Moscow University Bulletin. Series 12. Political Science. 2022. 1.

The article presents a comparison of the results of a study of Russia’s perception by its citizens of different periods, implemented at the Sociology and Psychology of Politics Programme, Department of Political Science, Lomonosov Moscow State University. The research methodology included focused semi-standardized interviews and projective tests. Qualitative methods with elements of quantitative ones were used for data interpretation: i.e. methods of coding and scaling answers to open questions and statistical analysis. The sample included respondents from 11 regions in 2017–2018 and 7 regions in spring-summer of 2022. The main attention was paid to the key structural elements of the country image: territory, people, power, political leaders and the geopolitical role of the country, as well as their representations of the past, present and future of the country. The study made it possible to reveal the transformation and peculiarities of the perception of Russia under the influence of the context change. Thus, three main conclusions were made. First, the recent changes in the domestic and foreign political context have changed not only current moods, but also the deeper layers of people’s minds. Second, individual components of the image of one’s country have changed unevenly under the influence of political context. Third, transformation affected not only the content of Russia’s image but also optics of the county’s perception.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the doctrinal foundations and political practice of Bolshevism towards social groups. The first part of articles deals with the engineering and technical intelligentsia. The content of disputes within the Bolshevik Party on this issue is revealed. In this context, the views of the party leader V. I. Lenin on the content of the tasks of the transition period as aimed at implementing, first of all, transformations in the material and technical base of society, under which, in the conditions of monopoly political power and the preservation of the “commanding heights” of the economy in the hands of the state, it was possible and necessary to “revive” capitalism, and entrepreneurship. It is emphasized that the creation of a diversified economy in the USSR opened up prospects for sustainable economic growth, ensuring greater social stability in the country. The second part of articles deals with the clergy, religion and the church as a whole. The political foundations of the anti-clericalism of the communist party are revealed. The scale of the persecution of the church, persecution of clergy and laity is determined. The reasons and forms of tactical changes in the policy of the authorities in relation to religion are analyzed. The role of the clergy in educating the patriotism of Soviet citizens, its role in the spiritual life of the country as a whole, is highlighted. The problems of relations between the church and the political elite in the period of “perestroika” are noted. More generally, the article sets out the task of significantly intensifying the efforts of the political science community in the field of historical politics.

The article is based on the transcripts of the meetings of the State Council of the Russian Empire in 1914−1917. Their analysis shows that members of the upper house of the Russian parliament, who, focusing on “public opinion”, on the “progressive public” and pursuing particular interests, created opposition to the government in the State Council and made their own “contribution” to prepare the catastrophe of 1917, when the empire ceased to exist, and the country, undefeated by the enemy on the battlefields, was among the losers of the war. Even in an extreme situation, they continued to formally comply with the requirements of the regulations and refused to discuss pressing political problems. Many of them, having taken the podium, were engaged not in solving state problems, but in self-presentation, flirting with the liberal public, kowtowing before the “public opinion” expressed by it. Thus, particularism, opposition to the government, the formalism of the State Council of the Russian Empire, the lack of a timely response to the current political situation reduced the role of the upper house of the Russian parliament in politics to zero, that led the country to disaster.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the mechanisms of formation of a dual “Soviet-Orthodox” identity in the context of the dynamics of memory of the Soviet period of history. Variants of reconciliation of identities by Soviet citizens in the post-war years are considered. The study of the mechanisms of reconciliation of seemingly contradictory identities allows us to turn to the analysis of the influence of collective memory about significant events of the Soviet past. The main conclusion of the work is that it is necessary to share political loyalties as identification of oneself with state institutions and a plurality of cultural identities associated with collective memory. The memory of the Great Patriotic War, in particular, the construction of the crypto-Orthodox narratives of the Soviet leaders, plays an important role in uniting the Soviet and Orthodox identities.

During the war years, the creation of an image of an ally or enemy could take place through a rich range of forms and methods: publishing pamphlets, holding traveling exhibitions and concerts, showing films, giving lectures, and making media appearances.
This article is an attempt to describe the image of Red Army soldiers and officers in 1943–1945, which was formed by means of cinematography and a memo for soldiers of the contingent of troops stationed in Europe, published on the eve of the meeting on the Elbe.
In the article, the authors come to the conclusion that the symbolic policy in the United States during the period under review was reoriented towards the formation of new ideas about the USSR and Soviet citizens. Negative cliches gave way to positive images of reliable allies in the fight against Nazi Germany. At the same time, the principle of identification was actively used: the citizens of the Soviet Union and their way of life were positioned in terms of focusing on similarities with the patterns of American culture.

The article examines the political and legal thought of Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt in the context of the opposition of descriptivity and prescriptivity. The comparison of the presented doctrines in this aspect is based not only on the presence of antagonism between them, but proceeds from the fact that a discussion existed for a long time between the thinkers. Although their discussion devoted to sovereignty, democracy and the guarantor of the constitution, nevertheless each time, it exposed methodological differences in the views of jurists. At the same time, in a broader ideological and theoretical perspective, such an aspect of comparison fits into the problem of the descriptive and prescriptive status of political and legal science. Thus, an appeal to the chosen topic allows us to deepen knowledge both about the vicissitudes of the relationship between the pure doctrine of law by G. Kelsen and the doctrine of decision by C. Schmitt, and to offer a theoretical model for resolving the descriptive-prescriptive conflict, which arises from the desire to reconcile the positions of thinkers.