need to continue implementing
innovative initiatives in his Address to the Federal Assembly on November 30,
2010.8 Putin, as Chair of the Government, fully supported Medvedev as far as
the public policy and economic innovative reform project was concerned. He
became Chair of the Russian Government Commission on Innovation in
February 2010.
Despite the fact that the terms innovation, innovative development, and
others are widely used in the scientific literature and political presentations,
the meaning and content of these concepts need to be defined clearly.
The following definitions are found in the draft Federal Law On Innovative
Activity and Public Innovation Policy of May 7, 1997: Innovation is the end
result of the creative efforts that are in the form of a new or improved product
or new or improved technological process that is used in the human activity.
Innovation comes from the English word that literally means the introduc-
tion of something new.9 It is identical in meaning to the Russian word inno-
vatsiya (innovation). Innovation is understood to mean a new order, a new
method, a new product or technology, or a new phenomenon.10
The following are the attributes of an innovation:
An innovation is always associated with economic (practical) use of original

solutions. In this way they differ from inventions in the field of technology;
An innovation provides an economic and/or social and political benefit to
the user. This benefit determines the distribution of innovation on the
market;
An innovation is associated with the item used for the first time at an enter-
prise regardless of whether it was used elsewhere before. It means that even
an imitation can have the attributes of an innovation;
An innovation is associated with a creative approach and involves risks. An
innovation cannot be produced and introduced in the course of a routine
process, but requires a clear understanding of the need for the innovation
and creativity from all the process participants (managers and employees).
8 Dmitry A. Medvedev, Interview, Rossiyskaya Gazeta (December, 1, 2010).

9 Tatiana Yarkina, Fundamentals of Economics of a Company (Textbook), http://www.aup
.ru/books/m64/3_3.htm, accessed May 10, 2015 (in Russian).
10 Ibid.
74 Seleznev
An innovation is a profitable (cost-effective) use of pioneer work in the form of

new technologies, products and services, and institutional, technical, social,
and economic solutions of industrial, financial, commercial, administrative,
and other issues. It is the end result of innovative activity in the form of a new
or improved product introduced to the market, a new or improved process
used in practice, or a new approach to rendering social services.
In my opinion, the most concise definition to the term was proposed by
Sergey N. Mazurenko, Head of the Federal Agency for Science and Innovations.
He has defined it as a three-step process that includes new knowledge acquisi-
tion, new technology development, and, as a result, creation of a new product
of higher quality that is competitive on the market.11
Innovative activity in the broad sense of the term is a number of scientific,
technological, institutional, information, financial, and commercial activities
aimed at the transformation of scientific knowledge into new products and
technologies that is carried out by individuals, businesses, and government
institutions.
In the narrow sense of the term, innovative activity is understood as a pro-
cess aimed at the use of research findings and products or other scientific and
technological achievements in the new or improved products sold in the mar-
ket and in the new or improved technological process used in practice.
For the purposes of this essay, the term innovative activity is primarily
used in the narrow sense.
Public innovation policy is an integral part of the social and economic pol-
icy aimed at developing and encouraging innovative activity.12
However, other definitions of these activities can be noted. For example,
consider the following definition: Innovative activities are the activities aimed
at the use and commercialization of research findings and products in order to
enhance and upgrade the range of activities and improve the quality of prod-
ucts (goods and services), in order to improve the production technology with
a view to subsequently introduce and sell the products with a profit on the
domestic and overseas markets. Here the innovative activities associated with
the capital investment in innovation are called the innovative investment
activities.13
11 Sergey Mazurenko, Head of the Federal Agency for Science and Innovations, Innovations
are a symbiosis of the public policy and the market relations, Izvestiya December 5, 2008
(in Russian).
12 Vladimir Balabanov, Innovation Management (Saint Petersburg: Piter, 2007), 154 (in Russian).
13 Alexander Kozlo, Strategic Planning and Innovative Company Management (Moscow, Bek,
2006), 67 (in Russian).
Innovation is the process of bringing a technical invention or discovery to

the practical use stage where it starts giving an economic effect and acquires
an economic meaning.14
A direct link exists between innovative activity and an innovation. One can
observe here a clear focus on the market that is a criterion of efficiency of the
skills and knowledge used.
The majority of the promising innovations are used in complex, knowledge-
intensive products and energy-saving and high-tech products used in the ser-
vices sector. Despite the diversity of new products, a prerequisite for their use
as part of an innovation is a timely and sufficient investment attracted to the
innovative activity sector.
Innovations are divided into:
Technical;
Technological;
Economic;
Managerial;
Institutional.
I should note that the innovation use process associated with the innovation
acquisition, reproduction, and use in the social sphere is an innovative pro-
cess. Innovative processes originate from certain branches of science and are
completed in the field of production where they cause progressive, qualita-
tively new changes.
In the most general sense, an innovative process is defined as the creation,
distribution, and use of products and technologies that have new scientific,
technical, and institutional characteristics and meet new public needs. However,
the creation of new products and technologies is virtually impossible unless the
potential is used that is found in the scientific and technical knowledge gained
in the course of the fundamental theoretical research work and other work con-
ducted as part of the research and development (R&D) process.
The scientific and technical knowledge potential is a smart product that has
a market value. It is a very important contribution to the innovative process. In
fact, the emergence of new machines, instruments, devices, and other innova-
tions is connected with the long innovative activity cycle that is called the
innovative process.
14 Vladimir Averchenkov and Egor Vainmayer, Innovation Management (Textbook for

Bachelors) (Moscow: Urait, 2012) (in Russian).
76 Seleznev
The innovative process is a unique process where science, technology, eco-

nomics, business, and management are involved. It includes the innovation
acquisition and extends from an idea production stage to the commercializa-
tion stage covering the whole set of relations in the field of production, goods
exchange, and consumption.
I should also note that the innovative process and innovation policy are
implemented in all areas related to production the regional and national eco-
nomic and social infrastructure. They reflect the interaction between the insti-
tutional and economic systems and make an impact upon the choice of goals
that are economic system-specific, upon the goal achieving techniques and
methods, and the end results produced by these innovative systems.
At the same time, innovative development is impossible unless the business
self-regulation mechanisms are developed. Elvira S. Nabiullina has stressed
that without these mechanisms, we cannot achieve the ambitious goal of tran-
sition to the innovative development path.15 Innovative development requires
that the standards of doing business, its flexibility and adaptability should be
high. Therefore the whole system of government regulation should change
accordingly. It should set minimal restrictions to the market relations while
ensuring safety of products, providing greater freedom to business companies
and increasing the degree of responsibility for misconduct, and, according to
Nabiullina, that is why attention is paid to reducing administrative barriers.
The administrative regulation mechanisms are replaced by financial guaran-
tees and insurance mechanisms, mandatory certification requirements by the
declaration requirements and the business licensing system by the notification
system. We are reducing the number of business company inspections.16
So, the innovative activity is an activity aimed at the practical use of research
results, technical work results, and the intellectual potential in order to produce
a new product or improve a product produced or the mode of production and
meet the public and government institutions needs in competitive goods and
services, in improvement of social services and political development process.
Arkady I. Prigozhy, a famous Russian expert in the field of innovation, sees
an innovation as a purposeful change that introduces new relatively stable
elements to the environment (organization, population, society, etc.) and
stresses that an innovation is a form of managed development.17
15 Tamara Shkel, Dont Interfere in the Market, Rossiyskaya Gazeta No. 4665 (May 22, 2008),
accessed May 10, 2015, http://www.rg.ru/2008/05/22/nabiullina.html (in Russian).
16 Ibid.
17 Arkady Prigozhy, Innovation Introduction: the Incentives and the Barriers. Social Issues in
Innovation Introduction (Moscow, Politizdat, 1989), 2829 (in Russian).
This definition implies the existence of an active subject that changes its
social, economic, and natural environment to achieve the pre-planned or intu-
itively accepted goals. An innovation is not tied to a specific field of activity. It
can belong to both the physical infrastructure and the social sphere.
What are the specifics of scientific and technological innovation? Can a new
scientific idea or a new technical solution (invention) be considered an inno-
vation? Bruce Twiss gives clear answers to these questions in his well-known
book Managing Technological Innovation. He starts by giving a definition
offered by the U.S. Department of Commerce: Innovation is a process by
which an invention or idea is translated into the economy.18 Thus, an inven-
tion or an idea will become an innovation if it becomes commercialized, that
is, finds its way into the market.
The following characteristic feature of innovations should be mentioned. It
could be a new product designed to meet the peoples demand or a process, for
example, a new technology that helps increase the production volume or
reduce the cost of production. Not coincidentally, Jermen M. Gvishiani and
Vasiliy P. Gromeka offer two ways to interpret the term innovation, namely,
the process of bringing a technical invention or discovery to the stage of prac-
tical use when it starts to give economic effect, or an end result of this process,
i.e., an invention brought to the stage of commercial use of goods or a product
that results from the process of innovation (the first meaning of the term is
used here).19
A significant shift in the way we understand the role of innovations in the
economy and the role of an entrepreneur as the subject of the innovation pro-
cess occurred due to the work of Joseph Schumpeter. In his book The Theory of
Economic Development, inter alia, he wrote: The carrying out new combina-
tions we call enterprise; the individuals whose function it is to carry them out
we call entrepreneurs.20
Schumpeter draws attention to the fact that the new combination can only
emerge in a discrete way. If this combination is obtained from the old combi-
nation gradually due to the constant use of small devices, it can also lead to
economic growth, but, according to him, it will not signify development.
18 Bruce C. Twiss, Managing Technological Innovation (New York: Longman, 1988), 36.
19 Jermen M. Gvishiani and Vasiliy P. Gromeka, Theoretical Aspects in Research into the
Innovation Process and Innovation Policy Formation in Developed Countries (Moscow,
2004), 5 (in Russian).
20 Joseph Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development. Redvers Opie, trans. (New
Brunswick, nj: Transaction Publishers. 1983) [originally published in German in 1911 as
Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung].
78 Seleznev
I should further note that the relation between innovations and business
activity was identified (implied) in the early 19th century. Jean-Baptiste Say, a
French economist, put it this way, The entrepreneur shifts economic resources
out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater
yield.21 The statement is still topical. Peter Drucker, a major American expert
in management, draws a direct line connecting the innovation and entrepre-
neurship: Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurship, the means by
which they exploit change as an opportunity for different business or a differ-
ent service.22
Therefore, by using those definitions, one can understand what role is
played by the innovations, including the innovations in science and technol-
ogy, in a modern market economy.23
We should not forget about the concept of the scientific and technical
potential and its close connection with the innovations.
Russian and Ukrainian researchers, including Vasiliy I. Gromeka,24 Gennady
M. Dobrov,25 Vladimir S. Duzhenkov,26 Vladimir S. Malov and others, contrib-
uted much to defining the concept of the innovation policy and the scientific
and technical potential.
While using the most general terms, Malov defines the scientific and techni-
cal potential as the bulk of knowledge and the level of accumulated knowl-
edge combined with the environment that ensures the use of this knowledge
to achieve scientific, technical, social and economic progress.27 This definition
21 Peter F. Drucker, Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles (New York:
Harper & Row, 1985).
22 Ibid.
23 Andy Bruce and David Burchall, Innovations: Fast Tract to Success (Upper Saddle River,
ny: ft Press, 2012); Oleg Sukharev, Innovations in Economy and Industry (Moscow: Vyshaya
Shkola, 2010) (in Russian).
24 Jermen Gvishiani and Vasiliy Gromeka, Theoretical Aspects in Research into the Innovation
Process and Innovation Policy Formation in Developed Countries, Moscow, 2004 (in Russian).
25 Gennady Dobrov, Vladimir Tonkal, Anatoly Savelyev, et al, Scientific and Technical
Potential: The Structure, The Dynamics, the Efficiency. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1987 (in
Russian).
26 Vladimir Duzhenkov, Alexander Dagayev, and Edward Yanson, Issues Related to the
Scientific and Technical Progress and the Transition to the Market, E.A. Oleinikov, ed.
(Moscow: rea, 1992) (in Russian).
27 Vladimir S. Malov, Progress and scientific and technical activity, Oleg Larichev, ed.
(Moscow: Nauka, 1991), 54 (in Russian).
can be enlarged by considering the scientific and technical potential as a com-

bination of the following factors:
1. Accumulated knowledge (information);

2. The people who have this knowledge enrich their knowledge and use it to
obtain practical results;
3. The physical infrastructure;
4. The necessary new information gathering possibilities;
5. Institutional factors that are the prerequisites for using the knowledge to
solve technical, economic, and social problems.
The core of the scientific and technical potential is the scientific potential. It
characterizes the opportunities available to the state (or other subjects of sci-
entific and technical activities) at the R&D stage. At the same time, the scien-
tific and technical potential is closely connected with the economic, industrial,
and educational potential.
Therefore, we have the possibility of tracing a clear link between an innova-
tion and the innovation introduction and concluding that the innovative activ-
ity is the initial work stage that is aimed at obtaining a new product or service
or upgrading it, and the innovation introduction (the introduction of a prod-
uct or service) is the next step made to gain economic benefits on the market.
The following forms of innovation are described in the Russian and foreign
economic literature: institutional, managerial, scientific, technological, social,
administrative, and legal innovations.
Given the status quo in the global economy and its development prospects,
the innovation policies at the present stage ought to promote further develop-
ment of the scientific and technological potential, modern technological infra-
structure formation within the economic sectors, elimination of outdated
infrastructure, and product competitiveness improvement.
Public innovation policy is meant to form an environment that would
encourage the private sector players to proactively search for innovation, use
new business ideas, and introduce innovative high-tech products rapidly with
a view to ensure competitiveness of the state in the global market in the long-
term by ensuring the national business companies competitiveness.
Thus, innovation policy can be defined as a set of measures and steps taken by
the state with a view to build a comprehensive innovation support mechanism, to
improve competitiveness of the national high-tech products through institutional
reforms, legal regulatory framework development, and improvement and devel
opment of the infrastructure needed for the innovation process.
80 Seleznev
The following innovation policy types can be cited:
1. Direct, such as public investment in the form of funding (target, focused,

directed), lending, leasing; planning and programming and a public
enterprise (the commercial or not-for-profit activity of the state enter-
prises aimed at producing goods and services required for the national
economy development).
2. Indirect, that is, on the one hand, mainly focused on building incentives
for the innovative processes, and, on the other hand, on building a favora-
ble economic environment and the social and political climate for scien-
tific and technological development.
I should also note that the innovative projects implemented even under a
democratic political regime are always associated with the countrys establish-
ment, but not the general public that is usually focused on maintaining the
status quo. For example, initially the innovative development initiatives
emerged as a result of using the bottom up and not a top down approach in
the Russian Federation. Moreover, the idea of a yet another reform was met
without approval by the general public and the business community (people
outside of the establishment).
The people, on the one hand, feared the start of yet another shock therapy
session, were suspicious of any reform-based government projects, and, on
the other hand, rejected the policy of an upgrade due to the specific Russian
political culture dominated by a conservative development trend. In addition,
a significant part of the population was still living in the past (that is, in the
20th century) in their minds and was not ready to accept and embrace the new
reality found in the field of technology and information. They could not live
and operate in the new reality either.
The business community also treated the innovative development trend
proposed by the national government with suspicion. After a tough procedure
has been implemented to make all the oligarchs equidistant from the govern-
ment, the business community assumed, with reason, that it would be held
accountable for ensuring the innovative breakthrough and that it would
have to deal with risky long-term financial investment. As a result, this situa-
tion gave rise to a desertion of businesspeople who preferred working in
more comfortable conditions than an innovative battlefield.
Therefore, the state institutions, or, rather, the stakeholder groups within
the establishment that had been operating in the relevant fields took up the
main part of the workload associated with promoting innovative projects.
They are the ones who became the key promoters and lobbyists of the
pro-innovation laws and the key beneficiaries when the new laws were applied
to practice.
In todays complex political and economic environment, the voices of skep-
tics are increasingly being heard in Russia. They propose that the innovative
development path should be abandoned in favor of a more traditional way of
making incentive for the real sector. However, the first-hand experience of
leading countries shows us that the innovations could go hand in hand with a
proactive industrial policy and communications sector streamlining.
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Averchenkov, Vladimir and Egor Vainmayer. Innovation Management (Textbook for
Bachelors). Moscow: Urait, 2012. In Russian.
Balabanov, Vladimir. Innovation Management. Saint Petersburg: Piter, 2007. In Russian.
Barancheev, Vladislav, Nadezhdo Maslennikova, and Viktor Mishin, Innovation
Management (A Study Guide). Finstatinform: ZAO, 2005. In Russian.
Blatz, Michael and Sasha Haghani. Innovative Konzepte zur Krisenbewltigung: eine
aktuelle Bestandaufnahme. Gestrkt aus der Krise: Unternehmensfinanzierung in
und nach der Restrukturierung (2006), 322.
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New York: FT Press, 2012.
Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovators Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will
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Potential: The Structure, The Dynamics, the Efficiency. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1987. In
Russian.
Drucker, Peter F. Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles. New York:
Harper & Row, 1985.
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Scientific and Technical Progress and the Transition to the Market, Evgeny Oleinikov,
ed. Moscow: rea, 1992. In Russian.
Dynkin, Aleksandr A. Innovation Economics. Moscow: Nauka, 2001. In Russian.
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Gvishiani, Jermen M. and Vasiliy P. Gromeka. Theoretical Aspects in Research into the
Innovation Process and Innovation Policy Formation in Developed Countries. Moscow:
Znanie, 1990. In Russian.
Kozlov, Alexander. Strategic Planning and Innovative Company Management. Moscow:
Bek, 2006. In Russian.
Malov, Vladimir S. Progress and scientific and technical activity. Oleg Larichev, ed.
Moscow: Nauka, 1991. In Russian.
Mazurenko, Sergey. Innovations are a symbiosis of the public policy and the market
relations. Izvestiya (December 5, 2008). Accessed May 10, 2015. http://www.fasi.gov
.ru/news/press/1573/. In Russian.
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Moldenhauer, Ralf. Krisenbewltigung in der New Economy. Wiesbaden: Gabler Verlag,
2004.
Morozov, Yury. Innovation Management. Moscow, Unity, 2007. In Russian.
Pierer, Heinrich von and Bolko von Oetinger. Wie kommt das Neue in die Welt? Wien:
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Part 2

chapter 6
International Migration, Globalization, and

Development
Ivan A. Aleshkovski
Abstract
This essay analyzes the impact of globalization on the transformation of international

migration flows. The author considers the following features of global trends in inter-
national migration: the scale of growth in international migration, the geography of
the expansion of international migration flows, shifts in the quality of the structure in
migration flows, the determining role played by economic migration, the permanent
growth of illegal immigration and the structural irresistibility of illegal immigration,
the increase in the scale and geography of forced migration, the increasing role
of international migration in demographic development, and the dual character of
migration policy. In addition, the author also presents his own concept on the role of
international migration in the demographic development of the Russian Federation.
In conclusion, the author points out that only the implementation of a reasonable
migration policy can facilitate a legitimate field of international migration and the
rational use of the skills of migrants.
Keywords
international migration illegal immigration demographic development

globalization of migration processes migration policy Russian Federation
In the second half of the 20th century humanity witnessed the insuperable
and irreversible power of globalization processes, which influence all spheres
of social life and create a global system of interdependency between countries
and nations. This growing interdependency is related to:
development of integration processes and expanding economic interde-

pendency between national economies;
a growing gap in the levels of economic development between developing
and developed countries caused, inter alia, by demographic factors;

86 Aleshkovski
improvement of communication facilities and the transport system, which

allows information, goods, and people to move freely and quickly even
between territories which are located very distantly from each other;
activities of international institutes and transnational corporations, which
engage employees from different countries and promote their movements
across borders;
social connections that develop due to international migration of popula-
tion and as a result of interracial marriages, in particular. This migration
promotes formation of the global system of mutual aid.
Globalization processes within impetuous changes in global political and eco-

nomic systems can lead to abrupt intensification of global migration streams
and dramatic shifts in global migration trends that result in the formation of a
new stage of human migration history.
Vladimir Iontsev and I have summarized these trends in the 1990s and 2000s.1
By now, they have become well formed. The most significant of these trends are:
unprecedented growth of the international migration scale and formation

of a nation of migrants;
widening of the geography of international migration flows by involving
practically all the countries of the world in migration flows;
qualitative changes in the structure of the world migration flows in compli-
ance with the requirements of globalizing the labor market;
determinant role of economic migration, primarily labor migration;
sufficient growth and structural insuperability of illegal migration;
growth of the scale and geographical widening of forced migration;
growing importance of international migration for demographic develop-
ment of the world, in both sending and receiving countries;
a dual character of migration policy at international, regional, and national
levels.
International Migration Scale of Growth
Consider these developments: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the appear-
ance in its place of separate independent states, important political and social
1 See Vladimir Iontsev, International Migration of Population: Theory and History of Studying,
Scientific Series International Migration of Population: Russia and the Contemporary
World, Issue 3 (Moscow: 1999) (in Russian); Ivan A. Aleshkovsky and Vladimir A. Iontsev,
Tendencii mezhdunarodnoj migracii v globalizirujushhemsja mire, Age of Globalization 2
(2008), 7787. [Trends of International Migration in the Globalized World.] (in Russian).
International Migration, Globalization, And Development 87
changes in the Eastern Europe, the collapse of Yugoslavia and the prolonged
conflict between Serbians and Albanians, the crisis in the Persian Gulf, civil
wars in Rwanda, Somalia and Sudan, and the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and
Syria. All of these developments and other events of 1990s and 2000s set in
motion vast, and often, uncontrolled international migration flows and placed
international migration of population among the most important global phe-
nomena, which had an influence on the world economy and, accordingly,
conditions of its globalization.
Just because of the scale of international migration we can talk about it as a
phenomenon that has a global influence. According to the 2013 estimates of
the United Nations Population Division, more than 232 million people live out-
side their country of birth and 59 per cent of all international migrants live in
the more developed regions. Currently classical international migrants make
up nearly 1 of every 32 people in world; in total, migrants make up almost 1 of
every 10 people in the developed regions and nearly 1 of every 65 people in
developing regions. Collectively, international migrants would now constitute
the worlds fifth most populous nation if they all lived in the same placeafter
China, India, the United States, and Indonesia.2
I should note that these figures do not include illegal immigrants whose
number according to different estimations amount from 10% to 15% of all
international migrants (from 23 to 35 million people) and international tour-
ists whose number exceeded 900 million. If we add the 150180 million labor
migrants jointly with their family members and more than 10 million seasonal
and frontier workers, and not less than 60 million forced migrants (refugees,
displaced people, asylum seekers, ecological refugees, etc.), we have as the
total number of people who are involved in the international migration in this
or that form an amount that exceeds 1.2 billion people. So, if we summarize all
the categories of migrants, every sixth inhabitant of the Earth is an interna-
tional migrant!
The latter makes us talk about the formation of the so-called nations of
migrants, which can be compared by quantity to the biggest nations of the
world. In fact, the fate of the everlasting exile mythical Ahasverus is not just a
myth but is the real destiny of many people wandering over the world in search
for a better life, obtaining knowledge, getting informed with the worlds prog-
ress in culture and science, for rest and cure, etc.
The important indicator of the international migration scale is the growing
part of international migrants in the total population in assuming states. In
1960, in 27 countries the percentage of international migrants was up to 10%,
2 United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision (New York: United Nations,
2013), accessed April 8, 2015, http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/index.htm.
88 Aleshkovski
while in 2013 the number of such countries reached 92; in 16 countries the
share of international migrants in the total population exceeds 50%. Most sig-
nificantly the share of migrants in the total population during 19602013
increased in the oil-producing countries of the Persian Gulf: in Bahrain from
17.1% to 54.7%, in Kuwait from 32.6% to 60.2%, in Qatar from 32.0% to 73.8%,
in the uae from 2.4% to 83.7%, and in Saudi Arabia from 1.6% to 31.4%.3
Thus, international migration flows in the contemporary world became a
global phenomenon with an influence on all spheres of life of the global com-
munity, and international migration became one of the key factors of social
and economic development of states.
Expansion of International Migration Flows Geography
Nowadays, in fact, all countries of the world are involved in international

migration to a greater or lesser extent. Even such closed states as North Korea
or Cuba are getting involved more and more actively in the world migration
processes, considering that emigration from them is controlled much more
strictly than immigration, contrary to many other countries.
I should also note that in spite of the fact that the majority of international
migrants originate from developing countries, the contemporary migration
flows have not only Southnorth or Eastwest vectors. Nearly half of all
reported migrants move from one developing country to another and approxi-
mately the same part move from developing countries to the developed ones. In
other words, the number of migrants who move from south to south approxi-
mately balances the number of migrants who move from south to north.
In the 21st century, all countries and territories in the world are, in one way
or another, countries of destination for some migrants. The age of fast trans-
portation within the world influences every country, and international
migrants appear everywhere. According to the u.n. Population Division, in
2013 the only sovereign state in the world in which the number of international
migrants was less than 1 thousand people was the Republic Tuvalu (the num-
ber of its inhabitants is lower than 10.5 thousand people).4
Whereas in 1965 in only 41 countries did the number of migrants exceed 300
thousand people, in 2000 the number of such countries rose to 66, and by 2013
it reached 84; moreover, in 42 of them the number of international migrants
exceeded 1 million people, while in 12 countries it was over 5 million. At the top
3 United Nations, International Migration 2013 (New York: United Nations, 2013).
4 Ibid.
of the list are the United States (45.8 million people), Russia (11.0 million peo-
ple), and Germany (9.84 million people).5
Thus, the shifts in the global migration situation over the last 60 years were
primarily related to considerable changes in the geography of international
migrant flows and the increasing number of countries involved in interna-
tional migration processes.
Quality Shifts in the Structure of Migration Flows
Deep changes that happened in the world in the second half of the 20th cen-
tury are rooted in the development of the post-industrial sector of the econ-
omy and corresponding transformation of the global labor market demands,
as well as liberal reforms and democratic shifts in the post-communist and
developing countries. This situation has called for a qualitatively new stage in
international migration. Three key changes in the international migration
regime will be discussed.
Shift from Permanent to Temporary Migration

Existing data do not provide reliable information on temporary migration
flows, and the major part of temporary movements is not recorded in the sta-
tistics. Moreover, we lack regular detailed information on temporary migrants.
Meanwhile, surveys conducted in some countries of destination and tourist
statistics prove that during the last five decades the number of permanent (or
long-term) migrants was gradually rising; however, the number and frequency
of short-term movements were growing much faster.
Among all the forms and types of international migration, labor migration
was growing most rapidly during the last decades.
Labor migration is connected, on the other hand, with the spreading
and greater availability of transport facilities, making migration of people
easier and reducing distance between countries and continents. In these
conditions, temporary work abroad is preferable for individuals, rather
than emigration, because it is connected with fewer material and non-
material costs.
On the other hand, globalization of the world labor market requires more
flexibility of migration behavior than can be partially guaranteed by labor
migration. Attraction of foreign workers on a temporary basis also corresponds
to goals of immigration policy in developed countries that are the globalization
5 Ibid.
90 Aleshkovski
elite and in many respects define the conditions under which other countries
participate in globalization processes.
Shifts in the Qualitative Structure of Migration Flows

In the labor markets of developed countries that determine the direction and
activity of international labor migration flows a stable demand exists for for-
eign labor at two poles of qualification: workers with low skills and workers
with high skills in technologically advanced occupations. At the same time, a
demand for foreign labor in countries of destination evolves toward a more
qualified labor force, and receiving countries strenuously encourage attraction
of qualified immigrants in the branches and sectors of a national economy
that face a labor deficit.
Shifts in the qualitative structure of migration flows mean first of all the
growth of the percentage of skilled professionals among international
migrants. This trend is closely related to what is probably the most painful phe-
nomenon in international migration, namely, the brain drain which involves
the non-return migration of highly skilled specialistsscientists, engineers,
physicians, etc. (including potential intellectuals such as students, post-
graduate students, and trainees). The policy specially aimed to attract skilled
personnel from other countries is widely used by developed countries, first of
all by the United States.
On the other hand, low- and non-skilled migrants face new barriers on their
way that close for them access to the countries of final destination. At the same
time, push factors in less developed states still exist, together with pull factors
in receiving countries. Thus, the receiving states are obligated to develop pro-
grams for guest workers to facilitate the temporary attraction of low-skilled
migrants.6
Feminization of Migration Flows

Traditionally, the majority of international migrants were considered to be
males. Females, when they took part in international migrations, were usually
family members of male migrants. However, in the beginning of the 1990s
researchers noticed that today more and more women are migrating not to
join their partner, but in search for employment in places where they will be
better paid in comparison to their home country. By the end of the 1990s
6 International Labour Organization (ilo), Towards a Fair Deal for Migrant Workers in the
Global Economy, Report vi. International Labour Conference, 92nd Session, 2004. (Geneva:
ilo, 2004), 1271151, accessed April 8, 2015, http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/
relm/ilc/ilc92/pdf/rep-vi.pdf.
omens share among migrants in the number of developed countries

w
exceeded 51% (and 48% in the entire world).7
In many respects, the latter fact is connected with structural modifications
in the world economy that accompany globalization processes. Development
of the service economy encourages the growth of this sector in the labor mar-
ket structure in developed countries (textile industry, leisure industry, social
service, sex services, etc.) and the constantly growing need for female migrants
including those occupied in unqualified jobs.
Thus, feminization of migration flows is one of important trends of contem-
porary international migration, which, in its own turn, is accompanied with
the growth of human trafficking, smuggling of migrants, and other exploitative
practices. The latter happens because women tend to work in the gender-
segregated sectors of economy, such as domestic services and the leisure
sphere, and due to the fact that they are much more prone to suffer discrimina-
tion on account of their gender than their male counterparts.8 These trends
issue the challenge of defending the human rights of labor migrants (first of all
women) in the line of priority tasks of national and international institutes
that are occupied with migration problems.
The Determining Role of Economic Migration
International migration flows develop under the influence of different factors,

among which economical factors are the preliminary ones. In its turn, the
growing role and scale of economic migration (labor migration, first of all) is
the most stable and long-lasting trend of international migration. This phe-
nomenon has gained crucial impulse with the expansion of the capitalist
economy and the commercialization of labor. From the point of view of the
globalization of the world economy, the most important issue is the formation
of the world labor market that exists in export and import of labor resources;
nowadays this market has reached an unprecedented scale.
Estimating the total scale of international labor migration flows is difficult
because not all the countries monitor such factors and a considerable part of
labor migration is illegal. Nevertheless, international labor migration has,
undoubtedly, a considerable scale and is a growing trend. According to the
7 United Nations, International Migration 2013.

8 International Organization for Migration (iom), World Migration Report 2010, The Future of
Migration: Building Capacities for Change (Geneva: iom, 2010), 20, accessed April 8, 2015,
http://publications.iom.int/bookstore/free/WMR_2010_ENGLISH.pdf.
92 Aleshkovski
International Labor Organization (ilo) estimates, at the beginning of the 21st

century the total number of legal labor migrants is estimated as over 100 mil-
lion compared to 3.2 million in 1960. In spite of the fact that migrant-workers
make less than 4.2% of the total number of the economically active population
of the developed countries, the role of labor migration for many receiving
countries is much more significant. I should note that many countries are
simultaneously sending and receiving countries. For example, Canada is a tra-
ditional country of destination for migrants, but also it sends a great number
of workers, especially ones having high skills, to the United States.
Three key factors determine the expansion of international labor migration
and increase its role:9
the pull of the changing demographic situation (first of all population

aging) and labor market needs in developed countries;
the push of demographic factors in developing countries and growing differ-
ences of income and possibilities between developing and developed regions,
and an increasing gap between the most dynamically developed countries
and other developing world;
established inter-country networks based on family, culture, and history.
Remittances are the most immediate and tangible benefit of international

labor migration. While receiving countries financially benefit from labor
migration mainly via receiving tax payments, for sending countries financial
inflow from migrant workers is more diverse.
Thus, labor migration, as a global transference of human capital has become
an important factor of development in the global economy and at the same
time it is a result and source of increasing interdependence of countries and
regions of the world. Considering that the international mobility of people in
the quest for jobs in the globalizing world will definitely increase, countries of
origin and countries of destination of migrant-workers will find necessary
development of effective and fair management of labor migration.
Permanent Growth and Structural Irresistibility

of Illegal Immigration
Labor migration is closely connected to another trend of the contemporary

international migration, namely, the permanent growth of illegal immigration.
9 Ibid., 18.
We lack reliable data on illegal migrants in the world. According to the dif-
ferent estimations, currently from 10% to 15% of all international migrants stay
in the countries of destination in violation of the law. In other words, totally
illegal migrants are about half of legal migrant-workers, and their number is
not reducing despite restricting immigration rules and special laws directed
against illegal immigration. Moreover, countries where use of the labor of ille-
gal migrants is widely practiced are replenished with developing states. For
example, Mexico, the biggest supplier of illegal immigrants in the world, is at
the same time a receiving society for about one million illegal immigrants from
countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. I should note that development
of illegal immigration is followed by the appearance of new categories and
groups of migrants who violate the law (migration laws, labor codes, etc.), both
in destination countries and transit countries.10
Whatever routes and methods migrants use to enter a destination country
and whatever methods are practiced to stop them, my opinion is that an effec-
tive way of counteracting illegal migration is not likely under the existing gov-
ernance of capitalistic norms when employers are interested in the cheap and
rightless labor of illegal migrants in receiving countries, so that illegal migrants
become pure taxpayers beneficial for employers and the receiving state. In
combination with demographic pressure and economic push factors in send-
ing countries, these circumstances make illegal migration in the contemporary
world structurally irresistible.
The latter does not mean, however, that the scale of illegal immigration is
not to be restrained. In particular, it can be done by means of more effective
management of legal migration flows. The most important issue for receiving
governments to realize is that illegal migration is not a form of terrorism or
criminality that should be fought by all the means of repression of a state.
Neither should they run to another extreme by opening wide the doors for
migrants, so that they will have to defend their indigenous citizens rights
against undesirable invasion of millions of aliens.
Increase in the Scale and Geography of Forced Migration
Forced migration is a totality of spatial movements related to permanent or

temporary changes in the place of residence caused by extreme reasons not
depending on peoples will (political and ethnically based persecutions, natural
10 Aleshkovsky and Iontsev, Tendencii mezhdunarodnoj migracii (Trends of International

Migration).
94 Aleshkovski
disasters, technological accidents, ecological catastrophes, armed conflicts,

etc.). Forced migrants include: refugees, internally displaced people, asylum-
seekers, ecological refugees, stateless people, and others. For most of them,
emergency and life-threatening push factors are determinative.
Increase in the scale and geography of forced migration is related to the cur-
rent stage of human development filled with political tension, wars, ethnic
conflicts, and ecological disasters. (After World War ii, over 150 global and
regional conflicts occurred around the world.) According to data of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (unhcr), by the end of 2013 the
global figure of forced migrants stood at 42.9 million, of which 11.8 million were
refugees, 23.9 million were internally displaced people, around 1,170 thousand
were asylum-seekers, and 3.5 million were stateless people.11
Therefore, forced migration as one of essential contemporary international
migration trends has gained global scale.
Increasing Role of International Migration in Demographic

Development
During the major part of the human history changes in population size primar-
ily resulted from the natural increase of population. Evolution of mortality and
fertility, a growing gap in demographic potentials between less developed and
more developed nations, as well as globalization of the world economy, have
resulted in the growing role of international migration in the demographic
development of the globe.
Nowadays, international migration is one of the major factors of stabiliza-
tion of the world population. As for developed states, it is the principal (and
in some countries the only) determinant of the population growth, while in
the developing states it contributes to the decrease in the population growth
rate and alleviates population pressure. Thus, net migration from less devel-
oped regions to more developed regions exceeded 94 million people during
19502010.12
In the context of the global tendency of a decrease in the population growth
rate, the developing regions are at the initial stage of this decrease while in the
developed countries the rate of natural population growth is often negative.
For this reason, the migration potential in developing countries remains high,
11 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (unhcr), Populations of Concern to

unhcr (New York: unhcr, 2015).
12 United Nations, International Migration 2013.
while developed countries are dependant on the inflow of immigrants to with-

stand local population aging.
I wish to highlight as quite important that international migration is not
only a source of increasing the whole population size but at the same time it
has a positive impact on its age and sex structure, bringing higher reproductive
standards.
In the 1990s the latter argument was used in the replacement migration
concept which emphasized the potential of international migration from
demographically younger regions to compensate for negative demographic
trends in the older receiving states.13 Whether replacement migration is
able to solve problems of population aging in developed countries is a scien-
tific problem which requires further discussion. Taking into account stable
negative trends in demographic development (first of all, population aging) in
developed countries, the number of immigrants required to replace them
seems too big. Some forecasts inform us that the European Union (eu) coun-
tries, in order to compensate for the aging of their labor-active groups, need
to import annually 12.7 million immigrants until 2050! Russia, to provide a
stable number in the labor-age population, needs to admit annually (up to
median forecast) about 700,000800,000 migrants (net migration) and gradu-
ally increase this number up to 1.51.7 million by 2025.14
In the 21st century depopulation trends and population aging will make inter-
national migration a non-alternative factor of population growth in the majority
of developed countries. In this context, not only does the impact of immigration
on population size in receiving countries need to be considered, but also (and
what is more important) fundamental shifts in the reproductive behavior, gen-
der, age, and ethnic structure of the populations in receiving countries due to
inflow of immigrants from distant regions also need to be considered.
Dual Character of Migration Policy
The dual character of migration policy is the main tendency of the modern
development of international migration of population that summarizes all the
above-mentioned trends. I also should emphasize that, in regard to interna-
tional migrants, a stricter and particularly regulative migration policy needs to
be observed.
13 Ibid.
14 United Nations. Replacement Migration: Is it A Solution to Declining and Aging Populations?
(New York, United Nations, 2000).
96 Aleshkovski
At the contemporary stage of globalization three levels of migration policy

can be identified: international, regional, and national (at a country level).
Duality of migration policy is clearly seen at each of these levels: at the inter-
national level (as confrontation of purposes and efforts of international orga-
nizations and national interests of certain countries), at the regional and
interstate level (as a combination of liberalization of the migration regime by
means of transparent borders within regional unions and restriction of
migration policy toward migrants from third world countries), and at the
national level (as contradiction between demographic and economic interests,
on the one side, and reasons for political and social security, on the other side).
International Level of Migration Policy

The core of the international normative framework on international migration
is constituted by agreements, recommendations, and other legislative acts
which are adopted at different meetings and conferences, conducted under the
auspices of the largest international organizations, mainly, the United Nations
and its agencies (unfpa, unctad, unhcr), International Organization for
Migration (iom), and International Labour Organization (ilo).
The Compendium of Recommendations on International Migration and
Development, published by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of
the Secretariat in 2006, defines to what extent the adopted documents should
provide guidance to governments to promote co-development initiatives in
international migration management.15
To conclude an overview of the migration policy at the international level, I
should also emphasize a special feature in the attitude of the international
community toward the problem of international migration: it was always
viewed as a function of changing political, economic, and social conditions.
However, throughout all those discussions on migration issues one can notice
three key lines: (1) the lack of adequate and full data on migration, (2) the lack
of a comprehensive theory explaining migration, and (3) partial understanding
of aggregates of interrelationships between migration and development.16
15 United Nations, Compendium of Recommendations on International Migration and

Development: The United Nations Development Agenda and the Global Commission on
International Migration Compared (New York: United Nations, 2006), 9598.
16 Global Commission on International Migration (gcim), Migration in an Interconnected
World: New Directions for Action (Geneva: Global Commission on International Migration,
2005), accessed April 8, 2015, http://www.queensu.ca/samp/migrationresources/reports/
gcim-complete-report-2005.pdf.
The dual character of the international migration policy lies mainly in the
fact that the interests of the international community and international orga-
nizations often conflict with the national interests of individual states. As a
result, many documents and resolutions adopted at international conferences
do not come into force because only a small number of participant countries
ratify the agreements.
Regional Level of Migration Policy

Regional cooperation for the management of labor migration can be divided
into formal mechanisms of regional integration (migration policy as a compo-
nent of regional integration), regional inter-state agreements (migration policy
in the framework of inter-state agreements within a region), and less formal
mechanisms such as regional consultative processes and other informal
arrangements.
The dual character of the migration policy is expressed in two aspects. The
first is that under the conditions of actively developing processes of the
regional integration in the modern world, we witness liberalization of migra-
tion policy, the appearance of transparent borders in the framework of
regional unions, and the provision of the freedom of movement to the popula-
tion and labor force among the member countries across the internal state
borders of those unions. On the other hand, many countries adopt increasingly
strict measures toward migrants from third world countries as a result of dif-
ferent aspects of national security (including a fight against the threats of
international terrorism and protection of the national labor markets).
The second aspect is that the interests and goals of integration unions, in
general, may not be similar to and can even conflict with the interests of indi-
vidual member states. For example, the position of Great Britain since the very
beginning of its membership in the eu (1973) was special, which later was
reflected in the fact that this country did not sign the Schengen Agreement.
Another example is the North-American Free Trade Agreement (the United
States, Canada, and Mexico), giving a lot of a freedom of movement to citizens,
including labor migrants between the United States and Canada; however, the
possibilities of labor migration from Mexico to those countries is significantly
limited.
National Level of Migration Policy

At different stages of the history, different components of the government
migration policy (emigration or immigration) predominate and define this
migration policy during a definite period.
98 Aleshkovski
In the special u.n. publication on demographic policy (World Population

Policies Database), one chapter is devoted to different national government
views and state policies on international migration. Currently only 1% of sov-
ereign countries do not regulate the levels of immigration, while 45% of coun-
tries do not have any emigration policy.17 At the same time, all developed
countries have immigration policies. Therefore, the immigration component is
the main one in the modern migration policy. The immigration policy is
becoming predominant under modern conditions in the framework of which
governments are interested to know who the arriving migrants are: their
nationality, profession, qualification, age, family status, etc. These characteris-
tics receive special attention taking into consideration the labor market situa-
tion and demographic tendencies, as well as national security aspects.
The duality of the migration policy is expressed in economic, demographic,
and geopolitical contradictions. For example, the economic development usu-
ally requires liberalization of the migration policy, while the interests of
national security often ask for a stricter policy, which could be vividly seen
after the events of September 11, 2001 in the United States.

In my opinion, governments need to realize that the legitimate field of inter-
national migration and rational use of the skills of migrants can be provided
by a reasonable strategic migration policy that would impede the triumph of
atavistic nationalist hatreds over economic logic.18 The latter is particularly
topical for the Russian Federation.
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(New York: United Nations, 2013).
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standards/relm/ilc/ilc92/pdf/rep-vi.pdf
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region_tendentsii/.
chapter 7
Internal Anarchy in Russia as an Obstacle for

National and International Security (After the
Dismantling of the Soviet Union)
Abstract
This essay addresses extremely up to date issues, because the anarchist trends today
have become widespread in the world, including Western countries. Between the end of
the 1990s and until fairly recently, very little has been published on anarchism in the
West. In recent years, however, many new books have been published as anarchist ten-
dencies have begun to develop extensively in different places around the world. The
author analyzes the role anarchism played in the Russian post-communist experience
of the late 20th century. This essay demonstrates the importance of anarchist tenden-
cies after the collapse of the Soviet Union and puts them into the context of pre-political
and post-political forms of consciousness that ignore the role of the state in maintain-
ing social order. The author argues that Western scholarship and politicians confused
anarchic with democratic tendencies in Russia and encouraged anarchist Russian
development. In contrast to the opinion that Russia pursued the democratic path,
which prevailed in 1990s in Western countries, the internal anarchy of Yeltsins Russia
stopped institutionalization of democracy in the country and, at the same time, played
an important role in increasing international anarchy.
Keywords
Yeltsins Russia former Soviet Union internal anarchy anarchy in international

relations security the West
A central issue of security discussions in international relations is the problem

of international anarchy. Both neo-realists and neo-liberals consider the world
community essentially to be anarchistic. The neo-realist reasoning stems from
the absence of central authority, or central power, in this sphere. The anarchis-
tic system provides an individual state only with individual solutions for its
self-security issues. For neo-liberals international anarchy stems from a lack of

102 Fedotova
international institutions. Anarchy for them is a kind of order. Anarchy is not

equal to chaos and can help to erase certain institutions and provide opportu-
nities for cooperation.
Representatives of the sociological paradigm (constructionists and institu-
tionalists) take into account the arguments of neo-realists and neo-liberals;
however, their own understanding of international anarchy is much more
sophisticated. The main source of anarchy in their opinion is the negative indi-
vidualism of states, or their negative identity, which is a result of contradic-
tions between the self and others. This problem limits opportunities for
providing institutionalization and the neo-liberal hope of founding self-help
on the basis of cooperation. From the sociological point of view states are
indifferent to the relationship between their own and others security
Competitive and individualistic systems are both self-help forms of anarchy
in the sense that states do not positively identify the security of self with that
of others but instead treat security as the individual responsibility of each.1
Cooperative security systems are in contradiction to competitive and individu-
alistic ones. In this system of security states identify positively with one
another so that the security of each is perceived as the responsibility of all.2 In
the sociological sphere anarchy is not only an absence of central authority or a
lack of institutions but also a negative identification concerning others. The
last feature of anarchy is an obstacle for socialization, cooperation, and
competition.
All efforts to create a positive collective international identity point toward
internalization and institutionalization of foreign affairs. However, quite a few
obstacles are present along this path: unstable regimes, dictatorships, environ-
mental problems, interstate tension, migration and refugees, local wars, terror-
ism, proliferation of nuclear weapons, national conflicts, unsuccessful social
transformation, economic and political crises, low levels of development,
uneven transformation, an inability to articulate national interests, a lack of
rationality, a crisis of national identity, internal anarchy, etc. Furthermore,
anarchy in international relations increases with the appearance of non-
rational subjects whose norms and values are changeable and whose institu-
tions are weak and do not allow the international community to determine a
stable reaction to their behavior.
Russia was not a proper example of the rational-state-actor model of inter-
nal and external policy in 1990s after the dismantling of the Soviet Union.
1 Alexander Wendt, Anarchy is What State Makes of It: The Social Construction of Power
Politics, International Organization 46:2 (Winter 1992), 400.
2 Ibid.
Internal Anarchy in Russia as an Obstacle 103
Russian political power was then very difficult to define as a state power. I
would like to discuss Yeltsins Russia as a non-rational, unpredictable political
subject. In this respect one can focus on the internal anarchy in Russia, which
stopped the institutionalization of democracy in the country and played a
certain role in increasing international anarchy.
In the anarchic state people never agree to the legitimatization of any
authority and power. Anarchism is a negative form of individualism rejecting
not only authority but also the interests of the others. It is an ideology of life on
a basic subsistence level, which allows to a certain degree elements of direct
democracy.
The best way to illuminate Russian anarchy is to analyze the social basis of
the Yeltsin regime, especially at the time of 1996 election. The paradigm of
Russian history then was the swelling of the state and a thinning of the popula-
tion. These facts were not doubted; so, why did people vote for Yeltsin in that
election? Mass media and scientific literature provided a simplistic explana-
tion of the Russian political situation by portraying it as bipolar: democratic
reformers on one side and communist anti-reformers on the other.
This scheme entails two polar-opposite explanations of the outcome of the
election campaign:
(1) The communists explained Yeltsins victory as a fraud: the people were
cheated;
(2) The democratic camp explained the result of the elections quite differ-
ently: the people had chosen freedom.
No doubt many citizens were cheated. Nevertheless, a part of the population

voted for Yeltsin because they made their choice for freedom by understanding
anti-communism as freedom. The bulk of the population that voted for Yeltsin
had chosen freedom not as a way to democratic development but as a way to
free will, a natural state providing them the opportunity to do what they chose.
Technical intelligentsia, engineers who had lost jobs, used their newly
acquired freedom to grow potatoes in small lots of land. Scientists who
received ridiculous salaries became street vendors. Former military officers
started working illegally as taxi drivers using their own cars. Ten million shut-
tle-traders visited three main points, Istanbul, Beijing, and Warsaw, buying
consumer goods and selling them at Russian bazaars. A growing number of
young people used the new freedom for criminal purposes.
Without much difficulty, one can see that all those people, including
criminals, demonstrated vividly survival instincts and a kind of vitality. All
of these people lived for basic subsistence; they did not pay taxes, and they
104 Fedotova
did not follow the law. A typical image of these people can be sketched. For
example, a middle-aged woman depicting her past as a chief-manager for
constructing food-processing factories might note she loved her previous job
and commanded a higher social position. However, under the pressure of
the new circumstances she changed her occupation and started to be a street
vendor. She felt the difference in social standards. In response to the ques-
tion of whether she would prefer to return to her previous job, she might
answer definitely not, providing the following explanation: My former job
was more prestigious but very responsible and demanding. Only under
socialism are people ready to work hard and to devote their lives to their
work. Capitalism gave a lower social standard but also a lot of benefits. We
do not have to wake up early in the morning. Our new jobs are less time-
consuming, are absolutely removed from the sphere of governmental regula-
tion, and no special responsibility is demanded. Other people would give
similar answers, noting that they were ready to fight any centralized authority,
democratic or communist, if it attempted to assert control over individuals
and ask them once more to submit to orders from above. They might say that
they were afraid of Communists, not because of concentration camps, but
because the Communists would push them into jobs on factories and col-
lective farms.
We can believe, like liberals, or not believe that these people who follow
only their free will, negative individualism, self-help, or self-protection can
produce new social relations and new institutions. Nevertheless, the situation
is one of anarchy, if not that of Max Stirner,3 then that of Peter Kropotkin4if
not individualistic anarchy, then a cooperative kind.
David Held discusses the problem of the difference between democracy
and anarchy in a very illuminating way.5 In his opinion a new polarization of
democratic theory emerges between the New Right and New Left wings. The
New Right (neo-liberal) image of democracy includes a free market economy
and a minimal state. The New Left ideal of democracy is based on a libertarian,
anarchistic, and Marxist understanding that Held refers to as participatory
democracy.
3 . . : , 1994. [Max
Stirner, The Ego and His Own (Kharkov: Osnova, 1994).]
4 . . , . , .
(: , 1990). [Petr A. Kropotkin, Modern sci-
ence and anarchy, P.A. Kropotkin, Bread and freedom. Modern science and anarchy (Moscow:
Pravda, 1990).]
5 David Held, Models of Democracy, 2nd ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).
Both poles of democracy at some point meet one another. So, liberal democ-
racy in Russia in reality existed in radical or revolutionary form. Russias liber-
als were transformed into radicals after the first Russian Revolution of 1905.
Russian liberal revolutionary thought received strong criticism in the famous
book Vechi.6 The result of this Russian liberalism was the same in 1990s. As
Held notes the New Righthas been concerned to advance the cause of lib-
eralism against democracy by limiting the democratic use of state power. The
complex relationship between liberalism and democracy is brought out clearly
in this confrontation, a confrontation which reminds one forcefully that the
democratic component of liberal democracy was only realized after extensive
conflict and remains a rather fragile achievement.7 According to Held partici-
patory democracy is a counter-model to the legal democracy of the New Right.
The core of the first is rejection of subordination in society and the demand to
be free and equal. It leads to the rejection of social structures and the natural
diversity of people. Social classes and strata, social and political institutions,
vertical mobility of people as well as gender, race, age, etc. do not matter for
participatory democracy. Freedom, according to this position, can be found
only in the realm of society and the state. Participatory and direct democracy
cannot replace bureaucracy, but can be a model of everyday behavior.
Serious discussions in scientific literature are devoted to the problem of the
degree to which participatory democracy, and especially anarchy, brings vital-
ity out of society from a pre-social, natural state. The result is that both models,
neo-liberal and participatory democracy, are unable to produce democracy as
a form of state and society. One form of participatory democracy is still anar-
chy. One can easily recognize a meeting between liberal and participatory
democracy at a point where anarchy is not a pre-social but a social statea
natural state that is a possible form of society. As theorist Will Kymlicka stated,
The idea of a state of nature does notrepresent an anthropological claim
about the pre-social existence of human beings, but a moral claim about the
absence of natural subordination amongst human beings.8 It was a central
idea of Russian democracy which led again (after communism) to greater
attention to the ideal of equality than to the ideal of a democratic society. This
phenomenon was a new expression of a national claim to equality but this
6 , , , . . . :
, 1991. [Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergei Bulgakov, Mikhail Gershenzon, et al, Milestones. De
Profundis (Moscow: Pravda, 1991).]
7 Held, Models of Democracy, 254.
8 Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2002), 62.
106 Fedotova
time not in a sense of distributive equality but as liberal equality. This claim
involved the idea of real equality and the idea of a freedom that creates diver-
sity among people and a social structure that would enable people to live
according to their own free will at a basic subsistence level, because only in a
state of nature are people equal in status. So, while the ruling liberal elite in
Russia provided libertarian ideas instead of democracy, the population pro-
vided anarchy, which was a natural state, as a pattern of democracy.
In the 1990s even the West recognized Russia as a democracy. However, the
relation between anti-communism and democracy was glossed over in this
evaluation. In reality, Russia was a traditional society that was partially mod-
ernized and partially destroyed. An oligarchy existed at the higher 1evel and
anarchy on the lower one.
The differences in oligarchic and anarchic democracies are the form of the
state, government by people, the diffusion of power, and the institutionaliza-
tion of conflict. Democracy can exist if people are rational and are ready to
give up some part of their interest in exchange for receiving other benefits. If
people do not behave this way, then at least the government needs to act ratio-
nally in order to ensure democracy. The classical formula of freedom is: people
can act as they want so long as they take into account the equal rights of other
subjects. Anarchists consider freedom to be an unlimited opportunity to act as
they want. Anarchy is a kind of participatory democracy.
Some people in Russia and the West suppose that these forms of govern-
ment are better than communism and can be a precondition for growing
democratic institutionalization. The point needs to be emphasized that this
form of order demonstrated the vitality of the Russian population as well as its
creativity. On the one hand, basic subsistence is normal for even the lowest
social level of society. On the other hand, one can say that this situation is only
possible if society maintains its structure and fulfills the creation of its frame-
work. Sociological theories have identified at least four levels or functions of
society. According to Talcott Parsons society has levels such as adaptation, goal
attainment, integration, and latency (preserving cultural patterns). In contem-
porary Russia the adaptation of only one of these levels and the absence of
others makes the situation pre-social. 4050 million people (the number given
by the well-known sociologists Igor Kljamkin and Tatiana Kutkovets9) lived at
9 , (
),
170171 ( 2002). [Tatiana Kutkovetz and Igor Kliamkin, New people in the old
system (a modernist project of development for the Russian society has not been offered so
far), Novye Izvestia 170171 (September 2002)] (in Russian).
a pre-social level, and the majority of these people comprised the social basis
of Yeltsins regime. All existing institutions in Russia are working for adapta-
tion. For example, Russia has taken a significant part of its educational pro-
gram from Western universities, has introduced the disciplinarian structure of
the Western universities, and has moved to the Western model of degree levels
for students. Russia adopted everything from the Western educational system
with one exception: it did not take one of the main features of Western educa-
tion, namely, the opportunity to produce a middle class, which has disap-
peared in Russia as well as the line of vertical mobility.
The 1991 revolutionary movement chose democracy as an opportunity to
create a better life. Later, when life for the masses became increasingly worse,
the intelligentsia supported Yeltsin most of all. However, before the election
campaign, a February 1996 approval rating of the president registered at only
6%, and in June 1996 a new social basis of the regime was formed that was
created by people who lived in pre-social anarchic self-determination at a
basic subsistence level. Their slogan was: Yeltsin forever. This view is illus-
trated in the previously discussed example of street vendors. Nevertheless,
the chance for democratic institutionalization in Yeltsins Russia was very
small because of the absence of subjects who would be able to create this
institutionalization.
So, my diagnosis of the Russian situation is that a great number of people
lived then in a pre-social state, at a basic subsistence level, and through anar-
chistic self-help. The Russian people had at that time a security system in
which the state had a negative identification. At the same time, the social basis
of the regime was people who viewed the state negatively. Finally, to provide
democratic institutionalization meant to break up this social basis. An invest-
ment in democratic institutionalization would have worked against the regime.
At the extreme would be Hobbesian war of all against all. We had not experi-
enced it is only because we lived in a pre-social way and did not try to create
institutions other than at the adaptation level. This situation could have
become terribly unstable and terribly dangerous. Russia had and caused then
personal, social, and international lack of security.
National Identity and Interests in the Security System
According to Alexander Wendt, the pre-social state is not only the result of an
absence of central power and the weakness of institutions, but also the result
of a lack of collective identity and a non-rational understanding of interests.
Social norms are responsible for definitions of identity and interests and are
108 Fedotova
connected to the security policy of the nation. Norms represent the collective
expectations about proper behavior for a given identity.10
Development of a predictable international policy requires the creation of
institutions on the basis of national identity and interests. Identity is pro-
foundly important for understanding who we are and what we need. Without
this particular identity the state cannot recognize which international system
it belongs to, cannot act predictably, and cannot internationalize its foreign
policy. Under the conditions of deep social transformation, identity becomes
problematic and the sociological perspective becomes more heuristic than
either the neo-realistic and neo-liberal theories.
A lack of identity is the main sign of anarchy and disorder, as well as an
absence of a working social system that would be able to cooperate with oth-
ers. A very important point is that neither power nor institutions can provide
identity and interests; on the contrary, identity and interests can create power,
military security, and institutions. For this reason, overcoming anarchy requires
the ability of power and institutions to involve part of the population living in
an anarchistic pre-social state to create a new sociality in order to raise partici-
patory democracy to another level. This process is a subject for the neo-realists
and neo-liberals because this process requires strengthening central authority
and institutions.
From the sociological point of view institutions are identified not only with
their foundations and offices; primarily they are establishments. According to
Wendts definition, an institution is a relatively stable set or structure of
identities and interests.11 Such structures are often codified in formal rules
andnorms, but these rules and norms have motivational force only in virtue
of participants socialization and participation in collective knowledge.
Institutions are fundamentally cognitive entitles that do not exist apart from
participants ideas concerning how the world works. Wendt follows Peter
Berger and Thomas Luckmanns conceptions of the social construction of real-
ity in which collective identities creating society and collective cognition is a
precondition for identity and national interests. Clearly, Russia had several
obstacles to collective cognition: our fear of any kind of ideology, constraints
on peoples behavior, and the manipulation of everyday life. At the same time
we had ideology. This ideology was one of negative mobilization: do what you
want to do. The vitality of anarchy, the natural state, pre-social order, and basic
10 Ronald J. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter Katzenstein, Norms, Identity, and
Culture in National Security, The Culture of National Security, Peter Katzenstein, ed. (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 54.
11 Wendt, Anarchy is What State Makes of It, 399.
subsistence was an obstacle to reforms and democratic institutionalization, to

individual and national security, and to Russias participation in an interna-
tional system of security. In an anti-anarchistic model of international security
an amalgamation of significant collective knowledge is present concerning the
goals and interests of social participants. Anarchy cannot produce collective
identities. Wendt says, intersubjective knowledge that constitutes competi-
tive identities and interests is constructed every day by processes of social will
formation.12 It is what states have made of themselves; so, this view is a demo-
cratic theory of social order. According to it, overcoming anarchy does not
mean a transition to an authoritarian regime; rather, anarchy is a precondition
of it as was the case in the Weimar Republic. Overcoming anarchy in demo-
cratic societies was possible not only with the help of creating social institu-
tions but also by forming intersubjective knowledge and, on this basis,
establishing collective identities and interests. Under the preponderance of
anarchy, national interests could not be protected or even articulated because
anarchy is a pre-political state. Without understanding national interests,
internal and external policy was doomed to be unpredictable and security can-
not be established because no ground to support it is present.
In spite of the help that anarchistic practices lent toward the destruction of
Communism, they were dangerous for building democracy in Yeltsins Russia.
First, they were neither modern nor democratic; they turned the country to
early feudal internecine war. Second, the existing relatively long anarchistic
practices started to be an obstacle for positive transitions. At the same time
they themselves did not produce a social construction of reality according to
the Berger and Luckmann point of view.
Anarchy in international relations can produce internal anarchy in the same
way that internal anarchy can produce international anarchy. A model of anar-
chy in international relations can provide an explanation of internal anarchy.
An analysis of internal anarchy is methodologically significant for an under-
standing of international anarchy. Inequality of people as well as the diversity
and plurality of their interests can have consequences, which resemble conse-
quences from the inequality of states.
A reduction of governmental functions to violence and compulsion in
Russia was connected to important historical experiences. However, rejection
of democratic institutionalization of legitimate compulsion can produce com-
pulsion without legitimization and a predominance of articulated private
interests over public goods and public freedom.
12 Ibid., 410.
110 Fedotova
Russia in the Global Community
Not only Russia, but also the whole world passed through transformation in
the 1990s. Many explanations can be given for the essence of these processes,
and a lot of disagreement exists among the scientists who are trying to under-
stand the transformations. Not only answers for a great number of questions
but even the questions themselves were under review: Are we living in a uni-
polar, a bipolar, or a multipolar world? Is the world increasingly divided into
zones of peace among prosperous states at the center and zones of war
between poor states on the periphery? Is the risk of war rapidly increasing in
Asia while it remains negligible in Western Europe or is the reverse closer to
the mark? Is the main cause of war on the periphery the excessive strength or
the deplorable weakness of states? Is ideological conflict between states in the
international system diminishing or increasing?13 No ready answers to these
questions are available because the transformations of the world as a whole
are ambivalent in many aspects; therefore, the development of these processes
can be different.
Consideration of the connections between Russias transition and the
worlds transition makes the overall situation very complicated. The attitude in
the West to Yeltsins Russia is very different. Of several approaches to it, I shall
consider three.
1. Russia is weak today but has the potential to rise again and be dangerous to
the West. The West needs to neutralize its efforts to become stronger (Zbignev
Brzezinski and his school). The extreme position here is Brzezinskis sug-
gestion in his recent work about Eurasian geopolitics that Russia should be
divided into three partsEuropean, Siberian, and Far Eastern.14 People can
notice the transformation here of an anti-Communist position into anti-
Russian one. Was this approach the only way to stop anarchy and criminal
developments? This division could not produce a homogeneous space and
would reproduce a lot of the conflicts of the former Soviet Union and Russia.
Historically, breaking up Russia could not be legitimized and would create
radical forms of Russian nationalism that were not influential in the 1990s.
A second group of American scientists and politicians came up with a
better idea.
13 Peter J. Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).
14 Zbignev Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic
Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997).
2. Russia is weak and Russias weakness is dangerous. The West needs to help
Russia overcome the situation with a kind of Marshall plan that would
support democracy (George Kennan, Robert Tacker, Robert Legvold, Peter
Reddaway). I agree with this position.
3. The third group of scientists and politicians, which has no idea of Russias
future and how to develop Russia, advocates another position exagger-
ating certain events. Their position eventually begins to resemble the
above-mentioned first position.
Russia was very weak in those days. However, several features improved its
position in the eyes of the West: (1) it had a pro-western government, and (2) it
did not have an anti-western population. The Soviet Union was dismantled in
order to be a member of the Western family.
The West was in a very good position in those days; it was satisfied with the
status quo and with Western globalization that maintained the status quo.
Russia was ready to promote this status quo if the West would help Russia to
become one of the developed countries instead of moving it to the periphery
of the world.
A lot of other countries did not and do not promote the status-quo. The next
century will be century of Asia. natos expansion has been seen to be a very
important problem, and the new century would bring another world. China is
becoming a leader of the world economy and will demand a new world order.
The most serious resistance to globalization under western conditions will be
the Islamic movement. Ernest Gellner has shown that Islam provides the great-
est challenge to the West because it has ability to become a world political
system on the basis of an identity of traditional villages.15
Russia was then ready to be an ally of the West. What its position will be in
the Century of Asiain the 21st centuryis still up to the West.
Bibliography
, , , , . . .
: , 1991. [Berdyaev, Nikolai, Sergei Bulgakov, Mikhail Gershenzon,
etal. Milestones. De Profundis. Moscow: Pravda, 1991.]
, . . .. .
. : , 1990. [Kropotkin, Petr A. Modern
science and anarchy. Kropotkin P.A. Bread and freedom. Modern science and anarchy.
Moscow: Pravda, 1990.]
15 Ernest Gellner, Religion and the Profane News Letter (July-October 1997).
112 Fedotova
, .
(
). 170171 ( 2002). [Kutkovetz, Tatiana and
Igor Kliamkin. New people in the old system (a modernist project of development
for the Russian society has not been offered so far). Novye Izvestia 170171
(September 2002).]
, . . : -, 2005.
Fedotova, Valentina G. Good society. Moscow: Progress-Traditziia, 2005.
, . . : , 1994.
[Stirner, Max. The Ego and His Own. Kharkov: Osnova, 1994.]
Brzezinski, Zbignev. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic
Imperatives. New York: Basic Books, 1997.
Gellner, Ernest. Religion and the Profane. News Letter. (July-October, 1997), x-xv.
Held, David. Models of Democracy. 2nd ed. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.
Jepperson, Ronald L., Alexander Wendt, Peter J. Katzenstein. Norms, Identity, and
Culture in National Security. The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in
World Politics, P.J. Katzenstein, ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996),
3378.
Katzenstein, Peter J., ed. The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World
Politics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
Kymlicka, Will. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford
Wendt, Alexander. Anarchy is What State Makes of It: The Social Construction of
Power Politics. International Organization. 46:2 (1992), 391425.
chapter 8
The Change of the Elites in Modern Russia

Yakov A. Pleis
Abstract
This essay gives the rationale behind new political and administrative elites in Russia.
Four main reasons for this phenomenon are given. The first reason is that a combina-
tory or a composite establishment that emerged in Russia in the post-Soviet period has
actually fulfilled its historic mission. The second reason is that the inconsistent forma-
tion of a political and administrative elite in Russia in the 1990s has led to the estab-
lishment producing an unsatisfactory result. The third reason is that the profound
changes in the Russian social strata that have occurred over the years have produced a
new generation of outstanding individuals. The time has come to give them access to
the political and administrative elites. The fourth reason is that the current establish-
ment cannot effectively and efficiently manage the huge natural resources of the coun-
try. Another important point discussed in the essay concerns the specifics of the
establishment formation process in different political systems. Each of the systems has
its advantages and disadvantages. The author concludes that the current political and
administrative elites in Russia should immediately become engaged in the process of
replacing the elite with an establishment that is more appropriate and professional.
Keywords
elite political-administrative elite elite changes political systems transformation

Russian Federation
One of the key reasons for Russias very protracted transition period is, in my
opinion, the lack of harmonization between the characteristics and the com-
position of our political and administrative elites and the task of the Russian
transformation. Before proceeding to the topic indicated above, one should
answer the question: why does modern Russia need a new elite class? Before
answering this question, however, one needs to determine why todays elite or,
say, the old elite class (if you need a new one, you have an old one) does not fit
in this country. In my opinion, the reasons are the following. First, todays com-
bined elites that have been formed by the fusion of the Soviet Communist

114 Pleis
Party elites, the nomenklatura elite, and the so-called elite class of the transi-
tion period. This third group is composed of a business elite that includes a
criminal or para-criminal segment and an elite class proceeding from law
enforcement and similar agencies. These groups have actually fulfilled a his-
toric mission that mainly consisted of ensuring that the revolutionary stage of
transition, that is, the stage of transition from socialism to capitalism, pass
without catastrophic consequences, specifically without a civil war or a col-
lapse of the country. We cannot say that the elites have managed to deal with
this problem satisfactorily. The result was, at best, a very poor one, and it was
gained primarily due to community efforts and divine providence and not the
efforts made by the political and administrative elites. However, actively pur-
suing their own (often selfish) interests, this elite class still ruled the country
resolving its pressing issues, albeit not always in a good manner.
Those involved in management during this period had fairly uncertain goals
and objectives that were rather distant from the special Russian national
matrix.1 This fact removes (to some extent) the guilt for the systemic errors
made during the transformation period of the Russian political elites. The
main error was an inaccurate assessment of the state of Russian society and its
matrix and, consequently, the underestimation of the role of the state and its
dualistic principles. This error was corrected in the 2000s with great difficulty,
and we keep correcting it today. This correcting happens because the manage-
rial elites have been split. One part of the elites still considers a Western liberal
model to be its role model, while the second part has realized that you have to
be a national loyalist, that is, you have to refrain from breaking away from the
social matrix. Yet another part is inclined to choose the way of convergence
and search for a third way. In addition, a cosmopolitan part does not care
about national interests if a personal benefit can be obtained. As an initial
step, we should get rid of this fifth column. Then, we should dispose of the
first part of the elite class.
The second reason why todays elite does not fit, which also causes a change
inthe elites, is that todays elites were formed in an unsystematic and, in fact,
1 Many scientific and other works describing the characteristics of this matrix have been pub-
lished. See, for example, Yakov A. Pleis, Political Modernization of the Russian Society: The
Status Quo, the Main Trends and Prospects, Russian Civilization: Specific Features and Ways
of Modernization (Reports and Speeches of the Interuniversity Research Conference, October
1718, 2001), Yakov A. Pleis, ed., 930 (in Russian); Yakov A. Pleis, The Conceptual Value-
Related and Ideological Foundations of Social Sciences and Humanities and Russias Entry
into a Single European Higher Education Area, Formation of Political and Historical Attitudes
in Future Economists: Experience, Issues and Prospects, Yakov A. Pleis and N.A. Razmanova,
eds. (Moscow: Financial Academy, 2010), 930 (in Russian).
The Change Of The Elites In Modern Russia 115
spontaneous manner that, consequently, had poor results. The time has come to
create a new system of formation for both political and administrative elites that
should be capable of modernizing the country while not breaking away from the
roots.
Finally, the third reason for the change in the elites is that because of the
profound changes in the Russian social strata that have occurred over recent
years during the transformation period, the social strata are ready to produce a
new generation of outstanding people who understand the interests of these
strata sufficiently well and are ready to become the stratas representatives and
defenders. For this reason, the time has come to create social lifts of all sorts to
give them access to the elites. The characteristics and operations of these elites
will be discussed below. In concluding my opening remarks, I must say that
Russia has found itself in an unusual situation associated with elite formation
in the past two decades. Russia has never been in such a situation not in the
period following the October Revolution that acted as a fierce whirlwind and
cut down all the political and administrative elites found in tsarist Russia that,
at root, were considered to be alien and hostile to the new class and not even
in the years of perestroika. In fact, every social revolution fulfils the goal of
changing the elites since the new ruling political class that seizes power should,
by definition, build new elites representing this class and put it on a pedestal.
In 1991, when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the power of the
Soviets collapsed, the ruling party and nomenklatura elites needed to give way
to the new elites that represented a new class in accordance with the laws of
social revolution, but this transition never happened. Why? First of all, this
class was virtually non-existent. The new strata and interest groups that began
shaping proactively in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s (especially different
kinds of co-operative workers) did not yet constitute a class. They could not
even structure themselves politically or identify their elites that after seizing
power could become the political and administrative elites.
In this situation, the party and Soviet elites and its Komsomol aides took on
a new life or were reborn, or, more precisely, quickly regenerated and played
the part of a substitute for the new elite or played the part of the new elite
which was supposed to grow out of the new class. The substitute actually
proved to be a bad surrogate that combined the characteristics of the old elites
that wanted to adapt themselves to the new reality. The situation could not
have developed otherwise. However, one could hardly tell one thing from the
other in the times of great disturbances, and back then understanding what
should be done and in what way was very difficult.

116 Pleis
In the first place, the new elites have never been systematically and conceptu-
ally trained, and a variety of social lifts that now and then break down and stop
cannot cope with the issue of forming the new elite either. Besides, no one really
can imagine which ideological and political characteristics such elites should
have to clearly understand where to lead the country, how to reform it, etc.
The issue is actually very complex. Until now, no country in the world
(including countries with such a complex history as Russia) has made the tran-
sition from socialism to capitalism or perhaps to some other social and politi-
cal system that has as yet no name. Therefore, nobody can know for sure which
elites are needed and in which way they should be formed. Nevertheless, they
clearly should be elites of a new type (or, if you like, elites of a new sort or
generation) elites that are ideologically unbiased and have solid patriotic
principles and high creative potential and that are open-minded and have the
ability to identify the useful innovations in domestic and international prac-
tices (and the ability to assess them and creatively use them in their own coun-
try). To act accordingly, the elites should have fundamental knowledge of a
wide range of subjects, should undergo a careful selection procedure by par-
ticipating in democratic competitions aimed at checking compliance with the
requirements set, etc.
Our experts in political science and, above all, eliteology (the study of
elites) could and should offer useful theoretical and practical assistance in this
situation. Hopefully, the time for this assistance will come. I would like to draw
a conclusion at this point and raise a few questions. The conclusion is that
Russia needs the political and administrative elites of the new type, but the
question of their characteristics needs to be asked. Who should train them?
How should they be formed? What should be the role of political science and
eliteology in this case?
The answer to the question of who should train the new elites follows.
Now, as we know, we can observe the completely unsystematic, if not cha-
otic, aftermath of the destruction of the old Soviet senior management train-
ing and advanced training system. I have written elsewhere about the
characteristics of the training system, the way it worked, and its advantages
and disadvantages.2 The most important of all the questions concerns who
2 See, for instance, Yakov A. Pleis, The Transformation of the Elites in Periods of Transition
and Its Specific Features in Modern Russia, Political Science and the Period of Transition in
Russia, Yakov A. Pleis, ed. (Moscow: Russian Political Encyclopedia (rosspen), 2009),
279296 (in Russian); Yakov A. Pleis, The New Project of Reform of the Ruling Elite in Russia:
the Content and the Prospects, Democracy, Power, Elite: Democracy vs Eliteocracy, Yakov
A.Pleis, ed. (Moscow: Russian Political Encyclopedia (rosspen), 2010), 87112 (in Russian).
should train the new elite members and how they should do so. As far as I
know, no one has yet answered this question.
Before I offer my ideas on this issue, I should note that eliteologists have not
looked into the issue of training or changing elites in different political systems
and in different civilizations each of which obviously has its own elite forma-
tion characteristics by either using fundamental science techniques or using
the starting point of a first approximation at the answer. I am referring, first of
all, to theoretical research, although practical investigation is also important,
of course. If we add here that the civilization and nation specific features asso-
ciated with the historical experience overlap the political system characteris-
tics, we should see how complex this issue is for researchers. We should not
forget about the transition period in the political system development that
leaves its mark on the elite formation process and characteristics. After all, as
should be clear, each political system has its own elite formation laws and
mechanisms (such as a parliamentary republic system). These points confirm
that resolution of the elite formation issue is objectively hard to find, and con-
ducting such research is also difficult. In parliamentary republics, the domi-
nant political parties that have established elite formation mechanisms play a
major part. These mechanisms include identification of the most promising
candidates for inclusion into the narrow circle and multiple aptitude tests for
vertical and horizontal promotion. The parties are a personnel pool for the
elite formation in any political system. However, a fundamental difference in
the elite formation in different political systems is the difference in elite forma-
tion mechanisms and principles.
In totalitarian systems, hardly any social impact is made upon these mecha-
nisms and no community scheme is in place to be used to control the elite
formation processes and their activities. Being vertically promoted and inte-
grated, these elites have their advantages (for example, a high degree of con-
solidation) and disadvantages (for example, a low level of creativity), and this
situation makes them virtually unable to compete. In authoritarian systems,
mechanisms, principles, and rules of totalitarian and democratic systems are
used in various proportions, and the elite formation process could become
open to public view before becoming non-transparent, but what transpires
depends on the situation.
The situation in Russia in the first decade of the 21st century is a clear con-
firmation of the statements above. After the countrys top leadership realized
that the non-transparent integrated vertical promotion mechanism in elite
formation that was used in the special transition period has serious drawbacks,
it decided to make the process more transparent. Reintroduction of the gover-
nor, city mayor, and the regional election-based Federation Council member
118 Pleis
election system, despite the filters installed (for example, the municipal
deputy support scheme), makes the Russian elite formation process more
democratic and transparent. I think that over time this greater transparency
will make our political elite not only more competitive, but also more respon-
sive to community interests and needs.
Elites are formed and operate with the participation of these institutions
and under their vigilant control in developed democracies with a mature civil
society and free media. In this way, the country ensures that it has the appro-
priate highly qualified and competitive elites. Despite all the shortcomings
that are inherent in democratic institutions (such as their multilayer struc-
tures, the complexity of their mechanisms and procedures, their high costs,
and their long decision-making process), the elite formation process and the
impact made by such democratically formed elites are significantly higher
than that observed in totalitarian and authoritarian countries. This difference
is primarily due to their professionalism, efficiency, and ability to solve
problems.
Now, I would like to present some ideas about the elite formation and for-
mation of new elites in todays Russia.
I have already mentioned in the articles cited above that in the period of
transition from one system (ideological, political, economic, foreign policy,
etc.) to another system that lacks a certain development vector and where
many rules are observed pertaining to the stage of wild capitalism, the elites of
all types are not formed in a civilized manner, that is, according to certain
rules, as is the case in developed democracies, but develop in accordance
withthe will of the opposing power-seeking forces. The forces that do not pro-
claim their goals openly are also included here. Therefore, in the 1990s, for
example, the oligarchs and businesspeople, including semi-legal business
owners and criminals, often had the final say in the formation of various gov-
ernment branches at various levels and, consequently, in the formation of the
political and administrative elites.
Quite naturally, one may raise the question: can one possibly call these
people the true elite, who by definition should be the best members of the
public, be patriotic, and work in good faith for the benefit of their society and
the state? A significant part of the Russian elite of the 1990s (and of a later
period) was far from this type, and therefore those people should not be
defined as the elite members. This point, by the way, is what many analysts
used to say and what they think now.
However, many people used to believe and still believe a class of elite mem-
bers exists, since, by definition, the nation cannot exist and cope without it. As
for the characteristics of the elite and its compliance with the generally
accepted standards observed in theory, all depends on what kind of elite the
society is capable of generating. As the saying goes, like country (like society),
like government (and, therefore, the elites).
Nevertheless, an important point needs to be made here. If the elite forma-
tion mechanisms are non-transparent, the community members in fact have
no impact upon the formation process. The fault lies with the political and
administrative elite top layer that sets out the elite formation principles, rules,
and standards and generates and adjusts its mechanisms.
Another very important point also needs to be made here. Three groups, not
two groups, always compete in countries in transition. They are the true elites,
the counter-elites, and the anti-elites. The first two groups have patriotic atti-
tudes, but they see national development in different ways, and the third group
has antipatriotic attitudes. Such a situation has been observed in Russia for a
long time (virtually throughout the last two decades). Two elite groups, the
ruling elites and the counter-elites, always compete in countries with a well-
established political system. Nevertheless, the competition is aimed at cre-
ation, not destruction.
After they occupied the key positions in the economy in the early 1990s,
these forces gained almost total domination over the national government.
Here one should find sufficient the recollection that, according to some esti-
mates, about one third of the State Duma deputies at that time used to be
people with criminal records. I think the situation in other government
branches was not any better. The former Communist Party and state nomen-
klatura representatives reigned but did not rule. We should not forget about
the omnipotent foreign (mostly American) advisers who gave instruction on
how to build a new Russian democracy and so many other things in virtually all
fields. One further important point needs to be made here. The political elites
are not uniform in any country and at any time, but the level of consolidation
is different in different systems. The highest levels of consolidation are
observed in totalitarian systems for many reasons. Firstly, this fact is due to
elite member selection principles and rules, especially in senior management.
Such elites are formed on the basis of the principle of ideological and institu-
tional loyalty to the leader and unity. Those elites consistently identify ideo-
logical dissidents and potential opponents and get rid of them. They often
destruct them physically. Therefore, these elites are cemented not just by loy-
alty, which is often fanatical, but also through the fear of punishment for dis-
sent or disloyal actions. Fear is the second and telling elite characteristic that
acts as cement for the totalitarian elites. The third characteristic is the desire to
become a missionary, to remain in the history of the nation, the country, and
even the world to become heroes and to stand out.
120 Pleis
These elites have important and large advantages over others. Highest ideo-
logical unity and institutional consolidation leads to a high degree of concen-
tration of its imperious will, which forms the basis for the prompt and coherent
measures that are taken and that are perceived by the public as the only cor-
rect measures that are subject to enforcement. For this reason, some of the
complex issues related to economic and social development are resolved dur-
ing a short period of time. Another reason is that the maximal concentration
of political will is accompanied by the high concentration of a variety of forces
and resources in the strategic development areas. The result is an explosive
effect that convincingly shows the public that the steps taken on the national
level are correct. The steps taken include defining the course of development,
the methods used for problem solving (including hard and cruel ones), and the
force harnessed, and the sacrifices that are perceived by the majority of people
as natural and inevitable. In such a situation, the witch hunt, the identifica-
tion and prosecution of enemies of the regime and the working people, and
their isolation from the society in prison and even physical destruction (think
of the Death to Spies slogan) are justified and supported if not by the major-
ity of people, then by a large part of the nation.
However, despite the progress achieved, the maximal concentration of
forces and means inevitably leads to public overload, weariness, and, as a
result, frustration, and then to the emergence of a covert and overt opposition
force.
This situation naturally leads to a decrease in the rate of development and
then to stagnation. In a global competition of social, political, and economic
systems, the totalitarian system begins to falter and eventually loses the fight.
This result makes the ruling elite (primarily, political and administrative) iden-
tify the cause of what happened and search for the internal and external
reserves to rectify the situation.
A growing shortage of the reserves (especially internal) exists in this situa-
tion. The government has to use the external reserves that are often available
on unfavorable terms. The strangling effect of the systemic crisis loop becomes
more pronounced.
Wearing the ideological and political blinkers of the totalitarian system
being afraid of discarding them in a radical manner and accepting the values
of a different, more efficient systemthe elites start to act in a disorganized
manner, split into factions, and inevitably make all sorts of mistakes and mis-
calculations which aggravate the situation even further. The elites have to
stealthily and then openly discard the usual dogma volens nolens (willing or
not), break the established rules and regulations, and introduce new ones.
These new rules are borrowed from the regimes that demonstrate the best
results, and they seem logical. The system collapse inevitably leads to discred-
iting the ruling elite, the growth in the elite internal antagonism, and an open
competition between the elite groups and eventually to system change, which
often occurs via revolution that is often followed by a civil war. The situation
observed in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s is a clear confirmation of these
points.
What is the new elite that replaces the former? This question is the most
important of all. If some other, alternative forces gradually become mature
within the old system, and, as a consequence, the leaders of the forces begin
claiming power after accumulating the relevant potential, then these forces
and their leaders are not only willing, but are also able to take power into their
own hands and lead the nation and the country at the peak of the systemic
crisis.
However, if such forces do not become mature, and no other elites (counter-
elites or anti-elites) exist, the mixed or combined elites replace the ruling
elites. These elites consist partly of noisy people, that is, crooks who feel that
their time has come and they can make money, and partly of the semi-legal
business owners and criminals. In general, in a situation of disunity, and, more
specifically, in the period of great disturbance, the power is taken by force by
mainly the anti-elite group members, for many of whom the words patrio-
tism and national interests are unacceptable terms. Relying on the increas-
ingly scarce internal resources and forced to resort to external forces and
means, these elites quickly get dependent on them and begin to dance to their
tune. The situation observed in Ukraine in 2014 clearly confirms this point.
This development, of course, does not bring about anything good. The crisis
becomes more aggravated, and inevitably the time comes for yet another
change of elites. Having tasted the sweetness of the rulers pie and having felt
the charm of the power, the anti-elite groups that are dependent on many
people do their best to stay in power. Various elite groups and clans begin their
covert and overt struggle for life in this situation. If the anti-elite groups come
to power and have no idea of where to lead the country, how to transform it,
and how to rule it efficiently, the result is very big trouble for the country.
The situation is totally different if the counter-elite groups are legal and
legitimately operate in the country. Operating within the current system and
having no intention of making a revolution and changing the system, these
elites seek power to correct internal and external policies and the countrys
development vector in order to overcome the crisis and stabilize system opera-
tions and move on.
For this reason, the counter-elites that are similar to the opposition mem-
bers operating within the system are exceptionally valuable and beneficial for
122 Pleis
any country. This role is a possible scenario only in a mature democracy, civil
society, and political culture.
The above theoretical calculations and ideas may seem abstract, but if one
recalls what happened in the late 1980s in the Soviet Union in the period of
perestroika, in the 1990s and the 2000s in Russia, and what is happening now
in Ukraine, the abstract will become real and solid. Looking through the pages
of history textbooks and special elite research papers should be sufficient for
seeing the validity of the statements above. This point is correct because, when
making my conclusions, I had in mind the things that had been happening
over the last 25 years.
In summary, I want to draw attention to the fact that the ruling elites always have
an elaborate composition in any period of transition in any country. The ruling elite
was and, to a large extent, still is particularly elaborate in todays Russia.
The former (the party and state nomenklatura) elites mix with counter-
elites and anti-elites, regenerate and adapt to circumstances, and focus on dif-
ferent values, and they will permanently be in a state of shakeup and reform.
The situation will be like the one I have described until Russia identifies new
ideological and political values (or, in fact, a new public ideology) and then
builds a new political system and a new elite training and formation system in
accordance with the ideological principles identified.

The ideas I have expressed are theoretical and, perhaps, even abstract. I have
only one goal, the goal of attracting the attention of Russian and foreign politi-
cal scientists to political theory in general and, in particular, to eliteological
theory of the period of transition, as well as to the issues associated with the
formation of the new generation of elites in the countries in transition.
I have often spoken at research conferences and roundtable discussion ses-
sions and said that the Russian eliteology experts paid very little attention to
forming their own theoretical framework of political science and usually
referred to the fact that the theoretical foundations of any science were univer-
sal. I often argued that this rule could not be applied to the social sciences and
humanities. This rule only applies to the natural sciences and exact sciences.
I do not want to start the same discussion again; I can only note that a
unique theoretical framework of Russian political science that takes the pecu-
liarities of our society and state and the historical experience into account
should not be developed in isolation from (and should not ignore) the theories
available in the field of political science in other countries, both western and
eastern, since certain similarities in different societies and civilizations do
exist. This point relates to resolving the complex issue of combining and
linking the national matrix to international theories and defining the role of
the former and the latter when solving problems in theory and in practice.
All of these issues have been described in my review of master and doctoral
theses on topics related to eliteology, published by the Donizdat publishing
house in 2013.3 The preface to the review has been partly reproduced here and
includes the following points.
1. Many authors examine the historical development of the Russian elites but
this examination is not enough. When doing research into elites, one should
move to a new level of theoretical examination, namely, Russian eliteologists
need to generalize the theoretical information collected earlier and identify
the patterns in the elite formation process and operations in the special
Russian conditions.
First, the classical theories of Robert Michels, Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo
Pareto, and Niccol Machiavelli were created long ago (one hundred years ago
and earlier), and, second, they were created on the basis of a very different
experience. Today they are hardly applicable. With this fact in mind, we need
to identify the laws governing elite formation and operation in different (totali-
tarian, authoritarian, and democratic) political systems and take the different
specific features of civilizations, the historical experience of peoples, etc. into
account. We need to identify what is common and what is specific in the elite
formation process and their operation in different systems.
2. Special attention should be paid to transition periods, the causes and conse-
quences of these processes, to developing evidence-based recommendations,
and to defining how the elites should operate in societies in transition with
different development vectors, including a reverse vector.
3. More attention should be paid to the regional elites and ethnic elites, espe-
cially in the republics and, in particular, in the Caucasus. They seldom examine
them now, especially in the Trans-Urals region.
In conclusion to my mostly theoretical examination, I can note the
following.
Todays Russian elites have to understand one very simple truth, that is, if
the elites do not identify and perform the task of systemically replacing the
existing elites with more appropriate and professional elites, other forces that
3 Yakov A. Pleis, Russian Elite. Review of the Dissertations of Russian Political Scientists, (Rostov-
on-Don: Don Publishing House, 2013) (in Russian).
124 Pleis
grow out of the social revolution will perform the task. The price to be paid for
the change will be much higher in this case compared to the scenario in which
the elites act voluntarily and without procrastination, and they clearly tend to
procrastinate because no elite in the world wants to be replaced.
If a country has strong and competent counter-elites, the changes occur
naturally in a crisis, but if no counter-elites exist, the changes occur in a way
that makes a dramatic or tragic impact upon the ruling elites. History has
proven this point repeatedly. A natural change is much preferable to a revo-
lutionary change for any society. Therefore, the situation is an either-or, that
is, either todays political elites identify the task of replacing the elites with
more competent ones and initiate and structure the process, or other forces
will perform the task, and they will do so in the way this process usually
happens at the time of social revolution, that is, they will act like a whirl-
wind and cut down the elites at the root. Obviously, the first scenario is not
only preferable, but it is the only scenario that should to be used because
Russia will not survive yet another social revolution. The Soviet Union did
not survive it. We have actually exhausted the limit of social revolutions in
the 20th century.
Bibliography
Pleis, Yakov A. The Conceptual Value-Related and Ideological Foundations of Social

Sciences and Humanities and Russias Entry into a Single European Higher
Education Area. Formation of Political and Historical Attitudes in Future Economists:
Experience, Issues and Prospects, Yakov A. Plyais and N.A. Razmanova, eds. (Moscow,
Financial Academy, 2010a), 930. In Russian.
. Democracy, Power, Elite: Democracy vs Eliteocracy. Yakov A. Pleis, ed. Moscow:
Russian Political Encyclopedia (rosspen), 2010b. In Russian.
. The New Project of Reform of the Ruling Elite in Russia: the Content and the
Prospects. Democracy, Powe,. Elite: Democracy vs Eliteocracy. Yakov A. Pleis, ed.
Moscow: Russian Political Encyclopedia (rosspen), 2010c, 87112. In Russian.
. Political Modernization of the Russian Society: the Status Quo, the Main
Trends and Prospects, Russian Civilization: Specific Features and Ways of
Modernization (Reports and Speeches of the Interuniversity Research Conference,
Moscow Financial Academy, (October 1718, 2001a). Yakov A. Pleis, ed., 930. In
Russian.
. Russian Elite. Review of the Dissertations of Russian Political Scientists. Rostov-
on-Don: Don Publishing House, 2013. In Russian.
. The Transformation of the Elites in Periods of Transition and Its Specific

Features in Modern Russia Political Science and the Period of Transition in Russia.
Yakov A. Plyais, ed. Moscow: Russian Political Encyclopedia (rosspen), 2009a,
279296. In Russian.
, ed. Political Science and the Period of Transition in Russia. Moscow: Russian
Political Encyclopedia (rosspen), 2009b, 930. In Russian.
, ed. Russian Civilization: Specific Features and Ways of Modernization (Reports
and Speeches of the Interuniversity Research Conference, Moscow Financial
Academy (October 1718, 2001b). In Russian.
and N.A. Razmanova, eds. Formation of Political and Historical Attitudes in
Future Economists: Experience, Issues and Prospects. Moscow: Financial Academy,
2010. In Russian.
chapter 9
America and Russia: A Multipolar World as an Echo

of Fear before Future Unification
Abstract
During the middle of the 20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union led
opposite camps in a bipolar world. America and Russia, evolving to dominate over half
the world, offered two very different models for what society can and should be. While
America entrusted its fate to individual enterprise and independent personality, Russia
proposed a model selflessly devoted and obedient to the supreme power. The ques-
tions arise: what type of person more effectively expands the boundaries of an empire,
and what type of person more successfully develops the economy and scientific-
technological achievements? At the beginning of the 21st century, we can appreciate
the results of this competition. After surviving two world wars, the world moved
cautiously in the direction of planetary unity. So, the world needs to understand clearly
the type of person on which to rely in order that the processes of globalization might
facilitate historical optimism.
Keywords
human beings personal interest personal independence democracy freedom

power strong leadership
In the current Russian press, in analytical articles on economics and politics,

Russia is still frequently viewed against the majestic background of the United
States. So, a natural question arises: Why? As concerns the most radical scien-
tific, technological, and military aspects of development, why is Russia still
compared to the United States of America, the richest country on earth? Why
not compare it with, say, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, or even Pakistan or
Indonesia? Such countries provide a wealth of possibilities for comparison,
although on a more modest scale. Besides, such a comparison would be more
honest than rekindling a dream that has not come true.

America and Russia 127
At first look, the answer seems obvious: mere inertia. A little more than
two decades have passed since the time that the United States was consid-
ered to be our (that is, the Soviet Unions) main strategic opponent, when
our public mind was dominated not only by the idea of parity (an illusory
one), but also, which is even worse and more frightening, we thought, under
someones strong influence, that our difficulties were temporary, that our
socialist way was great and righteous, that tomorrow or a couple of days
later we will overcome our problems and get the upper hand. The whole
world would accept our values and rule in accordance with the only true
and scientific doctrineCommunism. Challenging the United States, we
were challenging the entire world. However, in the 70s and 80s only the dim
witted could still think in that manner. The really intelligent ones never
thought that way. Now, by the second decade of the twenty-first century,
what should we discuss? Inertia? In fact, we are still engaged in a phantom
battle against the United States, the chief force of the accursed and materi-
alistic West. Therefore, even when the countrys administration announces
that the United States comes out as our main partner in the war against
global evilterrorismsome still see a secret, dubious, and vile meaning
in these words, something like a pale smile on the face of a defeated prize-
fighter who cannot help thinking of revenge.
A second and more profound response is needed. What is the purpose of
this phantom battle? What are the bets in it? If we, as sound-minded and
civilized people, consider the United States from a critical yet benevolent
standpoint we cannot help noticing that this attitude is rooted only in the
superficial layers of our consciousness. Of more importance is education and
upbringing and a certain set of general democratic concepts, as well as an
inclination for elementary analysis. After all, the United States is the most
powerful democratic state, which, notwithstanding errors and blunders,
really fights for human rights. If we go somewhat deeper into the collective
unconscious, everything is reversed. On this deeper level the battle contin-
ues non-stop. The democratic habits and the superficial basics of good
behavior are disintegrated into dust. For what purpose are such primeval
shadows imposed upon us?
Yes, sometimes our conscience works too hard. We cannot deny we com-
peted for world dominance, competed with the worlds ideologies, and sought
confrontations with national elites. At the same time, on the surface, at the
level of habitual culture, this tense opposition is disguised in mountains of
words and phrases: geographical discoveries, pioneers, Pilgrim-Forebearers,
world trade, colonies, dominions, assistance to underdeveloped nations,
unions, alliances, defensive or liberating wars, and so on.
128 Katsura
However, we get a different answer if we ask in relation to geopolitics (for

which the issue of the development of free human beings is parenthesized),
how many countries, civilizations, and cultures are subconsciously or con-
sciously striving for world domination? Also, how many did so in the past?
Each concrete historical period has such claimants. In the recent past the
United States and the Soviet Union competed; half a century earlier, Germany
attempted it. At the moment the United States stands out proudly, while we
observe other hopefuls, such as China and the European Union. Perhaps, world
domination also may be the aim of the Islamic world, but Islam is fragmented
both politically and religiously.
Germany and Japan cannot now lay claim to world domination since they
lost the Second World War and are now integrated into the economic, political,
and military system of the West.
The last one to lose this Great War (in its protracted, cold version) was
Russia. Has it ultimately dropped out of the number of pretenders? The West
might like to think so. Indeed, has not the time come to break in this trouble-
maker, to spruce up this shaggy, cranky country and show it an honorable yet
modest place among other civilized, that is, tamed, countries? Such a refur-
bishing, much to the Wests regret, has not yet occurred. This untidy, disjointed
country with its crushed economy, destroyed finance and culture, and weary
from waging war in a number of its southern regions (against itself?) is still
resisting. Or, such is the appearance prior to the events of September 2001,
which changed many things. At least initially, the top administration in Russia
decisively took a strategic course toward the democratic West.
To predict what will happen in the future is not possible. One can imagine
various scenarios. The following initiates a search for the deep logic in current
events.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, the French historian and diplo-
mat Alexis de Tocqueville, reflecting on democracy in America, attempted a
comparison between Americans and Russians:
The American is at war with obstacles offered by nature whereas the

Russian fights against human beings. The former fights the wilderness
and barbarity, a different and fully armed civilization; therefore the
Americans conquests are made by the plow of a tiller of land, while those
of the Russians are made by the sword. To achieve his goal the former rely
on their personal interest and use their physical strength and intelli-
gence, yet the latter concentrate, so to speak, all the strength of society in
one man. For one, the main means of action is freedom; for the other it is
obedience. Their starting points are different and so are their ways.
However, each one of them is destined, probably due to the secret will of
providence, to hold in his hands the fate of half the world.1
Tocquevilles work (originally published in French in two volumes in 1834 and

1840) was not published in Russian until 1897. So, the Slavophiles, a movement
at its inception then, had not read these lines. Nevertheless, deep coincidences
and concerns for the soul of Russia and its historical perspectives are evident
in this writing. Concentration of power is fundamental to the Russian dream.
History shows a procession of strong leaders embraced by an ecstatic popula-
tion, all too willing to obey one strong leader. In the past, Russians adored a
prince or a tsar and later succumbed to leaders of the people, such as Lenin,
Stalin, Khruschev, and Brezhnev. Then came Andropov who was followed by
the reformers Gorbachev and Yeltsin and now the rising star of Putin.
Russians have changed very little. This constancy calls for thought and analy-
sis. Can Russia abandon its longing for strong leaders? Is the longing for the
concentration of power in our nature? Strong leadership is efficient, mon-
strously efficient. However, is such efficiency what we need now?
Before exploring this intriguing question, let me return to de Tocquevilles
comparison between America and Russia. Friedrich Engels predicted Americas
bright future more than 50 years after de Tocqueville. Engels predicted that if
America introduced free trade, then owing to enormous natural resources and
the intellectual and moral potency of Americans, in a decade the United States
of North America would surpass Britain on the world market. Engels made
that statement following the presidential elections of November 8, 1892, which
enabled the Americans to shake off the yoke of the British monopoly and open
a path to free trade. According to Engels, the produce of Britains industrial
markets, especially textile and metal-producing ones, would be forced to com-
pete with American industry and would suffer defeat.2 A student of Marx,
Engels was an excellent economist, and this aspect of his prediction has proven
correct. He was a good socialist, but a poor prophet. He believed the fall of the
protectionist strategy in America would lead to the victory of socialism in
Britain. As for Germany, something different was expected. He reasoned that
German industry, too, would inevitably be drawn into competition with the
1 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Harvey Claflin Mansfield and Delba
Winthrop (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000); [ , :
, 1897, . 340.].
2 Friedrich Engels, The American Presidential Election, originally published in Vorwrts
(November 16, 1892), accessed June 16, 2015, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/
works/1892/11/16.htm.
130 Katsura
United States, the youngest and strongest nation of the world. According to
Engels, Germany would attain neither socialism nor economic heights. Engels
cast a cursory glance at Russia, but he never believed in its economic possibili-
ties. Russia interested him from the viewpoint of its military and strategic
situation.
As for de Tocqueville, we cannot overlook the fact that for the first time in
history (1835) he raised the question of a future bipolar world. He foresaw
Russia and the United States as these poles. However, the poles were already
forming within different and broader dimensions. For the first time the calcu-
lations set aside the great European civilizations, including Britain, France, the
once great Spain, the still active Holland, and the awakening Germany.
The limitless expanse of North America was sparsely settled in 1830 with
only 12 million inhabitants, and de Tocqueville predicted that the population
would grow more than 10 times by the middle of the next century. Some guess!
In 1950, the United States had 150 million residents. Similarly, the vast expanses
of Russia were poorly settled at the time. However, the rate of growth (over 2%
a year) doubled the population every 35 years so that 40 million (during
Pushkins time) had turned into 160 million within 70 years. In the first years of
the twentieth century Russia began to show the worlds highest rate of eco-
nomic development. If this trend had remained steady, by mid-century Russia
would have had over 300 million residents and more than 600 million by the
end of the century. With its highly developed technology and vast riches,
Russia might have become a world center of industry, trade, and culture.
The stormy events of 19171921 (the February Democratic Revolution, the
Bolshevist totalitarian coup detat, and the devastating Civil War) cancel such
forecasts concerning Russia. The grievous Bolshevist experiment, which lasted
70 to 80 long years, undermined the biological strength of the Russian nation.
Russias demographic growth in the entire twentieth century proved small and
insignificant as the background of the apparent decline of the populations
physical and moral health. To climb out of this pit may take 35 to 40 years.
Of course, de Tocqueville, an aristocrat, a conservative, and a convinced
opponent of the French Revolution, could not foresee this turn of events in
Russia. He lived in a pre-Marxist time, dying in 1859 at the age of 54. When his
book on democracy came out, the seventeen-year-old Karl Heinrich Marx was
finishing school in Trier and preparing to study law and philosophy in Bonn. de
Tocqueville refused to know or hear of socialism and could not foresee its
expansion into the Russian Empire. Instead, when he examined the funda-
mentals of democratic society, he came up with the following conclusions:
Democracy means the cooperation of independent individual persons and not
some impersonal state organized mass of people. His appraisal of the Russian
person, who is prepared to entrust his or her individual capabilities to a leader,

contained a hint of future crisis. Russia would inevitably plunge into a horrible
and bloody pit, which permitted only two ways out: either a new national inde-
pendent person would be born and offer Russia hope for a dynamic future, or
the country would withdraw to poverty and remember the national legend of
its one-time might.
At this juncture, we need to consider the inner impulses of communist
expansion during its last phase. The ideological and geopolitical activity of the
Soviet Empire always made the West and the rest of the world uncomfortable.
The Wests view of the Soviet Unions campaign in Afghanistan in 1979 was
absolutely wrong. In fact, this campaign was the convulsive move of commu-
nist civilization nearing its disintegration. Western strategists feared the
strengthening of Russias geopolitical position. They worried that by socializ-
ing feudal Afghanistan and dissecting Iran and Pakistan, the Soviets might
reach the warm ocean where they would be able to build cities, airports, and
harbors. A Russian communist empire might emerge which could exceed even
that of Genghis Khan. At the same time, on the expanses of South-East Asia,
the Soviet Union might have had a neutral and friendly India and a militarized
and friendly China under the control of the pro-Russian communists. Only one
problem would have remained unsolved: the subordination of Western Europe.
In this context I cannot help saying something about the dubious role and
sad fate of Marxs doctrine. The profound nature of Marxs works, his teaching
and reflections on human freedom, the freedom of a concrete personality, and
its inseparable connection with the freedom of all, contrasts with the rough
and distorted doctrine of communism. During the time of Stalin, Khruschev,
and Brezhnev, the doctrine may suit authoritarian leaders and ignorant crowds.
The masses carry in their collective unconscious the admiration of strong lead-
ership, and crowds develop a cult of personality in which he is us and we are
him. Can such a swoon last? Leaders are mortal. In China, Maos cult of per-
sonality invokes a Homeric metaphor: May Chairman Mao live 10 thousand
years! And what a shock Stalins death turned out to be for the whole nation!
The Russian people were driven to a degree of irrationality.
As early as 1930, Ortega-y-Gasset called communism a false dawn.3 He con-
sidered Russian Marxism a smoke screen to hide the voracious imperial appe-
tite of Russia. This borrowed Marxism proclaimed as its main goal the
emancipation of the working people of the world. What a beautiful aim! With
clearer sight, Friedrich Engels, at the beginning of 1890s in his article The
3 Jos Ortega-y-Gasset, La rebelin de las masas (The rebellion of the masses), Revista de
Oxidente, 1930. [ , : , 1991, . 108.].
132 Katsura
Foreign Policy of Tsarist Russia, bluntly stated that Russias main goal is world
domination. Engels reaffirmed this conclusion by a curious analysis of ele-
ments, which should be remembered.4
Russia was not especially liked and was even feared in Europe. Already in
1825 the Russian Ambassador in London, Prince Khristofor Liven, wrote in his
dispatch from England, Europe looks with terror at this Russian colossus
whose forces are awaiting a signal to start moving on it. Therefore, it is in
Europes interests to support Turkey, this natural enemy of our Empire.5
Sixty-five years later Engels invoked this fear directly: the very fact of the
Russian Empires existence is a threat and danger to us. By us he meant the
West-European workers movement, but one can see from the context that
thecorrect synonym is simply: European. Politicians, in Europe and the United
States, throughout the 20th century, voiced such fears. Some Western intellectu-
als were enchanted with Russia for a time, and hoped for communist transforma-
tions. So, what had to be done? Engels answer resulted from his socialist logic,
interested only in the victory of the Russian revolutionary party. He thought the
Russian revolution would destroy the aggressive Russian pressure and Russias
reactionary nature. He was not alone in nurturing such illusions. The result
turned out quite to the contrary. Communism made Russia more fierce, but I will
come back to this question later. Engels himself has quoted an expert on Russian
diplomacy, David Urquhart, a Scottish diplomat and writer who maintained for
about fifty years that every European liberal and revolutionary was the conscious
or unconscious tool of Russia.6 Engels views this contention with irony.
However, while de Tocqueville did not fear Russia, the English did. So did
the socialist Engels, who in an article in the 1890s, reminded that already in
1848 Marx had been the first to stress repeatedly that the West-European
Workers Party would have to wage a deadly war against Tsarist Russia. Would
anything change if a Tsar is substituted with a General Secretary? And what an
historical irony that Hitlers party was called the workers and socialist party!
Engels picked up Urquharts idea in its own way. This is what he wrote in the
above-mentioned article:
Russian diplomacy forms a kind of the Order of Jesuits, a sufficiently

owerful order to overcome, if necessary, even the Tsars whims and
p
4 Fredrich Engels, The Foreign Policy of Tsarist Russia. Die Neue Zeit 5 (May 1890). In English
language journal Time (April-May 1890).
5 Khristofor Liven, The Letters of Count K.A. Liven. Russkaia Starina Vol. 141, No. 2. (1910).[,
X.A. .. . T. 141, N. 2. (1910).] in Russian.
6 Citation is from Friedrich Engels, The Foreign Policy of Tsarist Russia, 51.
corruption At first this order was formed mostly from foreigners:

Corsicans such as Pozzo di Borgo, Germans such as Nesselrode, Ost-See
Germans (Liven); its founder Catherine ii (the Great) was also a foreigner
It was this clandestine society, at first recruited from foreign adventur-
ers, which led the Russian Empire to its present might. With iron-willed
persistence, tirelessly pursuing the set goal, without stopping at whatever
treacherousness, betrayal, murder, groveling, graft, not carried away by
victories and not despondent in the face of defeats, stepping over millions
of soldiers dead bodies and at least one royal one, this band, both unscru-
pulous and talented, more than all Russian armies helped expand Russian
territory from the Dnieper to the Dvina and on beyond the Vistula to the
Prut, the Danube and the Black Sea, from the Don and the Volga beyond
the Caucasus, to the sources of the Oksus and the Yaksartazh. It was this
band which helped make Russia a great empire, powerful and fear instill-
ing, and helped open for it a way to world dominance.7
By the way, after Engels quoted words not more than three decades would pass
until the band (that is its semi-literate and equally persistent followers),
enlisting still more foreign adventurers in their ranks and calling themselves
the Comintern (a term that would have been quite a surprise to Engels), would
win half the world. What would Engels say to the expansive borders of mid-
twentieth century Russia, or Russias influence on China, or its infiltration in
Africa and Cuba? What would he say about the significance of the miserable
Straits in the age of Sputniks and ballistic missiles? What would he say hearing
Khruschevs insolent words addressed to America and the entire West: We
will bury you? Poor Khruschev meant to say, We will bury capitalism, a social
system, a certain abstraction of productive relations, and establish socialism
worldwide. The West heard only a threat of war. The ballistic missiles on Cuba
confirmed those apprehensions.
As a result we see that the basic conclusion from Engels analysis has
remained intact: the confidence of Russias elites in Russias destiny to liberate
and emancipate the world or, which is the same, to capture, win, and dominate
it. Vast Russian resources were wasted on this illusory goal. They undermined
not only the national economics but also the biological forces of its peoples.
Russias foreign policy was far fetched; however, the world took it seriously.
The provincial, isolationist, wealthy, and technically savvy United States
with its naive and stilted idealism took the challenge. And, the appetite comes
during the meal. America began to realize that it must rule the world.
7 Ibid.
134 Katsura
No doubt, America is a marvelous country. However, the American model

is neither an ideal, nor is it universally acceptable. Neither the Japanese with
their Asiatic family-clan system nor the Chinese in Taiwan nor the South
Koreans nor the Malaysians imitate it blindly. These systems have their own
specific and distinctive national features. The same is true for Russia.
Another question remains. What is the purpose of this boundless torment
of world conquest? Why this unquenchable thirst? Is it simply trivial plunder-
ing like that of primitive tribes?
Engels thought so. He called Russias attempts to move beyond the tradi-
tionally Russian (East-Slavonic) territories sheer plunder. However, we Russians
know that it is not so. Notwithstanding imperial aggression, Russia has hardly
ever plundered anybody, at least undisguised. In Moscow, and in St. Petersburg,
we find no evidence of plundering colonies. We do not have imperial construc-
tions built at the expense of Ukrainian, Baltic, and Central-Asian resources.
Buildings in the Parent State have never been cluttered up with Bukharas gold
and carpets or kitchen utensils from the Caucasus and the Baltic region. No
warehouse-museums of captured objects of art exist; each exhibit in the
Hermitage was purchased.
A strong messianic feeling in the Russian consciousness is not an invention.
The idea of communism seems to have come at the right time and drove this
slightly cooled off feeling into a new turn.
World domination: this subject belongs in discussion of Rome. Rome regu-
larly conquered new territories, using blunt military campaigns to conquer
more and more territory. Nevertheless, Rome, while sending legions as far as the
Celtic islands and Dachian provinces, failed spiritually. Its emperor, Constantine,
realized this fact too late.
In the work of medieval Russian writer Nestor Iskander, A Tale of the
Capture of Tsargrad by the Turks, the downfall of the Second Rome is pre-
sented with providential power as an historical turning point.8 Half a century
later, the Grand Duke of Moscow, Vassily iii, collecting Russian lands, joined
the city of Pskov to Rus. Then the modest monk of the Yelisarov Monastery in
Pskov wrote to the Duke that he, the Duke, was an heir to the great emperors
and so henceforward his city would be the world center and stronghold of the
true religion.9
8 Nestor Iskander, A Tale of the Capture of Tsargrad by the Turks, accessed June 16, 2015, http://
wps.pearsoncustom.com/wps/media/objects/2427/2486120/chap_assets/documents/
doc9_4.html.
9 Philotheus (Filofei), MoscowThe Third Rome [ ], accessed June
17, 2015, https://www2.stetson.edu/secure/history/hy308C01/filofeithirdrome.html.
The Third Rome is cracking. Dissolved in the communist doctrine,

Christianity at first was the motive force, but it proved short-winded. Will our
present return to Orthodox Christianity save the situation? And are the claims
of the Russian Orthodox Church to having the full truth of Christ justified?
In this context, contemporary Russian philosopher Karl Kantor has quite an
original and sufficiently deep theory with regard to the modern and future
states of Marxs doctrine. He views Marxism, the genuine one, as the latest edi-
tion of the fundamental Christian ideology of peoples equality in freedom and
creative choice. Kantor shows with thoroughness and in detail that the real
Marx was never an opponent but a creative follower of the cause of Christ. He
is today the third edition. As for the second edition, it was the great art of
the Renaissance, which took the baton from the Catholic Church. The specific
language of the Renaissance expressed the relationship between the world,
human beings, and God thereby preserving the light of the truth of Christ.
In 2002 Karl Kantor published The Double Spiral of History, and he builds on
specific messianic traits in Marxism but also sees how in the peculiar form of
the Marxist doctrine Christianity keeps on spreading world-wide (as an ideol-
ogy, a system of moral principles and reference-points, and not as a religious
institution). For instance, Confucian and Buddhist China would not be able to
adopt Christianity in its canonic form (if only on a limited scale, say, as a spe-
cific Chinese Catholic Church); however, China easily accepted Christian ideas
into its Marxist garment since the ideas found new areas for expansion practi-
cally offering no competition at the level of religious dogmatism.10
Kantors thesis cannot help provoking sharp discussions, but at the same
time it has serious logic. The time for a purely Marxist experiment has not yet
come.
The Russia as seen from within and the Russia as seen from without are
altogether different countries. From a distance, Russia is distained or feared.
Foreigners, who live in Russia for years, frequently fall in love with it. As for the
Americans, in their films they still portray the Russian as treacherous, cold-
blooded, and infinitely cruela conqueror who, if not curbed, will stop at
nothing. Alas, Russian life does have cases of unjustified and unmotivated cru-
elty. However, we refuse to recognize ourselves in these monstrous movie
concoctions.
By contrast, from within, the Russian is a kind-hearted, uncomfortable,
unconfident, and introspective person, a Chekhov character. From afar the
10 Karl Kantor, The Double Spiral of History: A Historiosophy of Projectism. Moscow: Languages
of Slavic Culture, 2002, 280300. [ , .
. : , 2002, cc. 280300.].
136 Katsura
Russian is a persistent, brave, and treacherous conqueror, Stalin perhaps. No

such person exists in Russian literature. In fact Russia has in itself two contra-
dictory principles. Russians talk endlessly of Russian spirituality, of the refine-
ment and profundity of Russian culture, but observers looking from without
see us as backward, aggressive, and enigmatic barbarians.
This contradiction has also been attributed to the Russian Orthodox Church
which, in the person of its best figures, has risen to the highest spiritual peaks
but on the whole is backward, haughty, provincial, and fixated on outdated
ceremonial rituals. It is a church that has long given up its position to the state
and has been immersed in the intrigues of the church hierarchy.
Now, in the present, we watch as our industries are privatized. Those grand-
scale plants, such as that in Magnitogorsk, Norilsk (the nickel-extracting
works), the Krasnoyarsk aluminum-producing plant, and the Lipetsk metal-
producing works were needed. They were suddenly privatized hush-hush and
for pennies by some shady characters who stashed hundreds of millions of
dollars in foreign banking accounts. This situation does not resemble a liberal
market and has little to do with the capitalism of the time of Marx and Engels.
However, in his classical work Marx wrote, The transformationof the pigmy
property of the many into the huge property of the fewthis fearful and pain-
ful expropriation of the mass of the people forms the prelude to the history of
capital.11 One can only guess who he would have in mind today, perhaps Oleg
Deripaska, Mikhail Prochorov, or Igor Sechin?
Will this vulgar capitalism sober up Russia, rid it of its former aggressive-
ness, and drive it (contrary to Lenins logic) to imperialist temptations?
Transnational corporations have retailored the world beyond their state bor-
ders. The importance of the state is dwindling before our eyes. So why, hav-
ing given up enormous territories with populations in the millions, has
Russia caught a fierce hold of the remainders of its long borders? Why
doesRussia refuse to give freedom to small and stubborn peoples living on
its outskirts? What is the explanation? What are the clear and reliable crite-
ria of Russias territorial integrity?
Indeed, why is the Chechen territory more Russian than the Crimea,
Abkhazia, or the Pavlodar region? Of course, the autonomous and long-
suffering Chechnya occupies a key strategic position in the North Caucasus.
Nevertheless, Russia has lost so much that now it does not want to multiply its
losses. Did small Czechoslovakia, dwindling to half its size and turning into the
Czech Republic, lose strategically? It certainly did. However, it did not think
11 Karl Marx, Capital (New York: International Publishers), vol. 1, ed. Fredrick Engels and
trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, Ch. xxxii, 762.
this diminution to be reason enough to start a war against Slovakia. Ottawa

would never have fought Montreal if in Quebec most of the population had
voted for separation. Despite recent votes, will the Scotch eventually separate
from Great Britain? In size, Scotland is much like Denmark. Even their geo-
graphical positions are similar. So why should freedom-loving Scotland not live
separately and the way it likes?
Russias renunciation of communism was accepted benevolently because it
was seen as the rejection of communist imperialism, not as a rejection of the
emancipation the working people of the world. The imperial policy has sev-
eral covering veils, however. Removing the top veil, one will see another one
beneath it. How many of them are there, and how long will it take to get to the
bottom? As for communist expansion, numerous laughable ideas have been
entertained about it. In her memoirs Golda Meir writes how King Feisal of
Saudi Arabia in a private conversation with Henry Kissinger revealed a terrible
secret: communism was invented by the Jews in order to capture Russia and
then, with its help, the whole world. She reports that King Feisal was persistent
in persuading the secretary of state to inform Nixon of this discovery since in
Feisals view the entire world policy depended on it.12
The followers of Abraham and Moses created the most powerful and most
magnificent communities in the cultural and scientific sense; by accident, they
did so in two countries: Russia and the United States. The Jews as the scions of
Abraham, founding fathers of monotheism, are the successors and symbol of
world spiritual unification, naturally with a number of reservations. For exam-
ple, the Arabs can oppose the Israelis, but this possibility does not change the
fact that the Moslems God is Yahveh. No matter how prejudiced the Orthodox
Christians may be against Catholics and Lutherans, they have the same God;
and notwithstanding a variety of ancient heresies all share the God of the Jews.
In Russia and the United States Jews felt cosmopolitan, maybe even the van-
guard of those destined to unite the world. In Russia, Jews paid a high price.
The repatriation of Jews, that is leaving for Israel, looks not merely strange, but
as if going against history. The world is striving for unification while some
countries continue to isolate themselves within their national borders.
Isolationism is practiced not only by Israel but also many countries allied with
the former Soviet Union, such as the former Yugoslavia. How might we discern
the disuniting dialectics of this contradictory process?
So, I return to the problem of polarity. Russias approach to world domination
was doomed. Would we be correct to think that the American way proved not
12 Golda Meir, My Life. Memoirs (Moscow: Biblioteka-Aliia, 1994), 296. [ ,

, : -, 1994, . 296.] (in Russian).
138 Katsura
just more efficient (which can be observed empirically), but, which is more
important, presents itself as the only alternative? This question is not an anti-
American one. It is purely a theoretical and historical question. I should think
that Karl Marx, if he lived today, would not call America (with all its achieve-
ments) a country which is on the level of history. Something in the vectors of
Americas development arouses misgivings. I do not doubt its democracy, its high
technology, the living standard of the American people, their efficiency, and even
the way they solved their ethnic problem. I wish to comment about something
different. As a matter of fact, the American way of development is incompatible
with the ecological future of the globe. Americans are the leading nation in terms
of technological achievements. They have adopted environmental standards;
they cleaned the Great Lakes, have the worlds strictest standards for drinking
water, and so on. In this respect, imitating Americans is worthwhile. However, if
other nations pursue the American level of consumption, a global ecological
catastrophe will ensue and soon. Therefore, we should forgo abstract democracy
and try a complex synthesis of democracy with technological functionality and
pursue the ecological stability of society. How can this looming ecological disas-
ter be avoided? Do we need new cultural, spiritual, and moral reference-points?
Does Americas scope of influence have its own specificity? In the past,
empires used military domination supported by relative cultural and eco-
nomic expansion. Today we see quasi-imperial influence consisting in eco-
nomic dominance ensured by efficient military forces and accompanied by a
cultural and ideological offensive. While in some respects it is a more positive
influence, one question remains open: is this influence the most acceptable
path toward world civilization?
Is the world stable? We have reason to believe that it is not, and already the
world shows a tendency to be divided into two parts. Would a bipolar world be
stable? The cold war is known to all of us. Some politicians talk about a multi-
polar world. Such a model is theoretically possible. This solution might be pre-
sented as a demonstrable theorem which renders equally balanced distribution
of the centers of forces. On the other hand, a multi-polar world may tend to roll
to this or that stable configuration of a bipolar world. In any case we know one of
the combinations from history: the East and the West and between them a vast
transit area such as Russia and on a lesser scale Turkey and perhaps Iran. If the
formation of global civilization is to be a positive process, it should occur without
loosing the cultural diversity of the globe, and by preserving (or even increasing)
the basic values of human existence: cultural specificity and the free develop-
ment of the individual. Freedom is the principle system underlying European
development: the Christian religion, the art and literature of the Renaissance,
and the science of the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries.
Hence, here is a question for the twenty-first century: Is Christianity best

suited to democracy, to the free market, and to the creative individual? Is it the
tenor of the modern ecumenical movement? However, the ecumenists are far
from viewing themselves as something exceptional and openly call for a peace-
ful dialogue with other world religions. Will this dialogue be easy? The growth
of world terrorism and the developments in Central Asia and the Near East
suggest that the effort will not be easy. In this respect the experience of the
United States is especially interesting: witness the freedom and peaceful coex-
istence of churches and sects. America does not have a single state religion, yet
at the same time its presidents would never forget to say, God bless America!
Consider the concept of personality: What is more valuable, some common
utilitarian success (the greatest happiness for the majority of the people) or
the success of the elite, who create their own luck? We seem to have a choice
between the values of elitists or the values of the rank-and-file. At the begin-
ning of the third Millennium the answer to this question is not clear.
Russia became aware of itself as a world leader long ago. Russia expressed
this awareness through the lips of Pskov monk Philotheus (Filofei) (14651542).
So far, it has never doubted its predestined role. Why did Perestroika destroy
the communist empire so rapidly? The substitution of meaning took place and
the strike was not too strong, but it was delivered into the only weak spot, the
crevice between its world mission and its philistine happiness. Average selfless
persons lost their bearings and became confused. What is of more value, ones
own home and garden or maybe that one should rise up in arms and show the
world whats what? What is more important, to steal on a grand scale, or to
liberate the world wearing a ragged coat and holed boots? Russia has been
robbed of its favorite toy, its messianic idea: the dream of liberating the world,
the hope to offer the world, that is, to impose on it, its own (of course, the best!)
world project. No one speaks openly of this dream. Using Sigmund Freuds
classical method it can be detected by taking note of slips of the pen and slips
of the tongue, not only by politicians but also by scientists, writers, religious
figures, activists, young peoples organizations, and by many irrational deeds.
Chechnya is far from being the only example.
Do we have any methods of psychoanalytical treatment of whole nations?
Do we want to be cured? Will it bring us peace of mind? Might we try, instead,
to build a worthy life on the modest territories we have left after the misfortune
of the nineties? One can ask ironically, is it acceptable for Russia to be so
humiliatingly small? Indeed, some meagre 17 million square kilometers! Just
two Chinas! Or two Americas! True, half the Russian territory is an ice desert!
Of course, Russia has an opportunity to achieve universal resonance with its
cultural and spiritual influence, rather than with its military and economic
140 Katsura
might. Russia can restore the authority of Russian literature, art, science, and
the intelligent, profound, and increasing role of the Russian Orthodox Church
in the ecumenical movement.
The remarkable writer and mystic philosopher Daniel Andreyev wrote in
the middle of the past century (19551958):
It is really significant that religious confessions, which were the first to

proclaim the international ideals of brotherhood, are now in the rear-
guard of general aspiration for the universal. Perhaps it can be accounted
for by their concentration on the inner man and their neglect of every-
thing outward, such as the problem of the social activity of mankind.
However, if we look deeper and say out loud what is usually said in the
close circle of people living an intensely religious life, we will find out
something, which is not taken into account by all. Appearing as early as
the time of the Roman Empire, it is the mystic fear of the future unifica-
tion of the world; it is the anxiety for mankind because the united state
always implies a danger of some trap with the only way out, that is, to
absolute autocracy, to the kingdom of the prince of this world, to be the
ultimate cataclysms of history and its disastrous break.13
He wrote these words in a Stalinist jail and could not imagine something more
terrible, severe, and invincible than the godless totalitarian communist empire.
However, if Daniel Andreyev looked closely at the contemporary world, in par-
ticular at the beautiful and wealthy country over the ocean, he would nonethe-
less say these unflattering words againabout the mystic terror of the future
unification of the world. Nowadays we have reason to ask ourselves: Does not
a similar irrational feeling enlist perceptive individuals into the semi-enig-
matic community of anti-globalists?
Is contemporary America ready to fulfill its destiny? Are other countries
(Russia as one of them) ready to offer help in this great venture?14
13 Daniel Andreyev, Rose of the World (Moscow: Klyshnikov-Komarov and Co. Publishers,
1993, 10). [ , - , : 1993, . 10]
(in Russian).
14 Alekander V. Katsura, World Outgoingness or Russian Path to Globalism, Age of
Globalization, 1 (2008); Leonid E. Grinin, Globalization Shuffles the World Cards (Where
the Worlds Economic and Political Balance Shifts), Age of Globalization, 2 (2013); Akop P.
Nazaretyan, Nonlinear Futures: Mega-History, Complexity Theory, Anthropology & Psychology
for Global Forecasting, Moscow: Argamac-Media, 2014 [ ..
, , -, 2014.]
Bibliography
Andreyev, Daniel. Rose of the World. Moscow: Klyshnikov-Komarov and Co. Publishers,
1993, 10. [ , - , : 1993, .
10.] In Russian.
Engels, Friedrich. The American Presidential Election. Originally published in
Vorwrts (November 16, 1892). Accessed June 16, 2015. https://www.marxists.org/
archive/marx/works/1892/11/16.htm.
. The Foreign Policy of Tsarist Russia. Die Neue Zeit 5 (May 1890). In English
language journal Time (April-May 1890).
Grinin, Leonid E. Globalization Shuffles the World Cards (Where the Worlds
Economic and Political Balance Shifts) Age of Globalization 2 (2013), 6378.
Iskander, Nestor, A Tale of the Capture of Tsargrad by the Turks. 2015. Accessed June
16, 2015. http://wps.pearsoncustom.com/wps/media/objects/2427/2486120/chap_
assets/documents/doc9_4.html.
Kantor, Karl. The Double Spiral of History: A Historiosophy of Projectism. Moscow: Languages
of Slavic Culture, 2002, 280300. [, , .
. : , 2002.]
Katsura Alexander V. World Outgoingness or Russian Path to Globalism. Age of
Liven, Khristofor. The Letters of Count K.A. Liven.Russkaia StarinaVol. 141, No. 2.
(1910).In Russian. [, X.A. .. . T. 141,
N. 2. (1910).]
Marx, Karl. Capital. New York: International Publishers, 1967. Vol. 1. Fredrick Engels, ed.
Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, trans.
Meir, Golda. My Life. Memoirs. Moscow: Biblioteka-Aliia, 1994. In Russian. [
. . : -, 1994.]
Nazaretyan, Akop P. Nonlinear Futures: Mega-History, Complexity Theory, Anthropology
& Psychology for Global Forecasting. Moscow: Argamac-Media, 2014. [,
.. , : -, 2014.]
Ortega-y-Gasset, Jos. La rebelin de las masas. [The rebellion of the masses,
Revista de Oxidente, 1930 ( , : , 1991, . 108).]
Philotheus (Filofei). MoscowThe Third Rome [ ]. 2015.
Accessed June 17, 2015.https://www2.stetson.edu/secure/history/hy308C01/filo-
feithirdrome.html.
Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. Trans. Harvey Claflin Mansfield and
Delba Winthrop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. [
, : , 1897.]
Part 3

chapter 10
The New World Order and Philosophy

Leonid E. Grinin
Abstract
From the 1980s, the concept of the new world order for a long time remained almost
synonymous with the ideas of Western domination. However, because of globalization
we see that today the new world order is being established on some other and more
fair principles because the United States and the West continue to gradually weaken.
With regard to the decline of u.s. leadership and the rise of the developing countries
we expect that no country can substitute for the United States as the hegemonic power.
Thus, the World System will continue its development in the future without an abso-
lute leader. So, in the next decades the global political landscape will undergo dramatic
changes. We are at the outset of a very complex, contradictory, and long process of
creating a new world order. The directions, forms, and results of the processes of its
transformations to a great extent depend on the changing balance of world forces and
on different geopolitical factors and combinations. Philosophy faces many problems
with respect to the creation of a new world order. Without doubt philosophers can do
much to make better and more humane the world order that is being created.
Keywords
philosophy globalization new world order world without leader sovereignty

reduction of sovereignty sovereignty transformation challenges philosophy
convergence epoch of new coalitions
The world is changing quickly. The faster it is changes the more challenges
philosophy faces in terms of understanding the various consequences. Among
the most important transformations which philosophers should comprehend
and think over are the shifts brought about by globalization and by the forma-
tion of the new world order. The latter also implies transformations of sover-
eignty and changing priorities in international relations.
The ideas of a new world order started to be actively debated in the late
1980s and early 1990s. One can say that the following processes and events have
significantly contributed to their development. First, one needs to note the

146 Grinin
c ollapse of the socialist bloc and of the Soviet Union and the formation of a
unipolar world. Thus, although the phrase the new world order sometimes
was used to denote the post-Cold War era, the concept of the new world order
mostly implied an absolute domination of Western economies, institutions,
and ideas that were supposed to transform the rest of the world.1 In a number
of works, globalization (following some American political scientists) is some-
times defined as the u.s. right to impose its rules on the rest of the world and
also as a part of the process of establishing a new world order.2 The concept of
the new world order in some cases became synonymous with the ideas of Pax
Americana, which has been very profitable for the United States.
One should note that America has done a lot to support this view by acting
through diplomatic and political means and via the international financial and
economic institutions and agreements. These actions involve significantly lim-
iting national sovereignty, as well as distributing democracy by all means
including counterwork, color revolutions, and military intervention. Of course,
until now the u.s. influence is obvious and quite real. However, today the situ-
ation is changing dramatically as some scholars have predicted.3 (In what fol-
lows, I am going to discuss these points.)
Second, while increasing globalization has really brought nations together,
it also has a number of significant consequences. In terms of the formation of
the new world order, the utmost importance needs to be given to the transfor-
mation of national sovereignty and its reduction for the sake of supranational
and international institutions and organizations.
Factors of State Sovereignty Transformation
Globalization contributes to the change and reduction of the scope of the

states sovereign powers. The latter is a bilateral process. On the one hand,
some factors objectively undermine the states sovereignty; on the other hand,
most states voluntarily limit the scope of their sovereignty.4
1 Jacques Attali, Millennium: Winners and Losers in the Coming World Order (New York: Times
Books, 1991).
2 Zbignev Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives
(New York: Basic Books, 1997); Randall Collins, Geopolitics in an Era of Internationalism,
Social Evolution and History 1:1 (2002), 118.
3 Emmanuel Todd, After the Empire: The Breakdown of American Order (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2003).
4 Leonid E. Grinin, New Foundations of International System r Why do States Lose Their
Sovereignty in the Age of Globalization, Journal of Globalization Studies 3:1 (2012), 338.
The New World Order And Philosophy 147
Much has been written about the way globalization strengthens the factors
that objectively weaken a countrys sovereignty.5 The list of threats to state sov-
ereignty often includes global financial flows, multinational corporations,
global media empires, and the Internet. One can add to this list international
interventions. At the same time after the end of World War ii more and more
states have been willingly to consciously limit their sovereign rights. Note that
this point is debated surprisingly little and incidentally, though this process
includes such fundamental rights as law of war and peace, determining the
size of taxes and duties, emitting money, rights of supreme jurisdiction, using
capital punishment, proclaiming or limiting certain political freedoms, estab-
lishing fundamental election rules, and so on.6 Thus, no doubt exists that today
the sovereignty of completely free and independent countries has decreased
greatly. In my opinion, the factor of voluntariness in reducing ones own author-
ity is, undoubtedly, the most important one in understanding the future of the
state and the new world order.
What stands behind the voluntary self-limitation of sovereign prerogatives?
Several reasons can be given for such voluntariness and altruism. First of all,
such a restriction becomes profitable, as countries expect to gain in return
quite real advantages especially as members of regional and interregional
unions. Second, one should mention world public opinion that is an impor-
tant reason for reducing sovereignty. For this reason, the more countries vol-
untarily limit their sovereignty, the more inferior are the states that do not
make such restrictions. Third, the United States and other Western countries
actively promote the process of voluntary reduction of sovereignty in certain
spheres (especially, in the financial and economic ones) because this action
gives them certain economic and political benefits and allows a growing
impact on some countries and their alliances, as well as it increases the
Western countries ideological leadership as they become a model for the rest
to follow. To predetermine the necessary actions they use so-called soft
power, including an active impact on the elite (by means of grants, education
in the United States, corrupt practices) and also different kinds of pressuring
(economic, political, and even military) via their own channels or interna-
tional organizations like imf.
One should take into account that the major trends of self-limitation of
sovereignty vary greatly in different parts of the world. The voluntary reduc-
tion of sovereignty is more characteristic of European countries. Still the
5 David Held and Anthony McGrew, eds., The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction
to the Globalization Debate (Cambridge, uk: Polity Press, 2003).
6 Grinin, New Foundations of International System.
148 Grinin
degree of countries self-sufficiency is different depending on their economic

strength. The United States actively involves the European Union (eu) to
increase influence on different European countries. The transformation of sov-
ereignty in countries with different cultural traditions proceeds with more dif-
ficulty and also is closely connected with the level of economic development.
These countries are usually not post-industrial, but industrial or agrarian-
industrial, that is, they belong to the type of states that is tightly connected
with sovereignty and state regulations or protection. Perhaps, just for this rea-
son regional powerful states like China, India, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are less
inclined to reduce their sovereignty as distinct from European countries.
Decline of American and Western Leadership and Rise of the Rest
So the idea of the new world order where the West and the United States will
still remain unattainable leaders has confronted what is really going on. What
has happened? First, the economic growth and, correlatively, the role of the
Western countries in the economy have declined. At the same time, the role of
the Rest countries not included in oecd (Organization for Economic
Co-Operation and Development) has, on the contrary, increased.7
In the 1970s and the 1980s, a number of forecasts predicted that the United
States would be replaced by Japan in the position of the world economic
leader.8 In the 1990s and the beginning of 2000s, the number of works antici-
pating an inevitable decline of the American hegemony and the ascent of Asia
to the leadership positions started growing rather rapidly.9 Nowadays, taking
into account the consequences of global crises, the majority of analysts seem
to share the forecasts of the decline of the u.s. role in the world.
Thus, little doubt exits that the American hegemony (which has lasted for
more than 60 years) is coming to its end, and as a result the global geopolitical
landscape will change rather significantly. On the other hand, the hope of
some political scientists and economists that a total collapse of the United
7 Alice H. Amsden, The Rise of The Rest: Challenges to the West from Late-Industrializing
Economies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
8 Ezra F. Vogel, Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University
Press, 1979); Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers 15002000 (New York: Random
House, 1987); Attali, Millennium.
9 Attali, Millennium; Charles Colson and Jack Eckerd, Why America Doesnt Work? (Dallas:
World Publications Group, 1991); Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the American Era (New
York: Knopf, 2002); Todd, After the Empire.
States will take place pretty soon seems rather groundless; the relative decline
of the United States will proceed gradually and not without certain and, per-
haps, sharp interruptions.
With respect to an obvious process of economic and cultural convergence
between the developed and developing countries (the West and the Rest)
observed in the previous decades, one may say that globalization makes this
tendency inevitable. Having emerged in the world with a deep developmental
gap between rich and poor countries, later it contributed to narrowing this gap.
I think that globalization itself presupposes that developing countries should
advance faster than the developed ones, because globalization strengthens
economic openness that, in turn, brings into effect a law of communicating
vessels.10 In order to reduce production costs, the developed countries move
their capital and production capacities to the developing ones where millions
of young people look for jobs. The engine of the world economic growth, con-
sequently, moves from the core of the World System to its periphery. As a result,
the development of the periphery accelerates, and in the core it slows down.
No doubt, this development is one of the most significant results in the past
two decades. The gap will keep on narrowing (of course, to a certain extent) in
the next decades.
What are the conclusions we could draw from the abovementioned facts?
1. The United States and the West will continue to gradually weaken, because
no country can substitute for the United States as an absolute leader.
In the forthcoming two or three decades America will remain a primus inter
pares because of its superiority in some aspects of leadership and a certain
legitimacy of its leading position).11 Besides, one should take into account
that, on the one hand, the United States is not going to surrender the leading
position to anyone else and will use all possible legal and some illegal means to
hold it and to weaken rivals (as we can now observe in the stubborn attempts
to weaken Russia by means of the Ukrainian crisis), and, on the other hand,
many countries in the world are still interested in America holding its
leadership.
10 Leonid E. Grinin and Andrey V. Korotayev, Globalization Shuffles Cards of the World
Pack: In Which Direction is the Global Economic-Political Balance Shifting? World
Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research 70:8 (2014), 515545.
11 nic National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds (Washington,
dc: National Intelligence Council, 2012), xi.
150 Grinin
Although the u.s. position will weaken, no state in the world will be able to
become the absolute leader. The supposition that the United States will be sub-
stituted by some other state (the most frequently proposed candidate is, of
course, China) is absolutely wrong. China outran the United States as regards
gdp ppp (Gross Domestic Product Purchasing Power Parity). However, this
status is really insufficient for becoming an absolute world leader. The current
reality is that the United States concentrates simultaneously almost all aspects
of leadership (political, military, financial, monetary, economic, technological,
ideological, and cultural), whereas in the foreseeable future no other country in
the world (and no group of countries as well) will be able to monopolize so
many aspects of world leadership.12
2. A world without an absolute leader will bring about significant changes in

the world.
With the development of globalization processes the cyclic pattern of hege-
mony is likely to come to its end and will allow the World System to continue
its further development without a single hegemonic power. This situation will
cause a reconfiguration of the World System and the emergence of its new pat-
tern. In such a situation the global political landscape obviously will undergo
dramatic changes over the next several decades.
3. The role of developing countries will increase. Combined with some other
factors, this situation could lead to growing instability in the world.
On the one hand, in the foreseeable future, we will observe processes of eco-
nomic and socio-cultural convergence between developing and developed
countries, and, consequently, the reduction of poverty and illiteracy in many
developing countries. However, on the other hand, this process will not go
smoothly and without any setbacks; what is more, it will require a deep recon-
figuration of the World System. This fact may mean a possible increase in insta-
bility and intensity of crises in the world in the forthcoming decades. Instability
will be expressed globally due to increased confrontation and the search for a
new balance of power and new alliances; but it will also be manifested at
regional and national levels, due to the fact that the increased level of technology,
culture, and expectations may conflict with the existing shortcomings of social
12 Grinin and Korotayev, Globalization Shuffles Cards of the World Pack; Leonid Grinin,
Sergey Tsirel, and Andrey Korotayev, Will the Explosive Growth of China Continue?
Technological Forecasting and Social Change (2014), in press, accessed March 17, 2015,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/aip/00401625.
and state systems, inequality, and injustice. Also, a number of other factors can
increase instability.
4. A search for the new fundamentals of the world order is needed.

The problem of instability in the foreseeable future is closely connected
with the necessity to search for the principles of the new world order, since the
changing balance of economic forces resulting from increasing globalization
will inevitably pose such a problem. However, an important point is the fact
that future instability and clash of forces in the global arena is likely to become
noticeably dissimilar to the original confrontation between the First and Third
Worlds, between the former imperial centers and their former colonies. Neither
will it be the clash of civilizations in Samuel Huntingtons sense (although the
ethnic, religious, and civilizational component will always be present in global
tensions, and now in Europe the problems of Muslim immigrants are becom-
ing pretty sharp). In the end, the tension between the old and new players on
the global chessboard will not (I hope) be a field of perpetual confrontation
of geopolitical players, but an arena for establishing new ideas and relations
and a somewhat more equitable world order.
The new world order should be created in the direction of and with the
account of proceeding economic and cultural convergence between the
Western and non-Western countries which has already brought and will
bring a significant narrowing of the developmental gap between them.
However, the objective trends contradict the established world order that is
profitable for the West and, especially, for the United States and gives the
West substantial advantages, especially in monetary and financial spheres.
As a result, we observe different and often contradictory trends in global
development.
On the Way to the New World Order
Though globalization has not just started, it is generally a new, unknown, most
complicated, and (in many ways) unpredictable process that will create new
problems in all spheres of life and require their solution.13 The path to a new
world order is definitely vague in many respects. The directions, forms, and
results of the processes of transformations of the world order to a great extent
13 Jim Sheffield, Andrey Korotayev, and Leonid Grinin, eds., Globalization: Yesterday, Today,
and Tomorrow (Litchfield Park: Emergent Publications, 2013).
152 Grinin
depend on the changing balance of the world forces, on the strategy that these
or those countries and associations will choose, and on different geopolitical
factors and combinations. This situation also means that those who long to
play a more important role in integration and transformation of the world
must forecast and anticipate the tendencies that can be used to benefit.
So we are at the outset of a very complex, contradictory, and long process of
creation of a new world order. Below I will present some suppositions concern-
ing the processes and principles that are likely to affect this formation.
National Sovereignty
In the long term the tendency toward transformation of national sovereignty
will grow. Overall, the role of regional and interregional communities, as well
as that of international law, will gradually increase at the expense of a decline
in the sovereign prerogatives of states. However, in any case one should keep in
mind that the national state will remain the leading player in the world arena
for a long time, as in the foreseeable future only the state will be capable of
solving a number of social issues.
Sovereignty transformation in the course of the new world order creation is
not a unidirectional and unilinear process. Take, for example, the current
global crisis. On the one hand, the necessity to prevent new crises demands a
search for new international agreements that would restrict state sovereignty
extras (for instance, limiting tax havens). On the other hand, sovereignty may
even expand in some respects, as the current world crisis shows once again
that the fate of national economies to a great extent depends on the strength
of the states and on the abilities of their authorities. Elsewhere I have noted
that quite probably the nearest future will manifest a certain renaissance of
the state role including its growing activity in the global arena.14 Actually, this
process already does take place. The current confrontation between a number
of countries longing to preserve their sovereignty and the United States can be
interpreted in just these terms.
Yet, as often happens in history, the struggle for traditional institutions (here
I mean the state) means also a fight for a more proper world order. The reality
is that one can hardly increase the importance of the state based on the former
fundamentals that considered the states benefits as the ultimate goals of its
activity on the world arena. I think restoring the role of the state is impossible
without substantial change in the ideology of national foreign policies. In
other words, I suspect that in several decades purely egoistic national interests
will to a much lesser extent underlie foreign policy concepts and activities.
14 Grinin, New Foundations of International System.

The United States and the New World Order

The only present superpower, the United States, has serious problems in trans-
forming its sovereignty. The United States practically constantly allows itself to
disregard the opinion of many countries, openly positioning its national inter-
ests above world and allied interests.15 (Even Zbignev Brzezinski was in some
doubt concerning the efficiency of current u.s. policy and appealed to a deeper
comprehension or reformulating of foreign policy goals and American ideol-
ogy more precisely, believing that the United States must determine its secu-
rity in categories that will be able to suit the interests of others.16) u.s. attempts
to suppress any rival without taking into consideration the consequences can
endanger global stability. However, the main future challenge of changing the
world and transforming the principles of international relations is probably
rooted in this confrontation between the United States and other countries
expressing a certain collective opinion.
The Epoch of New Coalitions

During the struggle for participation in organizing and operating the new
world order, an epoch of new coalitions will come, which will outline the con-
tours of a new political landscape for a considerably long period. Probably, for
some time the mobility of partnerships within the world system will increase;
the arising coalitions may turn out to be accidental, fragile, or even chimerical
ones. In search for the most stable and adequate supranational systems vari-
ous intermediary forms may develop, where the players of the world and
regional political arenas will search for the most favorable and convenient
blocs and agreements. However, some of the new alliances and associations
may transform from temporary into constant ones and take specific suprana-
tional forms. Thus, a new world order eventually will be established.
However, as already indicated, the tendencies are rather contradictory. On the
way to more stable international relations one can expect increasing instability
in the world as I have discussed. Besides, on the one hand, the formation of a
new-type of coalitions and relations, the destruction of former alliances, and the
divergence from the former Cold War bloc thinking currently proceed. Still, on
the other hand, aimed at preserving by all means the institutions and relations
15 Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st
Century (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001).
16 Zbignev Brzezinski, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership (New York: Basic
Books, 2004). A sharp criticism of u.s. foreign policy can be found in the works of George
Soros; see George Soros, The Age of Fallability: The Consequences of the War on Terror (New
York: Public Affairs, 2006).
154 Grinin
profitable for it, the United States tries to revive the military and political alliance
approach and to unite European and other countries under military and political
slogans against enemies even though this practice is contrary to the economic
benefit and established relations of u.s. allies (as is rather evident by the example
of sanctions against Russia and the support of the action of the regime in Ukraine
which obviously violates international principles).
Combining Different Interests

One of the most important problems for a long time will be that of combining
national, supranational, and world interests. After all, only an institutionalized
solution of this huge problem will finally establish a more or less stable world
order. Naturally, a long time will transpire before elites and nations change sig-
nificantly their views so that they are able to consider national problems and
ways of their solution in the context of world tasks and problems. However, huge
work is needed in order to create some international institutions that will be able
to prevent the stronger and larger players from exploiting in their own interests
the economies and resources of weaker countries under the cover of common
tasks. Currently, one can observe a similar situation with respect to new mem-
bers of the eu. The latter become the resource of a cheap labor force and new
outlets for Germany and more developed European countries; thus, new mem-
bers of the eu suffer from depopulation and their national economies collapse.
The World Middle Class

Some forecasts suggest that in the nearest decades one can expect a rapid
growth of the middle class in the developing countries.17 Such growth will also
lead to poverty reduction there. I also presume that the world middle class
(which grows in number primarily due to convergence) may create new pos-
sibilities for the political globalization and a fairer world order.18
Philosophy Faces Many Problems in the Creation

of a New World Order
The formation of the new world order is a complicated process, since different
agents aim at adjusting it for themselves. Thus, philosophy meets a challenge
of comprehending the changes brought about by globalization in general and
the tendency toward reduction of sovereignty in particular.
17 nic, Global Trends 2030.

18 Grinin and Korotayev, Globalization Shuffles Cards of the World Pack.
Although philosophy has always been beyond state boundaries, now one
can hardly disregard the fact that due to globalization the essence of sover-
eignty has significantly changed. In its turn, this situation leads to changes in
the established conditions, values, and ideologies. Such rapid transformations
bring about a number of rather complicated issues and questions. For exam-
ple, estimation is very difficult of many changes in terms of the balance
between progress and regress that seem to go hand in hand. Sometimes we
observe rather destructive progress. In setting up the outlines of a new order,
globalization thereby breaks the old one that has been functioning within the
framework of the state system. However, the destruction of old relations often
proceeds much faster than the formation of the new ones. In particular, in
some countries, due to the increasing alternatives to national preferences and
identities, such previously highly evaluated qualities as patriotism are weaken-
ing. While destroying traditional ideology, based on sacralization of homeland
and nations, globalization has not created any complete ideology that as an
alternative fascinates masses. Perhaps, this fact is one of the main reasons why
the Western variant of globalization appears unacceptable for many non-
Western societies. An even greater challenge is the situation where globaliza-
tion and struggle against some regimes lead to the collapse or decline of states
and numerous human tragedies (as it was seen in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria,
Ukraine, and elsewhere).
Despite various racial, national, historical, and cultural forms of existence phi-
losophy has always searched for common features in human nature. Today, due
to globalization and the increased speed of information exchange, the world is
more than ever close to the ideal of equality and unity of the whole of humanity.
On the other hand, to ignore obvious cultural, mental, religious, social, and other
differences would be extremely dangerous. Thus, philosophy is expected to do a
lot to prove that the new world order can emerge only as a profound synthesis of
different trends and spiritual backgrounds. Thus, the new world order can hardly
be based only on the heritage of Western civilization and especially of its
American modification. Under the situation of increasing tensions in the world,
one should expect a demand for a broader basis for the new world order to come
from philosophers who usually stand for peace and generally agree that the cre-
ated world order should be better and more humane.
Bibliography
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chapter 11
The Prospect for Politicization of Orthodox

Christianity
Abstract
This essay scrutinizes whether the Orthodox world is something more than just a
community of countries sharing a cultural identity. Some commentators suggest
that Orthodox civilization might constitute a political community, if Orthodox
Christianity is politicized. The author suggests that politicization occurs not
through direct application of religion to politics but through a mediatory ideology
that can differ significantly from the original belief and should be designated as a
political religion. Worldwide politicization experience is analyzed to show that
religion becomes political not in archaic societies, but in modernized and secular-
ized ones. This essay is focused on Russia being the largest country where the
population identifies itself with Orthodox Christianity. Two prospective media-
tory ideologies are tested, specifically, pan-Slavism and Eurasianism. The author
concludes that while politicization of Orthodoxy in Russia is not inevitable, it is
very likely in the absence of ideological alternatives and in conditions of multiple
social crises.
Keywords
Orthodox Christianity religious politicization ideology political religion

Eurasianism pan-Slavism Russia
The Apparent Enigma of Orthodoxy
Eastern Orthodoxy has always been a kind of enigma for the outside world.
Although a branch of Christianity, it is not well known to the Western public
except to a small minority of professionals in Slavic studies. In 1995, after the
Bosnian conflict exploded on the scene, the West suddenly discovered the

158 Mitrofanova
Orthodox world, which, as became apparent, shares common beliefs and

values. Samuel Huntington identified the Orthodox civilization as one of the
worlds major civilizations that was separated from Western Christendom
asa result of its Byzantine parentage, a distinct religion, 200years of Tatar
rule, bureaucratic despotism, with limited exposure to the Renaissance,
Reformation, Enlightenment and other central Western experiences.1 In
1999 Western observers were shocked by the fact that even in prosperous and
westernized European countries like Greece and Cyprus, the reaction to the
nato bombings of Yugoslavia was very harsh.2 The New York Times reported
in 1999 on the reaction of Russia and Greece to the military operation in
Kosovo and noted that this reaction raises:
the question of whether there is in fact an Orthodox world in the East

that differs fundamentally from the West in its values and principles, that
perceives the nato attacks not as a morally justified crusade against a
clear and present evil, but as a hypocritical Western assault against an
Eastern Orthodox nation.3
The Orthodox world definitely exists as a community of countries sharing

some elements of cultural identity because the majority of the population is
composed of Orthodox Christians (even non-practicing). The critical issue
for international affairs is whether these countries do or could act as a single
political body. If the answer is yes, the term Orthodox world may be equated
with such a common expression as the Islamic world. Despite the absence
of common institutions and a single leader, the Islamic world can be seen as
a political entity bound together not through institutions but through a sys-
tem of flexible linkages. These linkages become visible when the Islamic
world commonly responds to some crisis or an event of special importance
(for example, expressing protest against Salman Rushdies book or support for
the Islamic revolution in Iran). In such events the outside world can clearly
see that what seemed to be a collection of separate states with their own
national interests and allies is actually a single community of values, if not a
political community.
1 Samuel P. Huntington, Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (ny: Simon &
Schuster, 1996), 4546.
2 See Kerin Hope, John Thornhill, and Stefan Wagstyl, Christendoms Ancient Split Filters
Todays View of Kosovo, Financial Times, May 4, 1999; Colin Smith, In Cyprus Even Pizza Is
Pro-Serb, New Statesman, May 31, 1999.
3 Serge Schmemann, A New Collision of East And West, The New York Times, April 4, 1999.
The Prospect For Politicization Of Orthodox Christianity 159
The Islamic world does not consist of official Islamic countries only, for
instance, countries where domestic life is based on Islamic law. It includes not
only Iran and Saudi Arabia, but also states having secularized constitutions
like Pakistan and Turkey. Moreover, a Muslim minority within a non-Muslim
state is often considered a part of the Islamic world (such as Bosniaks in
Bosnia-Herzegovina). Turkey, a secular state, expressed its concern about the
conditions of the Muslims in Bosnia and Chechnya. That means that within
the Islamic community religion is considered important enough to direct
political behavior of states or citizens. During the anti-Iraq coalition, Islamic
countries considered cooperation with the West as temporary, while Muslim
unity was considered to be permanent.4
Thus, not surprisingly, some observers have taken for granted that the cause of
the common dislike by Orthodox countries of nato actions against Yugoslavia
can be located in similar political linkages. Apart from criticizing the Western
approach in Bosnia and Kosovo, however, the actions and statements of the
Orthodox leaders (both church leaders and the leaders of the supposed
Orthodox countries) show no evidence of a single Orthodox world confronting
the West; nevertheless, the public reaction has been much stronger, demonstrat-
ing the existence of some vague political linkages among Orthodox peoples.
The fact that right now the Orthodox world is not a political entity does not
imply that its politicization is impossible in the foreseeable future. The Islamic
world was not seen as a political whole until Islam became a political (politi-
cized) religion. The Orthodox world also might become a political community
if Orthodox Christianity is politicized. In addition, achievement of this status
would require politicization of religion in Russia because no Orthodox world is
possible without Russia and vice versapoliticization of Orthodoxy in Russia
would mean an automatic emergence of the Orthodox world. One could go so
far as to suggest that Russia, when viewed as a continent rather than a nation-
state, actually is the Orthodox world.
Political Religion: A Definition
To find out whether politicization of religion may occur in Russia one should
understand the mechanism of politicization, that is, the transforming a reli-
gion into a political religion. Despite a widespread understanding,5 the use
4 John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (Oxford and ny: Oxford University
Press, 1992), 193195.
5 As an example of this approach see Bassam Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political
Islam and the New World Disorder (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 1998), 37.
160 Mitrofanova
of religion to justify some political action or to mobilize people for non-

religious purposes does not yet mean politicization of religion. One can talk
about politicization of religion when political means are used for religious
goals, but not vice versa. Since Max Weber (Politics as a Vocation) scholars gen-
erally view the main goal of a politician to be power, and he or she may use
religion to reach power. For a religious fanatic, political power is only the
means to achieve the real goal, such as an Islamic state or the earthly Kingdom
of God. As Mark Juergensmeyer formulates it:
There is a difference between wars justified by religionand religious

wars. It is one thing when the moral sanction of religion is brought to
bear on such worldly and non-spiritual matters as political struggles. It is
quite another when the struggles themselves are seen primarily as reli-
gious events.6
Carl Schmitts classical work, The Concept of the Political, exemplifies this
approach to political religion and defines the political as the most extreme
manifestation of any opposition. This means any conflict may reach a degree
of political conflict as long as the opposite side comes to be thought of in terms
of enemy-friend. Schmitt wrote:
The distinction of friend and enemy denotes the utmost degree of inten-
sity of a union or separation, of an association or dissociationThe polit-
ical enemyisthe other, the stranger; and it is sufficient for his nature
that he is, in a specially intense way, existentially something different and
alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are always possible.
These can neither be decided by a previously determined norm nor by
the judgment of a disinterested and therefore neutral third party.7
Schmitts concept implies that a religion becomes politicized when its follow-
ers consider the followers of some other religion neither neighbors nor possi-
ble neophytes, but enemies. Enemies may be morally good (brave, noble, etc.)
or aesthetically attractive. For example, they may have a highly developed cul-
ture; they, nevertheless, must be eliminated because their worldview is differ-
ent. Significantly, for discussing political religions Schmitt defines an enemy as
6 Mark Juergensmeyer, Sacrifice and Cosmic War, Violence and the Sacred in the Modern
World, Mark Juergensmeyer, ed. (ny: Routledge, 1992), 111.
7 Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (New Brunswick, nj: Rutgers University Press, 1976),
2627.
solely the public enemy.8 In his opinion, the popular Gospel quotation, Love
your enemies (Matthew: 5:44; Luke: 6:27), is misunderstood by those who
think it to be a ban on religiously grounded violence. According to Schmitt, the
true meaning of the quotation is that one should love the private adversaries
and hate the enemies of the faith.
Perceiving a religious adversary as a political enemy is a feature of all reli-
gions but not at all stages of their historic development. We should recall: con-
temporary Western religious indifference is a relatively new phenomenon.
John Esposito notes only for the post-Enlightenment mind is religion a system
of personal belief rather than a way of social and political life, and the mixing
of religion and politics is regarded in this light as abnormal, dangerous and
extremist.9 At the same time, personalization of religion in the West does not
mean that interference of religion in politics becomes absolutely impossible.
Christian parties and separate politically active clergy can exist together,
composing what Jose Casanova calls public religion. In this case, individuals
who enter politics do not do so to impose their beliefs on others but they do
take part in public debate.10 The important distinction is that while public reli-
gions are seeking to be a commentator within a pluralistic society,11 political
religions want to dominate the whole society ideologically.
Moreover, some political religions (specifically, Christianity and Islam)
aim to dominate ideologically not just a given society but the whole of
humankind. Bassam Tibi stresses the following difference between, for
instance, Hindu and Muslim fundamentalism: while Hindu fundamentalists
seek only a political territorializaton of Hinduism within the boundaries of
India, Islamic fundamentalism is an absolute worldview, a vision of a world-
wide order based on Islam.12 In this case the local names of the Orthodox
Churches (such as the Russian, Serbian, or Albanian Orthodox Church) can
be misleading, making people unfamiliar with the Orthodox tradition see
them as tribal religions targeting particular ethnic groups, which is an obvi-
ous mistake.
Paradoxically, people educated within the Western tradition of personal-
ized religion can accept cynical use of religion for political purposes more
8 Ibid, 28.
9 Esposito, The Islamic Threat, 199201.
10 See Jose Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1994), 3639.
11 David Martin, The Evangelical Upsurge and Its Political Implications, The
Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics, Peter L. Berger, ed.
(Grand Rapids, mi: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 48.
12 Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamentalism, 5.
162 Mitrofanova
easily than they can accept politicized religion. Nevertheless, the use of reli-
gion for pragmatic political purposes may become one of the most significant
causes of politicization. In this regard, Intifada in Palestine presents a move-
ment that was begun by secular nationalists, but it has grown into an Islamic
resurgence movement.13 The case of Chechnya in the mid-1990s is similar.
The initial idea of Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudaev and then of Aslan
Maskhadov was not to establish an Islamic state based on Wahhabism but a
Chechen secular nation-state spiritually grounded in the traditions of the local
Sufi orders. The failure of this project forced Maskhadov to proclaim the
Islamic state which he, since that moment, became obliged to protect.14
Mechanisms of Religious Politicization
Summarizing positions of various researchers, one can list three primary crises
that have led to the emergence of political religions in different parts of the
world: crisis in economic development and/or modernization, crisis in demo-
cratic participation, and crisis in national identity.15 All these crises could be
found in Russia in the end of the 1990s. Economic development crisis led to
sudden impoverishment of the population and to the growing gap between
peoples expectations and capabilities. Mir Zohair Husain divides the crisis of
democracy into three types: legitimacy crisis (the population does not
acknowledge the regimes authority to govern), penetration crisis (government
fails to reach all levels of the society), and participation crisis (citizens can not
participate in the decision-making process).16 All three aspects of the crisis are
still present in Russia, particularly painful for younger people as it fails to pro-
mote their interests within the governmental structures.
Last but not least, Russia now faces a severe national identity crisis. Along
with many developing Islamic countries in the 1980s Russia is undergoing the
process of nation-building; the only difference is that in the case of developing
countries the main problem has been to transcend traditional kincentric
loyalties,17 while in Russia the crisis is caused by the unwillingness of most
13 Mir Zohair Husain, Global Islamic Politics (ny: Harper & Collins College Publishers,
1995),192.
14 . , ,
2 (2000), 8587 and 89. [Anatoly D. Savvateev, Islam and Politics
in the Chechen Republic, Social Sciences and Modernity 2 (2000), 8587 and 89.]
15 Esposito, The Islamic Threat, 15; Husain, Global Islamic Politics, 165171.
16 Husain, Global Islamic Politics, 167171.
17 Ibid., 165.
Russians to accept a non-imperial national identity. A large number of politi-

cal scientists and even more politicians openly admit that the collapse of the
Soviet Union was actually a blow against Russia. Many people would agree
that Russia faces a dilemma: become a normal nation-state without any
imperial ambitions or try to re-build the imperial union. Given these options,
a significant number of Russians would vote for the latter. Becoming a nation-
state and leaving behind the heritage of the Russian Empire/Soviet Union is
often understood in terms of betrayal of the Russian historic past. Such senti-
ments are wide-spread across the political spectrumfrom Communists to
Monarchists. In fact, only a tiny group of pro-Western liberals publicly admits
that they sympathize with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
These points do not imply, of course, that the presence of the above-
mentioned crises will inevitably lead to politicization of Orthodoxy, but one
can assume that it makes politicization very likely in the absence of ideological
alternatives. (Spiritual vacuum has become a buzz-word in Russia.18). Still, a
number of arguments against the possibility of politicization will be discussed
below to demonstrate how the mechanism of politicization works.
First, politicization of Orthodoxy in Russia may seem unlikely because of
the obvious political quietism of the Russian Orthodox Church (roc).19
Somehow, for many scholars politicization seems only possible with the roc
in its vanguard. But politicization of various religions demonstrates that offi-
cial, institutionalized religion has always been a force opposing politicization.
For example, in Iran not the traditional ulama (spiritual leaders) have commit-
ted the Islamic revolution, but a religiously minded lay intelligentsia possess-
ing the knowledge of modern thought and methods.20 In Chechnya both the
officials from the Spiritual Departments of Muslims and the leaders of local
Sufi orders accuse politicized Islamism of betraying genuine, traditional Islam.
Official religious leaders mostly associate themselves with the ruling elite of a
society and even if they do not, religious fundamentalism (i.e., traditionalism)
is normally accompanied by political quietism.21 The backers of politicization
18 C . , :
, 3 (1999), 139. [Sergey N. Filatov, The New Birth of an Old Idea: Orthodoxy
as a National Symbol, Polis 3 (1999), 139.]
19 Jeffery Haynes, Religion in Global Politics (New York: Routledge, 1998), 14; .
, : , 5
(2000), 152 [Constantine N. Kostiuk, Orthodox Fundamentalism: Social Portrait and
Origins, Polis 5 (2000), 152.]
20 Esposito, The Islamic Threat, 108; Husain, Global Islamic Politics, 7886; Haynes, Religion in
Global Politics, 16.
21 Husain, Global Islamic Politics, 12; Haynes, Religion in Global Politics, 49.
164 Mitrofanova
are lay people who are not traditionalists or a part of the religious establish-
ment. This kind of religiously minded intelligentsia, which is numerous in
Russia, opens a good prospect for political Orthodoxy. Of course, some religious
leaders, and even significant numbers of them, may support politicization
but not the church as an institution.
Another argument against politicization of Orthodoxy is that the Russian
population is mostly not practicing religion. There are not so many church-
goers and communion-takers and most people identifying themselves with
Orthodox Christianity show some theological ignorance. According to January
1999 vciom (All Russian Center for Public Opinion Studies) monitoring, only
2% of Russians attended church service once a week, 3.7% once a month,
17.8% several times a year, and 15.8% once a year or less frequently; 0.6% of
people took communion once a week, 2.2% once a month, 12% several times a
year, and 16.6% once a year or less frequently. The total number of church-
goers was estimated to be 39.3% and of communion-takers to be 31.4%.22
More recent data is given in the June 2013 Romir national survey.23 70.8% of
respondents confirm being Orthodox Christians and belonging to the Russian
Orthodox Church, 2.1% claim to belong to some other local Church. The pat-
terns of practicing religion are reflected in table 11.1.
Again, the known cases of politicization demonstrate that religion becomes
political not in traditional and archaic societies where the population is prac-
ticing religion, but in modernized and secularized ones. For example, just
before the Islamic revival in Iran, Islam seemed to be an increasingly marginal-
ized force, and the country was considered the most stable ally of the us.24
Many authors, including Vladimir Soloviev, wrote that in Serbia religious
indifference has always been accompanied by the political use of religion.25
The latter, as already noted, should not be equated with politicization but can
22 , , -,
August 9, 2000. [M. Tulskii, The Role of the Church in the Life of Russian Society, ng-
Religions, August 9, 2000], accessed March 16, 2015, http://www.ng.ru/caesar/2000-08-09/
3_role.html.
23 The survey was done in a research project on Nation-building and nationalism in todays
Russia (neoruss), coordinated by Pl Kolst, Professor of Russian Studies at the
University of Oslo. The author is a participant in the neoruss project. Survey data are in
the possession of the author. Official project website accessed January 9, 2015, http://
www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/projects/neoruss/.
24 Esposito, The Islamic Threat, 11 and 18.
25 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide (ny: New York University
Press, 1999), 27.
Table11.1 Religious practices of respondents, June 2013
Why do you attend churches?
To light a candle, to leave a prayer request 54.0%

To be present at a worship service 26.0%
I do not attend churches 20.4%
To commune, to confess 18.1%
No answer 4.3%
Hard to answer 3.2%
Not counting weddings, funerals, and baptisms, how often are you full-time
(close to full-time) present at a worship service?
More often that once a week 1.0%

Once a week 3.1%
Once a month 10.5%
Two or three times a year, for example, on the 24.6%
major religious holidays
Once a year 11.2%
Less frequent than once a year 11.5%
Never, close to never 29.6%
No answer 4.6%
Hard to answer 3.8%
easily become the first step toward it. Anatoly Savvateev mentions that, accord-
ing to many analysts, Chechens, just before the formation of the Islamic state,
were not religious and were theologically illiterate.26
The reason for this obvious contradiction between traditionalism (accurate
performing of religious duties and theological literacy) and a religious estab-
lishment on the one hand and political religion on the other hand is that the
purpose of politicization is not conservation of the past but an attempt to
answer the most acute questions of modernity from a religious viewpoint.27
Although radical Islamists often call for a return to traditional values, radical
26 , [Savvateev, Islam and

Politics in the Chechen Republic], 87.
166 Mitrofanova
Islam (also known as fundamentalism) is actually a modern phenomenon that

was developed to meet the challenge of modern civilization.28 Most Islamic
movements today, Esposito mentions, are modern, not traditional, in their
leadership, ideology, and organization; therefore, if we speak of fundamental-
ism as a return to the foundations of Islamthen these movements are neo-
fundamentalist or neorevivalist, for they look to the sources of Islam not simply
to replicate the past but to respond to a new age.29
Politicization, because of its purpose and backers (educated laypersons),
occurs not through direct application of religion to politics but through a
mediatory ideology which can differ significantly from the original religion,
which is often more or less forgotten by the majority. In the case of Islam this
difference between the religion and the ideology (so-called Islamism) is not so
noticeable because Islam is not just a set of personal religious beliefs but, as
Tibi puts it, a system of government manifested as an expression of a divine
order.30 This Islamic system of government (nizam Islami) is based on the
implementation of Islamic Law (sharia). These essential close ties between
religion and politics in Islam conceal the differences between the religion of
Islam and the ideology of Islamism, which are often adversaries. Generally, a
religion and a mediatory ideology are very different. For example, progressive
Catholicism, or liberation theology, a mixture of Catholicism and Marxist
ideas, has become the mediatory ideology for political Catholicism.31 No need
is felt to prove that the differences between them are tremendous.
Orthodox Christianity is less tightly connected with politics as Islam, and,
what is of even more importance, the former represents a religion nearly for-
gotten in Russia. Traditional society in Russia was destroyed in the 1930s during
the Stalin-inspired modernization. This process consisted of three parts: indus-
trialization, collectivization, and cultural revolution; the latter two were largely
conditions for the former. To mobilize material and human resources for the
purpose of forced industrialization, the Soviet government was determined to
destroy the patriarchal way of life traditional for Russian peasantry. In the pro-
cess of collectivization of the agricultural sector, many peasants whom the
government or their neighbors considered rich and potentially dangerous
were expelled from their native villages and settled forcefully in Siberia. At the
28 See Anastasia Mitrofanova, Orthodox Fundamentalism: Intersection of Modernity,

Postmodernity and Tradition, Orthodox Paradoxes: Heterogeneities and Complexities in
Contemporary Russian Orthodoxy, Katya Tolstaya, ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 93104.
30 Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamentalism, 149.
31 Haynes, Religion in Global Politics, 4647.
same time, so-called cultural revolution was destroying the traditional values
of peasantry, such as respect for the elders and devotion to the traditional way
of life and to religion. As a result of this policy the traditional peasant family
was destroyed, and the younger generation of peasants has become the main
workforce for industrializing the country.
Ancient traditions, customs, beliefs, and ways of life were successfully bro-
ken. This break of the generational chain had an especially strong impact on
religion because many of the traditional religion-transmitting institutions
(extended family, rural community, and parish) ceased to exist. As Angelo
Codevilla notices, Christianityis a vast complex of intellectual concepts that
can be learned only through study, and of moral practices that can be adopted
only with the prompting and vigilant support of a community. The Soviet
regime succeeded in reducing the circulation of religious ideas to almost
nothing.32 Not surprisingly, then, many Russians do not know Orthodoxy and
are not really involved in ecclesiastic life. As Jeffery Haynes assumes, Russian
society may now be highly religious at the level of individual belief, but this has
not led to an institutionalized political role for the Orthodox Church.33
In Search of Mediatory Ideology
The growing number of believing but not church-oriented people in contempo-

rary Russia becomes a fertile milieu for various heretical ideas, for example, for
mediatory ideologies, because these ideologies are always heretical from tradition-
alist or fundamentalist points of view. (For example, official Muslim leaders in
Russia commonly condemn political Islam as a heresy.) The question of which
ideology can become a mediator between religion and politics in the case of politi-
cization of Orthodoxy remains open so far, but one can suggest that it will be one
of the existing versions of political Orthodoxy: Pan-Slavism or Eurasianism.34
Both ideologies give Orthodoxy political meaning by insisting on geopoliti-
cal as well as spiritual confrontations between the Russian-Orthodox-Slavic-
Eurasian (whatever), the Latin (Western), and the Islamic civilizations. They
consider Western civilization unique in its radical rejection of the values
shared by other civilizations and suggest that the conflict of civilizations will
32 Angelo M. Codevilla, The Character of Nations: How Politics Makes and Breaks Prosperity,
Family, and Civility (ny: Basic Books, 1997), 96.
33 Haynes, Religion in Global Politics, 14.
34 For more on ideologies, see Anastasia Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy:
Actors and Ideas. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2005.
168 Mitrofanova
probably take the form of a struggle between the union of Islamic and Orthodox
civilizations on the one hand (Modern Pan-Slavism accepts such a temporary
union) and Western civilization on the other hand. Both ideologies are essen-
tially heretical: Pan-Slavism rejects the universality of Christianity and
transforms it into an ethnic religion, claiming that only ethnic Slavs (accord-
ing to some conceptsonly ethnic Russians) are true Orthodox believers;
Eurasianism views Orthodox Christianity much broader than the traditional
churches (Peter Savitskii even wrote that Buddhism and Islam express two dif-
ferent facets of Orthodoxyits passivity and its activity35).
Eurasianism seems to be far ahead of Pan-Slavism as far as political influ-
ence is concerned. Historically Pan-Slavism has failed to supply the lack of any
common identity, common faith, or historical tradition of political unity of all
Slavic nations. Eurasianism allows Russia to transcend the borders of ethnicity
and to find powerful and vital allies in Asia. At the same time, Eurasianism
emphasizes the universal nature of Orthodoxy even more than the traditional
churches. Pan-Slavism, however, still has significant numbers of supporters in
Russia although its ideology has blurred and now resembles Eurasianism.
Eurasianists, by positioning Russia between Europe and Asia, have opened
the way for reconciliation of Orthodoxy and Islam in their common struggle
against the West and its corrupt pseudo-Christianity. One of the most impor-
tant Eurasian sources is an article entitled The Two Great Deeds of St.
Alexander Nevskii published in 1925 by Georgii Vernadskii. The author states
that in the thirteenth century Russia was trapped between two fires: attacks by
Catholic Europe and Mongolian Asia. According to Vernandskii, Alexander,
who was at that time the ruler of one of the Russian feudal principalities,
understood that the Catholic West posed the main threat for Orthodoxy, for
Mongols could only enslave the body while Catholicism meant distortion of
the soul. The main political goal of Alexander was to defend the Orthodox
faith, and he has chosen the East and decided under its protection to fight back
the West.36 For Eurasianists, Alexanders policy represented both the way
Russia followed in the past and the way it is to follow in the future. The core
of Eurasianism, thus, is assertively anti-Western and, at the same time, pro-
Eastern in orientation. The point needs to be stressed that Eurasianism, although
based on Orthodoxy, was not a form of Russian or Orthodox nationalism.
35 , (: , 1997), 29. [Peter Savitskii,

Continent Eurasisa (Moscow: Agraf, 1997), 29.]
36 . , .
[Georgii V. Vernadskii, Two Great Deeds of St Aleksandr Nevskii, Yakov
Krotovs Library], accessed January 9, 2015, http://www.krotov.info/history/13/2/vern1925.
From its very beginning Eurasianism was a universal ideology, and the Eurasian
Orthodox empire ought to serve as a model for the rest of the world.
The most important fact about Eurasianism in contemporary Russia is not
that it is very influential now but that its influence constantly grows. Sources like
media articles, political speeches, and analytical works demonstrate that in the
beginning of the 21st century Eurasianist ideas have migrated from the margins
of the political spectrum to its center. While in the beginning of the 1990s such
ideas could be found only in tabloids, nowadays the appeal to Eurasianism
(either direct or indirect) can be found in the speeches of moderate political
leaders, in the articles of respectable scholars, etc. Regularly, many politicians
and governmental officials praise Eurasians as the only ideology inherent to
Russia (although not all of them imply the same meaning by this word). This
growing public support of Eurasianism may provoke Russian leadership into
making political Orthodoxy a long hoped-for national ideology. In this case, the
Orthodox world would emerge as a system of linkages among the supposed
Orthodox states and non-state communities or even as attempts to create an
institutionalized Orthodox community in the form of a quasi-empire.
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chapter 12
Non-linear Futures: The Mysterious Singularity in

View of Mega-History
Akop P. Nazaretyan
Abstract
A series of calculations carried out independently by Australian, Russian, and

American researchers has demonstrated that a crucial global polyfurcation is expected
near the middle of the 21st century. This result follows from extrapolating into the
future the logarithmic acceleration law that involves the phase transitions in the evo-
lution of the biosphere and anthroposphere. This essay investigates the palliatives of
planetary civilization beyond the big evolutionary Singularity in the context of Mega-
history and complexity theory worldviews. It gives the mathematical deduction a uni-
versal ground and, in addition, helps involve some recent discoveries in psychology
and cultural anthropology for tracing the forecasting attractors and scenarios. The
destiny of the earth (as well as any other planetary) civilization may conclusively
depend on whether or not the intellectual actor succeeds in developing inner regula-
tion to balance the potentially unlimited developments in technological power.
Particularly, this requirement includes overcoming macro-group identities, religious
and quasi-religious ideologies, which always suggest a friend-or-foe discrimination
matrix.
Keywords
Mega-history universal evolution arrows of time acceleration phase transitions

techno-humanitarian balance singularity attractors religion ideology
The Constructs of World, Global and Universal (Big; Mega-) History
Three competing patterns remained on the agenda in historical discussions

throughout the 19th20th centuries. One was a Eurocentric, linear, and teleo-
logical view of history as a consistent progress from the worse to the better

172 Nazaretyan
aimed at the perfect future condition. Another (unintentionally fortified by

thermodynamics) was a descent from the deific past to an atheistic chaos. The
third one was that, instead of referring to a human history we need to focus
on the cycles of ascent, flourishing, and descent of regional civilizations with-
out causal successions or universally valid events.
Meanwhile, multiple discoveries in 20th century sciences made possible
singling out no less than seven crucial landmarks in panhuman history and
prehistory (such as the Neolithic Revolution and the Axial Revolt) and a dis-
tinct succession in humankinds development in spite of never-ending cycles
in regional stories. Also, the prevailing vectors in social evolution continue
those observed in the evolution of biosphere and even the cosmo-physical evo-
lution of the Meta-galaxy.
From this perspective, we can discriminate between the subjects of world
history, global history and Universal (Big or Mega-) History, which together give
us an integral view of the past so far as it is traceable today and a context for
careful anticipations. In continuation and with minimal references, I adapt
aspects of my book on these topics.1 (For more detailed arguments, examples,
and bibliography see my relevant publications that are available in English.2)
The world history paradigm was formulated in the 19th century, together
with national histories, under the influence of the ideas of humanism and
progress. It is based on the evolutionist methodology, and nowadays involves
all of the social and cultural events since the Paleolithic era up to modern
times.
The global history concept is a product of the first half of the 20th century,
as the close mutual influence of geological, biotic, and social processes was
discovered. It studies successive births and transformations of the planets
spheres in which first biota and thereupon culture became the leading
1 Akop P. Nazaretyan, Nonlinear Futures: Mega-History, Complexity Theory, Anthropology &

Psychology for Global Forecasting, 3rd ed. (Moscow: Argamak-Media, 2015) (in Russian).
2 Akop P. Nazaretyan, Fear of the Dead as a Factor in Social Self-organization. Journal for the
Theory of Social Behaviour 35:2 (2005), 155169; Akop P. Nazaretyan, Western and Russian
Traditions in Big History: A Philosophical Insight, Journal for General Philosophy of Science
36 (2005), 6380; Akop P. Nazaretyan, Technology, Psychology and Catastrophes, Social
Evolution & History. Studies in the Evolution of Human Societies 8:2 (2009), 102132; Akop P.
Nazaretyan, Evolution of Non-violence: Studies in Big History, Self-organization and Historical
Psychology (Saarbrucken: lap, 2010); Akop P. Nazaretyan, Virtualization of Social Violence:
A Sign of Our poque? Societal and Political Psychology International Review 1:2 (2010),
2336; Akop P. Nazaretyan, book review, Minds & Machines 27 (2014), 245248; Akop P.
Nazaretyan, Global Crises and the Meaning of Life, World Affairs: The Journal of International
Issues 18:3 (2014), 1034.
Non-Linear Futures 173
agents. The global history founders, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and espe-
cially Vladimir Vernadskii, like most of their contemporaries, believed that
earth and solar system were the maximum domain of evolution, since, for
them, the universe was infinite in space and time, invariant, and (therefore)
deprived of history.
Later on, cosmology expelled the stationary model and so the integral image
of the past enlarged to the model of the evolving Meta-galaxy. Final crystalliza-
tion of the subject of Mega-History is due to the discovery of one more crucial
fact: we can distinctly trace back the common vectors for the successive transfor-
mations in the cosmic universe, earths crust, biosphere, society, and intelligence.
With all of these developments, though no direct contradictions with the
physical irreversibility laws are found, the orientation of the vectors are in dis-
cord with the classical natural science paradigm.
Namely, the Meta-galaxy has been successively evolving from the more
probable random states (or natural ones, from the entropy point of view) to
the less probable (unnatural) ones, so that the histories of the biosphere and
anthroposphere are the localized phases of a single universal process. To give
it a sharp graphic form, the pivotal evolution vector may be drawn as moving
away from the natural state. The growing complexity mega-trend apparently
contradicts the suggestions inferred from classical natural history (time as
growing entropy; heat death theory) but is reliably corroborated by the empiri-
cal data of modern sciences and humanities; as a result, astrophysicists have to
distinguish between the thermodynamic arrow of time and the cosmological
arrow of time and look for their causal relations (see Fig.12.1).3
A central question is why evolution has gone in such a strange direction; in
the relevant literature, we find various answers up to the obviously teleological
and theological ones. An effective background for cross-disciplinary patterns
free from divine and/or telic assumptions is provided by modern complexity
theories (their equivalents are called synergetics in Germany and Russia, non-
linear thermodynamics in Belgium and France, or dynamic chaos theory in the
United States). Such theories allow seeing the perfection of negentropy mech-
anisms not as the aim but as a means for the resistance of non-equilibrium
systems (nature and society) in the conditions of decreased sustainability.
Thus, in the self-organization pattern, human history is the story of one
system, which exists on the scale of a million or so years4 and has to evolve to
sustain itself.
3 Eric J. Chaisson, Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos (New York: Colombia University
Press, 2006).
4 David Christian, The Case for Big History, Journal of World History 2:2 (1991), 238.
174 Nazaretyan
Figure12.1 The Stages of Cosmic Evolution, accessed June 20, 2015, http://www.eskesthai
.com/2010/07/cosmic-evolution-and-powers-of-ten.html.
published by courtesy of eric chaisson
However, does the vectorial model truly describe correctly the empirical data
of social history? The heated discussions around these problems are mainly
due to the unwillingness of the opponents to alternate the distances, the expo-
sures, and the optic instruments in order to vary the pictures.
Many details are perceived through the microscope, whereas perspectives
and trajectories vanish. A wide-angle lens shows how civilizations, tribes, and
families grow, flourish, and degrade, and how all the lines break, branch out,
and often curve down. At the same time, in this case the researcher finds no
correlation between the parameters of social transformation in different local
objects and comes to the conclusion that history is multilinear or cyclic. The
researcher notices separate trees, bushes, branches, and leaves; each is mainly
original, but a wide-angle lens captures no long-term trends or regularities.
In order to avoid missing the forest for the trees, a telephoto lens is required
which opens the smallest scale and thus very large time and space blocks. It
makes possible the comparison of the states of society for highly remote time
sectors. In this case, we may observe a set of reliable correlations and also
reveal that neither tribes or states nor civilizations but humanity in its broad-
est sense, and even the whole hominidae family (humans and their extinct
relatives), has been the subject of evolution. Similarly, to discover global
b iological evolution one should de-emphasize separate populations, species,

or even ecosystems and compare the conditions of the biosphere at different
levels of the geological time table; this way the successive growth of morpho-
logical and behavioral diversity and intellectual qualities and the increasing
influence of the biota on the geological processes are evident.
Since hominids have once and for all turned to tool making, in spite of
countless divergences, migrations, and isolations, culture as a super-natural
reality has been a single and common planetary phenomenon, which is proved
by multiple particular observations. As to the explosive growth of local variet-
ies since the Middle Paleolithic era, it was a typical process of the evolving
systems inner diversification.
Telescopic retrospection makes obvious the fact of directional social trans-
formations in the sweep of time, as well as the conjugation of the vectors,
which can hardly be shown on the scale of separate societies. I have singled out
six conjunct social evolution vectors: (1) growth of world population, (2) techno-
logical power, (3) complexity in social organization, (4) information capacity of
the intelligence, (5) perfection of mechanisms for cultural regulation, and (6)
growing specific weight of virtual realities.
The first three vectors are deduced as empirical generalizations and may
be easily supplied with mathematical figures. The other three have been traced
back by special methods and arguments. However, all of them keep within the
integral grotesque formula moving away from the natural state, that is,
theintegral society-nature system has been successively withdrawing from the
natural (wild) condition, assuming more and more anthropomorphic and
culture-centered qualities; the degree of tool (including sign) mediation in
society-nature and intra-social relationships and individual psychic reflection
has been increasing. So, the kernel of global causalities was successively shift-
ing toward mental phenomena, especially after the first Neolithic agrocenoses
marked the initial regeneration of the wild biosphere into the anthroposphere
or Noospherean integral nature-culture system.
Leadership in the many-thousand-years marathon has intermittently shifted
from one region or continent to another including Australia (the first cave pic-
tures, stone tools with polished handle and blade, and the first boats were invented
there); Europe and then North America were preeminent for the latest centuries.
The most paradoxical fact is discovered as anthropogenic crises, especially
global ones, are analyzed. In spite of the slogans of some modern ecologists
(Back to the Nature! etc.), each aggravation in society-nature relations has
been radically overcome not by convergence between society and nature but
vice versa, by a next spire of denaturalization of society together with its
native habitat.
176 Nazaretyan
This fact can be revealed readily by comparing the hunter-gatherer econ-

omy with that of food production, or the industrial civilization with the agri-
cultural one, or the information society with the industrial one. Each leap was
determined by a complex crisis of the former activities and was accompanied
by transformations of all the conjunct parameters. As a result, the human eco-
logical niche broadened and deepened and population increased, along with
technologies, needs, and ambitionsand the way toward the next crisis
continued.
The Pattern of Techno-Humanitarian Balance
During World War ii, the German philosopher and sociologist Norbert Elias,
a Jewish scholar who had lost his relatives in the Holocaust, demonstrated with
figures that the civilizing process had been reducing the percentage of vio-
lent deaths.5 Later, this suggestion was confirmed by the comparative calcula-
tions made by British, American,6 and Russian scholars. Thus, we used a
cross-cultural indexBloodshed Ratio (br), or the ratio of the average number
of killings (K) per unit of time to a population size (P) during a given period
(t). The number of killings included wars, political repression, and everyday
violence:
K ( t )
BR = 1
P ( t )
A more specified formula is applied to consider the br per centuries. On the

whole, specific estimates have demonstrated that over the course of millennia
the violent death rate has been non-linearly but successively decreasing while
both the destructive potential and population densities have had a distinctly
upward trend. Thus, the 20th century does not look as incomparably sangui-
nary as we usually see it proceeding from the habitual Eurocentric position.
In fact, Europe had lived relatively unworried (compared to other regions)
during the 266 years between the Westphalia Peace Treaty (1648) and
WorldWar i (1914), until the outside world remained a large reservoir for the
5 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, rev. ed.
(Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 1939/2000).
6 Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Viking
Penguin, 2011).
a ggression-overshoot. As we consider globally, the 19th century is not inferior

to the 20th century even in the absolute figures of war, genocide, and everyday
violence. (Chinese historians indicate that from 60 to 100 million people per-
ished in total in the Opium Wars and the Taiping Insurrection.7) As we com-
pare remote historical epochs (even coexisting in time), the difference achieves
orders of magnitude.8
These figures hardly mean a lowering aggressiveness of humans; in fact, psy-
chological experiences show that population densities beyond the natural eco-
logical niche make humans, like the rest of animals, increasingly aggressive. To
explain the contrasting combination of long-term trends, we should assume a
more likely factor, which has compensated for the growth in tool potential.
A hypothesis to explain its essence arises from different empirical data; in fact,
calculations have been conducted to check a corollary of the hypothesis.
Summarizing diverse information from cultural anthropology, history, and
psychology concerning anthropogenic catastrophes, we find a regular relation
between three variables: technological potential, quality of cultural regulation,
and social sustainability. The law of techno-humanitarian balance states that
the higher the power of production and war technologies, the more advanced
behavior-restraint is required to enable self-preservation of the society.
The circumstances of the existence of early hominids were of the kind that
only an essential development of tool intelligence gave them a chance to sur-
vive. Meantime, having begun tool making, they dramatically interfered with
the ethological balance between the force of the natural weapons of wild ani-
mals and the instinctive inhibition of intra-species killing. The power of artifi-
cial weapons rapidly exceeded the power of instinctive aggression-inhibition
(the Homo habilis in the Olduvai Gorge used to crush one anothers skulls with
their choppers), and the proportion of mortal conflicts grew to an extent
incompatible with further existence of the original toolmakers. This situation
may be the main reason for a fact demonstrated in archeology: many groups
seem to have been on the borderline between animals and proto-humans, yet
very few could have crossed it.
Since the individuals with normal animal motivation were doomed to mutual
destruction in the new unnatural conditions, certain psychastenic and hysterical
7 Yumin Wang, Debating the so-called death toll exceeding one hundred million during the
Taiping Revolution period, Academic Monthly 6 (1993), 4150 (in Chinese); Shujii Cao, A
History of the Chinese Population: The Qing Dynasty (Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2001)
(in Chinese).
8 Lawrence H. Keeley, War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1996).
178 Nazaretyan
individuals got selective privileges. Their survival required artificial (beyond bio-
logical instincts) collective regulation, which was paradoxically provided by
pathological changes in the psycho-nervous system, abnormal mental lability,
suggestibility, and phobias. Thus, the origins of animism and irrational fear of the
dead and posthumous revenge is supposed to strongly restrain in-group aggres-
sion and stimulate care for the handicapped: archeology gives us evidence of
such biologically senseless facts in the Early Paleolithic era.
The assumption that our remote ancestors were a herd of neurotics has been
thoroughly argued by neurologists, cultural anthropologists, and psychologists.
Here, the relevant point is that the initial forms of proto-culture and proto-
morals emerged as an outcome of the first existential crisis in human prehistory.
Since the time of the Habilis, the unnatural intra-species killing facility of
hominids seems to have been a key problem of pre-human and human history:
the ways of solving this existential problem influenced essentially the forms of
social organization and cultural and spiritual processes. So far as further life of
the hominidae family (including our own species, the Neoanthropes) has not
had a natural background any longer, it was to a great extent enabled by the
adequacy of cultural regulation with technological power. As the toolmakers
were increasing their power and aggressiveness, culture developed more and
more intricate means of aggression-sublimation to adjust to the growing
destructive facilities; the mechanism of techno-humanitarian balance was dis-
carding social organisms that could not adapt to the power of their tools.
The pattern resolves the paradox of decreasing physical violence versus
growing destructive resources. Besides, it helps explain causally both the sud-
den collapses of flourishing societies and the breakthroughs of humanity into
new historical epochs (which often look still more mysterious).
For an initial and rough guide, a formal apparatus distinguishes between
internal and external sustainability. The former Si expresses the social sys-
tems capability to keep away from endogenous catastrophes. The latter Se is
the capability to withstand fluctuations in the natural and geopolitical
habitat.
If we refer to the quality of cultural regulation as R and technological poten-
tial as T, a simple equation represents the pattern:
f1 ( R )
Si =
f2 ( T ) 2

As seems obvious, T > 0, for in the case of no technology at all we are dealing with
a herd (not a society) where biological causalities are effective. If technological
potential is very low, primitive regulation means is sufficient, as in case of

Paleolithic tribes (like the regular infanticide to prevent demographic over-
flow). A system is highly sustainable, up to stagnation, as cultural regulation
quality exceeds the technological might (medieval China is a textbook exam-
ple). Finally, the denominator growth raises the probability of anthropogenic
crises if it is not compensated by the numerator growth.
The aggravating misbalance usually provokes the psychological effects,
which entail a crisis-causing behavior. Shortly, once the new technologies
exceed the former cultural restrictions, public attitudes and sentiments get
peculiar features. A sense of omnipotence and permissiveness is intensified
together with the increasing needs and ambitions. Success euphoria produces
an impatient expectation of new successes and an irrational thirst for small
victorious warsa mass complex of catastrophophilia, in the terms of Peter
Sloterdijk.9 The subjugation process and a search for new moderately resisting
enemies are getting self-valuable, while, as we know from specific experiments,10
strong emotions flatten worldview (reduce the semantic space dimensional-
ity). A more primitive worldview entails impulsive decision-making, and the
numerator index in equation (2), instead of increasing in proportion to the
denominators growth, is falling. Thus, the cultural imbalance lowers the soci-
etys sustainability.
Abstracting here from more psychological details, the unbalance is fraught
with ruinous effects either in the case of war or production technologies. For
instance, Arnold Toynbee cited various examples to illustrate the inverse rela-
tionship between military and social progress and was puzzled by the fact
that this relation was true about production tools as well as weapons.11 William
McNeill wrote: It certainly seems as thoughevery heightening of efficiency
in production was matched by a new vulnerability to breakdown.12
Numerous facts gathered in relevant publications testify to the distressing
destiny of societies that could not anticipate the delayed effects of their eco-
nomic activities. In spite of all peculiarities, a common script was simple:
9 Peter Sloterdijk, Kritik der zynischen Vernunft, 1 und 2 Bnd (Frankfurt am Main: Edition
Suhrkamp, 1983).
10 Viktor F. Petrenko, The multidimensional mind: A psycho-semantic paradigm (Moscow:
New Chronograph, 2010).
11 Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History: Abridgement of Volumes ivi (New York and Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1987).
12 William H. McNeill, Control and Catastrophe in Human Affairs, The Global Condition:
Conquerors, Catastrophes and Community (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press,
1992), 148.
180 Nazaretyan
increasing intervention into the ecosystem landscape destruction social

catastrophe.
In contrast, particular studies of wars and natural hazards have demon-
strated that the external sustainability is the technological potentials positive
function:
Se = g (T)3
Hereby, growing technological potential makes a social system less vulnerable to

external fluctuations and more vulnerable to the internal ones, that is, mass men-
tal states, failed decisions of influential leaders, or other destructive individual
activities (less fool-proof).
One more conclusion is that the specific weight of anthropogenic crises
versus the ones caused by outside factors (spontaneous climate fluc
tuations, geological or cosmic cataclysms, aggressive nomads, and so on)
has been historically increasing. Accordingly, time intervals between the
global human-made crises in history have been successively shortening.
What is still more remarkable, this trend keeps on the biospheric trend of
evolution-acceleration.
The Singularity Puzzle
The cosmological arrow looks rectilinear on Fig. 12.1; yet, the cumulative
changes have not been uniform. The first billions of years after the Big Bang,
evolution was slowing down until heavy elements were synthesized in the
depths of first generation stars and ejected into the cosmic space by supernova
explosions. This development initiated an additional self-organization mecha-
nism with competition for free energy (the heavy elements unlike the light
ones need energy feed from outside). Thus, about 10 billion years ago, as evolu-
tion went its way toward organic molecules and living matter, the slowdown
changed into acceleration (see Fig.12.2).13
The solar system emerged nearly 4.6 billion years ago, and the first signs of
living organisms on earth are recorded about 4 billion years ago; thus our
planet likely was one of various points on which further cosmic evolution
was localized. (Recent discoveries in paleontology, biophysics, and cosmology
13 Alexander D. Panov, The singular point of history, Social Sciences Today 1 (2005), 122137
(in Russian).
Figure12.2 The two hoses of

universal evolution, by
Alexander Pinkin.
source: akop p.
nazaretyan, nonlinear
futures
have reinforced the hypothesis of the cosmic origin of life: the first organ-
isms supposedly emerged somewhere in the galaxy, were carried by meteor-
ites, and nestled in all suitable planets during 215 million years (one galactic
year). In particular, their first signs on earth precede the appearance of the
oceans.14) Although the fact of its consecutive acceleration is obvious for any
global analyst, an additional and wonderful discovery belongs to recent
decades. Australian economist Graeme Snooks, Russian physicist Alexander
Panov, and American mathematician Raymond Kurzweill independently on
different sources and with different mathematical apparatus compared the
successive time intervals between the phase transitions in biospheric, pre-
social, and social evolution.15 The calculations demonstrate that the inter-
vals have been shortening in accordance with a rigorous decreasing
14 Alexei Yu Rozanov, Life conditions on early Earth after 4.0 bil. years ago, Problems of the
emergence of life (Moscow: ras, 2009), 185201 (in Russian).
15 Graeme Daniel Snooks, The Dynamic Society. Exploring the Sources of Global Change
(London and New York: Routledge, 1996); Alexander D. Panov, Scaling Law of the
Biological Evolution and the Hypothesis of the Self-consistent Galaxy Origin of Life.
Advances in Space Research 36 (2005), 220225; Panov, The singular point of history;
Raymond Kuzweill, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York:
pg, 2005).
182 Nazaretyan
Information Revolution
102 Steam, electricity Information Revolution
Industrial Revolution
103 Middle Ages
Axial Revolution 102 Steam, electricity
Frequency of phase transitions
Urban Revolution
The Neolithic
104 Industrial Revolution
The Upper Paleolithic
105 Mousterian
103 Middle Ages
Acheulian Axial Revolution
Chellean
106 Olduvai Urban Revolution
Anthropogene
107 Neogene
The Neolithic
Cainozoic 104
108 Mesozoic
Cambrian Explosion
Neo-Proterozoic Revolution The Upper Paleolithic
109 Emergence of life
105 Mousterian
1010
4109 3109 2109 1109 0 1,2105 9,0104 6,0104 3,0104 0,0
Time before singularity (years) Time before singularity (years)
Figure12.3 Scaling law in the phase transitions.

source: alexander d. panov, the singular point of history.
progression, and thus the evolution on earth has been accelerating under a
logarithmic law (see Fig.12.3).
Like all of the fundamental discoveries, the scale is highly counter-intuitive,
that is, it strongly conflicts with intuitive suggestions. Traditionally, researchers
tended to explain the global catastrophes (like the extinction of pangolins on
the boundary of the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic eras or the mega-fauna extinc-
tion on the boundary of the Pleistocene and the Holocene eras) by appealing to
some outside challenges: large meteorites, powerful volcanoes, climate changes,
etc. Those versions are extremely vulnerable in each particular case, but the
table of hyperbolic acceleration debunks this approach for good and all.
Continents have been drifting, meteorites falling down, volcanoes erupting
and climate changing over 4 billion years; later on, the wayward Homo sapiens
intervened with their free will and never-ending extravagances, and about 10
thousand years ago (the Neolithic era) the Noosphere started to arise.
Nevertheless, the global transitions, which were foregone each time by crises
and catastrophes, followed as if on a schedule. This paradoxical fact turns us to
the synergetic pattern, which appeals to accrual entropy accumulation and
progressive perfection of anti-entropy mechanisms enabled by the growth of
complexity.
Particular analysis of the crucial episodesor transitory singularities
shows that the events could have developed otherwise in each case: the evolu-
tion of the biosphere and then the anthroposphere could have suspended
(in compliance with the Lotka-Volterra oscillation circuit in ecology) or the
sustainable non-equilibrium system could have collapsed in a global catastro-

phe. In synergetic terms, I call simple attractor the scenarios related to systems
intensive degradation and simplification after the polyfurcation phase. Those
scenarios related to a suspension (interim stabilization on the achieved level
of non-equilibrium without complication, which is fraught with a systems
gradual degradation in a long-term perspective) refer to the horizontal strange
attractor. Yet, you and I live on this planet and enjoy the fruits (and experience
the troubles) of postindustrial civilization thanks to the fact that evolution has
gone toward the vertical strange attractors in all the turning points, that is,
global sustainability was each time reestablished on a higher level of non-
equilibrium and complexity.
One more consideration originated in system theory and its implementation
principle: all of the possible events do happen. From there, we must assume
that multiple hearths of evolution are present in the Universe in which all pos-
sible scenarios are realized. Very few of them achieve a level comparable to the
one we find on Earth while the others implement all the dead-end scenarios.
Finally, having extrapolated the curve into the future, researchers came to a
near unanimous and still more striking result: around the mid 21st century the
hyperbole comes to the final singularity point. It turns into a vertical, that is,
the speed of the evolutionary processes tends toward infinity and the time
intervals between new phase transitions tend toward zero.
How can we interpret this mysterious mathematical result? Obviously, the
evolution on earth cannot continue the algorithm it has followed for the lat-
est 4 billion years and a conclusive phase transition comparable to the emer-
gence of life is to occur over the 21st century. In other words, the planetary
history intrigue is expected to be resolved in this or that way during the next
decades!
The most elementary suggestion is that the anthroposphere is approaching
the top of possible complexity after which evolution passes into its descend-
ing branch: the anthroposphere will degrade to an non-peopled biosphere
with further degradation to the sphere of equilibrium. Thus, the kernel of the
simple attractor is that with a lapse of time earth will become a normal cos-
mic body like the moon or Mars free from res cogitans and living matter at all.
We can trace various scenarios in the network of the same attractor, and the
duration of the degradation process depends on how exactly the events will
continue.
Tracing the strange attractors beforehand is always more problematic or
even to clear up whether or not they do exist beyond this Singularity. The hori-
zontal one might be seen as a kind of Hegelian-like end of history. Although
the details of a long-term stabilization on the peak of complexity are now
184 Nazaretyan
hardly imaginable, we must assume its compromise status: sooner or later, the
known natural mechanisms will bring the anthroposphere to collapse.
Still more difficult is to imagine a vertical strange attractor. In this context,
we pay attention to the remarkable turn in modern cosmological thinking. In
the 20th century, only some of the Soviet astrophysicists (or the descendents
from the Soviet Union) influenced by the Russian Cosmism dared to assume
humans potential intervention in the cosmic-scale processes and perspec-
tives. In contrast, serious Western scholars shared the belief that life, society,
culture, and mind were nothing but epiphenomena (side effects) of spontane-
ously evolving material structures without any mutual influence on the cosmic
processes and in time doomed to vanish without a trace. The Nobel Prize win-
ner Steven Weinberg expressed this common belief by noting that only the
awareness of the unavoidable end imparts a tint of a high tragedy to the
farce of human existence.16
Meanwhile, those naturalist scenarios lost their popularity by the begin-
ning of the 21st century: following recent publications, we can note a radical
change of mind. Assertions about consciousness as a cosmologically funda-
mental fact, the conclusive influence of the developing knowledge on subse-
quent evolution of the Meta-galaxy and the perspectives of living cosmos are
widespread among physicists up to an exotic idea of deliberate creation of new
universes with preset parameters for posterior emergence of life, etc.17
One may also appeal to the studies in Gestalt psychology and heuristics,
which have demonstrated that any boundaries imposed on engineering by
physical laws are surmountable by a change of the cognitive meta-system.
Specifically, those parameters of the problem that are uncontrollable con-
stants inside one model become manageable variables within a more
complex meta-model; this phenomenon implies that the potentiality of
intellectual control may be potentially unlimited. From there, the imple-
mentation principle suggests one more conclusion. If the intelligence that
originated on earth destroys itself before it realizes those potential universal
16 Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe
(New York: Basic Books, 1993).
17 David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality (London and New York: Allen Lane, The Penguin
Press, 1997); Martin J. Rees, Our Final Century: Will the Human Race Survive the Twenty-first
Century? (New York: Basic Books, 2003); Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries
in Natures Creative Ability to Order the Universe (Philadelphia and London: Templeton
Press, 2004); Lee Smolin, The Trouble with Physics (Boston and New York: Houghton
Mifflin, 2006); Michio Kaku, Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny
and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 (New York: Doubleday, 2010); and others.
developments, this role will be fulfilled by anotherpresumably some

extraterrestrial intelligence.18
Earlier, by extrapolating some arguments derived from the evolution of cre-
ative intelligence and its growing intervention into the mass-energy processes on
earth, we supposed that humanity is now unwittingly participating in a universal
natural selection of planetary civilizations.19 As we have assumed that very few of
the local hotbeds of evolution achieve the level comparable to the one we find on
our planet, it implies the following suggestion. Only those technologically
advanced civilizations (perhaps a single one) that succeed in progressive adjust-
ing their aggression-regulation to unlimited growing power can break out to the
cosmic stage of evolution. The rest remain universal evolutions active storage as
well as the planetary bio- and Noospheres, which interrupt their evolution at ear-
lier stages. Thus, the mechanism described in the pattern of techno-humanitarian
balance might remain the determinant at the conclusive stage of the planetary
histories of civilizations to enable their selective cosmic relevance.
Here, as goes without saying, the humanitarian intelligence has poten-
tially unlimited capacity to perfect its self-control in compliance with grow-
ing technological power; yet, this belief is not indisputable for a psychologist.
Some intrinsic attributes (like innate gestalts) may turn out to restrain minds
flexibility and thus the range of self-control is narrower than the range of
technological ingenuity. For instance, the analysis of historical episodes
makes us suspect that both human and perhaps post-human (symbiotic,
human-machine) intelligence needs an image of an enemy for effective
group solidarity (themus archetype) and a strategic meaning formation
is hampered by prolonged lack of competing agents. Emotional ambivalence
programmed in the limbic structures of our brain intermittently induces an
unconscious search for the negative experiences like fear and hatred and
provokes corresponding activities. Although since the most ancient times
culture has been developing measures (like rituals, art, sports, television pro-
grams, or computer games) to relieve those functional drives, sooner or later
people feel bored with the sublimation measures and the longing for the
not for fun passions is activated. Grotesquely, apparently a kind of natural
self-destruction program is embedded in the minds base plate to prevent a
cosmic outburst of intelligence.
If no measures to effectively overcome those irrational fluctuations are pos-
sible, one can suggest that the evolution of complexity on any planet has an
18 Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality, 353.

19 Akop P. Nazaretyan, Intelligence in the Universe: Sources, Formation, and Prospects
(Moscow: Nedra, 1991) (in Russian).
186 Nazaretyan
extreme boundary and no planetary Noosphere can escape conclusive self-

destruction; thus, the Silence of the Cosmos gets a most trivial and pessimis-
tic explanation. This result would mean that in spite of our intuitive beliefs, the
mental realities are more rigid than the physical ones. In other words, intel-
lectual agents have potentially more power over the mass-energy world than
over their own mental conditions and what is feasible from the physical point
of view is excluded by the immanent laws of psychology and cultural anthro-
pology. If such is the case, this unexpected circumstance can play a fatal role in
the destiny of civilizations: just because of it, life and intelligence are indeed
no more than epiphenomenal effects, and the future cosmic developments are
exhaustively described in the naturalist scenarios.
In case we still accept that minds self-regulating capacity is potentially
commensurate to its unlimited technological evolution, we get back to the
hypothesis of universal natural selection. So, the nodal question shifts to
another realm: whether or not earthly intelligence will succeed in upgrading
its self-regulation to balance the accelerating breakthrough in technologies
prior to their destructive effects become irreversible.
As the latest biophysical and paleontological researches have shown (see in
particular footnote 2), a spontaneous emergence of a living cell is too highly
improbable to happen repeatedly on various planets: once such appeared, the
biota have most probably infected all of the available points in the cosmic
space. In all likelihood, if the formation of a cosmic intelligence is possible, it
must be just as unique in its degree and might occur only once at a certain
stage of the universal evolution.
How high are the chances of earth civilization to implement this unique
opportunity? More than ten years ago, the famous English astronomer Sir
Martin Rees estimated its chances to survive the 21st century (and get a cosmic
relevance) as 50/50.20 This view corresponded to my own estimation at that
time, but now it looks too optimistic.
Humanity set up a historical record of nonviolence in the first decade of this
century: by United Nations and the World Health Organization data, from 2000
to 2010, the total sum of violent deaths in the world (armed conflicts, political
repressions, and everyday violence) numbered about 500 thousand a year,
while population was verging on 7 billion.21 Although the number of killings
20 Rees, Our Final Century.

21 Etienne G. Krug, Linda L. Dahlberg, James A. Mercy, Anthony B. Zwi, and Rafael Lozano,
eds., World report on violence and health (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2002);
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (unodc), Global Study of Homicide: Trends,
Contexts, Data (Vienna: unodc, 2011).
looks terrible, this Bloodshed Ratio is unprecedentedly low (lower than the
yearly number of suicides in the same period). Some regions show indexes of
one and no killings a year for 100,000 habitants.
These encouraging facts gave analysts a timid hope that the trend of virtual-
ization (violence was prevailing in the media news, films, and computer
games) would continue. We expected something like the advanced computer
programs for the users multisensory involvement in virtual battles to undergo
intensive emotional experiences and thus relieve the psychological tensions
by means of substitute activity and so on.
Perhaps, we underestimated the dynamism of the irrational mood fluc-
tuations among both political leaders and the mass. Unfortunately, since
2011, the situation has taken a turn for the worse. The euphoria and catas-
trophophilia symptoms were first manifest yet since the late 1990s in the
United States (as a result of victory in the Cold War) and in some Muslim
regions. Lately, the nostalgia for small victorious wars has infected other
regions and become a relevant motivation. The intellectual qualities of
political leaders and readiness to estimate the delayed consequences are
decreasing (compared to their forerunners in the 197080s), and interna-
tional law is being abandoned and the global geopolitical system is losing
its sustainability.
Earth civilization successfully completed the 20th century for it had man-
aged to solve the global menaces of those times. Actually, we have anyhow
learned to deal with population growth and ecological contaminations and
psychologically adjusted to nuclear weapon, but we are facing new global
problems. In Bill Joys words, the century of weapons of mass destruction
was changed by the century of knowledge-enabled destruction.22 The
boundaries between the states of peace and war as well as between war, pro-
duction, and everyday technologies are diffusing (so it was in the Paleolithic
era), while spreading access to education makes the destructive means every
year cheaper and more easily accessible. So, the sophisticated weapons are
slipping out of the control of governments and falling into the hands of irre-
sponsible groups and individuals free from the habits of long-term and sys-
tem anticipation.
Another aggravating crisis is still more paradoxically related to the greatest
successes in the humanist culture. In the early 19th century, one third of English
children outlived the age of five years, while current childrens mortality in the
post-industrial regions is less than 1%. The integral longevities have increased
four times during the two hundred years and the pay-off for the unprecedentedly
22 Bill Joy, Why the future doesnt need us? Wired (April 2000), 238262.
188 Nazaretyan
high value of individual lives in modern societies is a genetic load exponential

accumulation. Human biological wellbeing depends more and more on life
comfort, perfecting medical care, and other artificial conditions. A linear
extrapolation shows that the trend of biological degeneration can irreversibly
affect human brains around the mid 21st century, if effective contra-measures
are not undertaken. Thus, without genetic engineering and other technologi-
cal interventions into the most intimate foundations of the human existence,
our species is doomed to wither away, whereas the newly developing technolo-
gies carry new menaces of both destructive errors and abuse.
Researching the global dangers, I find one that may be the pivotal problem
in the next decades; it is related to meaning formation. Over millennia, humans
have been seeking their meanings of life in the context of religious or quasi-
religious ideologies, which are always built in the matrix of friend-or-foe dis-
crimination. Tribes and states, confessions, nations, and classes have been
designing their inner solidarity (in-group aggression-sublimation) by means of
a shared aversion to strangers. Service to the macro-group sacred idols and
expected reward for the confrontation against the alien (hostile) ones has
made the background for the group and individual life meanings. As soon as an
ideological content with similar group identity involved a vast geographical
and cultural region, the next discriminations followed (by religious sects and
movements, nations and sub-nations, testament or class confrontations) to
abate in-group aggression by venting it outside. This anti-entropy mechanism
has worked effectively throughout history.
Meanwhile, the synergetic law of delayed dysfunction claims that the pro-
ductive mechanisms at the previous stages of the s development of a system
turn destructive (fraught with a catastrophic entropy growth) at a following
stage. Thus, until the task of the humanitarian culture was regulating and
transferring social violence (to escape as much as possible its chaotic forms),
ideological worldviews served for social sustainability. Since the new historical
stage has set the task of removing physical violence as a condition for global
survival, most of the outdated sustaining procedures are counter-productive.
Therefore, turning back to the pattern of techno-humanitarian balance, the
key question of the earth or any other planetary civilizations destiny behind
the Singularity is whether or not the strategic life meanings can be designed
above ideological worldviews and macro-group discriminations for non-
confrontational solidarity. Here is another way of putting this point. The same
question might sound as follows: How far can the development in morals and
concomitant aggression-restrictors go? To what extent of conscience can our
mind and even our brain elevate without losing its motivations and the will to
activity? Theoretically, modern cross-disciplinary worldviews accumulated in
Mega-History, unlike the classical naturalism, might warrant new universal

meanings and motivations free from ideologies; yet, how real are the chances
to massively assimilate it in the next decades?
Accelerating technological development and spreading education are
unprecedentedly raising the global role of individual activities and mentali-
ties. In view of the approaching Singularity, the crossroads of the current his-
torical phase look extremely dramatic: perhaps, our earthly wives are now
giving birth to either the potential gods with access to some forms of immor-
tality and cosmic supremacy or the generation of suicides who will finally
crumble the Noosphere
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chapter 13
The Tragedy of Philosophy and the Philosophy of

Tragedy (Sergey N. Bulgakov and Lev I. Shestov)
Vladimir N. Porus
Abstract
The tragedy of Bulgakov is the tragedy of philosophy. The tragedy of Shestov is the phi-
losophy of tragedy. Tragedy is a key word; it is therein that the thoughts of both philoso-
phers overlap. From the standpoint of Bulgakov, the tragedy of being is not to be solved
in the philosophy of tragedy, for this philosophy itself is not tragic; it does not live in
tragedy, but only reasons on it. Bulgakovs idea of uniting theology and philosophy
should have seemed intolerably false to Shestov as, in his opinion, it could only lead to
deviation from faith, to its blending into philosophy and not to the latters rising to the
knowledge of God. The tragedy of philosophy, according to Bulgakov, is, first of all,
recognition of the insolvability of the main tasks philosophical reason is setting for
itself: looking into the causes of evil in the world, the possibility of freedom, the sense
of history, and the unity of things in the great Whole. The form taken by this tragedy is
antinomianism.
Keywords
tragedy of philosophy philosophy of tragedy reason faith antinomianism

being philosophy of history
Humanity has entered the third millennium without belief that it somehow
will manage to escape global disasters. The cruel experience of the past years
does not strengthen this belief but rather calls it into question. However, the
irony of our time is that the global threats (environmental, economic, military,
etc.) have become so usual that being reminded of them engenders boredom.
We have become accustomed to their existence and drive a thought of their
inevitability away from us. Otherwise, we would find living to be too difficult, if
at all possible.
People realize the tragic nature of being at the crucial moments of their lives.
The existentialists of the 20th century used to call such moments limit situa-
tions. At such moment Being reveals its true nature to individuals and throws

The Tragedy of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Tragedy 193
off the veil of Maya. The same might be happening to peoples, nations, and
cultures. Philosophy (along with art) has always been the self-consciousness of
humanity. In the limit situations it is imbued with tragedy. This feature
appears to be of two kinds: philosophy is awareness of tragedy and, at the same
time, participation in it. A rationalist just pretends to be able not to weep, not to
laugh, not to turn ones back but to understand. Take a good look at the eyes of
Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza. Nevertheless, Spinoza and The Unhappiest One
of Sren Kierkegaard often have a right-of-way lying between them as well as
mutual distrust growing into hostility.
The Russian philosophy of the first half of the recently expired century was
not only a sensorium commune of world tragedy but realized the greatest
ordeal therein. What is a way to keep dignity in a situation with no favorable
outcome? Is it to remain human in the inhuman world captured by the mad-
ding whirlwind of history? Is it to keep deep inside an ability to see the light in
the pitch darkness?
These questions sound today as relevant as at the time when Sergey N.
Bulgakov and Lev I. Shestov were putting them to each other. Their dispute in
absentio still remains an important spiritual lesson for us.

For various reasons I find it difficult to write about the world view of Shestov,
Bulgakov used to confess. At the time when the main works of Shestov were
already widely known, Bulgakov, who knew the author well and treated him
with respect and sympathy, did not pay interest to these writings. However,
the theological quest of Bulgakov, as well as of other Russian religious thinkers
of that time, was to all appearance of the same low interest to Shestov. (Shestov
doubted their trueness; he did not trust the religious exercises of intelligen-
tsia, in particular when they were claiming transformation of faith and refor-
mation. As he thought, coming to believe is torturous and hard work which is
really impossible for those who, like Nicolas Berdyaev, Dmitry Merezhkovsky,
or Bulgakov, do not do it by simple and joyful opening of their souls but through
sophistication and rational construction to the results of which the inward
spiritual workings and experiences are adjusted in one way or another.1
Nevertheless, to nearly a greater extent this characterization pertains to
Shestov himself in whose religious quest anguish and intellectualization are
far too evident. Mutual distrust in matters of faith is a communication feature
1 Lev Shestov, Works, v. 5 (Saint-Petersburg: Schipovnik, 1911, 9798). [, .

6 . . 5. -: , 1911, c. 9798.] (in Russian).
194 Porus
of the Russian intelligentsia that would come out dramatically in times of cri-
sis.) Only after Shestovs death, having received from the Paris-based magazine
Sovremennye Zapiski an assignment to write an article in memory of the late
thinker, Bulgakov plunged into his last worksmost likely intending to
understand the mystery of his personality, the essence of his faith with which
he was leaving for eternity than for the sake of interest to his ideas.2 What has
made contact of ideas between them so difficult?
I would not judge all the reasons mentioned by Bulgakov, but I will try to
clarify one of them related to the difference in the bases of their world views,
namely, a reason why they kept aloof from each other in the prime of their
creative powers. Then, with their lives coming to an end, their eagerness to get
closer was too late.
They both were tragic thinkers. A tragic seal is impressed on the face of
Bulgakov, in his dark, mournful, and strained figure pictured by Mikhail V.
Nesterov together with bright image of Pavel A. Florensky (see Fig. 13.1). 3
Figure13.1
The Philosophers, portrait of
Sergei Bulgakov and Pavel
Florenskiy3
2 Sergey N. Bulgakov, Some Features of the Religious World View of Lev I. Shestov, Works in
two volumes, v. 1 (Moscow: Nauka, 1993), 519 and 521 [ . ,
. . , 2- , . 1.
(: , 1993), c. 519 521.] (in Russian).
3 Mikhail V. Nesterov, The Philosophers, accessed May 15, 2015, http://www.artscroll.ru/page
.php?al=Filosofy__S_N_Bulgakov_i_P__A_Florenskiy___1917_136294_kartina.
The same seal marks the author of Apotheosis of Groundlessness. Taking a

good look at the face of Shestov (see Fig. 13.2), as it comes out of his books, one
can see that it is twitched with a terrible convulsion emerging from his feeling
the tragic nature of an individual human existence left to the mercy of chance
and death.4 All the power of his invincibly gloomy mind (to quote Vasily V.
Rozanov) was focused on the damn questions: doom of human beings facing
inevitable death, abasement of the dignity of a thinking and suffering person
who is powerless not only against absurd occurrences but cruel and indifferent
need as wellthe overpowering burden of the faith a person is striving for, but
is afraid of in this very striving. His confidants were the great tragic thinkers:
Martin Luther, Sren Kierkegaard, Fydor Dostoyevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche. 5
Figure13.2
Lev Shestov 5
4 Victor Erofeev, One but Fiery Passion of Lev Shestov, Lev Shestov, Selected Works (Moscow:
Renessans, 1993), 36. [ , , , .
, (: c, 1993, c. 36).] (in Russian).
5 Photograph by Len Chestov, accessed May 15, 2015, https://yandex.ru/images/search?
text=Chestov%2C%20Le%C3%B3n.%20Photo%20of%20Lev%20Shestov.&img_
url=http%3A%2F%2Fshoyher.narod.ru%2FPortret%2FShestovlev.jpg&pos=2&rpt=
simage&stype=image&lr=21735&noreask=1&uinfo=sw-1920-sh-1080-ww-1903-wh-943-pd-1-wp
6x9_1920x1080&redircnt=1431770414.1&pin=1.
196 Porus
Their faces are different guises of tragedy, and they are different to such an
extent that either of them takes another face not as something like itself but
rather as if it were a kind of mask, a parody.
The tragedy of Bulgakov is the tragedy of philosophy (that is the name he
gave to one of his most important works). The tragedy of Shestov is the philoso-
phy of tragedy (in the subtitle of his book on Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche this
phrase denotes a mental setting focused on the tragic character of human
beings). Tragedy is a key word; it is therein that the thoughts of both philoso-
phers overlap.
Indeed, the distinction between the worldviews of Bulgakov and Shestov
catches the eye. Bulgakov is a sophiologist influenced by Vladimir S. Soloviev
and Pavel A. Florensky, as well as a follower of the philosophy of Total-Unity.
At the core of this philosophy is a thesis on moral and free reason embodied in
the Absolute and acting as a goal for the individual and humanity. This thesis
links the theological teaching on Saint Sophia with philosophical gnoseology.
At the same time, if Sergey A. Levitsky is right that a true philosopher cannot
but proceed from gnoseology,6 Shestov is not a philosopher at all. This view
coincides with how Bulgakov regards him:
If philosophy is understood as a systematic research in the field of philo-

sophical problems, their essence in history, then S[hestov] is, by no
means, a philosopher which, however, does not prevent him from being a
peculiar thinkerHis mental settings have been already determined in
his early writings and represent a number of attempts to give a new way
of expressing one major themeapotheosis of philosophical ground-
lessness (which in the recent translation means: the philosophy of
faith).7
From the standpoint of Bulgakov, Shestovs philosophy of faith is not a true

philosophy, but only a view on philosophy from outside its critiques on behalf
of individualistic perception of the world and life.
However, from the standpoint of Shestov, a philosophy is untrue if it does
not care about individualistic perception of the world, the philosophy that in
its reasoning on God, World, History and even human beings does not get to
6 Sergey A. Levitsky, Essays on the History of Russian Philosophy (Moscow: Kanon+, 1996),
387388. [, . . : +,
1996, c 387388.] (in Russian).
7 Bulgakov, Some Features of the Religious World View of L.I. Shestov, 522. [,
. . , c. 522.]
the individual or gets to the individual with indifferent explanations of the

suffering, horror, and humiliation of each person, the one that explains, turns
its back and goes to far away pure thinkingnot even glancing back at the
unhappiest one.
So, both thinkers have not recognized each other as true philosophers.
Indeed, the conclusions to which Shestov used to come were not only different
from the worldview of Bulgakov but also could be understood as expressly hos-
tile to it. Shestovs struggle with reason was affecting the foundations of faith
in the understanding of Bulgakov. Shestovs invectives addressed to specula-
tive philosophy could turn out to be pleasing to the obscurants of theology,
persecutors of theological thought.8 By counterposing faith and knowledge,
faith and logic, faith and morality, Shestov was destroying the very possibility
of a philosophy that believes and was tearing philosophy away from theology.
Then, Bulgakov, whose thought was puzzling through the unity of theology
and philosophy, could not refrain from stern rebuking (even in the article dedi-
cated to the memory of Shestov):
This is rather a game of paradoxia, transrational idea, devoid of sense

and sensesThe philosophy of Absurd is seeking to overcome the spec-
ulative idea, to void the reason and, after passing into its new dimension,
to give some new transrational, existentialist philosophy. In fact, what
it represents is the purest rationalism but with negative coefficient, with
minus signIt has no overcoming of ideas and words, but only their
abstract denial.9
Let us consider this observation of Bulgakov. He regards Shestovs pretending

to speak on behalf of existence as mere words, words, words calling for
revolt against word. The contradictions, at which the existentialist philoso-
phy is halting, remain on the level of words; they do not reach the depth of
being, and calling for a faith that is able to take a person to the space of free-
dom turns out to be an invocation. This aim is a revolt against reason in the
field of reasoning thought with no power beyond the limits of this thought.
Therefore, the thought of Shestov is making circles around the same theme
failing to overcome its attraction: but once it merely touches upon being per
se the revolt goes into decline straight away, and it will humbly press itself to
being or writhe in impotent paroxysmno chance for freedom, no chance for
faith! Just mere philosophy of freedom and philosophy of faith!
8 Ibid., 523.
9 Ibid., 525 and 535.
198 Porus
So, from the standpoint of Bulgakov, the tragedy of being is not to be solved
in the philosophy of tragedy. for this philosophy itself is not tragic, it does not
live in tragedy, but only reasons about it.
This moment is an important one. Numbering Shestov among the irrational-
ists, skeptics, and voluntarists is, perhaps, a common place wherein the views of
many coincide: those of both his critics and followers (Sergey Levitsky, Albert
Camus, Nikolay Lossky, and others). However, Bulgakov criticizes Shestov in a
different way. The criticism is neither that the rational disproof of rationalism
is inconsistent, nor that Shestov proves the invalidity of the rational proof or
logically disproves the acceptability and universality of logical conclusions. The
criticism is a different matter: Shestov remains at the level of reasoning on the
tragedy of being, while the tragedy is immanent to Reason itself. Irrationalist
Shestov is far too rational to let tragedy into Reason; he remains on the near
side, on the edge of the precipice, not daring to make a step thereto in the hope
for help from heaven but reproaching others for having lost this hope.
This feature of Shestovs philosophy has been noticed by Vassiliy V.
Zenkovsky:
From external manifestations of rationalism does he go back to its peren-

nial basic statements; he criticizes the Christian rationalism but even
more does he criticize the Antique rationalism as well as the newest one
(Spinoza). The strange thing is that after solemn funerals of rationalism
in one book, in the next one he again reverts to the critique of rationalism
revived, as it were, over this period of time. The explanation for all this is
that having ruined within himself one layer of rationalistic statements,
Shestov again comes within himself across a new and deeper layer of that
very rationalism. The theme of study becomes deeper and, owing to this,
more significant and difficult.10
This theme is the essence of Reason. Therein lies the mystery of the para-
doxia of Shestovs rationalistic irrationalism. The mystery is hidden behind
the coincidence of words but comes to light when their meanings are clarified:
the reason, from which Shestov turns away, and the reason, in which the phi-
losophy of Total-Unity trusts, are different reasons, to be more exact, different
understandings of Reason.
The Reason in the philosophy of Total-Unity is a free and moral tie of the
individual with Goda suffering Reason that embraces in itself the tragedy of
the world trying to solve it within itself.
10 Vassiliy V. Zenkovsky, A History of Russian Philosophy. v. 2. New York: Columbia University

Press, 1967.
The Reason, to which Shestov addresses his invectives, is indifferent to the

individual. Such a Reason is deprived of freedom, even of freedom to despair
and protest. Such is a cold and terrible power that separates the individual
from God, replaces God, and dominates the faith. It is the ancient Logos that is
not imbued with Christian affective perception and experiencing of the world,
that fills the universe with itself, that does not step back even in meeting God,
but, on the contrary, tries to impose its laws and established customs onto God.
Critique of reason in the works of Shestov is followed by critique of the
European theology that, to his mind, has been formed as a result of verifying
faith with reason that has led to its substitution for reason and actual decline.
Therefore Bulgakovs idea of uniting theology and philosophy should have
seemed intolerably false to him as, in his opinion, it could only lead to devia-
tion from faith, to its blending into philosophy and not to the latters rising to
knowledge of God.
From these distinctions in understanding reason follow other distinctions
on the senses of tragedy. The tragedy of Philosophy, according to Bulgakov, is,
first of all, recognition of the insolvability of the main tasks that philosophical
reason is setting for itself: looking into the causes of world evil, the possibility
of freedom, the sense of history, and the unity of things in the great Whole. The
form taken by this tragedy is antinomianism. This antinomianism, however, is
not the Kantian antinomianism of pure reason: the antinomies, in the view of
Bulgakov, are not engendered by reason; they run through the being which
includes the reason that has fallen apart from its absolute principle and sinfully
had too high an opinion of its sovereignty and autonomy.
The tragedy of being, as understood by Bulgakov, is a consequence of irrepa-
rable dualism, disintegration of the world principlesgood and evil. A struggle
takes place between them that cannot be solved without Gods interference.
Christianity takes the world tragedy in its most deep, acute and serious
form. What it places at the end of time is not the rose idyll but the most
acute moment of historical tragedyacute not for its external horrors
but for its moral acuteness. It hinges a way out, more specifically, over-
coming of tragedy on supernatural powers, on new creation, on universal
resurrection and creation of the new earth and new heaven11
11 Sergey N. Bulgakov, Without Plan. Some Observations regarding the Article of G.I.
Chulkov on the Poetry of V. Soloviev, Sergey N. Bulgakov, Quiet Thoughts. (Moscow:
Republika, 1996), 229. [, . . .
. . . . .. .
: , 1996, c. 229.] (in Russian).
200 Porus
Thus, tragedy is the very being taken in its everlasting duality. If one realizes
ones unity with the world and its tragedy, one cannot treat the world with
complacent optimism. Such optimism, even if it is inspired by striving for hap-
piness, is humiliating for spiritual being. The Spirit shares the tragedy of being
by focusing on it, participating in this tragedy and accepting this lot with
dignity. Bulgakov gives this self-restriction of spirit the name ascesis (self-
discipline, asceticism). Thereby the tragic understanding of the world rises to
its height and purity.
Asceticism is a principle of struggle of opposites, moreover, of tense

struggle having mixed success, always threatening to defeat and never
settled with final and secure victory within the limits of empirical exis-
tence. That the things, examined objectively, as a world fact, make up the
tragedy with no solution of its own, is subjective [has a subjective nature]
as internal experience, inevitably finds its expression in ascesis. Being
continuously interrelated, asceticism and tragicalness have one common
foundation, become mutually associated within one major teaching of
Christianityassociated in recognizing real power of not only good but
of evil as well, in fundamental dualism of the world being, in unsolvable
discord, in world music. Hence tragedy, hence asceticism, hence relative
pessimism.12
This relative pessimism would be absolute if the religious consciousness con-

fined itself to recognizing the world frustration. Eternal opposition of good
and evil as world principles (in the spirit of ancient Manichaeism) would turn
the world process into a monotonous and endless gameboring in its end-
lessness. Christianity regards this opposition not as a game but as a great trag-
edy that may and must be settled with the final victory of good over evil.
However, this victory is not the happy ending. It is prepared by the course of
history of which the sense has been humiliated and vulgarized by progressist
theories. Progress is shown as a law-governed change from the lowest levels of
being to the highest ones, as an achievement of the overarching goal to increase
the amount of benefits for the succeeding generations in comparison with the
preceding ones. For the sake of this goal, those who dung with their lives the
ground of the future prosperity are working, suffering, and dying. The vulgarity
and immorality of this understanding of progress is evident:
12 Ibid., 222223.
even so, there is no touching upon the fatal and torturous question of
preserving the values that make up an inevitable condition for historical
tragicalness to be fully and really solvedBut it is necessary to tell the
truth, such view of historical progress, its goals and objectives in connec-
tion with the price of such progress could be in all fairness named apo-
theosis of moral indifference or just beastliness13
The sense of historical progress, as Bulgakov understands it, is other:
The main premises of the theory of progress are as follows: moral free-
dom of human person (freedom of will) as condition of autonomous
moral life; absolute value of person and ideal nature of human soul hav-
ing ability for infinite development and improvement; absolute reason
ruling the world and history; moral world order or kingdom of moral pur-
poses, good not only as subjective representation but as objective and
powerful principleThe main problems of the theory of progress are, at
the same time, the problems of the philosophy of Christian theism and
they can be solved only on the ground of this philosophy while the teach-
ing on progress is, in fact, a specifically Christian doctrine.14
In Christian doctrine the premises of the theory of progress and tragic under-
standing of the world history find their unity. Tragedy, tragic attitude towards
the world and life cannot be removed from the religion of the Cross which is
the only one to know the solution of the world tragedy.15 How is this unity
possible?
If the development of tragedy is reviewed from the first to the last act, no
doubt, there is a progress of its own there, not an eudemonistic one that
is peculiar to the bourgeois comedy, but a progress in maturing of the
tragic as a result of which good or evil, but primordial and overcoming
powers are clashing in final struggle with all their implacability. The prog-
ress of tragedy implies not only strengthening and consolidation of good
but parallel consolidation of evil. It is bilateral and antinomical, but, in
13 Ibid., 224.
14 Sergey N. Bulgakov, The Main Theories of Progress, Bulgakov, Works in two volumes. v. 1,
81. [ . , . , ..
2- . . 1. : , 1993, c. 81.] (in Russian).
15 Bulgakov, Without Plan, 222.
202 Porus
any case, it envisages the rise of awareness and development of action

pertaining to this.16
Another important moment distinguishes Bulgakov and Shestov. A rise in

awareness of tragedy should lead to a rise in positive action. People should act
for the victory of good to come nearer. This action must necessarily be com-
mon and not individual, slipping the common cause and opposed to it.
The progress of consciousness is, first of all, externally manifested in the

development of panhuman universal consciousness, in formation of
united and solidarity guided mankind having certain collective mind,
will and even conscience, in possible realization of mankinds abstract
unity17
Shestov does not believe in either unity or common action; for him the last
law on earth isloneliness,18 and doubt is a continuous creative force, inspir-
ing the very essence of our life.19
For Bulgakov the tragedy of the individual reflects the tragedy of humanity;
individual consciousness, will, and mind are included as small particles in the
universal consciousness, general will, and totally-one reason. As a philosophi-
cal theologian he opposes disunity of humanity and decay into atoms, the col-
lisions of which lead to casual and paradoxical combinations without any
general sense.
Antinomianism of being is not an obstacle but a condition of spiritual mat-
uration for humanity that combines intellectual courage with moral strength.
The antinomies would be destructive contradictions, hopeless deadlocks lead-
ing to absolute pessimism and despair, if Reason, being aware of them, were
just an abstract principle separated from morality (the Kantian pure reason
being ruined by its own dialectics). Reason has no fear in facing the antino-
mies if it is lit with Good, if this light shows the way to Total-Unity.
A way out of contradictions lies neither in eclecticism that wants to

accept and combine everything, breaking off the edges of thoughts and
16 Ibid., 229.
17 Ibid., 226.
18 Shestov, Apotheosis of Groundlessness (An Attempt of Adogmatic Thinking), Selected
Works, 388. [. , (
), [a:, c, 1993, c. 388.] (in Russian).
19 Ibid., 384.
not daring or having no heart to choose heresy, nor in dialectics that in

rattling the spurs of all the contradictions, is, in fact, seeking to under-
stand and to explain everything in order for any true contradictoriness,
i.e. antinomianism to be finally driven away from thought and being. The
way out lies in seeing a true structure of thought and in recognizing that
substance is not relevant to thought as a monistic task and therefore, as it
is thought, within the limits of thought it brings to the contradictions, to
the antinomies that are natural and, thus, irreparable, at least for the
thought itself, as well as unbearable. However, such recognition by no
means expresses despair of thought, but, on the contrary, rather shows its
maturityLimited and self-satisfied character of the philosophical
thought devoid of any consciousness of tragedy and, moreover, distin-
guished by assurance in resolving and in logical resolvability of all the
questions, as we know, has brought philosophy to its self-awareness that
philosophy is higher than religion, is the truth about religion and its
explanation. The reality is opposite: philosophy does proceed from and
go back to religion20
The philosophy that embodies reason apart from moral problems may have
different ways of treating contradictions. Formal rationality regards them as
temporary difficulties of which it hopes to get rid in the long run. When
encountering special contradictions of which Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
said Der Widerspruch ist das Fortleitende (Contradiction leads the way for-
ward), dialectical philosophy regards them as rational explanation of the
natural, social, and cognitive processes. However, both philosophies, as
Bulgakov states, are limited and self-satisfied; they are trying to represent the
world process as something that can be expressed in logical (formal and dia-
lectical) frameworks. However, no logic can be squeezed into the relationship
of good and evil, to calm down human pain and suffering. Neither understand-
ing nor pure reason can prove to human beings that their individual life and
death make sense that transcends the limits of individual existence.
The tragic of being breaks down the contrivances of narrow and self-
satisfied reason. Renouncing self-satisfaction, reason is unable to separate
itself from the moral problems. However, the grounds of morality are not to be
found in reason itself. Unsatisfactory is the effort of Immanuel Kant to present
them as a categorical imperative because the individual has been smuggled
20 Sergey N. Bulgakov, The Tragedy of Philosophy, Bulgakov S.N. Works in two volumes, v. 1
(Moscow: Nauka, 1993), 387 and 388. [, . , ..
, 2- . : , 1993.] (in Russian).
204 Porus
into Kantian ethics in the capacity of person, under the guise of moral worth,
and humanity enters there unexpectedly.21 This ethics has no grounded rela-
tion between the empirical and the transcendental subjects. For this rea-
son, Kantian ethics takes the tragedy of being just as non-coincidence of
empirical reality with its intelligible projects: it is not the struggle of the
world principles but a particular individual who is responsible for particular
evil. Critical philosophy parts cognition and morality separating them from
each other with an impassable barrier, but letting them coexist within the
framework of human subjectivity.
Bulgakov is trying to break this barrier. Reason and morality do not coexist;
they form a single whole. Therefore, tragedy, revealed, first of all, in the field of
morality, captures reason, makes it face the antinomies, and does not allow
their utilization for the logical reconstruction of the Universe.
Pretensions of the philosophical system, relying on self-satisfied reason, to
be non-contradictory cognition of the world, to regard its draft of being22 as
a world system, are not to be realized. So, does philosophy have the possibility
of renouncing these pretensions?
If philosophy distinguishes common sense or common practical mind,

then understanding and, finally, reason (Hegel was particularly explicit in
making this distinction)[have] degrees: understanding is a non-
reasoning reason, the wisdom of which appears as limitedness in the face
ofreason, while at the same time the reason is still and all the power of
thought, of mind; the same very reasoning element finds its realization
both in reason and understanding. Why not allow, in addition, further
ascent to the transrational domains, that are yet inaccessible for it now
but still principally possible and, moreover, as the Christian ascetics wit-
ness, not unattainable for them?23
If such ascent were possible, then having renounced its pretensions to a logi-
cally verified system of the world, philosophy would voluntarily obey religious
dogma. Does that result mean the end of philosophy as such? Does that result
compel one to speak the unspeakable and to think the unthinkable, that is,
to go wandering along the blind alleys of logic?
Such fears are the creations of intimidated gnoseological imagination.24
They are to be overcome if one recognizes that what is transcendent to and
21 Ibid., 457 and 458.

22 Ibid., 313.
23 Ibid., 316.
24 Ibid., 321.
goes beyond thought may and should become the subject of thought, but even
so the thought itself goes beyond logic and moves to the domain of belief.
Belief in truth, that is deeper than reason and transcendent to it, by no

means, weakens and paralyzes flying up to this truth. One should neither
regard this as elimination of philosophy that is consolidating a place of its
own, the one it occupies, by freeing itself from erroneous pretensions.25
Does it mean that after becoming natural theology (which is what the phi-
losophy of Total-Unity should apparently be, in Bulgakovs thought), philoso-
phy would leave the domain of tragedy? On the contrary, only then would
philosophy enter this domain and its tragedy would be not in the burden of
antinomies it constantly feels, when making unsuccessful attempts to adjust
them to logic explanations, but in the tragedy of the very being that would come
into it through the antinomies. In this sense tragedy is a condition of cognizing
the world and God with believing reason. The tragedy of the world, of which
philosophy becomes aware, turns into the tragedy of philosophy.
So, we can see that the tragedy of philosophy in Bulgakov has a double
sense: (1) this is the tragedy befalling philosophy when it tries to rely on reason
for which the antinomies of being (first of allthe antinomies of morality) are
the evidence of its impotence; in this sense the tragedy falls upon philosophy
plunging it into frustration; (2) this is the tragedy of being that has become a
true subject of philosophy relying on reason in its unity with morality and
faith, the reason that has no fear of antinomies but, on the contrary, is deter-
mined by them, develops its own structure out of them.
Clearly, the tragedy of philosophy in the first sense is reflective of the danger
that culture is facing. The cultural universalstruth, rationality, faith, God,
humanity, a sense of historymake sense and have value only in common.
Their disunity, the conflict of universals (when truth is opposed to faith and
individual existenceto human history)devalue each of them or even turn
into something opposite: truth becomes dependent on utility and decays into
lots of contradictory benefits. Humanity turns into a population consisting of
creatures that are alien to each other whose being together is kept only by
pragmatism or fear of mutual destruction from which law and authority pro-
tect (for a time), history is leveled with the chronicle of events wherein an indi-
vidual feels thrown to desert. God leaves this worldfor intimate
psychological experiences, for the unspoken, or even disappearsas dead,
killed, or rejected. Culture becomes an imitation painted in the shades of
25 Ibid., 327.
206 Porus
d isappointment and ironic mockery. It is substituted with the whole range of

formal regulations determining relatively stable coexistence of people, nations,
and stateswith civilization that is nothing but adjustment to the conditions
of natures life. while culture is a creative attitude of man to the world and
himself when a man gives the seal of his spirit to his work.26
In Christianity the opposition of culture and civilization takes particularly
prominent forms. Civilization in its development could have captured man
and ruined his spirit but culture has its defenderChristianitywhich is
more consistent, as Bulgakov believes, than Catholicism or Protestantism in
the way of creative struggle, the purposes of which have been determined by
freedom embedded in human beings. This freedom is not a sinful one; it has
religious value but only provided that the individual makes use of it going the
way of asceticism. Creative work should be related to the religious value of an
individual.27 Hereby, culture is safeguarded only with the tragic strain of
spirit that should neither weaken nor be changed to self-satisfaction.
The tragic strain of spirit, however, cannot stand self-satisfied reason that
is able to take only aloof notice of tragedy. Shestov revolts against such reason!
Reason is the master and fetish of a philosophy commonly-held, according to
which human life is the same as the history of humanity fully submitting to the
laws of nature, society, and morality. The efforts of such reason are just focused
on taking the individual out of the limits of the tragic. Impossible though such
an option is for all people, the lucky and happy do not care about those who
are perishing. Self-satisfied reason shall turn away from the latter and, more-
over, shall explain that their perishing confirms the immutability of the world
laws.
Shestov has worded a tough alternative: a philosophy commonly-held
with its reliance on positivistic reason is opposed by the philosophy of trag-
edy rejecting this reason of which the last word is Zarathustras call to have
reverence for great misfortune, great ugliness, great failure.
Berdyaev has observed that within this alternative a substitution of absolute
occurs: Shestov puts the absolute value of the individual human person into
the place of the absolute value of world life. Establishing peace and its values,
realizing fullness and perfection of universal being is only possible by estab-
lishing transcendental individuality, carrying out ones individual predestina-
26 Sergey N. Bulgakov, Dogmatic Justification of Culture, Works in two volumes, v. 2, 638.

[ . , , , ..
2- , . 2, : , 1993, c. 638.] (in Russian).
27 Ibid., 641 and 642643.
tion in the world.28 However, does this view mean that a person attains
individual transcendence only after finally breaking ones relation with univer-
sal values, first of all, with rationality, as Shestov demands?
Both Shestov and Berdyaev used to agree that the problem of individuality
is a moral one, this is the same tragic question about individual fate and indi-
vidual predestination of man.29 This question is not to be solved in a universal
and panhuman way as it is addressed to each particular personal existence.
However, according to the observation of Berdyaev, a failure at the place where
the individual and universal get entwinedthat is the essence of tragedy.30
Bulgakov could have repeated these words. However, unlike Shestov, he
thought that the reason for the failure to appear was that the absolute had been
substituted: since the individual does not get entwined (as equal) with the uni-
versal but composes part of it. Notwithstanding that each particular individual
has to face his or her own unique fate, in any such facing a panhuman fate is
revealing itself.
Awareness of this unitynot at all promising consolation and deliverance
from tragedy, but elevating individuals and saving them from despair and pow-
erless reveling in absurditydemands that Reason be united with faith and
morality. The tragedy of philosophy in the second sense is just this tragic
strain of spirit that is required for the culture to be safeguarded. Tragedy is a
condition of culture and not a consequence of its decay.
Shestov does not believe in this tragedys peculiar essence of culture. He
finds himself between Scylla and Charybdisthe monsters engendered by his
own rebellious thought: either culture that does not care about individuality left
to perdition and despair or individuality that does not care about culture cursed
and abandoned for the sake of doubt and loneliness. Human beings have no
other recourse but to disrupt with the power of their Faith a snare of Need,
Laws, Truth, and Morality and to force their way toward the Divine Will in the
hope that It will have mercy on them. The philosophy of tragedy encourages
him to make this choice. But the philosophy itself does not believe in this choice
as its belief is doubt and its hope is despair, it is held captive by absurdity
andfails to escape this captivity. One cannot invoke faith without having it,
28 Nicolas A. Berdyaev, Tragedy and the Mundane, Nicolas A. Berdyaev, Philosophy of

Creativity, Culture and Arts in two volumes, v. 2 (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1994), 239. [
. , , . . , ,
. . 2. : , 1994, c. 217245.]
(in Russian).
29 Ibid., 241.
30 Ibid., 228.
208 Porus
without finding it in oneself. Shestov had a painful way of seeking faith dedi-
cating all his life to this seeking but was it not in vain? (Shestov has not saved
his world from destruction; search for his personal god has remained
unfinished. We shall never know where he has stopped but even if we knew,
this information would have no impact on dissemination of Shestovs mind-
set nowadays: the human world does not collapse in someones individual
consciousnessit is not a matter of mental pathologies or neurotic complexes;
menacing signs of destruction are objective and evident and, for this reason,
people are trying again and again to find their way toward faith, being disillu-
sioned with many if not all the guide books and guides. Here is the tragedy of
faith that is mostly similar to the tragedy of philosophy.) So, Bulgakov, according
to his confession, was more interested in a personal result of this seeking than
in rebelling against a philosophers thought that he believed to be erroneous.
One cannot make up for this absence of faith with even the most passionate
craving for it; that aim would make Shestov resort to the help of the reason
which he himself was blaming and rejecting in order to knit endless laces of
deductions directed against logic, to disclaim the evident, to drag the cultural
universals down from their pedestals. He believed in no other Reason. The sec-
ond sense of the tragedy of philosophy was rejected by him as an invention
engendered by the idea of Total-Unity which he hated and compared with a
dangerous illness of thinking. (Why do they always argue on total-unity? If
God loves people, for what need should He make them obey His Divine Will
and deprive them of their own will being the most precious of what He has
endowed them with? There is no such need. Therefore, the idea of total-unity
is a completely false one, as philosophy usually cannot do without this idea,
thenanother thereforeour thinking has been affected by a dangerous ill-
ness that we should try our best to get rid of.31)
As philosophers, Bulgakov and Shestov had much in common. Still, they
could not understand each other, perhaps, because they did not quite under-
stand themselves. Both rejected the pretensions of self-satisfied reason. Both
saw the abyss to the edge of which it was bringing the individual. Bulgakov,
however, intended to build a bridge over this abyss; he believed in a possibility
of another reason, in its reunion with the Divine Whole. Shestov wanted to
make a jump of faith over the abyss with no regard for reason. Nevertheless, the
same failure was lying in wait for both thinkers.
Shestov has failed to make this jump. The longer he was struggling with
positivistic reason, the stronger was the latters grip. Faith, on which the
31 Lev Shestov, Athens and Jerusalem, Works in two volumes, v. 1. (Moscow: Nauka, 1993),
317364. [. , . 2- n, . 1 (:
, 1993), c. 317364.] (in Russian).
thinker relied, became impossible and overwhelming for those people rejected
by science and morality, whom he was trying to defend and, therefore, equaled
to disbelief and despair. However, by the end of the 20th century a metamor-
phosis occurred in the existentialist rebellion: cultivation of individuals
tragic freedom changed into irony in relation to tragedy while freedom
equaled the comfortable loneliness of a philistine who does not want to be
bothered by anyones reminder of some world tragedies.
Bulgakov has not built his bridge either. In his thought, reunion of the
individual with the absolute has been intended as the ending of the world pro-
cess and fulfillment of the eschatological prophecies of the Old Testament.
Coming to this reunion without the help from Above is beyond the power of
the individual or of humanity. Human beings are not thereby absolved from
responsibility for history, but this responsibility is a tragic one. The same as
Soloviev, at the end of his life Bulgakov was emphasizing the idea of forth
coming universal-historic cataclysm and world fire as the last act of the world
tragedy. In his last theological works he wrote that evil was inexterminable as
long as the separation of the creation and Creator persisted, as long as histori-
cal time lasted. Evil has its foundation in the very nature of creaturehood as a
union of free self-determination and natural givenness.32 Hence, human
nature and freedom are inseparable from evil.
The dispute about reason is not over today. Its outbursts always coincide
with cultural crises and decayswith the periods when these crises seem to
have been overcome. Nevertheless, this sequence may be cut short. Perhaps,
humanity has already entered the epoch when its very existence is directly
dependent on whether this dispute will be solved, whether enough strength
can be found to find a common way of salvation having abandoned disagree-
ment and mutual distrust. The way needed is not one to an illusory general
well-being but one away from the edge of the precipice.
Bibliography
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Creativity, Culture and Arts in two volumes. V 2. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1994, 217245.
In Russian. [, . . , .
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2002).
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two volumes. V. 2. Moscow: Nauka, 1993a, 637643. In Russian. [, .
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chapter 14
Liberalism in a Non-ideal World

Abstract
The author addresses the meaning and significance of liberalism in international rela-
tions. The high estimation of the role of liberal worldviews in the formation of the
general atmosphere of peaceful values and the construction of the international insti-
tutions is obvious. At the same time, at least at the academic level, liberalism is still
open for discussions and dialogue. A good possibility is emerging with the very deep
and interesting book The Law of Peoples by the famous American philosopher John
Rawls. However, at the same time some trends have recently appeared in which liberal-
ism is viewed like some sort of ideology in which the ideas are fixed once and for all
and in which any criticism or suggestion of biases is totally rejected. This recent trend
presents a very serious danger that contemporary liberalism must face, because in the
global world pluralism is a necessary condition of a peaceful world.
Keywords
liberalism political philosophy ideology foreign policy non-ideal world

military force intervention extension of democracy dialogue polemics
Professor Leif Wenar from Kings College (London) in one of his lectures at the
luiss university (Rome) told the students a story, which really impressed me:
sometime in the 19th century a relatively small group of people, Quakers, met
to discuss the problem which concerned them greatly at the timeslavery
and slave trade. Under their influence and activity public opinion changed
completely and within about a decade the Law was installed that prohibited
slavery as immoral and inhuman. This aim was not an easy type of work.
Slavery and the slave trade was a part of the history of trade in many parts of
the world. We may be sorry to recognize it, but slavery and the slave trade is in
European history as well. Let us recall the practice of Venice and other Italian
republics of early modernity that were selling slaves and buying spices in the
Middle Eastnot to mention the slave trade of the Portuguese, Spanish, and
English for generations since Columbus and others opened a new continent

Liberalism In A Non-ideal World 213
for Europeans.1 In a sense, slave trade was regarded by many at the time as a
part of human nature, or at least as a part of a normally functioning economy.
Nevertheless, this attitude was completely broken and, as we see, broken very
quickly from a historical point of view. This story shows that just several people
can change the course of world development, if they are really honest in their
beliefs and follow them.
I recalled this story when contemplating the position of liberalism in todays
world, especially on the international scene. When Francis Fukuyama declared
the End of History2 and the final victory of Liberalism, obviously, this phrase
became the slogan of the day, but at the same time it was a ringing sign of the
pretense for the monopoly of liberalism, which, as we all know from the history of
political thought, is quite dangerous for any type of thinking, especially political
thinking. What now is the status of liberalism? Let us try to address this question.
As is only natural, liberalism through all of its history attempted to say
something about international relations and not only about values and institu-
tions in internal politics. It was not successful for a lengthy period of time and
at least the ultimate goalpeace and securitywas formulated. Rather often
we underestimate the influence of these liberal dreams and utopias. Somehow
we always remember them even while rejecting the main liberal ideas. Take,
for instance, Hans Morgenthau as one of the founding fathers of political
realism. Even talking about the significance of power and national interests in
international relations, he never forgot about the ultimate morality in interna-
tional relationssounds very similar to the main liberal thesis.3 He con-
sciously attempted to decrease the destructiveness of power politics. He was
writing about it in his work Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (1946). Nearly two
thirds of his famous book Politics among Nations was devoted to the problem
of the compatibility between political realism with its positivist foundation
and human morality. As Russian historian Vyacheslav Ja. Belokrinitsky under-
scores in one of his books, if the realist, statist paradigm has some analogies
beyond the Western, Renaissance tradition, the liberal direction was forming
just and only on the Christian-renaissance foundations.4 Probably that fact
1 See, for example, , .

(: , 2014). [William J. Bernstein, A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the
World (New York: Grove Books, 2008).]
2 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History? The National Interest Summer 1989.
3 Hans Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1946),
9ff.; Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1960).
4 . ,
(: , 2009), c. 44. [Vyacheslav Ja. Belokrinitsky, The
East in International Relations and World Politics (Moscow: Oriental University, 2009.]
214 Alekseeva
explains why extending liberalism in all of its richness and delicateness around
the world is so difficult.
Nowadays we can distinguish several trends or directions in liberalism con-
cerning international relations that overlap each other:
1. The tradition of International Law emphasizes the norms of right in the

relations between states and tries to regulate international connections
on the principles first formulated by Hugo Grotius (15831645) in his
On Right of War and Peace. A special focus is placed on international
organizations.
2. Human rights. On the foundation of the Christian interpretation of per-
sonality, the liberals of this direction put into the center of their analysis
not the state, but the individual or the community of individuals. So, in
the outer sphere special attention is given to the bonds between people,
especially in trade and economy.
3. On this foundation was formed the economic trend in liberalism.
4. Finally, the pacifist trend. It is tightly connected with other trends and
tendencies, but regards peace as a key value that is the most important
condition for the realization of other liberal values, including, freedom,
justice, and equality. The foundation for this trend is the famous work of
Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace.
What is most important is that all the trends and tendencies now have their
obligation to say at least something about the international world. After all, we
live now in a small, globalized world, and so the ordeal to extend the principles
and ways of organization of inner society to the world outside, to others, is very
strong.
The Law of Peoples: Contemporary Foundation
Thank God, we have John Rawls with his The Law of Peoples, otherwise we would
still have to discuss something like the 14 Principles of Woodrow Wilson, when
we present liberal perspectives on international politics to university students.
In no case would I like to underestimate the meaning of Wilsons ideas or the
significance of liberalism for the construction of international organizations,
formulations of human rights, path dependence, the spread of democracy, or,
generally speaking, the development of the present world order. But Rawls,
probably like nobody else, once again gives us a chance to unite around the pos-
sibility for dialogue on the problems of contemporary liberalism.
In his famous Theory of Justice Rawls maintained that the virtue of distribu-
tive justice may appear only and exclusively in closed societies. For this rea-
son, for most of his academic life he did not pay attention to international
justice. Only in 1999 (28years after the first edition of the Theory of Justice), did
he turn his attention toward international relations, publishing in 1999 The
Law of Peoples. The fact that such a famous and prominent political thinker as
Rawls turned his attention toward the problems of the global world is signifi-
cant in itself. He was interested mostly in the problems of global inequality
and moral duty to help the poorest. Rawlss text occurs as an inheritance of
Kants approach to the problem of war and peace. Rawls himself defined his
motivations: Two main ideas motivate the Law of Peoples. One is that the
great evils of human historyunjust war and oppression, religious persecu-
tion and the denial of liberty of conscience, starvation and poverty, not to
mention genocide and mass murderfollow from political injustice, with its
own cruelties and callousness. (Here the idea of political justice is the same as
that discussed by Political liberalism out of which the Law of Peoples is devel-
oped.) The other main idea, obviously connected with the first, is that, once
the gravest forms of political injustice are eliminated by following just (or at
least decent) social policies and establishing just (or at least decent) basic
institutions, these evils will eventually disappear.5
Rawls called his theory a realistic utopia. He does not seem to believe in
global government, which, from his point of view, would inevitably become
despotic or would turn into a space of never-ending conflicts and wars between
different groups dreaming of their hegemony over the world. His alternative to
the simplistic slogans of globalization is international society, but not a cosmo-
politan one. However, is this theory really realistic? Probably, yes, but under a
very important condition: all societies are internally well ordered by just, or at
least decent, domestic political institutions, emphasizes the philosopher Rawls.
However, Rawlss main task in this book is extending the Law of Peoples to
non-liberal peoples and specifying how far liberal peoples are to tolerate non-
liberal peoples. This prospect is really a very important, because if Rawls is
writing about the cooperation between liberal people, here he speaks only
about tolerance. Rawls explains that, Here to tolerate means not only to
refrain from exercising political sanctions, it also means to recognize these
non-liberal societies as equal participating members in good standing of the
Society of Peoples with certain rights and obligations.6
5 John Rawls, The Law of Peoples with the Idea of Public Reason Revisited (Cambridge, ma:
Harvard University Press, 1999), 67.
6 Ibid., 59.
216 Alekseeva
Rawls maintains both liberal societies (essentially all forms of functioning

modern democracies) and what he terms decent peoples. Together they con-
stitute the well-ordered societies, representatives of which would be the par-
ticipants in the new version of the original position for the international
scene.
So, who are decent peoples and what are the criteria for decency? Appar
ently, decent peoples could not be regarded just from a liberal perspective. The
most important thing, which is absent in them, is pluralism. Normally all polit-
ical life in such societies is organized around a single perspective, say, religion
or ideology. Sometimes they stand rather far from the general understanding
of democracy. At the same time they are peace-oriented and not aggressive in
their foreign policy. Still, they are ordered enough to participate as respected
members in world society. Then, one more question appears: what does it
mean to be ordered enough?
Rawls gives us an example of a decent society (decent hierarchical society,
in his words) of the imagined country Kazanistan (for the Russian and former
Soviet citizen the hint of the former Soviet republic of Central Asia is obvious).
However, as we know (though probably not Rawls himself), the types of politi-
cal regimes in that group of countries are rather different and some of them
are very far from the general features of liberalism; so, the criteria of decency
are quite vague.7 An even more complicated question would appear: who is the
judge who is decent and who is not? Here we meet a contradiction in liberal
thought: where does aggressive foreign policy begin and the right for self-
determination end?
Interestingly, he turned away from the principle of utilitarianism; even at
first glance it may seem quite appealing from the point of construction of a just
society. Nevertheless, utilitarianism, being directed to the well-being of the
society as a whole, is not sufficient to safeguard the unity of the inner society
it may be even less significant for global society. Moreover, even if the princi-
ples of the distributive justice are not used on the global level, this situation
would not mean that no other moral principles could be used there. According
to Rawls, the so-called natural duties exist without any regard to interna-
tional institutions. Among such natural duties he names do not be cruel
and help another person in a state of emergency. We may continue the
list,but clearly he is talking about general duties. Those duties ought to be
7 A. A. , :
(: -, 2012), . 7. [Tatiana A. Alekseeva and
Andrey A. Kazantsev, The Process of Foreign Policy: Comparative Analysis (Moscow: Aspect-
Press. 2012), Ch. 7.]
supplemented with specific duties, according to the principles of justice

which would be accepted in the original position.
On the empirical level, we may observe transnational connections between
societies, but these connections do not mean that the basic global structure
should exist as the main determining factor.
The nation state also could not be regarded outwardly, even in the context
of a stable transnational cooperation (for example, between the members of
the European Union). The states may be more or less prosperous from an eco-
nomic point of view, but this status always depends on the inner policies of
those states and is equally right for prosperous nations and poor underdevel-
oped nations.
Rawls maintained eight necessary principles for ordering the basic interna-
tional structure:
1. Peoples are free and independent, and their freedom and independence
are to be respected by other peoples.
2. Peoples are to observe treaties and undertakings.
3. Peoples are equal and are parties to the agreements that bind them.
4. Peoples are to observe the duty of nonintervention (except to address
grave violations of human rights).
5. People have a right for self-defense, but no right to instigate war for rea-
sons other than self-defense.
6. Peoples are to honor human rights.
7. Peoples are to observe certain specified restrictions in the conduct of war.
These first seven principles, as we can see, coincide with the main principles of
international law; so, they are not new. But principle #8 is of great importance
to the new theory:
8. Peoples have a duty to assist other peoples living under unfavorable

conditions that prevent their having a just or decent political and social
regime.8
So, Rawls begins his reflections with the real, non-ideal world here and now,
and only then starts thinking about the plurality of peoples and the problems
that are connected with it. In that sense the book is quite realistic. It is directed
toward the discussion of the principles of peaceful coexistence. It also includes
the duty of help as a principle of law, and not only charity, because the
8 Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 37.

218 Alekseeva
c ommunity of liberal and decent states can reach stability only by striving to
include within their borders all the people. It can further help overburdened
societies to support and install decent societies through the help of more suc-
cessful societies.9
The distribution of prior social goods ought to be regulated by the political
institutions of the peoples according to the existing inner standards, but these
standards do not necessary coincide with egalitarian standards, formulated for
instance in the Theory of Justice. Generally speaking, liberalism looks at society
as a commercial enterprise of some sort, uniting free and equal citizens.
However, while some liberal societies recognize the Rawlsian principles of jus-
tice, others do not. Non-liberal societies normally think differently about the
just distribution of goods, but if we take into account decent pluralism, we
have to accept their right to think differently in comparison to liberals.
So, the problem may be formulated differently: how can people, living in a
well-to-do society accept the validity of universal moral principles, for instance
the principal of no-damage, but at the same time be very slow in changing the
existing global institutions?
To answer this question, we need once again to return to the Law of Peoples.
Obviously, Rawls recognizes the meaning and significance of universal values,
but for him the worldwide plurality of societies as well as local interconnec-
tions seem to be more important. For Rawls, apparently, the plurality of peo-
ples cultures and traditions is self-evident, as a result the societies possess only
minimal resources to construct the global decent society where the basic,
politically non-parochial rights could be guaranteed.10
The just societies are based on reciprocity, and step-by-step this reciprocity
may develop into traditions that will be at least understood or even supported.
When these traditions turn into language, religion, and history, Rawls, follow-
ing John Stuart Mill, speaks about them as common sentiments.11 Those sen-
timents may explain why some people accentuate more the common, collective
ideas than the individual.
Rawls also maintains the role of international law. He does not notice the
contradictions between the universal moral principles and the recognition of
local adherences. Of course, he never meant that the division of people is
inevitable and incontrovertible or that the federation of peoples is impossible.
Quite the opposite is the case. He maintains the idea of the construction of the
League of Peoples, but it does not mean the necessity to wreck the c ontemporary
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid., 65, 79.
11 Ibid., 23.
ties between the people. So he attempts to show the way to form the principle
of differentiation on the global level. The problem of the poor may be solved
by the legal responsibility to help. The building of just and decent basic institu-
tions is possible only through this responsibility. If the members of the League
would accept such an attitude, they will actively participate in the construc-
tion and maintenance of just institutions; they will help the other peoples to
accept the principles of justice as well. However, this effort means that the
League of Peoples will become stable and effective itself.
Rawls is concerned with the fact that even the modest purpose of recogni-
tion of the duty to help will make necessary the overturning of connections
between the peoples. Something, sponsoring the burgeoning atmosphere of
cooperation as their own interest, ought to occur. The conclusion is quite inter-
esting: The Law of Peoples ought to be directed not toward the institutions,
which distribute the priority goods between all the inhabitants of the unified
world in accordance with the two principles of justice, but only toward the
institutions responsible for peaceful relations between already existing politi-
cal communities. These communities would be internationally recognized and
respected in accordance of collective life within them.
From the moral point of view, people are mostly concerned with the things
that are common for them, and not about humanity as a whole. Rawls cited the
famous phrase of Michael Walzer, who said that to destroy the walls of the
state does not mean to build the world without walls, but to build thousands of
small fortresses.12
One thing is clear: nowadays no universal definition of justice exists. Very
often people mix up justice and charity. However, justice as one of the most
important human values, together with charity and love, existed through the
whole history of thought in all historical periods and generations. Nevertheless,
many scholars notice a fundamental difference between charity and justice.
Charity is a natural virtue, but human beings construct justice according to the
circumstances.
For this reason, we have very many interpretations of the concept of
justiceliberal, socialist, communitarian, feminist, libertarian, anarchist, etc.
In fact, justice is a keystone of any political ideology and theory, even the most
radical. In all these cases it gets different interpretations and maintains differ-
ent ways of practical implementation. This fact is not difficult to explain. The
interpretation of justice is foremost depending on the most important values
in precise worldviewsfreedom or wellbeing, security or equality, responsi-
bility for the state or individual, etc. So, justice may be regarded as a dependent
12 Ibid., 39n.
220 Alekseeva
variable, constructed depending on the highest values of political theory or

ideology. So the concept of justice is highly differentiated; this characteris-
tic explains the absolute necessity of reaching some sort of agreement
about its contents and understanding through dialogue, public discourse,
and interpretation with the main end being to reach at least minimal con-
sensus. To start thinking politically will be possible only after that point is
reached.
One more comment is useful in this context. Rawls was thinking about jus-
tice as a moral view that is directed to the distribution of goods and burdens
between the members of the society and as a set of principles that will order
the pretences of the human beings for those goods. This problem was one of
the most important for Rawls and generally speaking for contemporary liberal-
ism as a whole: how can we combine right and good as foundational concepts
of ethical perspectives and individual morality? Rawls was writing about the
society, but he regarded societal morality as founded on individual activity. Not
by accident, for a justification of his theory Rawls used the theory of a common
contract that, in contrast to utilitarian ethics with the foundation of wellbeing,
relies on right and does not depend of the individual choice, but on the mutual
agreement between the members of the society.
Rawls was right: if the duty to help is included in international law, it would
not only improve the situation of the global poor, it may open a new space for
dialogue and discussions, which is absolutely necessary for the development
of our world from wilderness to civilization.
Many points in Rawlss books are not ones that I find to be quite impressive,
but at least one statement, from my point of view, is of great importance.
According to Rawls, the sphere of justice is not limited by the institutional con-
text, but includes as well responsibilities that guarantee rights and goods. So
what we need on the international scene are the specific, easily defined agen-
cies responsible for justice. The next step involves judgments or evaluations,
which are also necessary to include in the interactions of collective and indi-
vidual moral agents. Let us also take into consideration the fact that the evalu-
ation of the activity of international organizations is no less important as the
evaluation of the collective and individual actions on the inner, domestic level.
This point is very important for global justice.
So global justice is wider than egalitarian or distributive justiceor simply
the division of benefits and burdens. It includes as well political justice (the
defense of the social and political rights of citizens), cultural justice (the recog-
nition of differences and cultural freedoms), etc. From this perspective, justice
would not be regarded exclusively as a distributive duty, which contradicts the
duty of charity and humanitarian help, or to speak more broadly, the whole
continuum of humanism.
As is known, Rawls was disappointed with the universal pretence of his

theory, as he came to the conclusion that the pluralistic character of the con-
temporary world lies much deeper than he at first thought. The multitude of
philosophical, political, and ideological perspectives still coexistand not
always peacefully. He even tried to reformulate the universal principles on the
foundation of the common, or at least compatible, features of the comprehen-
sive perspectives. I can only agree with one of the most thoughtful and refined
scholars of Rawls, Sebastiano Maffetone, who writes:
Of course, there is something at least partially utopian about all of Rawls

theory, yet it also presupposes the possibility that the utopia could be real-
ized. Philosophical reason and the actual history of peoples must therefore
find some kind of a long-term reconciliation. The hope for such reconcilia-
tion rests on a historic understanding, consisting of four basic points:
(1) The fact of reasonable pluralism;

(2) The fact that it is possible to create some kind of unity within this diversity;
(3) The fact of public reason;
(4) The fact of a democratic peace.
On this ground LoP [Law of Peoplesta] is a realistic utopia.13
However, at the same time what we have is an illustration of some confusion of

Western liberal thought, which has only been deepening from the beginning of
the new century. What is becoming clearer and clearer is that not only are
goals conflicting with each other (that is nothing new), but also the hope for
the new grand theory is quickly diminishing. Might we possibly find a version
of liberalism that can somehow adapt its most positive and productive human-
istic sides with ever multiplying perspectives? I do not know. The only instru-
ment that is still in our possession is dialogue. Once again, I would like to
emphasize the question, thanks to Rawls or to his critics and his interpreters?
Whether we like this fact or not, Rawls is a treasure of the academic world.
Still, citing his term, we must ask: what is going on in the non-ideal world?
Liberalism and Foreign Policy
In American foreign policy, on the level of principles as well as in practice,

liberal worldviews had no alternative. To become a prominent American
13 Sebastiano Maffetone, Rawls: An Introduction (Cambridge, uk: Polity Press, 2010), 318319.
222 Alekseeva
statespersonsomeone who was responsible for the international affairsis

quite difficult without taking into consideration liberal ideas when making a
decision. For instance, Henry Kissinger, the cardinal of American foreign
policy and famous political realist, never tried to formulate the doctrine of
national interests without liberal postulates.
Kissinger as a Guru of political realism maybe wanted to make American
foreign policy less ideological, but one thing is clearhe never tried to free it
from ideology completely. Such a task would be unrealizable.
Liberalism has rather many tensions and contradictions, one of which is
connected with the problem of the legitimate application of force on the foun-
dation of liberal principles. Many liberals do not accept war in principle, see-
ing in it a tremendous threat to freedom. War threatens political and economic
freedoms of people and basic human rights, including the right to life. War
threatens not only a market economy in general, but brings with it the poten-
tial militarization of the state itself. Finally, war inevitably entails the violation
of the human rights. At the same time, the liberal political tradition continu-
ally emphasizes the right of people to riot against the power of a usurper and
tyrant. For this reason, many liberal thinkers also emphasize that military force
is a necessary part of the construction of a just international community.
How is it possible to justify the use of military force from the liberal perspec-
tive? We can name several answers. Let us look at least briefly at some of the
reasons most typically given.
1. Liberal states never wage wars against each other.
This idea has been popular since the 1980s. Nevertheless, this attitude does not
answer the question of why this claim is supposedly true. At the same time,
liberalism has many faces and a liberal answer in principle cannot be mono-
lithic. Originally, a contradiction lies in liberal worldviews: from one side, it is
oriented to peace (in accordance with the idea Kant presented in his work
Perpetual Peace); from another side, it emphasizes the necessity to develop
military forces for the defense of liberal states and to extend democracy. This
attitude depends at lot on the perception of other states, on how liberal states
identify themselves toward the Othernon-liberal states.
2. Self-defense.
Almost all liberal thinkers agree that the duty of government is to defend the
country from direct aggression from the other states. Long ago John Lock
stated that the state, which is formed on the basis of common contract, had
to defend the citizens and, even more, such defense is its direct duty and
obligation. So, self-defense may be regarded, not as a possibility, but as a neces-

sary obligation. Of course, some limitations are present. Article 51 of the u.n.
Charter formally allows self-defense only in a case of a direct military aggres-
sion, but this thesis was rather often used to justify other cases from initiating
saving operations to accepting the invitation of one of the foreign military
forces among conflicting sides. As we can see, military aggression, as well as
the self-defense, may be interpreted differently.
One of the most complicated questions is preventive self-defense. At first lib-
eral thought did not accept this possibility: for instance Kant had found it
unjust, and many other philosophers and scholars supported this point. Another
group of liberal thinkers not only finds it possible, but even regards defending
itself with all necessary measures, including preventive actions, to be an obli-
gation of the liberal state. The condition for a preemptive military action is the
existence of a clear and direct threat. However, what if the threat is just the
reflection of the perception of the leadership of the other country? So, the con-
cept is rather vague, because it allows for interpretation in many ways. From my
point of view the concept itself contains the seeds of real and present danger,
especially when the common contract is seen as lower in comparison to the
necessity to defend national interests. Such American thinkers as Akken
Buchanan and Robert Keohane devoted their attention to this problem, show-
ing the dangerous and hesitant nature of this liberal concept.14 As some sort of
compromise and solution to this problem, the United Nations recognized that
the Security Council may sanction preemptive war, but not individual states.
Nevertheless, the discussion of this problem is continuing, and from time to
time this or that country at least tries to use the idea in its foreign policy.
Finally, several words have to be said about collective self-defense. At least
since the times of early modernity, different scholars and thinkers have sup-
ported the peaceful orientation of liberal thought. However, once again this
view is not always extended toward non-liberal states, and this point is proba-
bly the most disputable. Some thinkers are sure that collective self-defense is
possible only among liberal states mostly because the relations between them
are of a special type and they appear to regard helping other liberal societies in
case of need to be an obligation.
3. The principle of Non-Interference.
One thing is more or less clear: the only possibility to organize military
intervention is to counteract somebody else who, with military forces, had
14 Akken Buchanan and Robert Keohane, The Preventive Use of Force: A Cosmopolitan
Institutional Proposal, Ethics and International Affairs 18:1 (April 2004), 122.
224 Alekseeva
interfered into the affairs of some other liberal state, in other words, to support
the autonomy of some other country. In some sense, this principle connects to
the accent on the sacral character of state sovereignty and the moral value of
liberalism in foreign policy.
4. Help to other states.
Once again we can return to Rawls and his Law of Peoples. He explains that the
main idea includes the extension of justice, based on the idea of the common
contract between citizens of one state to the Society of Peoples.15 The main
idea is that if a common contract exists, individuals get the right for defense
and help, just because they are members of the society under contract.
This attitude has a variation, which belongs to cosmopolitism. As the foun-
dation for this attitude we can name the famous statement of Kant who
thought that violation of human rights in one place means it will be felt every-
where. In other words, if your neighbor does not have freedom, you too are not
free. Contemporary followers of these ideas overcome statist perspectives. In
their eyes the needs of the individual are more important than the principle of
non-interference or state sovereignty.
5. Humanitarian interventions.
Here again liberals think about the priority of human, individual rights over
the interests of society. Here as well a contradiction is present: how are we to
combine the defense of human rights with the principle of the non-application
ofmilitary force? Once again the problem of state sovereignty appears here.
So-called humanitarian interference is accepted as legitimate if its main pur-
pose is the prevention of genocide or serious religious and ethnic violations of
human rights. In these cases, preemptive measures are possible as well. In 2005
the United Nations accepted the concept of the duty to defend, according to
which the sovereignty of the state is now regarded, not as a privilege, but as a
responsibility of the state to defend its inhabitants.
Of special importance here is the moral responsibility. Those who plan the
intervention have to demonstrate why it is necessary to stop injustice and at
the same time will not bring harm to the citizens of the other state. Also, in the
opposite case, they have to show why the intervention is not needed or is too
dangerous.
15 Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 55.

6. Finally, the ideas of the export of civilization or democracy
Probably this reason is one of the most contradictory theses in contemporary

liberal political theory. Once again it is based on Kants idea that justification to
wage war is possible, if you are sure that the result of it would be a stable and
lengthy peacein this case, not only peace, but also a democratic government.
In a wide sense, in this context three main types of the use of force can be
noted:
1. to restore a failed democratic government;

2. to support democratic groups in their fight against a despotic government;
3. to extend principles of democracy to the other state.
So, military force, according to the liberal worldviews, may be used to restore,
support, or construct a liberal order; this view is a reflection of the traditional
tight connection between liberalism and ideas of progress and the spread of
civilization. Of course, contemporary scholars often prefer to forget that the
imperial colonial order was also connected with liberal ideas of the spread of
civilization, but that point is a historical fact. Mentioning the significance of
property rights and how they were interpreted (say in North America for native
Indian tribes) may be sufficient. The same can be said about the rights of
nations, etc. So, the rules of international morality, while regulating the rela-
tions between the civilized nations, are not necessarily applied to uncivilized
nations. Let me make this point even more definitely: civilization for centuries
was understood not simply as the implementation of the norms of civilized
nations, but also as the subjection, exploitation, and too often illiberal meth-
ods of government.
So, once again we meet a tension between the idea of self-determination
and individual human rights, from one side, and, on the other, accent on the
necessity to expand civilization (understood in Western terms) and democ-
racy. If we once again return to Rawls, we will see that, in Theory of Justice he
was writing about the significance of the equality of nations and the principle
of self-determinations coming out of it, but in the Law of Peoples he already
was writing about nations of a different sortdecent hierarchical societies
(dhs)acceptable for liberal societies, presupposing that unacceptable soci-
eties also exist. Quite a few scholars would disagree that the features of dhs,
such as a peaceful state of affairs, recognition of justice, and respect for basic
human rights (not necessarily democracy), legitimate in the eyes of its own
citizens, are acceptable enough. So, a military attack from the side of the lib-
eral state or states cannot be the designation if some violations have occurred
226 Alekseeva
such as the ones mentioned earlier. However, what will happen if only part of
the features really exist? What will happen if not only military force is meant?
(What will happen, for example, is soft power is also meant?) Finally, who is
the judge?
Should we draw the conclusion that both a liberal and democratic world
order and a world order which is simply regarded as old-fashioned and uncivi-
lized both exist? Since the 19th century, non-liberal states were often painted
as new barbarians who need to be enlightened.
Let us continue this way of argumentation. Is not this situation the return to
some sort of liberal imperialism? If so, then we may not find difficult imagining
that the world order has to be liberal and that military force has to be the guar-
antee of its existence and preservation. Not surprisingly, some philosophers
really come to this conclusion.
Apparently, however, the situation is not so simple. Let us recall the famous
statement of the French poststructuralist thinker Michel Foucault. Once he
introduced the difference between dialogue and polemics. When a person par-
ticipates in polemics, that individual presumes knowledge of the real truth.
Somehow the rights of the participants are presupposed by the discussion
itself. Through discussion one participant realizes the right to feel the differ-
ence of ones own opinion from the opinion of the other, to ask questions, to
emphasize non-agreement etc. The other participant also has this right and
can use it. So the questions and answers are parts of the game, and every par-
ticipant has the rights given to each by the others. This situation is the demon-
stration of the agreement to take part in the dialogue. The polemist is different.
Such a person is covered by privileges and would never answer the questions
of the opponent. The other is not a partner in the quest for the truth but an
opponent (maybe even an enemy who is dangerous) and does not understand
the real truth. So for the polemist the game does not include the recognition of
the other as a subject who has a right to words; instead, the game presupposes
a distance from participation in dialogue. The ultimate end for the polemist is
not striving for the truth, but triumph of the truth that, for the polemist, is well
known from the start.16
One thing is obvious: liberalism with all of its contradictions and tensions is
a vivid, developing worldview, reflecting the present situation and main trends
16 , , , . , accessed March
13, 2015, http://traditio-ru.org/lib/fuko_probl/htm. (Michel Foucault, Polemics, Politics,
Problematizations, Interview.) [Michel Foucault, Polemics, Politics and Problema
tizations, The Essential Works of Foucault, Vol. 1 Ethics, Paul Rabinow, ed. (ny: The New
Press, 1998).]
of world development. Liberalism had played (and continues to play) an

important role in international law and maintenance of the value of peace and
cooperation between peoples. Liberal thinkers give us a chance for discussions
of the most burning issues of international affairs, but
And this but is also a significant point in political philosophy. As soon as
the worldview stops to be a dialogue, open for participation to all interested
actors and viewers, it transforms into ideological doctrine. The proponents of
the ideological doctrine do not hear the others; they believe in the ultimate
truth of liberal values just like people believe in religious symbols and rituals.
They just stop thinking, comparing, hesitating; they stop asking questions,
they just think that they know all the answers. Then a position becomes espe-
cially dangerous when it is supported by military force and ready-made formu-
las like defense of democracy or necessity to spread democracy to
non-liberal countries. From my point of view, the biggest threat for liberalism
today is liberalism itself, if liberalism is understood like fixed ideas or indisput-
able truths and not allowing any discussions or dialogues. Isnt it a high time
once again to meet some place with a small group of concerned philosophers
to discuss the destiny of liberalism in the contemporary worldwhich is still
rather far from the ideal?
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Index
acceleration180182 consciousness11, 15, 1718, 2328, 3233, 45,

adaptation2, 24, 29, 33, 43, 106107 51, 53, 5960, 63, 66, 127, 134, 184, 193,
Akhiezer, Alexander S.11 200, 202203, 208
Alekseeva, Tatiana A.xii, 5, 212228 conservatism25, 33, 69, 80, 130
Aleshkovski, Ivan A.xii, 3, 85100 convergence12, 114, 149151, 154, 175
anarchy3, 101111
Andreyev, Daniel140 democracy1, 3, 1115, 1819, 30, 46, 4850,
Andropov, Yuri129 5354, 69, 80, 89, 103109, 111, 116119,
antinomianism199, 202203 122123, 127130, 138139, 146, 162163,
authoritarianism109, 117118, 123, 131 214, 216, 221222, 225227
demographics71, 86, 9298, 130, 179
Beck, Ulrich10 Deripaska, Oleg136
Belinsky, Vissarion G.62 development24, 1011, 1617, 2730, 33,
Belokrinitsky, Vyacheslav Ja.213 3839, 42, 44, 51, 5455, 65, 69, 7081,
Berdyaev, Nicolas A.viii, 193, 206207 8598, 102103, 108, 119123, 126,
Berger, Peter108109 128130, 138139, 145, 148151, 161162,
Bestouzhev-Lada, Igor V.10 172173, 189, 206, 213, 227
biosphere172173, 175, 180183 dialogueviii, 23, 25, 3233, 5152, 139, 214,
Bouzgalin, Alexander V.11 220221, 226227
Brezhnev, Leonid129, 131 disintegrationix, 1, 14, 4147, 53, 131, 199
Brzezinski, Zbgnev110, 153 See also integration
Buchanan, Akken223 Dobrov, Gennady M.78
Bulgakov, Sergey45, 192209 Dostoyevsky, Fydor195196
Byron, George Gordon Noel Drucker, Peter F.78
(Lord Byron)62 Dudaev, Dzhokhar162
Duzhenkov, Vladimir S.78
Camus, Albert198
capitalism17, 24, 41, 4445, 74, 9193, 104, East, the2, 15, 17, 22, 33, 46, 87, 110, 131, 139,
114, 116, 118, 133, 136, 149 157158, 168
Casanova, Jose161 Middle East11, 19, 212
Chaisson, Eric J.174 See also West, the
Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de13, 173 East-West12, 15, 17, 44, 48, 88, 122, 158, 138,
Chizhevsky, Alexander L.viii 168
Christianity2425, 33, 66, 135, 137139, 161, economics23, 1012, 1618, 2933, 3855,
167168, 198201, 204, 206, 213214 57, 6881, 8586, 88, 9192, 9698, 102,
Orthodox Christianity45, 29, 31, 118120, 126, 128130, 133, 138139,
135137, 140, 157169 146151, 162, 179, 192, 214 217, 222
Chumakov, Alexanderviiix, xii, 12, 921, Elias, Norbert176
23, 28 elite3, 43, 8990, 106, 113124, 127, 133, 139,
Churchill, Winston17 147, 154, 163
civil society12, 1415, 118, 122 Engels, Frederick129134, 136
coalition153154, 159 equality32, 48, 105106, 135, 155, 214, 219, 225
Codevilla, Angelo167 See also inequality
communism3, 69, 89, 103106, 109110, Esposito, John161
113115, 119, 127, 131140, 163 establishment1, 3, 38, 70, 80, 108, 164166
248 Index
ethics2, 12, 14, 2526, 47, 54, 204, 220 humanity, humanitarian45, 1014, 1720,
Eurasia, Eurasianism11, 31, 110, 167169 25, 51, 59, 61, 6367, 6869, 85, 9192,
European Union (eu)4344, 4647, 69, 95, 94, 105, 122, 128, 135, 155, 161, 166,
97, 128, 147148, 217 172174, 176178, 184188, 192196,
evolution1011, 94, 172175, 180185 201209, 212213, 219221, 224
human existence26, 138, 184, 188, 195
faith32, 62, 161, 168, 193199, 205208 human history1213, 41, 94, 172173, 178,
fate5, 14, 6163, 87, 129, 207 205, 215
Fedotova, Valentina G.xiii, 3, 101112 human rights11, 1719, 91, 127, 214, 217,
Florensky, Pavel A.194, 196 222, 224225
Foucault, Michel226 Huntington, Samuel P.15, 151, 158
freedom1517, 26, 41, 48, 54, 61, 63, 76, Husain, Zohair162
97, 103106, 109, 128, 131, 135139,
147, 197, 199, 201, 206, 209, 214, ideologyix, 1, 35, 17, 19, 3032, 40,
217222, 224 60, 6872, 103, 108110, 116122,
Freud, Sigmund139 127, 131, 135, 138, 147, 150155,
Fukuyama, Francis213 161163, 166169, 188189, 216,
219222, 227
Gay, William C.x, xiii, 15, 10 Iliin, Victor11
Gellner, Ernest111 Ilyin, Ilia V.xiiixiv, 2, 2237
Globalizationviiix, 15 immigration, see migration
and economics, politics and law3855 independence, independent15, 31, 72, 86,
and innovation6881 130131, 147, 217
and liberalism212227 inequality42, 109, 151, 215
and migration8598 See also equality
and new world order145155 injustice14, 46, 151, 215, 224
and non-linear futures (global See also justice
history)171189 innovation3, 29, 32, 6881, 116
and philosophy920 development3, 7073, 76, 8081
and Russian culture2234 policy70, 7280
and Russian heritage5767 integration24, 29, 3233, 3950, 53, 68, 85,
socio-cultural2234 97, 106, 152
See also philosophy See also disintegration
Gokhberg, Leonid72 interdependenceviii, 11, 14, 17, 19, 85, 92
Goncharov, Ivan6364 interestsviii, 11, 15, 1819, 2728, 3233, 45,
Gorbachev, Mikhailix, 129 58, 9698, 103, 106, 114115, 118, 128, 132,
Grinin, Leonid E.xiii, 4, 145156 154, 162, 219, 224
Gromeka, Vasiliy P.7778 national2, 15, 18, 9698, 102, 107109, 114,
Grotius, Hugo214 121, 152153, 158, 213, 222223
Gvishiani, Jermen M.77 intervention25, 146147, 180, 184185, 188,
217, 223225
Habermas, Jrgen50 Iontsev, Vladimir86
Haynes, Jeffery167 Iskander, Nestor134
Hecht, Arno43 Islam12, 2425, 31, 33, 111, 128, 158168
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich1617, 183, See also Muslim
203204
hegemony4, 148, 150, 215 Jouvenel, Bertrand de54
Held, David3839, 4142, 104105 Joy, Billy187
Holzinger, Gerhart4750 Juergensmeyer, Mark160
Index 249
justice46, 50, 214220, 224225 Malov, Vladimir S.78

See also injustice Mao Zedong131
Marx, Karl45, 129, 130132, 135138
Kant, Immanuel199, 202204, 214215, Marxism38, 5960, 104, 130131, 135, 166
222225 Maskhadov, Aslan162
Kantor, Karl135 Mazour, Ivan1
Katsura, Alexander V.xiv, 4, 126141 Mazurenko, Sergey N.74
Kennan, George111 McNeill, William H.179
Keohane, Robert223 Medvedev, Demitry30, 7173
Khan, Genghis131 Mega-history4, 171189
Khruschev, Nikita129, 131, 133 Meir, Golda137
Kierkegaard, Sren193, 195 Merezhkovsky, Dmitry193
Kiss, Endre10 Michels, Robert123
Kissinger, Henry137, 222 migration3, 24, 8598, 102, 175
Kljamkin, Igor106 military11, 18, 103, 108, 126, 128, 130131, 134,
Kropotkin, Peter104 138140, 146147, 150, 154, 158, 179, 192,
Kucuradi, Ioanna18 222227
Kutkovets, Tatiana106 Mill, John Stuart218
Kymlicka, Will105 Mironov, Vladimir V.xivxv, 2, 3856
Mitrofanova, Anastasia V.xv, 4, 157170
Laslo, Ervin10, 29 morality2, 12, 19, 2526, 3134, 105,
law2, 12, 15, 19, 3855, 65, 93, 129130, 135, 138, 158, 160, 167,
103104, 114117, 123, 130, 147, 149, 178, 188, 196209, 212220,
159, 166, 172, 177, 182188, 199202, 224225
205207, 212 Morgenthau, Hans213
international30, 43, 4748, 50, 147149, Mosca, Gaetano123
152, 187, 214, 217220, 227 Muslim2425, 29, 151, 159, 161, 163, 167, 187
national4750, 73 See also Islam
of Peoples5, 214221, 224225
leadership3, 12, 70, 117, 129, 131, 147151, 166, Nabiullina, Elvira S.76
169, 175, 223 Nazaretyan, Akop P.xv, 4, 171191
Legvold, Robert111 Nesterov, Mikhail V.194
Lenin, Vladimir60, 129, 136 Nietzsche, Friedrich195196
Leonova, Olga G.xiv, 2, 2237 Nikolsky, Sergey A.xvxvi, 3, 5767
Lermontov, Mikhail Yu.62 Nixon, Richard137
Levitsky, Sergey196, 198 non-linear futures4, 171189
liberalism2, 5, 22, 25, 2933, 69, 89, noosphere175, 182, 185186, 189
9698, 101108, 114, 132, 136, 163,
212227 obedience6166, 128
Lincoln, Abraham49 Ortega-y-Gasset, Jos131
Liven, Khristofor132133
Lossky, Nikolay198 Panov, Alexander181182
Lotman, Yuri M.51 pan-Slavism167168
love46, 6162, 64, 104, 161, 208, 219 Pareto, Vilfredo123
Luckmann, Thomas108109 Parsons, Talcott106
Luther, Martin195 peace, peaceful5, 18, 42, 6568, 110,
139, 147, 155, 176, 187, 206,
Machiavelli, Niccol123 213227
Maffetone, Sebastiano221 coexistence2, 18, 29, 110, 139, 217
250 Index
philosophyviiix, 15 Rozanov, Vasily V.195

and globalization920 Rushkoff, Douglas52
and new world order145155 Russiaviiix, 15
philosophy of tragedy45, 192209 and America126140
Russian view920 and anarchy101111
tragedy of philosophy45, 192209 and the new elite113124
Philotheus (Filofei)139 and Orthodox Christianity157169
Pinkin, Alexander181 and views on tragedy192209
Pleis, Yakov A.xvi, 3, 113125 See also globalization and Russian culture;
policy18, 32, 42, 69, 71, 90, 98, 102, 108109, globalization and Russian heritage
137, 153, 167168
foreign15, 3031, 108, 118, 131133, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail Ye.64
152153, 216, 221227 Savitskii, Peter168
innovation70, 7281 Savvateev, Anatoly165
migration86, 89, 9598 Say, Jean-Baptiste78
politicsxiii, 2, 25, 3132, 3855, 110, 126, 128, Schmitt, Carl160161
160161, 166167, 213214 Schumpeter, Joseph77
Porus, Valadimir N.xvi, 45, 192211 Sechin, Igor136
power2, 4, 27, 3034, 4142, 4750, 54, 70, security23, 14, 30, 71, 9698, 101111, 153,
73, 85, 101108, 115, 118, 121, 127129, 213, 219, 223
132134, 137, 146, 148150, 160, 168, Seleznev, Pavel S.xvi, 3, 6882
177178, 185, 197201, 204, 207209, 213, Shestov, Lev45, 192209
222, 226 Shtykov, Petra43
balance of13, 70, 150 singularity4, 171189
softxiv, 18, 147, 226 Sloterdijk, Peter179
superpower13, 153 Snooks, Graeme181
technological4, 175, 178, 185 socialism2, 13, 45, 104, 114, 116, 127, 129130,
Prigozhy, Arkady76 132133, 146, 219
Prochorov, Mikhail136 Soloviev, Vladimirviii, 32, 164, 196, 209
Pushkin, Alexander6162, 130 sovereignty1415, 3031, 4950, 54, 145155,
Putin, Vladimir30, 71, 73, 129 199, 224
Soviet Unionviiiix, 1, 4, 1213, 47, 8687,
Rawls, John5, 214221, 224225 102103, 110111, 115, 121122, 124,
reason5, 101, 196199, 201209, 221 127128, 131, 137, 146, 163, 184
Reddaway, Peter111 Spinoza, Benedict (Baruch)193, 198
Rees, Martin186 Stalin, Joseph129, 131, 136
religion4, 16, 18, 2428, 3839, 134, 138139, Stalinism60, 140, 166
158168, 192209, 216, 218 Stiopin, Vyascheslav S.10, 54
politicization4, 159167 Stirner, Max104
research and development (R&D)75, 79 Sskind, Patrick46
revolution11, 17, 105, 107, 115, 121, 124, 130,
132, 146, 167, 172 Tacker, Robert111
computer, information11, 1314, 23 technologyviii, 13, 16, 24, 27, 3942, 5152,
French1617, 130, 132 54, 65, 6980, 90, 94, 126, 138, 150,
Islamic158, 163 176180, 185189
Russian60, 105, 115, 130, 132 and civilization13, 16
social, cultural115, 124, 166167 and development11, 65, 7071, 74, 80, 130
Robertson, Roland10, 25 and information42, 80
Rogozin, Dimitri11 and power4, 175, 178, 185
Index 251
terrorism10, 13, 15, 19, 93, 102, 127 Cold138, 146, 153, 187
internationalviii, 1011, 19, 97, 139 World War II4447, 94, 128, 147, 176
Tibi, Bassam161, 166 Weber, Max160
Tocqueville, Alexander de128132 Weinberg, Steven184
Tolstoy, Leo66 Wenar, Leif212
totalitarianism12, 5354, 117120, 123, Wendt, Alexander107109
130, 140 West, theviiix, 14, 1112, 1617, 31, 43, 106,
Toynbee, Arnold179 110111, 127128, 131133, 148149, 151,
tragedy of philosophy45, 192209 157159, 161, 168
See also philosophy Western civilization, countriesviii, 11,
transformation2, 1217, 2629, 3334, 39, 1417, 19, 25, 30, 45, 69, 107, 111, 147, 155,
5054, 71, 74, 89, 102, 108, 110, 113115, 167168
132, 136, 145152, 155, 172176, 193 Western culture16, 2325, 31, 33, 213
Turgenov, Ivan S.66 Western Europe24, 110, 131132
Tutchener, David24 Western leadership148151
Twiss, Bruce C.77 Western values16, 23, 2829, 31, 114, 161,
163, 221
United Nations87, 94, 96, 186, 223224 Westernization2, 24, 33
Urquhart, David132 See also East, the; East-West
Ursul, Arkadi D.10 Wilson, Woodrow214
world
Vernadskii, Georgiiviii, 13, 168, 173 new world order4, 11, 42, 111, 145155
violence14, 33, 109, 161, 176178, 186188 non-ideal world5, 212227
war42, 62, 66, 69, 87, 94, 102, 107110, Yeltsin, Boris3, 103, 107110, 129
127128, 130, 132133, 137138, 147, 160,
176180, 187, 214217, 222223, 225 Zenkovsky, Vassiliy198
civil87, 114, 121, 130 Zorkin, Vladimir D.49

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Between Past Orthodoxies and the Future of Globalization

Value Inquiry Book Series

William C. Gay (University of North Carolina, usa)

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/crph

Alexander N. Chumakov and William C. Gay

Names: Chumakov, A. N. (Aleksandr Nikolaevich), editor.

Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Introduction: Contemporary Russian Philosophy and the Challenges

1 Globalization from a Philosophical Point of View: Russian Vision9

2 Russian Culture and Challenges of Socio-cultural Globalization22

3 The Transformation of Economics, Politics, and Law in

4 The Cultural Heritage of Russia and Globalization57

5 Globalization and Contemporary Russia: The Need for Innovation68

6 International Migration, Globalization, and Development85

7 Internal Anarchy in Russia as an Obstacle for National and International

8 The Change of the Elites in Modern Russia113

9 America and Russia: A Multipolar World as an Echo of Fear before

10 The New World Order and Philosophy145

11 The Prospect for Politicization of Orthodox Christianity157

12 Non-linear Futures: The Mysterious Singularity in View of

13 The Tragedy of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Tragedy (Sergey N.

14 Liberalism in a Non-ideal World212

Publication of a volume by Russian philosophers in English by an international

visions on the issues in question. To provide this breadth we invited authors

12.1 The Stages of Cosmic Evolution174

11.1 Religious practices of respondents, June 2013165

Studies and Geopolitics. He is the Executive Secretary of the International

Metamorphosis (2005), Reflections on Reforming Russian Education (2011), and

(Moscow, 2003). He has studied the history of peasantry and currently is

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 6|doi 10.1163/9789004307841_002

The Global World as seen from Russia

Sergey Nikolsky, in The Cultural Heritage of Russia and Globalization,

The Global Dimension of Current Issues in Russia

Alexander Katsura, in America and Russia: A Multipolar World as an Echo

Russian Perspectives on Various Issues

Part iii provides a Russian perspective on a variety of other, more general

(18711944) and Russian existentialist philosopher Lev Shestov (18661938),

Globalization from a Philosophical Point of View:

globalization contemporary world humankind interdependence interests

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 6|doi 10.1163/9789004307841_003

This attention engenders questions of sustainable socio-economic develop-

accompanied by qualitative breakthroughs in scientific and technological

2 Alexander S. Panarin, The Temptation of Globalism [Iskushenie Globalizmom] (Moscow:

waiting to become an international community, which would necessarily

4 Alexander N. Chumakov, Philosophy of Globalization. Selected Articles (oscow: max-press,

world well-organized transnational criminal groups, terrorist organizations,

because if it is left unresolved, the other tasks become insignificant. Ioanna

Beck, Ulrich. Was ist Globalisierung? Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997.

Russian Culture and Challenges of Socio-cultural

Ilia V. Ilyin and Olga G. Leonova

Socio-cultural globalization involves reverse globalization or the asymmetrical

socio-cultural globalization global culture traditional culture civilization

Socio-cultural globalization is a process of internationalization of culture on

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 6|doi 10.1163/9789004307841_004

Modern cultural globalization has several features and contradictions.

1. A so-called reverse globalization is becoming more evident; it is a phe-

2. In fact, a large-scale simulation of unification (westernization) is taking

in traditional societies, an intensive search is being undertaken for ways of

4. An aggressive strategy of socio-cultural globalization that imposes the

Globalist culture carries a growing uniformity of consumer goods, including

5 Ludmila V. Klimova. The relationship between globalization of society and transformation

5. Political scientists predict in the twenty-first century the peoples whose

6. Socio-cultural globalization is a nonlinear dialectical process where

12.1 The Stages of Cosmic Evolution174

11.1 Religious practices of respondents, June 2013165