Transformational processes and modernization of social structure in post-soviet Russia

Abstract

The paper presents several basic arguments which corroborate the researches of the Russian sociologist Zinaida Golenkova aabout transformational processes in postsoviet Russia, specially about the processes which led to the changes in the social structure of the Russian society. The author believes, relying also on the researches of other Russian scientists, that the transformation of the post-soviet Russian society occurs within the historical type which is called "the social engineering". Unlike the other two types of historical transformation ("modification" within a specific type of social relations and the changes created in "the bourgeois-democratic revolutions"), "the social engineering" implies a specific violation of the historical reality of a society. In author's opinion, "the social engineering" is characteristic both for the revolutionary transformation of Russia in 1917 and for its transformation in the last decade of the 20th century. Namely, the transformations realized in Russia in the last decade of the 20th century to a great degree represent "social engineering", because they are realized with the help of the instruments of political power, by the forceful reforms from the top, in order to form the social-economic structure according to the models which were historically created in significantly different social environments. In that sense, the post-soviet transformation of the Russian society could be designated as a state of social chaos. Such a state to a great degree created a specific social system, which is argu-mentatively discussed in the research studies of Z. Golenkova.