Critical Attitudes among the Soviet Scientific and Academic Intelligentsia in the Historical and Socio-Cultural Context of 1960-1990s
Sergey Filippov
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2022-14.2.1-68-85
Abstract:

The article deals with investigating into the conditions of the critical attitude spread among scientists and academicians during the period of 1960s–1990s towards some aspects of domestic and foreign state policy of that time. At the same time, the motives for such a criticism seem not to be obvious, since the social status and well-being of the scientific and academic intelligentsia, as well as its public prestige, was one of the highest among the socio-professional groups of Soviet society. To perceive criticism of Soviet scientists as a form of struggle against the regime does not seem entirely correct, since the critically thinking Soviet scientists did not seek to popularize their socio-political ideas and attract supporters from other social groups. On the contrary, the discussion on “complex” political and socio-economic aspects of the Soviet society took place within closed communities. In addition, the Soviet scientific intelligentsia of that time, unlike the pre-revolutionary intellectuals, did not idealize people; they did not have a sense of “guilt” towards it, as well as the idea of selfless “serving the people”. Soviet scientists perceived themselves as an elite, even aristocratic group, and this idea found expression in the science-fiction novel “Hard to Be a God” by the Soviet writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The main character of the novel is the historian Anton, who was sent to the Arkanar Kingdom on an alien planet and assumed the role of an aristocrat named Don Rumata. He masterfully uses a sword, enjoys phenomenal success with women and contributes to the progress of local humanity. The Soviet intellectuals of that time constructed their own elite professional and social identity using the practices of prestigious consumption and behavior and pursuing specific socialization strategies that were alternative to the official Soviet norms and rules of behavior. The self-identification of scientists as an elite group within the Soviet society was based on the social conditions for the development of science in the USSR in the 1950s–1960s such as a high level of prestige of scientific and academic activities, high expectations from science as well as creating relatively autonomous scientific centers (“Academic Town” or ZATO (‘closed administrative-territorial formation’) – closed towns with secret research installations). Such settlements were quite independent from the local and regional authorities being subordinated directly to Moscow. Besides, secrecy of closed cities or facilities limited the possibilities of the direct control and interference from regional party and state authorities in the activities of scientific institutions and scientists.

Conditions of the National Elites Loyalty towards the Central Government in the Soviet Period of Russian History
Sergey Filippov
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2020-12.4.1-230-248
Abstract:

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

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

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

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

Exiled Settlers from the Baltic States in Western Siberia in 1941-1945
Viktoria Sarnova
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2019-11.3.2-390-411
Abstract:

The paper is devoted to the deportation and stay in Western Siberia of deportees from the Baltic republics. That deportation (summer, 1941) made the deportees the second (after the Polish) large ethnic special contingent during the Second World War period. The deportation operation was positioned by the Soviet leadership as a “cleansing” of the newly annexed territories from the anti-Soviet, criminal and socially dangerous elements, i.e. it was conducted on a social rather than ethnic basis. Perhaps this “dual” approach predetermined the peculiarity of the operation and its difference from the previous one. In particular, in view of the “increased social danger” of the contingent, the most rigid exile settlement regime was introduced until 1952. The paper analyzes the main documents regulating the process of forced relocation, status, regime, supply, and employment of exiled settlers and other aspects of their stay in Siberia. The author comes to the conclusion that deportations from the Baltic and Moldavian republics were not planned in advance. The decision to conduct them arose to some extent spontaneously, after a memorandum from the People's Commissar of State Security of the Lithuanian SSR, P.A. Gladkov (we would remind you that the Resolution on Deportation from the republics of the Baltic States and Moldova has not been found yet and, very likely, did not exist at all). Therefore, the regulation of the status of this category of deportees was not sufficiently worked out. In this regard, local authorities in Siberia did not always understand what they had to do, and often they simply disclaimed all responsibility for the matters related to the situation with deportees in special settlements. A special part of the paper is the analysis of a very original source - discontinued archival and investigatory cases (AIC), which were instigated on special settlers as the result of their criminal prosecution. The paper gives a profound analysis of the case No. 19707 as an example, which describes a special case from the lives of exiled settlers (deported to the Altai Territory) who organized an “illegal” literary circle and published a handwritten journal “Home Sickness”.

Notes on the article by W. Sassin “Images of the World: Ideas of Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood and their transformations”
Sergey Flakh
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-1.1-49-56
Abstract:

Wolfgang Sassin’s article "Images of the World: Ideas of Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood and Their Transformation" (“Ideas and Ideals”, No. 4, 2017) forms the first part of his big article (part 2 is published in this volume of the journal). The ideas expressed in the article have evoked great interest of Russian researchers, yet some of his statements have raised serious questions and objections. The author presents a critical analysis of these controversial statements. The goal of this discussion is not just to express objection and the opposite point of view, but to deeper understand extremely important and interesting issues raised by W. Sassin. The idea of the primary atomicity of individuals and the deriving from it the original individual freedom seem to be quite controversial. W. Sassin tries to find the grounds for the key social concepts in the Bible, however he takes the ideas which are not essential for the Bible itself, but have been widely disseminated during the age of Enlightenment that took place under the slogan of struggle against Christianity. This refers to such slogans as "conquer nature" and "liberty, equality, and fraternity". The author's persuasion that the faith in One God makes all people equal before Him, would be fair only if the equality would be understood by him only in a personal sense, but the author imparts it with social meaning. The inference of these values not only from Christianity but also from monotheism in general looks unjustified.

THE SOCIALIST-REVOLUTIONARY VARIANTS OF THE NARODNIK MODEL OF THE SOCIO-POLITICAL REORGANIZATION OF RUSSIA
Konstantin Morozov
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2017-4.1-135-156
Abstract:

The article poses for the first time the problem of the existence of democratic and undemocratic variants of the Populist model of the reorganization of Russia. The latter, born three times in different historical epochs on the left flank of the party, can be determined by the self-designation of these forces, under the common name - as a Left-Narodnik variant of the Narodnik model of the socio-political reorganization of Russia. It is known in three of his sub-variants - the maximalist (1904-1906), the Left Socialist (1917) and the MPSR (1919-1922). The democratic Socialist-Revolutionary version of the populist model is known in three sub-variants. The most famous is the so-called. "Chernovsky", "centrist", which became a kind of "Socialist-Revolutionary orthodoxy" and formed the basis of the official doctrine of the PSR. Another sub-variant was born on the right flank of the party and is associated with the names of N.D.Avksentyev, I.I.Fondaminsky, V.V.Rudnev, M.V.Vishnyak, and others. Apparently, we can talk about the formation of one more, more right subvariant, which was forming on the right flank of the party around the newspaper "The Will of the People" (Volya Naroda) and is associated with the names of A.A.Argunov, A.I.Gukovsky, P.A.Sorokin, E.A.Stalinsky. They were ideologically close to E.K.Breško-Breshkovskaya, A.F.Kerensky, B.V.Savinkov, and others. The author believes that, in fact, the democratically oriented part of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party anticipated the ideas and path of the so-called "Swedish socialism," the path of evolutionary reforming of society along the lines of democracy and the social state, a path which was taken by many socialist and social democratic parties in post-war Europe. In Russia, the PSR took this path already in 1917 and it was this program of its transformation that was supported by the majority of the population of Russia at the elections to the Constituent Assembly. Moreover, the Socialist-Revolutionary democratic alternative started to be implemented in the framework of the laws adopted by the Constituent Assembly

THE IDEA OF DEVELOPMENT OF A RUSSIAN UNIVERSITY
N.A. Olshannikova
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2017-4.1-105-112
Abstract:

The article examines theoretical development of the idea of a Russian University in the XVIII-XIX centuries. The author considers the ideas of outstanding scientists and thinkers of the time. She also analyzes the charters of Russian universities and their role in the development of University education and considers the attitudes and influence of society on the development of universities. It is highlighted in the article that relations between the state, society and universities are well-defined in the University statutes. Four University Charters were adopted in Russia in the XIX century: 1804, 1835, 1863, and 1884. If the first Charter granted relative autonomy to the universities, the Charter of 1835 strengthened the power of Trustees, thereby limiting the previously given autonomy. The third Charter of 1863 restored the universities in their rights granting them broad autonomy, while the Charter of 1884 abolished them altogether. The author studies both points of view: the Russian and the foreign ones on the topic of University autonomy from the government. The article shows that Russian universities couldn’t even think about any autonomy, because they were created by the state with the aim to strengthen and preserve the monarchy. The author presents a comparison of missions of the first University and the already reformed University. While the mission of the first university was training of officials for the state service, the reformed universities focused on the development of science within its walls. The article considers development of the Russian University within one hundred years frame from the utilitarian to the classical one.

UNITED NATIONS
Oleg Donskikh,  I.O. Maksimov,  T.A. Nikonova,  G.V. Toropchin,  D.A. Borisov
Abstract:

Since 2009 the “Novosibirsk Model of the United Nations” at the Novosibirsk State University of Economics and Management has been held by the Department of the World Economy, International Relations and Law as an important methodological and practical element of education in International Relations, International Regional Studies and the World Economy. The experience of modeling the activities of the United Nations is important for students to understand how the decision-making process in modern international system works and why in international relations everything is not going as well as we would like, but not as bad as it could be. The round table discussed the role of the UN in the modern world, the history of the organization and the contradictions, put in the basement by its founders when it emerged; the causes of the current UN crisis and the prospects for its elimination; the role of the UN in the past and present armed conflicts; in ensuring international security and protecting human rights; the United Nations activities in the field of the world economy on the example of the UN Global Compact on Social Responsibility, as well as other issues related to international relations at the present stage. It is noted that in the ordinary mind the expectations of the UN are extremely high. The UN has formed the image of a powerful and influential organization, the world government,

ERIC HOBSBAWM’S HERITAGE
Madkhavan Palat
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2017-3.1-9-33
Abstract:

Hobsbawm’s modern world originated in the big bang of the eighteenth century, and it was extinguished in an implosion almost exactly two centuries later. To him these two hundred years were defined by the project of the Enlightenment which imagined a world that was equally good for all of humanity and not for just some part of it. More than revolution, the Enlightenment drove this world onward until it seems to have exhausted itself by the end of the twentieth century: the Marxist Hobsbawm is inspired more by the Enlightenment than by one of its consequences, the millenarian dream of revolution. Deriving from the Enlightenment, the conjoined industrial and French revolutions, known as the dual revolution in his work, generated all subsequent events. The industrial revolution assumed both capitalist and socialist forms, and the political revolution inaugurated by the French species spawned a series of bourgeois and socialist revolutions, attempts at revolution of both types, and revolutions against revolution, or counter-revolutions. They permeated not only the politics and the economy of the continent, but as much its social and cultural processes and the sciences and the arts. His magnificent oeuvre celebrates this universe bounded by the two revolutionary waves of the late eighteenth and the late twentieth centuries; but it is a celebration that broods on its dark side as much as on its stupendous achievements. His grand theme is the hope held out by the Enlightenment, the revolutions that sustained it, and the counter-revolutions that negated it. As this modern world drew to its close in the 1990s, a gloomy uncertainty hangs over the world, and his musings on the post-Cold War world reflect this unease.