Issue No 5 from 2007 yr.

Where to did the Rabbit Run? Some Thoughts about Psychological Sources of Lack of Strategy in the Contemporary World

Inaptitude to carry on strategic interaction at all levels of decision-making is one of the most painful and sad signs of the contemporary world. The principal topics of the presentation are possible exits from the current situation of ideological deadlock and decline of values, the urgent need to overcome the mental dumbness, breakthrough to authenticity which is the most important under-stratum of political dialogue. Lack of strategy in the contemporary political culture is result not of some recurrent crisis of ideas but of the actual reduction of the ideal which has been pushed out to periphery of cultural and public life. However a strategic purpose can emerge only in the context of ideal. To what extent this strategic purpose is realistic and attainable is a separate issue. Ultimately the point is about challenge of authenticity, about very prospects of authenticity presence in the political thinking of the 21st century. Nowadays the answer to the question whether the 21st century will be the epoch of complete triumph of imitations, fakes and substitutes or consideration of real problems of the genuine meaning of processes, substantive component of the world politics will prevail depends on those people who are engaging in the complex discussion on the most important problems of strategic interaction.

Values as a Psychological Factor of Strategic Decision-making

Having drawn a distinction between values connected with the highest (ideal) registers of decision motivation and interests determined by utility the author points out that the rational (interest-based) approach in the theory of decision-making strengthened in the 20th century. It is precisely the approach which seems to be one of the most important reasons of failures in the foreign as well as domestic policy of many countries. All motivations of decisions are tinted by values. Therefore in the process of strategic decision making it is necessary carry out not just their rational expert evaluation focused on interests and utility but also certain examination of values hidden behind decisions.

Role of Historical Traumain the Strategic Dialogue Geopolitics and International Policy Issues

It is thought that strategic dialogue between states in the contemporary epoch takes place and evolves within the context of international law norms. However in reality it is most often not the case. States that have greater economic and military power impose their will on weaker states. Sometimes more powerful states impose their terms on weaker states by military force. Meanwhile in some cases such dictatorial behavior of strong states stumbles across seemingly illogical and irrational resistance of weaker states. This phenomenon is caused by existence of historical trauma syndrome in victim countries. Under ‘historical trauma syndrome' the author means various forms of moral trauma and social psychological frustrations of a society (a nation) caused by so called ‘defeat syndrome'. The author considers psychological mechanisms leading a nation or a major social group to frustration and historical trauma, describes a nation’s compensatory reactions to situation of defeat and principal risks a winner takes due to pressure on the loser.

How Germany Unification had Started (the end)

In the third part of this article the author explores the negotiations on Malta between Gorbachev and Bush. Not many people remember that meeting to day. But it’s a pity. As on Yalta 45 years before, two leaders of the USSR and the USA had decided on Malta in December 1989 the fate of Germany and of the Eastern Europe, but only in a quite opposite direction. Gorbachev had recognized there the right of any state for a freedom of choice, including the right to reconsider the previous one. The Soviet Union would not use the force, though just a few days before he declared that we had not to lose GDR in no circumstances. This unexpected admission Gorbachev in Malta was taken in Washington as a signal that the road to NATO for unified Germany was opened now without any conditions. More over, the road was opened as well to collapse of Warsaw Pact and to flight of Eastern European countries to the open arms of the West. And the USSR policy was taken as policy of idleness -only to bark, but to do nothing.

«Balkanization» of Europe Strategy

Since the late 1990s, after the demonstrative bombardment of Yugoslavia the world business elite straightforwardly and without reserve started to talk about necessity to impose the ‘global management' gradually inuring the public to recognition of this notion as a generally accepted one which expresses some objective and unavoidable process aimed at principles of the higher ethics and efficiency securing. This being said, it is absolutely obvious that in reality the question is about establishment of extra-legal private authority of corporate elites. This new power will provide for the maximum concentration of the capital in their hands and will secure the total control of main financial and information flows in the world. Insofar as the still lingering sovereignty remains to be the main obstacle on this path and it is impossible to eliminate the sovereignty outright the elites place their stake on whatever facilitates decomposition and erosion of the sovereignty, in particular, on regionalization, ethnic fragmentation and parochialism. European Union presents the ideal model in this respect and the new ‘world architecture' is created in accordance with this model. The policy pursued by EU leaders revealed quite obviously the true aim of this formation. This aim is to dismount national state formations per se and their replacement with a network of regions and ethnic regions that are to be the support structures of the ‘European construction' controlled from a single center. In practice integrations turns out to be the national disintegration, the continental area dismemberment and cut-off. Nowadays this process is described with a new term, glocalization. This term expresses the objective alliance between adherents of the global approach and champions of local interests. What are specific mechanisms, ways and means of this strategy implementation, whose interests this strategy serves — these are the principal issues considered in the article.

Heritage of the Russian Social Democracy

The author undertakes a systemic holistic analysis of opinions and theoretical notions of the Russian Social Democracy. The author focuses on the key propositions of the world and Russian labor movement’s doctrine elaborated by Mensheviks after 1917, investigates reasons of divisions amongst Social Democratic leaders who took different views on the most important issues of international and domestic life. Divergence of opinion amongst Menshevik leaders on prospects of possible forms of struggle against the Bolshevik experiment worsened further and further. At the same time the author examines also the fundamental aspects of Weltanschauung that dovetailed Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. In spite of obvious community of some political slogans, antagonists interpreted the meaning of social revolution, role of proletariat dictatorship, essence of democracy as people’s power differently. The author pays a peculiar attention to specific directives and political statements the Social Democrats addressed to the international labor movement on the eve of the war between the USSR and Hitler’s Germany and to views of some representatives of the movement after the WWII.

«…As the Inveterate Foe of Bolshevists» (Excerpts from Judicial Scrutiny File of V.V.Shulgin)

V.V.Shulgin (1878−1976) was a well-known political and public figure of pre-revolutionary Russia and the Russian emigration. Even though his books are reprinted again in Russia, much in destiny of the man is a secret for historians. In particular, that refers to materials of the judicial scrutiny file that are stored in the Russian Federation Federal Security Service Central archive. The fragment published here refers to Shulgin’s public and political activities in pre-revolutionary period and during the Civil war in Russia.

The Evil-doers and the Righteous

The article is devoted to those people who under the hardest circumstances and at the risk of their own life saved people doomed to death. One of the cases related by the author occurred during the WWII, the other occurred after the war but both of them are about people who deserve the name of the righteous.