№ 3 - 2006
Rozov N.S.
The Cyclic Character of Russian Political History as a Disease: Is Recovery Possible?

The motif of the research presented here is to reveal and analyze the interior mechanism generating the cyclic character of Russia’s socio-political history, noted by many students of the subject. On considering the invariant “measures” of the dynamics of Russian society’s changes for the past 200 years, the author comes to the conclusion that the mechanism preconditioning them has triple nature (embracing: psychic basic attitudes proper to consciousness and to behaviour; cultural symbols; and social structures) and effectuates itself in three main nodes: the geocultural one (Russia’s relations with Europe), the geopolitical one (Russia’s mission and her relations with the Western alliance and with her neighbouring countries) and the state one (relations between citizens and the state), and therefore a way out of the cyclic pattern (“recovery”) requires not only renewal of the cultural symbols and of the basic attitudes, but also a change of Russia’s role in the world processes, and formation of new contractual relations between the state, business and civil society.