The thorny path of the Russian sociology sovereignty: History, the present time and prospects

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Slavophilism: Development of the nationally original sociology

Slavophilism is a direction in the Russian social thought, which defended the “idea of ​​a specific path and a special historical role for Russia” [56. P. 426]. One of its founders A.S. Khomyakov was a social theorist who studied the specifics of the Russian worldview [21; 22]. I.V. Kireevsky contributed to the development of Slavophilism, revealing different approaches to the education in Europe and Russia [23; 24]. N.I. Kareev considered social, cultural and civilizational factors that contributed to the emergence of sociology, the cultural essence of its subject, main tasks and methods; critically analyzed main sociological directions such as naturalism, psychologism, Darwinism and Marxism; revealed the relationship of sociology with biology, psychology and jurisprudence [18]. He became famous thanks to his theory of the historical process [17], which partly has not lost its relevance today [51].

A.S. Lappo-­Danilevsky is a founder of the nationally oriented methodology of the historical science in Russia [33]. V.O. Klyuchevsky is rightfully considered a founder of the Russian historical sociology as he developed a unique historical-­sociological methodological approach [25; 26]. One of the founders of the Russian and world sociolinguistics was N.S. Trubetskoy [62; 63]. N.K. Mikhailovsky focused on the study of the cultural-­psychological features of Russians in the context of the Russian civilization. Striving to overcome the pragmatic limitations of the positivistic theory of A. Comte and H. Spencer (mechanical transfer of the natural sciences principles in the analysis of the society), he emphasized the importance of studying a man as a thinking, feeling and desiring individual in his theory of social progress [38]. N.A. Berdyaev questioned the Western linear theories of progress, which interpreted it as a transition from ‘lower’ to ‘higher’ European forms of social development. In his opinion, historical progress is more complex — there is no single path of civilizational development: the Western culture strives for rationalism and practical realization of its power, while the Russian culture is different. When studying the ambivalence of the ‘mysterious Russian soul’, Berdyaev noted that the Russian character is distinguished by antinomy given the weak ‘middle’ principles [3]. In the same vein, S.N. Bulgakov considered sovereignty of the economic activity and believed in ​​the interdependence of economic achievements with spiritual revival of the society, seeing the religion as a factor of the Russian people’s unity [5]. Thus, by the late 19th — early 20th centuries, there were such indisputable achievements of the Russian Slavophile sociologists as unique and multiple theoretical-­methodological approaches that combined the advanced concepts of the world science with the analysis of the Russian civilizational and national-­cultural specifics.

It should be noted that Slavophiles raised the question of power structures in the country that would function on the basis of its cultural and spatial features, and this question remains relevant. They considered the ideas of the bureaucratic state and the formal law to be ‘alien’ to Russia, opposing them with the triad “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality”, which did not exclude their struggle for the abolition of serfdom. The outstanding Russian sociologist M.M. Kovalevsky conducted a number of special studies, emphasizing the necessity of a multifactorial approach to the political and social-­cultural transformation of the country: ​​“the progressive development of political institutions cannot be reduced to replacing some forms with others, for example, a monarchy with a republic, or a republic with a monarchy; it should expand, on the one hand, foundations of autocracy, and, on the other hand, the rights of the individual”. He believed that the optimal, progressive form of government for Russia was autocracy based on the cultural specificity of the Russian worldview and noted that the essence of the autocratic power was “the fulfillment of duties of the common service to all” [27. P. 151]. In this cultural sense, autocracy would be optimally combined with representative democracy — a variety of forms of local self-­government, which would allow to take into account to the maximum extent the special spatial realities of the multinational state. Kovalevsky defined progress as development of social diversity in all space, which implied the optimal co-­development of both regions and all space of Russia. He argued that it was important “under the shelter of traditional forms, by introducing new content into them, to ensure personal freedoms, civil equality, equal rights of nationalities, freedom of cultural tasks for groups isolated by ethnography and history, and to create such a political system in which freely developed representatives of the people would implement its will in legislation and government” [28. P. 6, 7].

However, later another interpretation of autocracy won — the ‘imperial idea’ ‘liberated’ from both Orthodoxy and nationality. As a result, Ioann, Metropolitan of Saint Petersburg and Ladoga, noted that “the Autocratic Kingdom, long inspired by the ideals of service and duty, gradually turned into an absolutist monarchy according to the Western European model” [17. P. 354]. The imperial idea, introduced into the public consciousness by representatives of Westernism in polemics with Slavophiles, did not correspond either to real practices or to traditions of the co-­functionality of our territories, which have the historical roots of humanism in the form of the Russians’ openness to the interaction with other peoples and their cultures. “Slavic tribes were distinguished by purity of morals, openness, modesty, goodwill, hospitality, and humanity, including in relation to prisoners of war, whom they either released home after a while or allowed to live with them not as slaves but as friends, thereby treating them as equals” [8. P. 197]. This largely determined the peaceful unification of Russian lands and peoples under the autocratic ruler as a sovereign of all Rus. As A.S. Khomyakov wrote, discussing the civilizational features of Russia in comparison with Western countries: “The Russian Land moved forward, developing all its forces — moral, intellectual and material. It was preserved and strengthened by two principles alien to the rest of the world: power of the government friendly with the people, and freedom of the Church, pure and enlightened” [21. P. 11].

N.Ya. Danilevsky specifically studied and explained the national originality of sociological science, asking the following questions: “What is an original Slavic science? Is there a place for it and is a national science possible?”. Danilevsky gave answers to these questions in his theory of the originality of civilizations in the form of conclusions that seem relevant to this day: “The political, cultural, and industrial originality constitutes the ideal to which every historical people should strive, and if the national originality is unattainable, at least independence should be protected”. Russia’s desire for the national originality reproduces Slavophobia among our enemies and even among some Russian intellectuals: “They are frightened, on the one hand, in relation to themselves by the specter of Russia’s lust for power, allegedly striving to destroy the national originality of the Slavic peoples… on the other — in relation to the fate of humanity and civilization in general — by the specter of the world domination, which for the Slavic heart imbued with humanitarianism seems something terrible, even if this domination belonged to none other than themselves, the poor oppressed Slavs, whose oppression does not frighten anyone, does not seem inconsistent with true humanity to anyone. That Slavic independence and the development of the Slavic power are contrary to Europe — this is in the order of things”. “The national originality of culture is impossible, and strictly speaking the culture itself is impossible and does not deserve the very name of culture if it is not nationally original”. An essential condition for the development of the distinctive Slavic culture is the Russian language as a unifying factor for all Slavs, the language of science, art and international relations among all Slavic peoples [7. P. 158, 328, 487–488, 610, 516]. In the present time of civilizational confrontation, Danilevsky’s warning about possible denationalization of Russian culture and language is especially valuable [31. P. 77–83].

Many Slavophiles’ ideas of the country’s identity are revived today by Russian sociologists. Thus, they note that the awareness of belonging to one united spatial and cultural world forms the unique state identity of the society, which is expressed in a chain of complex formations: “house–settlement–region–country” [52. P. 34]. According to N.I. Lapin, the essential characteristic of contemporary Russia is synergistic complexities — qualitatively new realities determined by the non-­linear process of formation in the context of the past, present and future of the country, which is why today there is a need for the dialectical return to its civilizational foundations with the collection and protection of the cultural identity and the equivalence of various ethnic groups and religions, which “requires a family of interdisciplinary approaches” [32. P. 12, 22, 38, 43, 53]. According to M.K. Gorshkov, the realities of new Russia retain their originality, have a value organization, historical specificity and cultural identity due to being structured in a certain way by the “genotype of culture”, expressed in the “root system of moral values ​​and life meanings, tastes and norms, criteria for assessing oneself and the world” [2. P. 10]. The general theoretical approaches to the sovereignty and integration of the contemporary Russian society were proposed by Zh.T. Toshchenko [61].

Westernism: Cultural adaptation of Western ideas

In the first half of the 19th century, a movement called Westernism emerged in the Russian sociological thought. Its representatives argued for overcoming Russia’s ‘historical backwardness’ by development along the path taken by the Western civilization [14. P. 318–319]. The founders of this movement P.Ya. Chaadayev [6] and A.I. Herzen [15; 16] considered the history of European countries as a contradictory but realistically possible path to realize ideals of the progressive social development, including reforms in the main spheres of the Russian life and public administration according to the European model. Westerners idealized the liberal democratic form of governance and principles of the Enlightenment, especially the postulate ‘knowledge is power’, which essentially meant pragmatic, formally oriented knowledge, as a ‘universal’ means of progress and overcoming the patriarchal way of life. However, Westernism never existed as a unique movement: many of its representatives eventually became disillusioned with liberal ideas and practices of formal rationalization which produced increasingly complex forms of alienation. This disillusionment was facilitated by a closer acquaintance with the real anti-­human exploitation in the ‘advanced’ European countries, which pushed masses of workers to the revolutionary struggle. Therefore, the social-­democratic and revolutionary-­democratic movements developed within Westernism.

G.V. Plekhanov is considered a representative of Westernism for he associated the future of Russia with the socialist path of development, revolutionary in its essence [48]. He defended the ideas of ‘objective’ laws of the historical process (K. Marx) and emphasized the dominant role of economic factors — the nature of productive forces and production relations, determined by antagonistic contradictions of the capitalist society, which inevitably lead to revolution. However, Plekhanov developed a culturally original theory based on the fact that social laws are not realized by themselves, their specific functionality is ensured by a very complex, subjective factor, the original qualities of which are determined by the Russian culture. Thus, Plekhanov saw the expression of the masses’ national subjectivity in that “the people, the entire nation must be the hero of history”. As for the role of the individual in the context of historically established social relations, it can only slightly affect the general course of events. “Influential personalities can change the individual physiognomy of events and some of their particular consequences, but they cannot change their general direction determined by other forces” [46. P. 535].

The cultural originality of Plekhanov’s theory is manifested in the interpretation of the relationship between culturally determined objective and subjective determinants and in the nature of complex causality of the national historical development, including ‘general’, ‘special’ and ‘individual’ causes: “At the present time, human nature can no longer be considered the final and most general cause of the historical movement: if it is constant, then it cannot explain the extremely changeable course of history, and if it changes, then it is obvious that its changes are determined by the historical movement. Today the final and most general cause of the historical movement of mankind must be recognized as the development of productive forces, which determines successive changes in social relations. In addition to this general cause, there are also special causes, i.e., the historical situation in which productive forces develop among a given person, and which is created by the development of the same forces among other peoples, i.e. the same general cause. Finally, the influence of special causes is supplemented by the action of individual causes, i.e., personal characteristics of public figures and other ‘accidents’ that finally shape the individual physiognomy of events. Individual causes cannot produce fundamental changes in the action of general and particular causes, since individual causes are determined by them. Nevertheless, it is certain that history would have a different physiognomy if individual causes that influenced it were replaced by other causes of the same order” [46. P. 540–541].

The cultural originality of Plekhanov’s theory is also expressed in the fact that it included achievements of social psychology in relation to the peculiarities of the national subjectivity. Thus, he advocated the psychological factor in the interpretation of social phenomena and in the assessment of real possibilities of materialization in the country of Marxist ideals and goals. Plekhanov’s scientific interests included psychology of classes and social groups, public sentiments and opinions, ideological convictions and illusions, and the nature of public consciousness. “In order to understand history of the scientific thought or art in any country, it is not enough to know its economy. It is necessary to move from economy to social psychology, without careful study and understanding of which the materialistic explanation of history of ideologies is impossible”. It is also important to consider the stable elements of psyche — habits, morals, traditions, etc. [45. P. 247, 262]. In Plekhanov’s opinion, “for Marx, the problem of history was in a certain sense also a psychological problem” [44. P. 170–171]. At the same time, Plekhanov’s approach to religion differs from that of Marx, since he noted its significant place in the lives of Russians: “Russian ‘progressive people’ never thought seriously about religion” as a factor of social development [47. P. 254].

In fact, V.I. Lenin developed the nationally original sociology in the form of Marxism-­Leninism. He accepted the Marxist theory, its basic provisions on the ‘universality’ of laws of social development and their significance for determining the path to Russia’s future. However, initially Lenin relied on the national statistics, which determined the dialectic of his views on the national-­cultural identity of Russia. Being a Marxist, he proceeded from the leading role of production relations determining all political and ideological-­cultural forms of life [34]. At the same time, he believed that national statistics should be the basis of the scientific nature of sociology, while manipulation of facts would lead to scientific and political charlatanism: “In the field of ​​social phenomena, there is no more widespread and more untenable method than snatching individual facts, playing with examples… The conclusion from this is clear: we must try to establish the foundation of precise and indisputable facts to rely on and to compare any of those ‘general’ or ‘approximate’ arguments that are so immeasurably abused in some countries today. For such a real foundation, it is necessary to take not individual facts but the entire set of facts related to the issue under consideration, without a single exception” [36. P. 350–351]. Thus, the national statistical data was included by Lenin in the dialectical method, which allowed to verify development of the country based on objective and subjective national realities, which differed from those of the West. The analysis of Russian facts taken “as a whole, in their connection” allowed Lenin as a sociologist to argue that the society of his time was no longer the same to that studied by Marx, and that his analysis and provisions did not work in all cases. Lenin proceeded from the fact that in the era of capitalism entering the imperialist stage, when the development acquired an intermittent and spasmodic nature, a ‘weak link’ in a single country is quite probable [35]. Thus, the specific prospects for historical development and transition to a more perfect and socially just society opened up before Russia and could be realized if the subjective potential of Russians manifested sufficiently. This statement presupposes a fundamentally different interpretation of the dialectic of objective and subjective factors in historical development: in the new economic, political and cultural conditions, the role of the people and the individual in history increased immeasurably, which laid the foundations of the Russian activity sociology that is now in great demand.

During the Soviet period, Lenin pursued the strategy of prioritizing political actions over economic realities and criticized absolutization of the economic determinism. The New Economic Policy and innovative social management were carried out from the standpoint of a new reading of Marxist ideals and a rediscovery of the national subjective factor. It was important for Lenin to understand the really possible ways of reviving national economy, electrification, organization of the Russian education system and formation of culture that would organically include both the world and national achievements. The use of statistical methods showed that elements of the nationally oriented ‘art of management’ were introduced into the nationally oriented sociology, and the foundations for the development of cooperation were laid, taking into account the factor of Russia’s specific culture. Lenin did not accept the extremist idea of ​​some his comrades-­in-arms about creating an independent ‘proletarian’ culture, arguing that the new generation of the youth should master all cultural riches produced by humanity [37].

In the USSR, the influence of Westernism practically disappeared mainly due to sovereignty of Soviet sociology. According to the memoirs of V.N. Ivanov, the Head of the Institute of Sociology in Soviet times, sociology was to ensure the global leadership of the country and its science: “studies of changes and trends in the development of the social structure of the Soviet society… ways to improve the socialist way of life, its internationalization” [18. P. 18]. The situation changed radically under perestroika and liberal reforms — a kind of the renaissance of Westernism took place and led to “passionate discussions among politicians, historians, sociologists, economists, and cultural scientists about the paths of national development and the future of the Russian people” [4. P. 160]. Thus, a radical type of Westernism emerged, and “these new ideas were vigorously promoted, disseminated, and proclaimed as the only correct ones, not subject to any criticism or doubt… The influence and implementation of this policy led to the loss of Russia’s technical and technological autonomy and, accordingly, independence” [60. P. 71, 72]. In education, there was indigenization of liberally oriented sociology, or, according to M. Albrow, ‘nativization’ of social knowledge, accompanied by its artificial adaptation to national realities despite the originality of culture and social features [1]. Students studied from textbooks by such Western authors as P. Sztompka, A. Giddens and others, in which the Russian culture was essentially ‘cancelled’ or at least ‘invisible’.

Civilizational specificity of ‘Eurasian’ Russia

Eurasianism is a social-­philosophical movement that initially formed in the Russian émigré community in the 1920s — 1930s. Its representatives opposed Eurocentrism and considered the fact that Russia is geographically located in Europe and Asia to be of fundamental importance for its national development and image of the future. According to G.V. Vernadsky, there are not two Russias — ‘European’ and ‘Asian’, there is only one ‘Eurasian’ Russia or ‘Russia-­Eurasia’ [13. P. 302–303]. F.M. Dostoevsky prophetically noted: “Russia is located not only in Europe but also in Asia, because a Russian is not only a European but also an Asian. Moreover, in Asia, perhaps, there are even more our hopes than in Europe” [9. P. 504]. One of Eurasianism’s founders and most prominent representatives was N.S. Trubetskoy, who believed that the factor of the Eurasian civilizational specificity of Russia would lead to its prosperity [62; 63]. P.N. Savitsky developed scientific concepts of Eurasianism (place–development, economy–autocracy, cycles of Eurasian history, nomadic studies, the Eurasian version of Russian geopolitics, ‘feeling of the continent’ as a result of interaction of the Russian ethnos with the Mongolian ethnos, etc. [53; 54]) in the fight against Westernism and advocated the restoration of national-­cultural specifics of Russia.

Today, there is a renaissance of Eurasianism [6; 36; 37; 38]. Thus, Yu.V. Yakovets [65] is the founder of the journal Partnership of Civilizations, and A.G. Dugin developed a theory of the Eurasian world [10; 11; 12]. All such studies aim at revealing the essence of the Russian civilization, functioning on the basis of synergy of social-­economic potential and cultural traditions of the peoples of Eurasia. The originality of Eurasianism is determined by the proximity to two diametrically opposite types of culture — Western and Eastern [42]. In the genotype of Western culture, the vector of social development “is directed outward, toward the world transformation”, while in Eastern culture, the vector of social development and life is directed “not so much outward as inward, toward self-­education, self-­restraint, inclusion in tradition” [57. P. 12].

V.V. Putin has repeatedly paid special attention to the revival of Eurasianism, explaining the demand for the ‘turn to the East’ by both the Russian historical-­cultural realities and new geopolitical challenges: “Our country is historically and geographically an integral part of the Asia-­Pacific region. We consider a full-­scale entry into the Asian-­Pacific space as the most important guarantee of the successful future for Russia and development of the Siberian and Far Eastern regions” [50]. “The Eurasian Union is a project to preserve the identity of peoples, the historical Eurasian space in the new century and in the new world. Eurasian integration is a chance for the entire post-­Soviet space to become an independent center of global development and not a periphery for Europe or Asia” [49].

Given the theoretical and practical relevance of Eurasianism, A.V. Torkunov identifies three most significant components of the ‘turn to the East’, including research areas that require a special attention with the focus on sovereign theories and paradigms: 1) search for additional sources of economic growth, technologies, and after 2014 alternative markets for the sale of products of the Russian fuel and energy complex, for foreign policy and foreign economic alternatives under increasing sanctions from the United States and the EU (Russia’s key Asian partners — China, India, Republic of Korea, countries of Southeast Asia — refused to participate in the anti-­Russian sanctions); 2) rethinking the development paradigm and model for the Russian regions of Siberia and Far East under the significant transformations of external environment and the growing economic and demographic asymmetry between the European and Asian parts of Russia; 3) development of the conceptual framework for Greater Eurasia, which would allow Russia to preserve and, ideally, increase its integration potential as one of the leading countries in the world system through institutionalization of various types of economic and political partnerships, primarily with Asian countries. Transformations within the first component are now obvious and subject to qualitative and quantitative assessment, while the contours of changes within the second and third components are only outlined and require further research. Moreover, “the policy of turning to the East faces problems of a psychological nature. These include the European orientation of several generations of a significant part of the Russian elite and business circles, who did not consider Asian countries at the turn of the new millennium as a serious and, most importantly, urgently needed object of application of foreign policy and economic efforts” [59. P. 8–21]. All the above applies to the history, present time and prospects for the sovereignty of sociology, which was, is and will be the exclusive field of research for Russian scholars.

About the authors

S. A. Kravchenko

Author for correspondence.
Email: sociol7@yandex.ru
Prosp. Vernadskogo, 76, Moscow, 119454, Russia

References

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