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Russia at the Turn of the 20th – 21st Centuries: Social Revolution or Out-of-System Transformation? International relations at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. UN

In the late 1980s, as in the USSR as a whole, a national movement was formed in Belarus, which first set itself the goal of expanding the rights of the republics, and then secession from the Soviet Union. In October 1988, the Belarusian People's Front (BPF) arose, the official founding congress of which was held in June 1989. Following the results of the republican elections held in March 1990, the Communist Party of Belarus, although it retained power, the situation in the republic has changed significantly.

The leader of the Communist Party N. I. Dementei was elected Chairman of the Supreme Council only in the second round of voting. To do this, the Communist Party had to cooperate with the opposition on the basis of the Dementei proposal of June 12, 1990 to ensure real political and economic sovereignty and restore the independence of Belarus. On July 27, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR adopted the Declaration on State Sovereignty. The republic took an active part in the negotiations on the preparation of a new union treaty in 1990 and 1991. On August 25, 1991, after the failure of the putsch in Moscow, the independence of Belarus was proclaimed. On September 19, 1991, the BSSR was renamed the Republic of Belarus.

On December 8, 1991, Belarus was one of the three republics that, as the founding states of the USSR (1922), announced its dissolution and the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

On March 15, 1994, the Supreme Council adopted the constitution of the Republic of Belarus, according to which it was declared a unitary democratic social legal state.

In July 1994, the election of the first President of the Republic of Belarus took place. A. Lukashenko won them. In 1996, he initiated a referendum to change the constitution in order to significantly expand the powers of the president and extend his term of office. The deputies of the Supreme Council, elected in 1995, began the procedure for the impeachment of the president. The Russian delegation, headed by the Chairman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, E. S. Stroev, acted as a mediator in resolving the political crisis. An agreement was signed, according to which the deputies refused to continue the impeachment procedure until the summing up of the results of the referendum, the results of which, according to the decision of the Constitutional Court, were to be advisory in nature.

The referendum took place on November 24, 1996. Referring to its results, Lukashenka violated the agreement reached with the mediation of Russia. Until the end of 1996, he formed a new parliament - the National Assembly. He himself appointed the first composition of his lower house from among the deputies of the Supreme Council loyal to him, elected in 1995. Lukashenka's first term of office was extended to 7 years, that is, until 2001. In 2001, Lukashenka was again elected president of the country.

From the very beginning of his presidency, Lukashenko began massive pressure on non-state media and the political opposition. With the completion of the formation of the power "vertical" in the late 1990s, the opposition was finally ousted from the state authorities. Persons engaged in opposition activities have lost the opportunity to enter the civil service.

On October 17, 2004 and September 28, 2008 regular parliamentary elections were held. In both cases, none of the opposition candidates was elected to parliament. In 2004, simultaneously with the parliamentary elections, on the initiative of Lukashenko, a referendum was held, at which the provision of the constitution was canceled, which did not allow the same person to hold the post of president of the country for more than two consecutive terms.

On March 19, 2006, the third election of the President of the Republic of Belarus took place, and A. Lukashenko was again declared the winner.

H what happened to our country at the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st centuries? how explain changes that have taken place? How justified were they? Can this be explained scientifically? Let's trycome closer to a true understanding of these processes by analyzingavailable historiography.

In modern historical and sociological literature on this problem, at present, two scientific concepts dominate.One is a concept that characterizes the processes of the second half of the 1980s–1990s. 20th century as revolutionary.

The second is the concept of so-called transformation (or transformational evolution).

If we talk about the first concept, then most scientists understandrevolution as a radical change in the foundations of the political, economic and social order,change in the foundations of the state. One of themselvesdetailed and logically substantiated characteristics of the social revolution in Russia at the turn of the 20th - early 21st centuries. given by modern Russian economists I.V. Starodubrovskaya and V.A. Mau.

The authors believe that at the end of the XX century. a full-scale social revolution took place in Russia, the prerequisites for which were contradictions between the new post-industrial trends and the prevailing in the USSRa rigid institutional structure focused on the tasks of resource mobilization.

“The Russian revolution, in its basic characteristics, has no

fundamental differences from the revolutions of the past:

The crisis of the state as the starting point of the revolution;

Deep fragmentation of society;

The weakness of state power throughout the revolution;

Revolutionary economic cycle;

Large-scale redistribution of property;

Movement of the revolutionary process from moderates to radicals and then to Thermidore.

At the same time, as these authors note, the Russian revolution hastheir characteristic features. “The main specificity of the revolutionary process in Russia is connected with the role of violence in it”. Namely, it was not massive and did not wear spontaneous destructive forms.

A number of scientists from the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (primarily A.N. Sakharov, S.S. Sekirinsky, S.V. Tyutyukin) believe that in the events of the 1990s.on the face were the main signs of the revolution, namely, the change of power and formsproperty, as well as elements of the Civil War, which often accompanies revolutionary events (this can be understood as “criminal showdowns”, the events of the autumn of 1993, ethnic conflicts, etc.).

As for the driving forces of the revolution, they were, according to historians, part of the intelligentsia, representatives of the "shadow economy", partthe party-state nomenklatura and the national elite, with the significant passivity of the majority of ordinary people who refused to trust the communists, but failed to see what could be expected from the new"democratic" authorities.

Seriously at the scientific level with the problems of the history of modern Russiain the context of world-historical transformations, MGIMO professor V.V. Sogrin. His research is based on a combination of twotheoretical and methodological principles - the theory of modernization and civilizational perspective, which help in comprehending modern historical upheavals. To them, as a theoretical tool, is added the concept of social revolution, Thermidor, of course, historicism.

Analysis of the features of the historical development of V.V. Sogrin builds based onfrom the so-called concept of "presidential synthesis", the essence of which is the division of modern Russian transformation into periods that coincidewith the presence of M. Gorbachev, B. Yeltsin and V. Putin on the top floor of power, and the recognition of the change of the president as fundamentally important both for changing the nature of Russian modernization and, in general, the history of modern Russia.

The main views of V.V. Sogrin on the topic under study, presented onpresidential periods are as follows.

In the first, Gorbachev's period of reformism at the turn of the 1980s-1990s.a liberal-democratic and at the same time anti-communist revolution took place in the country, which was carried out non-violentlywith the support of society, which led to the collapse of perestroika, the collapse of the USSR,to the collapse of the state-bureaucratic socialism and model change social development. In the second, Yeltsin period, radical economic, political and social reforms were carried out. They didn't deliver as promisedreformers, to the prosperity of Russia. Instead of the promised people's democratic capitalism, bureaucratic-oligarchic capitalism was created. True, V.V. Sogrin stipulates here that it is fundamentally differentthe result of modernization at this stage was hardly possible.

The third, Putin period, is an independent variantmodernization, combining the principles of statehood (in politics) andmarket liberalism (in economics). Presidential Board V.V. The researcher defines Putin asreformist authoritarianism. Although from a historical point of view, this question still remains open.

As for the nature of the Russian revolution in modern times, there are also different assessments. Some scientists and public figures believe that in the 1990s. in Russia there was a bourgeoisliberal-democratic revolution directed against the authoritarian-bureaucratic regime, which hindered the modernization of society. Academician T.I. Zaslavskaya refers to them V.A. Mau, E.T. Gaidar and others. Largesome scientists characterize it as a socialwhich, apparently, is the most neutral from an ideological standpoint. A number of historians classify it morenegatively, calling it a nomenklatura revolution.

Among Russian social scientists, supporters of the "revolutionary concept" can be named: L.M. Alekseev, M.A. Krasnova, I.M. Klyashkina,A.A. Neshchagin, Yu.A. Ryzhova, R.G. Pikhoya and others.

The most reasoned critic of the concept of social revolutionin Russia in the 1990s. became a famous scientist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences T.I. Zaslavskaya.In her opinion, the country was not undergoing a revolution, but a crisis evolution.

This thesis of T.I. Zaslavskaya substantiates this with the following arguments.First, the new elite that led Russian society at the beginning1990s, three-quarters consisted of the former nomenclature.

Secondly, mass social movements have not received much development. Therefore, the supreme power remained the main subject of transformations.

Thirdly, on the radical basis of other social revolutions, as I.I. Klyamkin, “the problems of the majority were solved, but weThis issue has not been resolved at all and has not been resolved so far.

Fourth, in the mass consciousness of the majority of Russians, the fact of the revolution is clearly absent.

As a result, T.I. Zaslavskaya believes that Russia "experienced not a revolution,and a long series of insufficiently prepared, contradictory,say spasmodic reforms and direct political measures that triggered the chainpolitical and socio-economic crises. Such a character of development does not correspond to the concepts of either revolution or great reforms. And himcan be called a crisis transformation.

The concept of transformation came into use in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s. 20th centuryAs a rule, the essential meaning of this concept is reduced to the expression of radicalstructural changes reflecting the transition to a qualitatively new state of social systems.

An important contribution to the study of these definitions was made by Corresponding MemberNational Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus A.N. Danilov, releasingvery interesting work "Transitional Society: Problems of Systemic Transformation". In this work, a number of serious conclusions were made.

First, the theory of transformation as such does not yet exist.

Secondly, A.N. Danilov insists that “so far, the transformation is not from the lowest to the highest, but from the average, fraught with vices and contradictions, to a very average, the advantages of which are not revealed in any way andreserves are not being used.

With these theoretical calculations of the Belarusian scientist, one canargue, and this arouses even more interest in the problems under study.

In the context of the issues under consideration with T.I. Zaslavskaya in solidarity D.V. Maslov, who believes that the concept of "transformation" is the most really approaches the analysis of social changes that took place in Russia at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries. Benefits of using this concepthe sees the following:

It (the concept) does not carry an ideological load, which is especially

hard to avoid when researching modern history;

The concept of transformation does not reveal a rigid determination inasking about a causal relationship between the state of the Soviet system and its subsequent changes;

Finally, the concepts of transformation have gained some acceptance in science.

Close to the transformational-evolutionary concept is expressed by the modern researcher N.N. Razuvaev. In her opinion, “the Russian transformation of the 1990s was not a revolutionary process, but representeda crisis-driven and acutely conflicted social evolution directed "from above".

It must be said that recently the concept of transformation has been usedmore often. It is widely used by scientists dealing with modern history.- A.S. Barsenkov, O.N. Smolin, L.N. Dobrokhotov and etc.

Does not oppose the concepts of revolution and transformation developer of this issue, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences V.V. Alekseev. He considers,that the reforms and revolutions that mark the key turns in the historicalprocess, are mechanisms of social transformation.

He also proposed an interesting typology of social transformations,including social transformations of the local-religious level, restructuring of the institutional level, transformations of the subsystemand, finally, of a systemic nature. It is the latter that lead to the totalrestructuring of the whole society, a radical change in its structure.

The very concept of transformation is broader. It may includeother concepts such as reform, revolution, and consider them as an option transformations.

At the same time, in our opinion, the concept of "transformation" is a definition of sociology, and not of historical science proper. It is undeniable that the rulessociology are applicable to the analysis of historical processes, therefore we believe thatthat it is legitimate to use the concepts of "social revolution" and "transformation" in assessing social changes in Russia at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries.

"Historical assessment of the events that took place in Russia at the end of the 20th centuryas a period of deep political, socio-economic and psychological transformation of society, is yet to come. But now a number of scientistsclassify them as a full-scale social revolution with all its characteristic features. The system of politicalinstitutions and socio-economic relations in society, within different social groups and elites, deep disagreements were revealed on issuessocial and state structure, a struggle broke out for the redistributionproperty. Weakness and inefficiency of power, political and financial instability, typical for the period of the revolution, appeared. There has been a change of power. The allied party-state elite was replaced by a national- religious. Forms were de-Sovietizedrepresentative and executive power.

The forms of ownership have changed as a result of denationalization and privatization, which has led to a fabulous enrichment of the elite close to power.All this was accompanied by elements of a civil war: the armed confrontation between the executive and legislative branches of power in the autumn of 1993, the Chechen war, and others. face. Specificity lies in the fact that it can be considered one of the first revolutions of the post-industrial society, therefore it was distinguished by the limited use of violence, significant compromises with the elites of the previous regime.

V.V. KIRILLOV.

In the history of mankind, Europe has always been of great importance. At the end of the XIX century. in one of the fundamental works of Russian historical and social literature, the book "Russia and Europe", N. Ya. Danilevsky noted "the tremendous results of the historical life of Europe." The peoples of Europe, according to him, not only founded powerful states that extended their power to all parts of the world, but also established abstract legal relations of citizens both among themselves and with the state. This gives grounds to call the European "cultural-historical type ... dual-basic with a predominantly scientific and industrial character of culture in the narrow sense of the word."

But the situation in the world was changing rapidly. Already in 1900, the United States, which was at the beginning of the 19th century. backward agrarian country, moved to the 1st place in the world in terms of industrial development. The results of the First World War (1914–1918) contributed to such an accelerated advance of the United States to a dominant economic position, and the Second World War (1939–1945) finally ensured the primacy of the United States, which, thanks to the rapid development of its economy, became the leading world power.

An economic boom of unprecedented duration and size took place in the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries: the US share in world GDP reached almost a third (30.4% in 2000). But the events of September 11, 2001 marked the beginning of a new stage in the political development of the whole world. The liquidation of the consequences of the terrorist attack in New York demonstrated the power of the "lone superpower", as US citizens began to call their country. At the same time, these tragic events showed the weakness of the positions of other developed countries, the urgent need for them to strengthen their economic, scientific, technical and military-political potentials. And above all, this applies to Europe, which for a long time was considered the second "center" of the modern world. Journalists described the activity of the leaders of the European Union very figuratively: "Europe yearns for independence." It's about creating United Europe, playing a dominant role in the global economy and politics. Its emergence, perhaps, will be the most important event of the 21st century.

The purpose of this manual is to reveal the process of consolidation of the economies of European countries as an integral part of the globalization of the economy and politics, to show its complex nature, and also to tell what an important role Russia is called upon to play in the fate of a united Europe. To deepen the analysis of the problems of the world economy, European economic models, the modern post-industrial economy of European countries, the features of its dynamics, and the evolution of the role of the European Union in international economic relations are consistently considered. In particular, they talk about the contradictions between the developed countries of Europe and the leading overseas power - the United States.

Given the far advanced process of creating a United Europe, the book characterizes in detail the national economies of the main European countries. At the same time, not only achievements are noted, but also contradictory trends and possible prospects.

Much attention is paid to the consideration of socio-economic and political ties between the countries of Western Europe, China, India and Russia. New directions in their relations are analyzed, assumptions are made about the nature of future cooperation between Russia and the United Europe and the role that the Russian-European Union can play in the development of the modern world.

The book is written on the basis of analysis of foreign and domestic scientific literature, publications in periodicals, statistical materials. It was prepared on the basis of lectures on the economy of European countries, which Professor G.P. Chernikov has been reading for a number of years at the Moscow State Institute (University) of International Relations, the Moscow State Institute of Commerce and other educational institutions.

Apparently, already in the first decades of the XXI century. Russia will have to deal not just with a grouping of European countries equal in strength to the US and China and superior to Japan, but with a kind of United States of Europe. At present, the European Union has already come close to transforming into a deeply integrated association of states with a common supranational system of governance, politics, defense, currency and a common economic and social space.

To understand the reasons for the creation of such an association, it is necessary to consider its objective foundations, changes taking place in world politics, features of the historical past and modern international relations of European countries. The state of natural, demographic and financial resources of these countries is also of decisive importance.

Globalization. The main forms of its manifestation

The internationalization of economic activity has developed at all stages of the formation of the world economy, forming its basis. But over the past decades, under the influence of the scientific and technological revolution and a number of other factors, the internationalization of life has acquired a new quality, which is called globalization.

So, globalization is a qualitatively new level of internationalization of all aspects of the life of a modern society of production, exchange of goods, economic, socio-political and cultural relations, etc. At the same time, we are talking not only about the breadth of coverage of phenomena, but also about qualitative changes.

The concept of globalization entered scientific circulation in the early 1980s and determined, first of all, the scale of all socio-economic changes taking place in the world civilization. In 1983, the American scientist R. Robertson first used the term "globalization" in the title of one of his articles, and in 1992 he was one of the first to outline the concept of globalization.

In recent years, a number of monographs, articles, etc. on the problems of globalization have been published in Russia and abroad. Much attention is paid to revealing the prerequisites for the development of globalization. production(new technologies, information revolution), organizational(development of new subjects of the world economy), economic(wide spread of detailed specialization, qualitative shifts in the evolution of international financial markets), etc. As a rule, studies emphasize that this process achieves such a level of internationalization of the economy, at which one can state the formation of a globally integrated economy.

Current page: 1 (total book has 31 pages) [accessible reading excerpt: 18 pages]

G. P. Chernikov, D. A. Chernikova
Europe at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries

Foreword

G. Chernikov.

Section I
Formation of the European Union. Socio-economic foundations of the association

Chapter 1
Reasons for the unification of European countries

In December 2002, at the summit of the European Union (EU) in Copenhagen, it was decided to admit 10 new members to the EU in 2004. The completion of the process of unification of European countries in 2010 will mark a decisive step forward towards the creation of a "superstate". The gross domestic product (GDP) of the 25 EU member states will exceed $10 trillion. And the population of the EU will increase to approximately 454 million people (452.2 million in 2002). The entire resource potential of the EU countries will increase significantly.

But the main thing is that United Europe will become an instrument of political centralization. The logic of the EU enlargement is a political logic, that is, the political consequences of the enlargement are important for the EU. Many European leaders today recognize that Europe must be turned into a a superpower that would be able to defend its interests on the world stage.

The objective basis for the unification of European states is the process of globalization - the economic and political internationalization of the world. “The expansion of Europe is a necessity in a globalizing world,” said R. Prodi, one of the leaders of the European Union, “and, of course, it gives us huge political advantages. The only way to counter the US and a booming China, and increase its global influence, is to form a strong united Europe.” 2
Le Figaro magazine. 2002. 21 septembre. P. 44.

Globalization. The main forms of its manifestation

The most important manifestations of globalization today are:

1) the development of world production;

2) internationalization of world exchange, including trade and financial flows;

3) deepening of the international division of labor;

4) the development of new ties between countries and their groupings, the most important of which are of an integration nature.

Even in the middle of the XIX century. In the world, local production prevailed, when more than 90% of raw materials, fuel and semi-finished products used at enterprises were brought from neighboring areas, no more than 150-200 km away from the place of consumption. And today production has an international scale. Only 63 thousand transnational enterprises, as well as 690 thousand of their branches and other enterprises associated with transnational corporations (TNCs), have assets exceeding $10–11 trillion, which is 33% of the gross world product.

The activities of transnational corporations are constantly expanding. In each sector of the economy today there are only a few companies that can satisfy the vast majority of the needs of the world's population in goods and services. They concentrate 33% of the production assets of the private sector in the world and about 40% of the total production of developed countries. As noted in the report of the UN Commission on TNCs back in 1994, "international production has become the main structural characteristic of the world economy."

In 2000, the report of the French Institute of International Relations on the state of the world economic system and strategy emphasized that the growth of globalization makes international economic cooperation increasingly important.

Another indicator of the growing globalization of the economy is activity in the field of international trade. According to a rough estimate, in the middle of the XIX century. the volume of world trade was about 15 billion dollars (at the exchange rate of the dollar at the beginning of the 90s of the XX century). According to the UN, in 1993 it reached 7368 795 million dollars. And at the beginning of the 21st century. world trade turnover exceeded 14 trillion dollars (this is almost 1000 times higher than in the middle of the 19th century).

The increasing role of international trade is reflected in growth export quota, i.e., on the ratio of the value of exports to the volume of GDP. In relation to world GDP, this indicator changed from 10.9% in 1970 to 14.0% in 1990 (in developed countries - from 12.3% to 17.8%) and today is 20-25%.

This level has now been reached international division of labor that there is practically no country left whose economic life would be isolated from the outside world, and economic processes would be limited to the borders of the national state. Foreign trade from a relatively isolated sector of the economy, compensating for the lack of certain types of resources and goods by imports, has become a necessary element of economic life. Quite often, it affects all the main economic processes, including the dynamics of production, the acceleration of technical development and the increase in economic efficiency.

Today export of capital decreased somewhat compared with foreign investment at the beginning of the 20th century, but the growth rate of this process increased sharply. This is vividly illustrated by the dynamics of direct investment: by the end of 1985, their accumulated amount was 712.5 billion dollars, and at the beginning of the 21st century. about $4.5 trillion

The main exporters and importers of capital are the largest developed countries. Foreign capital has become an important part of the economy of many states. The share of enterprises controlled by foreign capital in the total volume of manufacturing in Canada, Australia and South Africa exceeds 33%, and in the leading Western European countries it is 21-28%. Even in the United States (with their gigantic domestic market) by the mid-80s of the XX century. foreign companies controlled at least 10% of the country's industrial production, and now their share, apparently, is 13-14%.

Every major developed country has a kind of "second economy" abroad. More than 6 million people work at factories owned by American companies outside the United States, 3 million people at enterprises controlled by German capital, and more than 2.4 million people by French capital.

According to Western experts, the globalization of the economy is developing most intensively in the sphere of financial relations. Today they are already talking about the “financialization of world economic exchange”, about “finance as the basis for the globalization of capital”.

financial globalization is manifested in the gigantic growth of international financial flows, the rapid development of markets and financial instruments. According to the Basel Bank for International Settlements, the total volume of international loans issued by banks in developed countries has long been about 33% of their assets and 50% of stock market capitalization.

Another indicator can be the volume of buying and selling currency. Every day, only in 26 major world centers, such transactions are made for 1.7 trillion dollars. Transactions concluded in the course of transactions are 60 times higher than the volume of financial transactions related to international trade in goods and services.

Along with the traditional financial markets, functioning under the control of national government bodies, there are European markets- international markets, where only the law of supply and demand operates. The volume of transactions with eurobonds and euroshares in these markets exceeds many trillions of dollars.

The most notable phenomenon of recent decades is the use of the derivatives market, i.e. secondary securities. The volume of transactions with only two types of derivatives - futures and options - for 1990-1995. grew from $5.7 trillion to several tens of trillions of dollars. The total amount of issued derivatives exceeds $100 trillion, and their turnover is a quadrillion dollars.

The objective development of international economic relations leads to the growth of unifying, integration processes. Integration is called the highest form of internationalization of production and exchange. Theoretically, this is true, because integration involves the creation instead of several previously independent economic agents of their economic union, up to the emergence of a single entity. But in practice the situation is much more complicated. The integration process goes through different stages. However, the matter has not yet reached the full unification of the members of the union.

History knows examples of attempts to achieve integration through violence. It's about wars. During the Second World War, fascist Germany sought not only to seize the resources of European countries, but also to enslave their peoples, to impose a “new order” on the world. The forces of the anti-Hitler coalition prevented the implementation of these plans.

Today, integration (and there are already several dozen economic associations) is mainly regional in nature: from the creation of various forms of trade unions, from associations within individual sectors and industries to the formation of a regional economic union. The greatest development of economic integration has received in Western, Central and Eastern Europe.

Starting point of creation European Union It is generally accepted to consider the Paris statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, R. Schuman, dated May 9, 1950, who proposed the introduction of a common management of all coal mining and steel production in France and the FRG. As a result, in 1951, the Paris "Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)" was signed and in July 1952 came into force. The association includes 6 states: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, France and Italy. In 1957, the Rome "Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euroatom)" was signed. In 1967, all regional organizations merged, and on January 1, 1994, on the basis of the Maastricht Treaty (1992), the EEC became known as the European Union.

The integration process goes in two directions - in breadth and depth. So, already in 1973, Great Britain, Denmark and Ireland entered the European Economic Community, in 1981 - Greece, in 1986 - Spain and Portugal, in 1995 - Finland, Austria and Sweden, in May 2004 - – Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Malta and Cyprus. Today the EU consists of 25 countries.

The development of integration in depth can be traced on the example of changes in the economic interaction of the countries - members of the European Union:

The first stage (1951–1952) is a kind of introduction;

The central event of the second stage (late 50s - early 70s of the XX century) was the creation of a free trade zone. Then the customs union was created. A major achievement was the decision to pursue a common agricultural policy, which made it possible to establish a unity of the market and a system for protecting the agriculture of the allied countries from competitors from other countries;

At the third stage (the first half of the 70s), currency relations became the sphere of regulation;

The fourth stage (from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s) is characterized by the creation of a homogeneous economic space based on the principles of the "four freedoms" (free circulation of goods, capital, services and labor);

At the fifth stage (from the beginning of the 90s of the 20th century to the present), the formation of an economic, monetary and political union began (the introduction of a single EU citizenship along with a national one, a single currency and a banking system, etc.). A draft Constitution of the European Union has been prepared, which must be approved at referendums of all EU member states.

The creation of the European Union was due to a number of reasons, primarily the fact that it was in Western Europe after the end of World War II that the contradiction between the global nature of the modern economy and the narrow national-state boundaries of its functioning manifested itself with the greatest force, which was expressed in the intensive regionalization and transnationalization of this particular region. .

In addition, until the early 1990s, the desire of Western European countries to unite was explained by the sharp confrontation on the continent of two opposing social systems. An important political reason for integration was the desire of Western European countries to overcome the negative experience of the two world wars, rule out the possibility military confrontation on the continent in the future.

In addition, the countries of Western Europe, to a greater extent and earlier than the countries of other regions, were prepared for close economic cooperation together. The high dependence of Western European countries on foreign markets, the similarity of their economic structures, territorial and socio-cultural proximity - all this contributed to the development of integration trends. At the same time, the countries of Western Europe, by strengthening trade ties and other forms of interdependence, tried to compensate for the loss of rich colonial possessions.

The convergence of the economies of European countries on the basis of links between their companies and markets also pursued the goal of using the effect of integration to strengthen Europe's position in the competition with other centers of the world economy. At the same time, the most important was the desire of Western European countries strengthen its position in the global market in the face of the most powerful competitor - the United States of America.

However, one must keep in mind that in recent years the economic development of the European Union has been very contradictory. Comparison of the EU with two other world oligopolies - the USA and Japan - shows the convergence of their rates of development. This is primarily due to a sharp decline in Japan's economic growth. At the same time, there has been a tendency towards a certain weakening of the EU's positions in relation to the United States. Obviously, this is the reason for the attempts of the EU leadership to strengthen the role of European countries in the world economy, to oppose the dollar and dollarization with a single European currency and an effective economic and monetary union.

US expansion and the need to confront the "Lonely Superpower"

In recent years, the overseas press has increasingly begun to refer to the United States of America as a "lonely superpower." This refers not only to the collapse of the USSR - another world superpower, but also to the strengthening of the power of the United States itself, which led to the formation of new relations between countries.

Since the end of the 19th century The US has become a leader in the global economy. But especially great changes in the economic development of the country occurred at the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century. A special issue of The World in the Year 2000 of the British magazine The Economist stated: “The United States of America is rushing forward with noise and roar. In early 2000, they will set a new record for the longest continuous economic development.” And indeed they did: the share of the United States in world GDP increased from 20% in the early 90s of the XX century. up to 30.4% in 2000

The United States of America has become major trading power peace. For 1960–2000 their volume of international trade increased by 57 times. The US now accounts for about half of the world's borrowed funds. Accumulated foreign direct American investments reach 25% of the world. Their total volume exceeds the investments of the UK and Japan combined.

In modern conditions, the United States began to have the largest scientific and technical potential in the world. It spends half of all the funds of the countries of the world on research and development (R&D). 75% of the data banks available in developed countries are also concentrated here. The share of the United States in the world production of science-intensive products exceeds 36%.

The strength of the American economy is the presence highly qualified personnel. Only about 11% of American adults have less than a secondary education.

In the 90s of the XX century. in the US sharply accelerated development of new technologies. Computerization has covered all spheres of the economy. Currently, about half of the world's computers are in the US. Approximately 75% of American families own computers, and many have access to the Internet.

Economic and scientific and technological achievements have served as the basis for a diversified strengthening the military-political potential USA. The modernization of the armed forces is constantly carried out here, which is based on the improvement of modern weapons. Qualitatively new types of military equipment are emerging, and new ways of using them are being developed. At present, according to military experts, the introduction of the latest technologies is proceeding at an unprecedented pace.

The sharp increase in the economic, scientific, technical and military power of the United States leads to changes in the direction of the political activity of the American elite. The coming to power (twice!) of George W. Bush is a vivid example of this.

There is talk in the US of the triumph of the Republican concept of unilateralism. In foreign policy, this means manifestation of maximum freedom in relations with allies, potential partners and opponents. Hence the rejection of any formalized agreements, reliance on one's own capabilities, which makes it possible to ensure the prompt implementation of military and foreign policy decisions.

However, such behavior encounters resistance from other participants in international economic and political relations, primarily from a number of European countries. The international activity of the leaders of these countries quite accurately reflects the slogan: "Europe craves independence." On the one hand, we are talking about the desire to strengthen the position of the European Union in the world economy, relying on scientific achievements and the latest technologies, developing advanced industries. On the other hand, there is a desire to strengthen the military-strategic potential and political positions of the EU in the modern world.

The main activity of the European Union is scientific and technical development. In 1981–1995 in Western Europe, there has been a significant increase in spending on research and development. Thus, in Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy, these expenses increased by an average of 1.4 times (in the USA - by 1.6 times).

In 2002, the European Union adopted new plans for scientific and technological development. It is assumed that by 2010 Europe should create the best economy in the world, based on scientific knowledge, and thus not only overtake but also overtake the US and Japan in terms of development. According to the plan of the European Commission, the "scientific economy" of the EU will soon become the most dynamic and competitive in the world.

An integral part of the general development plans of the European Union is 6th framework program(RP-b) is a plan for financing scientific and technological development projects for the period 2002–2006. The program budget is huge - 17.5 billion euros. RP-b pursues several main goals: to ensure the concentration and integration of science in European countries, to create the structures of the European scientific space, etc.

The research priorities of the European Union were:

Genetics;

Biotechnologies for healthcare;

Methods of dealing with major serious diseases;

Nanotechnology;

Development of "intelligent" multifunctional materials;

New devices and manufacturing processes;

Aeronautics and space;

Sustainable development of the modern world;

Ecosystems;

Information Technology;

A number of special and organizational topics (eg policy and international cooperation in technology and scientific cooperation).

By 2006, the European "scientific space" as a structure linking scientific centers throughout Europe should take shape in its main outline. On its basis, by 2010 the European Union will create a "scientific economy". By this time, deductions for science should reach 3% of the total GDP of the European Union. Now the EU spends 1.94% of its GDP on science (Japan - 2.98%, USA - 2.7%).

Computerization of all economic and organizational processes is the most important direction in the development of the European Union. At first in the field computerization European countries lagged significantly behind the United States, but the situation is quickly leveling off: already in 2001, the costs of information technology and telecommunications services in the EU countries reached 378 billion dollars (in the USA - 550 billion dollars), which indicates the enormous efforts made by members EU to catch up with the US.

The dynamics of using the park of computers is quite indicative. Only in 2002 in the largest European countries (Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy and Spain) 12.7 million new users connected to the Internet (in the USA the number of active users did not change during the same period). The growth of the computer park, outlined in the European Union, continues. This process is developing especially rapidly in the “small” EU member states, where the degree of internetization of the economy is especially high.

The same can be said about the development ecommerce. The share of US commerce in the total volume of e-commerce in the world is declining (from 62% in 1999 to 48% in 2001). The growth rates of e-commerce giants Great Britain, France and Germany exceed 70% per year (European experts characterize the current situation very figuratively: "Europe's flirtation with the Internet is just beginning").

Development biotechnology in the countries of the European Union today, of course, an important area of scientific, technical and general economic progress. The level of development of biotechnologies increasingly determines the degree of efficiency of the economy of a particular state.

One of the results of the development of biotechnology is the emergence and wide distribution of genetically modified foods (GM foods). Today, GM crops occupy more than 50 million hectares of the world's cultivated area. In their production, the United States is leading about 70% of soybeans and cotton and more than 30% of cereals.

But biotechnology is a very risky business. In the world, there are many opponents of the use of genetic engineering in various fields, primarily in agriculture. GM foods, in their opinion, can bring more harm to humanity than good. This point of view dominated Europe for a long time. On the one hand, European countries continue to import genetically modified soybeans from Argentina and the United States, on the other hand, the ranks of protesters against the use of “Frankenstein food” are growing in Europe. This led to the introduction in 2000 of a moratorium on the issuance of permits for the use of GM crops and their products.

However, in the summer of 2002, an event took place that was described as the beginning of another "green revolution": the European Union decided not to extend the moratorium on the use of GM crops and declared the development of biotechnology one of the priorities for maintaining the competitiveness of European agricultural products. In the fall of 2002, representatives of the world's largest biotechnology companies and major environmental non-governmental organizations, including those from EU countries, concluded an important cooperation agreement at a meeting organized by the World Bank. Its goal is to solve the problems of world agriculture in the coming decades, using for this all the achievements of modern biotechnology.

The reasons for this "turn" should be sought in the sphere of politics and economics. The European Union is one of the main competitors of the United States in the agricultural market. Biotechnology is an effective way to expand exports, in particular cereals, meat and milk, as well as an important means to strengthen the EU's position in developing countries.

At the end of 2002 and during 2003, the desire to strengthen the military-political potential of the EU, to create common defense complex. The unification is facilitated by the growth of military spending in the EU countries, the modernization of the military-industrial complex (MIC) of European countries. A technological arms competition is unfolding between the US and EU countries. In some areas, the European military-industrial complex is not inferior in terms of the level of development to the American one, and even surpasses it in total indicators.

Military reforms are being carried out in a number of Western European countries. For example, in France, the reform (it began at the end of 1996 and should be completed by 2015) provides for a radical reorganization of all armed forces and a revision of military doctrine, as a result of which special emphasis will be placed on creating the possibility of conducting an interventionist action anywhere on our planet.

France and Germany, actively seeking to deepen European integration, consider it their important task to create a unified defense industry capable of ensuring a military policy independent of the United States. In addition, they want to effectively compete with the Americans in the market for high-tech products.

Back in 1999, at the European Union summit in Helsinki, a unified concept of rapid reaction forces. In a special "Catalogue of forces", approved in 2000 by the EU countries (with the exception of Denmark, which refused to participate in the all-European army), the composition of the new structure was defined as 100 thousand people, 400 combat aircraft and 100 ships.

Almost 15 years have passed since the day when religion in Russia was released from the "ghetto" in which it had been during the entire "Soviet" period of our history. Up to this point, the officially permitted religion existed under the strict control of the authorities, which consisted of the following:

Churches were open, but not all (in Moscow, within the Moscow Ring Road, out of about a thousand churches, 44 remained open, in Leningrad - ten, in regional centers from one to three, etc. There were, however, such regional centers where the temple did not exist at all), while the monasteries practically did not exist - with the exception of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.

The baptism of each infant was reported to the parent's place of work so that they would be punished and possibly fired from their jobs. Priests who practiced baptism in the homes of believers were punished, and often they were deprived of registration with the Council for Religious Affairs, and, consequently, they could no longer serve in their parish and became unemployed. No preaching outside the walls of the church, even in private apartments, was allowed and was immediately equated with anti-Soviet activity. However, even in churches, priests for the most part tried not to preach. Everyone was silent, except for a few people, among whom Father Alexander Men stood out.

At the same time, the Church was officially under the auspices of the Soviet authorities. Patriarch Pimen, now deceased, was treated in the same hospital where members of the Politburo were treated, and rested in the sanatorium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and also attended official receptions in the Kremlin.

Today, throughout Russia, thousands of old ones are being restored and hundreds of new ones are being built, and the bishop in every region is not only surrounded by honor, but is perceived as the second person after the governor. The highest officials of the state participate in divine services, etc. Icons, crosses, etc. are sold everywhere, as well as books - prayer books and biographies of saints. These books are everywhere in huge quantities. The Bible and even just the New Testament is not everywhere, although the Russian Bible Society distributes it throughout the country. There is an acute shortage of books for study and in-depth or spiritual reading of the Bible.

However, behind this idyllic shell lies a rather complex content. Divine services are celebrated everywhere in the medieval Slavic language, which is almost incomprehensible to the vast majority of parishioners. Beautiful in itself, the Slavic language - this analogue of Catholic Latin - today, in fact, is an obstacle to the religious quest of modern man. It makes the already long services of the Byzantine rite inaccessible to most people, who are unable to understand their content and understand what exactly is read and sung during the service - figuratively speaking, to connect to the spiritual wave on which the service is conducted. .

For this reason, the overwhelming majority of parishioners in the church are attracted not by the content of the service, but by some separate and purely ritual moments. They come here to take home holy water, kiss a revered icon or take oil consecrated in front of it, kiss the relics of a saint, take communion, but nothing more. People feel (precisely feel) the presence of some higher power in the church, but at the same time the meaning of the gospel call of Jesus is forced out of their consciousness (sometimes completely) by adherence to the ritual side of Orthodoxy. The latter leads to the fact that a huge number of people believe in God begins to be perceived as magic.

In such religiosity, the main role is played not by the personal relationship of the believer with God, but by that material object, a kind of fetish, without which religion for these people loses its meaning. This religious “materialism” is also connected with the position of the priest, who begins to see himself not as a shepherd, whose task is to help people on the road to God, but sui generis the guardian of the shrine, the guardian, whose function is to keep the “uninitiated”, that is, the unprepared or in one way or another not cleansed of sin, from approaching the shrine. If Jesus calls everyone to Himself with the words “Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened,” then such a priest argues according to the principle profani, proculite-"go away, uninitiated."

Often he treats parishioners extremely harshly and rudely, he may not allow them to take communion, as he believes that the person is not well prepared. He may also declare that the one who came to him for confession is so guilty that he cannot even confess, or he may start asking questions related to the intimate sphere, etc. Thus, the gospel teaching becomes prohibition system and intimidation of parishioners. So, for example, it is considered a great sin if a woman or girl comes to church in trousers or does not put a headscarf on her head. On December 28, 1998, at a meeting of the Holy Synod, the abuses in spiritual practice, which had a negative impact on the state of church life, were discussed.

It must be understood that one of the main features of the church community today is the predominance of neophytes in it - people who have become believers over the past decade and had nothing to do with Orthodoxy and church life before the start of perestroika. An observer may get the impression that elderly women of 60-75 years old, who, as a rule, make up the majority of the permanent parishioners of each, especially not an urban, but a rural parish, have always been believers. However, just 15 years ago, when the oldest of them were no more than 60, they knew nothing about faith at all and came to it at the moment when the state policy towards religion began to change.

At the same time, they naturally chose as a model for behavior the imitation of the style that was inherent in the generation of their mothers and grandmothers, that is, those people who preserved Orthodoxy as a confession and way of life in the era of Soviet power. Imitation - not only in the behavior of ordinary believers, but in general - is becoming one of the leading features of religious consciousness today, while Russia in the second half of the 19th century and protective tendencies (in the broad sense of the word, that is, from the late Slavophiles and K. Leontiev to K.P. Pobedonostsev and the "Black Hundred"), inherent in that era of church consciousness. It was the idealization of the past (not the era of the apostles and the preaching of the Gospel, or the time of great saints such as Sergius of Radonezh, but the 19th and early 20th centuries!) that led to the fact that the question of the canonization of Nicholas II and members of his family, who were killed in 1918, became in the middle of 90 -s main for a significant part of believers and those who identified their political views and worldview in general with Orthodoxy.

Many of the zealots for the speedy canonization of Tsar Nicholas II and his family demanded that the murder of the tsar be regarded as ritual, that is, committed by the Jews for ritual purposes, and that he himself be glorified.

as "martyr tsar", "God's anointed" and "guardian of Orthodoxy", "martyred by the Jews". If we take the prayers composed for him, in particular, the akathist, then there he was directly likened to Christ in the words “like a sheep led to the slaughter”, which refer only to Jesus, and further in the formula “like an immaculate lamb relying on the atonement of our sins, let us all praise you unceasingly: Rejoice, God-loving sacrifice. Here again, there is an unacceptable from the point of view of a believing Christian (and in the language of religion is simply blasphemous) likening the figure of Nicholas II to Christ the Savior and, in essence, a substitution is carried out: the Redeemer and the Anglet of God, who will take away the sin of the world, turns out not to be Jesus, and Tsar Nicholas I.

Of course, such theological innovations testify to only one thing - the extremely low intellectual level and complete theological illiteracy of those who compose these texts, however, this akathist is widely circulated among Orthodox believers and is published (without the blessing of the Patriarch!) in fairly large numbers. It is for this reason that Metropolitan Yuvenaly (Poyarkov), who heads the synodal commission for canonization, for a long time hindered the glorification of Nicholas and his family, despite the unconditional veneration of them by believers. In those years, the metropolitan repeated many times that the canonization of the royal family should not have political or extremist overtones and, of course, does not mean the canonization of the monarchy itself. That is why the tsar was glorified as a martyr only in the summer of 2000, along with a cathedral of 900 new martyrs.

Tsar Ivan the Terrible is also declared a holy "abbot of the Russian land". “Like once heroism,” writes Metropolitan John (Snychev) in his book “Autocracy of the Spirit,” “oprichnina service has become a form of church obedience - the struggle for the churching of all Russian life.” Further, the late hierarch says that the whole life of Tsar Ivan IV “had an ascetic character”, and concludes that, “having taken upon himself the most ungrateful work of necessity, the tsar, like a surgeon, cut off rotting, useless members from the body of Russia.” It would seem that such a rethinking of the oprichnina and the very phenomenon of holiness, from the point of view of Orthodoxy, should seem like blasphemy, but it is fully accepted by numerous admirers of the St. Petersburg bishop.

In connection with all the above facts, the question of the self-identification of the Orthodox consciousness sharply arises. Not rooted in the liturgical, prayerful, and generally mystical life of Eastern Christianity, the modern religious community in Russia is beginning to identify itself, without deepening its vision of Orthodoxy, but opposing (which is always easier!) itself to Christians of other traditions, Catholics and Protestants, representing, moreover, non-Russian - Western, and in the communist paradigm (which, despite the rejection of communist ideology, continues to "work" in the minds of most Russians) "bourgeois, hostile and opposite to ours" - civilization. Orthodox consciousness is rapidly becoming xenophobic, closed off, and highly intolerant of both non-Christians and the West in general. The image of the enemy, characteristic of the Soviet consciousness, becomes one of the cornerstones of the spontaneous ideology that takes shape in the mid-1990s in the Orthodox community.

Theological seminaries and academies in the immediate vicinity of the Synod. Priests from the Jews most often deny historical, that is, canonical Orthodoxy, designating it with the label of "Black Hundreds."

In a speech at the congress of the Christian Renaissance Union, V. Osipov put forward the following thesis: “In Orthodoxy is the soul of the Russian people. Therefore, the penetration of a deliberately anti-canonical jet into the Doctrine is a creep into the very soul of the nation. Having nothing against some individual, devoutly devoted to Orthodoxy, priests of Jewish origin, who have completely gone over to the camp of Holy Russia, at the same time we cannot but show concern in relation to the mass of priests alien to Holy Russia. It is impossible not to notice that the thesis about the "crawling into the soul of the nation" of the Jews is already directly reminiscent of the texts from Mein Kampf. As well as V. Osipov's indication that a Jewish priest cannot profess a Russian: "a different psychology - a different mentality."

This is not enough. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, for some reason, with the blessing of the recently deceased Perm Archbishop Athanasius (Kudyuk), seemingly a worthy and moderate person, it was reprinted many times (the last edition was 7,500 copies) and is sold in many Orthodox churches and kiosks in the Moscow metro the famous book by Sergei Nilus "Near is, at the door", in which the infamous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" were printed, the anti-Semitic texts of which were widely used by Hitler in Mein Kampf.

Another author of The Tsar's Oprichnik, Alexander Eliseev, preaches "strong-willed Christianity, the religion of the Middle Ages, which willingly allows violence against adversaries and theomachists." “True Orthodoxy,” according to Eliseev, “has nothing to do with moralizing, humanism, pacifism.” “Christianity must be taken away,” Eliseev writes in an article that is called “Volitional Christianity,” from the slobbers and Pharisees. This is our religion - the religion of white men, warriors, ascetics. “How long,” Eliseev asks, “will we ignore the kshatriya, orderly dimension of Christianity? How long will we perceive it as something feminine, old lady, sugary-tearful? Isn't it time to abandon the abstract-humanistic, essentially cosmopolitan perception of the integral and stern teaching of Christ?

The term "Kshatriya dimension of Christianity" already speaks volumes. He recalls the Aryan theory, which, of course, is professed by a publicist who sees the religion of white men and warriors in Christianity. What follows are quotations from the Bible, but mainly from the Book of Joshua. Christ with His “solid and stern teaching,” as Eliseev puts it, is completely absent here. In essence, we are offered a brutal and masculine and, moreover, based on racial theory, so to speak, Nietzschean ideology based on group narcissism (Erich Fromm's term). From Christianity and Orthodoxy, only the outer shell remains here, inside here you can find only pure paganism and incredible aggressiveness.

The question arises: why, unlike Hitler, who, following Nietzsche, completely abandoned Christianity in his theory, do the banner-bearers, brothers and comrades-in-arms invest their ideology in the form of Orthodoxy, impeccable from the outside? Probably, the reason for this lies in the fact that, in contrast to Germany, which is saturated with the Lutheran culture of reading Scripture, in Russia Orthodoxy for the vast majority is associated only with ritual and with nostalgia for the tsarist time and the heroic (one of the favorite words of Metropolitan John!) past. And, while it was absolutely clear to Hitler that his theories were incompatible with Christianity, for Platonov, Osipov, Eliseev and so on. Orthodoxy as a "father's faith" and, most importantly, empire religion turns out to be the only possible form in which the Russian ideology.

It is difficult to say how numerous are today the supporters of the "Orthodox gonad-bearers", Platonov, V. Osipov and others, the admirers of Sergei Nilus and the followers of Metropolitan John. What is clear is that they are well represented on the Internet and have sufficiently powerful financial resources, as well as organize quite numerous rallies. However, the presidential elections in France - unlike Russia, which was quite prosperous and prosperous - in April-May 2002 and 17% of the votes won by Le Pen in their second round, make us think that Russia is not immune from something. something similar. Moreover, the "banners" and leaders of similar fraternities and organizations are spreading their views and are actively campaigning among vocational school students, technical schools and students.

This is exactly what the head of Russian Action, Konstantin Kasimovsky, a native of the Memory D. Vasiliev, is doing, famous for the fact that he “cleansed Moscow streets of sectarians and presumptuous Caucasian hooligans, and worked on the sports education of Russian youth. The Union published the most popular among young radicals newspaper "Shturmovik" and a serious theoretical magazine "Nation". Kasimovsky, - says his biography, - believes that its structure should "organically combine the features of a spiritual and mystical order, a political party and a military sports organization." Kasimovsky is “a promising and energetic leader, a true leader of Russian radical youth. He is highly erudite and well versed in social disciplines, well acquainted with computer technology and the latest information warfare technologies.”

Today, the episcopate sees in "Orthodox" politicians people who "in fact have nothing to do with Orthodoxy." “I met,” says Metropolitan Sergius (Fomin) in an interview with hegumen (now bishop) Hilarion (Alfeev), “with the leaders of such parties: they have no idea, let alone Orthodoxy, about God.” However, and this is much more serious, their views in the ROC, as experience shows, are shared today by many clergy and laity.

The authors of the Russian Partisan and Tsarsky Oprichnik online magazines publish materials in which they demonstrate adherence to racial theory and almost all points of Hitler’s program, while they have a fairly high level of knowledge of Orthodox material (in this regard, Metropolitan Sergius is not quite right when he says that they have no idea about Orthodoxy) and are good at creating suggestive texts. “Volitional Christianity” (the term of A. Eliseev), and this must be realized with all responsibility, is a very dangerous phenomenon of today's youth culture in Russia.

So the spring of 2002 passed under the sign of the struggle against Catholicism. So on April 28, when the day of the Lord's Entry into Jerusalem or the so-called Palm Sunday was celebrated, it would seem that one of the brightest and at the same time saddest days of the year, anti-Catholic rallies or "standings" took place in Moscow and in a number of other cities, during during which it was said that the main enemy of Russian statehood is the Vatican, and "Catholicism is destructive for the entire system and the moral consciousness of Russian citizens." One of the organizers of this rally in Moscow, State Duma deputy Gennady Raikov compared the "offensive of the Vatican" with the expansion of NATO to the East and the threat of a nuclear attack on Russia, and the participants in the rally were holding slogans like "Vatican - get out!". It makes sense to point out that during religious processions organized by the Moscow Patriarchate, there are always activists who go out into the street with similar posters. However, the deans and other clergy responsible for conducting the procession usually immediately demand that these banners be removed.

Orthodoxy is declared the Russian national religion, and the call for Christian unity is perceived as directed against Russia, against its past and future, against its national identity, and so on. "The basis of the Ideology of the Brotherhood is the old Russian ideology:" Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality, but in a “new”, apocalyptic “hot” (Rev. 3:15), conservative-revolutionary reading,” says one of the documents of the brotherhood of St. Joseph Volotsky. Thus, Christianity becomes a form of expression of the national spirit and a banner of national spirituality. It is clear that in this case it inevitably loses its universal character, forgets about the call of Jesus "may all be one" and turns, as one Orthodox priest from America said, into the tribal religion of Russians.

There is every reason to say that here we are dealing with an ideology that has a pronounced "necrophilic character", as Miguel de Unamuno said in 1936, when he called the views professed by the Francoist regime in Spain "necrophilic".

“Necrophilia” or “passionate attraction to everything that is dead, sick, putrid” and “at the same time a passionate desire to turn everything alive into inanimate and a passion for destruction for the sake of destruction” as a psychological phenomenon is described in detail by E. Fromm in the book “Anatomy of Human Destructiveness” as secondary, but practically a mandatory feature of any totalitarian ideology. According to Fromm, necrophilia is characterized by the belief that violence (or, as Simone Weil says, "the ability to turn a person into a corpse") is the only way in which the Gordian knot of problems is untied. “Patient untying of more and more new knots,” writes Fromm, “ from a necrophilic point of view leads to nothing." At the same time, true Orthodox asceticism denies violence and, in essence, everything consists of patient and daily untying of knots.

The Slavic language in their eyes is valuable precisely and only because it is not spoken today - thus, they hold on to tradition for the sake of tradition itself, forgetting that over the almost two millennia of the existence of Orthodoxy, the external forms of religiosity have changed and transformed a lot. times precisely in order to preserve the content, not the form. When Cyril and Methodius translated the Gospel into Slavonic in the ninth century, they were pioneers and innovators; the meaning of their work was precisely to make the Word of God understandable for ignorant and almost wild people who did not understand a word either in Greek or in Latin.

It is also necessary to pay attention to the fact that closeness, a feeling of rejection of other traditions in Christianity, an unfriendly attitude towards Christianity in the West and, above all, towards Catholicism on the basis of the principle “ours or not ours” is today for many truly believing people in Russia something like defensive reaction. When a person knows very little about his own Orthodox faith, about its depths and spiritual treasures, it begins to seem to him that he can defend his rightness only in opposition. Such a confrontation, however, very quickly develops into aggressiveness and opposition of one's faith to other confessions. And all this is happening against the backdrop of the fact that religious publications constantly inflate rejection towards Catholics and Protestants in order to maintain the image of the enemy in the minds of believers.

So, for example, a young artist declares on all-Russian television: "No other nation has such iconography as ours." He makes this statement and, of course, does not know anything about what constitutes religious art among others, including Orthodox peoples (Greeks, Cypriots, Romanians and Bulgarians). Why not say differently, for example, to be amazed that Russian icon painting is such that there is not a single nation that would not admire it? This would be true, and very flattering for the Russian people, for it is no coincidence that a copy of Andrei Rublev's "Holy Trinity" has become the main shrine and symbol of the Catholic Church. Ste Trinite in Paris, and reproductions of the Vladimir icon can be found in Catholic churches almost everywhere.

The religious situation in Russia is conditioned, first of all, by the fact that the society, brought up on Marxism-Leninism, is almost blindly looking for a new obligatory ideology for itself today, which would at the same time be “the only correct one”, which was Marxism. As a result, in the minds of many (including pure and truly believing people), Orthodoxy is turning into a new, precisely this kind, ideology. The word “ideology” is generally the key word for near-Orthodox and, above all, “fraternal” journalism.

“Patriots,” says Yegor Kholmogorov, one of the supporters of the new interpretation of Orthodoxy, “have always been greatly let down by the lack of scientific foundation and the “only true teaching” that allows them to impose a certain conceptual grid on ongoing events, to understand what happened and partly predict the future. In the absence of any version of "historical materialism", "dialectical historicism" or "materialistic idealism" after the collapse of Marxism, the popular interpretation of history remained at the level of the World Secret Zhyd (that's exactly the case with Kholmogorov!), in several of its modifications - from radical Orthodox to radical Satanist”. And although this passage contains allusions, usual for “Orthodox” journalism, to the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, the worldwide Jewish conspiracy, etc., it is, in fact, really interesting. Those. Patriots are not concerned about faith, not about God, and not about meeting Him in prayer, but only about the ideological aspect of what they call Orthodoxy.

The same newspaper and its regular contributor K. Dushenov exposes Metropolitan of Minsk and Slutsk Filaret (Vakhromeev) as a heretic for his consistent ecumenism. It is paradoxical that the same Communist Party, which for seventy years planted militant atheism in the country, blew up churches and shot believers, acts as the defender of Orthodoxy. Of course, the Communists are not interested in Orthodoxy in itself, but it is important for them to support those forces that can implement the policy of national, spiritual and cultural isolationism. It is for this reason that the interests of some Orthodox fundamentalists and communist leaders today coincide.

Eschatological sentiments are quite strong among Orthodox people in Russia today. At the same time, the expectation of the end of the world almost always has a political flavor (as was the case with the Russian Old Believers in the early eighteenth century). Eschatological expectations today are combined with the rejection of democratic reforms and the openness towards Europe that is being established in Russia today. These people see a sign of the approaching end of the world in the fact that Russia has ceased to be a great power and has lost control over the former socialist countries, and NATO has strengthened its position in Eastern Europe.

Anti-Semitism, characteristic of the protective trend of the 19th century, is superimposed on the rejection of modern "Westernism", which, in the spirit of the "anti-Zionist" literature of the 60-80s. (Ivanov, Evseev, Begun, etc.) is identified with the implementation of the worldwide Jewish conspiracy, and so on. In general, the following happens. Denying the communist ideology in words, the “near-Orthodox” consciousness adopts most of the ideological mythologies of the Brezhnev era and at the same time opposes the “bad” (closing churches and fighting Orthodoxy) Lenin and Khrushchev to the “good” Stalin, who opened churches at the end of the war and began the struggle with cosmopolitanism, which returned patriotic values to the country, and so on.

Because of this last circumstance, there is hope that in time this growing pain will be overcome. The latter statement is supported by the fact that over the past two or three years, the trends described above have become somewhat weaker. The painful, slow and inconsistent formation of civil society in Russia is nevertheless leading to the fact that the isolationist worldview gives way to that rooted in the New Testament vision of life, which is opposed to any xenophobia and any sense of exclusivity.

The joyful Orthodoxy of the recently canonized Father Alexy Mechev, who at the same time resembles the holy curate of Ars and the Italian folk saint Padre Pio, the doctrine of the spiritual life of Fr. Sophrony (Sakharov) and his teacher Elder Siluan, the holy life, literary creativity and icon painting of Mother Mary, a Russian nun from Paris, who can be called the Orthodox sister of Edith Stein - all this is spiritual capital, indicating that Orthodoxy is alive and has not lost that evangelical spirit that makes Christians true disciples of Jesus. Mother Maria, a philosopher, poet and scientist, devoted herself entirely to the poor and destitute, and during the war in Paris she saved Jews, for which she was sent to the gas chamber. Her colleague Fr. Dimitri Klepinin, when asked by the Gestapo why he cares so much about the Jews, picked up his pectoral cross and, showing them the image of Jesus, asked: “Do you know this Jew?” For two years the Kiev priest Fr. Alexy Glagolev. It is they, and not O. Platonov or V. Osipov, who answer the question of what Orthodoxy is with their very lives.

At the same time, it must be borne in mind that even today there are many spiritually healthy people in the Church throughout Russia. It is only important that they are not afraid of the "Black Hundred", which, of course, testifies to itself much louder than quiet and hardworking believers do. Faith is not an ideology or a call to fight against enemies that are found everywhere. Orthodoxy does not accept any racist, anti-Semitic, or xenophobic theories in general, because it is based on the Gospel that Jesus addresses to all nations without exception. Society in Russia is developing and yet rejects the ideology of isolationism, which today attracts mostly marginalized people; is not today the ideology of the majority and aggressive nationalism.

Chistyakov Georgy Petrovich

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G. P. Chernikov, D. A. Chernikova
Europe at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries

Section I
Formation of the European Union. Socio-economic foundations of the association

Chapter 1
Reasons for the unification of European countries