10. (The Genesis of Russian Bourgeois Man)

Why can't we build the right kind of capitalism? Gumilyov's theory is truly universal.

         Relying on it, we can take a new look not only at politics or ideology, but also at economics. Let us ask ourselves why we still cannot develop "normal capitalism". Today we are experiencing our second attempt, which was not very successful. The first one was attempted in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries and ended, as you know, with the anti-bourgeois coup of 1917.

        Today's failures in building a "bright capitalist tomorrow" are usually explained by the dominance of pro-Western oligarchs, the economic distortion of raw materials, corruption, crime, insufficient support for small and medium business, etc.  Much has already been said and written about this.

However, these are all causes that lie on the surface. Not even the causes, but the consequences. If we look at this problem from ethnogenesis theory point of view, i.e. if we look at the root, the answer is simple. We are simply not ready for the "right" capitalism. Neither a hundred years ago, nor today. And we will hardly ever be ready, even under the best of political circumstances, to a Western-style developed capitalism. Well, what we call "wild capitalism" and "oligarchocracy" is not capitalism at all, but the usual colonial robbery. The result of the anti-national Gaidar-Chubais "reforms", which should be seen as a violent historical zigzag.

        Note in parenthesis that in ethnological sense the entire modern supranational financial capitalism is the same historical zigzag, but on a planetary scale. And there is a direct connection between these two zigzags - Russian and globalist ones: the plunder of Russia is a part of the global plunder. However, this is a separate topic, beyond the scope of our study.

        But the question arises: why are we not ready for capitalism? (Not to financial capitalism  ~ this train is not ours, and it left long ago ~, but even to ordinary capitalism - commercial and industrial?)  

        And we are not ready because in modern Russia, for its construction, we still lack the necessary human material. In other words, the Russian ethnos still lacks a sufficient number of people of the bourgeois type - neat and enterprising individualistic accumulators, peddlers of capitalism. There are many "liberal" rip-offs for whom Russia is a colonial object of plunder; there are even more home-grown bandits and business crooks, but there are still not enough law-abiding and good-hearted Russian burghers. It's the law-abiding and upstanding Russian kulaks, both small and large.

        That is, there is a lack of people with a certain, bourgeois stereotype of behavior, with a certain mentality. Such people, counting every kopeck, monotonous people, clerks, who fall asleep with the thought of making money and wake up with the thought of making money. And the biggest holiday of their lives is when they get a good deal. And not necessarily on the big money, it is possible and on "three kopecks", the main thing that there was a profit. And it was possible to put another elephant on the dresser.

        But why are there not such people in sufficient numbers? There are several reasons, including those known long before the emergence of Gumilyov's theory. Firstly, it is a geographical (natural-climatic) factor. We have already talked about it. Unlike Europe, Russia has an extremely unfavorable cold climate and infertile lands. Hence the low yield and, consequently, a very small surplus product (which should go to the development of trade and entrepreneurship). For many centuries, therefore, the state was forced to resort to brutal extra-economic coercion, including serfdom. This was necessary mainly to ensure the defense capability of the country being surrounded by hostile neighbors.  

         Russia's geopolitical position was also unfavorable for a long time. Unlike Western Europe, which is a large peninsula, protected on three sides by the sea, Russia up to XVIII - XIX centuries had no natural borders: seas, impassable mountains, deserts. It was an open field, turning into forest in the north. We were constantly threatened from three sides - west, south, south-east. Therefore, in order simply to survive, and not to be killed or enslaved, the Russian man had to endure the oppression of the state and give it sometimes the last penny. Almost all the surplus product went to the state and military needs. And if you add to this a huge territory, sparse population, lack of normal roads and the inability (until the XVIII century) to engage in the most profitable, sea trade, you get very unhappy picture of the economy. What kind of capital accumulation and development of commodity-money relations. As the saying goes, no time to get fat.

         All these natural features of Russia long ago are noted and described by the Russian historians of the XIX century, especially V.O. Kluchevsky. (Today the geographical factor is returned to science by the school of L.V. Milov.) However, they did not even think about another important factor - the age factor. It was first scientifically substantiated by L. N. Gumilyov. Therefore, in answer to the question of why we do not have enough people of the bourgeois type, we must add - age of society (ethnos) does not allow. First, we must enter the inertial phase.

         In Europe, the "bourgeois man" began to gain strength in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in the phase of breakdown (and somewhere even earlier - the Italian trading republics). Given the favorable natural, climatic and geopolitical conditions of the European peninsula, which gave the opportunity to develop large wholesale maritime trade, the bourgeois type there, although not without struggle (Protestants!), begins to dominate already in the 17th century. Then the European super-ethnos enters a phase of inertia, an essentially bourgeois and almost irreligious phase. The "chivalrous" Europe finally turns into a "mercantile" Europe. Christian religion is replaced by the religion of money (Calvinism and its offshoots).

         Gumilyov himself did not speak directly about the bourgeois essence of the inertial phase (only once he said in passing about a bourgeois type of man, and we grasped this idea). However, the conclusion suggests itself. In Ancient Rome and Byzantium, as well as in other ancient civilizations, trade and entrepreneurship, which gave an impulse to the capitalization of society and the spread of private property, were actively developing precisely in this, the well-fed and "human-loving" phase. And slavery did not interfere with this at all.

         Another thing is that because of geographical differences ("Land - Sea") ancient capitalism in the West and the East was different. In Greece, Rome and late Byzantium it was oligarchic, usurious, transnational (on the scale of the ancient world).  In China, India, the Muslim East - state, national. In the Mediterranean - more "developed" (bank interest, "making money out of money"). In Asian countries - less developed, not so predatory, speculative nor usurious. And it is clear that all this was happening before the era of world colonial empires, NTR, universal urbanization, etc.

         And here it should be emphasized that the genesis of capitalism in the west of the Eurasian continent in different historical periods had one important feature. According to Gumilev's observation, it was in this region that "merchant peoples", which had one common feature - "a high degree of mestization" (cross breading) - more often emerged and showed high activity. This means that people of the active bourgeois type (not petty bourgeois, but punchy and dodgy businessmen) multiplied and manifested themselves not just anywhere, but in areas of ethnic contacts. In the narrow Europe and the Mediterranean there were many more such zones than in continental Asia, where the contact zones were mostly along caravan routes. Such zones in the West were: the eastern shore of the Mediterranean (the Phoenicians, Jews, etc.); the lower Rhine (Frisians, etc.); northern Italy (Florentines, Venetians); Andalusia; southern Italy.

         If we look into the historiography of capitalism, we find two main approaches: according to M. Weber, capitalism came out of Protestantism ("Protestant ethics"); according to W. Sombart, out of Judaism ("Jewish interest"). According to the competent opinion of Professor V.Yu. Katasonov, both were right. (But the roots of capitalism go even deeper: the ancient Jews passed through the first school of capitalism in the Babylonian captivity (6th century B.C.), and in Babylon itself the ancient usurious capitalism came from the Sumerian kingdom.

        If we look at the genesis of ancient capitalism in terms of the theory of ethnogenesis, everything fits together - both Sumer and Babylon, and then Palestine, in ancient times were not only crossroads of trade routes, but also areas of active ethnic contacts.

         Gumilyov wrote about European capitalism: "In the acmatic phase, and even more in the phase of breakdown, they (peddlers) live at the expense of strife, enjoying the patronage of the rulers. But gradually they gain strength and make the second transition - to the inertial phase, most convenient for them.

         Sixteenth - eighteenth centuries. "cooling down" of the Romano-Germanic super-ethnos is going fast. Passionarians leave for the colonies and either die there or return sick. Harmonious individuals work hard at home, in their fields, workshops, offices.  And it is here that the place vacated by the passionarians, is taken by "bargainers" - Florentine moneychangers, obliging diplomats, intriguers, adventurers. They are alien to the local ethnos, but that is why they are extremely convenient for the Viennese, especially when they have no homeland at all.

        And suddenly, for their benefit, Watt builds a steam engine, and all sorts of technical improvements follow. Cities enlarge, become multi-ethnic. Man begins to live without connection to his ethnic group, sometimes maintaining only distant contact with it. This is where the "capitalist spirit" of the European manifests itself.  That's it, like Gumilyov, - short and clear!

         In addition, the rapid capitalization of Europe and its transoceanic continuation, the USA, was stimulated by another important circumstance - the emergence of the world banking system and the beginning of the formation of supranational structures of global financial capital ("Finintern") at the beginning of the 19th century. And it should be emphasized once again that the 19th century's NTR, prepared by many thousands of years of scientific and technological development, coincided successfully with the most favorable phase of inertia in Europe for the growth of technosphere. (From the beginning of the 19th century - steam engine, then electricity, internal combustion engine, and on we go...) 

        And now let us check Gumilyov's conclusions on the example of Ancient Rus'. If we compare Kievan Rus in its heyday with early medieval Europe (X - early XII centuries), we will see a very big difference between them. Kievan Rus was much richer, more civilized, more bourgeois than the then still half savage Europe. Why? Because the East Slavic ethnos in the X century entered in the most favorable for the capitalization, i.e. accumulation of material and cultural values, phase of inertia (ethnic history of the Slavs begins in I - II. e.). Let us add to this the comparatively small territory of Kievan Rus' and the convenient geographical position for the development of transit trade - the way "from the Varangians to the Greeks". And on this way we see two zones of ethnic contacts: in the north - Novgorod (Germans, Scandinavians, etc.), in the south - Kyiv and the territory of Northern Black Sea area (Greeks, Jews, etc.).

         The Scandinavians then called Russia the "Land of Cities". Cities that, as major centers of commerce, amazed visiting foreigners with their beauty and wealth. Kiev at this time was considered the third most important and richest city in Europe after Constantinople and Cordoba! The prolific economy of Kievan Rus' lasted till the middle of XII century, i.e. till the phase of obscuration, after which, as we know, the degenerated East Slavic ethnos began to self-decay, first slowly, then more rapidly. And young Europe still had everything ahead of it.   

        So, the main protagonist of the phase of inertia (civilization) is bourgeois-type man. (Let us try to draw his ideal image. Such a person is not necessarily an entrepreneur. More often he is an ordinary man in the street, who is the breeding ground for the development of capitalism. For example, in Europe (20th century) he is a representative of the middle class "with a house and a garden". His main difference from the traditional man is that he is guided in his life exclusively by material interests. Spiritual values for him are an empty abstraction. The bourgeois man does not believe in God, and if he attends church, it is only because it is useful for "business," well, and, in general, "it is the way it is supposed to be" (classical Protestantism is ethical).

         The person with the bourgeois stereotype of behavior is an emotionally passive, hard-working hoarder of money, who is always counting profits/losses. He is very calculating, even greedy. He likes to sue over trifles. Does not like poor relatives. He does not have many children, because they prevent him from "living for himself". In the event of war they would not volunteer for the front, and even if they were drafted in, they would avoid risks and stay away from the front lines. He considers it unprofitable to help one's neighbors, and always puts his own private interests above those of the collective. This is why the bourgeois is always in favor of "democracy," "civil society," and "freedom" (for his own sake). At the same time, he is law-abiding and greatly dislikes disorder, especially when this disorder borders on anarchy.

         Let us stress the main point. The bourgeois man is a principled egoist and materialist who believes in only one religion, the religion of money.

 One hundred percent bourgeois man is such a highly organized, consuming animal. It is endowed with reason and therefore consumes as much as possible, while rejecting everything that is "irrational" and interferes with life. To live for pleasure, that is, "civilized". This creature does not think about the fact that such overconsumption kills nature.

         In terms of ethnogenesis, bourgeois man is the result of a decrease in passionate tension in the ethnic system, but not to zero, but to a level below average. According to Gumilyov's classification, this level of passionarity corresponds to the attitude: "Striving for well-being without risk to life" (see Appendix A). Below the bourgeois man is only the "last hero" from the final phase of obscuration - the parasite-subpassionarian.

In the Russian super-ethnos, "bourgeois man", with his characteristic stereotype of behavior, emerges from the shadows and begins to multiply, just as in Europe, at the beginning of the phase of peril (19th century); and gains strength, as we already know, precisely under the anti-bourgeois, socialist system.

        It must be pointed out once again, however, that the majority of our Russian bourgeoisie has not yet become completely and consummately bourgeois. That is, he has not yet had time to be properly "civilized". He is still quite savage, unfinished - an individualist with remnants of collectivism. (For the most part, he is a fist, who can easily kick the shit out of one who plucked a cucumber from his patch. And who then, in a moment of spiritual anxiety, can repent for his hard-heartedness and even cry.  His soul has not yet weathered all.) But it is only a matter of time before he too will be "civilized".  This is a law that can be called the law of bourgeois accumulation. It is not the accumulation of capital in an ethnos, but of people with a bourgeois, or rather, petty-bourgeois stereotype of behavior.

         However, it should be mentioned at once that when applying this law, it is necessary to make an obligatory adjustment not only to the modern globalization, accelerating all destructive processes, but also to geographical and cultural features of this or that civilization, because they impose a certain imprint on the mentality of the people. For example, Eurasian and Asian civilizations have always differed from Western civilizations by their more developed collectivist, communal way of life. Let us repeat that many behavioral stereotypes are fixed at the genetic level and are stored in the deeper layers of the unconscious - individual and collective - for many centuries. At the level of hereditary memory (archetypes). That is why, for example, the Chinese bourgeois man will differ from the Muslim bourgeois man. And both of them, to an even greater extent, from the European.  (This, by the way, to the question of the prospects of globalization and post-capitalism...) 

        And now let us trace the history of the development of the Russian bourgeoisie.

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        The first sprouts of the bourgeoisie appear in our country in the 18th century, but they are very few and still weak. Peter I, as you know, aimed to develop trade and entrepreneurship, relying on the Russian merchant. He, for example, ordered the digging of canals on Vasilievsky Island, so that on them, as in Holland, merchants carried their goods. But there were neither merchants nor buyers in sufficient quantity. The canals were buried. Demidovs in the XVIII century we had very few, and they could really develop only after they became nobles and were given a lot of serf workers.

        The historian Pogodin wrote thus about our pre-reform (before 1860s) businessmen: "We have a lot of talk about trade, without paying attention to the character of the people. Our trade can never be compared with that of England, because it is not in the spirit of the people.  A merchant with us will raise capital, then stops trading and refuses to turnover, and lives in peace with his interest. The English behave to the contrary".

        By the end of the XVIII century. the majority of large Russian merchant class were Old Believers, who, I must emphasize, have always been in irreconcilable opposition to the royal power (right up to 1917!). And who, unlike European capitalists, let their community capital circulate. For the Old Believers, who were oppressed by the authorities, such community entrepreneurship was one of the ways to survive in a hostile environment.

        Today, some researchers draw direct parallels between European Protestants and Russian Old Believers. It is not true, because Protestants are a whole group of peoples who appeared as a result of a split of the European super-ethnos in the phase of a breakdown.  But Old Believers are a small sub-ethnos that broke away from the Russian ethnos in the phase of overheating. Therefore, Protestant individualists no longer believed in God (for real), while Old Believers collectivists did. 

         It should be emphasized that the old patriarchal and God-fearing Russian merchants differed from their Western counterparts by trying to be guided in their entrepreneurial activities by unwritten moral laws. Of course, all sorts of things happened, but it was not customary for Russians to swindle, to cheat, and certainly not to engage in outright robbery, as Protestants did in the colonies (how, after that, to go to church?). As a rule, there was no legal red tape involved in the transaction, all that was needed was a "merchant's word". It was considered improper to show off one's wealth. They lived modestly. But the main thing was that a lot of money went to "save the soul", i.e. to church contributions and charity. That is why we cannot call pre-reform Russian merchants and industrialists "capitalists". They were, not bourgeois in the Western sense of the word, but owners. It is this type of Old Moscow merchant-owner, came out of the Old Believers, brought out in the remarkable novel by Igor Shmelev The Summer of the Lord.  

        The first really big capitalists XVIII - early XIX centuries in Russia were not representatives of the "third estate", as in Europe, and close to the royal court aristocrats, who amassed huge wealth, with government support and "administrative resources. Some of them, for example, succeeded in "privatizing" for next to nothing the state-owned metallurgical plants founded by Peter the Great. (Does this remind you of anything?)

         A qualitative shift in the construction of capitalism occurred only after the "market" reforms of Alexander II, which were, in fact, the beginning of the bourgeois revolution in Russia. On its wave, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the layer of homegrown capitalists is formed not from the nobility and Germans, but from the former kulaks. But they are relatively few, and they are, we repeat, not fully formed - with one foot in the patriarchal Russia, the other - in the new, capitalist. As philosopher Berdyaev wrote, a Russian millionaire merchant in his heart still considered his unjustly gained wealth a sin and in moments of remorse dreamed of monasticism or wanderlust. That is why he built churches and was engaged in charity. But those were the best. And not the best fled from this internal contradiction in arrogance, debauchery and unrestrained drunken raves, which were arranged with a purely Russian sweep. It happened that such a "businessman" would drink thousands in the evening, and in the morning he would send the clerk to the tavern for tea and penny cakes.

        Our early capitalist, who jumped "from the dirt to the riches," was at the same time a robber, a kulak and a repentant sinner. He was something in between Chichikov (the ancestor of today's "liberal marketeers") and the conscientious merchant Tretyakov. It is known that the first big money has a terrible magic power. A Rare man withstands the temptation of a quick wealth and does not turn into a pathologically greedy, stupid and ferocious beast.  It takes some time for the first greed to burn out and turn into calm, measured greed.  And a rich man could sometimes think of something else besides money.  In general, the ideal entrepreneurship, according to Professor Katasonov, is not enrichment, but service. Service not to money, but to society. But, alas, there are no such ideal capitalists in "developed capitalism". (Well, maybe in an underdeveloped one...)

        The beginning of capitalism is always very painful. Marx calls it the period of initial accumulation. But again, Marx's approach is quite different: first the economy, and from it, the individual (society, politics, ideology, etc.). With Gumilev on the other hand - first the person, formed in a unique geographical and ethnic environment, then everything else. That is, according to the theory of passionarity, it is not the economy that makes the man, but the man dominating the ethnos in a given period - passionate, harmonious-bourgeois, sub-passionary or, sometimes, "anti-systemic" - makes the economy, politics and its history. In our opinion, this approach is correct, since it is confirmed by life itself. Although, of course, there is always a dialectical feedback - from the economy (and politics), to the person.

        The majority of the Russian people at the beginning of the twentieth century were against the "new Russian" capitalists. This can also be explained psychologically. Some 40-50 years ago everyone was equally poor (landlords on one side, peasants on the other, not many merchants), and after the abolition of serfdom a whole layer of rich men from former peasants suddenly appeared. Of course, the poor peasant is offended: not so long ago he was running barefoot along the street with that Vanka, and today Ivan Ivanovich is already raking in thousands and spitting on the poor man.  These are the soon-to-be capitalists. Speaking of old merchant families, after the bourgeois reforms of the 1860-70s, their environment underwent a painful liberal reconstruction: from "domostroy" to "progress". As Pogodin wrote: "Moscow merchants are an unfit generation, a transition from rudeness, kindness, simplicity to so-called civilization. This transition to "civilization" occurs rather quickly. By the end of the 19th century, the children and grandchildren of old-regime merchants, having passed through the liberal sieve of grammar schools and universities, forget "the precepts of ancient times," move away from God, and begin to join the "universal values". Russian merchants are repeating the mistakes of the Russian nobility.

        By the early 20th century tensions were rising in society. It was not only a class tension. As Russian capitalism developed, "liberal" or "market" values became irreconcilably opposed to patriarchal, traditional values, which had weakened somewhat, but were still dominant. First of all, this applies to the attitude of Russian people to usury and private land ownership. (Developed capitalism, let us repeat, is interest earned.) According to the traditional, Orthodox view of the world, everything that is connected with bank interest, i.e., making money "out of nothing," is a sin. And the kind of sin that is worthy of excommunication! (Note in this connection that when many of our bourgeois and not-so-bourgeois people today, succumbing to consumer psychosis, take loans from banks, they should clearly realize that this is a direct sin. Not only sin of the banker, but also sin of the customer). Second, according to the traditional, Russian view of forms of ownership, private ownership of land, is a terrible injustice. "The land is God's and the sovereign's, but it is nobody's," the people have been saying for centuries. Land can be given to possession (for service), it can be inherited, but it cannot be sold!

         The financial reform of Alexander II, in one fell swoop, destroys the entire Russian economy. Russia was beginning to be drawn into the world economy, that is, globalization.  In 1860, the Central Bank (which issued money) was established. And immediately, in an "amazing way", there is a shortage of money in the economy! Credit becomes expensive. The usurious bankers rubbed their hands cheerfully: at last their time had come! Due to efforts of "young reformers" (Stieglitz and others) close to the court, the economy of Russia is rapidly transformed into a market economy. Yes, yes! - All this, painfully familiar, began with us 150 years ago, and on individual items, and earlier. 

        The next stage is the harmful financial "reform" of Witte (high degree Freemason). In 1897 Russia switches to the gold standard ... and instantly gets hooked on the needle of gold credits (Rothschilds). With a really booming economy: building railroads, factories, etc. (assets), the country quickly sinks into a debt hole (liabilities - debt obligations). As a result, by 1907 Russia was in first place in the world in state debt to foreign investors, who in most industries seized more than half of the share capital.  

         Thus, a fifty-year "capitalist experiment" with seeming progress brings the country to an economic stalemate, which should be followed by political collapse and loss of sovereignty! But most importantly, these purely economic contradictions are superimposed on more serious contradictions of a mental nature: the majority of the Russian people categorically do not want to integrate into the "market economy"! That is why Stolypin's farm reforms do not work, why the state imposes capitalism from above (in heavy industry), why European "investors" are attracted. This is also why, let us underline, we see many non-Russians among the capitalists proper in Russia: Jews, russified Germans, Caucasians and other non-Russians; they have centuries of experience in banking, business, and trade. They are more bourgeois than our half-assed "bourgeois men."

         В. Rozanov wrote on this subject:  "...right, the Russians remind themselves of some Arabs, wandering about their land.  And "singing songs by the light of the stars" (literature). It's not about Russian hands. And if any Russian suddenly leaves his nomads and decides to take up "business", then he immediately encounters a serious problem: "All work and services, already occupied by Jews or Germans"; all that’s practical – is grabbed by them. "The Russian man is simply not allowed anywhere" - the axiom of the streets, offices, trade.

         Exaggeration by the publicist? Perhaps. (Rozanov was talking about the state of affairs in St. Petersburg.) But the trend is captured correctly: here is the cause: "wandering" and "singing", and here is the consequence: "not allowed".

         To repeat, from the point of view of ethnogenesis, one of the main contradictions of the post-reform epoch consisted in the fact that capitalism had already come to Russia and insistently demanded its development, while we catastrophically lacked suitable bourgeois people for this system. This is why, unlike in Europe, where in the Kremenchuk phase the "merchant peoples" found support in the form of the local bourgeoisie (Protestants), they could not find such an abundant nourishing environment in Russia. Thus, "merchant peoples" found themselves in double isolation - ethnic and social!

         This is the first phase of capitalism in Russia, which logically ends with the anti-bourgeois revolution of 1917 and the return to the familiar community-monarchical (Soviet) way of life.

         But, ... But the beginning of capitalization has nevertheless been laid and the process of bourgeois accumulation of people slowly began. Let us turn our attention to these dynamics.

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        The second phase of the development of capitalism in Russia falls on the Soviet period. Yes, yes, exactly in the Soviet period. The Stalinist period is a thirty-year delay in the development of our bourgeois man. At a difficult moment for the country, this layer, then still not very numerous - first of all the kulaks and their reflection in the party top - the "right-wing opposition" - was simply crushed and forced to work for the common cause. It was brutal, but logical and necessary - otherwise we would not have survived. It was the price of industrialization, which technologically ensured victory in 1945.

         But as soon as the Stalinist mobilization system gave way to the softer Khrushchov-Brezhnev system, the bourgeois man - already an urban fist - quickly came to his senses and began to gain strength. He broke through, like grass through the old asphalt! And socialist upbringing could do nothing about it. According to the theory of ethnogenesis, the bourgeois man is not brought up - he is born that way. And the farther it goes, the more - until the phase of obscuration. We can say that Khrushchev and then Brezhnev were demanded by this very layer of Soviet people. They (K&B) were very much expected and they came.

        Thus, the mass reproduction of the bourgeois (petty-bourgeois) man takes place in the late socialist era, in the 1960s and 1980s. It turns out that the period of "developed socialism" was simply the end of Stalinist-type socialism and, at the same time, a transitional stage to a new way of life.

         At this time, a kind of petty bourgeois renaissance took place in Soviet society. The working people, who had suffered through the mobilization period, finally began to live "for themselves". And it is quite remarkable that above the layer of petty bourgeois middle-class citizens, who are becoming the breeding-ground for the future order, the bourgeois vanguard of entrepreneurs reappears.  These people no longer live on their salaries, they are engaged in the extraction of "unearned income". There are relatively few of them in perpetually poor Central Russia, but in large cities, especially in the capitals, and in the south of the RSFSR, there are many more. In the national republics, especially in the Caucasus, the Baltics, and Ukraine, even more. These are workers in trade, catering, supply, services, transport, etc.

         It is quite revealing that at this time the image of the new bourgeois man made its way into literature and onto the Soviet movie screen. At first this phenomenon is condemned, as in Shukshin's story "Energetic People," or "as if condemned" as in the movie "Beware of the Car" (there the salesman speculator shouts: "Why do I, a man with a higher education, have to hide and twist!" and his father-in-law tells him, "You'll go to jail, but don't steal!"). Then, in the 80's, not only is not condemned, but even causes understanding, as in the movie "Blonde around the corner," "Prohindiada or run in place" and many others. And after all, you can't say that these images aren't typical. People of this type ("able to live") are very common in real life. Moreover, they become role models for many Soviet citizens who also want to live "well" and "beautifully" ...  and be "just like them!"

        Western intelligence agencies, of course, are working at this time, and working very well, but the fact is that the poisonous seeds of information warfare are falling on fertile, already prepared soil. Among young people at this time there are fewer and fewer of those who want to become pilots or designers, and more and more of those who dream of a career as a store clerk or a supply clerk. Contests for trade institutes jump to the maximum limit. And working abroad is seen as a happy opportunity to enrich oneself at the expense of imported scarcity.

        Toward the end of the Soviet era there is a change of milestones: the "romantics" give way to the "pragmatists. In terms of ethnology, this means that the first glimmers of the coming phase of inertia are already visible at the end of the breakdown phase.

        By the beginning of the 1980s, the highest layer of the underground bourgeoisie - tsekhoviki, currency traders, big pharmacists - was forming in the USSR. Parallel to this, even earlier, the majority of the party and economic nomenklatura, as well as the upper stratum of the intelligentsia, became bourgeoisized. At the same time, the party elites, especially their liberal-Western part, are artificially stimulating the process of "bourgeois accumulation" that is naturally going on from below. They cannot wait. The future "perestroika" and "reformers", sensing the prey, have already huddled together in a flock.

         All this new Soviet bourgeoisie, small and large, is still not a majority within the Russian ethnos - most Russians traditionally work in factories, collective farms, design bureaus; serve in the army and other "state services. They sell their goods at bazaars, shashlik houses, and do clandestine businesses, - in full accordance with Gumilyov's historical observation - mostly non-Russians, or Russians with a "high degree of mestizatsiya" - the fruit of ethnic contacts with "mercantile nations". But, ... But if we compare the "bourgeois numbers" of the late Soviet period in the 1980s with the early 20th century, back when 70% were poor and middle-class peasants and 10% were workers, then the number of bourgeois people "per capita" in the Russian regions is noticeably higher. Especially in the big cities. (And geographically this is clearly visible not only in the direction from the north to the south of Russia, but also from east to west.  From the most non-bourgeois city on the Trans-Siberian Railway, Chita, to Moscow, it’s on the rise.)

         At the same time, the new Soviet bourgeoisie is very active; above all, it is shadowy and semi-underground. Again, it is making its way upstairs despite all the constraints of the Soviet system, and by the end of the 1980s it was already a real force. Relying on this social layer - a kind of social class fifth column - the so-called democrats, who make up the main, ideological-political fifth column, carried out an anti-communist coup and, with the support of the West, seized power in August 1991.

       Thus, it turns out that while the Bolsheviks in 1917 played on the discontent of the poor, the "democrats" played on the discontent of the non-poor.  This is the second stage of the development of capitalism in Russia; prematurely (precisely prematurely!) cut short by the liberal revolution of 1991.

         The question arises: after the coup of 1991, does the bourgeois man defeat the non-bourgeois man? No. It strengthens noticeably and even begins to dominate, but it is not victorious to the end. For the revolution of 1991 was not purely bourgeois in its inner class content, but semi-bourgeois.

         The second question is this: does our bourgeois person (precisely - our person) get what he hoped for at the dawn of "perestroika"? No! Instead of the "civilized market" that will finally "make money" for the energetic and enterprising individual (not the "sovoks"), what he got in the 1990s was not even savage capitalism, but a socio-economic pit filled with all kinds of garbage. And in this sinkhole he has to vigorously flounder along with everyone else for many years just to survive.

        At the same time, our half-assed bourgeois man is forced to violate both human and divine laws, because it is impossible to do business in such filth and not to cross the line. These are the rules of the game (which in the "zero years" become somewhat civilized, but in fact, remain the same). As a result, "thirty varieties of sausage" and the ultimate dream of the Soviet bourgeoisie - a private car - are too expensive, for the country and for the individual.  (Let us note in this regard that the consumer epidemic that has captured huge masses of "ravenous" population in recent years will yet boomerang on these masses in the future).

        Of course, to be fair, it should be noted that among today's big businessmen, there are people with an ideological component - patriotic and even religious. But alas, they are few in number and have little influence on decision-making. It's mostly the same Chichikovs who can influence.

        Thus, it turns out that our sprouting, but naive bourgeoisie was simply used skillfully for their own ends by people of a completely different type - the "liberal men". Those same liberal reformers of the 80's and 90's, for whom Russia is a foreign country, an object of robbery and violence. From the perspective of ethnogenesis, the "reformers" of Gaidar and Chubais types are anti-systemic temporary workers, who, taking advantage of the exacerbation of our internal, ethnic disease, blatantly interfered with the natural course of Russian history, and made in Russia an almost fatal zigzag.        

        And here we should stress once again: such a sharp breakdown of the traditional communal-monarchical social system, even more broadly - the very type of civilization, was made in Russia for the very first time in its entire centuries-old history. Therefore, it caused a shock and, as a consequence, the extinction of part of the population.

        Will we get out of this pit? We must get out of it. Yes, as a matter of fact, we already are out. Hope is inspired by the fact that our ethnos is still made up of the old type of people - the pre-bourgeois, collectivist type, especially in provincial Greater Russia. It got much worse, of course, once it found itself out of business after the coup in 1991, but it hasn't gone anywhere. (Though it may seem to people from the capitals that the bourgeois individual has already won definitively and that the collectivist is doomed to extinction. But this is an aberration of proximity. (A satiated and somewhat chimerical closeness.)

         This is precisely the kind of traditional Russian that saved the country from the collapse on which it was teetering at the end of the 1990s. Everyone is in his own place. It is precisely on such a person, an inconspicuous saboteur of "liberal reforms", that Russia is held together! Until now. To the surprise and displeasure of the liberal extremists, who sleep and see how they can "change this people", completely incapable of progress and civilization.

        And now it's time to answer the question of when will we finally build a proper capitalism "like theirs".

        Well, first of all, "like theirs" won't work. Russia is not Europe, but Eurasia, i.e. a different civilization. Therefore, even the finally formed bourgeois person in our country will not resemble the European model, but will be different, with peculiar, Eurasian peculiarities.   

        Secondly, we will not build our own, Eurasian capitalism (or maybe not quite capitalism) any time soon. The third stage of construction is yet to come. We should live some time in the phase of inertia and wait until, after the "law of bourgeois accumulation" works, the number of idealist passionaries will be reduced to a minimum, and our Russian bourgeois person will multiply and become unconditionally dominant in the structure of Russian super-ethnos.

        In the meantime, our non-Russian "bourgeois people" dominate the majority. But this is what happens in troubled times, especially when the historical clock is "neither two nor one and a half".

Socialism and ethnogenesis

        First of all, about methodology. Here we should remind once again that when considering socio-economic issues we use not the usual formational, but a completely different - civilizational approach. According to this approach, civilizations (super-ethnoses) are living organisms, which have their own lifetime of 1200 - 1400 years. What is important for our topic is the fact that in all civilizations, in the final period of their existence, people begin to abandon spiritual values and strive for material values. Worship money instead of God. This is the first.

         The second. According to the Marxist economic approach (methodology) the development of productive forces must inevitably lead to a world communist revolution and the further unification of all people into one non-national whole. And this will be progressive development.

        According to the civilizational approach, economics is always secondary. That is: what kind of politics determines the economy (new power defines a new economic course); what kind of ideology is politics; what kind of mentality (of people, the elite) is ideology; what level of ethnos' passionarity and its geographical component, is mentality (behavior stereotype). Of course, all of this is adjusted to the culture and religion of this or that civilization, and today even calibrated to globalization. But at the core – what’s the man with his worldview!

        A vivid example of this chain of dependencies and the decisive role of mentality is the Soviet period from 1917 to 1991 (first of all, the reproduction of the bourgeois person (consumer), which is natural for the phase of breakdown).

        Methodologically higher is the religious, providential level, to which limited scientific methodology is not applicable. Here, again, the dependence is very simple: whatever the spiritual (religious) state of the people, so too is the reality: cultural, moral, demographic, social, economic, everything. The main spiritual law is known to us - Spirit creates form!  There is no need to prove anything, just compare the religious (traditional) Muslims of the Middle East and the natives of old Europe. It’s Different planets.

         But back to Marxism. According to the civilizational approach, the fusion of nations is impossible in principle. We already know that if all people merge and become the same ("pleasantly swarthy") there will be no development. There will be the end of human history on planet Earth.

         It is well known that Marx wrote his theory for Western Europe. (And he admitted only at the end of his life that there was, in fact, an "Asian mode of production".) He correctly showed the dynamics of the capitalization of Europe - from medieval poverty to the wealth of the New Age. From the old hero, the feudal warrior, to the new hero, the predatory capitalist. Marx made an in-depth study of contemporary Western capitalism (19th century) and predicted its systemic crisis. Although, as Professor Katasonov rightly points out, Marx in Capital did not describe all of capitalism, but only its commercial-industrial segment. The fact is that the left-wing globalist Marx in the second half of his life was associated with the right-wing globalist Rothschild clan, and was funded by them through Engels and other "specialists". That is why Marx "did not notice" big usurious capital in his writings. And yet banking capital was the most "developed capitalism" at that time.

        History has shown that while Marx correctly predicted the crisis of capitalism, he was wrong in his prediction. According to his theory (the theory!), the deadlocked capitalist system should be replaced by a more perfect system - the communist system.  But it will not come. Before our eyes is the "Decline of Europe". The European round of ethnogenesis is coming to an end; Western civilization has already entered the last phase of ethnogenesis. The bourgeois will not be replaced by proletarians, but by sub-passionarians. They are already coming. And the migrants will follow. This degeneration used to be called the "post-industrial stage of growth," but today it is called the "postmodern crisis. (It is important to note that modern world capitalism is largely a product of European civilization.) 

         As for the Marxist-Leninist interpretation of socialism as a "transitional period to communism," if we look at all this from the perspective of ethnology, we also see that there is and cannot be any transition to communism. There is simply a certain way of distributing the wealth available to an ethnos.

         Historical practice shows that there are two types of socialism - socialism from lack, let's call it mobilization socialism and socialism from excess, let's call it inertial socialism. Examples of the first are China (XX century), according to Gumilyov - the phase of the rise, and Russia (in the Stalinist period) - the phase of the breakdown. Examples of the second are the "golden billion" countries, among which the Scandinavian countries ("Swedish socialism") stand out - the second half of the XX century, - the end of the inertia phase.

         These are two very different socialisms.

1) Mobilization socialism is a way of existence in the extreme conditions of the initial phases of ethnogenesis and breakdown in the era of the onset of globalization.

        When there is a fierce struggle for survival under conditions of underdeveloped economy, poverty of the population, internecine strife and civil conflicts. Such socialism finds fertile ground mainly in communal, "land-based" civilizations.  To use the usual Marxist terminology, it is close to the concept of "state feudalism" - i.e., strong central authority, extra-economic coercion of the worker, equalized distribution with a low surplus product.

        The distinctive feature of such rigid socialism, let us repeat, is that it is affirmed in the period of open, aggressive globalization (its first stage - XIX - XX centuries).  It’s the transition of the "second and third world" countries from an agrarian to an industrial way of life. When "state serfs" are no longer peasants, but workers and employees. And such socialism is built at the beginning of the industrial civilization, not at the end, not the way Marx suggested.

         Mobilizing socialism is always based on a) the idea of a leader, b) the idea of justice, c) traditional values: patriotism, collectivism, a strong family, high morality, and the willingness to sacrifice oneself for a high goal. Religion, as a rule, is denied.

          In addition, mobilization socialism has a clear national specificity: in Russia - Russian, in Korea - Korean, in Vietnam - Vietnamese, in Cuba - Cuban, etc.

          We can call such socialism "passionate", designed to protect and strengthen the developing (in the boom phase) or weakened (in the breakdown) system, under increasing pressure from the globalists (imperialists). This is the socialism of resistance.

          In general, if you look at the development of mobilization socialism in the XX century from the perspective of the civilizational approach (clash of civilizations), then a very interesting picture emerges. The Marxist doctrine, elaborated in the 19th century for the weakly passionate countries of the capitalist West, was adopted by the passionate peoples of the capitalist periphery, adapted by them to the 20th century realities (globalization) and, used to struggle against "world imperialism", that is, against the West!

          As a result, on the level of global geopolitics, systemic capitalism has received a systemic anti-capitalism. More precisely - systemic anti-globalism! Thus, "the snake bits its tail" - the ideology of the Comintern's daughter globalist project boomerang, hitting the mother, the Fininter globalist project. And not just hit, but hit very hard, delaying open globalization for sixty years (until 1991). Nothing to say, dialectics in the Marxist spirit! Or is it Gumilyovian?

 2) Inertial socialism is the result of a long accumulation of wealth by ethnos (super-ethnos).

          When, after all the difficulties of ascent, overheating and breaking (after 700 - 800 years), there comes a happy and comfortable phase of inertia, and the state can already afford to give part of the accumulated wealth to "workers" (and then - not to workers, all the rest). As Gumilyov wrote: "In a well-fed time of civilization, everyone will find a roof over his head, a piece of bread and a woman.

          We can say that from the usual, socio-economic point of view, the phase of inertia is capitalism, flowing smoothly into socialism from excess. At the same time, private property is preserved, but here already, for the sake of peace and security, it is customary to share. It is very pleasant to live under such socialism.  But it is only for the time being. Inertial socialism is inevitably replaced by another socialism, let's call it sub-passionary. Such a parasitic socialism of "bread and circuses" we see in the phase of obscuration in Ancient Rome. Elements of such "socialism" we see today in Western countries, especially the USA.

          Modern Western "socialist-Euro-communists" from the depraved phase of obscuration are very different from socialists and communists from the harsh phases of rise and break (China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Russia (in the Stalinist period). Modern Western "socialists" are not fighting for the future of their peoples, but for the impending end of their peoples. They defend the rights of sub-passionists, prostitutes, feminists, homosexuals, minorities of every type, etc. And they do not want to protect all the other normal people from the increasing arbitrariness of state power.

           Recall that in the phase of obscuration, criminal psychology begins to dominate both the "top" and the "bottom" of society. At the same time, in this phase, a conservative reaction is possible - a tightening of the police regime, up to and including repression, through which the power groups seek not only to stop the agony of decay, but simply to prolong their own oligarchic existence, as it was in the Ancient world. (In the U.S., something similar is on the way, but, again, with serious adjustments for globalization and other outrages of modernity.)

           Thus, in order to move from mobilization socialism to socialism "from surplus," one must live for quite a long period in the phase of inertia and accumulate fat. To use Marx's terminology, in order to achieve a high standard of living for most members of society, one must leave feudalism, live a long period under capitalism, wait for it to "blossom" and on this basis build capitalism "with a human face." Not for long. Of course, all this is adjusted to the religious and cultural peculiarities of this or that ethnos, as well as - taking into account the current economic situation. For example take - Islamic socialism in Iran, (religious and cultural factor), or a social state in Arabian oil-producing countries, (wealth in the rise-activity phase).

            However, it is necessary to mention at once that our proposed division of socialism into mobilization and inertial socialism is rather conditional. After an ethnos is out of the extreme period within any dynamic phase there can be something in between - semi-socialism-half-capitalism (China, Vietnam). Or, for example take a renewed, "Russian socialism," declared by the KPRF, which combines the national-patriotic and socialist ideology, and allows private property under state control. Or promising for the post-oligarchic Russia an idea of "Orthodox socialism" - that is, the idea of a strong, social state with a controlled economy and with spiritual and moral support of Orthodoxy.

           Classical socialism of the 20th century, as we recall, was a system fundamentally antireligious, based on a purely materialistic approach. (In this sense, let us repeat, Soviet ideology was a surrogate for religion in the Protestant crisis phase. In our country, as in 16th century Europe, religion was devalued to the level of ethics.) Perhaps, at a certain stage, the new socialism of the 21st century can find common ground with religion. But, ... But in the long-term, eschatological (end times), perspective, purely religious ideologies must come first. Because on a planetary scale, satanic ideology (religion) of globalization can be opposed only by religion. In Russia, it is Orthodoxy. No other ideology can cope with this spiritual plague of the XXI century!

And it is impossible to combine the two parts - religion and ideology. Despite the apparent similarity they are fundamentally different things. Here you must either be Orthodox or socialism! Dostoevsky said it best: "Orthodoxy is our socialism!

          Let's underline once again - classical socialism of Soviet type was a reaction to capitalism of the first stage of globalization (end of the XIXth - first half of the XXth centuries). This capitalism no longer exists. Hence, classical socialism as a systemic anti-capitalism will no longer exist. There will be something else, more in line with the coming era.

          Three main lines of development of high-passionary socialism (the new type) can be pointed out at this time. These are: 1) Latin American socialism - perhaps in alliance with the Catholic Church, which is still alive there, 2) Sino-Southeastern socialism - relying on the ancient collectivist tradition, 3) "Islamic socialism" - where first Islam and then socialism. And, in addition, 4) we should distinguish a special line of development of "middle-passionary" socialism - Russian, even broader - Eurasian - based on the Orthodox tradition and the idea of Justice, which for thousands of years is firmly entrenched in the Eurasian archetype, and is still basic to the Russian man.

           Obviously, all these various socialist ideologies will not dominate their political systems, but will enter them as components (counterbalances) - to varying degrees. And in the foreseeable future they will all have one thing in common - anti-globalization, or in the usual terminology - anti-Western. Iran, Vietnam, Venezuela and a number of Latin American countries are already such examples.

           However, it should be borne in mind that in practice with individual socialisms, unpleasant zigzags can occur. Such a zigzag, for example, was unnatural in terms of ethnogenesis (aimed at simplifying the system), and therefore a dead end, Hitler-type national socialism or Pol Pot's Cambodian "communism".

           Again, life is more complicated than any universal theory-scheme, be it Marx or the more vital Gumilyov. What matters for us is "how much of" this or that theory or ideology works and is borne out by historical practice. That is, in the final analysis, how much it follows the laws of creation.

         And as a conclusion, let us turn once more to our recent history and look at the state of Soviet society in the epoch of "developed socialism" (late 1960s - mid-1980s). What will we see? We will see that this period as a whole fits into the scheme offered by us: Mobilization socialism - Capitalism - Inertial socialism.

         Practice showed that "developed socialism" in the well-fed and quiet time of Brezhnev's stagnation was not a continuation but the end of mobilization socialism and, simultaneously, the beginning of capitalism's offensive along a broad "harmonic" (petty-bourgeois) front. This was one of the inner preconditions of the semi-bourgeois revolution of 1991.

         After all, what happened to "developed socialism"? It turned out to be an ideological dead end. The proclaimed strategic goal of socialism in the 1960-80s, i.e. "satisfying the increasing material needs of the Soviet people" (which, let us note, objectively reflected the process of internal "bourgeois accumulation"), came into conflict with the very idea of mobilizing socialism. And it played into the hands of the destroyers of the Soviet system, who skillfully used this contradiction. After all, strictly speaking, socialism means social, collective. And what kind of collective can there be if its members strive for ever-increasing consumption and individual hoarding? 

          Of course, the CPSU documents also said that along with the satisfaction of material needs, the increasing spiritual (?) needs of Soviet people would also be satisfied. But it was also a conceptual error - the pursuit of true spiritual values is not in principle compatible with the pursuit of material values. All the more so in a community of atheists. (This is a reference to the increasing lack of faith among Soviet people in the 1970s and 1980s, and to the timid attempts of part of the intelligentsia to turn to Orthodoxy.)

        Thus Soviet socialism, as a comprehensive ideology, naturally reached an impasse with orthodox Marxism and its desire to deceive Mother Nature and build an artificial reality on earth with an artificial human being of a new type, a religion-less and non-national robot. This meant that the first anti-Christian project to clone humanity failed.

        Some may ask, "What about the idea of social justice?" - And we will answer: it remains. And it will live as long as man lives.

        We conclude. The future ideology of Russia should not be a pirate's house. It should reflect "our own, our own native land”. Including its ethnic age. In the ethnological aspect ideology should reflect the "state of health" of the ethnic system in a given segment of ethnogenesis (i.e. the level of passionarity, its vector, the integrity of the system) and, therefore, take into account the stereotype of behavior dominating in this phase (or sub-phase).

         For us, this is the initial, "semi-bourgeois" stage of the inertia phase. When everything is on a good average level; without extremes, both to the left and to the right.  At the same time, we repeat, the new ideology should absorb everything that has been developed by the Russian Orthodox civilization for over a thousand years. This includes the positive experiences of the Soviet Union.

        A striking example that such ideological restructuring is possible is modern China. Marxism once served its purpose by consolidating the Chinese people under the red banner of communism (at the end of the boom phase). The seeds of "colored liberalism" were quickly and brutally put to rest in China in 1989. In recent decades, however, the people of the Celestial Empire began to deliberately shift to their ancestral national traditions - Confucianism, Legism and other useful things. And to build on this foundation a new ideology - "Chinese socialism".

        Of course, at the modern, transitional stage, they have a lot of problems, but, as already mentioned, it is easier for the Chinese to solve them - they are on the rise (the acmatic phase). And they have learned something for four millennia of their original culture. For example, the Chinese have this parable: "Two and a half thousand years ago, the inhabitants of the Principality of Zhao were famous for their beautiful gait. A certain child from the chiefdom of Yan went there to learn to walk beautifully, but he learned nothing. A few years later he returned home on all fours, the good fellow, trying to imitate others, he had forgotten how to walk properly.

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