Autors

This article contends that surveillance capitalism constitutes a logical extension of the neoliberal political and economic project, achieved through technological rationalization while retaining its core ideological foundations. Within neoliberalism, a shift occurs from Foucault’s art of governing society to what Shoshana Zuboff terms art of surveillance – a transition signaling the advent of the Third Modernity and the rise of global digital civilization. A critical distinction between classical liberalism and neoliberalism lies in their respective approaches to state intervention: while liberalism delineates which economic domains may or may not be subject to intervention, neoliberalism focuses on optimizing the mechanisms of intervention. Under neoliberalism, economic intervention evolves into a governance strategy that compels society, culture, and law to operate according to corporate logic. The article analyzes surveillance capitalism as an outgrowth of neoliberalism, propelled by the presumed inevitability of technological progress – an ethos epitomized by Silicon Valley. It reconstructs the convergence between the neoliberal project and technological development, tracing its evolution from open-source principles and copyleft ethics (Richard Stallman) to the monopolization of programming languages (Bill Gates) and, ultimately, the commodification of behavioral surplus into “predictive products” (Google). In surveillance capitalism, the emancipatory ideal of a free internet gives way to an epistemic asymmetry, wherein corporations monopolize consumer knowledge and trade in behavioral futures markets. The contemporary geopolitical transformation further disrupts neoliberal capitalism, as civilizational conflicts increasingly defy economic rationality, eroding universalist frameworks and creating space for axiological alternatives – including at the level of virtual existence.

Keywords: liberalism; neoliberalism; surveillance capitalism; Shoshana Zuboff; Michel Foucault; digital civilization; Russian civilization; image of the future; multipolar Internet; virtual being; axiology of the digital world 

The author analyzes innovations in the practice of construction of regional identity in Russia. The article determines that the main trend of identity politics is the instrumental opinion of identity, and the sense of identity as a resource of territorial development. This is reflected in the widespread search for regional brands and organizing competitions in order to develop new regional symbols. The author analyzes the positioning of regional features manifested in participating in the projects initiated by external actors (projects – “Seven wonders of Russia”, “Russia 10”, image events including the Olympic Games in Sochi, etc.). There are two models of identity politics – traditional and innovative. The first involves the reliance on established symbolic attributes of regional uniqueness. The second is aimed on the search for new expression of the personality, character, contemporary art and art practices. Currently, the politicization of regional identity is manifested in the use of the patriotic feelings in election campaigns (the discourse of “friend or enemy”) in order to legitimize the position of the Governor.

Keywords: regional identity, identity politics, brand, symbol.

Authors analyze types of "capital" ambitions in the Russian regions.

Keywords: capital, capital ambitions, regionalism, federalism.

The article raises the problem of sharp turning points in the Soviet urban discourse that occurred with the moment of Stalin's strengthening in power and after his death. The analyzed urban material was limited by three perspectives: (1) the city's creator (architect and authority), (2) urban space (architectural culture), and (3) the official discourse. The article substantiates the point of view according to which, and despite the radically different formal languages of the avant-garde, the Stalinist style, and late Soviet modernism one can see behind them a single “content”, namely, the phenomenon of the Soviet city. The changes concerned only the discourse (in our case, urban planning, and architectural one); the main paradigm of the culture did not change: it was remaining uncompromisingly modern. The article follows the tradition of the critical analysis of modernity – developed both by the members of the Frankfurt School and by postmodernists – but expands the concept of European modernity into Soviet culture. The Soviet metanarrative was based on the belief in the possibility (and necessity) of comprehensive and rational constructing of the reality. It had the character of a total and uncompromising project. And it is the uncompromising nature of Soviet modernity that dooms it to failure. To trace this process, the article explores the relationship between modernity and utopia – both uncompromising and rejecting the legitimacy of the past in favour of a rational plan. Any attempt to realize utopia means changes in the initial, ideal, theoretical plan, and official Soviet culture – fundamentally uncompromising – carefully concealed that fact (lie and violence become an institution). However, the official discourse and the real image of the Soviet city diverged more and more. The only way for the rapprochement of life and official culture could be an abrupt shift in the dominant discourse playing at the same time the central mobilization role (the pathos of a radical new beginning, according to W. Welsch).

Keywords: modernity; utopia; revolution; Soviet city; Soviet culture; avant-garde; Stalinist architecture; late Soviet modernism

This article examines the ancient Greek conceptual triad – isonomia, isegoria, and isocratia (equality before the law, equality of speech, and equality of power) – as an articulation of the principle of legal equality in social relations. The author conducts a jurisprudential analysis of these fundamental concepts tracing their origins to the philosophical inquiry into equality in early Greek thought. Central to this framework is the concept of isonomia (legal equality), which forms the triad’s basis, while isegoria and isocratia function as its elaborations. A key focus is the evolution of isonomia from the earlier concept of isomoiria, a fusion of isos (equal) and moira (portion, lot). In archaic Greece, moira denoted a person’s destiny, reflected in distributed shares (e.g. a sacrificial animal’s portion). With the rationalization of the mythological worldview, isomoiria transitioned into isonomia as a normative legal principle, later complemented by isegoria and isocratia. The analysis highlights isonomia’s role as a safeguard against hybris – an ethico-legal category specific to Ancient Greece, signifying the transgression of divinely or socially ordained boundaries. The study employs libertarian-juridical theory of law as its theoretical framework, positing that interpersonal equality in social relations is inherently legal in nature, with its substance shaped by the historical and juridical context of a given society. By situating the Greek triad within its intellectual and historical milieu, the author demonstrates how studying the philosophical origins of equality deepens our understanding of law’s essence: the imposition of a universal and equal measure on human freedom to ensure justice in social interactions.

Keywords: legal equality; freedom; democracy; Ancient Greece; philosophy of law; isonomia; isegoria; isocratia; hybris; slavery

The article asserts that Russian historiography of political and legal thought has extensively examined ancient mythology in its coverage of classical myths, but has neglected earlier mythological systems that significantly influenced ancient traditions. The author seeks to address this gap, which hinders legal science from fully understanding the foundational origins of legal consciousness in human development. The analysis begins by exploring the concept of myth, emphasizing its etymological roots to demonstrate its intrinsic connection between the words “myth” and “thought”, which is crucial for constructing a historiography of political and legal thought in contrast to the historiography of political and legal doctrines. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of research into ancient myths, due to developing a comprehensive Russian historiography of political and legal thought. This is illustrated through historical evolution of key mythological concepts, such as the ancient Indian Rita and Zoroastrian Arta, which later transformed into Greek Arete, and subsequently into the Roman Virtus. The article underscores the value of hermeneutic methodology in comparative studies of early legal concepts across mythological systems, offering deeper insights into the civilizational distinctions of legal development worldwide – particularly in analyzing the unique legal cultures of the East and West.

Keywords: political and legal thought; legal consciousness; historiography; myth; ontology of law; Rita; Arete; Virtus 

The article presents the authors' position on the right to access the Internet. According to the authors, this right can be considered as a human right. Nevertheless, this right is not fundamental; it can be derived from internationally recognized human rights and freedoms. Proving this thesis, the authors analyze the legal content of the right as well as the legal mechanism of its enjoyment by individuals. The authors come to the conclusion that all legal possibilities covered by the right to access the Internet are guaranteed by the existing fundamental rights. According to the authors, the right to access the Internet has a multi-component legal mechanism of enjoyment involving the elements of mechanisms provided by other human rights and freedoms. In this regard, the system of guarantees of this right includes both negative guarantees (aimed at ensuring personal freedom, autonomy of individuals and non-interference in their private life), and positive ones (requiring the states’ active actions to create conditions for providing equal opportunities for getting access to the global computer network without discrimination and at a reasonable price). The authors argue that exercising the right to access the Internet by individuals lead to the result that does not repeat the results of enjoyment of other rights and freedoms. This result is not a mere expansion of the tools for searching, receiving and disseminating information. It consists in involving an individual to the global information society, which opens up wide opportunities for enjoying many other rights and freedoms, at a qualitatively new level. The article also provides an analysis of the main international documents in the field of providing access to the Internet and regulating this issue at the national level. Based on a comparative legal study of the regulation of Internet access in various countries, the authors come to the conclusion that at present it is impossible to formulate a uniform approach to determining the content of the right and the mechanisms for its enjoyment, which would be sufficiently universal and would be satisfactory from the point of view of both international law and national legal systems. In this, the authors of the article see the need for further doctrinal development of the right to access the Internet and elaboration of international standards in this field.

Keywords: Internet, access to the Internet, the right to access the Internet, human rights, subjective rights, the global information society, the right to information, freedom of expression, human rights guarantees

The creation of a theory of a socialist state on the basis of the theoretical Marxist heritage became one of the most urgent tasks that Joseph Stalin faced. The works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels did not contain specific provisions about the essence of the socialist state. Only in Vladimir Lenin’s works did the concept of a “socialist state” appear, and the theory of the socialist state gradually began to take on clearer contours, but death did not allow him to create any detailed theory. By the end of the 1920s, it became clear that the theory of a socialist state could not be based on the principles of proletarian internationalism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, which had received special development in the works of the classics of Marxism. This theory should have been built only on the principle of the people as the source of state and law in the USSR, i.e. the Soviet people as the source of Soviet power. This in turn led to the need to introduce the principle of the all people’s state (state of the whole people), i.e. classless society. Such a formulation inevitably and directly came into confrontation with the axioms of Marxism. The Marxist doctrine of class nature of the state experienced significant resistance when applied to the socialist state. The duality of the nature of the socialist state (class and democratic state) determined the difficulties for the development of the theory of this state. The article analyzes the prehistory of the doctrine of the all people’s state, which was brought into effect as an official designation of the new political status of the Soviet state at the 22^nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). This was preceded by an attempt to conceptualize the term “All People’s State” in the 1947 Draft of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (AUCPB) Program. The new concept was not part of the new theory of the socialist state; it was tested as a risky and experimental innovation without an appropriate theoretical basis. For the first time, this term appeared and almost immediately disappeared in the spring of 1936, before the publication of the draft Constitution. The article shows how Joseph Stalin and Soviet theorists and ideologists of the Stalin era, using Marxist terminology, slowly approached to proclamation of the USSR as an “all people’s state”, gradually filling the class structure of Soviet society with new “non-class” concepts. At the same time, the class discourse of proletarian internationalism did not lose its theoretical potential. It was subjected a specific transformation, becoming the part of Soviet foreign political rhetoric, including one of the most important principles of self-representation of the USSR. 

Keywords: Soviet state, dictatorship of the proletariat, classless socialist society, all people’s state, Joseph Stalin, the 1936 Constitution of the USSR, the 1947 draft AUCPB Program, the third CPSU Program of 1961

The creation of a theory of a socialist state on the basis of the theoretical Marxist heritage became one of the most urgent tasks that Joseph Stalin faced. The works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels did not contain specific provisions about the essence of the socialist state. Only in Vladimir Lenin’s works did the concept of a “socialist state” appear, and the theory of the socialist state gradually began to take on clearer contours, but death did not allow him to create any detailed theory. By the end of the 1920s, it became clear that the theory of a socialist state could not be based on the principles of proletarian internationalism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, which had received special development in the works of the classics of Marxism. This theory should have been built only on the principle of the people as the source of state and law in the USSR, i.e. the Soviet people as the source of Soviet power. This in turn led to the need to introduce the principle of the all people’s state (state of the whole people), i.e. classless society. Such a formulation inevitably and directly came into confrontation with the axioms of Marxism. The Marxist doctrine of class nature of the state experienced significant resistance when applied to the socialist state. The duality of the nature of the socialist state (class and democratic state) determined the difficulties for the development of the theory of this state. The article analyzes the prehistory of the doctrine of the all people’s state, which was brought into effect as an official designation of the new political status of the Soviet state at the 22^nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). This was preceded by an attempt to conceptualize the term “All People’s State” in the 1947 Draft of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (AUCPB) Program. The new concept was not part of the new theory of the socialist state; it was tested as a risky and experimental innovation without an appropriate theoretical basis. For the first time, this term appeared and almost immediately disappeared in the spring of 1936, before the publication of the draft Constitution. The article shows how Joseph Stalin and Soviet theorists and ideologists of the Stalin era, using Marxist terminology, slowly approached to proclamation of the USSR as an “all people’s state”, gradually filling the class structure of Soviet society with new “non-class” concepts. At the same time, the class discourse of proletarian internationalism did not lose its theoretical potential. It was subjected a specific transformation, becoming the part of Soviet foreign political rhetoric, including one of the most important principles of self-representation of the USSR. 

Keywords: Soviet state, dictatorship of the proletariat, classless socialist society, all people’s state, Joseph Stalin, the 1936 Constitution of the USSR, the 1947 draft AUCPB Program, the third CPSU Program of 1961

“Stalin’s turn” – or, more precisely, the political, cultural and ideological shift of the 1930s under Joseph Stalin – refers to a series of policy and ideological changes implemented by Soviet leadership, marking a transition from internationalism to statism, or state-centrism, and patriotism. A significant contribution to scholarship on this topic can be found in the works by Nikolai Ustryalov and his conception of National Bolshevism. This study demonstrates that statism and a national orientation in Soviet politics were central to Ustrialov’s political thought beginning in the 1920s. His National Bolshevik ideas became deeply embedded in Soviet political ideology from its early stages and effectively shaped the policies of the Soviet leadership. The author argues that Ustrialov not only influenced, but actively contributed to the formation of “Stalin’s turn”. In contrast, Vasily Shulgin’s journalistic writings present a sharply divergent perspective on the soviet state and its policies. The article critically examines Shulgin’s early-1920s works, which, despite certain alignments with Ustrialov’s assessments – particularly regarding the Bolsheviks as the inheritors of imperial Russia’s state traditions – ultimately reveal profound ideological incompatibility. This opposition is especially evident in Shulgin’s later writings, including his critiques of the Soviet Constitution of 1936. The study concludes that while both Nikolai Ustrialov and Vasily Shulgin sought to serve Russia, their interpretations of nationalism diverged fundamentally, leading to opposing political and intellectual trajectories.

Keywords: USSR; “Stalin’s turn” of the 1930s; Marxism; internationalism; nationalism; National Bolshevism; Joseph Stalin; Nikolai Ustrialov; Vasily Shulgin

The article is dedicated to the investigation of Ernst Mach’s philosophical ideas and to the analysis of their influence on Fritz Mauthner’s language critique theory. It is well known that both Austrian thinkers were personally acquainted and maintained correspondence since 1889 until 1915. Their private correspondence is kept in the archives of the Fraunhofer Institute named after Ernst Mach in Freiburg, Germany. Mutual letters of the philosophers, as well as the records of Ernst Mach’s diaries and notebooks, were published only in 1982. The author points out that at the turn of the twentieth century Mach’s philosophy reflected dominating views and ideas in Austria and extended far beyond positivism, affecting not only the critique of language and phenomenology, but also culture, literature and art of that period of time. Fritz Mauthner is practically unknown in the contemporary Russian philosophical literature, and even if he is mentioned it is rather in connection to the most recognized Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The article provides an analysis based on the private correspondence of E. Mach and F. Mauthner and on Ernst Mach’s personal documents, which shows how Ernst Mach’s philosophical reflections influenced Fritz Mauthner’s oeuvre, and how they were developed in his language critique. According to Austrian philosophical tradition, both philosophers are united in the critique of I. Kant’s philosophy, “thing-in-itself” and I-analysis.

Keywords: Austrian philosophy, perception, language critique, language worlds, critique of the “thing-in-itself”, I-analysis.