A framework for a new social contract is being formed in Russia

December 21, 2022 (the date is the birthday of Joseph Stalin, symbolically ¹ ) an expanded meeting of the Board of the RF Ministry of Defense was held; at the meeting, the President of the Russian Federation summed up the interim results of the past 10 months of the special military operation (SMO) and identified key areas for further development of the Russian armed forces, taking into account current relations with NATO.

“It is well known that the military potential and capabilities of almost all major NATO countries are being widely used against Russia. Still, our soldiers, sergeants and officers are fighting for Russia with courage and fortitude and are fulfilling their tasks with confidence, step-by-step. Without a doubt, these tasks will be fulfilled in all territories of the Russian Federation, including the new territories, and a safe life for all our citizens will be ensured. Our Armed Forces’ combat capability is increasing day by day, and we will certainly step this process up....Today, our goal is to implement the entire scope of necessary measures to achieve a qualitative renewal and improvement of the Armed Forces” ² .

Perhaps, taking into account the geopolitical situation that has developed around Russia in 2022, we can agree with experts who compared the speech of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief at the Board of the RF Ministry of Defense to the President’s

Address to the Federal Assembly that did not take place this year. This “corresponds to the priorities at hand” ³ .

In the context of Russia’s active confrontation with NATO countries and taking into consideration the ongoing SMO, the state and society understand the importance of achieving complete victory on the front line and are ready to “provide the army with everything it needs”. This allows us to count on the fact that all the key goals and objectives announced by the President will be implemented in full.

“I would like to draw the attention of the Defence Minister, the Chief of the General Staff and all the commanders here: we have no funding restrictions. The country, the Government will provide whatever the Army asks for, anything. I hope that the answer will be properly formulated and the appropriate results will be achieved” ⁴ .

Boris Rozhin, an expert with the Center for Information and Geopolitical Research, noted the following key points in the speech of the Russian President at the Board of the Ministry of Defense:

“1. The war with the West in Ukraine will be long. The course toward achieving the goals of the SMO does not change. You can find the official list of the goals in Putin’s speech on February 24 (plus the Kherson and Zaporozhye oblasts). Unofficial goals can be interpreted quite broadly.

• 2.    There will be no back door deal, because the West is not ready to recognize Russia’s right to equal agreements with it. We haven’t fit into the “civilized world”. Good riddance.

• 3.    The army will receive more resources – material, financial, human. But without fanaticism, so as not to strain the economy. The concept of “guns instead of oil” is not our choice. A reasonable balance will be sought for. Next year, the army will receive many different weapons, much more than in 2021–2022. There will also be more drones.

• 4.    Various pre-war mistakes related to the military logistics, the mobilization system, repair facilities, underestimation of the role of drones and concepts of multi-domain operations have been admitted, though not always openly. It has been considered desirable to criticize the related drawbacks.

• 5.    The Russian army is to undergo a fairly significant reform, which is both a consequence of the various drawbacks revealed during the SMO, and the growing threat from the United States and NATO. Russia’s sovereignty will be based on the growth of the capabilities of our nuclear triad as the only reliable guarantor of military and political sovereignty” ⁵ .

In general, the President confirmed that the goals of the special military operation continue to be implemented, but the process is protracted, and this also means the long-term nature of threats to national security and an alarming situation in society against the background of ongoing economic sanctions, the Collective West pouring weapons into Ukraine, the continuing threat of direct military conflict between Russia and NATO, in fact, daily shelling of Russian territories by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, public statements by representatives of the Western political establishment about the need to abolish Russian culture, the possibility of information fakes aimed at strengthening antiRussian sentiment and escalation of the conflict.

Some experts point out that “the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine is a turning point in Russian history. It is quite natural that at this crucial time, the social contract of the previous period is now largely dated, leading to the emergence of new imperatives among various population groups” ⁶ .

In other words, the situation itself, following the SMO, puts forward an objective need to formulate the task of designing a new Social Contract as “a set of mutual obligations between the supreme power (state) and the population (society), which are accepted by both sides and thereby provide consensus for the further peaceful existence of the nation” ⁷ ; the need for comprehensive changes in the system of public administration, information agenda, civil society, public consciousness in order to develop an adequate response to the nature of the threats hanging over the country after February 24, 2022. All this is necessary and vital for the formation of a sovereign competitive state in the 21st century.

In fact, Russia has found itself in this situation not because of the events unfolding after February 24, 2022, but because of the betrayal of the ruling elites, which led to the collapse of the USSR, the turbulent 1990s and, in general, the subsequent 30 years of the country’s existence within the framework of the liberal-capitalist development paradigm, characterized today by many as a period of “paradigmatic mental occupation” ⁸ resulting in the “loss of historical time” ⁹ .

Our monitoring shows that individual strokes of a new Social Contract are already being formed today, in the conditions of the SMO. And they are not just being formed, but also enshrined in normative legal acts of the RF President, the Government, the Federal Assembly (laws, decrees, resolutions, etc.), which bind separate strokes of a new Social Contract into its general contours due to the fact that they have real legal force and thus have a direct impact on people’s lives; they form the “rules of the game” of life in the country; and every citizen, no matter what views they adhere to, is obliged to observe these rules.

Therefore, in our opinion, the state policy in the context of the SMO can be named the first and main emerging contour of a new Social Contract.

First “contour” – state policy in the context of the SMO

The monitoring of the key steps taken by the authorities in the context of the SMO (we launched the monitoring in June 2022 ¹⁰ ) allows us to say that from February to December 2022, about 70 significant managerial decisions were made at different levels and in different spheres of public life (we show not all the decisions, but only those we consider key ones; Insert 1 ).

Summarizing the results of their analysis, we can say that public policy in the conditions of the SMO assumes a mobilization character . Thus, after February 24, 2022, three vectors are clearly traced in the management decisions taken by Vladimir Putin, approved by the Federal Assembly and the Government of the Russian Federation:

• V    socio-economic support for broad segments of the population (motherhood, childhood) and certain categories of citizens (military personnel participating in the SMO, members of their families) ¹¹ ;

• V    stricter discipline and personal responsibility in various spheres of life (primarily in the army, in the defense industry, in the field of culture, including the media) ¹² ;

V concretization, the most clear delineation of the boundaries of the image of the future of Russia and work with young people ; that is, in fact, the society and the general population receive a clear idea of the direction in which the country is moving, what it is fighting for, what it should become after it emerges from the civilizational conflict with the Collective West ¹³ ( Insert 1 ).

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• ¹⁴    The Insert is a continuation of the monitoring of management decisions of the authorities, which we started in the article “The difficult road after the Rubicon” in Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast , 15(3), 9–41.

• ¹⁵    How will the coordination council work for the “economics of military operations” (opinion of the Director of the HSE Center for Market Research G. Ostapkovich). Available at: https://www.rbc.ru/economics/19/10/2022/63500e719a79471d547078d8

• ¹⁶    Putin banned transactions with shares of 45 banks without permission. Available at: https://www.rbc.ru/finances/26/10/2022/635910419a794725725385f1

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Garmonenko D. Russia is integrating new territories without acceleration. Available at: Putin signed a decree on changing the composition of the Human Rights Council. Available at:

19 Putin signed a decree on softening the budget rule for 2023–2024. Available at:

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Simultaneously with the implementation of these key areas of state policy in the conditions of the SMO, the work has intensified on removing those representatives of elite groups who could not or did not want to accept the agenda of the SMO, change their lifestyle and their activities, from power (in the system of public administration, business, culture)... In this sense, the liberal elites are experiencing the real “time of troubles”. So, after February 24, 2022, Presidential Adviser V. Yumashev resigned ²⁰ (a man whom some experts called the “ideologue of the Family” ²¹ and the “brain” of the liberal clan” ²² ); former Deputy Prime Ministers A. Chubais ²³ , A. Khloponin ²⁴ , A. Dvorkovich ²⁵ , I. Klebanov ²⁶ have left Russia.

Significant personnel changes have also taken place in the field of culture. For example, on June 29, 2022, artistic directors of several theaters were removed from their posts (K. Serebrennikov from the Gogol Theater, J. Reichelhaus from the School of Modern Play, V. Ryzhakov from the

Sovremennik). Earlier (May 16, 2022), R. Tuminas, former artistic director of the Vakhtangov Theater, was excluded from the list of persons who were awarded the 2021 prize of the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of culture.

In recent months, this list has been supplemented with new names:

V November 29, 2022, A. Kudrin announced his resignation from the post of Head of the RF Accounts Chamber; according to experts, he is “an ideologist of systemic liberals” and “one of the key emissaries of globalism in the Russian Federation” ²⁷ ;

V December 1, the Magomedov brothers businessmen were sentenced along with the whole criminal community of major entrepreneurs28; moreover, such people as billionaire G. Timchenko and ex-head of Ingushetia R. Aushev stood bail for the brothers before the court; president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, president of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, member of the bureau of the Supreme Council of the United Russia Party A. Shokhin asked the court to remit the sentence for Ziyavudin and Magomed Magomedov29;

V December 9, D. Muryshov, head of the anticorruption department of the Federal Customs Service of Russia, was arrested; he was the “chief anti-corruption officer and the closest creature of Vladimir Bulavin, head of the RF Federal Customs Service”; according to investigators, he received three bribes totaling several tens of millions of rubles (and was preparing to receive another one) through subordinate intermediaries ³⁰ .

From the point of view of the formation of prerequisites for a future Social Contract, it is important to note that Vladimir Putin’s article “Russia at the turn of the millennium” (1999) has been especially relevant in the conditions of the SMO. In fact, its main ideas that had been maturing for almost 25 years, were concretized in Presidential Decree 809 of November 9, 2022 “On approving the Fundamentals of state policy for the preservation and strengthening of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” ; the Fundamentals significantly (from 4 to 17) expand the list of traditional values as “moral guidelines, shaping citizens’ worldview” (paragraph 4). According to the Fundamentals ..., these include “life, dignity, human rights and freedoms, patriotism, citizenship, service to the Fatherland and responsibility for its fate, high moral ideals, strong family, creative work, priority of the spiritual over the material, humanism, mercy, justice, collectivism, mutual assistance and mutual respect, historical memory and continuity of generations, unity of the peoples of Russia” (paragraph 5; Insert 2 ).

We should also note that Presidential Decree 809 sets out the goals of state policy for the preservation and strengthening of traditional values (“preservation and strengthening of traditional values; countering the spread of destructive ideology; formation of the international image of the Russian state as a guardian and defender of traditional universal spiritual and moral values” (paragraph 23). In fact, they represent major areas of practical implementation of the “Russian Idea”, which Vladimir Putin wrote about in 1999.

In general, we can point out the following: despite the fact that it will be possible to talk directly about the formation of a new Social Contract in Russia only after the end of the special military operation, the current managerial decisions of the authorities in the context of the SMO already set the appropriate vector of changes in society; work is underway for the future.

The results of this work are manifested in the second “contour” of a new Social Contract – in the consolidated support of the head of state by society and in the assessment of public administration effectiveness.

Second “contour”– public opinion dynamics

According to the results of sociological surveys, society shows consolidated support for the activities of the head of state. According to VCIOM, on average in Russia during the period of the SMO (from February to December 2022), the share of positive assessments of the RF President’s activities increased by 9 percentage points (from 65 to 74%); negative – decreased by 8 percentage points (from 24 to 16%). For comparison, over the same period of 2021, the shares of positive and negative assessments regarding the work of the head of state have not actually changed (61 and 28%, respectively).

Similar dynamics are demonstrated by the data of the public opinion monitoring conducted by VolRC RAS on the territory of the Vologda Oblast. From February to December 2022, the share of positive assessments of the President’s activities increased by 12 percentage points (from 48 to 60%); negative – decreased by 8 percentage points (from 33 to 25%). During the same period of the previous year, the level of approval of the work of the head of state has not actually changed (50–51%; Tab. 1 ).

Insert 2

Table 1. Dynamics of assessments of the RF President’s work in February – December 2021–2022 according to VCIOM and VolRC RAS, % of respondents

Answer options Feb. 2021 Dec. 2021 Dynamics (+/-), p.p. Feb. 2022 Dec. 2022 Dynamics (+/-), p.p. VCIOM data (national average)* Share of positive assessments 61.4 60.6 -1 65.4 74.2 +9 Share of negative assessments 28.7 28.4 0 23.9 15.5 -8 VolRC RAS data (for Vologda Oblast)** Share of positive assessments 50.1 50.6 +1 48.0 59.5 +12 Share of negative assessments 30.9 33.8 +3 32.9 25.1 -8 * Wording of the question: “In general, do you approve or disapprove of the work of the RF President?” Survey method – phone interview. For December 2022, the average data for two surveys are presented (as of December 4, 2022 and December 11, 2022). Source: Ratings. Activities of governmental institutions. Available at: ** Wording of the question: “How do you currently assess the work of the RF President?” Survey method – questionnaire at the place of residence of respondents.

In addition to supporting the political course implemented by the head of state, in the context of the SMO (as we noted in the previous article ³¹ ) new features of civil society are being formed: “Without waiting for draft summons, more than 20 thousand people joined the military as volunteers ...; the Yunarmiya [Youth Army] movement covered all regions of Russia and united more than 1,251 thousand children and adolescents; in cooperation with the authorities of RF constituent entities, work continued on the development of the “Avangard” network of educational and methodological centers for military-patriotic education of youth. In 2022, 20 regional centers and 25 urban centers will be opened in cities with a population of over 100 thousand people. In total, more than 150 thousand high school students have been trained in 88 “Avangard” centers” ³² .

It is also important that in the conditions of the SMO and the political decisions taken by the state, certain ideas about the image of the country’s future are formed in Russian society. Thus, according to an all-Russian research conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences (IS FCTAS RAS), the main and most desirable characteristics of the image of the future of Russia, according to citizens, are “social justice” (despite the fact that from 2021 to 2022, the proportion of those sharing this opinion decreased by 4 percentage points, from 51 to 47%), “strong power” (increased by 9 p.p., from 31 to 40% compared to 2021, “respect for human rights” (decreased by 2 p.p., from 41 to 39%), “traditional values” (increased by 6 p.p. compared to 2021, from 33 to 39%; Tab. 2).

According to VolRC RAS monitoring data, over the past 20 years (from 2000 to 2022), there has been an increase in the share of people who believe that the ideas uniting the country should be as follows: “unity of the peoples of Russia” (by 29 p.p., from 23 to 52%), “strengthening Russia as a country with the rule of law” (by 17 p.p., from 22 to 39%), “uniting peoples to address global issues (by 18 p.p., from 8 to 26%), “returning to socialist ideals and values” (by 13 p.p., from 7 to 20%). Moreover, it is important to note that over the same period, the share of those who find it difficult to answer this question has significantly decreased (by 11 p.p., from 32 to 21%), that is, people have become more confident in their choice of the main vectors of Russia’s development ( Tab. 3 ).

Table 2. Desired image of the future of Russia in the mass consciousness of Russians (IS RAS national average data)*, %

Answer option	2021	2022	Dynamics (+/-) 2022 to 2021
A country where social justice is ensured	51	47	-4
A country in which there is a strong government that ensures order and development	31	40	+9
A country in which human rights, democracy, and freedom of personal expression are ensured	41	39	-2
A country that has preserved national traditions, moral and religious values	33	39	+6
A great world power, uniting different peoples	27	35	+8
A country with a free market, private property, and minimal state interference in the economy	16	21	+5
A country where social inequalities and social stratification are limited	20	17	-3
An active partner of the West	15	14	-1
The Russian State is a country first of all for Russians (Russian nation-state)	12	8	-4
* More than three answers were allowed; ranked according to the data for 2022. Source: Russian society in the context of new challenges and threats (context of sociological diagnostics). Information and analytical report of IS RAS. Moscow 2022. P. 187.

Table 3. Perceptions of the region’s population about the idea of unification of Russian society (VolRC RAs data for the Vologda Oblast), % of respondents

Answer option	2000	2022	Dynamics (+/-) 2022 to 2021
The idea of uniting the peoples of Russia in order to revive it as a great power	22.6	51.9	+29
The idea of strengthening Russia as a state governed by the rule of law	22.1	38.5	+16
The idea of uniting peoples to address global issues facing humanity	7.8	25.9	+18
Return to socialist ideals and values	6.6	20.1	+14
The idea of uniting all Slavic peoples	5	18.2	+13
The idea of opposition to the West, self-reliance	3.2	12.1	+9
The idea of individual freedom, priority of the interests of the individual over the interests of the state	3.9	9	+5
The idea of national uniqueness, a special historical mission of the Russian people	2.3	6.7	+4
The idea of rapprochement with the West, Russia’s entry into the Common European Home	3.9	3	-1
The idea of cleansing society through the Orthodox faith	4.1	2.7	-1
Another idea	0.2	3.2	+3
I find it difficult to answer	31.9	20.5	-11
Ranked according to data for 2022. Wording of the question: “What idea, in your opinion, is capable of uniting our society?”

Thus, sociological surveys, which are the main tool for measuring the “temperature” of society and the dynamics of social attitudes, convincingly show that the majority of the country’s population supports Russia’s active struggle to achieve full national sovereignty; moreover, the decisions taken by the authorities in response to the challenges that arise in the course of the SMO change society, consolidate various segments of the population around such concepts as “traditional values”, “social justice”, “strong state”, “national culture”, etc. All this, of course, is one of the contours of the future of a new Social Contract.

There also emerges the third “contour”. It consists in raising the question of the need for the preparation of a new Social Contract by the expert community.

In the expert environment there emerge practical proposals for the formulation and discussion of specific points of a new Social Contract. For example, according to E.V. Balatsky, its foundations can be as follows ³³ :

• V    new ideology;

• V    determining the national economic system;

• V    providing the means of professional social mobility and personal responsibility;

• V    integrating the Bank of Russia into the general system of public administration (the Bank of Russia should become a full-fledged element of the national system of economic regulation rather than act contrary to the interests of the national producer);

• V    de-bureaucratization of the economy (it is necessary to fight against all kinds of bureaucracy, and this should become a national task);

• V    alleviating extreme forms of inequality (fighting against extreme forms of inequality should be complemented by a system of popular capitalism, when the largest possible part of the population is involved as owners of public and private enterprises);

• V    stopping uncontrolled immigration (ignoring the interests of indigenous representatives of the labor market and Russian culture can lead to outbreaks of violence and loss of control of the authorities over the situation);

• V    introducing responsibility for political sabotage (Russia’s SMO in Ukraine gave rise

to a new phenomenon for the country – mass emigration of public figures who continued anti-government propaganda from abroad; the overwhelming part of the population was outraged by such behavior of these persons; thus, society is expecting fair punishment of people who left the country in difficult times and who took the side of the enemy).

A.G. Dugin’s proposals on the formation of an “original ideology in Russia” ³⁴ are less specific, but still important from the point of view of forming the prerequisites for a new Social Contract. The main features of this ideology are as follows:

• V    sharp divergence from liberal democracy, which the Collective West seeks to impose on all mankind... is an alternative model of the sociopolitical system;

• V    continuity of cultural and ideological constants (both in traditional society and in Soviet times) in Russian history;

• V    difference from any previous ideology, each of which is historically limited, but offers an original and original synthesis of what was most essential in each of them;

V inviting all Russian citizens to the free creative construction of a truly just, spiritual, honest moral society on the other side of narrow dogmas and artificial axiomatics – in a sense, this is an open ideology aimed at the future;

V disclosure of the essence of Russia’s civilizational uniqueness and the dialogue with other civilizations in the context of a multipolar world order.

Thus, in the context of increased threats to national security accompanying the period of the special military operation and, in fact, the period of Russia’s open struggle to achieve full national sovereignty, we can talk about the formation of at least three contours of a future Social Contract – directly related to the activities of the state, to the changes occurring under the influence of specific management decisions, and to the request (specific proposals) for a new Social Contract from the expert community.

However, the mere presence of certain contours does not guarantee that they will become a system. There are a number of very significant circumstances that prevent this.

First, the goals of the SMO have not yet been achieved, and without this, neither a new Social Contract within the country nor an attitude toward Russia as a full-fledged, sovereign geopolitical partner in the international political arena is possible. At the same time, we can agree with experts who note that “there is no predetermination in the future of Russia, and there cannot be any” ³⁵ ; everything depends on us.

Second, in order to implement the provisions of a new Social Contract formulated by experts and fulfill the main criteria of the image of the future formulated by Russian society, there are still not enough specific organizational mechanisms and tools; in particular, it is evident from the effectiveness of achieving the goals stated by Vladimir Putin in 1999 in the article “Russia at the turn of the millennium”: the goals represent a triad of “Russian Idea”, “Strong State”, and “Efficient Economy”, which the President named as “outlines of a long-term strategy designed to... create prerequisites for rapid and sustainable economic and social development”. For example:

V Many experts have been talking about the necessity and essence of the “Russian Idea” in recent years (A. Dugin, N. Starikov, S. Sulakshin, A. Fursov, etc.). The President himself expressed his understanding of the “Russian Idea” when he said that “the national idea of Russia is patriotism, I think there can be nothing else... But patriotism should not be leavened, musty and sour. Patriotism consists in devoting oneself to the development of their country, its movement forward” ³⁶ .

However, the Constitution of the Russian Federation still contains a ban on state ideology ³⁷ , and this prevents the transition of the “Russian Idea” to a new level – to the level of its clear formulation at the state level and bringing it to understanding and unambiguous interpretation by the broad strata of Russian society.

Over the past 20 years, much has been done to implement such an element as “Strong State” (“strong state power”) . This is especially true concerning the amendments to the 2020 Constitution, many of which are aimed precisely at strengthening the power hierarchy in Russia ³⁸ .

In fact, the entire system of public administration built by the RF President is centralized, and Vladimir Putin plays the role of “chief arbiter” in it.

Table 4. The share of Russians who voted for Vladimir Putin in the presidential elections in the period from 2000 to 2018

Presidential elections	March 26, 2000	March 14, 2004	March 4, 2012	March 18, 2018
million people	39.74	49.56	45.6	56.4
% of turnout	52.94	71.31	63.60	76.69
Source: RF Central Election Commission.

Table 5. The share of Russians who voted for the United Russia Party in the elections to the RF State Duma in the period from 2003 to 2021

State Duma elections	Dec. 7, 2003	Dec. 2, 2007	Dec. 4, 2011	Sept. 18, 2016	Sept. 19, 2021
million people	22.78	44.71	32.37	28.53	28.06
% of turnout	37.56	64.30	49.31	54.20	49.82
Source: RF Central Election Commission.

At the same time, we should emphasize that the “credit of trust” that the society regularly “issues” personally to the President and the party in power at the presidential elections (Tab. 4) and parliamentary elections (Tab. 5), as well as the results of the all-Russian vote on amendments to the Constitution, which showed that 79% of the population support the consolidation of traditional spiritual and moral values in the Basic Law of the country and the strengthening of the organizational foundations of the public administration system (including in the form of strengthening the powers of the head of state; Fig. 1), allow us to say that the course of strengthening the power announced by the President in 1999 received support in Russian society.

In times of crisis, such a system of “hands-on” control of the state plays a significant positive role. For example, in 2020, against the background of force majeure and extreme conditions caused by the first “waves” of the coronavirus pandemic, the centralized nature of the public administration system allowed it to adapt to new challenges: the personnel composition of the RF Government has changed; operational meetings and specific decisions on the implementation of complex tasks started to take place on a daily basis (including with the personal participation of the President); in the fight against coronavirus and maintaining the socio-economic situation, the role of the heads of RF constituent entities has significantly increased.

Figure 1. Results of the all-Russian vote on amendments to the Constitution (June 25 – July 1, 2020)

Wording of the question: “Do you approve of the amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation?” Source: RF Central Election Commission.

This experience is largely reproduced in the conditions of 2022. Thus, during the special operation:

V a number of laws have been adopted aimed at strengthening the powers of the RF Government ³⁹ ;

V after the “stupidity” revealed during the partial mobilization ⁴⁰ , on October 21, 2022, the Coordination Council under the Government was established to meet the needs of the RF Armed Forces, other troops, military formations and bodies (the chairman of the Coordination Council is the chairman of the Government of the Russian

According to experts, “the Coordination Council headed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has been entrusted with mobilizing the state for the special military operation. The governors are also strengthening their powers – and thus Vladimir Putin repeats the scheme of division of responsibility used in the fight against COVID” ⁴¹ .

Federation; the composition of the Coordination Council is approved personally by the President);

V according to the decree “On measures implemented in RF constituent entities in connection with Presidential Decree 756, dated October 19, 2022”, the heads of RF constituent entities received additional powers to make decisions on carrying out certain measures for territorial and civil defense, measures to protect the population and territories from natural and man-made emergencies, and also the authority to implement measures to meet the needs of the Armed Forces.

And nevertheless it is premature to talk about a “strong state” in Russia with a significant part of liberal elites in power, occupying various (including high) positions in the public administration system. In previous articles, we have repeatedly given concrete examples of how officials of various stripes (from federal ministers to municipal-level civil servants) raised in conditions of liberal ideology demonstrate their ability to bypass legal and moral laws in order to achieve personal gain ⁴² .

Real life today, during the period of SMO, shows that many representatives of the ruling elites still continue to behave the way they used to behave in the era of the liberal 30 years that is obviously becoming a thing of the past; they continue to make decisions that in the new conditions only cause outrage among the general population ⁴³ .

To put it mildly, the idea of “strong state” is undermined also by some reports criticizing managerial decisions made by the authorities ⁴⁴ , as well as statements of some representatives of the elites, including people from the Presidential Administration and their family members, contradicting the public’s ideas about those celebrities who left the country after the start of the SMO ⁴⁵ .

Thus, in achieving the goal of having “strong power” in Russia, as the President wrote in 1999, there are still quite contradictory results.

V The results of achieving the task of building an “efficient economy” in Russia are also contradictory. On the one hand, the Russian economy managed to overcome the difficult period associated with the acute phase of the coronavirus pandemic (2020–2021), accompanied, among other things, by large-scale quarantine restrictions throughout the country, financial costs to meet the needs of the healthcare system, etc. Russia’s economy also managed to withstand the unprecedented pressure of the Collective West’s economic sanctions that hit it after February 24, 2022, which allowed the President to openly declare that “the strategy of economic blitzkrieg has failed” ⁴⁶ .

On the other hand, postponement of the implementation of national projects ⁴⁷ , absence of tangible positive changes in the dynamics of poverty and inequality ⁴⁸ , the Central Bank of the Russian Federation acting autonomously from the state (and, accordingly, from the goals of national development) and the still existing system of “crony capitalism” ⁴⁹ – so far, all this does not allow us to say that the goal of creating an “efficient economy” in Russia has been fully achieved.

Thus, practice shows that the Russian economy is able to mobilize and respond to external “shocks”, but in the absence of tangible and longterm success in combating poverty and inequality it cannot be considered a “pillar” of Russian statehood based on a new Social Contract, in which social values and social justice occupy a significant place.

We should also note that the stability of a new Social Contract, its viability for decades directly depends on the extent to which an element that prevents the threat of destruction from within is introduced into its informal structure. This is clearly evidenced by the historical experience of the collapse of the USSR, when, despite the quite unambiguous opinion of the majority of citizens of the country (90% of voters voted for the preservation of the Soviet Union ⁵⁰ ), individual representatives of the ruling elites (namely S. Shushkevich and V. Kebich on the part of the Republic of Belarus, B. Yeltsin and G. Burbulis on the part of the Russian Federation (RSFSR), L. Kravchuk and V. Fokin on the part of Ukraine) signed the Belovezha Accords on December 8, 1991, which stated that “the USSR as the subject of international law and the geopolitical reality ceases to exist” ⁵¹ …

There are many books and articles on the subsequent raider seizure of power and the transfer of national wealth and state property (natural resources, economic entities, financial capital, etc.) into the hands of individual representatives of economic and political “elites” for a song. The main thing is that both the collapse of the USSR and the subsequent establishment of the system of “oligarchic capitalism” in Russia were carried out by a very limited number of people in power, whose names have already been made public, and the historical assessment of their actions (at least in the expert community), by and large, has been given: “national betrayal, which has no statute of limitations”.

The Russian sociologist, RAS Corresponding Member Zh.T. Toshchenko gives the following characterization to those people who stood at the origins of the collapse of the USSR, which led “to the collapse of the established way of life, revision of orientations and values of tens of millions of people... and the gap in the progressive development of the state and society” ⁵² :

“…They have specific characteristics; first, their behavior is completely (or significantly) at variance with (and even contradicts) the interests and concerns of the population; second, these people propose (and even implement) such actions, which can be called shocking (to put it mildly); third, they have specific personal traits...:

First, many of them have irrepressible, unlimited and even pathological craving for power. Power for these people becomes an end in itself, for which they are ready to change their ideological positions, go over corpses, turn friends into enemies and vice versa.

Second, phantom types are characterized by an explicit or hidden (undeclared) desire for fame, fame, publicity. They need to be in the limelight, to claim that they express public opinion, to be influential in politics and the social field.

Third, the indicator of the phantom personality type is pathological thirst for wealth, which is gained through various frauds and sometimes criminal actions; various loopholes and gaps in legislation were used, personal and group connections were mobilized. And if in the rest of the world wealth was achieved by long and hard work, then in post-Soviet Russia various ways of achieving it were used: financial pyramids were created, voucher and collateral auctions were organized, threats and violence were practiced in every possible way, up to the physical elimination of competitors or people just standing in their way, false bankruptcy was carried out, unjustified benefits were obtained.

And finally, one should not ignore the personality traits – love of power, vanity, unbridled ambitions. These characters easily changed their political ambitions and preferences by “putting on different masks”.

The newspaper Pravda , under the heading “The disguises of werewolves” ⁵³ , published an interview with Zh.T. Toshchenko, the author of the monograph Phantoms of the Russian Society in order (as the authors of the heading note) “to consider personally the historical guilt of especially odious traitors [Yeltsin, Kalugin, Yakovlev, Sobchak, Nemtsov, etc.], which has no statute of limitations... If it had been possible to prevent or stop in time the beginning of the country’s defeat, officially named Gorbachev’s “perestroika” and Yeltsin’s “reforms”, then the great Soviet Union would have celebrated its 100th anniversary in December this year. However, the plan of the enemies of socialism in the fateful 1991 was put into action. And a colossal role in this, as our people are becoming increasingly aware of, was played by the betrayal in the highest echelons of the leading party and state bodies...

The man-made nature of our tragedy and its consequences should already be clear to everyone today. After all, if you come to think of it, the current military operation in Ukraine is a forced result of treacherous actions of the very “fifth column” aimed at eliminating the Soviet power. That is why there is no statute of limitations for the crime committed by Gorbachev, Yeltsin, A.N. Yakovlev and others like them”.

“... the dark shadows of the treacherous past hover in today’s reality, they are in no hurry to completely disappear. Conducting the special military operation requires a clearer and sharper approach to assessing the figures responsible for everything that our people have experienced over the past thirty years. We will be able to go along the right way into the future only if we make fair assessments of the behavior of the destroyers of the Soviet power” ⁵⁴ .

Nevertheless, considering the prospects for the formation of a new social contract, it is fundamentally important that the events of 30 years ago be critically evaluated at the state level. And not only the very fact of the collapse of the USSR (which the President has already called “the largest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century” ⁵⁵ ), but also the people who arranged it.

After all, in fact, it was the collapse of the USSR that predetermined the further development of Russia in line with the liberal-capitalist paradigm, which ultimately forced it to take up arms and defend its right to the future and to the preservation of national sovereignty; it also led to the emergence on December 17, 2021 of official draft documents of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the requirement to ensure legal security guarantees from the United States and NATO56 (what the West called nothing else than “Putin’s ultimatum”57); and a little later (February 24, 2022), when it became obvious that all diplomatic opportunities for ensuring Russia’s sovereign development were reduced to “zero”, the special operation began – a symbol and a real Rubicon, which indicated that in its struggle for a new, sovereign and nationally oriented Social Contract, Russia would go to the end…

In other words, it is impossible to build a new Social Contract without a critical, full and open assessment of the previous contract (at least so as not to “walk into the same trap twice” in the future), and the state has not provided this assessment so far.

Thus, we agree with experts that it is impossible for Russia to achieve full national sovereignty without comprehensive changes at the national level and without a new Social Contract that would define key criteria of the relationship between society and government; in this regard, the following two points should be noted.

• 1.    The presence of the contours of a new Social Contract indicates that the course of the national policy of the head of state, implemented in fact since 1999, can ultimately help Russia to achieve full national sovereignty, competitiveness and find its own place, worthy of Russian culture and history, in the system of international relations in the geopolitical reality that is being formed before our eyes.

Russia’s demands to ensure legal security guarantees from the United States and NATO:

• •    “exclude the further expansion of NATO and the accession of Ukraine to the alliance;

• •    abandon any NATO military activity in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia, Central Asia;

• •    do not deploy medium-range and shorter-range missiles where they can hit the territory of the other party;

• •    give an obligation not to create conditions that can be regarded as a threat by the other party;

• •    not to deploy weapons and forces in areas where it will be perceived by the other party as a threat to national security;

• •    the United States undertakes to exclude further expansion of NATO to the east and to refuse post-Soviet countries admission to the alliance;

• •    the United States undertakes not to create military bases in post-Soviet countries, not to use their military infrastructure and not to develop military cooperation with them” ⁵⁸ .

• 2.    However, the presence of many factors (external and internal) that hinder further development of separate and so far disparate elements of a new Social Contract indicates that the right course is being implemented at an insufficient pace.

Currently, the President has to act in extremely difficult conditions. At the same time we should emphasize that against the background of, one might say, extreme geopolitical threats (and having a direct impact on the internal socio-economic situation in the country), both international contacts and internal meetings of the head of state continue to be conducted using a “hands-on approach”. The recent meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects has shown59 that the issues of investments in technological development projects, social support, modernization of primary health care, development of preferential and family mortgage mechanisms and many other aspects of domestic policy, determining the living conditions of citizens and ensuring the national sovereignty of the country, continue to remain in the attention of the head of state. The President noted that “we will do it calmly, routinely and consistently, without haste. We will attain our objectives to strengthen our defense capability in general as well as meeting the goals of the special military operation”60; and this cannot but inspire optimism and confidence in the decisions he makes.

However, the Rubicon that Russia crossed on February 24, 2022, as well as the protracted nature of the special operation, dictates the need to take a significant number of difficult but important steps related to achieving the goals of the SMO.

It will be possible to start designing a new Social Contract only after the goals of the SMO have been achieved and only after a public and comprehensive assessment has been conducted with regard to the period of the “turbulent 1990s” (including persons involved in the collapse of the USSR) and the liberal elites who still continue to implement activities that do not fit into the rhetoric and the goal-setting of Russia’s struggle to achieve full national sovereignty and competitiveness of the state.

Nevertheless, the head of state, through his specific decrees, continues to implement a purposeful movement toward the development of civic responsibility and patriotic self-awareness in new generations of Russians. Thus, December 23, 2022, a history course was introduced into the federal educational program for secondary general education, containing the section “Russia in the 21st century”, which reveals such topics as “economic recovery in 1999–2007; crisis in 2008; President Dmitry Medvedev; election of Vladimir Putin; “The Immortal Regiment” and celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory; accession of Crimea to Russia; Olympic Games in Sochi and the World Cup; Russia’s foreign policy and assistance to Syria; events in Ukraine in 2014 and Russia’s position; Minsk Agreements on Donbass and humanitarian assistance to the DPR and LPR; fight against coronavirus and the global oil crisis; special military operation and sanctions against Russia; and many others” ⁶¹ .

The society is waiting for the next concrete step from the head of state and the Government, since “Russia no longer has either the right or the time to doze” ⁶² .