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Devil- a religious and mythological character, the supreme spirit of evil, the lord of Hell, an instigator of people to commit sin. Also known as Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Woland; in Islam - Iblis. The younger devil in the Slavic tradition is called the devil and demons obey him, in English and German demons are a synonym for the devil, in Islam the lesser devils are called shaitans.

The History of Belief in the Devil

Belief in the devil is essential integral part creeds of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and a number of other religions.

Belief in the devil is not only a matter of history. The question of the existence of the devil has become the subject of discussion, which has been and is being carried out by theologians. Also, this issue was raised during public speeches by leading church leaders, who, as a rule, defend the doctrine of the real existence of the devil as a personal being, which has a huge impact on everything that happens in the world. By referring to the devil, to Satan, "evil spirits" as the perpetrators of all world disasters, they shielded the real perpetrators of disasters. Therefore, it is necessary to talk about how faith in the devil arose, what place it occupies in the system of some religious teachings. Belief in the existence of evil supernatural beings (devils, demons) is as ancient in origin as belief in the existence of good ones - gods.

The early forms of religion are characterized by ideas about the existence in nature of many invisible supernatural beings - spirits, good and evil, useful and harmful to humans. It was believed that his well-being depended on them: health and illness, good luck and failure.

Belief in spirits and their influence on people's lives is still an essential element of some religions. Belief in good and evil spirits, characteristic of primitive religions, in the process of evolution of religious beliefs, took on the character of belief in gods and demons, and in some religions, for example, in Zoroastrianism, ideas about the struggle between evil and good principles in nature and society. The good beginning is represented by the creator of heaven, earth, man, he is opposed, the god of the evil beginning and his assistants. Between them there is a constant struggle, which in the future should end with the death of the world and the defeat of the evil god. This system had a huge impact on Christianity and Judaism. In the process of changes that took place over thousands of years in human society, religious beliefs also changed, a system of ideas and ideas of modern religions took shape. Modern religions often include, in a modified form, much of the primitive beliefs, in particular the belief in good and evil spirits.

Of course, in modern religions, belief in good and evil gods is very different from the belief of primitive man, but the origins of these ideas, of course, should be sought in the beliefs of the distant past. Ideas about good and evil spirits were also subjected to “further processing”: on the basis of these ideas, in the changed social conditions, with the formation of a social and political hierarchy in society, a belief arose in the main good god and his assistants, on the one hand, and the main evil god (Satan) and his assistants, on the other.

If belief in spirits arose spontaneously as one of the earliest forms of religion, then belief in the devil in the process of the evolution of religion was largely the result of

creativity of church organizations. One of the main original sources of the teachings of Judaism, Christianity and Islam about God and the devil was the Bible. As the biblical god became the main god of these religions, so the devil, which is spoken of in the Bible, became next to God, and the evil spirits of primitive religions - the fruits of popular imagination - became devils, brownies, watermen, etc. However, it is worth noting that a big role in creating the image of the devil. Belief in the devil occupies a significant place in Christian theology. " The Church could not do without Satan, as well as without God himself, was vitally interested in the existence of evil spirits, for without Satan and the host of his servants it would be impossible to keep believers in obedience". Belief in the devil as a real being - the source of all evil in the world, influencing the lives of individuals and all of humanity, is preached by churches of all religions now just like hundreds of years ago.

Devil in Christianity

In the Old Testament

In its original meaning, “Satan” is a common noun, denoting one who hinders and hinders. As the name of a certain angel, Satan first appears in the book of the prophet Zechariah (Zech. 3:1), where Satan is the accuser at the heavenly court.

According to Christian tradition, the Devil first appears on the pages of the Bible in the book of Genesis in the form of a serpent, who seduced Eve with the temptation to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, as a result of which Eve and Adam sinned with pride and were expelled from paradise, and doomed to earn their bread in sweat of the face with hard work. As part of God's punishment for this, all ordinary snakes are forced to "walk on their belly" and feed on "the dust of the ground" (Genesis 3:14-3:15).

The Bible also describes Satan as Leviathan. Here he is a huge sea creature or a flying dragon. In a number of books of the Old Testament, Satan is called an angel who tests the faith of the righteous (see Job. 1:6–12). In the book of Job, Satan questions Job's righteousness and invites the Lord to test him. Satan is clearly subordinate to God and is one of his servants (bnei Ha-Elohim - "sons of God", in the ancient Greek version - angels) (Job 1:6) and cannot act without his permission. He can lead the nations and bring down fire on the Earth (Job 1:15-17), as well as influence atmospheric phenomena (Job 1:18), send diseases (Job 2:7).

In the Christian tradition, Isaiah's prophecy about the king of Babylon is referred to Satan (Is. 14:3-20). According to the interpretation, he was created as an angel, but having become proud and wishing to be equal to God (Is. 14:13-14), he was cast down to earth, becoming after the fall the “prince of darkness”, the father of lies, a murderer (John 8:44) - the leader of the rebellion against God. From the prophecy of Isaiah (Is. 14:12) the “angelic” name of Satan is taken - הילל, translated as “Light-bringer”, lat. Lucifer).

In the New Testament

In the Gospel, Satan offers Jesus Christ: “I will give you power over all these kingdoms and their glory, for it is delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I want” (Luke 4:6).

Jesus Christ says to people who wanted Him dead: “Your father is the devil; and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks his own, for he is a liar and

father of lies” (John 8:44). Jesus Christ saw the fall of Satan: “He said to them: I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning” (Luke 10:18).

The Apostle Paul indicates the habitat of Satan: he is “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2), his servants are “the rulers of the darkness of this world”, “spirits of wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). He also claims that Satan is able to outwardly transform (μετασχηματίζεται) into an angel of light (άγγελον φωτός) (2 Cor. 11:14).

In the Revelation of John the Theologian, Satan is described as the devil and "a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems" (Rev. 12:3, 13:1, 17:3, 20:2). Following him will follow a part of the angels, called in the Bible "unclean spirits" or "angels of Satan." Will be thrown to earth in a battle with the archangel Michael (Rev. 12:7-9, 20:2,3, 7-9), after Satan tries to eat the baby, who should become the shepherd of the nations (Rev. 12:4-9 ).

Jesus Christ completely and completely defeated Satan by taking upon himself the sins of people, dying for them and rising from the dead (Col. 2:15). On the Day of Judgment, Satan will fight with the Angel holding the key to the abyss, after which he will be chained and thrown into the abyss for a thousand years (Rev. 20:2–3). After a thousand years, he will be released for a short time, and after the second battle he will be forever cast into the "lake of fire and brimstone" (Rev. 20:7-10).

Belief in the Devil in the Quran and Islam

Islam arose at the beginning of the 7th century. n. e. In the pre-Islamic religious beliefs of the Arabs, faith in spirits - jinn, good and evil - occupied a large place. The well-known Soviet Arabist E. A. Belyaev writes: “... Belief in genies was almost universal, which Arab fantasy represented as intelligent beings created from smokeless fire and air. These creatures, like people, were divided into two sexes and endowed with reason and human passions. Therefore, they often left the deserted deserts in which the imagination of the Arabs placed them, and entered into communication with people. Sometimes from this communication, offspring were obtained ... "

The pre-Muslim belief in the existence of jinn also entered the creed of Islam. They and their activities are mentioned in the Koran - the holy book of Islam - and in legends. Some of the jinn, according to the Qur'an, betrayed themselves to Allah, while others retreated from him (LXXII, 1, 14). The number of jinn is very large. In addition to Allah, King Sulaiman (Solomon) disposes of the jinn: by the command of Allah, "they do to him what he wishes" - altars, images, bowls, cisterns, cauldrons (XXXIV, 12).

In the pre-Islamic period, the religions of the neighboring peoples, chiefly Christianity and Judaism, spread among the Arabs. Many biblical stories, for example, about the creation of the world and man (about Adam and Eve and others), were included in the Koran in a slightly modified form, some characters of the Bible also appear in the Koran. Among them are Musa (Moses), Harun (Aaron), Ibrahim (Abraham), Daud (David), Ishak (Isaac), Isa (Jesus) and others.

The commonality of Muslim religious ideas with biblical ones was facilitated by the fact that, as Engels noted, the main content of the religious and tribal traditions of the ancient Jews and ancient Arabs “was Arabic or, rather, general Semitic”: “the so-called Jewish scripture is nothing but a record ancient Arab religious and tribal traditions, modified by the early separation of the Jews from their neighbors - related to them, but remaining nomadic tribes.

The demonology of the Koran is very similar to the biblical one. Along with the army of genies, the head of the demons, Iblis, occupies a place in the creed of Islam. All the evil in the world comes from him. According to the teachings of Islam, “when Adam appeared, Allah ordered the angels to worship him. All the angels obeyed, except for Iblis (distorted diabolos), the devil (sheitan, from "satan"; borrowed from Judaism). Iblis, who was created from fire, refused to bow down to the one who was created from dust. Allah cursed him, but he received a reprieve that will last until the Last Judgment. He uses this reprieve to corrupt people from Adam and Eve onwards. At the end of time, he, along with the demons who serve him, will be cast into hell."

In Islam, the devil turns out to be either a single being, an opponent almost equal to God, or a combination of subordinate spirits of darkness. "The image of the devil, like the image of Mohammed, stands at the center of religious consciousness."

Belief in demons is also associated with belief in people being "possessed" by them. Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, promotes savage ideas about demons possessing people and about their expulsion by the servants of Allah. “Folk beliefs attribute evil deeds to demons both in the East and in the Muslim West. As in the period of the Christian Middle Ages, an evil spirit is expelled from the possessed (majnun). Spells, amulets and talismans serve to drive away or appease these forces of darkness, which are especially life-threatening during childbirth and for newborns.

Thus, in Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, belief in a good god is inextricably linked with belief in evil spirits - demons and the devil.

In Slavic mythology

In the pantheon of Slavic gods, evil forces are represented by several spirits, there is no single god of evil. After the advent of Christianity among the Slavs, the word devil becomes synonymous with the word devil, which, from the 11th century in Russia, Christians began to collectively call all pagan deities. The younger devil stands out - the devil, to whom the demons obey. The word demon was translated in the Bible in Greek. δαίμον (demon), however, in the English and German Bibles it was translated by the word devil (English devil, German teufel), and is still a foreign language synonym for the demon.

In Christian folk mythology, long-standing and stable ideas about appearance devils, or rather their bodily image, since devils are also evil spirits. In the ideas about the devil, the remnants of Indo-European mythology have been preserved, with the imposition of the later Christian idea that all pagan deities are demons and personify the evil inclination, and mixed with Judeo-Christian ideas about the Devil and fallen angels. In the ideas about the devil, there is a similarity with the Greek Pan - the patron saint of cattle breeding, the spirit of fields and forests, and Veles (Baltic Vyalny). However, the Christian devil, unlike its pagan prototypes, is not the patron of cattle breeding, but is a pest to people. Devils in beliefs take the form of animals of the old cult - goats, wolves, dogs, ravens, snakes, etc. It was believed that devils have a generally human-like (anthropomorphic) appearance, but with the addition of some fantastic or monstrous details. The most common appearance is identical to the image of ancient Pan, fauns and satyrs - horns, tail and goat legs or hooves, sometimes wool, less often a pig's snout, claws, wings bat etc. Often they are described with eyes burning like coals. In this form, devils are depicted in numerous paintings, icons, frescoes and book illustrations both in Western and Eastern Europe. In Orthodox hagiographic literature, devils are described mainly in the form of Ethiopians.

Fairy tales tell that the devil serves Lucifer, to whom he instantly flies to the underworld. He preys on human souls, which he tries to get from people by deceit, sinning, or an agreement, although such a plot is rare in Lithuanian fairy tales. In this case, the devil usually turns out to be fooled by the hero of a fairy tale. One of the famous ancient references to the sale of the soul and the image of the character contains the Giant Codex from the beginning of the 13th century.

Satanism

Satanism is not a homogeneous phenomenon, but a concept that refers to several heterogeneous cultural and religious phenomena. A good analogy for understanding this phenomenon is Protestantism. Protestants, in principle, also do not exist in nature: people who identify themselves with this branch of Christianity will either be Lutherans, or Baptists, or Pentecostals, and so on.

We can talk about at least five terms that are used when trying to define Satanism. With the exception of the very concept of "Satanism", these are: anti-Christianity, devil worship (or devil worship), Wicca, magic, and even neo-paganism in general. Somewhere between these concepts, which we will describe, is the "real" Satanism.

Devil Worship

The term "devil worship" refers to the worship of Satan in the form in which this image is recorded in Christianity, primarily medieval. Researchers do not designate such worship of the forces of evil with the concept of "Satanism". Devil worship is, in a sense, one of the Christian inversions. In any system of values there is a place for anti-values - what in Christian civilization we call sins, in modern ethics - misconduct, mistakes, and in modern depth psychology - the "terrible and dark" unconscious. In any of these systems, inversion is possible, when anti-values take the place of values.

A person looks at the dualistic picture of the world and comes to the conclusion that he does not want to be "good", and for a number of reasons - aesthetic, biographical, psychological, and so on - he is attracted to the world of anti-values. But anti-values can only be taken from the world where they are created, and in this regard, the devil-worshipper, although he is not a Christian, exists in the Christian system of thought. He may recognize a number of Christian dogmas, but they mutate in his mind. For example, he may believe that the devil will win in the end, and then we can talk about hidden Zoroastrianism in its very simplified form. But it is important to understand that the logic of devil worship is the logic of the Christian worldview turned inside out.

Wicca

Wicca is a tradition in its own right that can be mislabeled as "Satanism" and is often confused with neo-paganism in general. Its founder, Gerald Gardner, reformulated the European witchcraft and magical tradition associated with covens, reformulating it into a standardized complex based on religious polytheism. When the Wiccan priest and priestess address the god and goddess, they allow the existence of magic as the control of supernatural forces. Wicca is a religion first and a magical practice second. Wiccans may worship various gods that personify the forces of nature, some human abilities, or the functions of the world. But at the same time, Wiccans will try to maintain harmony and will not worship only dark forces.

Anti-Christianity

The backbone of anti-Christianity is made up of people from whose point of view Christianity cannot give anything good. Christian values do not suit them. God as described by the Christian tradition does not exist. But anti-Christianity is not atheism, but precisely an attempt to point out the negative role of Christianity in history or the modern world and, because of this, to abandon the Christian worldview and the world of Christian values.

The image of Satan / the devil, which expresses the rejection of Christian values in anti-Christianity, is in fact not affiliated with Christian teaching. In this case, people, using the language developed by tradition, call their personal ideas the Christian terms "devil" and "Satan". It can be dark gods, dark forces, spirits. For example, for the world of the series "Charmed" this situation will not seem strange or illogical: it has angels, there are demons and there is no God, because in this world he is completely unnecessary.

In the case of anti-Christianity, we are not talking about Christian inversion. The meaning of this movement is to preach the ideals of absolute freedom, including from ethics. Simplifying, we can say that it is from anti-Christianity that grows what we today can define as Satanism. But in Satanism, the idea of the effectiveness of magic is added to the ideals of anti-Christianity. Although it is impossible to say that all Satanists are magicians, anti-Christian-Satanists may well engage in magical practices (unlike the followers of the new age, who believe in magic, but almost never practice it themselves) and rely here on a gigantic heritage, first Hermetic, and then the occult European tradition.

Church of Satan

Anton Szandor LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, made an attempt to commercialize Satanism and develop it along the lines of an interesting religious tradition that already existed at that time - Wicca, described above.

LaVey saw the potential of Satanism as a religion and created his own "commercial" version. First of all, we are talking about the Church of Satan - the Church of Satan with the original center in San Francisco, which in 2016 turns 50 years old. In many ways, of course, this is an artistic project. Thus, well-known cultural figures are members of the church, for example, singer Marilyn Manson.

After the opening of the Church of Satan, the number of satanic organizations began to grow. But the real known satanic organizations that exist are either commercial, or artistic, or semi-criminal, which was Michael Aquino's Temple of Set, and, of course, in many ways atheistic. A huge number of atheists with a good sense of humor, with the idea of challenging conventional ideals, organize satanic temples and enter into controversy in the religious discourse market - primarily in the United States.

"The Satanic Bible" and texts by Aleister Crowley

The textological tradition of Satanism is fixed around two poles. The first is the texts of Aleister Crowley. We can say that the figure of Crowley exists in the format of "magician, occultist, in a sense, also a Satanist." That is, it is impossible to argue that Crowley is primarily a Satanist: it would simply be inaccurate. At the same time, Crowley was a Satanist not in the sense of “devil worshiper”, but precisely in his respect for the ideal of absolute freedom, which for Crowley is expressed in the form of not only Satan, but also the dark demonic principle in general. Crowley's demonology and himself is a separate huge topic, far from completely coinciding with Satanism and modern culture.

The second pole is the texts of Anton Szandor LaVey. First of all, this is the "Satanic Bible", which many unjustifiably call "black", but LaVey has other texts that are less well-known. LaVey's "Satanic Bible" is a peculiar, perhaps even poetic, view of the world, preaching the value of absolute freedom in a completely anti-Christian, although not too harsh denial of the values of the Christian world. It has commandments, stories - everything that should be in a text that is supposed to be considered sacred. Although, since LaVey conceived the church as part commercial, part artistic project, Satanists usually do not have much reverence for the "Satanic Bible".

In addition, there are a large number of occult texts that often act as a "substrate": from Papus' "Practical Magic" to Eliphas Levi's "Teachings and Ritual of Higher Magic". This is a large body of literature. There is also modern literature - a variety of textbooks on black and white magic, including in Russian. It cannot be said that people who identify themselves as Satanists seriously study this whole literary complex.

Image transformation in culture

The first surviving images of Satan date back to the 6th century: a mosaic in San Appolinare Nuovo (Ravenna) and a fresco in the Bawit church (Egypt). In both images, the Devil is an angel, which in its appearance is not fundamentally different from other angels. Attitudes towards Satan changed dramatically at the turn of the millennium. This happened after the Council of Cluny in 956 and the development of methods to tie believers to their faith through influence on the imagination and intimidation (even Augustine recommended portraying Hell "for the education of the ignorant"). In general, until the 9th century, the Devil, as a rule, was depicted in a humanoid image; in XI he began to be portrayed as half-human, half-animal. In the XV-XVI centuries. artists led by Bosch and van Eyck brought the grotesque into the image of the Devil. The hatred and fear of Satan, which the church inspired and demanded, demanded that he be portrayed as disgusting.

From the 11th century in the Middle Ages, a situation developed, marked by the creation of sufficient conditions for the formation of the cult of the devil. Medieval dualistic heresies became a powerful catalyst for realizing these conditions. The "epoch of the devil" begins, marked by a decisive turning point in the development of European religiosity, the peak of which falls on the 16th century - the time of widespread demonomania and witchcraft.

The hard life of a commoner of the Middle Ages, squeezed in a vice between the oppression of the barons and the oppression of the church, drove into the arms of Satan and into the depths of magic whole classes of people seeking relief from their endless misfortunes or revenge - to find, though terrible, but still a helper and friend. Satan is a villain and a monster, but still not the same as the baron was for a medieval tradesman and villan. Poverty, hunger, serious illnesses, overwork and cruel tortures have always been the main suppliers of recruits to the Devil's army. The Lollard sect is known, who preached that Lucifer and the rebellious angels were expelled from the kingdom of heaven for demanding freedom and equality from the despot-god. The Lollards also claimed that the Archangel Michael and his retinue - the defenders of tyranny - would be overthrown, and people who obeyed the kings would be condemned forever. The terror brought down on diabolical art by ecclesiastical and civil laws only exacerbated the eerie charm of diabolism.

The Renaissance destroyed the canonical image of the devil in the form of an ugly monster. The demons of Milton and Klopstock retain, even after the fall, a considerable share of their former beauty and grandeur. The 18th century finally humanized Satan. P.B. Shelley, regarding the influence exerted by Milton's poem on the world cultural process, wrote: "Paradise Lost" brought modern mythology into the system ... As for the Devil, he owes everything to Milton ... Milton removed the sting, hooves and horns; endowed with the greatness of a beautiful and formidable spirit - and returned to society.

In literature, in music, in painting, a culture of "demonism" began. Since the beginning of the 19th century, Europe has been fascinated by its anti-divine appearances: the demonism of doubt, denial, pride, rebellion, disappointment, bitterness, longing, contempt, selfishness and even boredom appears. Poets depict Prometheus, Dennitsa, Cain, Don Juan, Mephistopheles. Lucifer, Demon, Mephistopheles become favorite symbols of creativity, thought, rebellion, alienation. In accordance with this semantic load, the Devil becomes handsome in the engravings of Gustave Doré, illustrating Milton's Paradise Lost, and later in the paintings of Mikhail Vrubel ... New styles of depicting the Devil spread. One of them is in the role of a gentleman of the gallant era, in a velvet tunic, a silk cloak, a hat with a feather, with a sword.

This book is devoted to the social history of Russia since the revolution of 1917-1921. until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The focus is on the development of society in the context of the policy of forced industrial modernization, which was carried out Russian governments in the twentieth century, and the social resistance of the masses to the course imposed "from above". The author traces the evolution of forms of self-organization and resistance employees and the peasantry, shows their strength and weakness. A significant place in the book is also given to changes in the ruling class of Soviet society, its fragmentation and the role of these processes in the erosion and destruction of the monolithic industrial-capitalist model of the "USSR concern".

The book is addressed to both professional historians and activists of social movements, as well as schoolchildren and students studying the history of Russia, and anyone interested in the question of the nature of Soviet society.

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The period of separate education in the history of the Soviet school was short-lived - only 11 years, from 1943 to 1954. Nevertheless, he left a significant mark not only in the work of the educational system, but also in culture. This reform reflected much more general processes, primarily related to the revision of the official approach to the cultural, ideological and even political heritage of the pre-revolutionary era. The genre of Soviet "school cinema" was formed precisely during the period of separate education, when the problems of education and its organization began to be perceived in society as having independent significance and became the subject of discussion. These films laid a certain stylistic and conceptual foundation for the image of the school "in general" in Soviet cinema and literature. And although the school subsequently changed, the creators of later works in one way or another appealed to the cultural canon of that period.

Savelyeva I. M. In: Walls and Bridges: Interdisciplinary Approaches in Historical Research: Proceedings of the International scientific conference, Moscow, RGGU, June 13-14, 2012. Moscow: RGGU, 2012, pp. 118-127.

The article analyzes the theoretical potential of representatives of the "third wave" in historical sociology, who focus their research not on typologies and structures, but on dynamics, variability, instability, and mutations. The purpose of the article is to explain why, despite the fact that sociologists borrowed key concepts from the epistemic arsenal of history, axiomatics and partly an explanatory model, cross-disciplinary communication in the proposed theoretical format, including critical reflection on the part of historians, is not yet possible.

The article reveals the significance of the memoir complex of Russian historians of the late XIX - early XX centuries as historical source on the study of the socio-political life of Russia at the turn of the century.

Khryakov A. V. Humanitarian research. WP6. Higher School of Economics, 2014. No. 01.

The paper examines the debate that has unfolded in modern German historiography on the issue of the behavior of a number of German historians during the years of Nazi Germany, their attitude towards National Socialism. The main attention is focused on the alleged connection of social history with such a research direction of the first half of the 20th century as the "history of the people". After 1945, many scholars working within this approach took an active part in shaping West German social history.

The article contains an analysis of the historiography of the secret police in the Russian Empire. Revealing the approaches of historians to this topic and how they work with historical evidence, the author shows the negative consequences of political relevance and the process of sealing knowledge about the state. The revision of the historiographic heritage allows the author to free the perception of the topic from the different times and under different conditions of "quasi-obviousness". At the same time, attention is drawn to the presence of a rich set of office documents of the police department, preserved in State Archive Russian Federation. Offering a neo-institutional approach to their analysis, the author shows the obvious and latent informational possibilities of the discovered documents.

Based on domestic and overseas experience, the author tries to show the influence social policy the Soviet period on the formation and development of the welfare state at its various stages in the leading Western countries, as well as the consequences of the destruction of the USSR for the current state and prospects of the welfare state in the world.

Humanity is going through a change of cultural and historical eras, which is associated with the transformation of network media into the leading means of communication. The consequence of the “digital split” is a change in social divisions: along with the traditional “haves and have-nots”, there is a confrontation between “online (connected) versus offline (not connected)”. Under these conditions, traditional intergenerational differences lose their significance, belonging to one or another information culture, on the basis of which media generations are formed, turns out to be decisive. The paper analyzes the diverse consequences of networking: cognitive, arising from the use of "smart" things with a friendly interface, psychological, generating network individualism and increasing privatization of communication, social, embodying the "paradox of an empty public sphere". The role of computer games as "deputies" of traditional socialization and education is shown, the vicissitudes of knowledge, which is losing its meaning, are considered. In conditions of excess information, the most scarce human resource today is human attention. Therefore, new business principles can be defined as attention management.

This scientific work uses the results obtained during the implementation of project No. 10-01-0009 "Media rituals", implemented within the framework of the HSE Science Foundation Program in 2010-2012.

Aistov A.V., Leonova L. A.Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð ° Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð ð Ð°Ð½Ð°Ð»Ð¸Ð·Ð° Ð¼Ð¾Ð´ÐµÐ»Ð¸Ñ€Ð¾Ð²Ð°Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÐºÐ¾Ð½Ð¾Ð¼Ð¸ÐºÐ¸. P1. 2010. No. 1/2010/04.

The paper analyzes the factors of choosing the status of employment (based on the data of the Russian monitoring of the economic state and health of the population in 1994-2007). The analysis carried out does not reject the assumption about the forced nature of informal employment. The work also examined the influence of informally employed status on life satisfaction. It is shown that the informally employed, on average, are more satisfied with life compared to formally registered workers.

STEEL AGE

Social history of Soviet society

Damier Vadim Valerievich

Steel Age: A Social History of Soviet Society. - M.: Book

house "LIBROKOM", 2013. - 256 p. (Thinking about anarchism. No. 26.)

Publishing house "Book House" LIBROKOM "".

117335, Moscow, Nakhimovsky pr-t, 56.

Format 60x90/16. Pech. l. 16. Zach. No. VS-80.

Printed by LENAND LLC.

117312, Moscow, Sixty years of October avenue, 11 A, building 11.

ISBN 978-5-397-03768-6 © LIBROCOM Book House, 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording on magnetic media, or posting on the Internet, unless written owner permissions

Chapter 1

5. The second "dual power": the Bolshevik regime

10. In Search of the "Lesser Evil": Popular Movements in the Conditions

1. Zigzags and fluctuations in agricultural policy 99

2. Reforms in the field of industry and trade.

Problems of transition to industrialization 104

Chapter 3

"Great turning point", or Stalin-style modernization 148

6. Workers' protests and "social compromise" 219

Instead of a conclusion

Introduction

There are topics that historians return to more than once throughout their lives, not only because these problems are inexhaustible or because of the emergence of new documents and materials available. Now we are not talking about those who change their assessments and concepts to directly opposite ones, to please the prevailing opinion, the demands of the authorities or the “society of spectacles”. Honest researchers themselves develop as they acquire knowledge, improve or refine their view of events, comprehend details in a different way ...

Over the past quarter of a century, I have often written about Soviet history, trying in my own way to answer the famous question “What was it?” . From the very first steps, it became clear that Soviet society was not socialist, since it lacked such fundamental elements of socialism as public self-government, free self-realization and self-development of the human personality, the replacement of economic relations based on the pursuit of profit and bureaucratic diktat, with the direct satisfaction of needs and the needs of specific living people.

Was it worth it to perform a requiem for socialism in this situation? Shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, I happened to answer this question like this:

“Socialism turned out to be a utopia, and its spell was broken. Socialism is dead. These and similar statements can be heard today from all

sides. Humanity has been ill with a dangerous childhood illness and is now recovering. Ideas of democracy and free market economy finally won; and now nothing can overshadow their triumph. The leaders and politicians of the Western world, and after them the leaders of the new independent states formed on the ruins of the USSR, say this or something like this.

Well, let's say a farewell word over the bed of the dying man and then send the dead man on his last journey?

To avoid misunderstanding, the author should explain himself. He does not feel the slightest regret in connection with the death of that social model, which is buried with such happiness by some and just as much mourned by others. From his, the author's point of view, the collapse of the totalitarian system, so reminiscent of the gloomy nightmare of Orwell's "1984", could only be welcomed. But besides doubts about those who go in the funeral procession, there are other moments that make us look more closely at the unanimous triumph of the newly appeared “feast of deliverance”.

Who is buried here?

Totalitarian Stalinist order? Oh sure. But is it only him? Are we not present at a peculiar reassessment of values, and, moreover, those that are by no means limited to the framework of the Stalinist or Bolshevik model in general? Let's listen to these arguments coming from the funeral crowd. Enough experiments, enough utopias! Down with dreams of a brighter future, "dreams of something Bigger" - give us a guaranteed and well-fed present! Enough general fantasies and ideals - it's an illusion! Only a full belly and a full purse are true: the triumphant psychology of a cricket that knows its hearth...

Is the natural desire of man for freedom, equality, happiness, harmony, mutual assistance to blame for the fact that tyrants used him and covered their kingdom with these beautiful words? Is Christ to blame for the atrocities of the Inquisition, and Buddha for the oppression of religious minorities in Buddhist countries?

So what is dead? Socialism or Something that put on its cloak? Both the opponents of the socialist idea and the apologists of the defeated system are united here, and this is incredibly characteristic. For both, it was socialism that was defeated, defeated, retreating, dying.<...>Let's not bury something that has not yet been born into the world!

Analysis of features and characteristic features of the Russian society before the revolution of 1917-1921, the policies of all regimes that ruled the country over the past century, as well as the stubborn, at times fierce resistance of the working classes of the population against this policy, allows us to quite accurately determine the essence and historical place of the social and state form that existed in the so-called "Soviet Union". I will not immediately bring down the wording and assessments on the reader. Let him, reading this book and following the course of historical events, himself, following the author, be able to name the phenomenon by name. My task was only to gather together the information that is available today on the basis of published documents, other sources and a wide variety of scientific works(whose conclusions I most often do not share, which does not prevent us from using the facts and information contained in them), and try to present it in the form of a series of successive historical essays. They cover the entire period of the so-called Soviet history: from 1917 to 1991. You should not reproach me for the fact that some moments or aspects of that reality were not reflected in the book. Extensive volumes have been written about this, are being written, and will be written about for a long time to come. It was important for me to trace that guiding thread that would allow answering the most important questions: why and how did what happened happen? To do this, it was necessary to focus on two main lines: on the one hand, on the plans and policies of the "top", on the other - on the needs, life and actions of the people "bottom"

Social history of Soviet society

Damier Vadim Valerievich

Steel Age: A Social History of Soviet Society. - M.: Book

house "LIBROKOM", 2013. - 256 p. (Thinking about anarchism. No. 26.)

Publishing house "Book House" LIBROKOM "".

117335, Moscow, Nakhimovsky pr-t, 56.

Format 60x90/16. Pech. l. 16. Zach. No. VS-80.

Printed by LENAND LLC.

117312, Moscow, Sixty years of October avenue, 11 A, building 11.

ISBN 978-5-397-03768-6 © LIBROCOM Book House, 2013

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. In search of the “lesser evil”: popular movements in conditions1. Zigzags and fluctuations in agricultural policy 992. Reforms in industry and trade.

Problems of transition to industrialization 104

3. 4. 5. 6. 8. 9. 10.

Chapter 3

"Great turning point", or Stalin-style modernization 148

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Workers' protests and "social compromise" 2197. 8.

Instead of a conclusion

Introduction

Current page: 1 (total book has 21 pages)

Damier Vadim Valerievich

Steel Age: A Social History of Soviet Society. - M .: Book

house "LIBROKOM", 2013. - 256 p. (Thinking about anarchism. No. 26.)

Publishing house "Book House" LIBROKOM "".

117335, Moscow, Nakhimovsky pr-t, 56.

Format 60x90/16. Pech. l. 16. Zach. No. VS-80.

Printed by LENAND LLC.

117312, Moscow, Sixty years of October avenue, 11 A, building 11.

ISBN 978-5-397-03768-6 © LIBROCOM Book House, 2013

Introduction 5

Chapter 1

Russian Revolution 1917-1921 eight

1. On the way to revolution. Balance of power 8

3. The Revolution on the Rise: From February to October 1917 15

5. The second "dual power": the Bolshevik regime

and revolutionary masses (autumn 1917 - spring 1918) 25

6. The turn of the spring of 1918 38

7. Civil War: "Reds" and "Whites" (1918-1920) 43

8. Restoration policy of "white" regimes 49

9. "War Communism" - "Red" counter-revolution 52

10. In Search of the "Lesser Evil": Popular Movements in the Conditions

civil war 74

11. "Third Revolution"? 84

Chapter 2

Bolshevik Thermidor (1921-1929) 97

1. Zigzags and fluctuations in agricultural policy 99

2. Reforms in the field of industry and trade.

Problems of transition to industrialization 104

3. Social portrait of the NEP city 110

4. Strengthening the one-party dictatorship 123

5. Creation of the USSR: centralism under the flag of federalism 126

6. Lenin's Last Battle and Thermidor 129

8. National politics in the 1920s 133

9. Resistance to the socio-economic policy of the authorities 135

10. The struggle for power at the top. Crisis and collapse of the NEP 141

Chapter 3

"Great turning point", or Stalin-style modernization 148

1. Industrialization plans 148

2. Transition to "collectivization" 150

3. Industrial policy of Stalin 159

4. "Cultural Revolution" 168

5. The social orientation of the Stalinist reforms 173

6. Foreign policy: from maneuvering to war 179

Chapter 4

Soviet welfare state: birth and collapse 194

1. Post-war reconstruction and a new breakthrough 194

2. Pyramid of accelerated modernization 199

3. "Autumn of the Patriarch" 206

4. Social concessions 210

5. The “revolution” of the middle rank of the nomenklatura and a new breakthrough 214

6. Workers' protests and "social compromise" 219

7. "Bureaucratic stabilization" 230

8. "The collapse of modernization" 238

Instead of a conclusion

Introduction

There are topics that historians return to more than once throughout their lives, not only because these problems are inexhaustible or because of the emergence of new documents and materials available. Now we are not talking about those who change their assessments and concepts to directly opposite ones, in order to please the prevailing opinion, the demands of the authorities or the “society of spectacles”. Honest researchers themselves develop as they acquire knowledge, improve or refine their view of events, comprehend details in a different way ...

Over the past quarter of a century, I have often written about Soviet history, trying in my own way to answer the famous question “What was it?” 1
Cm.: Damier V.V., Ryabov A.V. So what was it? // The working class and the modern world. 1990. No. 2. pp.202-209; Daumier V.V. Libertarian socialism or ecological catastrophe? // Centaur. 1993. No. 1. pp. 18-36; DamierV. Moskauer Schatten // Die Aktion (Hamburg). 1994. H. 113/119. Marz. S. 1958-1963; Damye V.V. Historical roots of totalitarianism // Totalitarianism in Europe of the XX century: From the history of ideologies, movements, regimes and their overcoming. M., 1996. S. 15-44; Post-war Stalinism (section written by V.V. Damier in the chapter by A.V. Shubin “The USSR and the regimes of “people's democracies””) // Ibid. pp.381-386; Encyclopedia for children Avanta +. T.5. History of Russia and its nearest neighbors. Ch.Z. XX century. M.. 1998 (articles "Vladimir Lenin", "Joseph Stalin"); Damier V.V. Totalitarian tendencies in the 20th century // World in the 20th century. M., 2001. S.53-105; Encyclopedia for children Avanta +. T.21. Society. 4.1. Economy and politics. M., 2002 (article "State socialism", co-author); Encyclopedia for children Avanta +. T.5. Russian history. Ch.Z. XX century. 4th ed. M., 2007 (sections "The Great Russian Revolution of 1917-1921", "The Country of Soviets in the 1920-1930s", "The Soviet Union in 1946-1991", co-author); and etc.

From the very first steps, it became clear that Soviet society was not socialist, since it lacked such fundamental elements of socialism as public self-government, free self-realization and self-development of the human personality, the replacement of economic relations based on the pursuit of profit and bureaucratic diktat, with the direct satisfaction of needs and the needs of specific living people.

Was it worth it to perform a requiem for socialism in this situation? Shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, I happened to answer this question like this:

“Socialism turned out to be a utopia, and its spell was broken. Socialism is dead. These and similar statements can be heard today from all

sides. Humanity has been ill with a dangerous childhood illness and is now recovering. The ideas of democracy and free market economy have finally won; and now nothing can overshadow their triumph. The leaders and politicians of the Western world, and after them the leaders of the new independent states formed on the ruins of the USSR, say this or something like this.

Well, let's say a farewell word over the bed of the dying man and then send the dead man on his last journey?

Who is buried here?

Totalitarian Stalinist order? Oh sure. But is it only him? Are we not present at a peculiar reassessment of values, and, moreover, those that are by no means limited to the framework of the Stalinist or Bolshevik model in general? Let's listen to these arguments coming from the funeral crowd. Enough experiments, enough utopias! Down with the dreams of a brighter future, "dreams of something Bigger" - give us a guaranteed and well-fed present! Enough general fantasies and ideals – it's an illusion! Only a full belly and a full purse are true: the triumphant psychology of a cricket that knows its hearth...

An analysis of the features and characteristics of Russian society before the revolution of 1917-1921, the policies of all regimes that ruled the country over the past century, as well as the stubborn, at times fierce resistance of the working classes of the population against this policy, allows us to quite accurately determine the essence and historical place of that social and state form that existed in the so-called "Soviet Union". I will not immediately bring down the wording and assessments on the reader. Let him, reading this book and following the course of historical events, himself, following the author, be able to name the phenomenon by name. My task was only to gather together the information that is available today on the basis of published documents, other sources and a wide variety of scientific works (whose conclusions I most often do not share, which does not prevent me from using the facts and information contained in them), and try to present it in the form of a series of successive historical essays. They cover the entire period of the so-called Soviet history: from 1917 to 1991. You should not reproach me for the fact that some moments or aspects of that reality were not reflected in the book. Extensive volumes have been written about this, are being written, and will be written about for a long time to come. It was important for me to trace that guiding thread that would allow answering the most important questions: why and how did what happened happen? To do this, it was necessary to focus on two main lines: on the one hand, on the plans and policies of the "top", on the other - on the needs, life and actions of the people "bottom"

The last thing I want to say before the reader begins to read this book. I tried equally to destroy both the "red" and "white" myths about Soviet history. Both praises and curses against Lenin, Stalin and their followers are equally alien to me because they acted as the "creators of socialism", "destroyers of Great Russia" or, conversely, "creators of the Great Empire". In the already tired dispute about who Stalin was - an "effective manager" or a cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant, I do not consider it necessary to take either side. I hope the reader will be able to come to the conclusion that a tyrant and despot may well be a very effective manager. The only question is what and to whom it serves, for what purpose, for whom and at what cost this efficiency is carried out. And do ordinary, “ordinary” people need such managers who are ready to impose their “models” on society by force and regardless of the consequences and sacrifices – is it an omnipotent State or an omnipotent Market?

Today, when one often hears voices that say that there is no need to tell schoolchildren the whole truth, but the main thing is to educate them as patriots who are ready to justify everything and forgive their “native” state, it seems to me that one thing is especially important and necessary: to tell the truth. Chapter 1

Russian Revolution 1917-1921

How many revolutions took place in Russia in the 20th century? There is still no consensus among historians on this matter. The answer to this question most often depends on the point of view or on the political position. Some believe that in February 1917. a democratic revolution broke out, and in October of the same year the Bolshevik coup took place, ending hopes for Russia's development along the path of freedom and democracy. Historiography, more or less connected with the Bolshevik tradition, prefers to talk about two revolutions: the bourgeois-democratic February and the socialist October. Contemporaries of the events often talked about the "Third Revolution" directed against the Bolshevik dictatorship in 1921. And yet it seems that the revolutionary events of 1917-1921. should be perceived as a single process, although not linear, but including various lines, ups and downs. All this time, the same deep social problems were on the agenda, around which the confrontation between various social forces and trends unfolded. All this time in different forms an uprising of the people flared up against the old system, which led the country to a dead end, and against the attempts of the new authorities to impose on it such forms of modernization that broke the foundations folk life. The fierce conflict between the "lower classes" and the "tops" eventually ended in the triumph of the latter, although in a different guise from the old - Bolshevik.

1. On the way to revolution. balance of power

Prehistory of the Russian Revolution 1917-1921. takes us far back into the 19th century. After the humiliating defeat suffered by Russia from the Western powers during the Crimean War of 1853-1856, it became clear to the Russian autocracy that transformations were necessary to maintain its power. If the Empire wanted to resist, catch up with its opponents and competitors and continue to conduct world politics, it had to take significant steps towards military, and hence economic renewal (modernization). In 1861, serfdom was abolished, and a process of forced imposition of capitalist elements from above began, which is characteristic of countries with the so-called "catching up" type of development. “... Each more or less major government event affects the life of the entire national economic organism. The patronage given to a separate branch of industry, the new railway, the search for a new soil for the application of people's labor - all such ... measures affect ... the whole system of existing relations ... "affect the course further development of the entire economic mechanism,” Russian Finance Minister Sergei Witte explained the meaning of the policy being pursued. 3
Witte S.Yu. The most submissive report of the Minister of Finance S.Yu. Witte to Nicholas II on the need to establish and then unwaveringly adhere to a certain program of the empire's commercial and industrial policy // Materials on the history of the USSR. Issue UG M., 1959. S. 173-195.

The state, at its own expense, created economic infrastructure and banks, built factories, plants and railways, and later transferred them to private capital, when it was already in a position to invest in them and develop the economy further. This policy was financed, first of all, at the expense of funds pumped out of the peasant communities. "Modernization" efforts were very active and, at first glance, brought tangible success. In terms of production growth rates, Russia (according to a number of indicators) overtook the leading world powers. So, for example, for 1890-1913. pig iron production in Russia increased 5 times (in Germany - 4 times, in the USA - 3.3 times, in Great Britain - 1.3 times), the extraction of Russian hard coal increased 6 times (in the USA - 3 times, 6 times, in Germany - 2.7 times, in the UK - 1.6 times), oil production - 2.3 times (in the USA - 5.5 times) 4
Calculated from: The National Economy of the USSR in Figures (1860-1938). M., 1940. S.6, 7, 43; Bor M3. History of the world economy. M., 1996 (Part 4. Statistical materials on the world economy).

In 1913, Russia produced almost a quarter of the world's wheat, half of the world's rye, and almost a third of the world's barley.

All these numbers are really impressive. But to what extent did the authorities manage to turn Russia into a prosperous country with a developed capitalist economy by the time the First World War broke out in 1914?

Liberal, social-democratic and Bolshevik theorists were often inclined to overestimate the degree of development of capitalism in Russia, the degree of its "Europeanization". But they saw what they wanted to see. In reality, Russia, in modern terms, remained more of a Third World country. The general structural lag of the Russian economy from the Western one was so significant that it suggests that we are talking not just about backwardness within the same coordinate system, but about a deep “civilizational” difference. Indeed, the real income per worker in Russia in 1913 was only 81% of the corresponding figure in England in 1688, that is, a hundred years before the industrial revolution! 5
Cm.: Cliff T. State capitalism in Russia. Per. from English. M., 1991. P. 123. Calculated by British economist Colin Clark based on an estimate of the value of the quantity of goods and services that could be purchased for 1 US dollar at an average rate of 1925-1934.

At the same time, the gap in the volume of GNP per capita in comparison with developed Western countries began to grow more and more since the end of the 19th century. 6
Cm.: Erofeev N. The standard of living of the population of Russia in the late XIX - early XX century // Bulletin of the Moscow University. Series 8. History. 2003. No. 1. S.55-70.

Capitalism took hold in Russian cities, but over 80% of the population still lived in the countryside, and Russian market remained too narrow for capitalist relations to spread widely. The country existed as if in two different worlds. Most of the people were in pre-capitalist conditions. The well-known agricultural scientist A.V. Chayanov, who studied agrarian relations in the Russian countryside, drew attention to the following feature: although most of the peasants no longer practiced purely subsistence farming, but sold their products on the market and earned extra money in the fields, capitalist accumulation most often did not happened. The vast majority of peasant families spent all the money they received on food or manufactured goods. 7
Cm.: Chayanov A. Income and expenses of the peasants of the Moscow province // Cooperative life. 1913. No. 7-8. S.29-31.

What is typical for "pre-capitalist" relations. Owners had already appeared in the village, conducting business on a wide scale. commercial basis and with the use of hired labor (they were called kulaks-world-eaters), but in general the peasantry remained in property and social relations fairly homogeneous mass. The processes of stratification were still in their infancy.

Dominant form public organization in the Russian village there remained a peasant community (“world”, “society”) - a unit not only fiscal, but, to a certain extent, still economic. It had an extremely high stability and had its own correction mechanisms. social inequality(redistribution of land, etc.). The attempts of the government of P.A. Stolypin during the agrarian reform (since 1906) to single out a solid layer of capitalist peasants in the countryside and to accelerate the decomposition of the community had only limited results; the reverse process of the return of the peasants to the community began.

The main problem of the pre-capitalist state of the Russian countryside was that the potential for a further increase in agricultural production, not for own needs, but for sale, was limited. In general, the peasant was not psychologically inclined to produce "more than necessary", and the classical "capitalist" incentives in the countryside did not work quite well. No wonder the extremely low productivity in pre-revolutionary peasant farms. The yield of bread was several times inferior European level. The export of grain was carried out not thanks to surpluses, but due to peasant malnutrition. Famine broke out in the village from time to time. The situation was aggravated by the lack of peasant land: a significant proportion of the best land was in the hands of the landlords, some of whom resorted to feudal methods of farming.

The broad masses of the Russian communal peasantry were the more dissatisfied with the current situation. Since the revolution of 1905-1907. they articulated their aspirations more and more clearly. The historian T. Shanin, who devoted many years to the study of Russian peasants, summarizes their aspirations as follows: “The ideal Russia of their choice was a country in which all the land belonged to the peasants, was divided among them and cultivated by their family members without the use of hired labor. All Russian lands suitable for agricultural use were to be transferred to peasant communities, who would establish equal land use in accordance with family size or " labor norm”, i.e. the number of workers in each family. The sale of land should have been banned, and private ownership of land should have been abolished.” 8
Shanin T. Revolution as the moment of truth. Russia 1905-1907 -> 1917-1922. Translation from English. M., 1997. S.204.

Of course, such a program of "black redistribution" had nothing to do with bourgeois transformations and the introduction of private ownership of land.

But even in the Russian cities of that era, capitalism looked in many ways different than in Western Europe and the United States. It was heavily dependent on foreign loans and investment. The share of foreign capital in joint-stock companies reached 47% by 1913 9
Industry and trade. 1913. No. 10. P.446.

; most of the profits were exported from the country. As early as 1899, Witte compared the economic relations between Russia and Western Europe with those that exist between the European powers and their colonies: Russia “to some extent is such a hospitable colony for all industrialized states, generously supplying them with cheap products of its land and expensively paying for the works of labor" 10
Witte S.Yu. Decree op.

State regulation and encouragement by the authorities of large monopolistic associations seriously hampered the industrial development of the country. The level of technical equipment remained low. The industrial structure was based on industries and types of production that were considered advanced at the end of the 19th century (ferrous metallurgy, steam locomotive building, production of steam engines, simple agricultural implements and household goods, light and Food Industry). Western industry at that time was already moving into the era of electricity, chemistry and machine tool building. For the development of these industries in Russia there was neither capital nor industrial labor, the total number of which in 1911-1914. almost stopped growing. It is not surprising that the supreme commander of the Russian army during the First World War, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, was forced to admit: “in technical terms, our industry is far behind the industry of English and French” and is unable to meet military needs 11
Cm.: Volkov V.V. Interformational modernization of the Russian economic system in the 19th - early 20th centuries. Tver, 2004. P.42-47 (quoted from: Ibid. P.47).

Despite all the outgrowths of capitalism, Russia as a whole has not yet been "permeated with capitalism." The beginnings of industrialization, nurtured by the tsarist government, ran into a rigid historical framework, and Russia's defeats in the First World War clearly demonstrated the economic and infrastructural weakness of the country. In total, during the hostilities, Russia lost from 2 to 3 million people killed, died from wounds and missing 12
For an overview of the various death toll figures, see: Morozov S.D. Human losses in Russia in the First World War // Svobodnaya thought. 2008. No. 2. pp. 167-174.

The lack of fuel and metal jeopardized the transport system (especially the railways) and the supply system. The situation in agriculture: mobilization, as shown by the 1917 census, snatched almost half of the workers from the villages. If before the war, on average, more than 4.5 billion poods of grain were collected per year, then in 1917 they collected 1.5 times less. In December 1916, the government began the forced allocation of grain. The supply of food to the cities was increasingly deteriorating against the backdrop of rising prices: at the end of January 1917, only a 10-day supply of flour remained in Petrograd; no meat left 13
Nenarokov A.P. 1917. Great October: Short story, documents, photographs. M., 1977. S.26-27.

It was almost impossible to bring food because of the transport crisis...

Thus, from a strategic point of view, all attempts to “catch up” with competing states have failed. Tsarism could not turn Russia into a military and industrial capitalist giant. The reasons for this should be sought in the socio-political structures themselves.

Old regime. The country could not take a decisive step towards a full-scale industrial revolution without abandoning their preservation: without destroying communal structures, without overcoming the narrowness of the internal market, without spreading market principles everywhere, and without mobilizing large financial resources and labor to carry out extensive capitalist industrialization. The tsarist government could not afford this, since the entire social system The Russian Empire was based on the existence of a privileged landed nobility, on the one hand, and peasant communities, the most important source of tax revenues and a form of organization for the vast majority of the population, on the other. Money and bread could be pumped out of the latter, but it was impossible to destroy them. The snake gnawed at its own tail, but could not swallow it. It was not possible to overcome the limits of modernization within the framework of the existing system.

Such an impasse could, under other conditions, lead to a classical bourgeois revolution, like the Western European revolutions of past centuries. But this option ran into almost insurmountable obstacles in Russia. The Russian workers, unlike the French sans-culottes of the eighteenth century, were quite conscious of what they did not want: capitalism. They have already seen enough of its manifestations: the arbitrariness of the owners, their own lack of rights, the suppression of workers' unions, and so on. Moreover, the working class of Russia has not yet forgotten the communal and craft traditions and skills of self-management in labor. Yesterday's or the day before yesterday's peasants could still imagine how they themselves manage production, albeit not agricultural, but factory. As early as 1905, they created their own factory committees, councils, and worker militia at many enterprises. And unskilled workers, who have not lost ties with the countryside, would gladly return there at the first opportunity. The vast majority of Russian workers had no desire to support the bourgeois revolution.

In turn, the Russian bourgeoisie and the liberal political forces were too weak and too strongly connected with tsarism economically, politically and personal level to take the risk of changing the system and thereby bring modernization out of the impasse. The Council of Congresses of Representatives of Industry and Trade could call for a restriction state entrepreneurship and excessive, from the point of view of the bourgeoisie, state regulation of economic activity 14
18Chapter 1. Russian Revolution 1917-1921
3. The Revolution on the Rise: From February to October 1917 18
Cm.: Shepelev L.E. Tsarism and the bourgeoisie in 1904-1914. Problems of commercial and industrial policy. L., 1987.

But the largest associations of Russian entrepreneurs did not even think of breaking the numerous threads that stretched between them and the tsarist state. The liberals only denounced the inefficiency of the government and bureaucratic administration, seeking to expand their influence within the existing structures. “You can’t put any Rasputins at the forefront; – convinced the Chairman of the State Duma M.V. To which the monarch shrugged his shoulders: "Well, God willing" 15
Cit. In: The fall of the tsarist regime. Verbatim records of interrogations and testimony given in 1917 to the Extraordinary Investigative Commission of the Provisional Government. T.VII. M.-L., 1927. S.165.

As in many other countries of the "Third World" in the 20th century, only circles relatively independent of the mainstream could become the engine of radical modernization in Russia. social groups and the forces of society: both from tsarism, and from the bourgeoisie, and from the peasant communities that resisted the onset of capitalism. After all, these groups either sought to preserve the existing system, or would have preferred some completely different path of development, based on the modification of communal values in the direction of self-government, freed from the rigid grip of state power. Only revolutionaries not associated with them and not obliged to them were able to complete the destruction of the community and carry out industrialization, that is, to establish forms of organization of labor and production (the factory system with its norms of "factory despotism"), corresponding to capitalist (bourgeois) social relations. Capitalism in Russia could only win in a special way: without private capitalists, whose role was taken over by a new, decisive and not limited by the old "conventions" state, bureaucracy and technocracy. And to organize such a transition was within the power of only intellectual circles, perceiving themselves as a potential elite of Russia, but pushed aside by tsarism, performing a special revolutionary mission. This elite, as it became clear already in the course of the revolution, was formed in the guise of the Bolshevik Party.

The Russian revolution had been brewing for a long time, but, as often happens, it began unexpectedly both for its participants and for their opponents. “The present political moment in the strongest degree resembles the situation of the events that preceded the excesses of 1905,” the Petrograd Security Department noted in January 1917. 16
Quoted from: The bourgeoisie on the eve of the Revolution. M.-L., 1927. S. 161-163.

This month saw the largest strikes of workers since the beginning of the World War: almost 180,000 people went on strike in Petrograd, more than 90,000 took part in strikes in Baku, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Kharkiv, Donbass, other cities and regions. And yet, nothing seemed to herald a quick imminent explosion. The tsar ordered to interrupt the work of the State Duma (a buffer between the government and the people) and went to the front to personally lead the fighting. Meanwhile, throughout February, separate strikes and student unrest broke out in the capital of the empire. The participants in the speeches protested against the shortage of food and the growing high cost. On February 22, the administration closed the striking Putilov factory, leaving the workers without a livelihood. The next day a revolution broke out in Petrograd.

On February 23 (according to the old style - on International Women's Day), workers, driven to despair by a half-starved existence, rushed to smash bread shops. A mass strike began in the city, which spread rapidly and became general in a couple of days. The workers' demonstrations escalated and were accompanied by violent clashes with the police. "Of bread! We have nothing to eat! Give us bread or shoot us! Our children are dying of hunger!” people shouted in the streets. On February 26 and 27, the troops stationed in Petrograd began to cross over to the side of the people; The rebels seized weapons. The ministers of the tsarist government were arrested. The deputies of the State Duma, who refused to disperse, formed a Provisional Committee. At the same time, the labor collectives of the Petrograd enterprises of the garrison elected their delegates to the people's body - the Petrograd Soviet, which on March 1 took control of all military forces in the district. The revolution began to spread to other cities, where tsarist officials were removed from power, local Duma bodies and Soviets were formed. The tsar sent units loyal to him, led by General N.I. Ivanov, to the capital, but they, not reaching Petrograd, refused to obey. On March 2, Nicholas II received a delegation from the Provisional Committee of the State Duma and "with a heavy feeling," as he wrote in his diary, signed the abdication manifesto. On the same day, a Provisional Government was formed in Petrograd, which consisted mainly of representatives of the liberal bourgeoisie, but received the support of intellectuals from the leadership of moderate socialist parties - Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) and Social Democrats (Mensheviks).

3. Revolution on the rise: from February to October 1917

So, the Russian Revolution began in February 1917 quite spontaneously, in an atmosphere of general discontent, and at the same time reflected in itself the worldwide social revolutionary processes, exacerbated by the World War, and the civilizational impasse of the tsarist autocracy. Power was seized initially by a coalition of the liberal bourgeoisie and moderate factions of bourgeois revolutionary intellectuals and party functionaries. Since the spring of 1917, the political opposition to it was led by a radical social democratic trend - the Bolshevik Party, headed by V.I. Lenin. Neither the new rulers of Russia, nor their SR-Menshevik allies wanted the revolution in the country to go beyond the industrial-capitalist framework, even if the parties of the socialist persuasion were talking about the transition to socialism in the future. The Russian revolution, from their point of view, was primarily political, not social. Its tasks included not the development of popular self-government, but the creation of a democratic state system through elections to the Constituent Assembly and the adoption of a new constitution. The solution of all major socio-economic issues (including the most important for Russia - the issue of land) should have been postponed until that time.

But in parallel with this political revolution, in which it was, first of all, about who would own state power, a completely different, social revolution was unfolding from below. It began shortly after February 1917. Slogans of workers' control and the socialization of the land were put forward and became more and more popular; the working masses began to implement them from below, in a revolutionary way, without prior notice. New social movements of the working people arose: Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets, Peasant Soviets and Committees (actually, bodies of peasant communities), factory committees, quarter and street committees, and so on. Representatives of parties that tried to take these mass initiatives under their control also took part in them. There were especially many political functionaries in the central, provincial and city bodies of people's self-government. As a result, although the Soviets enjoyed such influence until July 1917 that contemporaries of the events spoke of the existence in the country "dual power," the leadership of the Soviet movement supported the Provisional Government at that time. However, "below" was often dominated by an independent class line, oriented towards anti-capitalist social transformations.