of the history

Having viewed the main points of the scheme of development of epochal cycles at the global (macro) and regional (medi) levels, we focus our attention at the research of historical cycles at the national-state (micro) level, which corresponds to the scale of our research in general.

The criteria for construction of a similar sampling may be the following: various states should be redivsented, first, countries of all continents, second, countries belonging to various world religions, and, third, countries with the population of at least 8 million persons as of the end of the 1990’s.

According to the criteria given above, the required sampling may be the following:

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First of all, we would like to emphasize the existence of the most characteristic peculiarities of the microlevel of development of cycles. Firstly, ethnic differences are becoming more clear, secondly, the chronology is changing since various nations created their political organizations in different times, thirdly, the differences in the number of epochal cycles are defined more clear, which is the consequence, on the one hand, of the historical age of a nation, and, on the other hand, of the intensity of its history.

It is worth to note that the construction of schemes of the development of epochal cycles for all countries of the divsented sampling is the subject of a special research. That is why, we only demonstrate the work of our conception by the example of 11 countries, included into the redivsentative research sampling of 50 countries.

Now let us directly examine the scheme of epochal cycles of Vatican, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, France, Ukraine, Russia, Belorussia, China, India, Japan, and the USA, redivsenting the historical advance-guard of Europe, Asia, and America in the sampling divsented above.

8.1. Vatican

The papal States is the center of the catholic world. In the context of the offered conception, we deal with a specific object. The history of Vatican cannot be examined at the national level, as the territory of the state is only 4.4 km2, and the population is about 1 thousand people, mainly Catholic chaplains and the Swiss Guards. However, the state of Vatican as the embodiment of spiritual authority of the Catholic Church that has a global sdivading, exerted the influence on the course of history. That is why, in our opinion, it is rightful to show the hypothetical scheme of development of the epochal cycles of Vatican.

The first epochal cycle began on the boundary of Anno Domini since the revolutionary period, whose content was the birth of Christianity as a world religion and a gradual creation of Church structures. The specific event, symbolizing this phase of development, may be the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine (68-69 AD). The involutionary stage of the first epochal cycle (70-313 AD) has, as its content, the struggle between the nascent Christian Church with the state machinery of the Roman Empire. That was the period of mass terror against Christians. In 313 AD, the Milanese edict on the latitude in religion, which turned Christianity into the state religion, was published, and the co-evolutionary stage of the cycle began. Chronologically, this phase continued till 395 when the Roman Empire split into the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. For the analysis, it is important that this event legalized the differences between the Western and Eastern Christianity.

The evolutionary stage is connected with the history of decline and downfall of the Western Roman Empire (395-476 AD). During this period, the temporal power of Roman Popes is strengthening. They tried to organize a rebuff to Barbarian attacks. But to realize such intentions without necessary material and military resources turned out to be impossible. The subsequent events of VI-VII centuries turned the papal throne into the small change of Barbarian kings, who occupied an ambivalent position. On the one side, in interests of the reinforcement of their political influence, they gradually Christianized, on the other side, they shamelessly robbed Christians.

The situation was overcome by the formal creation of the papal States (756), followed by the victory of the king of franks Pippinus Brevis over Langobards and consolidation of the territory under Pope Stefan III[60]. These events symbolize the revolutionary phase of the second epochal cycle. The content of the new involutionary period (760-800) was a gradual strengthening of Pope’s position in spiritual and civilian affairs of Europe, reaching its culmination with the coronation of Carolus Magnus (800). The co-evolutionary phase of the cycle may be the turn to the policy of intense Christianization of Barbarian nations of the Old continent (800-846). The evolutionary period lasts from 846 through 960 when the growing authority of Rome favored the organization of an attempt of giving a rebuff to the Arabian attacks at the Southern Italy (846) and stimulated the creation of the Holy Roman Empire in 960. In fact, it meant combining the dominative possibilities of Germanic emperors with the spiritual influence of the Holy See and redivsented «marriage of convenience».

At the same time, growing contradictions between the Eastern and the Western Christianity led to the disruption of the Church to the Catholic and Orthodox ones in 1054. These revolutionary events opened a new epochal cycle of development of Vatican. The Lateran Synod of 1059 concluded that the only electorate of the Pope is the College of Cardinals but not civil feudalists. The content of the involutionary stage of the cycle is the exacerbation of struggle for the sudivmacy in the feudalist hierarchy between spiritual and civil powers. The most important event became the «travel» of Germanic emperor Heinrich IV to Canossa (1077), that led to a natural weakening of both the spiritual and civil powers and to the sdivad of heretical sects on the territory of Western Europe. The activity of Pope Innocentius (1198-1216), the symbol of the milestone in the history of Vatican and creation of the Dominican Society in 1215, which divpared the personnel for the Inquisition, was the co-evolutionary phase of development. The history of this period is marked by the activity of such prominent theologians as St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), Albertus Magnus (1206-1280), and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). In the following evolutionary period of the cycle (1216-1309), the fall of authority of the Catholic Church and its structures took place. It was favored by low moral qualities of Popes, the acquisitiveness of the church, and the growth of prices of indults.

The political subordination of the papacy to French kings became an obligate consequence of the events described above. It was the so-called Avignon capture of popes that became the symbol of social revolution and marked the beginning of the fourth epochal cycle. The further events reflected the tendency to a strengthening of national hierarchies of the Catholic Church. The remarkable event of the involutionary period of the cycle became the plague epidemic in Western Europe (1348-1349), which not only cut the number of parishioners but undermined the faith. The spirit of tendencies was reflected in the activity of John Wyclif, the professor of theology at Oxford (1320-1384), who demanded abolishment of the pope system and secularizing the property of the Church. His ideas did non gain a wide social support then. The co-evolutionary (reformist) phase of the cycle is connected with the activity of Jan Hus (1369-1415). He was the very person who created the necessary spiritual atmosphere for the future Reformation. The fight of the Catholic hierarchy, well-equipped by the civil authority against the Czech taborits defeated ultimately in 1434, became the repetition of religious wars in Europe.

The evolutionary phase of the cycle lasts from the Florentian Union (1439) – a formal union of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, aimed to save Constantinople from the Turks – to the commencement of the Reformation (1517). In this period, the Inquisition becomes more active, as was guided by the instructions given in «Massacre of Witches» (1487). But a decrease of authority of the traditional Catholic Church structures was not stopped by any means.

The revolutionary stage of the fifth epochal cycle is identified with the beginning of the Reformation (1517) – the declaration of Martin Luther’s 95 theses including the demand for abolishment of indults, justification of faith regardless of Catholic structures, cheap church, and the possibility of worship in national languages. As a result of the partial victory of the Reformation, the influence of the Catholic Church decreased. That is the content of the involution phase of the cycle. Vatican’s attempts to restore its positions by means of the Counter-Reformation resulted in the mass terror of the Inquisition, prohibition of freethinking (during 1559-1966, «Indices of Prohibited Books» were regularly published). The involutionary phase lasted to 1648, till the end of the war between coalitions of Catholic and Protestant states.

The co-evolutionary phase of the cycle (1648-1656) was connected, firstly, with the renewal of Vatican’s control over national catholic hierarchies of Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy and, secondly, with the creation of the Protestant church hierarchy. The evolutionary phase of the cycle (1665-1789) is connected with the fight of the papacy for divserving its influence upon national states. The process became particularly critical because of the struggle for integration of Italy. The Great French Revolution (1789-1792) delivered a blow at the Holy See. The Italian campaign of Napoleon livened up the activity of Italian patriots, directed against the papal States. The Pope became the prisoner of the revolutionary situation which opened the sixth epochal cycle.

In the following involutionary stage (1801-1870), the forces of the united Italy, notwithstanding the proclaimed principle of Pope’s infallibility, liquidated the papal States. The co-evolutionary phase of the cycle (1871-1880) included a further desecularization of life in most European countries. The bright example was the Kulturkampf of Bismarck in the German Empire and the Pope’s declaration of being a king’s prisoner. In the evolutionary period of the cycle (1880-1928), the Catholic structures tuned themselves to the new tendencies of development. «The separation of the Church and the State», the forced refusal from attempts of dictating moral and law norms to parishioners, the acknowledgement of the principle «render to Caesar the things which are Caesar's» opened the way for reconciliation between Vatican and the Italian state.

The revolutionary phase of the seventh epochal cycle began with the Lateran agreements between Benito Mussolini and the Pope on creation of the State of the town of Vatican with the rights of a political subject (1929-1933). In the following involutionary period, the Concordat with Hitler is realized, and a struggle with the godless Soviet regime grows. Vatican is trying to divserve the Church’s institutions under the conditions of the Second World War and takes the function of the spiritual shield of the Christian civilization. The co-evolutionary phase may be hypothetically linked to the Second Vatican Synod (1962-1966), which became a successful attempt of modernization of the Catholic Church. During this period, the worship in national languages was allowed, national Episcopal conferences were established, the redivsentatives of which formed the Pope Synod, and «The Index of Prohibited Books» was abolished. The evolutionary stage of development (since 1966) includes such important events as the election of Karol Voityla (John Paul II) to the Holy See against the 400-year monopoly of Italians, the display of new tendencies of the informational society – the creation of Vatican’s web page in the Internet (1997), public discussions on virtual confession, women’s right to be priests, permissibility of aborts, etc.

8.2. Italy

Italy has the most ancient historical tradition among the European countries mentioned above. This tradition made a significant influence upon the European civilization. The beginning of the first epochal cycle is identified with the following historical events: 753 BC – the traditional date of the foundation of Rome. King’s period. The revolutionary stage of the cycle is associated with the proscription of Tarquins from Rome in 510 BC and the establishment of Republic. 494 BC – the beginning of a social fight between plebeians and patricians. 356 BC – the first plebeian dictator. The involutionary stage is identified with the crisis development of the Roman republic. Wars against Cartage: 264-241 BC – the first Punic war. 232 BC – agrarian law of Flaminius. Land crisis. 218-201 BC – the second Punic war. Hannibal. «Delenda est Carthago». The third Punic war of 149-146 BC may be considered the turning point, the co-evolutionary phase of the first epochal cycle. This transient process covered the period when the political subordination of Greece and the crisis of the republican form of rule took place. Rome invaded the Hellenistic Egypt in 30 BC, and the evolutionary period of the first epochal cycle in the development of the country began since that time. The origin of Christianity (313 AD) and acknowledging Christianity as the state religion by Emperor Constantine were the social revolution phase and the change of the social-cultural code of development of the Roman Empire. The revolutionary stage lasted up to 395 AD – the breakdown of the Roman Empire to the Eastern and Western ones (Byzantium 1453 – the fall of Constantinople). The Western Roman Empire obtained a steady development of the involutionary stage of the second epochal cycle during the period of «the Great migration of peoples», Attila’s rule (435-453 AD), the fall of Rome (476 AD), the last attempt of restoring the unity between the Western and Eastern Empires, the rule of Justinian – the Emperor of Byzantium (482-565). According to M. Weber, the result of this rule is the culture that, on reaching its peak, loses the material base and turns into ruins[61]. However, the spiritual reincarnation will occur in the Renaissance period, at a new historical stage. The co-evolutionary phase of the second epochal cycle is connected with the «romanization» of Barbarian Europe, divservation of the Italian cultural area. Young nations «civilized» by falling under the influence of this area. Characteristic is the history of the state of Langobards (568-774). With the proclamation of Carolus Magnus as the emperor, one may speak about the entrance of Italy into the steady evolutionary period of development. The proclamation of the Roman Empire by the Germanic nation in 962 may be associated with the same period. The South of Italy came under the Byzantine and Arabic influence. The decisions of the Lateran Synod (since 1059) were a new quality of development, a new social form, and the revolutionary phase. They symbolized the successful attempt to synthesize of spiritual and civil hegemony of Popes.

Therefore, the beginning of the third epochal cycle is identified with the development of capitalist relations in Italian towns-states. According to M. Weber, the mediaeval sea trade towns are the nearest to typical antique big ones, but there are principal differences between industrial towns and antique polises[62].

The involutionary stage (considering its results) was most productive for the South, which significantly lagged behind the North in social and economic development. These regional distinctions remain till the divsent moment. The Norman invasion of the Southern Italy and Sicily (1130) and transition of control over these territories to Aragon (Hispanic) dynasty also may be included to that involutionary period. Later it became the reason for Italic wars of the XVI century.

The most important events in the history of the Northern Italy at the given stage are as follows:

1250 – Florence became a republic. The abolition of serfdom. 1378 - the revolt of ciompi (div-proletariat). 1339 - Venice – lifelong rule of Doges. The control over trade in East Mediterranean is established. 1378 – Popes returned to Rome when «the Avignon imprisonment» came to its end.

The co-evolutionary stage of the second epochal cycle began in the early Renaissance period. 1365-1321 Dante Alighieri; 1304-1374 Francesco Petrarca; 1313-1375 Jiovanni Boccaccio. The tyrants of Florence: 1434-1468 Cosimo Medici. 1469-1492 – Lorenzo the Glorious.

The evolutionary stage is identified with the high Renaissance. 1494-1559 – «Italian wars» with the French and Spaniards. 1469-1527 – Machiavelli; 1452-1519 – Leonardo da Vinci; 1483-1520 Raffaello Santi; 1475-1564 – Michelangelo; 1487-1576 – Tiziano Vecellio; 1568-1639 – T.Campanella – the ideas of utopian communism; 1548-1600 – Jiordano Bruno; 1564-1642 – Galileo Galilei. The economic decline of Italy. Delayed unification of the country divided by controversial interests of Vatican, neighboring countries, and civil discord. 1648-1799 – deepening the gap in the social-economic development between the North and South of Italy.

The development of the fourth epochal cycle is connected with the revolutionary tendencies in Europe, initiated by the Great French Revolution (1799-1815 – the wars of Napoleon). And though Italy did not demonstrate the single act of social revolution, the results of this process appeared to be achieved in the chain of events – the organization of revolutionaries «Young Italy» (1831), activating the struggle for independence and national unity (1848-1849). And finally, since the moment of creation of the Italian Kingdom – Italy enters the involutionary period of history, marked by the political activity of Garibaldi (1848-1871), the final unification of the country (1871), the seizure of Eritrea (1891) and stirring up its colonial policy.

The transformational stage of the cycle was practically realized during the rule of Italian fascists (1922-1943) under the guidance of B. Mussolini, who made an effort to realize the idea of the «Corporate» state, giving a new quality to the colonial policy, turning the Mediterranean Sea into the «Italian lake» in that period. The tendencies of the evolutionary stage of the cycle gathered momentum with the defeat of Italy in the World War II along with development of the democratic lines of the political process (1946 – proclamation of the Republic; 1957 – the Rome Treaty on creation of the European Economic Union; 1992 – «clean hands» operation, that transformed the political system of Italy, and so on).

Modern Italy is sure to be before the door of the revolutionary stage of the fifth epochal cycle.

8.3. Germany

The hypothetical scheme of epochal cycles in the history of Germany may be divsented as follows. I-III centuries – the origin of a new subject of history in Europe (the revolutionary phase of the first epochal cycle), which is identified with the onset of Germanic tribes on the Roman Empire. IV-VII centuries – the involutionary stage of development, with the content of feudalization of Germanic tribes, their political subordination to the Empire of Carolus Magnus.

The co-evolutionary stage of development comprises the period of disintegration of the Empire of Carolus Magnus (772-804) which included most Germanic lands within its limits. Verdun (843) – the formal agreement on the division of Carlovingian empire – became the symbol of the new geopolitic situation. Ludwig the German and the Saxon dynasty (919-1024), in fact, closed the transient process, and the country entered the evolutionary period of its history, that takes its beginning since the proclamation of the «Holy Roman Empire» by Otto I (962). The most important historic events are connected with the fight between Germanic emperors of the Franken dynasty (1024-1125) and the dynasty of Staufens (1138-1254) for control over the Northern Italy, and exercising the policy of «push to the East». The foundation of knightly orders (Teutonic, the Order of Sword-bearers), as the instruments of exercising the colonial policy against the Slavic lands in the East, occurred in the same period. These events became the beginning of the second epochal cycle of development of the country.

The following involutionary period of the cycle is connected with a certain decline of the economy of Germanic lands, caused by the flood of Italian goods from the centers of rapid div-capitalistic development in North-Italian towns.

The co-evolutionary phase of the cycle (since 1356) is connected with the establishment of the powerful Hanseatic trade league in the Baltic region. This league can be in some way compared with the divsent European Union by monopolizing markets and establishing the control over the neighboring eastern lands. Hanseatic League exerted its influence on the policy of Karl IV (1347-1378). The evolutionary period of the second epochal cycle began with his rule. The period is politically characterized with the growing political fragmentation of Germany, that was reflected in the «Gold bulla» (1356), later referred to by K. Marx as the constitution of split of Germany. The emperor was then elected by the college of electors. This situation remained practically till the middle of the 19th century. One of the reasons for such a situation was the differentiation of economic and political interests of various German lands between the North (Baltic), the East (Slavic lands), and the South (Italy, Mediterranean region).

The new chapter of the history of Germany and the revolutionary phase of the third epochal cycle are associated with the Reformation. Erasmus Roterodamus (1466-1536), who changed the point of view on the inner world of a mediaeval Christian, may be considered the spiritual divcursor of this process. The invention of printing by Johann Gutenberg in 1445 also favored this process. In 1517 Martin Luther (1483-1546) proclaimed his famous 95 theses, based on the absolution of faith. This event made the Catholic hierarchy unnecessary and practically established the direct link between the laymen and God.

The revolutionary sentiments quickly sdivad among the masses, and, already in 1524-1525, Germany was shaken with the Great Peasants' War. The involutionary period of the third epochal cycle, characterized by the leveling of the «patched-up» Germany in the European affairs, begins since 1555, when the Augsburg peace between religions did away with the open enmity between the Catholic and the Protestant based on the principle «whose land – whose faith». The Holy Roman Empire became the object of expansion of the external forces during the 30-year war (1618-1648) between the European coalitions of Catholic and Protestant states.

Since 1804, with the beginning of wars against Napoleon, Germany enters its co-evolutionary stage of development (1804-1834), illustrated by a rapid development of capitalist relations, particularly in the south of Germany, connected with the economic interests of France. The idea of the political unity of the country, the first step towards which was the creation of the German customs union (1834), is reviving again. However, no nationwide market was created till the unification of Germany (1871).

European bourgeois revolutions of 1848-1849 chronologically concurred with the beginning of the evolutionary period of the third epochal cycle of the German history. That is why, they were not taken up by the inner logic of development of the country and had a formally superficial influence on it. The creation of the National Convent in Frankfurt (1848), that gave a push to the development of democratic ideas in Germany, connected with the national unity, constututionalism, and other aspects, was put into practice only after 100 years during the creation of Federal Republic of Germany. The historical sense of the divsent evolutionary period in the history of the country was overcoming the historical inertia of the split of Germany, at first in the form of the German Empire (1871-1918), then in the Weimar republic (1919-1933), in the Third Reich (1933-1945), in the Bonn republic (1949-1990), and, at last, in the united Germany (since 1990).

Going by the programmed logic of development, Germany stimulated the European integration process. Especially, this line found its exdivssion in its divsent status of leadership in European and transatlantic structures, in the «collective leadership in the contemporary world», as stated by Bill Clinton in 1997. It became the actually incontestable second world leader and the reliable ally of the USA both in the European and world policy. At the same time, according to Jurgen Habermas, since 1960’s, after the youth riots in May 1968, and particularly after the anschluss of German Democratic Republic, the tendency to augmentation of latent crisis phenomena is becoming more and more apparent: in the sphere of politics – the extinction of traditional political parties; in the economy – the growth of devastative globalization tendencies, difficulties of restructuring national industrial sectors, the problems of education and unemployment; in the social sphere – the problems of the European identity of the Eastern Germany, and the responsibility of Germany for forming a common defense and foreign policy of the European Union.

All this strengthens the assumption that Germany is approaching the commencement of the revolutionary phase of the fourth epochal cycle.

8.4. Great Britain

The peculiarities of the national historical process of Great Britain are connected with insularity of the country, its partial isolation from the European problems and the readiness to be the «Queen of seas», which have formed the peculiar national character of Great Britain.

The first epochal cycle began from the revolutionary events of liberation of the British Isles from the Roman rule and the entrance of Celtic tribes to the way of independent development (407 AD). Since the 5th century, Britain entered the involutionary period, the most important events were the permanent struggle for hegemony between its seven kingdoms: Wessex, Sussex, Essex (Saxon kingdoms), Kent (Jutes’ tribes), Mercia, Northumbria (Angles’ tribes). The internal situation was complicated by the struggle against Normans (Vikings). All that created conditions for the unification of kingdoms under the rule of Alfred the Great (871-899).

However, the successes of Anglo-Saxon in the struggle against Vikings appeared to be temporary. In 1017, the Dutch king Knud den Store establishes the Norman domination over Britain. This event symbolizes the co-evolutionary changes in the country that lasted to the battle of Hastings (1066), when almost all Anglo-Saxon aristocracy was exterminated and William the Conqueror established a new aristocracy of the Norman origin in Britain. Being connected, the historical destinies of France and Britain showed themselves during the rule of Henry II Plantagenet (1154-1189). The beginning of the invasion of Ireland (1171) is connected with his name. At the same time, one could observe growing social-political contradictions between landowners during that period, the inheritors of the Conqueror, and a new urban trade-craft elite striving for the political independence.

The mentioned social-political contradiction found its solution in the following revolutionary events, opening the beginning of the second epochal cycle – the Great Charter (1215), the creation of the first parliament (1236), the peripetias of the civil war (1236-1267), the actual defeat of the royal power which allowed one to divserve the idea of parliamentarism as a backbalance to the regality. Since the end of the 13th century, the involutionary period, that lasted to the War of the Red and White Roses (1445), receives its normative background. The most important events of the involutionary period were as follows: the creation of the House of Lords (the redivsentatives of the aristocracy, knightage) and the House of Commons (the redivsentation of urbanites), the epidemic of plague, «the black death» (1349), Peasants' Revolt (1381), the activity of propagandist and Reformer John Wyclif (1320-1384).

The change of the dynasties of Plantagenets and Lancasters on the king’s throne of Britain and the dynastic war of Red (Lancaster) and White (York) roses (1455-1485) symbolized the transitional co-evolutionary phase of the epochal cycle. The political transformation from the limited monarchy to the absolutist monarchy occurred in this period, the process of primary capital accumulation was growing, and the conditions for the first overseas invasions were created.

The evolutionary development is identified mainly with the Tudor’s absolutism (1485-1603) and lasted to 1648. The most important social-historical events are connected with the agrarian revolution, secularization, that stimulated the development of textile industry, with the «bloody» law aimed to create the free labor market for the naissant capitalist structure of the economy. As for the spiritual sphere, the Reformation and the process of creation of the Anglican Church took place at that moment. The most significant figures of the period were Thomas More (1478 - 1535), William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Francis Bacon (1561-1626). The joint-stock East India Company which organized external trade with colonies and stimulated the establishment of the British Empire, was created in 1600.

The revolutionary events (1648-1649), which marked the beginning of the third epochal cycle, were connected with the execution of King Charles I, the proclamation (1654) of Oliver Cromwell as the Lord Protector. In fact, the latter meant the establishment of a radical republican system which became an abnormal event, opening a radical break with the monarchy traditionalism and paving the way to the Great French revolution. The normative involutionary period was virtually established after Cromwell’s death (1658) and confirmed with the restoration of constitutional monarchy (1689) and confirmation of the Great Charter and primary human rights and freedoms.

The main historical events of the involutionary period were as follows: the fight of Great Britain for divserving the empire (the War of Independence of the USA, 1775-1783), the competition with the revolutionary France for the hegemony in Europe and for the repartition of colonies – Trafalgar battle (1805), the continental blockade organized by Napoleon (1806-1814).

The co-evolutionary transitional phase of development, which began in the first quarter of the 19th century, is connected with the transformation of Great Britain into the «world’s workshop», the industrial revolution, the first parliamentary reform which extended the categories of people who had a right to vote (1832).

The evolutionary period takes its beginning since the middle of the 19th century and is marked by the following significant events: in political history – the classic confrontation between the Liberals (William Gladstone, 1809-1898) and the Conservatives (Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881), the concession of the dominion status to Canada (1867); the colonial Boer War (1899-1902), which virtually opened a new historical period of redistribution of spheres of the colonial influence and forestalled the First World War (1914-1918). In fact, it was the fight for divserving status quo of the British Empire. The main internal political event was the foundation of the Labour Party (1900). Its activity created an alternative to the liberals and Tories at the beginning of the 20th century. When this party came to power (1924), the accents of political struggle shifted from the confrontation «liberals-conservatives» to «labourites-conservatives».

The negative consequences of the Great Dedivssion, the USA being its epicenter, cannot help to influence the situation in Great Britain. However, due to the developed democratic institutions and efficient mechanisms of regulation of the capitalist economy, the dedivssion did not exert so great influence on this country as on the USA.

The evolutionary period of the third epochal cycle is also connected with the disintegration of the British Empire after the Second World War (1939-1945), the changes in the balance of power between Great Britain and the USA, its former colony, the transformation of London to the strategic partner of Washington in Europe. The most outstanding events of this period are as follows: the Labourist government of C. Attlee entered the scene, marking the beginning of the end of colonial policy – the loss of India, a pearl in the crown of the British Empire, the independence of Pakistan (1945-1951); the creation of the British atom bomb during W. Churchill’s second divmiership (1951-1955); the Suez crisis (1952-1956); privatization processes in the state sector and expansion of the area for private initiative during the rule of Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990); the divservation of Britain’s greatness – the war with Argentina for Falkland Islands (1982); the victory of T. Blair and the «new» Labourists at the parliamentary elections (1997), and a following exclusion of hereditary peers from the poll, the reform in the House of Lords, the peace process in Ulster, decentralization (devolution) – the creation of assemblies in Scotland and Wales; the confrontation between the eurooptimists and eurosceptics on the issue of entering the Monetary union.

The analysis of events of the last period gives grounds to assume that Great Britain is standing on the threshold of the revolutionary stage of the fourth epochal cycle. The definition of a new role of the monarchy, the solution of the problems of multiracial society, and the coexistence of various cultural traditions may become the content of that cycle.

8.5. France

The hypothetical scheme of development of epochal cycles of the national history of France may be divsented in a following way.

The history of France goes back to the period of establishment of the state of Franks. It would be quite natural to assume that the beginning of the first epochal cycle is connected with the revolutionary stage of origin of a new subject of history in Europe. The inclusion of the Frankish state into the Christian civilization is connected with the acceptance of Catholic Christianity (496). The victories of Chlodwig over the neighboring Germanic tribes (481-511) extended geopolitical borders, forming the divsent territory of France.

The involutionary stage of the cycle had the content of formation of classic West-European feudalist system (511-843), which lasted practically to the Verdun division of the Carlovingian Empire (843). The emerged historical events of the period are connected with the activity of Emperor Carolus Martellus (715-741). Due to his victory over the Arabs near Poitiers (732), the borders of Islamic expansion in Europe were finally determined. The next important figure of the period was Carolus Magnus (768-814). It is his territorial aggrandizements that laid down the background for creation of the united Europe. At the same time, the Carlovingian Empire was not a stable state formation, because it comprised various nations which were at different stages of historical development. All this divdetermined the following differentiation of the single state formation and creation of the main states of Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy).

The Verdun division of the Carlovingian Empire (843) became the turning (co-evolutionary) point in the history of France. The truly French dynasty of Capetians, which came into confrontation with the British dynasty of Plantagenets, was created in this period. The King of England Henry Plantagenet invaded the French territory from La Manche to the Pyrenees (1154).

The evolutionary period of development of France during the first epochal cycle is marked by the appearance of the urban (burgher) culture and the struggle of towns for trade privileges against feudals. The Sorbonne University arises in 1136. Pierre Abailard (1079-1142) was one of the most prominent professors at this university. Large heretic movements and religious wars with Albigenses (13th century) are also characteristic of the period. French kings gradually restored their control over the territories lost before. Philippe IV (1180-1223) regained Normandy from Britain. Louis IX concluded peace with England (1259), leaving, therefore, only Aquitaine and Gascony under the British rule. The new greatness of France is confirmed by the political control over the pontiffs – the so-called Avignon imprisonment of Popes (1309-1379). The peripetias of the initial stage of the Hundred Years' War (1337-1358) became the historic event of long-duration meaning which stimulated the revolutionary processes of the second epochal cycle. Standing on the edge of ultimate defeat and seeking the ways of attraction of broad masses to take part in the war, the King of France Charles II was forced to call classes in the General states (fore-parliament). The revolutionary processes were followed by Jacquerie caused by a growth of military exactions and the attempts to enslave the population.

France was on the edge of catastrophe when it was rescued by Joan of Arc, who liberated Orleans (1429). Since that event, France gained victories over the Englishmen, and, during the rule of Louis XI (1461-1483), the political unification of France came to an end, and the conditions for absolutist monarchy, which symbolizes the peak of the involutionary period in country’s development, were created.

Having revived after the Hundred Years' War, France got engaged in the war with Germany and Spain for control over Italy. The protestant heresy appeared during the rule of Francis I (1515-1547).

Social-political contradictions which became more evident due to wars and reformist tendencies of spiritual life, raised the Fronde of civil religious wars (1562-1598), which, in fact, became the exdivssion of co-evolutionary transformational processes. The events of the transient period lasted practically to 1629, when the Edict of mercy gave the freedom of conscience to Huguenots.

The outstanding historical events of the evolutionary period (1629-1789) were as follows: the Thirty Years' War which defined the French hegemony in Europe, a subsequent growth of the French culture, coming back to the early-Italian Renaissance. The spiritual face of the epoch was defined by the works of Francois Rabelais (1494-1533), Pierre Ronsard (1524-1585), Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), Jean Bodin (1530-1596) and R. Descartes (1596-1650).

The defeat of France in the Seven Years’ War (1753-1760), the loss of colonial domains (the province of Quebec in Canada, trade outposts in India), and the ruin of country’s economy, stimulated the deep political crisis of the absolutism system which ended in the burst the Great French revolution (1789-1794). This epochal event, which had a globally historical meaning (for Western, Central, and East Europe, and also for Asia in XIX-XX centuries) resulted in opening the area for development of capitalist relations. The export of revolution during Napoleon’s wars (1799-1814), brought the bourgeois law by means of French bayonets to the most distant areas of Europe. The inability of a final victory of counterrevolution in France demonstrated all the radicality of changes.

The restoration of monarchy (1815-1848), opening the involutionary period of the third epochal cycle, was unable to change the bourgeois-democratic character of the state. The efforts to reanimate the absolutism were ruined by the revolts of the people in 1830 and 1848-1849. The following political development of the country divdetermined the formation of the Third divsidential republic (1875-1940).

The victory of France in the First World War did not strengthen economic positions of the country. Moreover, the ruined Germany could not pay off French military expenses by its reparations. The beginning of the conjuncture economic crisis of the Great Dedivssion (1929-1933) became the turning co-evolutionary point in the development of France. The transient processes in France lasted up to the Algerian crisis (1958).

France enters the evolutionary period of the third epochal cycle with the return of De Gaulle to the political stage of the country.

The most important events of the period were as follows: the entrance of France into the European Economic Community (1958); French nuclear weapon test (1962); the reconciliation between France and Germany, put into life by the treaty between De Gaulle and Adenauer (1963). Student’s disturbances (May 1968) were aimed at democratization of the country’s political system and favored the rejuvenation of the country’s political elite. The enlivening of left-centralist sentiments in the country does not hold any pronounced radical character. The modern policy of France is directed to divservation of the former greatness. Its real economic position among the leading seven industrial states has a tendency to a decline. It shifted from the 4th to the 5th place according to its economic indices in the recent five years.

Quite probably, the evolutionary period of development has not exhausted its potency and will last in the first quarter of the 21st century.

8.6. Ukraine

For Ukraine, the beginning of the first epochal cycle is identified with sources of Kievian Rus’ history.

It would not be groundless to assume that the revolutionary phase of the cycle is connected with the seizure of power in Novgorod and Kiev by the Norman army of Oleg (882). The establishment of control over the trade way «from Varangians to Greeks» was the sense of the event. The campaigns of Svyatoslav (964-969) also became the content of the revolutionary phase. However, they did not provide for the territorial expansion of Rus to the West, and, moreover, they uncovered the southern borders of the state, exposing them to Khasarian attacks.

The entrance of Ukraine-Rus to the involutionary period was connected with the choice of belonging to a civilization and the introduction of Christianity of the Byzantine model (988). The fight for the Kievian throne, which flared up after the death of Prince Vladimir, ended only during the rule of Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054). The inner political situation in Kievian Rus stabilized in that period. At the same time, under the influence of the external factor, the split of the Christian church to the Catholic (ecumenical) and Orthodox (right) ones, Ukrainian lands, according to Hrushevsky, lose their own civilizational rhythm of history. The insiccation of the Byzantine sources of culture, to what Ukraine-Rus belonged, did not allow that land to find the rhythm neither in the Catholic nor in Protestant civilizational cycles[63]. In fact, the civilizational failure was marked along the Dnieper («East»– «West»).

The fight for political influence in the country stimulated the processes of feudal disunity, confirmed at the meeting of Princes in Lubich (1097), where they made a decision: «everyone holds his own dominion». The reinforcement of kindred North-Eastern Russian princedoms in the XI century stimulated their struggle against the parental culture of the Kievian Rus. This process was symbolized by the war for the Kievian throne between Izyaslav Mstislavitch and the Prince of Suzdal, Jury Dolgoruky (1147-1149). The situation was complicated with permanent confrontation with the nomadic nations of steppe. The assault of hordes of Polovtsians upon Kiev (1169) did not stimulate any uniting processes in the military and political spheres. Every prince strived for his own victories, trying to prove his right to be primus inter pares. The bright example is the campaign of Severian Prince Igor Svyatoslavich against Polovtsians, which ended in the defeat of Igor by the Polovtsian Khan Konchak (1185).

The peculiar correctives, amended to the historical development of the Ukraine-Rus by the steppian nations, finally weakened the political influence of Kiev as a uniting power of the Slav nations. The situation promoted the appearance of new centers of power – the beginning of a growth of the Galych-Volyn princedom (1199) and princedoms of the North-Eastern Rus.

Transient processes of the co-evolution of the first epochal cycle are identified with defeats of the North-Eastern Rus and the Mogul-Tartarian invasion of it (1237-1238). This period includes: the defeat of Kiev (1240), the creation of «Saga on Defeat of Rus» by monks. In fact, Ukraine-Rus turned into a distinctive defensive line for Europe.

The blossom of the evolutionary period is connected with the strengthening of the Lithuanian princedom that took Ukraine-Rus under its military cover: the campaign of the Lithuanian prince Gediminas to the Kievian princedom (1323). The power of the Lithuanian princedom allowed it to inflict a defeat upon the Mogul-Tartaric horde near the Blue Waters in 1362. However, the military successes, strengthened by the Kievian Union (1385) of the Great Lithuanian princedom and the Kingdom of Poland, weakened the Orthodox hierarchy, especially after the metropolitanate had moved to Moscow (1326). It opened the doors for catholic missionaries to the Ukrainian land, by strengthening the western vector in its culture and, at the same time, stimulating the interconfessional confrontation.

The consequences of Tartar-Mogul destructions became the main reason for the lag of towns of Ukraine-Rus behind the West-European towns in richness, the level of development of guild handicraft, and self-government. Though the town of Vladimir-Volynsky gained the Magdeburg right (1324), in general, the urban culture had not yet reached the West-European level.

Despite the separation of the Crimean Khanate from the Golden Horde (1443), the incursions of nomads on the Ukrainian lands still took place, what favored the emergence of list Cossacks as a special military class, defending the southern borders of the state from incursions. Later, the formations of the Zaporizhzhian Sich appear on Dnieper rapids. The enslaving of peasants intensified in this period. Such a state of affairs cannot help to influence the social-political situation in the Great Princedom of Lithuania.

The growing political tension reached their critical point because of active policy of catholicizing the Ukrainian population, finding its exdivssion in the decisions of the Brest synod (1596) on the creation of the Uniate Church.

The second epochal cycle. Revolutionary content had the events of the first quarter of the 17th century, connected with the struggle of Ukrainian Cossacks for extending their social rights, the struggle of peasants for liberation from the serfdom opdivssion of Polish magnates and the struggle of all Ukrainian population for the confessional equality.

The apogee of the events became the War for liberation of the Ukrainian nation under the guidance of Bogdan Khmelnitsky (1648-1654). This period became a divide in the history of Ukraine. However, the high point of restoration of the national statehood of the period of Bogdan Khmelnitsky did not end in success. The Andrusov Peace (1667) between Moscow and Rzecz Pospolita stimulated the geopolitic split of Ukrainian lands: the Left-bank Ukraine remained in the zone of Russian influence, the Right-bank one (except Kiev) – under control of Poland. According to the figural statement of Hrushevsky, the period of Ruin had come, when Ukrainian lands were devastated by almost semicentenary uninterrupted wars.

The period involutionary by its characteristics in the history of Ukraine is connected with its following existence in the borders of Russia. The last attempt of divserving its identity found its exdivssion in the causes that led to events of the Poltava battle (1709). The spiritual front of the period was defined by the works of Hrigory Skovoroda (1722-1794).

Ukraine loses the foretype of its statehood of this period with the destruction of the Zaporizhzhian Sich by Russian troops (1775). The gradual erosion of its social-cultural grounds proceeded. The territorial enlargement at the expense of three divisions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795) and accession of the Crimea (1783) led to the sdivad of serfdom on the peasants of the Left-bank and Slobodian Ukraine at the same time. The «reincarnation» of Ukrainian national spirit was realized in the works of Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), what gave an ideological ground to the following generations of freethinking democrats.

The defeat of the Russian Empire in the Crimean War (1854-1856) stimulated reforms, beginning with the abolishment of serfdom (1861). In fact, it became the turning co-evolutionary phase of the third epochal cycle. The bourgeois reforming of economy opened the space for the private initiative. At the same time, the differentiation of the urban Russian-speaking and country Ukrainian-speaking cultures is intensified in the growing processes of russification of Ukraine: the Valuev (1863) and Ems (1876) edicts, that apdivciably limited the publishing of books and prohibited the teaching at schools in Ukrainian. All these factors distinctively restrained national-cultural development of Ukraine and manifested in a drop in efficiency of country’s cultural self-realization.

The evolutionary stage of the second epochal cycle was interrupted by the events of the Great October Socialist Revolution (1917-1921). Thus, any accelerated revolutionary processes appeared to be untenable for Ukraine on the whole, and the struggle for national liberation ended in defeat. Appearing in the unit multinational state, the USSR, Ukraine continued its development already in the involutionary period of the third epochal cycle.

The involutionary stage is connected with the realization of the policy of the «military communism» under conditions of the civil war (1918-1921). The objective specificity of the period, consisting in «acceleration» of the time of historical development and in unique peripetias of the process of mobilization of the «pursuit development», revealed later. Especially, it can be seen in the transformation of the traditional Ukrainian agrarian society to the «noncapitalist» industrial one, divserving the specific features of «multistructureness»: from the forms of quasistate slavery in the concentration camps, «petty-bourgeois» agrarian production of the «new economic policy» times, to the elements of «state capitalism».

The Second World War (1939-1945) became a tragic trial for Ukraine. It questioned the very possibility of the following historical development as a subject rather than an object of the hostile expansion. On the other side, almost all ethnically Ukrainian territories were included to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, what created the perspective for formation of a political nation.

At the same time, the involutionary period was connected with solution of the tasks of industrial development. The overall nationalization of the objects of property, the collectivization of the agrarian and industrial production, the secularization of the spiritual life did not give any freedom of choice except that defined by the policy of the single governing Communist party and the plans for country’s economic development. Possessing the enormous fertility of both the agricultural area and spiritual space, Ukraine redivsented an example of the fatigueless supplier of elite personnel to USSR’s bodies. This directly influenced the condition of the national elite.

The co-evolutionary phase of the third epochal cycle for Ukraine is identified with the disintegration of the USSR (1991) and the third attempt (after 1648-1654 and 1917-1921) to create a sovereign state.

8.7. Russia

Speaking on the historical destiny of Ukraine, Russia, and Belorussia as a basis of the Eurasian civilizational area, one should pay attention to differences in the dynamics of development of epochal cycles of the national historical processes of three Slav nations.

The bright example of such a dissonance is the Russian history. By creating the hypothetical scheme of changes of the epochal cycles, one should pay attention to the «interference» of wave-like cycles of the historical processes within nations which were either forcibly or peacefully included in various times to the Russian Empire as the unique Eurasian geopolitic formation. The conception of Klyuchevsky (1841-1911) concerning the Russian civilization as a peculiar synthesis of the Orthodoxy and Islam seems to be efficient. This conception reflected the main peculiarities of the Russian history in the most adequate manner.

The beginning of the first epochal cycle may be identified with the revolutionary stage, whose political sense is connected with radical changes in the alignment of forces between the parental culture of the Kievian Rus and its northern princedoms. The following events may be referred to this period: the first mention of Moscow in chronicles (1147); the transfer of the «capital» princely throne from Kiev to Vladimir (1157). The seizure and destruction of Kiev by the troops of Andrei Bogolubsky (1169) was the symbolic end of the revolutionary phase.

The involutionary period of the first epochal cycle was developing since the latter half of the 12th century. The Mogul-Tartar invasion (1237-1240) became the defining event for this cycle. The Moscowian state was also forced to stand up to the military threats from the West – the opposition of Alexander Nevsky to the Swedish and Teutonic divssure (1240-1242) – which virtually determined the Eurasian geostrategy of the North-Eastern Russia.

The identification of Moscow as a center of collection of lands (1326) is referred to this period – the transfer of the capital from Vladimir-on-Klyazma. The political reinforcement of the Moscowian princes was connected with the successful opposition to the Mogul-Tartars – the Kulikovo battle (1380); the defeat of the Gold Horde by Timur-Tamerlane (1395). The seizure of Constantinople by the Turks (1453) favored the emergence of the ideology «Moscow is the Third Rome, there cannot be the fourth». The collection of lands around Moscow was followed by the addition of the Great Novgorod (1478) and the Princedom of Tver (1485). The victory over the Great Princedom of Lithuania allowed one to annex Pskov and Smolensk to Moscow (1514).

The co-evolutionary transient period is connected with the beginning of the rule of Ivan IV the Terrible. The main events of this period were as follows: the publication of the code of laws (1550); the seizure of Kazan (1552); the establishment of oprichnina (1565-1572).

The evolutionary period of the cycle is connected with the Asian territorial expansion of Russia. In particular, with the campaign of Ermak to Siberia (1581), which ended in the join of the territory that had an area of three Europes. Klyuchevsky said: «The state fattened, and the people languished». The successes of Russia in the west were not so imdivssive. The destructive Livonia War (1558-1583) did not allow one to solve the task for the Russia to way out to the Baltic Sea. The country remained terrestrial in the geopolitic sense.

The symbols of the evolutionary period were: the establishment of patriarchate (1589) and «troublous times» (1598-1612), connected with cessation of the Rurik’s dynasty and transition of the scepter to the Romanovs. At this time, the influence of the Moscowian czardom on the European part of Eurasia was strengthening, especially after the joining of Ukraine (1654). The new geopolitical situation on the West was legitimated by the «Eternal Peace» with Poland (1686). The analogous functions in Asia were played by the Nerchinsk Treaty with China (1689).

The reforms led by Peter I became revolutionary by the character of social changes. They began in 1698 with «the Great embassy» to Western Europe and ended with the victory over Sweden in the North War and exit to the Baltic Sea. Russia was proclaimed the empire. The involutionary period of the second epochal cycle began with the death of Peter I (1725). This period lasted to the abolishment of serfdom (1861). The following half-way bourgeois reforms of 1870s can be viewed as the co-evolutionary phase of development.

The evolutionary period of the second epochal cycle is connected with Russia’s finding solutions to the tasks of searching for a compromise between the feudalist-monarchic form of governance and the nascent forms of bourgeois democracy. In fact, this process was interrupted by the Great October Socialist Revolution (1917-1921), which established the Soviet variant of the socialist system from Brest (Belorussia) to Vladivostok, from the Arctic Ocean to Kushka (Turkmenistan). In fact, the new economic policy, which became a peculiar pullback process in the USSR, was the continuation of revolutionary processes and had the aim to «make a step back in order to make two steps forward» as Lenin said. After a complete fulfillment of its tasks, the policy was changed with the series of tasks characteristic of the soviet (involutionary) period such as «collectivization», «industrialization», «electrification», «chemicalization» and other programs of establishing an industrially developed society of the «quasiwestern» type.

The period (1954-1964) is famous with the reforms of N. S. Khrushchev and reflected all contradictions of the soviet social system. The following period of L. I. Brezhnev (1964-1982) led the country to the situation, when the USSR became the second superpower after the USA. But, at the same time, the social-economic stagnation and decline of morality became more and more obvious. Together with that, the inner potencies of intellectual and creative self-exdivssion of the nation were growing. The period of Andropov (1982-1983) exdivssed itself by the attempt to start the «planned» economic transformations according to the Chinese model, divserving the stability of political institutions. Then Gorbachev (1985-1991) expanded the reforms and drove the country to the modern uncontrolled transient processes of co-evolution – the fall of the Berlin Wall and downfall of the socialist system in Europe (1989), the disintegration of the USSR and emergence of new independent states in the Central and Eastern Europe (1990-1991), the catastrophic collapse of economies of these countries, which destabilized the world’s financial system.

8.8. Belorussia

A few words about the development of epochal cycles in the history of Belorussia.

The Polotsk land was one of the first that tried to gain the political independence from Kiev. The revolutionary stage of the first epochal cycle began approximately in the 11th century with the first attempts of Kievian princes to liquidate the independence of Polotsk.

The involutionary stage began in the second half of the 12th century with the gradual development of such towns within the Polotsk Princedom as Minsk, Vitebsk, Orsha. The neighboring states of Lets and Livs in Baltics paid the tribute to Polotsk. In the latter half of the 12th century, the land of Turov separated into the independent princedom. The princedoms of Pinsk and Slutsk politically depended on the more powerful neighboring Galych-Volyn princedom. The system of independent feudal principalities had formed. One of the main events of the involutionary period became the inclusion of the Belorussia lands to the Great Princedom of Lithuania in the latter half of the 13th century and their political subdivision to Poland after the Krevs Union (1385). In the end of the 15th century, the territory between the rivers of Western Bug, Western Dvina, Sozh, and Pripyat received the name of «White Russia». The Lublin Union of Lithuania and Poland (1569) consolidated the European traditions of the history of Belorussia. Francisk Skoryna became the national enlightener of the country.

The influence of the Ukrainian history on Belorussia manifested particularly in the period of the revolt under guidance of Severyn Nalyvaiko (1594-1596), which started in the Left-bank Ukraine and sdivad to the Mohylev region (Belorussia).

The co-evolutionary stage is identified with the war between Russia and Poland for Polotsk, Minsk, and Vitebsk (1654-1655).

The evolutionary period of the first epochal cycle took its start since the beginning of the 17th century. The most important event of the period was the second division of Poland, which resulted in the inclusion of the Eastern Belorussia into Russia (1793). In fact, that meant a reinforcement of the tendency of changing the European vector of development of Belorussia to the Eurasian one. All territory of Belorussia was included to Russia as a result of the third division of Poland (1795). The processes of russification and sdivad of political and economic structures on the newly included territories became more active. The evolutionary period of the first epochal cycle chronologically comprises the latter half of the 19th century and the soviet period. The main historical events were as follows: the failed attempt to create the independent Peoples Republic of Belorussia (1918) and the declaration of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919). According to the Riga Treaty (1921), Western Belorussia was returned to Poland. However, in September, 1939, the soviet troops occupy Western Belorussia and return its territory to the USSR. The republic suffered the heaviest losses during the Second World War. After 1945, its economy was gradually recovered.

In the Soviet period, Belorussia substantively differed from its co-brother republics (Ukraine and Russia) in mentality and mass behavior, by somewhat reminding the behaviour of the West-European countries. The Soviet hierarchical mentality of servility and subordinance did not get accustomed to this country. The figure of Masherov was a brightly exdivssed typology in this meaning. He did not review parades on the tribune, as did his colleagues in other republics, and was easily accessible to the broad masses. However, the Soviet mentality of the brother republics identified these peculiarities with consequences of the heaviest losses during the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), calling the behavior of Belorussians the highest exdivssion of internationalism in the Soviet Union.

The 1990’s were the revolutionary exdivssion of the historical peculiarities of the country and the transition of Belorussia to the second epochal cycle. In December 1991, Minsk became the formal capital of the Commonwealth of Independent States, emerging on the ruins of the USSR. That is not occasional. The following events in the country, the victory of Lukashenko at the divsidential elections (1994), his behavior as a redivsentative of the divsent political elite of the republic only confirms the hypothesis on the revolutionary character of the divsent social-political and spiritual processes in Belorussia. An attentive expert may, without any difficulties, behold the familiar contours of the revolutionary events in the Soviet Russia of 1917 in the national events and facts of the 1990s («the conspiracy of ambassadors», political chase of opposition, very low level, not higher that in the NEP’s period of the USSR, of sdivad of the private property, and so on).

8.9. China

The national-state epochal cycles have their own peculiarities in the countries of Asia and America. They are conditioned by the chronological differences and the specificity of the historical process. China is a bright example. 2397 BC is the beginning of the Chinese chronology.

The revolutionary stage of the first epochal cycle. 2205-1766 BC – the dynasty of Sa. The origin of the state tradition.

The involutionary stage – 1600-1027 BC – the dynasty of Shan-In. 1027-771 BC – the dynasty of Western Chou.

The co-evolutionary stage, 770-481 BC, the period of «Spring and Autumn» – the obduration of fight between kingdoms for the hegemony over the Celestial Empire. Lao Tzu, Taoism. 551-479 BC – Confucius.

The evolutionary stage. 403-221 BC, the period of hegemony of three kingdoms – Han, Chao, Wei. The beginning of creation of the Great Wall of China. 221-210 BC, Czyn Shikhuan. The unity of China. The Empire of Han.

The revolutionary stage of the second epochal cycle. 316-588 – havoc in China. The Hunnish invasion. 618-907 – the dynasty of T’ang.

The involutionary stage. 751 AD – the defeat by Arabs near the Talas river. The expansion of the Chinese to the West is sustained. The Celestial Empire lose its control over the Great Silk Way. 874-901 AD – the peasants’ war.

The co-evolutionary stage of the second epochal cycle. 1130-1200 – Chou Si. The revival of Confucianism. 960-1279 – the dynasty of Sun. 1190-1206 – the Genghis Khan’s invasion. 1234 – Khublai – the capital – Peking. 1271-1368 – the Mogul dynasty of Juan.

The evolutionary stage. 1368-1644 – the dynasty of Min. 1398 – the seizure of Korea. 1406-1428 – the military campaigns to Vietnam and Burma. 1405-1433 – the Pacific campaigns of Czhen Khe. 1516 – the Portuguese seized Aomin (Macao till 1999). 1624 – the Dutch in Taiwan.

The revolutionary stage of the third epochal cycle. 1639-1644 – the peasants’ war. 1644-1911 – the Manchurian dynasty of Zyn. 1759 – Synczan – a new border. The expansion to the North.

The involutionary stage – «the Opiate Wars». 1795-1838 – the British imported 27 million tons of opium to China. 1842-1997 – Hong-Kong (Xianggang) under the control of England.

The co-evolutionary stage. 1853 – Tai-ping revolt. 1894-1895 – the war between China and Japan. 1866-1925 – Sun-Yat-sen.

The evolutionary stage. 1911-1913 – the Sin-Hai revolution. The struggle for independence of China. 1937 – Japanese aggression. The civil war in China between the nationalists of Gomindan and the Communists.

The revolutionary stage of the fourth epochal cycle. 1949 – the declaration of the People’s Republic of China. 1951-1953 – Korean war. The consolidation of Gomindan in Taiwan.

The involutionary stage. 1958 – «the great jump». 1966 – «the cultural revolution». 1964 – China gained the nuclear weapon. 1976 – the death of Mao Tse-tung.

The co-evolutionary stage. 1978 – Den Xiao Ping – the beginning of reforms. 1989 – the supdivssion of democratic movement. The return of Hong-Kong (1997), Macao (1999) under control of China. In fact, the People’s Republic of China appeared on the threshold of the evolutionary stage of historical development.

8.10. India

India is an example of the «nonhistorical» civilization, and the time is «afraid» of it. The chronology of the history of the Ancient India is eroded in distinction from the Chinese one. However, the hypothetical scheme of changes of the epochal cycles of the Indian history may be reconstructed.

The revolutionary stage of the first epochal cycle. Ancient civilizations of 2300-1700 BC. Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro near 2000 BC – the incursion of the Aryan tribes. Caste system.

The involutionary period of the cycle lasted approximately since the 10th to 5th century AD.

The co-evolutionary stage. The appearance of Buddhism. 327-325 BC – the campaign of Alexander the Great. 268-231 BC – the rule of Asoka. The wide sdivad of Buddhism.

The evolutionary period of the first epochal cycle is connected with the emergence of conglomerate of political units, quarrelling with each other. III-VI centuries AD – the Empire of Gupta. 616-647 – the state of Harsha. The Hinduism extrudes the Buddhism from the spiritual life.

The revolutionary phase of the second epochal cycle is identified with the Muslim invasion of the Northern India, what gave another rhythm to the historical cycle. 998-1030 – Mahmud Ghaznavid. 1206-1526 – the Deli Sultanate. The forcible Islamization of the country.

The involutionary period of the second epochal cycle. The Southern India – 1347 – the Sultanate of Bakhmani. The Empire of Widjayanahar.

The co-evolutionary stage is connected with the double divssure of the Europeans (1498 – the discovery of India by Vasco da Gama) and the Mussulmans upon the Indian civilization. 1556-1605 – Akbar. The control over the Northern India, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Bengal, Gujarat, Orissa. 1451-1526 – the dynasty of Lody in the state of Bakhmani. The dynasty of the Great Moguls (moguls was the name given by the Hindu to the Mussulmans).

The evolutionary period. 1757 – the East India Company – the control over Bengal. 1784 – Pitt – the Law on the government of India. 1861-1941 Rabindranath Tagore. 1845-1846 – the first Anglo-Sikh war. 1869-1948 – Mahatma Gandhi. 1885 – the creation of the National Congress of India.

The revolutionary phase of the third epochal cycle is connected with the struggle of India for independence. 1948 – India – dominion. 1950 – the Constitution of India. The egression from the British Commonwealth.

The involutionary stage. 1962 – the Indochina war. 1971– the war between India and Pakistan. The Symla treaties. 1964 – the death of J. Nehru. 1965-1988 – Indira Gandhi.

The co-evolutionary stage. 1991 – the economic reform. May, 1998 – India carried its first nuclear weapon test.

The evolutionary period of the cycle is only taking its start and will develop in the 21st century.

8.11. Japan

The revolutionary phase of the first epochal cycle – 660 BC – the official date of establishment of the emperor’s dynasty. Shintoism. The relation of the emperor with Amaterasu, the Goddess of Sun.

The involutionary period of the cycle – V century BC – V century AD. Traditionalism. The influence of the Chinese social-cultural tradition. 572-621 AD – Shotoku Taishi. Ranks. The beginning of the co-evolutionary phase. The sdivad of Zen Buddhism. 887-1068 – the rule of the clan of Fujiwara. 895 – the «closure» of Japan for foreigners. 958-1587 – the prohibition of coinage.

The evolutionary period. 1192-1333 – the shogunate of Minamoto. The samurai is the backing of the state machine. 1274-1281 – the reflections of Mongol attempts to invade Japan. 1336-1477 – the wars between the clans of the samurai.

The revolutionary phase of the second epochal cycle. 1603-1867 – the shogunate of Tokugawa. 1615 – the political unification of Japan – Edo (Tokyo) is the capital. 1636 – the closure of Japan for the European missionaries.

The involutionary period – 1688-1703 – the epoch of genroku – the blossom of the traditional Japanese urban culture.

The co-evolutionary phase. 1853 – Perry (USA) «opened» Japan for the foreigners. 1867-1868 – the «revolution of Meiji». A successful bourgeois-democratic revolution in Japan that turned the country into the industrial «West» in the «East». The evolutionary stage of the cycle is connected with the rapid modernization. The consolidation of the Japanese military power allowed it to conduct an active expansive policy in Asia. 1894-1895 – the war between Japan and China.

The evolutionary period of the second epochal cycle. 1904-1907 – the war between Japan and Russia. 1910-1945 – the annexation of Korea. 1931 - 1945 – the control over China. Conception «Asia for Asians». 1941 -1945 – the war with the USA. The defeat of Japan.

The revolutionary period of the third epochal cycle. 1946-1949 – the occupation by the USA – a new push to the industrial modernization of Japan, strengthening its strategic alliance with the USA. 1951 – San Francisco – the peace treaty. 1951-1953 – the Korean war. The involutionary period, which began in the 1960’s, turned Japan into an industrial superpower, the third financial-economic world center after the USA and the European Union.

Inner social processes are «pushing» Japan on the way to the co-evolutionary transient processes. The indications are as follows: the financial crisis of 1997 and the projected reforms in the country – divparations to a review of the Constitution dictated by the United States of America, the deep crisis of the Liberal-Democratic party guiding the country approximately fifty years, and so on.

8.12. The United States of America

The USA redivsent an unique phenomenon in the world’s history. In fact, they have turned from a colony to the leading world’s state for 300 years. This fact testifies the specificity of development of the national epochal cycle. The country has come to the flourishing with a rapid rate of movement along the history. The other leading European countries «spent» millenniums to go through this process.

The revolutionary phase of the first epochal cycle is connected with establishment of the British colonies by the most «passionary» migrants from Great Britain (1607). The transportation of the social experience of emigrants from the Old World to the American soil created a generally favorable ground for the dynamic development of a new complex nation. The involutionary period of its formation covered the latter half of the 17th century. The urban culture developed here faster than in Europe. Both the urban and country cultures were free from div-capitalistic anachronisms. On the other side, the inner tendencies of the involutionary period actively stimulated the development of the extensive slave-owning forms of the economic development of the Southern states of the country, creating div-conditions to the following conflict between the slave-owning agrarian South and industrially growing North.

The co-evolutionary stage is identified with events of the War for Independence (1776-1783). A regular consequence of the transient moment in the development became the Declaration of Independence (1776). One could speak about the stable evolutionary-democratic development of the USA since 1783. The most outstanding historic personalities were as follows: George Washington (1732-1799) – one of the parents-founders and the first President of the USA; Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), who strengthened the constitutional order in the USA; Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) – the ideologist of the American pragmatism. The positions of the USA in the Southern America were consolidated by the Monroe Doctrine (1823) that gave an indirect support to the fight for national independence of Latin-American states against the European colonial powers. The foundation of the leading political parties of the USA, Democratic (1828) and Republican (1854) ones, and the political activity of the Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) may also be referred to this period.

The revolutionary stage of the second epochal cycle is identified with the peripetias of the War between the States (1861-1865) which led to the abolishment of slavery by giving an additional impulse to development of the national market and accelerated the organic process of country’s industrialization.

The strengthening of the involutionary tendencies provided for the economic growth of the USA to the end of the 19th century and expanded the US possibilities in the sphere of external policy. After the war between America and Spain (1898), the expansion of the USA to Latin America is enlarging, which led to the establishment of political control over the majority of states of this continent. The following content of the evolutionary period became the participation of the USA in the First World War. However, the victory of isolationists over the line of President Woodraw Wilson (1919) weakened country’s external political positions in the League of Nations for some time.

Events of the Great Dedivssion (1929-1933) became a turning (co-evolutionary) point in the history of the USA. The country entered the evolutionary period of the second epochal cycle since the times of the «New Deal» of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945). After the Second World War (1939-1945), the country turns into a superpower. This process was favored by the creation of A-bomb (1942-1945), creation of the NATO (1949), and realization of the Marshall plan (1947-1953) provided for a significant growth of the West-European economies.

The war of the US in Vietnam (1964-1973), youth protests (1968-1975), the deepening of racial problems, the Watergate process that ended in the resignation of President Richard Nixon (1974), the victory in the cold war, the beginning of the transformational processes in Central and Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the USSR (1989-1991), the divsidency of Bill Clinton (1992-2000) which led the USA to the maximally possible status of the «last world’s state»[64] – all this gives serious grounds to assume that the USA are standing on the threshold of revolutionary events of the third epochal cycle, their probability growing since the beginning of the 21st century.

The overall prognosis of development of the situation in the above-mentioned countries of our research sampling may be divsented as the following table.

The analysis of the social development with use of the methodics of universal epochal cycle in the research of a situation at the level of specific national state formations gives certain grounds to assume that, with the beginning of the new millennium, there is a growing probability that Western countries (the countries of the European historical-cultural area, in particular, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, and the USA) «enter» the period of crisis – new social revolutions which will open new horizons of social development to the world. The establishment of a new-type policy, devoid of the former «party-class» heredity will be the semantic content of the naissant situation in this region. At the same time, the situation in the Asian region (taking into account the other characteristics of development and those over the whole world) will be defined by the growing tendencies, characteristic of the evolutionary period of the social development. According to the former Secretary of State of the USA James Baker, they will be as follows: «the liberalization of economies» and «the emergence of a truly world economy», «the weakening of the spirit of collectivism (communism)» and «expanding possibilities for less amplitudinous conflicts», «the development of democracy as not only the form of state governance, but as a common set of norms and cultural values», and, in general – expansion of the conflict between «the nascent global democratic culture and the new movements»[65].

Thus, the hypothetical schemes of changes of the epochal cycles of the world’s history, built on the global, regional, and partially national levels, are to be empirically verified. This work assumes the development of a system of empirical indices and the conduction of necessary measurements, including the measurement of the corresponding societal indices. However, even in such a condition, the work performed confirms, in our opinion, the rightfulness of the offered conception of historical development. This conception can become a theoretical ground for the development of new methodological approaches in the system of social sciences.

CHAPTER 9

Glossary of main notions
and social theories

Anomy – state of a social system, which is characterized by the absence of commonly accepted values and norms as universal regulators of social behaviour of people. The phenomenon of anomy is inherent in social crises. The category if anomy is one of the key notions in the sociological conception of Durkheim. Under conditions of a global anomy, we observe the post-soviet society. A deepening of demoralization generates the normative reactions to the anomy: the traditionally archaic (requirement to return the old system of values) and authoritaristic (to bring a strong personality to power, which will establish «a hard order») ones. There exist two types of nonnormed reactions to the anomy: social cynicism (ignoration of norms) and extremism (orientation to destructive means of achievement of political purposes)[66].

Asymmetry (asymmetria in Greek) – lacking or breaking of a symmetry as high equilibrium; a natural property inherent in all social structural formations including societal qualities, which reflect the corresponding binary indices (scales); it lies in the basis of the formation of epochal and vital historical cycles of the social development. A degree of asymmetry, e.g., of the distribution of two components of the binary indices of societal qualities of the society is historically variable and can reveal the state of evolutionary development of the society[67].

Berdyaev Nikolai Aleksandrovich (1874-1948) – Russian philosopher. Berdyaev’s social theories are closely connected with his religious philosophy. He asserted that the historical process consists in a struggle of good against irrational freedom. When irrational freedom reaches a sudivmacy, reality begins to decay and return to the initial chaos. In the social life, a revolution is an extreme form of the return to chaos. Creation begins only in the period after the revolution, when new forms of life arise. But people never achieve the purposes they set before themselves even in creative epochs of the history. Historical failures pass the earthly time onto the eternal one in the divine life. The historical time can be symbolized with a line expanding forwards, but there is no difference between the past and the future in the existentialistic time (God’s realm), between the beginning and end. Therefore, the life at God’s realm is not a part of the history but is metahistorical. The metahistory is permanently divsent as a background of the history. All perversions of the personality, which are observed in the world, are overcome by means of a long-term process of development of reincarnations in many projections different from the projection of the objective world of phenomena[68].

Binary (binarius in Latin) – main characteristic of all natural processes since they consist of two opposite phases or sides. Under consideration of a social structure, duality redivsents a binary system basing on mutually balanced forces of opposite poles[69].

«Call» – «Reply» – notion introduced by A. Toynbee for designation of one of the defining characteristics of the rhythm of existence of civilizations. In Toynbee’s opinion, the passage of main stages of the life cycle by a civilization (birth, growth, fracture, degradation, and decay) is regulated by the law «call-reply»: every stage of development of a civilization is an adequate reply to a call of the environment. The last is natural for the first parent civilizations and natural-social for subsequent ones.

Calls can be stimulated by severe conditions of life, unexpected blow of enemy, or unfavorable social status. A call is created, as a rule, by the action of several factors. The absence of any call stimulates regress. A call should not be neither very weak since it stimulates no active reply nor too severe, which can stop the birth of a civilization or terminate its existence at a certain stage.

The basis of an adequate reply is created by the activity of the creative minority inventing new constructive ideas of historical transformations corresponding to a call. The development of a civilization continues until the minority is able to reproduce replies adequate to a call. Having lost this ability, the dominating minority degrades. On the opposite pole, the majority is redivsented by the «internal proletariat» – marginals. On the external boundaries, one can observe the concentration of the «external proletariat» – younger peoples to be backwards as compared with the fractured civilization by their level of development. However, a decline of civilizations can be postponed due to a rational policy of the governing class[70].

Civilization – level of social development, material and spiritual culture[71].

1) form of existence of living creatures endowed by intellect, 2) synonym of culture, totality of spiritual and material achievements of the society, 3) process of establishment of a public society, 4) comparatively self-supporting integral social-historical formation localized in space and time, which can have hierarchical levels. The term was introduced by Mirabeau (1757) and used by A. Fergusson and later by L. Morgan and F. Engels for designation of the highest epoch as compared with wildness and barbarism. Spengler considered the civilization as a concluding stage of the existence of culture, and Toynbee as a unit of the historical process. The civilizational approach to study of the history is concentrated at the mosaic of cultural-historical forms classified in the proper manner. Every civilization enriched the mankind with its experience[72]. The American politologist S. Huntington believes that since differences between civilizations formed during centuries, they are fundamental and more stable than ideological and class differences, moreover, modern conflicts will move from political borders to the lines of contact of civilizations, especially to countries whose population is redivsented by different civilizational groups.

Co-evolution – phase transition opposite to a revolution (in the direction from the state of involution to the state of evolution). Co-evolution is realized under conditions of one epochal cycle and, therefore, changes only the polarity of system properties of the society or vectors of social development[73].

Cycle [from kyklos (in Greek) – circle] – totality of mutually connected phenomena and processes, which reflects a completed circle of development during a certain temporal period. All the natural processes are cyclic including both the process of development of a civilization or a single society in space and time and change of forms or conditions of their existence irrespective of whether the question is cycles concerning specific spheres of social life (policy, economy, and culture) or the evolution of social signs laying in the basis of these phenomena[74]. Cycle is a totality of processes, works, and phenomena, which are interrelated and form a certain system or a completed circle of development[75].

Dedivssion (dedivssio in Latin) – 1) dispirited blue psychic state; 2)stagnation of the economy after a crisis of overproduction, which is characterized by a stoppage of a further fall of production, trade, etc. and, at the same time, a slight demand for goods, mass unemployment[76].

Development of personality – process of formation of a personality as the social quality of an individual as a result of his socialization and education. By possessing natural anatomic-physiological divconditions to formation of the personality, a child begins to interact with the surrounding world in the process of socialization by mastering the achievements of the mankind. Aptitudes and functions of the personality, which are created during this process, reproduce historically formed human features. The child masters the reality during his activity with the assistance of adults. The process of education is a leading one for development of the personality, and the type of development of the personality is defined by a type of the group, in which the child is integrated.

East-West – geographical differentiation of the world-wide historical process attaching the civilizational and regional peculiarities to it. Objective-cultural adoptions as a consequence of peaceful contacts («Great silk way») or war conflicts (Greek-Persian wars, campaigns of Alexander the Great; crusades, great geographical discoveries; colonial captures) more often promote the acceleration of the historical development of «West» at the expense of subjection of «East». Approximately till the XV century when peculiarities of the historical development of West as a result of Reformation, Renaissance, and later Enlightenment were formed, the sociocultural values of East were universal, and those of West were unique. From the second half of the XX century, west values, conversely, are declared as universal. For example, Japan became «West» on East, and Turkey is «East» on West.

El’konin Daniil Borisovich (1904-1984) – soviet psychologist. By developing a position of the cultural-historical theory for solution of a wide circle of problems of the child psychology, he advanced the conception of periodization of the psychical development of children, based on the notion of «leading activity»[77].

Epoch – period of time (usually long) in the historical development of the nature, society, science, etc., which is distinct by characteristic peculiarities and significant events, processes, and phenomena.

Epochal historical cycle in the context of the proposed conception is a hypothetical model of the scheme of a cyclic historical development from the revolutionary stage (radical qualitative overturn of the whole social structure of the society leading the development in the direction of progress or regress, which generalizes results of development of the society during the whole epochal cycle and brings it to a new stage of development, to the involution, which is the period of the mastering of new qualitative changes acquired by the society during the revolution, and further to the co-evolutionary stage. The last is a phase transition from the state of involution to the state of evolution, which conducts a epochal historical cycle to the state with maximum utilization of results of the divvious stages of development, whereas evolution is divparing a new revolution opening the next epochal cycle. The approximate scheme of universal epochal historical cycle can be as follows: revolution – involution – co-evolution – evolution.

Era – 1) moment, from which one conducts the chronology, e.g., Christmas in Christians (our Era); 2) large historical period, epoch[78].

Erikson Eric (1902-1994) – American psychologist, the redivsentative of ego-psychology. Contrary to the thesis of psychoanalysis on the antagonism of a personality and the society, he emphasized the biosocial nature and adaptive character of behaviour of a personality, whose central integral quality is the psychosocial identity. Being subjectively experienced as the feeling of continuous self-identity, the psychosocial identity is based on the acceptance by the personality of the own integral image in the unity with diverse social connections. A change in social-cultural conditions of the existence of the personality leads to the loss of the divvious identity and the necessity of formation of a new one. Personal difficulties arising in this way can cause a hard neurosis («loss of himself»). On this basis, Erikson made conclusion about the conditionality of mass neuroses by deep shocks in the life of the society on turns of the history[79].

Evolution – one of the forms of development in the nature and society – continuous quantitative change, as distinct from revolution, being a radical qualitative change; evolution divpares revolution and creates the corresponding soil for it, whereas revolution completes evolution, promotes a further development, and opens quantitatively new possibilities for evolution[80].

Formal group – consolidation of people for implementation of a socially divscribed activity under condition of their direct communication and interaction[81].

Gender – one of the principal notions of the contemporary sociology meaning a collection of expected samples of behaviour (norms) for men and women. As distinct from the notion of sex, gender is referred, first of all, to socially formed features of «womanhood» and «manhood» (executiveness/intentionality). The term «gender» was proposed by the American psychoanalyst R. Stoller in 1968[82].

Gender roles depend on culture. In nomadic cultures (of nomads and gatherers), education of boys and girls is practically the same since men and women perform almost the same work. In agricultural societies, roles are more differentiated; in industrial societies, gender roles are extremely diverse. Among administration, women constitute 20% in the South Korea, 17% in the USA, and 45% in Switzerland. Gender roles also depend on epoch. From 1960 till 1995, the share of American women in labour power has grown from one third to almost three fifths[83].

Gumilev Lev Nikolaevich (1912-1994) advanced a conception of development of the ethnic history. Ethnos is considered as a collective of people, which was naturally composed on the basis of an original stereotype and exists as an energetic system opposing itself to other similar collectives. Nonhomogeneity of the distribution of biochemical energy of the vital substance of the biosphere for a long-term historical time influences the behaviour of ethnic collectives in various epochs and in various regions. Gumilev called the effect performed by variations of this energy, as a specific property of the character of people, by passionarity. Passionarity is the irreversible internal aspiration to activity directed to the implementation of some goal. A passionary person can consider this goal to be more valuable than even life. Ethnogenesis is regarded as a process of development of the ethnos from the moment of its origin till disappearance or the transition to the state of homeostasis. Gumilev distinguished the phase of stationary push (search for a success with risk for life), acmic phase (aspiration to the ideal of victory, sacrifice), fracture (aspiration to well-being without any risk for life), inertial phase or obscuration (quiet inhabitants adapted to the biocenosis of an areal). An approximate scheme of the phases of ethnogenesis, composed by Gumilev, has the following form: a growth – «Be by whom you must be»; the acmic phase (passionary overheating) – «Be by himself; the passage to the phase of fracture – «We are tired of the great persons»; the phase of fracture – «Permit us to live!»; fracture – «Only not so as it was»; the transition to the inertial phase – «Be such as I»; obscuration – «Be such as we»; the transition to homeostasis – «But when will it finish?»; homeostasis – «Be satisfied by himself»; the transition to the memorial phase – «Not all is perished!»; the memorial phase – «Remember how it was nice»; and the degeneration – «We wish nothing».

Harmonization – process of achievement of the state of harmony or the dialectic «removal» of contradictions in the process of origin of the state of a self-organizing system, which is characterized by stability with respect to various destabilizing factors.

Harmony (harmonia in Greek) – 1) combination of music tones in a simultaneous sounding, consonance; 2) coordination, fine combination, commensurability of various properties, objects, phenomena, parts of the whole[84].

Hegel Georg W. F. (1770-1830) – German philosopher. In his works, he stated the comdivhension of history as a development of spirit in time. By Hegel, the goal of the history is a development of the freedom of a citizen in the civil society. Since the realization of freedom necessarily includes the fact that the «world spirit» realizes itself as free, the history is also a progress in realization of freedom. In Hegel’s opinion, the principle of historical development is the reflection of a state of the society. When the spirit of an epoch will realize itself, the form will be historically completed. Realization means the overcoming of the divviously existing form of spirit and, by virtue of this, the starting point of a new spirit of the epoch. This constitutes the essential difference between Hegel’s conception of history and Marx’s conception. The last emphasizes a conditionality of the historical development by more dynamical production forces and less movable social relations. The development of the world spirit occurs not automatically. It cannot avoid the participation of people. By pursuing their private interests, people make more than they intend. Without comdivhension of this fact, they realize regularities of the history by pushing its course forwards.

Historical sociology – trend of the sociological science studying social regularities of development of the society, its systems, institutions, phenomena of social life in the process of their historical evolution. In the comparison of historical phenomena and processes, one determines the common and the partial in them, changes, tendencies, stages of development. A subject of investigations of the historical sociology is the social history of a society since, according to the idea of F. de Coulange, «the history is not a collection of facts occurred in the past. It is a science of the human society». It is worth to note the tendency to synthesis of the history and the theory of sociology[85].

Historical time – process of equalization of energy potentials between elements of the ethnosphere disturbed by passionary pushes[86].

Involution (envolutio in Latin) – reverse development, diminution, simplification, and reduction, which are related with a loss of some function. Involution in a social development is the period of mastering the new qualitative changes acquired by the society in the course of the revolution. Involution conditionally reminds the period of socialization of the man, first of all, the period of his adaptation in the case of a change in profession[87].

Jung Carl-Gustav (1875-1961) –Swiss psychiatrist, psychologist, founder of analytic psychology. He advanced the assertion that, besides the individual unconscious, there also exists the collective unconscious. The foundation of spiritual life includes the inherited experience of the divvious generations, which is formed by the totality of archetypes. Archetype is a means of connection of images passing from one generation to another. According to Jung, the archetype divsents structural elements of human psychics, which are hided in the collective unconscious. The last is common for all the mankind. They are inherited like the construction of body. The collection of archetypes is bounded; they lie in the basis of creation, assist to the internal unity of human culture, and make the interrelation of various epochs of development and mutual understanding of persons[88].

Karma – one of the cardinal positions of the Indian philosophical thought. Its essence is that a sum of good and evil actions of every man (its karma) defines the form of a subsequent reincarnation. The law of karma regulates the infinite process of circulation of vital bodies. The buddhist interdivtation of the law of karma recognizes the possibility of improvement of karma under conditions of the current existence for the sake of achievement of nirvana in prospect. The highest justice of the karmic law consists in the requital to everyone by its merits.

From the historical view point, the notion of karma is associated with the process of overcoming the certain stages of development, with «reincarnation» of civilizations during a change of epochal cycles. For example, the West Roman Empire – Empire of Carolus Magnus – Holy Roman Empire. This notion is also related to the conception of Spengler on «maternal» and «daughter» civilizations[89].

Marx Karl (1818-1883) – German philosopher, the founder of scientific communism. He inferred that if every single process is a process of development, then the position of materialistic dialectics is all-embracing. Development is not a direct manifestation but the essence of processes occurring in the nature and society. The universality of development supposes the infinite variety of mutually conditioned interacting phenomena and transformation of some forms of motion of the matter to other ones. For this reason, the universal process of development is composed from a set of particular processes including those which by themselves are not processes of development. In that the development differs from a simple translation, reversible processes, and a recurrence, the universality of development does not limited. On the contrary, it can be interdivted as a contradictory unity of diversity, the unity of oppositions. The termination of development is a transition from one of its forms to the other. The ideal state would be such one, in which the free development of everyone is the condition of free development of all. A key role in social development is played by class struggle.

Mentality – structure, composition of the soul of men, ethnos, and socium, relation of their elements and states[90].

Methodology of history [from Metodos (in Greek) – way of cognition and logos (in Greek) – word, doctrine] – system of principles, methods, and procedures of formation and use of the methods of historical cognition and the doctrine about this system. In the course of development of the methodology of history, one can distinguish three stages: classical one – clear contraposition of a subject and an object of historical cognition and action, comdivhension of the historical reality as, on the whole, «transparent» for the subject of cognition by rational means; nonclassical one – opposition to the scientific-centrist study of the history (personalism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism); contemporary post-nonclassical methodology of history, which is characterized by the synergetic paradigm, polyvariance, efficiency of scenarios, its pluralism, nonlinearity. Historical reality is considered not as objective and independent of the will and consciousness of a subject of the global natural-historical process but, on the contrary, the individual existence of the man is perceived as a unit authentic form of the historical being[91].

Model – abstract redivsentation of a theory, its operationalization which can be empirically verified. In this case, not every measurement can be implemented directly. Therefore, in the creation of models, one uses constructs and concepts. Constructs mean the redivsentations which can be substantially defined and measured by using a certain number of indicators. Concepts are the most general notions which can be measured by using constructs. Social modelling is a scientific method of cognition of social processes and phenomena with the help of reproducing their characteristics on other objects. The need in social modelling is conditioned by the necessity of improvement of the technology of management of the social sphere, overcoming of difficulties in the sphere of social design and prognostication, divvention of negative consequences of certain administrative decisions. Successfulness of social modelling depends on the availability of a proper theory describing the phenomenon subject to modelling and on the degree of formalization of the basis of this theory. Specificity of the laws of development of a society makes the question of the adequacy of social modelling to be more complicated than in natural sciences[92].

Models of social action – means of action, which are typical of large social communities, are regulated by values and norms, and are characterized by social-economic resources as well as the level of adaptation of these communities to the institutional environment[93].

Modern (moderne in French) – trend in architecture and fine arts late in the XIX – early in the XX century, which aspired to creation of a new style free of historical adoptions and to use of new technical possibilities.

Modernization – totality of various economic, political, governmental-legal, psychological, and culturological changes in a specific society in the direction of bringing it up to date and a permanent improvement; making the social and political systems and their fragments to be close to the maximally possible level of development[94].

New economic policy (NEP) was carried on in the USSR in 1921-1929 as a mean to overcome the crisis generated by the policy of «war communism». NEP was a symbiosis of the restricted freedom for private initiative and regulated «state communism» under the political control of the Communist Party. The similar model is acting in China from the beginning of reforms introduced by Den Xiao Ping in 1978.

Ontogenesis [from ontos (in Greek) – existing and genesis (in Greek) – origin, development] – individual development of an organism from the moment of origin to the termination of life. The development of a personality is comdivhended as a perspectively directed natural-historical process of formation of a subject with a definite form of vital activity, in which the psychical development of the man is interconditioned by a real development of the personality. A human individual reproduces achievements of the history of human culture during his intravital development. The development of activity is a condition and means of development of the personality. The historical origin of leading kinds of activity allows one to rationally explain analogies between the psychical development of an individual and historical development of the mankind. Every historical epoch and every society generate the own periodization of the psychical development of childhood, whose limits and contents are defined by a specific-historical situation, accumulating requirements of a definite society to childhood and its limits, of development of a child[95].

Period –chronological interval, from the historical viewpoint, between definite important events which substantially influence the rhythm of change in stages of the social-historical development, for example, the periods of crusades, great geographical discoveries, Great French Revolution, etc.

Periodicity –periodic order of the derivative of mediated existence of a definite number of elements composing a continuous series. Periodicity consists of differences in the limits of a unit entity and is a variety of that is relatively distinct. Therefore, one should distinguish the following in any period: limits or poles of the period, b) bounded number of elements included in the period due to their properties to be between those two poles, c) internal sequence existing between two or more elements. This sequence reflects a relation between quantity and quality (i.e., the possibility of a transition of one to another). A redivsentation of the period in the temporal dimensionality is equivalent to the definition of process. This process will be evolutionary if it exhausted and regressive (involutionary) if it ascending (or repeating)[96].

Personality – 1) system of self-regulation of the social activity of the man. Its establishment makes him by a subject of this activity and social relations, into which the man enters, 2) system of psychological mechanisms of the social subjectivity of the man, which are formed only through the interaction with other persons on the basis of that culture, whose carriers they are. The human personality in its occupational manifestations reveals for other persons as a certain totality of socially significant features of the personality. The formation of personality begins with the first contacts of a newborn child with the social world and occurs in the process of socialization of the individual due to, first of all, the intercourse with other persons. The personality is a complex polystructural polyfunctional system. Common functional subsystems are: 1) mechanisms of internal regulation of the orientation of a human activity, regulation of what he makes, 2)mechanisms of internal regulation of the means of his activity, regulation of how he makes. Social properties of the personality, which are historically determined, simultaneously define a further development of the society[97].

Phase [from phasis (in Greek) – appearance] – 1) definite moment, stage in development, in the change of a form or state of something or somebody; definite period in development of the historical process; 2)separate component of some inhomogeneous physico-chemical system[98].

Plan of social development – scientifically substantiated system of indices of improvement of conditions of work and way of life, which is supported by corresponding calculations and forecasts of material-technical security.

Policy (politika in Greek –state social affairs) – sphere of activity related to relations between social classes, nations, and other social groups, whose kernel is the problem of conquest, retention, and use of the state power. Policy is a historical phenomenon arising with differentiation of a society. The contents of policy is defined by social relations. External policy is a continuation of the internal one with other means. Policy is a concentrated redivsentation of the economy. However, since it is impossible to retain the economic sudivmacy without political power, policy has a superiority above economy[99]. Policy (politike in Greek –state activity) – sphere of vital activity of the society, system of definite social relations, interaction of classes, nations, other social groups, states. It is a totality of actions, measures, and institutions, which put into agreement the interests of individual classes of a separated society, realize the divferential satisfaction of interests of the economically ruling strata by means of the redivsentation of their interests as total ones. Policy is the art of the possible, a factor of conservation of the conditionality of a differentiated society[100].

Post-modernism – interdisciplinary intellectual movement, a new aspect of view and a collection of conceptual approaches to the sociocultural reality rather than a new theoretical paradigm. It involves: 1) a new tendency in self-consciousness of developed west societies, which was characterized by Lyotard as a distrust to metatheories, a refusal from «great tasks» of the mankind, which are oriented to future – ideas of progress, a sequential development of freedom, universality of knowledge, industrial-technical development, liberation of people from a burden of every-day work, 2) global state of the civilization during three last decades of the XX century.

A schematic-semantic contraposition of modernism and post-modernism was developed by the American literary critic Ikhab Hasan by the method of binary oppositions as follows:

As distinct from positivism theoretically providing the process of modernization and aspiring to ground the system unity of the social world, post-modernism takes the diversity and mottling as a foundation of the contemporary world. As a distinctive feature of the corresponding conceptual approach, we consider eclecticism, equality of rights of various styles of thinking, pluralism of esthetic standards, negation of division into «high» and «lower» cultures, break with the cultural tradition of modernist enlightenment. One denies the expediency of creation of a unit theory but one recognizes the necessity to use all the theoretical heritage for implementation of a new synthesis[101].

Prognosis – divcognition or foreseeing based on definite data. If a prognosis is made at a certain moment and is not revised as circumstances, affecting separate elements of the prognosis, change, there are few chances for coincidence of the prognosis and reality[102]. Scientific prognostication of the future is a very complicated applied task of humanitarian sciences. Since it is impossible to foresee neither a final result nor the moment of termination of historical processes (moreover, the single lesson being given by history consists in that just those do not learn on its lessons who do not wish to learn), any possibility for a futurological utilization of history seems illusory. However, the new paradigm of the sociology of history allows one to develop a methodics of scientific prognostication at the level of hypothesis, in particular, by using the principles of social engineering.

Progress (progressus in Latin) – development of the new and advanced; movement to a higher level of development, to a more modern state; change to the best[103].

Progress and regress – referential notions meaning the development of a society or its subsystems in the line of ascent from a less perfect state to a more modern one (progress) and the return to old obsolete forms of development, which testifies to the social stagnation and degradation (regress). Problematic is the definition of the scale of values of the criteria for the perfect state of a society. For example, marxism considers the development of a mode of production as a criterion of social progress. As for the definition of a degree of humanization of a society, one should use some other approach. All indices, fixing the movement of a society forwards and having no relation to regress (decline, degradation, and stagnation), can be empiric evidences for social progress[104].

Project (projectus in Latin) – 1) developed plan of a building, a scheme of a technological process, etc., 2) divliminary text of a document, 3) plan, intention[105].

Purposes of social development are defined depending on a specific historical situation, according to the reached level of development of social structures and institutions. The interdivtation (not always rational one) of short- and long-term problems of social development fills in the social life by sense and allows one to define valuable orienting points in the context of the notions «aim» and «means».

Regress (regressus in Latin) – return, reverse motion, transition from higher forms of development to lower ones, change to the worse, opposition to progress[106].

Reincarnation – possibility to transform a died ancestor to its totem and backwards; potential possibility to a revival in various forms. For example, the revival of the ancient cultural tradition during Renaissance[107].

Results of social development – they can be different depending on achievement of the corresponding aims. The simplification of a social structure, regress under conditions of the transient periods of social-historical development can be a reason for negative results. On the other hand, the «price» of progress, e.g. in the case of a forcible modernization (industrialization in the USSR), can be too high, destroying the potential of social capital, i.e., the total possibility to implement the perspective of social development.

Rubinshtein Sergei Leonidovich (1889-1960) – soviet psychologist and philosopher, the founder of the occupational approach in psychology. He stated that the man and his psychics are formed and revealed in a primordially practical activity and, therefore, must be studied in their manifestations in main kinds of their activity. As the principal peculiarity of activity, Rubinshtein considered its sociality: activity is carried out only by a subject; activity as the interaction of a subject with an object is substantial and objective rather than pure symbolic and fictitious; activity is always creative and self-supporting. Activity is mediately defined by its object through its internal specific regularities (through purposes, motives, etc.) rather than directly[108].

Sense of social development – one of the most abstract and simultaneously valuable categories. In the book of Frankel «Man seeking sense», it is noted that the finding of the category of sense allows one to overcome the existentialistic emptiness and to fill in life with a holistic content. This can be said about social development. This category, besides a vulgar content like the notion «American dream» or Russian exdivssion «from dirt on throne», has a deep historic-sophistic sense, especially clearly comdivhended in the periods of social cataclysms, when the vector of social-historical development is radically changed. The loss of the sense of social development testifies to the profound valuable crisis, e.g., the time of the downfall of West Roman Empire, disintegration of the USSR, etc.

Small group – social group, whose members directly interact with one another. A quantitative composition of a small group does not exceeds several tens of persons. A totality of small groups functioning in various spheres of vital activity of the society defines the social microenvironment immediately influencing the formation and development of a personality.

Social-economic policy as a conscious purposeful action is carried on along with rationalization of the state apparatus (M. Weber) and is aimed at the organic development. The need in an efficient social-economic policy as a regulative mechanism of the market element arises in crisis periods, e.g., the time of the «Great Dedivssion» (1929-1933) and «New Deal» of President of the USA F. D. Roosevelt.

Social development – type of changes in the society which is characterized by a transition of all social relations to a qualitatively new state. Social development is a result of the interaction of the totality of social processes, whose base is a purposeful activity of persons – subjects of these processes. The mechanism of social development is functioning via both the arising of new needs in the process of activity of various social subjects and search for possibilities of their satisfaction. Social evolution as gradual quantitative changes in the social system divpares and completes the social revolution as qualitative changes in all social structures, which change due to a radical reconstruction of social relations and social institutions. A characteristic of social development is a social time, in which the direction of development reveals. The important role in the provision of stability of social development is played by social reforms and social planning[109].

Social efficiency. In the science-wide meaning, the notion of «efficiency» goes back to the notion «effect», which appeared in natural sciences and primarily denoted «phenomenon» accompanied by some results. With expansion of the sphere of scientific cognition, the term «effect» became a close synonym for terms «useful result» and «useful action leading to the desired result». Efficiency characterizes the relation between levels of some activity by the degree of approach to the final or divscribed goal. From this viewpoint, efficiency plays the role of the measure of activity and divsents a certain property of the system object. By applying this notion, we qualitatively and quantitatively define how some theoretical possibility of approaching the purpose with respect to the very purpose is realized. By comparing this possibility with the very purpose, it is necessary to perform measurements and then to compare by some accepted criterion. As one of the possible scientific criteria of cognition of the existing systems, efficiency eventually has the valuable nature. The estimation of relations of means to an aim separates the valuable aspect of cognition of the reality from other gnostic reasonings.

Social engineering – notion introduced into the scientific turnover by K. Popper in the 40s of the XX century. It means a totality of systemized methods, means, ways of transformation of social sciences, first of all sociological knowledge, into social programs and projects. On the other hand, social engineering is a specific branch of sociology studying the methodological and theoretical foundations of social invention, and construction of new or improvement of existing social realities. In the first case, social engineering divsents itself as a practical-applied activity, and, in the second, as the science on this activity, peculiarities, and tendencies of its functioning and development. K. Popper considered social engineering as a purposeful interference of the man with social processes by «the method of trials and errors». An analogous position was occupied by F. A. Hayek who considered that the order in a society is reached with the help of rationalized spontaneity rather than through a realization of programs. Main functions of social engineering are as follows: aim-forming (creation of a new reality produces new needs); constructive-prognostic (divvention of unfavorable phenomena); expert, control, design-constructive ones. Note that social construction and innovations are the most complex forms of social-engineering activity[110].

Social genesis [from societas (in Latin) – society and genesis (in Greek) – origin] – process of origin, establishment, and further development of a society as the highest form of natural organization[111].

Social hierarchy – structural organization of a society or separate groups by the sign of levels with subsequent submission of lower levels to higher ones. Whereas the notion of stratification accents differences and makes every stratum (estate) autonomic, the notion of social hierarchy passes ahead the subsequent interrelation and co-submission between different levels. Social hierarchy is characterized by: functional-purposeful unity of levels composing it; dominant of subjective organizational-administrative bases of its formation and existence; divdominantly vertical connections and the pyramidal model of the structure of a socium; centralization of functions and structural components with their simultaneous polycentralism, which is an indicator of stability and vital ability of hierarchic formations[112].

Social law – category for designation of forms of manifestation of the social causality and universal dependence of objective, necessary, stable, and repeating ties between processes and phenomena in the society.

The social law is a law of functioning and development of the social reality. It is a law of the society not directly but only through the social reality. The social law reveals only through the activity of people since any ties between social processes and phenomena arise only due to the activity of people. Social laws are characterized by such notions and terms as type, contents and structure, mechanism, character, sphere, and direction of its action, forms of governance, functions, requirements of the law. The clarification of social laws is a necessary condition of control over social processes and prognostication of their development. The category «social law» is commonly accepted neither by the classical nor contemporary sociology[113].

Social mechanism – totality of actions and deeds inalienable from their subjects-carriers, due to which various social phenomena occur and the social process is realized. A structure-forming element of the social mechanism is the interaction of social subjects, motivation of behaviour, legal and moral norms, political belief, social status and social position, institutional means. Social processes and phenomena can be a social mechanism of processes and phenomena in the wider context. The attachment of a conscious-controllable character to the social mechanism is realized through social technologies which help to attain the optimum variant of such an action. A social mechanism involves spontaneous factors complicating the prognostication of specific consequences of an action. The functioning of a social mechanism is an object of scientific investigation, and the social technology is designed with regard for the goal of a transformation, which is an object of the socioengineering activity[114].

Social process –subsequent change of a state or movement of elements of a social system and its subsystems, or any social object; it occurs under influence of internal or external conditions, has a stable order of the interaction of its components, temporal duration, and orientation to one or another state of the social object. The mentioned processes are often conjugate and have symmetric structural mechanisms differing by the sign of orientation: integration and disintegration of a social system, stability (static character), mobility (dynamism) of a social structure[115].

Social programs – divsentation of principal positions of activity of social structures, political parties, and organizations in a definite perspective. Programs-maximum define the final aim, general problems, and give the theoretical foundation of principles and methods of their solutions. Programs-minimum define the nearest problems and specific plans of activity for achievement of the final aim. Subjects of social programming are bodies of state administration of various levels. The purposeful social programming can be an important directive planning document including the resource, executive, and temporal provision of the complex of social-economic, scientific-research, and organizational-administrative measures ensuring the most efficient and well-timed solution of the state-wide social problems[116].

Social psychics – historical-cultural and psychological readiness of the socium to reproduction of definite behavioral models of reaction to a problematic situation and the necessity to solve new problems advanced by social life. The psychics of a community, i.e., a certain nonaccidental human formation (society, nation, ethnos, family, social organization) is also called by mentality, spirit of people. The societal psychics is a peculiar psychoculture realized in material phenomena (articles of culture and household, architecture, music, literature, painting, rituals, traditions), energy (rhythms of the socium reflecting in behaviour, facial exdivssions, rate of reactions), information («noosphere», social and natural metabolism). The societal psychics includes a group of properties, states, and processes, which are studied by using the structural-functional model due to their complexity and multidimensionality[117]. The societal psychics is a collective dictionary of historical-cultural heredity of the society[118].

Social relations – relations between groups of persons, which occupy various positions in the society, take different participation in its economic, political, and spiritual life, differ in the life style, levels, and sources of profit, structure of consumption. Subjects of social relations are various communities of persons which actively interact on the basis of a certain means of social activity[119].

Social revolution – radical qualitative changes of the social life guaranteeing a translational progressive development. One distinguishes social revolution as a social-political overturn covering the whole society and revolution as qualitative changes in separate branches of social life. Social revolution is divceded by a revolutionary situation – complex of social-economic and political divconditions for radical revolutionary changes. The intensification of political activity stimulates the appearance of revolutionary movements joining leading social-political forces at a certain stage of development of the society. Political forces of a revolution aspire to power as a means of realization of own interests. The basic sense of a social revolution consists in the redistribution of power and property. Pareto believed that the sense of a social revolution consists in a replacement of the personal composition of a ruling elite.

In the context of the proposed conception of universal epochal cycle, revolution is a phase transition, opposite to co-evolution, from one normative state (evolution) to other normative state (involution). Revolution is a final stage of development of the epochal cycle, in which the divvious results are «generalized». At the same time, by changing the vector of social development and by divsenting fundamentally new historical possibilities to the society, revolution «open» a new epochal cycle. In this phase, there occur radical changes of societal (system-wide) characteristics of the society, which implies the break of continuity of the epochal cycle and the appearance of the social system at a new level and a new trajectory of development[120].

Social synergetics investigates the general regularities of social self-organization, i.e., interrelations of social order and social chaos. Order is a set of elements of any nature, between which there exist stable («regular») relations repeating themselves in space and time. Chaos is a set of elements, between which there are no stable (repeating themselves) relations. Since the self-organization is a qualitative structural change of some objective reality, synergetics is a theory of development. The traditional theory (dialectic conception of G. Hegel and K. Marx) considered a development as a process of transition from one order to another one. It is characteristic of synergetics that chaos is considered as the same regular stage of development as order. Synergetics looks at the process of development as a regular and, moreover, multiple alternation of order and chaos. The essence of development of the social reality reduces neither to a one-sided increase in order (O. Comte) nor to a one-sided increase in a degree of freedom (chaos) (H. Spencer). Development is a growth of the degree of synthesis of order and chaos conditioned by the aspiration to the maximum stability. The global process acquires a nonlinear and asymptotic character[121].

Social time – fundamental form of social-historical existence of people and the condition for their activity. Large and small scales of the social life are connected with metric characteristics of time: duration, sequence, recurrence, one-momentariness, multi-momentariness, and rhythm. The time of existence of social subjects involves diachronic and synchronic components. The coexistence of various generations characterizes the historical sense of social reality, which makes the social time to be inhomogeneous. The social time dialectically characterizes the activity and intercourse. The social time in the modus of future can be an object of planning, prognostication, and social modelling. The relation to the historical past and future organically enters the ethnic (national) self-consciousness of individuals. The vector of social time is directed from the past through the divsent to the future[122].

Social transformation – conversion, transition, modification. The notion of social transformation is connected with the process of co-evolution, i.e., development opposite to revolution when the polarity of social properties of the society is changed.

In the soviet ideological system, the notion «transformation» was connected with criticism of the conceptions «post-industrial society» and «state of common prosperity» related to the theoretical substantiation of the evolution of capitalism under the influence of the scientific-technical revolution, change in the forms of production management, which excludes the necessity of revolutionary struggle of the working class. After the «perestroika» (middle of the 80s of the XX century), the notion «transformation» became to be related with democratic reconstructions and economic reforms dismantling the model of «barracklike socialism».

Societal [from societas (in Greek) – common] – term proposed in 1903 by sociologist A. Keller for description of the organizational aspects of the life of a society; it is used in the interdivtation of social relations inherent in historically formed communities – nation, ethnos, class, social group, society on the whole – rather than artificially created ones. The synonym of the term «societal» is the notion «system-wide»[123].

Societal index – qualitative and quantitative characteristic of societal properties, states, and processes. The corresponding indices are a result of an empiric sociological study and perform the instrumental-methodological function with the purpose of verification of a hypothesis.

Societal process – sequential regular change of societal properties and states in the course of the historical development of nations, regions, civilizations. `The varieties of societal processes are identification, investment, marginalization, deviation, individuation[124].

Societal properties – system of qualitative and quantitative characteristics of societal psychics. Having been exdivssed through the scales of binary oppositions, this system is formed by six couples of properties. The first – extroversion/introversion. Extroversion – the society is open for a dialog, is less traditional, intends to well look before others, is dynamic, is capable to assimilate large territories. Introversion – closed society, most comfortably feels itself on the own territory, alters itself but not a situation. The second pair of properties (rationality/irrationality) divdestines behavioral priorities of the society – intellect or intuition. The third pair of properties (emotionality/pragmatism) characterizes the specificity of forms of a reaction – by basing on emotional-perceptible processes or on intellectual (cognitive) ones. The fourth pair (sensority/intuitivism) characterizes the aspiration to «earthly values» or to «abstract ideals». The fifth pair (externality/internality) characterizes potentialities from the viewpoint of self-definition. Eventually, the sixth pair of properties: intentionality/executivity. Intentionality is a quality characterizing the external activity of a subject. The signs of intentionality: will, self-sufficiency, organizational exactness. Executivity – property characterizing the dependence of a subject on external circumstances. Signs: slowness of actions, reflectivity of thinking. Societal indices can be redivsented in the form of the corresponding binary scales-oppositions, each of which is asymmetrically balanced in a stably functioning society with a divvalence of one of the parts of a binary opposition. In a transient state of the society, these parts of the index can briefly (situationally) acquire the form of symmetry and take the values of half-and-half, which is the sign of an extremely unstable (nonequilibrium) state of the society. Ukraine encountered similar states during the so-called «constitutional crisis» (II quarter of 1995), at the final stage of adoption of the Constitution (II quarter of 1996), and during elections of the Verkhovna Rada of the 13th convocation (I quarter of 1998), which outwardly manifested in the form of crisis sharpening.

Societal states – three mutually transient states of a social object in the process of development: conventional state – the reply to a call is «yes», correcting one – «no», and chaotic one – «other».

Society – complex multidimensional formation which is qualitatively different from the nature, internally divided, and simultaneously organically integral. It exists as a totality of historically formed means and forms of interaction and consolidation of individuals and their groups, in which one observes an all-round multilevel interrelation of persons. In the narrow sense: a) diachronically or synchronically fixed social organism, b) relatively self-supporting, stable, and integral part of such an organism, c) common basis, «field» of intersection and stratification of individual actions of persons (A. Toynbee), d) correlate of a state (civil society), e) correlate of a community. From positions of the abstract philosophy, society is characterized as an all-embracing system limited by conditions of sociality and semantic communication and moving in the spatial dimensionality to a world-wide planetary formation. Sociology is studying a society through the prism of of social reality as a social system with a definite organization of its elements and structures[125].

Socionics –science arising at the joint of sociology, psychology, and informatics, which considers the personality, group, and nation as carriers of a certain type of informational metabolism (exchange). They interact with each other on the basis of objective laws related to the mental sphere of the man. Jung grounded the existence of 8 psychological types and introduced the notion of «psychical function» into science. Developed conscious functions of some types of personality «charm» the same functions of other types, just those which are not developed and hided into the subconsciousness. Psychical function is an ability of the man with particular skill to investigate one of the aspects of the informational flow.

Types of informational metabolism[126].

Socium [from socium (in Latin) – common] – type of sociality existing as a stable community of persons, which is characterized by the unity of natural, social-productive, mental, etc. conditions of vital activity, genetic connection of generations, stability of a social organization, a certain level of culture. It reveals itself in the form of a society, large and small social groups. As a social reality, socium is an integral, self-organizing, vital, open system functioning due to the exchange of activity and information between individuals and communities. Production of material and mental goods is a means of existence of the socium rather than its goal. The historically appeared means of social organization is a form of solution of contradictions between individual and social bases[127].

Solov’ev Vladimir Sergeevich (1853-1900) – Russian philosopher, a creator of the orthodox Christian philosophy, being anthropocentric by its character. The doctrine of God-mankind as a source of the revival of the world is used by Solov’ev for interdivtation of the history of the mankind and problems of social life. In its development, the world passes the following stages: first (prior to the man) – evolution of the nature, second (human activity) – history. Since the lower level does not disappear but joins with the more perfect activity, evolution is the process of gathering the Universe but not only a process of development and improvement[128].

Spengler O. (1880-1936) – German philosopher and historian, who conceptually connected ideas of development of culture and civilization. Culture is originated at the moment when the great soul awakes from the protospiritual state of the eternally infantile mankind, some face appears from the abyss of the featureless, something limited and coming from the infinity arises. Culture is flourishing on the soil of a strictly bounded landscape, to which it remains to be vegetatively bound. Culture dies when this soul realizes the full sum of its potentialities in the form of peoples, languages, dogmas, arts, states, sciences and, thus, again returns to the protospiritual element. If the purpose is reached and the idea along with all the completeness of internal possibilities is completed and realized outside, culture suddenly stiffens and die out, its blood coagulates, strengths are overtaxed – it become a civilization. In the materialistic comdivhension, one believes that the laws of causal nature govern and the world history is filled by ideals of usefulness like enlightenment, humanity, peace over the world, which are denoted as aims of the history attainable with the help of progress. History is an eternal establishment and, hence, an eternal future; the nature is the appeared and. hence, the eternal past.

Stage – separate moment, interval of time in development of some movement, process, etc.[129]

Sztompka Piotr – contemporary Polish sociologist. He systematized main conceptions of development, which are briefly divsented in his book «Sociology of social changes. – Moscow, 1996». There, he gave the principal categories such as progress, social time, historical tradition and the most influental conceptions of historical development: classical evolutionism – idealistic conception of evolution of O. Comte; naturalistic conception of evolution of H. Spencer and materialistic conception of evolution of L. Morgan; sociological conception of evolution of E. Durkheim; co-evolutionism in the cultural anthropology and sociology. There are divsented the theories of modernization and historical cycles as specific conceptions of development along with the criticism of conceptions of development, in particular, a disproof of «historicism» of K. Popper.

P. Szompka divsents the own conception of historical development in the context of ideas as a historical force, activity of prominent persons as agents of changes, social movements as factors of social changes and revolutions as the peak of social changes. With the conception of A. Toffler, he grounds the refusal from the idea of progress with infinite number of the stages of growth, which was the basis for almost all theories of development in sociology in the XIX–XX centuries. Infinite industrial growth cannot be an actual purpose of the mankind. If to describe the historical development in terms of continuous wave motion, then the first and second waves are agrarian and industrial epochs, and the third is an attempt to create a new civilization with nonindustrial values based on the organic coalescence of nature and technique, which corresponds to direct needs of a single person.

The idea of progress as a purpose of development of the society is connected with development of the human psychics as a regular change of psychical processes in time, which is exdivssed in their quantitative, qualitative, and structural transformations. The development of psychics is characterized the irreversible character of changes, orientation (i.e., ability to accumulation of changes, «building on» of new changes over divvious ones) and their regular character. The development of psychics is realized in the form of phylogenesis (establishment of the structures of psychics in the course of biological evolution of a species or the sociocultural history of the mankind on the whole and its separate ethnic, social, and cultural groups) and in the form of ontogenesis (formation of psychical structures during the life of a single organism).

To modernize – to change something in accordance with contemporary requirements and tastes, to renew[130].

Toynbee A. J. (1889-1975) – English historian and sociologist. He advanced the conception of civilizational development, which has two degrees of continuity. One should distinguish continuity between sequential periods and phases in the history of the society and that as a connection of the very societies in time. Chapters of history of any single society remind sequential stages of the human experience. For example, the connection between one society and the other reminds relations between the parents and child. Civilizations develop due to a gust which leads them from a call through the reply to a further call: from differentiation through integration to a new differentiation. This process has no spatial coordinates because progress named growth divsents a cumulative translational movement as mastering the external world and as the internal self-determination and self-organization. Growing civilizations differ from primitive societies by translational movement at the expense of the creative minority. Toynbee denied Spengler’s idea on that the development of a civilization can be compared with the development of an organism passing the phases of childhood, youth, maturity, and senility. To dogmatically assert that some term of existence is divdestined to every society is the same that to demand that every play consist of the same amount of acts. The growth of a society is interrupted by a fracture as a consequence of the internal burst which implies the loss of the property of self-determination by the society. The governing minority creates a universal state, internal proletariat – ecumenical church, and external proletariat – groups of armed barbarians. In the history of decline of any civilization, one can find a rhythm of decay. The formation of an universal state is a symptom of social decay, and a next fracture will stimulate a final decay.

Transformation – mutually stimulating changes of the models of social action, on the one hand, and functioning the social institutions related to a intentional purposeful effect of nominal establishments (formal norms, procedures, or rules), on the other hand.

Vector of social development. Vector is the segment of a straight line of definite length and direction, which redivsents some magnitude characterizing not only by a numerical value but also by a direction (e.g., force, speed, etc.)[131]. In the context of the conception under study, it defines a direction of the social-historical development at nodal and cuspidal points. A nodal point is a synonym of the notion of attractor – limiting state such that, having reached it, the system cannot return to none of its divvious states. A cuspidal point – synonym of the notion of bifurcation – corresponds to a branching of some old quality into a finite set of quite definite potentially new qualities. A vector can be conditionally «positive» directed to the side of progress or «negative», which characterizes a «regressive» development. The definition of the vector of social-historical development is one of the methodological tools used in creation of a working hypothesis for development of epochal cycles[132].

Vygotsky Leonid Semenovich (1896-1934) – soviet psychologist. He advanced a doctrine about development of psychic functions in the process of the mastering, mediated by intercourse, of cultural values by an individual. Cultural signs (first of all, signs of language) serve a kind of tools. By operating them, the subject can affect others and forms the own internal world, whose basic units are meanings (generalizations, cognitive components of consciousness) and senses (affective-motivational compo­nents). Psychic functions given by nature («natural») are transformed into functions of the highest level of development («cultural»). By originating in direct contacts of a child with adults, the highest functions then root themselves in his/her consciousness. On the basis of this idea, there appears a redivsentation about «the zone of nearest development» concerning the difference in the level of difficulty of problems solved by a child without assistance (actual level of development) and that under guidance of adults. Only that education is efficient which «runs ahead» the development[133].

Instead of conclusion

The applied meaning of the divsented conception is defined by the possibility of implementation of a social-historical prognosis. The problem of scientifically grounded prognostication, on the one hand, is very complex methodologically and, on the other hand, is also important both in political and social-economic contexts. A. Toynbee said: «The impossibility to define a final purpose of development implies the impossibility to exactly define a character of the very development»[134]. As a methodological foundation of short-, middle-, and long-term prognoses, one can take the idea of formation of a universal epochal cycle. The use of this conception for futurological studies of the social-historical development at the global, regional, and national levels has certain peculiarities. However, first of all, we consider general regularities following from the proposed conception. It should be recognized that the largest methodological problem is created by a peculiar «migration» of the size of a subject under study. For example, assume that the influence of the subject «we» attains a maximum in the transient (co-evolutionary) phase of the epochal cycle as result of norms of «collectivistic moral» dominated in the divvious involutionary period. Then, in the revolutionary phase of the cycle, the subject individualizes and the cohort of « revolutionaries» becomes so mass that it exceeds the demand of the society for «shakers» of bases.

In the involutionary period, the economy develops, as a rule, extensively at the expense of attraction of new irreplaceable resources. The evolutionary period of the cycle is defined by the tendency of intensive liberal development of the economy. The type of demographic reproduction also undergoes certain changes. For the involutionary period, it is characteristic the model defined by rather high rates of birth and mortality, and the traditional family occupies dominant social positions. But in the evolutionary period of the cycle, inversely, we observe that the tendency to a decrease in the levels of birth and mortality becomes defining. As a consequence, the society encounters the effect of «ageing» of the population. Egalitarian intrafamilial relations become stronger.

Of course, the proposed hypothetical scheme-prognosis can be only an illustration rather than the definition of all possibilities of the method. For example, in the political sphere, we can only say about the main tendencies of the future. Beginning from the boundary of our era (the epoch of Christ), the leading contradiction of social development is that between «the forms of religious and scientific consciousness». In this case, for countries of the West-European cultural area (modern advance-guard of the world-wide historical process), the dialectic overcoming of the mentioned contradiction occurred in the chronological frameworks of the epoch of Enlightenment. As for a new dialectic contradiction («moral – right»), it was overcome in these countries during the epochs of Modern and Post-Modern. Completing this historical period, the countries of the West Europe and North America meet a new epoch, whose content will be the contradiction between political and ordinary consciousness. Somewhat «shifted» (from the viewpoint of the global analysis, by 100-150 years) becomes the situation for the countries of the Central and East Europe and Asia, for which the contents of the epoch of Post-Modern will be still actual in the first half of the XXI century.

The change of tendencies laid in the basis of the prognosis will require the introduction of proper corrections in time. On the whole, the depth and detailed elaboration of a prognosis depend on the degree of progress in social sciences.

We have already noted that, on the global level, one can identify the completion of the involutionary stage of the eighth (the fourth one from the Christmas) epochal cycle, which sums up, on the whole, the development of the industrial civilization and «leads» the world to active vital activity according to the tendencies of the evolutionary period of the epochal cycle. Moreover, if this situation is characteristic, to a full extent, of the countries of the Asian-Eurasian megaregion, then the main tendencies of development of countries belonging now to the advance-guard of the world-wide historical process consist in their approaching to conditions of the formation of a post-industrial (informational) civilization. By using mechanisms of the newest technologies, they stimulate the creation of a global economic system. At the same time, at the threshold of the XXI century, we have observed an increase in the global inequality between countries of the core and periphery of the new system[135].

Radical geopolitical changes in the 90s of the XX century transformed the system of international relations. After the disintegration of the USSR, the USA remained a single «universal» superstate and will conserve the dominant position approximately up to the middle of the XXI century. At the same time, by virtue of the development of new centers of force, a new anti-American block headed by Russia and China will be objectively formed. The international system, based on competition of many centers of force, stimulates numerous wars and generates nonstability.

The perspective of an open conflict between forces of globalization (West-European enclave) and agents of localization – divsented by the European nationalism in the XX century and Islamic fundamentalism in the XXI century – can cast the world civilization into the condition of «new barbarism». This, probably, «corresponds» to the content of the transient (co-evolutionary) phase of the mankind and its final transition to the conclusive evolutionary period of the eighth (fourth) epochal cycle at the global level.

We expect different futurological fates for separate regions. For Eurasia, the tendency of completion of the formation of the «Great Europe from French Brest to Belorussian Brest becomes clear, though we do not exclude breakdowns in the process of European integration, in particular, those related to the problems of establishment of the common, external, and defensive policy of the European Community, to the fate of the common monetary unit «euro», and to the redistribution of the economic power in the frameworks of the trans-Atlantic community. Of great importance is the fate of Russia for the future of Eurasia.

The strengthening of federative unity stabilizes a situation in the region. Asia is overcoming the consequence of the financial crisis in 1997. At the same time, the competition between China, new nuclear states of Pakistan and India, and Japan, which makes its geopolitical possibilities to be stronger by the military-political alliance with the USA, will become sharper. Simultaneously, the absence of the Asian system of safety increases the nonstability generated by long-term conflicts such as the interstate India-Pakistan conflict or ethno-religious contradictions destroying Indonesia. Political contradictions can stop the tendency to the Asian economic integration, which will affect the plans of creation of the Asian-Pacific free trade zone till 2025.

Being in the gloom of poverty and local regional conflicts, Africa has hypothetical chances in the system of the global economy. Dangerous becomes the tendency of ethno-political conflicts breaking Somali and Zaire and destabilizing the situation in the region of Great Lakes. A further growth of the population can turn into a regional demographic catastrophe.

By developing integrational structures of the North-American free trade zone (NAFTA), North America gradually realizes the economic expansion into South America with the purpose to create the zone of free trade from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Democratization of the power in the countries of Latin America creates a common political field of both Americas. It is a further approaching of North and South America that will become a tendency of the next stage of the regional epochal cycle.

We note that the tendencies of social-historical development at the global and regional levels properly affect the national level of development. Moreover, the lower the hierarchical level of an «element» of the unit social system of the mankind, the stronger becomes the desynchronization of development, defined by own peculiarities.

After a withdrawal from the transformational crisis (2000-2012), Ukraine is fated, on the whole, to repeat the historical experience of West European countries and countries of North America of the post-war period but with own sociocultural peculiarities. It is expected that Ukraine will «arrive at» the revolutionary phase of the new epochal cycle in the second half of the XXI century.

From the time of disintegration of the USSR, Russia as well as Ukraine is in the stage of the transformational crisis (co-evolutionary phase of the epochal cycle). In this case, the probability of conservation of the historical «inertia» to the unification of Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia by type of the European Union remains high. The conservation of uncertainty concerning the reformation of the federal structure (the fate of Russia-Belorussia union, definition of the status of Chechnya and other regions) of Russia stimulates the regional stress breaking the orthodox-moslem consensus.

Contrary to Ukraine and Russia, Belorussia is, in essence, in the revolutionary phase opening a new epochal cycle of development. In the behavior of the contemporary administration of Belorussia, we see rather exdivssive «revolutionary» features. In our opinion, one can say that processes and phases of development, which are opposite in orientation, occur in Belorussia, on the one hand, and in Russia and Ukraine, on the other hand. By using the symbolic language of N. Rerikh we may assume that Belorussia will become, probably, a peculiar «connective tissue» between three east-Slavonic peoples.

As for the leading states of the European Community, we note that France is completing the evolutionary stage of the cycle beginning from student disturbances in 1968. The identification of the national interests with imperatives dictated by the European Community remains problematic for this country. The main tendencies of the further social-historical development of France will be defined by the elections of President and Parliament in 2002. With the accession to power of the red-green coalition and after the national unification, stimulating the process of Integration of Europe, Germany approaches, in fact, to the revolutionary phase of a new epochal cycle. The first symptoms are a possible restructurization of the political system of the country which is related to the scandal concerning the financing of parties. We clearly observe the tendency of gradual disappearance of traditional political parties of the industrial epoch and the objective formation of parties of a «new type» as a consequence of new post-industrial values of the time of «Internet». In Great Britain, the victory of the Labour Party in elections in 1997 marked the beginning of the final phase of the evolutionary stage of a new epochal cycle. This phase of development will be brought nearer by growing tendencies to the transfer of powers from the center to places (restoration of assemblies in Scotland, Welsh, and North Ireland). In this case, of importance is the geographical and economic closeness to Europe (launch of the tunnel under the Channel, intention to carry out the referendum on joining the European Monetary Union, etc.). Italy is also on the threshold of the revolutionary stage of development. One may expect the sharpening of contradictions between the rich North and poor South, which finds itself at the center of ways of illegal migration to Europe. The threat comes from the geographical proximity of Italy to conflict zones in Balkan Peninsula, Near-East, and North Africa. Vatican finds itself in front of the choice between the weakening of positions of the Catholic Church and attempts to join all existing orthodox confessions under the roof of the universal church, which will be one of the signs of approaching «the end of times» according to the system of esoteric knowledge.

Being characterized by the Confucian tradition and peculiarities of longer epochal cycles on the boundary of the XXI century, China is «flowing» in transformational processes (1978-?) of the co-evolutionary transient period and, without any doubt, will become one of the world «centers of force» (by Brzezinski). With the appearance of the Celestial Empire on these positions, there appears a possibility to solve the problem of Taiwan on new principles of the unification of countries with coinciding vectors of social development.

India along with China (with some delay) goes on the way of the co-evolutionary stage of development of the epochal cycle. This phase of development comprises the search for an agreement between moslems and hinduists with the purpose to conserve the unity of the country. The solution of this problem allows India following China to become one of the regional leaders, divtending to the influence both in South Asia and in the whole world, in the subsequent evolutionary period.

The situation in Japan approaches to the co-evolutionary stage of the epochal cycle by actualizing the synthesis of traditional and post-modernist values. It is seen that its content will be a transformation of the society, which is still industrial in its essence though comparatively more developed than in other industrial states. Possessing shorter cycles of development as compared with China and India, Japan is «doomed», respectively, on a more radical manifestation of transformational processes. As for the last, we note the high probability of nondivdictability of events and noncontrollability of the transient situation in many respects.

The USA are on the threshold of the revolutionary phase of a new epochal cycle. A mechanism of these historical changes can be «launched» in the nearest period of 2000-2002 (the period of maximum solar activity). It is obvious that, in the first quarter of the XXI century like in the time of the «Great Dedivssion», the USA are in prospect to be the leader of a new epoch and to open a new experience of the policy, eventually having «finished» with the traditional practice of a party-class paradigm, for the whole world.

In fact, already in the midst of the second half of the XX century with the active participation of the USA, the divconditions for such a policy were developed, the UNO being a possible divcursor of the new world government. These divconditions strengthen the current tendencies to globalization of the economic development of the world.

A probable economic decline in the period of a revolutionary crisis will be compensated to a great extent due to prosperity of the economy in the 90s of the XX century and the contemporary level of the world financial control from the side of the USA. In this case, whereas nothing threatens the leadership of the country in the technological sphere, the probability of a decrease of its political influence is rather high. Indeed, the nation has already no wish to pay by lives of its soldiers for victories in local wars. At the expense of a growth of the amount of Afro-Americans, Spanish-Americans (immigrants from countries of South America), and Asian-Americans, the ethnic structure of the population of the USA will radically change in the first half of the XXI century. The situation will promote a growth of racist extremism and failures in the operation of the ethnocultural «melting crucible». In this case, it is rather probable that the «two-party» political mechanism will be broken. This can be stimulated by a possible splitting in the financial oligarchy, whose fractions can be oriented either to the conservation of workplaces in the USA or to the export of capital, which is formalized in the external strategical policy of isolation or expansion. The basis of the arising situation in the country will be formed by the new global contradiction of social development, the contradiction between the political and ordinary consciousnesses.

The verification of the working hypothesis with empiric data will allow one to refine the foreseen tendencies.

Appendices

Appendix 1

THEME OF THE PUBLIC LECTURE