The article discusses the prospects of Russia’s development in the modern world. In the post-Soviet era Russia crossed the border separating the Modern as the project born by the modern European history from the postmodernist chaos. The present Russia’s existence depends on whether it is able to launch a new project, rather than restore the Modern project. What is required to accomplish this task is metaphysics, the scope of which during the reign of the Soviet culture was still limited. That has led to the crisis and, eventually, the destruction of what was once the mighty state. We don’t need metaphysics all by itself, not as refined amusement in an ivory tower. We need it as a means of restoration of the distructed semantic integrity and language, as a means of communication. No other logic can exist. Any culture devoid of metaphysics is totally vulnerable. It is just metaphysics, which creates a barrier between human relations and meanings, on the one hand, and death, which makes life senseless, on the other. It is now, that Russia finds itself at the bottom of the abyss, it may become the savior of humanity, as exactly at this point arose a world-historical task of development beyond Modern.

The tragic consequences of the Soviet Union disintegration that occurred 20 years ago are still not realized to the full. Those who in duty bound guarded the state interests (diplomats, the military, lawyers) suffered the most terrible blow. The author in his memoirs reconstitutes a picture of controversial emotions that the staff of the embassy in Berlin experienced in those years. The Soviet embassy in Berlin was one of the central points the drooping Soviet foreign policy activity. The Soviet concessions did not lead to reciprocal steps of the new-spring «winners» of the Cold War. Our hopes for a new place in the emerging post-confrontation world order proved to be mere illusions that burst as balloons. Creation of the Greater Europe promised to Gorbachev was moved to the misty future. The declaration of the state of siege imposed in Moscow by the State Committee for the state of emergency sounded as the trump of the forthcoming disaster.

The article is devoted to the problem of Russian reforms at the turn of the 19th and the early 20th centuries. The reform of naval officers' promotion to higher ranks (its principal points were presented in the «Regulation on naval qualification requirement for the Naval officers» of 1885) is in focus of the author. The author reveals mechanisms that distort innovative ideas and integrate them into the existing system losing their novelty and efficiency in result of such adaptation. The author demonstrates peculiarities of the Russian Navy officers' service during the period of the Regulation operation, analyzing the documents of the Ministry of the Navy (1885−1907)

The author deals with views of E.A.Preobrazhensky, one of the Bolsheviks' leaders, on the genesis of the Soviet bureaucratic ways and styles, red-tape, and measures needed for the overcoming of the red-tape, and on reasons of the Soviet power’s bureaucratic degeneration. The author notes that, according to Preobrazhensky’s conception, the bureaucracy dominance was a regular result of the state (non-commodity) Socialism, the effect of the centralized economy and not a result of cultural and historical backwardness of Russia as, for instance, V.I.Lenin supposed. According to Preobrazhensky, the basic character of the red-tape required unprecedented efforts the Russian Communist Party had to employ in order to neutralize this phenomenon. Preobrazhensky called for the following measures: membership in the Party had to bring no economic advantages, penalties for misdeeds committed by the Party members should be more though than penalties for similar misdeeds committed by other citizens etc.

The article deals with official performance of Prince Trubetskoy, a prominent figure in the secret societies of the 1820s. Analyzed is his trip to England in 1819, his service as aid-de-camp in the General Staff of the Russian army, as well as execution of military-police duties in his capacity of on-duty staff officer of the 4th Infantry Corps quartered in Kiev (1825). The conclusion is reached that his official activities were often associated with performance of special missions for the government. The experience gained in the service, Trubetskoy used to organize an anti-government plot, as well as to neutralize the enemies of this conspiracy.

The political rhetoric in Russia relies on two ‘principal' myths, myth of power and myth of opposition. In the myth of power the first person of the state is presented as an embodiment of Saint George crushing the serpent of the external enemies and their internal agents. In the opposition myth fighters against the establishment are presented as knights-Decembrists who took the unequal fight against the dragon of autocracy. When the myth of power is attached to the Decembrist rebels it transmutes into the counter-myth. The criticism is carried on from two standpoints that are hardly compatible. The first standpoint is the standpoint of pragmatists in power. Technologists of power understand that transfer of the Decembrists to the ranks of «bad» heroes of the black-and white historical memory is tantamount to elimination of extremely important symbolic foothold of all dissidents. So they, with no excessive enthusiasm, are engaged in re-writing of history within limits set out in the office circular. Political writers clustering around the various Orthodox organizations of national-patriotic orientation act in a quite different way. The Orthodox monarchists are disinterested romanticists of the isolationist authoritarian regime. They believe that the Russian people will begin in accordance with notions of Orthodoxy, autocracy and national spirit if the Decembrists are erased from the historical memory.

The article highlights the work of the provincial (primarily the party) leadership, as well as relevant government departments and agencies to tackle corruption, has received a «second wind» during the transition to the NEP. Analyze the structure of the offenses had corrupt orientation and the factors that hampered the fight against this social evil.