· Liberty has a social character as it recognizes no other restrictions than those which are traced for us by the laws of our own nature; such laws are immanent in us, inherent, constituting the very basis of our being, material as well as intellectual and moral; instead, finding them a limit, we must consider them as the real conditions and effective reason for our liberty.
P.A. Kropotkin went further. He borrowed socialist ideas and developed them in the theory of socialism and federalism. Its major postulates are as follows:
· Socialism as the social system must be based on individual and collective liberty and activities of free associations;
· The state must be abolished;
· The relationships between the subjects of society are built on the principles of federalism, i.e. a free union where the subjects have equal rights.
Although the ideas of anarchism (complete individual liberty, rejection of regulation by the state etc.) were naïve, the ideas of equality, justice, individual liberty, federalism in social life are still followed by.
Another famous movement in Russia was narodnik movement, or populism. Its ideologists were P.L. Lavrov (1823-1900) and N.K. Michailovski (1842-1904). Still of importance are thoughts about power and dictatorship expressed by P.L. Lavrov:
· The possession of great power corrupts the best people, and even the ablest leaders, who meant to benefit the people by decree, failed;
· Every dictatorship must surround itself by compulsory means of defense which must serve as obedient tools in its hands. Every dictatorship is called upon to suppress not only its reactionary opponents but also those who disagree with its methods and actions. Whenever a dictatorship succeeded in establishing itself, it had to spend more time and effort in retaining its power and defending it against its rivals than upon realization of its programme, with the aid of that power;
· A dictatorship can be wrested from the dictators only by a new revolution.
While solving the problem of interaction between the individual and the society, they asserted that the major engine of historic development were actions undertaken by critically thinking personalities (as a rule, the vanguard of the intelligentsia).
N.K. Michailovski as a founder of the theory of social progress formulated the law of antagonism between the state and personality. Antagonism is given birth because the society develops fast and makes more complex, and man, as a result of social division of labour, turns to the bearer of a particular function of the society. The antagonism could be overcome if a personality were given more liberty with regards to the society (the principle of the personality’s supremacy over the society). He asserted that the crowd obeying the impact of leaders loses the ability to critically assess their words and actions.
The psychological movement in Russia of the 1890s is presented by E.V. de Roberti, N.I. Kareev etc. They analyzed such fundamental issues of social development as its primary reasons and motive powers, progress and regress, the role of the mass and personality in history etc. Their analysis proceeded from the assumption that individual and collective psychology is dominant at determining human behaviour. It means that all social phenomena are of psychological character so the society is a system of psychical and practical interactions of people.
Of other Russian researchers who worked in empiric sociology in the first decade after the October revolution of 1917 one can mention P.A. Sorokin who had to flee away abroad, A.V. Chayanov, S.G. Strumilin, A.K. Gastev etc. For instance, an agrarian economist A.V. Chayanov (1888-1938) developed a theory of the family labour household in the countryside. He managed to create an integral conception of the organization of peasantry household and make a conclusion about lack of the category of wages in a non-capitalistic peasantry household and its turning to the pure profit of the family members.
Thus, late XIX – early XX centuries were signified by formation of anti-naturalistic doctrines of theoretic sociology with its own perspective of the subject and specificity of sociological knowledge. The classical stage in sociology was finished in the 1920-1940s with active introducing of empiric and applied sociological researches which marked the beginning of the third, contemporary stage.
Additional literature
· Blau P. Exchange and Power in Social Life. (3rd edition). – New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1992. – 354 p.
· Bourdeiu P. Logic of Practice. – Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990. – 382 p.
· Coser L. The Functions of Social Conflict. – Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, 1956. – 188 p.
· DurkheimE.The Division of Labour in Society. – New York, NY: Free Press; 1997. – 272 p.
· DurkheimE.Suicide. – New York, NY: Free Press; 1951. – 345 p.