Articles

The article is devoted to the views on the state-capitalist model of the economy, refl ected in the works of P.A. Kropotkin, one of the founders of anarchism and a world-famous scientist. In his writings of 1896–1921. Peter Kropotkin criticized state capitalism, considering it as part of the program of socio-economic transformations of social-democratic parties and as a real system of economic relations. Th e article traces the development of Kropotkin’s views on state capitalism, presents their generalized analysis.

The article proposes to evaluate the possible consequences of the transformation of closed administrative-territorial formation (CATFs) into federal territories. Th e author comes to the following conclusions. Giving CATF the status of a federal territory will make it possible to more accurately determine its place in the territorial structure of Russia, eliminating the current duality of its legal nature (as an administrative-territorial entity and as a municipal entity). The withdrawal of the CATF territory from the territory of a subject of the Russian Federation will solve the problem of the mismatch between the borders of CATFs and regions, but the procedure for creating, transforming and abolishing CATFs will not change signifi cantly. Within the framework of the federal territory of a closed type, it will be possible to form a completely new system of state bodies. Th e author proposes to create a single centralized system managed by the head of a CATF, accountable to the relevant department. At the same time, territorial bodies of federal authorities can be retained on the territory of CATFs only if necessary. In terms of the organization of local self-government, it is proposed to abandon the identity of the territory of a CATF and the territory of the municipality. Either smaller municipalities within a closed federal territory should be created, or the structure of a municipality can be completely abandoned, providing fi nancing the activities of local governments at the expense of the budget of the federal territory. As a result, the author comes to the conclusion that a closed federal territory is able to more eff ectively provide a special regime for the safe functioning of organizations and objects.

In the second part of the article the author analyzes the emergence and expanse of the term “head of state”, the diffi culties involved by usage of the Russian collocation “head of state” and related word combinations, the chronological and spatial spread of the heads of states in various meanings.
Besides, considering the conceptual plurality revealed in the fi rst part of the article, the problems of classifying heads of states are discussed. Based on the study of the listed issues, the article demonstrates the limitations of interlingual analogies, proposes an updated presentation of the features
that characterize the head of state in its offi cial (representative) meaning, shows discreteness and locality of the phenomena denoted by the term “head of state”, identifies high risk of substituting a perfect classifi cation of heads of state (as homogeneous phenomena) with a pseudo classifi cation that combines phenomena corresponding to the heads of state in diff erent meanings.

The article is devoted to the process of formation of management of Soviet housing and tenant cooperative societies in 1920–1930s. Since consideration of this problem from the standpoint of social history can not fully illuminate the root causes of the emergence of a particular layer of housing managers, the author attempts a methodological synthesis based on economic history. Th e transfer of part of municipalized housing to rental housing in 1924 was due to the state’s lack of resources to maintain housing in proper condition. Under these circumstances the new economic managers were faced with the task of finding resources to repair the houses. Th e complexity of the task demanded
great organizational talent from the managers and chairmen of the boards in the economic realities of the 1920s and 1930s. Diffi culties in managing housing caused both by the housing crisis and by the subjective characteristics of the new managers, who sought to ensure their own comfortable existence, provoked discontent with the housing and tenant cooperatives and their economic managers.
The campaigns for purging cooperatives of “non-proletarian elements” failed to improve the material and economic condition of the cooperatives, so one of the factors that led to the liquidation of the housing and tenant cooperatives in 1937, should be considered the desire to prevent the strengthening of the quasi-bourgeois relations in the housing sphere.

The article discusses the administrative-territorial division of Central Russia (within the modern Central Federal District) over the past three centuries. Th e purpose of the study was to find out how the composition of regional centers and the territories of the regions associated with them have
changed during this time.
There are two periods of the most active transformations — the provincial reform of Catherine II, 1775–1785, and a series of Soviet reforms of 1917–1970, — between which the borders of the regions in the center of the country were stable. Based on a wide range of cartographic sources (both published and archival), accurate maps of the borders of the regions for 1760 (provinces and governorates) and 1792 (governorates) were compiled; then they were compared with each other and with the borders of modern regions. Based on this comparison, it was shown that the composition of regional centers in Central Russia was signifi cantly stable: 13 of the 17 modern regional even earlier. On the contrary, the borders changed signifi cantly at each of the stages of transformation, which is related to specifi c circumstances: the provincial reform of Catherine II was carried out based primarily on the principle of approximate equality of the population of provinces and counties; Soviet transformations were based on the logic of industrial development. The historical ties of the territories in both cases were little taken into account, and as a result, in most cases the core of the region is surrounded by the periphery, which in the
past changed its administrative registration. The work contains maps of the historical borders of each of the regions, which have independent scientifi c and practical significance.

The article discusses the initiative of the German leadership to bring the socio-economic and political systems of the countries of the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Northern Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro) in line with the Copenhagen criteria for their accession to the European Union. The main tool for the implementation of this initiative was the so-called Berlin Process — a series of annual summits held since 2014, attended by both the countries of the “Balkan six”, as well as representatives of leading European states and offi cials from the European Commission. The Berlin
process, which has a consultative nature, has allowed to intensify the process of the Western Balkans’ accession to the EU, which has essentially been frozen since 2003, thereby supporting the hopes of supporters of further European integration. Th e negotiation format contributed to the development of a number of joint programs aimed at solving regional (unresolved territorial disputes of the former Yugoslav republics), international (terrorism, extremism, migration crisis), socio-economic (fi ght against corruption, destroyed infrastructure) and legal (bringing the legislation of the Western Balkan countries in line
with European legal norms) problems. Th e wide range and promptness of the discussion of the issues considered at the Berlin Process summits help to establish a dialogue between the participating countries. Initiated by Germany, bypassing the fi ve-year moratorium on the entry of new members imposed by the European Commission in 2014, the Berlin process has not yet allowed the necessary consensus to be reached on the entry of the “Balkan six” of all EU member states, although it is moving it forward.

The article deals with accusations against Russia of unauthorized interference in the information system of the National Committee of the Democratic Party of the USA. Th e main attention in the article, for the first time in domestic and foreign historiography, is paid to the analysis of technical aspects of documents published by the prosecution. Thanks to the study of this problem, it is possible to reveal in more detail the tools and mechanisms of the information war that the United States is trying to wage against Russia, as well as to understand its logic and main directions. In this regard, the tools and mechanisms, technical capabilities and techniques used by various American political and military structures, which were willingly used by the media as part of the information war, are analyzed. Th e author comes to the conclusion that from the very beginning of the investigation, the American side has been focused on solving two main problems: fi rstly, internal political issues related to the company against D. Trump; and secondly, the geopolitical confrontation with Russia. Such an approach by the United States to solving the problem does
not contribute to the development of the Russian-American dialogue in the field of cybersecurity issues, and also casts doubt on the prospects for cooperation within the framework of the UN Group of Governmental Experts on Achievements in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security.

The article is devoted to the conceptual foundations of the head of state problematics and is aimed at overcoming common methodological errors in reasoning about this institution, as well as at the diffi culties caused by unintentional confusion of the issues regarding formation of the head of state
concept, development of the corresponding phenomenon and the usage of the corresponding term.
The first part of the article reveals the plurality of concepts denoted by the term “head of state”, considers compatibility of headship with the basic concepts of the state, demonstrates the extralegal nature of the majority of conceptions of the head of state, highlights the few constructions of the head of state concept that can be considered as the legal ones. On this basis, common recommendations on the normative use of the word-combination “head of state” are suggested.

The article is devoted to identifying the deepest, system causes of corruption that make it impossible to combat it eff ectively. It clarifi es the concept of corruption and reveals the specifi city of its system causes related to the confl ict of interests of managers and the ones who are managed, the policy of the ruling elite, which does not properly perform its function of control over managers or covertly indulges in the creation of a corrupt environment, which, according to the laws of synergetic, reproduces this managerial dysfunction. It is shown that in Russia the emergence of system causes of corruption is associated with the moral and social degradation of the Soviet nomenklatura elite and a sharp weakening of control over politicians and offi cials in the early post-Soviet period, the failure of the ruling elite to fulfi ll its system functions to combat destructive phenomena, the actual creation of a hidden state mechanism
for encouraging corruption. Th e most important ways to eliminate the system causes of corruption in modern Russia are outlined.