“Peasant socialism” by the founder of the opposition Russian press, Alexander Herzen. The main provisions of the theory of Russian socialism A.I. Herzen Herzen's theory of Russian socialism became the ideological basis
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE RF
Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education
"STATE UNIVERSITY OF MANAGEMENT"
Institute: Public Administration and Law
Specialty: State and municipal government
Course work
By discipline: "DPV-7"
On the topic: "Russian socialism in the works of P.L. Lavrov"
Completed:
Karaseva M.A.
Moscow 2012
Introduction
1.1 Biography
1.3 Attitude to art
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
Lavrov's deep interest in socialism was explained not only by his personal friendship with Marx and Engels, but also by the rapid growth of the authority of socialism among the working class and progressive intelligentsia of Europe and Russia. In one of his letters to comrades in 1886, Lavrov wrote with great joy that “everywhere, from Chicago to Scandinavia, where the organization of a workers’ party is possible, before the enormous predominance of the followers of Marx, supporters of scientific socialism, various traditional social groups are completely disappearing.” In essence, everything that matters in the socialist movement, recognizing oneself as a follower of Marx or denying it, has no other theoretical basis than the teaching bequeathed by the great socialist, recently deceased, to his disciples and followers. True, healthy knowledge of this teaching is alive in this task of our time. Therefore, in the modern theoretical literature of socialism, only work related to the development, understanding of this teaching, or disputes regarding some of its points can be of significance."
Not without the influence of socialism, Lavrov subsequently revised some of his old views. In the additions to the Historical Letters, he, like Marx, rejected the view that “ideas rule the world.” “Without a clear understanding of the economic process of production, exchange and distribution of wealth,” Lavrov wrote, “a historian can never become a historian of the masses, who are predominantly subject to the conditions of economic support.” Lavrov also wrote about Russia there that “a social revolution is being prepared by itself in Russia, as in the entire civilized world, by the very successes of the capitalist system.” Consequently, Lavrov already recognized the capitalist development of Russia as a fact.
Lavrov also understood that “underneath the diverse and motley phenomena of history, the common lining has always been and remains the struggle of classes for economic interests.” He wrote: “For the majority of our contemporaries, socialism consists precisely in the inexorable struggle of labor with capital, in the struggle of two economic classes, increasingly sharply opposed to each other, in a struggle that is ever growing both in intensity and in the breadth of its spread.”
Lavrov propagated the ideas of Marx’s “Capital” in the magazines “Forward” and “Bulletin of the People’s Will”, expounded Marx’s views on economic development, although at the same time he did not understand the historical mission of the working class as the gravedigger of capitalism. He accepted Marx’s idea that under the socialist system conditions would be created under which state power would begin to wither away.
Lavrov denounced the class basis of the state, pointing out that the bourgeois state was created by the ruling classes to protect their interests, “to preserve the opportunity to exploit and rob the masses of the people.” But at the same time, Lavrov mistakenly deduced the origin of the state from the natural need of people for personal and public safety. He did not distinguish qualitatively between “power” as the subordination of one class to another and as subordination within homogeneous class organizations.
Lavrov considered the socialist revolution an inevitable consequence of the struggle of the exploited against the exploiters. But he did not see the objective basis of this struggle - the conflict between the productive forces and industrial relations. Being a member of the First International, having correctly defined the character of the Paris Commune as a proletarian revolution and considering himself a supporter of the teachings of Marx, he still remained an ideologist of populism and did not understand the essence of Marx’s teaching about history as an objective process and about the historical mission of the proletariat.
Lavrov's scientific work, in which the author placed the main emphasis on the social concept, which was characteristic of the first responses to the works of the populists. In the works of Marxist authors, attention was paid to the socio-economic nature of populism, and the entire socio-philosophical concept of philosophers was viewed from this angle.
However, it seems important and relevant to dwell in more detail on the consideration of the subjective method, its role and place in the modern theory of knowledge.
The object of the study is Lavrov’s social and philosophical views.
The subject of the study is the subjective method as a way of cognition of social processes, in which the observer (subject of cognition) puts himself in the position of the observed.
The sources of the research, first of all, are the works of P.L. Lavrov, dedicated to social methodological and historiosophical problems, as well as the epistolary heritage, memoirs about him by his contemporaries and followers, research papers domestic pre-revolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet historians of philosophical, social and socio-historical thought and a number of foreign authors.
The purpose of the work is to identify the role and significance of “Russian socialism” in the works of P.L. Lavrova.
In this regard, the tasks can be formulated as follows:
identify, substantiate and meaningfully analyze the objective historical context of Lavrov’s socially significant ideas;
establish the ideological sources of Lavrov’s social and historiosophical views;
determine the meaningful meaning and significance of the subjective method in Lavrov’s social philosophy;
explore, on the basis of Leninist criticism, the fundamental difference between populism and Marxism in a number of relevant social problems;
Chapter 1. History of the emergence and formation of socialist views P.L. Lavrova
1.1 Biography
A nobleman by birth. Father, Lavr Stepanovich, is a participant Patriotic War 1812, personal friend of A.A. Arakcheeva, retired artillery colonel. Mother (nee Gandvig) is from a Russified Swedish family. He received a good education at home, spoke French and German languages(his reading circle includes books from his father’s French library). In 1837 he entered the artillery school in St. Petersburg (1837-1842), where he was considered the best student of M. Ostrogradsky, academician of military sciences. After graduating from college in 1842, he remained with him as a tutor. He independently studied literature on the social sciences, in particular became acquainted with the works of utopian socialists, wrote poetry and showed exceptional abilities in mathematics and a thirst for knowledge in general, without which “man is nothing... he is naked and weak in the hands of nature, he is insignificant and harmful in society" - From the diary
In 1844, after graduating from the higher officer classes, he was left at the school as a tutor in mathematical sciences, which marked the beginning of his military teaching career - at the St. Petersburg Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy (from 1858 - colonel and professor of mathematics), at the Konstantinovsky Military School (from 1860 tutor - observer). During Crimean War was near Narva, although, as he wrote in his autobiography (from a third person), “he did not happen to participate in any military operations.” In 1847, Lavrov married a widow with two children, titular councilor A.Kh., who was reputed to be a beauty. Loveiko (née Kapger; German by birth), which deprived him of financial support from his father. The need to support a large family (Lavrov had four children of his own) and an acute lack of salary forced him to write special articles for the Artillery Magazine and earn extra money as a tutor. After the death of his father (1852) and older brother Mikhail, life in material terms becomes more secure.
Lavrov studied the latest European philosophy, published his poems with A.I. Herzen in the collection "Voices from Russia", participated in the work on " Encyclopedic dictionary", published a lot on a wide range of issues: philosophy, sociology, history of social thought, problems of public morality, art, literature, public education.
In 1860, his first book, Essays on Questions of Practical Philosophy, was published. Lavrov believed that a moral person inevitably comes into conflict with an unjust society. An ideal society in relation to the individual may be a system based on a voluntary union of free and moral people.
In the 1860s. took an active part in literature and social work and in the student movement, became close to N.G. Chernyshevsky, was part of the first "Land and Freedom". After the assassination attempt by D.V. Karakozov against Alexander II was arrested, found guilty of “dissemination of harmful ideas”, “sympathy and closeness to people known to the government for their harmful direction” (Chernyshevsky, Mikhailov and professor P.V. Pavlov), and in January 1867 sentenced to exile in Vologda province (Totma, Vologda, Kadnikov), where he lived from 1867 to 1870. In Totma he met A.P. Czaplicka, a Polish woman arrested for participation in the Polish uprising of 1863-64, who became his common-law wife (d. 1872).
While in exile, Lavrov wrote his most famous work, “Historical Letters.” The “Historical Letters” contained a call to “critically thinking” and “energetically striving for truth individuals”, especially young people, to wake up, understand the tasks of the historical moment, the needs of the people, help them realize their strength and, together with them, begin to create history, to fight against the old world, mired in lies and injustice. "Historical Letters", being a socio-political work, came out when the revolutionary intelligentsia, especially young people, were looking for new opportunities to apply their forces to participate in the liberation of the people: the hopes of N.G. Chernyshevsky's belief in a popular uprising after the abolition of serfdom was not justified; "theory of realism" D.I. Pisareva, with her cult of natural science, did not promise quick results; conspiratorial activities of "People's Retribution" S.G. Nechaev was used by the government to discredit the “nihilists.” Therefore, in the conditions of the late 1860s - early 1870s. this work of Lavrov became a “thunderclap”, one of the ideological incentives for the practical activities of revolutionary intellectuals.
In 1870, with the help of G.A. Lopatina fled to Paris, where he contacted the Western European labor movement and joined the First International. In order to organize assistance to the besieged Paris Commune, he traveled to London, where he met K. Marx and F. Engels. In 1873-1877 edits the magazine "Forward" and the biweekly newspaper of the same name (1875-1876) - organs of the direction of Russian populism, the so-called "Lavrism", headed by Lavrov. After the assassination of Alexander II, he became closer to the Narodnaya Volya and in 1883-1886. edits with L.A. Tikhomirov "Bulletin of the People's Will".
Lavrov, without breaking ties with the revolutionary movement (he edited “Materials for the history of the Russian social revolutionary movement”), devoted the last years of his life to writing theoretical works on the history of human thought: “Tasks of understanding history” and “The most important moments in the history of thought.” His legacy, which has not been fully identified (825 works, 711 letters are known; about 60 pseudonyms have been revealed), includes articles in the Russian legal press, political poems, including the well-known “New Song” (the text was published in the newspaper “Forward!” , 1875, No. 12 of July 1), which later received the name “Workers’ Marseillaise” (“Let’s renounce the old world...”), which A.A. Blok called among “the most disgusting poems, rooted in the Russian heart... you can’t tear them out except with blood...”.
Lavrov died in Paris; buried in Montparnasse cemetery. His last words: “Calling... live well. It’s ending... my life is over.”
1.2 Lavrov’s philosophical views
In his philosophical views, Lavrov was an eclectic who tried to combine the systems of Hegel, Feuerbach, F. Lange, Comte, Spencer, Proudhon, Chernyshevsky, Bakunin, and Marx into one teaching. The main feature of his mosaic worldview was positivistic agnosticism. The populists, represented by Lavrov, took a step back from Chernyshevsky - from materialism towards positivism.
As a historian and sociologist, Lavrov was an idealist and subjectivist. He assessed the process of historical development from the point of view of a subjectively chosen moral ideal. History is ultimately made at will by an educated and moral minority (“critically thinking individuals”). Therefore, the first task of revolutionary leaders is to develop a moral ideal, the implementation of which they should strive for in their practical activities. Lavrov gave his ideal the following formulation: “Development of the individual in physical, mental and moral terms, embodiment of truth and justice in social forms.”
The moralizing and academic nature of Lavrov's socio-political program made him the leader of the right wing of Russian revolutionaries in the 1870s. Revolutionary upsurge of the 1870s. led to Lavrov's rapid loss of popularity and the transition of hegemony in the revolutionary movement to Bakunism. Calling for the unity of all socialist trends, Lavrov sought to include elements of Marxism in his system. Despite this, Lavrov’s socialism was typically populist in nature (the doctrine of special paths for the development of Russia, the peasantry as the bearer of the socialist ideal, etc.). However, the connection of the Lavrists with the international labor movement, their great attention to work among urban workers led to the fact that Lavrism played some role in training personnel for the first Social Democratic circles in Russia.
1.3 Attitude to art
In matters of art, Lavrov initially (in the 1850-1860s) took the position of pure art. In the 1870-1880s, Lavrov began to value art from the point of view of compliance of its content with the ideals of the revolutionary intelligentsia (article "Two Old Men", 1872 - about V. Hugo and J. Michelet - etc.), without ceasing to talk about "harmony forms." Reactionary art is recognized by him not only as harmful, but also as having no aesthetic value. Lavrov was one of the first to study revolutionary and workers' poetry (articles "Lyrics of the thirties and forties" - about Herweg, Eb. Elliott and others, 1877).
In the 1890s. Lavrov takes the point of view of denying art as an independent superstructure: the only task that, in his opinion, will remain for art is “decorating life and scientific needs.” This dynamics of Lavrov’s views on literature made itself felt in articles devoted to the phenomena of Western European literature (in addition to the mentioned articles - “Lessing’s Laocoon”, 1860, “Michlet and his “Witch””, 1863, “G. Carlyle”, 1881, “ Longfellow" and "Shakespeare in Our Time", 1882), which are also of interest in the sense that they reveal Lavrov’s literary-critical method. Blaming the writer for “the lack of passionate and lively participation in the interests and issues of our time” (Longfellow article), Lavrov was mainly based on the work of such authors with a social bent as V. Hugo, G. Herwegh, W. Whitman and others, giving they are not devoid of social and political acuteness characteristics.
Lavrov was a nobleman who left his class and went over to the side of the peasantry. The noble past introduced unique notes into Lavrov's populist ideology - the theory of paying the debt to the people for the privileged position of oneself and one's ancestors.
1.4 Socialist views of L.P. Lavrova
The life, work and creativity of Pyotr Lanrovich Lavrov (1823-1900) are inextricably linked with the Russian liberation movement. He dedicated all his diverse knowledge and his enormous and brilliant talent to him. He was an irreconcilable fighter against the autocracy and the bourgeoisie. Through his selfless struggle for the cause of socialism, Lavrov earned himself universal love and respect among the revolutionary youth of Russia, who listened to his opinion with great attention. His famous “Historical Letters,” according to G.V. Plekhanov, had almost the same success as the most significant works of the great Russian revolutionary democrat N.G. Chernyshevsky *. Lavrov’s poem “Let’s Renounce the Old World,” published in the newspaper “Forward” on July 1, 1875, became a revolutionary anthem and inspired several generations of Russian revolutionaries to fight.
Lavrov’s activities were not only of national Russian significance, but also influenced the development of the international socialist movement. Lavrov was a member of the First International, an active participant in the Paris Commune, insightfully seeing in it a major historical phenomenon, “when the proletariat first decided to be itself at the moment of a successful uprising.”, when “socialist workers of all countries, regardless of all differences and discord, could and did recognize your common cause"
Lavrov was an ardent and convinced supporter of international socialist solidarity. “The internationalism of all socialists,” he wrote, “is for the new era an axiom that does not require proof, and a mandatory commandment of the socialist creed.”
Noting the international significance of Lavrov’s activities, G.V. Plekhanov said at his grave on the day of the funeral: “And if his suffering because of his convictions is enough to ensure him the sympathy of all honest people, then his service to socialism ensures him the ardent sympathy of socialists of all countries.”
For many years, Lavrov helped the leaders of the international proletariat maintain close ties with the Russian liberation movement. In one of his letters to Lavrov, Engels calls him a recognized representative of the Russian revolutionary emigration and an old friend of Marx b. Friendship with Marx and Engels had a great influence on Lavrov’s worldview. But, recognizing the faithfulness of Marxism for the West, Lavrov linked the future of Russia, due to the weak development of capitalism in it and the absence of the proletariat, with the peasant revolution. Only in the last years of his life did he come to the conclusion about the need to spread Marxist teachings in Russia among industrial and rural workers. Engels, like Marx, considering Lavrov his comrade in the revolutionary struggle, reproached him for eclecticism.
The weaknesses and contradictions of Lavrov’s views were deeply analyzed by V.I. Lenin. At the same time, Lavrov’s revolutionary and propaganda activities were highly appreciated by the leader of the Russian proletariat. In 1902 V.I. Lenin wrote about the brilliant galaxy of revolutionaries of the 70s, that they were the forerunners of Russian social democracy along with Herzen, Belinsky and Chernyshevsky 6. Lavrov, a “veteran of revolutionary theory” 7, a versatile educated scientist, mathematician and anthropologist, also belonged to this brilliant galaxy , teacher and historian, philosopher and sociologist, literary critic and publicist.
Russian socialism laurels
Chapter 2. Analysis of the doctrine “Russian socialism” in the works of P.L. Lavrova
2.1 Development of the ideal of socialist morality
In his work “Development of the Ideal of Socialist Morality” P.L. Lavrov argues that moral teachings in our time are far from devoid of objective indications as to the direction in which advanced personal and social ideals can be sought. A developed personality can realize its dignity only in a social system that allows for the mutual development of personalities on the basis of the broadest criticism; in a system that allows and even requires inclusion in universal cooperation for the general development of all individuals possessing the same human dignity, i.e. all people. A developed personality at every historical moment, in the name of his development and his conviction, is obliged to direct all his forces to support the party, which strives most directly to eliminate all obstacles to the diversified development of all individuals and to unite the largest possible share of humanity into a solidarity community, without creating obstacles to joining this is the hostel and the rest of the share in a more or less distant future.
The principles that unite larger or smaller portions of humanity into a solidary whole constituted the most characteristic stages of its history.
On the first steps public life We meet tribes that are unconditionally hostile to one another with the closest connection of the personalities of each tribe, absorbed by the power of custom, which contained in an undifferentiated state everything that later became isolated as a form of community life, compulsory law, religious rite. Personal affect, personal interest played an insignificant role in front of this suppressive element, which changed its forms under the influence of external forces, but did not change its suppressive essence. These forms had many external similarities with what later became part of the social ideal of socialism, but the lack of criticism, the lack of conscious independence of the individual deprived them of any progressive meaning, and in them, as they were, there was no incentive to merge the warring tribes into more a vast solidary whole.
Activity under the influence of a consciousness of self-interest, on the one hand, destroyed the strength of the usual connection within individual tribes; on the other hand, in the name of the same consciousness, these tribes, merging forcibly or voluntarily, formed, under convenient circumstances, more or less extensive nationalities with historical civilizations. On the basis of economic needs, political forms, religious teachings, forms of artistic creativity, forms of community life were determined, which isolated nationalities and at the same time retained many features of undifferentiated, semi-conscious ordinary life, so that the structure of primitive historical civilizations appears to a large extent still as a kind of domination a new, more complex custom, but a custom that already gave considerable scope for activity in the name of personal, family, class interests, and therefore within historical nationalities caused a continuous struggle of these interests, mainly on economic grounds, but with the undeniable influence of social forces caused by the then to life through economic clashes, but now participating in history as independent engines of individuals. Just as much as these different interests, in their opposition, gave historical nationalities less solidity within than primitive tribes, just as much did they take away from the enmity between nationalities - carried over into this period from the previous period of ordinary life - that acute, unconscious character which the struggle between groups of people retained from zoological world. Wars now ended not always with the death of the defeated nationality, but often with the adaptation of several nationalities to life together, as members of one political whole with a predominantly economic and ceremonial connection; in other cases, these clashes were resolved by the transition of national differences into caste or class within the same state; in a more developed form - into the dominance of a unifying law over nationalities that have preserved the difference in cultural forms. Economic dependence arose between independent nationalities and states and economic connection; political treaties and temporary or more permanent federations were established; Borrowings occurred in the forms of culture, technology, art, and in the field of theoretical ideas. The expansion of relations made the isolated life of the nationality less and less possible; but at this stage of historical evolution, solidary humanity, universal cooperation of people for universal development was least conceivable, since the life of each society was imbued in its essence with competition) of personal, family, class, caste interests, and the emerging international law was limited to a truce between hostile national state wholes, waiting only for an opportune moment to resume the war and subjugate the weaker to the stronger.
Nevertheless, the aforementioned expansion of relations inevitably evoked the idea of uniting people in the name of universal principles, in addition to the differences in customs and national legends. Since economic competition, which lay at the basis of all others, was the least distinguishable from the ideas about this difference, then all the first attempts at universalism in humanity took place and should have taken place on the basis of those products of human thought that, growing out of original economic interests, lived now with an independent life and overshadowed the basic economic motives in the minds of people with their higher forms.
People of theoretical thought, the product of the most distant both from their economic source and from unconscious submission to custom and tradition, most mastered the practical methods of thought and therefore naturally came earlier than others to the idea of a universal wisdom, alien to racial, tribal, political and cultural divisions and which contained, in a still undifferentiated state, exceptional knowledge, exceptional worldview and exceptional morality. But it was precisely the exclusivity that was an inevitable element in the idea of the sage (who could be both a Greek and a Scythian), which opposed this sage to society and, due to his removal from public life, which in the future, as we saw, was bound to disfigure his ideal - it was precisely this exclusivity that took away the attempt to unite humanity on this basis has no immediate future.
From the world of competing nationalities and states, the concept of a universal state grew most directly. As soon as critical thought developed the concept of an impersonal law, of “written reason,” embodying unconditional and dispassionate justice, then such a state rose before minds as the ideal of a universal community of society, allowing, under the auspices of the praetor’s edict, all the diversity of culture, all the vastness of competition between personalities. interests, any development of theoretical thought, but an ideal that stops all harmful struggles between individuals. At the same time, legal thinkers turned a blind eye to the origin of political forms from economic conditions; that these forms have always combined power with economic dominance; the fact that if they, once developed, could compete with economic forces and even sometimes give rise to new similar forces, then nevertheless solidary political relations between people could be established only on the basis of economic solidarity; finally, that with the existence of general economic competition, not only a universal, but simply a vast state inevitably presupposed the exploitation of the entire population by a minority standing at the helm of government, therefore, something completely opposite to “general cooperation for general development.” Fortunately for mankind, a world state, even approximately, never succeeded, and could not succeed, to be realized by those who aspired to it.
The largest attempt at universalism was based on an element that might seem least capable of it. Nothing divided nationalities in their cultural forms more than religious beliefs, which seemed to have merged with the very essence of this separation. But since in the exercise of thought in criticism and in its struggle against the domination of various layers of custom, the greatest exercise took place in the sphere of theoretical thought, and in order to combat custom to any degree successfully it was necessary to inevitably undermine its sanctification by beliefs, then in a natural way it was religious beliefs that most likely entered into the process of interpretation, explanation, evaporation of the strictly religious element in favor of the philosophical and moral, so that by imperceptible transitions this former citadel of national isolation became in different places capable of turning into a doctrine of belief that should embrace “both the barbarian and the Hellenic,” capable of bringing the Japanese closer to a Ceylonese and disregard all state, national and racial boundaries. The apparent success of universalism in this case was helped by two more circumstances. Firstly, although the forms of religions were initially developed from economic needs, in their development under the influence of the process of creativity and religious affect, the impulses in this area could most successfully fight the impulses of elementary interests and the dominance of economic competition; therefore, the main obstacle to general cooperation for general development, arising from this competition, could most likely be forgotten under the influence of religious motives. Secondly, religious thought, as the lowest level of theoretical thought, was most accessible to the masses, and at the stage of the evolution of thought, which is now being discussed, only it could become the soil that unites the universalistic aspirations of people of different theoretical and moral development. The ideal of the unity of all believers in the same dogmas, acting in accordance with the instructions of the same moral commandments and interconnected by one worldwide organization of the church hierarchy, was set by Buddhism, Christianity and Islamism as something that should be feasible.
2.2 Socialist morality
Thus, the socialist moral ideal turns out to be not only not contradictory to the progressive moral ideal, as it logically developed in humanity, but the only possible fulfillment of the requirements for the individual: the unhindered development, development and implementation of his dignity in life; for society: extending the possibility of development to more and more individuals and developing social forms that allow general cooperation for general development.
This ideal only applies more sharply and definitely to the particular questions presented in this area by our society, in the form in which actual history has developed it, with numerous experiences in it of old, familiar forms of life and old habits of thought. It more sharply and definitely does not recognize the right to remain in this sphere for anything excluded by criticism from the sphere of the ideal of a developed personality and progressive society.
“Everything that restricts the area of criticism is objective evil. Any habits that are contrary to criticism are certainly vicious. Everything that contributes to it is good. Everything that destroys or weakens the firmness of conviction is evil. Every habit of acting not according to conviction is vicious. Everything that contributes to the strengthening of a critically thought through conviction is good. Everything that prevents the free embodiment of a deliberate conviction, which does not constrain the similar conviction of others, is evil. Any submission to conditions that constrain conviction, if it is not due to necessity, is vicious. Everything that facilitates the free expression of convictions, their conscientious competition and implementation there is good in life" (1870) 15.
Based on these elementary truths, accessible to developed people of all periods, the socialist ideal developed more definitely and sharply demands arising from the logical conditions for the existence of a just society and the logical analysis of the means for its implementation.
“Legal and ordinary morality are not the essence of justice,” proclaimed the preachers of the social revolution, “They are only modified forms in which, with their historical growth, an incomplete understanding of justice is mixed with the animal impulse of predation, with the selfish calculation of the strong, with senseless respect for ancient custom, with stupid fear of a mysterious tradition. The forms of legality and ordinary morality had to be contradictory, because this product of historical progress was constantly changing in the quantity and quality of the elements it contained under the influence of historical events, passions, hobbies, delusions, beliefs, and only little by little from it stood out the only moral element contained in it, the element of justice. To everyone constantly talking about incompatible contradictions in the historical understanding of justice, social revolutionaries answer: what you are talking about is not justice precisely because there are contradictions in it, but in these motley historical products have one element that is consistent and harmonious. He is the justice that we are trying to isolate from old teachings and implement in the future system through a social revolution.
In this future kingdom of justice, only those ideals that were formulated piecemeal and fragmentarily in the previous moral mottos of the leading parties can be realized. Only in it are true freedom, true equality, true brotherhood possible; only in it is the greatest social benefit realized; only that which brings this kingdom of justice closer is a matter of social salvation. In the work for the realization of this kingdom is the only historical progress, the only humanity. All those working for this realization are brothers in a common cause. Love for them, love for humanity, which can only be saved through this realization, is the only meaningful love, and it is the emotion that evokes justice. It is this love that says to every revolutionary socialist: sacrifice everything for your brothers, for those who work with you to found the future kingdom of justice, for those millions who will enter this kingdom. She says: bring the truth to the ranks of those who have not yet been touched by the preaching of social justice, teach those who do not know, explain to those who are mistaken: they are possible workers in the creation of the future kingdom; they are your possible brothers; in the name of justice, sacrifice everything in order to increase their number, and in this case, the motives of love coincide with the demands of justice. But the same love for humanity causes hatred of everything that interferes with the implementation of the kingdom of justice; the same love calls a person to an inexorable, irreconcilable struggle against principles hostile to this realization. Just as it requires sacrifices to help the brothers, in the same way it requires sacrifices for the great struggle for the highest ideal of justice. Only he knows how to love who knows how to fight against the evil that threatens what he loves above all.
The basis of a fair life can only be common labor for the benefit of all. Only society can serve as a means of implementing justice, and the individual must direct all his strength to its implementation - therefore, for the benefit of society. She can enjoy morally only in the process of social progress. It can only develop in the development of a just society. In its sphere of moral activity it has nothing of its own, separate, that it would have the right to oppose to the public good. Therefore, clearly understood and morally developed egoism is reborn in her into a passionate desire to enjoy the highest pleasure of labor for social development; it degenerates into the conviction that every personal pleasure of a developed person is continuously connected with this highest pleasure, that everything taken away freely from society is taken away from one’s own highest good.
From this follow several provisions of specifically socialist morality. Idle pleasure is shameful. It is criminal to use social benefits without corresponding work for the benefit and development of society. It is criminal to receive from society even a little more than what you have earned through your labor for its benefit. But it exists only for your all-round development and this is the only thing you have a right to in it. On your part, all your forces, as a single force, are barely sufficient to support and strengthen the process of social development, which constitutes your highest pleasure and highest social duty. Therefore, you must give all your strength to society and be content with only what is necessary for your existence and for your development. Limit all personal needs so that a large share of your strength and resources falls in favor of your highest need - the need to develop morally in order to better contribute to social development. Limit what you need to take from society for your existence. Develop in yourself the ability to enjoy the common good and give yourself selflessly to this pleasure.
Once these principles of socialist morality are established, everything else follows from them as a logical consequence, and a socialist who does not derive these consequences shows only a lack of logical consistency in his thought.
The kingdom of justice, which we are obliged to establish, for which no sacrifices should be spared, for which we must go to an inexorable struggle, is the kingdom of universal labor for the common good. Who can create it? Only those who even now fulfill his covenant, those who work. Consequently, the only foundation of the future society is the class of workers; The only brothers of the socialist are workers and those who are able to understand that only labor is the basis of a just social system.
The enemies of this system, the enemies of every socialist, are idle exploiters of other people's labor, greedy monopolists of social wealth, monopolists of pleasures, means of development, and social forces. These are all the forces of modern society that support monopoly and exploitation in all its forms. This - modern states, which interfere with the onset of the only moral kingdom, the kingdom of universal labor and justice. This is the entire modern social order, which puts pressure on the worker, enriches the idle exploiter, and develops all forms of monopoly.
So, in the name of justice, in the name of love for humanity, in the name of the only logical morality, the convinced socialist is obliged to work for the social revolution, for the overthrow of the entire modern political and economic system through a revolution organized among his brother workers and carried out by their explosion against their enemies.
The social revolution is a victory in the war against monopoly in all its forms, in the war against the modern social system in all its branches. And this daily war, without sparing either oneself or others, is the moral duty of a socialist-revolutionary in the present era, and we have just said that every logical socialist must be a revolutionary" (1875). Thus, the moral teachings developed by humanity in its progressive evolution, inevitably led, through an analysis of the concepts of development, of conviction, of justice and by examining the conditions for the implementation of these concepts, to those demands for the restructuring of society on an economic basis that constitute the peculiarity of socialism, and to the inevitability of the struggle for the implementation of the socialist ideal of personal activity And social order, which determines the task of the socialist-revolutionary.
Moral issues are inevitably complicated by technical issues. A developed and convinced socialist-revolutionary faces different formulations of his common task in different countries. The solidary union of representatives of labor, ever expanding and strengthening in the struggle against representatives of monopoly property, can and must alone build that kingdom of justice, which is the goal of socialism. This is true everywhere. But the existing legal and economic environment seems to be prepared very differently for this revolution.
2.3 The inevitability of social revolution
We see that socialism is “a social theory that has in mind such a restructuring of society that would make it possible for general cooperation for universal development; would make possible the gradual spread of this cooperation to all of humanity; and the basis of the theory was the consciousness that both of these conditions are feasible only on the economic basis of universal labor and the elimination of monopoly property."
This theory, as it turns out, was not invented by some solitary thinker in the depths of his office, but was set before the peoples as a fatal historical task in the process of the historical revolution, which first united individual wild and semi-wild tribes into historical nationalities, then connected these nationalities with universal tasks, sought the correct formulation of these last tasks in the wisdom of thinkers, in the legal forms of statehood, in the supernatural creations of religion, until finally people of critical thought were convinced that this task can only be solved on the basis of satisfying economic interests, without which the solidary development of humanity in other directions becomes impossible.
Proof of the need to resolve the most important historical issues of progress precisely in this direction was the realization that under the diverse and variegated phenomena of history, the common lining has always been and remains the struggle of classes for economic interests, a struggle, at first unconscious or semi-conscious, which often took the form of defending the old custom or the introduction of something new, changing the forms of political power, the struggle for fantastic beliefs, for the right of the individual to develop, expand their knowledge, live according to their convictions, the struggle for freedom of speech and thought, and only in our time has it appeared to thinkers with complete certainty of the opposing interests of capital and labor.
This struggle of classes in our time is a fact to which it is impossible to close one’s eyes and for which one must seek an outcome in the present formulation of the historical question. As long as this struggle exists, not a single moral task of personal development, social solidarity, or fair living can even be posed correctly. A significant proportion of the strength of each individual is absorbed exclusively by the animal struggle for existence, the elementary struggle to defend his personal dignity. A significant share of social forces is spent on competition between individuals, between groups of individuals. In the individual, the elements that hold together social solidarity and the desire for cooperation for mutual development are fatally atrophying. In societies, the traditions of the previous connecting principles between individuals are atrophying and new principles arise with difficulty, lacking the strength to develop and strengthen. Personal dignity increasingly strives to return to the moral ideal of the savage, to defend oneself and defeat others in the struggle for existence, eliminating the binding force of royal custom that held together the society of primitive savages. Justice becomes an illusion, since in the constant struggle for existence, for enrichment, for preserving his monopoly wealth from general competition, a person does not have the opportunity to weigh the dignity of others, to defend it from his enemies: every individual of one economic class is a social enemy for the individual of another class, which it is impossible for her to treat fairly; every individual of the same class is a competitor, therefore a personal enemy, with whom solidarity is unthinkable as long as this competition is a fatal condition of the social order. People of moral conviction, people of progress must direct all their efforts to stop this struggle, or their conviction is hypocritical, their concept of progress is meaningless.
But doesn’t this struggle constitute a fatal sociological condition, just as death and decrepitude are fatal biological conditions? This is asserted by the defenders of the modern order, accusing socialists of harmful utopian dreams.
If it can be eliminated, then can it not be gradually reduced by a slow change in the existing structure of society, through reforms from within it, preventing the inevitability of huge class clashes, bloody revolutions, or at least reducing their tension, their severity and the inevitable social suffering ?
This is believed and preached by various legal reformists, who even in our time admit the possibility of harmonious aspirations of capital and labor, believers in the power of universal voting, in which the names of the elected representatives of the proletarian worker and his patron fall into the same ballot box, believers in the power of reproduction schools and political education among a population chronically hungry and absorbed in eternal competition and the eternal struggle for existence.
If modern society in some countries has already developed such an economic opposition of classes that does not allow us to hope for a reduction in the fierce struggle and suffering caused by it, then are there no countries and peoples for which a social revolution would have the opportunity to take place under less harsh conditions, taking advantage of those very forms that in former times supported solidarity between people at the lower levels of civilization were erased and destroyed by historical evolution in countries where it more purely developed new social forms, but remained in a more or less changed form where the flow of history was not so violent and quickly?
This is denied by many socialist theorists, while others affirm it, pointing out that in the biological processes of evolution, in forms that appeared later, there is an acceleration of the process, a reduction in some of its phases; pointing in particular to the pedagogical effect of some individuals and peoples on others, and the experience of predecessors, sometimes very slow and difficult, is significantly reduced in time and in difficulties for individuals and peoples who benefit from the results of EVOLUTION developed by others.
This is not the place to examine the arguments put forward by the defenders and opponents of each of these provisions. My work here is only an analysis of the moral obligation of a convinced socialist in view of the current state of affairs, and from this point of view I will only touch on the provisions mentioned.
A convinced socialist, by his very conviction, cannot admit that the economic struggle between individuals, economic competition, is something fatal that could be put in parallel with the biological processes of decrepitude and death. Therefore, for him the first objection does not exist. But this conviction is not a blind, uncritical conviction. It is based on numerous data provided by the psychology of individuals and the history of societies. The whole world of affects of affection, hatred, vanity, pride stands before the psychologist as a witness to a person’s ability to neglect his economic interests under the influence of affect. The entire history of religious beliefs testifies to the possibility for an individual to forget about any competition of interests in view of the creations of religious fantasy. Numerous communities of tribes left out of history, even more numerous families in those cases where custom did not allow economic discord to arise in them or when sincere affection bound their members into a truly harmonious family, finally, found in all periods of history and even in our time truly friendly communication between people - all this provides vivid examples of the possibility of real hostels, in an environment in which economic competition did not exist. With so many exceptions, a socialist has the right to consider as a critically acquired result his conviction in the possibility of a system based on general cooperation for universal development, conditioned by universal labor and the absence of monopoly property as two requirements that eliminate, in its main foundations, the exploitation of man by man and the struggle of their economic interests.
Without going into polemics regarding the following two provisions, we can say that the moral duty of a socialist in a controversial state of issues is to bring the socialist system of society the fullest possible triumph as quickly as possible and with the least possible suffering for society. The more complete this triumph is, the less obstacles the further development of mankind will encounter. The sooner it is accomplished, the greater the number of individuals will be able to defend their moral dignity and participate in the progressive process of development. Consequently, these very conditions coincide with the requirement for a possible reduction in social suffering. Only by taking into account this task of reducing suffering in a number of generations, one has to assess the amount of suffering brought by the revolution to one generation experiencing it, without forgetting the basic position that development or even the possibility of development for society must, from a moral point of view, be purchased by society, whatever price has to be paid for this development.
Chapter 3. Assessment of the relevance of the doctrine “Russian socialism” in the works of P.L. Lavrova
3.1 Relevance of the teachings of P.L. Lavrova
In February 1870, after three years of exile, with the assistance of G.A. Lopatina Lavrov fled to Paris, where he entered the circle of outstanding scientists and was accepted as a full member of the Parisian Anthropological Society, founded by the “father of modern anthropology” Broca, and as a member of the editorial board of the journal “Revue d” anthropologie” (“Anthropological Review”). When the war between France and Prussia began, Lavrov worked in a military hospital detachment of the National Guard; after the proclamation of the republic, on September 4, 1870, he “spoke at various rallies and meetings” 21 and in the fall of 1870 became a member of one of the sections of the First International.
The heroic struggle of the communards from the day the Paris Commune arose until its fall was the focus of Lavrov’s attention. Personally connected by friendship with members of the International - the leaders of the Commune Varlin, Malon, Chalen, Victor Clément and Charles Gerardin, Lavrov was the first in the European revolutionary press (in the Belgian weekly Internationale) to publish two correspondence dated March 21 and 28, 1871 about the Paris Commune as about the proletarian revolution on 22 and early May
g. went to Brussels, then to London to help organize military assistance to the Commune. He brought to the General Council of the International, headed by Marx, that large sum of money, which, although it could not be used for the requested military support, since Paris was soon forced to surrender, but gave the Council the opportunity for a long time to help numerous communards, hiding abroad after the fall of Paris.
Returning to Paris on the 20th of July 1871, Lavrov actively helped the Communards taking refuge in Paris, getting them passports and organizing their escapes from France, and also helped restore ties between the General Council of the International and the French socialists.
After the defeat of the Commune, Lavrov often returned to the question of its enormous historical significance. In a letter to E.A. Stackenschneider dated October 10 (22), 1871, he writes that the Commune revealed a new, “bright type of state. Now this type has been temporarily realized. The possibility of management from workers has also been proven”25. Lavrov apparently took this idea about the Commune as a new type of state from Marx and developed it in 1875 in the article “The Paris Commune of 1871” 26, and then in 1879 in the book “The Paris Commune”, which, according to V. .D. Bonch-Bruevich, “Vladimir Ilyich considered K. Marx the best after the Civil War in France.”
This book by Lavrov also contains interesting material about the enormous influence of the Commune on the Russian liberation movement. Lavrov writes that the Russian socialist movement of 1873 and the following years was indirectly caused by the impression made on Russian minds by the events of the Paris Commune. “This event finally taught us, Russians, a lot of things that without it would have gone, perhaps, unnoticed.”28 To confirm these thoughts, Lavrov cites an excerpt from a greeting sent to Paris on March 18, 1879 by Russian workers from Odessa. This passage says: “We are working in our homeland for the same great goal for which so many of your brothers, sisters, fathers, sons, daughters and friends died in 1871 on the barricades of Paris. We anxiously await the arrival of that historical moment when and we will be able to rush into battle for the morals of the working people, against the exploiters, for the triumph of mental, moral and economic freedom. You were right when in 1871 you said that you were fighting for all mankind."
But, despite his familiarity with Marxism and sympathy for the class struggle of the proletariat, Lavrov for a long time adhered to populist ideals in relation to Russia, where, in his opinion, due to the underdevelopment of capitalism and the absence of the proletariat, revolutionary tasks stand differently. It seemed to Lavrov, like most populists, that until capitalism was consolidated, the only salvation for Russia was a peasant socialist revolution. The idea of such a revolution was widely promoted in the magazine published by Lavrov in Zurich and London, and then in the newspaper “Forward”, which played a major role in the propaganda of socialist ideas in Russia. According to the memoirs of V.D. Bonch-Bruevich, V.I. Lenin “read Lavrov’s thick magazine “Forward” very carefully during his emigrant years in Geneva.”
These publications published many articles by Lavrov about the peasant movement in Russia, about student unrest, about the growth of the Russian bourgeoisie, articles exposing the instability of Russian liberals. These articles, which were later included in the book “About the Samara Famine” (1873-1874), contained a study of the situation of agriculture and the peasantry, based on a mass of official and literary materials, criticism of government and zemstvo measures against hunger and the tsar’s tax policy and government spending. The entire system of autocratic power and the bourgeois system was exposed. Lavrov also exposed preachers of “small deeds” and demanded the use of all legal activities for revolutionary propaganda of socialism, which “should simultaneously serve as a weapon of agitation against the government.”
Without sharing the anarchist doctrine of Bakunin, his disdain for the action of the masses, Lavrov, in his policy statement “Forward!” wrote: “In first place we put the position that the restructuring of Russian society must be carried out not only for the purpose of the people’s good, not only for the people, but also through the people. A modern Russian leader must. leave. the outdated opinion that revolutionary ideas developed by a small group of a more advanced minority. Future system Russian society. must translate into action the needs of the majority, which they themselves recognize and understand. "
Diligent “going to the people” in 1873-1876. did not produce the results expected from it. All this forced Lavrov to reconsider his attitude towards the current political struggle in Russia.
Since the spring of 1880, together with G.V. Plekhanov, N.A. Morozov and others, he began the publication of the “Social Revolutionary Library,” which included the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” (translated by Plekhanov) with a special preface by Marx and Engels, written at Lavrov’s request. "Wage Labor and Capital" by Marx. "Workers' Program" by Lassalle, "Paris Commune" by Lavrov. "The Essence of Socialism" by Schaeffle with notes by Lavrov and others.
Founded in Russia in 1881, the "Red Cross Society of the People's Will" elected Lavrov and Vera Zasulich as representatives of its foreign departments, and in the spring of 1882 he received an invitation to become one of the editors of the "Bulletin of the People's Will".
Lavrov believed that the Narodnaya Volya party “remains socialist, recognizes the importance of socialist propaganda and primarily directs its attacks against the Russian government only as the main obstacle to the spread of socialist ideas in Russia”32. As is known, the heroism of the Narodnaya Volya revolutionaries was highly valued by Marx and Engels. Regarding the publication in the newspaper Narodnaya Volya of the preface to the Russian edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Engels wrote to Lavrov on April 10, 1882: “We are proud to be its collaborators.”
Lavrov’s big mistake was that he disapproved of the Marxist group “Emancipation of Labor”, founded in September 1883 in Geneva by Plekhanov, who fought for the creation of a Social Democratic Labor Party in Russia for its criticism of the views of “Narodnaya Volya”. While welcoming workers' political parties in Western Europe, he continued to place hopes in a peasant revolution in Russia even when many Narodnaya Volya members in the largest Russian workers' centers moved to work among the proletariat.
In his speech at the First Congress of the Second International in Paris in July 1889, speaking about Russia, Lavrov highlighted groups and circles that shared the principles of the former organization "People's Will",
Believing that they lack “only unity and a centralized organization. He questioned the possibility of creating a political workers’ party in Russia because in Tsarist Russia “legal conditions” do not allow this. He spoke in the same spirit in the article “On Program Issues” in the “Flying leaflet of the “Group of Narodnaya Volya”” No. 4 dated December 9, 1895: “Those of the Russian Social Democrats who boldly assert that the organization of such a workers’ party is possible in today’s Russia have only to answer: try it, and if you succeed, you will accomplish a great thing. But for me this is an impossible task, requiring childish blindness and almost complete ignorance of Russian legal conditions. The organization of the Russian workers' party has to be created under the conditions of the existence of absolutism with all its delights. If the Social Democrats could do this without at the same time organizing a political conspiracy against absolutism with all the conditions of such a conspiracy, then, of course, their political program would be the proper program of the Russian socialists, since the emancipation of the workers would be accomplished by the workers themselves. But it is very doubtful, if not impossible."
IN AND. Lenin sharply criticized this position of Lavrov for identifying the concept of political struggle with the concept of political conspiracy. Based on the experience of the St. Petersburg “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class,” V.I. Lenin showed that even under the conditions of Tsarist Russia, a revolutionary workers' organization could be the greatest political factor. “Leading the class struggle of the proletariat, developing organization and discipline among the workers, helping them fight for their economic needs and win one position after another from capital, politically educating the workers and systematically, relentlessly pursuing absolutism, hounding every Tsarist bashi-bazouk who makes the proletariat feel the heavy paw of the policeman government, - such an organization would be at the same time both an organization of a workers’ party adapted to our conditions and a powerful revolutionary party directed against absolutism.”
Lavrov stopped doubting the possibility of success of the Social Democrats in Russia only three years before his death, in 1897, as evidenced by V.D., who visited him at that time. Bonch-Bruevich. Lavrov told him: “The Marxist movement in Russia is becoming stronger and stronger. I don’t doubt for a minute that our labor movement is developing and will develop even more. The entire economy of our country speaks for the fact that only this movement has a truly broad future.” No matter how much we would like and wish that the peasant masses were all with us, these masses are not with us now and will not be for a long time, but the workers, they have already become social democrats, this is their native element. I think this “It’s my duty to speak and I’ll tell you: since you belong to the Social Democrats, you are on the right path.”
From 1870 until the end of his life (he died in Paris on January 25 (February 6), 1900), Lavrov was in exile. But all this time he lived in the interests of Russia. At the end of 1875, he published in the newspaper "Forward" a list of socialist newspapers in thirteen languages, indicating their addresses and the cost of a subscription for three months, so that Russian revolutionaries who were temporarily abroad could read the socialist workers' press. Until his last days, Lavrov read abstracts and lectures in Paris in the Russian "Workers' Society", at meetings organized by the Russian Students' Fund, in the "Society of Russian Youth", at meetings of Polish socialists and in a circle of Russian propagandists of socialism.
Until his death, Lavrov did not stop his scientific studies. He published several articles in French in Broca's anthropological journal.
His “Anthropological Studies”, “Anthropologists in Europe”, “Civilization and Wild Tribes” were published in Russian magazines. Lavrov’s works on anthropology were highly appreciated by the famous anthropologist Academician D.N. Anuchin.
Lavrov is also known as a major historian for his works: “History of urban and rural structure in Western Europe”, “Political types of the 18th century”, “Medieval Rome and the papacy in the era of Theodora and Marotia”, “The eve of great revolutions”, “The era of the emergence of new peoples” in Europe”, “The Role of Science in the Renaissance and Reformation”, “Review of the History of the Russian Revolutionary Movement”, “Populists Propagandists”, “Paris Commune of 1871”, “Essays on the History of the International”, etc. Analysis of these works and their place in historical science - the subject of special research.
A man of high culture and broad outlook, Lavrov was also a great connoisseur of literature and art. He is the author of such works as “Lessing’s Laocoon”, “Michlet and his “Witch””, “Two Old Men” (Michlet and Hugo), “Lyricists of the Thirties and Forties” (Herwegh, Elliott, etc.), “ Foreign Literary Chronicle" (Hugo, Zola, etc.), "Thomas Carleil", "Shakespeare in Our Time", "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" and others. In his articles, Lavrov expressed deep judgments about art and literature and their role in social and spiritual life.
Like the revolutionary democrats, he sought to place art at the service of society. He was an enemy of “pure art”, alien to the pressing issues of life. “Only that writer, artist or scientist,” he wrote, “really serves progress who did everything he could to apply the forces he acquired to the spread and strengthening of the civilization of his time.”
3.2 Impact of Lavrov's views on the future
The motive of truth-seeking also permeates the work of another, perhaps the most popular representative of Russian populism in the last third of the last century - Pyotr Lavrovich Lavrov, whom I have already mentioned. Moreover, this motive is so clearly expressed in him that he even forms the basis of the solution - not a little, but the very secret of all the conquests of mankind. “In the determination of an individual,” wrote P.L. Lavrov, “to fight for what he considers the truth, no matter how incredible it may be, in the determination to die for his convictions, the secret of all the conquests of mankind is kept.”
For people who are not sufficiently familiar with the heated discussions of Russian philosophers of various directions at the beginning of the century about “truth-truth” and “truth-justice,” it may seem that in this case we are not talking about important philosophical concepts, but rather about exercises in belles lettres , about the search for bright, journalistically sharpened literary images. This is wrong. And it is no coincidence that one of the largest Russian philosophers and one of the founders of the modern philosophy of existentialism, N.A. Berdyaev, opened the famous collection “Vekhi”, which at one time challenged the revolutionary wing of the Russian intelligentsia, with the article “Philosophical truth and intellectual truth, by its very name ( inspired, by the way, by the above quotation from Mikhailovsky), this article was intended to mark the divide between the “Vekhoites” and the rest of the Russian intelligentsia, who, as he argued, succumbed to the temptation of the Grand Inquisitor from Dostoevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov”, who demanded the abandonment of truth in the name of happiness of people. “With the Russian intelligentsia,” wrote N.A. Berdyaev, “due to its historical position, this kind of misfortune happened: the love for equalizing justice, for the public good, for the people’s welfare paralyzed the love for truth, almost destroyed interest in the truth.” Without denying the well-known advantages of traditional Russian truth-seeking with its focus not on truth in general, but, first of all, on truth-justice, N.A. Berdyaev, in his essay, brilliant in form, put forward a different system of priorities, arguing that “now we spiritually need recognition of the intrinsic value of truth, humility before the truth and readiness to renounce in its name.” And it was precisely this spiritual need that, in his opinion, was hampered by Marxism, which underwent a populist degeneration in Russia, subordinating objective truth to the subjective class point of view.
After the tragic breakup Soviet Union, the rejection of ideology in general and Marxist ideology as official, in particular, arose, in a sense, justified and obvious interest in Russian religious and secular philosophy. Since 1989, publications devoted to the work of thinkers began to appear in print. In 1995, a collection of articles was published dedicated to the Lavrov Readings, a scientific conference associated with the 170th anniversary of the thinker’s birth.
Interesting works by A.I. Yudin, in which the author touches on many problematic issues in the creative heritage of the authors, making the following conclusion: “The search for the concept of progress by Lavrov and Mikhailovsky took place at the level of philosophical and methodological theories of social development. The search for methodological foundations of the theory of progress took place through analysis and critical rethinking of leading philosophical trends: Hegelism, Marxism, positivism, positivist sociological theories."
Conclusion
The Soviet historiographical tradition was characterized by consideration of Lavrov’s theoretical concept through the prism of materialist methodology. However, in addition, Lavrov was characterized by a synthesis of other directions, such as positivism, humanism and the agnosticism of I. Kant. The tradition established by the thinker was supported in Russian social philosophy and was developed in the ideas of Mikhailovsky, Kovalevsky, Kareev.
Analyzing the role and place of Marxism as a philosophical movement, Mikhailovsky noted its specific historical conditionality. The philosopher supported Lavrov's pluralistic view. The authors' criticism of Hegelian philosophy and Marxism created the opportunity to see the differences between these areas of philosophy at the methodological level.
In looking at the problem of using the subjective method in socio-historical knowledge, Lavrov defended the idea of the need for its practical application, since the researcher of social processes is a subject of knowledge. According to the ideas of thinkers, in the theory of knowledge it is impossible to jump over subjective elements. The path of scientific knowledge lies through the recognition of subjectivity as a necessary stage in the development of the humanities.
However, we should not talk about the absolute dominance of the thinker’s subjectivity. Lavrov is not ignored as defining objective methods of socio-philosophical research. Philosophers clearly approached the disclosure of the features of social science and, in this regard, outlined the scope of application of the subjective method. For thinkers, this is taking into account and understanding the interests of people themselves in historiosophical and sociological research, as well as a moral assessment of reality. In theoretical terms, this provided an opportunity for the practical implementation of the social ideal, therefore the subjective method itself is revealed by philosophers through a theoretical justification for the dialectic of possibility, the need for the realization of the ideal. The subjective method was not just a method of cognition, it went beyond epistemology and was the required and stable core of the historiosophical concept of the socialist.
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The new Russian socialism will differ significantly from Soviet socialism. From the point of view of a modern observer, there were many shortcomings in the structure of Soviet socialism. The self-destruction of the Soviet state showed the main problem - the internal instability of the system. Building a new socialism will be both “working on mistakes” and the embodiment of new progressive ideas, which will inevitably change the socialist project itself.
Ideology
The reliance of Soviet socialism on ideology will not be in demand in the new socialism. There is no ideology for all times and all circumstances. Let's say that today ideology helps the development of the country, but tomorrow the situation changes, and the same ideology becomes a hindrance.
We observed a similar situation in the late USSR. Adherence to one ideology led the Soviet Union to an absurd situation where the leading figures of the Communist Party turned out to be ardent anti-communists and destroyed a great country with their own hands.
In the new socialism, no ideology in the country should be state.
Rise to power
Soviet socialism was built after the violent seizure of power during the October Revolution of 1917. Could something like this happen again? Theoretically, it can.
Let's consider a scenario: the fifth column of the West in Russia convenes activists of the "creative class" at the next "swamp" rally. Later, the broad masses of the people join in, and a version of a coup according to the Ukrainian scenario is implemented in Moscow. After the coup, a civil war inevitably begins, as a result of which, much to the surprise of the “creative class,” communist or socialist forces come to power. Would you say that today, under Putin’s rule, such a coup scenario is impossible? But we cannot be sure that after Putin someone like the Ukrainian Yanukovych will not come to power, and then the situation will be completely different. Unfortunately, in modern Russia there is no mechanism to prevent a “color coup”. Another thing is that even if the coup is organized, the result may not be what the customers planned.
Of course, for the country, for the people, the peaceful establishment of a new socialism is much preferable. And such an option for establishing socialism in the country is quite possible. To achieve this, the people must be given more powers to influence government through the democratic process. It is necessary to introduce an advanced system of Continuous Democracy in the country, which gives the people both leverage for constant influence on the government (Continuous Elections) and the opportunity to set tasks for the government (People's Plan).
This raises the question: if plans to introduce a new democratic system appear on the country's political agenda, will the current ruling elite be able to agree to the establishment of such a more modern, expanded democracy or will it resist?
The peculiarity of the current moment is that the renewal of democratic institutions not only does not pose any danger to the ruling elite, but also promises considerable benefits. With a stable rating of the president at the level of 60-80%, the introduction of a new democratic procedure puts power in the hands of unprecedented modern world trump cards in both foreign and domestic policy.
After the expansion of democracy, when the people have the opportunity to directly set the tasks of the authorities, socialist transformations will quickly appear on the agenda. Today, the Russian population has a unique experience of practical comparison of the socialist and capitalist systems. Most people already understand which positive aspects of the socialist system the country needs, and which negative aspects of capitalism are harmful to the country. As soon as the people have a tool for setting tasks for the authorities, inevitably some socialist projects will be brought to the fore by the people. The authorities will have no choice but to carry out socialist transformations within the framework of the tasks received. Under pressure from the people, the government will be forced to lead the country to a new socialism.
Power structure
The fundamental difference between the new socialist government will be the emergence of constant feedback in relations between the government and the people.
It is impossible to hope that the government will always make decisions in the interests of the people until the people have reliable levers of influence on it in their hands. Therefore, democratic institutions will have to be improved and updated. The modern electoral system allows a person to directly influence the government once every 4-6 years during elections. This is not enough. The people must always influence the government. This is precisely why Continuous elections are needed in the new socialism.
In addition, in the modern structure of power, the people are not at all allowed to set strategic goals for the country. In the new socialism, it is the people who will determine what tasks the government faces, which projects need to be implemented first, which ones later, and which ones are not necessary at all. The People's Plan system will allow citizens to directly give tasks to the authorities.
Ownership structure
In Soviet socialism, private ownership of the means of production was not allowed. In the new socialism there will be no such prohibition. However, the very concept of “property” will change. Property rights will no longer be seen as something “sacred” and immutable. A citizen receives this right as a result of an agreement with society. The contract gives the owner not only rights, but also imposes certain obligations. The larger the property, the greater its social significance, its influence on society. Therefore, society must be confident that this impact will be positive. Under socialism, it is impossible to allow a large owner to act to the detriment of the people. This means that society must have tools to directly influence decisions made by the owner.
In the new socialism, society, represented by the state, will automatically become a co-owner of large organizations, up to a controlling stake in the case of strategically important objects. This will make it possible to subordinate capital to the interests of society and resolve conflict situations in favor of public good, not profit.
Economic structure
The country's economy will consist of two sectors - public and private. The task of the public sector is to guarantee that citizens have their basic needs.
The first need is safety. Military production must be state-owned. Also, the public sector will contain all strategically important raw materials industries: oil, gas, etc.
The state must provide citizens with some basic needs of life: food, housing, medicine, education. However, these sectors will not be completely under state control. Agriculture and construction will be partly state-owned.
The public agricultural sector must produce enough food so that even with complete external isolation of the country, people can eat tolerably. The minimum food package should be available to all those in need free of charge.
The public construction sector must provide free housing to those who need it. Every citizen has the right to receive free housing from the state.
State medicine and education will be understood not as the provision of services, but as tasks in the field of state security. The “service” may or may not be provided. And in the field of security, the state is obliged to do everything possible to achieve a positive result. There is nothing more important in a socialist state than a person. Moreover, this person should not only be well-fed and clothed, but also healthy and educated.
Planning
In Soviet socialism, the entire economy was centrally planned. Centralized planning greatly increases the efficiency of economic processes. But planning everything turned out to be a very difficult task.
At first, in the new socialism, planning will only be in the public sector of the economy. Since this sector is limited to producing the minimum necessary to meet the basic needs of people, planning within this sector is a feasible task.
With the development of planning mechanisms, it is likely that the state will be able to offer private enterprises participation in state planning programs. The entrepreneur will have the opportunity to give up sovereignty in decision-making in exchange for a guaranteed supply of raw materials and guaranteed sales of finished products.
Monetary system
In Soviet socialism, there were 2 different monetary units - cash and non-cash rubles. Despite the common name “ruble”, in fact these were two parallel monetary units that performed different functions and were almost inconvertible with each other.
The division of the economy into the state (socialist) and private (market) sectors in the new socialism may require the use of the unique experience of the Soviet Union, and the use of different mutually inconvertible money for different sectors of the economy.
As is now customary in the world, the same money for any specific country performs all its possible functions. When dividing the economy into socialist and market, the existence of parallel money for different sectors can be justified, since the functions of money in different sectors differ significantly. In the planned socialist sector there is absolutely no need for such functions of money as a means of accumulation or savings. In the socialist sector there is no goal of making a profit, therefore the functions of “socialist” money may be limited.
If the public sector uses its own money in internal payments, then financing the development of the state economy ceases to be dependent on the consumer market. Money can simply be “printed” for specific purposes, and then withdrawn from circulation if it is no longer needed. This does not cause any problems, since “socialist” domestic money works only as a means of mutual accounting; it does not settle anywhere and does not accumulate during circulation. In addition, corruption in the public sector becomes difficult because “socialist” money is not directly converted into “market” money.
The ingenious invention of “parallel money” by Soviet financiers has already made it possible once in history to develop industrial production in the complete absence of external “market” financing, which means it can help the new socialism again make an industrial breakthrough.
Tactical formula for success
Once upon a time, at the dawn of the USSR, Lenin formulated a recipe for success for the country: Soviet authority plus electrification.
For new socialism, the formula for success may be: continuous democracy plus robotization of the entire country.
A socialist state can set great goals and mobilize society to accomplish these tasks.
In the new socialism, the system of Continuous Democracy gives the people the opportunity to directly influence the authorities and set tasks for the authorities. However, in this system not only the people receive additional rights, but also the authorities receive additional opportunities. The government has constant legitimation through the system of Continuous elections, that is, the people daily confirm their trust in the government. Therefore, the government can tell the people: you trust us, you have set us certain tasks through the People’s Plan, and to complete these tasks we all need to mobilize and act together to complete the task on time.
For example, the task of robotizing production in the public sector (agriculture, construction) may require mobilization measures such as the introduction of special taxes, loans, etc. But if the people want to have free high-quality housing and free provision of necessary food for their children and grandchildren, then people can set such a task to the state and at the same time agree to mobilization measures to achieve this great and important goal.
Stability of the social structure
Under the influence of both internal and external factors, every society is constantly changing. The instability of a social structure occurs when society has changed greatly, and the previously built structures of power, social relations, laws, etc. are outdated and do not correspond to the current situation. If society cannot change these structures, then excessive tension arises within the social structure, which can lead to the destruction of the entire outdated structure.
How can one recognize and relieve this excessive internal tension that precedes a catastrophe?
There are always multidirectional forces in society. Each force represents the interests/desires of some group of people. Some forces have the nature of inertia - they strive to slow down the movement of society and maintain the current situation. Other forces seek to accelerate the movement of society in one direction or another. The only question is what is the balance of these forces at a given moment in time. If the forces of inertia predominate, then attempts to change the existing structure will be perceived by society as dangerous and destructive, and will be suppressed. If accelerating forces prevail, then it’s time to transform society without paying attention to inertia.
This means to avoid excessive internal tension, to prevent coups, revolutions, civil wars, etc. It is necessary in the social structure to have a mechanism for measuring the relationship of internal forces and implementing the necessary changes. If some force prevails, then the time has come for the changes proposed by the corresponding group of people.
In the design of new socialism described above, there is already a mechanism for measuring the balance of forces and for setting tasks for the government to transform society at the right time. This mechanism is the People's Plan. In essence, the People's Plan is not only a way to set a task for the government and the whole society, but also a system of continuous referendum on all socially significant issues.
If a public group proposes a certain project for voting in the People’s Plan system, then by the current support you can immediately see how significant the issue is for society. Moreover, once society is ready to support the project, enough people will vote for it and the project will become an assignment for the government, so that the government will have to begin the necessary changes.
Such a system allows you to automatically put on the agenda those issues that are truly important to society. The accumulation of dangerous tension within society is eliminated due to the fact that problems are not postponed or suppressed, but are brought directly to public discussion.
The People's Plan system allows us to move from the revolutionary path of development of society to a non-revolutionary path. In this way, the stability of the social structure is greatly increased.
At the turn of the 40-50s of the XIX century. The theory of “Russian socialism” is being formed, the founder of which was A. I. Herzen. He outlined his main ideas in works written in 1849-1853: “The Russian People and Socialism”, “The Old World and Russia”, “Russia”, “On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia”, etc.
The turn of the 40-50s was a turning point in Herzen's social views. The defeat of the revolutions of 1848-1849. in Western. Europe made a deep impression on Herzen, giving rise to disbelief in European socialism and disappointment in it. Herzen painfully searched for a way out of the ideological impasse. Comparing the destinies of Russia and the West, he came to the conclusion that in the future socialism should establish itself in Russia, and its main “cell” will be the peasant land community. Peasant communal land ownership, the peasant idea of the right to land and secular self-government will, according to Herzen, be the basis for building a socialist society. This is how Herzen’s “Russian” socialism arose.
“Russian socialism” was based on the idea of an “original” path of development for Russia, which, bypassing capitalism, would come through the peasant community to socialism. The objective conditions for the emergence of the idea of Russian socialism in Russia were the weak development of capitalism, the absence of a proletariat and the presence of a rural land community. Herzen’s desire to avoid the “ulcers of capitalism” that he saw in Western European countries was also important. “To preserve the community and liberate the individual, to extend rural and volost self-government to cities, to the state as a whole, while maintaining national unity, to develop private rights and preserve the indivisibility of the land - this is the main question of the revolution,” Herzen wrote.
These provisions of Herzen will subsequently be adopted by the populists. Essentially, “Russian socialism” is just a dream about socialism, because the implementation of its plans would lead in practice not to socialism, but to the most consistent solution of the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic transformation of Russia - this is the real meaning of “Russian socialism”. It was focused on the peasantry as its social base, therefore it also received the name “peasant socialism”. Its main goals were to free the peasants with their land without any ransom, eliminate landlord power and landownership, introduce peasant communal self-government independent of local authorities, and democratize the country. At the same time, “Russian socialism” fought, as it were, “on two fronts”: not only against the outdated feudal-serf system, but also against capitalism, contrasting it with the specifically Russian “socialist” path of development.
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1) In the late 40s - early 50s of the XIX century. A revolutionary-democratic direction of Russian social thought is emerging.
Its founders and propagandists were people whom some called revolutionary democrats, others - people's socialists, and still others - utopian socialists. They did not accept the very essence of the country's state structure, believed that it needed to be completely changed, and were supporters of a radical, revolutionary reorganization of society. They mercilessly crushed the Slavophiles and harshly criticized the Westerners. It seemed to them that the ideal state structure in Russia should be established on the principles common in the Russian village, in the world of the peasant community. There was no division based on property, all land belonged to everyone, and relations between community members were regulated not so much by state laws as by traditions and customs.
Representatives of the revolutionary democratic movement are V.G. Belinsky, A.I. Herzen and N.P. Ogarev. The 40-50s also saw the beginning of the development of revolutionary democratic theory, which was based on the latest philosophical and political (mainly socialist) teachings spreading in Western Europe.
2) In general, the entire second quarter of the 19th century. in Russia was a time of passion for philosophy, especially classical German, which was studied by representatives of various directions of Russian social thought from the extreme “right” to the extreme “left”. The works of the famous German philosophers Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and Feuerbach were as well known in Russia as in their homeland in Germany. Each of the Russian thinkers sought in their works a theoretical justification for their socio-political positions.
3) V. G. Belinsky. Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky (1811 -1848) was born into the family of a naval doctor. He graduated from primary school in the city of Chambara (Penza province), and then studied at the Penza gymnasium, but did not complete the course. In 1829-1832 he studied at the verbal (philological) department of Moscow University, from where he was expelled for poor academic performance. Then he made a living by teaching at home and collaborated in Moscow and St. Petersburg magazines. He also wrote literary works (dramas, novels and short stories), which were not successful.
Belinsky gained fame as an observer of the country's literary and artistic life. His merciless pen branded and exposed, praised some and blasphemed others. His critical articles were distinguished by their extraordinary emotionality.
Belinsky became the founder of that direction in Russian social thought, which is usually called revolutionary-democratic.
Revolutionary democrats believed that life in Russia is full of cruelty and injustice, that it must be radically changed, that the people themselves must decide their own destiny and establish a fair social system.
Belinsky considered all works of literature and art from the point of view of their ideological orientation. The artistic merits of the work were not of the greatest importance to him. The main thing is a social idea, a social orientation. The more sharply the existing reality was criticized in the work, the higher Belinsky rated it. Even the work of A. S. Pushkin, which he had previously placed above the work of all other writers in Russia, the critic began to consider “yesterday.” In Pushkin’s poetry he did not find “modern consciousness, modern thought about the meaning and purpose of life, about the paths of humanity, about the eternal truths of existence.”
4) Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870) was the son of a wealthy Russian landowner. Herzen and his friend N.P. Ogarev constantly thought about their future and the future of Russia.
In 1828, on Sparrow Hills in Moscow, friends swore eternal friendship and the inviolability of their decision to devote their lives to “serving freedom.” Friends were sure that the entire the world. Herzen kept his oath and indeed devoted most of his life to the fight against political power in Russia.
In 1829-1833, A. I. Herzen studied at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University. At the same time, he became interested in the socialist teachings of A. Saint-Simon, C. Fourier and R. Owen. Gradually, a circle of like-minded people formed, where political issues and plans for the reconstruction of society were passionately discussed. In 1834, authorities uncovered this illegal cell. Herzen was sent to Perm, then to Vyatka, where he served as an official in the provincial chancellery. The exile ended in 1840, and Herzen was accepted into service in the office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in St. Petersburg. But public service did not interest him. He remained true to his ideas and actively disseminated them, for which he again found himself in exile. After some time, Herzen returned to the capital, but did not enter public service again. He took up literary creativity, wrote several works, including the novel “Who is to Blame?”, where he spoke out not only against serfdom, but also against social order in Russia in general.
In 1847, A.I. Herzen went abroad and never visited Russia again. Lived in different countries. In 1853, in London, he created the Free Russian Printing House, where leaflets and brochures directed against the autocracy were printed. Two magazines were published here - “Polar Star” and “Bell”. The publications in them were distinguished by their sharp rejection of the social and political structure of Russia. Not accepting the bourgeois order of Europe, A. I. Herzen believed that Russia should take a different path. The people should overthrow the royal power and the yoke of serfdom and establish a social system, the prototype of which should be the peasant community.
5) OGAREV Nikolai Platonovich. His early childhood was spent in his father's Penza village, where he interacted with serfs. In the autobiographical “Notes of a Russian Landowner” (70s), Nikolai Platonovich wrote that he was brought up on the feeling of “the hatred of a serf for the nobility.”
In 1820, Ogarev was brought to Moscow, where he soon met and then became friends with his distant relative A. I. Herzen . Together with Herzen, He studied at Moscow University. Initially he attended lectures as a volunteer.
In 1856 Ogarev emigrated to Great Britain; lived in London, where, together with Herzen, he headed the Free Russian Printing House. He was one of the initiators and co-editor of the weekly newspaper Kolokol. He developed a socio-economic program for the abolition of serfdom through a peasant revolution. Developed the theory of “Russian socialism” put forward by Herzen. Populist tendencies played an important role in Ogarev’s socialist views. In 1877 he died in Greenwich (near London).
Ogarev is the author of several poems and many poems (mostly romantic). The best known is the poem “Humor” (the first and second parts - 1840-1841, the third part - 1867-1868 published in the almanac “Polar Star”). He performed journalistic works (promoted the ideas of realism).
6) Hegel's system, his philosophy of history and the dialectical method of knowledge especially attracted the attention of Slavophiles. For Belinsky and Herzen, the revolutionary understanding of Hegel's dialectics was of particular importance. Herzen called it the “algebra of revolution.” It served him as a justification for the regularity and inevitability of the revolutionary breakdown of the feudal-absolutist system.
7) During this same period, the original theory of “Russian socialism” was formed. Its founder was A.I. Herzen, who outlined its main ideas in works written by him in 1849-1853: “The Russian People and Socialism”, “The Old World and Russia”, “On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia”, etc. He proceeded from the idea of “original “the path of development of Russia, which, bypassing capitalism, will come to socialism through the peasant community. Herzen’s “Russian socialism” became the starting point of the ideology of populism, and the theme of Herzen’s socialism has been attracting the attention of historians and publicists for the second century. Since the idea of building a world without violence, a society of equal rights and social guarantees is still alive and popular in the world, the relevance of addressing this problem is obvious.
8) In the second quarter of the 19th century, a social movement began to emerge in Russia, called Russian utopian socialism. The essence of the idea was not new. Starting from the late Middle Ages and before the French bourgeois revolution, various philosophical utopian works arose in Europe, entire movements were formed, sometimes turning into civil wars. What was the essence of utopian philosophy? There were always social aggravations in society and, trying to somehow solve the emerging problems, philosophers and thinkers appeared from among the nobility and intelligentsia, who in their literary works in theory created an ideal model of society. Thomas More can rightfully be considered the first utopian, who in 1506 in England wrote the book “The Island of Utopia.” Describing in it an ideal society on a certain island, T. More criticized the then structure of England. This work was more artistic than philosophical work. All utopian movements, both early and late, boiled down to one truth: changes in the social system through non-violent means. In Russia, in this direction, Russian society was divided into three movements; adherents of utopian views were called Westerners, Slavophiles and conservatives
10) For the first time, the ideas of Westerners were formulated by P.Ya. Chaadaev; in 1830, his “Philosophical Letter” was published in the Telescope magazine. This caused an explosion of emotions in Russian enlightened society. The essence of this direction was as follows. Chaadaev P. I was a religious philosopher and believed that Orthodoxy was the cause of all troubles in Russia. The Byzantine Orthodox Church, which professed obedience and humility, according to his conviction, placed Russia outside the general historical development. He believed that Russians have nothing in common with either the culture of the West or the culture of the East. Because of this, he believed that the historical development of Russia did not follow the Western path, which in his opinion was more correct. Focusing on Western values, Chaadaev’s supporters also condemned autocracy and the serfdom system. Ideas for a constitution were discussed in secret, which at that time was a rather dangerous activity.
11) Following the theory of the Westerners, at the end of the 30s a new movement arose opposing the Westerners - the Slavophiles. They disagreed with the Westerners on many issues. In particular, the Slavophiles believed that the absence of Western culture in the history of Russian society was a blessing. They saw the main vision of the development of Russia precisely in the originality of Russian and Slavic life. The dissimilarity of Russian culture from others, the communal principle, and the spiritual unity of the people were salvation and a special path for the development of the country. Slavophiles supported autocracy, believing that the power of government should belong to the king, and the power of opinion should belong to the people. These two movements also had common views; the Slavophiles, like the Westerners, were against the serfdom, believing that if the peasants were freed from the oppression of the landowners and given land, they would create their own communities and coexist peacefully with autocratic power. It is believed that with the advent of the Slavophiles, freedom of thought arose in Russia. Constant research and debate subsequently led to the emergence of Russian socialism. One of the prominent figures in this direction was Herzen A.I. The main ideas of Russian socialism were taken from the early philosophy of the Slavophiles. Herzen saw the development of socialism in the peasant community; he believed that it was the community that saved the Slavs from complete destruction by the Tatar-Mongols, from the harmful, in his opinion, influence of the West. All that he recognized as valuable in Western civilization was science. I sincerely believed that the use of science could greatly facilitate peasant life. Another of the supporters of Russian socialism was Chernyshevsky N.G., who tried to fit the ideas of socialism formulated earlier into the legislative and economic framework. He viewed the rural community as an integral part of the country's economy.
12) At all times and eras, the bulk of society intuitively opposed everything new that could change the usual course of things. This fear of change and attachment to the old order is called conservatism. In Russia throughout the 19th century, conservatives made up a significant majority of the utopian socialists. They belonged to different strata of society. First of all, these were adherents of the existing government. The tsarist government in the first half of the 19th century tried to develop its own ideology, contrasting it with socialism. One of the autocratic conservatives was the former freethinker Uvarov. In every possible way defending the ruling regime, he argued that new social ideas are detrimental to the development of the state. Many prominent scientists, writers and statesmen saw the development of Russia in the preservation of the old order.
13) Early Russian utopian socialism had a strong influence not only on the social development of Russia, the ideas of socialism were partially embodied in the development of the law on the abolition of serfdom. Subsequently, progressive members of Russian society brought many of the bright thoughts of utopianism to life. After the abolition of serfdom, representatives of the nobility and intelligentsia opened zemstvo hospitals and free schools for peasants, where they themselves treated and taught. The impossibility of translating the basic ideas of utopianism into life led the progressive public to the ideas of Marxism, the philosophy of which called for action more decisively to bring the ideas of socialism to life. Thus, in the second half of the 19th century, the first revolutionary movements arose.
Just text that has nowhere to paste) Utopian socialism differed from other utopias in that the idea of general, true equality was born and developed in it. It was supposed to build this ideal society on the basis or taking into account the achievements of material and spiritual culture that bourgeois civilization brought with it. A new interpretation of the social ideal: coincidence, combination of personal and public interests. Socialist thought took special forms in Russia, developed by Russian thinkers who wanted to “adapt” the general principles of socialism to the conditions of their fatherland. The inconsistency was manifested primarily in the fact that the main form of utopian socialism in Russia naturally turned out to be peasant socialism (“Russian”, communal, populist), which acted as an ideological expression of the interests of revolutionary and democratic, but still bourgeois development. The founder of Russian socialism was Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870). Herzen associated his spiritual awakening with the Decembrist uprising . The “new world” that opened up to the fourteen-year-old boy was not yet clearly conscious. But this uprising awakened in Herzen’s soul the first, albeit still vague, revolutionary aspirations, the first thoughts about the struggle against injustice, violence, and tyranny. “The awareness of the unreasonableness and cruelty of the autocratic political regime developed in Herzen an insurmountable hatred of all slavery and tyranny.” Herzen was of great interest in the philosophy of history. In the early 40s he comes to the conclusion that where there is no philosophy as a science, there cannot be a solid, consistent philosophy of history. This opinion was associated with the idea of philosophy that he formed as a result of his acquaintance with the philosophy of Hegel. He was not interested in the theoretical basis of philosophy; it interested him insofar as it could be applied in practice. Herzen found in Hegel's philosophy the theoretical basis for his enmity with the existing; he revealed the same thesis about the rationality of reality in a completely different way: if the existing social order is justified by reason, then the struggle against it is justified - this is a continuous struggle between the old and the new. As a result of studying Hegel's philosophy, Herzen came to the conclusion that: the existing Russian reality is unreasonable, therefore the struggle against it is justified by reason. Understanding modernity as a struggle of reason, embodied in science, against irrational reality, Herzen accordingly builds an entire concept of world history, reflected both in the work “Amateurism in Science” and in “Letters on the Study of Nature.” He saw in Hegelian philosophy the highest achievement of the reason of history, understood as the spirit of humanity. Herzen contrasted this reason embodied in science with unreasonable, immoral reality. In Hegel's philosophy he found justification for the legitimacy and necessity of the struggle against the old and the final victory of the new. In Herzen's work, the idea of the rationality of history was combined with socialist ideals, bringing German philosophy closer to French utopian socialism. The point of connection between socialism and philosophy in Herzen’s work is the idea of the harmonious integrity of man. The idea of unity and being was also considered by Herzen in socio-historical terms, as the idea of unifying science and the people, which will mark socialism. Herzen wrote that when the people understand science, they will go out to the creative creation of socialism. The problem of the unity of being and thinking appears on another level - as a revolutionary practice, as a conscious act, as the introduction and embodiment of science in life. He saw the mastery of science by the masses as a necessary condition for the establishment of socialism. Since science contains the germ of a new world, one has only to introduce it to the masses and the cause of socialism will be secured. Herzen's socialism was utopian. Arguing in this way, he even raised in general terms the question of the possibility for Russia to be the first to embark on the path of radical social transformation: “...maybe we, who have lived little in the past, will be representatives of the real unity of science and life, word and deed. Essentially, this hope was not based on any factual data; his references to the special qualities of the Russian national character were not serious. Herzen's use of abstract philosophical ideas to justify revolution and socialism means that philosophy here ceases to be philosophy itself. It becomes a social doctrine, a theory of the revolutionary struggle for socialism. The forward movement of thought consisted in the recognition of the pattern of struggle in society and the need for rational education of the masses with science. Having mastered Hegel's dialectics, he realized that it was the “algebra of revolution,” but he went further to historical materialism. At the end of the 40s, Herzen connected all his thoughts about future socialist development with Western Europe. Revolution of 1848-49 was the most important event in Herzen's life. He perceived the revolution as the beginning of a socialist revolution. But what happened before Herzen’s eyes in Paris in 1848 did not at all coincide with his idea of a socialist revolution. The mass of the people was not ready for the immediate organization of a truly new republic. The result was defeat. Herzen was overcome by doubts about the possibility of the rapid implementation of socialism, but he still hoped that the people would soon rise to fight again and put an end to the old civilization forever. But Herzen's hopes were not justified. Having perceived the uprising of the Parisian proletariat in June 1848 as the beginning of the “dying” of Europe and postponing the establishment of socialism in Western European countries to the indefinitely distant future, Herzen did not stop searching for opportunities to achieve the great ideal. Herzen found the state most capable of social transformation in his homeland. “Faith in Russia saved me on the brink of moral death...” said Herzen. The Russians are significantly behind Europe; historical events swept over these people. But this is his happiness. “The Russian people have preserved their mighty soul, their great national character.” He fixed his gaze on the Russian community. “The community saved the Russian people from Mongol barbarism and from imperial civilization, from European-style landowners and from the German bureaucracy. The community organization, although greatly shaken, resisted government intervention; she lived happily until the development of socialism in Europe.” In the patriarchal community, Herzen saw a means of radical social transformation, a real element of socialism. Herzen developed the theory of “communal”, “peasant”, “Russian” socialism as an integral, complete doctrine. He believed that the combination of Western European socialist ideas with the Russian communal world would ensure the victory of socialism and renew Western European civilization. The ideas of “Russian socialism” were first presented by Herzen in the article “Russia” (Aug. 1848), written in the form of a letter to G. Herwegh. The term “Russian socialism” itself arose much later: Herzen introduced it only in 1866 in the article “Order triumphs!” “We call Russian socialism that socialism that comes from the land and peasant life, from the actual allotment and the existing redistribution of fields, from communal ownership and general management - and goes together with the workers’ artel towards the economic justice that socialism in general strives for and which science confirms. Herzen did not leave a story about exactly how the turn to a new view took place in his thought, how the main principles of the theory of “Russian socialism” took shape and developed. The general answer to this question is known: “Russian socialism” arose as a result of the spiritual drama experienced by Herzen during the revolution of 1848, as a result of disappointment in the possibility of the imminent victory of socialism in Western Europe and the desire to find other possible ways to realize the socialist ideal. In the development of ideas, two main stages can be distinguished: the 50s and 60s. The milestone between them is 1861. This division does not fully reflect the development of “Russian socialism”. Within each period there were certain milestones that made it possible to trace this development in more detail. The pre-reform period (1849-1960) in the development of the ideas of “Russian socialism” begins in 1849 because the first more or less systematized presentation of them in the article “Russia” dates back to this year. The fifth letter from the series “Letters from France and Italy” (December 1847) is interesting. Herzen expresses regret over the absence in Europe of a “village commune” similar to the Russian one, and exclaims: “Long live, gentlemen, the Russian village - its future is great.” In the work “Russia”, Russia represents in modern Europe a young people, full of strength, a people who have no past, but everything is ahead. There is no reason to believe that in its further development Russia must go through all the phases through which the peoples of Western Europe went. These peoples have “developed” to certain social ideals. Russia, in its everyday life, is closer to these ideals than Western Europe: “...what for the West is only a hope towards which efforts are directed is for us already a real fact from which we begin.” Such a “real fact” corresponding to the ideal of Western Europe is the Russian rural community. This community, however, needs a certain development and change, since in its modern form it does not represent a satisfactory solution to the problem of the individual and society: the individual in it is suppressed, absorbed by society. Having preserved the land community throughout its history, the Russian people “are closer to the socialist revolution than to the political revolution.” What socialist did Herzen find in the community? Firstly, democracy, or “communism” (i.e. collectivism) in managing the life of a rural artel. At their meetings, “in peace,” the peasants decide the general affairs of the village, elect local judges, a headman who cannot act contrary to the will of the “peace.” This general management of everyday life is due to the fact - and this is the second point characterizing the community as the embryo of socialism - that people use the land together. They cultivate it together, share meadows, pastures, and forests. This communal land use seemed to Herzen the embryo of conscious collective ownership. Herzen also saw an element of socialism in peasant rights to land, i.e. in the right of every peasant to a plot of land, which the community must provide him with for use. He cannot and has no need to pass it on by inheritance. His son, as soon as he reaches adulthood, acquires the right, even during his father’s lifetime, to demand a land plot from the community. A peasant who leaves his community for a while does not lose his rights to the land; it can be taken away from him only in the event of expulsion - this is decided by a secular gathering. If a peasant leaves the community of his own free will, he loses the right to an allotment. He is allowed to take his movable property with him. This right to land seemed to Herzen a sufficient condition for the life of the community. It excluded, in his opinion, the emergence of a landless proletariat. Community collectivism and the right to land constituted, according to Herzen, those real embryos from which, subject to the abolition of serfdom and the elimination of autocratic despotism, a socialist society could develop. Herzen believed, however, that the community itself does not represent any socialism. Due to its patriarchal nature, it is devoid of development in its present form; For centuries, the communal system has lulled the people's personality; in the community it is humiliated, its horizons are limited to the life of the family and the village. In order to develop the community as the embryo of socialism, it is necessary to apply Western European science to it, with the help of which only the negative, patriarchal aspects of the community can be eliminated. “The task of the new era into which we are entering,” Herzen wrote, “is to develop an element on the basis of the science of our communal self-government to complete freedom of the individual, bypassing those intermediate forms through which the development of the West necessarily went, wandering along unknown paths. New life Ours must weave these two inheritances into one fabric in such a way that a free individual will have the earth under his feet and so that the community member will be a completely free person.” Thus, Herzen did not consider Russia’s path to socialism through the community as an exception to the experience of global development. He considered the possible rapid implementation of socialism in Russia, first of all, as an aid to the world revolution; after all, it is impossible without the destruction of Russian tsarism, without the emancipation of Russia. Europe is never destined to be free." But Herzen notes that in Russian life there is something higher than the community, and stronger than power. He sees this “something” in the “internal” force, not fully aware of itself, which “independent of all external events and in spite of them, preserved the Russian people and supported their indestructible faith in themselves.” Now the idea of the absence of a firmly established “past” in Russia becomes one of the most important principles of “Russian socialism.” Developing the theory of “Russian socialism,” Herzen thought that he had finally managed to actually substantiate socialism. Having seen in the community the material embryo of a society of social equality, Herzen believed that he had overcome the utopianism of the former socialists, that from now on not only the justice and reasonableness of socialism was proven, but also the possibility and reality of its actual implementation. Herzen writes: “...I see no reason why Russia must necessarily undergo all phases of European development; I also do not see why the civilization of the future must invariably submit to the same conditions of existence as the civilization of the past.” The article “Russia” is the first sketch of the ideas of “Russian socialism”, just a sketch, a quick sketch, designed mainly to draw attention to the problems posed in it, to awaken interest in Russia and point out the need for its study. With him, Herzen’s activities began, aimed at “introducing Europe to Russia.” One of the major milestones of this work is marked by the book “On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia. Herzen begins the first chapter “Russia and Europe” with a mention of the article “Russia” and says: “...our views have not changed since that time.” The main thing in this work by Herzen from the point of view of the development of the ideas of “Russian socialism” is that here for the first time, and in essence the only time, the author tries to substantiate his idea in such a systematic and consistent manner with the course of historical development of Russia. In an attempt to provide a historical substantiation of the ideas of “Russian socialism,” Herzen argues that Russia has “two reasons for living: the socialist element and youth.” In the book he tried to prove this thesis about the organicity, strength, and non-crushing nature of the “socialist element” of Russian life - the rural community. Herzen believed that the history of Russia up to the present time is only “the history embryonic development Slavic state”, “the path to an unknown future that is beginning to dawn.” This thesis occupied an important place in the theory of “Russian socialism”. But in the internal history of the country, in the development of social forms and political institutions, the strengths and capabilities of the Russian people were not revealed with sufficient completeness. This shows the entire course of Russian history. Autocracy and serfdom are two main factors of Russian life, which removed the people from active participation in the social and political life of the country and fettered their forces. The idea of the “youth” of the Russian people, which Herzen tried to prove here, was essentially a form in which the consciousness of the contradiction between the fact of the economic and political backwardness of the country and the potential possibilities of broad, progressive development was expressed.
12) Early Russian utopian socialism had a strong influence not only on the social development of Russia, the ideas of socialism were partially embodied in the development of the law on the abolition of serfdom. Subsequently, progressive members of Russian society brought many of the bright thoughts of utopianism to life. After the abolition of serfdom, representatives of the nobility and intelligentsia opened zemstvo hospitals and free schools for peasants, where they themselves treated and taught. The impossibility of translating the basic ideas of utopianism into life led the progressive public to the ideas of Marxism, the philosophy of which called for action more decisively to bring the ideas of socialism to life. Thus, in the second half of the 19th century, the first revolutionary movements arose.
RUSSIAN SOCIALISM. BASICS AND PREREQUISITES.
The authorities are losing control over the information space of Russia. They simply don’t listen to the authorities anymore, no matter what sound comes from the Kremlin towers. In a situation of encroaching information chaos, the liberal opposition is confidently gaining media points, and the power that is losing them is using dummy players like Prokhorov with “Privatization 2.0” or Kurginyan with his “USSR-2.0”, which is painfully reminiscent of Putin’s “Aziope”. Despite the fact that neither the Kremlin nor the liberal opposition projects evoke popular support, it is precisely in times like these that new ideas mature and take hold of the masses. Today this is Russian socialism. And this is not the Soviet “yesterday”, this is the Russian “tomorrow”.
"The wind that sows will reap the storm"
Introduction. Information chaos is the most suitable environment for manipulating the scattered consciousness of the average person. They are taking it to protest corners in the hope of taking it piece by piece. In the meantime, we are seeing an increase in the number of political anti-systems, each of which hopes to gain a monopoly on power. The most promising anti-system in the information chaos today is Russian socialism. Its theoretical core today is the most conceptually formed, it is:
These are the most general provisions Russian socialism on the path to national progress of the Russian and complementary peoples of Russia. And until they become the basis of unanimity in the Russian movement, it will be torn apart by the self-interest of “PR creatives” and deprived of representation in the political space of Russia.
Mao was wrong. It is not the rifle that gives birth to power, but unanimity. Sometime in the 17th, in the hands of the Russian people, according to various estimates, there were from 11 to 14 million rifles, but power was seized by a narrow group of propagandists with revolvers, welded together by anti-national unanimity and the will to implement it, which was detrimental to Russian Russia. Obviously, it’s not about the type of weapon and not about its quantity.
Only those who know in advance what to do with it and who see their future incarnation are able to retain the intercepted power. These were the Marxists in Russia 100 years ago. All others who hoped for a conciliar decision of various layers of society were dispersed by the guard of sailors, without having time to conclude a social contract. The people, tired of everything temporary, preferred the prepared template and responded to the well-known slogans: “Peace to the peoples, factories to the workers, land to the peasants!”
Today, these slogans are again saturated with the foamy anger of the day, but, taking into account all the mistakes of the previous anti-national incarnation, they should become the slogans of Russian socialism.
Prerequisites for Russian socialism
Farewell to class socialism. Capitalism is dying, despite socialist pills in the economy and finance. The class approach in social science dies with it. One can only wonder how a self-denying doctrine, the foundations of which are classes, and the goal of which is their elimination, could last in the minds of enthusiastic adherents for 100 years. This is similar to catching the black cat famous from Confucius in a dark room... etc. How did a doctrine, the economic hypostasis of which elevated the extraction and distribution of profit to a divine principle, be considered an alternative to capitalism for a century and a half? At the same time, it completely refused to consider the distribution of risks and losses.
It is simply amazing how human communities existed in an unconscious state for at least 6,000 years of written history before the class epiphany. Some kind of messianism. Completely unconsciously, corporations of priests, military aristocrats, and moneylenders and merchants became exploiters. The pyramid of the social structure turned upward around the class axis, first by one class, then by another, stubbornly avoiding the supremacy of the working people.
Looking at the formational division of history by Marxists, one might think that in classical slaveholding societies there was no land ownership, and progressive feudal lords did not go to bed without freeing all the slaves. Not at all, both of them got along well, not to mention all sorts of Nigeria and Brazil, in the completely bourgeois USA, right up to 1865, i.e. right in front of their fathers historical materialism. Let us note that private land ownership on this planet, in all its exploitative connotations, runs like a red thread from the first agricultural states of the early Bronze Age to our capitalist days, passing only the Soviet collective farms, and does not lend itself to formational division according to historical mathematics.
In the same way, the collapse of the development of productive forces and production relations does not lend itself to the logic of development ancient world. What kind of development of the productive forces of feudal Europe can we talk about when, in addition to metallurgy, it reached the level of Rome in construction, the use of mechanisms, shipbuilding, science and the arts only 1000 years later, by the 15th century - the beginning of the Renaissance. The unification of Roman weapons indicates, at a minimum, workshop production. And what fundamental step forward were the vassal relations of the feudal lords in comparison with the Roman clientele? And how was feudal fief more progressive than Roman colonate in agriculture? Not to mention the financial and administrative mechanisms of the empire, the level of which was reached by Europe only in the 18th century, and then not everywhere. Only the printing press, metallurgy and Arabic arithmetic of the 13th-16th centuries pulled Europe out of the quagmire of the Middle Ages onto the high “Roman” road of technical progress.
It is obvious that, by all civilizational indicators, European feudalism was a deep, at least 1000-year rollback from the achievements of the ancient era. Even the self-government of the free cities of the Middle Ages did not show anything fundamentally new in comparison with the status of the municipality of Roman cities and colonies. No, neither from the point of view of class theory, nor from the point of view of the development of productive forces and production relations, the fall of the ancient world cannot be explained. Just as the centuries-old cultural, technological and political stagnation of traditional East Asian societies, which were ahead of European societies in all respects before the Renaissance, does not give in. This generally accepted term itself does not testify in favor of the formational analysis and class approach of Marxism to history.
(For those curious readers who have already wondered: what can explain the civilizational catastrophe of antiquity and the darkness of the Middle Ages - I’ll make a reservation right away - ethnopolitics, the foundations of which are the laws of racology, biosociology and national geopolitics. But this is another topic.)
In short, the founding fathers of communism had to waste a lot of paper to adjust history to the Procrustean bed of the class concept. With the same degree of abstraction, society can be chopped into sellers and buyers, cut into “winners” and “losers,” chopped into shreds with an IQ scalpel, etc., which is what home-grown crowd elitists of varying degrees of schizoidism are passionately doing. And Marxism, against their background, is not yet a masterpiece of photobism. However, even during the lifetime of the messianic tandem, it remained a speculative experience, refuted by the entire subsequent course of building national states, starting with their native Germany.
The essence of Marx's ideological experiment was to shed light on class theory into the darkness and chaos of previously existing millennia of social relations. As part of this shedding of light, an axis of divine class symmetry was solemnly introduced into the darkness and chaos, one end of which was signed by the exploiters, and the other by the exploited. The axis itself shone with a mirror polish, since drawing a boundary (that is, how much capital is needed) between one and the other was not possible even in theory. In practice, people and even entire professional strata found themselves, alternately, either exploiters or exploited several times over the course of a generation. And, in order not to poison the holiday of scientific light illumination for fans, it was decided to reduce the exploiters to “no” as soon as possible and make everyone happy with the opposite end of the luminous axis. Without even being embarrassed by the fact that the axis is the same double-edged sword, no matter how you cut it..., only it is virtual.
“No, no, no,” answered the unenlightened capital. And only the enlightened intelligentsia in Russia gave in to this Euro temptation. And away we go! Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin. Blow by blow they reforged the practically insignificant communism of Marx into a sovereign, as they would say now, socialism named after themselves in a single experimental country, alas, Russia. Forged by fire and iron, the echoing drum of Soviet socialism did not revolve for long around the invisible axis of class contradictions, reflecting on its polished sides the unprovable mantras of Marxism-Plechanism-Leninism-... etc.
It is worth mentioning that this epitaph is not intended for the original Marxism, but for the socialism of its later followers, who took from it a completely speculative, fundamentally anti-national concept of class society. Well, this is better said by Shafaraevich, to whom the meticulous reader can turn for details. In terms of criticism of class socialism, we completely agree with him.
Biosocial approach. However, in addition to and contrary to Marxism and its preachers, since ancient times the doctrine of socialism existed and developed as an integral society of social harmony and by no means satiated prosperity. Historical socialism ontologically perceived society as a natural, irreducible diversity of public corporations, united by the state for the sake of the unity and progress of society as a whole. It was also obvious for historical socialism that the same person in a rather complex society was a member of two or more social corporations, which blurred the criteria for intra-social confrontation. Thus, historical socialism, by convention, did not accept class struggle to destroy any social group in order to avoid fatal contradictions for society as a whole.
The emergence at the end of the twentieth century of a new biosociological (sociobiological) direction in social science gave us a new technology for social modeling. This is an organic or, more precisely, a quasi-organic approach to society and the forms of its self-organization, in particular to socialism. The quasi-organic approach, just like the class approach, also cannot yet be called completely scientifically substantiated. But, unlike class, it has an unlimited number of analogues in living and even inanimate nature.
The property of self-organization of complex connected systems can be traced everywhere, depending on the volume and time interval of consideration, be it a galaxy, the thickness of the earth’s crust, communities of insects, animals or people. Conclusions from observations of the latter are most adequately systematized in several works of the Russian biosociologist Oleg Aleksandrovich Melnikov, the main of which are "A brief outline of the theory of evolution of organized systems" And “Natural classes. Socio-genetic psychophysiomorphology, polymorphism and functional subsystems of homeostasis in hominid societies"
From the point of view of biosocial modeling, society, like the biosystem, developed from the simplest ethnosystems - family, clan, clan, tribe - to more complex ones - nationality, nation, superethnos, race. In the process of both biological and social evolution, the number of their adaptive functions increased, and at the same time the number and complexity of the connections between their working organs that provided these functions increased.
Yes, in the process biological evolution organs were formed that responded to the increasing possibilities of adaptation and competition of organisms: perception and coordination, breathing and blood circulation, movement and defense, digestion, etc. Similarly, in the process of social evolution, various socio-professional groups were formed in society, contributing to the adaptation and competition of the social organism in the ethnopolitical environment. And, just as biological history has preserved for us evidence of this process in the form of gastropods, cephalopods and other fossils, so written history has preserved memory, and in the Amazon jungle and other secluded places - living relics of the stage-by-stage development of social organisms. In them, as in biological ones, socio-professional quasi-organs of management and coordination, defense and law and order, production and distribution, traditionally united into natural estates or castes of brahmans, kshatriyas, sudras and vaishyas, were also formed.
And, if in a biological organism, as a result of dysfunction of any of the organs, the organism becomes ill, then the social organism reacts in a similar way to the dysfunction of its social quasi-organs. Thus, if the distribution of material goods in the social organism does not compensate for the material and spiritual costs of the implementation of its functions by any of the social quasi-organs, or, on the contrary, oversaturates it with them, the entire social organism degrades. And the way out of such degradation is often associated with geopolitical surgery in the form of wars and revolutions.
Using the example of bioorganisms, it is obvious that all organs of a social quasi-organism are exceptional in their functions, inseparable and non-competitive. Otherwise, both biological and social organisms lose their viability. In the same way, dysfunctions of any origin affect biological and social organisms, be it malignant formations, injuries and viral infections, or non-complementary diaspora, armed conflict and spiritual contamination.
The main thing that characterizes the biosocial analogy is the integrity and homeostasis of either a biological or social organism, for the preservation and universalization of which in relation to the environment or ethnopolitical environment all its inseparable components work. From this, for guaranteed self-preservation and sustainable development(homeostasis) of a social quasi-organism, the following conceptual restrictions follow:
| - a social quasi-organism cannot pursue goals and use means of achieving them that are incompatible with its own existence; - the unconditional primacy of general social (national) interests over the personal and corporate interests of internal quasi-organs of society; - harmony in the distribution of social (including intangible) benefits between quasi-organs of society, arising from the principles - to each his own and social justice in all spheres of social relations; - specialization of social functions (creation, distribution, control, management, defense, etc.) in the form of equivalent quasi-organs for the entire social organism, that is, non-competitive and non-alternative quasi-organs. |
To summarize the above: the biosocial model of society does not in any way contradict the foundations of dialectical materialism; on the contrary, it follows from it and tries to describe the evolution of social relations through the mechanism of ethnic adaptation and subspecies competition no less, and perhaps more adequately and materialistically, than the class model through the mechanisms production and distribution of material goods. Accordingly, filled with the real content of Historical Socialism, the biosocial model takes on the political form of social self-organization. And Historical Socialism is parting with the last milk teeth of utopianism, acquiring a natural-scientific foundation under the eternally floating “in the air” social harmony.
Thus, socialism becomes a form of social existence as an integral, harmonious social organism.
By the way, then liberal capitalism is an antisocial form of social existence.
The political form of organic socialism is the state, on whose institutions the people entrust the responsibility of regulating social relations in favor of national interests.
The measure of harmony in all spheres of social relations in the state of organic socialism is social justice, which is established by a social contract between representatives of social groups of citizens and state institutions.
Basic provisions of Russian socialism
Russian socialism and nationalism. The biological nature of society is expressed, first of all, in ethnicity, in all its genetic and cultural-historical connotations. And Russian socialism is a harmonious form of existence of the Russian people as a single social organism. His ideals and interests are understood as a national ideology, and historical experience led to the creation of his own state, although power in it today does not belong to Russians. However, in Russian socialism it is realized that:
And only in the fusion of both the indestructible unity of means and ends, words and deeds, strength and will to victory of the Russian people in the struggle for the right to exist.
State of Russian socialism. Russian nationalism as an axiom proclaims “the state for the nation.” Therefore, the state of Russian socialism will become the armor and skeleton of the national body, repelling external threats and meeting the internal interests of the Russian state-forming people.
The Russian socialist state is a means to achieve the benefit of each individual citizen. But for the sake of this, a citizen must make self-restraints for the benefit of his fellow citizens, who together make up this state. Then the restrictions imposed by the state on one person for the benefit of many people must give in return to the citizen more than he can get by not observing these restrictions. Then the priority of the public over the personal becomes a personal good and a social norm.
Power in the state of Russian socialism is not a trophy of the winners and not the concubine of the leader. Its only unconditional bearer is the entire sovereign Russian people, and not individuals or social groups. The people in Russian socialism are an integral social organism, and not an arithmetic sum of individuals, as in a society of liberal democracy. National Russian power is a sum of exclusive powers determined by the Constitution, transferred by the state-forming people to the responsible management of their national elite.
Society of Russian Socialism. The ethnicity of Russian socialism is revealed, first of all, in the historical tradition of social existence, which preserves the positive experience of biosocial adaptation and competition of previous generations. This:
Man by nature is a social being. But society is not a herd of equals, much less identical. Each person, to the extent of his qualities, has a diverse set of social interests in society, and society, accordingly, in the individual. Due to these interests, a person enters into a number of social relations, socializes in various social groups: usually family, labor, professional, socio-political and a number of others, based on interests. This is an objective phenomenon that will be supported by the corresponding practical guidelines of Russian socialism.
Each of the social groups satisfies some material or spiritual need of a person and, in turn, is a collective agent of this need in front of society. Thus, the national society, which we interpret as a social organism, is obliged to provide each social group and each person with the necessary “its own”, and not with “the same thing” for everyone: some material, some spiritual, some creative.
The stability of Russian socialist society lies in the moving balance of group interests of consumption and creation. The axis of such balance will be the principle of “to each his own,” in which each group within the nation should receive what it strives for in a strictly controlled regime, including the opportunity to change its aspirations. And justice, thus, in Russian socialism becomes a measure of the effectiveness of management and social harmony.
After all, class and communalism are evolutionary traditions rooted in the millions of years of biology. Both, in the project of a new class society, are designed to ensure an optimal change of personnel, forms and methods of management, and with it - long-term stability of the national progress of the Russian and indigenous peoples of Russia.
Economics of Russian socialism. If under capitalism a successful person is one who fits into market relations, then under Russian socialism - into society. Russian Socialism must proceed from a social principle, and not from an economic one; it must subordinate the economy to national needs. The economy of national socialism is not a goal, it is a means to achieve national interests. The socialism of the Russian state is manifested not in how completely the public has replaced the private in it, but in how much the private, serving itself, serves the public.
State regulation is a system-forming factor in the economy of Russian socialism. It is government regulation that is designed to force the economy to work towards the embodiment of national ideals, ensuring national interests for the benefit of society and the citizen. Thanks to state regulation, the people will be the owner of the fruits of their labor and will cease to be a slave and donor to the capital economy.
State regulation of the economy of Russian socialism in the national interests ensures its success under any form of ownership. Therefore, Russian socialism is not the nationalization of bakeries and hairdressers, restaurants and sewing shops, but is an unconditional return to national ownership of land, natural resources, infrastructure, banks, as well as technological information and products significant for the healthy development of society and people. Russian socialism will not allow the state to be transformed into a trading corporation, and the people into employees who, according to business conditions, must be content with the minimum or be replaced by those who are cheaper. The Russian people are the masters of the Russian land.
The main task of the national economy is not the extraction of monetary profit, but the material provision of the comprehensive development of society and individuals. Production, therefore, is the main link in solving this problem. It is production that will ensure national independence, self-sufficiency, and then expansion in all their material and political manifestations.
The task of the financial sector of the economy of Russian socialism is to account for and regulate production and consumption, not only in the economy, but also in the social sphere. In light of this task, monetary profit loses its status as an absolute socio-economic motivation and becomes a measure of public benefit from economic and social activities. In this capacity, money will cease to be a commodity and will become a measure of socially useful labor.
Organic socialism for the benefit of the Russian people and state, based on the Russian national tradition, is Russian socialism.
Motherland, nation, socialism!
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