Is there continuity between the Soviet. "red project"

NICHOLAI II Alexandrovich, last Russian Emperor (1894-1917), eldest son of the Emperor Alexandra III Alexandrovich and Empress Maria Feodorovna, honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1876).

His reign coincided with the rapid industrial and economic development of the country. Under Nicholas II, Russia was defeated in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, which was one of the reasons for the Revolution of 1905-1907, during which the Manifesto of October 17, 1905 was adopted, which allowed the creation of political parties and established the State Duma; The Stolypin agrarian reform began to be implemented. In 1907, Russia became a member of the Entente, as part of which it entered the First World War. Since August (September 5), 1915, Supreme Commander-in-Chief. During the February Revolution of 1917, on March 2 (15), he abdicated the throne. Shot along with his family. In 2000 he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Childhood. Education

Nikolai's regular homework began when he was 8 years old. Training program included an eight-year general education course and a five-year course in higher sciences. It was based on a modified classical gymnasium program; instead of Latin and Greek languages mineralogy, botany, zoology, anatomy and physiology were studied. Courses in history, Russian literature and foreign languages ​​were expanded. The cycle of higher education included political economy, law and military affairs (military jurisprudence, strategy, military geography, service of the General Staff). Classes in vaulting, fencing, drawing, and music were also conducted. Alexander III and Maria Feodorovna themselves selected teachers and mentors. Among them were scientists, statesmen and military figures: K. P. Pobedonostsev, N. Kh. Bunge, M. I. Dragomirov, N. N. Obruchev, A. R. Drenteln, N. K. Girs.

Carier start

WITH early years Nikolai felt a passion for military affairs: he knew the traditions of the officer environment and military regulations perfectly, in relation to the soldiers he felt like a patron-mentor and did not shy away from communicating with them, and resignedly endured the inconveniences of army everyday life at camp gatherings or maneuvers.

Immediately after his birth, he was enrolled in the lists of several guards regiments and appointed chief of the 65th Moscow Infantry Regiment. At the age of five he was appointed chief of the Life Guards of the Reserve Infantry Regiment, and in 1875 he was enlisted in the Erivan Life Guards Regiment. In December 1875 he received his first military rank - ensign, and in 1880 he was promoted to second lieutenant, and 4 years later he became a lieutenant.

In 1884, Nikolai entered active military service, in July 1887 he began regular military service in the Preobrazhensky Regiment and was promoted to staff captain; in 1891 Nikolai received the rank of captain, and a year later - colonel.

On the throne

On October 20, 1894, at the age of 26, he accepted the crown in Moscow under the name of Nicholas II. On May 18, 1896, during the coronation celebrations, tragic events occurred on Khodynskoye Field (in the northwestern part of Moscow, at the beginning of modern Leningradsky Prospekt) during the distribution of royal gifts on the occasion of the coronation of Nicholas II. Due to the negligence of the authorities, a stampede occurred; According to official data, 1,389 people were killed and 1,300 were maimed.

His reign occurred during a period of sharp aggravation of the political struggle in the country, as well as the foreign policy situation (Russian-Japanese War of 1904-05; Bloody Sunday; Revolution of 1905-07 in Russia; World War I; February Revolution of 1917).

During the reign of Nicholas, Russia turned into an agrarian-industrial country, cities grew, railways and industrial enterprises were built. Nicholas supported decisions aimed at the economic and social modernization of the country: the introduction of gold circulation of the ruble, Stolypin's agrarian reform, laws on workers' insurance, universal primary education, and religious tolerance.

Not being a reformer by nature, Nikolai was forced to make important decisions that did not correspond to his inner convictions. He believed that in Russia the time had not yet come for a constitution, freedom of speech, and universal suffrage. However, when a strong social movement in favor of political change arose, he signed the Manifesto on October 17, 1905, proclaiming democratic freedoms.

In 1906, the State Duma, established by the Tsar's manifesto, began to work. For the first time in national history The emperor began to rule with a representative body elected by the population. Russia gradually began to transform into constitutional monarchy. But, despite this, the emperor still had enormous power functions: he had the right to issue laws (in the form of decrees); appoint a prime minister and ministers accountable only to him; determine the course of foreign policy; was the head of the army, court and earthly patron of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Personality of Nicholas II

The personality of Nicholas II, the main traits of his character, advantages and disadvantages caused conflicting assessments of his contemporaries. Many noted “weak will” as the dominant feature of his personality, although there is a lot of evidence that the tsar was distinguished by a persistent desire to implement his intentions, often reaching the point of stubbornness (only once was someone else’s will imposed on him - Manifesto of October 17, 1905). Unlike his father Alexander III, Nicholas did not make an impression strong personality. At the same time, according to the reviews of people who knew him closely, he had exceptional self-control, which was sometimes perceived as indifference to the fate of the country and people (for example, he met the news of the fall of Port Arthur or the defeats of the Russian army during the First World War with composure, striking the royal entourage). In dealing with state affairs, the tsar showed “extraordinary perseverance” and accuracy (he, for example, never had a personal secretary and himself stamped letters), although in general the rule of a huge empire was a “heavy burden” for him. Contemporaries noted that Nikolai had a tenacious memory, keen powers of observation, and was a modest, friendly and sensitive person. At the same time, most of all he valued his peace, habits, health and especially the well-being of his family.

Emperor's family

Nicholas's support was his family. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna (nee Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt) was not only a wife for the Tsar, but also a friend and adviser. The habits, ideas and cultural interests of the spouses largely coincided. They got married on November 14, 1894. They had five children: Olga (1895-1918), Tatiana (1897-1918), Maria (1899-1918), Anastasia (1901-1918), Alexey (1904-1918).

The fatal drama of the royal family was associated with the incurable illness of Alexei's son - hemophilia (incoagulability of blood). The illness led to the appearance in the royal house of Grigory Rasputin, who, even before meeting the crowned kings, became famous for his gift of foresight and healing; he repeatedly helped Alexei overcome attacks of illness.

World War I

The turning point in the fate of Nicholas was 1914 - the beginning of the First World War. The tsar did not want war and until the very last moment tried to avoid a bloody clash. However, on July 19 (August 1), 1914, Germany declared war on Russia.

In August (September 5) 1915, during a period of military failures, Nicholas took over military command [previously this position was held by Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (the Younger)]. Now the tsar visited the capital only occasionally, and spent most of his time at the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in Mogilev.

The war exacerbated the country's internal problems. The tsar and his entourage began to be held primarily responsible for military failures and the protracted military campaign. Allegations spread that there was “treason in the government.” At the beginning of 1917, the high military command led by the Tsar (together with allies - England and France) prepared a plan for a general offensive, according to which it was planned to end the war by the summer of 1917.

Abdication of the throne. Execution of the royal family

At the end of February 1917, unrest began in Petrograd, which, without encountering serious opposition from the authorities, a few days later grew into mass protests against the government and the dynasty. Initially, the tsar intended to restore order in Petrograd by force, but when the scale of the unrest became clear, he abandoned this idea, fearing much bloodshed. Some high-ranking military officials, members of the imperial retinue and political figures convinced the king that in order to pacify the country, a change in government was required, his abdication of the throne was necessary. On March 2, 1917, in Pskov, in the lounge carriage of the imperial train, after painful deliberation, Nicholas signed an act of abdication, transferring power to his brother Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, who did not accept the crown.

On March 9, Nicholas and the royal family were arrested. For the first five months they were under guard in Tsarskoe Selo; in August 1917 they were transported to Tobolsk. In April 1918, the Bolsheviks transferred the Romanovs to Yekaterinburg. On the night of July 17, 1918, in the center of Yekaterinburg, in the basement of the Ipatiev house, where the prisoners were imprisoned, Nicholas, the queen, five of their children and several close associates (11 people in total) were shot without trial or investigation. Canonized together with his family by the Russian Church Abroad.

Conference archive

Elitism in Russia

Gelman V.Ya., Tarusina I.G.

STUDYING POLITICAL ELITES IN RUSSIA:

PROBLEMS AND ALTERNATIVES

Until the end of the 1980s, the field of elite studies (both theoretical and empirical research) remained a “forbidden zone” in Russian social sciences. Although the problematic itself was well known to scientists (for example, Charles Wright Mills's The Power Elite was published back in 1959), the use of elite theories was limited to “criticism of non-Marxist concepts.” Today the situation looks exactly the opposite. Beginning in 1989, when a sector for the study of elites was created at the Institute of Sociology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, elite studies began to develop rapidly and were soon institutionalized. The term “elite” itself became a key word not only in scientific but also in political discourse: dozens of books and hundreds of articles were written, dissertations were defended, conferences and seminars were held, training courses were taught and textbooks on “elitetology” were published. Thus, from a quantitative point of view, the study of elites as a new branch of political research is much more developed in Russia than, for example, comparative political science or political economy.

But how can we evaluate this growth from a qualitative point of view? Have new theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches been proposed? Has the acquisition of new data led to the development of a research agenda consistent with current international standards? The article examines various aspects of these problems through the prism of analyzing modern trends in the study of political elites in Russia (issues of studying cultural and scientific elites are beyond the scope of this work). We will begin by discussing the institutional aspects of the development of elite studies in Russia and then move on to the two main problematic dimensions in this area - stratification and transitological studies. We conclude by summarizing advances and gaps in the study of elites in Russia and presenting some thoughts on the future development of the research agenda.

Development of research: scientists, institutes, works

In the early 1990s, there was a fundamental turn of Russian social researchers towards the study of elites as such, and various aspects of the influence of elites on political, economic, and social processes in Russia . The reasons for this turn were both academic and non-academic in nature. First of all, the elites became the most important actors in the process of transformation in Russia, especially after the wave of political mobilization and activity of social movements of the period 1989-1991 faded. Following this, Russian scientists, in search of understanding new trends, shifted the focus of their scientific interests from the level of mass politics to the level of political elites. At the same time, changes in the academic infrastructure - the lack of government funding for social research and the emergence of opportunities for cooperation with Western researchers and foundations - have increased the value of elite studies in the market for scientific products. The current demand for current information about elites and its analysis (directories, databases, etc.) has also increased. At the same time, the Russian scientific community was (and partly remains) exposed to the politicization and commercialization of the research process. Significant number specialists acted not only and not so much as scientists, but as political observers, advisers, organizers and/or participants in election campaigns. It is therefore not surprising that their works often reflected the political preferences or interests of their clients. Finally, as one Moscow sociologist noted, researching the elite is the best way to join it.

The infrastructure for studying elites in Russia reflects the contradictory trends in the development of social sciences in Russia as a whole. Groups of researchers and individual scientists can vary widely in both their backgrounds and institutional affiliations. They can be classified as follows:

1) Permanent units within the institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences or higher educational institutions.

2) Temporary teams of project participants conducting research on the basis of certain institutions and often including specialists from different institutions.

3) Non-academic teams and individual researchers from think tanks, media, and government agencies working in this area.

Although special units for the study of elites within the RAS were limited to the sector of elite studies at the Institute of Sociology (headed by Olga Kryshtanovskaya), individual or group projects on this issue were implemented at IMEMO, IMEPI, INION, IEA and a number of other RAS institutes in Moscow, and also at the St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Things are more complicated in higher education educational institutions, since their scientific activities are secondary compared to educational ones. However, individual and group research projects were started at a number of universities throughout Russia, although in many regions they were primarily local in nature. The problem of studying elites, in particular, is the focus of attention of the Russian Academy civil service and its structures in the regions of Russia.

Temporary research project teams, including researchers from various institutions, are a relatively new phenomenon in Russian social sciences, reflecting changes in the system of funding social research. First of all, the participation of Russian researchers in some comparative cross-national research projects required the involvement of specialists from various areas scientific knowledge. An example here is a comparative study of the elites of Poland, Hungary and Russia, conducted under the direction of Ivan Szelenyi. The Russian part of the project was carried out by VTsIOM, whose specialists conducted both a large survey of elites and data analysis. Other groups were organized around projects financed by Russian foundations, such as a project of interviews with representatives of Russian elites conducted in 1992-1993 by a group of specialists from the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Employment Problems. However, instability of funding and organizational problems made these collectives highly unstable, and upon completion of the projects, they tended to disband, and their members moved on to other individual or collective projects.

Finally, non-academic projects, groups and individual researchers in a given field also vary greatly in their objectives and forms of work. Some of them are widely known, such as the Panorama information and research center, which has created a number of biographical and other databases and reference books about the national and regional elites of Russia. While Panorama's products are commercial in nature, public attention is drawn to projects of a public nature, an example of which is the project "100 Politicians of Russia", carried out since 1993 by the sociological service "Vox Populi" under the leadership of Boris Grushin. Monthly publications in " Nezavisimaya Gazeta"Based on surveys of several dozen Moscow political observers, journalists and other experts, they demonstrated the dynamics of the political influence of leading politicians on the current situation in Russia. The results of these surveys were used as a valuable source for analyzing trends in Russian elites.

The number of conferences and seminars, both on problems of Russian politics in general and specifically devoted to the study of elites, has increased significantly over the past decade. The most notable series of seminars dedicated to post-communist elites (mainly in Russia, but also including analysis of a number of CIS countries) was conducted in 1996-1999 by the Moscow Public Science Foundation (MOSF) with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (Germany). Five workshops were attended by researchers from different regions Russia and the CIS countries, as well as a number of Western specialists.

Leading Russian journals on political sciences (Polis, Vlast, Pro et Contra), sociology (Sociological Research, Sociological Journal), as well as interdisciplinary journals (Social Sciences and Modernity, World Economy and international relations”, “World of Russia”) published many articles by Russian authors, as well as a number of translations of modern Western elite researchers (Mattei Dogan, John Higley, Giovanni Sartori, David Lane), and even the classic works of Gaetano Mosca. However, while classic works on the study of communist elites are widely known in Russia, the use of modern Western works in Russian research practice is still limited. This is partly due to problems of access to English-language literature (especially in Russian regions) and the lack of language knowledge among a number of Russian political scientists. Thus, a popular textbook on social stratification includes a special chapter on elite studies, which briefly analyzes the work of Pareto, Mosca, Michels, Laswell, Mills, as well as Djilas and Voslensky. However, this chapter's review of theoretical developments in this field of knowledge concludes with an analysis of the debate between American elitists and pluralists (Floyd Hunter, Robert Dahl, etc.) about the distribution of power in local communities in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Topics and Perspectives

Thematic diversification in Russian elite studies is determined both by the scientific interests of scientists and by external restrictions. The latter, including funding problems, priorities of international and Russian funds, career opportunities, lack of information about the latest theoretical and methodological advances in this area of ​​research and lack of scientific literature, play the most significant role in the development of the cognitive process. Somewhat coarsening the classification, we can identify three thematic areas in the study of elites by Russian specialists: 1) historical studies of elites; 2) studies of all-Russian elites; 3) research of regional elites. All three areas are very poorly correlated with each other, partly due to the difference in the genesis of specialists in their respective fields. If the first direction is the priority area of ​​interest for historians, then studies of all-Russian elites were carried out mainly by sociologists, and regional elites attracted the attention of a limited number of Moscow specialists (mainly, although not only, geographers) and researchers living in the corresponding regions. Each of these communities tends to use the concepts, methodology, and techniques inherent in their “native” disciplines, and rarely exchange or borrow ideas from other communities. It is not surprising that ten years later these three sources of research on Russian elites have not yet become the basis of the three components of this field of research, in the spirit of the title of Vladimir Lenin's famous work on Marxism. It is difficult to say, however, to what extent this trend is long-term and universal for Russian political science, or whether it is a temporary phenomenon reflecting the general problems of the formation of political research in Russia.

Historical studies of elites, primarily focus on interpretations of the history of Soviet ruling elites in terms of patterns of power and social mobility. Historians have analyzed various aspects of the genesis of the Soviet nomenclature, as well as the circumstances of the emergence and development of this phenomenon. Other historical studies have paid attention to the dynamics of the composition of the ruling groups of Soviet society in the late 1930s or 1960–1980s. Although these well-documented studies contain a lot of interesting quantitative (and sometimes qualitative) data, their authors consider to a lesser extent the socio-political explanations of the formation of the Soviet elite and the preconditions for its transformation in the post-Soviet period, with the exception of some general comments. It should be noted, however, that along with the analysis of documents and archival materials, some works devoted to the Soviet elites of the late Soviet period, use oral history methods, such as a study of the career mobility trajectories of former first secretaries of district committees of the CPSU in Moscow after August 1991.

While historical research based on documented data is sometimes overly descriptive, in contrast, there are some attempts at macro-historical explanations of the role of elites in the history of Russian society. Thus, some works rethink and reinterpret the experience of the elites of the Soviet period. For example, Dmitry Badovsky, in his analysis of the late Soviet elite, distinguishes its “political” and “managerial” segments (i.e., the party apparatus vs. bureaucracy and top managers) and traces the sources of differentiation that undermined the unity of the Soviet elite and forced Soviet leaders to maintain a balance interests of various elite groups. This complexity of intra-elite relations, according to Badovsky, played a significant role in the transformation of post-Soviet elites, contributing to the emergence of intra-elite conflicts during perestroika, and later - the continuity of informal network connections between elites and the relationship between elites and the masses. Similar interpretations have been proposed by some other researchers.

Also worthy of attention is the desire of some Russian researchers to trace the characteristics of the development of elites in the broad perspective of Russian history over the centuries. The study of Oksana Gaman-Golutvina is indicative in this regard. The author identifies as the main feature of the elites in various periods of Russian history their close relationship with the state, which they consider more like a “calling” (in the Weberian sense) than simply civil or military service. The author connects this emphasis on the statist nature of Russian elites with the general framework approach, analyzing the mobilization model of Russia's development as the main explanation for the process of succession of elites that inherit the traditions of autocracy, statism and collectivism. It is characteristic that she does not distinguish between the elite as a social group and persons performing managerial functions in the structure of the state.

An alternative historical explanation for the undemocratic nature of the development of Russian elites and Russian politics in general was presented in an interpretative study of clientelism in Russia by Mikhail Afanasyev. The author not only applied this analytical concept to analyze the history of the relationship between the elites and the masses in Russia, but also extended his approach to studying the role of patronage-clientelism ties in the Soviet period as a mechanism of social adaptation on the part of the masses and a mechanism of control on the part of the elites. According to Afanasyev, within the Soviet political and economic system, both local communities and manufacturing enterprises functionally needed to create parochial or sectoral mass clienteles, thus creating latent grounds for the establishment of such practices in the post-Soviet elite. This form of “nomenklatura quasi-corporatism” was preserved and strengthened in the post-Soviet period as the only model of political structuring of society based on vertical patronage-clientelist ties. This concept, which has become recognized among Russian researchers, is a rare example of successful interdisciplinary integration, which has contributed to an interesting rethinking of the role of elites in modern Russian history.

Studies of national elites in Russia, as probably in general, studies of elites in transforming societies can be divided into two different types or, more precisely, problematic dimensions. To the first of them we can include stratification studies, the focus of which is the analysis of elites as such. They view elites as a distinct social group (or stratum) and focus on their specific characteristics, such as composition, mobility (genesis, recruitment, career trajectories), relationships with other social groups, and, finally, values ​​and attitudes. In other words, various sociological theories and methods are applied in these studies to answer the classic social science questions “Who rules?” and “Who gets what, when and how?” The second dimension of research is devoted to the analysis of the influence of elites on the processes of transformation of the political regime in Russia. Therefore, this measurement can be characterized as transitological studies, in which the continuity and variability of elites are considered within the framework of the prospects for democratization or other consequences of a change in political regime. Despite the fact that both dimensions of the study of elites in Russia are closely related, they are based on different theoretical premises and methodological approaches. These aspects of research deserve special attention.

The largest projects on the study of national elites were carried out in 1993-1994 by two groups of researchers. The first was implemented by VTsIOM as part of the already mentioned cross-national comparative project and still remains one of the largest all-Russian quantitative studies of elites. The empirical basis of the project consisted of standard formalized interviews with 1,812 representatives of political, economic, administrative and intellectual elites in nineteen regions of Russia. The sample was equally divided between representatives of the “old” elite (who occupied elite positions in 1988) and the “new” elite (who occupied elite positions in 1993). The study focused on the genesis and trajectories of elite career mobility in the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods, as well as analysis of the economic status and professional activity representatives of the “old” and “new” elites. The second project, carried out by a team led by Konstantin Mikulsky, used qualitative data collection methods. The study was based on an analysis of 67 semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with representatives of political, economic, administrative, intellectual and regional elites. In these interviews, informants presented their views on the processes of political and economic development post-communist Russia and their prospects. Unfortunately, although the study made available data on the attitudes and orientations of Russian elites, the interpretation of these data was limited. As a result, as often happens in studies of this kind, the interview texts themselves turned out to be more interesting than their analysis.

Some other empirical studies have focused on specific segments of the political elite at the national level, for example, surveys of deputies of the upper and lower houses of the Russian parliament. Due to the insignificant influence of military elites on Russian politics in the 1990s (and also, in part, due to the limited access of researchers to the field in this environment), Mills’ classic triad of “political - economic - military elite” is practically not used in Russian studies elite On the contrary, the relationship between political and economic elites and the mechanisms of their interactions have become the subject of a number of studies in the post-Soviet period. However, there are still too few empirically oriented works in Russia devoted to the analysis of the role of elites in the adoption processes political decisions, including institution-building or foreign policy. Finally, the study of the political culture of Russian national elites has not become a priority area of ​​research, although some attitudes of the elites in relation to current political processes have also been analyzed.

Studies of regional elites became a rapidly developing field of study in the mid-1990s, following the development of regionalization processes in Russia. For a number of researchers working outside the Moscow Ring Road, conducting empirical research on the material of their own regions, in fact, was the only available way of scientific work in the conditions of a crisis of funding and scientific infrastructure. In other words, regional studies of regional elites have become a kind of “political science for the poor.” Studies of individual regional cases (case studies) turned out to be the main cognitive tool of regional authors, although this method was also used by metropolitan researchers. Often, the work of regional researchers largely repeated similar conclusions of their metropolitan colleagues or were of a purely descriptive nature, not to mention demonstrating various kinds of nonsense. At the same time, some works by regional researchers present interesting observations and conclusions about the development trends of Russian regional elites. Thus, the Ufa author Rushan Gallyamov, based on the results of a longitudinal reputation analysis, came to the conclusion about the two most significant processes in the development of elites in the Republic of Bashkortostan: “ethatization” and “ethnocratization” (that is, a sharp increase in the share of government officials and ethnic Bashkirs in the republican elite ) . It is characteristic that, although the observations made by Midhat Farukshin on the material of the neighboring republic of Tatarstan are similar to these conclusions, comparative studies of the elites of these two republics still remain a reserve on the research agenda.

Limited funding is an important, but not the only reason for the lack of comparative cross-regional studies of political elites in Russia. No less significant is the fact that the creation and maintenance of permanent research networks of Russian researchers (especially those working outside Moscow) requires, among other things, the formation of unified theoretical and methodological approaches, as well as the development of a common scientific language and standards for conducting research, while that the genesis and scientific orientations of scientists working in the field of studying political elites sometimes differ quite significantly. However, the few attempts at comparative studies of regional elites look very interesting. Thus, Arbakhan Magomedov from Ulyanovsk conducted an in-depth study of the political attitudes of the elites of four regions of Russia (Tatarstan, Kalmykia, Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod regions) in order to compare the phenomenon he called “ideology of regionalism”. The author conducted approximately 190 in-depth interviews with representatives of the political and administrative elites of these regions and analyzed the data he collected using methodological frameworks developed by Robert Putnam. His interpretations of the research results undermine widespread stereotypes about the opposition between “reformist” elites in some regions and “conservative” elites in other cases. At the same time, Magomedov’s conclusions, as well as the generalizations he made, do not go beyond the fact that in the cases of the ethnic republics of Russia, the “ideology of regionalism” among the elites was more developed and manifested itself more visibly than in the cases of the regions. Moreover, the author refrained from causal explanations of the phenomena of the political culture of regional elites that he identified.

Natalya Lapina, in her comparative cross-regional study of the relationships between regional political and economic elites (based on in-depth interviews and detailed analysis of secondary sources), proposed a typology of interactions between political and economic elites in Russian regions. She introduced models such as “patronage”, “partnership”, “privatization of power” and “war of all against all”. A typology similar in content was the result of our research. At the same time, however, cross-regional comparisons of elites based on qualitative methods of data collection (comparative case studies) pose a number of methodological problems for researchers caused by the small number of cases studied and the difficulties of generalization. Theoretical questions related to “conceptual tensions” at various levels of abstraction also remain open. However, the use of quantitative data on regional elites, mainly obtained using a positional (institutional) approach, is not always convincingly explained, although in recent years the situation has been changing in this regard. And although in general the study of regional elites is still dominated by descriptive works, as research data accumulates, their cognitive value becomes exhausted.

Theory and methodology

Speaking about the theoretical framework for the study of elites in Russia, it must be emphasized that in this regard, Russian researchers tend to follow the basic, mainly classical models developed in the social sciences, applying a wide range of middle-range theories and empirical approaches. The functional approach to defining elites clearly and quite justifiably prevails among Russian researchers. Some authors directly borrow operational definitions, for example, of the “power elite” according to Mills or criteria for identifying elites based on the principle of participation in decision-making according to Higley. Other researchers have developed their own definitions and concepts in the spirit of the functional approach. Perhaps the only exception is Yuri Levada, who acts as an active proponent of the meritocratic approach to the study of elites in Russia. According to Levada, social groups that claim to be the “elite” in modern Russia, in fact, only present themselves in this way in the eyes of public opinion. Thus, he distinguishes between the “public elite” (who demonstrate their desire to appear like the “real” elite) and the “social elite” (who offer new practices, attitudes and behaviors to society). In this regard, Levada focuses his analysis on representatives of the new professional elite, to which he includes top managers, highly qualified specialists, experts, and representatives of other social environments. As a curiosity, one can also note the meritocratic criticism of the legality of the very use of the term “elite” in Russia, the argument of which was the author’s negative assessments of the qualities of leading Russian politicians and entrepreneurs and the political regime as a whole.

Typologies of elites in the works of Russian authors are mainly based on functional characteristics various segments of elites - ideological, administrative, military, economic and political elites, as well as national and regional elites and/or elites vs. counter-elites. If we talk about elites in terms of social stratification, then researchers defined elites as “strata” or “ruling class”. The criteria for identifying elites during the process of changing the political regime in Russia caused many difficulties. Most researchers accepted the positional (or institutional) criterion as the main one as the most reliable when studying a transforming society, although in some studies (the mentioned Vox Populi project and others) reputational criteria were also used. Finally, theoretical models of elite transformation - from the classical model of “lions” and “foxes” (Pareto) to modern “elite agreements” (Higley and others) have also been successfully used by modern Russian elite researchers.

Methodological problems in the study of Russian elites are typical for Russian political science. First of all, a significant part of publications, especially those published in the early 1990s, was (and partly remains) largely dependent on the political and/or commercial interests of authors, clients and sponsors, while researchers did not strive to give their research an academic character . In addition, Russian social sciences (including political ones) are increasingly characterized by a tendency towards the predominance of qualitative methodology, often in its anti-positivist version. The development of this kind of qualitative research, in addition, is facilitated by the lack of funding and the crisis of the infrastructure of social sciences in the RAS system and in higher educational institutions. All these factors are reflected in studies of political elites in Russia.

The works of Russian authors devoted to the study of elites use generally accepted methods of data collection and processing: analysis of documents, primarily biographies of elite representatives, as well as semi-structured in-depth interviews. In turn, questions of methodology are closely related to the problems of research design, data reliability, the possibilities of their interpretation and comparison with each other, which have not yet become the subject of academic reflection in the Russian scientific community. In addition, poor coordination of research both within the country and between foreign researchers largely contributes to the inaccessibility of field data and/or their commercial use, which makes it difficult for outsiders, especially young scientists, to access information. In this regard, the cognitive value of a number of empirical studies is questionable. Finally, the lack of comparative studies of Russian elites hinders the development of the cognitive process in this field of knowledge.

Who rules? Continuity and variability of Russian elites

Analysis of the processes of circulation and/or reproduction of elites during a period of radical political changes, naturally, has become a priority area of ​​interest for modern Russian elite researchers. It is not surprising that many of the works published in the 1990s reflected both current trends in political change and the obvious dissatisfaction of some researchers with their nature and direction. One of the most popular explanations for the failures of the transformation process in Russia associated the results of the transition with an insignificant change in the old elites and the high level of reproduction of the former Soviet nomenklatura in the post-Soviet period. This became a significant difference between the transformation of elites in Russia and a number of countries of Eastern Europe. Thus, the results of various studies in the mid-1990s demonstrated the continuity of the former elites compared to the late 1980s: from 50-60% in the field of business and entrepreneurship to 80-85% for regional political and administrative elites. However, explanations for this fact and its consequences for Russian elites varied. Thus, Vadim Radaev explained this U-shaped turn in the reproduction of elites after the removal of the former ruling party from power, using the concept of “revolution” and the subsequent post-revolutionary syndrome. He used Vilfredo Pareto's classic dichotomy (“lions” vs. “foxes”) to analyze the two stages of transformation of Russian elites. At the first stage, according to Radaev, there was a recruitment into the elite of recruits - “raznochintsy”, focused on power strategies, while the second stage demonstrated the partial return of compromise-oriented representatives of the former elites, professional skills and whose skills were in demand in the routine management of the post-revolutionary period. But this view, however, has not become dominant in Russian studies of elites.

On the contrary, VTsIOM researchers who participated in a cross-national study of elites under the leadership of Selenya noted that such a phenomenon of “political capitalism” is common feature a number of post-communist societies. At the same time, independently of them, Olga Kryshtanovskaya presented her own model of transformation of the nomenklatura using a double conversion of the former privileged political status into economically privileged positions during the perestroika period, and then into a return to political power in the post-Soviet period. The approach that explains the failures of the transformation process by the successful conversion of the status of the former elite turned out to be popular not only among researchers, but also became widespread at the public level, among liberal politicians, publicists and journalists. Since Yuri Burtin and Grigory Vodolazov described the new political and economic order in Russia as, respectively, "nomenklatura democracy" and "nomenklatura capitalism", the impact of the legacy of "nomenklatura" has been widely debated publicly in various contexts. Some authors have even characterized the post-Soviet elite in Russia as a whole as a “post-nomenklatura conglomerate.” Kryshtanovskaya and her colleagues presented a lot of evidence that the basis of the Russian entrepreneurial layer was made up of people from the nomenklatura of the CPSU and related organizations (Komsomol, etc.), although this conclusion is not fully confirmed by the results of a number of other studies of Russian entrepreneurship. Dense informal networks of the post-communist nomenklatura, according to Kryshtanovskaya, largely facilitated the transformation of the Soviet elite into a post-Soviet oligarchy based on the close intertwining of the political and economic segments of the elite. The thesis of the Russian elite as an “oligarchy” - with clearly negative connotations - was quite popular in the late 1990s, although there was no clear predominance of any one political-financial group, but rather their fragmentation. Kryshtanovskaya even outlined as the basis for the formation of an oligarchy in Russia a kind of merger of the old nomenklatura with new groups of organized crime, although in Russia in the 1990s it was difficult to distinguish between state power and organized crime.

Despite the widespread concept of reproduction and continuity

One day, an article by M. Khazin was published in the Profile magazine, in which he raised a very important question: “Russia - both as a country and as a society - is in an extremely difficult situation today. This is due to at least two main reasons. The first is that we are so and were unable to determine the place of the Soviet period in our history. On the one hand, there is fierce hatred for this period among those who today have at their disposal the wealth created at that time, on the other hand, nostalgia among those who have lost the opportunities that were then . For example, potential mechanisms for the entry of new people into the elite, since socialist elevators of vertical mobility were destroyed and new, capitalist ones were not created. An additional factor that intensifies this problem is the fierce hatred of socialism based on panic fear, which is nourished by many of our Western “partners”, who transfer this hatred (and will continue to transfer it for a long time) to all of Russia in general and to its current government in particular. Especially if this power shows at least minimal independence in actions." Without proper attention to this issue, it is not possible to talk about the elite; it will too often become a watershed in relations. We need a coordinated position, or a position that can be challenged. I will express my opinion .

The history of Russia differs from the history of other countries in one thing. By its nature, Russian history is often anti-dialectical. Those. where the power of dialectics ends, the power of God begins. Considering the history of Russia outside of Christ, and outside of His Church, is not a rewarding task. And even when Russia abandoned Him, He did not abandon Russia. I think for the sake of those saints who, without ceasing, pray for Russia, Orthodox Russia. From this point of view, I would like to express my attitude towards the USSR.

I want to start with the collapse of the USSR, which for me, as for any Russian who remained abroad, is one of the most tragic moments in life. However, the more I return to it, the more convinced I am that the only possible correct event happened. If anyone still has the brochures “USSR in Figures and Facts,” they can read that the Republic of Ukraine, part of the USSR, compensated for its negative balance in energy resources (in trade with the RSFSR) with a positive balance in the supply of industrial products, including consumer goods. It didn’t just compensate, it had a positive balance! Much was said and written then about the replacement of technologies, about the need for investments, which seemed to be missing. As I understand now, the technologies were not that old, but we need to talk about investments separately. There were domestic investments, and they were very large. As soon as signs of “liberalization” of the economy appeared, boxes of money and gold buried in the gardens of “farmers” in Central Asia and the Caucasus began to be uncorked. Naturally, no one planned to buy oil; everyone understood that this was the prerogative of the state, and at those prices and the general tariff policy there was no need. It is much more profitable to invest in consumer goods, in the consumer market. Fortunately, it was not small, and also empty, and included half of Europe, if not half the world. Ukraine became the most attractive investment platform. Both in terms of the concentration of consumer goods production and in terms of safety. In Ukraine, in the spirit of that time, a group of people appeared who understood all the benefits of such a situation. These are managers and leaders of large enterprises in the east of the country, more precisely, Dnepropetrovsk, who have felt free since Brezhnev times. They understood that investments, under the current conditions, would go where there was the greatest concentration of producers. In Dnepropetrovsk, “concerns” and “associations” began to grow like mushrooms. The names “Asia”, “Baku”, etc. were full of names. The first banks began to appear. There was a threat of displacement of the financial center of the USSR.

A new elite began to form, or, as will be shown below, a well-forgotten old one. Her main task was to join the party elite. A big misconception is the thesis about the complete backwardness of the USSR economy. We have been living in this “backwardness” for more than 20 years, and we are not the last country in the world. Ideology was also not a problem, as time has shown, all these democrats turned out to be extremely corrupt guys. More convincing is the opinion that the party elite lacked “young blood” and energy. But nevertheless, the party did not agree to an alliance with the new elite. Let such a statement seem strange and unconvincing. But still. Actions began that surprised even people knowledgeable at the time. An order came from Moscow to the KGB of Ukraine, which actually stopped the “development” of nationalists and dissidents. Leapfrog also began in the Central Committee of Ukraine; within a year the way was cleared for people, as they correctly say, “scale-free.” Some went to work as Gorbachev's deputy in Moscow, others went to other jobs. The fate of the chairman of the KGB of Ukraine is interesting, it seems the surname Galushko. He strangely disappeared, and then somehow strangely appeared in Yeltsin’s decree 1401 of September 20, 1993, as the new head of the FSB service, and after the execution of V.S., he just as quietly disappeared. Why, at such a moment, did he receive such a position? For the secession of Ukraine? There were many other actions, the logic of which is explainable either from the point of view. preparation of camber, or with t.z. insanity. And most importantly, it is difficult to believe that Ukraine could secede on its own. Just as the hand cannot separate from the body. Now the question is - why did the party elite commit an act very similar to suicide? To do this, you need to trace the history of this elite, but it is not so short. But at the beginning, in defense of the party elite, I want to say what the collapse of the USSR did not lead to.

At first glance, it is not clear what the party nomenclature, the Uzbek bai and the Dnepropetrovsk Jew could not agree on. There are much more benefits. A “real” community emerges: the Soviet people, or for now the elite. It is not difficult to form a consumer society from the people themselves. Fortunately, Orthodoxy is just being revived. The sense of national dignity has been eradicated. And all this against the background of the absence of shocks. This will lead to a global crisis, just the opposite. America, which has been living on debt since 1968, would be the first to fail. The banking system would move to the USSR. There is nothing surprising. After the collapse of the USSR, socialism was able to completely move into the Democratic Party of America. Of course, it’s a bit of a stretch, but nothing is impossible. Only one thing is unpleasant. We stop identifying ourselves as Russians, not to mention Orthodox.

There is no doubt for me that the USSR was destroyed by Moscow. However, when I peer into the faces of those historical figures: Gorbachev, Yeltsin, smaller figures Shakhrai, Burbulis, Gaidar - I cannot believe that behind these mask-like, necrophilic, faces from Easter Island, there is History. It is easier to assume that the collapse of the USSR occurred on an unconscious, instinctive level, and then my consciousness connected the events into one logical sequence. I am closer to the understanding that this event is anti-dialectical. Otherwise, we must admit that there is a group of very strong and smart people behind this. However, one does not interfere with the other. And one more thing, the party elite had reasons not to unite. Historical background. And here's what.

1613 is undoubtedly the triumph of the Russian national idea. This is the result of more than a century of understanding the imperial idea: “Moscow is the third Rome.” Not just comprehension, but the degeneration of the Russian state, its transformation into an Empire. The main driving idea in this rebirth was the Tsarist power and Orthodoxy.

Therefore, 1613 is a logical result historical events, which finally formed the Great Russian nation. Where the elite and the people were internally spiritually united. The basis of the unification was the Orthodox faith, and in state building, Imperial thinking, based on the same Orthodox worldview. Imperial thinking is something without which no real state can exist. Imperial thinking is the unification of the elite and the people around their own worldview, including the defense of this worldview. This is an understanding of the mysticism of power and its movement from top to bottom, and not vice versa. This led to the development of subsequent events. They were dizzying. This is what happens over the next 50 years. I'm just listing. During the years of hard times and anarchy, neither Kazan, nor Astrakhan, nor the Siberian Khanate were separated from Russia. Russia, through tough diplomacy, stopped Persia's expansion into the North Caucasus, took an oath from the Caucasian princes, annexed lands from the Turukhansk region to the seaside, reasoned with the Yakuts and stopped the Manchus. She moved the abatis from the Oka to the Black Sea steppes, swore in the Donets and Cossacks, annexed Kyiv and Chernigov, and returned Smolensk. She transferred the majority of nomadic peoples to an agricultural economic system. It was extremely difficult to simply digest such an array of changes in the mind, and this had to be ensured ideologically, legislatively and administratively. If the Moscow Kingdom saw itself as a direct heir Kievan Rus, Ivan 111 wrote about this directly to his son-in-law Alexander of Litovsky, the latter did not object. And through this heredity she saw herself as the successor of the vanished Rome. Then the new Russia was forced to recognize itself as the direct heir to most of Genghis Khan’s empire.

And this increases the complexity of the system by an order of magnitude. The peoples in the Mongolian ulus lived according to the Great Yasa, which ensured the normal coexistence of peoples with different religious and social systems. It contained another imperial idea - autocracy. Russian chroniclers called the Golden Horde khans Tsars. This one word neutralizes all subsequent opuses about the bloody Golden Horde yoke. However, the king, or khan, was the owner of the entire ulus, the entire power. It's not Roman. In Rus', this came from the Mongols, through the issuance of labels to princes. Before this, the princes were not the owners of their land. The most convincing confirmation of this is the pre-Mongol, ladder law, succession to the throne of the Kyiv and then Vladimir princes. That is, the peoples of the former Mongol uluses (the lands of not only the Dzhuchev ulus were included), accepting the citizenship of the Tsar, simultaneously recognized him as the owner of the entire land. This is the second imperial idea, autocratic, inherited by the Moscow Kingdom.

Two imperial ideas in one country are successfully reflected on its coat of arms. And this gave New Russia extraordinary external stability. But it also intensified internal problems doubly. Like any idea, and imperial ones are no exception, there is a flip side to the coin, “without a crown.” This is what world history stands on. The Roman idea was the first to crack. The fact is that the year 1613 summed up the Russian Orthodox nation, and as was written above, the process of formation of the Russian people began, which included more and more other peoples, including. and not the Orthodox, but the Russian Kingdom became the only patron of the Orthodox ecumene. As happens when a system becomes more complex, its stability is disrupted. Problems have arisen. Imperial thinking is always born within the framework of one nation, but most of all it does not tolerate these frameworks and outgrows them. And this is a conflict. And due to the fact that its basis was the Orthodox worldview, the conflict affected the Church.

A split arose. A contradiction arose between national consciousness and imperial thinking, which required the destruction of national frameworks. The split is an attempt at triumph national uniform over imperial content. An attempt to contrast the “New Jerusalem” (the idea of ​​the Old Believers) with the fallen “Rome”. Confront through your own sacrifice. It was an attempt to recreate the “high” world from the “low” one, without the participation of God. Accept Grace as Law. The Metropolitan of Ilorin was not there, and the people were lost. Although the schism did not affect the dogmas of faith, it later became the ideological basis of apostasy, and is directly related to the year 17 and 91. With a fairly frequent division of the schism into groups, the main one was priestlessness. The development of their ideas led to the following theses (the theses are based on the book by Archpriest G. Florovsky “The Ways of Russian Theology”). There are three of them:

1. The Tsar is the forerunner of the Antichrist, therefore he must be destroyed.

2. Since the Tsar is the forerunner of the Antichrist and he is also the patron of the Orthodox churches, then there is no Grace in the Church, and they must be closed and destroyed.

3. You can be saved without the sacraments in one way - through hard, exhausting, everyday work, without any indulgences.

The worst thing is that the Old Believers replaced the sacrifice of Christ with the victim of their own murder. The Church cannot exist on such a substitution. But the state is the opposite. The basis of every state is sacrificial blood. The idea of ​​a “fair state” came into people’s consciousness through sacrifice.

Subsequently, this idea was accepted by the Russian people and significantly improved. If the Old Believers saw the material world as desecrated, and carried within them the idea of ​​suicide as the liberation of the soul from this world, then the rebellious Russian people wanted, on the contrary, through the willful, ascetic immersion of the soul into the body, to create Paradise on earth. Not just to immerse, but to animate the body and the whole world, to bring into it a particle of the cosmos. However, he arrogantly desired to create this, without the participation of God. But why did the people accept this idea, and why did it become a stumbling block for them, a little later. And the last thing. The elite consisted of very ancient noble families, willingly or unwillingly, tied to national thinking.

Peter, in a very unique way, but he still solved these problems. He secularized the church and created a new elite. I will dwell on two points. The new elite was overwhelmingly Protestant in spirit, but for more than 200 years it faithfully served the Orthodox state. The same with the Church, it did not become Anglican. I think this happened because the state was founded as a defender of the Orthodox faith. This is the impulse given at the birth of the state, and until it dried up, the state found the strength to subordinate everyone to this task. Although this is not convincing. Rather, there is an anti-dialectic at work here, as I wrote about above. And the thought of an impulse simply logically connects with the further narrative.

But this is not the main problem. With the state secularization of the Church, the people unwittingly begin to transfer some aspects of religious life to the state. The state, such concepts as consolation, bliss, justice, becoming the highest authority for the people, involuntarily gives hope and realization in this life. Such expectations, in the form of unrealistic hopes, sooner or later begin to lead people to disappointment. Therefore, with the strengthening of statehood, as its reverse side, Old Believer thought and word spread across the vast expanses of Russia. Also, the elite did not set the best example.

This is where the Old Believer ideology falls into such a breakdown of the Russian soul. At first, not as an alternative to faith, but rather as its volitional continuation, action. The only obstacle remains the king. There is also faith among the people that they were appointed by God, and this is serious. The elite themselves will solve this problem.

The Old Believer ideology, in itself, is extremely spontaneous, it is a “crazy and merciless rebellion.” But unfortunately for Russia, she encountered a similar ideology, which gave direction. This is the Khazar ideology. This is the other side of the coin, already another imperial idea, the Great Yasa, in Russian - Autocracy. It is opposed by the old ideology, which is based on Judaism, and certain ambitions of the elites of the outlying peoples. This is a fascination with the Judaism of other peoples, a love for one’s own destruction. This is an oligarchic idea with fairly pronounced non-Orthodox, biblical goals. This is a rejection of autocracy as a condition for the equality of peoples. Refusal as revenge. Refusal of national elites from their own peoples in favor of some future “autocrat”. Refusal as Law. An oligarchy, and even more so a financial oligarchy, always feels the incompleteness of its formation, incompleteness in the manifest world, a certain continuity that must end with the “final figure”, who actually owns the entire financial pyramid.

In the 19th century, these meanings, denying the Imperial idea, united. The common platform for their unification was the idea of ​​the class struggle of Marx and Engels. Firstly, because the idea of ​​class struggle was superficial for both ideological movements, and did not reflect their deep religious content, allowing them to be outwardly not contradictory. Secondly, it had the minimum required concepts for state building, in the form of a “red project” opposing the Autocracy of Tsarist Rus'. There is one significant difference. The Khazar ideology does not need heaven on earth, but the coming of the messiah. In the future, this will result in a difference in goals. Because in the latter case, the goal is to change the Orthodox consciousness not only as a faith, but also as a behavioral stereotype, including the Old Believer. However, in the last 20-30 years before the revolution, the two ideologies became so indistinguishable that the Old Believer merchants financed the Khazar element, without seeing the difference, to their destruction.

In 17, three forces were formed in Russia. The first are part of the elite, the monarchists are the Black Hundreds, who were the last spark of 300 summer story. After the king's abdication, they disappeared and no longer played an independent role. Actually, the elite, already burdened by the king, and personified in the Masonic brotherhood and Protestant worldview. And also the future, small Khazar-Bolshevik force, the dialectical shoulder of which rested on the future Old Believer-Soviet mass, a potentially critical mass of the Russian rebellion, hundreds of times stronger than all other forces. The momentum of three hundred years of history has exhausted itself. After the abdication of the tsar, the power to which the entire elite belonged collapsed like a house of cards, not even to the floor, but to people who called themselves “underground workers.” The people exploded and went mad from the taste of blood; in a few years they simply swept away the old elite and everything connected with it.

At the same time, the riot bore the features of a religious action. Renunciation of the church, apostasy, lie on the religious plane of consciousness. First, in the form of a swoop. The common work, the common unity, was to result in religious triumph, ecstasy, right up to the general resurrection. Mysticism overwhelmed everyone and everything. Tsiolkovsky wrote his book because it was necessary to resettle the resurrected people.

But gradually the rebellion cooled down, and the unsuccessful religious ecstasy grew into religious expectation. The Khazar-Bolshevik wing was the first to return to reality, because was organized from the beginning. They began to build an oligarchic Russia. The meaning that was invested in the concepts of internationalism and class in the early 20s is akin to the destructive meaning that filled the concepts of the oligarchs of the 90s, this is the destruction of the Orthodox behavioral stereotype. By 29, the Old Believers-Soviet wing was organized. Internal dialectics and internal development have intensified. All 70 years have passed under the sign of the confrontation between these elites, or rather these ideas. The carriers of the Soviet-Old Believer ideology quickly destroyed the Khazar-Bolshevik formation and placed its carriers in foreign trade, main supply departments, as well as in concentration camps they themselves created. They, in turn, preserved their ideas until better times. But it is not possible to win this fight, because... Most of the concepts of both elites are dialectically common. The Old Believer-Soviet elite tried to revive the concept of empire, fortunately it still remained among the people. It doesn't cool down that quickly. I must admit, she partially succeeded. The power vertical was created according to the “Roman” type, through nomenklatura. However, outside of Orthodoxy, all this has turned into a totalitarian structure. They tried to create a state structure based on the Mongolian type, but without an autocrat, this inevitably led to nationalism. The USSR was formed as a union of equal republics. Which in itself contradicted both the “Roman” idea and the Great Yasa. And yet this education, with reservations, lasted 72 years.

It lasted due to the colossal religious upsurge; in the shortest possible time, a powerful economy was created. The main incentive for the people was the expectation that immediately after the completion of construction there would come religious ecstasy, paradise, communism. To be fair, it must be said that the Old Believers-Soviet elite was ahead of this rise. But she was aware that the time was not far off when religious disappointment would set in. Therefore, by the end of the 30s, the struggle intensified both with the Khazar-Bolshevik elite and with the Church. A well-founded thesis was put forward that the creatures of paradise need a god. Leaderism appeared. The further course of events, according to the logic of development, was stopped by the war for 15 years. The Old Believer-Soviet elite was forced to cling to the Church. After the economic recovery, the issue of religious expectation came back onto the agenda. The same problems arose in America. The result is a convenient link that justifies the failures of both projects. However, by the age of 80, it became completely clear that the Old Believers-Soviet elite could no longer cope with the general disappointment on its own. This is always the case - religious action based on apostasy leads to disappointment. I couldn’t go under the protection of the Church because... tightly connected to the other half. Although she did not interfere with the beginning of the restoration of church life.

In general, two attempts were made to implement our own Old Believer-Soviet idea. Two generations through a devastating war, through the restoration of not only their economy, but also other economies, through the ideological control of half the world. Did not work out!!! We simply decided to play by their rules - without the participation of God, and lost because we are an Orthodox people! The first to feel that we were losing were the Old Believer-Soviet elite. Probably more subconsciously understanding that, based on this worldview, it will not be possible to achieve such a tension of volitional forces again, which will inevitably lead to the loss of the key principles of the Old Believer-Soviet worldview. And the Old Believer-Soviet elite will be forced to reckon with the bearers of the oligarchic Khazar-Bolshevik worldview. I would like to note that the idea that Berezovsky put into his alliance with Chechnya cannot be called anything other than the revival of Khazaria. But these are flowers compared to the tension that could have arisen if the USSR had not collapsed. The Old Believer-Soviet elite made the only possible decision (consciously or unconsciously). In order to survive in the new conditions, it divided by state borders the main centers of the Khazar-Bolshevik ideology, mostly located in the union republics. This is how the USSR ended. But this was also the main condition for the return of the Old Believer-Soviet elite to the Kremlin. Of course, with big reservations, but now she is the one who rules.

However, very important circumstances are overlooked by historians. First, the elite, which in 1818 was positioned as Protestant, has turned into Orthodox, Orthodox abroad, and for some reason it seems to me that it will serve a very important service for Russia. And the Bolshevik-Soviet elite, formed in Russia, protected the Church from turning it into Protestant, in a simple way- She declared her an enemy. And this only strengthened it; the most faithful and devoted remained. And the ever-increasing number of martyrs and confessors only increased the number of prayer books for Russia, and the Church itself again became the basis of state building in Russia. All this is anti-dialectical, because not a single people, except for the Old Testament Jews (And then under Moses), managed to return to the fold of Orthodoxy after such apostasy. It is not possible for the people to restore their connection with God on their own. Only the will of God. For such a Gift, 15 years of hunger and poverty, such a trifle. And if we consider the Church to be the source and custodian of the Russian tradition, then the history of Russia has not been interrupted from Alexander Nevsky to the present day. Therefore, we must not talk about birth new Russia, but about the birth of new us.

And so, in the early 2000s, the Russian Kremlin elite was finally formed, which is a natural continuation of the Old Believer-Soviet elite, which, in turn, ideologically, goes deep into the 17th century. But the ideology of the Old Believers has exhausted itself. If only because of the separation of the Khazar-Bolshevik elite. The latter has long ago turned into something international, and not independent, not dialectically connected with previous history. But according to the Old Believers, the Soviet elite turned out to be not complementary to any elite in the world. And therefore it is the only elite in the world that cannot unite with anyone. Thus began her return movement to the “Third Rome”, to the obverse side of the medal. There is simply no other way out to the Empire. This is how the first crown appears on one of the eagle’s heads.

Well, what about the rest of the countries? They also have their own medal, on the back of which there is also a crown stamped. But they won’t be able to use it on their own. Due to the same “internationality” of the oligarchic-financial elite, they will not be able to. In order to preserve their sovereignty and statehood, they will be forced to delegate their crown to the second head of the eagle. Moreover, Russia has remained a multinational and multi-religious state. This is a prerequisite for the organic inclusion of this crown in Russian coat of arms. This is the whole point of the Eurasian Union. Not the destruction of states, but their strengthening, through understanding the imperial role of Russia. The Empire never claimed the sovereignty of its allies. Rome did not claim the sovereignty of either Rus' or the Orthodox part of the Desht-i-Kypchak. At least ideally. And if in the world there remains such a concept as the study of the errors of historical experience, then for the Eurasian Union it lies precisely in this plane.

There is also lost Ukraine, but it is worth talking about it separately.