№ 2 - 2005
Fatenkov A.N.
Who Should Rule: People or Laws? Masses or Personalities? (Apologia of Existential Autocracy)

It is the opposition of personalism and institutionalism that is, within the channel of Russian politico-philosophical tradition, under consideration in the present article. On subjecting to sharp criticism the ideologemes of liberalism and democracy as methodologically untenable and defective, the author opposes to them the idea of existential autocracy. According to his conclusion, only the power of an elite capable of sacrificing itself for the good of the people, for the sake of safeguarding, ennobling and saving the people without demanding a similar exploit from the patronized fellow-citizens, is absolutely legitimate. Only given the condition that such humans brought into being by the forming and developing people, come to power, he argues, can the power be regarded as truly just.