Family: Do you need to look back?

"Any encroachment on a stereotype seems to man an encroachment on the foundations of the universe."

U. Lippman

"A person begins to be educated a hundred years before his birth," - noted the famous lawyer MN.Gernet. And I would say - for a thousand years: the entire Russian history within each of us. Look inside yourself, in your close ones, friends, and you will see: in our mass we carry a vestigial of veche meetings and freemen of the Kiev era, traces of Tartarism and serfdom, an imprint of Stalinism and a period of stagnation. Have we rid ourselves of naive monarchism and naive optimism, from fatalism and the belief that, perhaps, everything will be arranged by itself, that we, despite everything, the most, the most. .. the most? !And from the love of endless fruitless talk, but from fear or slavery, which the best squeeze out from a drop of a lifetime, but from the belief that true justice is in equalization, that it is better not to climb ahead, but to keep up with people, that arguing withthe authorities - to go against the wind? !All the national dramas and tragedies of the past we find in our soul, in our character, in our behavior.

How is the connection of times preserved? History materializes in national traditions and stereotypes of behavior. Their keeper is the family. Like the chromosome, it is she who is the bearer of social heredity, which plays no less important role in the niche life than biological heredity. Socio-hereditary information is recorded, one might say, is coded, in interpersonal relationships in the family, in the stereotypes of behavior of adult family members and from them is passed on to the child. From early childhood, before he begins to clearly understand his actions and clearly control his behavior, the child firmly, though often unconsciously, learns the language and faith, the ways and norms of behavior, the way of thinking, the picture of the world, social attitudes, the system of values, opinions about the cardinal problems of life. Sociologists and psychologists have established that although learning occurs throughout the life of a person, it is learned in childhood that determines its entire life, fundamental changes in behavioral patterns, so-called conversions, are extremely rare. Moreover, not only interpersonal intimate, informal relations, but also social, economic, political relations are modeled and structured by a person on the model of interpersonal relationships, peculiar mainly to the family. Such is the fate of the vast majority of people, individuals overcome the mortgaged in childhood;mutations in the "genes" of social heredity are just as rare as mutations in human chromosomes. Indeed, "we are all from childhood", as Antoine de Saint-Exupery said. "

So, it is in the family that not only a person is born, but also a citizen, because the family is a kind of social microcosm: its structure is the mostthe model of a large society close to the "original", in which the entire gamut of human relations inherent in a large society lies in miniature: in fact, the family is a whole system of ties of marital and related, economic and legal, moral and psychological. Relations are interrelated with social, national, political and economic relations in a large society. In a transformed form, the family concentrates in itself the totality of their totality, so that children are included in the system of social relations from birth

It should not, of course, be overlooked, and wedo not forget, the important role of preschool and school institutions, literature and art, the media, public organizations, comrades, self-education in the socialization of the younger generation. However, even now, when the importance of the listed "agents" of upbringing has increased significantly in comparison with the past, the family, as sociological studies have shown, still remains in the first place. Children in the mass still want to look like their parents.

What is primary - family relationships or relationships in society? There are sociologists who consider all the most important relations and functions of large social groups simply by extrapolating, reflecting, projecting ideas, ideas, attitudes that dominate the family. Others insist on the primacy of relations in a large society. Still others believe that interaction between different levels of interpersonal relationships leads to the establishment of a modal system of relations. I adhere to the third point of view and, starting from it, I will try to look at the Russian society of the late XIX - early XX century.- the relationship between interpersonal relations in the peasant family - the primary group, in the peasant community - the secondary group and socio-political relations in society.

Among the peasantry( here and below only the Russian peasantry is meant), a large father's family, which included three generations, prevailed. It was not only a kinship, but, equally important, an economic union based on the division of labor according to the sex and age, in which the head of the family( Bolshak) owned a dominant position, and the family property was in collective ownership. Father's peasant family is a small absolutist state. Bolshak( usually the most experienced and elderly man) disposed of the work of family members, distributing, supervising and supervising their work, sorting out intra-family disputes, punishing the guilty, monitoring morality, shopping, making deals, paying taxes, being the head of the serpent cult andresponsible to the village, society and the state for the behavior of family members, which he always and everywhere represented. The role of the road was strengthened by the fact that all members of the family could enter into any transactions only through the head of the family. Bolshak could give his son and his younger brother to the workers against their will.

Under the oppression of the patriarch, the situation of family members was sometimes very difficult. However, the custom did not recognize the right of children to demand partition, the principle was that "children do not divide with their father."Only when the large was wasting the family property did the custom allow the division apart from its will with the allocation of a share of the property to the separating, which was carried out by a community that had the right to interfere in the sphere of family relations.

Let's try to generalize the features of intra-family relations, the principles on which they were built. The first principle is hierarchy and inequality of family members. Everyone is humiliated before the head of the family, women are in front of men, younger ones are in front of the elders, children are in front of adults. At the same time the head of the family can love the family and take care of them sincerely, "A woman stands in the background," notes a famous ethnographer of the late 19th century. A.N.Minh - she does not have a voice, she must obey unquestioningly the elder and her husband, her attitude towards the latter as a worker to the owner, often gets to her from him, but the beatings of the husband are not put to him in reproach, and they run over to the unfortunate for some misconduct, but more completely innocently, under a drunken hand. "

Far from the ideal attitude of parents to children."In the peasant worldview there is no point about the responsibility of parents to children, but the responsibility of children to their parents exists in an exaggerated form, the fifth commandment is especially beloved."Nepochetniki" is the most insulting nickname for children, "the former peasant in 1929 pointed out." Fathers have a duty to raise children exclusively for mothers, and keep themselves strictly in front of children. Children are brought up negligently, wrongly, ignorantly and rudely. There is no big departure for them. Children are very early, from the age of 8 they are forced to work, "noted ethnographer P.S.Efimenok.

Violence is recognized as a perfectly normal and primary form of influence. Physically punished children, especially often small;but the rod did not bypass the attention of adult children. Suffer from the beating of a woman. And what happened, if she cheated on her husband, was personally observed by M. Gorky on July 15, 1891 in the village of Kandybovka in the Mykolayiv district of the Kherson province. The victim tied his naked, connected wife to the cart, he climbed onto the cart and from there whipped his wife with a whip. The cart followed the hooting crowd and moved along the village street. In other localities, according to M. Gorky, "humanely" were treated with "traitors": "women are stripped of, smeared with tar, chicken feathers are smeared and so are taken along the street, in the summer they are smeared with treacle and tied to a tree for eating insects."

The family is dominated by forced collectivism and centralism, the common interests of the family, as they are understood by the big people, do not just dominate, they are some absolute value, individual interests of individual family members are not taken into account. This was clearly manifested when entering into marriage. Young married not for love, but for the parents' will, which in this case did not reflect the whims of the elderly, but the interests of the family as a whole, for marriage was seen as something like a property transaction.

This allows us to relate the peasant patriarchal family to an authoritarian type without any hint, where there was no hint of democracy. According to the figurative expression of the famous researcher M.Ya. Phenomenov, this was the way "an original, crude Darwinism: silently admits that the strong must have the first place, and the weak must concede to it."

It seems to the reader that the patriarchal peasant family was not an ideal, as it seemed to the superficial observers of peasant life( some think so now), the focus of order, peace and prosperity, a guarantor of the interests of each and all. There have always been sources of internal contradictions and tensions, which have only partly been removed through centuries of elaborated norms of family life and family behavior. But it would be a mistake not to see the merits of this family, its conformity to all the conditions of the then life. In this respect, there was a pledge of its long existence, the expediency of that system of family relations, which today can cause hasty criticism of people who grew up in very different conditions. Authoritarianism ensured a sufficiently high efficiency of the work of family members on the basis of a division of labor and a high physical strain of forces. The patriarchal family gave shelter to infirm old age, insured against illness. But the most important thing, perhaps, was that neither serious spiritual interests nor personality in the peasantry had awakened sufficiently. Life was so hard and elementary that the goal of being was to simply survive."Terrifying ignorance, misunderstanding and ignorance of almost everything that comes out of the close horizon of agricultural life, the mass of prejudices and superstitions that have lived since time immemorial," noted the famous zemstvo doctor AI.Shingarev - naturally combined with the fact that "the all-powerful oppression of need was a mighty master and teacher of life."

The Russian peasant family lived within and under the tutelage of a rural land redistribution community, or the world, as its peasants called it. This social organization, according to KS.Aksakova, L.N.Tolstoy, G.I.Uspensky, V.I.Semevsky and many other connoisseurs of Russian life, was for the peasants alma mater, which determined their entire way of life. And for the researchers, the community was that Rome, where all roads inevitably led them, on which they roamed in search of Russian truth and the foundations of Russian life. What was the Russian rural peredelnaya community?

The community had a wide range of responsibilities, provided redistribution of land that was not in private but in collective communal ownership, the layout and collection of taxes, consideration of civil and minor criminal cases among members of the community, defended the interests of the peasants before the state, landlord, etc.,control, patronage of patients and infirm, etc. The peasants united in the community economic and class interests, social struggle, justice, religious life, organization of leisure, mutual assistance. Virtually in all types of their activities peasants remained, first of all, members of the community, all their social relations were carried out either within the community or were mediated by it. The state concerned not with individual peasants, but with the community. Responsible for the performance of state obligations was the community as a whole, it also was the conductor of official ideas, attitudes and norms that the state claimed. But not a blind guide, but flexible, selective. The community adapted the supreme instructions, but in a conscious or unconsciously distorted form, if these directions were contrary to either interests or traditions.

So, on the one hand, the community led the whole life of the peasants, responded to their urgent needs and advocated to the state the defender of their interests. On the other hand, it was an administrative and police body through which the state seized taxes from the peasants, recruits and kept the peasants in obedience. On the one hand, the community had the character of an unofficial democratic institution, spontaneously formed due to the neighborhood and the need for a peasant community. On the other hand, it was an officially recognized organization that the ruling class and government used for their own purposes.

In sociological terms, the community was a small social group, although it had a relatively large population of 20 to 500 people of both sexes. Peasants had a high frequency of direct informal contacts and were in the strongest interdependence.

To the important features of the community should be attributed the tremendous role of public opinion and an effective system of unofficial social control, which served as the main regulators of the behavior of peasants, the absorption of the peasant's personality by the community, his so-called enslavement, coercion and regulation of his economic and other activities. Although the decisions at the peasant assembly - the supreme organ of the community - were adopted by a majority vote, however, the dissenting minority, and especially the individual peasant, had to obey the majority, becausehad no opportunity to enforce their opinion.

Community ownership combined features of collective and private ownership. The community belonging to the community at the general meeting grew up among all the men of

ina-workers( or on another principle), but the ownership of the land was carried out by peasants individually.

The community also controlled the lease, sale, pledge and inheritance of land. Further, the community collectively, at the meeting, worked out a system of crop rotation, divided the land into fields, determined what field to sow, the time of agricultural work, etc. But each peasant in his own areas was self-sufficient. The communal form of land tenure, together with its accompanying stripes, forced crop rotation and mutual guarantee, created a type of production relationship in which the community members in all their activities were interrelated and interdependent, and all the productive activities of each of them proceeded according to the general plan and under the control of the community. Since economic activity is the most important type of activity, the type of the peasant's relationship with the community in this area had a decisive influence on his relationship with the community and in all other spheres of his life. It is the production relations in the community that created this type of social relations, in which the peasant was absorbed by the community.

The community could not, of course, like serfdom, completely shackle the peasant. However, in all significant matters of peasant life, the behavior of the peasant was normalized, and deviations from the norm proved to be minimal, owing to the fact that the possibilities of the individual peasant's influence on the community were negligible, while the possibilities of community influence on the peasant were unlimited. For example, before the Stolypin reform in 1906, the landlord could leave the community, but at the cost of donating the land that was in his use and the right to own it in the future community. A young peasant could achieve a division with an active and able father( and brothers) against the will of his father, but at the cost of conceding to them a significant portion of the property that would have been due to him in the peaceful settlement of the matter.

The community's absorption of the peasant was largely mitigated by the community of interests of the majority of the peasants, which stemmed from the fact that property differentiation did not reach destructive proportions. The peasant's absorption did not produce a traumatic effect on his psyche either because the peasant-in any case the vast majority of the peasants-did not seem to be enslaved by the community. Individuality, the sense of "I" were so little developed in him that the "I" harmoniously and organically merged with "we", with the community.

Another feature of the community was its large isolation, isolation from the outside world, that is, from other social groups, cities, etc. The low mobility of peasants hampered the implementation of social changes in the community, contributed to the preservation of communal orders. Socialization of the younger generation took place within the community and mainly through oral tradition, living examples, direct transfer of experience from parents to children.

As well as the patriarchal family, the peasant community was not, of course, an ideal institution without internal contradictions, suitable for all times as a form of organizing the life of a Russian village. But for several centuries it really met the requirements of the time, it was quite acceptable, and maybe even the best of all possible forms of such an organization, both for the peasants and for those in power. The disadvantages of the community as a social organization-deterrence of initiative, absorption of personality, traditionalism, mutual responsibility, etc.-peasants' points of view were pluses, since they contributed to consolidation and protected the peasants from the offensive of the ruling class and state to the standard of living and the rights of peasants, restrained the development of propertyinequality, provided the peasant farming with land, promoted a more even distribution of duties, were pluses, because the community gave a sense of security andHoc security. The disadvantages of the community, from the point of view of the powerful: the low level and slow development of the productive forces, which hampered the increase in taxes and the resulting arrears, were compensated for them by the opportunity not to sacrifice their power, keep the peasants in submission and collect taxes and rents, even ifThe amount that this level of development of the productive forces provided. The economic interests of society and the state were sacrificed to the political interests of the ruling class.

Comparing the community with the peasant family, we find so many similarities between them that the family can be considered a community in miniature. Both here and there we observe the depreciation of the individual, the lack of respect for individual aspirations and interests, coercion, the regulation of life, centralism, the priority of the elderly and traditions, inequality( women and youth do not participate in management), forced collectivism based on collective ownershipcommunity - on the land, in the family - on all property).The family and community were similar, organically complemented each other and, naturally, supported each other.

We can try to summarize the main principles on which the family-communal structure of the Russian village's life was maintained, and in a certain sense the entire Russian society, for which the peasantry was the main social support, and interpret them in the terms we are familiar with today. For all the conventionality of such an interpretation, it may prove useful in subsequent analysis. Let us list these principles:

1. Community ownership of land as the material basis of the foundations of peasant life developed for centuries.

2. The right of male peasants to own land and to enjoy all the property of the community equally, which guaranteed the right to work.

3. The right to rest: the community prohibited working 140 days a year, incl.during 52 Sundays, 30 church and state and 58 national( temple and household) festive days of the year.

4. Maintenance of solvent forces of each peasant family, the right to help the community in crisis situations( fire, death of livestock, etc.), the right to social charity for disability, juvenile and other circumstances.

5. Democratic centralism: the supremacy of the interests of the whole community over the interests of individual peasants, subordinate to them.

6. Collectivity of responsibility( for the peasant in front of the state, the community is responsible, the family is in front of the community) and mutual responsibility( one for all, all for one).

7. The right of married men to participate in public affairs( at meetings, in peasant courts, in elected offices).

8. Observance of the equalizing principle in obtaining rights, in the performance of duties, deterring any differentiation between peasants, egalitarianism as an ideal.

9. Regulation of the whole life of the peasants, the right of the community to interfere in the family and personal affairs of the peasants, if they contradict customs and traditions or violate the interests of the community as a whole, the assumption of individuality in the practical implementation of the principles of communal life in the strict framework of tradition and customs.

10. Traditionalism, the orientation on the past as a model. It should be noted that the rights of individual peasants in the community were regarded as duties. For example, the right to work, rest, participate in public affairs, etc.was in fact an obligation to work, rest, participate in public affairs. Such a view of rights is still preserved in ordinary consciousness. For example, the right to participate in elections is often interpreted as debt, etc.

In these principles of communal life, social, economic, family relations of peasants within the community were institutionalized. In their combined action, these principles have transformed the community into a traditional organization, imbued with the spirit of collectivism, cooperation and mutual assistance, but without the intervention of the market, city, government and other external forces capable only of simply reproducing its material and spiritual values, of replicating historically certain - and historicallylimited - the type of human personality.

What kind of personality was it, what kind of citizens did the family-community organization of peasant life generate?

First, such, naturally, who shared the main principles of this organization, took the existing relationship as a reality, not requiring a change. Secondly, such as the authoritarian family usually produces. If we sum up the observations of contemporaries and the results of research by psychologists, then the modality( that is, typical, arising in a particular culture as a result of the inherent system of socialization and social control), the personality of the peasant possessed the following features.

Pupils of the family and the community were able to sacrifice individual interests in the name of the common. They felt the need for strong power and leadership;they allowed coercion and regulation. They were highly characteristic of equalizing tendencies in the division of both public pie and social burdens. They did not like any significant differentiation in any way. They were guided by tradition, olden times, authorities - they sought samples, ideals, answers to questions, negatively treated all kinds of innovations, did not like changes, from which only deterioration was expected. As a result of this initiative, independent individuals were not in the village in honor. The peasants were collectivists who loved together, to argue at the meeting and unanimously take a decision, although it did not satisfy everyone. They were alien to the pluralism of opinions, they were striving for unanimity and, in any case, for unanimity. The Russian peasant was, as they say, complexed by the fear of violating the numerous prohibitions, rules, demands, he always looked around at the neighbors, at the community, at the church, afraid to get off the right track. And if you really decided to get off the beaten track, then the whole world.

The reader will reasonably notice that there were other peasants who deviated from the described standard. Yes, there were, But, first, relatively few. Secondly, peasants with deviant behavior did not get along in the village: they left it either "voluntarily" or by direct coercion. The community, at least from the middle of the 18th century, had the right to expel "perverse members" to the army, to Siberia and to other remote places.

It is not necessary to have a special insight to understand: the peasant family with the community brought up such citizens who became the most fertile social base for political absolutism, authoritarianism in a large society with all the economic and social consequences that ensue from it. It is not for nothing that the Russian emperors, including Nicholas II, have always considered the peasantry and the community to be the mainstay of the autocracy.

The relationship between the relations in the peasant patriarchal family and the political structure of the Russian state was pointed out long ago."To have one elder in the house and obey him in everything is one of the distinctive features of the character of the Russian people," noted, for example, in 1851 the publicist A.L.Leopoldov."It's nice to look at this little patriarchal government( in a peasant family." -BM).This is where the germ of the unconditional obedience of the Russian people to the authorities, from God set. "

I do not think, however, that there is any reason to talk about a specifically Russian line. The deep connection between the patriarchal organization of the family and the state is not a "national but a historical feature, it is typical of all agrarian societies." The French historian J.-L. Flandren writes about the "monarchic model" of the European family in the past and, I think,, that not only the absolutism of state power, but also Christianity, as well as other monotheistic religions, find fertile ground in the patriarchy of everyday life. "The authority of the father of the family and the authority of God not only sanctified each otherand they legalized all other authorities. Kings, seniors, patrons, priests-all acted as fathers and as governors of God. "Even under Louis XIV( ie at the end of the 17th century), Flandren wrote," to name the power of the father wasto point out its legitimacy and the duty of absolute obedience to it. "But, apparently, something has already changed in French society, and by the time of Louis XVI, overthrown by the revolution at the end of the 18th century, the image of the paternal power and its real significance have become quiteother. But it was far from everywhere. And there are many societies in the world today, in which the patriarchal family, monotheistic religion and authoritarian political regimes support each other, resisting the pressure of impending changes.

In Russia, the described system of relations( it can be conditionally called patrimonial) existed in basic features prior to Peter's reforms, and it was formed earlier, approximately at the same time, when the Russian rural community was formed, and the peasant family became authoritarian( in the famous "Domostroi" - literary workmid-16th century, containing a set of rules of conduct, the Russian family appears classically authoritarian).

In the future, however, approximately from the middle of the XVII century.and especially from the beginning of the seventeenth to the Russian peasantry, on the one hand, the Russian state and the nobility, the bourgeoisie, the liberal intelligentsia, personified a large society, on the other, began to diverge. If the peasant family and the community were, as it were, preserved, or at least experienced very minor changes, then the large society was gradually transformed in accordance with the established European cultural standards.

As far as can be judged from historical sources, during the XVIII - early XX century.neither the peasant family nor the community - these citadels of peasant folk culture - have undergone drastic changes, if not to include a slight decrease in the average number of families whose nature is not completely clear. The principles of their life, which the populists well called the foundations, although they were quite shaken by 1905, were still so strong that the government, which began the struggle with the community in 1906, failed to destroy it in 10 years, although it pushed it(from 1906 to 1916 about 2.5 million, or 26%, of the landlords came from the community).The authoritarian family and the redistribution community were still the reference social groups for the vast majority of the Russian peasantry, to which it oriented all of its life, as beacons, whose morals and principles they shared, followed them and considered them to be the only correct ones.

Meanwhile, Russian society since the beginning of the XVIII century.experienced some evolution away from the ancient traditions, greatly accelerated as a result of the reforms of the 1860s. This evolution, presumably, would be more rapid and successful if it did not contradict the traditional peasant culture. In the solidity of the foundations of the peasant family and the community, it seems to me, was an important reason for the modest successes of the reforms of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, carried out by the Russian government from above. These reforms were not prepared at the bottom, in the primary social groups - the family and the community - and contradicted the traditional way of life. With the help of reforms, the government tried to enforce relations unusual to the Russian people's peasant culture, and that is why the reforms did not meet the support of the peasantry, and this, we recall, 85% of the population in 1914.

The rule of law, the priority of the law over the man's will, respect for the individual(including the woman and the child), the right of the minority to autonomy, the election of the authorities at all levels and their responsibility to voters, private property, commodity fetishism, bourgeois relations, individual responsibilityst, social and political equality of citizens, democratic freedoms, representative institutions - it all had little analogies in popular culture, and because of this, not transferred well, but the implementation was distorted. Only in the cities, in the upper strata of society, which managed to transform interpersonal relations into their western model in their primary social groups, the reforms had a partial effect.

It should be taken into account that the development of capitalism and reform, either voluntarily or involuntarily, created people of a new type-not loyal, but free citizens, not inert, but active, not traditional, but creative, not dogmatic, but rational, not trusting servants of God and the Tsar, but critically thinking personalities, not passive performers, but enterprising personalities. The peasant family and the community, as we have seen, produced people of a completely different type.

As a result of all this at the beginning of the 20th century, a gap was created between the traditional peasant culture, its bearers and the culture of the city, Europeanized in varying degrees, formed by the layers of society and the ruling Yerchs - all those who personified society at that time. This break inevitably led to a conflict between the two cultures.

Thus, the tragedy of Russian reformism was, first, that reforms were carried out from above and before the broad strata of the population felt the need for them. Secondly, radical, structural reforms, as a rule, went against the foundations of the people's life, the foundations that had been established for centuries in the peasant family and the rural community. And the custom - "despot between people" - as is known, is stronger than the law.

It's not new that reformers tend to lose the battle if the reforms they carry out willingly or unwittingly lead to a disruption of traditional relations in primary groups, relations that still satisfy the broad masses. Successful reforms are carried out from the top when they affect relations in a large society, bringing them into line with the relations in primary social groups, becausein this case, the broad masses do not oppose reforms.

Let's see from the above position on some recent events of the recent history of the former USSR.It seems to me that the three Russian revolutions of the early 20th century.not understand, if we do not take into account the conflict between the traditional Russian peasant culture - the culture of the vast majority - and the Europeanized culture of the dominant minority. The contradiction between the two cultures has become, of course, not the only one, but, it seems to me, an important factor of revolutions. The political, economic and social system that was established after the Civil War, in principle, quite suited the peasantry and the workers, who in the main have not yet parted with the peasant worldview. After all, the new state regime reproduced on a national scale the structure of the Russian rural communal community, based on the principles that are close and understandable to it: democratic centralism, collectivism, restriction of differentiation, the collective form of property and its redistribution, equality of rights and obligations, equalization, the right tolabor and ownership of property( not for ownership, but for owning it), the right to social assistance, the right to rest. In this one could see even the victory of the people's peasant culture, a kind of revenge for the 200-year humiliation that she experienced since the time of Peter I.

The subsequent events were in part a manifestation of the folk culture, partly the completion of some of its principles to the logical end or to the absurd,distortion. For example, collectivization itself did not contradict the foundations of traditional peasant culture, ideally seeking to achieve full equality in the distribution of material wealth. It is no accident that the collective farm absorbed many features of the community. The non-violent, evolutionary, gradual transformation of the community into cooperatives was realistic and could bring positive results.

The establishment of Stalin's command-bureaucratic control system and personal dictatorship corresponded to peasant concepts of power, which, in their view, should be authoritarian. The Party, reflecting the views of the broad masses of the people( incidentally, with the support of a large majority of party members), quite consciously passed in the late 1920s.to this style of management, as it seemed then, was the most effective means of achieving the set goals. Stalin just cleverly took advantage of the situation and an objective opportunity to establish a regime of personal power, by the way, also with the support of the majority and leaders and rank-and-file party members. It seems to me that the authoritarian nature of interpersonal relations, habitual for a peasant family, has played an important psychological prerequisite for establishing an authoritarian regime in the country. Wide sections of the population did not frighten this regime, did not provoke a protest, it satisfied them, becausethey are from childhood accustomed to authoritarian relations and simply did not know others.

The use of the collective as a means of depersonalizing and leveling people, a cult of collective rather than individual success, the socialization of private life( labor collectives were responsible for the moral appearance of their members before the competent authorities and solved their family problems, our health, our abilities were declared public domain), the stateization of society( each person was formally or informally an employee of the state, a civil servant, was assigned to the place of residenceIslands, often to work, could not freely change neither the one nor the other), the alienation of property and power for external democratic character - all this was typical of the type of community relations, but in the new conditions was further, often exaggerated, ugly development.

Mass repressions were bringing to the absurdity the desire for unanimity, disrespect for the individual and the views of the minority cultivated in the family and the community. The exploitation by the state and the town of the village is already a distortion of the "people's ideas of justice." But it should not be forgotten that it was the authoritarian regime that made this possible.

Thus, one can agree with those who believe that the development of the country in 1920-1940 was, so to speak, objectively logical. Were there, but they did not rely on a solid tradition, had no broad support either in the ranks of the party or in the mass of the people, and the likelihood of their implementation was therefore small.

Now let's see from the above position on the current situation, on restructuring. If we recognize the close relationship between relations in the family and society, it is very important for us to know if the relations in the family and the relationship between the family and the individual with society have changed and, if so, in what exactly. I dare to assume that relations in the family have changed quite significantly( although the degree of change in certain regions, in different strata of society, in the city and in the village was not the same), and the relations in the system of a person-a large society( state) have changed to a lesser degree. Looking ahead, I will say that this contradiction is, I believe, a powerful stimulus for democratization.

According to modern researchers, already in the 1960s-1970s,in urban and rural areas, the predominant was the egalitarian family, in which the spouses are equal. If we rely on sociological surveys conducted in 1976-1977 in Moscow, Penza and Yegoryevsk( large, medium and small cities), the proportion of egalitarian families was 65%, 53% and 50%, respectively, the share of patriarchal families - 5%, 10%11% and the share of transitional families - 30%, 37%, 41%.These data, apparently, inaccurately

reflect the ratio of egalitarian, patriarchal and transitional families in general for the former USSR, becausethey do not take into account the countryside, as well as the Central Asian and Transcaucasian republics( 22% of the population of the former USSR are concentrated in 1987), where the prevalence of patriarchal families is still very significant. For example, according to a sociological survey conducted in 1974 in Uzbekistan, 44% of rural and 33% of urban families were strictly patriarchal.

And yet, probably, it will not be a stretch to consider that at present quantitative predominantly egalitarian and transitional families and that intensive democratization of patriarchal marital relations is taking place. Obviously, this happened not immediately, but slowly and gradually. Thus, according to sociological research conducted in the 1960s, among the workers in Leningrad, the proportion of clearly patriarchal families was 12%, indistinct or partially patriarchal families - 10%, and only 43% of families were recognized as a man by the head, in the Ryazan region the majority of families werepatriarchal. Another regularity is also seen: in young families, where spouses are less than 40 years old, egalitarian relations prevail among them, in families with older spouses, transitional relations, in families with even greater experience, are patriarchal.

The establishment of equality in relations between spouses has had and continues to have an extremely important influence on the relationship between parents and children. According to the law of communicating vessels, the emancipation of a woman entails the emancipation of the child. Therefore, in egalitarian families, the relationship between parents and children is more often, though not always, based on partnership, recognizing not only responsibilities for the child, but also the right to autonomy, freedom and initiative. In patriarchal( or matriarchal) families, relations between parents and children are usually authoritarian.

As democratization of marital relations precedes and stimulates the democratization of relations between parents and children, the latter have also been democratized to the present day, but to a lesser extent than the relationship between the spouses. If you rely on a survey conducted by the sociology sector of the ISI AS family of the former USSR in the 1980s.in Moscow, Vilnius and Baku, in about 30% of families of eighth graders parents adhere to predominantly authoritarian methods of upbringing, practicing orders, demand, prohibition without special explanations, physical punishment. Of course, this is not a primitive rude authoritarianism, typical of patriarchal peasant families of the late XIX - early XX century. This is enlightened authoritarianism. But how enlightened absolutism does not change the autocratic character of power, so the enlightened authoritarianism of interpersonal relations in the family does not change the authoritarian essence of these relations.

As you can see, families in which authoritarian methods of upbringing are practiced and, consequently, authoritarian relations between parents and children are greater than patriarchal families( 30% versus 5-11%), which is natural, since in the part of egalitarian families traditional relations betweengenerations. It should also be taken into account that not all the remaining 70% of families are dominated by purely democratic relations between parents and children, since there are families of a mixed type where authoritarian and democratic methods of upbringing are combined. For the approximate share of such families it is possible to take the share of families of a transitional type - this is about 35% of all families where there is not yet complete equality in relations between spouses: it seems logical that if the relations between the spouses are not quite equal and democratic, then they are not completely democraticalso between parents and children.

Therefore, families with a purely democratic relationship between the elders and younger generations do not yet prevail, their share does not exceed, presumably, 35%( 100% -30% -35%).Moreover, these 35% also include such families( which are becoming more and more), where the child grows up to be a despot of the family or dominated by a greenhouse style of upbringing, where children lead a life independent of their parents or where there is no specific system of upbringing in the family.

The above results obtained in the course of sociological research can hardly be extended to all regions, to rural areas, to all families. In the capitals, major cities, in the European part of the former USSR, democratization of intra-family relations went further than in small towns, in rural areas. For example, in the Urals, according to sociologists, the physical punishment of eighth-grade students was preferred by 15.1% of the polled parents, while in Moscow, Vilnius and Baku - 3.7%.In relation to junior schoolchildren and preschoolers, authoritarian methods are used much more often, but how much more often, it is difficult to say. According to a survey of 100 parents of children from a Leningrad kindergarten( conducted at my request) - physical punishment is practiced in more than 50% of families. Apparently, 30% is the minimum of mini-moru of authoritarian families, corresponding to the situation in the large cities of the European part of the former USSR.In general, the share of families with purely authoritarian relations between parents and children in the country as a whole is, apparently, more than 30%, but still hardly exceeds 50% of the total number of families. In rural areas, only 34% of the population lived in 1987, and 22% of the total population of the former Soviet Union in the Central Asian and Transcaucasian republics.

According to the teachers, serious changes in relations between parents and children began to occur in the 1960s, more rapidly in the last 10-15 years, especially in the families of the intelligentsia. From infancy in the child begin to recognize the person, family relations are democratized, children have both duties and rights, have a voice with which the parents are considered. Parents turn into comrades, older friends of their children. Many parents deliberately refused physical punishment, so as not to develop in children an inferiority complex, a sense of fear. The value of children in the eyes of parents has increased tremendously, they are giving them more free time. One can apparently say that the wall between parents and children collapses, they are introduced into the circle of adult conversations and interests. It seems that parents have ceased to like the incubator similarity of children, and they try to develop in them an individuality, independence, initiative. These favorable shifts are the result of a change in the views of the parents under the influence of education, propaganda, personal experience - on the one hand, and the demands of the children - on the other( because the children, too, have changed very significantly!).

Unfortunately, the impact of these beneficial changes in interpersonal relationships in the family on children is largely paralyzed by preschool and school institutions, which is quite natural. These institutions are state organizations with a clear social order, they are not autonomous from a large society to the extent that the family. As a result, they reflect the general state of society and will be reconstructed as much and at such a pace as at what pace and at what pace society as a whole will be democratized.

It is impossible not to say that the above statistics on the nature of interpersonal relations in families is not numerous, fragmentary, the data of individual studies are poorly comparable with each other.sociologists gathered for different programs. These data should be regarded as purely indicative, although they, in my opinion, correctly reflect the direction of the shifts in the intra-family relations.

The conclusion about the prevalence of a democratic and mixed type of relationship between parents and children now applies to those families who have children of school and preschool age, therefore, the spouses of these families are usually not older than 40-45 years. It can therefore be assumed that people younger than 40-45 years have learned or are learning in their childhood mostly democratic relations. What can you say about those who are in their 40-45, in which families they grew up, to what relationships they are accustomed to in childhood and what kind of children they brought up? Sociological surveys were not carried out then, and my judgments are based on the experience of my friends and acquaintances and fiction.

It seems to me that those who were 40-45 in the majority of cases were brought up in an atmosphere of enlightened authoritarianism, i.е.coercion, strict regulation and guardianship. The therapy with physical punishment weakened, but nevertheless still occupied a prominent place in the arsenal of means of influence, physical punishment was combined with more humane methods - with suggestion, persuasion, intimidation, psychological treatment. It seems to me that in most cases the efforts of the parents, as always, were motivated, best of all, to tame the children, to form their ability to adapt, to reckon with the circumstances, not to stand out, to be loyal, modest, like everyone else, rather than upbringinginitiative, independence of thinking, self-esteem, originality, ability to perform unusual actions.

This line for emasculating from the child all the original, extraordinary, to introduce his behavior into rigid, unified for all the framework was even more clearly carried out in nurseries, kindergartens and schools. In the preschool institutions, it was impossible to carry out the democratic style of upbringing.this style requires a lot of money, time and patience - and this, as always, we have a large deficit. Teachers had to practice strictness, punishment, unconditional submission, strict control. Children were formed accordingly.

The school pedagogical team has completed the work begun in families and preschools - to turn a cheerful wayward colt into a young diligent gelding. With the help of various means of influence, the children were brought to the necessary condition. As a result, as in the old days, they became conformists, this time, however, educated. Such a school in childhood passed my generation, born in the 1940s, and, I think, older generations as well. Being in this way prepared for life, the representatives of these generations, in the mass, it was easier to postpone the period of stagnation, since they have become accustomed to the command-bureaucratic methods of management and the corresponding interpersonal relations since childhood. According to the latest data, in 1987 persons aged 40 years and over had 100.5 million people, or 35.7% of the total population of the former USSR and 51% of the population over the age of 18.Naturally, the older generations occupy command positions in the state and society and so far they have been destined for the country.

It would be wrong to identify all those who are 40 & 45; 45 with traditionalists, and all those who are less than 40 with progressives. The leader of perestroika 58. However, older generations are in principle less inclined to steep public reforms than young ones, and secondly, their life experience and upbringing have made them cautious, afraid of changes that are always risky. Therefore, among them, people who are attuned to the status quo are greater than among young people. Hence it is clear: those who are able to reorganize for 40-45 will be able to reform faster and more successfully. They can not, more slowly and with greater difficulties. But the course of perestroika is, in principle, irreversible. New, democratically educated generations, not burdened by the same complexes of guilt and inferiority, in the end will not only occupy commanding heights, but will make up the majority of the population of the country. And then perestroika will certainly win. It would seem that such a tiny family in the face of Leviathan - the state. But families - tens of millions. Their inner life can not but be reflected, ultimately, on the life of the country. The changes currently observed in interpersonal relationships in primary social groups, especially in the family, between women and men and between parents and children, are a powerful driver of structural reforms. Generations brought up in democratic norms and rules of behavior, possessing a sense of dignity and self-worth, will come into conflict with authoritarian relations in society, with command-bureaucratic methods of government if they are preserved in a large society, and in any case will bring the relationship in linefamily and other primary groups with the nature of relations in the state and society. For the unthinkable socialization and nationalization of human relations are unnatural for a person brought up in a democratic family.

After all that has been said, it is clear to the reader what my answer to the question put forward in the title of the article. Looking back, in the past, is not only useful, but simply necessary. The old peasant patriarchal family, which some are urging to revive, was the source of despotism in Russia at all levels - from the family to the state. If we want to live in a democratic, democratic state, we need not try to restore a large patriarchal family, but with all the strength to develop a new small democratic family. It would be unforgivable Lysenko to hope to change society, while the nature of relations in the family, the bearer of social inheritance, remains unchanged. The sensible protest of women against men, children against parents, their struggle for greater independence, freedom, initiative, observed at the moment, seem to me a sure sign of the coming changes in society. Society can not be free if some of its members dominate and oppress others, regardless of who oppresses - women, children or the elderly.

Democratization of the family prepares the democratization of society.