Narodniks about Russian Statehood in the Context of the Revolutionary Events in the Twentieth Century

УДК 94(47).082 ББК 63.3(2)522-414.13

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the ideological heritage of the national non-governmental public thought. In modern historiography, historians have not come to a single definition of narodnichestvo (populism). The Maxist-Leninist methodology and modernisation theory in the study do not allow us to identify the peculiarities of the transformation of state power in Russia. The authors of the article, having studied program documents, letters and memoirs of public figures of Russia, determine the specifics of the development of Russian statehood in the crisis situation of the twentieth century. The Marxist group, in order to seize power in the country, promised to implement the agrarian and political programs of the narodniks (Russian: “Populists”). The development of the Russian state has always been determined by solving the problem of interaction between the state and the people. Political changes in Russian society consistently reproduce the previous principles of governance. However, in the historical process, the vertical relationship between the state and the people is naturally transformed into a horizontal space. The task is to study the historical experience of building interactions between the state, the center of political power and the people.