On the Problem of Developing a Theory of Russian Bureaucracy

ABSTRACT

This article raises the issue of using Russia’s transformations over the last three hundred years as material for creating a theory of bureaucracy that differs from Max Weber’s understanding of it. This issue is addressed using the understandings developed at the Rostov School of Political Sciences of the Southern Federal University (Russia), which is working out a conceptual apparatus for studying the Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet bureaucracy in relation to the process of forming an opposition free from stereotypes of bureaucratic action, behavior, and thought. This kind of opposition could not have arisen in monarchical, Soviet, or post-Soviet Russia. The reasons for this are explained by a theory of bureaucracy that contains a reconstruction of Marx’s definition of bureaucracy as a social parasitic organism, a reflection of numerous social contradictions and the embodiment of political alienation. The article discusses the cognitive situation in contemporary Russia, ways for researchers to avoid the choice imposed by post-Soviet authorities, and the specific features of the genesis and structure of the assertion of police society in Russia.

KEYWORDS:

• Soviet bureaucracy
• approaches to studying it
• methods of reproduction in contemporary Russia

Notes

1. L. Shtraus, “Tri volny sovremennosti,” in L. Shtraus, Vvedenie v politicheskuiu filosofiiu (Moscow: Praksis, 2001), pp. 68–81.

2. E. Khobsbaum, Epokha krainostei: Korotkii dvadtsatyi vek (1914–1991) (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 2004).

3. L. Gudkov, B. Dubin, and Yu. Levada, Problema “elity” v segodniashnei Rossii: razmyshleniia nad rezul’tatami sotsiologicheskogo issledovaniia (Moscow: Fond “Liberal’naia mysl’,” 2007), pp. 200–202.

4. O. Kharkhordin, Osnovnye poniatiia rossiiskoi politiki (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2011), p. 55.

5. A.N. Oleinik, Vlast’ i rynok: Sistema sotsial’no-ekonomicheskogo gospodstva v Rossii “nulevykh” godov (Moscow: Rossiiskaia politicheskaia entsiklopediia (ROSSPEN), 2011); V.L. Inozemtsev, Poteriannoe desiatiletie (Moscow: Moskovskaia shkola politicheskikh issledovanii, 2013).

6. N. Epple, Neudobnoe proshloe: pamiat’ o gosudarstvennykh prestupleniiakh v Rossii i drugikh stranakh (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2020), p. 432.

7. L.G. Ionin and O.I. Shkaratan, “Parkinson i biurokraty (poselsovie–dialog),” in S.N. Parkinson, Zakony Parkinsona: sbornik, ed. V.S. Murav’ev (Moscow: Progress, 1989), pp. 426–427.

8. Rossiiskoe gosudarstvo: vchera, segodnia, zavtra, ed. I.M. Kliamkin (Moscow: Novoe izdatel’stvo, 2007); I. Kliamkin and T. Kutkovets, “Kak nas uchat liubit’ Rodinu?” (available at https://www.democracy.ru/article.php?id=1136)

9. K.R. Galeev, “Teoriia gidravlicheskogo gosudarstva K. Vittfogelia i ee sovremennaia kritika,” Sotsiologicheskoe obozrenie, 2011, vol. 10, no. 3.

10. L.B. Alaev, Problematika istorii Vostoka (Moscow: LENAND, 2019); Filosofiia i ideologiia: ot Marksa do postmoderna, eds. A.A. Gusenov and A.V. Rubtsov (Moscow: Progress-Traditsiia, 2018).

11. V.A. Podoroga, Apologiia politicheskogo (Moscow: Izdatel’stkii dom GU-VShE, 2010).

12. A.F. Filippov, “Teknika diktatury: k logike politicheskoi sotsiologii,” in K. Shmitt, Diktatura. Ot istokov sovremennoi idei suvereniteta do proletarskoi klassovoi bor’by, ed. D.V. Kuznitsyna (St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2005), pp. 277–322.

13. A.V. Mikhailovskii, “Bor’ba za Karla Shmitta. O retseptsii i aktula’nosti poniatiia politicheskogo,” Voprosy filosofii, 2008, no. 9; O.V. Aronson, Sily lozhnogo: opyty nepoliticheskoi demokratii (Moscow: Falanster, 2017).

14. V.G. Chernukha, “Epokha Velikikh reform: shag na puti ot politseiskogo k pravovomu gosudarstvu,” in Isseldovaniia po istorii vnutrennei politiki Rossii vtoroi poloviny XIX veka: Sbornik statei Valentiny Grigor’evny Chernukhi k 90-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia, ed. I.E. Barykina (St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriia, 2020), pp. 15–43.

15. As opposed to parochial or participant cultures, as set out in Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Sage, 1963).—Trans.

16. Here we should also consider the exceptions to the rule. A cycle of works by S.A. Denisov has shown that professional police officers, whose experience (primarily the concept of administrative society and its reproduction under new conditions) and democratic convictions deserve a more comprehensive study, can also take a critical position toward the status quo. See S.A. Denisov, personal website (available at http://denisov11-12.narod.ru).

17. Cratocentrism: rule-based order, mostly associated with the sociological theories of Jaroslav Krejčí. See The Human Predicament: Its Changing Image (London: Macmillan Press, 1993).—Trans.

18. “Spoiled-rottenness”: Makarenko’s coinage “szhirubeshenstvo” comes from “s zhiru besit’sia,” literally “to go mad from fat,” or to be so well off that it makes one ill-tempered and prone to rage.—Trans.

19. V.P. Makarenko, Russkaia vlast’ i biurokraticheskoe gosudarstvo, 2nd edition (Rostov-on-Don: Izdatel’stvo Iuzhnogo federal’nogo universiteta, 2016).

20. O.I. Shkaratan, Sotsial’no-ekonomicheskoe neravenstvo i ego vosproizvodstvo v sovremennoi Rossii (Moscow: ZAO “OLMA Media Grupp,” 2009).

21. V.S. Stepin, Teoreticheskoe znanie (Moscow: Progress-Traditsiia, 2000).

22. Nauka i krizisy: istoriko-sravnitel’nye ocherki, ed. E.I. Kolchinskii (St. Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2003).

23. A. Prokhorov, Russkaia model’ upravleniia (Moscow: ZAO “Zhurnal Ekspert,” 2002); T.N. Sergeitsev, D.E. Kulikov, and P.P. Mostovoi, Ideologiia russkoi gosudarstvennosti. Kontinent Rossiia (St. Petersburg: Piter, 2020).

24. Sergeitsev et al., Ideologiia russkoi gosudarstvennosti.

25. O.V. Kharkhordin, Respublika, ili Delo publiki (St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Evropeiskogo universiteta v Sankt-Peterburge, 2020), p. 157.

26. M. Veber [Weber], O Rossii: izbrannoe (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2007).

27. K. Solov’ev, Khoziain zemli russkoi? Samoderzhavie i biurokratiia v epokhu moderna (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2017).

28. V.M. Mezhuev, Marks protiv marksizma: stat’i na nepopuliarnuiu temu (Yekaterinburg: Kul’turnaia revoliutsiia, 2007).

29. Podvlastnaia nauka? Nauka i sovetskaia vlast’. Rossiiskaia akademiia nauk, Institut filosofii, eds. S.S. Neretina and A.P. Ogurtsov (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Golos,” 2010).

30. P. Burd’e, O gosudarstve: kurs lektsii v Kollezh de Franc (1989–1992) (Moscow: Izdatel’stkii dom “Delo” RANkhiGS, 2016; M. Fuko, Bezopasnost’, territoriia naselenie. Kurs lektsii, prochitannykh v Kollezh de Frans v 1977–1978 uchebnom godu (St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2011); E. Iasai, Gosudarstvo, ed. Iu. Kuznestova (Moscow: IRISEN, 2008).

31. S. Andreski, Maxa Webera olsnienia i pomylki (Warsaw: Wydawnistwo Naukowe PWN, 1992); S. Andreski, “Samoe uiazvimoe mesto: poniatie ratsional’nosti,” in Problemy politicheskoi filosofii: perevody, kommentarii, polemika: kollektivnaia monografiia, ed. V.P. Makarenko (Rostov-on-Don: Rostizdat, 2012).

32. “Biurkratiia, avtoritarizm i budushchee demokratii v Rossii (materialy kruglogo stola),” Voprosy filosofii, 1993, no. 2.

33. M. Uoltser, Kompaniia kritikov. Sotsial’naia kritika i politicheskie pristrastiia XX veka (Moscow: Ideia-Press, 1999).