Religion is one of the traditional non-coercive bonds of statehood. Religious basic foundations are historically found in virtually every modern state. For some - like, for example, non-secular Israel - this connection has more obvious forms implemented in managerial practice. In others, as in the United States, it is not so obvious. But is it really possible to adequately understand the semantic foundations of American statehood without the legendary plots of the Protestant migration? For Russia, Orthodoxy undoubtedly acted as a confessional state-forming force.

Religion as a factor of state viability. From a worldview point of view, religion endows a person with the highest transcendent meaning of existence: axiologically, it instills in him the values ​​of common life; ethically - establishes the coordinates of good and evil; regulatory - sacralizes in the form of traditions the optimal standards for the functioning of the corresponding cultural community. Accordingly, in order to destructure the state, the foundation of religion should be knocked out from under it. There is a correlation between the religiosity of the people and state stability. Appeared at the end of the XVIII-XIX centuries. As a country of permanent revolution, France occupied at the same time the avant-garde positions in the world in spreading the ideology of secularism. It also historically acted as the first state to face the challenge of a long reproductive decline in modern times. Being a more socially stable organism in the 19th century, Great Britain retained at the same time - unlike France - a more accentuated adherence to traditional religious values.

Russia then was a country of absolute popular religiosity. But since the beginning of the 20th century it was she who became the main addressee of the spread of atheism. How was it possible for more than seventy years of existence of a state built on the paradigm of an atheistic worldview?

The fact is that, unlike power state institutions, religion is much more inertial.

The All-Union census of 1937 can serve as a clear evidence of such inertia. The question of religious affiliation was included in the questionnaires on the personal initiative of I.V. Stalin. The results obtained were so stunning that the authorities did not dare to publish summary statistical materials. Two years later, a second census campaign was carried out, which no longer contained a clause establishing a person's belonging to any religion. This important question was missing in all subsequent censuses, including the 2002 census. According to statistics obtained in 1937, the majority of those who agreed to fill out the corresponding item of the questionnaire (56.7%) self-identified as believers. Obviously, one should also include among them those who, when asked about their attitude to religion, generally refused to give any answer. Those of the total number participating in the census accounted for up to 20%. This group can be identified as the hidden believers. Refusal to fill in the corresponding item of the questionnaires, as well as non-participation in the census in general, was determined by religious motives. On the one hand, there was the fear of persecution of all those who confessed their religiosity. On the other hand, an entry in the questionnaire as an unbeliever meant religious apostasy (the archetype in this case was the New Testament story about Peter's denial).

Religious figures representing various confessions appealed to the people to avoid participation in the census campaign. The census was carried out on the very eve of Christmas (January 5-6), which served as an additional source of increased exaltation tension among the believing part of the population. Thus, by 1937 at least 76.7% of Soviet citizens remained among the religiously identifiable. Apparently, their proportion was even higher, because for many believers, considerations of personal security turned out to be a rather weighty circumstance when answering the corresponding item of the questionnaire. Thus, it would not be an exaggeration to assert that the victory in the Great Patriotic War was won by a people who preserved primarily their religious identity. The authorities, we must give them their due, having received the relevant static materials, were able to effectively use the resource of the religiosity of the people for national purposes. The neo-institutionalization of the patriarchy was a direct consequence of this reassessment. The strategy of erosion of the traditions of Orthodox religiosity in modern Russia. Modern Russia, it would seem, is much more religiously oriented than Soviet Russia. The media have already sung the anthem of the Russian religious revival more than once. However, an analysis of the trends that have developed in the worldview sphere allows us to assert that faith itself has undergone significant erosion.

The turn towards a tolerant attitude towards religion, sanctioned in 1988 by the authorities, was used in the specific conditions of perestroika destruction as a factor of state disintegration. Through this step, another, which became one of the decisive blows, was dealt to the integration potential of the communist ideology. Religious identity - as an alternative to Soviet unity.

Religion, as one of the traditional statist bonds, being taken out of the framework of the integral Soviet system formation, was paradoxically used as one of the detonators of the collapse of the USSR.

It is no coincidence that especially active support from the West in the spectrum of Soviet dissent was given to the direction of church dissidence. The human rights movement included, in particular, the activities of the Christian Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Believers in the USSR. However, it was not possible to create any kind of broad opposition from the Orthodox flock.

Obviously, the paradigm of the statist orientation of the ROC had an effect. The operation, successfully implemented in relation to the Baptists or Pentecostals, failed in relation to the Orthodox. “But,” stated this failure, a member of the human rights movement of the 1970s, an émigré historian L.M. Alekseev, “among the Orthodox intelligentsia, an ironic, squeamishly suspicious attitude towards human rights activities, as well as “Soviet heroism”, “everyday fair” and even as “satanic good” has always been widespread and intensified in the 80s. Not being, by its very nature, a force in opposition to the state.
The church was used in a big geopolitical game against its own interests. But the fate of the "Moor" who did his job is well known. The nominated religious revival of Russia turned out to be nothing more than a simulacrum. According to opinion polls conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation, at least 26% of Russians identify themselves as non-believers. These are not those who doubt, namely those for whom the denial of the existence of God is a worldview axiom. Moreover, in the capital, the share of atheists reaches 43%. Another 5% of Russian respondents found it difficult to give any answer to the question about their attitude to religion. Representatives of this category of the population cannot be classified as believers associated with a certain confessional group. Their worldview, as a rule, is individual, which is why it does not fall under any of the known religions. Thus, the level of religiosity in modern Russia is even lower than in the atheistic USSR of the 1937 model. Particularly significant in terms of its destructive potential is the spread of the phenomenon of unbelief among the Russian population.

Such a state, in which the state-forming people are largely deprived of religious faith (despite the fact that the national outskirts demonstrate a relatively high level of religiosity), is doomed to disintegration. The dichotomy of a non-religious center - religious outskirts was a model for the disintegration of many world civilizations. Given that Russians make up 79.8% of the population in Russia, and the peoples of the Orthodox cultural area as a whole - 86%, only 59% of Russians identify themselves with Orthodoxy. And how does Russia look according to the criterion of religiosity against the world background? Among countries belonging to the same Christian cultural type, it turns out that the Russian Federation is one of the least religious states. In most other Christian countries of the West, the proportion of unbelievers, together with skeptics, does not even make up a quarter of the total population. Only Russia, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic exceed But who are the Russian believers? Finding out the specifics of their comprehension of religion makes the fact of their confessional affiliation highly questionable.

Traditionally, the spread of Catholic proselytism was nominated as one of the most pressing threats to the Orthodox world. The point here was not only in the orthodox rejection of everything alien. The living memory of the people reproduced, as an edification to posterity, numerous historical precedents of Latin expansion. More than once, Orthodox statehood, in view of the direct aggression of adherents of Catholicism, was on the verge of death. The most striking episodes in this series are Constantinople in 1204 and Moscow in 1612.

The attitude towards Catholics in tsarist Russia was even worse (and to a large extent) than towards representatives of non-Christian confessions.

The papacy was consistently defined as antichrist and associated with various kinds of eschatological projections. The transition from a strategy of direct aggression to a stake on missionary activity did not mean a change in the overall target setting of the Vatican towards Russia. The former generations of adherents of the Russian Orthodox Church understood this well. However, the new Orthodox flock's sense of the threat posed by Catholic proselytism turned out to be atrophied. An indicator of this metamorphosis can be the results of public opinion polls regarding the prospects for the visit of the Pope to Russia. Only an insignificant part of Russian citizens spoke negatively on this score. The number of respondents who positively accepted the idea of ​​the arrival of the head of the Catholic Church, turned out to be 8 times more. But, perhaps, the personality of the Roman pontiff crossed out the challenge of Latin proselytism at the level of mass consciousness? The question addressed to Russian society about the attitude towards Catholics in general allows us to state that it is precisely about the atrophy of the Russians' sense of the threat of other confessional expansion.

The indifference of the majority of respondents is quite consistent with the secular paradigm of modern society, but the positive assessment of Catholics by almost a third of all respondents is difficult to explain otherwise than as the result of appropriate propaganda processing. Most often, they understand faith as their own individual religious-surrogate worldview, not attributable to any of the known confessional practices. This is evidenced by sociological surveys to reveal the degree of churching of Russians. Persons “professing non-Christian religions” were excluded from the sample. The results obtained are discouraging. Only an extremely small number of Russians regularly visit churches (7%), perform the sacrament (1%), observe all major church fasts (2%), pray church prayers (5%), read the Gospel and other biblical texts (2%). Thus, 59% of self-identified Orthodox turn out to be nothing more than a fiction. The true number of the Orthodox flock in Russia does not exceed 7% of the population.

The position of the Church in this regard is much worse than it was under Soviet rule.

Behind the outward mass character and official respect, Orthodoxy, as the traditional religion of Russia, turned out to be almost destroyed. One cannot consider an Orthodox Christian a person who does not even have an idea about Christian prayer. Characteristically, in the United States, believers are considered to be people who regularly read the Holy Scriptures (daily - 20% of Americans, at least once a week - 30%), as well as attending church with weekly intensity and regularly participating in the sacrament of the sacrament (in those religious directions, where it exists).

The ideological state of modern Russian society evokes unwitting associations with the Roman Empire during its decline. Against the background of the breakdown of the traditional system of worldview, occult practices that are inherently destructive are spreading. By exploiting the religious feelings immanent in the human psyche, various kinds of charlatans receive a broad public platform. Extrasensory programs are regularly given a place in the hourly grid of federal TV channels. Meanwhile, the nature and nature of extrasensory influence on a person is not fully understood by science today. The Church categorically rejects such experiences as satanic practice. However, the leadership of television channels, with the strange connivance of the state authorities, considers it possible to conduct mass experiments on the consciousness and mental health of Russians. Neo-occultism directly destroys the coordinates of traditional religiosity. The neo-occult worldview is a direct competitor to the religious worldview. Suffice it to say that today in Russia the proportion of people who believe in extraterrestrial civilizations is higher than those who believe in the immortality of the soul. Moreover, even among those who identify themselves as Orthodox Christians, many do not share the basic thesis of the Christian religion about the afterlife. Only a third of Russians deny the phenomenological reality of the occult. The vast majority found themselves, to one degree or another, involved in the occult atmosphere.

In the place of Soviet atheism, therefore, came not religion, but precisely occultism.

Bearing in mind assistance in its information promotion, it is appropriate to talk about the operational nature of the introduction of a new worldview. Judging by public opinion polls, the hierarchy of popularity of neo-occult concepts is built in modern Russia as follows:

1. Guidance of "damage", "evil eye" (witchcraft).
2. Omens that come true.
3. Predictions on the lines of hands (palmistry).
4. Predictions on the location of stars and planets (astrology).
5. Diagnosis and treatment of diseases by the biofield (extrasensory perception).
6. The manifestation of otherworldly forces, ghosts, brownies.
7. Alien activity on Earth (duology).
8. The transmission of thoughts at a distance (telepathy).
9. Communication with the souls of the dead (spiritualism).
10. Moving objects with the power of thought (telekinesis).
11. Spontaneous movement of inanimate objects (poltergeist).
12. Human flight without any devices (levitation).

But the matter is not limited to a mere hypothetical statement of the probability of paranormal phenomena. Almost a quarter of Russians were directly involved in occult practices. 23% of respondents admitted to visiting magicians, sorcerers, psychics. This is more than the number of Russians who take part in church sacraments. Organizationally, Orthodoxy is losing to its ideological opponents. Today, about 300 thousand various kinds of magicians, healers, psychics are registered in the country. According to the sectologist A.L. Dvorkin, their actual number reaches 500 thousand people. Ideologically opposed to this army of occultists are 15,000 Orthodox clergy. “Such a number of actually pagan magicians,” writes a prominent researcher in the history of the church D. Pospelovsky, “in a market economy means that the demand for them exceeds the demand for the Orthodox clergy by 30 times!” In Soviet times, of all religious organizations operating in Russia, 62.7% were part of the ROC. The new religious movement was represented by associations of Hare Krishnas, Baha'is and Mormons, accounting for less than 0.2%68. In 2007 the situation was fundamentally different. Associations in the structure of the ROC already accounted for 54.3%. The number of organizations representing new religious movements increased to 3.5% (increased by 17.5 times over the years of reforms). This is more than the number of Buddhist (0.9%) or Jewish associations (1.3%) associated with religions traditional for Russia.

Thus, the answer to the question of who won as a result of the transformations that took place seems obvious. In any case, this is not the Russian Orthodox Church. According to 2003 data, in Russia during the post-Soviet period of its history, up to 500 new religious movements spread, covering 800,000 adherents. The missionary department of the Moscow Patriarchate gives different statistics: 700 denominations and up to 5 million people of active adherents. Without the appropriate patronage of the authorities, such a rapid spread of neo-occultism and sectarianism in Russia would have been impossible. The extremely lenient rules for registering religious organizations that were in force in the Russian Federation led to the legal legitimization of a significant number of totalitarian sects banned in other countries of the world. Prior to the introduction of relevant legislative changes in 1997, most of these organizations had customs privileges and were exempt from paying taxes.

The activities of such public associations as the International Association for Religious Freedom and the International Civil Commission on Human Rights (the latter was established with the direct participation of the Church of Scientology) have a “sect-protective” orientation in the Russian Federation. In fact, the green light for neo-occult imports to Russia was given by the laws adopted in 1990 in the USSR "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations" and "On Freedom of Religion." Only in 1997, this expansion, in view of the recognition of the “dangerous consequences of the impact of certain religious organizations on the health of society, families, citizens of Russia”, was partially limited through the adoption of the Federal Law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations”. The leitmotif of the changes introduced was the deprivation of denominations that had a period of distribution in Russia of less than 15 years, tax preferences that existed before and the right to rent premises. This decision was implemented through the differentiation of confessional associations into religious organizations and religious groups. Interested in the religious erosion of Russia was not slow to show up.

As a response, the US Senate decides to reduce financial assistance to the Russian Federation by $200 million B.N. Yeltsin, under the pretext of contradicting the Duma bill with constitutional law, initially vetoed it. But still, in the future, a softened version, despite the external and internal liberal pressure exerted, was signed by him.

However, the fifteen-year period established earlier has already lost its relevance. For 1997, the 15-year limitation meant cutting off the spread of the status of a religious organization to the numerous neo-occult foreign groups that emerged in Russia in the early 1990s. Now all of them have already received the appropriate rights to legal legitimization. Confessional associations that emerged in the Russian Federation in the period 1991-1993 can already now be legalized as religious organizations. The theme of the new occult expansionism, which has temporarily fallen off the agenda, should be updated again in the near future. However, the current Russian authorities apparently do not have a foresight of the coming threat. What kind of protection of the interests of traditional Russian confessions can we talk about if such politicians as Anatoly Chubais and Alexander Voloshin figured at different times as chairman of the Council for Cooperation with Religious Organizations under the President of the Russian Federation? The ROC also loses in the competition with its ideological opponents for the younger generation. The number of spiritual educational institutions among Russian Muslims is almost one and a half times greater than among the Orthodox. Almost as many as the ROC have such institutions and other religious organizations in Russia. With the relative propagandistic passivity of the Moscow Patriarchate, educational institutions of the middle and higher levels are actively using organizations representing a new religious movement as a springboard for disseminating their teachings.

Scientologists, Moonies, Hare Krishnas, followers of the Anastasia sect, and others have a direct practice of cooperation with universities and schools in Russia. But someone at the level of leadership in Russian education opened the gates for them, showed interest in spreading sectarian influence on students!

The activity of the Church of Scientology is the most active in the educational field of Russia. It is education that constitutes the main revenue item for the functioning of Hubbard's organizational structures. In Russia, according to experts, the income of the Church of Scientology reaches $50 million a year. Arguing about how many Russian citizens, judging by these means, the propaganda of the teachings of Dianetics is spreading, forces us to formulate the question of Hubbardian activities as a direct challenge to national security. The structure of the Church of Scientology includes several of its own educational institutions - "Hubbard College", "Center for Applied Education", "Rodnik Boarding School Non-Governmental Non-Profit Educational Institution". A special program implemented by the Moscow Dianetics Center is to translate Hubbardian concepts through a special processing of teachers. The doors of Moscow State University named after M.V. M.V. Lomonosov. Joint programs connected them - in particular during the period of institutionalization of the organization - with the Faculty of Journalism. Moscow State University even acted as a venue for the so-called Hubbard Days. Meanwhile, in Germany, the Church of Scientology is regarded as a "criminal commercial organization with elements of psychoterror" and is placed under special police supervision. In France and Spain, the activities of the Hubbardians became the subject of legal investigations.

The sphere of activity of Scientologists is not limited, however, to the education system. No less successful attempts were made by them to introduce their programs in medical institutions. At the level of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, they received, in particular, permission to implement their method of toxin cleansing of the human body. Hubbardians were even given the opportunity to treat children affected by the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, which made up a video sequence of Scientology presentation videos. The most resonant connection between the spread of neo-occultism in Russia and the activities of state authorities was highlighted by the example of the phenomenon of "Aum Senrique".

The veil hiding the fact of active cooperation between officials and sectarians was removed only due to extraordinary circumstances - a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway.

Having gained popularity in Russia since 1991, after several years, under the patronage of representatives of the highest echelon of power, the Russian AUM associations counted three times more adherents in their ranks than in Japan itself. The institutional cover for the followers of Shoko Asahara was established on the initiative of M.S. Gorbachev, with financial and organizational assistance from the sect, the Russian-Japanese University (originally the Russian-Japanese Foundation). Gorbachev's sympathy for the Aumovites was shared by B.N. Yeltsin, who, by a special Decree of November 13, 1991, equated university employees with "categories of employees of government bodies." Oleg Lobov, head of the Expert Council under the President of the Russian Federation, acted as the direct patron of Aum Senrique in the top Russian state leadership, as shown by a judicial investigation.

It was he who organized the communication of the sect with some Russian defense enterprises, which resulted in the receipt of appropriate technological developments by the Aumovites for the production of gas used in the Tokyo metro - sarin. Later, a combat helicopter and a Russian-made gas analyzer were also found in the arsenal of the sectarians. Not only O. Lobov met with the leader of the sect, Shoko Asahara, but also other prominent representatives of the state establishment of Russia - Vice President A. Rutskoi, Speaker of Parliament R. Khasbulatov, head of Ostankino E. Yakovlev, rectors of leading Moscow universities (MSU, MGIMO , MIREA, MEPhI). For the symphony orchestra created under the auspices of Aum Senrique, the site of the Olimpiysky sports complex was provided. Asahara himself spoke from the stands of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses and the conference hall of Moscow State University. TV channel 2 2 during 1993–1994 AUM provided weekly broadcasting opportunities. Despite the injunction, the successor organizations in relation to Aum Senrika still function on the territory of the Russian Federation.

According to Japanese law enforcement agencies, it is in Russia that a group of internationally wanted individuals involved in the terrorist attack in Tokyo is still hiding.

No less large-scale influence on the Russian establishment at the turn of the 1980s–1990s. provided by the Unification Church, better known as the Moon sect. The head of the organization Sun Myung Moon was personally invited to the USSR in 1989 by M.S. Gorbachev in the status of a state guest. In the Assumption Cathedral, still closed for liturgical practice at that time, he was even given the opportunity to perform the ceremony of consecration (“salting”) according to his own Munite rite. Moon-Gorbachev cooperation (in particular, through the Gorbachev Foundation) continued even after the latter's resignation. In addition to the ex-president of the USSR, among the participants of the Moonite forums there are such persons associated with a certain political spectrum as A. Yakovlev, G. Popov, S. Shushkevich. Experts argue that in order to attract the "powerful of this world" the Moonies are actively using the practice of providing super-large fees. In 1992, the Unification Church conference was held mainly at the expense of the organizational resources of the Ministry of Education, which ensured the participation in the conference of delegates from public education departments of 60 Russian cities. What, it would seem, can connect the educational national system of Russia and the religious organization of the Korean missionary?!

How does this kind of cooperation correlate with the declaration on the separation of religion from schools, which is so often mentioned to justify the inadmissibility of spreading Orthodox educational programs?! Meanwhile, hundreds of seven-day seminars for teachers were held by the Moonies, covering more than 60 thousand representatives of the teaching staff of secondary and higher educational institutions in Russia. A peculiar point of the triumph of the activities of the "Unification Church" was the introduction, since 1993, into the educational program for high school students of the course "My world - and I" specially developed by the Moonies. More than 2,000 schools in Russia were taught in this subject in a short time. In the Republic of Kalmykia, the course "My world - and I" was at one time even established as a compulsory discipline. The preparation by the Moonies of a special textbook for military personnel, "The Inner World of a Soldier," also deserves special attention from the standpoint of national security. The decision to create it was made at a conference held jointly by the Unification Church and the Higher Humanitarian Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

Further munization of Russia was stopped only by a number of scandals that took place abroad related to the exposure of adherents of munism in financial extortion. Harmonization of non-force bases: both religion and science. Various bonds of state life can be combined with each other. The hypertrophied development of one component, which is out of touch with others, leads to disharmony and can lead to the death of the entire system. It was in this way that the Russian Empire was brought to the collapse of the state system in 1917. There is no doubt that religion is one of the most important components of state viability. But when its position in society is established to the detriment of other non-coercive foundations of statehood - such as, for example, science or education - this can have the most negative consequences. The Russian Empire acted in the world as a kind of brand of high Christian piety, Orthodox theocracy. In the West, this image was strongly supported.

Your strength, the Western noteworthy "Russophiles" told Russia, is not in science and education (the lot of materialistic Europe), but in religious spirituality.

In general, stay with banners and crosses, but do not claim the path of technical improvement monopolized by the West. Positioning itself through the image of the defender of Orthodoxy, the tsarist authorities fell for this trick, which resulted in the strengthening of the paradigm of obscurantization in terms of management. The disparity between religion, on the one hand, and a sphere that includes science, education, and secular culture, on the other, had the character of a catastrophic breakdown. The subsequent Bolshevik anti-religious campaign was objectively a reverse modernizing reaction to the previous disproportions in development. The analysis allows us to state that, behind the external cover of the reports about the religious revival of Russia, religion, as the backbone of Russian statehood, has undergone significant erosion over the past two decades. The design component of destructive processes in this area is traced. The main implemented stratagem is to blur the core of traditional Russian religiosity, to equate traditional religions with a neo-spiritualist surrogate, and to replace them with the latter. Violation of the optimum of pluralization in religious life resulted in the undermining of one of the most important non-coercive foundations of statehood.

The current situation in Europe is not something extraordinary. She was predicted. And several times, and by people who had opposing views on the political structure in this part of the world. The only difference is that some saw the creation of the EU as a systemic error, while others saw it as only an intermediate stage for the further process of the disintegration of nation-states and the creation of a global civil society.

The two points of view are now being embodied in the European crisis, and the further development of events largely depends on what the point of the geopolitical bifurcation will be.

Let's consider both cases with specific examples. As a comparison, we will take ideas expressed in works with similar titles - The Breakdown of Nationsand Breaking the Nations.

The first was published in 1957 and the second in 2003.

The first book was written by a lawyer, economist and political scientist of Austrian origin, who for about twenty years served as a professor of economics and public administration at the University of Puerto Rico, Leopold Kohr, who became the inspiration for the "Small is great" movement. He himself called himself a philosophical anarchist, although he never promoted anti-state activities. He was opposed to major projects, including European integration. Leopold Kor in 1941 predicted not only the fallacy of creating a supranational system in Europe, but also the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even during the Second World War, he analyzed the balance of ethnic groups and came to the conclusion that both the Nazi and Soviet regimes were doomed. As you can see, his analysis was accurate. Although few people turn to the theoretical provisions of this author.

Kora's approach to the Swiss Confederation, which is not a confederation of ethno-linguistic groups, but a confederation of regions, seems rather laconic.

“In fact, the basis of the existence of Switzerland and the principle of the coexistence of various national groups is not a federation of its three nationalities, but a federation of 22 states, which represent the division of nationalities and thus create an essential prerequisite for any democratic federation: physical balance participants, approximate equality of their number. The greatness of the Swiss idea, therefore, is the smallness of its cells from which it draws its guarantees.

People who advocate the unification of nations in Europe, because they believe that this kind of union has been realized and thus proved feasible in Switzerland, have never based their beautiful schemes on the principle of cantons or small state sovereignty. The national idea has so greatly confused the minds of political thinkers that, by comparison, the concept of the state is much more flexible, adaptable, and applicable to many areas than the nation, has completely fallen into disuse. The power was to see only big and even bigger, while smaller objects were recognized as the source of all troubles and evil ... We have learned to praise the unification of France, Great Britain, Italy and Germany in the hope that they will give birth to a single humanity. But they created only great powers,” he wrote in his work “Disengagement immediately”.

Kor stands for a principle that glorifies the sovereignty of the smallest and not the largest state entity - Kleinstaaterei, as the Germans say. He notes that no one knows what the term "humanity" really means and why one should die for it. Unionism and colossalism will not lead to anything good.

Unionism is just another expression of totalitarianism. It is a one-party system that has been transplanted into the international sphere.

“Not only history but also our own experience has taught us that true democracy in Europe can only be achieved in small states. Only there can a person retain his place and dignity. And if democracy is a worthwhile idea, we must again create conditions for its development, for a small state, and give glory to sovereignty (instead of destroying institutions from which no one wants to leave) down to the smallest community and as many people as possible . In this way it will be easy to unite the small states under one continental federal system and thus satisfy all who wish to live by universal principles. Such a Europe will be a fertile inspiration and a grandiose picture, unlike the modern one, which is painted according to a dull pattern. It will be like a mosaic with exciting variations and variety, but at the same time the harmony of an organic and living whole.”

But this is practically the idea of ​​a Eurasian confederation, albeit expressed in other words!

However, his most famous work was The Destruction of the Nation-States. In it, he presented philosophical, political, cultural, economic and administrative arguments in favor of small state actors.

In the part on philosophical questions, he says: "It is no coincidence that smallness is not only a convenience. It is a design created by God. The whole universe is built on it. We live in a microcosm, not in a macrocosm. Perfection was granted to only a few. Only in the direction of the minuscule we shall someday come to the end, to the finite, the boundary where we can conceive the ultimate mystery of existence.In the direction of the colossal, we will not get anywhere. We can add and multiply, and produce larger and larger numbers and substances, but we will never reach the end, for there is nothing that cannot be doubled, although doubling in the physical sense rather means collapse, disintegration, catastrophe.There is an invisible barrier of size beyond which matter cannot accumulate.Only non-existent mathematical shadows can penetrate somewhere further Separation, on the other hand, eventually leads us to an existing, albeit invisible, ultimate essence of all things, to particles that do not lend themselves to further separation. They are the only substances with which creation is endowed with unity. Only they are indivisible, indestructible, eternal. Lucretius called them the first bodies or primary particles in his "Nature of things".

Although at first glance it seems that Kor appeals to the ideas of the atomicity of Democritus and the individual (which, in a sense, can be transferred to the practice of liberalism and multiculturalism), this is not so. Unfortunately for many anarchists who are nihilist materialists (especially following the ideas of Peter Kropotkin, who tried to give scientific examples as a justification for the anarchy of power), Leopold Kohr always spoke about God and His will, which must be tried to be understood from the position of a state organization.

“There are two ways in which balance and order can be achieved. One is stability and the other is through mobile balance. When properly managed, both are self-regulating. A stable balance is a stagnant and huge balance. It creates an equilibrium, whereby two objects are in a fixed and unchanging relationship with each other, like a house with the earth, or a mountain with its plain. Instead of creating harmony, it forms its various parts in unity. Being a rigid and fixed balance, it could only be conceived as a universal principle if the universe were motionless and lifeless. Then the existence of only a few large bodies would make sense and, for that matter, the presence of one would be enough. But in the bottomless vastness of the abyss of creation, it could only be preserved by the conscious will of God Himself, who, in order to prevent it from falling into nowhere, would have to be constantly kept in His hands.

Since this was clearly not His intention, He instead created movement, breathing, and a dynamic universe, maintaining order not by unity but by harmony, and based not on the steady balance of the dead, but on the mobile balance of the living. Unlike a stable balance, this balance is self-regulating, not because of the immobility of its relations, but because of the coexistence of countless mobile little parts, none of which was allowed to accumulate enough mass to disturb the harmony of the whole.

Kor associates the political structure with the idea of ​​internal democracy, which is based on the community. “A small state is, by its very nature, democratic… The rulers of a small state can be said to be neighbors of the citizen…”.

Kohr's ideas are cited rather little, although the example of Switzerland could serve as proof of the correctness of his ideas.

Moreover, it can be added that most of the current nation-states of Europe also need to be defragmented in order to finally eradicate from them the bourgeois spirit and false attitudes of nationalism, which during the Enlightenment era intensively destroyed the traditions and cultures of European peoples, planting bureaucracy in their place.

The author of another book with a similar title, Breaking the Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century, is British diplomat and strategy theorist Robert Cooper. At the time of the release of his work in 2003, he served as Director General for Foreign and Political-Military Affairs in the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU.

Despite identical titles, the ideas and approaches in the two works are quite different.

If Kor proposes to strengthen sovereignty from below, then Cooper, on the contrary, believes that sovereignty should be destroyed as much as possible.

"The sovereignty of a post-modern state is the right to a seat at the negotiating table," he argues.

Much of his work is controversial. For example, he states that "liberalism and nationalism can go hand in hand, as they did in the 18th and 19th centuries in countries that were parting ways with some form of imperial rule." Why is this possible? To completely destroy national cultures or to manipulate movements and parties that appeal to national identity? Cooper seems to have both in mind.

In the second part, he argues that "most people bow to ideas, not force", but later in the same section argues that "European structures for international cooperation strengthen sovereignty through increased security ... the EU policing agreement provides for police action in other countries." Where is the rule of law and ideas here, even if "the EU member states have lost the exclusive right to adopt laws"?

He also speaks with caution about Islam, which could become the basis for a new imperialism. And he mentions the Pacific region, where there may also be a request for amalgamation. Both, according to Cooper, pose a threat to Western interests, and ultimately to the West itself.

Consequently, Cooper advocates the ideas of Western hegemony, which is transformed into something new. For him, the postmodern state is the quintessence of the ideas of liberalism, which at the previous stage opposed various forms of collective identity associated with class, nationality, race or state affiliation.

Cooper argues that communism and fascism were attempts to contain the effects of the modernization of society caused by the ideas of the Enlightenment and the technological innovations of the industrial revolution. Hence his confidence that all industrial and post-industrial countries carry the potential for postmodernity.

In the end, he reveals the cards and affirms the need for the triumph of the individual.

"Chaos is pacified by empire; empires are broken by nationalism; nationalism, hopefully, is preparing to give way to internationalism. The ultimate goal is the freedom of the individual." On the same page, he clarifies that we are talking about an open society, which, in fact, is identical to postmodernity.

Those. this is practically the same thing that George Soros spoke about and is trying to put into practice through various projects.

In addition, Cooper makes a confession regarding US interests and the difference between American and European perceptions of reality.

"European countries are based on nationality and history. For Americans, history is nonsense. They are aimed not at the colonization of space, but at the colonization of time, that is, the future."

This colonization was successfully implemented in Western Europe through a system of political, economic and military dependence on Washington.

"The American plan was to develop a world community of open markets and international institutions, in which the United States would play a leading role ... In general, the United States realized these goals through the Marshall Plan, the creation of the European Union and international financial institutions, especially the IMF and the World Bank" .

Pay attention to the phrase - "the creation of the European Union"! Did the European countries, starting with the Union of Coal and Steel, understand that the Americans were behind it all? Of course, some actors were able to benefit from such a combination, but for how long? The fragility of the European Union has already shown itself in Brexit, the inability to cope with the problem of migrants and terrorist attacks, as well as the dependence of a number of countries on the financial dictates of European commissioners.

And what does Robert Cooper propose for the next political agenda?

"In politics, manifestations of the pre-modern or alien must be contained; reconciliation of interests is possible with the modern state, but lasting peace can come only with a post-modern fusion of identities," he writes.

For the EU, this means the continued erosion of the cultural code of all peoples and countries, as a result of which a new type of homopoliticus should appear. But this is only in theory. In reality, weak identities will be replaced by stronger ones, which are now represented by numerous migrants, who almost always position themselves as bearers of Islam and show little respect for native Europeans.

Perhaps such external aggression will help the inhabitants of Europe to rethink their role in world history and they will try to recreate their old identity and sovereignties as much as possible under the current circumstances.

On October 18, 2012, Krasnodar hosted the 18th All-Kuban Cyril and Methodius Churches, at which His Grace Bishop Herman of Yeysk, vicar of the Yekaterinodar diocese, rector of the Yekaterinodar Theological Seminary, made a presentation.

Your Eminence, respected representatives of state power, honorable fathers, dear brothers and sisters!

For two decades now, we have been discussing the topic of the return of traditions destroyed in the twentieth century, and above all, the Orthodox spiritual tradition, which determined the fate of Russia, its statehood and culture. And it began to seem self-evident to us, especially since the state and society finally heard us. It was the Orthodox view that began to dominate when considering the topic of the family, the upbringing of children. The society was surprised to learn that there is also an Orthodox view of human rights, and then supported this view, for example, in terms of rejection of homosexual propaganda.

Not immediately, but the society also supported the introduction of "Orthodox culture" in schools; in the Kuban, this happened thanks, among other things, to our Cyril and Methodius Readings, which became a place of dialogue between the Church, society and the state. The main understanding arose that Orthodoxy is the tradition that makes it possible for a full social and state life, imposing only moral restrictions. But it is precisely these limits that do not allow the spirit of profit and permissiveness to roam, the destructive power of which we fully experienced ourselves at the end of the 20th century.

Probably, many did not believe that the Orthodox tradition was alive and could attract people after almost a century of godlessness. Moreover, today there are a huge number of information intermediaries between the Church and a person, and these intermediaries in most cases dissuade him from going there. However, after the joint efforts of society and the Church managed to resist a number of destructive projects, for example, to block the introduction of juvenile justice, to introduce a ban on the promotion of homosexuality in a number of regions, to draw the attention of the authorities to the content of billboards, to achieve age marking of television programs, to ban alcohol and tobacco advertising and to impose restrictions on their sale, a retaliatory strike was to be expected. And he followed.

Already at the end of last year, it became clear that after twenty years of religious freedom, Orthodoxy in Russia was once again under threat. Orthodoxy - the soil on which Russian culture and statehood have grown - is increasingly being declared obscurantism. Since 1991, the fight against Orthodoxy has never been on the agenda of the media. Today, unfortunately, this happened. Also today there are accusations of the clericalization of the state, which is a direct lie: this simply does not exist. At the same time, the theme of moral decline within the Church is being promoted.

One of the main Russian media phenomena of 2012 was the theme of "Church-society" relations, which arose in connection with the "punk prayer" in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and captured the entire media space - from print media to the Internet. Leaving aside the scandalously commissioned nature of the story, it is worth noting that it revealed the problem of dialogue between the Church and the people that had never arisen before. Speaking about the ambivalent structure of the "Church-People" relationship, first of all, it is worth resolving the question of the legitimacy of defining this interaction in the format of a dialogue. It seems to us correct to answer it positively, since, given the specificity and complexity of the components of the designated structure, adequate interaction between them is possible only in the format of an equal exchange of opinions, which is feasible only in a dialogue.

The problem of dialogue with the intelligentsia has become especially acute today.

I wondered why many gifted and apparently intelligent actors, musicians, artists from around Europe and the US, who often call themselves believers, suddenly began to speak out in defense of the hooligans from the infamous punk band. And now, after the protest action of the Occupy social movement in the London Cathedral on October 14, I thought that in Western countries there had been a gap between faith and the Church for a very long time. I will not delve into the historical reasons for this rupture, I will only say that both the modern Western politicization of the religious sphere stems from it, and the misunderstanding that, in our tradition, faith is inseparable from the Church, and therefore a blow to the Church is inevitably a blow to faith . This has already happened in Europe, where today the "house of faith", in the words of the great poet Fyodor Tyutchev, is "empty and naked."

Part of the liberal intelligentsia that will attack the Church is also constantly trying to impose on us the idea that it is necessary to separate personal faith from the institution of the Church, and is still perceived by them in the Soviet spirit - as a prayer house, a building of worship or a historical relic. You probably remember that even the lawyers of the punk band managed to declare that Christ the Savior is not a church, that divine services are not performed in it - such is the degree of their awareness of the life of the Church. But today it is not only a place for prayer, liturgy and the Eucharist. The large one has already become a parish again, where there is a school, a sisterhood, and a youth association. This is a unique experience of the unity of faith and the collective work of like-minded people, the experience of selfless relationships based on God's commandments.

Against the Christian commandments and took up arms those who claim to be the new masters of life. Christian precepts fell out of favor with them, because they prevent the ideology of consumption and fetishism from being planted in society instead of faith. In the course of these processes, not only Orthodoxy is actually threatened, religious consciousness as a whole and even just everyday ethics are being eradicated.

Today, a new way of destroying tradition has been found - through art. They are trying to turn the Church into an enemy of culture in the eyes of society. A deliberately unacceptable, offensive form is chosen that distorts and humiliates the human image, and, consequently, the image of God, according to which man was created, and such a distorted image is offered as an aesthetic object. This is exactly what the participants of the "punk prayer" and the notorious Marat Gelman did at their exhibitions in Krasnodar. They waited and in every possible way provoked an aggressive reaction, which, unfortunately, followed from some frantic zealots. And I want to note the wisdom of Vladyka Metropolitan Isidore, who in a number of interviews was able to explain to our Kuban intelligentsia the position of the Church on issues of culture and art and to resume the positive dialogue that we had.

But how can we prevent our cultural tradition from being destroyed? I believe that this can be done in only one way: by demonstrating genuine artistic images, by immersing children from the school bench into the world of the spiritual tradition of Orthodoxy. Only then will they learn to distinguish the high from the low, the image from the ugliness, and our spiritual and educational readings are designed to help such learning.

Together we must realize two simple truths. First: Orthodoxy is the spiritual heritage of Russia, without which our culture and, most importantly, statehood are inconceivable. Second: the Church is not a spiritual reservation, it is in the flow of modern life and is ready to participate in it, even if it is fraught with an information war. You just need to respond to information attacks with good deeds, and you need to fight first of all with your own sins.
Thank you for attention.

“In order to change the government, it is necessary first of all to change or change the people who created it. Change it by gradually diluting it with foreign peoples, or change it by “cleansing the brains” of several generations from childhood” (V. Raevsky, 2014)

Message 1. Creators of the people and state of the United States (introduction to the topic).

The USA was created by immigrants from England (ethnic Anglo-Saxons), deeply religious Protestants - a branch of Christianity that broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in the 17th century. The main principle of this faith is the recognition of the exclusive authority of a single Holy Scripture - the Hebrew Bible (the Basic, Original Testament, slyly called the "Old" Testament by the Roman Church) and the Additional Testament, called the "New" by Rome. As a consequence of this principle, strict observance by Protestants of biblical moral norms in everyday life, which became the basis for the formation of the American people (Anglo-Americans):

“Of all the inclinations and habits that lead to prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable pillars ... National morality cannot be preserved with the exclusion of religious principles.

So said George Washington (1732-99), the first President of the United States (1775-83). Today's 44th President ("Stranger in the White House") destroys this religion and this national morality.

The significance and priority of the Jewish part of the unified Judeo-Christian Holy Scripture (Original and New Testaments) for the formation of human civilization was also emphasized by the 2nd President of the United States (1797-1801), John Adams (1735-1826):

Jews have done more human civilization than any other nation ... It was the Jews who were chosen to store and transmit to the whole world the idea of ​​​​the Higher Mind, mighty and wise, ruling the Universe, which is the basis of all morality and as a consequence - the whole civilization».

As a consequence of their faith, the founding fathers of the United States of America understood the importance of restoring a Jewish state in its homeland for the advancement of civilization:

"Returning the Jews to their homeland is a noble dream shared by many Americans." Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), 16th President of the United States, 1861-65).

The first of the presidents to receive the Nobel Peace Prize (of those times, 1906, and not today's parodies of it) Theodore Roosevelt, (26th US President (1901-1909), emphasized the connection of US national development with Jewish religion and morality and the spiritual unity of the Protestant (Anglo-American) and Jewish population of the USA:

“The United States is a country that, from the very beginning of its national development was aware of its duty to the Jewish people ... For Washington and its associates, the founders of this republic, there was no military or civil battle in which citizens of the Jewish faith would not play an important role in the benefit and honor of our country.

And this tradition of spiritual kinship and unnamed union is being roughly destroyed by today's 44th president - the first non-Christian president of the socialist ideology, who does not mention God at all in his speeches.

Finally, the concluding galaxy of the founders of the United States, Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), the 28th President of the United States (1913-21), 50 years after Abraham Lincoln's statement about "the dream of many Americans -" return the Jews to their homeland ", could proclaim: “I have the honor to hand over the Holy Land to those to whom it should rightfully belong. The re-establishment of the State of Israel… is obedience to God and a unique precedent for the establishment of democracy.”(1921).

So, dear readers, the "Holy Land", and not Palestine and not the West Bank, but Holy Land of Jews and Christians, with its root region: Jerusalem-Judea-Samaria , today not an American and not a Christian, the 44th President of the United States is trying to take it away from Jews and Christians and transfer it to another people - the Arabs and another religion - Islam, enemies and America ("Great Satan"), and Jews ("Small Satan"), the enemies of the Jews, Christians and their civilization as a whole. Transfer, that is, completely destroy the "unique precedent of democracy", placing it under the rule of a dictatorship that destroys all types of democracy.

Based on the above norms and morals of the unified Judeo-Christian Scripture, the founding people of the United States and its leaders developed forms of socio-religious and state-political government of the country: each person is free (individual freedom - Biblical "free will"), but he before God and people is responsible for their behavior and sins. It is in this principle that the fundamental difference between the Protestant faith and the main principle of Catholicism is that you believe in Christ, and this is enough so that all your sins can be forgiven (removed from you) by a priest. Catholicism, under the auspices of Obama, today filling the United States from Latin American countries - a people of a foreign faith, a foreign language and a foreign ethnic group (as well as President Obama himself).

The first settlers, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, like Abraham in biblical times, led by faith and not willing to obey anyone but the Lord, left " your home and your country and traveled to uncharted lands. Only strong people are capable of such an act, confident in their self-sufficiency in order to build their society and their well-being with God's help. They are distinguished by an unshakable faith in the One Creator, a deep knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, the holiness of the institution of the family, diligence, personal freedom, limited only by Biblical morality, complete economic independence and a ban on state interference in personal life. In other words, a firm decision to be citizens, not subjects of the state. They treated the family, traditions, the upbringing of the younger generation with special trepidation and with deep respect for the Jews - the only people who for thousands of years were completely literate and read the Holy Scriptures, the people of the Book.

These were the first settlers - the creators of the American people, its state and a special, American Judeo-Christian civilization. We repeat: they and their descendants, brought up by them, created in distant lands a new people called Americans, a new type of state - the United States of America and a new civilization - the Judeo-Christian civilization of Biblical morality. A civilization based on the priority of morality and the norms of a single Holy Scripture, where the morality and faith of Abraham-Ivri (Jew) served as the foundation, and where there never was and could not be enmity towards the Jews, who gave the idea of ​​the One God, enmity, known today as anti-Semitism. Finally, they created a new (not modern) "republican democratic form of government" - without universal suffrage (only taxpayers vote), a new state that became the leader of the Free World and the military, political and economic leader of all Western civilization as a whole. It was: " Firmly trusting in the help of divine Providence”(Declaration of Independence, 1776), it was they who, according to Huntington’s formula - religion forms culture, and culture creates civilization (religion-culture-civilization), created precisely not the Roman Catholic, but the Judeo-Christian civilization, which it is correct to call not the world of Western democracies, but the Free World, the world of creative free citizens, and not the state of subjects who expect commands and handouts from the state. It was.

Unfortunately, the 20th century became the century of the destruction of the foundations of the Free World, “the century of the West’s gradual capitulation to the socialist (state) ideology” (Yu. political correctness and personal independence - total surveillance, destroys the national culture ("multiculturalism"), and then generally eliminates the entire complex of civil and economic human rights. Ultimately, this leads to the dictatorship of the state bureaucracy and the primitive unanimity of the obedient majority - a new breed of former people, the transformation of "homo sapiens" (a thinking person) into thoughtless zombies like "homo sovieticus", "unbaptized property" of the government or simply, "redneck" )

Today, the Democratic Party is claiming autocracy with the creation of a state dictatorship in the United States. This party is controlled by a group of billionaires (“Democratic Alliance”, “New World Order”) and since the 1960s they have been transformed into a socialist one (V. Raevsky “New Meridian”, No. 976, January .. Since the authorities are elected by the population, then, as mentioned above (see the epigraph), in order to capture it, it is necessary to transform the freedom-loving population into an obedient one - to destroy the ideology, tradition and morality of the "founding people". This is carried out by a combination of "brainwashing" with the gradual replacement of the indigenous population with an alien and hostile to traditions " founding people". Each of these paths is carried out gradually (the effectiveness of phasing was very figuratively shown by B. Gulko - "Frogs in the broth", EM. No. 1139, March, 2014).

Consider these paths

1. Replacing the traditional population with an alien to American traditions. It is carried out by encouraging legal and illegal immigration of peoples who are ethnically, religiously and culturally alien and mentally hostile to the spirituality and traditions of the “founding people”. This is the settlement of Muslims, Hispanic peoples of Latin America, immigrants of African and Asian origin. Today, out of 316 million US citizens, these groups are: Hispanics - 43.5 million, African Americans - 39 million, Asian Americans (including Muslims, Arabs) - 12.5 million. The rest, about 183 million, are of European origin. Of these, Americans of German origin - more than 48 million, Irish - 46 million and, only in third place, Anglo-Americans (including Scots and people from Northern Ireland and Wales) - 38 million, and the English themselves, i.e. Anglo-Saxons - only 25 million people (less than 8% of the population). However, until recently, they still held power in politics (75% of US presidents, almost 70% of state governors, about 60% in the Senate) and in business (close to 60% of the number of billionaires). At the same time, they do not have and never had any formal advantages - just the self-organization of generations of indigenous settlers. Today, this self-organization of the protection of traditions has practically already been destroyed (the transition of the quantity of strangers into quality, which is strongly promoted by the Democratic Alliance).

2. Transfer of the population from the American culture of freedom to the ideology of socialism, slyly called liberalism and democracy. It is carried out by “cleansing the brains” according to the “homo sovieticus” system (with the leader-messiah) similar to the Goebbels system. Both systems were intended to lead the people to a one-party ideology of socialism with subordination to the leaders and their party bureaucracy. Both are based on massive lies. Today, such a system is used by the Democratic (Socialist) Party (D/dP), along with the glorification of its professionally insignificant leader - Obama (false propaganda of "successes" and covering up failures). Today, this system has already ensured the almost complete capture of the D / s Party of primary, secondary and higher education and most of the media.

3. Weakening the economy and encouraging the “take and share” movement. It is carried out by a directed increase in public debt, a decrease in the status of the dollar, an increase in taxes on business, the approval of a minimum wage that hits industrial business and sharply increases unemployment and other anti-market measures of the ruling administration.

Talk that Russia can be destroyed as a single state has been going on for a long time. The Dulles Doctrine, Brzezinski's plans, Berezovsky's statements became widely known. The destruction of the USSR was only the first stage in the implementation of these sinister plans. Recently, information was thrown into the media about when and into what parts Russia will fall apart, apparently with the aim of sounding public opinion for readiness for such a turn of events.

However, hand on heart, we admit that so far there is little faith that Russia can cease to exist as a single state.

Firstly, the objective prerequisites for this seem clearly insufficient, one would strongly like to think that the worst is already over. Secondly, the actions of the current authorities aimed at strengthening the statehood and the power vertical at first glance look quite convincing. Thirdly, it is not clear who and how can do it. After all, the West, in which these plans have been hatched for a long time, prefers to remain in the shadows, and in order to start the processes of self-destruction in Russia (which were successfully tested during the destruction of the USSR), you first need to prepare the soil appropriate for this and cock the triggers.

This is what we will try to evaluate - the political and spiritual state of society, determine the vector of its movement and evaluate its components for consent or even readiness to take part in the destruction of statehood.

And at the same time, we will try to catch the connection between politics and spirituality, because we often hear about the spiritual roots of the processes taking place in society, but it is far from always possible to see this connection, to highlight the main thing, which often leads to serious errors in assessing what is happening.

Spiritual and ideological alignment

The political heterogeneity of society directly follows from the fact that different groups of the population are carriers of different worldviews. Political parties represent and at the same time influence a certain part of society that has one or another type of worldview.

There are four main worldview systems: conservative, communist, nationalist and liberal-democratic.

Each worldview system, in turn, is based on a particular spirituality.

The spiritual basis of Russian conservatism is Orthodoxy, including living and, as it were, hidden, due to well-known circumstances of the 20th century, in folk traditions. Nationalism - paganism and neo-paganism. Communism - atheism (belief in man). Liberal - democracies - ecumenism (the synthesis of all religions), which Orthodox theologians tend to consider the religion of the Antichrist.

There is still a very large part of society that has a very specific worldview. Its essence is to always "keep up with the times", to be afloat, to succeed financially and socially, regardless of what kind of power is in the state. The position of the "pragmatists", according to Hieromonk Seraphim Rose, to whom we will turn to for help, is " the deliberate abandonment of Truth in favor of power, whether that power is represented by the interests of the nation, race, class, love of the comforts of life, or anything else".

At first, this part of society supported the "progressive" communists led by Gorbachev, then even more "progressive" democrats led by Yeltsin, then the completely non-progressive Putin and Unity. It is absolutely clear that if the current government begins to weaken and a new strong contender or contenders appears, the sympathies of the "pragmatists" will also quickly change. Love will again be separated from hate by only one step, which will be easily taken.

What spirituality is typical for this group? In the general case, it is difficult to say, but it is quite obvious that this is not Christian spirituality, which is characterized by constancy.

Power and opposition

Each ideological part of society is represented politically.
A significant part of the conservatives along with the "pragmatists" support the current government in the person of "Unity" and President Putin. The reasons for this support may vary somewhat. For some, this is a sincere conviction that this government expresses and defends their interests, the interests of the state. For others, these are considerations such as "all power is from God", "the worst power is better than anarchy" or "choose the lesser of two evils." But all these arguments are precisely conservative.

The remaining ideological groups are represented by opposition parties and business structures. The communists are represented by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and a number of even more radical opposition mini-communist parties. The nationalists are represented by the LDPR, RNE, NDPR, etc. The liberals were recently represented by the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko, but after their fiasco in the last elections, the main forces of the liberals have grouped around Yukos and other business structures that are increasingly taking on political functions.

But what are these opposition forces trying to achieve, maybe this very state power, in order to change it in accordance with their programs and goals?
Nothing like this!

The leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has repeatedly shown that it does not want power, and in the last elections quite frankly and rudely led its party to defeat, further weakening the communists’ influence on public life, replacing the previously proclaimed thesis of “growing into power” with a “transition to power” sanctioned by the authorities. irreconcilable opposition. As a natural consequence - the beginning of the withdrawal and expulsion of statesmen from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, as well as a counter refusal of support from the left-conservative part of society. The "renewed" Communist Party now needs only oppositionists, revolutionaries and other buzzers.

Maybe the liberals are eager to get state power into their own hands? So they already had it under Yeltsin .... It turned out that it was very difficult and responsible to bear the burden of power. The liberals, having pretty much tarnished their already fake image, voluntarily renounced state power, confining themselves to shadow power, and voluntarily handed it over to Putin, to whom they immediately and with obvious pleasure went over to the opposition, hoping to cover up the traces and find the extreme.

The main liberal "nationalist" Zhirinovsky, in an incomprehensible way, from time to time manages to enlist the support of the "protest electorate", and at the same time act completely in favor of the existing government, against which this same electorate is protesting ... Another number of small parties that like to use words in their names "Russian" and "National" do not even tend to increase their influence, so hardly noticeable, and even then only thanks to television. There are nationalist structures in the national regions of the country, but it is obvious that they do not lay claim to state power in Russia, but on the contrary, they want to get away from it, as well as regional separatist structures.

But even if we assume that some "Russian" nationalists still come to power for some time (and recently only nationalists have not been there yet), then this in itself will lead to the destruction of a multinational state. Therefore, such a possible rise of nationalists to power does not initially set state administration as its ultimate goal.

Of course, attentive and thoughtful conservatives could not long be satisfied with the quality of the current government, which can be identified as conservative only by certain signs. The idea of ​​establishing one's own political movement has been hanging in the air for a long time, and the creation of the Rodina electoral association was an attempt to put it into practice. However, the founders swung too broadly, trying to attract at the same time the communists, and conservatives, and nationalists, and even hidden liberals to boot.

The part cannot contain the whole. The left-wing conservative S. Glazyev and the liberal in the mask of a nationalist D. Rogozin, as well as the ideas and people behind them, were initially incompatible with each other. Some simply wanted to raise their political weight at the expense of others. In games with the devil, the last one always wins. It is still difficult to determine the exact and permanent place of "Motherland" in the spiritual and ideological system, but after the complete neutralization of Glazyev, this place is somewhere at the junction of the conservative and nationalist, with a further likely tilt towards the latter. The strength of this roll will be shown in the near future.

The attempt to rally the communist statesmen and the healthy forces of national orientation around the conservatives failed. Zyuganov led the communists to the left corner, and Rogozin led his people to the right. However, it is obvious that in the corner of power is not achieved. But you can not let all healthy forces unite. What else unites the personalities of these politicians is some kind of inhuman perseverance. The Orthodox know where it comes from...

political nihilism

So what are all the above-mentioned oppositionists striving for, not in words, but in deeds? Why are they uniting, despite the complete incompatibility of the proclaimed ideas and goals: Zyuganov with Yukos, Rogozin with Zyuganov, forming a kind of political ecumenism? If not to take on the burden of state power, then only one thing remains - to destroy the Russian state as such!

But the most striking thing is that the main organizational work and coordination of the actions of the motley opposition is carried out ... by the ruling elite itself! In addition, the central government itself provokes the opposition and the population of the country to anti-state sentiments, which sooner or later will turn into actions or inaction, as it was already in 1991. The opposition is preparing for the next revolution, and the authorities are constructing a revolutionary situation step by step. One gets the impression that at the appointed hour X, the last order will be given from the Kremlin: "I call fire on myself!"

What is all this manifested in? In the cadre of the government and the unwillingness to really fight ethnic crime - this is for the nationalists. In the adoption of anti-social laws - this is for the communists. In the defiant persecution of iconic business figures - this is for liberals. In the constant surrender of Russia's positions in the international arena, in the unwillingness and inability to protect its citizens and allies - this is for conservatives, etc.

The people and the state thus find themselves in a position "between a rock and a hard place." The hammer itself is either in the hands of the authorities, as it is now, or the opposition. Citizens in this situation are left with a poor choice: either to become an active participant in destructive processes, or passive observers, to which the majority, as usual, is inclined. Because it is almost impossible to understand how an impersonal state can be protected and from whom. Moreover, it is not clear how to protect the state from anti-state officials, that is, civil servants ...

The dialectic of nihilism

Let's approach the problem from the other side - from the spiritual side, for which we will take the work of Seraphim Rose "The Root of the Revolution: Nihilism" to help us.

Nihilism is defined as the denial of Truth, which cannot be comprehended by human means and which is given from above in the form of Divine Revelation. Rose defined the stages of the nihilistic process: liberalism, realism, vitalism and, finally, the nihilism of destruction. The key feature of the nihilistic process is that " each stage of nihilism opposes itself to the other, but not in order to fight against it, but in order to include all its mistakes, to lead humanity even further along the path of nihilism, the end of which is the abyss".

Russia has already walked this path once, which led it to the revolutions of 1917, the collapse of statehood and civil war. Then there was a process of gradual restoration, and after the Great Patriotic War, the USSR, despite its outward commitment to communist ideas, in reality looked more like the Russian Empire, at least in terms of the state system. Well, since the main cause of nihilism, which was apostasy, was never overcome, everything began to repeat itself again.

Liberalism (not to be confused with an ideological system), which does not have its own value system and manifests itself in the form of a gradual erosion of existing foundations and values, first manifested itself under Khrushchev, and then this "process" actively "went" somewhere under Gorbachev. At that time, it was not about changing the existing system, but only about updating it on the basis of "universal human values", with the help of which their own, accumulated by centuries of experience, including the bitter experience of the 20th century, were destroyed.

On the denial of socialist liberalism and Gorbachev himself, realism came along with Yeltsin and Chubais. This stage did not correct anything from the negative that appeared under his predecessor, the situation only worsened. Under realism, "highest values" are replaced by naked materialism and egoism. "And if Rose took the image of Bazarov from Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons" as a symbol of realism, which was a type of "new man" that appeared in the sixties of the century before last, then the image of realism nineties of the last century became the "new Russian". " He does not believe in anything except that everything “higher” in a person, that is, related to the sphere of mind and spirit, can be reduced to “lower”, that is, to matter, sensual, physiological. "" Bazarov stated that in society there is not a single institution that should not be destroyed". "New Russians" put it into practice, destroying everything "Soviet" with great passion.

After realism comes the turn of vitalism. " There is no question of vitalism returning to Christian or any other truth, although the vitalists themselves sometimes try to claim this. "Pseudo-spirituality and pseudo-traditionalism are integral elements of many vitalistic systems."(S. Rose). From this, in general, it becomes clear why conservatives both recognize and do not recognize their own in Unity and Putin. From afar, they seem to be similar, many sometimes even go to church, but look closely - and you see one linden and emptiness ...

Of course, reality cannot be perceived unambiguously. A return even to pseudo, but still traditionalism was enough to improve the moral atmosphere in society, stop outright Russophobia, defamation of the army, and slightly improve the material well-being of people. Many people note that the country seems to have returned to the times of stagnation, in which it turns out that we did not live so badly. But all this is somehow not stable, the material is kept on temporarily high oil prices, capital is still being exported from the country, the privatization of state property continues. And what, in the end, led to stagnation, also should not be forgotten.

The worst thing about vitalism is that, while giving rise to the illusion of the restoration of spirituality and traditions, in fact it contributes to the onset of the final stage that nihilism has to go through - the nihilism of destruction, which will be directed precisely against vitalism and its bearers! And there are many indications that this last stage - the nihilism of destruction - will appear in the political guise of nationalism. Outwardly, it will look as if it is directed against Western liberals, but in fact it will inflict and provoke crushing blows from outside precisely on the conservative part of society and on statehood as such, which, moreover, today are sick and seriously weakened by vitalism!

To be or not to be?

Despite the presence of different spiritual, ideological and political groups, the main confrontation takes place along the axis, which was formed many centuries ago. On one side are conservative statesmen. On the other hand, Western liberals who do not need an original Russia, do not need statehood as such. Liberals and democrats, who always, who consciously, who not consciously, were, are and will be the conductors of the policy and spiritual expansion of the West, aimed at the destruction of Russia.

To the left of the main axis of confrontation are the communists, to the right are the nationalists, who are unable to pursue an independent policy. One part of both gravitate towards conservatives, the other towards liberals.

Let's not forget the words of Brzezinski: "After the collapse of communism, we are left with one serious enemy - Orthodoxy." And "Orthodoxy" in this case should be understood in a broad sense, namely as a significant part of society that lives in accordance with Orthodox and conservative traditions. It is on her that the main blows of both external and internal enemies of Russia will be directed. Moreover, these blows are and will be delivered precisely against the consciousness of the conservative part of society, including by compromising its leaders, including those set up specifically for these purposes, as well as the Russian Orthodox Church and the state. To this end, a fundamental regrouping of political forces is being carried out, which influence certain sections of the whole society.

So is our society ready or not for the destruction of a single statehood?
If some events happen that periodically occur in our country, who will protect the current government? "Pragmatists"? - Not. Liberals? - Why would you? They themselves will take part in these events on the side of the opponents of the authorities. Conservative Communists? But all the communists, it seems, will be busy with internal disassemblies for a long time to come, and now they have no time for state problems. Nationalists? They're more likely to hurt than help. Conservatives? So there are doubts in their ranks. And whether the authorities themselves want to be protected - that's another question ... In 1991, after all, they didn’t want to.
The question remains open...