What is the true difference between intellectuals and intelligentsia?

(The phenomenon of the intelligentsia in Russia)

Abstract

There is no such term as the intelligentsia, except Russia, generalizing all representatives of intellectual labor. In the rest of the world, the cultural layer of the nation is called intellectuals, and the term intelligentsia is not applied.
However, in reality, representatives of intellectual labor in any country in the world are divided into four groups, indicated below, among which there is also the intelligentsia. Therefore, it makes sense to demonstrate with the example of Russia what properties one of these groups (the intelligentsia) possesses, who can be attributed to it, and what its role in public life is.

Keywords: intellectuals, intelligentsia, people, Russia, autocracy, information, self- consciousness, culture.

Content

Introduction.
1. Definition, genesis, properties and differences.
2. The people masses in Russia.
3. The role of the intelligentsia.

Introduction

In any state with an established education system, there is always the possibility of an expanded appearance of individuals required to serve in various government offices, the education system, medicine, science, engineering, law, military affairs, entrepreneurship, etc.
In fact, this educated public serves the state as a system, having the appropriate specialized knowledge, and therefore being one of the foundations of existence of the state, so how it to a large extent ensures success in the competition with other states for resources and leadership in the world.
Such educated people working in a particular field of mental work are usually called intellectuals, in contrast to the broader term - professionals, since the latter can include both individual intellectuals and individuals without education in universities and colleges, capable of skills to achieve success in agriculture, engineering, manufacturing, trade, small business, serving people and equipment of different levels in the form of cooks, waiters, maintenance technicians, repair workers, guards, etc.
There are few intellectuals compared with the entire mass of the population, since education is expensive and the time taken to get it, is also quite significant. Therefore, the vast majority of people from an early age are forced to engage in unskilled or low-skilled labor only for food and are not able to get an education.
Since the intellectuals serve the state, they are mostly forced to be loyal to it, somehow supporting the power elite. For this they receive an increased monetary content, breaking away not only in educational, but also in the material level of life from the majority of fellow citizens.
The propaganda of the developed countries of the world in the form of mass media always focuses exactly on the specialized-educational aspect of the activities of intellectuals, deliberately eliminating the other side of education, which provides not only special knowledge, but also a number of general information that broadens the mind and gives a clearer picture of world events, as well as representing the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of life and ways to improve social relations.
Thus, only fairly well-off strata of the population, which are a minority, can actually get an education.
However, in the competitive struggle of States and large corporations with other States and corporations, the decisive contribution is made not by educated and qualified specialists, but by the most quick-witted and talented, but they are scattered covertly throughout the entire population.
Having realized this fact, the powers that be have created certain benefits for low-income families, allowing their offspring to education.
On the one hand, it strengthened the state, but, on the other hand, there appeared persons from the people among intellectuals, knowing on their own skin the troubles, insults and oppression of those in power.
In this regard, intellectuals had been dividing into four main groups.
Some still remained loyal to the state or their masters, solving problems as usual in their own sphere of activity, and rejoicing at high material wealth.
They can be attributed to the philistines, who are mostly interested in their own well-being.
Their intelligence can be developed up to a very high degree as applied to their own field of activity. However, their self-consciousness does not reach a high level, since they think only of themselves, and try not to notice all the troubles and misfortunes around, without expressing displeasure with their superiors, despite all their antics.
In this regard, their self-consciousness of a relatively low level is quite balanced with their animal consciousness, which is also completely contentedly by a well-off existence.
The more energetic and power-hungry part of the educated public from different sectors of the population, but mainly from the highest layers of society, is trying to break into the power elite, and really represents it to a large extent.
Taking away from the highest consciousness the appropriate share of intelligence, which includes increased ingenuity, and from the lowest (animal) consciousness – speed of reaction, quite good strong-willed qualities and energy, skill to communicate, sufficient dexterity, cunning, insidiousness and unprincipledness, these individuals get advantage before the others - more inert members of the community in the form of philistines, highly moral intellectuals of all sorts and other relatively sluggish or anxious with another matters of representatives of the population, who are not able deftly to push aside or slander a rival, as well as really enjoy by the humiliation of the subordinate, and at the same time to endure the mockery from the side of their superiors.
The lack of intelligence at the persons, broke into the power elite, is compensated by the involvement of numerous advisers, but because the decisions eventually have to be taken them, insofar they, as the true creators of their own happiness, initially consider their activities from the position of personal (corporate), and not the people's good, with a roll in the direction of retaining power, gaining a greater degree of their own dominance and the acquisition of all kinds of privileges, clogging up in addition to it the various management and economic structures with own mostly incompetent offspring.
For the representatives of the power, a dominant inevitably is the lowest consciousness, that is, in their consciousness there is a clear lack of awareness of themselves as self-sufficient personalities and not as consumers.
Power and practically the unlimited access to privileges and property belittles them so much that they see in the masses only a source of wealth for themselves and a field for the manifestation of their own low instincts.
However, fearing the anger of the people and the counteraction the informal opposition, they are forced to resist anarchy, retaining, in particular, through reforms, the order that ensures the functioning and development of society, but, naturally, not from noble motives, but only from a sense of self-preservation.
The third part of the intellectuals - a relatively small number - is mainly immigrants from the people. As a rule, they already have a high degree of self-consciousness and further develop it in the process of obtaining knowledge and its application. Naturally, they are not able to look without indignation at all the injustices of the existing social system, in which the bulk of the population lives in poverty and the arrogant nouveau riche bathe in luxury, humiliate everyone else not only with their own actual impunity, but simply by own presence, concentrating fantastic riches that cannot be spent to themselves during thousand lives.
Of course, this part of the intellectuals always thinks about eliminating this injustice in favor of a harmonious society, where for everyone will be equally well and pleased. Thus, the informal-intellectual opposition arises, opposing to the power elite, and not inclined to compromise with it, since this opposition considers those in power by hypocrites, scoundrels and robbers.
In Russia at the end of the 19th century, these were revolutionary democrats, and at the beginning of the 20th century - Bolsheviks.
And finally, the bulk of the intellectuals is an oscillating mass. Their self-consciousness is at an intermediate level between the informal-intellectual opposition and the intellectuals representing the power elite. They, as well as the informal-intellectual opposition to the ruling elite, see injustice around and understand its roots, but are afraid to fight the existing order for various reasons.
Basically, these reasons are as follows.
The fluctuating intellectuals fear chaos due to revolutions and coups, believing that it is always possible to negotiate with power on certain reforms, or, as a last resort, to replace the power elite with a more suitable one, without changing the substantially established order, and most importantly - maintaining own privileged position.
In addition, this part of the intellectuals considers itself to be the highest caste in comparison with the rest of the population, and it agrees with the opinion of the power elite, which is not inclined to attract of a significant number of representatives of the masses to management.
Similar individuals are rather cowardly. They are afraid of reprisals and, as a rule, are inferior in conflicts with the authorities, trying however to preserve their own privileges in every way. Moreover, their word is constantly at odds with deed, and they, while advocating in speeches for the coming people's good, in fact do not participate in the real struggle for this people good.
In developed countries, these subjects, predisposed to palliative measures, that is, not prone to decisive action, but preferring half measures, are represented by social democrats of various kinds and formations, contiguous to them. In Russia, this educated always wavering public is called the intelligentsia.
Over time, for most of them, self-consciousness decreases, and sense of own dignity disappears, and they pour in into a group of intellectuals -philistines, who are indifferent to everything except their own well-being.
Nevertheless, some of them - with a relatively high level of self-consciousness - prove capable of joining the group of opposition-minded informal intellectuals trying to radically change the existing order. Their typical representative is one of the creators of the hydrogen bomb in the USSR and later a human rights activist and supporter of humanistic values A. D. Sakharov.
Rest intellectuals, who have a lowered level of self-consciousness, over which animal consciousness prevails to some extent, may try to break through to power if events provide an opportunity, such as, for example, what happened in Russia after 1991, when such average figures on the intellect and position like the economist A. B. Chubais or the editor and head of the department of economic policy in the journal of the Communist Party "Communist", E. T. Gaidar, penetrated the governing structures of the power of the whole country and strengthened in it. The same average intellectual was lawyer A. F Kerensky, who became the first minister of the interim government of Russia in 1917.
Despite their failed actions in general, they felt for a while a taste of power, gained certain benefits and became famous figures in the world.

1. Definition, genesis, properties and differences.

Usually, the intelligentsia is defined as the cultural layer over the dark or insufficiently educated mass of the rest of the population of Russia, who is busy mainly of physical or other monotonous labor. The intelligentsia usually includes such intellectual workers as scientists, engineers, lawyers, artists, teachers, doctors, students, some of the civil servants. Moreover, it is assumed in advance that intelligentsia is the color of the nation, and that exactly it leads the people to the heights of progress.
If this were so, then just like in other developed countries of the world, such people of intellectual labor would be called intellectuals.
This means that in this definition there is not enough that distinguishes the representative of the intelligentsia in Russia from the intellectual as a person of mental labor.
What is the specific difference between these educated Russian individuals-representatives of intelligentsia from ordinary intellectuals who are specialized in the corresponding field of mental work?
To find him, you must turn to the past of the country.
Since the end of XVII century, thanks to the reforms of Peter I, Russia has moved from a long medieval Asian hibernation to the accelerated development, trying to become like the leading countries of Europe both civilly and militarily, without which Russia would have remained the secondary, powerless state, which would be further divided among more developed neighbors. From a formal point of view, these reforms of Peter Great were successful in many respects, but they did not affect the general population.
Various educational institutions appeared, including universities. However, only representatives of the “noble” estate was trained in them practically. The vast majority of the population remained completely isolated from European culture and was almost completely illiterate. Moreover, this majority of the population of Russia had no rights, being attached to the landlords, more precisely, the serfdom has dominated in Russia, which meant for people’s consciousness not only humiliation, but also complete stagnation, or lack of development. Nevertheless, in Russia, as a result of being introduced to European values, a small, but quite educated and, to some extent, cultural layer appeared among the nobles. Thus, the foundation was laid for the appearance in the future in Russia of representatives of mental labor.
In the nineteenth century, this layer increased with the inclusion of various representatives of the non-noble estate. However, in comparison with the total mass of the downtrodden population, the cultural layer of the population was numerically insignificant.
Thus, we can state, on the one hand, the growth of social and individual self-consciousness in Russia from the end of the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century, but, on the other hand, the non-mass nature of this growth, unlike, for example, from Europe, the population of which was educated relatively good in mass respect.
The main thing, if you take a closer look, it can be noted that in two hundred years in Russia between the vast majority of the lower layers of the population and the stratum of intelligentsia, more precisely, people of mental labor, a huge gap has formed.
These parts, which are heterogeneous in terms of the level of consciousness, represented essentially two different continents, more or less fastened only by their place of residence, language, some traditions and religion.
At the same time, the consciousness of the Europeanized upper stratum of Russian society, which joined the individualistic aspirations of Western society, which captured it after the era of bourgeois revolutions in Europe, was in sharp contrast with the collectivist consciousness of the peasant population of Russia.
The life of the mostly illiterate peasants was still patriarchal, and for the most part was based on communal running of the land and collectivist aspirations. This, in particular, showed the “going to the people” of the Russian intelligentsia, to which the “people” (peasants) did not react at best.
If we turn to the basics, we must assume that the division of the people into more or less educated parts is due to different levels of self-consciousness, or the highest consciousness, and its corresponding interaction with the lower (animal or natural) consciousness.
For the sake of explanation, we note that two irreconcilable beings coexist in each person.
One of these beings is determined by the lowest consciousness, which is the only inherent in all flora and fauna, except the person; This type of consciousness manifests itself in inseparability with the environment on the basis of sensations.
Beings with this type of consciousness are in the general stream of life, but are not capable "to rise" over it, they do not understand that they live. In this regard they remind in advance programmed mechanisms capable to sense, forming own environment and adapting themselves to it, but deprived of spontaneous or conscious memories, fantasies, notions of time, they have only a genetic memory in the absence of oral or written memory of generations, and are not able to consciously influence the habitat.
These beings do not even know that they will die, but can feel approach of death only instinctively. Similar restriction of consciousness for these beings means impossibility of any purposeful change of the environment even for the most developed their representatives – these beings are completely subordinated to it, though, at the same time, quite reasonably and effectively interact with surrounding from the position coming from their sense organs to the processing information centers of an organism, which for them is not distorted by reflections, the reminiscences and experiences peculiar to human consciousness as a whole.
In this respect, these natural organisms are more perfect than humans, and ignorance of their own essence makes them completely "happy" in existence, despite the fact that in the common natural circulation they only do that they devour each other.
And such "creature" necessarily "sits" in every person, and it cannot fail to determine his existence in one way or another, no matter how tried the person to distance himself from it.
Another "creature" in the person is represented by the highest consciousness, which separates it from the environment and from fellow tribesmen; it manifests itself in the realization of its own existence, for example, in the form of abstract ideas about the world and about oneself, a return to the past in the form of memories, designing subsequent actions based on consciously selected data from memory, combining them with newly received information, responsibility for the committed, the ability to make any decisions, even the most unprofitable and useless, which in fact is the most vivid manifestation of liberty of the human consciousness.
On this basis the person tries to set to himself the purposes, to solve various problems and to change thereby by means of the developed representations the surroundings. For example, this being is capable to build to itself the dwelling not according to the standard, but as it is pleasant to it more, thinking out new ways of supply of materials on the course of the construction, changing a palette of walls and a roof, bringing into the extent of his intelligence, these or other innovations, in contrast, for example, from the invariable standards of the anthill.
New projects and ideas develop the mind of a person, his insight, contribute to the most effective manifestation of various abilities during life, lead to the thought of beautifying life, that is, the culture of one's own beingness and beingness of the public.
In the person both these antagonistic hypostasis of the consciousness in relation to himself and to the surrounding, are merged together. Therefore, they do not manifest themselves separately, but operate in a hidden way, and the degree of their domination depends on the degree of development of the highest consciousness in a person.
And the person himself often cannot predict what in the next moment will become predominant for him: love or hatred, anger or sympathy, sincerity or hypocrisy, timidity or courage, discretion or recklessness.
The lowest consciousness "feeds" itself by only sensations ones, that give it everything, including the harmony of existence, i.e. something acceptable and even pleasant in our understanding in a certain combination of feelings if, of course, to distract from fight of each being for survival. Therefore, it does not wish to lose the sensations at all.
Similar the type of consciousness has natural egocentrism, automatically seeking to survive, no matter what.
In the process of development of the living beings, this type of consciousness undergoes relatively minor changes, since it is not able to withdraw own basic property - an spontaneous desire for survival, based on the primordial activity of any living thing.
The highest consciousness which is contained in the person at any level of its development is radical contrast to the lowest consciousness.
In the presence of the highest consciousness in the living being, it begins as though to see the light, becoming not so much "included" completely into the environment, how many separated from it, and, so it acquires the opportunity to look at it and on oneself from the outside, to appreciate this ratio in attempts to consciously set to itself goals in mind certain shortcomings in one's own existence, which, in the opinion of this being, could be overcome, and to try to obtain implementation of goals in actions.
All this obviously drops out of an instinctive and reflex sphere of action of the lowest consciousness, and even begins to contradict it as the highest consciousness often neglects utilitarian reasons, chasing something to unattainable, but kind for heart and mind.
Being separated in self-consciousness from the environment, this being, in the course of time, in its development in relationship with the beings, which are like him, begins to feel the need for new forms, different from the primitive communal relations of still wild people, completely absorbed in the struggle for survival. In mutual communication this creature reaches such a limit that its various conscious aspirations begin to pour into significant changes in the environment, and not just in its use.
From gathering, a person passes to cattle breeding, growing cereals, other forms of economic activity and the corresponding exchange of the labor products. Inequality, ownership, the struggle for the preservation and augmentation of property, for power and et cetera are arising, that in turn requires the establishment of some institutions of order to avoid chaos. As a result, the local states in the bosom of a growing and improving civilization were being formed.
New forms and institutions, on the one hand, ensure the accelerated development of communities already in a structured form, that is, as the states with the bodies of governance, security, courts, etc., and on the other hand, do not allow to the states to fall apart because of invariably tearing-apart the last the contradictions.
Despite a certain progress in development of human communities according to development of self-consciousness, the essence of human consciousness which is expressed in dualism, more precisely, in divergent life-aspirations of the lowest and highest form of consciousness does not disappear anywhere, and cannot be substantially modified.
Both these parties of consciousness continuously conflict both in the person, and in the interpersonal relations: discontent with, visible inability to change quickly, the felt limitation of intelligence, abilities, etc.; the envy and hatred to competitors instantly would rip to shreds any human community if not the state with its institutes.
Nevertheless, each person manifests also qualities of the highest consciousness which are expressed not only in the intellectual and production sphere, but also in inquisitiveness, various religious and cultural forms and also in the affectional relations, somehow: friendship, love, experiences for relatives, for the fatherland, etc.
If the relationship between people on the basis of self-awareness slowly but steadily develops, then the lowest consciousness in the person remains unchanged.
Therefore, the ideal persons do not appear, and the lowest consciousness, despite any form of its disguise, acts at any stage of the development of human consciousness, being expressed in deep-rooted egoism (egocentrism) – personal and corporate, hypocrisy (masking), suspiciousness (caution), contempt for people of other circle (mistrust to other communities), animal instincts concerning an opposite sex, etc.
In itself, the development of self-consciousness in various human communities does not proceed at the same speed. Some local communities find themselves in more favorable conditions, while others, for example, due to natural conditions or isolation from other communities, are delayed in development.
It was the local community of the main part of the population of Russia (peasants) that was actually divorced from culture, progress, and even fell into serfdom, becoming for the most part slaves, who could be traded.
Therefore, the level of their self-consciousness was extremely low compared with the self-consciousness of the intelligentsia, and relatively weakly could resist the action of the animal consciousness, which for the most part opposes intentions self-consciousness.
The dominance of such individuals in the bulk of the Russian population explains both Russia's lag in civilizational development, and the instinctive dislike of the common people to the educated stratum of society, which is characterized for the most part by a relatively high level of self-consciousness.
But, paradoxically, it is precisely the comparatively high level of self-awareness of the educated layer of Russian society, which somewhat weakened the effect on the self-consciousness of this layer of animal consciousness, in contrast to the peasant population of Russia, also puts an almost impenetrable partition between the peasant population and the educated layer of society, which its representatives in different ways trying to overcome, realizing that nevertheless the people (the peasant mass) are the foundation of the nation, from which they themselves emerged, but could not do anything because of the slower increase in the level of self-consciousness of the people masses.
The fact is that the growth of self-consciousness is produced not only by education, which in tsarist Russia was developed quite insufficiently, but also by a combination of favorable conditions, including not only cultural actions, but also the alleviation of domestic duties, the intensification of information flows aimed not to the stupefaction of the masses, but at the manifestation in them of interest in their own development, which requires a large number of free hours in a day. But this process of improving the culture of the masses is very difficult and time-consuming, that Russian educated individuals still do not understand.
And all this, even in today's Russia, is not observed.
If it is impossible to eradicate either of the two levels of consciousness in a person, then, of course, they must somehow interact and this interaction should imply something.
It is clear that lower consciousness necessarily assumes egocentrism, as well as primary sensory experiences. It is the basis of passions, crude rationalism, habits and pragmatism. However, only it provides a natural combination (coexistence) of a person with the environment. In this respect, man is an animal, and there is nothing to be done.
In turn, self-consciousness involves the distraction of a person from the world and rapprochement with the environment on a new basis - in a form the aspiration for a conscious change in the world. True, in this desire a person can go too far, believing himself to be the king of nature and its eternal leader, forgetting about his limitations both in the set of sensory organs and in the limitations of reason, memory, and life itself.
Thus, egocentrism, rationalism and pragmatism, stemming from the lowest consciousness in a person, always struggle with high ideas of self-consciousness, which are characterized not only by purposeful aspirations to improve life in general and in particular, but also by an unselfish aspiration to universal harmony.
What is the result?
The result for a particular person, Russia and humanity as a whole is deplorable, which we observe firsthand.
However, it is precisely this duality of consciousness of a person that provides a comparatively quick development of human communities in comparison with other natural communities, but uneven, both by territory and within communities, as philosophers have long noticed, pointing out the leading role the struggle of opposites in the conscious sphere of activity in the development of mankind.
If we go back to the 19th century and the educated part of Russian society, then the enlightened layers of Russian society, to a large extent having absorbed the spirit of Voltaireanism, visiting Europe and getting acquainted with its cultural and technological innovations, democratic institutions, the high level of education of the entire population, which participated quite actively in the then public life and influencing to some extent upon the governance of the state, could not help but come to opinion on the possibility of a similar transformation of Russia [1, Ch. 2].
However, the idea of such a transformation of Russia did not grow up on its own soil, but came from outside with all the consequences that follow from this circumstance: all the ideas that appeared at this time in the Russian educated stratum were borrowed, and in many ways inapplicable on Russian soil because of the other quality of masses of Russian people compared to European people, having developed technologically and culturally for almost a millennium on the basis of ancient culture, and in many ways have overcome the legacy of the feudal system.
Therefore, it is not surprising that this idea was most effectively and effectively expressed in Russia not in the harmony of social or technological development, but in the literary work of individual individuals, having given the world of such geniuses as Pushkin [2], Leo Tolstoy [3], Dostoevsky [4], who on the contrasts of the pathetic Russian reality and the high humanistic values developed in Europe, how volcanoes, have threw out the burrowing flows of true feelings, ideas and aspirations - truly alive, because in them, unlike individualistic Europe, which was brought up on the reasonable selfishness of Hobbs [5], was reflected in general a literary successful attempt to combine the aspirations of an individual person with the interests of certain communities, which were so characteristic for Russia of that period, in the person of its peasant communities, or rather, the collectivist consciousness of the bulk of the population. The main thing, that they succeeded in, was to show the true aspirations of the human spirit in rather miserable bodies and confined circumstances through often fatal errors towards the most complete expression of oneself, despite irreplaceable losses and the obvious unattainability of the desired, without loss of fortitude, unlike, for example, heroes of Kafka [6].
Such intense outburst, nowhere and never again repeated, did not arise by chance, but at the peak of the contradictions between the high ideas of humanism and the lack of rights of the peasant population of Russia, which could not but torment the sensitive souls of Russian geniuses of the word.
However, geniuses are often similar to beautiful flowers that suddenly have grown on a pile of manure.
So the cultural layer of Russia, which appeared under the conditions of a decaying, but still formidable autocracy over a clogged and disenfranchised population, could not but undergo decomposition. Educated youth (students), at first striving to at least somehow move the peasantry to culture and education, did not find understanding in this at peasants. From disappointment, youth either was being turned into ordinary educated specialists, either into servants-opportunists, or into active opponents of the autocracy, who did not really know how to deal with it, and therefore joining into terrorist activity or rewiring themselves to the seductive, but the fundamentally false, or rather utopian ideas of Marx, consisting in the inevitable triumph of communism with its sweet banks, or to the idea of replacing autocracy with a European democratic system at the complete unpreparedness of the majority of the population to democracy and freedom, that, however, it is also characteristic of the present time - with the country 's clear desire to dumping again into state of authoritarianism.
The main part of Russian intellectuals found themselves in a kind of swamp, since the ideas of communism or obvious groveling before the authorities were not close to them, but they had to somehow survive in the harsh conditions of tsarist Russia
As a result, unlike other developed countries of the world, where the majority of intellectuals are turned to their specific responsibilities and most of all care about their own well-being, in Russia, for the most part, has formed mainly the layer not of intellectuals (specialists), but - the layer of humiliated, offended educated people — humiliated by the autocracy of the Romanovs, and later on of Stalin and other “autocrats,” who had to endure and somehow adapt to this autocracy, and withal offended by unsuccessful attempts, beginning from Decembrists to the present day to undertake at least something effective and at the same time positive for all segments of the population in this unwieldy Power.
They themselves called themselves intelligentsia, apparently, in order to distinguish themselves from ordinary educated officials by some independence in their opinions and aspirations, but implicitly acknowledging their own weakness in decisive actions, because they doubted everything.
An honest and knowledgeable representative of intelligentsia in Russia, who did not understand the essence of the relationship between the ordinary people and the cultural layer, and therefore hesitating all time, is helpless and indecisive in the decisive periods of history, which, in particular, was demonstrated by A.F. Kerensky in 1917.
Some part of the intelligentsia pinning hopes on extremism to quickly solve the problem of organizing a harmonious human community. This part is being separated from the intelligentsia, despising the latter for its perpetual hesitations. In particular, this part believes that the entire course of history follows the laws of social development, discovered by Marx: to these extremists belonged Lenin and Bolsheviks under his leadership.
They exactly are known to have contributed to the plunge of Russia into the abyss of a cruel adventurous experiment.
By the way, at the end of his life, Lenin also has understood this, turning the country back to capitalism in the form of NEP (New economic policy).
The rigidity of the tsarist regime instilled the most intelligentsia to automatic adaptability, thanks to which it acquired the ability to get used to any regime - be it the Romanovs, Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev, etc., decomposing inevitably in progress picking up crumbs from the "authority pie".
The habit of hovering in high spheres outside of rational practical actions, or the unsuccessful and even catastrophic attempts at fundamental positive transformations of oneself and society in own radical branch, impatience in everything, laziness and neglect to the lapotniks (peasants), failure to communicating with them, fear of losing handouts from the authorities, did not favor the inclusion of the intelligentsia in persistent and heavy job, but brought up it to the endless pity to itself, sterile criticism at excessive talkativeness, a tendency to shameless compromises with the authorities in order to preserve own relatively well-fed existence, that, for example, and now is clearly manifested in election fraud, the main decorators of which are such representatives of intelligentsia as teachers [7].
A representative of intelligentsia in Russia always wants something good for the people, but at the same time, with rare exceptions, he is not able to sacrifice his own well-being, since you need to live - family, children, the habit to certain comfort, etc., but the masses ordinary people, which he does not understand, considering them secretly resembling a cattle, who does not like to read smart books, although he himself has not read Kant, Marx or Berkeley and is not going to read, picking up someone else's thoughts on Internet.
The passivity in thoughts and the lack of one’s own fruitful ideas specifically for the Russian people, even at such radicals, who came out of the intelligentsia and were distinguished by their extraordinary resourcefulness and dexterity in in matters, but - pure adventurism and irresponsibility, by incomprehension of the essence of things and events, like Lenin and Trotsky, led them to the primitive assimilation of other people's ideas with the unsuccessful attempt to use these even generally unsuitable ideas on Russian soil with innumerable victims of ordinary people as a result.
The characteristic confused in mind the leading public figures of Russia, the lack of understanding of the enormous lag of the self-awareness of the masses of people from the self-awareness of an insignificant cultural layer, the temptation to obtain a quick positive result had led to the catastrophe 1917, and then-1991.
Therefore, at present, the most advanced representatives of the modern intelligentsia of Russia, who in practice have understood the futility of both the socialist and capitalist world order, are either at a moral impasse, or have switched to the banal robbery of the people for a “happier” life in the more comfortable capitalist West, having arranged to themselves something like the feast during the plague.
Thus, the people of intellectual labor in Russia, both externally and internally, are divided into intellectuals in the form of educated philistines, open servants of power, various kinds of oppositionists to power, as well as the suffering, but futile in the sense of the real impact on the authoritarian power, intelligentsia, who do not really understand where go, what to do, and therefore prone to compromise, down to joining compradors, Most of all, such figures are among various managers and businessmen, since the very nature of their acts in direct contact the authoritarian regime makes them unprincipled, and least of all among students who, on the contrary, are massively prone to informal-opposition actions.
Along with that, the intellectuals who are mainly interested in the effectiveness of their own labor are found in the maximum number among scientists and artists, the most talented of whom long operate abroad.

2. The people masses in Russia.

Forever half-starved, clogged, illiterate slave - this is the main representative of Russia of the XIX century. The reform of Alexander II, which freed the peasants from serfdom, made them eternal debtors to their former owners, since they were left in debt for the land transferred to them, and the debt was such that, as a rule, was problematic for an ordinary peasant to pay for it.
Illiterate or semi-literate peasant fed on fairy tales, songs, epics, biblical stories, ritual actions, old customs, being extremely far from the busy city life, politics, receiving a minimum of information, which withal was in the form rumors and gossip. That is, his life was pretty close to plant life, and so he would have remained far from technological, social and cultural progress, if not for his regular autumn-winter “trips” to the city to earn extra money in accordance with one or another skill, working, as a rule, in artels like a rural community.
The stratification of the peasant communities after the reform of 1861 led to the outflow of a significant number of peasants into the cities to factories. Thus, the information flows for the masses became more intense, but familiarizing with the culture was reduced mainly to fairgrounds on and drunkenness, as a means to forget oneself after hard work.
Nevertheless, the people masses in their peasant base had and has subjectivity, expressed in reflection and corresponding conscious actions, having both a collectivist and personal character, which is evident from the opposition not only of the whole mass of the people, but and each individual both to enemies and nature (epic sagas, the taking on themselves of the resist to Napoleon's and Hitler's troops, and victory over them, despite the apparent weakness of the governing and organizing structures, that does not coordinate with the assertion that the people masses have only social instincts with a complete lack of subjectivity), with the prevalence of the first property {collectivism) due to the specifics of peasant labor and survival in difficult conditions of short summers and cold winters. Therefore, his self-consciousness differed and differs mainly in archaic-collectivist specifics, manifested in the form of communal labor.
At a certain period, from this initial self-consciousness with the rudiments of an understanding of self, which could not have been other in the break from social development, technological innovations and high art, stands out that part of self-consciousness, usually represented by the managing layer, which captures others - mostly the external (European) flows of information, transforming them into a cultural and technological upsurge. Representatives of this level of self-consciousness over time, in an intensive transformation of around them everything , increase this level by acquiring an already voluminous personal awareness of oneself with the understanding of the possibility of a more independent existence - outside the framework of a cohesive collective, in which obedience to collective decisions and old-time customs is immutable, eventually having formed kind of advanced detachment engaged in organizational, cultural and managerial activities.
In Russia, this new layer was called the intelligentsia, apparently in order to distinguish this educated layer of the nation from the representatives of the authorities, although in fact all structures of power were staffing not from someone, but from the most educated people of various specializations, only a part of them are engaged direct management of the state, while others conduct affairs by education of the population, care for health of the population, provide the state’s technical and technological development, scientific research, and the protection of the state, and conversations about the intelligentsia generally as the conscience of the nation are empty, since the vast majority of the intelligentsia in Russia was a typical servants of the tsarist regime with the appropriate ranks and monetary content.
In Russia, for the above reasons of historical development, which resulted in a significant cultural and technological lag behind the countries of Europe, the gap between the parts of the self-consciousness of the nation, personified in the peasantry and the nobility-raznochinsky layer, increased to gigantic proportions, since for the peasants, life realities did not undergo significant changes, but for the managing layer of Russia, under the influence of European culture and technological innovations, the realities of life became as close as possible to the European ones, acquiring not the collectivist, but, to a greater extent, the individualistic character, peculiar of the European self-consciousness, thereby erecting an almost impassable barrier between these two now different parts of the single initially self-consciousness.
The people of mental labor in Russia, beginning with Decembrists, wanted for the country the same forms of democracy and liberty as in Europe, while the mass of the peasant population still believed that under the god is the Christian sovereign - his anointed, and under this sovereign - all others, and they must obey the ruler from God, and in this series the peasants remain the last - after the landlord.
In the future, this situation in Russia, in spite of all the changes, did not swapped substantially - the people did not want to take the burden of management, delegating it to the authoritarian ruler, still not trusting the democratic institutions, which, as we have already seen, are quite quickly in Russia are turning into a talking room and a means of enriching people's representatives.
Therefore, the “good” in the form of democratic institutions, which was being imposed by the intelligentsia on the people in Russia for almost two hundred years, turns out to be evil both for the people themselves and for the cultural and governing layers of the country: significant parts of them in the struggle for this “good” were destroyed only for that to return to the same authoritarianism in one form or another.
In other words, the low level of self-consciousness of the people masses in Russia, which is based on collectivism and Christian-pagan traditions, that is, recognizing the certain personality as the divine representative and father of the nation, thereby positioning himself as the personality in last place, prefers paternalism and fairness to liberty in public relations according to concepts developed over centuries, and not according to laws, and these concepts were clearly others, differed in this respect from the European order, and these masses will not come to an consensus with the intelligentsia in relation to civil liberties and democracy until there is a convergence of the levels of self-consciousness of the people masses and the intelligentsia up to a value that will make it possible for them to understand each other. And this can happen only during a long economic and cultural upsurge, when free time, appears thanks to technological advances, will be used by each individual, based on their own interests and needs, without any pressure whatsoever. That is, people will not be divided, as at present, into individuals of mental and physical labor, where the former despise, or at least condescend to the latter, but they will be divided only according to their interests, doing what everyone can do better, just experiencing a specific interest in this matter.
That is, rapprochement, not opposition to each other of the people masses and intelligentsia, can occur only when the people masses will come, As has already happened with the intelligentsia, to the dominance of the highest consciousness over the lowest consciousness, although, must be said, that even the level of the self-consciousness of the intelligentsia of Russia due to its relatively short-term existence with continuous borrowing of culture, Ideas and even fashion from Europe, has not acquired a stability, and self-consciousness - of an original character, distinguishing besides for the most part by the groveling both before autocracy and before the West [8].
At such gap between the levels of self-consciousness of the people and the intelligentsia, as well as the conformism of most of the intelligentsia itself, the introduction in Russia of democratic institutions and statement of the pretentions on liberty, by now have led the people masses of Russia towards brazen and open robbing the fellow tribesmen by the “democratically” elected representatives and officials of all stripes, as well as in the substitution of the interests of the nation by these same figures by their own interests, backed up by relevant laws, for example, by the introduction of the free circulation of currency, which allows tens of billions of dollars to be freely exported abroad, moreover both the elected representatives of the people with their primitive considerations, which boils down to the acquisition of power and money, and the representatives of the intelligentsia, who have come to power, unite in this wildness, and at a fast pace destroy the country, and the enemies of Russia applaud to these acts.
If we turn to the 20th century, then, compared to the 19th century, little has changed for an ordinary Russian person: the remnants of the peasantry fell into collective farms, which are mostly caricatured likeness to the rural communities. The others former peasants found themselves in factories with strict discipline and an extended working day under the yoke of all-encompassing propaganda for the struggle for a bright communist tomorrow, which never comes, but which, nevertheless, has to be earned by hard labor and by the military struggle with neighbors.
In this struggle, the Russian people suffered innumerable, but in vain sacrifices, since the power built on a utopian basis collapsed relatively quickly.
The peasant, deprived of property, excluding the communal property, so has not received it, since it was taken away from him all time - first by a socialist state, then - by the state represented by oligarchs, as well as all kinds of state and semi-state associations, leaving to the people stalls in the streets, that is, continuously deceiving the people in various ways - from supposedly free distribution of land, the near coming of communism, the issuance, in fact, of "phony" vouchers and other unfulfilled promises.
So the main property of the country has remained under socialism in the hands of state bureaucrats, and then they have divided it between themselves and "oligarchs" appointed by them.
The difference between the current population of Russia and the previous consists only in its consumption of cheap television shows instead of fairs, and to drunkenness it added narcomania.
In other words, if the level of self-consciousness of the bulk of the population of Russia has risen, then - not significantly.
Therefore, the people of Russia, represented in the vast majority by recent peasants, are not ready for democracy, which involves the initiative of the population, the establishment of effective feedback between the power structures and ordinary residents, which is impossible with complete passivity of the population, which paternalistically hopes on a strong personality - it, finally, must understand the people's aspirations, fix everything, but for now let her let us live in peace, without especial overworking.
True, a certain part of the sane persons, more precisely, people who did not succumb to laziness and propaganda of life without normal operation or to temptation of the work in force structures, that don't produce anything, is trying to leave the country for interesting activity in order to use your abilities, and these people - mainly highly qualified intellectuals-specialists, and not semi-educated Russian representatives of intelligentsia.
Therefore, the weather in Russia is currently being done not by intellectuals, but by semi-intellectuals - recent immigrants, as a rule, from peasants, having still rather low level of self-consciousness and therefore recognizing only the laws of power, money and strength, who have made their way to the upper strata of bureaucracy, where special knowledge is not required, but there are required: the ability to maneuver in bureaucratic labyrinths and the ability to please the authorities, stealing at the same time - exactly therefore they decided to engage such boring matter. It was they who, using the power of authority and the necessary connections, not knowing or not paying attention to the existence of the highest values worked out during the existence of civilization and culture, primitively understanding the time of life, as the accumulation of the largest number of different properties, have seized oil and gas fields, forest plots, mines, agricultural plantations, banks, etc., quietly earning billions and carefully transferring them to foreign banks, offshore companies, etc., but not investing them in the development of the country, that is, turning into compradors who, for own peace of mind, dump crumbs from their table to various servants from the intelligentsia, who are singing for them glory on TV and in the press and in the press at complete non-resistance of the fooled masses of people.
So, an example of the West, where it is customary to think that only a thinking, comprehensively educated and moral person can express national interests and aspirations through a system of representative democracy, does not work in Russia.
In Russia, in the ranks of "representative democracy" and bureaucracy of all stripes, operate just irresponsible and immoral individuals who are brazenly robbing their country, despising their people, dreaming of getting away with the stolen quickly to warm countries, but very loyal to their superiors.
By the way, the West, in the person of its deep-thinking scientists-sociological, exaggerates the role of the personality in history, since even a thinking, comprehensively educated and moral person is often mistaken, unconsciously deceiving his voters, often going to meet ill-conceived desires of the voters. What can we say about the realities of representative authorities in the West, where representatives of the people are very far from ideal?
In fact, the main role in accelerating the development of the nation is played not by the personality or the masses of the people, but by the level of self-consciousness of the masses, which should be close enough to the level of self-consciousness of the ruling and cultural layers of the nation, and this last, in turn, should be as high as possible and moral. Only in this case is feedback possible between them with a positive outcome.
Otherwise, the course of history is slowing down and there are even obvious kickbacks, as, for example, it happened more than once in Russia, and also happened in Germany when Hitler came to power democratically.
At the same time, self-consciousness, or the highest consciousness is not able to completely dominate in any person due to the presence of the lowest (animal) consciousness in it, which at the critical moments of human existence can temporarily displace any higher consciousness for self-preservation, which undoubtedly indicates the illusory of the emergence of an ideal human person.
That is, in this respect, a person from the people masses and the most advanced intellectual differ little from each other - both, but at different speeds is driven by the struggle between the lowest and highest forms of consciousness in the human mind. And there can be no equality between people, since equilibrium is a synonym for stagnation. Therefore, the worst inequality can still lead to certain changes and give the people the opportunity to come to a more positive state, while stagnation does not lead anywhere.
However, the course of history is basically determined by the growth of information flows, which only increase exponentially, leading to the information collapse, that is, to the situation of impossibility for the human brain with all its resources to digest the incoming information even with the help of the computers, that becomes redundant, which leads to fatal errors and irreversible changes in the functioning of the civilizational system [8].
But still, it makes sense to examine in more detail specific facts, which in themselves can testify to the true role of the intelligentsia for Russia.

3. The role of the intelligentsia.

It is pointless only to speculate about the role that the intelligentsia played for the people and the country. This has already been done countless times with different accents. Therefore, let's consider its influence on everything that happened over more than two centuries, based on the facts known to all. At the same time, it should be noted that this part of the people itself cannot be either bad or good, but is only as the one, which came out in the course of historical development, or rather, the development of its self-consciousness in the appropriate conditions.
The Russian intelligentsia of the late XIX and early XX centuries had a high opinion of themselves, believing that she would be able to somehow eliminate the tsarist regime and arrange a parliamentary republic in the manner of developed Western countries, if, of course, to exclude the extremist wing in the person of the Left Socialist- Revolutionaries and Bolsheviks-Marxists.
At the peak of the people's discontent over the protracted war, the meaning of which the peasants in soldier's overcoats did not understand, the intellectuals from power structures and intellectuals from Duma with the approval of the entire intelligentsias in February 1917 managed to remove the weak and unfortunate monarch-commander from power.
However, they failed to agree with the people masses in the person of Soviets on the gradual establishment of a democratic system, as well as among themselves, on the forms of this system. In the course of the slowing down affairs and the impatience of the people, extremists led by Lenin, who had long dreamed of reforming of the state in accordance with the principles of Marx, raised their heads sharply.
Having promised land to the peasants and the end of the war, the Bolsheviks drove off the indecisive Provisional Government, for which no one had initially stood up for it, have transferred all property to themselves, have ended the war with the Germans and did not prevent the peasants from seizing the land, which was subsequently taken from them.
The intelligentsia in its bulk and its allies, by which were all opponents of the Bolsheviks, with the support of the Entente powers, began to actively resist the new dictatorial regime. After some hesitation, the people masses from the two evils chose a more familiar one, namely: autocracy - even the Bolsheviks, and not an incomprehensible for them democratic republic. This course of events over time led to the establishment in Russia even more cruel, than the tsarist regime, of Asian despotism, the purposes of which were absolutely utopian, but the means in the form of complete control of national property and human resources under the slogans of building socialism in a hostile environment were enormous, as a result of which the Bolsheviks managed to contrast themselves with the rest of the world for a short time. However, the country broke down in that incredible effort and gradually fell into decline, and the people suffered incalculable losses, becoming a victim of the manic aspirations of the Bolshevik and then Communist leaders to world domination.
Thus, the first attempt of the intelligentsia to influence the course of history as they considered it expedient and most reasonable did not work, the "dark" masses of the people preferred the autocracy of the Bolshevik experimenters. As a result, both of them have suffered during the implementation of the utopian project for the construction of communism, as, incidentally, the Bolsheviks themselves, - mostly representatives of intellectuals-extremists; for the most part they were executed or exiled with their replacement by a new bureaucracy out of the people, quickly trained in the educational institutions specially organized for semi-literate "proletarians" such as the Industrial Academy, whose typical representative was future head of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev.
The next attempt of the intelligentsia to leave now the decaying communist authoritarian power to the parliamentary republic was made in 1991, but, like in 1917, the state bureaucracy in the person of the same repainted party apparatchiks at the silence of the indifferent people quickly intercepted the power, effectively removing Parliament from it, having decided to take advantage of the remaining resources of the country for their own enrichment, again having deceived the people masses, like the Bolsheviks in 1917, but already allegedly by the need for some destructive at first reforms, in order to associate the country with a developed and rich Western community.
As a result, the collapse of the state began at such pace that had to go back again to the authoritarian regime, which still exists with all its negative features, the main of which is not corruption (it is a consequence), but the rejection from development, that gradually transferred Russia into the category of the raw-material power controlled by compradors, whose families and capitals (financial resources) are in the “happy” West.
As it can be seen, the intelligentsia played a significant role in this moral fall and the total decline of the State and statehood, and the intelligentsia has not yet understood what people masses it is dealing with, and how it is necessary to interact with them, as well as it found itself with a fair share of rottenness, in fact supporting the looting of the country for the sake of own well-being.
However, in fairness, it should be noted that the Russian intelligentsia was purely objectively in no way able to gain a foothold on the borders of Western-style parliamentary democracy either in 1917 or in 1991, because too low and very slowly changing level the level of collectivist self-consciousness of Russia’s main population still gravitates precisely to the autocracy of the leader, no matter how he is called and no matter how unworthy he may be.
Now it is worthwhile to examine in more detail the relations between the intelligentsia and the peoples of Russia of the 19th, 20th centuries and the present.
It is believed that the intelligentsia in Russia, as the most educated and largely highly moral layer of the population, is its advanced detachment, in every possible way trying to pull the mass of people up to its level, caring by all available means when participating in management about wellbeing of the people, in the person of teachers - about a high educational level , in the person of medical personnel - about high-quality medical care for the population without dividing it into privileged groups.
However, in all designated periods, essentially, the opposite picture is revealed.
The people of Russia in the 19th century remained in the majority by illiterate or semi-literate due to the small number of sufficiently well-trained teachers, which made it difficult for it to access higher education, social elevators and general development.
It is generally difficult to speak positively about health care: its coverage and the level of training of doctors was extremely low, epidemics and tuberculosis dominated, as a result of which mortality was high, and the average life expectancy of the population was about forty years.
The managerial staff of Russia was poorly trained in terms of effectiveness of the management and organization; the entire management system was bureaucratized to the extreme and even, as in Peter Great's time, all employees were assigned ranks in accordance with the ranking table.
Thereby, the representatives of the Russian intelligentsia of that time were part of a practically closed corporation, and in the vast majority they regularly served the estate system of the autocratic power, receiving relatively good money content. And this autocratic power continuously humiliated the people masses with medieval oppression, kept them in poverty, a half-starved and unpromising existence.
The role of the intelligentsia in the turning point of 1917 actually have been come down to the fact that it has picked up the mood of the peasant masses in soldier's overcoats and with rifles, dissatisfied with the war and at the same time the unresolved land issue, but it did not penetrate into the essence of the people's demands and it didn't understand, how to organize the power to meet their demands, hereupon practically immediately having yielded power to extremists.
For almost the entire 20th century, the people in Russia spent, participating in a utopian communist experiment, in the shameful and terrible conditions of actual satrapy under the rule of poorly trained for the management people, and ideas that lead d to nowhere, which in reality resulted in a fantastic waste of the country's human and other resources, continuous wars, conflicts and confrontations on ideological grounds, the constant poverty of the population, and ended with the collapse of the state and its disappearance from the world map called USSR.
The population losses in this fight against windmills were such that they have called into question the further normal development of the country.
In this dubious global experiment-enterprise of the adventurous sense, if to remove its ideological shell and seductive slogans, the intelligentsia of Russia took an active part, composing the basis of the Communist Party, hiding all its doubts, and helping to fool the people with false ideas using quite vile propaganda.
After the events of 1991, the intelligentsia, without much struggle, again delegated power to their most corrupt representatives, having contributed to the formation of a bureaucratic-oligarchic system, and having found themselves in its minions. This system deprived the population of all monetary accumulations and actually transferred the country to international monopolies for use.
The entire infrastructure with almost complete destruction of the industry was destroyed. All that remained was the extractive industry to supply the world's leading countries with energy resources in exchange for industrial and food products, as well as - to supply the same intellectuals and crooks from the people masses who have got into the oligarchs and officials with millions and billions of dollars, which have immediately being transferred to foreign financial institutions, and not investing in the development of the country, that is, putting it in the position of the actual colony of the West.
Naturally, such open lawlessness has led to the establishment of an authoritarian system that brought some order to the country and raised the standard of living of the population, but this was mainly due to the high price of oil, not development. Along with that the corruption in all levels of power, inaction of laws, the lack of separation of powers and their feedback to the population, as well as the created imbalances in the national economy were not eliminated.
The quality of education, due to the lack of need for professionals of high level, fell sharply, which was aggravated to a large extent by the reforms, carried out by the equally advanced representatives of the intelligentsia, consciously or not, but who actually overlap the access to higher education for main part of the population in connection with the transfer of it for the most part to the paid basis, by giving to the population along with that, television programs promoting the most base products of mass culture, designed to stupefy the masses to the level of cattle.
The health care reform has significantly worsened the population's access to medicine, increasing the trend of its decline.
It should say about the management structures represented by intellectuals, not by anyone still, since the current system is not designed for the development of the country, but for its use in the international monopolistic division of labor. Exactly for this the managing layer of the "advanced" intelligentsia receives its bonuses in the form of permission to make deposits in Western banks and live families in developed countries of the world.
All management deficiencies are compensated by developed corruption at all levels, which intellectuals of all sorts try not to notice it, but which also makes a significant contribution to reducing the country's budget, which has already become smaller than the budget of California (US state).
Thus, the intelligentsia of Russia in the modern world was unable to break beyond selfishness and helplessness with respect to upholding the interests of the masses of the population, yielding to the corporate interests of managers from their own environment, receiving some bonuses or promises, not contributing to the development of the country and people, but destroying both.
The explanation of this phenomenon lies in the historical development of the country, where everyone who broke out of the dark, clogged mass did not want to return there, and, as a rule, inclined oneself to compromise and subordinate to unprincipled and corrupt managers, or, if it was possible, has been trying to become a manager, breaking away from the masses in their interests, guided by self-serving-imperious or, at best, utopian intentions.
High values, banal patience, alas, turned out to be inaccessible to the recently somehow formed immigrants from the people masses, who broke away from them, and at the same time retained his low-lying natural properties of survival with a primitive understanding of the world values. That is, the self-consciousness of the Russian intelligentsia in its mass has not risen to a level that begins to significantly prevail over the lowest consciousness.
It should also be noted that the low level of self-consciousness of the Russian intelligentsia, which comparatively short time was developing largely under the outer influence, is manifested in the fact that its most active layers tend into power structures, despite the fact that they perfectly represent the rottenness and meanness of power in Russia, only for in order to take advantage of the benefits provided there and actually legalized bribes in exchange for loyalty, at this, they constant humble themselves before higher ones, that is characteristic of any government structures of the authoritarian regimes.
The rest of the active part of the intelligentsia, which could not fit in far from dimensionless sphere of power structures, places oneself in power structures, which under the authoritarian regime become for the most part punitive organs with all the ensuing consequences, that is, deep down they must despise themselves, if, of course, not completely numb.
Other representatives of the intelligentsia are either distributed among other well-known niches, without resentment especially at the corruption orders prevailing there, or, if there is a sufficient level of education, specialization and abilities, emigrate from the country, further weakening its intellectual, creative and general development potential.
Thus, the presented invoice clearly shows how the slowdown in the development of the country for a long time, compared to neighbors developing at a faster pace significantly slowed down the development of self-consciousness the people masses and the educated part, standing out from them, and this educated part, paradoxically, is mostly negative influenced the development of the country, having reduced the population as a result, along with a decline in its quality, at this, significant part of the intelligentsia of Russia turned either into compradors, or into humiliated servants of unfit power, or into a dumb herd without any future.
The rest of the population, not related to mental work, is only fighting for survival and waiting for better times, without undertaking anything.
Nevertheless, the upcoming world cataclysms will probably awaken in the Russian people the collectivist consciousness that has not yet disappeared in them, which will save not only Russia but the rest of the world from complete decay and death [8].

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