Issue No 1 from 2007 yr.

The Children of a Non-commissioned Officer’s Widow

The article is a rejoinder to the boisterous reaction of the CPRF elite to the author’s works that had been published earlier and contained criticism of the CPRF leaders. The author notes that the text published and disseminated by the CPRF press service cannot be perceived as a discussion material because it omits discussion of the principal issue: the political results of activities the CPRF carried on from its inception onwards, i.e. for 15 years. Persons who concocted this text also skirt topics that the author suggests to discuss for a long time. Collision of regress in Russia and forms of struggle under conditions of growing regress are among these topics. Instead of restoring the Soviet positive notions in the public conscience and developing ideas without which the country cannot survive the CPRF elite propagates extremely dangerous politically and ideologically topics, i.e. «sustainable growth concept» and «limits to revolution». Thereby the CPRF elite reveal the ultra-comprador nature of their ideology.

China, Russia and the USA: Different Calculations Bring about Different Results (the end)

In the second part of the article the author tallies up results of multiple-path analysis of China’s economic development in the 20th century. In fact, ratio of per capita GDP in China and the USA by the end of the century remained what it was in the beginning of the century. All six-to-sevenfold growth of the indicator in China occurred during the last 30 years. The author examines economic dynamics of the Russian empire in the long-term historical hindsight (from the 18th to the early 20th century). Original calculations and estimates add a greater precision to our views of rates of development and scales of Russia’s economic growth in 1883−1913. Even in these best years of «Russia we lost» the absolute and even relative gap between values of per capita GDP in Russia and the USA did not decrease but kept to increase. Similar calculations made for the present day reality attest the end of recovery economic growth in Russia which undergoes reforms. By the end of 2006, i.e. 17 years after beginning of economic downturn in the USSR and the profound crisis of transition period value of per capita GDP in Russia again attained the maximum Soviet level of goods and services output.

The Human Life: Self-sustained Value or an Economic Notion?

The author considers a new hypothetical trend in the contemporary economic science, i.e. «the human life economics». He emphasizes that within the context of this notion the human life (the HL) is to be considered, in a greater extent, as an economic concept than as a self-sustained and self-sufficient value. The HL may be a subject of taxation and an item of purchase and sale. Due to that many problems of contemporary economic growth including those of rate of growth acceleration, control of migrant numbers, modification of the international currency system etc. may be solved. The author comes to the conclusion that by lapse of time the specific weight of components directly connected with skills of a person will decrease while the specific weight of parameters characterizing a person’s adaptability to the environment (psychological stability, ability to cooperate with a team, supremacy of corporate interests over personal interests, commitment to leaders etc.) will rise. Consequently, the humankind may come up with the universal dissemination of the new behavioral pattern based upon principles of Neo-Darwinism. Finally, the author answers the question: to what extent content of the article complies with the present day realities and to what extent it is a product of his own imagination.

Back to the Perennial Natural Circle: Facing the Globalization Challenge (the end)

In the final part of her article the author focuses оn shifts that occur in the social psychology. These shifts are results of triumph of a specific version of the consumer society which has established in Russia. Triumph of this modification is combined with the most rough and ruthless ideology of inequality. It should be emphasized that, from the author’s viewpoint, precisely these deformations of the public conscience constitute the main principle of the paradox described in previous parts of the article. The Russian public is unwilling to break a movement which, according to the opinion which is gaining increasing currency, leads to deadlock. In conclusion the author comes back to the current situation in France. She demonstrates that despite a very strong historical commitment of the French to the ideal of equality the French public conscience is absolutely unwilling to appreciate significance of social and political processes that go on in Russia nowadays and to put these processes in the proper global context.

The Subject of the Philosophy of Mythology and Emergence of the Discipline in Russia (the end)

In the second part of his article the author analyses social, cultural and ideological prerequisites of the Russian philosophy of mythology emergence. This discipline emerged and developed in the second half of the 18th century and in the early 19th century in the works of the first Russian historians and myth creators. It was aimed at search and elaboration of basic methodological and worldview orientations for concrete scientific cognition of the Slavic mythology. Period of empirical and theoretical prerequisites accumulation of the philosophy of mythology in Russia grew up into process of its immediate emergence and went on until appearance of the «mythological school» in the Russian folklore studies (the 1840s and 1850s). This school developed well beyond limits of specific theoretical generalizations related exclusively to the Slavic mythology and achieved the level of conceptual abstracts of the general theory of myth. Results and achievements of the Russian philosophy of mythology have not lost their significance down to recent times.

P.I.Pestel under Investigation

The following article is dedicated to revision of the main aspects of Decembrist’s secret societies history. Its author argues that usual to many scholars as well as readers ideas about secret societies are based on the conception created by the Southern society leader Pavel Pestel during interrogation. It had little resemblance to reality. This conception presented Decembrist movement as an endless ideological debate, complicated by bloody regicide projects. Pestel’s conception suited him well to hide the real preparations to the seizure of power, leaded by him. It also suited well the new emperor, permitting him to hide from Europe the army’s corruption and to justify hard sentences to the accused. The article points out, that the classical Decembrist studies had reached a deadlock, and needs complete rethinking.