№ 2 - 1994
Pastukhov V.B.
From Statehood to the State: Europe and Russia

From Statehood to the State: Europe and Russia The existing concepts of the state are mostly based on European experience. The author suggests an original and more generalizing version of the development of the state, a version taking into account additional — Russian — material.Russia, in his opinion, follows the European way, but with retardations in the development of statehood. Political transformations in nowadays Russia are to be comprehended not as transition to "democracy", but as the result of the development of her statehood toward the highest stage,i.e. that of nation-state. Russia is now entering, politically and socially, her Modern Times. The author interprets the evolution of statehood in Europe as transformation proceeding from class-state through bureaucracy-state (in its two modifications divided by the revolution) to the nation-state, the lattet stemming from processes of individualization and rationalization of society in Modern Times. As a result of these processes, positivism, capitalism and constitutionalism have been established in societal practice. This line was paralleled in Russia, in her own historical time, by the Moscow Tsarstvo, the zemshchina state, the nobles state and the autocratic empire respectively. Retardations in the development of statehood have been due to the depressing impact of the commune (obshchina). The latter ejected the specifically Russian products of individualization, i.e. the noble estate (the nobles to whom their titles had been conceded) and the Cossacks; yet it did not disintegrate, as was the case in Europe, but, instead, conserved itself. A specific form of statehood having no analogues in Europe, an intermediary between bureaucracy-state and nation-state, is the communist regime. The communist regime period in which preconditions were brought about for the rationalization of society now turning Russia into a modern nation-state, will be described in an article that is to follow. The author also criticizes neoisolationist concepts of some of the contemporary Russian scholars.