National idea (national ideology) of the Russian Federation
1. Soviet deideologizationArticle 13. The Constitution of the Russian Federation reads: “In the Russian Federation, ideological diversity is recognized ... No ideology can be established as state or obligatory”. It also recognizes the right to political diversity, multi-party system, equality of public associations. We assume that the political realities of the beginning of 90-s put forward the requirement of political demonopolization. But was there a need for absolute deideologization of the state and society?
The Russian 1990 reforms tried to solve both the political tasks of changing the social system in the country and the tasks of the “new world order” dictated by the challenges of a post-industrial civilization. However, the ideological justification of the “improvement” of socialism in the period of perestroika, which ended in failure, was not replaced by the justification of the “leap through capitalism” into the modern information society. The state has withdrawn itself from the function of ideological support for the ongoing reforms, limiting itself to promises of “heavenly life” in the community of European states. At the same time, under the conditions of the massed criticism of the Soviet past, the idea of returning to the values and achievements of pre-revolutionary Russia was glorified. The cultural sphere was given over to the market, as well as education, and the media. As a result, the society embraced the state of spiritual collapse, and in the public consciousness a lot of distorted pictures and images arose that are absolutely unsuitable for the formation of goal-setting attitudes of the consciousness of the citizens of a new single, independent, independent state.
History of all existing civilizations, states and political regimes, it proves that there were no stable, developing communities without clearly defined targets, defining their place in the ecumene, the value system, moral criteria as guarantors of their “We-civilization” preservation. They were recorded in religious beliefs, state acts, public consciousness, in the goals of upbringing and education. Thanks to this, since childhood, a person has adequately identified himself in relation to “his own” and the world, he was brought up on specific characteristic elements of his society, he was adequately oriented in the political, social, confessional space. Society formed the "ideal model" of human behavior, the interaction of power and society. The state jealously followed the level of spiritual well-being of the society, supported its citizens with optimistic targets and ideals.
The ideological background is contained in the commandments and regulations of all religious teachings without exception. Components of value ideas and stereotypes of attitudes in the East were in the form of religious and philosophical teachings (recall “Confucianism”). In Europe, Antoine Dests de Tracy’s 1801 was summarized in the “ideology” doctrine with answers to the question: “How and why does a certain set of ideas have a formative effect on society”?
It is well known that the Soviet ideology as a system ideology relied on a holistic "Marxist-Leninist teaching" on building a new classless society of social justice. Of course, it is impossible to disagree that the realities of the administrative-state system were very far from the abstract attitudes of the state. But it is impossible not to agree that the Marxist ideology as a “definite set of ideas” was a powerful cementing, purposeful, motivating factor at all stages of Soviet history without exception.
Practically with the beginning of deep perestroika processes in our society, discussions began about the need for a certain national idea as the most important condition for bringing Russia out of the crisis. However, with the failure of perestroika, and then the entire socio-political system, the collapse of the USSR, the spontaneously forming Russian state found nothing better than to proclaim a policy of complete de-ideologization. The power, which was completely controlled from the outside, which was occupied with the goals of destroying the old, objectively did not set goals to recreate a powerful and independent country. And still most of the points of view on the issue of the new ideology of Russia still randomly reflect the narrow-targeted political, corporate, ethnic, religious orders and interests. The second feature of these views is their lack of system, the complete lack of interconnection of processes. Third, the general patterns of the country's development in the interrelation of the entire history of Russia during the millennium are ignored. Target ideas taken out of context, reflecting mainly tactical transitional tasks but not strategic unifying goals for the whole of Russian society as a whole and an individual, are taken as initial installations.
It can be stated quite confidently that modern Russia not only revived the economic, military-political and sociocultural potential, but also aims to become one of the leading centers of power and influence in a multipolar world. As a result, the state, society and its citizens are acutely faced with the question of a new ideology as a system of values, ideals, and tasks that unite braces and attitudes for the future. It is necessary to answer the questions: Who are we? What is new Russia? Where are we now? What are our national interests in a multipolar world?
2. The ideology of the future: a new understanding
In our opinion, the main factors and conditions for the formation of a new ideology for Russia are:
- refusal to prevail over the goals of political orientation and dependence in the concept and content. Defining ideology as a value system, declared state attitudes, affecting mentality, moral comfort, interpersonal relations, spiritual health, positive attitudes in society;
- approval of the system of value-targeted attitudes aimed at integrating society according to the principle “for” and not “against” regardless of political, confessional, ethno-cultural, strato-class, gender differences and views for the prosperity of Russia;
- the return of the invaluable historical experience of ensuring the interconnection and development of the cultural identity of the indigenous Russian ethnic groups in the unity of the all-Russian culture;
- careful study and consideration of traditional interests and global claims of the Russian civilization in a consistent chronological hierarchy in order to ensure national security and leadership of the country in the world (the design of ideology in dynamics);
- ensuring the continuity of the historical and cultural development of the state, the ethnic and national self-identification of citizens in the preservation and development of the phenomenon of poly-ethnic Russia as a unique holistic phenomenon in a multipolar world;
- active positioning of the “importance and necessity” of Russia for the world community as a reliable “bridge” between the West and the East.
National ideology in the new understanding should be the basis of the National Doctrine of the development of the country for the long term being developed. But before it is necessary to finally determine the understanding of the place and role of Russia in the world community.
3. The essence of Russian civilization
The centuries-old dispute about the historical fate of Russia, about its place in the world community is not an idle question. This is a question about identity, about the chronological framework of the existence of Russian civilization, about understanding cause-effect relationships in its history. Determining long-term priorities for further development, developing a national security strategy and foreign policy issues depends on its solution. Unfortunately, many political decisions in the last decade have been taken without due regard for the specific features of Russia and its role in world history. In the assessments of changes and events taking place, an important role is played by the methodological basis for adequate analytical studies. And here we see the most significant flaw in ignoring the civilizational approach.
The typology of the modern concept of civilizations, along with the recognition of a series of local civilizations as system units, highlights vectors (types) of civilizational development in the history of mankind. This is a vector of development of traditional Eastern civilizations of a cyclical type and a vector of linear dynamic development of Western civilization. We do not set here the task of presenting the detailed characteristics of both specific civilizations and vectors of civilizational development. Note that the origins of modern European civilization go back to the period of "axial time" of ancient Hellas. Further, having passed through the history of ancient Rome, this type of civilizational development finally took shape in the countries of Western Europe of the New Age. The leadership of Eurocentrism as a “leading”, “progressive” type was largely provided by the dictatorship of industrial civilization (capitalism “according to Marx”) for three centuries. However, A. Toynbee also criticized the thesis about the unification of the world on the basis of the western system of sociocultural values. The value characteristics of the East originate in the civilizations of Sumer, Ancient Egypt, India and China and further in the history of the Arab Caliphate.
If the systematization of many and many countries in their correlation to the West or the East is understandable, then what about those who are at the crossroads of civilizations? So with regard to Russia, there are many points of view, as a local, peripheral, eclectic, atypical civilization. However, the specificity of being of such territorial-cultural formations in world history is quite natural. The history constantly reproduced in the vast territory of the interpenetration and interaction of the West and the East stable integrative system communities. The data of the territory of "imposing" the spheres of influence and interaction of civilizations are called limitrofs. The main condition for the sustainable existence of states and cultures on the borderline is the civilization balance "East - West".
In the past, the states on intercivilizational limitrophe were the Hellenistic countries of Asia Minor, then Byzantium, and from the end of the 15th to the 16th centuries. - its successor is Russia. All attempts of pro-Western modernizations set for themselves the quite pragmatic role of strengthening the state and its institutions. It would seem that alien and unacceptable for the Russian civilization “other” innovations were partially neutralized, mostly “mastered” by legitimate and historically justified counter-reforms. Outwardly, there were impressions of the constant maneuvering of Russia between the West and the East, but this is not the case. Here, the continuous process of regulating the contradictions between the processes of constant external modernization and innovative “stuffing” and internal stabilization mechanisms of the eastern type manifested itself.
It is time for Russian civilization to be considered equivalent as an independent, third type of world civilizations. This civilization, in fact its position between the West and the East, developed under the continuous systematic socio-cultural influence from the flanks, reflecting, accepting, harmonizing and mastering certain values and ideals. For ethnic cultures of the Russian civilization is characterized by the presence of a stable, traditionally conservative core. This most important feature is inherent in all Eastern civilizations, as well as the presence of a patrimonial state with pronounced authoritarianism and distribution and regulatory mechanisms. It is also characterized by the presence of a wide and flexible protective space of a transforming culture, open to external innovations, ideas, and especially to people of a different ethnicity. Innovative taxonomic components have long been distinguished by pronounced liberalism, which forced us to constantly solve the problem of introducing, “digesting” the new. Since the majority of the society had a traditional cautious attitude to innovations, the government was constantly forced to “push” reforms “from above”. Therefore, the civilization on the limit rofe will constantly solve the problem of “impulse” development in the struggle of conservative and liberal components (“traditions” and “innovations”).
The dynamics of modern post-industrial civilization in the long term creates the conditions for the formation of a new liberal patriotic elite. It seems to us that, unlike the former elite, it is capable not so much of external acquisitions, but of internal generation of progressive innovations and the creation of a system of internal balances and checks in relation to external aggressive pressures of civilization elites on the flanks of the West and the East. But for this it is necessary to solve the problem of “eternal” rejection by the liberal elite and agree with the “patrimonial” role of the Russian state.
Our vision is precisely that the national idea (ideology) should not be purely political, respond not only to internal political or changing geopolitical challenges, but correspond to the situation on the limit of the ritual, should become a national ideology Russian Eurasian civilization on the limitrofof between the West and the East. It is precisely this that most accurately reflects the country's geopolitical role in a resurgent multipolar world.
It is time to recognize that Russia is not only a state, but also an independent subject of the modern civilization structure of the world. At the heart of the Russian model of world order are: polyethnicity, polyconfessionalism, the experience of integrating civilization poles on the vast ethnocultural limitof, mutual agreement and voluntary forms of political organization of ethnic groups, society and sociopolitical elites.
4. National ideology of the Russian civilization
The specifics of developing a model of national ideology must inevitably be built on the basis of a civilizational understanding of the modern world order. We deduce the source of the Russian ideology (national idea) from the definition of the concept “civilization is a community of people united by fundamental spiritual values and ideals, having stable special features in social organization, culture, economics and psychological sense of belonging to this community” (L. Semennikova) .
The central core of the Russian civilization model in the context is traditional spirituality, common ideals and values, multi-ethnic and multi-religious Eurasian culture.
The four other components of the model appear as conditions for the balance of innovation and tradition (liberalism and conservatism), the balance of sustainability and development. At the same time, they determine the ideology of the political and social structure, the balance of the state and society, the building of social relations in interrelation: personality-personality, power-personality. Naturally, the system of the national ideology of the Russian Federation is in the balance of national and universal values and ideals, including the ideals of both the West and the East! It intelligently perceives everything that is acceptable and new, with the subsequent internal “processing” and integration into the structures of the civilizational core. This determines the integration essence of Russia as a civilization bridge between the West and the East.
Imagine your vision of the content of the components of the model (formula) of the national ideology.
Traditional multi-ethnic spirituality and culture - a complex of value systems, spiritual and religious beliefs and beliefs, rituals, mentality and stereotypes of behavior, language, cultural achievements of representatives of all ethnic groups and subethnos, religious and cultural faiths and social groups of the Russian Federation. The unifying principle is the national Russian history and culture, the common Slavic-Turanian ethnic archetypes and traditional mental values. The space of interethnic unity and integration is provided by the Russian language. The core of the model provides stability in the dynamics of constant perception of innovations with their translation into the composition of traditions.
Statehood as a Eurasian statehood. For the Russian multicomponent civilization, a call for the weakening of statehood is a criminal attempt on the basis of its existence. The decline of statehood always ended in chaos and confusion, the devaluation of human life. The rejection of a strong state led to the tragedy of the individual. Power is not an empire, it is sovereignty, national priorities of greatness and dignity, strength and self-esteem. This is a form of mutually agreed interests of the center and regions, the responsibility of the authorities towards the individual. The state ensures the rule of law in the traditional for Russia unity with the norms of public morality and personal conscience, in the balance of the dignity of power and personality. Statehood involves the separation of powers with the legal regulation of the functions of its branches. At the same time, the specifics and history of Russia raise the question of the traditional conditionality in the country and the power of the spiritual. Without the "hoop" of the statehood as a formalized structure, institutionally organizing and regulating hundreds and thousands of ethnocultural elements on the limit of the rf, the very existence of Russian (Eurasian) civilization, its national security is impossible.
Citizenship - as a system of balances in the balance of power and society, power and personality. If the sovereignty is a form of responsibility of the authorities, then citizenship is the responsibility of the individual for Russia. Citizenship as a guarantee of deterring the tendency of democracy to degenerate into despotism, ensuring the dignity of the individual. Citizenship is ensured by the fullness of constitutional rights, election, accountability, the responsibility of the individual. Absolutely necessary components are Russia's local government and multi-level feedback system of society and government. Statehood and citizenship are the two shoulders of the new Russia.
The formation of civil society in the Russian limited is not based on reckless "Westernization", but taking into account the historical specifics of the legal culture of the peoples of the Russian Federation on the basis of the traditional spiritual inner "right of conscience" of the person and the legal norms of the state in their unity. The time has come for the authorities to recognize the peculiarity that in Russia the highest estimate was the moral assessment of power, and the attitude to the law always depended on the degree of respect or disrespect for power. Maintaining the balance of statehood and citizenship in society and genuine democracy is ensured by the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
Sobornost - as a formalized social unity of citizens (“national unity”), regardless of ethnic, religious, political, corporate and other interests, based on the recognition of the supremacy of the interests of Russian civilization, its preservation and development. balance of statehood and citizenship, ensuring equality of rights and duties of an individual and power before the law. Conciliarism in Russia traditionally relied on spirituality, election and responsibility, the feedback system of the central government and the self-government of lands (local taxonomic components of civilization). Sobornost reflects the essence of communality and collectivism, which is the semantic attribute of both traditional civilizations of the East and Russian civilization. At the same time, collective civil unity implies a balance with the individualism of the personality of a patriot of a country, region, region, and his ethnic culture.
Patriotism - as an internal conscious need for active self-identification in relation to its community, history and culture of its country and its national interests. The upbringing of a patriot of Russia begins with the formation of a patriot of his region, region, “small Motherland”. Patriotism is an activity for the implementation of the installation of the realization of the human factor in order to jointly overcome the civilization crisis. Patriotism is the mental basis of the individual sense of citizenship, activity for the benefit of the “small Motherland” and the country as a whole in a stable balance with the unity of the whole nation (in the category of fellow citizens) throughout the Eurasian Slavic-Turanian space of Russia.
The development of the theory of modern national ideology in the context of the Eurasian national basis (in the general civil sense) allows a clearer view of the prospects for the development of the country's economic and foreign policy priorities, the development of statehood, national culture, and education. Our model of the National ideology of the Russian civilization reflects the centuries-old experience of the integration of the two poles, allowing to smooth out the extremes of Western rationalism, individualism, erosion of the family’s spiritual values in integration with the spiritual values and ideals of Eastern civilization.
5.PS National idea and modern Russia (comments on the text of publications for 2000 year)
The material described above in 2000 was proposed by us as the author's version of the resolution of the actively discussed problem of the formation of a new national idea of the Russian Federation. It's been almost a decade and a half. The country experienced serious qualitative changes in all areas of life, the most fateful events and changes occurred during the first three months of 2014. And we considered it extremely important to recall our vision of the problem, which is becoming “central” in the conditions of Russia's entry into the position of one of the main poles of a resurgent multipolar world. The most amazing thing is that we did not have to rewrite the text of the project. Separate amendments and corrections have been made, but the essence of our proposals has even been actualized over the years.
Over the past decade and a half, there has been a serious change in the sociopolitical situation both in the world and in Russia. The turbulent waves of “perestroika” finally ceased, and the shock reform shocks of B. Yeltsin, E. Gaidar, A. Chubais ended. At the time of publication of our articles in 2000, a long period of political leadership of the “neo-reformers” V. Putin and D. Medvedev and their teams began. In a number of our forecasts on the dynamics and role of individual political parties and groups, we were absolutely right. First of all, it concerns the "right" as apologists of the western-oriented vector of development of Russia.
By and large, by the beginning of the 2000's. The Russian “rightists” fulfilled their historic mission of leading the destruction of the administrative-state and the creation of the foundations of a market society. As we then assumed, the “right” parties would objectively come to a stable indicator of “electorality” from 20-25% of the decade of the end of 1980 — the beginning of 2000-s to the level of stable 5 — 7% by 2010. Exactly so, by and large, now in the country ideological supporters of complete dissolution "in the depths" of Europe. It would seem that Russia has changed, but once again in the binary opposition “challenge-response” the previous answer was highlighted: Russia is not Europe. The incompatibility of the essence of the Russian civilization with the basic foundations of the USA and the EU, blindly following the abstract market economy models of a dying industrial civilization (capitalism) came into conflict with the goals of shaping the post-industrial model of society. The “Right Reformers” did not understand that the changes not only came into conflict with the ethnocultural values and ideals of Slavic-Turan Eurasia, but also threaten the very essence of Russian civilization.
The positive results, perhaps, can be attributed to the fact that, largely due to the “right”, a social model with a sustainable progressive (so-called “progressive”, non-cyclic) type of development is formed in the country. A mentality is formed that does not consider liberal-oriented values and ideals hostile, adopted and supports the rule of law and the institutions of civil society.
The perplexity of the “Westerners” and their foreign allies is clearly felt. It seemed that all the prerequisites and conditions for Russia's entry into the “advanced European community” were created, but the pendulum of public sentiment swung sharply towards the center and then moved to the left, towards the values and ideals of “eastern” traditionalism. A powerful injection of innovations (reforms) puts Russia in front of the need for their introduction, “o-owning”, “digesting” in all areas of the economy, politics, society, culture, and public consciousness. The national interests of Russia now require not so much a reckless race for change, but a stable balance of innovations and traditions, the definition of their true position in a multipolar world.
In the political structure of society, the most important need becomes the design of a “centrist” party capable of ideologically justifying the tasks of ensuring national security on the basis of a complete rejection of the integration of Russia and Europe. It is still difficult to say whether United Russia corresponds to the role of a non-political leader, but a leader of civilization in the space of the limitrom, equally interacting with the West and the East. On the left flank of the “conservative-protective” traditionalism “legitimate” is occupied by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia with a stable electorate up to 20 — 25%. It is not surprising that a further increase in pressure on Russia, both market reforms and various kinds of Western sanctions, will lead to the ranks of the “Left” up to a third or more of the entire population of the country.
Unlike Ukraine or Moldova, in Russia there is no clear boundary between the West and the East. Therefore, in the context of the “blurring” of civilizational confrontation in Russia, there will still be a movement towards further economic and social liberalization while strengthening the state, the principles of solid power and a personalized authoritarian management style in the political sphere. For a country on the limit, it is a completely natural process.
We see that the industrial (capitalist) civilization is coming to a finish. The post-industrial or more precisely intellectual-technological civilization, according to the law of negation of negation, rejects the western “Samoyed” goal of dead-end exponential progress with the goal of “innovation for innovation”. A new civilization is moving to the East with reliance on the "intellectual humanism" of eastern civilizations. In place of the "industrial" priorities of material production, the primacy of "human production" is established, capable of making innovative breakthroughs, creating an intellectual product and technology that is focused on people. If the former civilization changed the environment, then the new one is aimed at changing a person.
The objective processes of the formation of a new global post-industrial civilization are associated with the qualitative transformation of the civilizations of the East (Japan, India, China, Korea). A qualitatively new, stable, non-pulsating civilization of uniformly moving motion with an orderly balance of innovations and traditions, with a balance of values of the West and the East is being formed on the territory of Eurasia. This allows Russia to avoid a dead end of exponential progress. And we are not alone in this. Similar processes in our opinion are currently taking place in the civilizational East and Southeast Asia, in the border countries of Kazakhstan, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, (Israel?), And Latin American countries.
An integrative civilization in a multipolar world embodies the right to its own development path, its own value system, a system of unifying ideas and goals in a single multi-ethnic, multicultural space of Eurasia. Further strengthening of the state’s economy and institutions, the awakening of civic activism is impossible further without relying on the “human factor”, on national patriotic ideas. In addition, there are positive changes. Not only the country as a whole, but also citizens wake up a sense of self-esteem and self-esteem, respect for the values and traditions of their civilization. Therefore, the solution to the problem of the institutionalization of national ideology is more relevant than ever. It is vital that the government and society finally notice the depravity and disintegrating negative role of the wording of article 13 and radically change it in the new version of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
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