Ideas and Ideals

The article deals with the analysis of the Soviet national policy from a historical perspective with a focus on investigating into conditions of the loyalty of national elites towards the central government in the last period of the USSR existence. The indicators of the low level loyalty are as follows: supporting the ideas of national sovereignty and independence, participating in the national movement by ruling cadres, influential intellectuals and population. The author shows low sympathy of both groups of representatives: elites and broad population to nationalist ideas. The analysis is based on comparing contrastive cases – the Soviet elites of the Baltic republics (Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia) and Belorussia in their interactions with the central government as well as local population in the period from 1945 to 1991. These republics, their population and elites were similar regarding some important aspects such as historical and cultural as well as demographic characteristics in the case of Belorussia and Lithuania; some important features of the industry (big export-oriented enterprises) regarding Estonia, Latvia and Belorussia. At the same time, these cases showed a different level of the loyalty towards the Union center, namely, relatively high among the Belorussian Soviet ruling cadres and population and relatively low in the Baltic republics by the end of 1980s.

The important aspect of the Soviet national policy was establishing new national elites, educational and cultural institutions preserving their native languages as well as the promotion of native cadres into the positions of power in the regional administration. In some respects, this policy was similar to the “indirect rule” implemented in the imperial period of Russian history and consisted in the cooperation between the central government and local elites as the main approach to administrating a multinational state. However, in comparison with the previous practice tending to include national elites in the imperial nobility, the post revolutionary approach considered the creation of national elites through promoting local cultural and educational institutions that offer quite prestigious but specific positions occupied mostly by representatives of the respective ethnic group.

Creating local elites reduced the competition for “universal” positions since socialization and career of “national staff” were oriented towards national institutes. However, increasing numbers of “national staff” with limited positions for them had negative social consequences (elite overproduction). Intra-elite tension increased due to the migration from other regions (in the case of Latvia and Estonia). The other reason of this phenomenon was pursuing socialization strategies oriented to the places of origin (in the case of Lithuania). The attractiveness of the Baltic republics both for local population and migrants from other regions of the USSR was caused by a relatively high level of living standards in these union republics.

Location of big export-oriented enterprises in the territory of Belorussia created conditions for preferring socialization strategies oriented towards integration with the Soviet Union economy and, therefore, enhanced loyalty towards the USSR center from both elites and population. Besides, the administrative apparatus of the Soviet Belorussia was recruited extensively among participants of the Soviet partisan movement 1941–1944 what explains the devotion of the Belorussian elite to the Soviet symbols and values. At the same time, the base of the legitimization of the Soviet Lithuanian elite was its ability to control the anti-Soviet (nationalist) movement as well supporting national culture and language.

 This paper considers modern approaches to the study of social dynamics of modern societies, which have found conceptual expression in the theories of ‘quality of life’ and ‘social quality’. The gradual merging of these two theories is a trend that reflects both modern ideas about the specifics of the development processes in post-industrial societies and the idea of a ‘progressive’ type of social interaction between individuals and social groups, which is formed on the basis of new theoretical and methodological models. The authors show how these theories attempt to link ‘traditional’ economic statistics data and indicators that reflect integrative relationships within communities (such as social cohesion and social inclusion). The paper identifies the main research areas in the framework of the theory of social quality: economic security, social cohesion, social inclusion, powers and opportunities. Despite the fact that each of these areas includes its own group of indicators, they are interdependent, interrelated and should be examined in complex. Thus, within the framework of modern methodologies, society appears as the result of integration and interaction of fundamentally different-level systems, social (the level of individuals and interpersonal relationships) and systemic (the level of institutions). It is concluded that the combination of fundamentally different groups of indicators allows us to conceptualize and identify the relationship between social and economic processes at the collective and individual levels. The authors describe the scope of application of the socio-qualitative approach and its set of social development indicators in European and Russian politics. An attempt to assess the effectiveness of these theoretical and methodological approaches is carried out in the context of the analysis of such a social problem in the Russian society as the increased level of emigration outflow from the country in recent years.

This article discusses the collective fears peculiar to people of the third generation and associated with consumer practices. The author analyses various methodological approaches to the study of fears of Russian and Soviet society. The author draws attention to the fact, that behavior of people of the third age is influenced by various groups of factors. A sociological study was conducted in the period from November 2017 to February 2019. The research method was an interview. The materials of the interview allowed to group consumer fears into three groups. The first group of fears is related to credit practices and banking products. The second group of fears is related to modern technologies. The third group of fears is related to food. The potential danger of food is a constant concern for the third age people. They are convinced that a modern man consumes substandard and harmful products, which provoke the development of many serious diseases and reduce life expectancy. Fears have a multi-layered nature. Pensioners are afraid not only of the toxicity of products, but also of unreliability of the information provided about these products. Consumer fears express deep-rooted attitudes and stereotypes in relation to all new and alien things: fear of new social conditions and norms, fear of market mechanisms of production and distribution of goods, alien forms and symbols of social and cultural life. Fear of all the new finds its continuation in consumer fears.

The paper is devoted to the issues of social progress and conditions for its implementation, the main of which is education. The authors substantiate the topicality of the social progress study by saying that today the uncertainties and risks of sustainable development in the world are amplified. People become aware of their responsibility for the future of the whole society and they understand that meaningful actions of a large number of people have to be taken in the direction of becoming initiative and independent people who are aware of themselves as the creators of their own lives. The authors highlight the role of knowledge acquired from various cognitive systems (science, culture, art, literature, etc.) expanding the cognitive capabilities of a man and the possibilities of his/her creativity. In education, all knowledge acquired from different cognitive systems should be ‘sublimated’; it should become a civilizational institution which mission is to transform the world in the direction of social progress. The authors consider the risks of forming such an institution, including educational inequality in the quality and accessibility of education. The paper concludes that modern Russian education does not serve for social progress and not even for the market, but for financial capital.

The article raises the question of the relationship of social study and social action. It is noted that at present, sociality is understood differently than during the formation of social sciences. This is not about social laws, but about non-linear processes that are described using a systematic approach and synergetics. In this case, a social technician relies on knowledge gained in the course of studying sociality, reconstructing a specific history of sociality, and social trends of today. The author sets the task to characterize the relationship between social characteristics identified by social researchers, such as economics, state, society, power, masses, culture. He shows that sociality can be represented as consisting of three areas. The first distinguishes three main subsystems: the state, society and the economy, and the state was the constituent element. In the second anthropological sphere, the author identifies a new European personality, communities, masses, society, understood no longer as in the first sphere, but in anthropological terms. Individuals and communities in the anthropological sphere, as a rule, operate in two modes - normative and parasitic (rent-building, the use of social structures for other purposes). In the third area, encompassing the other two, sociality is seen as a popular phenomenon. The point is that the state and society are not one, there are many of them, and they enter into various difficult relationships (struggle for territory and resources, competition, helping each other, exchanges of various kinds, etc.). The main processes of sociality are distinguished and characterized: globalization and modernization, the implementation of social schemes and concepts, the processes of “post” and “counter”, the process of setting and solving problems (“challenges” and “answers” ​​to them). In the last part of the work, the author's version of the reconstruction of a concrete history of sociality, as well as social trends of the present, is proposed.

The article discusses some features of the formation of the political and intellectual elite of Russia associated with the awareness of the civilizational characteristics of Russian society. Based on the experience of researching this topic by the domestic and foreign thinkers, the author raises a problematic question of whether Russia can be considered as one of the examples of a civilizational structure. Civilizations are very broad geopolitical associations, which form in their existence the corresponding elite strata. The text draws attention to the characteristics of the elites, their role in society. The elites of society are heterogeneous; they arise in different social strata. The elite appears as an informal association of such groups. The author points out the importance of the existence of political and intellectual elites, whose mutual support creates the necessary correspondence between worldviews and practical actions in society. The author draws attention to the ethical characteristics of elite groups, in particular, to the relationship of individual morality with the awareness and fulfillment of public duty imposed on elites by their position in the society. The author agrees with the opinion of V.O. Klyuchevsky, who pointed to the particularities of the formation of state consciousness of the princely elite of the period of Kievan Rus. It is not an ethnic consciousness, it begins with an understanding of the territorial community of lands and the people living on it, united by princely power. In the feudal period, the role of the intellectual elite with necessity was played by the Orthodox clergy, who turned not only to the formation of personal morality of people, but also to understanding the ideology of the Moscow state. The historically inevitable transition to the industrial stage of development required the formation of secular consciousness and a new elite capable of its development. The author points out the important role of historical consciousness as an ethical basis for intra-elite harmony and for the consensus of society and the elite. Under these conditions, a contradiction arises in the Russian elite between attempts to comprehend their own civilizational identity and orientation toward a Western model of development. The author points to the unresolved nature of this contradiction and its influence on the modern history of Russia.

The 2020 presidential campaign of the Democratic party surprised both voters and analysts by setting new precedents and showcasing innovations in the art of political campaigning. Several different approaches to the organization of ground game (GG) were used in the campaign. This article aims to describe and analyze the main trends, strategies, and technologies of GG in presidential elections in the last twenty years with the aim of better understanding what is happening in the current one. It also details the main reasons why the attention to GG in presidential campaigns has significantly increased in the last few years: further polarization and even balance of political views in the country, an increase in the number of "independents" with the simultaneous decrease of party membership and influence, the emergence of multiple powerful players: interest groups, social movements and "shadow" (unofficial) parties. All these trends turned the recent presidential campaigns into a ground war in the competitive states and districts. The article deals with the innovations in organization of GG which have taken place in the period from George W. Bush's campaign all the way to Mike Bloomberg's recent attempt to enter the democratic race: multilayered marketing, microtargeting, phone bank programs, distributed or big organizing, philanthropy networking, etc. The main focus is on the organizational structure of GG and the methods of putting together a campaign coalition. The article describes the four basic organizational models of GG: a party infrastructure, a hierarchical network of social organizers, a campaign arranged as a social movement, buying support through sponsorship and philanthropy work. These models are not mutually exclusive. The 2020 primaries are analyzed with the help of these models. The article explains why and how one of the least promising candidates, Biden, became the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party.  Our analysis of failed attempts to replicate the pervious campaigns also allows us to make a confident prediction that, if Biden’s compaign will be made in the mold of 2012 Obama campaign, it will not be successful.

The article considers the problem of the stability of the national mentality in the context of globalization and, as a consequence, the renewal of mechanisms and results of identity construction, the emergence of its new types. A methodological justification for the study of this problem is presented, the basis of which is the author's concept of sociospatial identity, which makes it possible to identify some immanent characteristics of the process of identity formation. Firstly, identity is the result of functioning of mental structures at different levels of social organization, that is, the national mentality and mindsets. Secondly, specification of various types of identities is very tentative. Living space is characterized by multilayered and mosaic patterns and contains many determinant factors of both mental structures and identity. In this connection, the totality of these factors forms a synthesized single identity, indicated as sociospatial identity. Thirdly, an important identity transforming circumstance is that it is transcending national borders in the process of its formation. The construction of identity is considered from the standpoint of the synergetic approach, which makes it possible to reveal regularities of sociocultural processes in conditions of non-linear development, reflecting the disequilibrium of the social system and its components. Factors determining the transformation of identity are considered, among the endogenous ones are the mental structures of society that determine identity of various types in the process of their functioning; ethnic composition of the population; the formation of the civic state as an alternative to the national one. The main exogenous factors are globalization and migration, as well as glocalization. These factors determine multidirectional trends in the process of identity construction, which is depicted through the analysis of the modern sociophilosophical discourse of the formation of post-national identity (B. Anderson, U. Beck Z. Bauman, G. Delanti, C. Calhoun, J. Habermas). Children of migrants, born in the host country, are carriers of sociospatial identity, entailing flexibility and layering. The uniqueness of sociospatial identity lies in its multi-faceted nature, accommodating various types of identity.

In the article the author raises the problem of social disadaptation of a modern man referring to the ideas of German existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers. A rigid view of the world (Jasper’s metaphor of the “shell”) is seen as a basic reason for a man’s resistance and suffering in the face of changes. Philosophical significance of the phenomenon is ambivalent, since constructing the shell out of routine life, long-standing values, emotional and behavioral scenarios of a man, it also contributes to one of the subconscious defense mechanisms preventing pain and blocking out the uncertainty of the outside world. The article discusses how the inner rigidity is formed, as well as how it can be overcome as a phenomenon that obstructs the expression of life both on the individual and interpersonal level. The a superindividual challenge, introduced by Jaspers to describe and point to a superindividual challenge to undergo a profound transformation of personality, is analyzed in the modern historical and cultural context. The author argues that it is possible to loosen the shell not only when forced or when an existential crises requires it, but also through a conscious effort towards personal development. Thereby, the importance of further development of Karl Jasper’s philosophical ideas is justified in terms of “soft” limit situations. Namely, travelling, experiencing alterity in communication with the other, as well as encountering information that describes a blocked-out aspect of reality. The author concludes that the shortcut to increasing vitality goes through one’s conscious effort to loosen the rigidity and requires experiencing what one resists the most or what is being avoided due to its emotional intensity. Personal responsibility for encountering the uncertainty of life will let one achieve higher awareness, deeper feelings and more active engagement in the world. In keeping with Karl Jasper’s ideas, the author claims that the unlimited windows of opportunities open up if man puts enough effort to unlock his potential through an alchemic transformation of one’s own taboos, restrictions and conditioning.

The social situation of the Russian and aboriginal women in Siberia in the XVII and beginning of the XVIII centuries is covered in the domestic historical literature rather poorly. One can hardly name any more or less bright works devoted to this issue but the article by N.N. Ogloblin. This article was published in 1890. Since that time the approaches to the issue have been changed. In modern historiography, the problem of social understanding of gender differences is viewed through the prism of gender theory. The feminist approach shows that the privileged position of men in society, which is called “patriarchy”, is provided not only by institutions, direct violence, etc., but also deeply embedded in the language speech practices that determine the place of women in the social structure. The author considers specific historical material showing the position of women reflected in nicknames, hidden ratings, stinging proverbs and sayings, rumors and interpretations. Analyzing the practice of real relations, it often turned out that women were completely powerless, even deprived of the right to dispose their own destinies and their own bodies. The situation was even worse with the aboriginal women, who experienced double and triple oppression. The position of the Russian women of the privileged classes could have been somewhat better, she might have had not only more resources, but also rights.

Women were often used as tools for male activities, they were dealing with difficult negotiations or carring out men’s will to control other women and their actions.

A single article can’t embrace the complex and multidimensional world of gender relations in Siberia in the XVII century. It requires further studies.