Цікава стаття (за наводкою sdanilov). З чимось можна не погоджуватися, але в цілому стаття приємно виділяється на тлі звичайної ахінеї публікацій західної преси про Росію. (...) "Probably the most fundamental tension in Russian politics is that between the concepts of gosudarstvennost 'and its rival obshchestvennost'. The nuances of the latter are difficult to translate, but the term refers to civil society and, roughly speaking, means 'public opinion'. Liberal commentators regard the state in Russia with suspicion. At the start of the 20th century, they longed for the state to surrender its power to 'public opinion'. They still do. But supporters of gosudarstvennost 'view supporters of obshchestvennost' with equal suspicion. They see them as the self-interested representatives of the chattering classes , who, if put into positions of power, will immediately plunge Russia into a state of anarchy in which their beloved liberties will be of no use to them or anybody else. This, the Whites argued, was what the liberals of the provisional government had done in 1917, and this, many now claim, is what free-market democrats such as Yegor Gaidar did to Russia in the early 1990s. "(Виділено мною). І далі західному читачеві вірно роз'яснюється очевидна для нас річ: "There is something of a misconception in the West that the Russian state has traditionally been exceedingly powerful. In fact, the opposite is the case. Compared with Western countries, the rulers of pre - communist Russia had a very small istrative apparatus and comparatively limited financial resources to govern an enormous geographic area. Russian leaders have regularly found it extremely difficult to enforce their rule far from Moscow or St Petersburg. Even in the modern era both Yeltsin and Putin have found themselves frustrated by regional governors who pursue policies directly counter to those of the central government. In earlier times, it was a lack of power, not a surfeit, that induced tyrants such as Ivan the Terrible to resort to violent istrative solutions. "