Development projects of modern Russia as a rethinking of the historical mission

Valery Prokhorov, political analyst

A few days ago, the president announced that if the revolutions of 1917 had not happened and a number of dramatic events that followed them, about half a billion people could live in the Russian Empire today. There is no doubt that with such a population, Russia would solve the problems of the development of internal spaces with less effort, within the framework of the natural process of development.

Now the vast territory of the country has to be literally "held", creating a socio-economic framework not by number, but by skill. This skill - to a greater extent sits in the genetic code than it was formed in the generations living today as a result of the evolutionary historical process. The confusion and trauma of the "harsh 90s" and the subsequent period of overcoming the post-traumatic syndrome suspended the process of our people 's development of internal spaces.

“Regional” Russia is going through a difficult period of “comeback”: the “feds” go to the forgotten and for the time being abandoned outskirts - the state has announced large-scale programs for the development of the Far East and the Arctic. Initially, the stake solely on private initiative did not fully play, and it took a rethinking of all the driving mechanisms for the development of the Russian periphery. As a result, the president announced the launch of state infrastructure projects comparable in scale with the construction of the BAM or the development of virgin lands.

Any great construction project is impossible without the mobilization of intellectual and labor resources. Unlike previous historical cases of "big development", in the current one the stake is placed not on the massive attraction of slave or semi-slave labor, not on the reckless enthusiasm of the younger generation excited by propaganda, but on the systematic development of human capital. A direct reflection of the new course is the installation of a welfare state in Russia, the abandonment of which in the early 90s of the last century led Russia to catastrophic consequences. Such social modernization is impossible without powerful infrastructural and economic drivers.

The chosen course required an attractive ideological accompaniment, and this was fully reflected in the course of action of the United Russia party, which again received the articulated support of Vladimir Putin on the eve of the 2021 elections. The President, participating in the discussion of the United Russia program and filling it with meanings, positions it as a leading political force in the country and a key operator of the process of upcoming transformations. In recent years, United Russia itself has focused precisely on the social orientation of its party program, simultaneously shifting its opponents to niches on the political spectrum that are adjacent to the marginal ones.

In April 1921, exactly one hundred years before Vladimir Putin announced his message to the Federal Assembly, at the X Congress of the RCP (b), one of the leaders of the Bolsheviks, Lev Kamenev, made a report " On the Soviet Republic surrounded by", in which he announced that preparations had begun in Europe for the second world war. The speaker called for accelerating the pace of industrialization, pointing out that the lag in the industrial development of Russia from other countries has become threatening. Kamenev's report was accepted by the party as a guide to action, and as a result, many pre-revolutionary projects returned to the agenda, which were supposed to become the drivers of Russia's development for decades to come. However, the methods of their implementation turned out to be cannibalistic in many ways.

All-Russian construction projects of the 20-30s of the last century gave the country a powerful impetus for development, which is so necessary to overcome the catastrophic consequences of the First World War and the Civil War, but their implementation is the result of the most severe exploitation of the country's population. The years of the first five-year plans, glorified by the communists, were filled not only with enthusiasm, but also with fear, and led to uncounted human casualties. At this time, for a large number of citizens, recorded by the Bolsheviks in the class of exploiters, economic and ideological incentives to creative work were a meager ration for 15 hours of labor and a bullet in the back of the head in case of escape.

By the way, at that time, not only human lives, but also cultural values were actively expended, from the sale of which colossal money came to the treasury abroad. It was with this money that plants and factories were built in the Soviet Union, equipment and technology were purchased. There was no question of somehow spending funds to improve the life of the country's population.

Most likely, it is not entirely correct to compare the approaches, content and ideological "packaging" of the mega-projects of 2021 and 1921. Different eras, different perceptions of the value of human life.

But one thing is certain: today, for the first time in the history of Russia, when describing large-scale plans, the vector of social development is drawn from the individual to society, and not in the opposite direction. The focus of modern projects is the disclosure of human potential and the achievement of a high level of social standards for the quality of life of the country's citizens. Thus, overcoming the consequences of the injuries sustained in the 20th century in the process of building an industrial society, our country is taking steps towards the formation of an information society.