Personality and the Process of Civil Society Formation in Russia

Oksana Malahova (Orel, Russia)

Email: o.v.malahova@mail.ru

 

ABSTRACT:

While considering the essence of civil society the author has suggested to interpret it as the sphere of formation, display and realization of independent activity, performed by personality. The latter expresses and stands upon its interests by self-organization and work on the basis of partnership relations with state in the frame of the existing democratic legal field.

It is emphasized that for civil society formation as wholistic quality differentiated social phenomenon three subsystems should be in place. These are:

1. subsystem of subjects having a wide range of rights and freedoms and being able to realize them;
2. subsystem of institutions;
3. cultural subsystem, the structure of which consists of the civil society values, as well of settings, stereotypes, norms regulating the society members behavior.

In this regard a peculiar value of personality as the basis of civil society formation will be discussed. The analysis of these subsystems functioning in the history of Russia helps the author come to conclusion, that the restrain of moral, spiritual and creative activities of a citizen does not promote appearing of subject sense state for the majority of people of the Soviet Union. This fact provides the stable indifference of humans to the political, state and national problems and blocks the appearance of political active individual on the political field who could be able to participate in democratic procedures realization. The destruction of one value normative system and the absence of the new one have pointed to the fact that there is no common ideology and commonly accepted systems of values in now-a-days Russia. Naturally it hinders the integration of people into society because the considerable part of citizen feels alienation from social and political processes.

The institutional civil society subsystems discussed above exist in Russian political space and are represented by subjects who possess significant political rights and freedoms, which are being realized in societal organizations. But in terms of functioning the latter are not effective in the context of personal and political needs realization. The weakness of civil society institutions at the current stage of democratic modernization in Russia is to a certain degree compensated by activities of state, which tries not only to form the legal frontiers, but also to participate in the activities of subjects mentioned above.